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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.
The GM workers' strike was a victory, part of a trend toward more labor militancy.
Thousands of tourists photograph themselves on a stairway just because it was a movie set. How foolish.
The fact that thousands of people do something for no reason is not a reason for you to do it. If you do do it, you will experience a sensation of "So what?"
Best of all, don't have an Instagram account, and you will avoid being influenced by "influencers." Remember, Instagram is another tentacle of Facebook. Don't be a zucker!
Was it wrong to greet the conman with chants of "Lock him up"?
I think he asked for it, very directly. And note that they didn't say, "without trial."
Giuliani's complex connections with business and officials in Ukraine.
Pinochet's privatization of old-age pensions is still impoverishing Chile. Chile needs to tax the rich more.
US citizens: call on Congress to ban government use of face recognition.
We must also strictly regulate private use of face recognition.
If you call, please spread the word!
"Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and Europe’s velvet revolutions, a new generation is standing up to the [right-wing extremists]."
I don't like to use the word "populists" for right-wing extremists.
Republicans are trying to smear Colonel Vindman by questioning his loyalty to the US.
Vindman was born in the Soviet Union, and moved to the US at age 3 as a refugee, with his family.
It is characteristic of right-wing politicians to accuse their opponents (or anyone that doesn't serve them) of the wrongs that they themselves commit. Today's Republicans' primary allegiance is to the conman, not the US.
The House of Representatives adopted a resolution condemning the genocide of the Armenians.
In and of itself, this is the right thing to do. It would be wrong, however, to impose censorship on what others say about this question, as both Turkey and France do.
It won't hamper Erdoğan's attack on the Kurds, but it is a setback for his policy.
Even common birds in Australia are in danger as governments allow massive elimination of native forests.
"A new study [of cannabis-based medicines] shows evidence of positive outcomes is scarce while symptoms can be exacerbated."
The harsh reaction to Hong Kong protests is splitting the thug department between the thugs and the police officers.
A lesson for today's Republicans, and the rest of us, about lynching.
What will Tump impeachment trial look like in Mitch McConnell-controlled senate?
Even if Republicans defend him regardless of his crimes, the Senate's rules and Chief Justice Roberts will make the Senate examine the evidence.
The Yes Men demonstrated to Duluth what it's like to have a tar sands oil pipeline forced through your land.
They could not demonstrate the difference between more global heating and less global heating, as that will be over coming decades. But we know that there is no room in the carbon budget for any additional fossil fuel facilities.
Scientists do not know whether the radio waves used for 5G phone communication are dangerous to human health.
Big Tech companies are screwing their workers and spying on their customers, like the robber barons of the 1920s, but Americans are fed up and are pushing for laws that will tie them up.
Craig Murray attended a preparatory court session about extraditing Julian Assange, and reports that Assange is aging rapidly and seems mentally dazed — like torture victims Murray has seen.
Assange's lawyers were unable to talk with him until a week before the hearing, and asked for a delay so they could present their case properly. The UK magistrate refused, apparently insisting on a schedule imposed by the US.
This schedule may prevent evidence from a Spanish court, which is investigating a CIA plan to kidnap Assange, from being considered in the extradition hearing.
The actual extradition hearing will be held in a place nearly inaccessible to the public, so that the UK can violate Assange's rights without any reporting of it.
Italian pun: gli ulivi sulle scogliere
The bully attended a world series game and the whole stadium booed him.
The Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been convulsed by civil wars for decades. Now this has degenerated into unending war between armed gangs that will murder at the drop of a hat.
27 youth climate activists arrested for Canadian parliament sit-in demanding green new deal.
70% of Americans 23 to 38 would support a Socialist candidate for president.
The bully has forced 3,400 children under 5 years old to wait for an immigration hearing in very violent border regions of Mexico.
The article itself refers to all minors as "children", which is an attempt to exaggerate; but the unexaggerated facts are bad enough.
Explaining the legal distinction between whistleblowers that go through channels and whistleblowers that speak to the public.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Students Not Profits Act., which would deny federal aid to for-profit "colleges".
If you call, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on Google to fire Miles Taylor, who was one of the bully's bigots.
If you call, please spread the word!
A Reminder Following al-Baghdadi's Death: 'The Terrorists We're Killing Today Are the Terrorists We Created Yesterday.'
He experienced US torture himself, and this surely influenced his career.
It takes a great spirit to respond to torture by rising above hatred. Most people are not so gifted. So they are likely to respond to torture by seeking revenge. Just as people who were abused as children often abuse other children, people who experienced torture may turn to torture themselves.
The Getty museum north of LA was designed specifically to be safe from fires around it.
New York Governor Cuomo, a right-wing Democrat, regards homeless people living in the NYC subway as a nuisance.
Canada pays people to relocate from isolated villages. A village with 54 permanent villages voted to resettle, and all but two people will move away.
The Democratic Congressional Campaigns Committee is campaigning to pass the bullshitter's new NAFTA without fixing its grave problems.
The DCCC is also punishing campaign operatives that work for the progressive primary challengers we need in order to make the Democratic Party worth supporting.
"We should stop measuring our counter-terrorism efforts by how many terrorists we kill or our security by how many US troops are deployed."
Two of Assad's officers face charges in Germany for torturing prisoners, many of them to death.
The fight to stop Nestlé from taking America's water to sell in plastic bottles.
A hefty tax on bottles of water might do the job. The tax could be two dollars per liter.
Australia's extractivist government wants to eliminate the "green tape" that slows down potentially damaging projects, so it can plow full-speed-ahead through everything that ought to be preserved.
US citizens: call for making fossil fuel companies financially responsible for the damage they cause through global heating.
To literally make them pay for the damage is impossible. The damage will be a large fraction of the total wealth of humanity. Perhaps as little as 30%. Perhaps as much as 99%. Either way, it is far more than the money that will pass through these fossil fuel companies' hands. If we sued them for those damages, we'd end up owning the fossil fuel companies but still not compensated for the damage.
Moreover, by the time those damages fully occur, there may be no functioning legal system to sue them in.
So the reason to do this is not to make them "pay for the damage". It is to give them a pressing reason to stop doing the damage.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on states, especially your state, to enact network neutrality regulations.
If you call, please spread the word!
'Tax the Hell Out of Me,' Says Young Millionaire Google Exec at Prospect of a President Bernie Sanders.
You don't have to choose your vote according to your own selfish interest.
The European Union is failing to defend democracy from bullies.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate Amazon's videosurveillance of the public.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass HR 3 to let Medicare negotiate lower drug prices.
Rep. Katie Hill has resigned because of her prohibited sexual relationship with someone on her staff.
I see the point of that rule, but I think that her resignation hurts the whole country.
Drought is destroying Australian wetlands which are supposed to be a protected sanctuary for some bird species.
Global heating will keep making this worse. Perhaps solar-powered desalinators will be needed to keep the bird sanctuary functioning.
Short Story: War Drone.
WeWork aimed to dominate the market by running at a loss and underselling its competitors. Then it tried to go public for an inflated stock price, and fell flat on its face.
The strategy of trying to dominate the world by running at a loss is what Uber is doing. It is predatory, and we should not leave its failure to chance. We should make it a crime and prosecute the executives who do it.
Some cities are finding ways to make the construction of flood defenses profitable in itself.
I don't see anything wrong with doing this. At the same time, we must reject the idea that every flood defense must be profitable to construct. That would lead to bowing down to business and letting it extract too much from the public. To get a good deal with businesses you must always be ready to say "no deal".
The best flood defenses will work only for a few decades. Beyond that, we need to stop increasing the levels of greenhouse gases in the air, then massively remove them from the atmosphere.
The head of the NHS has objected to accreditation of homeopaths, since that would grant homeopathy an air of validity which it does not deserve.
Homeopathy is pure superstition. Based on biology, it cannot work — and in practice, it does not work.
Right-wing politicians have learned from the bullshitter to use minor "mistakes" to magnify their message. We should refuse to take the bait.
Some "centrist" Democrats in Congress are acknowledging how plutocratist they are, by working with the US Chamber of Commerce.
(satire) pharmaceutical giant Pfizer unveiled a new prescription medicine Thursday to help adults cut down on and eventually quit the practice of sitting.
A law professor suggests that the House of Representatives arrest Giuliani and others who are not US officials and refuse to answer questions.
Sanders calls for bringing back rehabilitation as the primary goal of prison.
US prisons put substantial emphasis on rehabilitation in the 1970s, but the massive increase in imprisonment in the 1980s meant that prisons could barely afford to warehouse the prisoners.
US forces cornered al-Baghdadi, head of PISSI, and he blew himself up along with a few of his children, who he was using as hostages.
Even disregarding questions of right and wrong, I can't see the logic of using human shields against one's own suicide bomb.
The bullshitter is presenting this as a great victory. Perhaps mainstream media will say that war makes him "appear presidential", as they did for Dubya in such situations.
Alas, this is unlikely to be a significant setback for PISSI. Such organizations expect their officers to be killed, and systematically prepare replacements for them. If the bullshitter does get a boost from this, that could harm the US and the world. That harm could easily outweigh the good of doing a small setback to PISSI.
US citizens: call on Hilton and Unilever to stop using voice and face scanning for hiring decisions.
The bully has effectively prohibited humanitarian trade with Iran.
The surviving participants in Nazi mass murder are very old, but one is on trial as an accessory to 5,000 murders.
One prisoner who escaped is a witness.
The extractionist policies of the Australian government are putting endemic species at risk of extinction.
Catholic bishops from the Amazon region call for ordaining married men as priests, and even women, though not yet as priests.
I can't see the sense in religious belief, but I am nonetheless glad to see a major church consider reducing bias.
A woman I loved long ago, Julie Fabre, became an Anglican priest. Since then I have lost touch with her. If anyone knows her, I would be glad to speak with her again.
One corporate executive displayed his intention for a tacit conspiracy to hold US wages down.
An appeals court ruled in favor of the US no-fly list, approving a drastic punishment without trial.
If understood as a precaution against air terrorism, it is being misapplied, since many of these people are not associated with any such thing.
Calling for a boycott of companies that source anything from Xinjiang.
Countries should enact laws to forbid reselling the products of slave labor.
Over 1 Million Chileans Take to the Streets to Demand Political Reforms, Change to Country's Neoliberal Economic System.
Chilean thugs are attacking protesters, sometimes with bullets or something like round shot, sometimes with rubber-coated bullets in the eye to blind them. They shoot at witnesses, too.
Doctors say it is hard for them to treat the hundreds of casualties. The underfunded public hospital is short of all sorts of supplies. This reflects the right-wing policies that the protests oppose.
Experiments with particularly small and cheap apartments might offer a way to reduce homelessness.
However, in order to do that, they need to be made in large quantities.
Protesters in Iraq aim to overthrow the government.
Government suppression forces are responding with great violence.
What would the replacement government be? The current government is surely corrupt, but any government in Iraq would be corrupt. It was chosen democratically, and its sectarian nature reflects the sectarian voters. To get a better government in a legitimate way would seem to require educating the voters.
Special housing for old people, in a central part of town, can enable them to avoid expensive nursing homes and have a better life.
The European Commission is suing Poland in the European Court of Justice for failure to respect judicial independence.
A science-denying "think tank" in the UK has links to 14 members of Bogus Johnson's cabinet.
The IMF calls for a big increase in carbon taxes — by a factor of 35 or more. Anything less is unlikely to curb global heating enough.
How Erdoğan neutralized Europe as a restraint on his aggression in Syria.
One scenario for life in 2050 with not-quite-adequate climate defense measures.
The Denver region is full of frack wells, often right next to people's homes. This can poison their air and water, as well as contributing to global heating disaster.
There is no room for new fossil fuel facilities in the carbon budget.
Fossil fuel companies still fund astroturf campaigns against climate defense.
We need to decrease extraction, but they are investing on new extraction facilities.
In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute (a trade organization of those companies) considered a unified global heating denial plan. Companies say they never specifically adopted this plan, but this shows they were planning denialism together, and some aspects were in fact carried out, along with other devious forms of denialism and sabotage described in the article.
Car manufacturers lobby against climate defense, too.
Mining companies dominate the Australian government's climate surrender policy, according to a former prime minister.
Facebook isn't free speech, it's algorithmic amplification optimized for outrage.
In other words, don't censor the specific material people post on Facebook. Instead, forbid the kind of algorithm that spreads violence and fake news most.
China will require each new portable phone user to give a face scan.
Let's make face recognition surveillance illegal for both governments and private entities, with very limited exceptions.
Attorney General Barr has launched an investigation of the Mueller investigation.
Investigations by Republican officials tend to be some sort of nasty sabotage. Think of Starr, the special prosecutor appointed to investigate President Clinton; that was a scheme to eliminate special prosecutors so that they could not be used against the real crimes of Republican officials. Now, however, Republicans use will deploy this against any official that gets in their way.
Target employees really are the target employees for a system of tracking and punishment comparable to the Amazon warehouse. Here is their organizing campaign.
A thug sued an Iowa local newspaper for libel, and lost, but now the newspaper is begging for funds to continue to operate.
Everyone: call on an ACM symposium to reject sponsorship by Palantir.
Many US schools issue each student with a computer running nonfree software that monitors everything the student does.
The operating systems of tablets, and ChromeOS, collect and transmit personal information about the user. The schools add more spyware so as to surveil students totally.
Google has put a new Chrome add-on on the computers of Google workers. Workers fear this will be used to surveil them and then attack their rights in one way or another.
Every nonfree program warrants that suspicion, since so many are in fact malware.
Ralph Nader: progressive candidates state only part of the case for single-payer universal medical care.
Right-wing rule in the UK crushes the poor so much that single mothers, and students, are compelled to do sex work.
Sex work is not immoral, and it shouldn't be illegal. But when a society that people need to do sex work in order to survive, or to keep their children well, that is a cruel society.
And what about the ones who are not attractive enough to succeed at sex work? What can they do to survive, or keep their children well?
Fight for the Future organized musicians and fans to pressure US music festivals to back off use of face recognition.
Are there any festivals that still plan to use it?
US citizens: call on the IRS to investigate the NRA's violations of the laws for tax-exempt organizations.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked Zuckerberg some carefully chosen questions. His answers will aid the investigation of Facebook's cover-up of its dealings with Cambridge Analytica.
Heat that can make people sick, together with smoke from fires all year round, are making the Los Angeles region a dangerous place to live.
(satire) "In order to eliminate factors that could contribute to the fires’ growth, we will cut the flow of oxygen in high-risk areas throughout the northern part of the state."
when the centrist neoliberals tell you that change is incremental, what they're really saying is they don't want that much change.
The New Deal was not incremental. Civil rights laws were not incremental. Environmental protection laws were not incremental. The laws we need to end plutocracy, provide medical care for all, and curb global heating cannot be incremental either.
Australia and its states have agreed to plans to help agriculture adapt to global heating effects.
That's wise, as far as it goes; but once you recognize that global heating will damage agriculture, you ought to work to slow it down.
Seven protesters who protested symbolically against nuclear weapons in a military base have been convicted of crimes including "destruction" of government property.
Hong Kong has prohibited publishing photos of thugs.
About 41% of the world's people are under 24. And they're angry…
One of the valid reasons for them to be angry at older people is for having made so many people under 24. It is hard to give a good life, in a sustainable way, to such a large population. Our population is living unsustainably and it is still increasing.
This is one underlying cause of many of the specific hardships that people are protesting about. The other underlying cause is inequality, which protects the privileged (and especially the wealthy) from these hardships by dumping them entirely onto the disprivileged and the poor.
Reducing inequality is a just cause, but we also need to reduce the cost of our existence, and doing that without making everyone poor will be much easier if we have fewer humans in the future.
Let's aim for 25% or less of the population under age 24.
Why you should worry if you have a Chinese smartphone.
If you have a non-Chinese smartphone, you should worry too. Other countries are moving rapidly in the direction of massive surveillance used to control and repress, and the system developers (Google and Apple) don't respect freedom much either.
The approval of "golden rice", which supplies Vitamin A, has been delayed for 20 years by regulation.
I find it plausible that this rice will, in medical terms, help people and not cause harm. This does need to be verified; perhaps it has been.
But does it carry nonbiological pollution — with patents, or plant variety monopolies? Are farmers allowed to save the seeds and plant them?
When bureaucrats are told to find reasons to deny benefits to the poor and sick, your politeness and even the bureaucrats' own mistakes become excuses to put you in the wrong.
An analysis of how two of Peter Handke's books tried to minimize and excuse the well-documented massacres of Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs.
One important point is that the existence of a prior state of war does not justify committing a war crime.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's example is leading the Democratic Party gradually away from depending on donations from rich people and rich businesses.
George Monbiot: The [planet roaster's]’ Masterstroke Was to Blame the Climate Crisis on You And Me — by creating a system which leads people towards heavy use of fossil fuels.
The article also explains the reasoning for massive disruptive but nonviolent protests as a way to make governments change this system.
Amnesty International says Turkey is using threats and deception to deport Syrian refugees.
Authoritarian right-wing politicians in Eastern Europe are choosing queer people as the next handy scapegoat.
The Catholic Church is supporting those politicians.
Governments are not doing enough to prevent the spread of invasive species.
Part of the problem is the massive international trade in live (or dead unsterilized) plants and animals. There are so many opportunities for a weed to tag along. Why not require safety inspection of every cargo?
The ballast water of ships often carries invasive aquatic organisms, often as larvae. Why not have an official go aboard while the ship is 20 miles out, to require it to clean its ballast tanks?
These measures would be expensive, but so are invasive species.
How the perceived obligation to reach a consensus pressures scientists to err on the side of underestimating the likely effects of global heating.
Now that Americans are required to have medical insurance, the premiums are in effect taxes. This means that Medicare for All would reduce taxes (counting the insurance premiums) for most Americans.
US citizens: call on Microsoft and GitHub to stop working for the deportation thugs.
If you sign, please spread the word!
The UK missed a chance to help limit global heating, by allowing the UK to provide a billion pounds of subsidy to fossil fuels.
Further subsidy for old nuclear reactors in the US does not help either. They are so expensive that we should simply replace them.
The UK has convicted Aidan James of going to Syria to join the Kurds and fight against PISSI.
How absurd this perverse posture of neutrality.
The entry of whistleblowers into partisan politics has convinced some congresscritters to defend some whistleblowers.
By contrast, whistleblowers such as Manning and Snowden were condemned by everyone in Congress.
Why we need to ban automated face recognition. (Note that article's title is misleading, a red herring. The author of an article in a newspaper does not write the title.)
Another reason to reject the straw man suggestion to simply wait and let the Supreme Court decide is that we can't count on it to protect our privacy. If all we wanted was to have the question decided, never mind how, we could leave it to the Supreme Court. But if we want anonymity, that approach won't work. We can't campaign to influence the Supreme Court. So we must campaign to influence legislatures.
We do need to campaign to limit all kinds of surveillance. But that is not a reason to avoid deciding specific cases. Quite the contrary: laws banning face recognition would pave the way for restricting other kinds of massive surveillance.
Seven mayoral candidates in Colombia have been assassinated.
President Duque blamed a remnant of the FARC, and drug dealers. He omitted to blame the paramilitares, Colombia's worst terrorists, perhaps because he is associated with them. He belongs to the political party founded by ex-president Uribe ("Horrible"), and Uribe was closely associated with them.
In order for Colombia to know peace, it must disarm the paramilitares.
Rep. Katie Hill is being attacked by publishing nude photos that were private.
Some US labor unions are supporting Big Pharma and lobbying against the bill to reduce prescription drug prices.
The US border thugs are still separating families. Sometimes the "parents" of the family are not the biological parents, but are the parents that the child loves and needs.
A Fresno thug shot a black teenager in the back of the head as he was running away. As the teenager lay dying on the ground, the thug handcuffed him.
As usual. The thug department said the unarmed teenager was a threat to the thug's life. Perhaps the thug feared he would turn around, pull his pants off, and attack the thug with them. The teenager was such an enormous threat that he had to be handcuffed even in the ambulance.
Facebook is "donating", to buy public admiration, a fraction of what it should be paying in taxes.
British police spied on grieving black families for decades. Now we want the truth.
The US medical system spends less money on a black patient than on a white patient, given the same level of health. As a result, a widely used algorithm estimates that the black patient is less sick and doesn't need supplemental health monitoring.
This is one more example of a common occurrence: bias that results from innocently-collected data that reflects the bias of society.
Biden's lobbyist friends are setting up a Super PAC for him.
Why Ilhan Omar shifted from supporting Warren to supporting Sanders.
US citizens: call on Congress to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: protect black-footed ferrets from extinction.
If you sign, please spread the word!
How the conman's supporters twist Christianity to get Trumpism.
Australia denies Cameroonian journalist visa for press freedom conference.
The Cameroonian journalist happens to work in Germany, making Australia's given reason to refuse the visa absurd by ordinary standards.
That does not mean it was a cover for some other reason. It could be the real reason for the refusal. When people are trained to seek and find reasons to say no, they learn to exaggerate.
Some US companies are giving in to pressure to publish their political donations.
Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, was forbidden to say that PFAS chemicals cause various diseases. That conclusion was embarrassing to the businesses that donate to Republicans.
Now that she has retired, she can say that.
I expect the next person appointed to those posts to be chosen for willingness to advance by subservience.
Spain has evicted the corpse of the dictator Franco from the mausoleum that he built with the forced labor of people who defended the Republic.
Don't Be Fooled — the EU Is No Defender of Workers' Rights.
Some Palestinians who are political prisoners in Israeli prisons have been on hunger strike for two months.
With weak US environmental protection laws, even a wealthy town can be struck by a wave of cancer.
The Gullah culture, an ethnic minority that lives on the US southeast coast islands, may be wiped out by global heating.
Exxon has misled Americans [about global heating] for decades. Here's how to fight back.
Activists demand that a UK study of bigotry and harassment in UK universities to define harassment for being white, or English, as outside the question.
Bigotry against whites, or English people in Wales, is unusual. It doesn't generally happen enough to blight someone's life, and the victim can easily move elsewhere to avoid it. Bigotry against blacks or Muslims is a much more grave problem, and you can't avoid it by moving. This should be the priority target of the investigation.
Nonetheless, the other is still bigotry, and it shouldn't be omitted.
The US ambassador to Ukraine testified to Congress about the conman's shakedown of Ukraine.
The conman's own negotiators went around the ambassador, who was not personally involved, but they told him about the details of the shakedown, and he reported what they told him.
They described a deal which demanded a quid-pro-quo from Ukraine, and said it wasn't a quid-pro-quo.
A US citizen living in the US went to a customs office at the border to pay the duty for a shipment of gifts which had arrived by plane, so he could go back to the airport and collect the gifts.
The border customs office made him and his relatives prisoner and searched their phones.
This is total tyranny. Whatever special powers the customs agency has at the border should be limited to people who just did cross the border, or are about to cross it.
Cutting down the Amazon rainforest is making the remainder dry up.
Assad's men reported to have tortured 14,000 prisoners to death, and they are still doing it.
Australian thugs are strip-searching Extinction Rebellion protesters, apparently purely to harass them.
Sanders and Warren advocate prosecuting CEOs for monopolistic practices once again, as we used to do.
New South Wales (a state in Australia) seeks to open new coal mines, so it seeks to eliminate rules about the global-heating effect that burning the coal would have.
US citizens: call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the endangered Franklin's bumblebee.
If you sign, please spread the word!
[Disused but loved] Danish Lighthouse Put on Wheels to Move It Away from Eroding Sea.
This is just one of the thousands of harmful effects global heating is causing already.
It seems a shame they did not move the old church. Buildings from the 1200s must not be very common in Denmark.
Scientists Fired by [the conman] Warn Particle [existing] Pollution Standards Don't Protect People [because they're not strict enough].
The Tories plan to divert loan funds meant for renewable energy into fracking in Argentina.
Sense has prevailed over zero-tolerance in a Wisconsin public school.
Medical initiatives to treat and suppress HIV, carried out in certain cities, can greatly reduce the transmission rate.
Humanity can lick HIV, if technological civilization continues. But it will take a century or more to get rid of HIV this way. If global heating disaster makes the efforts stop, HIV will resume spreading.
The FBI has a long history of treating political dissent as terrorism. (Especially leftist dissent.)
This is not to say there is no such thing as real terrorism.
Sanders says he would end prosecution of whistleblowers as "spies."
Will Senator Warren adopt the same stance?
Assad, Russia and Turkey are now combining to force the Syrian Kurds out of an 18-mile zone along the frontier with Turkey.
The effect will be considerable ethnic cleansing, since that is where many of the Kurds live.
Trudeau won less than a majority, and will have to make deals with opposition parties.
The US ambassador to Ukraine testified that the conman did threatened to cut off military aid unless Ukraine investigated Biden's son.
The conman tried to order the ambassador not to testify to Congress, but he did it anyway.
The world economy is sleepwalking into a new financial crisis, according to the UK's former head of the central bank.
The International Energy Agency forecasts only 50% growth in renewable electricity generation in the next 5 years. This is not fast enough!
New York City is considering a ban on solitary confinement.
Warren's plan to limit charter schools is a little stronger than Sanders'.
Farming could be absorber of carbon by 2050, says report.
Eliminating the protections for uncontacted indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon will surely lead to killing them.
Diseases will kill most of each group, and they are so small that they could not continue.
The brother of Honduras's president has been convicted in the US of taking bribes on the president's behalf to permit smuggling cocaine through Honduras.
Prohibition of cocaine makes it so profitable that it is nearly impossible to stop it from generating corruption. However, the existing corrupt, plutocratist Honduran regime is the result of the coup that Hillary Clinton winked at, and which has received US support ever since.
A suicide bomber attacked a mosque in Afghanistan and killed 62 people.
The Taliban condemned the attack, which makes sense: they are strict Islamists, and their policies violate human rights, but they are not madmen. I suppose this was the work of PISSI.
Prohibiting the routine use of antibiotics in farm animals, necessary to slow the evolution of resistance genes that can spread to organisms that cause disease, has led to a new form of drug smuggling.
I don't think this will be as hard to control as smuggling addictive drugs. A farm uses the antibiotics to increase its profits, so it won't pay any more than the increased profit would be. Indeed, given the risk of legal trouble, it won't pay even half that much.
Leading US generals are extremely angry at the conman for abandoning the Kurds. Those who have retired are saying so.
The argument that the US should not abandon an ally has validity, but only to a certain extent. It was used to argue for continuing the war in Vietnam, and the war in Cambodia. ISTR it was also used in Iraq, and I think it has been used to argue for continuing the war in Afghanistan.
In the case of the Syrian Kurds, this argument reinforces other reasons why the US should have defended them.
There are many systematic forms of hate, but hatred of the poor may be the biggest.
Hatred and phobia are different things. A phobia is an intense, irrational fear. People who are afraid of heights or small places do not hate them; conversely, people who hate the poor do not fear them (though they may feel disgust, which is not the same).
To avoid building confusion, let's not refer to systems of hatred as "phobias". I disapprove of antigayism, antimuslimism and antitransism, but I reject the terms "homophobia", "islamophobia" or "transphobia".
Another systemic form of hatred, which the article cites an example of but doesn't discuss, is hatred of atheists. In the domain of religion, atheists are the most hated group. We should oppose antiathism (short for antiatheistism) as well as antimuslimism and antisemitism.
What it's like putting poor Americans in jail for medical debt.
Snowden explains why the US government attack on end-to-end encryption is a danger to everyone.
Violence against Brazilian indigenous people has increased substantially since Bolsonaro became president.
When a couple get a mortgage together, then split up, the one who moved out can destroy the other — by refusing to pay per own half of the mortgage.
The FBI uses outside informants as investigators so it can bypass its own rules that require probable cause.
Zero-tolerance at work: a student called a school security guard, who is black, "nigger". The guard said, quite properly, "Don't call me nigger." The guard was fired for this.
The guard did not use that word. Rather, he mentioned it, to oppose its use. I can't believe that the school officials fail to understand the difference — of course they understand it, just as you do. So why the absurd decision? I suspect they have bought into the idea of rigidity as virtue, which is the root of zero tolerance.
All rules, including valid rules, are liable to become harmful and unjust when applied rigidly.
Sanders advocates public funding for federal elections, as well as limits on campaign donations and on the revolving door.
A secondary reason to demand the right to repair is to reduce gratuitous waste.
I call this reason "secondary" because stopping people from fixing and modifying products is simply oppressive.
Mexico's president, López Obrador, campaigned as a leftist, but as president he supports billionaires and represses the protests he formerly led.
The Chicago Teachers' Strike Shows How to Go on Offense Against Neoliberalism.
Erdoğan has used war against the Kurds as an occasion to whip up Turkish nationalism and prosecute opponents.
Maybe this is why the conman supports Erdoğan.
Steven Butler of the Committee to Protect Journalists had a visa to visit Pakistan, but when he arrived at passport control his visa was specially cancelled, and Pakistan somehow sent him back to the US under a kind of arrest.
Hong Kong students in the UK are holding rallies in support of Hong Kong's freedom, but they face systematic attacks by Chinese students.
Those Xi-ple are not learning anything important from their stay in Britain.
Proposing to fund the government expenditures for Medicare for All by cutting the military budget.
I think this proposal confusingly connects two good ideas.
We should adopt Medicare for All, also known as a universal national medical system, but we should reject the idea that this is an increase in expenses. If we get rid of the parasitic profitmaking medical system, this will save people in the US a large fraction of what they now spend on medical care and insurance. So it doesn't need to be "paid for"; what it needs is to rechannel part of the current spending.
We should cut the arms budget, because many of the arms being purchased are wasteful, or even dangerous to peace. But that is independent of how we reform medical care.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Schedules That Work Act.
If you call, please spread the word!
Senator Warren will reintroduce the Schedules that Work Act which will forbid employers from jerking part-time workers around on short notice.
The bully ordered the Kurds to surrender to Turkey a 20-mile strip along the border within five days or face mass murder. He called this a "cease fire deal".
It turns out that Admiral Nelson, Britain's greatest naval hero, was also a defender of slavery. Does that mean his statues should be taken down?
It is impossible to compare the evil Nelson did by defending slavery with the good he did by helping to defeat Napoleon to see which is more important. That is imponderable. But we can be sure that Nelson, who died in 1805, had no say over how Britain treated es-slave black sailors after the war ended in 1814.
Statues of Confederate generals were put up to glorify the past system of slavery, aiming to strengthen the system of segregation. That is what those statues stand for. I think they should be taken down.
By contrast, statues of Nelson were put up as symbols of naval victory, and that is what they stand for. They don't stand for any position on race relations. I don't think there is a need to take them down, even though British naval power is a thing of the past.
"Flight-shaming" could slow growth of airline industry, says IATA.
That is the aim of it.
Increasingly people are taking the high-speed train from London to continental Europe rather than flying.
If you never have children, you will avoid so much future greenhouse gas emissions that a lifetime's worth of flights will hardly count.
Florida plans to demand that students give lots of personal details and biometrics. This is supposedly to keep them safe. Like the thugs in the schools, it will endanger them instead. The direct harm will fall mainly on people from minority groups, but don't assume your child will be safe!
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call for ending section 215 of the U SAP AT RIOT Act (aka "USA PATRIOT Act").
That is the section that authorizes collection of many kinds of personal data without even a real court order.
Wisconsin's governor establishes task force to face the 'grave threat' of global heating.
The UK has canceled its requirement for porn sites to identify users. The stated motive for this was to exclude teenagers, but what is important is the tracking itself, not its purpose.
Why stop people from viewing porn, if they want to? Much of today's porn is aimed at heterosexual men and presents a totally wrong idea of what women like. When teenage men believe this, they can get twisted. When they practice out what they have learned from this, they can make women very unhappy.
Leading them to porn showing sexual practices that various real teenage women really do enjoy would solve this problem in a better way. (This does not require real teenage actors, or even real human actors.) Why replace bad education with no education? Replace it with good education.
Corporations have too much debt. Even a moderate downturn would cause a crisis.
Governments are supposed to prevent this sort of situation from arising.
Plans to privatize national parks outlined in Trump admin memo, would enrich donors and special interests.
Right-wing campaigns establish slogans, then right-wing politicians use them, so as to drive searches to them.
Apple plans to require that all application software for MacOS be approved by Apple first.
Offering a checking service as an option could be useful and would not be wrong. Requiring users to get Apple's approval is tyranny. Apple says the check will only look for malware (not counting the malware that is part of the operating system), but Apple could change that policy step by step. Or perhaps Apple will decide that helping Hong Kong protesters constitutes malware.
Sanders and Ilhan Omar introduced a bill to provide gratis school lunches to all public school students.
(satire) marine biologists at the University of Rhode Island projected Tuesday that the planet's oceans will be a nice, simmering seafood bisque by 2040.
The UK's official unemployment rate omits many people who would like to work but are blocked by circumstances or have given up finding a job.
Referring to global heating as an "existential threat" is a little exaggerated, since it isn't likely to kill all humans. That could perhaps happen, but more likely it will merely kill billions and wipe out technological civilization.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the PROTECT Hong Kong Act.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on Comcast to withdraw its Supreme Court challenge of the first US civil rights law.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the EPA to preserve methane emissions limits, to help avoid global heating disaster.
The methane emissions do local harm too, but global disaster is enormous by comparison with that.
You can sign without running the nonfree Javascript code if you use Lynx.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Omar are endorsing Sanders, for the same reasons I do: his positions are more boldly progressive.
I don't choose candidates to support based on gender.
China is threatening the relatives of Uighurs living in Europe, so silence them.
Ten million poor Americans are jailed for a while each year, most of them pre-trial because they can't afford bail and fees. How about taking the opportunity to register them to vote?
Some Kashmiri political prisoners are held in prisons far away from Kashmir, where their relatives can hardly reach them.
Why Xi is reluctant to crush Hong Kong with the Chinese army.
George Monbiot writes about planning to be arrested for protesting for Extinction Rebellion. (I read that he was indeed arrested.)
It is misguided, even unfair, to criticize Extinction Rebellion for being "too white" or "too male" or too whatever of that kind, because that is not their choice. A volunteer activity must to go with those that volunteer. When an activity needs to recruit as many people as possible, it would be self-defeating to reject some volunteers for the sake of demographic balance. Rather, the activity must seek, and welcome, every volunteer that is willing and able to work for the cause.
If you would like more blacks or more women to participate in Extinction Rebellion, by all means try to recruit them. But don't criticize the campaign for doing the most it can with the people who have volunteered.
Indeed, people from less privileged groups may have rational reasons to hold back. Maybe they have to work 50 hours a week to get by. Maybe they expect the judicial system to treat them with bias. Maybe they can't afford bail and fear being jailed for months if they are arrested, or being stuck for years in a Ferguson-like cycle of fines and jail.
Given that privilege exists, I'm glad that people with more privilege are taking advantage of it to take risks for the sake of saving the world from disaster.
When Los Angeles sentences people to community service, they often have to work to difficult targets in stressful, even hazardous conditions.
They are also required to pay to do this work.
If this is meant as a way to pay fines or other debts, they should be paid the prevailing wage.
Is "impostor syndrome" a self-blaming way to say, "I come from a disprivileged demographic background"?
Australia wasted decades in climate denial — and must break free of the mire of misinformation.
Australia's computer program has cut off a million people's benefits automatically. Then they have to prove the program was wrong.
Cory Booker's gun control legislation focuses strategies on people, not guns.
It might be a good idea.
Ivory Coast law could see chocolate industry "wipe out" protected forests.
The insane behavior of the UK makes the EU look wise and just by comparison, so don't forget its oppressive side.
The EU has a democratic structure that doesn't give the people much power to limit what the banksters and businesses want. Look, for instance, at the unjust copyright directive that was adopted under pressure from the publishing lobby. Since three branches of the EU must agree any change, it is hopeless to repeal bad directives once they have been adopted.
Sanders advocates government programs that aid everyone, whereas Warren advocates similar aid only for the poor.
The weakness of the latter is that the rich can organize the middle class to support cutting these programs and attaching onerous conditions — which is exactly what right-wing politicians do.
As for the waste of subsidizing a few rich people along with the many non-rich, it will be a small fraction of the total cost of these programs. A progressive tax on the rich will easily make up for it.
Machine learning can be useful for guiding the priorities of social services, as long as humans think about the actual decisions.
This could be a good thing provided the government doesn't use it as an excuse to cut budgets even more. Right-wing governments are looking for any excuse, and whatever makes for more efficiency will mean they can cut more.
StackExchange has imposed a code of conduct saying that participants have to refer to each other person by per specified pronouns.
Paraphrasing to avoid pronouns is forbidden; people are required to get practice using all sorts of pronouns.
The rule was received with tremendous hostility. I have never used in StackExchange and wasn't thinking of doing so. (Too busy, in any case.) I don't even know whether it is possible to post on the site without running nonfree Javascript software — if it isn't, I urge you to reject posting there, for your freedom's sake.
But I reject the demand to speak or write with singular "they". I have a better system for gender-neutrality in English, and I will use that.
I hope others will take it up; I suggest you consider it. But I don't claim the power to demand you use it.
If you do participate in StackExchange, you might choose unusual pronouns for yourself. Not absurd ones, or nasty ones, just unusual.
How the anti-net-neutrality lobby impersonated a million people to kill network neutrality.
This is in addition to whatever they spent to get Ajit Pai put in charge of the issue.
The conman and his ministers hired 281 former lobbyists in just the first two years.
At that rate they will have hired another 50 or 100 by now.
(satire) Hunter Biden admitted Tuesday it was poor judgment on his part to be involved with the corrupt Biden family.
A family of British tourists in Canada were arrested for entering the US on an road with no warning of the frontier. They were taking a short detour to avoid an animal in their intended road.
This incident puts the sadism of the border thugs in clear relief. Why arrest people for entering the US such a short time? Why not wait a minute and see if they leave again?
Why deport them to the UK instead of back to Canada where they were? In addition to the trouble that causes them, it will also cost the US government a lot of money — perhaps tens of thousands of dollars. We see that, to the border thugs, a chance to be cruel is worth any expense.
It is clear that the thugs are looking closely at that road. If temporary entry there is deemed a real problem, why not put a sign there telling people not to cross? That would have been cheaper, but the thugs would have missed a possible opportunity for sadism.
This is in addition to the cruel conditions that the thugs have arranged to visit on tens of thousands of people who knew they were entering the US, simply by overcrowding the immigration prisons.
British tourists are not the intended target of this cruelty. It was set up to deter, and endanger, refugees from Central America. But now that cruelty is their priority goal. the most zealous grab any opportunity that comes their way.
The US State Department promoted Pompeo's speech in favor of Christianity, violating the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state.
Fortunately, Pompeo backed off this.
Senator Warren has proposed additional incremental measures to reduce the influence of rich donors on elections.
I'm in favor, but I think we need stronger measures.
(satire) 911 Operator Informs Black Caller That Death Is On The Way.
Republicans set up a "grass roots" organization called "Pennsylvanians Against Gerrymandering" to lobby for gerrymandering.
Thanks to Extinction Rebellion, We're Experiencing a Climate Culture Change.
The Fort Worth police department is doing something amazing: condemning rather than excusing the thug who shot Atatiana Jefferson.
Recognizing that this was wrong is step in the right direction, a step toward teaching thugs to act like police officers.
Facebook compared itself to a TV or radio broadcaster, thus inviting the government to regulate it as it regulates broadcasters.
Congress is considering enacting sanctions against Turkey for attacking the Kurds.
Russian soldiers are acting as peacekeepers between Assad's forces and Turkey's proxy forces, in one area, but their attack on the Kurds continues.
"EU nationals are often barred from homelessness benefits unless they have a job — a hostile environment policy that charities are effectively enforcing."
Investor-owned hospitals are leading the fight against the creation of a universal national health system in the US.
This suggests that one step forward would be for states to prohibit for-profit hospitals.
Everyone: call on the European Investment Bank to adopt its previous plan and reject new natural gas projects.
If you call, please spread the word!
London thugs threatened to arrest anyone protesting anywhere in London, but Extinction Rebellion activists are willing to be arrested and even jailed for the sake of avoiding global disaster.
Russian investigators have raided opposition offices across the country.
Struggling Americans are haunted by zombie debt. Will you be next?
'Stop Funding Ecocide': Extinction rebellion protesters target London financial district.
On the issues raised by US military airshow jets.
I disagree with the article's arguments. The costs are insignificant compared with the US military budget, the dangers to the airmen is a small problem compared with the danger of professional football, and the danger to the public is small compared with the dangers of life.
On the other hand, military airshow flights can do big harm in another way: they strengthen the grip of the military-industrial complex, which wastes hundreds of billions of dollars, and encourages wars of aggression that can kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people.
Rich people, their media and their politicians are trying hard to prop up Biden, but it isn't working very well.
(satire) "As the business leaders of this country, we promise to never, ever stop fighting to ensure that the vast majority of Americans aren't able to afford the products they need or live the life they want."
(satire) Jubilant [PISSI] Prisoners Hail American Liberators.
700 scientists in the UK declared their support for Extinction Rebellion.
(satire) a new patriotic Gatorade ad that aired Friday showed terrorists being waterboarded with Gatorade.
US citizens: call on the DNI to pledge to protect the Ukraine whistleblower's identity.
Big US banks are investing heavily in digging civilization's grave.
The price of recycled plastic has risen greatly due to increased demand.
This is a sign of progress. It will lead to an increase in recycling capacity; then the plastic handed in for recycling will really be recycled.
Tories want to keep prisoners in prison for longer, but won't pay to operate prisons safely.
Using AI to judge applications for public assistance provides right-wing governments with an opportunity to cut welfare benefits without any official change in the rules.
Ecuador's president Moreno reinstated fuel subsidies and made the indigenous protesters happy. However, the climate must be weeping.
Eight proposals for how to make big reductions in fossil fuel use.
A thug was sent to check on why a black woman's front door was left open. He shot her dead through the window, with no effort to find out what the situation was.
Is it possible to teach thugs to think before they shoot?
Duterte's chief of national thugs (including their death squads) has resigned due to accusations of involvement in drug dealing.
Apple's nonfree Safari browser spies on users for the Chinese company Tencent.
US citizens: call on Congress to ban government use of facial recognition.
This is not enough, but it's a good start.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to end all funding for the war in Yemen.
If you call, please spread the word!
Preet Bharara: Congress should formalize the former unwritten rules about who is qualified for appointed government executive posts.
US citizens: call on Congress to block the bully's plan to reject most immigrants.
If you call, please spread the word!
Hungarians showed their mounting dissatisfaction with the authoritarian Fidesz party by defeating it in significant local elections.
This is a step towards removing it from power, but that won't be easy because of the grip it has given itself over other institutions.
The Syrian Kurds have allied with Assad to resist the invasion from Turkey, and turned over two border cities to Assad in exchange.
If Rojava can peacefully reconcile with Assad, perhaps recognizing his suzerainty but without submitting to the tyranny of his regime, it would be a step forward — as long as Assad allows it to continue.
However, the fighting between Assad and Turkey could lead to fighting between Russia and Turkey. That is potentially dangerous.
A deal permitted hundreds of PISSI fighters to escape from Raqqa, along with thousands of people in their families, in order to end the fighting to capture that city.
700 more supporters of PISSI have now escaped from prison as a consequence of Turkey's attack, as the Kurds had to move their forces to oppose Turkey.
Federal prosecutors charged two men (who work with Giuliani) with transferring foreign funds to the cheater's campaign.
This might be part of a broader scheme that could be managed by Giuliani.
When multinational companies depend on a relationship with China, either for manufacturing or sales, China can force them to support its repression.
Some countries operate "free trade zones" that are great for money laundering.
We should not reject friendship with people who disagree with us on important political issues.
I won't condemn Ellen DeGeneres for being friends with Dubya. I've called for prosecuting him for war crimes since the time he was in office, but I don't condemn her for not thinking so.
I bring up my politics so often that I might find it difficult to be friends with right-wing people, but that's just me.
US citizens: call on Greyhound's conglomerate to end cooperation with deportation thugs.
Some Confederate officers brought family slaves with them to the army. Subsequently, apologists for slavery have pretended that those blacks were Confederate soldiers.
Turkey's proxy forces are murdering selected Kurdish civilians.
US sanctions are driving Cuba into poverty because no ships can transport Venezuelan oil to Cuba.
It surprises me that Russia or China or Iran doesn't send ships to do this.
Britons complain their taxes are too high, but they are less than in 1970 — especially for the rich.
Hong Kong now has an unofficial national anthem, which protesters sing at every protest.
The video linked in the article — which you can view and hear without nonfree software by using Icecat, or the Viewtube extension for Firefox — makes me cry because of their heroism against all odds.
Senator Warren gave Facebook a taste of its own medicine with a political ad that said Zuckerberg supported the bullshitter — then said that wasn't really so and Facebook shouldn't allow ads with lies.
MI6 is under pressure to publish its secret files about the plane crash that killed UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961.
This could confirm or refute the theory that the plane was shot down.
The companies BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street together own 300 billion dollars of fossil fuel investments.
Turkey's Arab proxy army is advancing into Rojava against hard resistance.
Rojava is rather thin, from North to South, so it can easily be cut in two. Turkey may aim to conquer it entirely.
(satire) … the NCAA announced a new rule Thursday forcing athletes to remove all facial features to prevent them from profiting off their likenesses.
Campaigning for Free Range Kids laws in various states.
Fossil fuel firms spend millions on social media ads against climate regulations while portraying selves as green heroes.
Corbyn and Sanders vow to crack down on fossil fuel firms.
Google donates to quite a few right-wing think tanks, some of which are global-heating denialists.
Google said a few years ago that it wouldn't do this any more.
Some of those groups do other bad things as well. Early this century, some of them spread FUD about the GNU GPL. I doubt it was Google that funded that campaign.
Everyone: call on Facebook to ban lies in political ads.
If you sign, please spread the word!
The US has impoverished most Haitians by applying neoliberal "free trade"; Haitian farmers could not compete with subsidized US megafarms.
The US tendency to impose large aid projects without verifying they will be useful occurs here as it did in Afghanistan.
A project will try to map all the Earth's land area precisely using lidar.
Hong Kong thugs have arrested around 2400 protesters, of who 750 were minors.
I doubt that any of them were children, though.
Hunter Biden's career, whether or not it involves crimes, is payback for political favors. It reflects systemic corruption.
Syrian Kurds retaliated for Turkish bombardment by bombarding a Turkish border town.
I don't think that can be militarily justified — it sounds like a war crime. Meanwhile, arousing resentment among Turks will strengthen Erdoğan.
The Al-Soufi Syrian restaurant in Toronto will remain open, defying right-wing death threats.
I wish I could go to Toronto and give my support by eating there.
Revealed: Top UK thinktank spent decades undermining climate science.
3C of global heating could wipe out two-thirds of bird species in North America.
The sabotage US government updated the regulations for lead in water supplies to _slow down_ the replacement of lead pipes.
Protesters in Ecuador have taken over Quito and captured some state thugs.
Some protesters are looking for targets for violence; others try to prevent violence. It is crucial that the movement reject violence (except in defense) in a very clear way.
President Moreno certainly ought to be replaced, but the fact that the opposition to him is based mainly on a demand for cheap fossil fuels is very sad. It is an example of the foolish short-term thinking that impedes defense of Earth's climate. The survival of civilization, and millions of species of life, depends on overcoming that foolish way of thinking.
For Australia to meet its weak Paris carbon targets, it needs to apply a carbon tax of more than USD 75 per ton of CO2 or equivalent.
How global heating and other factors affect wildfires in Australia.
Young people often become addicted to nicotine even from smoking once per month.
Don't take the risk of using nicotine even once.
If your friends pressure you to do things that are bad for you, such as smoking tobacco (even if mixed with marijuana) or playing nonfree games together, find some new friends — true friends.
The US is following the general pattern: as economic inequality increases, inequality of life expectancy increases too.
Emperor penguins are vulnerable to extinction due to melting of the sea ice they depend on. The only way to protect their habitat is by curbing global heating — exactly what we need to protect everything else.
The extra-powerful hurricanes that result from global heating do lots of short-term damage, which can be repaired if there is enough money. They can also cause extinction of species, especially those that live only in limited areas near the Florida or the Caribbean.
Pointless and absurd regulations on abortion clinics could make abortion unavailable in some US states.
India plans to follow China's example, with a nationwide system of face-tracking surveillance cameras.
Don't be distracted by the discussion of data protection laws. If India had them, they would make little difference to the injustice that such a system would enable.
US citizens: call on Democrats in Congress to fight the hedge funds that control Puerto Rico.
Instead of fighting them over and over, why not change the law to chop down the hedge?
If you sign, please spread the word!
As Climate Rebellion Spreads, UK Govt Risks "Carbon Blowout" By Investing in Gas.
The US is prosecuting an alleged whistleblower, Henry Kyle Frese. He is accused of spying on behalf of the public.
Leveraged buyouts are killing America's remaining newspapers. (As well as many other businesses.)
What I wonder is, if the debt gets dumped on a company that is likely to go bankrupt, does that mean the bank that lent the money never gets repaid? If so, why don't banks refuse to lend for these transactions?
If you work for the deportation thugs, you can quit.
Sanders is the only presidential candidate who proposes a sufficient effort to curb global heating.
A methane seep under the Arctic Ocean is "boiling with methane bubbles".
(satire) Trump assures Kurds there will one day be very nice tree planted in D.C. commemorating their deaths.
Thailand's government demonstrates its repressiveness by requiring cafes to keep records on customer's internet contacts, and to record customers' identification.
It is obvious when Thailand does this that the purpose is repression. In countries that are less overtly repressive, this may not be so obvious, but it serves the goal of repression.
This is why I refuse to identify myself to an organization that will store my name in a database in order to connect to the internet. If I do it at a friend's house or a host's house, I don't mind that person knows who I am, but the ISP must not know.
"Anti-abortion laws are an attack on our right to live with dignity and decide what happens to our bodies."
Why quitting vaping is harder than quitting cigarettes.
US sends migrants to Mexico's border towns as it warns citizens of violent crimes in region.
Apple has censored an application designed to help Hong Kong protesters communicate.
Apple surely did this because of threats from China. (We are not supposed to suggest that a "good corporate citizen" would uphold freedom at the cost of profits.) But the reason Apple could do this is that it gave itself censorship power over applications for iMonsters, through the proprietary code of the operating system.
Papua New Guinea jailed 50 asylum seekers incommunicado. These are among the refugees that Australia gave Papua New Guinea to hold.
I am sure Australia's minister of cruelty will claim he had nothing to do with jailing them.
PISSI "sleeper cells" may take advantage of Turkey's attack on the Kurds to attack the Kurdish guards of the al-Hawl prison camp and release other PISSI supporters.
Dear Ellen: The Problem With George W. Bush Is Not His Beliefs — It’s His War Crimes (and other destructive and deadly deeds).
Applauding Sanders and Warren's Rejection of Privatized Water Systems, Group Calls On All 2020 Hopefuls to Follow Suit
(satire) “To show that China will not tolerate this flagrant disrespect for our nation amongst the ranks of the NBA, we intend to enlighten our citizens in the ways of the National Hockey League,” said Vice Premier Han Zheng, overseeing the first of many re-fanification ceremonies in a detention center outside of Beijing…
DeVos is threatened with sanctions, up to and including jail, for violating a court order prohibiting collection of repayments for student loans for studying at Corinthian College.
Robert Reich: Please Note: The 2020 Election Won’t Be Won by Democratic Centrists.
The bullshitter plans to help multinational corporations dodge more US taxes.
The 400 richest American taxpayers pay a lower overall tax rate than any other income group.
The conman blocked cooperation with the impeachment inquiry.
Congress could demand that the Supreme Court decide the conflict, but the cheating party has already rigged it to support their continuation in power at almost any price. However, Congress dare not give up.
Revealed: Northern Australia's fossil fuel plans push climate goals beyond reach.
"Just 20 companies are responsible for 35% of carbon emissions yet they continue to ignore calls for change."
Warren debuts ambitious policy plan that addresses environmental racism.
The OECD has proposed to reform taxes on multinational businesses so that they can't dodge all taxes by shifting nominal profits between countries.
Turkey has attacked the Syrian Kurds.
(satire) GOP lawmakers watch silently As Trump strangles each of their loved ones in turn.
(satire) area man Daniel Walter was wed Saturday to Kelly Kaminski, a woman he hardly even knows after five years of dating.
How the Right [Wing] has tried to rebrand antisemitism.
In particular, American Jews are called "antisemitic" if they are more loyal to the US and human rights than to Israel and its occupation policies.
Sleep deprivation and a freezing cell: a Palestinian woman is interrogated by Israel.
It would be no less wrong to treat a man the same way. However, the fact that this prisoner is a journalist does make the wrong worse.
In LA, a white driver is more likely to carry illegal drugs than a black driver, but the black driver is much more likely to be searched arbitrarily than the white driver.
Even if there were not a hint of bias in these searches, they would still be an injustice.
Parts of Australia are facing a deep drought.
Strange that even writers who are preoccupied with ghosts of previous, lesser droughts ignore the ghost of global heating.
Australian Extinction Rebellion protesters are being given bail with a requirement not to associate in any way with other members of the group.
The state wants them to go home and act neutral. Whatever they do, it must not be that. It is better to reject bail and be jailed.
Australia censored speakers in a cybersecurity conference — banning two whistleblowers from speaking there, and trying to stop someone else from showing how Australia's encryption law was similar to China's.
The only effective power people have against spying by devices such as Alexa and Siri is to refuse to bring them into your home.
Substantial parts of rural California are facing a power shutoff to avoid fires started by electric power.
A friend was told the shutoff might last for 36 hours.
This is one of the many forms of harm done by global heating. Not the worst harm, but spread over a wide area.
In 20 years there will be much worse regular problems.
A Guatemalan refugee was seriously ill due to having been shot in the head. The treatment US border thugs offered him was months of solitary confinement, and ibuprofen.
Australia's two principal parties, both more or less neoliberal in philosophy, are both in favor of two new business-supremacy treaties.
The article does not even touch on how such treaties can undermine democracy; it gives no information on whether the treaty includes an ISDS (I Sue Democratic States) clause that would give foreign businesses the power to (effectively) veto laws.
China has openly demanded that Apple obey orders to ban the protest-supporting HKmap.live app.
I would consider that app a totally good thing, if only it were free software.
Come to think of it, there is probably an Android version. It could be released as free software and included in FDroid — and it should be. Readers, if you know the developers of HKmap.live, would you please suggest this to them? An app to defend freedom ought to respect freedom too.
Christianist extremists threaten Australia, pushing to allow the businesses they own to fire employees who don't obey an imposed Christianist moral code.
"President Trump is at war with the rule of law. This won't end well."
Economic growth has lifted a large fraction of Bangladesh out of poverty. Slowly, things are getting better.
Alas, this progress cannot continue for very long, because of an overriding factor that the article fails to mention: global heating. Sea-level rise will inundate substantial parts of Bangladesh, and millions will be forced off their land. Indeed, the cloth from which to make the clothing pushes against resource limits.
Most articles about development of poor countries, indeed most articles about possible future economic growth, disregard the limits to growth. These limits used to be projections into the distant future, but we are starting to run into them, and they will press humanity tightly in the next few decades.
White House notes on the conman's phone calls could find more crimes to impeach him for.
Israeli thugs arrested Samer Arbid and tortured him, stopped him from seeing a lawyer, then took him to a hospital in critical condition and didn't tell his family.
(satire) … Facebook unveiled a new Terms Of Service contract Tuesday that included compulsory conscription into Mark Zuckerberg’s upcoming war against the U.S. government.
One way to end sectarian hostility in Northern Ireland is through integrated schools — integrated with Catholics and Protestants.
Netanyahu has sabotaged democracy in Israel in order to cling to power.
Juan Cole's view of likely consequences of a Turkish invasion of the Kurdish region of Syria.
Another extrapolation on the same subject.
The Swedish parliament is considering a constitutional amendment that would grant a personified "Nature" the rights to "exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve."
I am in favor of making ecocide a crime, and also other acts that greatly reduce habitats or the world's greenhouse gas capture. I can't agree that "Nature" is capable of having rights.
I am specifically worried by the mention of "evolve" in that list. Evolution has no target; it means that things change however they happen to change. If "Nature" has a right to evolve, that seems to mean a right not to be shaped intentionally by humans. That could possibly lead to prohibiting efforts to eradicate intrusive species, even efforts to keep them out.
In the US, it is humans that want to stop kudzu, zebra mussels, Asian carp, Burmese pythons and many more introduced species from wiping out other species. In evolution, such things happen, and the fact that human activity introduced those species into the US doesn't alter the fact that they are present now.
Would "Nature's" "right to evolve" cover viruses such as smallpox and polio, or the protozoa that cause malaria and sleeping sickness? Let's not risk it.
Support the bill to tax companies extra if the CEO gets much higher pay than the median worker salary.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Amazon to stop giving "ring" doorbell videos to thugs.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress not to let Amazon influence future laws about face recognition.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to cancel student debt for attending colleges that went broke.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Lobbyists are denouncing Sanders' decision to bar business donations to the Democratic National Committee if he wins the Democratic nomination for president. Sanders welcomes their hatred.
Money from business can help a party win, but the price of accepting that money is that the party has to represent business.
Bravo, Bernie Sanders!
1/3 of millennials generally feel lonely; 1/4 can't identify a single real friend. This could be because "social media" have distracted them from the activities where one can make real friends.
Would it be more accurate to refer to them as "antisocial media"?
From the US to Hong Kong, the right to protest peacefully is under attack.
NHS opens clinic to help child addicts of computer games.
US blacklists 28 Chinese companies and government agencies over Uighur Repression.
This is the right thing for every country to do. It is a shame that the unabashed cruelty of the bully and his ministers has stripped this of moral seriousness.
The two leading parties in Canada's upcoming election are both planet-roasters. Trudeau of the Liberals has pushed hard for exporting more tar sands oil. The previous Conservative government imposed repression for the sake of fossil fuel export.
"Modi’s vision for [India] is one that stifles dissent and difference, in defiance of its people’s history."
Turkey may plan its attack against the Kurds to forcibly push Syrian refugees into a piece of Syria.
Hong Kong suspends metro system and closes banks after violent protests. The ban on face masks enraged the people. The move could backfire.
Xi can crush Hong Kong if he resorts to unlimited force. What I hope is that that will boost general hatred for him and his repressive regime.
I think other countries should ban WeChat and the other Chinese digital systems that are used to impose conformity on Chinese people living outside China.
Cable TV companies in the US mislead customers by presenting prices that are not the whole price they charge.
With proper regulations, they would not be able to do this.
E-cigarettes can be more addictive than ordinary tobacco cigarettes, and there is no research yet on how to quit.
Unilever pledges to cut its single-use packaging in half by 2025.
If it really does this, it will be exemplary. But we need more than an example — we need to make all of society do this.
Thieves often cut down trees in US national forests and sell them.
Lam's emergency decree banning wearing masks in Hong Kong was a big inspiration for the citizens.
However, the thugs have started arresting people for wearing masks.
Ironically, the "emergency" law that the Hong Kong puppet government is using was imposed on its colony by the UK. Hong Kong did not have a democratic government until the absence of democracy there embarrassed the UK, which was criticizing China for planning to deny democracy to Hong Kong.
In such situations, it is a fundamental mistake to compare the wrongs of two parties. Rather, we should hold each one responsible. The UK should have given Hong Kong a democratic government much earlier, but that lateness doesn't excuse what China has done to make democracy a sham.
The bully agreed that Erdoğan could attack part of the Kurdish region of Syria.
Supposedly Turkey will take over holding the captured supporters of PISSI. I suspect it will gradually kill them off, over time — but how will Turkey get hold of them to start with? By attacking and capturing the prisons? In the confusion, many of them would get loose, and they could become underground supporters of PISSI.
If Turkey and Northeast Syria made a deal to hand over the prisoners, that could be carried out.
The next challenge for Extinction Rebellion is to pressure politicians to propose climate defense plans that could could possibly do the job.
Plans like the ones advocated here.
“We always apologize for causing inconvenience, but this is nothing compared to the inconvenience that is going to start happening when we start to run out of food and water.”
The bully is punishing California by selling oil leases there.
The bully has responded to impeachment with flagrant illegalities: "Stop me if you can!"
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate how Hurricane Maria caused a general communications breakdown in Puerto Rico.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the acting DNI to pledge to protect the identity of whistleblowers that report on the bully's crimes.
The bully is trying to find out the Ukraine whistleblower's identity, so that people can persecute per.
Some sentences in the article are hard to understand due to referring to an individual whistleblower as "them" instead of "per".
If you sign, please spread the word!
Ten US army bases are named after Confederate generals that fought against the US army. Some of them were special champions of slavery.
I understand the concept of honoring specific soldiers separately from the issue of slavery, but I don't think all of them were ever soldiers in the US Army. In any case, rejecting the Confederacy, along with the system of slavery it fought to defend, takes priority. The army should change those names.
Australia traded an Iranian prisoner for two Australian tourists jailed in Iran.
The Iranian prisoner was accused by the US of violating trade sanctions. I don't think Australia had any reason to cooperate with that. At the same time, this demonstrates that Iran is quick to treat visitors as pawns.
The US diplomatic campaign against Venezuela is making no progress. However, the economic sanctions are doing harm.
Scientists accuse the National Marine Fisheries Service of misrepresenting their report so as to disregard danger to whales and reopen a closed fishing area.
Australia's planet-roaster governments at all levels stand firm for committing ecocide and mass murder, and they don't intend to let annoying protesters interfere. It's repression all the way.
Bogus Johnson's message, "If you don't support us you're a traitor", is stirring up death threats against Labour MPs.
As a man of little moral scruples, he may rejoice in intimidating them from campaigning by meeting their constituents.
Putting children (or adolescents) in cages is also an impeachable offense: it demonstrates direct contempt for laws that the president's duty is to uphold.
Georgia is about to install insecure voting machines state-wide.
A fenced-off national park in Australia will provide a safe habitat for the threatened bilby.
Keeping cats and foxes out of such a space requires maintenance. A few decades from now, if civilization is too hard pressed, people will let those fences fall apart, and cats and foxes will kill the bilbies.
Perhaps before that happens it will be possible to wipe out the feral cats and foxes in Australia, as well as the cane toads and rabbits, and other introduced species that shouldn't be there.
Might it be possible to clone the extinct lesser bilby?
Salafi Arabia's repressive clerics must be horrified that the country will allow a foreign couple to stay in a single hotel room.
If you do this, I suggest you not tempt fate by getting into the same bed together.
Meanwhile, you can show your disgust for the murder of Khashoggi, and the many political prisoners, by taking your vacation in some other country.
Human fire-suppression practices have made giant sequoia trees vulnerable to fire. Droughts caused by global heating make them vulnerable to beetles.
Global heating could make the places they now live unsuitable for them. They may need to grow in other places — but we cannot predict the microclimate of a particular place in 30 years, let alone the different microclimate in 60 years, ore the even more different microclimate in 90 years.
Extinction Rebellion activist: "I'm scared of my own future. How could anyone think about having kids now? It's not even just about the carbon footprint and population growth … What kind of world are you thinking they're going to live in?"
Daniel Hale is accused of publishing information about how the US manages its assassination list.
Labour's pledge to authorize generic manufacture despite drug patents will save lives.
No sooner did the WTO get set up, imposing drug patents on all member countries but allowing an exception for compulsory licensing when necessary, than big countries started pressuring against use of that exception. In the late 90s, President Clinton put Al Gore in charge of that pressure.
Jamie Love pointed out to Gore that this would look bad if he ran for president, and Gore stopped.
US citizens: oppose plans to re-privatize two large government-controlled home mortgage lending companies.
London thugs preemptively arrested suspected Extinction Rebellion protesters preparing for another nonviolent action.
One after another, the chemicals used to fight fires are being found carcinogenic.
Will we have any acceptable way to put out fires when water won't do it?
As permafrost melts in Siberia, it ruins the land for agriculture. That is a big problem for local people. At the same time, it contributes massively to global heating in a giant positive feedback loop.
(satire) the nation’s top pseudo-scientists announced Friday that they had harnessed a high-energy quartz crystal capable of reversing the effects of being a Gemini.
"Almost all the nearly 10,000 persons shot by live fire by Israeli professional snipers have been unarmed civilians posing no threat to anyone."
The heartless president wants the US to do the same thing to people crossing the border.
(satire) Trump furiously searching Raytheon catalog for gift after realizing he promised China And Ukraine same Javelin missile.
Many for-profit "Medicare advantage" medical plans, which add to the coverage Medicare itself provides, have been cheating their customers. Saboteur officials want to help and encourage them.
Pence was directly involved in shaking down Zelensky.
The bully wants to limit immigration to the US to wealthy people only.
Medicare for all would save so much of our medical costs that we could afford to cover immigrants.
London thugs agreed to stop the practice of reporting crime victims for deportation, but they are desperate to resume.
That practice threatens public safety for everyone: it makes people in the group least likely to commit violent crime afraid to report it or testify about it.
I think Corbyn would put an end to it for good and all.
Serving the rich is not as useful for presidential candidates as it used to be. Sanders raised almost 1.7 times as much money, from small donations alone, as Biden got from plutocrats.
Some large US movie theater chains have prohibited customers from covering their faces if they go to watch one particular movie.
The important issue here is anonymity. Do those theaters save pictures of their customers? Do they save those pictures permanently? Do they make those pictures available to any other entity, even when no crime is reported?
Let's be grateful to the various whistleblowers that informed us about Trump's attempt to shake down the president of Ukraine.
"Imagine if the CIA were asked to bring down the government of Australia."
This is not hard to imagine, since it did just that in 1975.
Two of three Australian visitors recently imprisoned in Iran have been freed. The third has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
I give roughly the same advice as the Australian government about visiting Iran: "reconsider your need to travel", and stay away.
US citizens: call on funds to stop investing in prison profiteering.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the No Taxpayer-Funded Stays at Trump Properties amendment.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on music festivals not to use face recognition.
The site also indicates what various festivals say they will do about this.
If you sign, please spread the word!
San Francisco Bay has an especially high concentration of microplastics.
Ralph Nader presents a series of ironic contrasts between increased raw capabilities and decreased actual results.
In some cases, there may be an ironic causal relationship. The difficulty of getting through to people personally could be due to the larger number of people that could try to reach them. The increase in exercise opportunities may be the result of increased obesity. The increase in numbers of hungry Americans could be partly due to the increased international trade in food.
Ukraine Texts Show How [the corrupter] Has Warped the State Department … into serving him personally rather than government policies.
Government policies can be evil and unjust in other ways, but inserting personal corruption is no remedy for that — it only adds another level of evil.
Ahmed Abu Ali was convicted in the US based on evidence obtained by Salafi Arabia's torturers. (They testified that they did not torture him.)
(satire) … Amazon reportedly issued a reminder Wednesday that the company expressly forbids bringing outside thoughts into the workplace.
"Democracies will only begin to revive when we reverse the Reagan Revolution and return to the classical economic and political systems that existed in the Western world before the neoliberal 1980s."
If all "democracy" gets you is what trickles down from plutocrats' excreta, it isn't functioning properly.
Ireland has legalized abortion, but antiabortionists are making it difficult to get an abortion. Women have resumed the campaign to make abortion accessible.
California has legalized public banks, so that cities don't have to enrich private banks holding their funds.
Snowden calls on the mainstream media to support whistleblowers that inform the public, such as Daniel Hale who is being prosecuted for publishing right now.
Saboteur of Agriculture Purdue told the owners of small farms to drop dead.
Alaska Governor Dunleavy faces an energetic recall campaign after he made sweeping cuts on spending that helps the non-rich. The cuts were advised by the Koch brothers' lobbying organization.
Ecuador is paralyzed by protests over an end to fuel subsidies.
Subsidies for fossil fuels boost the consumption of fossil fuels, just as taxes on them reduce consumption. Thus, it is vitally important to eliminate all subsidies to fossil fuels, whether at the retail level, the extraction level, or the transport level.
However, for poor people this is not merely an incentive to conserve, it can ruin them immediately. Therefore, it is important to protect the poor from this effect. One way is to distribute the subsidy money to the poor in some other way. It can also help to taper off the subsidy rather than cut it abruptly.
Why did Ecuador do it the cruel way? The answer is two acronyms long: "US, IMF". President Moreno accepted US dominion, the US pushed Ecuador to surrender to the IMF, and the IMF aims (as usual) to crush the poor.
Bolsonaro is endorsing murder of opposition politicians by being photographed with people accused of murdering Marielle Franco.
Half the bird species in the UK are heading towards extinction.
Mammal species are doing a bit better, as only a quarter are at risk. That will increase in a few decades as global heating speeds up.
US officials told Ukraine's President Zelenskiy in writing that to get US civilian aid he would have to publicly call for an investigation of Hunter Biden. They even sent him words he was supposed to say to the public.
Ukrainian officials were uncomfortable with this corrupt deal. They did not like being a tool for dishonest US domestic politics. I suspect that the bully had a feeling Ukraine would not go through with it and that he canceled US military aid to increase the pressure. But this backfired.
Now that Lula's trial has been exposed as corrupt, prosecutors want to release him from prison while letting his conviction stand. Lula insists on exoneration, which would allow him to run for office again.
The real question is, how to get rid of ecocidal president Bolsonaro and allow Lula to assume the office he would surely have won if not for the unfair trial against him.
The Silencing of Kashmir: Arundhati Roy on India, Modi, and Fascism.
The repression of Kashmir has continued so long that we cannot consider it a momentary action. It is a lasting military occupation.
India used to be a democracy, with some problems. Now it is being rapidly modi-fied into outright repressive tyranny.
Imprisonment in Bilibid jail is effectively a death sentence: a prisoner's half-life is just three years.
US citizens: call on Congress to prevent awarding Title X funds to phony clinics that mislead women.
After one repressive measure in Hong Kong (banning face masks), Lam threatens a curfew next.
Hong Kong elections are rigged, a sham, so delaying one would be no loss.
Two pipeline protesters being prosecuted for symbolic damage to the Dakota Access pipeline face being imprisoned longer than they are likely to live.
Iraqis are protesting against unemployment and corruption, and thugs are killing protesters.
Organic cotton reduces global heating and uses much less water than conventional growing of cotton.
Industrial proposals for recycling single-use packaging have big flaws. The are not sustainable for the long term. We need to move to repeated-use packaging.
Booming Demand Could Drive Tuna to Extinction, Researchers Find.
Saudi-Led Forces Have Deliberately Targeted Civilians Since the War's Early Days — And US Officials Have Done Little to Stop It.
US government secrecy is abused so badly that even a "Merry Christmas" message can be labeled "top secret".
Perhaps the sender did not want it known that perse was celebrating Christmas rather than Grav-mass like everyone else.
Auditing the taxes of rich people costs the IRS so much that now it audits them no more often than poor people.
Senator Warren's plan to stop lobbyists from swarming and tying up regulatory agencies.
This could be helpful provided the officials in the agencies are not corrupted, either in advance or by the promise of the revolving door.
The European Union has adopted a weak right-to-repair law which doesn't include your own right to repair your property. Still, it is a step forward.
When the SEC allowed corporations to buy back stock, it gave the stockholders a way to drain the corporations. As a side effect, it put US corporations on the road to failure in the market.
With 2C of global heating, global droughts could wipe out 60% of the world's wheat harvest in some years.
"I was scammed by a fraud so ingenious even bank staff were fooled."
If the bank staff are fooled by the fraud, the bank should have to make good the loss.
That's how it used to be. It was the bank's responsibility to detect and stop fraud, not the customer's. If the bank failed to do this, the loss was to the bank.
With internet banking, banks redefined this. Instead of "fraud against the bank", they decided to call it "identity theft", a crime against the customer. Which means that the customer loses the money instead of the bank.
This is one reason I don't do internet banking. The other reason is that I would have to run nonfree Javascript code.
US citizens: support the National Popular Vote Compact to elect the president by national popular vote.
If you sign, please spread the word!
The thugs that shot and killed unarmed black man Stephon Clark will not face charges.
However, Amber Guyger was sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing Botham Jean.
I don't think merely finding a man in what you believe is your apartment excuses killing him, if he is only sitting on the couch watching TV and eating ice cream.
When the bully ordered border thugs to take DNA samples from refugees, supposedly that was in order to reunite families after first separating them. That made no sense as a reason. Now it is overt: surveillance as such is the purpose.
DNA samples did not make sense for reuniting families because (1) the people in a family are not necessarily biologically related, and (2) there are much easier ways to do it.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say, "Impeach the conman now."
If you call, please spread the word!
Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger won the lawsuit against Chevron for polluting part of Ecuador, so Chevron has destroyed his life with an unfair trial, apparently rigged by the judge.
43% of the white students admitted to Harvard College were given a special preference, often for being an athlete or the child of an alum, a faculty member, or a donor. Most of those would not have been admitted without without the preference.
Racial wealth inequality ensures that few black applicants have any of those preferences, except perhaps being athletes.
Despite 'enormous potential' as carbon sink, Australia's damaged coastal ecosystems spewing millions of tons of CO2.
"The language of violence and outrage is dominating our discourse. To defeat it, we must learn not to respond in kind."
Perhaps we need to adopt the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines for political discussions.
The number of pedestrians killed (and the number injured) by car collisions in the US increases every year. It is not clear why.
The first step in understanding this issue might be to report on the number of pedestrians killed per pedestrian mile walked.
Driverless cars with nonfree software, and driverless taxis, may not kill additional people through collisions, but the increased political repression that they facilitate could easily kill protesters and whistleblowers. Simply repressing protesters and whistleblowers could pave the way for policies that will kill millions of non-rich people.
Australia's minister of cruelty and suffering usually crushes refugees who are sick, but now he wants to repress protesters too.
Instead of covering right-wing extremists and what they say or do, which gives them opportunities to sabotage discourse, cover their victims.
[The saboteur's] War on Science Has Hit 'Crisis Point', Experts Warn.
North Korea claims to have launched a ballistic missile from a submarine. This makes North Korea a real nuclear threat.
There is nothing the US can safely do to change this; we must simply accept this. Attempting to eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles with a military attack would court disaster, since anything other than total success would likely result in a nuclear war.
It is possible for two nuclear powers to remain at peace.
I am surprised that North Korea, an impoverished country, has been able to make so much progress in missiles. Has it been receiving continuing help?
The infant had a tantrum about impeachment while hosting Finland's president for a joint press conference. Everyone there was bullied to pretend it was normal.
Pundits talk about the "imperial presidency" — this is the presidency of Caligula.
In most of the US, a worker of average salary can't afford to buy a home with the median price. And things are getting worse.
Use of the average (mean) to compute the salary to compare tends to understate the problem, since the median wage is likely to be lower than the mean wage.
A significant factor is that new jobs in the US are concentrated in a few very successful cities.
(satire) … rookie forest ranger TJ Hayward told reporters Friday that he was not getting his hopes up about seeing a tree on his first day of work.
Australian banks convinced the right-wing government to enforce "responsible lending" laws weakly and tell the borrowers that if they don't understand the consequences of loan contracts, it's their tough luck.
Democratic candidates can make themselves more "electable" by aiming to curb the power of Big Pharma.
Oceans and Ice Caps to be Compromised Beyond Repair Unless We Put an End to Fossil Fuels Now, Finds New IPCC Report.
Ocasio Cortez has proposed new laws to make an adequate social safety net that covers everyone.
Rent control can tackle a short-term rent crisis. However, it doesn't solve a long-term housing shortage. For that we need to increase the housing supply — either by more construction, or discouraging keeping apartments empty.
Singapore's new censorship law will permit government ministers to order deletion of "fake news".
The bullshitter wants that power, and you can imagine what he would do with it. Singapore's ministers are not bullshitters; their lies are consistent. Their repression may be sober and predictable, but it will still be repression.
Melting glaciers put alpine villages in danger from falling rocks.
The Oregon Titan Fusion Center was established to stop terrorists, but it helped track environmental activists.
Such mission creep is easy, and when big oil asks right-wing thugs to help crush protesters, they will tend to give help. We must make sure they don't have the opportunity.
Sunnis have federated with Kurds to make a common state in Northeast Syria.
I hope that they respect human rights and democracy more than any government in Syria ever has, but it is important to check that.
Northeast Syria calls for an international war crimes tribunal to try the supporters of PISSI.
The conman's foreign policy of corruption threatens even US national security in the narrowest sense.
In a broader sense, the security of the US as a society depends on more honesty, more democracy, and less inequality. We already knew that the conman is opposed to all three.
Crimes committed at sea, even murder, are hardly ever prosecuted.
Even if the heat outside isn't enough to kill you, the heat in a factory or bakery can do it.
Revealed: Hundreds of Migrant Workers Dying of Heat Stress in Qatar Each Year. They are working outdoors, and heat stress can kill them even in the cooler parts of the year.
If you build a building in a place like Qatar, you're betting that global heating will be curbed and reversed. Will Qatar have the sense to try to cut down world greenhouse gas emissions?
"Big food and agribusiness companies are desperate to portray themselves as part of the solution to the climate crisis."
Their own initiatives, presented as ways to reduce greenhouse emissions, have failed to do so.
A campaign aims to pressure 150 US universities to commit to moving quickly to 100% renewable energy.
The universities themselves are responsible for a small fraction of US greenhouse gas emissions, but the campaign makes sense because they would influence the rest of society.
We need a similar campaign demanding universities move to free software.
One year after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, world leaders have basically allowed Salafi Arabia's acting king to get away with it.
The recordings and transcripts of the bully's phone calls with the acting king of Salafi Arabia may conceal complicity in crime.
Environmentalists in Congress support Mass Senator Markey, coauthor of the Green New Deal, and oppose Joe Kennedy's running against him.
It turns out Kennedy even owns fossil fuel stocks.
The local social network Nextdoor excludes homeless people, which makes it ideal for organizing a neighborhood to persecute the homeless.
Whales sequester large amounts of carbon. This service may be worth millions of dollars per whale to humanity.
Amazon wants to write the laws on face recognition — presumably so as not to protect our anonymity thoroughly.
What we need is to prevent it from being deployed at all in many cases.
Some [US] voting machines still have decade-old vulnerabilities.
For many years, the US Department of Justice has basically ceased to prosecute large corporations. Instead it allows the corporations to plead "guilty but not subject to punishment". Often the same corporation does this over and over.
Sanders proposes an annual wealth tax of around 5% on billionaires. That would cut their fortunes in half in 15 years.
Eventually they would get into a lower bracket and the tax rate would decrease, I presume.
The bully has nominated one of Dubya's torturers to be in charge of dealing with other countries about issues of human rights.
Presumably that means he will seek to abolish human rights in other countries.
The US has effectively established border patrols around the world to stop people from taking steps to get closer to reaching the US.
Everyone: call on Netflix to cancel "Border Security: America's Front Line". That show is propaganda for the border thugs.
I have supported this petition calling on Netflix to terminate one program, even though it does not go as far as I really wish. Netflix ought to shut down entirely, because its manner of operation attacks the freedom of its users.
I have refused to support petitions that asked Netflix to change how it handles certain programs because they implicitly support the continued operation of Netflix without correcting those injustices.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call for ending section 215 of the U SAP AT RIOT Act (aka "USA PATRIOT Act").
That is the section that authorizes collection of many kinds of personal data without even a real court order.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to end the bully's indirect ban on most Muslim visitors to the US, as well as other arbitrary obstacles to visas.
If you sign, please spread the word!
It is amazing and absurd how far US prisons have gone in banning books for prisoners.
"An impeachable offense occurs when a president violates the oath to abide by the constitution’s limits and respect its values. [The cheater's] use of political pressure on a foreign power to further his own re-election chances clearly fits."
Efforts to make it a crime to destroy parts of nature are going astray by designating them as "persons".
If you start from the fixed assumption that only a person can have rights, the only way to give a river or an ecosystem rights is to call it a person. But that assumption is unnecessary.
Officials accuse the conman of treating his conversation with Zelensky as if it were a state secret, in violation of regulations.
Oaxaca has legalized abortion in the first 12 weeks.
Let's hope this serves as an example for the rest of Latin America.
An indomitable Palestinian is bringing solar power kits to Gaza to substitute for the diesel generator that can't get fuel.
Germany, France and Malta will take some of the refugees rescued and brought to Italy.
China's thugs arrested protester Wang Meiyu, and he died in jail, apparently from torture.
The Tory party has adopted antimuslimism.
This at the same time as Labour is suffering from the zero-tolerance extirpation of antisemitism, making it difficult to for Labour supporters to criticize Israel's continued occupation (and creeping annexation) of Palestine.
There is a proposal to rename the airport which is currently named after John Wayne.
I don't like honoring that right-winger at all, but Reagan's wrongs were far, far worse. He crushed unions, eviscerated antitrust law, cut taxes for the rich, made a deal with Iran to hold American hostages for longer in order to win election, later sold arms to Iran to ransom Americans hostages taken by terrorists in Lebanon, and funded other terrorists to attack Nicaragua. In detestation for him, I always call that airport by its former official name, "National Airport."
Around the world, right-wing politicians demonstrate their power by showing they can get away with crushing truth and honesty.
Bolsonaro demonstrates his power by showing he can get away with supporting torture and dictatorship.
I don't like the use of the term "populists" for these liars. The populists of 1900 were admirable and honest, and they made the US a better place.
Let's call today's truth-hating right-wing politicians "bullshitters". That's what describes them.
There may have been left-wing bullshitters in the past — perhaps Lenin and Stalin fit that term — but I don't know of any today.
Hong Kongers declared China's big holiday, the day when the Communist Party took power, a "national day of grief".
Colombia published supposed "proof" that Maduro, in Venezuela, was supporting Colombian rebels. But the "proof" proved to be fake, and Colombia's head of military intelligence was found to be insufficiently intelligent.
French plans for massive surveillance to catch people with unexplained wealth carry a big danger of tyranny.
The talk of "data protection" is a clear example of how that concept is bullshit, The idea is that the state collects your personal data and uses it against you. So what if the state "protects" it against some other use against you?
Perhaps it is acceptable to look at at publicly visible postings for this. But the state is surely not going to limit itself to those. I expect it will also look at "private" communications on the same sites.
The danger of snooping on people's purchases on eBay is that once the state benefits from tracking people's every purchase, it will try to force people to identify themselves in every purchase.
The bullshitter's cabinet is conspicuously disregarding science about public health.
To be effective, a climate defense plan must also address the shortage of housing.
I disagree about one point. We should not encourage 10 million immigrants to come to the US unless we reduce the per-capita environmental footprint of Americans to a level comparable to Europe. Without that, bringing the immigrants to the US would harm the whole world.
WeWork, like many other companies, profits by subcontracting some kinds of jobs to precarious, low-paid workers.
Chile has given permission to use bulldozers or steam shovels to dig up buried pirate treasure, disregarding the laws about national parks.
One must suspect corruption at work.
Australia's bullshitters agreed to dig up bullshit about Mueller to help the US bullshitter.
Climate Leadership Requires a Managed Decline of Fossil Fuel Production.
Our use of fossil fuels will end. Each path to end it — barring some technological miracle — is some mix of painful and disastrous. We had better choose the pain, and soon.
(satire) Trump Aides Investigating Whistleblower Struggling to Identify Single Person in CIA with Moral Principles.
Italy's constitutional court ruled to legalize assisting the suicide of someone facing "intolerable suffering" due to an incurable illness.
Significantly, this is not limited to people who will die anyway soon.
Moroccan journalist Hajar Raissouni was sentenced to a year in prison for supposedly having an abortion (she said she didn't), as well as sex outside of marriage.
Unmarried couples should avoid tourism in Morocco.
Each expensive nylon teabag releases billions of tiny particles of plastic.
Germans vow to resist the expansion of a strip-mine for coal onto their lands.
The bigger danger would come from burning the coal.
(satire) Audubon society president spends another morning in attic feeding nation’s 2.9 billion missing birds.
Sanders vows, if elected, to pursue criminal charges against fossil fuel CEOs for knowingly 'destroying the planet'.
What they have done ought to be a crime. I don't know whether there is or was a law against it, though. Is it negligent homicide?
More extreme weather in the US: a
heavy
snowfall in September.
Tribe:
How
the House of Representatives can tackle the conman's obstruction
of the impeachment investigation.
Organizing
the workers at McDonalds in New York.
Greta Thunberg's
speech
to the UN.
This summer was the
hottest
one ever recorded.
The Trump-Ukraine Scandal Is a
Taste
of How Dirty the US Elections Will Get.
The military rulers of Thailand are
still
killing dissidents.
"This isn't extinction, it's extermination:
the
people killing nature know what they're doing."
Everyone:
call
on Google to end its contract with the US deportation thugs.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Massachusetts legislators are
proposing
a tax on sugary drinks. I am in favor of it.
Do note that there is
evidence
that low-calorie sweeteners confuse the brain, which tells the
body to get ready to digest sugar.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Global heating is
eroding
the beaches of Cape Cod, chasing buildings inland and sometimes
catching and destroying them.
US citizens:
call
on the Boy Scouts of America to stop sending boys to the border
thugs for a bad education.
Milk? Sugar? Microplastics? Some tea bags
found
to shed billions of
particles.
We should put a stop to that, but don't forget about the plastic fishing
gear.
President Do-dirty's murder on drugs provides cover for
land-grabbers
to murder and intimidate.
Something similar happened in Colombia — the "paramolitares",
supposedly intended to resist the guerrilla,
turned
into murderers for
profit and one of the ways they profited was making peasants sign over
their land.
Israel
raided the headquarters of the Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer.
Israel often imprisons Palestinians arbitrary, without
even charging
them with anything.
Swampy
Symbiosis: "Fossil Fuel Industry Has More Clout Than Ever Under
[the conman]".
CO2 emissions from commercial air travel
are
rising roughly 70% faster
than the predicted rate, which is used to estimate future amounts.
Instead of tripling by 2050, the emissions will grow by a factor of 10
if this trend continues.
Lula's trial was
manipulated by a corrupt judge. Free Lula!
Bad
News to a Sick and Miserable-Looking Earth: "I'm Afraid You Have
Humans."
Around 60% of Europe's species of trees
are
now threatened.
Why did the conman fire CIA director Coats shortly after
trying to corrupt Ukraine?
A movie satirizes the FBI's practice of recruiting and then
prosecuting "terrorists" that couldn't bomb their way out of a paper
bag without the FBI's help.
It is legitimate and useful to use stings to catch people that have
decided, without FBI encouragement, to commit terrorism, and have a
chance of actually doing it. It becomes wrong when the FBI goes
further and manufacturers imaginary "terrorists" to imprison, in the
absence of real terrorists.
Republicans have been working hard to make it impossible to remove a
Republican president
no matter what crimes he might commit.
Companies such as Blackstone are buying lots of houses in the US
and deal with tenants in a rigid and unforgiving way.
Asylum-seeker Ajay Kumar went on hunger strike for 70 days in a US
immigration prison. He has now been released on a
sort of parole.
[The butcher's] Plan for Those Seeking Safe Haven:
a Ticket to the
Violent Heart of Central America.
The man who murdered Pakistani celebrity Qandeel Baloch, for reasons
of repression,
has been sentenced to life in prison.
This was an act of patriarchal murder. I am very glad that the fact
that he was her brother did not enable him to get away with it.
Chechen exile Zelimkhan Khangoshvili seems to have been murdered
in Berlin by a Russian agent.
Republican Party officials wrote, not for publication, about the
partisan intentions of their gerrymandering.
Labour will pledge to
eliminate specific parts of the Tories'
crush-the-poor policies.
A report says that China is holding writer Yang Hengjun
incommunicado in brainwashing conditions.
Cutting him off from his lawyer is part of predetermining the outcome
of the case. Political trials in China are not real trials.
They intend to convict him; his crimes remain to be decided.
They must hope that boredom will drive him to read the propaganda
material for making Xi-ple. (The consonant in Xi is pronounced
somewhat like "sh".)
Indonesian police seem to be
lying about the violence in West Papua,
about question such as who started it, and how many indigenous people
were killed.
The UN has made a
long-term general agreement with the most powerful
corporations.
The article doesn't say specifically what the agreement involves
doing, but if the UN depends on those corporations for support, it
will tend over time to become their tool — along with many national
governments and many universities.
"Turns Out 'Tough on Crime' Is Only for the Poor": Report Details Trump DOJ's
Corporate-Friendly Record.
The fiend claimed that the whistleblower about his Ukraine
investigation-bullying
was
"close to a spy".
Perhaps person really is a US spy. The New York Times reported that
the whistleblower is a CIA agent whose work focuses on Ukraine.
US laws are very harsh to whistleblowers. This shows that Congress should
change these laws.
Was it right or wrong for the New York Times to publish this
information about per? That kind of question is, in general, a
difficult judgment call. In this situation, I don't think anyone is
likely to want to murder per over this except the fiend himself, but I
think he would just fire per.
The US must stop
inviting courts to second-guess minor decisions
that parents make about how to raise their children.
Sure, there are things parents could do that would be very dangerous
to their children and society. For instance, not vaccinating a child
for various diseases could, with a low but significant probability,
lead to the serious injury or death of that child, and of other
children as well. That decision calls for public attention that most
decisions don't.
For instance, leading your child on a walk through a parking lot,
rather than telling per to wait in the car, occasionally results in
the child's injury or death. On the national scale, the danger is
measurable. At the personal level, it is a minute probability.
Courts should not intervene on questions like this.
Climate Crisis Leaving 2 Million People a Week Needing Aid —
Red Cross
US citizens: call on Congress to
investigate all of the conman's crimes.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens:
call
on Congress to crack down on Big Pharma over drug prices.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens:
tell
Congress you support the impeachment inquiry.
Here are
some
reasons to support it.
If you sign, please spread the word!
NRA
Acted
as 'Foreign Asset' to Russia Before 2016 Election, Says Senate
Report.
Planet roasters seek
federal
prosecution of people who block construction of oil pipelines.
Eventually thousands of Extinction Rebellion members will be
ready to go to prison for this.
The bully's
threat, intended to force Ukraine to investigate Hunter
Biden, has
made
Ukraine realize that the US is not a reliable ally. Indeed, the
US government is hardly a reliable actor at all.
I've often seen right-wing interventionists insist that the US keep
supporting a tyrannical client government to show it is a "reliable
ally." I think, on the contrary, that it is good to show rulers that
they can lose support if they attack the people. But this case is
totally different. The bully
made the US unreliable, not because
Ukraine had done anything wrong, but only because he demanded what he
was not entitled to.
The cruel bastard has cut the number of refugees allowed into the US
to around
16%
of what it used to be.
This comes pretty close to rejecting all claims for asylum.
The Environmental Poisoning Agency (what the conman converted the EPA into)
accuses
California of violating water pollution rules by allowing homeless
people to occasionally defecate on the sidewalk.
California should provide more toilets for them, not for this reason,
but because they are human beings.
The climate crisis isn’t just causing extreme weather.
It’s
fueling extreme
politics, too.
Revealed:
How US Senators Invest in the Firms They're Supposed to Regulate.
Global heating at work: Mont blanc glacier in danger of collapse,
experts warn.
"For the sake of life on Earth, we must put a limit on wealth."
Aurelia Skipwith, nominee to lead US Fish And Wildlife Service,
linked
to groups opposed to protections for endangered species.
"Everyone thought Trump was untouchable — that may have just changed."
Even some Senate Republicans
express
doubts about him.
That doesn't mean it will go far enough to remove him.
Public retirement funds and universities are financing Empower Texans,
a far-right lobbying group,
new
report reveals.
Barr's testimony suggests that the conman
may
have previously asked some other country's government to investigate US political candidates.
China has
aimed malware in very targeted ways at leaders of the
Tibetan exile community.
List
of tech companies that support the US deportation department, ICE.
(satire) Obsessive-Compulsive Baseball Player Has To Touch All 3 Bases
Before Going Home.
(satire) Nation Perplexed By 16-Year-Old Who Doesn't Want World To End.
Investigating corruption in
the
Department of the Interior.
It doesn't get much attention, but the bully
has
escalated the bombing in Afghanistan; as a result, the US side is killing more civilians now
than the Taliban are.
The bully does not uphold freedom of the press; the reporters
for US newspapers
can
no longer rely on the US government to stand up for them
against tyrannical governments.
An Israeli sniper
shot
Ali al-Ashqar during a protest in Gaza,
after he had thrown a stone. Then soldiers shot at medics so they
could not reach him, and he bled to death.
Ali was not a child. He was a teenager, indeed almost an adult. But
that makes no difference. Nothing can excuse shooting at medics so
they cannot reach a wounded person.
Now that Bogus Johnson has been exposed as a liar, he is running for
reelection on
the liar platform.
Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives
will
investigate impeaching the conman.
The reason is the evidence that
the
conman ordered a cut in aid to Ukraine in order to pressure Ukraine
to investigate Hunter Biden.
He has given dozens — or is it hundreds? — of reasons to justify
impeaching him and removing him from office. If we could do that, I would
be entirely in favor.
However, until the Republicans that control the Senate rediscover a
shred of appreciation for their own honor or the national interest, we
have no hope of removing him from office after impeaching him.
That being so, impeachment can at most be a political act. Whether to
do it is a matter of political strategy. I have been content to leave
that strategic decision to Pelosi. If she thinks that now it is a
good strategy, I trust her decision.
New South Wales (a state in Australia)
proposes
to pass an ag-gag bill. That is unjust already, but it will criminalize protests in
many other places.
Australia does not have a bill of rights to protect the right to protest
from local infringement like this.
China is punishing Uighur dissidents' families with
long
prison sentences.
"[Smoke from] Indonesian forest fires putting 10 million children at
risk", says Unicef.
The school-to-prison pipeline threatens even
children
six years old.
Revealed: how TikTok
censors videos that do not please Beijing.
If you are not in China, don't use TikTok!
On meeting with the conman, Jacinda Ardern
made
trade "liberalization" the priority, rather than climate defense.
One could perhaps excuse omitting climate defense with him on the
grounds that the conman would have ignored anything she (or anyone but
his bosses) said about the subject. However, "liberalization" often
means deregulation, and deregulation of business is harmful in itself.
We should not forget that she
signed
the TPP with its
ISDS clause.
By 2050, many coastal areas will get a hundred-year-flood
every
year.
40 progressive prosecutors elected in 2018 to reduce the rate of
imprisonment are
facing
pushback from thugs, especially the fraction involved in
right-wing extremism.
Greta Thunberg, at the UN,
stared
coldly at the bullshitter, and may have chased him away from the
climate summit, which he did not attend.
All discussions about the climate can make better progress without
him. When he participates, it is to interfere. Other US officials
can interfere, too, but not as effectively as he can. Also, he lost
an opportunity to confuse the public extra.
"'No, you're corrupt!': why there's method in Trump's playground taunts."
Source
The fact that this works is testimony to the decay of the sort of
public discussion that democracy depends on. Republicans are
systematically helping to make it decay, but we need a system that
resists the attempts of a party to destroy the system.
US citizens: call on Congress and state legislatures to
make
voting easier for college students, not harder.
The bully has
put 52,000 immigrants in prison as they wait for
an immigration hearing.
He has also put bias and injustice into the immigration hearings.
FBI internal documents show
the
imaginary threats it used as excuses to investigate nonviolent
environmental activists as suspected terrorists,
Labour in the UK has endorsed
a
variant of the Green New Deal.
Bravo, Labour and Corbyn!
Well-meaning but foolish activists
take
umbrage at Berkeley's "gourmet ghetto" and demand to cancel that name.
Finding bigotry in harmless self-deprecating humor must be a lot
easier than campaigning to end housing discrimination. By the way,
until recently ghettos were neighborhoods where Jews were pressured or
required to live, but I don't feel offended by the "gourmet ghetto".
Let's end the war on humor!
US citizens: call
on Congress to stop the censorship of books for prisoners.
If you call, please spread the word!
UK promises
extra £600m for family planning in poorest countries.
This will be very good if it really happens. Unfortunately, promises
from Bogus Johnson are not worth much.
Spain will
move the corpse of the dictator (and mass murderer) Franco
out of the national monument he built.
The
UK's Supreme Court ruled that Bogus Johnson's order to prorogue
Parliament is void. He is a pro rogue — that has been his whole
career — but he
can't prorogue.
Countries' greenhouse reduction commitments
need
to be tripled just to limit to 2C of heating, and avoiding disaster (under 1.5C) requires
5 times the planned reductions.
US citizens:
support
the No Shame at School Act, which would pay poor families' debts
for school lunches.
I don't think students should be charged for lunch at school. The
cost of meals, like the cost of everything else at school, should be
paid by the state, out of taxes that fall mainly on the rich.
If you sign, please spread the word!
The cheater may
have bribed Ukraine's President Zelensky to relaunch a
criminal investigation of Hunter Biden, Senator Biden's son.
(I previously mixed him up with Biden's other son, Beau, who is the
one that died.)
Labour to
commit to big increase in charging points for electric cars.
Labour supporters, please talk to party organizers about offering anonymous
charging. See the
recent note about how Orwellian they are.
"Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far-right."
A drone video shows of
hundreds
of prisoners in China being transported blindfolded. They may be Uighur political prisoners.
The US blindfolded the prisoners it was taking to Guantanamo (see note from
4
April 2002).
I hope this did not give China the inspiration for doing the same
thing to a million Uighurs.
Girls in Bangladesh
can
get coaching in how to talk their parents out of forcing them to get married.
Democrats
must
fight hard for state legislatures so that they can stop Republican
gerrymandering.
Iran has
released the British oil tanker which it seized shortly after
Gibraltar seized an Iranian tanker.
written Sep 16, mailed by me Sep 19, posted Sep 24
To the FSF board,
I hereby resign as president of the Free Software Foundation and from
its board of directors. I am doing this due to pressure on the
Foundation and me over a series of misunderstandings and
mischaracterizations of what I have said.
Richard Stallman
Indigenous people in Canada are
still
trying to block the tar sands oil export pipeline Trudeau wants to
build there.
"If the world ran on sun,
it
wouldn’t fight over oil."
We must
respond
to Big Data with Luddism.
I think it was a mistake for the article to start by forecasting the
worst possible outcome: "coming to saturate our stores, workplaces,
homes, cities." That weakens the effect of, later on, urging that we
stop that from happening. I'm disappointed that it used the word
"cloud" — the purpose of that word is to cloud issues, and using
it inevitably does so. There is no cloud, only other entities'
computers.
However, I am very glad to see someone besides me advocate Luddism.
Charging stations for electric cars, in the UK at least, require
motorists to
identify
themselves.
The article focuses on the fact that the charging IDs are not secure
against third parties. However, I think the fact that the charging
station identifies the motorist is the worst injustice. We need laws
requiring charging stations to allow anonymous use. This should
include paying cash or with an anonymous digital system such as GNU
Taler. Drivers on a plan that covers the cost of charging should be
able to demonstrate digitally that they are members without revealing
their identities.
Some charging stations collect
a lot more data than
that.
We need laws to require them to offer anonymous charging, for cash,
without collecting any information except the price charged.
In Brazil, thugs are so ready to shoot that
they
are killing children.
The cheater ordered a spy official
to
conceal from Congress the identity of an inside whistleblower
who reported a gross irregularity.
Shahid Buttar is
challenging Rep. Nancy Pelosi in the Democratic primary.
Sanders's plan to
end
homelessness in America.
Expanding carbon offsets
will
not solve the climate crisis or protect tropical forests.
Is democracy failing in the US because of people's "lizard brains" or
because the
plutocrats negated it 25 years ago?
A new scanner can
detect guns and knives at a distance of 30 feet.
If it doesn't identify the passersby that don't have weapons,
I think it is acceptable. I'd rather see independent confirmation
of that.
US citizens:
call on the
FDIC to block the BB&T/SunTrust banking merger.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens:
tell GM that
we stand with striking workers.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Denying California the Right to Set Its Own Emissions Standards
Hurts
All 50 States.
Some French towns are
banning
glyphosate.
US citizens:
call on
Congress to pass the Khanna-Gaetz amendment and thus block the
bullshitter from fighting a war with Iran.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Right-wing government policies are making GM's investors prosper,
but
workers
are getting none of it.
Use of AI surveillance technology is
becoming
the global norm, even in liberal democracies.
Don't take this threat to our anonymity as a fait accompli!
America Needs Ranked Choice Voting —
Here's
Why.
I think
another
system is even better, but ranked choice would be a big step
forward.
Egyptians have dared to protest
demanding
that military ruler al-Sisi step down. He sold out the country to
the IMF and the people are feeling the burden.
The cause of Egypt's poverty is inequality (due to plutocracy and
corruption) colliding with population growth. The IMF is an
instrument of plutocracy and corruption.
In one sense, the Egyptian people are at fault for having too many
children. But it is people as a whole that is at fault; the
individual Egyptians compose that people and yet at the same time are
subject to it, as it drags them all under.
The situation in the US is only partly different.
Scientists Set Out How to
Halve
Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2030.
Global Climate Strike and Extinction Rebellion are having an effect:
the public is
recognizing
the importance of climate defense.
I call it "climate defense" because the point is to preserve a livable
climate and avoid or reduce disaster, rather than to cope with
disaster.
"Moderate" (plutocratist) Democrats have
proposed
an alternative to the Green New Deal, which would take small,
inadequate steps in the right direction.
"We Can Find You Anywhere": the Chechen death squads
stalking
Europe
Greece's violent and manipulative neo-Nazi party has collapsed, but
the new right-wing government has
adopted
some of its policies.
Arguing that giant armaments companies
have
more effect on militarizing the US border than the bully has.
This means that plutocratists in Congress will fight to maintain
the militarization even if the next president is opposed.
Introduced carnivorous plants, in places they were not naturally
found,
can
smother other growth like kudzu.
They can't eat other plants, but can drive them into extinction.
Australia's former destroy-the-environment minister
blocked
a wind farm even though the inhabitants of the region were in favor of
it.
The wind farm would have replaced burning diesel fuel.
How useful is it to require companies to
give
workers some shares and some seats on the board of directors?
This won't directly give most poor people a decent life. It won't do
anything for the unemployed, the retired, the students, or those who
cannot work. It won't do anything for the millions who are compelled
to be "independent contractors".
But it could be one part of restraining corporations from predatory
behavior and from lobbying for more suffering and inequality.
The bully is
campaigning
for increased repression of homeless people.
Plutocratist policies make Americans homeless; now plutocratist
politicians aim to make use of their troubles by scapegoating them.
"Perhaps we need to explain [global heating] to politicians
as
we would to very small children."
Brazilian Meat Company Which Has Supplied McDonald's And Burger King
Bought
Cattle from Farm Using Deforested Land Earlier This Year,
Investigation Shows.
A previously safe species of moth in Australia has
almost
entirely disappeared in two years. The consequence could be the
extinction of a species of mammal.
Doctors
suspect
that pesticides were responsible for the brain injuries of
diplomats in Cuba.
Malta's persecution of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
continues
after her death.
Airbus Forecasts That Number of Planes in Sky
Will
Double in 20 Years.
We dare not let this happen — because if it does, it implies the
likely collapse of technological civilization, and planes will be only
a tiny part of what we lose.
25
Ways the Canadian medical system is superior to the American
system.
(satire) Pope Francis Tells Sinner Risky Experimental Sacrament
Only
Thing Capable Of Saving Him.
300,000 Indonesians have signed a petition opposing a
proposed
law that would make it a crime to have sex outside of marriage.
It would impose many kinds of repression. For instance, since
same-sex marriage is not permitted there, homosexuality would also be
a crime.
This repression is an expression of religious fanaticism. I would
like to coexist civilly with people of various religions, but those
religious people refuse to coexist civilly with anyone who won't
knuckle under to their laws.
Climate
Emergency Poses Major Threat to Future Global Health, Say Top
Medics.
Sad to say, focusing on the danger over the next 25 years
is short-termism, because the danger in 50 years will be
enormous by comparison.
Hong Kong protesters and the uniformed thugs are now
doxing
each other.
The thugs
can arrest protesters they identify. How much pressure can
protesters put on thugs they identify?
Pakistani feminist Gulalai Ismail criticized Pakistani thugs for
repression
of women's rights, including crimes reaching as far as rape. She
was charged with "terrorism" (?!) and has fled to the US.
Today's Sex Workers, Like Their Victorian Sisters,
Don't
Want "saving".
I have supported feminism in general for a long time, and for the most
part I still do. However, there is a current in feminism today that
is drifting into a campaign of prudery that harms everyone, except
those who are asexual. That prudery is not the way to help people.
There is nothing evil about being a sex worker, but it can be
dangerous; sex workers face violence and harassment from individuals
and from the state. That's what we should try to prevent. Meanwhile,
if we would like to help people choose not to be sex workers (if they
want not to be), we can do that without being unkind to them.
Carbon-capture systems could be a part of avoiding climate disaster,
if
and when they work.
What we must avoid is letting hypothetical future carbon-capture
systems, systems that don't actually work today, serve as an excuse to
do less to reduce our emissions now.
Global Outbreak of Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs
Linked
to Overconsumption of Meat.
Bird populations in the US and Canada have
declined
around 30% since 1970. This shows how badly we are damaging the
ecology.
The US has a
shortage of skilled employees. Not for unskilled workers, however.
What does this say about robots?
Perhaps robots doing skilled jobs are ok for the economy. However,
replacing store sales personnel with robots is harmful. Please join
me in refusing to use those robots — always go to the human sales
clerks.
If you bring a book or computer, you won't mind waiting.
Drug dealers in the UK
enslave
adolescents and even children to carry drugs.
The poverty that Tories have imposed on families has made more
children vulnerable, and thus susceptible to enslavement. A Labour victory
would reverse that change. It wouldn't automatically put an end to
the enslavement but would limit the extent.
'The
Silenced': Meet the Climate Whistleblowers Muzzled by [the bully].
Australia
may extradite Veronica Koman to Indonesia for the "crime" of publishing
information about the crimes of Indonesian thugs.
Tim Flannery: "I now look back on my 20 years of climate activism
as a colossal failure. The climate crisis is so severe the actions
of the denialists are now an immediate threat to our children."
Plutocratist Democrats are still
giving
only lip service to the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Canada's prime
minister Trudeau apologized for the perceived slight of
using face makeup as part of an Aladdin costume at a costume ball.
Subsequently it appeared that he also appeared in parties wearing
blackface.
Blackface is racist because it is part of a longstanding US practice
of mocking
blacks using black face makeup on stage, in conjunction
with denying them legal rights. I've never heard of any
comparable practice of mocking Arabs. He certainly wasn't doing that
by dressing as Aladdin, whom we know as the hero, not the villain, of
an old story from the Middle East. I don't see racism there.
All this is small potatoes compared with his wrongs that have done
great practical harm:
silencing
ministers to cover up corruption and advancing global disaster by pushing the export of
tar sands oil.
Sad to say, his opponent in the election is probably even worse
on all issues. The most progressive party with substantial support,
the NDP, is half planet-roaster too.
A
revised criminal code for Indonesia could impose terrible repression,
both sexually and politically.
A giant project to set up anonymous radio phone communication
is under way.
The US is
suing
the publisher of Snowden's new memoir, claiming it reveals "state
secrets" — information that was published years ago.
It was Obama that
started
that absurd pretense.
I am disappointed that Snowden published the book through Amazon.
Please do not buy this or anything from
Amazon.
Instead, get an unauthorized copy of the e-book. When an e-book is
published the way Amazon does it, the unauthorized copies are the only
copies that don't
oppress their readers.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the printed copies, but if you
buy one in the US you are paying royalties to the US government. I
wonder if that covers the copies sold in Canada, too. It might, if
they are sold by the same publisher.
Giant
corporations control the US major media. No surprise that the
major media are pervasively uninterested in the harm big business
does.
Advances in modeling the climate now predict
6C
or 7C of global heating by the end of this century — if we
don't reduce our emissions.
Of course, modeling is not certain. We might "luck out" and get only
4C of heating — but that
could
still kill billions of people.
The UN
will
not allow countries without climate defense plans, or countries that
promote use of coal, to give speeches in the coming climate
summit.
These countries will still be welcome to make commitments —
though I expect they won't want to — but they won't have a
platform to oppose the goal.
Swiss Voters to Decide on
Whether
to Allow Factory Farming to Continue.
One of the many benefits of a single-payer medical system would be
that
companies could not imperil employees' medical care, whether by
firing them or in any other way.
If the US attacks Iran, that could mean a world war,
the
US against Russia and China.
One important point of dissimilarity between the present is that, in
1914, none of the European powers had a way to mobilize only part of
the army. Mobilization was a complex plan, and the only plan was for
complete mobilization. This meant that a country which feared attack
had to mobilize completely, which meant its other enemies had to do
likewise.
If a country which had feared an immediate attack had had the ability
to mobilize partially, that might have deterred its enemies while not
threatening them.
There is no such problem today, with mobilizing reserves.
But I don't know whether that makes a big difference.
(satire) …
the
city once known as Philadelphia will now be called DirecTV, PA,
after the cream cheese company opted to discontinue its long-held
naming rights to the city.
The saboteur of agriculture
proposes
to let pork plants inspect their own work, which would turn the
inspection into a joke. The plants would also rush the workers, so
they would more often be injured.
Thus, the workers would get more of one kind of malady and the public
would get more of another kind.
Iran apparently
prefers
escalating warfare to defeat by sanctions. Salafi Arabia's war in
Yemen gives Iran a way to do this without starting a new war.
This reminds me of the sanctions the US placed on Japan in 1941. The
sanctions, in that case, were intended to make Japan stop conquering
China — a morally valid reason.
Japan had the choice to fight the US, be defeated by the sanctions, or
leave China alone. It chose war, and was defeated anyway. The cost
of that war was tremendous.
The US has no valid reason for sanctions against Iran. The valid
goal, avoiding a nuclear-armed Iran, was being achieved by Obama's
non-nuclear deal.
Experts Warn World
'Grossly
Unprepared' for Future Pandemics.
"Kavanaugh
should
never have been appointed. Impeachment is our only hope."
Alas, as long as Republicans in the Senate are partisan and
unscrupulous, impeachment does not offer a hope of removing Kavanaugh
from the Supreme Court. What the Senate might be able to do, if
Democrats control it in January 2021, is to increase the size of the
Supreme Court so as to counterweight his vote.
Even
in China, people campaign for defending the climate.
Not all beef is equally
carbon-burdensome.
Political correctness fanatics have
demanded
the censorship of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Oxford University Press shows no sign of bowing to this pressure, but
people should get ready to support dictionary publishers against it.
In the US, a small fine
can
put you in jail over and over, if you are poor. The article is
about Oklahoma, but it isn't only there. Ferguson, Missouri
did
the same thing.
Arms companies have taught Americans to really love weapons —
even
jet planes that bust the budget and don't work well.
Now these planes
might
not be important even if they worked.
Snowden says he
would
return to the US for a fair trial, in which the jury can judge
whether what he did was good or bad for his country.
Stop
Engaging with Online Trolls altogether, Public Figures Say.
As my experience shows, sometimes a
troll storm does not depend on
publicity from the victim.
Some parts of President Clinton's 1994 crime bill
caused
an enormous increase in imprisonment in the US. Now some
presidential candidates propose to reverse that.
(satire) New Pop-Up National Park Offers
500
Square Feet Of Pristine Wilderness For Next 2 Days.
Middle East drones signal
end
to era of fast jet air supremacy.
Now many countries can attack in ways that are hard for anyone to stop.
$1m a minute: the farming subsidies
destroying the world.
They promote resource exhaustion and greenhouse gas emissions.
On 18th Anniversary of 9/11, Bernie Sanders Calls for
End
to Endless War.
Russia Has ‘Oligarchs,’
the
US Has ‘Businessmen’.
Dunkirk has
made the bus system gratis, and some people are giving up
their cars.
Someone in the Sackler family
moved
a billion dollars to offshore bank
accounts, then brought the money back to the US to invest. The
investments are apparently not traceable to the Sacklers.
The usual motive for this is tax evasion. What we really need are
laws that make this sort of tax evasion fail to work — for instance,
to require information about who owns investments in the US.
To the MIT community,
I am resigning effective immediately from my position in CSAIL at
MIT.
I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of
misunderstandings and mischaracterizations.
Richard Stallman
2/3
of Americans now say defending the climate is urgent.
Now if only we can overcome
Republican
electoral cheating and translate that into votes.
Ironically, the US fights wars to preserve access to fossil fuels,
which it burns copiously and that
creates
more occasions for wars.
Italy has started
permitting
entry of refugees rescued at sea.
The UK is
sliding
into the politics of unabashed dishonesty, following Russia,
Australia, and the US.
An abortion doctor who recently died is being vilified by some for
violating a recently passed Indiana law
requiring
fetuses to be buried as if they were people that had died.
I don't think he did anything wrong by violating that law. For one
thing, we must suspect it was intended to lead people to condemn
abortion for irrational reasons.
I do think the clinic should have followed more carefully the other
laws, which are precautions for patients' safety.
A region of Australia is
close
to running out of water completely.
I hope climate activists are working to inform the people there
of how Australia's planet-roasting government is responsible.
Republicans "won" the 9th Congressional District of North Carolina by
cheating — they
removed
over 100,000 mostly-Democratic voters from the voting list based
on vague suspicions they might have voted in another state as well.
The margin of the supposed Republican victory was only 4,000.
It is almost certain that the "victory" was due to cheating.
It is not illegal, or even suspect, to be registered to vote in two
states. That is what normally happens when you move to another state
and register there. Voters are not asked to tell the previous city,
"I have moved away", the requirement is not to vote there.
However, many of the voters who were removed were not really
registered in another state. The other registration had a name that
was similar but different. Republicans do not fall into voter
suppression by accident. These schemes are carefully planned,
and
occasionally
politicians are heard admitting this. They push as far as they
think they can get away with.
In addition to arms-limitation treaties, Bolton
has
destroyed the National Security Council which used to consider
issues including arms-limitation treaties.
India is building prisons for the
roughly
2 million people in Assam that couldn't prove they are Indian
citizens. The construction workers expect to be imprisoned there
when they finish.
Merely being born in India is not enough — they have to prove
things that their ancestors in 1971 qualified. In many cases there
are no records.
Compostable plastic and biodegradable plastic
require
a specially designed composting or biodegrading system. Using
them now, in the absence of such a system, could encourage people to
throw them into the wild.
Ralph Nader: Avalanche-Level Liar Trump Learned
Art of Deception From the Pros: US Corporations.
Biden is pushing even harder his
falsifications to justify his voting for attacking Iraq.
Gamers in general feel manipulated by loot boxes.
When
Belgium banned them entirely, the users were glad.
Let's ban them everywhere.
Note: I reject all these games for another reason: they are nonfree software.
Buying on-line not only mistreats you (with nonfree client code and
making a dossier of your purchases),
it
also has brought about the loss of many jobs. In the UK, 75,000 jobs have been lost this way.
An
oil refinery in Salafi Arabia has been set on fire by a drone attack.
It couldn't have happened to a more deserving country.
If the inflow of petroleum can be cut off, the fire itself should
not last long. I hope so. Then refinery will be out of service. That
will reduce the supply of oil and gasoline. That would be an opportunity
for conservation, but I think the planet-roasters will try to make
it an excuse to build more fossil-fuel facilities elsewhere.
Arab members of Israel's parliament face the
constant
threat of expulsion for opposing the majority (as they were elected to do).
Israeli thugs in an Arab area of East Jerusalem practice
continual
violent harassment on any excuse. Sometimes the violence is deadly.
The
"two-state solution can be achieved through a confederation,"
proposes the "A Land For ALL" movement.
Bernie Sanders says DMVs
should
stop profiting from drivers’ personal data.
White nationalism and crony capitalism
are
the sparks that started fires in the Amazon.
Activists follow
the money fueling Amazon fires.
(satire) … longtime Sleepytime Tea addict Katie Ball
divulged
Tuesday that she must consume six bags of the sedative brew in order to merely feel drowsy.
(satire) …former conversion therapy practitioner McKrae Game
apologized
Friday for the harm his work has caused and offered to electrocute
his past patients into being gay again.
One important method of voter suppression is closing polling places.
Over a thousand
have
been closed since 2014.
Texas officials want to execute Rodney Reed and
disregard
the evidence that
argues he is innocent.
Charities' mission should include advocating for governments to help the poor better, not merely
give
some of the help the government fails to give.
The scapegoater's border wall is being built through a nature reserve,
which will involve bulldozing parts of it and
do
ecological harm to the endangered wildlife it is supposed to protect.
Whole Foods to cut
health-care benefits for 1,900 part-time employees starting next year.
Public schools in Kentucky now
openly
endorse religion.
Austin, Texas, has
made funds available for women to travel out of state
to get an abortion.
The House of Representatives voted to
protect
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
It will not be easy to prevail over the sabotage-minded Senate. But
it is better to try than not try.
Studying Germany's effort to learn to
reject
the ideas of its Nazi past.
Scientists
report that dipping chickens in bleach does not kill
all the dangerous bacteria. Some of them convert into spores,
which are hard to detect without special tests, so the chicken
appears safer but isn't.
California is adopting a
ban
on face recognition in thugs' body cameras.
It is a significant first step in making body cameras do good and
not harm, but much more is needed. If the system saves the video when
there is no specific justification to do so, it becomes a system to
surveil people's houses at will. I recommend an automatic system that
can determine when to save the footage.
I want to respond to the misleading media coverage of messages I
posted about Marvin Minsky's association with Jeffrey Epstein. The
coverage totally mischaracterised my statements.
Headlines say that I defended Epstein. Nothing could be further from
the truth. I've called him a "serial rapist", and said he deserved to
be imprisoned. But many people now believe I defended him — and
other inaccurate claims — and feel a real hurt because of what
they believe I said.
I'm sorry for that hurt. I wish I could have prevented the
misunderstanding.
"Israel should receive precisely the same response as Russia got."
Naomi
Klein talks about Greta Thunberg and the do-or-die mission of climate defense.
The bully's
various measures to block refugees from Central America
can be a
death sentence.
(satire) Matthew McConaughey was reportedly
forced
to apply for food stamps Thursday after his first month working as an adjunct professor.
Why
I'm Currently Blocking the Largest Oil Export Channel in the U.S.
Climate change will
create 1.5 billion migrants by 2050 and we have no idea where they'll go.
As these people desperately try to flee, tens of millions of them will
be trafficked. (Maybe hundreds of millions.) They will accept "job
offers" in other regions or countries which will turn out to be
slavery. They may even do so knowingly, since the alternative would
be a substantial chance of death.
Major contributors to global heating,
such as David Koch and Stephen
Schwarzman, will through their intentional acts of destruction be
predictably responsible for a fraction of this result. That fraction,
for each one, will amount to thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands,
of people enslaved.
I think that MIT should reconsider whether to have institutions named
after those people.
I don't think MIT is obligated to return or give away the money they
donated. Rather, it should spend the money doing something good.
(The introduction to Major Barbara explains the reasoning of the
Salvation Army on this question; I found it convincing.) What is
clearly wrong is to give those donors something — favorable publicity,
or access to people — in exchange.
California has
banned private prisons.
California had already moved most of the prisoners out of them
as preparation for closing them.
The bill covers deportation prisons.
Twitter has
blocked Raúl Castro's account.
If it can do that, it can block the bullshitter's account too.
The saboteur in chief
has
finished cancelling Obama's rule to protect wetlands and streams.
Dolphins in the English Channel have
high
levels of persistent toxins
in their blood. We do not know whether this is causing tangible harm.
Some airport terminals in India
are
imposing face recognition on every
passenger.
They say that the biometrics will be stored only temporarily,
and deleted after the flight departs, but we can hardly trust that
it doesn't send a copy to a government agency in the mean time.
Indeed, I can't see why they would bother implementing this (since the
existing system works) if it isn't the basis for some other snooping.
The UK barred
a journalist from covering an arms sale fair. Political bias is suspected.
"My son is one of Kashmir’s ‘disappeared’. When will India tell the truth
about their fate?" He was disappeared in 1991 and his mother
has
had no news of him since.
"West Africa and Congo basin are hotspots for forest loss but receive
lower global attention [that the Amazon]."
(satire) Trump Under Fire For
Forcing
Astronauts To Stay In Irish Trump Hotel
While On Specialized Space Mission.
Kamala Harris declines
to support a ban on use of face recognition by the government.
Instead she supports "regulation" that would make little practical difference.
The bully wants
to monitor everyone in the US diagnosed with mental
illness (almost 100 million) in a vain effort to detect the few who
will commit massacres.
It won't have much of the intended effect, but it is a great excuse
for extending repression. Many of your friends and colleagues have a
mental illness, but you don't know how numerous they are because they
don't let on.
With increased inequality of wealth, the US suffers increased
inequality in life expectancy.
Poor
people die younger.
If Britain leaves the EU, the EU laws that guarantee many human rights
will
cease to apply there.
The article lists a few specific areas, but the problem is not limited
to those. Many other human rights would also become vulnerable.
Healthcare ad spending exceeds $65 million in 2019 as insurance industry
ramps
up effort to kill Medicare for All.
Now that the bully
has cut support for housing and made more people
homeless, he proposes to "fix" what he intentionally broke by
exacerbating
repression against homeless people on the street.
We can take action against homelessness nationwide with laws that make
it unprofitable to use real estate as a meaningless asset. The only
way to profit from it should be by renting it out — and corporations
should be discouraged from being the owners.
California's landmark bill giving gig workers the rights of employees
causes problems
in
a few edge cases. For example, for writers of a weekly column.
Would a weekly columnist really be required to become a "full time"
employee? That implicit claim seems fishy: surely this law does
not put an end to part-time jobs.
Overall, this bill is a great step forward. It means that Uber will
have to mistreat its employees less. But it won't stop mistreating
the customer. If you value your freedom and anonymity, please join
me in refusing to surrender them to Uber.
B'liar's partial privatization of the NHS brought about huge debts
which
are now starving it of funds.
The
US Supreme Court ruled that the bully can deny asylum to everyone
from Central America that passes through Mexico.
This policy would be reasonable if Mexico were a safe place.
Some microplastics in soil can cause earthworms
to
lose weight.
The article doesn't say what level of microplastic content was used in
the experiment, but if we keep dumping microplastics into the
environment we are likely to surpass that level sooner or later.
Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex
between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it.
Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand
how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my
mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am
grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.
Journalist Erick Kabendera, political prisoner in Tanzania, is
likely
to be in prison for five years before a trial on dubious charges.
Israel
planted
stingrays near the White House to spy on the officials, perhaps
including the conman.
Media
Worry
About 'Premature' End to Afghan War.
Florida's Governor Scott
rejected
federal funds for preventing and treating AIDS.
Now Bolsonaro's son has
indicated
support for overthrowing the Brazilian government. This follows
Bolsonaro's endorsement of the military coup in Chile. Bolosonaro
ought to be impeached for that, but his party protects him in
Congress.
Even though Bolton has been fired, the danger of war he worked to
create lives on, and
he
will seek opportunities to make more.
Congress called The 3M Company, the Chemours Company and DuPont to
testify
about their responsibility for PFAS and their toxic effects.
Explaining section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which
protects
all internet sites from liability for whatever users post.
Every reduction in this protection leads to a massive increase in
censorship.
A court
ruled
that Parliament should reconvene despite the orders of Bogus
Johnson.
The UK Supreme Court will have the final say.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to pass stricter gun control.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone:
call on
big US banks to stop financing fossil fuels.
Warning to investors:
investing
in fossil fuels could leave you broke.
If you sign, please spread the word!
A courageous gynaecologist
fights
both the antiabortion movement and medical quackery (fantasies of
"wellness"), and notes that the two are converging in the language
they use.
The saboteur of commerce, Wilbur Ross,
threatened
to fire the staff of the NOAA if they did not legitimize the
bullshitter's error about the likely trajectory of the hurricane.
They obeyed him.
They should have summoned the courage to refuse. The NOAA's chief
scientist
has
rebuked them.
Avoiding the worst effects of global heating (including the consequent
extreme weather)
will
cost trillions of dollars.
However, preventing even worse
global heating must take priority.
Since we are almost too late to avoid disaster, we must go all out in
trying to avoid it. It is a mistake to treat the steadily increasing
symptoms at the expense of effort to prevent the disease from getting
worse.
Europe's Marine Sanctuaries Are
No
More Than 'Paper Parks'.
Boeing, the result of merger of all US companies that made large
jetliners, has become
primarily
a political machine and only secondarily a builder of machines.
"A company once run by engineers is now in the thrall of financiers
and its stock remains high even as its planes fall from the sky."
The benefit of a free market comes from competition. When Reagan
gutted the laws meant to maintain lots of competition, this benefit
started to evaporate, not just in making jetliners but all across the
economy.
One neighborhood in Kashmir has
forced
out the Indian repression forces, using barricades and throwing
stones.
The Indian forces attack with tear gas, sometimes fired at people not
involved in fighting.
Study: The Only Place On Earth More Surveilled Than London Is …
China.
(To what extent China is Communist is a difficult question, and not
relevant anyway. What matters is that China is repressive.)
The spawning of coral in the Red Sea is
disrupted.
If the coral animals of a species do not try to mate at the same time,
they will not reproduce.
A heatwave in the ocean off the US west coast
threatens
a giant toxic algal bloom.
Summer Heatwaves in France
Killed
1,500, Says Health Minister.
After the 2003 heat wave, France took precautions to prevent heat
waves from killing people. For the latest heat wave to have killed
almost the same number, despite the precautions, it must have been
considerably stronger.
The bullshitter said he was about to have a secret meeting in the US
with Taliban negotiators, and
cancelled
it because they carried out a bomb attack in Afghanistan. (No
cease-fire had been agreed.)
Lots of politicians criticized him for this, al everyone assuming he
was telling the truth about what he had done. I wouldn't believe, on
his say-so, that he had cancelled a meeting, or that there ever was a
plan for a meeting.
Then the Taliban
affirmed
that the bullshitter cancelled a meeting with them. Amazing
— he told the truth about this!
I don't agree with the critics that there is anything wrong in
inviting Taliban negotiators to meet with US representatives, whether
in the US, or anywhere else. I am surprised though that they trusted
him enough to say they would come.
The bullshitter's approach to diplomacy is to posture as tough by
canceling meetings on whatever excuse comes to hand. I don't see
anything inherently wrong with that maneuver, but I doubt it pressures
other countries' negotiators as he thinks it does. I expect they see
through it.
That being so, if it creates a problem in negotiations, at least it
won't be permanent.
The Tories are rationing medical treatments, and visits to
specialists,
in
order to give the wealthy a new tax cut.
Factory farms in Brittany are
causing
deadly toxic algae to bloom in sea.
A president who
terrifies officials that correct his mistakes
is unbearable for officials that retain a shred of honesty.
Bogus Johnson wants to make the main UK government web portal
collect
personal information.
Does it permit access via Tor? With JS disabled?
The bullshitter
has
fired his hawkish advisor, John Bolton.
This is surely a change for the better. But it was the bullshitter
that
was responsible for following Bolton's advice.
A
study of the collapse of World Trade Center 7 concludes it could not
be due to fire set by the fires in the larger buildings.
I am not competent to evaluate the investigation reported here. In
particular, I can't judge whether it is more scientific than other
investigations. I can only say that the official explanation of the
collapse has always struck me as fishy.
The US is going to demand immigrants
give
their user names on many social networking sites.
If the US looked only at public postings on these sites, perhaps that would
be acceptable. But we now see that the US examines messages sent to
the immigrant from others, and will bar people for that.
Media Lab Director Joi Ito confessed that he had secretly
accepted
donations from Epstein after MIT had decided not to do so.
He also accepted funds for some personal activities of his own.
That dishonesty, and conflict of interest, make his resignation
obligatory.
But I fear for the effect on the Media Lab. Under Negroponte, the
lab was notoriously stingy and proprietary. Ito corrected that.
I fear that the next director will undo some of Ito's changes.
Maria Isabel Bueso's medical condition has no cure, but can be treated
in the US. The deportation thugs
told
her to leave the US within 33 days.
That period is now almost up.
Evelyn Hernández was acquitted of "murdering" a stillborn fetus,
but the prosecutors
are
going to appeal.
Allowing an appeal of an acquittal means that even once you are acquitted
you remain in jeopardy. This should not be allowed.
Drug prohibition has had a racist tinge since 1857.
Its repression still falls mostly
on
the poor and disprivileged.
I cheer consumers that are willing to pay 25% more for fair trade
cocaine, but I think it will be unnecessary — a decrease in
repression would cut the price by far more than that. Legalizing
sales only through a regulated market might open the door for fair
trade initiatives, as well as make drugs' strength and composition
predictable (thus avoiding most of the deaths) and discouraging some
new users.
Mexico has
been rather effective serving as the first barrier for the
US against refugees from central America.
Agriculture depends on phosphate mined from rocks, and if the demand
keeps accelerating we could
run
out by 2040.
If we cut down on beef production, we could eliminate a substantial fraction
of the world's agriculture, and maybe have enough phosphate for a century.
During that time we could arrange to recycle it.
Avoiding global heating disaster requires
defeating
the fossil fuel companies, which want to keep expanding production.
It would be nice if there were a way to finesse this, but I think that
is impossible. The companies won't accept a compromise in which their
business shrinks to zero, and we won't be safe with anything less. We
have known for some years that there is no room in the carbon budget
for any new fossil fuel facilities.
51 years later, relatives of those who died on flight AF1611
want
France to reveal the facts about the crash. Due to the secrecy, they
believe it was shot down by a missile from a French ship.
When the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner by mistake, the
US eventually admitted it. France should likewise admit its mistake
and publish the information that has been secret.
Efforts to train flight attendants to recognize children that are
being trafficked lead to
false
accusations against parents travelling with adopted children whose skin color is different.
People who are being trafficked do travel on commercial airlines.
(How else would they travel?) I'm in favor of efforts to detect and
stop trafficking, in principle, but they must reduce the consequences
of a false positive or they will do more harm than good.
Corbyn promises a new ministry in charge of
enforcing
workers' rights.
Of all the kinds of illegal actions of businesses, the ones that most
need to be enforced directly by the state are those that mistreat
workers and customers. If they have to launch proceedings on their
own, nasty employers can make that very unlikely for workers that are
paid little.
NOx emissions from diesel cars
rise
20% or more on hot days.
Climate crisis is
greatest
ever threat to human rights, UN warns.
The perverse reinterpretation of US antitrust law, starting in the
1970s, allows
big businesses to merge with little restraint, while targeting unions.
It was proposed and pushed by Robert Bork, but judges adopted it.
"Our investigation found Amazon escapes responsibility for its role in deaths
and serious injuries even though the company keeps a tight grip on how
third-party delivery drivers do their jobs."
Australia's right-wing government seeks to extend its contempt for
human rights to the field of surveillance. Even the inadequate
protection of requiring consent for redistributing personal data
will
be eliminated from the proposed law.
"Climate minimizers"
don't
deny we are heading for disaster, but consistently downplay its magnitude.
They harm on the cost of avoiding the disaster
and never compare that with the disaster itself.
India's cruel government says it will expel everyone in Assam
that
has been unable to prove Indian ancestry.
Since Bangladesh won't let them in, India will have to bribe some
country to take them all. Perhaps Papua New Guinea will take them.
But India might find it easier to make their lives so difficult that
most of them die.
With 70% of Americans supporting Medicare for All, you'd expect
Democrats in Congress to rush to endorse it — but in fact
we
need to pressure them to do so.
(satire) Kim Kardashian
tried
to escape in a rowboat after discovering
that her whole life had been a scripted TV program.
The 2017 Republican tax cuts enabled more companies to do business in
the US and pay
no income tax.
Taking the UK out of the EU would be an
opportunity
for neoliberals to make every aspect of Britain cruel — if
they are in charge.
The International Organization for Migration has
started
censoring its communication to avoid mentioning climate mayhem,
ceding to US pressure.
You don't need any Iranian ancestry to be jailed in Iran as a pawn.
Even
tourists are in danger.
Hong Kong Journalists Warn of
Rising
Police Violence Against Them.
Indian troops killed a teenager in Kashmir, then
claimed
he was killed by the nonexistent stone-thrower.
Others have been killed as well, but under military occupation it is
hard to find out how many.
Malaysia is
wiping
out its indigenous peoples — cutting down their jungle
homes, giving them unsafe water, and making them die of unknown
diseases they had no immunity for.
This is, I suppose, to bully
them into becoming Muslims. Malaysia
officially rejects freedom in the domain of religion.
Seven countries which include parts of the Amazon forest have
agreed
to steps to protect it. Paradoxically, Brazil is one of them.
Money From Arms Sales (for attacking Yemen)
Dwarfs
Aid for Yemen.
Fat-Shaming Is Just the Start.
Seek
Fault in Kids' Books And It'll Never End.
Australia's government is demonstrating its cruelty by
deporting
New Zealanders that have lived there for decades, if they were
sentenced to prison.
Australia is not finding many refugees to deport, but its government
depends on scapegoating someone.
It's not yet spring, but northern Australia is
suffering
from dangerous wildfires.
An investigating hacker
has
cracked Moscow's internet voting system.
Voting over the internet is an absurd idea. In the case of Moscow, it hardly
matters since those elections
are
rigged anyway.
China announced
it would limit face recognition in schools.
This
is the practice that the new plan would restrict.
Bizarrely, this means China is ahead of the US on one aspect of
anonymity protection.
DMVs in States around the US are
taking
drivers' personal information and selling it to thousands of businesses.
Even worse, they are making the info available to other government
agencies that persecute people for reasons unrelated to driving.
When officials spit on scientific knowledge and invite disaster,
scientists must not limit themselves to developing more scientific
knowledge for officials to ignore. They need to
join
in protests
demanding officials heed science.
Europe is tasting
the beginnings of climate catastrophe that will reduce food production as it kills forests.
(satire) … members of the Liberty University board told
reporters Monday they were concerned investigations into Jerry Falwell
Jr.’s corruption risked undermining the college’s core mission of
subjugating
women and gay people.
(satire) MIT Media Lab
Agrees
to Return All of Jeffrey Epstein's Donated Girls.
The rogue, Bogus Johnson, has pro-rogued Parliament, but Parliament
had made it
illegal
for him to take the UK out of the EU without an agreed-on deal.
"Conservatives are more open to leftwing arguments when they come from
people who don't
pretend
to be perfectly objective."
This makes sense, because that pretense is dishonest; people who sense
a hint of it are likely to distrust the speaker.
Lack of water is causing
collapse
of the ecosystems in Australia's largest river.
The lack is partly due to taking too much for irrigation, and
partly due to global heating.
Short-termist governments have
encouraged both problems at once.
Document Reveals The FBI Is Tracking Border Protest Groups
As
Extremist Organizations.
Even nonprofit charter schools
offer
opportunities for corrupt profit.
Australia's late-spring wildfires are
spreading
faster than anyone recalls seeing there.
Trumpets
seek
to raise 2 million dollars to fund fishing expeditions to find
accusations to make against reporters that publish bad news about
right-wingers.
Many US states
exclude
ex-cons from nearly all good jobs. The result appears to be to
drive them back to crime.
(satire) … the nation’s bison hosted an opulent gala fundraiser
Friday in an
effort
to convince the 2020 Democratic candidates to support the
environment.
Republicans are
looking
for a hidden way to cut social security benefits, because they
don't dare admit that is their goal.
The giant planet-roaster companies
have
not slowed their construction of fossil fuel facilities.
Biggest Fossil Fuel Extractors Warned They Risk
Wasting
$2.2tn "in a Low-Carbon World."
That is to say, the money they put into planet-roasting facilities may
win them no profit if governments wake up and prohibit or prevent
actually using it for unlimited extraction.
Even worse, they might succeed in preventing governments from shutting
off the extraction and the greenhouse gas emission. Eventually
civilization will start teetering and their profits will not be worth
very much.
A proposed AI doomsday machine
would
not even appear necessary if the conman hadn't rejected arms
limitation.
Of all the ways to avoid a nuclear first strike attack, arms control
treaties are the best. They reduce the danger of accidental nuclear
war as well as intentional nuclear war. And they save a lot of money,
too.
Buying a loot box in a computer game is effectively
a
form of gambling, and gambling companies advertise in the games
which sell loot boxes.
The article may be is using some specific legal definition of
"gambling", which excludes loot boxes. I don't see any reason to
allow governments to legislate for me what the word "gambling" means.
What governments can legislate is what kinds of gambling to allow.
Loot boxes don't make games more fun, only more exploitative.
So let's prohibit them.
Bangladesh has
cut
off phone service in Rohingya refugee camps.
Since India is getting away with doing
this
(and more) as part of its military occupation of Kashmir, other
countries will soon conclude they can get away with doing similar
things to other persecuted groups.
US citizens: call on
Big Pharma to make insulin affordable, as it used to be.
If you sign, please spread the word!
China uses pandas as instruments of international public relations.
Now Germans are turning that around by calling two newborn pandas
"Hong"
and "Kong".
To maintain its monopoly on pandas, China only leases them, never
selling them, and the lease says that all offspring belong to China.
But this is no reason for Germans to call the pandas by the names that
China says are "official".
One small but significant way to push back on China is by not making
any particular fuss about pandas.
Austrians have made the right to pay
cash an
election issue.
Please help do this where you live.
A 20% levy on cakes and sweets would be more effective than taxing
sugary drinks, suggests
a study
by nutritionists.
Indonesia plans
to prosecute
a prominent human rights lawyer for spreading disagreement with
the official line.
Following the bully,
Indonesia describes this dissent as "fake news".
I've warned for years that laws against "fake news" are an excuse to
prosecute whoever disagrees with the lies of tyrants.
The American Left's 2020 Mission: Not Just Defeat [the conman]
— But
Change The World.
Michael Mann: Global Heating Made Hurricane Dorian Bigger, Wetter —
And
More Deadly.
Netanyahu
said he
would claim to annex the territory of Israel's colonies.
The conman will surely say that the US "recognizes" the annexation.
The next president should recognize Palestine as sovereign over the
West Bank.
US congresscritters' staff went on a tour which included
an Israeli
right-wing extremist who endorsed assassination of the last
Israeli prime minister that was serious about making peace.
The CIA makes Abu
Dhabi a
blind-spot (surely under orders from above) as it intervenes in
various other countries.
"Discover, identify and interfere":
the MUROS
surveillance vans.
One use of these is to watch and listen to everyone at a protest or
demonstration.
We can't expect billionaires to donate to preserve the Amazon forest;
many of them are profiting from destroying it. In effect, Bolsonaro
is working
with and for them.
This article goes too far in treating the Amazon forest solely as the
property of the indigenous people that live in it, and hyping their
authority. If they decided to sell their land, or accept royalties
from farmers, that would not make it acceptable to cut the forest
down. The reasons not to allow this are global.
Calling it "the lungs of the Earth" is basically correct (even though
a little exaggerated, since the rest of the Earth's forest share in
the role). The extinction of perhaps half a million species (counting
microbes) that live only there would be a disaster even if the forest
had no human inhabitants. The
global heating effects would also be
disaster.
US citizens:
call on the
Department of Agriculture not to allow logging in the Tongass
National Forest.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone:
call on the
Suwannee River Water Management District not to let Nestle
overdrain the Santa Fe river.
If you live in a place where the public water supply is potable, you
can also help by avoiding bottled water. When I travel I carry a
refillable water bottle, and I rarely use bottled water except
where it is medically necessary.
If you sign, please spread the word!
"Boris Johnson is using the act of leaving the EU as a vehicle for his
goal —
showing
the impotence of his adversaries." And that of Parliament. In
effect, he is declaring himself autocrat and defying anyone in Britain
to prove him wrong. Even though Parliament is fighting back, he could
build support for brushing away democracy.
The UK's democracy has grave problems. As in most countries,
plutocrats have too much power and subvert the state to their
interests. However, the remedy must be more democracy, not less.
The AFL-CIO is supporting an Oregon ballot initiative to
limit
the number of robot cash registers a store can operate.
I support this initiative but I'd rather set the limit at zero
and extend it to other kinds of stores.
Many people's lives have become so full of small required tasks that
they
can't
keep up with all of them.
The Internet of Stings
has stung users of a proprietary program for
adjusting a certain telescopic rifle sight. The US has
demanded
the list of all the 10,000 or more people who have downloaded the
app.
The investigation aims at possible illegal export of the telescopic
sight. The goal seems valid to me, but seizing data about over 10,000
people to investigate the crimes of a few of them should not be
allowed.
If the program had been free software, the issue would not even arise.
Thus, one of the forms of surveillance attached to many proprietary
programs is keeping track of who uses it.
The University of Alabama squeezed out a dean because he had
criticized
US thugs and the American flag for their association (over time)
with racism.
The flag of the US stands for the country. I love my country but
recognize that it kept blacks in slavery for a long time. So even
though I would not draw the overall conclusion about the US and its
flag that Dean Riley drew, I can't fault his criticism.
I also agree with the article's disapproval of "cancel culture".
A bipartisan group in Congress
aim
to deny funds for US military intervention in Yemen.
Greta Thunberg refuses to be lionized. What counts, she says, is that
we all
push
for defense of the climate.
If the ice caps melt, they will release so much methane that it
could
cause a lot worse heating.
(satire) unconscious Amazon warehouse employee Anthony Cargill, 41,
was reportedly chastised Monday for
failing
to file a time-off request.
South Africa has a
high
rate of murders of women.
The Republican Party rigs its own primary elections, too, by
cancelling
them entirely.
Bolsonaro
overtly
endorsed the bloody military coup in Chile.
He has kept company with supporters of Brazil's military government,
but this is more explicit.
"Neoliberal economists present themselves as ‘neutral’ technocrats,
but they’re actually
partisans
for the status quo [and for inequality]. Don’t fall for it."
The Democratic National Committee stubbornly
refused
to allow candidates to debate each other about climate policy. It
refused to sponsor such a debate, and insisting it would exclude any
candidates that participated in an unofficial debate.
This illustrates the plutocratic domination of the Democratic Party
structure, which we can also see in the
blacklisting
of consultants that work for primary challengers.
Most Democratic candidates have
pledged
to cancel the permit for the Keystone XL planet-roaster pipeline.
One, however, is Biden his time, or perhaps under pressure from rich
fossil fools that support him.
Proposing a
European
Green New Deal, including an Environmental Justice Commission for
compensating colonized countries for the harm done by extraction
there, and prosecuting ecocide.
How Medicare for All will avoid the
imaginary
problems that for-profit medical insurance lobbyists warn us
about.
AOC: the conman's real purpose is looting the treasury, but he
uses
racism to disguise it. (To his followers, racism looks better
than looting.) We need to attack the cynical racism to expose the
sincere looting.
Two New York City thugs received a shockingly light sentence for
having
sex with a handcuffed prisoner.
A prisoner literally cannot refuse, so that was rape.
Bolsonaro has declared his hatred for Brazil's indigenous peoples.
Evidently he wants to burn them out of their homes. People in Brazil
and elsewhere are
organizing
to fight this.
Accusing Google search ads of being a
shakedown
for businesses.
The
campaign
to legalize dumpster diving in Germany.
US citizens:
call
on Germany to make the European Investment Bank get out of fossil
fuels.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens:
call
on Congress to stop HHS from spending medical funds on Obria and
other anti-birth control, anti-abortion fake clinics.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Call
on Congress to cut funding for ICE and CBP and put a stop to the
agencies' backdoor money grabs.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Monsanto and John Deere
want
to scan the production of each spot in a farm and analyze how to use
it.
The farmer should be able to do this using free software on per own
computer.
Prison thugs in Florida attacked prisoner Cheryl Weimer and
broke
her neck. She is now permanently paralyzed.
The motive for the attack is that she complained that her work was
causing her pain due to a physical ailment.
Sanders
urged
all candidates to join him in supporting a complete ban on
fracking.
New York City thugs are carrying out a slowdown strike.
Interestingly,
crime
has gone down.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to hold companies accountable for selling PFAS
chemicals and concealing the danger of them.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Experts Want to
Give
Control of America's Nuclear Missiles to AI.
This is called a "doomsday machine." See the movie, Dr Strangelove,
for what that could do.
The
Secret
to Democrats Winning the Midwest: Fight Big Agriculture.
Global Food Producers
'Failing
to Face Up to Role' in Climate Crisis.
The military occupation of Kashmir has now lasted
30
days.
We cannot believe anything that the Indian government says about what
is happening there. Perhaps five civilians have been killed. but it
could be 500 or 50,000.
Facebook to
Redirect
Anti-Vaccine Searches to Public Health Pages.
Iran is
still
holding the British oil tanker that it seized in apparent
retaliation for the Iranian tanker that the UK had seized.
This does not seem justified to me, nor an effective way to push back
against the US tactics.
Germany has
announced
a ban on glyphosate.
Modelling suggests that European agriculture will
lose
around 15% of its yield by 2050.
It is probably similar for the US.
US workers now have as much assets, on the average, as they had in
2007. But still
30%
less than in 2003.
(satire) Inclusive New Texas Bill Prevents Gun Sellers From
Discriminating On
Basis Of Background Check.
Warren's climate plan doesn't recognize the need to
cut
down on fossil
fuel extraction everywhere — not merely on public land.
An infra-red photon doesn't discriminate between CO2 molecules that
came from fuel mined on public land, and molecules from fuel mined on
private land.
Should
We Feed Hungry Children, or the War Machine?
Plutocratist legislators choose the latter because arms manufacturers
spend more on lobbying than poor people.
The Walton Family Plot to
Privatize
the Public Schools of Arkansas.
"If Biden is serious about taking on the power of the fossil fuel
lobby, why is he
going
to a fundraiser hosted by the co-founder of a
natural gas company?"
Biden may not have known Goldman founded a fossil fuel company,
but he knows Goldman is rich. Biden is too friendly with
plutocrats to be any use in taking their power away.
A federal court ruled that putting US citizens on the "terrorist watch list"
violates
their constitutional rights.
Bravo! But we have to see whether this leads to a real change.
And it is unfair to foreigners, too.
Comparing Biden, Sanders and Warren
in
regard to
global heating.
Each one made a valid point, but Biden's point is useless without the
other points. The only way the US can get other countries to do more to
curb global heating is by doing more itself.
If AI leads to an effective lie detector, those that have
dangerous
power already will leverage it to get more power.
San Francisco's city council voted to designate the National Rifle Association
as a "terrorist
organization".
The NRA uses disinformation tactics to promote sales of guns, and supports
candidates that are right-wing extremists (Republicans).
That is
harmful, but it is not terrorism.
It is wrong for any government (or the UN) to arbitrarily attach the
label of "terrorist" to an organization. Such designation is
legitimate only as the result of a fair trial.
The US intervention in Somalia against al-Shabaab cannot succeed, because it
doesn't
recognize the role that al-Shabaab plays in life in Somalia.
The article omits to mention that the US is responsible for the very
existence of al-Shabaab. The Islamic courts movement had taken
control of Somalia had established peace. Peace with incomplete
respect for human rights, to be sure — Islamists oppose some aspects
of human rights — but peace with incomplete human rights was a big
step up from faction war with incomplete human rights.
Then Ethiopia intervened, clearly as a US proxy, to destroy the
Islamic courts government. One part of it, no longer in power, was
al-Shabaab.
Erdoğan demands western help in setting up a
"safe
zone" in Turkey for
refugees to return to.
In principle, this is reasonable. But neither Assad nor the Syrian
Islamists would run a zone that is safe for Syrians in general. The
Idlib domain of the Islamists is
not
safe for transgender Syrians.
Bogus Johnson told his aides weeks ago that he planned to prorogue
Parliament (and effectively rule without Parliament), even as he
continued to say publicly
he
had no such intention.
A prisoner in Virginia was kept in solitary confinement for almost 2
years, and
it made him severely mentally ill. For instance, he can no
longer communicate in English, only mutter unintelligibly. And he
cannot recognize his mother any more.
This makes me think of the terribly sad ending of the great movie,
Brazil.
The nastiest part is the fact that prisoners in solitary in Virginia
that can't communicate in written English can never get out of
solitary. What kind of fool cannot recognize the injustice of this?
Young Chinese are
posting
lots of messages to attack Hong Kong
protesters and sentimentally support mindless loyalty to their
mind-controlling government.
Thoroughly credulous teenager volunteers work along with paid
propagandists. They are organized into groups and follow government
orders; they simply are not paid.
They can be compared with the credulous Americans who thought that
Dubya
did Iraq a favor by hijacking the US military to conquer and
occupy that country.
The conman has much in common with Britain's conman (Bogus Johnson),
but one difference is that Bogus couldn't intimidate the
whole Tory
party into supporting him.
Carrie
Lam has finally declared the extradition bill dead,
demonstrating that this was not impossible.
The protesters, meanwhile,
have added democratic elections to their demands, as well as release
of the political prisoners jailed over the months of protests.
Italy has a new coalition government
which
excludes the bullying-based
League party.
Salivini
is no longer a minister, so he won't be able to recruit support
by public displays of cruelty.
Ploy 17 in the plutocratic repertoire: after taking lots of money
away from the poor,
offer
a much smaller increment in aid so as to
look like "compassionate conservatives".
Proposed Tory tax cuts (not for the poor) would force
even
bigger cuts
in support for the poor.
As always, right-wing tax cuts are dooH niboR.
Officer Mcgruff says,
"Never talk to the cops."
The inspector general’s office in the Department of Health and Human
Services reports that some refugee children separated from their parents
suffer
from PTSD.
Sexual violence is rife in Samoa —
60%
of women say they have been victims. It is part of a society of
male domination.
Many Samoan women are
raped
and then compelled to marry the rapist. Men rape women
specifically for that purpose.
Hurricane Dorian is devastating the Bahamas. Its winds were stronger
than in other hurricanes. No one could get around, not even
ambulances. Some houses were flooded up to the second story by the
ocean.
Global heating
will bring us even stronger hurricanes in the future if
we allow the plutocrats to keep it going.
The Netherlands is a tax haven, and
companies
including Uber are taking advantage of it.
Rather than convincing tax havens to change their laws, I think other
countries should cancel the deductability of payments to businesses in
those countries.
Proposing that the UK should
let
citizens write a new constitution, as Iceland did.
Bogus Johnson appears to be
lying
about negotiations with the EU in order to manipulate domestic
politics.
I think it would be wiser for the EU to cancel discussions with Bogus
so that he can't pretend he is on the verge of making a deal.
Artificial creation of a memory has been
done
in a lab in transgenic mice.
Although it is several big steps from there to mind control of humans,
it is not too early to think about where we need to stop this. And it
is certainly not too early to think about establishing democratic
control over the state, which is what we would need in order to stop
this at any future point.
"Activists plan
to release drones near [Heathrow] airport. Their possible arrest
is a small price to pay for fighting the climate crisis."
Amazon has tripled its income tax payments in the UK, from just barely
more than nothing
to little
more than nothing.
5
Biggest Corporate Lies About Unions.
Public
pressure eliminated use of face recognition on cameras in a retail
area in London.
Carrie Lam, who heads Hong Kong's government, was recorded telling
Hong Kong business owners
that she
wished she could quit but China was somehow stopping her. She
also told them they could not expect China to send its army in as a
"solution" to the inconvenience of protests.
Of course she could quit. She could flee to the US and ask for asylum.
Her whole family could go.
For a government to have a "CEO" is despicable in itself, but that
accurately describes the despicable governmental system of Hong Kong.
Interacting with wild animals, even coming close to them, can cause
them stress that injures them. But tourists now do
this seeking
an appealing photo.
Camden, New Jersey,
is trying
to organize a police department in place of the thug department it
used to have.
Cops are now trained in many ways to deal with problems without force.
Sometimes the British NHS treats nonviolent Extinction Rebellion protesters
as
if they were terrorists.
Many state schools in England are driving families into penury by
demanding students
wear expensive
customized uniforms.
I can think of two ways parents can work together to resist this swindle:
Why your free software project should
be independent
of GitHub.
A UN investigation is identifying war criminals in Yemen. There are
some
on all sides.
Elites are golfing
as
global heating effects destroy and kill. How much destruction and
death will it take before they stop?
"Enid
Blyton had racist views. But I still read her."
I agree that we would be fools to "cancel" writings from the past over
prejudice in them. Readers who understand what prejudice is will be
able to note it and criticize it as they read.
However, young or naive readers may simply accept it as normal, and
that is what we would want to prevent. Perhaps it would be good to
publish these works with a preface that points out the prejudice
mentioning a few instances and challenges the reader to spot other
instances.
Indirect evidence suggests that social media were
responsible
for a big increase in anxiety and depression in US college
students, around 2012.
Ring does not support face recognition …
yet.
If that rebuke is addressed to the plutocrats, the ones that Bolsonaro
and the bullshitter serve, it is valid. It doesn't seem fair when
addressed to me. I supported Lula; I still do. It is bad to lose a
crucial battle, but that's not the same as being on the wrong side.
Some cities are setting up
infrastructure
to help sex workers' safety and quality of life.
What remains to be done is find an effective way to free trafficked
workers (whether in sex work or some other kind of work).
Georgia Republicans are harassing their opponents with
subpoenas
based on no grounds.
The Republican Party stands for "power by hook or by crook."
Greta Thunberg says that
her
form of Asperger's syndrome makes her stronger.
Her rebuke makes Andrew Bolt look very small-minded and foolish.
However, his mockery may be effective with the right-wing audience he
hopes to influence. They often judge people by condemning those who
disrespect authority or seem somehow not to be as people "should" be.
Pointing out these things about Thunberg might reduce her influence
and that may be all he cares about.
As has happened many times before, a teenager in the US has been
convicted
of sending someone a nude photo of perself.
It should never be a crime to send a nude photo of yourself, not for
anyone of whatever age.
It could make sense to prohibit persuading a minor to send a nude
photo of perself, and redistributing one without permission.
The
Democratic
presidential race is heading towards Sanders vs Warren.
The article's title is misleading: Sanders is not "fighting" Warren
and neither is Warren "fighting" Sanders. I am very glad to see the
way that they compete but refuse to be enemies.
I would be terribly disappointed if one of them drops out and does
anything other than endorse the other.
Reportedly the al-Hawl refugee camp, set up for people who fled
PISSI,
has been
infiltrated
by PISSI supporters who now control it. The Kurdish soldiers
meant to prevent this are outnumbered.
(satire) … horrified warehouse worker Paul Diaz awoke from
heavily medicated sleep Friday to find Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
welding
robotic limbs onto the stumps where his arms once were.
Calls to End Inhumane Border Conditions Aren't Enough. ICE (the
deportation thugs)
Must
Be Abolished.
The International Criminal Court tried to investigate some US war
crimes in Afghanistan. The US
created
obstacles which made the investigation impossible.
One more victory for crime.
Climate defense activists
plan
to shut down transportation in Washington DC.
The danger is enormous, and such annoying protests may be the only way
to make plutocratist officials allow actions to change course.
A voter made a video showing a voting machine
altering
the vote person had entered.
The cruel bastard shifted funds from disaster aid to
fund
imprisonment of more refugees.
This way he can cause suffering for potentially everyone located in
the US whether citizens or not.
Stiglitz: even supposing that CEOs have good will when they say that
income for stockholders is not the highest value, we
can't
count on them to change in practice.
Thugs entered a home without a warrant and
one
started choking a teenager who had properly refused to open the
door. The thug
desisted after being informed he was on candid camera.
A lawsuit is not enough to redress this act of violence. It calls for
criminal prosecution.
Independent analysis of independently collected data says that
Uber
and Lyft keep 10% more of the customer's payment than they claim to
keep.
The companies say that is false but refuse to cooperate with trying to
verify it.
More about
brain-reading
software and freedom.
Brain reading is more intimate than sex. I think that "affirmative
consent for each step" is a little too strict for sex, but maybe it is
the right standard for neurotech.
DeVos's latest attack on students: if they were defrauded by schools,
they
must
still repay the loans that went to pay those schools.
PISSI has not been wiped out. It now
operates
as an underground terror group.
Jane Fonda describes knocking on doors and conversing with voters that
supported the conman — to
listen
and make a connection.
I think it is a good thing to do if your talents lean towards that.
Big Ag Is a
Major
Obstacle to Combating the Climate Crisis.
Jeremy Corbyn talks about
plans
to take back control of the UK from Bogus Johnson.
An important Massachusetts high school exam asked students to portray
the viewpoint of a white woman refusing to help a runaway slave. Some
black students were
so
upset by this that they did badly on the rest of the exam from that
point.
The ability to present viewpoints you disagree with, even strongly
oppose, requires empathy. Practising that must be a useful exercise;
I think I could have learned a lot if I had practiced it more. But we
shouldn't ask students to start that exercize in the middle of a
high-stakes exam. If each student does dozens of such exercizes, over
a period of a few months, with no special pressure, the student may
become comfortable with portraying attitudes that disgust per.
A study found that
12%
of pro football players developed cognitive problems in their 30s and
40s, in contrast to 2% of the general public.
Let's put an end to professional football. There are lots of
less-dangerous sports that people could obsess over, if they want to
obsess over a sport.
The bully is
considering
ordering another tax cut, mainly for the rich.
Non-rich Americans would get some benefit when they sell their houses,
but they don't do this very often and the benefit would be small by
comparison. What non-rich Americans need more is the government
spending that would be cut in order to avoid the deficit that this tax
cut will cause.
It adds up to dooH niboR.
Technology for deducing thoughts from observations of the brain is
still in its infancy, but it is
not
too early to discuss legal limits for it.
The right number 1 in this article, "to freely decide you want to use
a given neurotechnology or to refuse it," is obviously insufficient.
You have the right to decide whether an insurance company can track
your car's movements with a GPS box, but many people can't afford the
extra cost of insurance without tracking. You have the right to work
without a LinkedIn account, but many jobs will pass you by if you
don't.
We need a stronger version of that right, one which will stop
anyone from pressuring you to say yes.
A foreign mining company wants to open a gold mine that
could
poison Armenia's water supply. Protesters have blocked the mine,
but the company threatened to use
business-supremacy treaties to sue
the country if the government does not attack the protesters.
The government of Armenia
should pull out of those
treaties and negotiate new treaties without ISDS ("I Sue
Democratic States").
Companies that make exploitative "investment" deals with a corrupt,
nondemocratic government deserve to lose the investment. That will
teach them not to make exploitative deals with a corrupt,
nondemocratic government.
Protests against fracking have been
effectively
banned in Britain. The protesters have lost the legal support
from Friends of the Earth because the organization can't afford the
risk of being made to pay the frackers' legal bills.
The frackers can make that prohibitively expensive just by spending a
lot.
Kashmiris report
beatings
and torture by the Indian army of occupation.
Since India is responsible for the lack of communications in Kashmir
and the lack of official responses, we must presume these accusations
are valid.
A homeless musician in LA was
murdered
while he slept. Someone set his tent on fire.
No word yet on the motive for this killing, but it illustrates the
fact that being homeless puts a person in many kinds of danger, not
least
destruction
of one's meager property by official cruelty.
Washington, DC, is
worse
than all 50 states in regard to poverty for children.
The bully's trade war with China
ricochets
and hits the Amazon forest.
This is a peculiar result, and I don't think it is a valid argument
for "free trade" (that is, for
business-supremacy treaties).
The British constitution, which consists mostly of traditions, has
proved
unable
to stand up to the dishonesty-without-bounds of Bogus Johnson, who
wields the Queen's authority, never mind that he isn't nominally a
monarch.
It is not clear that a European-style president and written
constitution would keep Britain safe. That did not keep Hungary and
Poland safe. Likewise, the cheater
is attacking the weaknesses of the
written US constitution.
President Clinton
accepted
responsibility for contributing to massive imprisonment in the US.
I think he is mistaken in claiming that his law was an important
factor in reducing crime. The crime rate fell in the 1990s because of
factors such as removing lead from gasoline in the late 70s.
Installing
red streetlights so bats can cross the road.
Bogus Johnson has
arranged
to shut down Parliament after just one week, to prevent it from
doing anything to alter his plan to take the UK out of the EU without
any trade deal. Since most MPs are against this, they are trying to
pass a law within that one week.
Meanwhile, Bogus is trying to present himself as the people's hero for
defeating Parliament. Right-wing authoritarians operate by
scapegoating and condemning democratic institutions. Bogus has found
a way to combine the two by making Parliament his scapegoat.
California Senator Pan, a pediatrician by profession, is pushing to
make vaccination requirements strict. An anti-vaxxer
attacked
him on the street.
The US has set a standard for use of air conditioning that
won't
fit its carbon budget, and the rest of the world is copying it.
The oil price shock of the 1970s made air conditioning (and buildings
designed to require it) a public concern. But that did not lead to
much change in construction practices.
Back then, I slept in a room without air conditioning. In periods of
hot weather, it was too hot for me to sleep, even with a window fan
and a fan blowing at me. I wish now that I knew what the temperature
was in my room, but I did not get a thermometer because knowing
then would have made no difference.
Leaked UN Draft Report Warns Rising, Warming Oceans
'Poised
to Unleash Misery' Worldwide.
Koch money failed to convince Phoenix voters to put an end to
construction
of light rail in that city.
Supermarkets [in the UK] Misleading Shoppers with
False
Savings.
The enemies of human civilization will soon be delighted that they
can
cut down the Tongass National Forest.
How Technology is
Hijacking
Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist.
I find it regrettable that the article talks of "consuming" whatever
you see on a web site.
The Environmental Pollution Agency
plans
to cancel the regulations that require fossil fuel extractors to limit
methane leaks.
Bolivia's president Morales is accused of
letting
business cut down part of the Amazon forest, and holding back on
fighting the fires.
Protecting ocean ecosystems is
linked
with curbing global heating.
Five prisoners in Guantanamo are
supposed
to have a trial soon. It is a special "military tribunal"
designed not to properly respect the rights of the accused.
Guantanamo prison now requires journalists to be accompanied all the
time and to submit their articles to
military
censorship.
The movement for independence of western Papua
has
come out in the open, very strong.
United Electrical Becomes
First
US Industrial Union to Endorse Green New Deal and Global Climate
Strike.
This union also supports Sanders for president.
Explaining the
fallacies
in arguments for choosing a plutocratist Democrat.
The Worker's Friend? Here’s How Trump Has
Waged
His War on Workers.
The bully's immigration prisons
refused
Congress access to inspect them.
Destruction
of satellites in war could bring on the "Kessler syndrome"
depicted in the film Gravity, making all space travel impossible.
This problem
has
already started, and it is getting worse, but very slowly. There
are efforts to design a system to clean up the debris.
When I saw the film Gravity, all I felt at the end was sadness for
this great loss. The survival of one astronaut made hardly any
difference relative to that.
"A sustainable environment means
consuming
less, not differently. With retail therapy losing its appeal,
that should be easy."
Oxfam Urges Shoppers
Not
to Buy New Clothes for a Month.
It should be easy. In most months, I don't buy any article of
clothing.
India has
declared
2 million residents of Assam to be non-citizens, supposedly
Bangladeshis though India made no effort to verify that.
The aim, I believe, is to kick out Muslims by labeling them as
foreigners, but some Hindus were thus designated also. Court cases
were decided in such a sloppy fashion you'd think it was Alabama.
In principle these people could be deported, but in practice
Bangladesh will not accept them. With the cruelty of the BJP, they
could be imprisoned until dead, or made into a caste of enslaved
workers.
Phone systems
don't
always track phone location data correctly. Errors can lead to
false criminal convictions.
In principle, they can also lead to false acquittals.
The crucial point about these errors is that they aren't enough
to make phone location tracking safe for society.
Workers in the sweatshop service economy are
inventing
ways to organize and even strike.
Gaming the system can get you something, but real victory comes only
when you make the system change. Unions, when they were strong,
achieved that by means of contracts with the company. These forms of
resistance rarely reach that point. They need support from the state.
To put an end to this oppression of workers, vote for Sanders and
Corbyn.
In Tucson summer, the heat and humidity are not quite at the
automatically fatal point, but they come near that point. This
can
kill people who are old or who are working vigorously outside.
A just international order
should
stop and punish ecocide as well as genocide.
It will be hard to get plutocratist governments to do this.
They are on the side of destruction.
DEA agents
regularly
intimidate people into allowing their luggage to be searched, and
hardly anyone dares to stand on per rights not to be searched.
They make use of the passenger name records to find and intimidate
individual suspects.
Sometimes they
steal
people's money on mere suspicion.
A Teachable Moment:
Educators
Must Join Students in Demanding Climate Justice.
To Rescue Democracy, We Must Revive The
Reforms
Of The Progressive Era (1900-1910). And more.
Various governments are
twisting
the 80-year commemorations of World War II events to their various
political ends.
The assassin who killed an exiled Chechen rebel in Germany last week
was apparently
sent
by the Russian military.
Extreme weather has
destroyed
12% of France's wine production this year.
Governments have focused on fossil fuel income and disregarded the
loss of other income that fossil fuels increasingly cause.
Colorado could elect a progressive Democrat as senator, but
the
Democratic establishment is supporting plutocratist Hickenlooper.
(satire) Widespread human-caused fires … revealed a small tribe
of
isolated
rich sociopaths who are completely untouched by consequence,
…
"Decimate" is an interesting word because it means to take or destroy
one tenth of something. If what you mean is not about one tenth, why
not say simply "destroy", "ravage" or "ruin"?
When mainstream media present unusually hot weather as enjoyable, they
are
lulling
you to ignore a fever.
The bully shows total contempt for law by
telling
officials to break laws to build a border wall, and he will pardon
whatever crimes they may commit in the process.
By January, I wonder, will he pardon murders?
US citizens:
call
on your congresscritter to cosponsor the Pregnant Workers Fairness
Act.
If you sign, please spread the word!
New York City raised the minimum wage for restaurant workers, and
right-wingers said this would cause restaurants to fail — but
they are
doing
very well.
Salvini used his coalition partner, the Five-Star Party, to seize
opportunities to show off his cruelty and recruit support based on
cruelty. Recently he decided it was time to dump the partner and have
another election, after which he hoped for absolute control. However,
the
other parties put together a coalition and there will probably not
be an election.
He remains dangerous, but at least he won't be able to look so tough.
Side-view mirrors on cars
may
be replaced by cameras.
If the cameras were used only to show the driver the view, at the
moment, I wouldn't object. But if they record, they are a
surveillance threat.
I propose a law that cameras installed in a car by the manufacturer
must be designed not to record or transmit the video anywhere. No
exceptions.
The ring door spy camera system has
"partnewships"
with 400 thug departments.
A US border thug has pled guilty for
violently
attacking a border crosser.
Being punched in the face is not part of the legal treatment
of unauthorized immigrants.
Politics-As-Usual Can't Fix the Climate Crisis. Maybe It's Time to
Try a
Citizens'
Assembly.
India: 10 Men Sentenced to
Life
[imprisonment] for Killing of Dalit Christian (for trying to marry
the sister of one of them).
Cathay Pacific Airlines
fired
two employees under orders from China.
Britain's anti-smoking policies are effective: cigarette use has
fallen
by 25% since 2011.
Some fraction of them will have been replaced by e-cigarettes, but
those are surely not as dangerous as ordinary cigarettes.
New York's governor, a rather right-wing Democrat, is
blocking
the creation of safe injection places for addicts to use.
The policy of criminalizing opioid addicts, rather than helping them,
is a considerable part of the cause of deaths.
As Papua New Guinea prepares to allow its imprisoned refugees (which
it has held on behalf of Australia) move to the capital city, it has
also
stopped
providing them food and money to live on.
Providence, RI, has attracted kids to parks by giving them
opportunities
for unsupervised play.
The bully
has made the Federal Election Commission completely inactive
by not appointing members; now it
does
not have a quorum.
Republicans had already made the FEC nearly useless by
appointing
partisan cheaters who would never enforce complaints against
Republicans. It's one of many ways in which Republicans try to
steal elections. The bully didn't really win the 2016 election
— he
got
the last few necessary electoral votes by cheating in a few
states.
Atlanta has convicted a thug for a
violent
attack on a criminal who was surrendering with his hands up.
Bravo! We need to prosecute thugs who commit gross violence
and not only when it is fatal.
Even better, the other cops who were present acted like police
officers, not like thugs.
US
citizens: call
on the Department of Justice to Block the CBS-Viacom merger.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone: call
on BlackRock to stop financing deforestation of the Amazon region.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Bogus Johnson wants to knock Parliament for a loop so he can impose a
neoliberal fate on
Britain, lying
all the way.
Parliament will have one week to stop him.
The
United Flooded States of America organizes Americans whose homes
have been flooded for collective action, such as demanding aid for
moving to higher ground.
The GDPR may be developing some teeth: a school in
Sweden has
been fined for using face recognition to take attendance.
Global heating
will threaten Hajj pilgrims by making Mecca so hot that
just being there can cause heat stress. This may happen occasionally
as
soon as next year.
Will this be enough to sway the heart of
Salafi Arabia's acting king,
and the other Muslim countries that sell fossil fuels?
China is arresting prominent supporters of democracy in Hong Kong,
hoping that the protests will collapse without them — but the
protests have no organizers,
and they
continue anyway.
Joshua Wong (one of
them) Predicted
Hong Kong Crackdown in Interview Before Arrest.
Prisoners in the US now use prepaid purchasing cards as a form of
cash. They also
use various
commodities as money.
Some refugees from India are on hunger strike in US immigration
prisons. Several
are being
force-fed, which violates their right to refuse medical treatment.
One of them is in danger of being killed by incompetent medical care.
The Taliban and PISSI
are killing
human rights activists in Afghanistan, and the US-supported
government doesn't care about them.
Businesses promote "green" initiatives
that make
only a tiny difference but may save them money.
If the hotel room is 75 F, I will need a powerful fan in order to
sleep.
Use of leather
is directly
pushing the destruction of the Amazon forest. Apparently the
production of beef doesn't produce enough leather as a byproduct.
Many US schools require students to
lock
their phones into a pouch during the school day.
This seems to be a good thing, as far as I can tell from the article,
but it doesn't do the whole job. It ought to block the phone's radio
reception and transmission, so that the phone can't track the
students' movements in school. It should also block sound; otherwise
any phone can keep listening to the whole class, if its software has
been remotely modified to do that.
One of the ways Israel inflicts suffering on Palestinians in Gaza is
by
limiting electricity
there. Israel just cut it in half.
US citizens:
call on the
Senate to reject Steven Menashi as a federal judge.
US citizens:
call on
Congress to pass the No President is Above the Law Act, so
presidents that are criminals can be prosecuted after they leave
office.
US citizens:
call
on the Senate to Oppose Hyten's confirmation.
US citizens:
call
on Congress and states to end the copays for medical care in
prison.
The Palestinian farmers of Beit Ummar face continual violent attacks
from the nearby Israeli colonies. They are
organizing
nonviolent resistance.
This is
part
of a general plan to force Palestinians out and annex the land.
Sanders and Warren advocate
pushing
Israel and Palestine towards a two-state deal.
It was
Netanyahu's
toadying to the bully that made it acceptable in mainstream US
political discourse to condemn Israel's occupation of Palestine, and
advocate using pressure to change it rather than merely begging.
The article speaks of "anti-Israel Democrats", but that is unfair.
Sanders and Warren are not against Israel, they are against Israel's
occupation of Palestine. That is also my position, and I am very glad
to support US presidential candidates who advocate it.
More on how Netanyahu was
obeying
orders from the bullshitter.
Ecuador
tried
to imprison Ricardo Patiño, one of Correa's ministers, for trying
to launch a wave of protests. He fled to Peru before the order was
made.
Sorry that I have only a reference in Spanish.
The protests were going to be
against
the IMF's "help".
Many visitors to the US report being sent back after border thugs
search their phones, reportedly
on
account of things said by people they know. Currently it seems
they are mostly Muslims, but there is no telling what group the
thugs
might target next.
Nestle wants to take
more
water from Florida's Santa Fe river than the river can sustain.
Peaceful protests like this human chain
help
to counteract the violence and cynicism shrouding the city (of
Hong Kong).
However, the spell didn't take on China's satrap for Hong Kong, Ms
Lam, who
threatens
to declare something comparable to martial law.
When a country accepts "help" from the IMF, it gets a
permanent
jolt of oligarchy and inequality. Sometimes injustice, too.
One of the bully's backers
owns
companies heavily involved in destroying the Amazon forest.
California Uber and Lyft Drivers
Rally
for Bill Granting Rights to Contract Workers.
The UK set up a media web site to lead Muslims away from extremism by
raising
other important social and political issues.
It seems like a good idea to me, but why treat it as a secret?
Is there some other side to it that we still don't know about?
The west is being destroyed, not by migrants, but by the fear of
migrants. In country after country,
the
ghosts of the fascists have rematerialised … They have
successfully convinced their populations that the greatest threat to
their nations isn’t government tyranny or inequality or climate
change, but immigration.
Sanders's
plan
to protect media from dangerous consolidation: block mergers, undo
some past consolidation, fund independent media, and limit the
dominance of Facebook and Google over media.
I'd like to see more details of how he would limit the dominance of
Facebook and Google, but in principle I'm in favor. I support the
rest of the plan, too.
This would be a candidate for using my proposed progressive tax on
business to pressure media giants to split up.
US regulations on lead in the water supply
should
be much more strict, and we should replace all the lead water
pipes.
The bully
is moving to deport children staying in the US for medical
care for cancer, cystic fibrosis, HIV, and other grave illnesses,
along with their parents. This is
likely
to kill most of those children.
Adding insult to injury (though "injury" is an understatement; they
will die if deported), deportation officials are
giving
these people confusing information.
The US border thugs cancelled freshman Ismail Ajjawi's visa
because
of things his friends said on some social media platform
(Facebook?).b
(satire) "We’ve been seeing some students wearing revealing
bulletproof vests, so I just wanted to remind all you ladies that your
kevlar
must
cover all your vital organs," …
Santa Monica
subsidizes
the rent for some of the old people who live there.
This is better than not doing so, but it has a drawback: it is a
private subsidy for landlords, and as rents increase, the subsidy will
increase too. It would be better to build public housing, which means
that the state makes the investment and gets the profit, but less
profit, because this will expand the housing supply.
California prosecutors now have
permission
to inform defense lawyers when a witness that is a thug has some
characteristic that leads to suspicion perse might give false
testimony
Meanwhile, they can teach their children how to respond with defiance
if anyone in the school sneers at them for not having the fancy
expensive school-specific uniform: "My parents are right to prioritize
things that we really need. If you want to blame someone, blame the
Tories for allowing schools to demand expensive uniforms which are a
burden on students' families. And for making so many Britons poor."
This doesn't assure that they will inform defense lawyers.
The mere fact that the witness is a thug is, in itself, reason for such suspicion. The defense lawyers already know that. Alas, most jurors won't believe it.
Mercedes puts tracking devices into its cars, and getting a car loan requires agreeing to be tracked.
In the US: call on DoorDash to stop confiscating workers' tips.
You can also ask the restaurant, before you order takeout, "Do you use DoorDash for deliveries?" If it does, say "I will order somewhere else."
If you sign, please spread the word!
Journalist Dave Lindorff has been put on an FBI-controlled list for an extra search when he boards a plane to the US. He knows this because a British official told him — the FBI won't confirm it.
Fortunately for him, his harassment is minor: the usual quick explosives test, when he flies to the US. For others, it results in substantial harassment. The fact that a journalist is on the list suggests this is all politically motivated.
Brazilian Amazon deforestation Surges to Break August Records.
Global heating will make our investments in the future crumble.
India is taking hostages in Kashmir, kidnaping people in order to exchange them for specific people that the occupying forces could not find.
The US did something similar during the occupation of Iraq.
Israel has done something similar in the occupation of Palestine.
Private companies including Uber, Airbnb and WhatsApp are building a private social credit system, in which anyone can be banned arbitrarily from the very dis-services that people say they "can't live without".
If a bar or restaurant insisted on knowing who I am before letting me in, I'd leave pre-emptively.
Google uses its dominance over browsers to defend its ad business.
This exactly what antitrust law was designed to deal with. It suggests that breaking up Google would do some good. It would not go far enough, however, because it would not put an end to surveillance capitalism.
Burner Bolsonaro rejected the 20 million dollars to help put out fires in the Amazon, not for being too little, but for being too much. (More than zero is too much.)
The latest idiotic distraction is to call this "colonialism". The Brazilian government claims the power to burn every tree in Brazil.
"We need to cancel the next G7. Let's resume them when Trump is gone."
The point of the G7 meetings is cooperation (even if only partial) among the most powerful countries. The bullshitter has no interest in that. It is useless to make a deal with him, since he may break it the next day or the next month.
He will attend the meeting only to sow discord — he is the drama queen that would be king. Why make an opportunity for him?
The Koch brothers funded organized campaigns to block construction of public transport in various cities across the US.
Less public transit means they sell more oil. In a few decades, it means a bigger disaster with a bigger chance of killing you.
Vaping's Other Problem: Are E-Cigarettes Creating a Recycling Disaster?
There is an obvious solution: impose a deposit that is high enough to discourage one-time use.
US citizens: call on Congress to support the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Act.
The article brings up race in a way that is not truly pertinent. The US society of extreme inequality dumps injustice on the poor, and due to racism and other forms of prejudice, members of disprivileged groups are more likely to be poor. Therefore, many unrelated injustices hit them harder, including the mistreatment of domestic workers.
But we don't need to refer to that to justify this bill, because it is a simple matter of right and wrong. Domestic workers deserve justice regardless of their demographics and regardless of whether they suffer from prejudice.
US citizens: call on media to cover the fires in the Amazon as much as they covered the fire in Notre Dame cathedral.
The G7 meetings have become useless, ineffective at doing pretty much anything.
The fact that the bully uses them only as opportunities to humiliate other countries' leaders is only part of the reason. But next year, when the US hosts the meeting, he will reduce it totally to a manipulatory event, once he has filled his pockets with government money by holding the meeting in his own hotel.
The term "autism" has been stretched so far that it is incoherent: to stretch from the mild abnormalities or Asperger's syndrome to mentally crippling disabilities.
It may be the case that they all result from the same biological cause — does science know? But even if so, we can distinguish them for moral, social and legal purposes.
The EU is considering a weak regulation on face recognition. All it would do is give people the right to be informed when their face was recognized — and not always even that.
This by itself would not protect society from massive surveillance, but the information obtained could aid campaigns to do that.
Bogus Johnson has openly told Parliament it has no authority over what he does.
He is trying to act the absolute monarch. The last time someone tried that, Parliament had him executed. The death penalty is wrong, but Parliament could sentence Johnson to life in prison.
Transgender passengers often find an encounter with the TSA traumatic.
Singapore will invite people to be tracked as they walk around the city by offering gratis tracking devices.
Cuba Drastically Reforms Fishing Laws to Protect Coral Reef, Sharks And Rays.
Bangladesh will stop classifying women as "virgin" or not, when they marry.
Chinese expat writer Yang Hengjun is being investigated for spying.
More precisely, with "committing espionage crimes", which could mean anything that China wants us to think of as if it were spying. Tyrannical governments often are very secretive and may consider ordinary journalism, picking up information from the public, as spying.
(satire) Obama Upholds In-Office Tradition By Releasing 2019 Summer Kill List.
Congressional Committees Must Require Voting Machine Vendors to Explain Poor Security Record & Practices.
The bully has done great harm around the world by cutting US contributions to important international aid and rights programs.
The US Forest Disservice proposes to eliminate environmental disclosure and public comment for over 90% of its decisions about permitting roads and exploitation in national forests.
It would be able to trash any amount of forest land provided it does so in medium-size chunks.
"Virtually any Democrat would be favored to beat [the current Republican senator] in Colorado, and virtually any Democrat is better than John Hickenlooper."
Comparing the US saboteur in chief with Bolsonaro in regard to attacking Earth's ecosphere.
The cruel structure of the gig economy — or service sweatshop economy — is illustrated by a British family about to become homeless, after the breadwinner died because he didn't dare skip work to see a doctor.
Macron tried to use the G7 meeting to push for relaxation with Iran.
So far there has been no visible effect, but it was worth a try.
A community college fired a professor for saying he supported Antifa.
It appears that someone claimed those views made per feel "unsafe". Such feelings are not justification for punishing anyone.
Aircraft Production Down 24% Globally after Boeing 737 Max Crashes.
Each airplane contributes greatly to global heating. If this downturn means less flying in the future, that will be a good thing. But we cannot leave that to chance — we need a tax to make sure it happens.
Facial Recognition: Ten Reasons You Should Be Worried About the Technology.
This may help you wake up some of the sheeple who think that powerful governments and companies won't ever hurt them.
US economic warfare against Venezuela has killed tens of thousands of people, though it is hard to be sure precisely who they were.
US banking and tax regulations are ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in other countries, who were born while their mothers visited the US and thus have US citizenship but were not aware of that.
The US should exempt foreign citizens who have not, in the past 10 years or since reaching adulthood, done anything to assert or acknowledge a connection to the US. However, in the mean time, other countries should protect their citizens.
How racism pervades the North Carolina courts in their application of the death penalty.
Bias in trials is always an injustice. The death penalty is also always an injustice.
Some of the G7 countries offered money to fight the Amazon fires, but it will take major policy changes to correct the problem.
Bolivia also has a problem of forest fires in its part of the Amazon forest, although its government has done nothing to encourage them.
In 2018 I thought I understood an article to say that military-style rifles make wounds that are more likely to kill or maim than ordinary hunting rifles. I posted about that, and referred back to it several times.
Later it was pointed out to me that the article was really comparing rifles to handguns.
This led me to change my conclusions, so I have changed that 2018 political note.
US citizens: call on Congress not to let Mitch McConnell block election security reform.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: oppose allowing use of algorithms to implement racial discrimination in housing.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Oil extractors want big subsidies to drill in deep waters off Australia's south coast, and risk a big spill.
There will be no risk about the contribution to global disaster, however. That will be a certainty.
Planet-roaster governments are moving towards strict repression of protests.
Growing up in Australia's Nauru immigration prison causes grave mental illness for unfortunate refugees.
Americans are putting the elk of Colorado in danger simply by visiting the wilderness so much.
David Wallace-Wells feels some hope that we will avoid global heating disaster because the American public is now very concerned about the issue.
It's just a possibility, not a sure thing,
The lead in the water supply of Newark, New Jersey, is due to corroded pipes. They need to be replaced. In the mean time, the city is providing residents with water filters.
Nauru bars the foreign press, but it has enough democracy that leading politicians can lose elections.
Plutocratist "centrist" Democrats could lose the next election. They could also kill you, some decades down the line.
"Express Vote", a system that US states are buying in 2019, has two big flaws: the ballots are marked by computer with bar codes (and the voter is required to trust that computer isn't cheating), and even so the scanner can't read them all correctly.
A court prohibited the use of Georgia's voting machines, which make no paper ballots at all.
I hope Georgia won't switch to "Express Vote".
(satire) "I don’t want to keep living in a world without David Koch," said former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, one amongst a throng of weeping Republicans including Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, and Mitt Romney…
(satire) Christmas-Obsessed Woman Worships Christ Year-Round.
The US Export-Import Bank has resumed financing increased CO2 emissions with a gas export plant in Mozambique.
Plutocratist "centrist" Democrats joined with Republicans (always plutocratists) to restart that organization.
The secondary argument that Mozambique might itself have a use for burning that gas rather than exporting it is an example of obsolete thinking. Where that gas might be burnt is a side issue; to reduce global disaster, which will fall on Mozambique along with everywhere else, we must keep fossil fuels in the ground.
Thee is some evidence that spending a lot of time watching shallow cartoons, instead of something they might draw experience from, leads people to grow up as fodder for shallow politics.
Please don't use the term "consume" for watching or reading anything, not even for silly cartoons.
Greening Your Life Is All Very Well — But Only a Global Climate Strategy Will Fix This.
Bernie Sanders’ Manhattan Project: The Game-Changing Green New Deal.
A Texas thug whose lies led to a "drug raid" that killed two innocent people in their home now faces murder changes.
The Israel Project, which did dirty tricks against US organizations that opposed Israel's treatment of Palestinians, has shut down.
The proximate cause is that it ran out of money, but I wonder whether its supporters have moved to a new organization which has not yet acquired a bad reputation.
Assad stated he intends to conquer all of Syria.
That includes Idlib, now ruled by Islamists but inhabited by millions of Syrian civilians that would not be safe in Assad's hands. It also includes Rojava.
If Rojava has no ally to rely on, it cannot resist forever.
Simon Cheng, employee of the British consulate in Hong Kong, has been released by China after being jailed with no announcement.
It is absurd to jail someone for hiring prostitutes, but when China wants to use someone as a pawn, it will make up any sort of excuse.
A meeting of the G7 ministers in Biarritz has been the occasion to impose total repression on that town.
Orange County, California, has had neo-Nazis for decades. It should be no surprise that high-school students there give Nazi salutes.
Protesters Besiege Brazilian Embassies Worldwide over Amazon Fires.
Brazilians are protesting, too.
Why politicians, regardless of party, are less interested in interviews.
US Republicans are promoting US business to invest in deforesting the Amazon.
Newark, New Jersey, has a problem with lead in the water. This should not be an excuse to take control of the city's water permanently away from the city.
(satire) Brazilian Government Equips Firefighters With Flamethrowers To Combat Massive Amazon Rainforest.
US teachers spend an average of $450 a year buying school supplies for their classes.
This reflects the extent to which US plutocracy regards most people as trash.
Sanders's plan for improving labor rights in the US.
In "me-too" frenzy, crossed signals about sex can easily be inflated into "rape". If people rush to judgment, in an informal way, that can destroy a man's career without any trial in which to clear his name.
The racist bias that presents itself as opposition to "cultural appropriation" is in danger of being extended to roles that are Jews.
I can understand the argument that actors from visually distinctive ethnic groups should be chosen for roles of those groups because they tend to be excluded from other roles. But now that so many old plays are being redone with women in male roles, why couldn't we have non-Caucasian actors in Caucasian roles too?
That issue does not apply to Jews, because Jews have not, in general, been excluded from roles that are not defined as Jewish. Nobody suggested that Zero Mostel should not play Pseudolus on the grounds that that character was a Roman.
That sort of nonsense might happen in the future if the idea that Jewish parts go with Jewish actors catches on.
The US legal system is not effective at giving everyone a fair trial. When the US gets desperate about punishing a certain group, it has a tendency to railroad some of them. Hamid Hayat was convicted falsely of being part of a "terror network" that didn't exist at all.
Glasgow University will dedicate 20 million pounds to research on development, in conjunction with a university in Jamaica, as reparations for donated money obtained from slavery.
I support reparations for slavery (and, in the US, for the century-long subsequent legal discrimination against blacks). The reparations should be designed to correct the self-perpetuating damage that is now inflicted on the descendants of those who were legally discriminated against
I don't know what would be effective at making a long-term change, but I think it needs to be done at the level of society, not just by universities.
France and Ireland are pressuring Bolsonaro to curb the burning of the Amazon forest.
The Australian government put hundreds of refugees into prison in its client state, Nauru. When they get sick, Australia wants to keep them there till they die.
Everyone: call on the UK not to extradite Julian Assange.
If you sign, please spread the word!
In the US, on Sep 20, join a climate strike action.
Everyone: call on Facebook not to help the FBI spy on people.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the deportation thugs to stop DNA testing of refugee families. It is an unjust surveillance system, and not necessary for keeping the family together.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on lawmakers to preserve the right to encryption.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Bezos got the Pentagon to give him a security clearance and an advisory appointment despite not having been investigated. Naturally he used this for Amazon sales.
A bureaucrat who pointed out the irregularity, through channels, and was punished for doing so.
The government should never trust businesses to run its computer systems.
Turkey is forcing Syrian refugees back to Syria — even queer Syrians who could be murdered when sent back to Idlib, ruled by Islamist rebels.
I wonder if they would be any safer in Assad's territory.
The Department of Justice sent email to immigration judges with links to white nationalist web sites.
Comedian Samantha Kureya, who satirizes the tyrannical Zimbabwean regime, was grabbed by armed men, beaten, and made to drink sewage (dangerous to health).
Adding insult to injury, they also stripped her.
Bogus Johnson and his pro-rogue supporters keep lying to the British about imaginary concessions that the EU will supposedly offer, any day now.
I think I know what Bogus Johnson intends: to get the UK out of the EU through any lies necessary, so as to force it into a much worse set of business-supremacy treaties with predatory governments such as the US and China.
One of the Koch brothers will no longer harm the world.
Those who inherit his wealth might be just as bad, or might be better.
Amazon Rainforest Fires: Global Leaders Urged to Divert Brazil from 'Suicide' Path.
Kashmiris tried to organize a mass protest in Srinagar, so Indian soldiers clamped down completely.
Monsanto lobbied Congress to pressure regulatory agencies to go easy on Roundup. When the International Agency for Research on Cancer declined to do so, Monsanto organized a campaign to cut its funding.
A real solution to America's gun violence problem goes beyond regulations on buying guns. We need to have a lot fewer guns, and more control over where they are.
Michael Moore, in Bowling for Columbine, reported that Canada has strict safety regulations on handling a gun when taking it out of the house. That might be a good idea.
Analyzing the graph structure of hate networks suggests methods of weakening them.
US citizens: call on BlackRock to stop financing destruction of the Amazon forest.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call your congresscritter and say, no additional funds for the deportation thugs and their concentration camps.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Indonesia says that its colony in New Guinea has "returned to normal", but "no internet connection" isn't normal there.
Alaska used to be cold. There, as in many other places, global heating has caused a permanent change in life. Global heating denial must give way to global heating Denali.
The Democratic National Committee didn't approve a climate debate, but did decide to let candidates join to hold other non-DNC debates.
(satire) The US deportation thugs are opening an interdimensional immigration prison so they can store any number of prisoners. It will also have the capability to drop prisoners into a black hole.
Stock buybacks enabled CEOs and large stockholders to screw the rest of the world.
Google is using its monopoly power to drive searchers to Google disservices. Less than half of Google searches result in a visit to a non-Google site.
I can't access Google search: I browse through Tor, with LibreJS blocking nontrivial nonfree Javascript code, and google.com blocks such access. I find that unfortunate, because sometimes Google searches used to find interesting things I did not find in duckduckgo.com/html. But I won't accept either of those two tracking mechanisms, so bye bye Google search.
DRM is still evil, and the DMCA is still unjust.
More about the injustice of Digital Restrictions Management.
Nowadays, a cable box is malware in more than one way. It still does DRM, but nowadays it snoops on people too. I refuse to tolerate this injustice, so I do not have a cable box.
Blacks and indigenous Americans often have informal title to their land, and this has been used in the US to alienate their land. Senator Warren has proposed a plan to help them formally clarify the title.
Sanders dares to say that the rich people of the US have been fighting, and winning, a class war.
The "Blame the Poor" Playbook — Used by Republicans and Democrats Alike ‐ Is Back With a Vengeance.
[The bully's] Re-election Strategy: Pit Us Against Each Other. Specifically, teach the almost-poor to resent the meager help that poor people receive.
The fact that rich people don't pay their fair share of taxes has pushed a lot of the burden onto the not-yet-poor.
Melbourne, Australia, is losing valuable water each year by cutting down mature trees — because the young trees that replace them soak up more water.
Iran has jailed another Iranian citizen who works for the UK government.
I feel for Tyson, and for Amiri; but when he demands that the British government do something to free Amiri, he mistakes the UK for the great power that it once was. Bogus Johnson tried demanding that Iran free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and Iran responded with "You can't make me, nyah nyah!"
Her husband also wants to meet with officials to demand they "do something" more. But that would be futile again.
Imprisoning people as pawns is cruel and unjust, when Iran does it and when China does it. But there is nothing the UK can do to prevent it.
The only way the UK government could help free Amiri is with quiet, slow diplomacy. But first the UK should stop supporting the conman's plans for war with Iran.
Epstein made a new will two days before his suicide. It seems designed to prevent his victims from getting damages from him.
Planned Parenthood's decision to refuse to parrot antiabortionists' lies was the only moral choice, and the only honorable choice.
Americans that oppose abortion rights tend to be against women's rights and women's equality in general.
Their obsession about the "life" of a fetus was a rationalization.
It has become so hot in the UK that a cycad can reproduce there.
Algeria is still stuck between the democracy protesters and the military government.
Hunting intrusive pythons is becoming a passionate hobby for some in Florida.
It behooves us to think of protecting the Everglades from being inundated, too.
Science has not detected any medical effects on humans of microplastics in water.
Use of e-cigarettes does not lead Americans to smoke. On the contrary, a lot fewer Americans smoke now than in 2002.
16 million Americans will be directed to vote in 2020 with no paper ballot. This is fundamentally untrustworthy.
The bully says he will keep refugee minors and families in prison with no time limit.
When Antifa demands government censorship of right-wing extremists, it goes too far.
We all depend on the freedom to state our political views. We who oppose right-wing extremists must fight against government censorship, because if government censorship is allowed, we will be the first to be stopped from speaking.
US citizens: call on the Senate to eliminate the domestic and global abortion gag rules.
If you sign, please spread the word!
The Israeli Army destroyed a water tank used by Palestinians in the Jordan Valley for irrigation. Israel is trying to chase them out, so it never gives permission to build anything, not even a water tank. This policy made the water tank "unauthorized", which was an excuse to destroy it.
The village where Rashida Tlaib's grandmother lives has lost a large part of its land due to Israeli confiscation.
Microsoft recorded users of Xboxes and had human workers listen to the recordings.
Morally I see no difference between having human workers listen and having speech-recognition systems listen. Both intrude on privacy.
A hundred years ago, there were anarchist societies on Earth, places where there was no state, no government. But that did not in all cases mean that everyone was equal. In some peoples in Melanesia, the men who were most politically adroit gained a kind of political power by drawing other men into client relationships with them. Those who had many clients were called "big men", and sometimes they would lead their clients to fight the clients of other big men.
The fighting continued until European colonial states made them stop. "Big men" continued to exist, but they were limited to peaceful means in their competition for power.
I feel an attraction to anarchy, but I do not endorse anarchism because there are many jobs we need the state to do.
A message of hope: Australians could yet succeed in stopping their government from wiping out Tuvalu and then Australia.
If peaceful means do not succeed in preventing the murder of billions, violent means will be justified. Given that Australia's present course of action will predictably kill tens of millions of people (that would be Australia's share of the billions), destroying Australia's fossil fuel facilities should be legally justified under the principle of necessity (to prevent a worse crime).
Since the operation of Australia's fossil fuel facilities and shipping will contribute to making many lands uninhabitable, including Tuvalu, they are in effect weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps Tuvalu should declare war on Australia and send commandos to destroy those facilities and sink the coal ships.
The bully said he wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark. When Denmark refused to sell, he cancelled a coming trip there, as punishment to Denmark.
I suppose Danes feel relieved rather than punished.
This is not the first time the US demanded to buy another country's territory. In 1845 the US asked to buy a part of Mexico. When Mexico refused, the US Army fought its way to Mexico City and occupied it until Mexico's government agreed to the sale. Henry David Thoreau famously went to jail rather than pay tax for that war of aggression.
The treaty promised that Mexicans in the transferred territory could keep speaking Spanish.
As Assad's forces slowly recapture Idlib province, the millions of Syrians that fled there fear being murdered by them.
Assad and Russia have systematically bombarded medical facilities there.
It appears that Turkey tried to reinforce Khan Sheikhoun a week ago, and was stopped by air attacks.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the rebel forces in Idlib, which have Turkey's support, are the Islamist militants that used to control most of Syria and used to confiscate the arms and supplies that the US provided to non-Islamist militants.
The bully wants to keep immigrant minors and families in prison without limits, perhaps for years.
The bully accused American Jews of "disloyalty" — disloyalty to what, one wonders — for being loyal Americans and voting for the Democrats who (more or less) support their views of what is good for the US, instead of supporting his right-wing extremist flunky, Netanyahu.
I think his aim is to build up the irrational anti-semitism which is one of the bases of his support, and an illogical reason is as effective as a logical one.
Australia is following the example of the US, in deporting people to places where they have not been since infancy, don't know anyone, and don't speak the language.
Maduro has been talking with the US government about stepping down as president of Venezuela.
The hard question is, how to find a replacement that won't sell the whole country to Venezuelan and American oligarchs.
Six would-be mass shooters have been arrested in the US in just two weeks.
Although these people appear feckless, I think they posed somewhat of a real threat -- more so than the Walter Mitty-ish would-be Islamist terrorists that the FBI used to arrest. Here is why.
Those people dreamed of making a bomb, but would never have been in a position to make one without help from FBI "informants" — thus, they were not really capable of hurting anyone. In addition, sometimes those "informants" persuaded people who were reluctant to get involved at all.
It appears that these people wanted to use guns, which maybe they could have obtained, and they announced the plans on their own.
China says it makes two commitments: to healthy life and the wild, and to economic growth, In practice, the latter takes priority. Neither China nor the US can easily escape from the trap of extreme capitalism.
Ranchers are burning down large parts of the Amazon forest, deforesting it in the way that contributes the most possible to global heating.
A UK mining company used an ISDS treaty to force Armenia to allow a gold mine that threatens the country's main water supply: Lake Sevan.
Armenia is rather arid to begin with.
ISDS stands for "I Sue Democratic States", and it is one of the ways business subjugate the governments that are supposed to be democratic.
Canadian election officials say that advertisements talking about the danger of global heating are illegal because of denialist politicians.
American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a planet roaster lobbying group, has got 9 US states to pass laws to imprison pipeline protesters.
A class-action lawsuit accuses US deportation prisons of failing to provide basic medical care, and sometimes even food.
US children and teenagers today are more often depressed, more often anxious, and more often suicidal. It may be because their lives are regimented and isolated all the time, like living in a reeducation camp.
The US has already tested a missile banned by the 1987 intermediate-range missile treaty which the numskull just cancelled.
Spain is sending a ship to take the refugees off the Open Arms rescue ship that Salvini forced to stay at sea.
Growing Up in Air-Polluted Areas Linked to Mental Health Issues. These include depression and schizophrenia.
"Carbon offsetting" sounds simple, but planting a tree is not guaranteed to sequester carbon later. That will happen only if the tree grows large. But it might die instead.
The tree might be cut down. It might burn in a wildfire. It might die because the region becomes arid. It might be killed by a tropical parasite that moves into the area because it is hotter.
The Moscow city government will allow internet voting, and the system is easy to crack. That election will be garbage.
China has jailed an employee of the UK consulate in Hong Kong, and is holding him incommunicado.
It is not safe to visit China. You could be used as a pawn to punish your country.
How climate mayhem will directly affect US cities.
This does not include the indirect effects of climate mayhem elsewhere, such as crop failures and expensive food.
US oil and gas extraction is expected to increase 25% in the next decade. That would guarantee global disaster, if it happens.
The saboteur of the interior is pushing a pipeline project he was employed not long ago to lobby for.
Ring Creates Insecurity for All, Including for Owners Whose Life Details Are [handed to the state and the thugs].
Firing of [thug] Who Put Eric Garner in Chokehold is Just First Step to Justice.
Nigeria seems to have eliminated polio. The last case was in 2016.
That leaves only Afghanistan and Pakistan, which suffer from the Islamist form of anti-vaxx superstition.
Queensland, in Australia, is strengthening the repression of protesters in response to Extinction Rebellion.
The cruel and callous variant of capitalism in the US, and the tight control and regimentation of workers, can be traced to the system of slavery.
Vanuatu, which will host next year's Pacific Islands Forum, calls on Australia not to be a climate obstructionist as it was this year.
(satire) Experts Confirm Doritos Bag Developed Bright, Distinctive Coloring To Warn Potential Predators That It Could Kill Them.
The campaign to ban killer robots is being held back by the US, Russia, and some other less powerful countries.
Voting machines still in use in US elections are vulnerable to cracking.
A couple of snoopphones on the table can figure out what someone is typing on a keyboard on that table.
Reducing the high rents in the cities where the jobs will require eliminating the zoning rules and laws that limit housing construction.
The people who want low density are getting it at the expense of the poor.
Israel's refusal to admit Reps. Tlaib and Omar has made it acceptable in the US to talk about cutting US donations to Israel.
I hope that this enables the US to press to shut down the Israeli colonies in Palestine (specifically, in the West Bank) and hand them over to Palestine.
Now that nearly the whole Republican Party has stretched its moral standards to accept the conman, there is little chance any of them will pay a political penalty for doing so.
Many large US corporations have officially rejected the evil principle of "shareholders above all else in the world."
Arguably, what they do in practice isn't maximizing the return to shareholders, but maximizing the CEOs' pay. Nonetheless, the rejection of that supposed obligation will be of help politically.
Appeals Court Upholds Ruling That Children Held at [US] Border Must Have Adequate Food, Bedding, Sanitation.
US citizens: call on Congress to eliminate the bail system.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the bully not to impose internet censorship.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Wayfair to stop supplying immigration prisons.
If you sign, please spread the word!
California Is Headed Toward a Titanic Battle Over Raising Property Taxes (for commercial real estate only, not for homes).
I'm in favor of this, but I suggest also establishing a progressive tax rate for property taxes. There is no reason to limit the tax rate on mansions to the same percentage as the tax rate on ordinary homes.
Art Spiegelman wanted to compare the Red Skull, Captain America's enemy decades ago, to the Orange Skull that threatens America today, in his introduction to a book about the first decade of Marvel Comics. But the chairman of Marvel is a big supporter of the conman, and demanded Spiegelman remove it. So Spiegelman published his introduction elsewhere.
Arguing for allowing people to vote starting at age 16.
The last 120 remaining refugees dumped by Australia on Manus Island will be permitted to move to the capital of Papua New Guinea.
In a city they may have a better chance to fit in and avoid being noticed in unpleasant ways.
Here's why it is so hard for the US to end the wars that it can't win: because fools say we owe it to the soldiers that died to keep sending more soldiers to die.
We did not know in 2001 how the war in Afghanistan would turn out. Perhaps the US could have achieved a better outcome if Dubya had not conquered and occupied Iraq. But now we know that continuing the war achieves nothing except to kill more Afghans and more Americans. It behooves us to stop.
Then the Taliban can fight PISSI.
Assad's forces and Russian forces are bombing Idlib into rubble, advancing in a wave behind which is a desert. No civilians wait to be captured.
California has made it easier to prosecute killer thugs. Now they need a reasonable basis to feel threatened — just claiming to have felt threatened is not enough.
New York City has fired the thug that put Eric Garner in a choke-hold and thus killed him.
It should not have taken years to do this.
Salvini is keeping a hundred refugees, rescued at sea, bottled up for weeks on a ship where they have no room to walk.
None of the refugees would stay in Italy — they already have invitations to other EU countries. But that does not deter Salivini's sadism: he hurts them because he can, to demonstrate his strength, fascist style. We know the recipe: pick some people too weak to defend themselves, call them a menace, and vent sadism at them. If they die, that proves Salvini's worthiness to rule and wreak more suffering.
US government policies, compared with racist voting restrictions, took away the land of a million black farmers, especially from 1950 to 1969.
Under Reagan, most US family farms (even those owned by whites) were wiped out by luring owners to take loans they could not pay back.
Perhaps the US voters prefer Biden because of his lack of excitement.
If so, how sad and how foolish, because he won't do anything to restrain the plutocrats, not push hard enough to save us from global heating disaster. If he is nominated, I will vote Green. I'd rather vote for a good candidate that loses than a useless candidate that wins.
Donna Green asked her boyfriend, Robert Ronald Cooper, to give her a fatal dose of heroin to end her painful illness. He did so, and has been sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Given the other stated circumstances, I could understand doubting his assertion that she requested this. But supposing she did so, he does not deserve to punished at all for helping her escape that pain.
Reportedly China is deploying robot judges.
I suppose text-to-speech is sufficient for announcing a verdict that was decided in advance.
It appears that MDMA helps alcoholics stay off alcohol.
The Iranian oil tanker seized by Gibraltar is free to leave. The question now is whether the US will seize it on the high seas.
The deceptive "crisis pregnancy centers" that pretend to be abortion clinics use a loophole to get listed in Google searches without any indication to the user that they are not real abortion clinics.
An Austrian party, likely to form the next government, says it will ban a violent right-wing extremist group.
Jamaica has charged six thugs with murder for shooting a man on the street.
The New School has dropped its investigation of Professor Sheck.
Her alleged wrong was to quote author James Baldwin correctly.
(satire) Amazon Workers Now Being Shipped In Packages To Personally Assure Customers They're Treated Well.
The mainstream media are downplaying large protests against Bolsonaro.
Feeling Down? Talk to a Stranger!
The cod in the North Sea recovered when given protection, but now they are crashing again.
The water there may now be too warm for them.
Sanders stated his plans for the criminal justice system: eliminating cash bail, shortening sentences, legalizing marijuana, ending the death penalty, and banning government use of face recognition.
I basically support these plans. Naturally I don't agree with them 100%, but they would be a great step forward. We need to prohibit most use of face recognition regardless of what entity is doing it.
I might permit use of face recognition in narrow circumstances, one of them being under a specific court order to look for specified persons in a specified area.
The next step after climate crisis denial: climate crisis nihilism. Currently it takes the form of spewing hate and lies towards Greta Thunberg.
This is a sign of how right-wing extremists have endorsed bullying and have no respect for truth.
Focusing on her excessively is a fault on the part of her supporters. They should heed her advice and take action instead.
I don't think Thunberg will regret not having had a conventional adolescence. 20 years from now, as everyone her age copes with the climate disaster, she will know that her efforts made it somewhat less. Everyone will know this.
A gang waited for and attacked UK journalist Owen Jones as he left a pub.
The FBI could fight far-right violence if they wanted to — but they don't.
New York City Raised Minimum Wage to $15, And Its Restaurants Outperformed the Nation.
Various countries, and Amnesty International, have published travel warnings against visiting the US, because visitors might get shot, or even that they might get shot by racist thugs.
Face recognition by companies and public agencies is spreading around the UK.
Shell Chemicals ordered workers to attend the conman's rally and pretend to be supporters.
A secret UK government document predicted grave difficulties at the border if the UK leaves the EU without a trade deal. This was leaked. Naturally, the Tories now in power condemn the leak, not their plans.
Russia sent tanks into Ukraine to fight for the Russian-sponsored rebels.
Cucinelli, appointed head of non-immigration, tried to make Virginia officials show support for the Confederacy.
Indonesia has arrested 43 Papuan independence protesters for nothing more than throwing the Indonesian flag into a sewer.
Conservative minds want to demand "respect" and punish people for not giving it. This is morally misguided: to get respect, you must earn it, and that goes for states as well as people.
US citizens: call your representative in the Democratic National Committee and say you want a real climate debate.
When you enter your zip code, it should show you a number to call.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the No Federal Funds for Public Charge Act (H.R. 3222). This would prevent implementation of the cruel bastard's rule change that is designed to block low-income Americans from bringing their spouses and children to the US.
Tuvalu's presentations about global heating disaster failed to penetrate the closed eyes of Australian politicians, but did spoil their pretense of reaching out in friendship to the Pacific island nations.
The CITES meeting offers, perhaps, one last chance to prevent extinction of the vaquita porpoise, and many other endangered species.
In the UK, even thug departments are resisting face recognition.
A town in the UK is installing extremely expensive toilets that will be designed to harass anyone that tries to sleep or have sex in them.
And if that's not bad enough, they plan to charge money to use them.
Republican saboteurs are permitting rapid destruction of US public lands.
The insecurity of wireless networks is making them dangerous for phone users.
Is your bank pressuring you to use biometric ID? If so, please write to rms at gnu dot org. It could be useful if you document what is happening.
Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents.
"They (unionized Goodyear workers) are not mad at the workers in Mexico. They are mad that Goodyear went down there and underpaid those workers. They are mad that Goodyear is taking our work and moving it there."
Google Employees Protest Proposed Contract with [border thugs and deportation thugs].
The Answer To Burn-Out At Work Isn’t "Self-Care" — It’s Unionizing.
When Apple suspects a user of fraud, it judges the case secretly and presents the verdict as a fait accompli. The punishment to a user found guilty is being cut off for life, which more-or-less cripples the user's Apple devices forever. There is no appeal.
Planned Parenthood is on the verge of losing its federal funding, which will cut off a large fraction of its activities.
Apple charges a high price for storage on "Apple's cloud", which turns out to be a cloudy thing: it farms out the data to other companies.
Sudan Opposition And Military Sign Final Power-Sharing Accord.
Some politicians call for a "war on terror" in the US which would surely include general repression and denial of our human rights.
The Nuclear Arms Race Is Back … And Ever More Dangerous Now.
Hawaiians say that blocking construction of a telescope is fighting "corporate culture".
Notice the words "it is said" which the article used to cast doubt on the practical reasons to put the telescope there, while saying nothing about what they are.
Some obvious reasons why Mauna Kea is an unusually good place to put the world's biggest telescope: Mauna Kea is high (better seeing conditions); the air is clean (better seeing conditions); there is very little light pollution (fainter objects are visible); it is fairly close to the equator (can view nearly all the sky); there is already a good road down to facilities not far away (makes construction cheaper).
Blocking the telescope would do no actual good for Hawaiians and would be a loss for all humanity.
'Plastic Recycling Is a Myth': What Really Happens to Your Rubbish?
(satire) We Need a Wizard Who Can Appeal to the Moderate Orc Voter.
Some Massachusetts politicians want to repress marijuana purchasers with face recognition.
Hundreds of prisoners go on hunger strike each year in the UK's immigration prisons.
There was a protest in favor of democracy in Hong Kong in Melbourne, Australia. State-managed Chinese social media stirred up a lot of young Chinese expats to rally against them. A physical tussle developed.
The article does not say, but I expect that the supporters of China started the tussle. Propaganda has taught them that the cause of China's power is sacred and that anyone who questions it is evil.
Many Chinese students go to Australia, and China has a history of using them for political intimidation in Australia. It is important to develop systematic ways to expose students from China to other values while they are in Australia.
One idea that occurs to me is to have a kiosk which can tell people whether their mobile phones, which they have "switched off", are really off. It would be interesting to tell students from China whether China is snooping on the conversations around them. It would be interesting for everyone else that carries a Stalin's Dream device, too.
The bully's latest act of contempt for the non-rich is to forbid them from bringing spouses or relatives to the US.
Ironically, the effect of this is much worse because of the decreasing real wages that employers in the US have been permitted to pay.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject the balanced budget amendment.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: support the states' lawsuit against the Sprint/T-mobile merger.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Uber drivers are unaware of the cost of wear on their cars, but it adds up to 11 billion dollars a year.
Mexico's president threatens to require mobile phones to pay for gasoline, road tolls, and public transportation.
Former MSNBC Reporter Spills Details On Pro-Establishment Bias In Media.
If You Are Looking for Evidence of WaPo Media Bias Against Bernie Sanders, Here It Is.
(satire) Why English is a weird, incoherent, insane-sounding language.
The snooper wants to extend the "USA Freedom Act", which gave the NSA power to spy on Americans.
Meanwhile, the rest of the U SAP AT Riot Act was already made permanent, but we need to get rid of it.
Israel offered to allow Rep. Tlaib to visit Palestine on "humanitarian" grounds — so she could visit her grandmother.
However, this included a condition of staying silent on politics, which she decided she should not accept.
Meanwhile, Israel bars some Palestinians in Gaza from visiting their sick relatives getting treatment in hospitals in Israel.
"The extent to which the Israeli government has designated opposition to its policies as not just illegitimate but also illegal is now plain to see."
"Reverse warrants" threaten privacy because they permit the state to investigate thousands of people at once.
(satire) Epstein Guards Placed On Disciplinary Leave For Allowing Selves To Be Distracted By Mischievous Monkey That Stole Key Ring.
Australia's overt contempt for the global heating threat to islands in the Pacific opens the door to Chinese influence.
China is contributing massively to global heating, but there is no such thing as domestic public opinion in China, so you're not as likely to hear about it.
Australia could prosper by dropping fossil fuels, but the rich people that the right-wing government obeys would not profit as much.
[US thugs] Promised Witnesses [gratis] Ring Surveillance Cameras If They Testified Against Neighbors.
Zuckerberg gave a false answer testifying to Congress about Facebook's audio surveillance.
Many articles are being published which describe slavery in Virginia as starting in 1619. In fact, the Africans arriving then were indentured, like many of the white settlers. It was several decades later that this was replaced with slavery and racism.
Being indentured was rotten, but still left some minimal rights, and the indenture ended after specified term of years.
Compostable bowls contain PFAS, a persistent environmental toxin.
This article explains why that matters.
Salafi Arabian deportation thugs treat Ethiopians the way US border thugs treat Hondurans, but with less hesitation.
White supremacism is seeping into ALEC.
I don't think racism is any part of ALEC's mission. ALEC is a dooH niboR campaign and focuses 100% on promoting class injustice. But it's impossible nowadays to package lots of Republican plutocratists without finding crumbs of white supremacism mixed in.
Hong Kong protesters have adopted as their hero and symbol the woman whose eye was shot by thugs.
"Social media must not rob us of the right to change our minds."
That is what Twitter does.
I refuse to be part of a "tribe" of people who have to agree.
I hope to persuade you of various views, but I don't want to lead a tribe in which people would be compelled to follow my views.
Germany and Norway have cut off donations to a Brazilian fund that is supposed to be used to protect the Amazon forest.
Bolsonaro has undermined the activity this was supposed to support.
Big Brother Watch warns of a global "epidemic" of face recognition cameras.
Sanders Says, If Israel Wants to [refuse admission to] Members of Congress, It Should Not Receive Billions in US Military Aid.
Buenos Aires Judge Bans Delivery Apps After Road Accidents Spike.
The company PR department said its first priority is the health of its couriers, but the dispatcher was evidently taught to value the product more. How can we interpret this contradiction? I suspect that the dispatcher was taught the company's real values by the real pressures placed on per.
Nothing teaches managers to avoid work accidents like making the company pay for them. That's what worker's compensation is for. But the piecework sweatshop economy makes the workers "independent contractors", so they don't get workers' compensation. Change that, and the companies may learn to truly value the workers' health.
Proposing to help more people sit in crowded German regional trains by making all cars second-class.
The Pacific Island Forum almost failed to reach any agreement on a communique, because of the dispute between some countries threatened by global heating and the planet roasters of Australia. After many hours they reached a compromise which calls for some action — but which Australia will not heed.
I think it was a strategic mistake to compromise with Australia.
These callous right-wingers will continue working for disaster no matter what they say. It would have been better for the event to split and make a statement condemning Australia (and China, and the US, etc.).
Proposing a Hippocratic oath for mathematicians and software developers.
Listening to people's problems and their causes can sometimes find an amazingly simple social solution.
Netanyahu decided not to allow Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to lead a tour of members of Congress to Palestine.
This has earned him a lot of criticism already. But I think he has become a supporter of his fellow right-wing extremist, the bully, and does not care about alienating Democratic US Jews.
US citizens: call on Democratic Presidential Candidates to take the "NoKXL Pledge" — to cancel the Keystone XL planet-roaster pipeline first thing if elected.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Walmart to publish plans to stop using HFCs as refrigerants.
To sign without running nonfree Javascript code, use lynx.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Zimbabwe's new dictator has deployed thugs in advance to intimidate a planned protest.
In the UK as in the US, searching people on the street with no specific suspicion does little to reduce street crime, but it's a great way to harass minority groups and make them resentful.
No wonder Bogus Johnson wants to do more of it.
"The Third Way", a think-tank for plutocratists in the Democratic Party, published a report in favor of business-supremacy treaties with funding from the Koch brothers.
Americans who oppose racism are going nuts, and treating racial slurs as unutterable taboos, rather than the insults that they are. Even to quote a use of the taboo word, regardless of why, unleashes condemnation.
In fear of that taboo, a famous writers' famous quotation was altered and missed its intended point, and a professor is being investigated for calling attention to that.
I urge people to familiarize themselves with the difference between using a word and mentioning it. I don't use racial slurs, because I don't want to insult people, but it is impossible to discuss racism clearly without mentioning (talking about) those slurs.
Likewise, I never use the term "intellectual property", but I mention it to say why it spreads confusion.
Humanity's Destruction of Oceans Nearly Doubled Over a Decade, Scientists Warn, and Could Double Again Without Urgent Action.
Military power and its use considered as the national religion of the US.
Saboteurs in the Department of Energy want to use clean energy funds to build a fossil fuel storage facility.
A gang of LA thugs came up suddenly at Ryan Twyman as he was sitting in his car, and quickly began shooting. Then they harassed his family.
The US has a long history of violence against Hispanics; initially Mexicans.
"Free movement of goods" includes free movement of plant diseases. Many species of trees will be wiped out in many countries.
India is requiring Bengali-speaking inhabitants of Assam to prove their ancestors lived in Assam before 1971, or face being declared stateless. Many of them are illiterate and can't understand the documents they need to search for. If they can't prove they are descended from Indian citizens at that time, they will be presumed stateless.
This seems to be a scheme to eliminate Muslim citizens from India.
US citizens: call on Congress to hold corporations accountable for knowingly poisoning Americans with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
Iraq's harvest has been greatly reduced due to an unusual number of farm fires, some of which are due to arson.
I wonder if global heating is partly responsible. July set a world temperature record as hottest month since records began. Did it set a temperature record in Iraq, too?
US citizens: call on California governor Newsom to block all new fossil fuel developments and cut back use of existing fossil fuel facilities.
Salafi Arabia and its allies covered up attacks on civilians, so any promises it makes about how it will use arms that are sold to it are worthless.
In other words, if you sell bone saws, don't believe promises from Salafi Arabia that they won't be used for murder.
Belize has banned fishing in 16% of its waters, including waters near the coast, and enforced fishing licenses. As a result, its fish stocks are stable.
(satire) Harvard Streamlines Admission Process By Directly Growing New Students From DNA Of Top Donors.
When I posted that assault weapons should be banned because they fire with higher muzzle velocities, and therefore the wounds they cause are more grievous and more likely to be fatal, I misinterpreted the article I was referring to. This was pointed out to me by a reader.
The comparison actually described by the surgeon was between high-powered rifles and handguns. The point is that all high-powered rifles produce wounds that are more harmful and more likely to kill, than the wounds made by handguns. This means I need to change the conclusions I drew.
My revised conclusion is that we should require high-powered rifles owned by the public to be designed to hold a small number of rounds, contained in a fixed part of the rifle rather than in a magazine that can be quickly replaced.
India is treating Kashmir like a country it has just conquered.
Some Kashmiris expect India to treat Kashmir the way Israel treats Palestine.
I was thinking the same thing myself.
By these criteria for effective altruism, the free software movement is a good choice to have a high impact. Their criteria are
The "cancel" culture — one strike and you're out.
The US is already adopting an anti-protection agenda for threatened and endangered species.
The plutocrats regard these species as obstacles to untrammeled exploitation of the whole world.
How researchers deduce that the increase in methane level since 2000 is mainly due to fracking in the US.
It Is Time to Haul Boeing Executives Before Congress to Testify Under Oath.
The CEOs of big US companies now get an income (on average) of 275 times what the workers get.
The expression "1000%" is somewhat inflationary — I think the CEOs' income has increased by a factor of 11 since 1978.
In India, government lies used for political manipulation have become accepted as normal.
Comparing it to the credulousness of today's US Republicans, it appears not to go to the same lengths, but covers a majority of the people.
Japan conscripted 240,000 Koreans during World War II. (Japan was able to do this since it had conquered Korea in 1910.) After the war, South Korea called them traitors. Their families have little information about what happened to them.
The people in those families were wronged twice, and I am sorry for them. But sorry also that they put so much importance on scraps of information that wouldn't change anything about those wrongs.
No good can come from obsessing about the corpse of someone who died in 1943. Every Korean, and every Japanese, is familiar with the basic ideas of Buddhism. This attachment causes suffering, and only suffering.
It would be so much wiser to redirect the feeling of loss into efforts to avoid future wars, future conscription, and future suffering.
A proposed Oregon ballot initiative would legalize use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in carefully managed situations.
The Chinese plan to defeat Hong Kong's democracy movement is subtle and cunning.
Drawing them into violence and into annoying other Hong Kongers is part of it.
'Frightened, Angry And Exhausted' Hong Kong Protesters Apologies for Airport Violence.
It looks like they understand the game Chine is playing.
Fracking is the major cause of increased methane emissions.
The San Francisco school board has decided to hide, not paint over, the controversial paintings that showed George Washington's involvement in fighting indigenous peoples and owning slaves.
If the problem is presenting these paintings without context, the solution is obvious — provide context!
Museums of natural history are showing very graphically what human activities are doing to wildlife. This makes a powerful impression on children.
Netanyahu plans to respond to the killing of an Israeli with collective punishment: expanding Israeli colonies in Palestinian territory.
Netanyahu assumes that the killing was politically motivated (therefore terrorism) and done by a Palestinian, but that is just a surmise. The facts are simply not known. But he does know who he wants to punish.
Basra's Chaldean church has been renovated, but there are few Christians left in Basra, and not many in Iraq. The upheavals caused by US wars have chased them out.
When they come to the US, is that one of the "faith-based initiatives" that Dubya wanted?
The IHRA definition of "anti-semitism" is being used to demonize criticism of the occupation of Palestine as anti-semitism.
Real anti-semites, including Nazis, find the IHRA definition useful for defending themselves -- they argue that they support Israel, so we should ignore the fact that they hate Jews.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say, "No vote on NAFTA 2.0 until it's fixed."
I think 1-855-973-4213 is a number you can use. Here are points you can mention.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: Tell ABC and Univision that we need a real health care debate.
Facebook admits having presented audio recordings of conversation between useds for purposes of improving its speech recognition.
I think this is a secondary issue. The job being done is not malicious in its own right.
What I find more worrisome is that Facebook (or Google, or Apple) could transcribe conversations automatically and use the results automatically for purposes such as surveillance capitalism, censorship, and repression.
More about the split between various Yemenite groups that were previously supported by the "coalition" intervention.
The "government" of Yemen has no particular legitimacy. It was "internationally backed" in the sense that Salafi Arabia and the UAE (two cruel and vicious states) supported it, along with their unsavory allies.
May the rest of the world help the Yemenite factions make peace, instead of stirring up war.
Abdurahman Memet published the propaganda letters his relatives in Chinese prisons were forced to send, and now he has disappeared.
Australia's planet-roaster government was unable to buy approval from the island states that Australia is helping to inundate. The host of the Pacific Islands Forum said that no amount of funding makes up for Australia’s failure to cut emissions.
Israel's ruling party suppressed the Arab vote by setting up video recorders inside voting places where many Arabs live.
Israel is trying to drive the Palestinian inhabitants out of a region of occupied Palestine by cutting them off from water. This includes destroying their water pipes and blocking trucks.
Imprisoned feminist Loujain al-Hathloul in Salafi Arabia was offered release from prison if she would say, for a published video, that she had not been tortured. She refused.
What courage!
Of 6,000 prisoners that the deportation thugs kept in solitary, 40% had mental illness.
Statue of Liberty Shown Cuffed and Arrested by Immigration Officials in New Mural.
Bogus Johnson has followed the bullshitter in ceasing to hold press conferences where journalists ask questions.
Stacey Abrams will lead a national campaign against voter suppression.
Sugar cane farmers in Australia a funding a tour by a denialist ex-professor who pretends that agricultural runoff from cane farms doesn't harm the Great Barrier Reef.
The goal of this is to scrap regulations that would protect the reef.
This denialism won't fool the coral. It will die anyway. Then the farmers could argue that it wasn't the runoff, it was the ocean heating and the dissolved CO2 that did it.
Indeed, we must stop all three to save that reef, and all the other coral reefs in the world.
Falling snow is full of microplastics which it concentrates out of the air. Are they causing lung cancer?
Mainstream Media Smear Sanders for Saying That the Mainstream Media Smear Sanders.
Clothing has been designed to appear to license-plate readers as a license-plate.
Iceland commemorates the first vanished glacier.
Despite the blatant evidence of global heating, a few lingering organized denial campaigns (including the Heatland Institute) struggle on with their eyes wide shut.
The fossil fools have plenty of money, and as long as they gain a little from these campaigns, they will keep funding them.
The Environmental Poisoning Agency ordered California not to put warning labels on glyphosate about its tendency to cause cancer.
The EPA was formerly the Environmental Protection Agency, but the saboteur-in-chief took control of it and turned it against its intended purpose.
I hope California will have a chance to overcome this in court.
Yemenite forces backed by the UAE are fighting with Yemenite forces backed by Salafi Arabia. Those two countries were supposedly intervening in Yemen as allies.
Cathay Pacific's solution to the risk of data breeches: demand nominal "consent" from passengers to collect data from cameras and other sources, and keep it as long as the company wishes.
This is an example of the "manufacture of consent," and shows why "you must get the surveillance object's consent" is ineffective for protecting privacy.
The UK government was closely involved in CIA torture.
A list of companies that some people are boycotting because of connections to the bullshitter.
They explain why they don't advocate boycotting Facebook. I also do not advocate boycotting Facebook. I advocate protecting yourself from Facebook (including Instagram and Whatsapp) by not letting them use you. Don't be a zucker!
The saboteur-in-chief plans several changes to undermine protection of species.
With global heating putting more species in danger, this is the other arm of the pincers: undermining efforts to protect them. Both measures will assure maximum destruction to Earth's natural ecosystems, getting them out of the way so that plutocrats can build, mine and farm anywhere they like.
US citizens: call on the US government not to make food stamps harder to get.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Wireless substitutes for car keys make car theft even easier.
The wireless switch can screw you even without a thief. Once two of us were borrowing a car, and my friend drove to an errand without having the key. (We didn't realize it was in my pocket.) It worked fine on the way to the errand …
Faced with trade controlled by business-supremacy treaties, which were designed to boost the rich owners of companies, the idea of being "tough on trade" only repeats the bullshit that national interests are competing.
What we need from officials in the area of trade is that they be honest rather that stooges.
Since Burma continues expelling Rohingya, and is buying arms from North Korea to attack other minorities, Congress should impose sanctions on businesses owned by the Burmese army.
Global heating has only started melting Greenland's ice, but it is making traditional ways of life impossible for Greenlanders.
Extreme weather at the North Pole, including lightning, may be related to a new record for loss of sea ice.
ACLU: Say No to the "Cashless Future" — and to Cashless Stores.
I have made "cash-only" my firm policy for buying any product. Aside from flights — which cannot be bought anonymously anyway — I never use my bank cards to pay for anything. Once you make this a firm policy, you won't be tempted to make any exceptions.
Don't be apologetic about refusing to pay by tracked digital methods.
A store which tries to pressure you into identifying yourself is doing an injustice to you and the public. Show indignation when you say no!
Developers in London are increasing the amount of "affordable housing" by stretching the definition of "affordable".
Rain in the Rocky Mountains is polluted by plastic microfibers.
Salman al-Odah has been a political prisoner in Salafi Arabia for two years, ever since he suggested, two years ago, that it resume friendly relations with Qatar. He has been tortured and brainwashed in prison.
He is likely to be executed.
American supporters of India's Hindu-nationalists pressured a US congresscritter into apologizing for a letter which criticized India's repressive suppression of Kashmir.
People in London seem to be bothered by face recognition cameras, except for those that have already surrendered to Big Brother.
You can help inspire them to un-surrender by standing firm against use of snooping technologies yourself.
(satire) Christ announced Monday that He has called off plans for His return upon coming to the realization that He has been gone so long at this point that coming back "would just be weird."
A salmon farm on a small island in the middle of protected wildlife could do many kinds of harm.
(satire) the Pentagon awarded Oscar Mayer a five-year, $102 million contract Monday to develop military-grade hot dogs, complete with all the fixings.
New York State says that Exxon's subpoenas to its investors are meant to intimidate them from testifying in court against Exxon.
Remember to avoid the solecism of pronouncing "Exxon" like "exon" ;-).
Foxconn's "pay us to make jobs" deal with Wisconsin is complete crap, and can't be fixed to "benefit" the state even when judged by the foolish standard of "getting enough jobs for the money."
"Subsidize a business to make jobs" is a form of trickle-down: making welfare payments to businesses so that a fraction of the money will reach non-rich citizens. As governments do this, they help businesses pressure them to do ever more of it.
Wisconsin should cancel the Foxconn deal the way New Yorkers cancelled NYC's Amazon deal.
The FBI Told Congress Domestic Terror Investigations Led to 90 Recent Arrests. It Wouldn’t Show Us Records of Even One.
The US pharma system was designed so that the public pays for the research, and the profits go to rich owners. It was set up this way by a scheme advised by right-wing economists and carried out by business lobbyists.
More recently, private equity companies have taken over many pharma companies and drive the gouging.
Pharma is one of the areas where patents do special harm.
It is unfortunate that the article occasionally says "IP" when it means patents. This encourages the confusion that the bogus overgeneralization "intellectual property" embodies.
The article suggests using compulsory licenses to knock down these patents when they endanger the public. I'm entirely in favor of that, but I think we need to cure the disease, not just treat the symptoms.
The cure I recommend is to take the testing of drugs out of the hands of drug manufacturers, thus eliminating their argument for artificial monopolies, and turn them into generic manufacturers.
In opinion polls, Sanders beats the bullshitter by the same margin as Biden.
So they are equally electable. However, Sanders would make a dent in plutocracy, while Biden would protect it.
China now offers any would-be totalitarian state the technology to watch and control everyone.
Mobile robots with face recognition now spread state control on streets.
China invites users of social media to act as stool pigeons in case any dissent goes unnoticed by the professional monitors and AI.
A study of college football players' brain scans found most of them showed signs of brain injury after just one season.
I think schools should not promote football.
(satire) The bully shows his rejection letter from the KKK to prove he is not a racist.
I can't tell whether the bully is really racist, or cynically faking it for the sake of political manipulation. Perhaps he is doing both at once. I don't think it makes much of a moral difference, though.
Massachusetts Governor Baker wants to use an invalid method to determine whether a driver is high on marijuana.
This is clearly unjust. And there is no pressing need to punish stoned drivers, because they are much less of a danger than drunk drivers. It is better to wait until there is a test for being stoned.
In the mean time, it should be possible to test whether a driver is currently mentally impaired, never mind the reason (marijuana, illness, lack of sleep). If so, it is possible to lead the driver to a place to pull over and rest.
Is it ethical to use AI to trace connections between homeless people so as to more effectively convince them to use condoms?
I don't see anything wrong with using AI for that, but it is wrong to collect that social network data in any way except by interviewing them for this specific purpose, and the data should be discarded afterward.
Refugees seeking asylum in the US are totally vulnerable to whatever immigration thugs write on their forms. If the thugs lie, and make the refugee look bad, there is no way to disprove the lie — unless it is so absurd that it disproves itself.
Versace humbled itself to Chinese nationalist market power with a cringeworthy apology for the mistake of presenting Hong Kong and Macau as countries.
It is true that they are not independent countries (unfortunately for them). If the shirt is meant to be factual, it would make sense to correct it. But there is no justification for the knowing.
Carole Cadwalladr explains the hidden, criminal Facebook advertising (implemented by Cambridge Analytica) which manipulated the UK's referendum about leaving the EU.
Her investigation and reporting made this known. But Facebook is still blocking further investigation.
Collecting data about people is an injustice. Profiling people is an injustice. Instead of looking for the smallest tweaks to prevent this problem, we should sweep away profiling and targeted advertising.
On Tulsi Gabbard's ties to violent Hindu extremists in India.
US thugs kill at least 25 dogs a day when they raid houses.
Recently one tried to shoot a dog, which was not actually threatening him, and killed the dog's owner instead.
The bully is "farming out" violence to individuals and private groups that are prepared to go further than official thugs.
Unlike the writer, I will not presume that the bully specifically intended that people respond to his scapegoating only with actions that fall short of murder. He's seen enough acts of right-wing terrorism in the US that he knows that some people respond that way.
US citizens: call on presidential candidates to endorse restoring Obama's network neutrality regulations.
True network neutrality goes further than those regulations. An ISP should not be allowed to make a dossier of your network contacts unless a court order says to do this specifically to you.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Leaked Draft of Trump Executive Order to 'Censor the Internet' Denounced as Dangerous, Unconstitutional Edict.
Refugee Behrouz Boochani, forcibly dumped on Manus Island by Australia, has won Australia's national biography award.
Bogus Johnson is aiming for a cheap and meaningless "success" by punishing harder the bulk of street crime, which is falling anyway.
Meanwhile, the kind of crime that Britain is not effectively handling is rape. But this needs changes in investigation and trial, not more thugs on the street.
Russia is developing a cruise missile powered by a nuclear reactor. It could fly for hours, perhaps days, on an evasive path, making defense very difficult — if it doesn't explode on the ground and release fallout.
A US neo-Nazi leader, who adores the bully, has been ordered to pay 14 million dollars in damages for leading a campaign of harassment against Tanya Gersh.
It is unfortunate that the article promotes the incoherent term "intellectual property". Since it "refers" to many unrelated kinds of assets, it would have been clearer simply to say "assets".
There is now a more-or-less cure for Ebola. When people seek treatment quickly, over 90% of them can be cured.
Invasive species threaten 40% of US forests.
The death of trees means that trees will not absorb CO2 as we expected them to. In addition, it means that planting trees will be less effective that it might seem. Planting a sapling does no good unless it lives to become a large tree.
If a tree is going to die anyway, it could be better to cut it down and soak it in something that will kill the pests and keep the carbon in the wood, than to let pests convert its carbon into CO2.
US government saboteurs are making it hard to protect species that are one step away from bring endangered. To start the protection later means more chance they will ultimately become extinct.
Goldsmiths College in London has banned selling beef on campus, because of its greenhouse gas impact.
This is in addition to divesting from fossil fuel companies.
I support this change. However, the article errs when it says that the best way to reduce your climate footprint is to avoid meat and cheese. The real best way is to avoid having children.
Fiji is proposing a strong greenhouse gas reduction plan, hoping it will exert moral suasion at the coming Pacific Islands Forum.
At the forum: Tuvalu Children Welcome Leaders with a Climate Plea.
Analyzing NPR's biased coverage of Venezuela and other countries in Latin America.
Large animals that live in rivers are rapidly being wiped out, around the world.
Foxconn hires workers 16 years old, then illegally has them working at night and in overtime.
Even worse, their work is to make spy devices intended to seduce users into leaving them on and listening. What Mata Hari only pretended to have done, these devices really do.
This is bad enough when presented without distortion, so let's avoid the exaggeration of calling 16-year-olds "schoolchildren".
Ricardo Galvão, formerly in charge of protecting the Amazon, says that if Bolsonaro's attack continues, the forest will be ruined.
Arguing that "the intensity and polarization of the US gun debate makes much more sense when understood in the context of whiteness and white privilege."
Black men who carry guns lawfully are likely to get killed for it, because a thug will feel threatened by it and kill them, so in practice that is a privilege for white man only.
Why [the bully's] "Maximum Pressure" Foreign Policy Yields Minimum Results.
20 years after No Logo warned against colonization of people's thoughts by brands, "The biggest change since… is that neoliberalism has created so much precarity that the commodification of the self is now seen as the only route to any kind of economic security."
I point out that I do very little that directly boosts Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple or Microsoft. It is not as hard as the article makes it out to be. Just reject services that mistreat you.
US citizens: call on Japan, and some big Japanese companies, to stop funding more coal plants.
If you sign, please spread the word!
An Israeli government web called a Palestinian human rights defender a "terrorist", which inspired comments calling for murdering him.
A proposed law to make certain crimes even more illegal would also make it possible to charge anyone that sells drugs to a sex worker with "sex trafficking", and likewise anyone that trades drugs for sex (even with someone that isn't a sex worker).
Drought is killing German forests.
The article does not specifically relate this to global heating but they surely are connected.
The bullshitter is following Hitler's methods — and not by coincidence. He studied Hitler's speeches.
Here's substantiation for what it says about his having a copy of Hitler's speeches.
It is strange to include rejection of business-supremacy treaties, or even outright protectionism, in a list of similarities to Hitler's methods. Protectionism was standard practice in the 1930s, while business-supremacy treaties as found today did not exist then.
But the overall point is valid even without those. The agreements Hitler tore up included arms limitation treaties, and the bullshitter is doing the same.
US public libraries are to continue "lending" unjust ebooks on terms that no one should stand for.
"The good old days? Look deeper and the myth of ideal communities fades."
Amazon is spending lots of money to defeat Seattle city councillor Kshama Sawant.
Let's give our support to defeating Amazon.
Bolsonaro wants to give thugs a license to kill with impunity.
Philippines: US Rights Volunteer Branded "Enemy of State" Shot Outside Home.
Study if the idea of "ethical AI" often suffers from a lack of firm starting principles to base it on, which makes it easy to be stretch to serve the interests of whoever in charge of the system.
An estimated 10% of the population of Eritrea has fled the country to escape from forced labor, which can continue for any number of years.
50,000 people marched in Moscow for free elections for the city government.
"Even with major efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, 80% of the [Joshua] trees’ habitat will be whittled away by the end of the century."
A species confined to a small territory is vulnerable to any sort of local accident. If the Joshua trees become extinct, the other species that depend on them will be extinct too.
The UK continues the Tory cruelty of making disabled people destitute if they miss a welfare appointment (because, for instance, of being in the hospital).
Monsanto Manipulates Science to Make Roundup Appear Safe.
"Attorneys have cited internal Monsanto records that they say demonstrate how the company has manipulated and corrupted the scientific record with respect to the herbicide’s safety."
The US-China trade war has slowed the increase in use of oil.
That's good, but not enough. We need to reduce world oil use, not just slow its increase.
Marine heatwaves kill coral instantly — and it is already happening in tropical reefs.
The death of the coral animals doesn't just leave the reef static. The exoskeletons that make up the reef degrade. Many marine species could go extinct as a result. And half a billion people could starve.
Perez, head of the Democratic National Committee, has proposed a vague resolution calling for climate defense action — instead of a candidates' debate about climate.
(satire) critics unanimously accused lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret of promoting unattainable beauty standards Friday with the release of their new 3-cup bra.
Because China's big banks are mostly government-owned, they cannot collapse, and the state doesn't let them shut down a company that is useful to society.
Israel confiscated a shipment of hiking boots to Palestine, saying that they were "hidden in a shipment of civilian goods".
Hikers need pants, too, but don't tell the Israeli government that.
A SWAT team thug shot 12-year-old Amir Worship as he was sitting on the bed with his hands up. He will never be able to walk normally again.
Plutocratist Democrats in Congress want Rep. Maxine Waters to squeeze campaign funds out of big banks and share it with them, but she decided to champion their customers' rights instead.
Unesco Demands Answers from Peru over Impact of New Machu Picchu Airport.
People often wonder why thee are two c's in "Picchu". It's because the first c is pronounced separately. In Quechua, at least in that area, a c at the end of a syllable stands for the Spanish j sound. So if it were written using Spanish orthography, it would be "Pijchu."
Democratic Socialist Lawmaker Persuades Fellow Denver City Council Members to End Contracts With For-Profit Prison Operators.
(satire) infant-mobility giant Graco issued a recall of several stroller models Thursday after discovering that the company’s branding was not visible enough.
Viewing logos from the earliest age is now considered crucial for babies' mental development.
Cars nowadays send lots of data to the manufacturer through a cellular data connection. A proposal in Massachusetts would require manufacturers to give users access to that data — through a nonfree app.
Yuck! This is oppressive practice of the Internet of Stings: making you communicate with the products you own via the manufacturer's server.
The cellular data connection enables the phone network to track the car's movements, but it wouldn't surprise me if the data includes GPS location. (Does anyone know for a fact?)
The right thing to require is that the car offer a data-only interface, such as a slot to put a memory chip into and the car will write the data on it. This way you could show that data to an independent repair shop when you want to, even though you disconnected the cellular data antenna and the GPS antenna just after you bought the car.
Proposing an ecological-social curriculum to complement the Green New Deal.
Extending the same ideas into computing, it incorporates the free software movement.
A US judge ruled that transgender students have the right to use the toilets corresponding to their gender identities.
This decision is only tentative, since the appeal is likely to go up to the Supreme Court, which is dominated by right-wingers.
Tesla users claim Tesla force-installed software to cut down on battery range, rather than replace the batteries.
Everyone: call on Walmart to stop selling guns.
If you sign, please spread the word!
In the US, on Sep 20, join a climate strike action.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: ask your senators and representative to confirm they've read Daniel Ellsberg's letter about preventing nuclear war.
To sign without running nonfree software use the Salsalabs workaround.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Bahrain released political prisoner Najah Yusuf, who was imprisoned specifically for criticizing the tyranny that rules Bahrain.
Bahrain crushed protests with the help of troops from other Arab countries and subsequently applied repression to the majority of Shi'a.
The economy of Zimbabwe is collapsing. It seems to be partly the fault of local corruption, and partly the fault of IMF-imposed policies to let the poor starve.
The author thinks that allowing foreigners to own local businesses is a change for the better; but that is a neoliberal policy which is meant to enable foreigners to drain the country's money (instead of the local elite which does so now). I would guess that was imposed by the IMF. Does anyone know?
In the long run, if poor people keep increasing the population, they are driving themselves into ever-deeper poverty.
The Ring company (before it was bought by Amazon) gave customers rewards for getting together to snitch on whoever they thought was "suspicious."
Election support systems are supposed to be kept off the internet as a security measure, but at least 35 US localities disregarded that precaution.
Many US summer camps maintain parents' engagement with their web sites by showing them lots of photos of their kids, whom it identifies using face recognition.
With this goes a team of photographers to make sure that every activity is monitored.
Journalists operating in Kashmir say that days of curfew have enraged almost everyone in Kashmir, even people who were not separatists. The populace is ready to explode.
People are running out of food. Sick people cannot get to the hospital and some are surely dying. The BBC saw 10,000 people protest; the Indian forces fired tear gas at them, because protest is forbidden.
Jeffrey Epstein appears to have committed suicide in his cell. Or perhaps he was murdered — it is not unusual for prisoners to murder prisoners accused of sexual crimes.
Epstein was accused of trafficking: bringing people long distances on false pretenses and then pressured them into sex or prostitution. He also reportedly raped some of those people. I believe those accusations, and I think he deserved to be imprisoned.
Some of his victims were legally adult. Some were teenage minors. I don't think that makes any moral difference. I don't think rape is less wrong if the victim is over 16.
Millennial generation parents are teaching their own parents to protect the privacy of their young children.
Alas, they are probably also snooping on those same children 24 hours a day.
But appreciation of any aspect of privacy is a step forward.
The next step is to spread awareness of how companies and schools spy on their children.
Making a federal law against "domestic terrorism" is superfluous in regard to real terrorists, but would endanger others who might be falsely labeled as terrorists.
This includes animal rights activists who have already been labeled as "terrorists".
It might also lead to injustices against non-terrorist right-wingers, comparable to those that have been inflicted on US Muslims.
However, I tend to think that their political power will more or less protect them from that.
Plant researcher Lewis Ziska quit the Department of Agriculture in protest against its political censorship of scientific work (especially, but not only, his own).
The planet roasters fund propaganda campaigns to undermine respect for science. Now they think they are in a position to kill off the science. They have thrown out reference libraries, killed of repeated measurements so that there won't be a series of comparable measurements to study later, and now censoring scientific publication.
Remember how global heating denialists argued that past climate measurements could not be analyzed over decades because they were not all made the same way?
When there's a new system of measurement, scientists must do careful work to correlate the old measuring system with the new one, and even after they arrive at the best correlation, it offers the denialists an avenue for injecting and magnifying doubt.
By killing off repeated measurements. the denialists hoped to create another opportunity to do that in the future.
Honduran President Hernández's campaign has been accused in the US of taking money from drug dealing and using it for bribes.
What we know for certain is that he is in office as a result of the coup that Clinton apparently approved when she was Secretary of State.
Ever since then, the government in Honduras has been plutocratist.
The American myth that a poor person can succeed on per own is used to distract poor people from the collective actions that have a better chance of really helping them.
This situation exists because of the combination of low social mobility and too little help for the poor. I think we should correct both of those problems, but the second one is the more important one.
Some cities operate "gun buyback" programs.
I think it makes sense to run a buyback program for guns that are no longer available to buy. Under those circumstances it is a way of reducing the number of such guns available to the public.
Facebook Reportedly in Talks with News Publishers to Offer 'Millions' for [the stories they publish].
This plan would help counteract the harm Facebook does to newspapers' finances; but it would cement and increase Facebook's power. Thus, overall it would make the situation worse.
Please do not refer to publications as "content". That adopts a point of view which treats them as a fungible commodity.
The former acting chief of the FBI has sued, alleging that the bully arranged with Wray and Sessions to oust him and others who did not put the bully above the country.
Uber has always intentionally operated at a loss. This enabled Uber to undercut competition. However, lately it has been losing more than a billion dollars a month.
This makes Uber vulnerable. Drive in the stake — cut off Uber now!
Global heating has caused a plague of oak processionary caterpillars in Germany. They release tiny toxic hairs.
Large numbers of them might kill some oak trees, too.
US citizens: call on Congress to oppose the Senate's anti-asylum bill.
If you sign, please spread the word!
(satire) The Republican's backup plan to get rid of immigration is for right-wing terrorism to make the US so dangerous that people will feel safer in Guatemala.
US citizens: call on Faux News to stop supporting white-nationalist talking points.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Apple is putting DRM on batteries, and the system software turns off certain features when batteries are replaced other than by Apple.
Suggestion: avoid the word "taxpayers".
It focuses attention on the part of the public that pays taxes rather than on the whole public which the state exists to serve.
Cary Gillam: "I'm a journalist. Monsanto built a step-by-step strategy to destroy my reputation."
India has converted Kashmir from a state to a pair of territories.
This means less possibility of any kind of self-government.
India has blocked all communications and travel. If this continues, people will have to rebel to survive. It is effectively military occupation, even more strict than the occupation of Palestine.
The brief history of creative adventure playgrounds — before obsessive safety culture started crushing childhood.
Canada Announces Regulations to Cut Price of Prescription Drugs.
The prices are much lower in Canada than in the US because Canada doesn't have the US laws that were adopted to keep the prices high.
After a deadly terrorist attack in France by Palestinian terror group Abu Nidal, in 1982, France made a deal with the group: France would not hassle the group as long as it did not attack in France.
To avoid environmental disaster, we need to eliminate consumption competitions and consumption pressure — such as the "fashion industry".
Wet wipes, aka moist towelettes, can't be broken down by sewage treatment plants. When they get into a sewer, they give structure to fatbergs and make them hard to break up.
It is better to avoid these wipes. I never use them.
Four squares of two-ply toilet paper, folded four times and wetted, make something that works to wash your behind with, and no plastic in it.
Biden is being attacked for a minor verbal slip.
He contrasted "poor" with "white", when saying that children of both groups have the same potential. Maybe he meant to condemn racial discrimination, or maybe he meant to condemn economic discrimination, but he got the two confused and ended up condemning a mixture of both.
Is that a bad thing? We know that the two discriminations often operate in parallel.
I will not vote for Biden, but that's for reasons of substance: he does not oppose the plutocracy which promotes racism and is makes economic discrimination so bad.
Jimmy Aldaoud had never been in Iraq, and knew no one in Iraq, but he was an Iraqi citizen. So the US deported him there, where he predictably became homeless, and predictably died from lack of insulin just two months later.
The US targeted refugees associated with Iraq, including Aldaoud, as part of the bully's "Muslim ban". Ironically, Aldaoud was a Christian, but that didn't save him.
Microsoft Contractors Are Listening to Some Skype Calls.
(satire) a local iPhone was reportedly growing paranoid Wednesday that its owner knew it was working with the FBI.
(Every one of them does that, if the FBI wishes.)
The felony murder rule punishes criminals for murder when killings happen incidentally in a crime they participated in, even slightly.
It is evidently unjust, and when the state presents it as justice, it distorts the basic idea of justice.
The mention of Ryan Holle in the article is somewhat misleading. He was aware that his roommate wanted the car that day for a robbery.
It would have been just to prosecute him as an accessory to robbery.
It is clear on the general principles of penology why this bonus punishment does nothing to deter other crimes: the situation is so unlikely to arise (when people carry out some other crime) that it is effectively a freak accident. It won't affect the mental calculations of anyone planning a robbery.
Making freak accidents worse is not a service to the public.
Someone is being prosecuted for bribing AT&T employees to unlock phones, and later to plant spyware in AT&T's systems.
Planting spyware should be a crime — too bad they don't prosecute companies for making software that spies on users but there is nothing wrong about unlocking phones, because it is an injustice to lock them in the first place.
Selling locked phones is an example of the "suffer injustice now, pay later" business model that is a major factor in sucking freedom out of life.
Developing methods to guide parents away from anti-vaxxer FUD.
Private medical insurance in the US is a totally lousy system.
Medicare for All means getting rid of it entirely — and good riddance!
"Adversarial interoperability" led to useful competition among many manufacturers of PCs. Various bad US laws have created obstacles which contribute to today's systems as prisons.
Businesses are working hard to convince workers (and retired workers) to bet that they will do better at investing a lump sum than their pensions will do. It's a sucker's bet.
(satire) Mitch McConnell Wonders If He Could’ve Done More To Harm People In Private Sector.
An Israeli soldier was stabbed and killed in the occupied West Bank (part of Palestine). Israelis presume it was done by a Palestinian.
Suppose that was so. If the killing was done for a personal motive, then it was murder. If it was done as an act of resistance to occupation, it was war. In neither case does it qualify as "terrorism", because terrorism means making war on civilians.
If Palestinians attack Israeli noncombattant civilians, that is terrorism. If Israelis attack Palestinian noncombattant civilians, that too is terrorism.
Climate Crisis Reducing Land's Ability to Sustain Humanity, Says IPCC.
The article mentions population growth as one of the causes of this problem.
Agriculture produces almost 1/4 of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Considering also the long-term effect on ecosystems shows farming to be even more destructive.
Ralph Nader: Message to Congress: Big Pharma’s Trail of Greed, Power, and Cruelty Must Be Stopped.
Hong Kong thugs arrested a protester for carrying a laser pointer, so others held a laser-display protest.
Impeachment was designed for presidents like the bullshitter.
Alas, it was designed for a country without political parties, one in which almost everyone in Congress would want to kick out a president that is a slimeball.
Coal miners in Kentucky are blocking a coal train because the mine declared bankruptcy and is cheating required workers.
I am in favor of smoothing the transition to renewable energy.
However, survival of civilization requires cutting off coal mining, and soon. Whatever suffering this causes to the discharged workers, that will be much less than the suffering continued extraction would cause.
The sooner we do it, the more resources will be available to help the ex-miners.
We could give all the ex-miners what they deserve, if we can tax the rich. But we have to stop the mining whether we can tax the rich or not. At the point of desperation, it is better to save some than save none.
About the campaign to save old footpaths in the UK, which are in danger of being legally eliminated if they are not redocumented by 2026.
Several officials have resigned from the US State Department for reasons of conscience.
B'tselem: Israeli soldiers use teargas canisters as deadly weapons by firing at people's heads.
Israeli orders say soldiers should not fire them even near to human beings. The soldiers who do this are evidently hoping to kill someone.
This practice is not limited to Israelis. Thugs in Portland, Oregon, did something similar.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject the EPA's new excuse to conceal information about pollution.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Take Away My Employer-Based Health Insurance. Please.
(satire) The New York Times announced Tuesday that it had amended a headline from the morning’s front page reading "Hero Trump Disarms Would-Be Shooter". "The original headline did not live up to our standards of objectivity…"
(auto-satire) [The bullshitter] Praises New York Times Headline That Sparked Uproar after Shootings.
Israel sited the annexation wall as close as possible to Palestinian buildings. Now it says that the Palestinian buildings the wall runs close to are a security threat and use that as an excuse to demolish them.
Representatives Tlaib and Omar are organizing a congressional visit to Palestine to counteract the customary congressional visits to Israel.
The visitors will get a chance to see what life is like under occupation.
Israeli thugs interrogate young Palestinian children, age 4 and 6.
The thugs could pressure and intimidate them into saying almost anything the thugs wish.
California's coasts have been eroding for a long time, but sea-level rise and stronger storms, both due to global heating, are accelerating the erosion.
Hong Kong's lawyers (3,000 of them) protested "political prosecutions".
The UK is repressing protests by disabled people by reporting them for the welfare payments bureau, which then treats presumes them guilty of cheating.
Officials from El Paso told the racist bully to stay away; the mayor of Dayton encouraged the city's residents to protest when he comes.
EU countries are proposing to make people register for trains as they must for flights.
Please, EU citizens, organize to fight this. At very least, phone or send small mail to your MEP.
Tropical prawns can be farmed on land even in temperate-zone countries.
This farm is surely better than getting prawns from Asia, but I can think of two sustainability questions not addressed in the article.
Are millenials lonely because society in general doesn't value friendship enough?
"Hatriots" — a funny word to describe the bully and his racist followers.
We could lose most insect species by the end of the century, because neonicotinoids are killing them.
Each year the US uses them, they build up in he soil in greater concentration, increasing the toxicity of the environment for all kinds of insects. There is no way to remove neonicotinoids from the soil. Today they are found only in some areas, but over time they may spread everywhere.
We need to stop adding more of them before it is too late.
Steve Melia, Extinction Rebellion protester convicted in the UK of making an annoying protest, calls for action.
Turkey, the US and Rojava have made a sort of peace deal including a plan for a buffer zone of some kind between them.
Luxembourg plans to legalize marijuana.
Boston thugs picked a few disabled homeless people, stole their wheelchairs and their other meager belongings, then threw it immediately into a garbage crusher truck. This was to make sure that their cruelty could not be reversed.
Nothing delights a sadist like the chance to hurt someone who is totally helpless.
The climate researcher's grief — and rage — on seeing the developing global disaster that it is still barely possible to avoid.
The rate of melting of Greenland last week reached a level that was forecast to occur only in 2070.
Wasteful military spending in the US is justified in the name of "creating jobs", but it doesn't even do that. The main military contractors have reduced their US employment even as they have received more money.
Aside from being counter to fact, the argument is fundamentally misguided, because it would justify spending government money on anything whatsoever that involves paying workers. How about building a pipeline to pipe water across Manhattan from the East River to the Hudson River? How about hiring a thousand workers to manually power the pumps?
Creating jobs can be one of the valid reasons for the state to hire people, but let's put them on a job that will produce useful results as well.
Lessons learned by studying the histories of many perpetrators of mass shootings.
They made a possibly unwitting bad side point by referring to publications as "content" and reading/watching them as "consuming".
Their avoidance recommendation applies only to violent "content", but that implicitly applies "content" to all publications, including their own article.
The whistleblower that revealed Australia was spying on East Timor's negotiators has pled guilty.
It seems that the the whistleblower's name has been concealed.
It looked like the bullshitter might have achieved a move towards peace with North Korea, by deciding to drop the impossible demand that North Korea get rid of nuclear weapons. But this turns out to have been a mirage. North Korea is taking its traditional belligerent attitude again in response to US-South Korean war games.
It looks like the bullshitter's weakness of character led Dictator Kim to think of pushing him around with bluster.
When Portland thugs attacked the antifascist counterprotesters a year ago, a thug fired a flash bang grenade straight at Michelle Fawcett, who was just standing around. It exploded on her arm, scarring her and causing nerve damage that may never heal.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, says he was invited for White House talks and threatened with sanctions if he did not attend.
What a cloddish way to make an overture for negotiation.
(satire) before leaving to pursue his solo career, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart fronted an ultra-popular Viennese boy band.
(serious) The bullshitter read a speech which condemned racism (but not his own).
(satire) Trump Aides Go Into Crisis Mode After President’s Errant Remarks Condemning White Supremacy.
"Stochastic terrorism" is a term used to describe the practice of stirring up hatred so that occasionally some weak-minded person will commit a "random" act of murder.
It is used by various right-wing causes. In the US it started in the "pro-life" anti-abortion movement. Nowadays it is practiced by white supremacists and Islamist extremists.
Mexico's president advocates laws to sentence protesters to 20 years in prison.
UK Too Desperate to Secure US Trade Deal.
Or at least, to get anything but a crappy deal.
Amazon Is Coaching Cops on How to Obtain Surveillance Footage Without a Warrant.
A new e-cigarette is designed to require authorization form a mobile phone, using a nonfree app that collects data about the user.
I suspect that app also tracks the user's movements all the time.
The Christian Science Church is shrinking rapidly.
That in itself is a good thing. However, the Christian Science Monitor used to be renowned for serious coverage of important news topics. Its decline is a loss to all of us.
Business organizations in the US spend a billion dollars a year to pressure for the interests of business.
If the El Paso Shooter Had Been Muslim …
A one-day general strike in Hong Kong was very effective. However, China is threatening to attack and repress.
Marijuana stores are using face recognition against giant databases of people who are not in any way suspects and have not done anything wrong to or in the marijuana store.
This should be illegal.
Beto O'Rourque held the bully responsible for the mass shooting in El Paso.
We know this is true. It is important that prominent people say it.
Republicans are trying to evade responsibility by saying that the killers must be mentally disturbed. Perhaps they are. However, when people are predisposed to follow some hate campaign or other and commit violence for it, they look for a hate movement that is powerful. Politicians that support certain hate movements help draw killers to support them.
Iranian programmer Saeed Malekpour was sentence to life in prison for releasing a program for "uploading photos to the web". He has escaped somehow from Iran.
The US had three mass shootings in one weekend.
Only a small fraction of US gun killings are part of mass shootings, but mass shootings seem to inspire more mass shootings, and they are often acts of terrorism inspired by hate movements.
The first of these two shootings, in Dallas, was an act of right-wing terrorism and so was one other.
These are clearly inspired by the bully's support of racism and violence.
He surely knew this would happen; it isn't the first time, after all. Therefore it must be intentional. Even people who already agreed with white supremacism are encouraged to leap into violence by their crowds of supporters.
He has converted the whole Republican party into supporters of racism and violence.
Some may not entirely like it, but they haven't the courage to resist the mob that boils around them.
The US military has installed lots of Hikvision internet cameras. This is a problem for two reasons: Hikvision is Chinese, and the cameras have (reportedly) a universal back door.
Even if the company weren't Chinese, the universal back door should make people distrust these cameras.
Temporal AI for marketing attempts to predict when you are in the mood for any given product. They rely on collecting and correlating the data collected by many surveillance systems.
If we prohibit the collection of data like these, systems like this will be entirely impossible. Otherwise, they will make a worse dystopia.
The decoy effect is a powerful way of manipulating people into making one choice rather than another.
I suspect that a policy of dismissing options that are clearly inferior and writing down a list of only the options you are really considering would help resist the decoy effect. It is worth doing this for many reasons if the choice is important.
And stay away from flight connections that are just 60 minutes, because that makes a significant risk of a missed connection. I would choose option B for those flights, by intentional policy, regardless of C. If I had seen only option A, I would have asked my travel agent, "Can you find a longer connection time?"
Some US thug departments give Amazon special access to 911 call data.
The question about paying the costs of global heating is not "Can we pay" but "Who will pay".
The article does not mention all the ways global heating is killing people. For instance, it doesn't include the people killed, directly or indirectly, by the Syrian civil war and PISSI even though global heating was a major cause of that war.
It also doesn't mention the tropical diseases that are spreading north, or the people that lose their income and then die because they can't afford medical care.
A list now exists of which books published in the US before 1964 are in the public domain because the copyright was not renewed.
Private equity companies own "doctor groups" that gouge patients with enormous bills.
Hospitals send patients to those doctors without informing them — sometimes even when they are unconscious.
What this shows is that two of the big sicknesses of the US economy are linked.
We should make sure that future genetic enhancements are not limited to the rich or their children. One part is preventing them from being patented.
In addition, we need not and should not rely on private investment for development of these enhancements. The government funds a lot of medical research and it can fund this.
We won't have such treatments soon. You wouldn't want to give an embryo that will develop into a your child a treatment intended as an enhancement until its safety and efficacy have been verified. But we don't know how to verify that except by trying it. With gigantic advances in simulation of fetal development we might someday have another way.
Senator Warren's progressive approach to trade treaties includes allowing democratic participation in negotiating them, require joint crackdown on business tax-dodging and greenhouse emissions, and reject the secret aim of dooH niboR.
A proposed analysis of why Nazis are drawn to commit massacres.
This shows a parallel with how PISSI has changed its approach since losing its territory: turning from group actions to individual massacres.
Thousands of people live in vehicles in the San Francisco area, and the city hits them with repression.
I heard of a person who lives in a house in San Francisco and got an RV, which perse kept outside the city, but using it for a vacation was difficult because the punishment for parking it for even a short time near home was so strict. This came up in conversation as a curious side effect of repression.
In Eskilstuna, Sweden, it is forbidden to beg for money unless you have money to pay for a permit.
Candidate Marianne Williamson raised some deep issues that other candidates don't.
She is too flaky for me to vote for her, but I hope she has influence with deep points.
India's Hindu extremist government plans to permit Hindus from other parts of India to colonize Kashmir.
This reminds me of Israel's colonization of occupied Palestine.
India promised Kashmir a referendum on whether to be part of India, but never held the referendum.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass stricter gun control.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to expand Social Security, not privatize it.
If you sign, please spread the word!
A video presents men wearing with Mitch McConnell supporter shirts engaging in violence against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
This looks like support for stochastic terrorism. The photo seems to have been taken at a rally to support McConnell, so they seem to be real supporters of his. Will he denounce them firmly, or only with a wink, or not at all?
A new form of repression by the Russian state; threatening to take away protesters' children for bringing them to protests and exposing them to the violent repression of the Russian state.
Blaming Mass Shootings on Mental Illness Leads to Stigma, Experts Warn.
The New York Times let itself be manipulated yet again by the bullshitter's bullshit.
Yes, it was a mistake to report something the bullshitter said as if it were sincere. But the first mistake was to pay so much attention to something he said.
Here is how The Onion satirized what the newspaper did.
The US froze Venezuela's assets in the US.
As is generally the case with economic sanctions, this is likely to hurt the public more than Maduro.
It may be difficult for Venezuela to buy food, which could increase the shortages.
A plan in Australia to encourage people not to drink alcohol to excess were evidently greatly influenced by the alcohol companies, which suggests they were designed more for show than for effect.
UK Woman Says Cyprus Police Forced Her to Retract Rape Claim.
Modi, India's Hindu extremist ruler, has imposed total repression on Kashmir. He has arrested the elected leaders of Kashmir, and cut off phones and internet.
The order to allow outsiders buy land in Kashmir is based on arbitrarily negating` an article in India's constitution.
What does a constitution mean if the government in power can arbitrarily sweep it away? Nothing.
I think Modi is planning something far worse than allowing non-Kashmiris to buy land there. I suspect some horrible act of repression is in the works, something that will look so horrible that he wants to make sure the world can't see it.
Republicans are trying to distract attention from the violent effects of their racism by asserting that one of the shooters last weekend supported Warren for president.
Perhaps he did, but that is not a valid parallel, because Senator Warren doesn't spew hatred the way Republicans do.
A Nigerian woman accused a powerful Christian preacher of raping her.
The response was a collection of criminal charges against her.
The US collects data from many sources to identify and prosecute whistleblowers. After publication, this includes information from many databases about which employees contacted a journalist.
The article suggests how messaging software might help protect whistleblowers; but this won't keep them safe for very long after the leak is published.
Above all, the article explains why the US must eliminate the practice of prosecuting whistleblowers for "spying" is fundamentally wrong anyway.
Meanwhile, real spy chiefs want to make things worse by banning secure encryption, and thus put our freedom in more danger — from them.
Russian protesters are more stubborn now than in the past. Arresting some of them has not made them give up.
Both Republicans and Democrats (plutocratist "moderate" Democrats) harp on right-wing racism to avoid confronting plutocracy.
Facebook is still showing zuckers targeted political ads to serve right-wing causes, and it's a secret where the money comes from.
Revealed: Johnson Ally's Firm Secretly Ran Facebook Propaganda Network.
Al-Qa'ida is still operating, but instead of trying to draw attention using shocking attacks on the West, its method is to build support in various parts of the world.
Since this is not a direct threat to the West, perhaps the West has no reason to fight it. However, any region that al-Qa'ida comes to dominate will suffer a great loss of human rights. The US should not intervene militarily, since that would only create an Afghanistan-like situation. But if local people want to fight back, it would be good to give them support while leaving the effort mainly in their hands.
A father plans to let his two conjoined daughters die rather than approve an operation that would probably save one of them.
This is a real-life variant of the trolley problem, with a crucial difference: in this case there was time to study the issue carefully and establish with near certainty what each choice would lead to before making the decision. He cannot rationally deny that his choice of "do nothing" means death for both of daughters.
His choice is a form of moral cowardice. The kind of cowardice that makes someone lose a tooth rather than get a filling. The kind of cowardice that makes someone die of late-stage cancer rather than get early treatment and survive. So even though I empathize with his distress at the need to choose between horrible and doubly horrible, I can't excuse his decision. The daughters deserve life. If you can't save both, at least save one.
I don't think that we should be more concerned about the couple because they have four other children. Having so many is a bad thing to do, but it has no effect on the issue of saving these daughters.
Global heating helps tick populations grow, and this makes Lyme disease more prevalent.
Freezing ovarian tissue and reimplanting it later could enable women to delay menopause for decades.
I hope this won't require them to actually menstruate. I also hope it won't lead to more births.
An EU agreement provides for southern coastal countries to receive refugees who will be distributed to other EU countries.
Trolls attacked MP Rosena Allin-Khan for trying to convince Israel to let Gazan parents of sick children getting medical care in Israel to visit their children.
MP Allin-Khan describes the abuse as "antisemitic", but what I see in the examples quoted is condemnation of Israel rather than anti-semitism as such. I agree, however, that these examples were unjustified exaggeration. Her attempts to convince Israel to loosen some of the restrictions of the occupation is not support for the occupation.
It is one thing to say that a small step is not a full solution to a problem. It is another to say that the small step is bad. We should make sure campaigns for small steps don't distract us from advocating a full solution, but that doesn't require condemning them.
Students from Hong Kong protested in an Australian university. Some Chinese people (perhaps students, perhaps not) physically attacked them and surveilled them; some protesters later received threats, clearly organized by China.
Many Chinese studying abroad remain so connected to the state-controlled Chinese systems of state control that they do not question the propaganda. I think the university should impose requirements on Chinese students that they reduce their involvement in those systems, so that they are not dominated by them. It should be a requirement for educational purposes to expose themselves to other ways of thinking.
A few months ago I met some Chinese students in MIT CSAIL and urged them to take advantage of being in the US to read extensively the things that China does not want them to know. I specifically recommended the book, Life and Death in Shanghai, by Nien Cheng, which describes surviving the cultural revolution of the 60s and 70s.
Bogus Johnson is tossing out pledges to spend money to correct little pieces of Tory budget cuts. Sometimes a new pledge is just part of a larger previous pledge.
The UK media are using the same bad approach that the US media use with the bullshitter: taking his promises seriously. The proper response any time Johnson says he will do some good thing is, "If he really does this, we will take it seriously."
Third Mexican Journalist Killed in a Week Amid Record Murder Rate.
Andrew Yang's proposes a universal basic income as a substitute for various existing welfare benefits, and he doesn't intend to curb the political power of business.
His proposed policy for limiting surveillance is similar to the GDPR, and inadequate in the same ways.
It seems to be designed for a world in which a person entrusts specific information to a service so it can do specific jobs with that data, the data comes directly from per, and the service labels it explicitly as from per. A world in which there is plenty of competition among services, and no one ever feels compelled to use a specific service which perse knows will misuse that data.
And it ignores what the US government might do with that data after using the PAT RIOT act to collect the whole database.
A UK local council blocked an annual fund-raising event for Palestinian children because they thought criticism of Israel could be labeled as anti-semitic.
"Unboxing" videos which show adults playing with toys, when sponsored by the toy manufacturer, are in effect advertising to children.
They may be illegal. They are certainly manipulative.
Some Italian fishermen save drowning migrants because they live by the law of the sea.
China is trying to play the US game of intimidating countries that grant asylum to Chinese political refugees.
One background flaw in the article is its use of the term "intellectual property", which always spreads confusion because it lumps together various unrelated laws that affect different issues.
This article seems to use "intellectual property" to refer to trademarks. In many other articles about "intellectual property" and China, the term refers to trade secrets. Trademarks and trade secrets have nothing to do with each other, but that bogus over generalization tries to lead you to think they are one single issue.
Dallas thugs killed Tony Timpa by grinding him into the ground, gleefully disregarding his cries that they were killing him. It took his family three years to pry loose the video which showed what happened.
San Francisco airport will set an example by banning the sale of plastic bottles of water. Other disposable plastic items are being limited, too.
Greenland’s ice sheet shrunk more in past month than in an average year.
In just one day, 12 billion tons of ice melted.
Putting immigrants in privatized prisons is giving privatized prisons the bad name they always deserved.
Mayor de Blasio, also running for president, has proposed big tax increases for the rich,
as well as the financial transaction tax (also known as the Tobin Tax and the Robin Hood Tax), whose principal benefit is to stabilize financial markets, but which would also bring in some useful revenue.
This isn't enough to convince me to vote for him instead of Sanders or Warren, but it's a good target for approach to the issue of taxation.
Food aid for the poor benefits the US economy as a side effect.
To cut it would be spiteful, and irrational unless the goal is to scapegoat the poor.
US citizens: call on your city officials to block the thug department from conspiring with Amazon to establish video surveillance in your city.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Senate to stop the EPA from hiding information from the public.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Women in the US are happier, on the average, if they do not marry or have children.
In some countries, which give more support to parents, that is not so.
Nonetheless, the birth rate continues to decline in developed countries.
This is a positive change, given that the world's population is still increasing. Now if only we could bring about a decline in the countries which still have a high birth rate. The survival of civilization depends on this.
Sudan's protesters and military have announced a sort of transitional constitution.
Italy Grants Asylum to Eritrean Man Mistaken for Years for Trafficker.
Everyone makes mistakes, but they should not have been so slow to believe the victims who said he was the wrong man.
Human-monkey chimera embryos raise theoretical moral questions about possible future mixture between humans and monkeys. Should such beings be permitted to be born? Or come close to being born?
I recommend reading Cordwainer Smith's science fiction
Some US cities are paying to subsidize the "private" installation of Amazon surveillance cameras.
Economics systematically leads to bad (even disastrous) decisions because the mathematics are based on simplifying assumption which are often not even close to the truth.
Indeed, the neoliberal policies founded on those economics have moved reality even further from some of these assumptions — for instance, by allowing massive concentration of many industries.
Wondering whether the far-migrating turtle dove can be saved in England.
The Democratic presidential debates are run by Republicans, and the "moderators" are Republicans. They manipulate the debates in a biased way, trying to make progressives look bad and to provide Republicans useful information for the campaign.
Unfortunately, to the extent that the plutocratist-biased DNC controls the debates, that is bad in other ways.
We are still pushing it to hold a debate about global heating and approaching climate disaster.
The IPCC warns that global heating's major effects show the need to change agriculture, and in particular, eat a lot less meat.
Jake Inslee used his short speaking time in the Democratic presidential debate to emphasize the need to curb global heating. That was good use of it.
It may be true that global heating underlies the other major issues. But, more fundamentally, plutocracy underlies all the other major issues and global heating as well. This is why I believe that a firm enemy of plutocracy is our best hope for defeating the planet roasters.
Amnesty International reports that Assad's forces are systematically attacking medical facilities in Idlib. The UN ha called for an investigation.
Ads influence many people unconsciously, even people who are trying to pay attention to something else.
US citizens: call on the Forest Service not to eliminate public consultations about mining and logging on public land.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to keep the good provisions in the House's version of the National Defense Authorization Act.
To sign without running nonfree software, please use the Salsalabs workaround.
I replaced their suggested line about the Korean War with
—support a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War.because it's not as if a hot war were still raging there.
If you sign, please spread the word!
More effective than punishing grieving parents: a practical scheme to help parents avoid forgetting babies in a car.
An idea that occurs to me is an button the baby can push, which makes a soft and fun sound when the car is switched on, but makes a loud one-minute alarm outside when the car is switched off.
(satire) EPA Administrator Proves Carbon Emissions Not Harmful By Inhaling Directly From Truck’s Tailpipe.
(satire) Theaters across the country pulled the film Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw Friday following reports of the on-set mistreatment of (underage) cars.
Several Pacific island nations rebuked the countries that don't cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
Knowing that Ronald Reagan was secretly a racist helps make sense of his public statements that were designed to win support from racists.
What is different about the bullshitter is that he overtly declares support for overt racists.
A symbolic protest against Macron's lack of climate defense policy: carefully removing his photo from public administrations.
They are being investigated by the "anti-terrorism" thugs, which exemplifies the world-wide tendency to use "anti-terrorism" laws against nonviolent protesters. This is why those laws are a threat to democracy.
How global heating endangers the North Atlantic right whales.
Salafi Arabia has given women equal rights in regard to travel and employment.
They are still a long distance from legal equality.
To encourage climate-saving use of trains instead of planes, employers could offer extra "journey days" on top of vacation time, for those who use them to travel by train.
The Pentagon has developed wide-area total surveillance systems, which track all cars' movements in an area 25 miles across.
We should make sure that the state does not operate these systems to look at anything but a war zone.
The "president" of Uganda demonstrated he is a dirty, delinquent dictator by jailing a poet whose poetry was called "offensive and vulgar".
Russian Protesters Threatened with Jail on Eve of Planned Rally.
US citizens: call on Congress to get facial recognition technology out of public housing.
It should be illegal for landlords to impose facial recognition or internet-connected locks on tenants in any rental housing.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on the California Senate to pass AB 1215 to ban use of face recognition on body camera videos.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on HSBC to fully divest from fossil fuel and arms companies.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Right-wing death threats were posted against Amnesty International in Israel.
That's the right wing for you.
The Politics of Petulance — nihilism whipped up by telling people that it is impossible to make our situation any better.
In the US, the bully has laid out a simple plan to make things much better: reverse all the changes he has made. That plan may not be the best possible choice — perhaps we could agree on a handful of things he has done that we should keep — but clearly it would be a big step forward. Beyond that, we know other things we need: single-payer medical care, the Green New Deal, prohibiting mass surveillance, and others.
The bully, whose general policy is to come close to nuclear war, has killed the intermediate range nuclear missile treaty and is not trying to negotiate a replacement.
About the campaign of protest which got that treaty started.
The bully claims to want a "better" agreement with Iran, but his sanctions against Iran's foreign minister will prevent negotiations.
Here is what experts recommend as the way to reach a new agreement.
This note was a false alarm. Old steam trains which run old cars at low speeds can continue doing so.
Advertising considered as a cancer on society.
I largely agree. I think that the worst aspect of today's advertising (and the reason there is so much of it) is the collection of personal data — but the article identifies other ways in which advertising corrupts society which don't depend on knowing anything about who sees the ads — for instance, paid-for articles (I won't use the euphemism "sponsored" or the derogatory term "content" for this) and individuals who are paid to insert advertising into their lives as "influencers".
However, if you are like me, you probably wouldn't notice what brand of coffee appears in your friend's photo, so it would fail to exert any influence.
The Democracy for All constitutional amendment would narrowly reverse the Corporations United decision which ruled that corporations have a "human right" to spend money on electioneering.
I prefer the more powerful proposed amendment which would reject the idea that corporations are entitled to human rights.
Lamar Johnson was convicted of murder, but the real killers confessed in 1998 and 2002. Even though it was known that the "evidence" him was falsified by a thug, it took him until now to win a new trial.
This is because many judges and officials would rather keep an innocent man in prison for years than admit that their system made a mistake. They think that if they never admit a mistake, we will believe they never make any.
Republicans are hard at work removing blacks and poor people from voter lists.
They know they can't win an election, so they put their efforts into rigging elections. The bully was "elected" this way and so in 2018 was the governor of Georgia.
20 Republicrook senators have asked the Treasury Department to change a rule so as to cut taxes on capital gains.
This would benefit billionaires enormously, middle-class people a little, and poor people not at all.
US citizens: call on Congress to stop private equity buyouts that profit from destroying a company.
US citizens: call on Senator McConnell to stop blocking election security upgrades.
A right-wing murder-incitement campaign targets Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib.
The bully knows that when he targets people for hate, this sort of hate campaign is likely to come along. And they all know that this sort of hate campaign has a good chance of inspiring murders. The fanatic who shot Gabrielle Giffords didn't kill her, but injured her so gravely that she could no longer serve in Congress. From the point of view of right-wing murderers, that's success.
Some US cities require evicting a whole family from an apartment if any one of them commits a crime.
The US has a general tendency to of heaping various secondary punishments on top of the actual sentence. Ex-cons can be barred from education, barred from many kinds of work, barred even from places to live. Ultimately they are barred from anything except a life of crime.
Legalization of assisted suicide is spreading to more US states, but it is limited to people expected to die anyway in under 6 months.
The people who need this the most are those who are condemned to many years of suffering, by a condition that keeps them helpless or in horrible pain, and could continue for decades.
Australia's planet-roaster government has set up a scheme to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The cuts are so small that it will make no real difference.
Bolsonaro has fired the head of Brazil's space institute, calling the satellite measures of deforestation "lies". We know who is the liar, of course.
Bolsonaro's men are trying to set up a second system for monitoring deforestation, perhaps with the aim of reporting a smaller amount of it.
Burma is a jigsaw puzzle of different ethnic groups that want to be independent. To a large extent, in practice, they are.
Militarism can encourage people to tolerate and downplay men's violence against women. It carries an imperative to "stand by our troops" even when they rape
A right-wing nut wants to make it a felony to throw water at thugs. Unfortunately, that nut is a state legislator in New York.
I wonder if the Burmese water festival is celebrated anywhere in NYC. Under that proposed law, if thugs show up there, they could arrest lots of the participants.
Hong Kong is charging protesters with "rioting", which is defined in such a way that almost any protester can be found "guilty" of that.
There are 11 thousand square miles of wildfire in Russia now.
This releases massive amounts of CO2 which will exacerbate the heat that is responsible for the fires.
A proposal for how the UK could fix its shortage of housing over the coming decade.
The bully hopes that totalitarian surveillance will stop people from fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to the US.
The reason I don't think so is that the governments will control the surveillance and the governments are not interested in making those countries safe for ordinary people. The surveillance won't eliminate the gangs because the gangs are too powerful
When Israeli soldiers demolished Palestinians' houses in the West Bank, saying they were too close to the border between land that Israel claims to have annexed as part of Jerusalem and land Israel does not claim to have annexed, they attacked a number of solidarity witnesses.
For instance, British solidarity witnesses were in the bathroom, so soldiers threw in tear gas which had no way to dissipate. And that was only the start of the violence against them.
The attackers broke the witnesses' bones and in some cases maimed them.
The US has giving misguided training to thugs in Central America.
Everything Cops Say About Amazon's Ring Is Scripted or Approved by [Amazon].
It should be a crime to set up such an agreement: the thugs that sign it should be criminals and so should the company they make it with.
Meanwhile, Ring's massive video surveillance is dangerous in substance.
The Netherlands' ban on covering your face in public transit and public buildings turns out to be problematic to enforce.
That is good — because face coverings are the only known way to block face recognition personally. The ban harms anyone that wants privacy in movements.
Uighurs Challenge China to Prove Missing Relatives Are Free.
With the state control over communications, it would be easy to kill people and claim to have released them.
We still know nothing of the fate of the new Panchen lama, disappeared by China while still a child, and his family.
We would not trust claims by the bullshitter's agents about what has become of arrested refugees, so why believe what China says.
Subsidies for fossil fuels, globally, amount to 4 times the subsidies for renewable energy. Shifting 30% of the fossil subsidies to renewable energy could make renewable energy so advantageous that the world would switch quickly.
That is not enough by itself to avoid disaster. We need also to cut down on cattle and growing crops to feed cattle.
We need to increase forests instead of cutting them down.
We need to put an end to energy-expensive bitcoin mining.
But we could do those things, if we do the big job.
CO2-removal technology could be useful, but the obvious methods can't remove enough to save us. We must not allow planet roasters to treat these technologies as an excuse to keep pumping out greenhouse gases.
What should we do with radioactive nuclear waste?
Bogus Johnson, from whom lies are expected, could poison the honesty and objectivity of the civil services.
The bullshitter has already done this in the US.
On the bad implications of the word "migrant".
Kamala Harris's medical care plan is a step up from today, but has many flaws compared with Sanders's Medicare for All.
In particular, it supposes that the companies that sell medical care plans operate from good will, instead of the chiselers and gougers we see.
Harris was persistently harsh to the accused as attorney general of California, opposing criminal justice reform. When she does take a progressive stand, she sometimes changes her mind under pressure.
More about her past as a prosecutor.
She also championed a law for internet censorship, which equates ignorance to guilt.
The overarching political issue of our times is democracy vs plutocracy; an official that works for the plutocrats is not going to help restore democracy.
As Biden falls in the polls, plutocrats are moving their investment to Kamala Harris (and Buttigieg).
Harris accepted campaign funds from pharma executives this year.
Kamala Harris Set To Raise Money With Former Wells Fargo Executive.
US citizens: oppose Eugene Scalia's nomination as secretary of Labor.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Scientist Rod Schoonover worked for the US State Department to prepare a report about how global heating would affect US national security. He has resigned because saboteurs working for the bullshitter blocked him from presenting it to Congress.
Referring to organized, well-paid denial of evident truth as "skepticism" gives it a kind of legitimacy exactly where it does the most harm. Likewise the term "climate change".
Please avoid using those terms.
A regional thug chief in the UK said that adding more thugs will not work to reduce crime without also canceling the Tories' starve-the-poor policies that make people desperate and offer them no help in avoiding crime.
A Florida thug is being prosecuted for framing a series of people on phony drug charges.
It is important to punish thugs for false witness in all kinds of situations, not only when it is a followup to killing someone.
As a separate matter, we should end the war that's on drugs.
President Do-dirty seeks to use a state of martial law, aimed initially at a branch of PISSI, to crush an indigenous group, the Lumed.
The Christian extremist that sparked the "purity" movement in the US has repented and apologized.
"(Irish prime minister) Leo Varadkar looks like an adult because the UK is acting like a spoilt toddler."
ALEC helps plastic companies lobby against laws to limit plastic bags.
Bogus Johnson's principal aid acknowledged 2 years ago that the Tories do not care about poor people or the NHS.
It was helpful for him to admit that the Tories are lower than vermin.
Will
Britons take their blindfolds off and see
this?
Johnson And Trump's Close Ties Risk Disaster for Planet,
Says Corbyn.
California has passed a law requiring all presidential candidates to
release
their tax returns in order to get on the ballot.
There is surely something in his tax returns that might have cost him
votes in 2016. But would it have that effect on today's Republicans,
who have become inured to lies, hatred and racism? It might seem like
small potatoes compared with the vicious things that Republicans are
already inured to.
I can imagine that the conman might abandon California (since he has
little chance of winning there) to defy this law. But if a swing
state does this, he might have to yield.
The Gilroy murderer advocated white supremacists, which suggests that
his shooting was an
act
of white supremacist terrorism.
A father forgot his children in a car all day, and they died. Does it
make sense to prosecute him?
Does it make sense to make a law against leaving
children in a car for a few minutes?
The Drug Enforcement Agency has been stalling for three years over an
application for a permit to grow
marijuana
for research.
Hong Kong protesters are trying to identify thugs
by
their faces,
now that the thugs have stopped wearing identification badges.
The thugs generally have an advantage in this kind of conflict.
When the NSA says it deleted a database, it sometimes finds
another
copy later.
The new head of the Bureau of Land Management wants to privatize all
public land by selling
it to rich people.
I suspect the rich buyers will get it at a very low price.
Tech executives are making a show of apologizing for the damage their
companies have done … without having to
fix
it or even halt it.
The Democratic debate was
"Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren v the
'No We Can't' Democrats."
Stop arguing with Bogus Johnson —
it
only feeds the troll.
What is needed is action, not disputation.
José Ramos-Horta, former president of East Timor, calls on Australia
to drop charges against the whistleblower that revealed how Australia
was spying
on the negotiations between those two countries.
I agree completely. I also agree that it was wrong of Australia to
steal oil located in what was to become East Timor's waters. But the
biggest wrong was that Australia allowed that oil to be burned,
contributing to global heating.
If East Timor had extracted this oil and allowed it to be burned, that
would have been almost as bad. For a just outcome, just to humanity
and nature, we need to leave that oil in the ground.
Pharma companies will be fined 70 million dollars for
conspiring to prevent
the making of generic drugs.
A student from a town near Detroit
faces
criminal charges for throwing
a ball that injured another student, in a game similar to dodge ball.
I was unable to play volleyball because I was afraid to be hit by the
ball. If you are afraid of being hit by a ball — whether for
emotional reasons like me, or valid medical reasons like the student that
was injured, you really should decline to play.
US border thugs have separated over 900 minors
from
their parents
since a year ago. Almost 200 of them are children under 5 years old.
There are valid reasons why a compassionate state might do this in
some cases, but when a state and its officials have explicitly
declared hatred for migrants, we must expect it to distort those
reasons into excuses to do harm.
The number of remaining vaquita porpoises is
between 6 and 19.
The species might survive if Mexico cracks down on use of gillnets.
It is too late to be sure of that — if there are just 6, and none is
a female capable of reproducing, it's too late — but we should try.
India has almost finished abolishing the
one-sided
law for divorces
among Muslims. Men alone had the right to declare a divorce
unilaterally.
People should have equal rights in divorce, but I hope this doesn't
result in making divorce too difficult for everyone.
Nigeria shows how extreme inequality of income can
spread poverty in
an "economic boom".
The European Court of Justice ruled that a web site with a Like button
is responsible
for the tracking it does.
This ruling won't make a big difference if the site can make the issue
go away by adding one more clause to its terms of service. But it
might make a small difference, if sites can no longer show a Like
button to a visitor who has not yet explicitly accepted the terms of
service.
Kamala Harris claims to support Medicare for All, but her
version is ersatz.
This year, Earth Overshoot Day is calculated to occur on August 1.
After
just 7 months, humans have used what the Earth can regenerate in
a whole year.
The population of wild boar is exploding in Europe, and many have
moved into cities where they
injure
humans.
Fortunately, they taste great. If you are in Europe, try some.
In Pete Buttigieg, Venture Capitalists See a Campaign
to
Invest in.
That shows he's on the plutocrats' side, not ours.
Reminder of some
arguments against the death penalty.
Tanzania has
arrested a famous investigative journalist, Erick
Kabendera.
One must suppose he investigated something the government didn't want
the public to know about.
Mass Protests in Colombia and Abroad Decry
Killings
of 500 Activists Since Peace Accords.
Under Geneva conventions, every occupying power has an obligation to
compensate any damages it does members of the occupied population,
whether to their bodies or their property. Israel has changed its
laws so that it almost
never
gives Palestinians the compensation they
are owed.
A local leader of India's ruling Hindu extremist party
called
for gang-raping Muslim women.
She was expelled from the party, but men who said similar things have
generally been tolerated.
When foreigners enter Xinjiang (China) from Kyrgyzstan, Chinese border
guards have taken
their phones away to put malware on them.
The malware searches files in the phones for various things that China
considers hateful. It might do other things as well.
I have to point out that people suspect the US of doing similar things
to people entering the US, and in other circumstances as well.
Enforcement of food
and drug safety regulations has fallen by 33%
under the corruptor.
Ocasio-Cortez pushed past border thugs so she could speak to
imprisoned immigrants. This enabled her to find out
how they were
mistreating the prisoners.
The thugs
had gone to extreme lengths to block visiting congresscritters
from observing or finding out the prison conditions, and the visitors
felt menaced by them. Sounds like a visit to North Korea.
A major US insurance company has announced it
will
stop insuring coal companies (or investing in them).
Saboteur of the Interior Bernhardt gave his former client
influence over
the department's decisions.
The department has adopted
new
secrecy rules, too.
When you buy a record, or pay for music streaming (even via ads), the
money
usually goes to some company, not to the musicians.
I've proposed systems for
supporting
musicians without depending on record companies, and in a way that encourages sharing.
Al Franken now
regrets
resigning from the Senate. Some senators that pushed him to
resign
now
regret that too.
The first (main) article does not state clearly whether Franken
touched Tweeden in the process of making the photo, but it seems he
did not. If that is correct, it was not a sexual act at all. It was
self-mocking humor. The photograph depicted a fictional sexual act
without her fictional consent, but making the photo wasn't a sexual
act.
If it is true that he persistently pressured her to kiss him, on stage
and off, if he stuck his tongue into her mouth despite her objections,
that could well be sexual harassment. He should have accepted no for
an answer the first time she said it. However, calling a kiss "sexual
assault" is an exaggeration, an attempt to equate it to much graver
acts, that are crimes.
The term
"sexual
assault" encourages that injustice, and I believe it has been
popularized specifically with that intention. That is why I reject
that term.
Meanwhile, Franken says he did not do those things, and the other
actors he previously did the same USO skit with said it was not
harassment, just acting. Tweeden's store is clearly false in many
details.
Should we assume Tweeden was honest? With so many demonstrated
falsehoods in her accusations, and given that she planned them with
other right-wing activists, and that all of them follow a leader who
lies as a tactic every day, I have to suspect that she decided to
falsify accusations through exaggeration so as to kick a strong
Democrat out of the Senate.
I have no proof of that suspicion. It is possible that she made the
accusations honestly. Also, in a hypothetical world, someone might
really have done them. Supposing for the moment that those
accusations were true, should Franken have resigned over them?
I don't think so. They are misjudgments, not crimes. Franken
deserved the chance to learn from the criticism that surprised him.
Zero tolerance is a very bad way to judge people.
However, the most important point is to reject the position that if B
feels hurt by what A said or did, then automatically A is wrong.
People judged Franken that way, and he judged himself that way. But
that way degrades the concept of "wrong" into a mere expression of
subjective disapproval. What can legitimately be asserted
subjectively can legitimately be ignored subjectively too. To judge A
that way is to set B up as a tyrant.
If B's feelings were hurt, that's unfortunate -- but is that A's
fault? If so, was it culpable, or just a mistake? That is what we
have to judge, and if we want others to think our judgments worth
following, they must be based on objective facts and objective
standards, including objective standards for what words and gestures
objectively mean.
Traister is wrestling with a solvable problem. She says, "When you
change rules, you end up penalizing people who were caught behaving
according to the old rules." Maybe people do, but that is a sign of
carelessness. It isn't really hard to change the rules and then judge
old actions by the old rules. We just have to remember to do so.
One big danger of surveillance is that
people
come to believe that breaking a rule is impossible, and then it
becomes unthinkable.
If you use Twitter,
unfollow
the bullshitter. Posting your outrage does not hurt him —
it's what he wants.
Your Family Is
None
of Their Business.
You, too, are none of their business, but that point is more radical.
The Tories have made it easy to get away with mistreating workers in
the UK. They have
cut
the funding to employment tribunals to the point where it takes 8
months for a case to be heard.
The UK
privatized
applications for student visa renewals. Naturally the company
gouges the students, using a dark pattern in which there are supposed
to be gratis appointments but in practice they are not available.
This particular work has a peak season in September. In a government
office, the staff would focus on this during the peak season, then
most would shift to other tasks for the rest or the year. A private
business may not have an opportunity to do that. Its staff is less
stable than civil servants, and its other contracts come and go.
This adds to the
other
reasons that government services should never be privatized.
Occasionally some government service can simply be eliminated.
Can You Afford To Be
Green
When You're Not Rich? I Kept a Diary to Find Out.
The article shows that many forms of conservation are made far more
difficult by the fact that society's current pushes people in the
other direction.
The most important choice, to reduce your contribution to the
ecological footprint of humanity, is not mentioned in the article.
It is to choose
not to have a child. The
writer apparently does not recognize that that was a choice.
Isolated, uninhabited Henderson Island receives
tons
of plastic deposited by the Pacific Ocean. Scientists visited for
two weeks and collected 6 tons to study it.
60% comes from fishing. This accords with reports that most plastic
waste in the ocean is from fishing. That should be much easier to
eliminate than waste from a billion consumers.
If the fishing was done near Henderson, it was illegal. But this
trash could have floated for thousands of miles.
How Stonewall Reversed a Long History of Justifying
Police
Surveillance (and entrapment and jailing) of gays.
Revealed: Rampant Deforestation of Amazon Driven by
Global
Greed for Meat.
The new business-supremacy treaty between the EU and Mercosur trade blocks
could
speed up the deforestation.
After mangrove trees die, they
emit
lots more methane.
(satire) God ordered His followers to swallow cyanide capsules Monday
in preparation
for their voyage to Alpha Centauri.
ICANN has eliminated
the limit on fees for having a .org domain name.
It disregarded almost complete opposition to the move in the public comments
it received.
The .org domain overseer would make the same amount of money
by collecting $10k for each of 1000 domains as it would by collecting
$10 for each of a million domains. And the former would be a lot
less hassle. I fear that is what we will see.
Americans, remember the refugees that tried to flee from Hitler.
All countries turned them away,
and
they were killed by Nazis.
Venezuelan navy captain Rafael Acosta was arrested on June 21 and accused
of plotting a coup. Since then he has
died,
showing signs of torture.
Maduro calls for investigation of the accused torture rather than trying
to deny it.
The wife of Dubai's emir has fled and wants a divorce. The emir
thinks of her as property and wants the UK to forcibly
send
her back
to him.
He got his daughter back by sending commandos to grab her.
An employee of Eli Lilly, a Pharma company,
reports
on when the goal of
maximizing profit replaced that of saving lives.
Bernie Sanders Is Right: 3 Billionaires Really Do Have More Wealth
Than
Half of America.
Ethiopia
is trying plant 4 billion trees this year. Each citizen is supposed
to plant 40 at least trees.
If they are planting the right kinds of trees,
in
places where forests
can grow, these trees might do good, if they don't die.
Due to global heating,
trees may not survive the next 20 years
in places where they used to grow. However, it is better to try
than not try.
We should ban use of lead shot for hunting. The lead pellets remain
lying around, birds
eat them, and die of lead poisoning.
Eating the poisoned birds, including the birds shot with lead, poisons
people.
Scientists suggest making a Geneva convention to
give wildlife and
nature reserves protected status in conflicts.
What about museums
with unique objects,
and libraries of rare books?
I think they should have similar protected status.
Even accidental
destruction
of these special places should be considered
a crime — the crime of negligence.
Barr Says Police
Need
Encryption Backdoors, Doesn’t Mention [Cracking]
Tools They Use All the Time.
China is getting children started early on
being
tracked all the time.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects web site
operators from liability for what their users post, is being attacked
in Congress. This
puts all sorts of Internet commenting in danger.
An Indian teenager
accused
a politician of raping her. A truck collided
with the car she was in, killing two of her relatives and injuring her
and her lawyer.
There is suspicion that thugs beat her father to death.
The UK is forcing
women into sex work to get a place to live.
Thugs in Harrisburg have a predilection of
beating up prisoners
and causing them serious injuries, then not taking care of them.
Measles
attacks the immune cells that guard the memory of resisting
past infections. It takes 4 or 5 years for those immune cells to
regrow and provide immunity again to those past infections.
Thus, if you get measles, you become vulnerable again, for several
years, to infections you were previously immune to. And they can kill
you.
China's First ‘Cyber-Dissident’
Jailed
for 12 Years.
If the UK needs to make a new trade agreement with the US, the US will
impose
disastrous
permanent deregulation.
The bullshitter's billionaire backers want this, and Bogus Johnson
will surely rush to obey. But it would not have been much better
under Obama, or any previous US president since the 1970s.
Global heating is
making
whole families flee Guatemala. The seasons have changed, there is
less rain, and crops fail.
US citizens:
call
on CNN to ask the candidates about net neutrality.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens:
call on CNN,
and its head, Zucker, to stop giving Nazis a platform.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone:
call
on the European Investment Bank, and the governments that own it,
to adopt the fossil fuel divestment proposal and fully implement it.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Bogus Johnson, the new prime minister of the UK, has appointed as his
chief aide a man that has been censured by Parliament for
refusing
to testify about fake news activities.
A study reports: Countries with higher levels of unionization have
lower
per-capita carbon footprints.
The Supreme Court allowed the cheater to use
$2.5bn
in Pentagon funds
to build a border wall.
British "honours" (non-military medals) named after the
no-longer-extant British Empire
cause
a moral quandary to some
recipients, whose ethnic background includes a group that was colonized
by said empire.
Rep. Shiff, head of the House Judiciary Committee, said that Mueller's
testimony provided the
basis
to consider impeaching the conman.
It seems to me that we had plenty of basis already.
Moscow thugs have arrested 1300 pro-democracy protesters, but the
protesters
are not daunted.
All they demand is that the candidates they nominated be allowed to run.
Gold miners in the Brazilian Amazon have
attacked
and captured an
indigenous village and killed the tribe's leader.
Experts Call for Ban on Glass Skyscrapers
to
Save Energy.
They need extra cooling to make up for the greenhouse effect of the glass.
Hong Kong thugs
indiscriminately attacked subway passengers who were
simply
trying to ride the train.
Some of the passengers had previously been in a protest.
UK women have become more willing to report rape,
but only 2% of the
cases are actually pursued. This discourages the victims, who say
"forget about it."
An
analysis of the Hong Kong political situation.
Let's look at the argument that Hong Kongers should surrender their
rights to assuage the hurt feelings of a billion Chinese. Are their
feelings really hurt? That could be a fiction fabricated by Chinese
state.
But let's suppose that 30 million really do have hurt feelings. It
could be so. If so, why are their feelings hurt? Why do they even
pay attention to Hong Kong? It's because they are more or less
Xi-ple; the state media tells them to feel hurt, and they do not doubt
what they are told.
Any number of people who demand your surrender because they herded to do so
amount to no reason for you to do that.
Extreme Weather Has Damaged Nearly Half Australia's Marine Ecosystems Since
2011.
Some were damaged irreversibly.
The crucial points are that (1) this is surely not limited to
Australia and (2) it will get a lot worse unless we stop it soon.
MSNBC alters arithmetic to make
Sanders look bad.
A big right-wing PAC turned out to be much less effective than
it might have been, because the organizers directed
much of the money
to themselves.
The Department of Justice
approved
the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint.
The political power of large companies is such a threat to democracy
that we should make sure they do not merge with or acquire other
companies.
In the EU, online credit card payments will require two-factor identification
using
a mobile phone.
Many people are up in arms about the inconvenience of this, but that
is only the superficial level. A mobile phone tracks you, and buying
on the internet tracks you. The wise thing to do is to go to a
physical store and pay cash.
The US made Guatemala agree that the US should call it "safe"
so that refugees that cross Guatemala (from Honduras, El Salvador
and Nicaragua) have
to apply for asylum in Guatemala.
That policy is ridiculous and unjust because it is based on a falsehood.
Australia's ruling planet-roasters are
facing
pressure from Papua New Guinea to help curb global heating.
Bullshit won't be enough to quell this.
Planting
a lot of forests in Europe could reduce severe storms there.
In a human advance, Israeli snipers are now
being
told to shoot (unarmed) Gaza protesters in the lower leg.
This reinforces the point that when they shoot someone in the head, it
is
no accident.
US major media
continually
print interviews with supporters of the bullshitter showing that they
have not changed their stance.
This promotes their talking points, but it isn't news any more.
US citizens: call
on Harvard to divest from fossil fuels.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call
on Congress to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
If you call, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboard
numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: call on
Los
Angeles DA Lacey to stop pushing for the death penalty.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call
on Congress to pass the MORE Act to legalize marijuana
in a thorough way.
If you call, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboard
numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Everyone: call
on Walmart to let staff wear shorts.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: Call
on Alabama Governor Ivey to give clemency to Rocky Myers.
The reason he could not present these arguments in an appeal
is the law past under President Clinton to sharply limit appeals
against death sentences.
If you call, please spread the word!
Why are companies rushing to replace human workers with robots based
on machine learning? Because that is a way
to make
the rich richer, and the poor poorer as a byproduct.
Additional robots are greatly reducing the number of jobs in
manufacturing, and are likely
to continue doing so.
The fact that one particular factory in the UK has more staff now than
in 2007 is neither here nor there. Evidently a bigger fraction of the
country's manufacturing has been concentrated there.
The increase in productivity is a benefit to whoever owns the factory,
and the small fraction of people employed there. But it is not good
for society overall unless those benefits are shared with society
overall.
It is a mistake to see the issue in nationalistic terms as a
competition with other countries. It does no good to country C to
have robot factories there rather than in D, E and F, if the benefits
go in each case only to the few owners. What matters to country C is
making sure the people there who don't own plenty of stock in robot
factories can nonetheless enjoy the products of these factories, and
everything else one needs for a good life.
Portland thugs
harassed and attacked antifascist counterprotesters,
based
on accusations
that may be phony.
However, it seems they really did attack the right-wing journalist,
Andy Ngo. We should not do that.
A sheriff's office and a special gouge-'em prison phone company
conspired (in effect)
to record
prisoners' privileged phone calls with lawyers.
The substantive policies of Mexican President López
Obrador put
business and the US first.
If this is a "win for Mexico's left", then Clinton was a progressive.
Privatized UK probation officers
say bigger
caseloads and unrealistic targets prevent them from following
their professional standards.
This is the standard result of privatizing a government service.
We should renationalize all privatized government services.
China is now ruled by a networked
totalitarianism,
"Mao
2.0".
When the article says what "we" believed, the author should speak for
himself. I never believed that capitalism would by nature bring
democracy. Democracy is how the non-rich organize the state to
protect them from the power of the rich.
Back when capitalists needed lots of factory workers, that gave the
workers one advantage in their fight for democracy. But it did not
guarantee victory. And now that advantage is gone.
Courtney Irby took her husband's guns to the
thug department because
he had been trying to kill her. The
thugs charged
her with burglary and jailed her.
Trudeau gave
Canada's approval to the Transmountain tar sands pipeline. This
makes a mockery of the climate emergency declaration Trudeau made this
week.
The new NAFTA improves many specific points, but its fundamental
effect is still to give businesses more power and democracy less
power, and thus to transfer
income from
workers to business owners.
A mesh network
is providing
true internet service to large parts of New York City.
I used to think that community mesh networks could not be more than
toys, but it's a great surprise to see this is not so.
Senate Republicans
blocked
bills to improve the security of US elections.
Progressive US district attorneys are making inroads into the cruel
"tough
on crime" approach to street crime.
Toughness for toughness' sake causes a lot of collateral damage
and can backfire by increasing crime.
The case where toughness is exactly what we need is for business
crime, whether against workers or against customers. For instance,
stealing
workers' pay and
foreclosing
on millions of Americans' homes using fraudulent papers. The
perpetrators do this for profit, and if it ceases to be profitable,
they will stop doing it.
If we have recourse to a billionaire to defeat the impositions of
other billionaires, the result will be to
ensconce
plutocracy more deeply.
A society where a small number of the powerful compete for power could
turn
into an empire.
Mulvaney is pushing
deregulation
of business in many areas of the US government.
By contrast, the bully wants more regulation of
activities
that help poor people,
refugees,
and
women.
US citizens: call
on presidential candidates to commit to ending federal attacks on abortion rights.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone: call
on Google to shut down its location tracker Sensorvault.
Sensorvault stores the locations tracked in great detail by Android
apps, which do this even when location tracking is "turned off".
This is what you have to expect from nonfree software.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call
on Democratic and Republican parties to denounce and reject disinformation tactics.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call
on the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate illegalities in use
of soldiers to patrol the border.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Citizens of Massachusetts:
call
on your Mass legislator to pass the ROE Act.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Hatred of unusual sexuality still
causes
gratuitous suffering
around the world.
Even some "progressive" Congresscritters voted the
Pentagon's
bloated funding deal.
Jewish religious leaders reminded Congress that
rejection and cruelty to
refugees can hurt anyone.
(satire) … Russian operative
Pavel Artemyev reportedly expressed disappointment Friday that
gerrymandering has
taken
all the fun out of hacking the 2020 election.
Comparing Warren with Sanders on
foreign policy.
I disagree with the author on some points. Russia and China do
threaten the security of Americans, though not as much as the
bullshitter does. I think the US should keep troops in Rojava (the
Kurdish part of Syria) for as long as Rojava wants them.
If we care about democracy in the Middle East, we should defend it
when it is threatened.
Detroit is playing games to expand the
thugs'
video surveillance and obfuscate
its relationship with face recognition.
The remaining refugees imprisoned on Manus Island have been invited to
move to New Zealand, but Australia's right wing hate regime
won't
let
them.
It is good that the bully
did not stop the US from accepting many
refugees from Manus. As for the ones that have moved to Port Moresby,
the capital of Papua New Guinea, I wonder what their lives are like
there.
Australia is still ashamed of its actions there. An opposition
Australian senator went to Manus Island and asked to visit the prison.
Not only was he denied permission,
Papua
New Guinea immediately
deported him.
It is clear that Papua New Guinea's government is acting as a puppet for
the Australian minister in charge, Dutton.
By the way, Dutton is the same minister that could have you imprisoned
if you disobey secret orders to sabotage your clients or your free
software. Don't go to Australia.
The UK parliament voted to
authorize
abortion and same-sex marriage in
Northern Ireland. These were blocked because the parliament of
Northern Ireland ceased to function some years ago.
Important advice about militarism that President Roosevelt received in 1940,
but
the US is forgetting.
(satire) A woman's soul
complains
of gender bias in purgatory.
There is surely gender bias in
CIA
torture, too.
Biden didn't just vote for Dubya's war with Iraq.
He
championed it.
Israel has decided to legitimize Israelis' houses on Palestinians'
land, if the Israelis
dealt "in good faith" with the Israeli
government.
Israelis are not required to show "good faith" to Palestinians themselves.
Contrast this with how Israel grabs for excuses to make Palestinians
demolish
their own homes.
The weight
of the evidence supports Iran's claim that the US spy drone
that Iran shot down was over Iran's waters.
Making war plans and running war games do not strike me as matters of
special concern. Those kinds of preparations are, in most cases, not
followed by an actual war. Thus, if the
bully does attack Iran, I
won't consider that planning to be the cause.
The US has cancelled and violated the nonnuclear accord with Iran but
still
criticizes Iran for not obeying it.
Amazon keeps Alexa recordings and transcripts
indefinitely.
"Unprecedented": More Than 100 Arctic Wildfires Burn in
Worst
Ever Season.
In some places the peat is burning and could burn for months.
The relation between this and global heating is direct in both
directions. The Arctic has heated much more than anywhere else on
Earth, and that temperature makes for fire. And the fire spews CO2
which will increase global heating.
A person's pattern of using a mobile phone allows deducing
a lot about
per personality.
Phone companies around the world could use this to help profile people.
In order for planting trees to be environmentally beneficial, they
need to be the right
trees, in a suitable place.
I conjecture that a good rule would be to plant trees in places that
used to be forests a few centuries ago, and plant the trees that used
to live there.
The EPA plans to allow polluters to
appeal
rulings but not allow
pollution victims to do so.
Plutocratists have directed that agency to do the opposite of its job.
That is why I now call it the Environmental Poisoning Agency.
Moscow Police Arrest up to 200
Ahead
of Election Protest.
Putin openly visits contempt on democracy as an act of intimidation,
like what the bully does in the US.
In the Guardian
we read,
Who or what does "them" refer to? The testicles? The woman?
Notwithstanding my delectation in occasional wildly funny ambiguities
such as that one, I continue to advocate systematically avoiding them
by using singular gender-neutral pronouns
when referring to just one person.
In this particular case, since the person is specified as a woman,
"her" would also have fit.
Siri Records Fights, Doctor's Appointments, And Sex
(and
contractors hear it).
The Israeli Who Had to Prove He's Guilty of Beating a Palestinian, and the
Palestinian
Who Had to Prove He's Innocent of Raping a Jewish Girl.
The workers in Australian mines now have precarious jobs (and,
apparently, no unions to defend them). So they are afraid they will
be fired if they report how the mine
cuts
corners and endangers
people's lives and health.
The underlying cause of this is right-wing government that lets mines
get away with precarious employment. Give miners more power and their
union will attend to the safety.
Machine learning / automated classification is going to be
loaded down
with patents, like other fields of computing.
(The article uses the misleading over-generalization, "IP". It
covers a bunch of disparate laws, which in itself is spreads confusion
by leading people to
think
those laws have something significant in
common.)
We need laws that
directly
exclude software and use of software from
the domain of patents.
Jewish activists protest the deportation thugs, saying
"Never
Again
Means Close the Camps!"
Jews have two different interpretations of "Never again!" One is
narrow: "Never again to us!" The other interpretation is broad:
"Never again to anybody!" I admire that side of Judaism (although it
won't convince me to believe in supernatural entities).
A strike planned in an Amazon warehouse is meant to draw
a contrast between the carefully cultivated image Amazon presents to
consumers and the
reality
for the company's workers.
By contrast, in the Free Software Movement we aim to draw a contrast
between that same image and the reality for those who make the
mistake of accepting the company's services.
Evidence suggests that excess CO2 in the ocean can reach a tipping
point after which the ocean
would
rapidly become much more acidic.
Legalizing recreational marijuana
correlates
with decreased use
by high school students.
Instagram is testing AI-implemented
kind
communication guidelines.
In the GNU Project we ask people to learn and consciously practice our
kind communication
guidelines.
(satire) Defense Attorneys Vow To Present Irrefutable Evidence
Proving Jeffrey
Epstein Billionaire.
The staff of a Chicago medical organization are suing because it
identified
them with fingerprints for each shift.
I think it is bad that the employer has their fingerprints at all.
Is it possible to authenticate people with a biometric that is
normally hidden?
US schools are monitoring social media postings of everyone living
near by, using Artificial
Stupidity to detect "threats". Nearly every
alarm is a false alarm.
One thing that the article doesn't mention is that the contracts for
using the school's computers and their nonfree software, and the
online dis-services that the school wants to let spy on students,
are fundamentally unjust.
Christchurch Mayor On Mass Shooter:
'I've
no idea what his name is'.
I didn't pay attention to that name either.
Real-Time Facial Recognition
Should
Never Be Coupled with Body-Worn Cameras.
I agree, but that is not enough. We must also them from being used to make
and store videos without limits. My proposed automatic system to decide
when to save the recording could take care of this job.
The FBI frequently identifies people by running their photos
through many states'
data bases of drivers license photos.
The deportation thugs do it too, which means that the
states which
permit this expose their residents gratuitously to deportation.
Tsipras and Syriza lost the first battle to the global plutocracy.
Then, instead of fighting for every inch, they
capitulated
eagerly.
Then most Greeks did the foolish thing that a defeated people often
do: they decided to support a different set of right-wing
plutocratists instead. This was pitiful and stupid. Despair can
drive a people to do self-mutilation, just as it can drive an
individual to it, but don't help your enemies subjugate your people.
Global heating is causing havoc in Somalia,
through
repeated drought.
As the number of people who can't feed themselves any more increases,
it is clear that other countries will eventually let them die.
But in the mean time, climate strikers and Extinction Rebellion
can present their example of a foretaste of what is coming
if we don't decarbonize.
"[Trudeau's]
promise to direct pipeline profits to clean energy is
like allowing cigarettes to be sold to kids as long as tobacco
companies make generous donations to cancer research."
There is no
room in the carbon budget for strip-mining
Alberta's tar sands.
Local disasters due to global heating are happening at a rate of
roughly
once per week.
Mizutori's stance is misguided. We must give priority to long-term
reduction of the harm that global heating will do. We must do all we
can in that direction. Defending cities from floods and fires of the
2020s must take second place to reducing the floods and fires of the
2030s, 2040s, 2050s and beyond.
It is good to defend cities better in the short term, provided this is
not at the expense of measures to reduce the long-term threat.
Scholars
implore San Francisco not to cover up the murals that depict
misdeeds of George Washington.
It is true that we can't tell the school's students (or anyone else)
how to feel. That doesn't mean we must cater to misguided demands
that are motivated by those feelings.
In US concentration camps for immigrants, the officers let thugs
vent
cruelty at the prisoners.
"The conditions in the border cells are shocking — but the
right[-wing] will use
public
outrage [as an excuse to] to build more jails."
For the bully,
threatening massive deportation raids then not carrying
them out added up to a successful act of terror. He used
cruelty
to
send a message.
I did not post about this, because it is a mistake to talk about
whatever the conman says. Next time he tries to terrify people
with a threat, let's please not talk about it. The things
has actually does cause enough harm on their own; we need not
add to them by quoting his threats.
Wealthy white males in the US today are about as healthy (on the
average) as were the wealthy white males of 25 years ago, but all
other demographic groups in the US have
got
less healthy since then.
The study doesn't show the reason for this, but the increasing expense
of medical care in the US is surely part of the reason. The
increasing stress of living in the US under plutocracy may be
another.
The hospital that became famous for suing poor people for medical charges
they can't pay has dropped some of the lawsuits.
It
is going to reconsider
that policy.
Maybe after this public outrage the hospital will cease all such lawsuits.
Or maybe it won't. If it does stop, it might start again in a year or two
and hope nobody notices.
No word on whether it will rename itself as "Le Malheur".
Boris Johnson, an evil clown, may now become prime minister of the UK
by burying
a real scandal under an assertion so unbelievable that the
press got distracted by how unbelievable it was.
The assertion was also apparently calculated to disguise one of his
past failures in search engines.
I didn't post any notes about the unbelievable statement, because it
was not important. Additional reasons to distrust someone's word are
hardly needed when that
someone is a Tory.
US border thugs tried to cover up their secret discussion group
for posting their hatred of immigrants, but the
Intercept saved it
and has posted about it.
The quotation, "Fuck the whole country of Honduras," is ironic
because that's exactly
what the US has done.
US citizens:
call on Congress
to block Facebook's planned currency.
If you sign, please spread the word!
(satire) … House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed concerns
Thursday that outspoken progressives
could
do permanent damage to Democrats’ reputation as ineffectual
cowards.
'I Was Ready to Sign' Deportation Papers, Says US Citizen After Three
Weeks in
Horrific
Immigrant Detention Center.
The conditions included denial of medical care.
The deportation thugs released him after negative publicity,
but there is no reason to think that they will make the conditions for
the other prisoners any less nasty.
All insurance companies in Australia
now
refuse to insure any new coal projects. This may put an end to
most of them, but really large companies might self-insure.
Now what about oil and gas?
A natural gas company in California
set
up an unnatural astroturf disinformation campaign to keep the
methane leaking.
The term "balance" has a powerful irrational appeal. We've seen this
in the
copyright
field for ages, and now in energy as well.
About Boris Johnson, the British bullshitter that is
allied
with the US bullshitter.
If we don't curb global heating,
many tropical regions will experience
deadly heat every year. Often this will follow
storms
that cut the electric supply to the air conditioning that would be
necessary to save people's lives.
Mueller's testimony did not deal a political blow to the bullshitter,
because he
gave
little if any new explanation.
I think the bullshitter deserves to be impeached and removed from
office, for treating the US political system with contempt, as well as
multiple crimes and acts of cruelty and dishonesty. But it is
impossible to do that, and without that possibility, whether to
impeach is simply a matter of political tactics.
How RT TV
designs
its disinformation to serve Russia's interest.
An opioids executive was convicted of
bribing
doctors to prescribe the opioid "subsys."
Extinction Rebellion:
"Fashion
Week Should Be a Declaration of Emergency."
It is bizarre to think that clothing makes a big contribution to
global heating,
but it is true: "fast fashion", the practice of
wearing clothes just a little and discarding them, has turned clothing
into something to consume rather than a durable good.
Sanders and Warren advocate
right
to repair for farm equipment.
Barcelona will try to prevent
expansion
of its airport.
Bravo! The world cannot sustain the increase of air travel.
The UK is trying — again — to
corrupt
charities that help homeless
people by getting them to participate in a scheme to identify
foreigners and deport them.
In doublespeak, this scheme is called "support" for homeless people.
India is shipping water by train from Kerala to Chennai. But since
the lack
of water is due to global heating, the shortfall will
increase over time.
If Delhi runs out of water next year, I doubt that shipping water from Kerala
will be a solution.
In the long term, IUDs can help prevent the need for water from
increasing, and solar-powered desalinators can compensate (a little)
for the decrease in supply. But farms need water, too. I fear India
is headed for massive starvation.
Debunking Microsoft's
anti-Right-to-Repair FUD.
Bravo for the article, but one quotation falls into a widespread
confusion: that spread by the term "intellectual property".
In general, that statement is false. It could not steal your
copyrights, or your patents, or your trademarks, or your plant variety
monopolies, or your IC mask monopolies, or your publicity rights —
those are legal privileges, so they can't be "stolen". I think the
only things it could possibly steal that way are trade secrets.
Please don't ever
say "intellectual property" if what you mean is "trade secrets" or
if what you mean is "copyrights", or if what you mean is any
other specific thing, because that is a big generalization. It is
likely to convert a narrow true statement into a broad false one.
If you think that what you mean is all of them, then please study the
issue more carefully — a statement so general is usually false,
and probably most of them are not even relevant to the issue at hand.
If you want to quote a statement where someone else used the term
"intellectual property", please check whether the statement was false
due to this confusion. Any statement that used that term probably
was confused.
To make Amazon pay its fair share of taxes, and Apple, Google,
Facebook and others too,
we
need to see their tax returns. Let's change
tax law to publish the tax returns of corporations.
We could extend this to every company that files a separate tax
return, or to every company that isn't a sole proprietorship.
With that exception, it would respect personal privacy adequately,
Private use of face
tracking is widespread and dangerous,
but the proposed regulations only aim at use by public agencies. Not enough!
Government surveillance
cameras watching the street are a great disguise
for private surveillance cameras put up by nobody-knows-who.
Surveillance cameras —
cameras
transmitting video somewhere else —
should be illegal except when authorized by a court for a specific
place and period of time.
Pressuring Bahrain to cancel executions of people whose
trials were
thoroughly unfair.
Battle Against Tobacco Epidemic
Is
Far from Won.
The European Investment Bank will
stop
funding fossil duel projects.
This could make a real difference if other investors follow this example.
An interview with Manual Zelaya, who
was
president of Honduras until
the coup that appears to have been approved by Hilary Clinton.
Contrasting codes of conduct and accusations
with trying
to be kind to other people.
California now has a law
requiring
bots to identify themselves as such
when used for advertising or electioneering.
I think this is a good idea, but I wonder whether enforcing the law
will prove difficult.
Brazil is a big exporter of frozen chicken, and 1/5 of it is
infested
with salmonella.
The EU should blacklist Brazil until its infestation rate gets down to
the achievable level? I doubt it will do so, but why not? Is it only
lack of moral commitment, or is there some legal obstacle?
I wonder if some business-supremacy treaties forbid this.
Can anyone suggest who to ask?
Plants exchange
signals and respond to some stimuli. Don't leap
to the conclusion that this means they can feel or think.
An independent expert group sponsored by the European Union has
published a plan for
promoting
"trustworthy AI".
It does not seem to propose how to develop an AI to be trustworthy,
how to determine whether a given AI program is infact trustworthy, or
how any AI program can be trustworthy. As far as I know, these are
totally unsolved problems, but the report takes for granted some
solution is used.
The British navy
captured
an Iranian oil tanker said to be taking oil to Syria.
This was clearly an act of war, and justifies military action Iran's part.
The capture took
place in disputed waters near Gibraltar, and Spain
has objected to it.
I can't see what relevance EU sanctions have. If the are sanctions,
they prohibit certain dealings between EU entities and Syria. I don't
see how an Iranian ship would come under EU sanctions, unless it is owned
by a European company.
Only a blockade would purport go that far, and a blockade, if there
were one, would be an act of war in itself. (Remember when Egypt
blockaded Elat? Israel responded to that, legitimately, by capturing
the Sinai.)
I don't think the EU has announced a blockade of Syria. Indeed, it is
unable to do such a thing; the whole field of war is outside the EU's
scope.
So there is some bullshit here. I hope someone sorts out the facts.
China is taking
thousands of Uighur children away from their parents
and putting them into boarding schools designed to assimilate them.
This resembles what the US and Canada did to indigenous peoples
during much of the 20th century. Public opinion made the US and
Canada stop this, but in China public opinion is not allowed to exist.
Even fairly mild reproach of China for
putting
a million Uighurs in
brainwash camps has discomfited China. Firm pressure might
accomplish a great deal.
Perhaps Hong Kong should be the main target of the pressure, for now.
An explicitly plutocratist
party is expected to win the elections in
Greece.
I think Syriza's surrender discredited the idea of resistance.
Perhaps Greeks have thrown in the towel, and are now telling
themselves that surrender will get them some trickle-down.
However, we've seen that that's bullshit. The plutocrats
will be nice to you until you have swallowed the hook, but then they
squeeze ever harder.
Getting a little more privileges in the labor camp, through assiduous
obedience, will never get you freedom.
ACLU: beware dis-services that say, "We'll pay for your personal data"
— that would only
legitimize
the basis of their power, not weaken it.
Shushana Zuboff's take on why "owning the data about you" would be
ineffective
as protection from surveillance capitalism.
Canada required social media companies to
keep
information on who paid
for each ad political. Google responded by not running any political
ads.
The author seems to think that Google somehow defeated Canada. I say
it's just the opposite: Canada achieved a bigger success than it aimed
for!
This suggests it may be possible for one country to succeed in
defeating a system that spreads fake news, if it can identify the
crucial nexus at which to operate. Different networks function
differently.
Shell's Sleazy Censorship: arranging a
joint
event with climate
defenders, then cancelling the participation of the researcher who
was going to show how Shell is still working to hamper climate defense.
Less well-off areas have least to lose from
restricting
diesel fuel,
and most to gain from clean-air zones, study finds.
The University of New South Wales has
told
teachers not to talk
about the fact that the Australian aboriginals reached and colonized
Australia around 40,000 years ago. Science is to be suppressed so as to
respect their nonscientific traditional views.
I think that lying to children is likely to backfire on them. I resent
when parents demand I support their lies about Santa Claus, because I
think I'd be doing wrong.
Lying to adults about their group's origin could be even worse.
OPEC acknowledged that climate defense campaigns including the school
strike
for climate threaten fossil fuel extraction industry's future profits.
Greta Thunberg called this "our biggest compliment yet".
OPEC calls criticism "unscientific", but that can only mean that the
likely fragments of the coming disaster have not been specifically
proved. It would be irrational to wait for such detailed proof
before protecting ourselves.
Striking
students can influence officials even in right-wing parts of
the US. They can mobilize their parents, too.
A study covers 1300
lawsuits
against governments and businesses
over damage caused by global heating.
Situations of high stress cause fetuses to miscarry.
The effect
is stronger for male fetuses.
I wonder whether in Alabama anyone that imposes stress on a pregnant
woman who subsequently has a miscarriage could be prosecuted for
homicide.
US farmers are growing a lot of food but making little money.
At the same time, they are exhausting and losing the soil and
spreading toxins.
Here
are ideas for how to fix both.
Another cause of the failure of farms is being compelled to sell to a
few large middleman companies. Many farms have gone broke recently.
The pressure means farmers cannot invest in
regenerative
agriculture.
Sanders proposes how to
restructure
agriculture in the US
for the sake of farmers.
A UN human rights report says that
Venezuela's
suppression forces have
killed almost 7000 people since Jan 2018 for "resisting arrest". This
is the government's own figure, so it is clear they were all killed in
raids, but it is inconceivable that they all died in that way.
More information about
torture
discovered by the UN visit.
Brazil has thoroughly condemned
corrupt
judge Sergio Moro.
In the past, this sort of exposure would compel an official to resign.
Nowadays, corrupt officials have discovered that trying to tough it out
may succeed. What will it take to kick Moro out of office?
US Judge Shira Scheindlin pronounces on racist stop-and-frisk in
Israel based on her decisions about
racist
stop-and-frisk in New York City.
Israeli right-wing extremists, from Netanyahu on down, have decided to
deny the fact that
Palestine
is under Israeli military occupation.
When anyone points out this fact, they call it "anti-semitism". They
do so, while maintaining an alliance with
real
anti-semites in the US.
"Influencers"
try
to extort gratis food from restaurants, even ice cream trucks.
The best way to deal with them is to stay away from Instagram.
It's a branch of Facebook and participating in it is for zuckers.
House Democrats put an amendment into a military bill that would
strictly
forbid fighting with Iran, other than defending against attacks.
If your school provides you with an iBad, it's not merely imposing
user-subjugating software and online dis-services. It may also be
tracking
your movements in the school.
Tree planting
could
be a big part of preventing climate disaster.
However, I have to raise two questions:
One of Libya's governments imprisoned migrants next to a military base.
Haftar's army attacked the base and bombed the prison too. This
caused
over 100 casualties.
An Italian judge rebuked Salvini and
releasing
Captain Rackete from arrest. It is not clear whether any of the
charges have been dropped.
A hundred or so protesters
took over
the building of the Hong Kong legislature, after
bashing
down its door. Then they destroyed computers and other
facilities.
That legislature is elected through a biased system; it is not
democratic. It does not deserve much respect; I won't say that
damaging its property is inherently wrong, But this violent action,
and the subsequent vandalism, play into China's hands.
New York State has authorized the head of a congressional committee to
demand
anyone's New York state tax returns. That congresscritter should now
demand the conman's tax returns.
This won't have immediate results — I suppose the conman will sue, hoping
to get the Supreme Court to overturn that law.
USDA Indefinitely Suspends Honey Bee Tracking Survey as [eleven]
States Get [special emergency]
Approval
to Use Bee-Killing Pesticide.
I wish this were satire.
Many "biodegradable" and even "compostable" plastics remain
inert
and undamaged in home composting, or in the ocean.
The UK ambassador to the US has been sending his government
an honest
appraisal of the conman.
If ministers continue fawning on the conman, it's not due to
ignorance.
Business-supremacy
treaties are a big screw. If the UK pulls out of
one (the EU), another one (the WTO) will clobber it.
Right-wing policies make people homeless, and right-wing politicians
make an excuse not to care: they regard the
homeless people as a
disgusting nuisance, to dehumanize them.
The Green New Deal
can
do more than avoid disaster. It can be an opportunity
to make the world better in other ways.
The UK makes it easy to
set
up a company with phony information about the
owners. It doesn't even bother to check whatever information it is given.
1/3 of gamers reportedly refuse to pay for anything in games
simply because of
the
risk of fraud.
However, there is a deeper reason to refuse to pay for anything in a
game: because that enables the game company to track you. And the
deepest reason is that the game is a
proprietary program.
Playing against someone who buys better skill or better equipment is
equivalent to playing against someone who cheats.
Let's Be Honest about Britain's
Obsession
with "anti-Semitism".
We [Americans] Have the Money to
Fix
Our Food System.
The Chicago Medical Center is being
sued
for giving patient data to
Google, in a form that can be reidentified easily.
I think that clinics and schools should be required to keep their personal
data on their own computers, located in their own facilities, not in servers
run by companies that operate them in a cloudy way. A contract in which
the company says how it can use the data is not enough to trust that it
will remain private.
Norway focused its prison system on
rehabilitation, and recidivism
declined from 60-70% to 20-25%.
Rehabilitation costs more per prisoner but results in having much
fewer prisons.
I suspect that lowering recidivism that much depends on having a
society that offers ex-cons a way to get by, other than through crime.
My impression is that in the US it is so hard to get a job with an
income you can live on, if you have a criminal record, that many
ex-cons that want to go straight are unable to make a go of it. If
the goal is to reduce the harm done by crime, this is self-defeating.
But then, the US also puts a terrible burden on poor people, and on
various disprivileged demographics, even if they don't have a criminal
record. It is a general pattern of dehumanization, rather than a
constructive attempt to address a problem.
For years I've recommended that the way to defeat extortion through
nude photos is by
posting
the nude photos. Now the idea is catching
on.
If defeating extortion nudes (and revenge porn, which differs by its
motive) were the only benefit, perhaps it would not be crucial.
However, it will also help decrease the general nudity taboo, and that
is very important.
Please don't refer to the people who carry out extortion via nudes as
&mdath;hackers—. There is no reason to think that they are hackers; in any
case, routine extortion is not hacking.
A Starbucks worker asked a few
thugs
(who were there as customers) to
move because someone
felt
threatened by them. Starbucks apologized.
If the representative of the thug
association really can't imagine why
some customers felt threatened, he is mentally deficient, but I think
it more likely he is covering up that side of the truth. I know, from
reading the news and talking with acquaintances, why blacks may feel
endangered by the presence of thugs.
Other people, with less grounds,
may feel endangered by the presence of blacks.
A store should not ask customers to leave, or to move, because
"someone feels threatened by you" — not blacks, and not
thugs —
because people should not be judged based on how someone else feels
about them.
FAQ for evidence-based defense of
letting
children play freely.
Persistent Tory cuts to the National Health Service has
pushed some
doctors to refuse overtime.
Under new pension rules, they will have to pay to work overtime.
Meanwhile, non-medical staff are going on
strike
against privatization.
I think it is the Tories' intention to destroy the NHS by cutting its funds
to the point it cannot possibly function. Then they will claim, as
right-wingers like to do, that government programs can't work right.
Korea's made-from-zero "smart city" replicates The Village, complete
with audio
announcements that people can't shut off.
I mean The Village from the TV show, The Prisoner.
A survey of sales sites,
checking
for use of dark patterns, found them
in 1200 out of the 10000 sites tested.
I think these practices should be regulated, just like other practices
of retail stores.
I think that my decision not to buy anything on line
has saved me more practical annoyance than it has caused me.
That is in addition to protecting my freedom.
The Veterans Administration has its own
thug department, and these
thugs occasionally
turn
on veterans seeking medical care — causing
grave injuries and even death.
Naturally these thugs
lie to protect each other. The article recounts
that one of them tried to act like a
police officer rather than a thug
and was attacked by the thugs.
The VA officials protect them, too.
Israel has forced Gaza into a
pollution
crisis which is now spreading to Israel.
Israel is systematically seizing and hiding public archives to
eliminate
evidence of threatening Palestinians in 1948 to make them flee.
Here's more about the important
vanished
document about atrocities
against Palestinians.
There is now a campaign to
prohibit
government use of automated face
recognition in the US.
This would be an important step forward, but not enough to protect
human rights. We need to prohibit systematic use of automated face
recognition by business, also.
New options for disposal of corpses are
less
polluting than cremation
and ordinary burial.
Attenborough: climate
defense measures "cannot be radical enough".
I think he meant "cannot be too radical".
Amnesty International denounced the Taliban's
"chilling disregard for
human life."
The US makes some effort to avoid killing Afghan civilians, but it
does not consistently try hard.
And when it does kill civilians, it tends to try to cover that up.
Boris Johnson, whose contempt for truth matches that of his US buddy,
looks to be the next prime minister of the UK. By refusing to defend
Ambassador Darroch for commenting honestly and privately on that
buddy, he
effectively forced Darroch to resign.
Darroch's resignation may have been necessary anyway. An ambassador
that is detested by the head of the receiving state cannot be very
effective. However, Johnson has demonstrated
he
wants to be prime
minister of a puppet government.
If there have to be school uniforms, at least the
rules
should not be gender-biased.
I never wore a school uniform. Public schools in New York in the
1950s did not have uniforms, nor did the private secondary schools I
went to. Some schools had them; but in the 70s, counterculture youth
rebelled against uniforms and more or less did away with them. I was
repulsed when I heard, a decade ago, that the practice was spreading
in the US.
France's medical system will
stop
covering homeopathic "treatment".
It is no more than a placebo, based only on irrational pseudoscience.
The EU has a goofy idea:
promoting
competition in the field of
surveillance capitalism by requiring big companies to make their
data bases available to other companies.
If done right, this could reduce the special political influence of
the biggest companies. But it will do privacy no good at all.
As India dries out, one of the bad consequences could be
war
between India and China.
Congress's ethics rules allow lots of
conflict
of interest.
A congresscritter can even trade stock in companies knowing that per
actions as congresscritter will drive the stock price up or down.
Congress is considering a law to
censor
the press to protect the CIA
— including its torturers.
(satire) ICE Sends Agents Home With
Sacks
Of Flour To Practice What It Like
Detaining Real Baby.
Some parks play a
constant
high-pitched sound intended to drive away
people under 25 years of age.
They should play classical music instead.
As extreme
weather events become common, being hit by
two at once is no longer ridiculously unlikely.
Bill McKibben: The
Climate
Movement: What's Next?
Burning some of the methane produced by pigs in factory farms
is being offered as an
excuse
to make more factory farms.
Sanders has proudly published a
list
of billionaires who call him an
enemy.
If you don't earn their hatred, you're not worth voting for.
The US government lobbies internationally for
increasing
pharma companies' power to use patents to overcharge.
It has been doing this for decades.
I must criticize, however, the basic confusion spread by use of
the term "intellectual property", which misrepresents the facts
about various disparate laws by leading people to think of
them as one single thing.
Patent law is different from copyright law on nearly every point.
Neither of them has any similarity to trade secrecy, and they have
hardly any relationship with trademark law. If you have a category of
"intellectual property" in your thinking, it will always mislead you.
Please join me in shunning that term. See
https://gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.
As for the World Trade Organization, it is a business-supremacy treaty,
designed to give
business more power over society.
We must either change it so it ceases to have that effect,
or get rid of it entirely.
[The bullshitter] Praises Boris Johnson,
Who
Once Called Him "Unfit to
Hold the Office of President of the United States."
The bullshitter looks for submission, not for sincerity. He does not
care what Johnson said 4 years ago, as long as Johnson obeys today.
Likewise, praise from the bullshitter means, simply, "You're obeying
now; keep it up and I will keep praising you."
By the end of this century, if we don't curb global heating,
humans
won't be able to work safely outside in the southern US for half the
year.
I wonder if people will still be able to do agriculture in tropical
regions.
The Poor People's Campaign
endorses
challenging the lobbying power
of the military-industrial-oligopoly complex.
The company behind a big planned coal mine in Australia
demanded
to know the names of the scientists participating
in environmental evaluation.
This was, we must suppose, for the sake of trying to intimidate them
or gag them.
The bully has started training his followers in
undisguised
racism.
No matter how "modestly" an Indonesian woman dresses,
she
can still be
raped at home.
I can't begin to understand why men want to demand sex with someone who
isn't thrilled by it.
Francisco
Santiago Jr. is one of the few victims of the Do-dirty's
murder campaigns who by luck survived his arrest and torture, and was
not shot.
His case shows that thugs
pick people more or less arbitrarily, shoot them
while they are prisoners, then decide what to accuse them of. In the US.
thugs
typically do this to black males, but but the Philippines thugs
are not bigots -- any Filipino can be the victim.
"Charitable" donations from the rich
are
not really donations: they
are attempts to buy public admiration. And often they get enough by
just announcing the donation — they see no need to actually give the
money.
Sudan's protesters and military have signed an agreement about
governing
the country.
The bully has done a devastating blow to Planned Parenthood.
It will not be able to accept federal funding for any services unless
it
complies with requirements that would be a surrender of its mission.
US students will be pressured to
rent
textbooks on subscription,
which require proprietary malware with DRM to read them.
(satire) Trump Claims He Tried To Warn Public About Epstein
By
Praising Him As A Terrific Guy.
(satire) Amazon Workers Attempting Walkout Enter 7th Hour Wandering
In
Ever-Expanding, Labyrinth Warehouse.
Ecuador has surrendered to the IMF,
and
the non-rich will suffer
greatly as a result.
Whole Foods Workers Say
Conditions
Deteriorated after Amazon Takeover.
For instance, they have been told to pressure customers to make deals
with Amazon. This would subject them to Amazon's
many abusive
practices.
Biden's health plan is estimated to
fall
short of Medicare for All
by 125,000 avoidable deaths.
Sanders
Accuses Biden of Parroting Pharma and Insurance Industry Script With
Attacks on Medicare for All.
We should give domestic workers the
same
rights that other employees have.
Israel requires students traveling on school-sponsored foreign trips
to
pass a class in exaggerated political propaganda which insults
Palestinians. Even Arab students are required to learn how to give
these answers.
Israel is blocking foreign academics from
working
at (or visiting)
Palestinian universities.
By contrast, the Palestinian boycott asks people not to work at
Israeli universities, and does not try to stop any individual
from doing anything.
McDonalds exploits public school teachers to
market
junk food to their
students.
In Nepal, babies under 2 years old are eating junk food, and it leads to
malnutrition which
stunts
their growth.
A direct
neural interface for controlling a computer could be a very
good thing, provided that you the user are the only one who controls
the interface.
In order for that to be reliably true, the software must be free.
I think testing this on animals is legitimate. It can't be developed
without testing, and testing on animals is better than testing on
humans.
The head of the border patrol was a member of the private Facebook
group for venting hatred at immigrants.
Then
she told us she found it
abhorrent.
One thing that the US does to some immigrants is demand passwords to
their Facebook accounts. This is supposedly done for our "safety".
Perhaps the people this should be done to are officials.
"Multilevel marketing" is not identical to a pyramid scheme, but in
practice it often works out that way. This article shows how they
lure people with promises of profits that few participants get.
Many
lose a lot of money instead.
(satire) "It's
Not So Bad," Mike Pence Reports On Conditions Of
Detainment Center While Hazmat Suit Disinfected.
Reevaluating Apple's reputation for good design:
design for
nonrepairability is not good design.
Journalists
obtained 1000 leaked audio recordings and showed some of
them to the people who were speaking.
150 of the recordings were made when the device was not supposed to be
recording.
If you're in a place with Google a listening device (or Apple, or
Amazon), disconnect it!
Note
that every portable phone is a potential
listening device.
Finally, wildlife defenders recognize the crucial need to limit the
human population,
in
order to leave some land wild.
Investment by plutocracy also plays a role in eliminating wilderness,
but the two work hand in hand (in deforestation in Brazil, for instance),
so reducing births will help.
Israeli right-wing extremists set upon anti-occupation activist
Jonathan Pollak on the street and
beat
him up, then stabbed him.
As for the charges made by the right-wing extremists, they are the friends
and allies of US right-wing extremists. I do not believe their accusations.
As Putin imprisons historians that study Stalin's terror,
Stalin
receives
public praise promoted by the state.
Jeffrey Epstein intimidated the
whole
US press into silence about his
rape career, starting in 2003.
New Zealand is buying the
now-illegal
semiautomatic rifles
that people already own.
Any thug in parts of the US can immediately get a
large
dossier
about most Americans from just a name or other identifier.
What bothers me is not that they can get it quickly, but that so much
information has been collected about millions of people who are
not suspects and about which no search has been authorized.
If we don't ban commercial use of face recognition to track people,
this commercial data base will be extended to include people's
movements as recorded by billions of surveillance cameras spread
across US cities and roads.
How to relieve
the worries some parents have about vaccination.
A bigger and deeper question: how can we fix the systems that make it
so easy to stir up conspiracy theories about anything whatsoever,
especially if it relates to children, or adolescents being called
"children"?
People with damaged immune systems can die from measles even if
they were vaccinated against it.
They
depend on the rest of society
to get vaccinated.
There is now a whistleblower site for tech company staff to
report
their employer's egregious attacks on human rights.
Unfortunately this will do nothing to push back on those kinds of
attacks on human rights that have become standard practice -- for
instance, proprietary malware
and internet dis-services that spy, manipulate, restrict, swindle
and addict people.
Disabled people in the UK
are
now crippled — by the stinginess of Tories.
Planting trees in a pasture can make it stay usable through
9 months
without rain, and produce other crops too.
Microsoft
Office 365: Banned in [some] German Schools over Privacy Fears.
It is a bit silly that the legal objection is limited to sending data
to servers in the US. Snooping software should be eliminated, inside
and outside of schools, no matter who it spies on people for.
Thugs crashed their vehicle into that of a passerby,
then
pulled him out and handcuffed him.
It is vitally important to punish
thugs for everything they do wrong
in nonfatal attacks like this. We can't convert thugs into police
officers by punishing them only on the rare occasions when they murder
someone, not even if the punishment is severe. Most of them will
never murder someone, and never know another thug who murdered
someone, so they will not feel any pressure to change their ways. To
achieve that, we must punish the many small incidents.
(satire) Trump Honors Brave Heroes
Who
Slept With Wives Of Deployed Soldiers.
The UK held an inquiry into the killing of Anthony Grainger (shot dead
by a thug) and determined
that systemic flaws in the
thug department
were to blame.
In general the UK seems to do a better job of holding killer
thugs
accountable than the US usually does.
Resourceful grandchildren figured out how to
max out their
grandfather's credit card buying special players for a predatory
fantasy soccer game.
The random element of loot boxes strengthens their activeness,
but the fact that players must keep spending in order to win is
enough reason to classify it as predatory. Any game of competitive
spending makes each player pressure the other players to spend more.
The fact that the game is proprietary software is enough reason to
refuse to run it, and not to get a copy of it for yourself or anyone
else. The only good reason to have such a game is to study it for
free software development.
The ACLU warns of a legislative campaign to
legitimize
selling people's
medical records by giving the patient a cut of the revenue.
That money won't come anywhere near compensating for the advantage
that companies will take of you given that knowledge about you.
Japan's music licensing gang is
demanding
royalties from music
schools, calling music lessons "public performance".
Extinction Rebellion
protesters
glued themselves to doors
in the US capitol building, blocking legislators from getting to
the chamber to vote.
The person who decided perse
"can't bring a child into this world" has
understood the situation thoroughly. But I wonder what "I broke down
my car" means. "I disassembled it"? That is the proper grammatical
interpretation but seems implausible. If the article garbled the
words a little, it could mean "I caused it to malfunction" or "I
started crying at the wheel".
The US government is going to try again to
ban
secure communication for users.
They think they can get Americans so frightened of the terrorists (who
do exist, but are not a big danger as dangers go) that we will
surrender
our privacy to a state which can be far more dangerous.
Amazon servers save transcripts of some
Alexa
conversations indefinitely.
It would be absurd to delete a reminder before reminding you, but a
privacy-respecting reminder system would keep that reminder only on
your own computers, so it would protect your privacy both before and
after.
You probably want to save a record of your purchases, but a
privacy-respecting system would keep that record private by keeping it
only on your own computers. With a proper anonymous payment system,
such as GNU
Taler, no one but you would ever know who made the purchase.
How Electronic
Monitoring Drives Defendants Into Debt (and then back
into jail).
Pfizer's new experiment with regulatory capture:
putting the former
Saboteur of the FDA on its board.
Why Peace
and Climate Justice Are the Same Project.
Cory Booker supports
war with Iran.
Stiglitz: "Only a fool would trust Facebook with his or her
financial
well being. But maybe that’s the point: with so much personal data on
some 2.4bn monthly active users, who knows better than Facebook just
how many suckers are born every minute?"
The border thugs
are supposed to transfer prisoners to immigration agencies
within 72 hours, but the bully's orders have made this difficult to do — so
prisoners
accumulate in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.
Australia has mismanaged a major
regional
river system to the point
where fish regularly die in large numbers.
The cause, of course, is putting the short-term demands of profit over
the long-term needs. This is what leads to
dangerous mining,
deforestation,
and fertilizer runoff that harms the Great Barrier Reef.
Senator Warren proposes measures to
steer
the US away from risk of another financial crisis — notably
to limit leveraged loans to businesses, as well as to help poor people
reduce their debt.
An advance in how a
snoopphone
(if you carry one) can read sensors on
or in your body.
It may be that this method would actually protect you from those
sensors as long as you don't carry a snoopphone. What is not clear is
how far away from other people's snoopphones you would need to stay.
A shopping mall that serves as a testbed for
"smart"
city technology
doesn't collect personal data except through an app.
If a real "smart" city does that, it might be acceptable — unless
it puts pressure on everyone to use the app so as to get convenience.
UK Hosts Press Freedom Summit While Fighting for
Right
to Spy on Media.
If the UK wins that case, the outcome will affect all of Europe.
Cubans trying to move to the US now
get
treated like people from other countries in Latin America.
This despite the fact that at home they face the effects of US sanctions.
(satire) … the average American must have
[per] life destroyed by a natural [sic] disaster every six minutes in order
to finally
fear climate change.
Meanwhile, back in reality,
New
York City got two within two days.
Iowa, North Dakota and Maryland Lead the Way on Curbing the
Revolving Door
Between Government and Industry.
More about the danger
of the bully's "expedited deportations" plan.
Border thugs could
deport
US citizens fast, rather than giving them time to establish their citizenship.
When men with sticks attacked people in Hong Kong's remote Yuen Long
train station, the
victims were not protesters, just passersby.
Why they attacked people there is not clear, unless China just wanted
to make people in Hong Kong afraid.
The Tories are so determined to kick out European citizens that they have
planned
to keep the data on which they base the decisions secret.
In other words, they are planning to make lots of mistakes and don't want
them to be corrected.
A Palestinian medic, Muhammad al-Judaili, was
shot
in the head by an
Israeli sniper, and he eventually died from this.
Rubber-coated bullets are said to be "non-lethal", but we know and
snipers know that they can kill if they hit someone's head. Snipers
don't hit someone's head by accident.
Israeli soldiers demolished 16 Palestinian apartment buildings on the pretext
that they were
too close to the annexation wall.
There must be hundreds of apartments buildings that the wall was
built close to. Now they may all be demolished.
The Guardian censored
its regular cartoonist for satirizing the crusade to cleanse the
Labour Party of what is accused of being anti-semitism.
As fungi adapt to living outside in temperatures close to human body
temperature, some of them
may
become able to colonize the human body.
This may be the reason that a new fungal disease with no known treatment is
spreading on several continents.
A woman in a car crash is more likely to be injured than a man in a
similar crash. Could that be because
crash
test dummies have mainly
been designed to simulate men?
LinkedIn has staged a
surveillance
coup against libraries
through an education service set up specifically for libraries.
For instance, it demands that users make individual LinkedIn accounts
so that it can profile them.
That page represents libraries' pushback; some have dropped the service
and others surely will if LinkedIn does not retreat.
I have no other details about that service, but simply based on
knowing the usual practices I expect it is a disservice in other ways.
Moe about Senator Warren's plans to
stop
abuse by "private equity"
takeovers.
(satire) the solar system’s real estate agents have begun trying to
attract home buyers to the neglected,
run-down
planet of Earth by
renaming it "West Saturn."
Big climate
defense rallies are planned world-wide for Sep 20-27.
Suggestions for what progressive trade policy should look like:
putting
human beings and nature first.
What it says about "intellectual property" tries to go in the right
direction, but it is flawed by taking the
bogus concept of
"intellectual property" as a basis.
After the FTC's slap on Facebook's wrist, we can expect it to
abuse
personal data over and over.
However, even a bigger fine could at best have limited how Facebook abuses
personal data. The real problem is that Facebook collects personal data.
So don't be a zucker — don't give Facebook any data. And use a
browser such as IceCat that blocks Like buttons, so Facebook can't get
data about you in any other way.
Puerto Rico's governor has finally
agreed to resign,
after many protests including 1/3 of the island's population, plus plans to impeach him.
The sad thing about Puerto Rico is that the US has saddled it with so
much debt, and imposed so much privatization, that good politicians
wouldn't have much chance to do a good job.
"I'm a scientist. Under [the saboteur] I lost my job for
refusing to
hide climate crisis facts."
Use of AI techniques whose functioning nobody understands puts society
in a state of "intellectual debt". That is not necessarily bad, but
it can easily lead
to bad consequences when competition and conflict get into the matter.
By contrast, the fact that we did not understand how aspirin reduced
headaches did offer anyone an opportunity to cause mysterious
headaches that aspirin would make worse.
Megadroughts
Are Likely Coming to the U.S. Southwest Within Decades,
Scientists Say.
Long droughts wiped out the small cities that existed in parts of the
southwest. The big cities that need a lot more water would have more
trouble surviving. Unless perhaps solar-powered condensers can save
the day.
Violent porn has made the idea of strangling a woman and calling it
"sex" appear normal, so women go along with it. If that's not
disgusting enough, men that
murder
their lovers or wives can now
pretend that "it was just a sex game".
A school in Texas says that it will require all students in
extracurricular activities to submit to
random
drug tests.
I hope many students will refuse.
Bolsonaro has succeeded at
accelerated
destruction of the Amazon forest.
Scientists warn that this may kill the trees that remain.
UK public schools require specific uniforms,
which
can be so expensive
that poor families cut back on food. Or else find another school
which isn't trying to keep poor people out.
This is one of the symptoms of the policy of making schools compete
to avoid being forcibly privatized as "academies".
I consider the very idea of requiring a uniform outrageous.
The US Needs a Marshall
Plan for Central America.
(Instead of the current martial plan that drives people to flee.)
(satire) … Phoenix law
enforcement officials confirmed Tuesday local man Rod Cleighborn had
been hired as a cop for
posting
a racist rant on social media.
It's a custom in the Netherlands to
drop
a group of children in the woods
and challenge them to find their way back to civilization.
They succeed, and in the process learn self-confidence.
Pelosi made a deal with the Republicans that will
backfire
against any progressive president in 2021.
Sanders will have to cut harmful spending, such as nuclear weapons
development and secret foreign wars, if he can't get a debt increase
or a tax increase through the Senate.
Increasing industrial agriculture is
not
the way to feed more poor people.
In the US, it doesn't seriously try.
Growing corn or soybeans to make fuel is especially foolish since it
uses petroleum-based fertilizer. When that's subsidized, it is a
handout for agribusiness. Biofuel is efficient only when it's made
from byproducts of growing something else that's worth growing in its
own right.
US citizens: call on the Senate to vote to support
research into the
sociology of gun violence.
Confirmation bias,
group
think and pressure to find the perpetrator quickly
are major factors in convicting innocent people.
"Smart" diapers
spy
on the baby and maybe the rest of the family.
If the manufacturers wanted to, they could make this info available
directly and solely to the parents.
Today's global heating, affecting the whole globe, has
no parallel in
historical temperature changes.
US citizens:
call on
the Bureau of Land Management not to allow oil drilling in Chaco
Canyon.
If you sign, please spread the word!
In the UK
it
is a crime to do something in public that people in the vicinity find
"disgusting".
I too would find it disgusting, but so what?
The bully has a
new
plan to take food stamps away from some poor Americans.
The UK is so desperate to build new nuclear power plants that it
will
pay in advance from the treasury.
This is a decision of the same Tory government that has pretty much
put an end to land-based wind power and cut subsidies for solar power.
There is a report that the reason is a
disguised
subsidy for the UK's planned new nuclear missile submarines.
Economists studied the effects of increasing the minimum wage in many
low-wage US counties and found
no
sign that this causes loss of work.
The world's planned natural gas projects
won't
fit in the carbon budget.
Indeed, the world cannot afford any new fossil fuel
infrastructure, because once new infrastructure is built there will be
tremendous
pressure to use it and roast Earth's ecosphere.
The idea of natural gas as a "bridge fuel" is an excuse, which
appeared plausible only because we did not know the amount of methane
leaks.
ACLU:
Bogus
“Aggression Detectors” Are Audio-Recording People In Public.
If we had proper laws, anyone trying to sell a system for aggression
detection would be required to make it send nothing except reports
about aggressions — not recordings of ordinary conversations.
The audio recordings on buses in San Francisco (and maybe elsewhere)
should be illegal too.
Congress and the bully have passed a law to stop the IRS from
seizing
people's money without a trial on mere suspicion that they were
evading the requirement to report depositing more than $10,000 by
depositing smaller amounts.
Yes, it was as absurd as it looks.
US
citizens: call
on Congress to pass the BOOST Act, which would give a sum of money
to each poor person or family in the US.
If you sign, please spread the word!
San Francisco
will cover
up murals that were painted to show how some of the US founding
fathers participated in owning slaves and in conquest of indigenous
peoples.
People who can't bear to see a depiction of an injustice are useless
for fighting it. Schools should lead people to face moral issues, not
cower helplessly from them.
Author Richard Zimler reports that some of his talks in Britain have
been cancelled because the
hosts fear
protests or violence because he is Jewish. They seem to fear they
will meet with protests if they invite a Jew to speak.
I am not convinced that his friends are correct in blaming Palestinian
activists for this. That claim is not based on direct evidence.
When Australia brings its refugees from Nauru or Manus because it can
no longer deny they need medical treatment,
it guards
them like dangerous criminals.
They are not allowed to see their families.
Australia even exposes them to bedbugs, which it could easily avoid.
Why do thugs
often gratuitously shoot and threaten blacks? It seems
that some thugs
literally think
of blacks as subhuman.
Solar Foods makes a protein supplement
from electricity,
water and air.
Extinction
Rebellion blocked
a bridge in Paris to call attention to the implications of the
hottest day ever recorded there.
'The
Damage Has Been Done': Despite Court Ruling, Experts Say Trump
Succeeded in Making Immigrant Communities Fearful of Census.
10% of the workers in Britain have been captured by
the piecework
sweatshop dis-services.
We must extend all the rights and benefits of employees to cover these
forms of work.
Thousands of Americans — perhaps hundreds of thousands —
have been killed because judges sealed evidence of deadly defects in
products and kept the defects secret for years as more people died.
The dangerous flaws of OxyContin, which spread opioid addiction, were
concealed
for 12 years.
Trade secrecy is always bad for the public. Occasionally it
is deadly, but usually merely harmful. We should change the law so
that no significant problem can be concealed in this way.
Businesses should not be allowed to enforce an NDA
to conceal mistreatment of workers, customers, or the public.
Agreeing to nondisclosure of generally useful technical
information, such as software, is betrayal of society as a whole.
I refuse on principle to do this.
A woman in Alabama has
been charged
with manslaughter for getting shot while pregnant. The state
treats the fetus as a person.
This is the natural conclusion of the twisted premises of those who
treat fetuses as sacred.
But the problem may be broader than that. Suppose she had been shot
while carrying a three-year-old child in her arms? Suppose someone
else had shot at her and killed the child.
I don't think people should be prosecuted for the effects of being
shot at.
The conman's appointees on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
want
to inspect nuclear power plants less often.
The owners won't need to fix problems if they can avoid finding out
about them. The only way we will know about them is if they lead
to an accident.
A nuclear power plan accident typically results from a
combination
of factors, each one of which might have seemed not to be a big
deal by itself. Just the sort of the things that the owners would
suggest could be ignored.
An appeals court
decided
it had no authority over whether the conman could effectively
eliminate federal workers right to operate a union.
I wonder how many of the judges involved were appointed recently by
Republicans.
Twitter will give "prominent politicians" an
exception
from its rules against posting hatred.
I think this is a combination of circumstances in which there is
simply no choice that Twitter can make which isn't bad.
Americans are ready to stop trying to dominate the world.
Most Democratic politicians
have
yet to catch up.
China pressured the British state to
arrest
an exiled Chinese dissident preemptively for Xi's visit in 2015.
The bullshitter is making progress with North Korea — progress
towards
a
deal that would accept its possession of nuclear weapons.
This is the only possible avenue towards any sort of deal, since
Dictator Kim will not give up those nuclear weapons. Thus, in a way
this is a wise policy. But the bullshitter can't acknowledge it, as
it would highlight the
absurdity
of his policy towards Iran.
A two-part
interview with British whistleblower Katharine Gun, who
revealed how the UK was helping Dubya try to
bully UN security council members
into approving his attack on Iraq.
Experts Say 'Emotion Recognition'
Lacks
Scientific Foundation.
Banksters and plutocrats are happy to keep
funding
the bully's racism.
The bully promotes and spreads racism, but is he really racist?
He lies almost all the time, so why expect him to be sincere in this?
Maybe he spreads racism as a cynical strategy.
The
strategy can be very effective.
However, since plutocratist Democrats support much of the wrongs that
Republicans do, it is a mistake to conclude we would be better off if
we had not elected progressive leaders such as Ocasio-Cortez.
To win in 2020,
Democrats
need to motivate massive turnout, and they
are the ones who can do that.
Using levees to contain flooding
rivers
makes for bigger floods downstream.
Cities need to leave space along the river for floods to spread out.
"Private" and "incognito" modes of browsers are
no
protection against
being tracked by Google and Oracle (and to a lesser extent Facebook).
Tracking people's porn browsing could cause trouble for some people
who pretend to be prudes, but there are much more damaging things
they could track.
Plastic manufacturers
are
buying state laws to make sure nothing gets
in the way of selling lots of plastic bags (and plastic everything
else).
Fair Bluff, North Carolina, was half wiped out by rain from two recent
hurricanes. If
another hurricane hits there, it could finish the job.
Global heating tends to make storms drop more rain.
More concern about how online photo-editing dis-services
make use of
the photos people send them.
The deeper problem with these "apps", which send photos to a remote
server to edit it, is that they send photos to a remote server to edit
it. We call that
"service
as a software substitute"
because the job
ought to be done by a program you install on your own computer — a
free program, in order to respect your freedom and autonomy — and
never sent anywhere.
Hawaiians
are protesting against plans to construct a new telescope
with a very large mirror, which would advance our knowledge of the
universe.
The idea that a place is "sacred" is an irrational sensitivity.
It is good to cater to such sensitivities as long as that doesn't
sacrifice something important -- such as the telescope.
The telescope should be built. However, removing obsolete structures
and making those areas of land nice again does no harm, and doesn't
involve sacrificing anything more than funds. Hawaii should make and
carry out such a deal.
Democrat-Backed Centrist PAC
Is
Supporting a Republican Against a Vulnerable
Swing-District Incumbent.
California is considering a law to make Uber treat drivers
as
employees.
This would eliminate one of the huge injustices of Uber.
But it would not eliminate the injustices to the customers.
I hope therefore that it would make Uber give up.
Thugs in Los Angeles are infiltrating anti-fascist protests,
and using it
to charge organizers for protesting.
Israel is spraying herbicides near the Gaza border, and it drifts almost
400
yards into Gaza and kills Palestinians' crops.
Prominent humanists
decry
the persecution of the nonreligious in
various countries.
EPA Drops Surprise Inspections.
This will help companies that deny their polluting activities.
Babies Born Near Oil and Gas Wells Are Up to
70%
More Likely to Have
Congenital Heart Defects, New Study Shows.
(satire) In an effort to distance the President from a racist remark
chanted about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) earlier this week, the
Trump
campaign store reportedly began offering a special disavowed
discount Friday on all ‘Send Her Back’ merchandise.
Greta Thunberg explains
what
it means to have accomplished something,
In the same way, I don't measure the advances of the free software
movement simply by how much free software we now have and use,
but also in terms of how much nonfree software remains in use — which we
need to eliminate.
Many nonfree browser extensions snoop on the user's browsing and
inform
some company.
The article does not say that these extensions are nonfree, but that
seems pretty certain from the information given.
The author of the article did not recognize that this was a part of
the problem. So people are likely to draw misguided conclusions such
as "Don't trust browser extensions", instead of the correct
conclusion, "Don't trust nonfree programs anywhere."
Small doses of radiation promote the spread of a
mutation that is one
step on the road to cancer.
At least, that is true in the esophagus of mice. Nothing is known
about how this might affect other mouse tissues, or any human tissues.
Humans have, in general, much better defenses against aging than other
mammals, so I would not generalize from non-human animals to humans
about any of these effects.
Thanks to contraceptive pills,
women
do not have to menstruate at all.
This reminds me of a story by James Tiptree (Alice Sheldon), "Even the
Queen", about a woman whose daughter decided to join a movement for
natural menstruation. She couldn't convince her daughter to abandon
that foolish idea, but the experience of menstruating did the job
pretty fast.
Should all crewed space missions be
run
by private business?
In some cases, there is no harm in that. But if we let them build
settlements in space or on the Moon, those will be "company towns"
in which no one can do anything except under the control of the company.
Working there will be like working
in
an Amazon warehouse.
The government of Kazakhstan has injected itself as a
man-in-the-middle for all HTTPS communication — in effect,
spying
on the browsing of everyone in the country.
We would expect such things from an overtly repressive state, but
powerful "free" countries such as Australia, UK and US have done, or
are trying to do, comparable things.
Labour will organize
the unprivatization of local government activities.
UK and Iran are now in a
tanker-seizure standoff.
It appears that Bolton told the UK,
"Let's
you and them fight."
People are becoming aware that there is a
battle
against digital tech
companies for control of each person's attention,
What people do not yet recognize is that this as a consequence of the
unjust power that companies (even small companies) derive from nonfree
software and from online disservices. So their proposed solutions are
not deep enough.
New US jobs are now
concentrating
in a few cities, with others left
behind.
Of course, it is expensive to live in the few successful cities. So
the overall effect of this is to screw the poor in yet another way.
Opinion: Don’t Regulate Facial Recognition.
Ban It.
This article is noteworthy because it attacks face recognition by business,
not just by government.
Cost of Global Push to Prevent Women Dying in
Childbirth
to Increase Sixfold.
This goal requires a combination of better medical care for when women
do give birth, and contraception and abortion to help women avoid
giving birth.
The Rich Are Committing
Crimes Against Nature.
The Environmental Poisoning Agency
refused
to ban the pesticide
chlorpyrifos, which seems to cause brain damage in children.
Wheeler, the head of the Environmental Poisoning Agency (EPA), is more
personally honest,
and
that has enabled him to arrange for a lot more
future damage to our environment and our health.
(satire) Cop
Vows To Get Revenge On Eric Garner For Trying To Frame
Him For Murder.
As rising economic inequality gives the rich more power,
they use it to
push the inequality even harder.
With a big Republican victory in 2020, plutocratists could replace
the US Constitution with something as plutocratist as they wish.
And
they are already
designing it.
Pompeo is already
trying to redefine human rights.
Their idea of human rights will say that if you're a plutocrat you
have the right to grab anyone's genitals, and if
perse complains,
to get per fired.
This Republican's
Case for Medicare for All.
Jewish Voice for Peace
praised
Rep. Ilhan Omar's resolution affirming
the right to boycott.
(satire) Virginia
Agrees
To Remove Confederate Ghosts From State Capitol.
The fairly quick achievement of landing on the moon gave people an
exaggerated
idea of what we can expect to achieve with technology.
It turns out that technology can't necessarily cure the harm
that massive use of technology is doing.
UK thugs want
laws changed so they can get tough with Extinction
Rebellion protesters.
This will avoid some annoying small disruptions, and guarantee
enormous disruptions starting 20 or 30 years from now and continuing
for centuries.
The UK has extended global heating by
cutting
insulation improvements
from 65,000 per month to 10,000 per month.
The bully wants
to send Iraqi Christian refugees back to Iraq, where
they would face murder. Some might starve first because they don't
know anyone there and don't speak Arabic.
Thousands Rally in Moscow over Opposition
Exclusion
in City Parliament Vote.
The machine said that the nominating signatures were fake.
Some local governments in the UK refuse to
give
homeless people's personal
data to the deportation office.
Proposing a mega
project to make snow on top of the west Antarctic ice sheet.
I think it would be better, and less practical work, to curb the CO2
emissions. What's more, that would also end ocean acidification and
avoid heating the land. But if the plutocrats block that, it would be
better to do this project than not do it.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to ban FBI and ICE from accessing drivers' license
photos.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Population is
reaching
crunch point in the Congo. The Pygmies, who lived there before,
demand to cut down the forest that lowland gorillas live in.
As the world's human population bloats, there won't be enough land for
everyone. People will get desperate, and try to hang on a little
longer by destroying forests, farming land that isn't suitable,
catching the last few fish, and so on. But that won't do more than
postpone the end.
The human population will eventually be limited — after
everything else is gone. We need to limit the human population
earlier, before that destruction occurs.
Masked
non uniformed thugs attacked protesters in Hong Kong.
Protesters say that the uniformed
thugs took a suspiciously long time
to arrive, but the article does not indicate how long that was.
Thailand's military rulers have gone beyond charging democracy
activists with crimes. Now it is
sending
non uniformed thugs to club them on the head.
Platforms can discourage searches for dangerous extremism by adopting
methods
that stop short of censoring the search results.
A Labour Party study proposed a
list
of ways to restructure the global economy to replace plutocracy.
It is a good start, but I think it can be improved in some areas. For
example, it makes general statements about "intellectual property"
which lump together various laws as a single confused mixture, and
considers this only in regard to its effects on taxation of business.
Making big businesses pay more tax is
very
important, but some of these laws also harm people directly
— while others do not. A wise policy on each of these laws
can't be formulated at the vague, abstract level that the term
"intellectual property" implies. And
my
tax proposal can deal with the problem with no need to pay any
attention to any of these specific laws.
Sergio Moro
privately
talked about protecting Bolsonaro's son from a corruption
investigation.
A political party operative was the middleman in leaking the
confidential
messages of the UK's ambassador to the US.
That's not journalism, that's sabotage.
Illinois Republicans Remove Offensive
Facebook
Post About "Jihad Squad."
This is interesting because it demonstrates how extremist hatred has
no scruples about falsehoods, The four representatives they attack are
progressives, not Islamists, but right-wing extremists don't care.
(Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley are not even Muslims.)
It reminds me of when Bush I called Michael Dukakis a "card-carrying
member of the ACLU". In effect, Bush equated defending the US
Constitution with Communism. That just goes to show what Bush really
thought about the Constitution he swore to uphold.
Arguing that psychedelic drugs should be
decriminalized
but not fully legalized.
I could support this option if there is a lawful way for adults to get
these drugs, made in properly regulated factories, so that they don't
need to but who-knows-what on the black market.
Iceland has put up a memorial to a glacier which has
almost
completely melted.
Guaidó's supporters have
lost
their enthusiasm but mostly still support him. Except for the
conman, who finds different scapegoats more useful for the moment than
Maduro.
I can estimate what Guaidó would do to Venezuela, with support from US
plutocrats. They don't give a dam about anyone in Venezuela except
those that will serve as their agents. The country would come out
like Honduras or Colombia, and the trees of the Amazon region would be
made into products for the Amazon warehouse.
Everyone:
call
on AT&T, T-Mobile, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Dell to stop
supporting politicians that attack the rights of queer people.
If you sign, please spread the word!
A credit card with zero credit limit is
ideal
for signing up for a "free trial period" and avoiding the dark
patterns that are designed to stop customers from cancelling
afterward.
Is it possible to use that service without running nonfree Javascript
code? Would someone like to test it and tell me?
Three California Nazis Sentenced to Prison
for
Their Participation in the Charlottesville "Unite the Right"
Rally.
Their crime was planning to have physical fights with antifascists.
The Google employees who led the campaign against certain egregious
projects have been
pushed
out by retaliation.
While it was refreshing to see tech employees object to projects based
on moral scruples, their scruples cover only unusual kinds of wrong,
not the everyday wrong in the foundations of most computing nowadays.
US citizens: call on Democratic candidates to
reject
campaign contributions from big pharma and big insurance.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone:
call
on Amazon management to meet with the new union, DCH1 Amazonians
United.
If you sign, please spread the word!
One reason why it has been unusual for women to do great creative work
was that women
could
barely find 10 minutes at a stretch to think about something.
Citing CIA's Dark History, Librarians
Protest
Agency's Recruiting at Their Conference.
The state
needs
to invest in energy efficiency for poor people; they can't afford
to do it themselves.
Blacks are allowed nowadays to shop in any retail store, but they
often
face nasty treatment from the staff, apparently due to their skin
color.
The survival of the natural world upon which humanity depends
hangs
in the balance, according to the new chair of the
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Services.
Individual people — whether great or merely grandiose —
can change the course of history. Here is
an
example. And
more.
Powerful impersonal forces are also at work in the UK's decision about
leaving the EU. They constitute the pinball machine in which this
loose cannonball bounces around. That does not imply the outcome is
predictable.
The
secularist
opposition candidate for mayor of Istanbul has won again, with a
much bigger margin this time.
College economics courses
teach
students that the economy has nothing to do with the ecosphere.
Most of the students don't recognize the error in this.
This may not be coincidence. It may be the result of
business influence on academia
Surely a woman shouldn’t be forced to wax testicles if that makes them
feel uncomfortable?
and "If you hire a managed service provider to do your network security
they could, instead,... steal your intellectual property."
"Stijn is 11," she said. "The time window in which we can teach him
is closing. He is going into adolescence, and then he will make
decisions for himself."
People always tell me and the other millions of school strikers that we
should be proud of ourselves for what we have accomplished. But the
only thing that we need to look at is the emission curve. And I’m
sorry, but it’s still rising. That curve is the only thing we should
look at.
A four-day work week, in the wealthy (and high carbon footprint) countries, would cut greenhouse gas emissions a lot.
Google and Facebook are campaigning for the US to adopt the sort of weak "data protection" laws that won't hamper surveillance capitalism much.
The concept of "ambient privacy" refers to what I have campaigned for years to protect: not having data collected about you.
"Today, we know that that the techniques common to domestic abuse match those used by practically anyone who trades in captivity: kidnappers, hostage-takers, pimps, cult leaders."
In a wealthy neighborhood of Chicago, the life expectancy is 90. In a poor neighborhood, it is 60.
In other words, the plutocratic trickle-down that condemns people to poverty also condemns them to death.
The Chinese economic system serves Chinese people better than America's system serves Americans.
I disagree with one point: the article says not to blame US corporations for taking advantage of this system. Their political influence, their money, changed our system so that it serves them rather than us. They deserve to be blamed for that.
But even a corporation that done nothing beyond taking advantage of laws in ways that harm people still deserves our condemnation. "We are not violating laws" is not a defense for spreading suffering. The condemnation will provide the impetus to make them stop.
Hiring more non-white thugs does not protect blacks from being shot by thugs.
Maybe de-escalation training
Everyone: call
on CNN to add a progressive questioner in the
Democratic debates.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the DNC to
hold
a debate on global heating.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Private Prison Information Act.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Some male Republican politicians say they refuse to meet privately with female reporters.
Aside from promoting anti-sexuality, this can harm women's careers.
Shouldn't they impose the same requirement on male reporters, for the same reason? There is no telling what two men might get up to in private.
On the legality of calling a vegetable product by names that imply meat.
I think the term "veggie burger" is legitimate. There are many kinds of "burgers", so the term does not imply any specific ingredient. I think it's the same for "sausage" &mdash sausages also can have many kinds of ingredients.
However, it should be illegal to use the words "meat" or "beef" to name a product which isn't made (respectively) from meat, or from beef.
Even (currently) common animals are threatened by global heating because they can't adapt as fast as the changes are happening.
The changes will accelerate over the course of this century.
A general demonstration that anonymizing data is ineffective for protecting privacy.
Why Isn’t Publicly Funded Conservation on Private Land More Accountable?
The US embassy staff that reported a strange illness in Cuba have shown a special and unusual pattern of brain structure abnormalities.
The German government is just beginning to recognize that "the cloud" is too cloudy and shady to be trusted for personal data.
In dealing with Iran, Boris Johnson will have to choose between two conflicting pressures: the interests of his country, and demands of the bully.
The bully wants the UK to be in conflict with Iran; specifically, to hold Iran's tanker no matter how Iran retaliates. The UK's interest is to make a deal and free both tankers.
I expect that Johnson values the bully's backing more, so I predict he will not exchange the two ships.
As the city of Manaus grows, people are constantly burning off part of the Amazon rainforest in order to make space for houses.
An oil storage and transfer ship, moored off the coast of Yemen, has been sitting unused and unmaintained since 2015. It could leak much more than the Big Spill. It could also explode.
Australian thugs arrested French documentalists who were filming a protest against the planned new Adani coal mine.
If global heating disaster kills billions of people, this mine's contribution will amount to thousands. The principle of necessity would justify sabotaging the mine to prevent it from killing those thousands.
The UK's department of education did a survey to see what was causing stress and extended work hours for teachers. It discovered that its inspections were responsible.
Advantages and disadvantages of Canada's manner of regulating marijuana.
Sending US troops to Salafi Arabia will strengthen the recruiting of jihadist groups, including al Qa'ida and PISSI.
If there were a real need to send troops there, I would not encourage being dissuaded by something like this. But since there is no reason to send them, we should recognize that this is an additional reason not to send them.
Greta Thunberg answers questions from the public.
Hospitals in England have contracted out their parking lots to companies whose business model is to trick and trap drivers, using rules that are opaque or impossible in practice to follow. Even the staff get gouged.
Laws should require that any parking enforcement contracts require giving the institution power to (1) forgive anyone's charges and (2) limit the fees.
The bully plans to deport people from inside the US fast, without a hearing.
US citizens will occasionally be deported, too.
If the cheater can't officially abolish legal rights, he will arrange procedures that are likely to trample them, accidentally on purpose.
Mayor Wilmot Collins of Helena, Montana was told to "go back to Africa", but he stayed. Now he is running for senator from Montana, to replace a racist Republican.x
The scientific publishers are opposed even to data-mining the corpus of scientific literature.
I will be glad if Carl Malamud's hack succeeds, but let's not be distracted by it. The most important use of the scientific literature is exactly what he will take care not to make possible: to read it. Sci-Hub, by contrast, does achieve that. Thus, I admire Sci-Hub more.
Many US states protect thugs and other emergency responders by keeping emergency calls secret &mdash even when the caller has died. The relatives can't find out what happened.
The bully's plans will deny medical care to 8 million minors who are US citizens, whose parents are not citizens.
This will kill or permanently harm thousands of them.
The UK government censorship/surveillance program which is supposed to prevent terrorism represses students and studies in UK universities. You don't need to come anywhere near wishing to commit violence before the program threatens you or blocks an event.
Now, for where I disagree with the article. Sad to say, student anti-racism also aims in that direction. It is not backed by state power, so it does not threaten individuals, but if it prevents events from being held, that amounts to censorship.
The UK government, while imposing its law-backed censorship, is hardly in a position to sincerely defend freedom of speech on campus.
French thugs used pepper spray on Extinction Rebellion protesters who were sitting on a bridge in Paris.
The heat wave has made some French people understand what global heating disaster means. Protests will spread the awareness.
Tips For Staying Civil While Debating Child Prisons.
Most of the imprisoned immigrants are adolescents rather than children. But they do include children, too. Let's remember that imprisoning teenagers who are not threatening anyone is roughly equally bad.
Making the dictionary of the Nazis' euphemisms that they used to make mass murder sound like a minor matter.
I see the same sort of euphemism in today's terminology such as "detain", "custody", and "security forces."
Inducing Consumer Paralysis: How Retailers Bury Customers in an Avalanche of Choice.
One additional source of complication is when you can't choose each option independently, only a combination. If there are 10 two-way choices to make, there are in principle 1024 combinations. If companies offer just 30 different combinations, you will be overwhelmed with options, of which probably none is what you really want.
With free software, you could make each choice the way you like, so it will be simple rather than overwhelming.
It would be good to change the system so that the children of the elite don't have a near-lock on becoming the future elite.
That alone cannot do enough. There is no way that most people can become elite. We need to make sure that non-elite people have a decent life.
Captain Rackete of the Sea-Watch 3 brought refugees rescued at sea into an Italian port, and faces the possibility of 10 years in prison for this.
She says her decision was necessary, and that bringing the refugees back to Libya (a country at war) was illegal too.
Lebanon is pressuring Syrian refugees to leave, using cruelty that we would expect from the bully.
Oregon's Republican senators threatened violence and mobilized violent supporters to protest, to kill the climate protection bill.
This illustrates Republicans' basic attitude towards the American people. They want to take power and hold it, by intimidation, violence, or any other means.
The internet is increasingly a low-trust society &mdash based on an assumption of pervasive fraud. This can lead to autocracy, in this case dominion by big companies that erase freedom.
This is an additional reason to stay away from the dis-services where these frauds abound.
If you think about the cost of not doing the Green New Deal, you see we can afford it. It is an investment in survival.
Right-wing Democrats joined Republicans to give the bully more money for repression at the border.
Rich Will Keep Getting Richer and 'Nothing Will Change,' Says Bernie Sanders, Unless US Leaders Have Guts to Take on Powerful Corporations.
This is why I support Sanders (and Warren): they want to do this. The other candidates shy away from it and focus on secondary issues alone.
These secondary issues may be very important too: some are matters of life and death for millions. But plutocracy is the one ring that rules all the rest.
And plutocracy will fight us as we try to fix the secondary issues, each of them one by one. We need to cripple plutocracy in order to be allowed to address other wrongs,
Optimizing "key performance indicators" destroys the relationship that made them appear to be worth optimizing, Optimizing apps (or web sites) for "engagement" (how much time users spend in them) tends to makes them, at very least, a persistent annoyance -- if not a tool for right-wing hatred and disinformation.
With a free/libre program, the users can exercise control and override these the decisions they don't like.
Author Ma Jian: "I felt the fear of abduction by China in Hong Kong. Appeasing Bejing has to stop."
Right-wing German extremists assembled a list of politicians and activists to kill, based on data obtained from thugs and the military.
In a victory for planet-roasting, protesters in the UK were convicted of violating an anti-protest injunction set up to protect a fracking company.
The protesters were attempting to save the lives of the people that fracking would kill a few decades from now. The judge will pressure them to say they were sorry for this. They should refuse to apologize for protecting the ecosphere. The only thing they should be sorry about is that they did not succeed.
The EU is starting to resist authoritarian national governments that try to set up one-party states.
I hope this is not too late.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is hunger striking in prison on Iran. Her husband is hunger striking in support of her outside the Iranian embassy in London.
Chinese human rights defender Wang Quanzhang has been in prison four years. Just recently he had "trial" which sentenced him to four more years in prison.
His wife was just allowed to see him for the first time since he was grabbed, and says he is falling apart as a result of brainwashing conditions.
The US does not generally imprison prominent human rights lawyers, but it persecutes journalists and their sources.
I don't know of any government that comes even close to respecting human rights.
LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations today are "rainbow-branded capitalism": instead of liberation, they demand for queers the same strictures that most straights suffer under.
In China, companies actually pay people (with household goods) for personal data to train AIs.
Is this any better than what happens now in the US? I don't think so. A little pay cannot compensate for the loss anonymity cause by the spying and control that the AIs will enable.
Human agriculture may be causing the excess of seaweed that is making Mexico's beaches unpleasant.
Fertilizer runoff does other damage. Mexico needs to curb it, rather than cleaning beaches twice a day.
"You can't enforce a ban on mobile phones in the classroom &mdash we should teach kids to hate them instead."
I am doing my part &mdash please join me.
US politics must consider the poor again. A fight between the middle class and the wealthy has pushed them down for decades.
Jamal Khashoggi warned Moroccan journalist Taoufik Bouachrine that he was a target too.
Bouachrine was subsequently jailed on political charges.
Ironically, the US global campaign against talking about abortion has led to a big increase in abortions in some African countries.
That results from an increase in the pregnancy rate. Sad to say, not all the unintended additional pregnancies will be terminated. Some will lead soon to an increase in unintended births, which will lead in a couple of decades to an increase in unintended deaths.
Japan is going to resume overt commercial whaling.
For decades, Japan has dishonestly called its whaling "scientific".
The city of Chennai is copying with running out of water, but how long can it go on? Drought is expected to spread to 20 more cities by next year.
The Environmental Poisoning Agency has become the Employment Punishing Agency, by unilaterally revoking the employees' union representation in all but name.
Singapore, Russia and France are trying to dictate what news is "fake".
The Supreme Court blocked the citizenship question in the 2020 census, but not finally. Republicans will have a chance to offer another excuse.
"Beijing will not rest until it controls Hong Kong. We must keep fighting."
A hacker in Berlin posted advertisements of nonexistent and subtly absurd construction projects, and got real offers to buy in.
Cervical cancer is caused by a virus. An effective vaccine makes eradication of that virus a plausible future goal.
If, that is, misogynist anti-vaxxers don't stop it.
Abdul Aziz Muhamat, who was dumped by Australia in Manus Island, plead for the UN Human Rights Council to give the effectively imprisoned refugees new homes.
The Supreme Court gave businesses the power to block FOIA requests for information about what they are doing in government contracts.
Since trade secrecy is generally harmful to society, we need to move in the opposite direction: to reduce the power of business to impose secrecy when that harms society or community in any way.
The report, "Deprivation and Despair: The Crisis of Medical Care at Guantánamo," finds systemic failures of medical care for the prisoners.
Senator Warren's plan to reform elections is aimed at securing elections from rigging and theft, and removing obstacles to voting,
At the general level described in the article, it looks good to me. On some issues, the details may be crucial.
The London thug department has been forced to pay compensation to anti-fascist protesters that it besieged for hours on the street, then arrested.
Sanders advocates blanket abolition of Americans' college debt because programs that serve only people with low incomes tend to get cut down to zero.
Plutocrats want those funds to go to them, not to be used to help non-rich. If the program doesn't include the middle class, the plutocrats can propagandize the middle class to support ending the program by shrinking it step by step to nothing.
Millions of Americans of the age at which Americans used to retire are weighted down with college debt &mdash their own, or their childrens's.
Facebook's proposed currency is marketed as "decentralization" but actually it is an attempt to supplant banks with a system under complete centralized private control.
The name "libra" refers to a unit of weight (a pound), but I expect it was chosen for its false association with "libre". It has nothing to do with freedom, though; it would create a system of unitary power rather than a system of freedom. The name is a fib.
How about calling it "Fib-Lib"?
The New York City thug department continues racist practices despite the court order to cease them. Its internal "investigations" of reported racism are bogus.
Dartmouth University developed a system to monitor workers in many different ways together. It can "assess worker performance" by tracking all sorts of behavior.
Some research should not be done, and this is one example.
Fingerprint and face scanning makes the occupation of Palestine less inconvenient, but more oppressive.
"Stop obsessing over your environmental 'sins.' Fight the oil and gas industry instead."
I agree, as regards personal consumption. However, working to construct fossil fuel facilities does a specially concentrated form of harm. I don't think that you can justify oil drilling in the name of "feeding your family", because global heating is already causing tens of thousands of American families to become destitute, and any wells you drill will make that worse in the future. The first way to fight the oil and gas industry is to stop working for it.
Op-Ed From the Future: "The way we regulated social media platforms didn’t end harassment, extremism or disinformation. It only gave them more power and made the problem worse."
The Long, Cruel History of the Anti-Abortion Crusade.
The writer is wrong on one point, when he asserts that "no one is pro-abortion". I am pro-abortion. I expect each additional human baby born today to result in more than one additional premature human death a few decades from now. For this and other powerful reasons, have an abortion, not baby.
However, trying to discourage excess births by cutting welfare benefits for large families is cruel and unjustified.
Children did not choose to be born, or in which families they were born, and growing up in poverty can stunt them physically and mentally for life.
"Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law."
Only Sanders and Buttigieg, of the well-known presidential candidates, dared to criticize Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
U.N. Food Chief Refuses To Deliver Food To Starving Yemen's Unless They Can Be Identified Using Facial Biometrics.
Bernie Sanders: We Must Stop Giving Terrorists Exactly What They Want (in the Middle East).
The FCC Is Siding With Landlords and Comcast Over Tenants Who Want Broadband Choices.
Al Gore: only big solutions can offset impact of systemic shifts and avert disaster.
The madness of people influenced by Instagram is causing trouble for the rest of us.
The simplest way to stop Instagram from annoying your life is to stop using it and stop paying attention to it6.
The (so-called) Self-Driving Car Is a Surveillance Tool.
I say "so-called" because remote-drive software has already been developed, Unless you own the car and the software that controls it is free/libre, you cannot ever be confident that it is driving itself rather than being driven under someone else's control.
"Aggression detector" systems for schools throw an alarm whenever someone's voice sounds "stressed".
Even if the system were entirely accurate, attempting to use it would make people more stressed. Only a tiny fraction of these events represent people who are about to attack someone. In the rest of the cases, bothering them will only make their lives more miserable and more stressed.
Suppose you are a teacher or school principal. How could use use these data without making the school worse? You can't. So don't use it.
US thugs will hunt desperately for an excuse to arrest someone. Chicago artist Tashif Turner had a permit to paint a mural, but he didn't have it with him, so they arrested him. But it gets worse.
Naturalized US citizens now face the terrifying threat of having their citizenship taken away without their even being informed..
The head of a department of Unesco has decided not to hold conferences in the UK any more. It is too hard for even sponsored participants to get a visa to attend.
The head of a department of Unesco has decided not to hold conferences in the UK any more. It is too hard for even sponsored participants to get a visa to attend.
Extension of patenting, together with general encouragement of greed, has made insulin so expensive in the US that American diabetics have to skimp on everything else &mdash and even then they may die from not being able to buy insulin.
It amounts to murder.
The refugee who tried to kill himself by fire in Manus Island will face charges leading to life imprisonment in a smaller prison.
Those who imprisoned him in Papua New Guinea and those who denied him medical treatment should be considered responsible for his "crime", which is not as grave as theirs.
It's a myth that environmental regulations stifle economic productivity. Harmful chemicals cost the US $340bn a year.
The benefits of using those chemicals are concentrated on businesses, while the damage is dispersed among lots of families, mostly not rich. Politically, under the plutocratist system, the former counts more than the latter.
"Every stage of the plastic life-cycle releases harmful carbon emissions into the atmosphere, contributing to global heating."
This is in addition to poisoning sea animals and land animals.
Some US thugs are being investigated and may be fired because of fomenting violence on Facebook.
Cops are supposed to be police officers, not thugs. Firing them for statements that contradict the mission of their profession is right and proper.
An Australian court ruled that companies are negligent in permitting "defamatory" comments to be posted on their Facebook pages.
Facebook does not give the companies any authority to moderate the comments, so the only way they can comply is by setting up a filter which rejects all comments. This is ridiculous.
Population is reaching crunch point in the Congo. The Pygmies, who lived there before, demand to cut down the forest that lowland gorillas live in.
As the world's human population bloats, there won't be enough land for everyone. People will get desperate, and try to hang on a little longer by destroying forests, farming land that isn't suitable, catching the last few fish, and so on. But that won't do more than postpone the end.
The human population will eventually be limited &mdash after everything else is gone. We need to limit the human population earlier, before that destruction occurs.
US citizens: call on Massachusetts to ban government use of face surveillance.
Since this bill would only apply to government use of face recognition, it addresses only part of the problem. But that's a good start.
If you sign, please spread the word!
The EU is considering a broad system of censorship to apply to all internet sites and services; even to ISPs.
It would that the European internet becomes like the Chinese internet.
"Cambridge Analytica may have become the byword for a scandal, but it's not entirely clear that anyone knows exactly what that scandal is."
To try to prevent election manipulation using systems that profile people is difficult. It requires outthinking the people who are looking for clever ways to use the databases to achieve their goals.
Preventing it by prohibiting data collection and profiling would be more reliable. If a database does not exist, there is no clever way to use it to undermine society.
The WTO ruled against some US states' support for local jobs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
One thing the conman has shown us is that the US can defeat business-supremacy treaties if it attacks them. The US could force the WTO to back down from this, especially if it does so in a fair way, demanding to permit this practice for all countries.
However, the emissions reduction programs would be good even without this particular aspect.
More mobile phone scamming: companies can put charges on a person's phone bill and falsely claim person approved the payments.
EFF: Don't Let Encrypted Messaging Become a Hollow Promise.
The article presumes that nonfree programs such as WhatsApp are legitimate. I hope you know better.
Oklahoma is suing Johnson & Johnson for aggressively promoting sales of fentanyl.
I think it is wrong to aggressively promote sales of any medical treatment. We must establish that corporations are not entitled to human rights, so that they can't claim they have a "human right" to publicize medicines. But the issue goes beyond advertising. We must require drug companies to include "serving patients" alongside "making money" as their responsibilities, and require participation of patient representatives in business decisions about medicines.
Tiffany Cabán, running for district attorney in Queens, New York, will not prosecute sex workers or their customers, and will not put poor people in jail for months awaiting trial by demanding bail money.
Here's What Neoliberal Democrats Who View Bernie Sanders as an 'Existential Threat' Have Yet to Realize.
The bully's threat to arrest thousands of immigrants was more of his usual terror theater.
US citizens: call on Congress to raise the estate tax. This is a way to tax the ultra-wealthy more.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on Massachusetts to ban government use of face surveillance.
Australia's denialist voters have been bamboozled into thinking they are resisting an elite that is gratuitously forcing change on them.
They don't understand that they are helping the real elite, the planet-roaster plutocrats, arrange to murder their grandchildren. But the grandchildren know this.
The House of Representatives put amendments into a funding bill that would block new offshore oil drilling.
This is very important to do.
Reporter Seth Harp describes how US border guards threatened to keep him in the airport indefinitely until he let them search through his phone and laptop. They lied to him sometimes, and one threatened repeatedly to kill him and lie as an excuse.
I hope he is not using that phone and laptop any more. They could contain key loggers.
In my personal experience, the border guards that give me the most hassle are those of Canada. A Canadian border agent, which appeared human but was apparently a robot, demanded I say what I would do when I returned to the US, while threatening to send me to the US (but not the US city I was connecting for).
Once in the 90s a couple of US customs agents decided to harass me by searching my luggage, slowly. As I was not in a hurry and had only permitted goods to import, I responded by taking a friendly tone and complying with utmost diligence and care, which required me to go even more slowly than they did. Eventually they realized that their harassment tactic had backfired, so they finished the search quickly.
For the US to defeat Iran, it would need to conscript soldiers.
If you are a young man, or a teenager, it is time to start organizing draft resistance now!
Jewish Human Rights Scholar: Yes, America Has Built Concentration Camps. And it is not surprising that some of the prisoners in them have died as a result of the systematic mistreatment.
The term "concentration camp" was initially used as a euphemism for prisons into which colonial powers (Spain, the US, and Germany) and conquerors (including the UK) forced a civilian population which was sheltering and aiding rebels. Killing them was not the specific intention, but in many of these camps the general mistreatment and lack of medical care killed substantial numbers of the prisoners. This is what the US is doing now to unauthorized immigrants.
The Nazis built political prisons which were referred to as "concentration camps". Initially they did not murder prisoners outright but systematically worked prisoners to death. Later the Nazis began directly murdering large numbers of Jews (and others) in some of these camps. Thus, the term became associated with outright mass murder.
The writer of that article believes that massive imprisonment is the penultimate step on the road to genocide. This may be right, because the conditions that lead to setting up such camps generate hatred. The thugs running US concentration camps hate the unauthorized immigrants. It wouldn't take much to loose the demons in them.
Blue Cross / Blue Shield offers subscribers a list of psychiatrists who are "in the network", but only a few of them will actually accept a new patient covered by insurance. Many of the phone numbers don't even work any more.
Many other insurance plans are equally bad, and it affects other medical specialties, not just psychiatrists.
There is evidence that insurance companies keep the errors intentionally to discourage patients from getting care, and thus reduce what they have to pay for.
One of the Big Four accounting companies, KPMG, has been caught cheating. Specifically, its executives cheated on ethics exams.
To shut down that company would leave only three companies to choose from. We need to do the opposite: make KPMG split up — and the others, too. We need to make them so numerous that we can shut them when necessary.
None of the predicted "benefits" of ending the FCC's network neutrality regulations has actually occurred.
When businesses claim that deregulating them will lead to benefits, they are asking the public to give them something on credit, without even a commitment to pay it back. Businesses often cheat on their commitments, so how likely are they to keep a non-commitment?
The proper response to any such a proposal is, "And if that doesn't happen, then what?" Followed by, "Let's make the deregulation provisional, to be terminated automatically if any of the following problems occurs…"
Facebook treats the video moderators like shit. And that's in addition to the depression they feel from watching the videos.
The article gives no evidence that Utley's death was caused by his job, but the way the managers treated it is despicable even if they did not cause it.
Naturally, these workers are subcontracted, so that Facebook can deny responsibility for how they are treated. But Facebook is in fact responsible: it demands contractors offer a low price, which they achieve by treating the workers like shit. We need laws to hold companies like Facebook responsible for the treatment of indirect workers, and give them employee rights such as sick leave.
It should be a felony for employees of a company to ask a worker to sign a nondisclosure agreement covering any aspect of the working conditions, benefits, or pay.
Tories are gradually resolving the artificial problems they have created for people that moved to Britain decades ago with citizenship but can't prove it — by waiting for them to die. In a few years, there may be no problem left.
The reason they can't prove their citizenship is that Tories deleted the government data base which would have proved it. In recognition of its own fault, the British government ought to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Everyone: call on Deloitte to stop providing services to the deportation thugs.
If you sign, please spread the word!
In support of Senator Warren's bill to cut off tax incentives for leveraged buyouts.
I disagree with part of the argument — namely, arguing from efficiency as the primary goal. There are other important goals, such as avoiding concentration of whatever industry.
These other goals strengthen the case for this law.
The House of Representatives voted for a $15 minimum wage.
However, some right-wing Democrats in the House want to pass a law to let the funding for community clinics decline over time.
The State of New York should dissolve the charter of the Trump Organization for its persistent history of crime.
To overcome the threat of global heating requires putting a stop to the practice of aggressive war.
Chicago thugs have been fired for helping to posthumously frame Laquan McDonald after another thug had killed him.
It is crucial to punish thugs for bearing false witness and not only (rarely) for killing.
In 2011, the Tories eliminated the UK's targets for reducing salt in foods. This is now estimated to have caused over 10,000 cases of heart attack, stroke, and cancer.
The hate-spewer should go home to his country, but where is that?
I think his country of origin is the one located, mythically, straight down from wherever you are.
Iran has seized an oil tanker.
Now I suppose it will suggest to the UK an exchange of captured ships.
I have not seen any explanation of why the EU's refusal to trade with Syria would have anything to do with Iran's trade with Syria.
Syria, Assad's empire, is an ally to be ashamed of, but not worse than the US's ally, Salafi Arabia.
IUCN Red List Reveals Wildlife Destruction from Treetop to Ocean Floor.
A dam in Brazil that collapsed had a flaw, which a company (the builder of the dam?) knew about and concealed.
Chinese expat writer Yang Hengjun has been made a political prisoner in China.
He is accused of "crimes" which are bullshit excuses for political persecution, comparable to the US charges against Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. However, China nowadays applies its repression far more broadly; mere opinions are enough.
This is why I decided, a few years ago, not to go to China any more.
Drug Makers flooded Us with Billions of Opioid Pills as Epidemic Surged, Data Shows.
The most egregious aspects of Palantir's privatized state surveillance of just about everyone.
Boris Johnson, who stands to become the next prime minister of the UK, wrote privately that he was in favor of keeping the UK in the EU. A year later he supported the dishonest campaign to take it out.
The bully's grandfather was an organizer of the KKK and helped lead a protest to tell Irish and Italian immigrants to go home.
Hong Kong showed China is a threat to democracy. Now Europe must defend Taiwan.
The title of the article is misleading -- mere accusation would not require expulsion. There would have to be "irrefutable evidence."
I am in favor of this rule. I don't think that parties should tolerate bigotry against any group, and that includes Jews. The Republican Party should adopt the same rule.
What I disagree with is the party's decision to adopt a controversial criterion for judging anti-semitism, which was designed to shift the boundary that separates criticism of Israel from anti-semitism.
US citizens: call on Harvard to divest from fossil fuels.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Extinction denialism: right-wing politicians undercount actual extinctions in order to block policies to prevent future extinctions.
This reminds me of the way right-wing politicians cited Iraq Body Count to undercount the number of Iraqi war dead from Dubya's occupation of Iraq. Iraq Body Count did (does?) a valuable job by making a list of the identified, reported deaths, but using that to estimate the total will obviously give a low result.
I think Iraq Body Count ought to make a prominent statement to this effect. Maybe the IUCN Red List should do likewise.
In the case of extinction, we cannot detect the extinction of species whose existence we have not yet recognized. These could number in the millions.
Extinction Rebellion held a die-in in front of the New York Times, demanding the newspaper do justice to the danger.
The conman's "deal of the century" for Palestinians includes a lot of money to be paid to Palestinians in the future.
In other words, he's asking the Palestinians to give him something on credit.
You'd have to be nuts to give the trumpets anything on credit. Remember the building contractor that did work on a Trump building, and was still suing to get paid for it when the conman was inaugurated? He was not the only one.
Evgeny Morozov agrees that getting paid for data by Facebook will not compensate for the damage done by the power Facebook gets by having that data.
The idea that "you should own your data" is too weak a foundation to resist the systematic manufacture of consent. It puts each person in the position of negotiating a deal with various giants — exactly the way the giants want it.
Instead of negotiating individually with them, we need to join together and pass laws that stop them from snooping on us.
Iran is talking and acting tough, in response to damaging economic warfare. The bully and his men condemn this as inexplicable aggression.
Several years ago I reported on how Israel used the same propaganda ploy against Hamas in Gaza. In a cycle of attacks by both sides, Israel described Israeli bombing as "retaliation" and Hamas missiles as "aggression". At that time, it was noticeable that it was generally Israel that broke the truce. That does not seem to be the case in the past year, though.
Yuval Harari: Pervasive digital surveillance will offer numerous ways to determine who is homosexual — or even has an unconscious leaning that way — for the sake of persecution. Likewise for any other quirks that people could be mistreated for.
If you belong to some group that is targeted — blacks, Palestinians, animal rights campaigners, whatever it — the secret police of your country won't hesitate to use your quirk to force you into informing.
This is another reason we must stop systems from collecting data about people.
Make or sell TVs that reports on people? Go to prison! Put up a camera that identifies people? Go to prison!
Senator Warren proposes to eliminate private prisons completely in the US, including immigration prisons.
She also plans to ban gouging prisoners for products and services.
What I like best is that she endorses the idea that certain areas of activity should be off limits to profitmaking businesses. It is not yet the idea that government services should never be privatized.
Today powerful tyrants don't merely lie. They attack the idea that there is such a thing as truth.
What made life under the rule of Stalin and Mao so terrifying was that no lie was too much for them. The truth of your innocence meant nothing to them if they found it useful to proclaim you guilty. Today's cruel liars, including the conman, are no better.
Let's compare them with the plutocrats and planet roasters. They don't mind lying, and they lie constantly about their opponents. But they do not attack the very idea of truth.
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of refugees are living in France near Calais and Dunkirk. Thugs regularly chase them around, steal and destroy their tents, break their water vessels, and poison their food with tear gas.
The bully's ambivalence about bombing Iran could result from a conflict between two inner impulses.
It could also be theater.
US citizens: call on Amazon to stop providing digital support for deportation.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Boris Johnson is the UK's bullshitter — he takes lying beyond the usual level, and plays the hero by defeating the weak.
"With its links to BP, I can't stay in the Royal Shakespeare Company."
A Tory minister grabbed a Greenpeace protester by the neck to push her out of the hall.
Initiating pre-emptive violence on the off chance that someone else might do so is not justified, not for ministers any more than it is for thugs.
The minister has been dismissed as minister, but that is not enough. He should be prosecuted. The cheers he got from other Tories and plutocrats in the room make prosecution necessary.
Some see this as an example of the pattern of male violence towards females. That is a valid point, and it might be that he has a habit of violence towards women and that it played a role in his actions. Ultimately, though, I don't think it changes the conclusions in this particular case. It would not be any more legitimate to have done the same thing to a male.
Bernie Sanders: We must stop the US from going to war with Iran
Now that France threatens a 24 hour censorship deadline for deleting articles, some politicians are trying to include revealing how farms treat animals.
The tendency of governments to label animal rights activism as "terrorism" has been observed in the US, and the UK. It seems to be a natural progression. So whenever you think about a proposed "antiterrorism law", remember that animal rights activists may be included too.
I do not advocate animal rights below a low level. I do advocate freedom of speech for those that advocate more (or less) animal rights than I do.
The EFF has alerted the public to a particular of variety of malicious functionality of nonfree software: artificial restrictions on interoperability.
This is useful, but it would have been more insightful to mention that the underlying cause: proprietary (nonfree) software. Proprietary software tends to be malicious in various other ways.
The bullshitter doesn't want anyone in the federal government to correct his lies. Over 85% of the federal government positions that have to do with science are now empty.
The Detroit Police Commission excluded one commissioner from some of its meetings where it decided to impose face recognition on the public. He came to an open meeting and tried to condemn this, and the thugs arrested him.
Thus tyranny marches on, imposing the tools for more tyranny.
"Endless War Isn't Inevitable": House Votes to Stop [the bully] From Launching Unauthorized Attack on Iran.
What parents suggest for allowing children some free time to play.
Protesters in Hong Kong passively blockaded the thug department's headquarters for 15 hours, then left.
Charlie Rowley, suffers permanent neural damage from the novichok which killed his girlfriend. He says that the bottle he found was packaged in hard plastic and is surely not the same bottle of novichok that was used to poison the Skripals.
Explaining the decades of US aggression against Iran which are the historical background for today's US aggression against Iran.
If the US had not overthrown the elected government of Mossadegh, political Islamism probably would not be a significant factor in the world today. We would have no Islamic State, no al Qa'ida, no PISSI, no Boko Haram.
(satire) Bolton Argues War With Iran Only Way To Avenge Americans Killed In Upcoming War With Iran.
Facebook could predict diseases such as diabetes, anxiety, depression, and psychosis, based on what zuckers post there.
Their doctors could also do this, but that might be acceptable, so let's focus on what is not acceptable.
A refugee imprisoned by Australia on Manus Island has been denied medical treatment for a long time. He set himself on fire in his room.
His action seems to me as rational as any other option, under the circumstances. I suppose he hoped he would die, but so far he is still alive.
Maybe now they will give him medical treatment.
Leaks say the bully approved bombing of Iran, then cancelled it at the last moment.
We can't presume any of this is true. The bullshitter uses bombastic threats as a style of diplomacy. Maybe he told the troops to get ready to attack as a form of theater, intending to cancel it. Or perhaps that never happened and some flunkies were ordered to "leak" a false story.
Either way, this was better than launching a real attack.
New Zealand will put ballot boxes in supermarkets so people can vote more conveniently.
It is good to make voting more convenient, all else being equal, but that is not the most important issue at stake. Is it feasible to prevent election-rigging via ballot boxes in a "crowded shop"? Will it be feasible to have poll watchers from all parties at each supermarket?
Foreign aid donations to UN relief efforts have dropped by over 25% compared with the first half of 2018.
Global heating increases the need, and weakens and impoverishes donor governments. Plutocracy and its increased inequality contributes to the latter also.
Assigning a monetary "value" to collecting data about you would not substitute for privacy.
The monetary income of selling and renting that data is not a measure of the harm done to you by collecting it. It also completely ignores the consequences of making the data available to the state.
Swedes Are Getting Implants in Their Hands to Replace Cash, Credit Cards.
It is hard to protect the freedom of people who are desperate to throw their freedom away.
The Australian federal thugs interrogated a whistleblower in an attempt to build a case against journalists. Even worse, the minister of repression defends this.
He is the biggest threat to Australians in the short term. (In the long term, global heating is the biggest threat.)
Extinction Rebellion Protests Block Traffic in Five UK Cities.
Each city has a theme: rising sea levels, floods, wildfires, crop failures and extreme weather.
The bully has put right-wing religious extremists in charge of US policy towards Israel and Palestine.
Right-wing extremist Jews, right-wing extremist Nazis, right-wing extremist Christians, right-wing extremist Muslims — they all work together in the name of right-wing extremist cruelty.
Spying on Children Won’t Keep Them Safe.
The US government argued in the Supreme Court that it has the power to imprison anyone forever, including even US citizens, simply by asserting that perse is planning terrorism.
It is easy to make such an accusation against anyone, for those who don't mind lying. The US has labeled various sorts of protesters as "terrorists".
Seawalls to Protect US Against Rising Oceans Could Cost $416bn by 2040.
That spending would be as futile as trying to bail the water out of the ocean. By 2070 we would need to spend another 400 billion, or perhaps another 800 billion or 2 trillion, because (1) the cost of each cm of sea wall increases as it gets taller and (2) sea-level rise will accelerate with time.
We can't afford to cure this problem. The only remedy we can afford is to prevent it.
Vowing Not to 'Demonize' the Rich, Biden Tells Billionaires 'Nothing Would Fundamentally Change' If He [Were] Elected.
It looks like the cheater rewarded campaign support from William Koch by telling the IRS to dismiss an investigation into reported tax fraud at his businesses.
Deepfakes are already being used in political manipulation. The success of the bullshitter, and Republicans who pressure each other to believe even obvious lies, has made the US more vulnerable to them.
The hypothetical deepfake described at the end of the article goes only a little beyond what the bullshitter has already hinted at. It would not surprise me if he really said that, before the 2020 election. By lying repeatedly about his past statements, he has prepared a situation in which we would be unable to tell if such a video is true or fake.
I think this is precisely his intention.
The bully is basing his campaign on racism, and the saddest thing is that he might win.
In one town in Canada, Uber has advanced towards its goal of eliminating other transport options. The town has eliminated its own public transit, replacing it with being spied on by nonfree software.
Britain's law against discarding by-catch has been ineffective because British fishermen ignore it.
Many Android apps can track users' movements even when the user says not to allow them to.
This involves an apparently unintentional weakness in Android, exploited intentionally by malicious apps. But those apps can't do anything to "your" phone, if you recognize they are proprietary software and won't allow them in your machine.
Warning: parts of Android are proprietary programs too, and many phones sold with Android come with proprietary modifications, even preloaded proprietary apps that the customer may not be informed about. And that's not to mention the proprietary radio software in the modem processor, with its universal back door.
The bully's artificial restrictions, designed to wipe out Planned Parenthood and stop other clinics from telling women about abortion, has been approved by an appeals court and will go into effect.
I hope someone will report on what role judges recently appointed by Republicans played in this decision.
(satire) … Schumer stated to members of the press Thursday that "the American people deserve a president who can more credibly justify war with Iran."
Study Confirms GOP Medicaid Work Requirements Succeeded in Taking Away People's Healthcare, But Did Nothing to Boost Employment.
At a time when life is such a struggle for the poor, poor people all try to get work. The question is whether they can get enough work, and fit it into life alongside sleep and commuting.
Libya is not a safe place to send refugees back to, so the EU should not send anyone there.
(Right-wing) populism means never having to say you’re sorry, and never having to say you’re wrong. You just change the subject.
The experience of being tracked constantly by their parents is making some US teenagers resent digital surveillance.
What Love Island Can Tell Us About the Surveillance State.
Movies and TV that idolize the English upper class and its former dominant position serve now to propagandize Britons and Americans to bow down to the rich.
The US suicide rate has been rising for years, especially among rural men with less education and less income.
The full cause is not evident, but the widespread gun ownership in the US could be one factor. However, the industrial non-policy that allows devastating decline in many rural areas could also be responsible.
Palestinians who are Israeli citizens can run for parliament, but if elected they still face violence from thugs who cover it up with lies.
Also described in the article is how Israeli soldiers murdered a Palestinian driver by blocking paramedics from stopping his bleeding.
Israeli soldiers have done this before. Tarek Loubani reports that he saw this happen to a wounded medic at a Gaza protest: a sniper wounded him, then snipers kept shooting near him to stop other medics treating him. Eventually the wounded medic bled to death.
Israel plans to demolish an entire Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem, evicting 500 people.
The only path to reconciliation (in whatever form) between Israelis and Palestinians is to have an independent Palestinian state. It is not a mere "solution", it is a necessary first step to an end to military occupation.
US officials are hinting at a US missile attack at some facility in Iran.
In the US it proves almost impossible to convict killer cops. Here are suggestions for what we could try to do instead.
The bully ordered denial of asylum to people fleeing Central America that pass through Mexico and didn't ask for asylum there.
This would make sense if Mexico were a safe country for refugees, but if that were the case. they would probably ask for asylum in Mexico, where people mostly speak Spanish which most of them already speak.
This may be rejected by courts.
Yosemite national park paid a ransom to recover the right to use the traditional names for hotels and other activities, which had been seized by a trademark extortionist.
The article spreads confusion between trademark law and several other laws by using the overgeneralization "intellectual property" to refer to trademarks. Please don't ever use that term.
Academics should not be fired for stating controversial views about gender issues in the abstract.
We must distinguish having views on controversial questions from discrimination.
Many public schools in the US publicly humiliate children whose families have not paid for school lunch.
No family should have to pay for school meals, unless perhaps one so wealthy that the fee is nothing to it. The cost should be paid out of general tax revenue, funded by a progressive income tax, so that the poor don't have to pay anything.
However, I see a deeper and bigger issue here: how can we teach children from poor families not to feel ashamed of this? Children are not responsible for their families' fortunes, but even the adults should not feel ashamed of getting bad breaks.
Heathrow's Expansion Plans Make a Mockery of the Zero Emissions Strategy. We need to cut down on flights, not increase them.
PFAS appears to cause pancreatic cancer even at a very low concentration, about 1/700 of the current maximum level in drinking water.
Scientists Shocked by Arctic Permafrost Thawing 70 Years Sooner Than Predicted.
They found that the whole landscape was melting.
Newly elected Massachusetts District Attorney Rachael Rollins is trying to provide better justice by being less punitive in some cases.
We can't evaluate the effect of this by looking at specific cases. It can only be judged as an aggregate.
Burkina Faso will punish journalists that report on attacks by Islamist rebel groups.
Plans to export solar electricity from Australia through a power cable, or in the form of hydrogen.
The head of Hong Kong's puppet government has apologized for the extradition bill, and said she would not try to push it again before July 2020, but refuses to go promise not to bring it back after that.
One must suspect that she plans to try again later next year. Having chosen to serve China, she will not have a change of heart. She will remain the enemy of Hong Kong.
The death penalty in the US is "as predictable as a lightning strike." The system is so random, in some ways, that it makes no sense.
One thing that is not random is the racism. An extreme case: in Los Angeles, only non-whites get sentenced to death.
(I refuse to use the expression "of color". Color is not something one can be "of".)
In many of the states where Republicans are banning abortion, the voting public does not support them and did not vote for them. They hold power via gerrymandering, against the public will.
The US regime's policy towards Iran is divorced from reality in regard to strategy.
This is in addition to being divorced from reality in its goals.
Iran's regime does not respect human rights, but it's not as bad as Salafi Arabia. If the latter is good enough to be a US ally, so is Iran.
Warren's many good domestic policy plans have won her more support.
As I've read articles about Warren's plans, I have agreed with them, more or less. They show me that she is progressive and will fight the plutocrats.
Sanders is also a progressive and has fought the plutocrats for decades. If we elect him, there will be no lack of good plans. What we may not have is enough progressives in Congress to enact them. Sanders is dedicating his efforts to boosting their campaigns.
Moreover, Sanders rejects US wars, and the crimes of US allies, in a way that Warren has not.
I support Sanders. I would settle for Warren.
Changing underwear every day wastes water for so much washing. Until everyone had washing machines, people didn't do this.
Yanis Varoufakis' Analysis of the Latest Greek Election.
Brazil plans to put a right to data protection into its constitution.
This reflects good intentions, but adopts an ineffective avenue for solution. The constitution should guarantee a right to anonymity.
Actors should have equal opportunity, rather than a system of privileges based on dozens of different demographic identities.
The partial reactor meltdown at Simi Valley scattered a lot of radioactive material which joined toxic chemicals. These pollutants spread on water and wind, causing elevated rates of many kinds of cancer.
Some studies
suggest
that trigger warnings don't really help protect people with PTSD
— indeed, they could hurt instead.
I don't regard this as proven yet.
'The Changes Are Really Accelerating':
Alaska
at Record Warm While Greenland Sees Major Ice Melt.
Here are
many
reasons why the US needs an industrial policy.
The New York Times says that the US is
infiltrating
malware into Russia's power grids.
This seems like dangerous brinkmanship to me. Power grids are
civilian infrastructure, and should not be targets in war. If Russia
is doing this to the US, one could argue that threats in return are
justified. But then there should be negotiations for a cease fire in
that terrain.
"Is showing compassion to migrants a crime?" Right-wing regimes,
founded on cruelty, are
trying
to make it so.
The US prisons for border-crossers are
insufficient
to handle the overload caused by the
bully's policies of imprisoning
them
The world cannot continue economic growth and avoid global heating disaster. There is no way to decouple growth from greenhouse emissions soon enough.
I guess we need to take from the rich in order to give poor people a better life.
The saboteur-in-chief has attacked medical research by banning use of human fetal tissue.
Sooner or later, you will develop a disease that today is fatal. Will it still be fatal when you get it? Understanding and curing some diseases depends on fetal tissue research. Forbidding that research could be your death.
The Environmental Poisoning Agency is moving to strip states of the authority to block pipelines and other fossil fuel facilities.
Each fossil fuel facility creates an investor that has a giant stake in continue to operate it, thus continue destroying the ecosphere. To survive, we will have to eliminate their legal right not to lose this investment.
As Study Shows Methane Emissions 'Vastly Underestimated,' Warnings That US Fracked Gas Export Bonanza Imperils Planetary Stability.
Carbon Emissions from Energy Industry Rise at Fastest Rate Since 2011.
"The process of corporate plunder in the global mining industry is severely aggravating social and economic inequalities across the planet."
Assad Demolishes Refugee Homes to Tighten Grip on Rebel Strongholds.
Former rebels don't dare return home — many of them will be tortured.
"Under this policy, the [US] Coast Guard stops boats in international waters, searches them and their crew for drugs, destroys boats, and detains crew members for prolonged periods of time in inhumane conditions, regardless of whether any drugs are found aboard."
The Japanese shipping company says its tanker was attacked by a missile, not a mine.
This does not conclusively say who attacked the ship. Perhaps some ally of the conman did it, to add to the military threats and economic warfare we know about. Or perhaps Iran did it in response to those military threats and economic warfare. Either way, the US is the aggressor overall.
Each step in increased regulation of the internet has reinforced the dominion of the existing giants.
Since 1989, the wealthiest 1% of Americans have gained 21 trillion dollars, while the poorest 50% have lost almost 1 trillion.
The poorest 50% amount to roughly 150 million people, which means that their loss averages roughly 6000 dollars each.
Facebook's new payment system will try to seize total surveillance and control of monetary transactions.
Using this would be even worse than using a credit card.
Deep fake videos will aid the bullshitters that aim to eliminate the idea that the truth matters, by burying the truth under heaps of contradictory lies.
700 large companies are under pressure to stop concealing their environmental footprint.
The pressure on platforms to censor certain points of view is spilling over inevitably into broader censorship.
US citizens: call on Congress to abolish the deportation thug department, ICE.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Rep. Neal to get the bullshitter's tax returns form New York State.
If you sign, please spread the word!
The State of Georgia is replacing its voting machines, but plans to go against security recommendations and buy touch-screen ballot-printers.
Arguing that a one-time expenditure of 5 billion dollars could make Africa self-sufficient in food.
To make that benefit last, assuming a stable climate, requires ending population growth in Africa. That would cost money, but there may be other obstacles — religious — that money alone might not easily address.
To make this solution lasting we need to curb global heating.
Australia's exaggerated cruelty to refugees is driving them to suicide. I expect that Australian politicians are celebrate every suicide attempt as proof of success.
The Catholic Church is pushing women in Nigeria to a malicious app as a substitute for real birth control.
There is a word for women who use this method: "mothers".
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Protect Right to Organize Act.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone: demand that the head of the US border thugs resign for promoting bigotry (and hatred towards immigrants).
I oppose prudery, so I reject the idea that there is something necessarily wrong with "vulgar jokes." Those particular jokes may have been nasty for some other reason. By contrast, hostility towards immigrants is clearly unacceptable from anyone that works in government agencies that deal with immigrants.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on Palantir to drop its contracts with the US deportation thug agency.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to make certain cuts in the US military budget.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Many civilians who lived near or visited Chernobyl after the explosion died from illnesses that can plausibly be attributed to radioactive fallout. No one investigated, so there is no established count, and those in favor of nuclear power can still claim it never hurt anyone but the workers.
Some still try to argue that we need to build new nuclear power plants to avoid global heating disaster. This is bogus because it would be far cheaper to build renewable generation.
The staff of to Department of Agriculture research agencies believe that moving the agencies out of Washington is a way of sabotaging them.
Research has discovered that racist thuggishness on the part of cops originates in racist attitudes on the part of many cops.
US citizens: call on the Department of Housing and Urban Development not to restrict housing assistance.
Here's the text I sent:
I call on the Department of Housing and Urban Development not to tighten eligibility for housing assistance. When some of the people in a family are US citizens, it is entirely legitimate to support housing for family. There is no justification for putting those citizens out on the street or breaking up their families. A great country shows its greatness through compassion.
US citizens: call on the FBI to stop pretending there is such a thing as "black identity extremism".
This phantom threat distracts attention from the real threat of white identity extremism.
I focus my politics on issues, not on identity.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Salvini has imposed a fine of 50,000 euros on organizations that rescue drowning refugees and bring them to Italy.
Two legislators whose fathers had been murdered helped eliminate the death penalty in New Hampshire.
Pope Francis Declares 'Climate Emergency' And Urges Action to avoid “a brutal act of injustice toward the poor and future generations.”
Making loan decisions based on tracking people's online activity constitutes linking up the US "social credit" system.
The injustice of this goes far beyond indirect race or gender bias.
Glenn Greenwald exposed the corrupt intentions behind the prosecution of Lula. Now he is receiving death threats and a threat from the state to deport him.
Greenwald lives in Brazil and is married to an elected official.
The "young adult" book category is consuming itself with censorship demands. Many books have been withdrawn or cancelled in response to pressure campaigns accusing the authors of various sorts of "insensitivity" or "cultural appropriation".
The critics demand authors portray every minority in a "sensitive" way. Is there anyone in the world that can do this? Any given human being belongs only to a few groups. An author will have to play safe by assigning every character to the groups perse belongs to. But this would trigger condemnation for a lack of diversity.
It looks like young adult books will have to be written by committees that can provide sensitive treatment of many different intersections of minority groups. The publisher would apply for a sensitivity certification from the Sensitivity Authority, which might demand changes. Then it would direct readers to send their complaints to the SA if they think its evaluation standards ought to be changed.
I have decided to oppose all campaigns that demand publishers withdraw a book, or a contribution to a book — regardless of what reasons are cited. Demanding censorship of books is in itself destructive. Even if the name presented on the book as author were "Donald Trump", I would not demand the publisher withdraw it.
The conman's war on education.
Climate blindness: Canadian west coast indigenous tribes are opposing a tar sands pipeline, but cite only its local dangers while ignoring its global danger.
Meanwhile, not far away, Alaska has had record heat this spring and its permafrost is melting. To avoid disaster is getting harder and harder.
The melting permafrost also poses a short-term local threat, but we should not be distracted by that.
Hong Kong demonstrates how surveillance tech threatens democracy.
It CAN happen here; indeed, it is already happening, just not to this extent. We, in countries that allow some space for public opinion, must demand an end to the systems that track people.
New Report Exposes Pentagon's Massive Contributions to Climate Crisis.
Australian thugs, like US thugs, practice "running a plate for a date". However, an Australian thug actually got convicted for it.
Google contractors can listen to what people say to its home listening devices.
I am sure that thugs can, too.
Rich jerks in San Francisco say that homeless people are bad for the environment.
We can see they are jerks because they refer only to their own local environment, and they are stretching the term to include mere annoyances.
Excess humans are bad for the environment, and the bigger their homes, the worse they are. Let's stop making so many humans!
Charter schools are very profitable, partly due to scamming the taxpayer. They use these profits to lobby against efforts to curb charter schools.
I think we should eliminate charter schools entirely so that they won't have a lobby any more.
Big Agro attacks innovative ecological farming by equating it with prescientific traditional farming.
(satire) … voters across the country criticized the Democratic National Committee Tuesday for requiring candidates to articulate at least one policy position before they can participate in debates.
"If Israel annexes Palestinian land and closes the door on a sovereign Palestinian state, then the international community must demand that Israel extend citizenship to occupied Palestinians."
In Missouri, a black driver is almost twice as likely to be stopped by thugs as a white driver.
Corporations are on track to destroy forests the size of Spain from 2010 to 2020.
Sudan Military Admits Abuses Committed in Khartoum Attack.
Arctic wildfires in June emitted as much CO2 as Sweden does in a year.
That positive feedback could force disaster.
Anaheim thugs shot and killed Hannah Williams, who may really have pointed a toy gun at them. But it looks like they might have saved her life afterward if they had made that the priority.
The UN Human Rights Council will investigate Philippine president Do-dirty's death squads, which are accused of killing 27,000 people.
Measles has killed almost 2000 people in the DR Congo in the past 6 months, due to many who are unvaccinated.
"The extradition bill might be ‘dead’ but in Hong Kong, we cannot afford to back down."
The reluctance of China's chief agent to officially withdraw the bill has to inspire suspicion.
The Greenpeace protesters on an oil rig in the North Sea were arrested.
The thugs make an exaggerated fuss about the danger (to a few volunteers) of holding a protest at sea. This is an excuse to ignore the big threat to safety: the oil well that that rig is going to drill. They should arrest the would-be mass murderers at BP.
(satire) Pence Visits Conversion Therapist For Routine Gay-Preventative Checkup.
Juan Cole said that mines that damaged oil tankers could have been planted by Houthis.
I don't think that the bullshitter or his allies would hesitate to make a false flag attack. If someone published a leak as evidence of this, they would only call that "fake news" and prosecute the leaker.
However, Cole thinks it is possible the attack was done by Iran. Here's a writer who considers it a natural result to US economic warfare.
A Commodities Futures Trading Commission member warns that global heating can lead to a global financial crisis.
An AI booster claims that the GDPR is significantly limiting businesses' collection and use of personal data.
The effects described in the article are beneficial for privacy, and maybe Europe is falling behind China in setting up totalitarian surveillance. But that is not to make people safe.
The second amendment was designed to make sure slave states could put down slave revolts.
After Britain seized a tanker carrying Iranian oil, Iran
tried
to seize a British oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.
Makes sense to me. Sooner or later Iran will capture one.
Maybe then they can swap captures.
Can We Talk in Confidence? The Death of
Candour
in the Age of Surveillance.
Most of the recommendations are good ones, and I agree
with the main point that society as a whole
needs to protect everyone's privacy, and not merely "protect" data
bases.
However, the article does not recognize the issues of free software,
and peer-to-peer vs centralization.
France has adopted a
new tax on
large foreign companies doing business there.
Bravo! Taxing the rich more enables the country to do more.
France disregarded
threats
from the US government to do this.
Voting Machine Makers
Claim
The Names Of The Entities That Own Them Are Trade Secrets.
Calling something a "trade secret" is just a way of saying "I don't
want to tell you." Why do governments so often allow companies to
conceal important information simply because they want to? Many
countries have adopted laws and policies which give undue respect to
the wishes of companies.
We should change that. Let's not allow companies that make or sell
election systems to keep anything about them secret, except the
password that they give to the purchaser. The software in them
should be free.
However, making the software free/libre
does not make a computer trustworthy for
recording votes. We have to do that on paper!
Two years after the Grenfell tower fire, the UK
has
not even started to upgrade the fire safety standards of other
buildings with the same problem.
Michigan
dropped
the charges against state officials connected with lead in Flint's
water, in order to start the investigation again.
The US Office of Special Counsel
called
for firing Kellyanne Conway for violating the Hatch Act.
'Deja
Vu' of Iraq War Lies as Mike Pompeo Blames Iran for Tanker Attack
Without Single Shred of Evidence.
A bipartisan bill would
clip
the president's power to use "national emergencies" to bypass
Congress.
Hong Kong thugs
attacked protesters; the protesters then attacked the
thugs.
The head of the government, chosen by a process fundamentally
controlled by China,
now reproaches
them for that.
I can't say that the protesters did wrong, but it would have been more
effective to maintain nonviolent discipline.
When plutocratists call something "socialism", it
means "not
good for plutocrats".
President Truman: "Socialism is what they called public power,
… social security … bank deposit insurance … free
and independent labor organizations, anything that helps all the
people."
The Koch brothers and other rich plutocrats are putting millions into
defending
the Democrats that serve them in the 2020 election.
The House of Representatives found Barr and
Ross in
contempt of Congress and will ask courts to make them turn over
materials.
Radar could make it possible
to monitor
a driver's health without identifying per.
Using radar probably doesn't automatically assure the driver is not
identified. It's possible that the radar system could measure the
driver's height, for instance. We need free software to guarantee
that the radar is not misused. After all, you can't trust a car
company to be honest about what its software
does, or
even to obey laws.
The UK has a proposal for net-zero-emissions by 2050. Due to
weaknesses
and escape routes, it won't get the job done.
Someone attacked
Japan-bound tankers in the Persian Gulf just as Japan was holding
negotiations with Iran.
The UAE says Iran did it, but it would make no sense for Iran to do
that — it would be self-defeating. So I suspect Iran's enemies
(US allies) of doing the attack.
"I was blocked from advising on UK drug policy — because I
criticised
UK drug policy."
Nicaragua has
freed many,
but not all, of the people imprisoned for protests in 2018.
Putin made journalist Ivan
Golunov a
national hero by framing him and torturing him.
The article also explains how complete the repression of protest is in
Russia. Planet roasters in the US are trying
to head
in that direction now.
Amazingly, the state has backed down
and dropped
the bogus charges. They must have caused too much international
embarrassment.
The high-level political support Golunov has received leads me to
suspect that the frame-up was organized by local officials without
Putin's approval.
The UK parliament is afraid that Boris Johnson, if he becomes prime
minister, would prorogue (dismiss) parliament and not call it back
into session until after the UK drifts out of the EU. Therefore, some
members of parliament
plan
to pass a law they hope will block that.
Should we call the supporters of Johnson "pro-rogue"?
Salvini's right-wing extremist party is
being
investigated, accused of making a deal to get Russian fund.
I have a sad hunch he won't lose any support for this.
Communism was once an international movement. Then, Communists
professed good, idealistic goals, while some carried out repression
that they hid from the rest. Communists considered it entirely proper
for the Soviet Union to aid Communist parties all around the world.
Now fascists have made an international movement, with repression as
the overt goal. I have a hunch Salvini's followers will say, "It's
great that you got funds from Putin so we subject Italy to
repression."
A lying thug in Florida has been charged for
framing
many people.
A hundred criminal cases were dropped because he was involved in them.
Eight convictions have been overturned, but I think it is unlikely
that he succeeded in framing people only eight times.
A Polish gang trafficked 400 Poles to the UK
to
enslave them.
The victims were forced to do work — but not, it appears, sex
work.
Corbyn
rejected
the goal of "social mobility" as a substitute for giving everyone a
decent life.
It is important to give everyone a chance to put per talents to good
use, but the people who are not especially talented deserve a good
life too.
Syriza is telling Greeks it
will
cut taxes to stimulate economic growth. Syriza was started as a
"leftist" party, but this sounds awfully right-wing to me.
With the euro rules forbidding deficit spending, tax cuts will force
cuts in spending, and that will hit the poor hardest.
To rebuild Greece "from the beginning", as Tsipras said, could be
possible only with debt relief.
Macron is
cutting
funds for France's medical system so much that doctors are going
on strike.
Britain has
forgotten
the supposed advantages of leaving the EU; its supporters now
demand that for its own sake at any cost.
The EU is the world's most powerful business-supremacy treaty. There
is a motive for wanting to escape from it — think of the
automated
copyright censorship and
pissing on
Greece
— but not if it means surrendering to even nastier
business-supremacy treaties
with countries such as the US and China.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to shut the revolving door between the US military and
military contractor companies.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens:
call
on the US to legalize marijuana.
If you sign, please spread the word!
The London subways plan to track passengers' movements
by their
phone WiFi.
Supposedly this will be "anonymous", but I am sure they can
put a name to most passengers.
I have taken pains to make sure my laptop's WiFi interface
is always off except when I explicitly switch it on. Every time
I reboot, every time I suspend and unsuspend, it switches off.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has independently investigated
CIA torture. Its report details
where
prisoners were seized, where they were tortured, and what the CIA did
with them afterward.
The Guardian
has
adopted the term "global heating".
Other major media are
considering
making the same change.
The US system of medical "insurance" could
at
any moment dump on you a bill for thousands of dollars, or hundreds of
thousands of dollars, and make you wish you had been left
untreated.
Plutocrats are offering public employees discounts from stores
if
only they quit their unions.
The countries that have criminalized paying for sex
still
repress sex workers, even if sex work is ostensibly legal.
Helping sex workers be safe and free is not the goal.
"Talking about 'decriminalisation' lends the Nordic model campaign a
veneer of progressiveness that a more honest 'stamp out prostitution'
is lacking."
Tokyo cracked down on public protests by
eliminating
nearly all public places where people could do anything but walk.
International humanitarian aid organizations are
pervasively
given to coercing local people into sex. This targets both the
local workers and the people asking for aid.
Facebook
Launching
App That Pays Users for Data on App Usage.
When we see the effects of this, I forecast we will learn that it is
no less dangerous than all the other personal data collection.
Delayed departure: France will add a tax on airline tickets for the
sake of environmental protection, but it is
too small to have
much effect.
Many
Americans believe that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax.
I watched Apollo 17 take off — its launch into space was no
hoax. To spend billions to do that much for real, then do the rest
only as a mere hoax, makes no sense. If you can get that far, you
will go all the way.
If you haven't got your bearings to identify the absurd conspiracies,
a heuristic you can use is to ignore anyone who endorses the moon
landings hoax claim.
As for bigger jobs, such as curing cancer, we are doing that. A
considerable fraction of the people who get cancer live many years,
even decades, after treatment. In a few decades, if civilization
survives, we will do even better.
The truly difficult jobs, such as cleaning up the inner cities, and
ending global heating,
are hard because we face human enemies —
plutocrats — that profit from keeping these problems going, They
might even tell you these problems are hoaxes.
Salafi Arabia doesn't think that
jailing
30 journalists and murdering one should earn it a low ranking for
press freedom.
The tame deer of Nara in Japan are dying of hunger
after
their stomachs fill up with plastic bags discarded by tourists.
I suppose the bags smell somewhat like the food they contained.
Once, in Nara, I got a baked sweet potato for my own enjoyment. As I
went strolling while eating it, I felt a thump on my back. A deer was
butting me, demanding my food. I did not hand it over; beggars should
not try to demand or intimidate.
Workers at Delta Airlines report
harassment
and threats against those that support unionization.
Pakistan has
made
it hard for Afghans to get a visa, which 100,000 of them seek
annually to get medical treatment or even a diagnosis.
I suppose the motive for this is to block travel by Taliban and other
rebels. But ISTR that there was a large region of Pakistan near the
frontier in which the government had little power, and that the
islamists didn't need passports to cross the frontier. Has that
situation changed?
In the long run, there is
nothing
wrong in principle with designing good genes for children.
In the short term, there are reasons to prohibit it: the great danger
that the artificial genes will backfire is one. The danger of malware
in genes may arise, too.
State monitoring of prescriptions has little effect in limiting abuse
of prescription opioids, but it is a
big
intrusion on patients' privacy.
Abuse of prescription opioids is only a small part of the problem
of opioid addiction anyway.
Scott Daniel Warren was
tried
for giving water, food and a night's sleep to border crossers.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict.
Given the cruelty of the US government towards border crossers, I
expect it will try him again and again until it gets a verdict.
The US Department of Agriculture
wants
to allow beef processing plants to inspect their own products.
Allowing Boeing to do that resulted in the
death
of hundreds of people.
Allowing this for meat could kill a lot more people, with less public
attention. Rather than dying hundreds at a time in a few spectacular
incidents, they will die one by one and the cause won't be immediately
obvious.
When
a robot's right hand doesn't know what its left hand is doing, it
will insist there is no reason why it should know. It may even claim
that the two hands are two separate robots.
The details are lacking, but I suspect that part of the cause of this
problem was that the parking system knew who was parking there. In
other words, this was a harmful side-effect of massive surveillance,
in addition to the fundamental injustice of surveillance.
55
African countries have signed a business-supremacy treaty.
Whether this is good for non-rich Africans in general is something I
doubt. It
will give businesses more
power in those countries.
Australia's planet roaster government
keeps
violating its laws in order to approve a new coal mine, and keeps
getting caught.
Five ridiculous reasons
why
[UK thugs] label campaigners as "domestic extremists".
The conman will institute a new "human rights" panel so as to set a
new, narrower definition of what rights humans have, and
give
more power to religions instead.
The UK
strives
to find excuses to deny citizenship to children that are normally
entitled to citizenship.
Pacific gray whales are
dying
from hunger.
Some crucial food species must have crashed. If this is a random
fluctuation, it might recover next year or the year after. If it is
due to global heating,
it could get worse and worse, and perhaps wipe
out those whales.
The UK's ISP association
condemns
DNS-over-HTTPS, saying it would help people in Britain get around
censorship.
The way to defend censorship is to call it "online safety", which
subtly leads people to think of noncensorship as a personal threat.
Iran shows
where
the UK is headed.
Maine has
passed
a law forbidding ISPs from distributing customer data without the
customer's consent.
While the ISPs say this means the sky is falling, I consider it
inadequate. First, because it doesn't apply when the FBI sends a
"national security letter" to get a copy of all the data. Second,
because the ISPs have ways to get almost every customer to consent, in
formal terms. The engineering of consent is very effective.
What we need is a law forbidding ISPs from keeping data about
what customers do.
The minister in charge of education in India
actively
supports astrology.
A teenager in Salafi Arabia is
being
tried secretly for participating in a protest when he was 13 years
old. He could be executed.
His brother reportedly engaged in violence at the same protest.
The US has also
executed
people under such circumstances — which is wrong, of course.
But even with a lesser penalty, it isn't just to punish A for a crime
B committed, if A was only planning a much lesser crime.
Botanists have identified
571
plant species that have been made extinct since 1750, but there
are probably thousands more.
This does not count the species that are headed to extinction because
they cannot reproduce — for instance, the Torreya trees of
Florida.
Rep. Amash says that the Republican Party is now so rigid there is
no
room for any disagreement or independence.
Technology and the labor market
combine
to make many people too busy to think much.
The heat wave in Europe
interfered
with nuclear power plants because they couldn't get the river
water they require for cooling.
The bully's tariff threat to Mexico
was
theater. Mexico had agreed to most of the concessions already.
Mexico
has
been serving as a US border control agent for years.
"Abrupt thawing" can make the melting permafrost release
large
amounts of methane in a short time. The release of the methane
won't be spread safely over centuries — it could be concentrated
in decades.
Arctic
Is Thawing So Fast Scientists Are Losing Their Measuring Tools.
Several meters of soil can come loose in a few days.
Abrupt thawing can cause landslides and
transform
terrain beyond recognition.
Biden
said
that banksters are "positive" (influences in the US), and said
that Republicans would become better if the
bully were out of the way.
Republicans in Congress were not quite as bad, overall, a decade or
two ago. But that has changed.
The bully has pressured Republicans
to join him in open contempt for any aspects of our democracy that
stand in their way. The new Republican Party is the plutocratist
party, and only a crushing defeat can make it change.
Record heat, combined with drought, is forcing people
to flee
from parts of India.
Why the Raids on Australian Media Present
a Clear
Threat to Democracy.
Los Angeles provided housing for 20,000 homeless people,
but 30,000
more arrived on the streets.
In the long run, we need (1) fewer births, (2) more housing
construction, and (3) more sharing of apartments and houses.
Surveillance capitalism's success may be based
on fooling
advertisers about how effective it is.
In 1988, Biden ran for president,
and falsely
claimed he had participated in civil rights marches.
Bernie
Sanders really
did march.
The few big US cable and wireless ISPs are pushing to regulate the few
big US network services, mainly so as
to cut
in on the profits from surveillance capitalism.
A pox on both their houses — we need to forbid massive
surveillance by anyone.
Sudanese Troops Raped Protesters at
Sit-In, Doctors
Report.
Some Hong Kong businesses believe that China's extradition bill will
be bad
for business, and asked their staff to join protests against the
second reading of the bill.
This has a chance of convincing China to back down, and I think it is
worth a try. However, given China's increasing business success, I
think China's rulers regard Hong Kong as dispensable. I think they
want to wipe Hong Kong off the map and call it "China".
Having a few billionaires that donate to fighting
global heating does
not make up for the harm done by the planet-roaster billionaires
— and by
the system
that produces billionaires.
Across Europe, right-wing repressive candidates are using conservative
religion as
a base
for their campaigns.
If you live in the US or visit it regularly,
call
on airlines in the US to stop using face recognition to identify
passengers.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Everyone:
call
on Virginia to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens:
call
on Congress to give refugees respect rather than concentration
camps.
If you sign, please spread the word!
New York City
wants
to use "congestion pricing" as an excuse for total tracking of the
movements of cars.
The US government rejects and deports immigrants based on
"evidence"
in a secret database that supposedly indicates people's gang
affiliations.
Supposed gang affiliations have been
based
on unverified speculations in other circumstances. There is no
reason to expect them to be better founded when used for deportation.
And secrecy positively invites lies.
Facebook
stands
ready to promote right-wing extremism in 2020 just as it did
before. "The more extreme the message, the farther it will
travel."
The article proposes a law to require political ads to target the
whole constituency that is voting. It sounds like a good idea.
However, Facebook is
nasty in many other ways, so show your
friends that Facebook is not where you can be found.
The melting of the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica is
heading
for a tipping point, after which it will slide into the ocean and
raise sea level by around half a meter (20 inches) over the next 150
years.
What's worse than paying $1200 per month to rent a slot in a bunk bed?
Working 45 hours a week for that slot, in lieu of pay — which
comes out to
roughly
$6 per hour.
For life's other expenses, you need another job on top of that.
The minimum wage in California is over $10 an hour, so I think the
"volunteer" sales agents are being cheated.
Some propose to boycott Amazon for
dodging
taxes and paying low wages.
I don't disagree, but a mere boycott is inadequate. It fails to
recognize that
>Amazon does wrong to its customers
directly.
To think of buying from Amazon as a "sin" means closing your eyes to
how it mistreats you. I think of it as being spied on. If I bought
from Amazon, if I let Alexa listen to me, I would feel ripped off
— not merely guilt. I protect my rights; I don't give Amazon a
chance to mistreat me.
The strength of union activism in "conservative" states shows that
progressive
Democrats that stand for workers can win those states.
The conman
made
a deal with the House of Representatives, under which it is
providing some of the underlying evidence for Mueller's report.
Why don't Salafi Arabia, UAE and Egypt criticize China for
putting
perhaps a million Uighurs in brainwashing camps?
They generally work closely with the US. I suspect they have
discussed this issue with the conman. He does not care about
imprisoning Muslims, or killing them, and neither do those other
countries.
Old poor people in Japan are pushed into living in a giant housing
project where there are no elevators, no stores to buy anything, and
no medical clinic. That tells them, in effect, "Please die soon."
In he future, when many of the old people will have spent their lives
habituating themselves to isolation except over the internet, they may
find this isolation normal, but it will be even deeper.
The Labour Party needs to
expel
real antisemitism and launch a political debate about Israel and
Palestine.
Greenpeace Activists Board BP Oil Rig
As
It Is Towed out to Sea.
There is no room in the carbon budget for new fossil fuel mines.
Every one that is made is a step too far, towards disaster.
"Teaching children about LGBT issues is not brainwashing — it
equips
them for life."
I also like the quote, "No parent has a right to restrict [per]
children from learning about other perspectives on the world."
The conman's aide, Mnuchin, made it clear that the motive for
sanctions against Huawei is partly
economic
pressure (as distinguished from protecting national security).
How foolish of them to treat this important issue as a mere bargaining
chip.
Using a Chinese company's proprietary software threatens national
security in any other country, just as using a US company's
proprietary software threatens national security in any other country.
Australia
pretends
that its puppet government in Nauru is stopping it from bringing
its refugee prisoners to Australia for medical care that is impossible
on Nauru.
Nauru could delay even the consideration of the "request" for months
or years, until the patient is dead.
Assad's air force is
persistently
attacking civilians in Idlib, with Russia's help.
Global Population of
Eight
Billion And Growing: We Can't Go On Like This.
Spying on Children
Won’t
Keep Them Safe.
Republicans in North Carolina demonstrate their "by hook or by crook"
spirit by
threatening
over and over to vote on overriding the governor's veto of an abortion
restriction. To defeat it, every Democrat needs to be present,
over and over.
Doctors believe that Russian thugs
beat
reporter Ivan Golunov badly enough to break his ribs, but they
can't tell for certain, because the
thugs won't allow him to have an
x-ray.
There is an attempt to accuse Martin Luther King Jr. of being a
bystander at a rape, based an on
unattributed
note written on part of his FBI file. Historians say that such a
note is not real evidence.
Aside from that, he is also accused of peccadilloes such as having sex
outside of marriage. As if that mattered.
Individuals and their actions can make a big difference in the course
of history. I consider Martin Luther King a great man.
40 prosecutors
refuse
to enforce new laws banning abortion.
It is more accurate to talk about a
multi-drug-abuse
crisis than about an opioid crisis.
Many parts of Africa are wracked by
intractable
war.
It is easy to call for world powers to "do something", but what should
they do? Some of these wars may be fueled by actions of foreign
powers — for instance, corruption that sucks Africa's money out
into tax havens — and we can see at least in principle how to
stop that. But it is hard to see how to put an end to the violent
Islamist extremist groups.
Hundreds of thousands
protested
in Hong Kong against the extradition law being imposed by the
legislature, which has was elected under a system designed to give
China control.
The protesters in Sudan have launched a
general
strike.
Sudan's military rulers are
arresting
people to try to end it.
US
citizens: call
on the Department of Health and Human Services not to allow
discrimination on basis of gender identity or sexuality.
If you sign, please spread the word!
Isn't it perverse to think that "who you are" is defined
by which
people you are related to?
If I were to find out that the mother and father that raised me were
not my biological parents (unlikely in my case), it would not change
who I am. It would not even change what I am. It
might affect what I think about some of the parents, but it would be
irrelevant to what I think about me.
Some of the "intelligence" about Iran that the conman cites comes from
the propaganda campaign of the US-supported terrorist group
Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which attributes
it to
a fictional person — in effect, a US sock-puppet.
This group was formerly designated by the US as a terrorist group,
but a campaign backed apparently by powerful influence and funds
got
that designation changed a few years ago.
It is an injustice to designate groups as
"terrorist" without
a trial, but there was a factual basis to consider it a
US-sponsored terrorist group.
Biden, as a senator in 2002, pushed actively to invade Iraq; he
blocked
careful examination of Dubya's false claims.
Analyzing
a right-wing disinformation smear against Senator Warren.
Compare this with the disinformation
smears against
Julian Assange.
An historian of modern concentration camps (first used in the Boer War
to imprison the Afrikaner women and children) says that US prisons for
refugee
minors are
an example. "I expect to see contagious diseases, malnutrition in
some cases, and mental health crises."
Ideas
for restructuring the US Supreme Court to be less partisan.
The Arctic Ocean is
becoming hot,
acidic, and short of oxygen.
The thug who shot and killed Justine Damond has been sentenced
to 12
years in prison.
Since it is so rare for thugs
to be punished for crimes, I think we
should celebrate each time this occurs. At the same time, I hope that
such convictions will not be limited to cases where the
thug is a Muslim
and the victim is white.
China has
blocked access to many journalistic sites from the US, Canada and
UK.
The Australian election was affected by right-wing propaganda about a
nonexistent
plan for a "death tax".
This was a double dose of bullshit: the idea that there is something
bad about an inheritance tax, and the idea that Labor was in favor of
one.
Every country needs an inheritance tax to limit the accumulation of
great wealth across generations. The US needs a bigger inheritance
tax, and needs to eliminate the ways that rich people can avoid it.
A plague of forest-destroying monsters are rapidly
converting the
Amazon forest into a minimalist ecosystem of pasture, cattle, and
soybeans.
I think the first decade of food shortage, a few decades from now, will look
like this all around the world, as agribusiness pushes to compensate for
loss of yield by pushing even marginal land into production.
Australia has a policy of
making
immigrant families leave if they have a baby that turns out to have an expensive disease.
The bully is still hunting for an excuse to
add
a citizenship question to the US census.
"In the real world, the fact that the executive branch plans to offer
'a new rationale' [for the citizenship census question]
is proof it
has been lying. In the legal world, however, this maneuver might yet
succeed."
Given the evidence of its real purpose, any other supposed purpose must be
another lie.
Don't stretch the term "gaslighting" too far —
it will lose its
useful meaning.
Anchorage,
Alaska, hit 90F. This follows a whole month of June
which was 5F hotter than the past average.
June 2019 was globally the
hottest
month ever measured.
Reportedly one wildfire in Spain started because a field of manure
spontaneously combusted. With another few degrees of
global heating
this will happen frequently.
Alaska's Republican governor wants to cut 40% of the University of Alaska
budget, and especially
the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy.
The planet roasters
know if they can starve climate research for 20
years, we will miss the chance to use it to avoid disaster.
Other ship captains faced, or now face, prosecution in Italy
for rescuing
people drowning in the Mediterranean sea.
The Plot to Keep Jeremy Corbyn
Out
of Power.
I still support Corbyn. I condemn antisemitism, and I am satisfied
that he does, too.
US citizens: call on Massachusetts legislators to support the moratorium
on government
face surveillance.
This does not go far enough, not nearly, but it is a good first step.
US citizens: call on Phoenix to fire and
charge
the
thug that threatened
to kill Iesha Harper
I think it is morally irrelevant that Harper was female, that she was pregnant, and that she and black. Doing the same thing to me would have been equally wrong — no more, no less. It's wrong for agents of the public to threaten people that way — any people — or to threaten any kind of violence against people who are not violent.
The thugs might have treated a white man with more respect, but that's a different question.
Glenn Greenwald published evidence that former judge Sérgio Moro corruptly targeted Lula. Now Moro in his new position as minister has ordered a criminal investigation of Greenwald.
I would be surprised if Greenwald had really committed a serious crime. So I expect this is meant as intimidation or revenge.
House Democrats have sued to demand copies of the conman's tax returns.
I fear that the Republican-chosen Supreme Court will defend the other Republicans.
With Poorest Bearing the Brunt, Report Warns Searing Temperatures of Global Heating Could Cost World Economy $2.4 Trillion by 2030.
Historians and other scholars rebuked the US Holocaust Museum for rejecting the idea that Nazi atrocities carry any lesson about circumstances that aren't precisely similar.
Eliminating patents on medicines would do a lot to make medicines cheaper in the US, but even the most progressive candidates are not talking about it.
I have not seen how Baker proposes to do something similar to copyleft in the domain of patents. When I've looked at this, I found no way to do it. Basically, copyright law and patent law are so different that it is a mistake to try to generalize from one to the other. However, if he has a good idea, I hope I get to see it.
There isn't time left for a meek approach to defending the Earth's climate.
I am in favor of the measures described, including establishing legal requirements to preserve natural ecosystems and the conditions they depend on. However, to say that they have legal rights is conceptually incoherent. Only a being capable of wanting and deciding can have rights, because exercising rights is a matter of wanting and deciding.
US citizens: call on Congress to exclude private prisons from the REIT tax break.
If you sign, please spread the word!
It looks like the FBI has caught another fantasy terrorist.
The article does not say, but it sounds like he bought arms illegally that were offered to him under the auspices of the FBI. I can't be certain, but I suspect he would never have been a real threat without FBI help.
In some such cases, state informants have spent months persuading the accused person to undertake the fantasy act of terrorism. Those people would not even have wanted to commit terrorism if not for the activities of state agents.
These activities give the impression of protecting the public, but they don't really do that.
WSJ Says CIA Chief Wouldn't Do Anything 'Inappropriate' — Despite Record of Torture and Coverup.
"Inappropriate" is used precisely because it is totally vague. It is often used to exaggerate and treat a mere disagreement of judgment as a grave wrong. Here it is being used to portray a grave wrong as a mere disagreement of judgment.
Whitewashing War Crimes Has Become the American Way.
Citing Fears of Americans Getting 'Screwed,' Progressive Democrats Call Out Pelosi for Crafting Pharma-Friendly Drug Pricing Bill in Secret.
Economic sanctions are devastating weapons, which the US is using against many countries.
Journalist and Educator Among Those Caught Up in YouTube's Latest Attempt to Purge Online Hate Speech.
A centralized publishing platform provokes demands for centralized censorship. A centralized private publishing platform can censor however it wishes — while people organize to demand that certain works be censored, or not be censored.
I think that centralized publishing platforms are the root of the problem.
Walmart's CEO asked Congress to raise the US minimum wage.
I agree, but this doesn't excuse Walmart for not giving its employees a wage now.
The bully wants to give Salafi Arabia some US bomb technology so it can make its own bombs for devastating Yemen.
Homeopaths are misleading the public about measles vaccine by pretending that it does some sort of damage and that they can fix it.
This "remedy" is less absurd than the usual homeopathic "remedies", which contain approximately none of the supposed active ingredient. At least it contains vitamin C, which can cure scurvy (but nothing else). However, it is particularly dangerous.
The euro banks have forced Greece into leasing a large part of the Aegean Sea for oil extraction. In the short term this is likely to kill lots of whales.
In the long term it will contribute to global disaster. The euro banks and the banksters that run them must be treated as the enemies of civilization.
The DA dropped the charges against Marshae Jones, who was accused (in effect) of being shot while pregnant.
However, the fundamentally wrong idea that a fetus is a person has been used against hundreds of women, and could be used against thousands more.
Any woman who is pregnant and located in one of those repressive states is taking a risk. Best to leave that state and not return until you're no longer pregnant.
Obama boasted of his success in marketing Boeing planes while allowing the FAA to let Boeing regulate itself.
Keep in mind also that expanding aviation exacerbates global heating.
Salivini is attacking judicial independence in Italy.
This is a standard part of the fascist attack on human rights: to eliminate anything that can limit their power over individuals.
The US major media are waking up to how the prosecution of Julian Assange threatens them too.
Fracking in the US is the path to global disaster.
America Is Missing Its Chance to Fix Our Election System Before We Vote in 2020.
There are obstacles to making a recount really occur, and Republicans have taken advantage.
This article doesn't cover the other great flaws of US elections: gerrymandering and voter suppression.
The Democratic National Committee refused to hold a presidential debate about climate defense. Furthermore, if any of the candidates set up a debate outside the DNC, the DNC will punish them.
If enough of the candidates get together to organize a climate debate outside the DNC, they can make it gag on this decision. "Debates" including only Biden and a few unpopular candidates would make the DNC ridiculous.
(satire) Media Urged Not To Release Names Of Any More Presidential Candidates In Effort To Prevent Copycats.
Biden has reluctantly dropped his opposition to government funding of abortions.
It is useful to pressure officials to change their views, but when candidates change their views under pressure, that is no reason to vote for them.
Many experiments show that wealthy people tend to me inconsiderate, even jerks.
Tenants in New York State are pushing to extend rent control to the entire state.
US citizens: call on Massachusetts to ban face surveillance.
To sign this without running nonfree Javascript code, use lynx.
The UK government and other major donors of humanitarian aid funds exaggerate how effective the aid is.
They go so far as to harass people who want to report on problems or failures.
Mining the sea bottom with today's technology could wipe out bottom-dwelling sea life and mobilize sediments into pollution that could travel thousands of miles.
The damage could take centuries to fade away.
Bolsonaro has alienated a substantial fraction of his right-wing supporters. Alas, they are stuck with him for several more years.
A newly elected Green MEP is black, and when he went to the Parliament for the first time, someone told him to leave.
The Environmental Pollution Agency plans to stop using animals to test whether chemicals can damage humans.
Despite the advances made in testing via simulation, it would be foolish to take for granted that the reality matches the simulation.
Chase bank is imposing binding arbitration on use of its credit cards.
If you have one of those cards, you may as well send the letter to opt out. But it would be even better to switch to some other bank, one which does not do this, and tell both Chase and the other bank your reason for doing so.
Whichever credit card you use, every time you use it it will inform the bank and the store. Don't be tracked, pay cash!
Google has modified Chrome so that ad-blockers are impossible.
Public pressure has killed an attempt turn clickthrough terms of service into legally binding obligations in the US.
Google outsources the work of training Google Assistant to contractors that hire workers and pressure them to work unpaid overtime.
I don't think Google would cheat its own employees, but the level of indirection makes cheating almost automatic.
Republicans want to make interfering with an oil pipeline (actual or under construction) a federal crime with a 20-year penalty.
We should go in the other direction, and legalize damaging pipelines as long as this does not result in spilling any significant amount of toxic chemicals.
Apple can track iMonsters even when they are suspended.
This distributed bluetooth network is said to be "secure", but it is obviously not secure from Apple or from governments that can command Apple's obedience (such as the US and China).
US citizens: call on US media outlets not to promote war with Iran.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the US to shut down the concentration camps where the government imprisons thousands of migrant minors (children and teenagers), subject to brutal conditions.
If you sign, please spread the word!
A supermarket in the UK is encouraging customers to buy many products without throwaway packaging. One can get a reusable box from the store, with a refundable deposit.
The Republicans that control West Virginia are working on a bill to authorize firing teachers that strike.
This is retaliation for the effective strikes that teachers held last year.
Thailand appears to be murdering dissidents in exile.
A concert near you may be a little piece of China: a new system would let them use face recognition systems to identify anyone who tries to enter. The developers of the system explicitly state that the purpose of this is to exclude people based on what they have said. If a concert required me to identify myself, I'd refuse outright.
If it is only concerts, it would not be a disaster. We can live without going to large concerts. But the developers want to use it to keep people out of train stations (and trains). That would be little different from what China does now.
The UK government has pre-planned spontaneous responses of grief and sympathy to foreseeable kinds of terrorist attacks.
To channel the public response away from hatred and demonization of some segment of society seems like a good thing to me, provided it is done in an honest way. The article suggests that these campaigns pretend to be something other than what they are, but I am not sure that they do so.
Freedom of the press can no longer be taken for granted in Europe. Right wing governments are clamping down on the media.
Macron in France is trying to start this: some sort of secret police have interrogated reporters about their sources for information about crimes of the state.
Finland Pledges to Become Carbon Neutral by 2035.
That could be doing their share of solving this problem, or almost.
Punishing people who try to commit suicide can make them more depressed. Meanwhile, it encourages others to treat them with contempt.
The Koch brothers fund right-wing biased "research" inside universities.
The Oakland thug department has cut gun violence in half by taking a less thuggish approach — the first move is to try to help people get out of the violence.
Even some tech workers in San Francisco agree that they have ruined what was special and good about that city.
Most of the big, prominent companies mentioned in the article either distribute malware or offer spying, manipulatory dis-services, or both. I reject all that malware, and I mostly don't use their dis-services.
The internet has elevated the importance of charismatic leaders over political movements and their programs. These leaders become the targets of intense adoration by their supporters (or, should we say, "fans"?).
I admire some progressive hyperleaders, and I even have confidence in them to make better strategic decisions than I could. But no way will I ever adore them in the pitiful fashion described in the article.
I don't want to have an imaginary, one-sided "personal" relationship with the president of the US. I want per to do the right thing for the country and the world.
I urge you to support the free software movement. I hope you see the need to do what advances freedom in the long term, rather than what is convenient for you in the short term. But please don't be my "fan" in an adulatory sense. Don't lower yourself to the level of a mere "fan" of anyone. It's freedom that deserves such loyalty.
US citizens: call on the Department of Education not to sell government student loans to Wall Street.
Haiti has a worse crisis than Venezuela, and it has continued for much longer. The US press and the OAS protect "President" Moise, because he was imposed by Washington through a rigged election.
Capitalism wasn't designed by an "invisible hand". It was built by legal decisions made on a political basis, with the rich insisting on privilege. The result is a system that makes the rich richer.
Heatwave Cooks Mussels in Their Shells on California Shore.
reCAPTCHA version 3 supposedly figures out "are you human?", and Google won't say how, but experiment shows that the main question it uses is "are you logged in on a Google account?"
Anti-trust rules could help deal with this, if they prohibit Google from inviting lots of web sites from making use of a Google account their criterion for letting people log in. Competitors to Google can't possibly test that.
It also penalizes users that browse via Tor. Since I won't trust these companies to know where I am, I won't turn off Tor to use a web site. I simply won't use it.
The sadist has made rules that bring about imprisoning minors that cross the border, so they are being kept in primitive, unbearable, disease-inducing conditions. The sadist is using them as political pawns.
The border thugs say they have the necessary supplies to alleviate some of the imprisoned minors' suffering, so apparently the suffering that occurs is what they intend.
We have a president and officials that intentionally practice sadism, carrying out laws that presume at least a modicum of human decency.
"By framing deepfakes as a tech problem we allow Silicon Valley to evade responsibility for its symbiotic relationship with fake news."
The International Labour Organization has produced a treaty to establish global standards for stopping workplace violence and harassment.
The "International Life Sciences Institute" is meant to be mistaken for a research organization. Its real work is infiltrating regulatory bodies to exert influence on behalf of business.
"We must mobilise for the climate emergency like we do in war time. Where is the climate minister?"
India's long history of lynching Dalits.
Global heating is making Alaska's ice highways dangerously thin, sometimes fatally so.
Tennessee Republicans are creatively trying another form of voter suppression: fining organized voter registration campaigns for any mistake.
Ai Weiwei calls on other countries to help the world remember the Chinese state's massacre of student protesters, 30 years ago. It was the foundation of the repression of China today.
An art/hack project teaches people about government surveillance of their Stalin's Dream devices.
It wouldn't affect me!
You Can't Save the Climate By Going Vegan. Corporate Polluters Must be Held Accountable.
Changes in our personal consumption habits are needed — especially the habit of making more humans and increasing the population. But we won't achieve those changes soon enough by leaving it up to people to go against social and economic pressures. We need to change those social and economic pressures.
(satire) Neglected Google Home Sits By Window Barking At Passersby.
It was probably doing face recognition on them, too.
Food products tested by the FDA held substantial levels of PFAS chemicals.
Sudan's military rulers have massacred protesters, apparently with the support of US-backed axis of evil (Egypt, Salafi Arabia and the UAE).
Global heating is already a grave public health problem.
Japanese women are pressuring to prohibit employers from requiring use of high-heeled shoes.
Since I learned about the pain, and the difficulty of walking, that high heels impose, seeing them leads me directly to think about how uncomfortable the women wearing them must be — and it reminds me of old Chinese foot-binding.
Helsinki has eliminated homelessness by giving every homeless person an apartment, and welfare benefits with which to pay the rent for it.
San Francisco would not be able to do this. The first step is to make enough apartments available, and that requires pushing aside the zoning laws that get in the way, as well as money for the construction.
The Australian Labor Party voted to enact Australia's world-wide threats to those that provide reliable encryption, while saying that it went too far. The party said it would fix the problem if it won the next election.
Then the Labor Party lost. The end result is that it helped create the threat and cannot do anything to fix it.
More information about that menacing law.
GOP Blocking of Net Neutrality Vote Rewarded as 47 Democrats Ask for Compromise.
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Please send comments on these web pages to rms@gnu.org.
Copyright (C) 2019 Richard Stallman
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![this? 1 August 2019 (Johnson and Trump risk disaster for planet) Johnson And Trump's Close Ties Risk Disaster for Planet, Says Corbyn. 1 August 2019 (California requires all candidates to release tax returns) California has passed a law requiring all presidential candidates to release their tax returns in order to get on the ballot. There is surely something in his tax returns that might have cost him votes in 2016. But would it have that effect on today's Republicans, who have become inured to lies, hatred and racism? It might seem like small potatoes compared with the vicious things that Republicans are already inured to. I can imagine that the conman might abandon California (since he has little chance of winning there) to defy this law. But if a swing state does this, he might have to yield. 1 August 2019 (Gilroy murderer advocated white supremacists) The Gilroy murderer advocated white supremacists, which suggests that his shooting was an act of white supremacist terrorism. 1 August 2019 (Father forgot his children in a car) A father forgot his children in a car all day, and they died. Does it make sense to prosecute him? Does it make sense to make a law against leaving children in a car for a few minutes? 1 August 2019 (DEA has been stalling for years over research) The Drug Enforcement Agency has been stalling for three years over an application for a permit to grow marijuana for research. 1 August 2019 (Hong Kong protesters trying to identify thugs) Hong Kong protesters are trying to identify thugs by their faces, now that the thugs have stopped wearing identification badges. The thugs generally have an advantage in this kind of conflict. 1 August 2019 (NSA says it deleted a database) When the NSA says it deleted a database, it sometimes finds another copy later. 1 August 2019 (New head of Bureau of Land Management) The new head of the Bureau of Land Management wants to privatize all public land by selling it to rich people. I suspect the rich buyers will get it at a very low price. 1 August 2019 (Tech executives apologies) Tech executives are making a show of apologizing for the damage their companies have done … without having to fix it or even halt it. 31 July 2019 (The Democratic debate) The Democratic debate was "Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren v the 'No We Can't' Democrats." 31 July 2019 (Stop arguing with Bogus Johnson) Stop arguing with Bogus Johnson — it only feeds the troll. What is needed is action, not disputation. 31 July 2019 (José Ramos-Horta calls on Australia to drop charges of whistleblower) José Ramos-Horta, former president of East Timor, calls on Australia to drop charges against the whistleblower that revealed how Australia was spying on the negotiations between those two countries. I agree completely. I also agree that it was wrong of Australia to steal oil located in what was to become East Timor's waters. But the biggest wrong was that Australia allowed that oil to be burned, contributing to global heating. If East Timor had extracted this oil and allowed it to be burned, that would have been almost as bad. For a just outcome, just to humanity and nature, we need to leave that oil in the ground. 31 July 2019 ($70 million fine for preventing making of generic drugs) Pharma companies will be fined 70 million dollars for conspiring to prevent the making of generic drugs. 31 July 2019 (Criminal charges for throwing a ball) A student from a town near Detroit faces criminal charges for throwing a ball that injured another student, in a game similar to dodge ball. I was unable to play volleyball because I was afraid to be hit by the ball. If you are afraid of being hit by a ball — whether for emotional reasons like me, or valid medical reasons like the student that was injured, you really should decline to play. 31 July 2019 (Border separations since last year) US border thugs have separated over 900 minors from their parents since a year ago. Almost 200 of them are children under 5 years old. There are valid reasons why a compassionate state might do this in some cases, but when a state and its officials have explicitly declared hatred for migrants, we must expect it to distort those reasons into excuses to do harm. 31 July 2019 (Remaining Vaquita Porpoisess) The number of remaining vaquita porpoises is between 6 and 19. The species might survive if Mexico cracks down on use of gillnets. It is too late to be sure of that — if there are just 6, and none is a female capable of reproducing, it's too late — but we should try. 31 July 2019 (India is almost done abolishing biased divorce law) India has almost finished abolishing the one-sided law for divorces among Muslims. Men alone had the right to declare a divorce unilaterally. People should have equal rights in divorce, but I hope this doesn't result in making divorce too difficult for everyone. 31 July 2019 (Nigeria's 'economic boom') Nigeria shows how extreme inequality of income can spread poverty in an "economic boom". 31 July 2019 (European websites responsible for like tracking) The European Court of Justice ruled that a web site with a Like button is responsible for the tracking it does. This ruling won't make a big difference if the site can make the issue go away by adding one more clause to its terms of service. But it might make a small difference, if sites can no longer show a Like button to a visitor who has not yet explicitly accepted the terms of service. 31 July 2019 (Kamala Harris's Medicare for All) Kamala Harris claims to support Medicare for All, but her version is ersatz. 31 July 2019 (Earth overshoot day) This year, Earth Overshoot Day is calculated to occur on August 1. After just 7 months, humans have used what the Earth can regenerate in a whole year. 31 July 2019 (Population of wild boar is exploading) The population of wild boar is exploding in Europe, and many have moved into cities where they injure humans. Fortunately, they taste great. If you are in Europe, try some. 31 July 2019 (Venture capitalists see Buttigieg as an investment) In Pete Buttigieg, Venture Capitalists See a Campaign to Invest in. That shows he's on the plutocrats' side, not ours. 31 July 2019 (Arguments aginst the death penalty) Reminder of some arguments against the death penalty. 31 July 2019 (Tanzania has arrested a famous investigative journalist) Tanzania has arrested a famous investigative journalist, Erick Kabendera. One must suppose he investigated something the government didn't want the public to know about. 31 July 2019 (Killings of 500 Activists Since Peace Accords) Mass Protests in Colombia and Abroad Decry Killings of 500 Activists Since Peace Accords. 31 July 2019 (Israel never gives Palestinians the compensation) Under Geneva conventions, every occupying power has an obligation to compensate any damages it does members of the occupied population, whether to their bodies or their property. Israel has changed its laws so that it almost never gives Palestinians the compensation they are owed. 31 July 2019 (Hindu extremist party) A local leader of India's ruling Hindu extremist party called for gang-raping Muslim women. She was expelled from the party, but men who said similar things have generally been tolerated. 31 July 2019 (Chinese border guards) When foreigners enter Xinjiang (China) from Kyrgyzstan, Chinese border guards have taken their phones away to put malware on them. The malware searches files in the phones for various things that China considers hateful. It might do other things as well. I have to point out that people suspect the US of doing similar things to people entering the US, and in other circumstances as well. 31 July 2019 (Enforcement of food and drug safety) Enforcement of food and drug safety regulations has fallen by 33% under the corruptor. 31 July 2019 (Mistreating the prisoners) Ocasio-Cortez pushed past border thugs so she could speak to imprisoned immigrants. This enabled her to find out how they were mistreating the prisoners. The thugs had gone to extreme lengths to block visiting congresscritters from observing or finding out the prison conditions, and the visitors felt menaced by them. Sounds like a visit to North Korea. 31 July 2019 (US insurance company) A major US insurance company has announced it will stop insuring coal companies (or investing in them). 31 July 2019 (Influence over the department's decisions) Saboteur of the Interior Bernhardt gave his former client influence over the department's decisions. The department has adopted new secrecy rules, too. 31 July 2019 (Systems for supporting musicians) When you buy a record, or pay for music streaming (even via ads), the money usually goes to some company, not to the musicians. I've proposed systems for supporting musicians without depending on record companies, and in a way that encourages sharing. 30 July 2019 (Al Franken) Al Franken now regrets resigning from the Senate. Some senators that pushed him to resign now regret that too. The first (main) article does not state clearly whether Franken touched Tweeden in the process of making the photo, but it seems he did not. If that is correct, it was not a sexual act at all. It was self-mocking humor. The photograph depicted a fictional sexual act without her fictional consent, but making the photo wasn't a sexual act. If it is true that he persistently pressured her to kiss him, on stage and off, if he stuck his tongue into her mouth despite her objections, that could well be sexual harassment. He should have accepted no for an answer the first time she said it. However, calling a kiss "sexual assault" is an exaggeration, an attempt to equate it to much graver acts, that are crimes. The term "sexual assault" encourages that injustice, and I believe it has been popularized specifically with that intention. That is why I reject that term. Meanwhile, Franken says he did not do those things, and the other actors he previously did the same USO skit with said it was not harassment, just acting. Tweeden's store is clearly false in many details. Should we assume Tweeden was honest? With so many demonstrated falsehoods in her accusations, and given that she planned them with other right-wing activists, and that all of them follow a leader who lies as a tactic every day, I have to suspect that she decided to falsify accusations through exaggeration so as to kick a strong Democrat out of the Senate. I have no proof of that suspicion. It is possible that she made the accusations honestly. Also, in a hypothetical world, someone might really have done them. Supposing for the moment that those accusations were true, should Franken have resigned over them? I don't think so. They are misjudgments, not crimes. Franken deserved the chance to learn from the criticism that surprised him. Zero tolerance is a very bad way to judge people. However, the most important point is to reject the position that if B feels hurt by what A said or did, then automatically A is wrong. People judged Franken that way, and he judged himself that way. But that way degrades the concept of "wrong" into a mere expression of subjective disapproval. What can legitimately be asserted subjectively can legitimately be ignored subjectively too. To judge A that way is to set B up as a tyrant. If B's feelings were hurt, that's unfortunate -- but is that A's fault? If so, was it culpable, or just a mistake? That is what we have to judge, and if we want others to think our judgments worth following, they must be based on objective facts and objective standards, including objective standards for what words and gestures objectively mean. Traister is wrestling with a solvable problem. She says, "When you change rules, you end up penalizing people who were caught behaving according to the old rules." Maybe people do, but that is a sign of carelessness. It isn't really hard to change the rules and then judge old actions by the old rules. We just have to remember to do so. 30 July 2019 (Danger of surveillance) One big danger of surveillance is that people come to believe that breaking a rule is impossible, and then it becomes unthinkable. 30 July 2019 (Unfollow the bullshitter) If you use Twitter, unfollow the bullshitter. Posting your outrage does not hurt him — it's what he wants. 30 July 2019 (Your Family Is None of Their Business) Your Family Is None of Their Business. You, too, are none of their business, but that point is more radical. 30 July 2019 (Tories make it easy to mistreat workers) The Tories have made it easy to get away with mistreating workers in the UK. They have cut the funding to employment tribunals to the point where it takes 8 months for a case to be heard. 30 July 2019 (Privatization of government services) The UK privatized applications for student visa renewals. Naturally the company gouges the students, using a dark pattern in which there are supposed to be gratis appointments but in practice they are not available. This particular work has a peak season in September. In a government office, the staff would focus on this during the peak season, then most would shift to other tasks for the rest or the year. A private business may not have an opportunity to do that. Its staff is less stable than civil servants, and its other contracts come and go. This adds to the other reasons that government services should never be privatized. Occasionally some government service can simply be eliminated. 30 July 2019 (Being green) Can You Afford To Be Green When You're Not Rich? I Kept a Diary to Find Out. The article shows that many forms of conservation are made far more difficult by the fact that society's current pushes people in the other direction. The most important choice, to reduce your contribution to the ecological footprint of humanity, is not mentioned in the article. It is to choose not to have a child. The writer apparently does not recognize that that was a choice. 30 July 2019 (Plastic waste from fishing) Isolated, uninhabited Henderson Island receives tons of plastic deposited by the Pacific Ocean. Scientists visited for two weeks and collected 6 tons to study it. 60% comes from fishing. This accords with reports that most plastic waste in the ocean is from fishing. That should be much easier to eliminate than waste from a billion consumers. If the fishing was done near Henderson, it was illegal. But this trash could have floated for thousands of miles. 30 July 2019 (How Stonewall reversed justifying police surveillance) How Stonewall Reversed a Long History of Justifying Police Surveillance (and entrapment and jailing) of gays. 30 July 2019 (Deforestation of Amazon driven by meat) Revealed: Rampant Deforestation of Amazon Driven by Global Greed for Meat. The new business-supremacy treaty between the EU and Mercosur trade blocks could speed up the deforestation. 30 July 2019 (Mangrove trees methane) After mangrove trees die, they emit lots more methane. 30 July 2019 (God orders swallowing of cyanide) (satire) God ordered His followers to swallow cyanide capsules Monday in preparation for their voyage to Alpha Centauri. 30 July 2019 (ICANN eliminated limit on fees for org domain) ICANN has eliminated the limit on fees for having a .org domain name. It disregarded almost complete opposition to the move in the public comments it received. The .org domain overseer would make the same amount of money by collecting $10k for each of 1000 domains as it would by collecting $10 for each of a million domains. And the former would be a lot less hassle. I fear that is what we will see. 30 July 2019 (The refugees that fled form Hitler) Americans, remember the refugees that tried to flee from Hitler. All countries turned them away, and they were killed by Nazis. 30 July 2019 (Rafael Acosta tortured) Venezuelan navy captain Rafael Acosta was arrested on June 21 and accused of plotting a coup. Since then he has died, showing signs of torture. Maduro calls for investigation of the accused torture rather than trying to deny it. 30 July 2019 (Wife of Dubai's emir fled) The wife of Dubai's emir has fled and wants a divorce. The emir thinks of her as property and wants the UK to forcibly send her back to him. He got his daughter back by sending commandos to grab her. 30 July 2019 (Eli Lilly puts profits over lives) An employee of Eli Lilly, a Pharma company, reports on when the goal of maximizing profit replaced that of saving lives. 30 July 2019 (3 Billionaires) Bernie Sanders Is Right: 3 Billionaires Really Do Have More Wealth Than Half of America. 30 July 2019 (Ethiopia is trying plant 4 billion trees) Ethiopia is trying plant 4 billion trees this year. Each citizen is supposed to plant 40 at least trees. If they are planting the right kinds of trees, in places where forests can grow, these trees might do good, if they don't die. Due to global heating, trees may not survive the next 20 years in places where they used to grow. However, it is better to try than not try. 30 July 2019 (Poisoning from lead pellets) We should ban use of lead shot for hunting. The lead pellets remain lying around, birds eat them, and die of lead poisoning. Eating the poisoned birds, including the birds shot with lead, poisons people. 30 July 2019 (Geneva convention to protect wildlife and nature) Scientists suggest making a Geneva convention to give wildlife and nature reserves protected status in conflicts. What about museums with unique objects, and libraries of rare books? I think they should have similar protected status. Even accidental destruction of these special places should be considered a crime — the crime of negligence. 30 July 2019 (Encryption Backdoors) Barr Says Police Need Encryption Backdoors, Doesn’t Mention [Cracking] Tools They Use All the Time. 30 July 2019 (Children started early on being tracked) China is getting children started early on being tracked all the time. 30 July 2019 (Communications Decency Act) Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects web site operators from liability for what their users post, is being attacked in Congress. This puts all sorts of Internet commenting in danger. 30 July 2019 (Indian teenager accused a politician of rape) An Indian teenager accused a politician of raping her. A truck collided with the car she was in, killing two of her relatives and injuring her and her lawyer. There is suspicion that thugs beat her father to death. 30 July 2019 (Forcing women into sex work) The UK is forcing women into sex work to get a place to live. 30 July 2019 (Thugs beating up prisoners) Thugs in Harrisburg have a predilection of beating up prisoners and causing them serious injuries, then not taking care of them. 30 July 2019 (Measles attacks the immune cells) Measles attacks the immune cells that guard the memory of resisting past infections. It takes 4 or 5 years for those immune cells to regrow and provide immunity again to those past infections. Thus, if you get measles, you become vulnerable again, for several years, to infections you were previously immune to. And they can kill you. 30 July 2019 (China sentences 'cyber-dissident') China's First ‘Cyber-Dissident’ Jailed for 12 Years. 30 July 2019 (Disastrous deregulation) If the UK needs to make a new trade agreement with the US, the US will impose disastrous permanent deregulation. The bullshitter's billionaire backers want this, and Bogus Johnson will surely rush to obey. But it would not have been much better under Obama, or any previous US president since the 1970s. 30 July 2019 (Global heating) Global heating is making whole families flee Guatemala. The seasons have changed, there is less rain, and crops fail. 30 July 2019 (Urgent: Ask candidates about net neutrality) US citizens: call on CNN to ask the candidates about net neutrality. If you sign, please spread the word! 30 July 2019 (Urgent: Stop giving Nazis a platform) US citizens: call on CNN, and its head, Zucker, to stop giving Nazis a platform. If you sign, please spread the word! 30 July 2019 (Urgent: Fossil fuel divestment) Everyone: call on the European Investment Bank, and the governments that own it, to adopt the fossil fuel divestment proposal and fully implement it. If you sign, please spread the word! 30 July 2019 (Chief aide of UK's new prime minister) Bogus Johnson, the new prime minister of the UK, has appointed as his chief aide a man that has been censured by Parliament for refusing to testify about fake news activities. 30 July 2019 (Unionization) A study reports: Countries with higher levels of unionization have lower per-capita carbon footprints. 29 July 2019 (Supreme Court allowed Pentagon funds to go towards wall) The Supreme Court allowed the cheater to use $2.5bn in Pentagon funds to build a border wall. 29 July 2019 (British honours named after empire) British "honours" (non-military medals) named after the no-longer-extant British Empire cause a moral quandary to some recipients, whose ethnic background includes a group that was colonized by said empire. 29 July 2019 (Mueller's testimony basis for impeachment) Rep. Shiff, head of the House Judiciary Committee, said that Mueller's testimony provided the basis to consider impeaching the conman. It seems to me that we had plenty of basis already. 29 July 2019 (Moscow protesters not daunted) Moscow thugs have arrested 1300 pro-democracy protesters, but the protesters are not daunted. All they demand is that the candidates they nominated be allowed to run. 29 July 2019 (Miners attack village) Gold miners in the Brazilian Amazon have attacked and captured an indigenous village and killed the tribe's leader. 29 July 2019 (Ban on glass skyscrapers) Experts Call for Ban on Glass Skyscrapers to Save Energy. They need extra cooling to make up for the greenhouse effect of the glass. 29 July 2019 (Hong Kong thugs) Hong Kong thugs indiscriminately attacked subway passengers who were simply trying to ride the train. Some of the passengers had previously been in a protest. 29 July 2019 (UK rape victims) UK women have become more willing to report rape, but only 2% of the cases are actually pursued. This discourages the victims, who say "forget about it." 29 July 2019 (Analysis of Hong Kong's Politics) An analysis of the Hong Kong political situation. Let's look at the argument that Hong Kongers should surrender their rights to assuage the hurt feelings of a billion Chinese. Are their feelings really hurt? That could be a fiction fabricated by Chinese state. But let's suppose that 30 million really do have hurt feelings. It could be so. If so, why are their feelings hurt? Why do they even pay attention to Hong Kong? It's because they are more or less Xi-ple; the state media tells them to feel hurt, and they do not doubt what they are told. Any number of people who demand your surrender because they herded to do so amount to no reason for you to do that. 29 July 2019 (Extreme weather has damaged Australasia's marine life) Extreme Weather Has Damaged Nearly Half Australia's Marine Ecosystems Since 2011. Some were damaged irreversibly. The crucial points are that (1) this is surely not limited to Australia and (2) it will get a lot worse unless we stop it soon. 29 July 2019 (MSNBC altered Sanders data) MSNBC alters arithmetic to make Sanders look bad. 29 July 2019 (Right wing PAC turns out to be less effective) A big right-wing PAC turned out to be much less effective than it might have been, because the organizers directed much of the money to themselves. 29 July 2019 (DOJ approved T—mobile and Sprint) The Department of Justice approved the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint. The political power of large companies is such a threat to democracy that we should make sure they do not merge with or acquire other companies. 29 July 2019 (EU requires online payments with phone) In the EU, online credit card payments will require two-factor identification using a mobile phone. Many people are up in arms about the inconvenience of this, but that is only the superficial level. A mobile phone tracks you, and buying on the internet tracks you. The wise thing to do is to go to a physical store and pay cash. 29 July 2019 (Guatemala called safe) The US made Guatemala agree that the US should call it "safe" so that refugees that cross Guatemala (from Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua) have to apply for asylum in Guatemala. That policy is ridiculous and unjust because it is based on a falsehood. 29 July 2019 (Pressure to curb global heating) Australia's ruling planet-roasters are facing pressure from Papua New Guinea to help curb global heating. Bullshit won't be enough to quell this. 29 July 2019 (Reducing severe storms in Europe) Planting a lot of forests in Europe could reduce severe storms there. 29 July 2019 (Israeli snipers) In a human advance, Israeli snipers are now being told to shoot (unarmed) Gaza protesters in the lower leg. This reinforces the point that when they shoot someone in the head, it is no accident. 29 July 2019 (Talking points on US major media) US major media continually print interviews with supporters of the bullshitter showing that they have not changed their stance. This promotes their talking points, but it isn't news any more. 29 July 2019 (Urgent: Call on Harvard to divest fossil fuels) US citizens: call on Harvard to divest from fossil fuels. If you call, please spread the word! 29 July 2019 (Urgent: Pass domestic workers bill of rights) US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. If you call, please spread the word! The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588. 29 July 2019 (Urgent: Stop pushing death penalty) US citizens: call on Los Angeles DA Lacey to stop pushing for the death penalty. If you call, please spread the word! 29 July 2019 (Urgent: Pass MORE Act) US citizens: call on Congress to pass the MORE Act to legalize marijuana in a thorough way. If you call, please spread the word! The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588. 29 July 2019 (Urgent: Allow shorts) Everyone: call on Walmart to let staff wear shorts. If you call, please spread the word! 29 July 2019 (Urgent: US citizens: call on Alabama Governor Ivey to give clemency to Rocky Myers.) US citizens: Call on Alabama Governor Ivey to give clemency to Rocky Myers. The reason he could not present these arguments in an appeal is the law past under President Clinton to sharply limit appeals against death sentences. If you call, please spread the word! 28 July 2019 (Replacing human workers) Why are companies rushing to replace human workers with robots based on machine learning? Because that is a way to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer as a byproduct. Additional robots are greatly reducing the number of jobs in manufacturing, and are likely to continue doing so. The fact that one particular factory in the UK has more staff now than in 2007 is neither here nor there. Evidently a bigger fraction of the country's manufacturing has been concentrated there. The increase in productivity is a benefit to whoever owns the factory, and the small fraction of people employed there. But it is not good for society overall unless those benefits are shared with society overall. It is a mistake to see the issue in nationalistic terms as a competition with other countries. It does no good to country C to have robot factories there rather than in D, E and F, if the benefits go in each case only to the few owners. What matters to country C is making sure the people there who don't own plenty of stock in robot factories can nonetheless enjoy the products of these factories, and everything else one needs for a good life. 28 July 2019 (Antifascist counterprotesters) Portland thugs harassed and attacked antifascist counterprotesters, based on accusations that may be phony. However, it seems they really did attack the right-wing journalist, Andy Ngo. We should not do that. 28 July 2019 (Prisoners' phone calls) A sheriff's office and a special gouge-'em prison phone company conspired (in effect) to record prisoners' privileged phone calls with lawyers. 28 July 2019 (Obrador's policies) The substantive policies of Mexican President López Obrador put business and the US first. If this is a "win for Mexico's left", then Clinton was a progressive. 28 July 2019 (Privatized probation officers) Privatized UK probation officers say bigger caseloads and unrealistic targets prevent them from following their professional standards. This is the standard result of privatizing a government service. We should renationalize all privatized government services. 28 July 2019 (Mao 2.0) China is now ruled by a networked totalitarianism, "Mao 2.0". When the article says what "we" believed, the author should speak for himself. I never believed that capitalism would by nature bring democracy. Democracy is how the non-rich organize the state to protect them from the power of the rich. Back when capitalists needed lots of factory workers, that gave the workers one advantage in their fight for democracy. But it did not guarantee victory. And now that advantage is gone. 28 July 2019 (Husband's guns) Courtney Irby took her husband's guns to the thug department because he had been trying to kill her. The thugs charged her with burglary and jailed her. 28 July 2019 (Transmountain tar sands pipeline) Trudeau gave Canada's approval to the Transmountain tar sands pipeline. This makes a mockery of the climate emergency declaration Trudeau made this week. 28 July 2019 (The new NAFTA) The new NAFTA improves many specific points, but its fundamental effect is still to give businesses more power and democracy less power, and thus to transfer income from workers to business owners. 28 July 2019 (NYC mesh network) A mesh network is providing true internet service to large parts of New York City. I used to think that community mesh networks could not be more than toys, but it's a great surprise to see this is not so. 28 July 2019 (Bills to improve security of US elections) Senate Republicans blocked bills to improve the security of US elections. 28 July 2019 (Cruel "tough on crime" approach) Progressive US district attorneys are making inroads into the cruel "tough on crime" approach to street crime. Toughness for toughness' sake causes a lot of collateral damage and can backfire by increasing crime. The case where toughness is exactly what we need is for business crime, whether against workers or against customers. For instance, stealing workers' pay and foreclosing on millions of Americans' homes using fraudulent papers. The perpetrators do this for profit, and if it ceases to be profitable, they will stop doing it. 28 July 2019 (Plutocracy) If we have recourse to a billionaire to defeat the impositions of other billionaires, the result will be to ensconce plutocracy more deeply. A society where a small number of the powerful compete for power could turn into an empire. 28 July 2019 (Deregulation of business) Mulvaney is pushing deregulation of business in many areas of the US government. By contrast, the bully wants more regulation of activities that help poor people, refugees, and women. 28 July 2019 (Urgent: End federal attacks on abortion rights) US citizens: call on presidential candidates to commit to ending federal attacks on abortion rights. If you sign, please spread the word! 28 July 2019 (Urgent: Shut down Google's location tracker) Everyone: call on Google to shut down its location tracker Sensorvault. Sensorvault stores the locations tracked in great detail by Android apps, which do this even when location tracking is "turned off". This is what you have to expect from nonfree software. If you sign, please spread the word! 28 July 2019 (Urgent: Reject disinformation tactics) US citizens: call on Democratic and Republican parties to denounce and reject disinformation tactics. If you sign, please spread the word! 28 July 2019 (Urgent: Investigate illegalities in use of soldiers) US citizens: call on the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate illegalities in use of soldiers to patrol the border. If you sign, please spread the word! 28 July 2019 (Urgent: Pass the ROE Act) Citizens of Massachusetts: call on your Mass legislator to pass the ROE Act. If you sign, please spread the word! 28 July 2019 (Unusual sexuality) Hatred of unusual sexuality still causes gratuitous suffering around the world. 28 July 2019 (Pentagon's bloated funding deal) Even some "progressive" Congresscritters voted the Pentagon's bloated funding deal. 28 July 2019 (Jewish religious leaders) Jewish religious leaders reminded Congress that rejection and cruelty to refugees can hurt anyone. 28 July 2019 (Russian hacking the 2020 election) (satire) … Russian operative Pavel Artemyev reportedly expressed disappointment Friday that gerrymandering has taken all the fun out of hacking the 2020 election. 28 July 2019 (Comparing foreign policy) Comparing Warren with Sanders on foreign policy. I disagree with the author on some points. Russia and China do threaten the security of Americans, though not as much as the bullshitter does. I think the US should keep troops in Rojava (the Kurdish part of Syria) for as long as Rojava wants them. If we care about democracy in the Middle East, we should defend it when it is threatened. 28 July 2019 (Thugs' video surveillance) Detroit is playing games to expand the thugs' video surveillance and obfuscate its relationship with face recognition. 28 July 2019 (Remaining refugees on Manus) The remaining refugees imprisoned on Manus Island have been invited to move to New Zealand, but Australia's right wing hate regime won't let them. It is good that the bully did not stop the US from accepting many refugees from Manus. As for the ones that have moved to Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, I wonder what their lives are like there. Australia is still ashamed of its actions there. An opposition Australian senator went to Manus Island and asked to visit the prison. Not only was he denied permission, Papua New Guinea immediately deported him. It is clear that Papua New Guinea's government is acting as a puppet for the Australian minister in charge, Dutton. By the way, Dutton is the same minister that could have you imprisoned if you disobey secret orders to sabotage your clients or your free software. Don't go to Australia. 28 July 2019 (UK extends abortion and same sex marriage in Northern Ireland) The UK parliament voted to authorize abortion and same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. These were blocked because the parliament of Northern Ireland ceased to function some years ago. 28 July 2019 (Advice about militarism) Important advice about militarism that President Roosevelt received in 1940, but the US is forgetting. 28 July 2019 (Woman's soul in purgatory) (satire) A woman's soul complains of gender bias in purgatory. There is surely gender bias in CIA torture, too. 28 July 2019 (Biden championed Dubya's war with Iraq) Biden didn't just vote for Dubya's war with Iraq. He championed it. 28 July 2019 (Israelis' houses on Palestinians') Israel has decided to legitimize Israelis' houses on Palestinians' land, if the Israelis dealt "in good faith" with the Israeli government. Israelis are not required to show "good faith" to Palestinians themselves. Contrast this with how Israel grabs for excuses to make Palestinians demolish their own homes. 28 July 2019 (Evidence supports Iran's claim) The weight of the evidence supports Iran's claim that the US spy drone that Iran shot down was over Iran's waters. Making war plans and running war games do not strike me as matters of special concern. Those kinds of preparations are, in most cases, not followed by an actual war. Thus, if the bully does attack Iran, I won't consider that planning to be the cause. The US has cancelled and violated the nonnuclear accord with Iran but still criticizes Iran for not obeying it. 28 July 2019 (Alexa recordings) Amazon keeps Alexa recordings and transcripts indefinitely. 28 July 2019 (Arctic wildfires) "Unprecedented": More Than 100 Arctic Wildfires Burn in Worst Ever Season. In some places the peat is burning and could burn for months. The relation between this and global heating is direct in both directions. The Arctic has heated much more than anywhere else on Earth, and that temperature makes for fire. And the fire spews CO2 which will increase global heating. 28 July 2019 (Mobile phone personality) A person's pattern of using a mobile phone allows deducing a lot about per personality. Phone companies around the world could use this to help profile people. 28 July 2019 (The right trees in the right place) In order for planting trees to be environmentally beneficial, they need to be the right trees, in a suitable place. I conjecture that a good rule would be to plant trees in places that used to be forests a few centuries ago, and plant the trees that used to live there. 28 July 2019 (EPA plans to allow polluters to appeal) The EPA plans to allow polluters to appeal rulings but not allow pollution victims to do so. Plutocratists have directed that agency to do the opposite of its job. That is why I now call it the Environmental Poisoning Agency. 28 July 2019 (Moscow police arrest 200 protesters) Moscow Police Arrest up to 200 Ahead of Election Protest. Putin openly visits contempt on democracy as an act of intimidation, like what the bully does in the US. 28 July 2019 (Woman forced to wax testicles) In the Guardian we read, Surely a woman shouldn’t be forced to wax testicles if that makes them feel uncomfortable? Who or what does "them" refer to? The testicles? The woman? Notwithstanding my delectation in occasional wildly funny ambiguities such as that one, I continue to advocate systematically avoiding them by using singular gender-neutral pronouns when referring to just one person. In this particular case, since the person is specified as a woman, "her" would also have fit. 28 July 2019 (Siri records) Siri Records Fights, Doctor's Appointments, And Sex (and contractors hear it). 28 July 2019 (Israeli who had to prove his guilt) The Israeli Who Had to Prove He's Guilty of Beating a Palestinian, and the Palestinian Who Had to Prove He's Innocent of Raping a Jewish Girl. 28 July 2019 (Australian mines cut corners) The workers in Australian mines now have precarious jobs (and, apparently, no unions to defend them). So they are afraid they will be fired if they report how the mine cuts corners and endangers people's lives and health. The underlying cause of this is right-wing government that lets mines get away with precarious employment. Give miners more power and their union will attend to the safety. 28 July 2019 (Machine learning patents) Machine learning / automated classification is going to be loaded down with patents, like other fields of computing. (The article uses the misleading over-generalization, "IP". It covers a bunch of disparate laws, which in itself is spreads confusion by leading people to think those laws have something significant in common.) We need laws that directly exclude software and use of software from the domain of patents. 28 July 2019 (Jewish activists protest deportation thugs) Jewish activists protest the deportation thugs, saying "Never Again Means Close the Camps!" Jews have two different interpretations of "Never again!" One is narrow: "Never again to us!" The other interpretation is broad: "Never again to anybody!" I admire that side of Judaism (although it won't convince me to believe in supernatural entities). 28 July 2019 (Amazon strike) A strike planned in an Amazon warehouse is meant to draw a contrast between the carefully cultivated image Amazon presents to consumers and the reality for the company's workers. By contrast, in the Free Software Movement we aim to draw a contrast between that same image and the reality for those who make the mistake of accepting the company's services. 28 July 2019 (Ocean tipping point) Evidence suggests that excess CO2 in the ocean can reach a tipping point after which the ocean would rapidly become much more acidic. 28 July 2019 (Legalizing recreation marijuana) Legalizing recreational marijuana correlates with decreased use by high school students. 28 July 2019 (Instagram AI) Instagram is testing AI-implemented kind communication guidelines. In the GNU Project we ask people to learn and consciously practice our kind communication guidelines. 28 July 2019 (Defense attorneys vow) (satire) Defense Attorneys Vow To Present Irrefutable Evidence Proving Jeffrey Epstein Billionaire. 28 July 2019 (Employee's fingerprints) The staff of a Chicago medical organization are suing because it identified them with fingerprints for each shift. I think it is bad that the employer has their fingerprints at all. Is it possible to authenticate people with a biometric that is normally hidden? 28 July 2019 (US schools monitoring social media) US schools are monitoring social media postings of everyone living near by, using Artificial Stupidity to detect "threats". Nearly every alarm is a false alarm. One thing that the article doesn't mention is that the contracts for using the school's computers and their nonfree software, and the online dis-services that the school wants to let spy on students, are fundamentally unjust. 28 July 2019 (Christchurch Mayor) Christchurch Mayor On Mass Shooter: 'I've no idea what his name is'. I didn't pay attention to that name either. 28 July 2019 (Face recognition and body cameras) Real-Time Facial Recognition Should Never Be Coupled with Body-Worn Cameras. I agree, but that is not enough. We must also them from being used to make and store videos without limits. My proposed automatic system to decide when to save the recording could take care of this job. 28 July 2019 (Mining drivers licenses) The FBI frequently identifies people by running their photos through many states' data bases of drivers license photos. The deportation thugs do it too, which means that the states which permit this expose their residents gratuitously to deportation. 28 July 2019 (Tsipras and Syriza) Tsipras and Syriza lost the first battle to the global plutocracy. Then, instead of fighting for every inch, they capitulated eagerly. Then most Greeks did the foolish thing that a defeated people often do: they decided to support a different set of right-wing plutocratists instead. This was pitiful and stupid. Despair can drive a people to do self-mutilation, just as it can drive an individual to it, but don't help your enemies subjugate your people. 28 July 2019 (Global heating in Somalia) Global heating is causing havoc in Somalia, through repeated drought. As the number of people who can't feed themselves any more increases, it is clear that other countries will eventually let them die. But in the mean time, climate strikers and Extinction Rebellion can present their example of a foretaste of what is coming if we don't decarbonize. 28 July 2019 (Redirecting pipeline profits) "[Trudeau's] promise to direct pipeline profits to clean energy is like allowing cigarettes to be sold to kids as long as tobacco companies make generous donations to cancer research." There is no room in the carbon budget for strip-mining Alberta's tar sands. 28 July 2019 (Disasters caused by global heating) Local disasters due to global heating are happening at a rate of roughly once per week. Mizutori's stance is misguided. We must give priority to long-term reduction of the harm that global heating will do. We must do all we can in that direction. Defending cities from floods and fires of the 2020s must take second place to reducing the floods and fires of the 2030s, 2040s, 2050s and beyond. It is good to defend cities better in the short term, provided this is not at the expense of measures to reduce the long-term threat. 28 July 2019 (Refusal to cover up murals) Scholars implore San Francisco not to cover up the murals that depict misdeeds of George Washington. It is true that we can't tell the school's students (or anyone else) how to feel. That doesn't mean we must cater to misguided demands that are motivated by those feelings. 28 July 2019 (US concentration camp cruelty) In US concentration camps for immigrants, the officers let thugs vent cruelty at the prisoners. "The conditions in the border cells are shocking — but the right[-wing] will use public outrage [as an excuse to] to build more jails." 27 July 2019 (Bully's act of terror) For the bully, threatening massive deportation raids then not carrying them out added up to a successful act of terror. He used cruelty to send a message. I did not post about this, because it is a mistake to talk about whatever the conman says. Next time he tries to terrify people with a threat, let's please not talk about it. The things has actually does cause enough harm on their own; we need not add to them by quoting his threats. 27 July 2019 (25 year wealth gap) Wealthy white males in the US today are about as healthy (on the average) as were the wealthy white males of 25 years ago, but all other demographic groups in the US have got less healthy since then. The study doesn't show the reason for this, but the increasing expense of medical care in the US is surely part of the reason. The increasing stress of living in the US under plutocracy may be another. The hospital that became famous for suing poor people for medical charges they can't pay has dropped some of the lawsuits. It is going to reconsider that policy. Maybe after this public outrage the hospital will cease all such lawsuits. Or maybe it won't. If it does stop, it might start again in a year or two and hope nobody notices. No word on whether it will rename itself as "Le Malheur". 27 July 2019 (Boris Johnson, evil clown) Boris Johnson, an evil clown, may now become prime minister of the UK by burying a real scandal under an assertion so unbelievable that the press got distracted by how unbelievable it was. The assertion was also apparently calculated to disguise one of his past failures in search engines. I didn't post any notes about the unbelievable statement, because it was not important. Additional reasons to distrust someone's word are hardly needed when that someone is a Tory. 27 July 2019 (Border thugs discussion group) US border thugs tried to cover up their secret discussion group for posting their hatred of immigrants, but the Intercept saved it and has posted about it. The quotation, "Fuck the whole country of Honduras," is ironic because that's exactly what the US has done. 27 July 2019 (Urgent: Block Facebook's planned currency) US citizens: call on Congress to block Facebook's planned currency. If you sign, please spread the word! 27 July 2019 (Outspoken progressives) (satire) … House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed concerns Thursday that outspoken progressives could do permanent damage to Democrats’ reputation as ineffectual cowards. 27 July 2019 (Deportation thugs) 'I Was Ready to Sign' Deportation Papers, Says US Citizen After Three Weeks in Horrific Immigrant Detention Center. The conditions included denial of medical care. The deportation thugs released him after negative publicity, but there is no reason to think that they will make the conditions for the other prisoners any less nasty. 27 July 2019 (Australia's new coal projects) All insurance companies in Australia now refuse to insure any new coal projects. This may put an end to most of them, but really large companies might self-insure. Now what about oil and gas? 27 July 2019 (Natural gas disinformation campaign) A natural gas company in California set up an unnatural astroturf disinformation campaign to keep the methane leaking. The term "balance" has a powerful irrational appeal. We've seen this in the copyright field for ages, and now in energy as well. 27 July 2019 (The British bullshitter) About Boris Johnson, the British bullshitter that is allied with the US bullshitter. 27 July 2019 (Deadly heat in tropical regions) If we don't curb global heating, many tropical regions will experience deadly heat every year. Often this will follow storms that cut the electric supply to the air conditioning that would be necessary to save people's lives. 27 July 2019 (Mueller's testimony) Mueller's testimony did not deal a political blow to the bullshitter, because he gave little if any new explanation. I think the bullshitter deserves to be impeached and removed from office, for treating the US political system with contempt, as well as multiple crimes and acts of cruelty and dishonesty. But it is impossible to do that, and without that possibility, whether to impeach is simply a matter of political tactics. 27 July 2019 (RT TV disinformation) How RT TV designs its disinformation to serve Russia's interest. 27 July 2019 (Opioids executive convicted of bribery) An opioids executive was convicted of bribing doctors to prescribe the opioid "subsys." 27 July 2019 (Extinction rebellion) Extinction Rebellion: "Fashion Week Should Be a Declaration of Emergency." It is bizarre to think that clothing makes a big contribution to global heating, but it is true: "fast fashion", the practice of wearing clothes just a little and discarding them, has turned clothing into something to consume rather than a durable good. 27 July 2019 (Right to repair for farm equipment) Sanders and Warren advocate right to repair for farm equipment. 27 July 2019 (Barcelona will try to prevent airport expansion) Barcelona will try to prevent expansion of its airport. Bravo! The world cannot sustain the increase of air travel. 27 July 2019 (The UK is trying to corrupt charities) The UK is trying — again — to corrupt charities that help homeless people by getting them to participate in a scheme to identify foreigners and deport them. In doublespeak, this scheme is called "support" for homeless people. 27 July 2019 (India is shipping water by train) India is shipping water by train from Kerala to Chennai. But since the lack of water is due to global heating, the shortfall will increase over time. If Delhi runs out of water next year, I doubt that shipping water from Kerala will be a solution. In the long term, IUDs can help prevent the need for water from increasing, and solar-powered desalinators can compensate (a little) for the decrease in supply. But farms need water, too. I fear India is headed for massive starvation. 27 July 2019 (Microsoft's anti-Right-to-Repair) Debunking Microsoft's anti-Right-to-Repair FUD. Bravo for the article, but one quotation falls into a widespread confusion: that spread by the term "intellectual property". and "If you hire a managed service provider to do your network security they could, instead,... steal your intellectual property." In general, that statement is false. It could not steal your copyrights, or your patents, or your trademarks, or your plant variety monopolies, or your IC mask monopolies, or your publicity rights — those are legal privileges, so they can't be "stolen". I think the only things it could possibly steal that way are trade secrets. Please don't ever say "intellectual property" if what you mean is "trade secrets" or if what you mean is "copyrights", or if what you mean is any other specific thing, because that is a big generalization. It is likely to convert a narrow true statement into a broad false one. If you think that what you mean is all of them, then please study the issue more carefully — a statement so general is usually false, and probably most of them are not even relevant to the issue at hand. If you want to quote a statement where someone else used the term "intellectual property", please check whether the statement was false due to this confusion. Any statement that used that term probably was confused. 27 July 2019 (Law to publish the tax returns of corporations) To make Amazon pay its fair share of taxes, and Apple, Google, Facebook and others too, we need to see their tax returns. Let's change tax law to publish the tax returns of corporations. We could extend this to every company that files a separate tax return, or to every company that isn't a sole proprietorship. With that exception, it would respect personal privacy adequately, 27 July 2019 (Face tracking) Private use of face tracking is widespread and dangerous, but the proposed regulations only aim at use by public agencies. Not enough! Government surveillance cameras watching the street are a great disguise for private surveillance cameras put up by nobody-knows-who. Surveillance cameras — cameras transmitting video somewhere else — should be illegal except when authorized by a court for a specific place and period of time. 27 July 2019 (Unfair trials) Pressuring Bahrain to cancel executions of people whose trials were thoroughly unfair. 27 July 2019 (Tobacco Epidemic) Battle Against Tobacco Epidemic Is Far from Won. 27 July 2019 (European Investment Bank) The European Investment Bank will stop funding fossil duel projects. This could make a real difference if other investors follow this example. 27 July 2019 (An interview with Manual Zelaya) An interview with Manual Zelaya, who was president of Honduras until the coup that appears to have been approved by Hilary Clinton. 27 July 2019 (Contrasting codes of conduct) Contrasting codes of conduct and accusations with trying to be kind to other people. 27 July 2019 (California require bots to identify themselves) California now has a law requiring bots to identify themselves as such when used for advertising or electioneering. I think this is a good idea, but I wonder whether enforcing the law will prove difficult. 27 July 2019 (Brazil frozen chicken infested with salmonella) Brazil is a big exporter of frozen chicken, and 1/5 of it is infested with salmonella. The EU should blacklist Brazil until its infestation rate gets down to the achievable level? I doubt it will do so, but why not? Is it only lack of moral commitment, or is there some legal obstacle? I wonder if some business-supremacy treaties forbid this. Can anyone suggest who to ask? 27 July 2019 (Plants exchange signals) Plants exchange signals and respond to some stimuli. Don't leap to the conclusion that this means they can feel or think. 27 July 2019 (Trustworthy AI) An independent expert group sponsored by the European Union has published a plan for promoting "trustworthy AI". It does not seem to propose how to develop an AI to be trustworthy, how to determine whether a given AI program is infact trustworthy, or how any AI program can be trustworthy. As far as I know, these are totally unsolved problems, but the report takes for granted some solution is used. 27 July 2019 (Captured an Iranian oil tanker) The British navy captured an Iranian oil tanker said to be taking oil to Syria. This was clearly an act of war, and justifies military action Iran's part. The capture took place in disputed waters near Gibraltar, and Spain has objected to it. I can't see what relevance EU sanctions have. If the are sanctions, they prohibit certain dealings between EU entities and Syria. I don't see how an Iranian ship would come under EU sanctions, unless it is owned by a European company. Only a blockade would purport go that far, and a blockade, if there were one, would be an act of war in itself. (Remember when Egypt blockaded Elat? Israel responded to that, legitimately, by capturing the Sinai.) I don't think the EU has announced a blockade of Syria. Indeed, it is unable to do such a thing; the whole field of war is outside the EU's scope. So there is some bullshit here. I hope someone sorts out the facts. 27 July 2019 (China taking thousands children) China is taking thousands of Uighur children away from their parents and putting them into boarding schools designed to assimilate them. This resembles what the US and Canada did to indigenous peoples during much of the 20th century. Public opinion made the US and Canada stop this, but in China public opinion is not allowed to exist. Even fairly mild reproach of China for putting a million Uighurs in brainwash camps has discomfited China. Firm pressure might accomplish a great deal. Perhaps Hong Kong should be the main target of the pressure, for now. 27 July 2019 (Plutocratist party) An explicitly plutocratist party is expected to win the elections in Greece. I think Syriza's surrender discredited the idea of resistance. Perhaps Greeks have thrown in the towel, and are now telling themselves that surrender will get them some trickle-down. However, we've seen that that's bullshit. The plutocrats will be nice to you until you have swallowed the hook, but then they squeeze ever harder. Getting a little more privileges in the labor camp, through assiduous obedience, will never get you freedom. 27 July 2019 (We'll pay for your personal data) ACLU: beware dis-services that say, "We'll pay for your personal data" — that would only legitimize the basis of their power, not weaken it. Shushana Zuboff's take on why "owning the data about you" would be ineffective as protection from surveillance capitalism. 27 July 2019 (Keep information on who paid for each political ad) Canada required social media companies to keep information on who paid for each ad political. Google responded by not running any political ads. The author seems to think that Google somehow defeated Canada. I say it's just the opposite: Canada achieved a bigger success than it aimed for! This suggests it may be possible for one country to succeed in defeating a system that spreads fake news, if it can identify the crucial nexus at which to operate. Different networks function differently. 27 July 2019 (Shell's Sleazy Censorship) Shell's Sleazy Censorship: arranging a joint event with climate defenders, then cancelling the participation of the researcher who was going to show how Shell is still working to hamper climate defense. 27 July 2019 (Restricting diesel fuel) Less well-off areas have least to lose from restricting diesel fuel, and most to gain from clean-air zones, study finds. 27 July 2019 (Australian aboriginals) The University of New South Wales has told teachers not to talk about the fact that the Australian aboriginals reached and colonized Australia around 40,000 years ago. Science is to be suppressed so as to respect their nonscientific traditional views. I think that lying to children is likely to backfire on them. I resent when parents demand I support their lies about Santa Claus, because I think I'd be doing wrong. Lying to adults about their group's origin could be even worse. 27 July 2019 (OPEC climate defense campaigns) OPEC acknowledged that climate defense campaigns including the school strike for climate threaten fossil fuel extraction industry's future profits. Greta Thunberg called this "our biggest compliment yet". OPEC calls criticism "unscientific", but that can only mean that the likely fragments of the coming disaster have not been specifically proved. It would be irrational to wait for such detailed proof before protecting ourselves. Striking students can influence officials even in right-wing parts of the US. They can mobilize their parents, too. 27 July 2019 (Damage caused by global heating) A study covers 1300 lawsuits against governments and businesses over damage caused by global heating. 27 July 2019 (High stress cause fetuses to miscarry) Situations of high stress cause fetuses to miscarry. The effect is stronger for male fetuses. I wonder whether in Alabama anyone that imposes stress on a pregnant woman who subsequently has a miscarriage could be prosecuted for homicide. 27 July 2019 (US farmers) US farmers are growing a lot of food but making little money. At the same time, they are exhausting and losing the soil and spreading toxins. Here are ideas for how to fix both. Another cause of the failure of farms is being compelled to sell to a few large middleman companies. Many farms have gone broke recently. The pressure means farmers cannot invest in regenerative agriculture. Sanders proposes how to restructure agriculture in the US for the sake of farmers. 27 July 2019 (Venezuela's suppression forces) A UN human rights report says that Venezuela's suppression forces have killed almost 7000 people since Jan 2018 for "resisting arrest". This is the government's own figure, so it is clear they were all killed in raids, but it is inconceivable that they all died in that way. More information about torture discovered by the UN visit. 27 July 2019 (Corrupt judge Sergio Moro) Brazil has thoroughly condemned corrupt judge Sergio Moro. In the past, this sort of exposure would compel an official to resign. Nowadays, corrupt officials have discovered that trying to tough it out may succeed. What will it take to kick Moro out of office? 26 July 2019 (Racist stop-and-frisk) US Judge Shira Scheindlin pronounces on racist stop-and-frisk in Israel based on her decisions about racist stop-and-frisk in New York City. 26 July 2019 (Military occupation of Palestine) Israeli right-wing extremists, from Netanyahu on down, have decided to deny the fact that Palestine is under Israeli military occupation. When anyone points out this fact, they call it "anti-semitism". They do so, while maintaining an alliance with real anti-semites in the US. 26 July 2019 ("Influencers") "Influencers" try to extort gratis food from restaurants, even ice cream trucks. The best way to deal with them is to stay away from Instagram. It's a branch of Facebook and participating in it is for zuckers. 26 July 2019 (Military bill forbids fighting with Iran) House Democrats put an amendment into a military bill that would strictly forbid fighting with Iran, other than defending against attacks. 26 July 2019 (iBad tracking in schools) If your school provides you with an iBad, it's not merely imposing user-subjugating software and online dis-services. It may also be tracking your movements in the school. 26 July 2019 (Tree planting) Tree planting could be a big part of preventing climate disaster. However, I have to raise two questions: Will the trees we plant live to grow large? Global heating could kill them. Migrating parasites and infections could kill them. Humans desperate for firewood could kill them. Will we be able to plant trees faster than deforesters cut them down? 26 July 2019 (Migrants imprisoned next to military base) One of Libya's governments imprisoned migrants next to a military base. Haftar's army attacked the base and bombed the prison too. This caused over 100 casualties. 26 July 2019 (Release of Captain Rackete from arrest) An Italian judge rebuked Salvini and releasing Captain Rackete from arrest. It is not clear whether any of the charges have been dropped. 26 July 2019 (Hong Kong legislature) A hundred or so protesters took over the building of the Hong Kong legislature, after bashing down its door. Then they destroyed computers and other facilities. That legislature is elected through a biased system; it is not democratic. It does not deserve much respect; I won't say that damaging its property is inherently wrong, But this violent action, and the subsequent vandalism, play into China's hands. 26 July 2019 (Demand anyone's New York state tax returns) New York State has authorized the head of a congressional committee to demand anyone's New York state tax returns. That congresscritter should now demand the conman's tax returns. This won't have immediate results — I suppose the conman will sue, hoping to get the Supreme Court to overturn that law. 26 July 2019 (Bee-Killing Pesticide) USDA Indefinitely Suspends Honey Bee Tracking Survey as [eleven] States Get [special emergency] Approval to Use Bee-Killing Pesticide. I wish this were satire. 26 July 2019 (Many compostable plastics remain inert) Many "biodegradable" and even "compostable" plastics remain inert and undamaged in home composting, or in the ocean. 26 July 2019 (UK ambassador to the US) The UK ambassador to the US has been sending his government an honest appraisal of the conman. If ministers continue fawning on the conman, it's not due to ignorance. 26 July 2019 (Business-supremacy treaties) Business-supremacy treaties are a big screw. If the UK pulls out of one (the EU), another one (the WTO) will clobber it. 26 July 2019 (Right-wing policies) Right-wing policies make people homeless, and right-wing politicians make an excuse not to care: they regard the homeless people as a disgusting nuisance, to dehumanize them. 26 July 2019 (The Green New Deal) The Green New Deal can do more than avoid disaster. It can be an opportunity to make the world better in other ways. 26 July 2019 (Company with phony information) The UK makes it easy to set up a company with phony information about the owners. It doesn't even bother to check whatever information it is given. 26 July 2019 (Risk of fraud in games) 1/3 of gamers reportedly refuse to pay for anything in games simply because of the risk of fraud. However, there is a deeper reason to refuse to pay for anything in a game: because that enables the game company to track you. And the deepest reason is that the game is a proprietary program. Playing against someone who buys better skill or better equipment is equivalent to playing against someone who cheats. 26 July 2019 (Britain's Obsession with "anti-Semitism") Let's Be Honest about Britain's Obsession with "anti-Semitism". 26 July 2019 (Fix Food System) We [Americans] Have the Money to Fix Our Food System. 26 July 2019 (Sued for giving patient data to Google) The Chicago Medical Center is being sued for giving patient data to Google, in a form that can be reidentified easily. I think that clinics and schools should be required to keep their personal data on their own computers, located in their own facilities, not in servers run by companies that operate them in a cloudy way. A contract in which the company says how it can use the data is not enough to trust that it will remain private. 26 July 2019 (Norway prison system) Norway focused its prison system on rehabilitation, and recidivism declined from 60-70% to 20-25%. Rehabilitation costs more per prisoner but results in having much fewer prisons. I suspect that lowering recidivism that much depends on having a society that offers ex-cons a way to get by, other than through crime. My impression is that in the US it is so hard to get a job with an income you can live on, if you have a criminal record, that many ex-cons that want to go straight are unable to make a go of it. If the goal is to reduce the harm done by crime, this is self-defeating. But then, the US also puts a terrible burden on poor people, and on various disprivileged demographics, even if they don't have a criminal record. It is a general pattern of dehumanization, rather than a constructive attempt to address a problem. 26 July 2019 (Posting the nude photos) For years I've recommended that the way to defeat extortion through nude photos is by posting the nude photos. Now the idea is catching on. If defeating extortion nudes (and revenge porn, which differs by its motive) were the only benefit, perhaps it would not be crucial. However, it will also help decrease the general nudity taboo, and that is very important. Please don't refer to the people who carry out extortion via nudes as &mdath;hackers—. There is no reason to think that they are hackers; in any case, routine extortion is not hacking. 26 July 2019 (Starbucks worker) A Starbucks worker asked a few thugs (who were there as customers) to move because someone felt threatened by them. Starbucks apologized. If the representative of the thug association really can't imagine why some customers felt threatened, he is mentally deficient, but I think it more likely he is covering up that side of the truth. I know, from reading the news and talking with acquaintances, why blacks may feel endangered by the presence of thugs. Other people, with less grounds, may feel endangered by the presence of blacks. A store should not ask customers to leave, or to move, because "someone feels threatened by you" — not blacks, and not thugs — because people should not be judged based on how someone else feels about them. 26 July 2019 (Letting children play freely) FAQ for evidence-based defense of letting children play freely. 26 July 2019 (National Health Service) Persistent Tory cuts to the National Health Service has pushed some doctors to refuse overtime. Under new pension rules, they will have to pay to work overtime. Meanwhile, non-medical staff are going on strike against privatization. I think it is the Tories' intention to destroy the NHS by cutting its funds to the point it cannot possibly function. Then they will claim, as right-wingers like to do, that government programs can't work right. 26 July 2019 (Korea's smart city) Korea's made-from-zero "smart city" replicates The Village, complete with audio announcements that people can't shut off. I mean The Village from the TV show, The Prisoner. 26 July 2019 (A survey of sales sites) A survey of sales sites, checking for use of dark patterns, found them in 1200 out of the 10000 sites tested. I think these practices should be regulated, just like other practices of retail stores. I think that my decision not to buy anything on line has saved me more practical annoyance than it has caused me. That is in addition to protecting my freedom. 26 July 2019 (The Veterans Administration) The Veterans Administration has its own thug department, and these thugs occasionally turn on veterans seeking medical care — causing grave injuries and even death. Naturally these thugs lie to protect each other. The article recounts that one of them tried to act like a police officer rather than a thug and was attacked by the thugs. The VA officials protect them, too. 26 July 2019 (Gaza pollution crisis) Israel has forced Gaza into a pollution crisis which is now spreading to Israel. 26 July 2019 (Israel seizing public archives) Israel is systematically seizing and hiding public archives to eliminate evidence of threatening Palestinians in 1948 to make them flee. Here's more about the important vanished document about atrocities against Palestinians. 26 July 2019 (Automated face recognition) There is now a campaign to prohibit government use of automated face recognition in the US. This would be an important step forward, but not enough to protect human rights. We need to prohibit systematic use of automated face recognition by business, also. 26 July 2019 (New options for disposal of corpses) New options for disposal of corpses are less polluting than cremation and ordinary burial. 26 July 2019 (Climate defense measures) Attenborough: climate defense measures "cannot be radical enough". I think he meant "cannot be too radical". 26 July 2019 (Amnesty International) Amnesty International denounced the Taliban's "chilling disregard for human life." The US makes some effort to avoid killing Afghan civilians, but it does not consistently try hard. And when it does kill civilians, it tends to try to cover that up. 26 July 2019 (UK prime minister) Boris Johnson, whose contempt for truth matches that of his US buddy, looks to be the next prime minister of the UK. By refusing to defend Ambassador Darroch for commenting honestly and privately on that buddy, he effectively forced Darroch to resign. Darroch's resignation may have been necessary anyway. An ambassador that is detested by the head of the receiving state cannot be very effective. However, Johnson has demonstrated he wants to be prime minister of a puppet government. 26 July 2019 (School uniforms) If there have to be school uniforms, at least the rules should not be gender-biased. I never wore a school uniform. Public schools in New York in the 1950s did not have uniforms, nor did the private secondary schools I went to. Some schools had them; but in the 70s, counterculture youth rebelled against uniforms and more or less did away with them. I was repulsed when I heard, a decade ago, that the practice was spreading in the US. 26 July 2019 (Stop covering homeopathic treatment) France's medical system will stop covering homeopathic "treatment". It is no more than a placebo, based only on irrational pseudoscience. 26 July 2019 (Promoting competition in the field) The EU has a goofy idea: promoting competition in the field of surveillance capitalism by requiring big companies to make their data bases available to other companies. If done right, this could reduce the special political influence of the biggest companies. But it will do privacy no good at all. 26 July 2019 (War between India and China) As India dries out, one of the bad consequences could be war between India and China. 26 July 2019 (Conflict of interest) Congress's ethics rules allow lots of conflict of interest. A congresscritter can even trade stock in companies knowing that per actions as congresscritter will drive the stock price up or down. 26 July 2019 (Law to censor the press) Congress is considering a law to censor the press to protect the CIA — including its torturers. 26 July 2019 (Detaining Real Baby) (satire) ICE Sends Agents Home With Sacks Of Flour To Practice What It Like Detaining Real Baby. 26 July 2019 (High-pitched sound) Some parks play a constant high-pitched sound intended to drive away people under 25 years of age. They should play classical music instead. 26 July 2019 (Extreme weather events) As extreme weather events become common, being hit by two at once is no longer ridiculously unlikely. 26 July 2019 (The Climate Movement) Bill McKibben: The Climate Movement: What's Next? 26 July 2019 (Pigs factory farms) Burning some of the methane produced by pigs in factory farms is being offered as an excuse to make more factory farms. 26 July 2019 (List of billionaires) Sanders has proudly published a list of billionaires who call him an enemy. If you don't earn their hatred, you're not worth voting for. 26 July 2019 (US government lobbies) The US government lobbies internationally for increasing pharma companies' power to use patents to overcharge. It has been doing this for decades. I must criticize, however, the basic confusion spread by use of the term "intellectual property", which misrepresents the facts about various disparate laws by leading people to think of them as one single thing. Patent law is different from copyright law on nearly every point. Neither of them has any similarity to trade secrecy, and they have hardly any relationship with trademark law. If you have a category of "intellectual property" in your thinking, it will always mislead you. Please join me in shunning that term. See https://gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html. As for the World Trade Organization, it is a business-supremacy treaty, designed to give business more power over society. We must either change it so it ceases to have that effect, or get rid of it entirely. 26 July 2019 (Bullshitter praises Boris Johnson) [The bullshitter] Praises Boris Johnson, Who Once Called Him "Unfit to Hold the Office of President of the United States." The bullshitter looks for submission, not for sincerity. He does not care what Johnson said 4 years ago, as long as Johnson obeys today. Likewise, praise from the bullshitter means, simply, "You're obeying now; keep it up and I will keep praising you." 26 July 2019 (Global Heating) By the end of this century, if we don't curb global heating, humans won't be able to work safely outside in the southern US for half the year. I wonder if people will still be able to do agriculture in tropical regions. 26 July 2019 (Poor People's Campaign) The Poor People's Campaign endorses challenging the lobbying power of the military-industrial-oligopoly complex. 26 July 2019 (Company behind coal mine) The company behind a big planned coal mine in Australia demanded to know the names of the scientists participating in environmental evaluation. This was, we must suppose, for the sake of trying to intimidate them or gag them. 26 July 2019 (Bully training followers in racism) The bully has started training his followers in undisguised racism. 26 July 2019 (Indonesian domestic violence) No matter how "modestly" an Indonesian woman dresses, she can still be raped at home. I can't begin to understand why men want to demand sex with someone who isn't thrilled by it. 26 July 2019 (Do ditty's murder Campaign) Francisco Santiago Jr. is one of the few victims of the Do-dirty's murder campaigns who by luck survived his arrest and torture, and was not shot. His case shows that thugs pick people more or less arbitrarily, shoot them while they are prisoners, then decide what to accuse them of. In the US. thugs typically do this to black males, but but the Philippines thugs are not bigots -- any Filipino can be the victim. 26 July 2019 (Donations from the rich) "Charitable" donations from the rich are not really donations: they are attempts to buy public admiration. And often they get enough by just announcing the donation — they see no need to actually give the money. 26 July 2019 (Sudan protesters and military signed agreement) Sudan's protesters and military have signed an agreement about governing the country. 26 July 2019 (The Bully's devastating blow to Planned Parenthood) The bully has done a devastating blow to Planned Parenthood. It will not be able to accept federal funding for any services unless it complies with requirements that would be a surrender of its mission. 26 July 2019 (Textbook DRM) US students will be pressured to rent textbooks on subscription, which require proprietary malware with DRM to read them. 26 July 2019 (Trump warns public) (satire) Trump Claims He Tried To Warn Public About Epstein By Praising Him As A Terrific Guy. 26 July 2019 (Amazon workers) (satire) Amazon Workers Attempting Walkout Enter 7th Hour Wandering In Ever-Expanding, Labyrinth Warehouse. 26 July 2019 (Ecuador surrendered to IMF) Ecuador has surrendered to the IMF, and the non-rich will suffer greatly as a result. 26 July 2019 (Whole Foods workers) Whole Foods Workers Say Conditions Deteriorated after Amazon Takeover. For instance, they have been told to pressure customers to make deals with Amazon. This would subject them to Amazon's many abusive practices. 26 July 2019 (Biden's health plan) Biden's health plan is estimated to fall short of Medicare for All by 125,000 avoidable deaths. Sanders Accuses Biden of Parroting Pharma and Insurance Industry Script With Attacks on Medicare for All. 26 July 2019 (Domestic workers should have same rights as employees) We should give domestic workers the same rights that other employees have. 26 July 2019 (Israel school propaganda) Israel requires students traveling on school-sponsored foreign trips to pass a class in exaggerated political propaganda which insults Palestinians. Even Arab students are required to learn how to give these answers. 26 July 2019 (Israel locking foreign academics) Israel is blocking foreign academics from working at (or visiting) Palestinian universities. By contrast, the Palestinian boycott asks people not to work at Israeli universities, and does not try to stop any individual from doing anything. 26 July 2019 (McDonalds exploits schools) McDonalds exploits public school teachers to market junk food to their students. 26 July 2019 (Nepal babies malnutrition) In Nepal, babies under 2 years old are eating junk food, and it leads to malnutrition which stunts their growth. 26 July 2019 (Direct neural interface) A direct neural interface for controlling a computer could be a very good thing, provided that you the user are the only one who controls the interface. In order for that to be reliably true, the software must be free. I think testing this on animals is legitimate. It can't be developed without testing, and testing on animals is better than testing on humans. 26 July 2019 (Head of border patrol finds Facebook group abhorrent) The head of the border patrol was a member of the private Facebook group for venting hatred at immigrants. Then she told us she found it abhorrent. One thing that the US does to some immigrants is demand passwords to their Facebook accounts. This is supposedly done for our "safety". Perhaps the people this should be done to are officials. 26 July 2019 (Multilevel marketing) "Multilevel marketing" is not identical to a pyramid scheme, but in practice it often works out that way. This article shows how they lure people with promises of profits that few participants get. Many lose a lot of money instead. 26 July 2019 (Detainment center conditions) (satire) "It's Not So Bad," Mike Pence Reports On Conditions Of Detainment Center While Hazmat Suit Disinfected. 26 July 2019 (Apple nonrepairability) Reevaluating Apple's reputation for good design: design for nonrepairability is not good design. 26 July 2019 (Recording devices) Journalists obtained 1000 leaked audio recordings and showed some of them to the people who were speaking. 150 of the recordings were made when the device was not supposed to be recording. If you're in a place with Google a listening device (or Apple, or Amazon), disconnect it! Note that every portable phone is a potential listening device. 26 July 2019 (Wildlife defenders recognize need to limit human population) Finally, wildlife defenders recognize the crucial need to limit the human population, in order to leave some land wild. Investment by plutocracy also plays a role in eliminating wilderness, but the two work hand in hand (in deforestation in Brazil, for instance), so reducing births will help. 26 July 2019 (Israeli right wingers attack Jonathan Pollak) Israeli right-wing extremists set upon anti-occupation activist Jonathan Pollak on the street and beat him up, then stabbed him. As for the charges made by the right-wing extremists, they are the friends and allies of US right-wing extremists. I do not believe their accusations. 26 July 2019 (Stalin praise) As Putin imprisons historians that study Stalin's terror, Stalin receives public praise promoted by the state. 26 July 2019 (Jeffrey Epstein rape career) Jeffrey Epstein intimidated the whole US press into silence about his rape career, starting in 2003. 26 July 2019 (New Zealand gun buybacks) New Zealand is buying the now-illegal semiautomatic rifles that people already own. 26 July 2019 (Thug dossier) Any thug in parts of the US can immediately get a large dossier about most Americans from just a name or other identifier. What bothers me is not that they can get it quickly, but that so much information has been collected about millions of people who are not suspects and about which no search has been authorized. If we don't ban commercial use of face recognition to track people, this commercial data base will be extended to include people's movements as recorded by billions of surveillance cameras spread across US cities and roads. 26 July 2019 (Relieve worries about vaccination) How to relieve the worries some parents have about vaccination. A bigger and deeper question: how can we fix the systems that make it so easy to stir up conspiracy theories about anything whatsoever, especially if it relates to children, or adolescents being called "children"? People with damaged immune systems can die from measles even if they were vaccinated against it. They depend on the rest of society to get vaccinated. 26 July 2019 (Whistleblower site for tech companies) There is now a whistleblower site for tech company staff to report their employer's egregious attacks on human rights. Unfortunately this will do nothing to push back on those kinds of attacks on human rights that have become standard practice -- for instance, proprietary malware and internet dis-services that spy, manipulate, restrict, swindle and addict people. 26 July 2019 (Disabled people in the UK are now crippled) Disabled people in the UK are now crippled — by the stinginess of Tories. 26 July 2019 (Advantages of trees in pastures) Planting trees in a pasture can make it stay usable through 9 months without rain, and produce other crops too. 26 July 2019 (German school privacy) Microsoft Office 365: Banned in [some] German Schools over Privacy Fears. It is a bit silly that the legal objection is limited to sending data to servers in the US. Snooping software should be eliminated, inside and outside of schools, no matter who it spies on people for. 26 July 2019 (Thugs crash into passerby) Thugs crashed their vehicle into that of a passerby, then pulled him out and handcuffed him. It is vitally important to punish thugs for everything they do wrong in nonfatal attacks like this. We can't convert thugs into police officers by punishing them only on the rare occasions when they murder someone, not even if the punishment is severe. Most of them will never murder someone, and never know another thug who murdered someone, so they will not feel any pressure to change their ways. To achieve that, we must punish the many small incidents. 26 July 2019 (Trump honors brave heroes) (satire) Trump Honors Brave Heroes Who Slept With Wives Of Deployed Soldiers. 26 July 2019 (Systemic thug department flaws) The UK held an inquiry into the killing of Anthony Grainger (shot dead by a thug) and determined that systemic flaws in the thug department were to blame. Whether to blame individual thugs remains to be decided. In general the UK seems to do a better job of holding killer thugs accountable than the US usually does. 26 July 2019 (Predatory game) Resourceful grandchildren figured out how to max out their grandfather's credit card buying special players for a predatory fantasy soccer game. The random element of loot boxes strengthens their activeness, but the fact that players must keep spending in order to win is enough reason to classify it as predatory. Any game of competitive spending makes each player pressure the other players to spend more. The fact that the game is proprietary software is enough reason to refuse to run it, and not to get a copy of it for yourself or anyone else. The only good reason to have such a game is to study it for free software development. 26 July 2019 (Selling medical records) The ACLU warns of a legislative campaign to legitimize selling people's medical records by giving the patient a cut of the revenue. That money won't come anywhere near compensating for the advantage that companies will take of you given that knowledge about you. 26 July 2019 (Japan's music licensing) Japan's music licensing gang is demanding royalties from music schools, calling music lessons "public performance". 26 July 2019 (Extinction Rebellion protesters) Extinction Rebellion protesters glued themselves to doors in the US capitol building, blocking legislators from getting to the chamber to vote. The person who decided perse "can't bring a child into this world" has understood the situation thoroughly. But I wonder what "I broke down my car" means. "I disassembled it"? That is the proper grammatical interpretation but seems implausible. If the article garbled the words a little, it could mean "I caused it to malfunction" or "I started crying at the wheel". More information. 26 July 2019 (Ban secure communication) The US government is going to try again to ban secure communication for users. They think they can get Americans so frightened of the terrorists (who do exist, but are not a big danger as dangers go) that we will surrender our privacy to a state which can be far more dangerous. 26 July 2019 (Amazon Alexa) Amazon servers save transcripts of some Alexa conversations indefinitely. It would be absurd to delete a reminder before reminding you, but a privacy-respecting reminder system would keep that reminder only on your own computers, so it would protect your privacy both before and after. You probably want to save a record of your purchases, but a privacy-respecting system would keep that record private by keeping it only on your own computers. With a proper anonymous payment system, such as GNU Taler, no one but you would ever know who made the purchase. 26 July 2019 (Electronic Monitoring) How Electronic Monitoring Drives Defendants Into Debt (and then back into jail). 26 July 2019 (Pfizer's new regulatory capture) Pfizer's new experiment with regulatory capture: putting the former Saboteur of the FDA on its board. 26 July 2019 (Peace and Climate Justice) Why Peace and Climate Justice Are the Same Project. 26 July 2019 (War with Iran) Cory Booker supports war with Iran. 26 July 2019 (Facebook's currency) Stiglitz: "Only a fool would trust Facebook with his or her financial well being. But maybe that’s the point: with so much personal data on some 2.4bn monthly active users, who knows better than Facebook just how many suckers are born every minute?" 26 July 2019 (Border thugs) The border thugs are supposed to transfer prisoners to immigration agencies within 72 hours, but the bully's orders have made this difficult to do — so prisoners accumulate in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. 26 July 2019 (Mismanaged a major regional river system) Australia has mismanaged a major regional river system to the point where fish regularly die in large numbers. The cause, of course, is putting the short-term demands of profit over the long-term needs. This is what leads to dangerous mining, deforestation, and fertilizer runoff that harms the Great Barrier Reef. 26 July 2019 (Help poor people reduce their debt) Senator Warren proposes measures to steer the US away from risk of another financial crisis — notably to limit leveraged loans to businesses, as well as to help poor people reduce their debt. 26 July 2019 (Snoopphone read sensors on your body) An advance in how a snoopphone (if you carry one) can read sensors on or in your body. It may be that this method would actually protect you from those sensors as long as you don't carry a snoopphone. What is not clear is how far away from other people's snoopphones you would need to stay. 26 July 2019 (Smart city technology) A shopping mall that serves as a testbed for "smart" city technology doesn't collect personal data except through an app. If a real "smart" city does that, it might be acceptable — unless it puts pressure on everyone to use the app so as to get convenience. 26 July 2019 (Right to Spy on Media) UK Hosts Press Freedom Summit While Fighting for Right to Spy on Media. If the UK wins that case, the outcome will affect all of Europe. 26 July 2019 (Cubans trying to move to the US) Cubans trying to move to the US now get treated like people from other countries in Latin America. This despite the fact that at home they face the effects of US sanctions. 26 July 2019 (Fear climate change) (satire) … the average American must have [per] life destroyed by a natural [sic] disaster every six minutes in order to finally fear climate change. Meanwhile, back in reality, New York City got two within two days. 26 July 2019 (Revolving Door Between Government and Industry) Iowa, North Dakota and Maryland Lead the Way on Curbing the Revolving Door Between Government and Industry. 26 July 2019 (Bully's expedited deportations) More about the danger of the bully's "expedited deportations" plan. Border thugs could deport US citizens fast, rather than giving them time to establish their citizenship. 26 July 2019 (Men with sticks attacked people) When men with sticks attacked people in Hong Kong's remote Yuen Long train station, the victims were not protesters, just passersby. Why they attacked people there is not clear, unless China just wanted to make people in Hong Kong afraid. 26 July 2019 (Kick out European citizens) The Tories are so determined to kick out European citizens that they have planned to keep the data on which they base the decisions secret. In other words, they are planning to make lots of mistakes and don't want them to be corrected. 26 July 2019 (Palestinian medic killed) A Palestinian medic, Muhammad al-Judaili, was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper, and he eventually died from this. Rubber-coated bullets are said to be "non-lethal", but we know and snipers know that they can kill if they hit someone's head. Snipers don't hit someone's head by accident. 26 July 2019 (Israeli soldiers demolished apartments) Israeli soldiers demolished 16 Palestinian apartment buildings on the pretext that they were too close to the annexation wall. There must be hundreds of apartments buildings that the wall was built close to. Now they may all be demolished. 26 July 2019 (The Guardian cartoonist censorship) The Guardian censored its regular cartoonist for satirizing the crusade to cleanse the Labour Party of what is accused of being anti-semitism. 26 July 2019 (Drug-Resistant Superbug) As fungi adapt to living outside in temperatures close to human body temperature, some of them may become able to colonize the human body. This may be the reason that a new fungal disease with no known treatment is spreading on several continents. 26 July 2019 (Crash test dummies) A woman in a car crash is more likely to be injured than a man in a similar crash. Could that be because crash test dummies have mainly been designed to simulate men? 26 July 2019 (LinkedIn surveillance) LinkedIn has staged a surveillance coup against libraries through an education service set up specifically for libraries. For instance, it demands that users make individual LinkedIn accounts so that it can profile them. That page represents libraries' pushback; some have dropped the service and others surely will if LinkedIn does not retreat. I have no other details about that service, but simply based on knowing the usual practices I expect it is a disservice in other ways. 26 July 2019 (Stop abuse by private equity) Moe about Senator Warren's plans to stop abuse by "private equity" takeovers. 26 July 2019 (solar system’s real estate agents) (satire) the solar system’s real estate agents have begun trying to attract home buyers to the neglected, run-down planet of Earth by renaming it "West Saturn." 26 July 2019 (Big climate defense rallies) Big climate defense rallies are planned world-wide for Sep 20-27. 26 July 2019 (Progressive trade policy) Suggestions for what progressive trade policy should look like: putting human beings and nature first. What it says about "intellectual property" tries to go in the right direction, but it is flawed by taking the bogus concept of "intellectual property" as a basis. 26 July 2019 (Facebook's personal data abuse) After the FTC's slap on Facebook's wrist, we can expect it to abuse personal data over and over. However, even a bigger fine could at best have limited how Facebook abuses personal data. The real problem is that Facebook collects personal data. So don't be a zucker — don't give Facebook any data. And use a browser such as IceCat that blocks Like buttons, so Facebook can't get data about you in any other way. 26 July 2019 (Puerto Rico's governor agreed to resign) Puerto Rico's governor has finally agreed to resign, after many protests including 1/3 of the island's population, plus plans to impeach him. The sad thing about Puerto Rico is that the US has saddled it with so much debt, and imposed so much privatization, that good politicians wouldn't have much chance to do a good job. 26 July 2019 (Hide climate crisis) "I'm a scientist. Under [the saboteur] I lost my job for refusing to hide climate crisis facts." 26 July 2019 (Intellectual debt) Use of AI techniques whose functioning nobody understands puts society in a state of "intellectual debt". That is not necessarily bad, but it can easily lead to bad consequences when competition and conflict get into the matter. By contrast, the fact that we did not understand how aspirin reduced headaches did offer anyone an opportunity to cause mysterious headaches that aspirin would make worse. 26 July 2019 (Megadroughts Coming to the U.S.) Megadroughts Are Likely Coming to the U.S. Southwest Within Decades, Scientists Say. Long droughts wiped out the small cities that existed in parts of the southwest. The big cities that need a lot more water would have more trouble surviving. Unless perhaps solar-powered condensers can save the day. 26 July 2019 (Violent porn) Violent porn has made the idea of strangling a woman and calling it "sex" appear normal, so women go along with it. If that's not disgusting enough, men that murder their lovers or wives can now pretend that "it was just a sex game". 26 July 2019 (Random drug tests) A school in Texas says that it will require all students in extracurricular activities to submit to random drug tests. I hope many students will refuse. 26 July 2019 (Destruction of the Amazon forest) Bolsonaro has succeeded at accelerated destruction of the Amazon forest. Scientists warn that this may kill the trees that remain. 26 July 2019 (Schools uniforms) UK public schools require specific uniforms, which can be so expensive that poor families cut back on food. Or else find another school which isn't trying to keep poor people out. This is one of the symptoms of the policy of making schools compete to avoid being forcibly privatized as "academies". I consider the very idea of requiring a uniform outrageous. 26 July 2019 (Marshall Plan for Central America) The US Needs a Marshall Plan for Central America. (Instead of the current martial plan that drives people to flee.) 26 July 2019 (Phoenix law) (satire) … Phoenix law enforcement officials confirmed Tuesday local man Rod Cleighborn had been hired as a cop for posting a racist rant on social media. 26 July 2019 (Drop a group of children in the woods) It's a custom in the Netherlands to drop a group of children in the woods and challenge them to find their way back to civilization. They succeed, and in the process learn self-confidence. "Stijn is 11," she said. "The time window in which we can teach him is closing. He is going into adolescence, and then he will make decisions for himself." 26 July 2019 (Backfire against progressive president) Pelosi made a deal with the Republicans that will backfire against any progressive president in 2021. Sanders will have to cut harmful spending, such as nuclear weapons development and secret foreign wars, if he can't get a debt increase or a tax increase through the Senate. 26 July 2019 (Increasing industrial agriculture) Increasing industrial agriculture is not the way to feed more poor people. In the US, it doesn't seriously try. Growing corn or soybeans to make fuel is especially foolish since it uses petroleum-based fertilizer. When that's subsidized, it is a handout for agribusiness. Biofuel is efficient only when it's made from byproducts of growing something else that's worth growing in its own right. 26 July 2019 (Sociology of gun violence) US citizens: call on the Senate to vote to support research into the sociology of gun violence. 26 July 2019 (Confirmation bias) Confirmation bias, group think and pressure to find the perpetrator quickly are major factors in convicting innocent people. 26 July 2019 (Smart diapers) "Smart" diapers spy on the baby and maybe the rest of the family. If the manufacturers wanted to, they could make this info available directly and solely to the parents. 26 July 2019 (Global Heating) Today's global heating, affecting the whole globe, has no parallel in historical temperature changes. 25 July 2019 (Urgent: Oppose oil drilling) US citizens: call on the Bureau of Land Management not to allow oil drilling in Chaco Canyon. If you sign, please spread the word! 25 July 2019 (Crime of being "disgusting" in UK) In the UK it is a crime to do something in public that people in the vicinity find "disgusting". I too would find it disgusting, but so what? 25 July 2019 (Bully's plan to take away food stamps) The bully has a new plan to take food stamps away from some poor Americans. 25 July 2019 (UK nuclear power plants) The UK is so desperate to build new nuclear power plants that it will pay in advance from the treasury. This is a decision of the same Tory government that has pretty much put an end to land-based wind power and cut subsidies for solar power. There is a report that the reason is a disguised subsidy for the UK's planned new nuclear missile submarines. 25 July 2019 (Effects of increasing minimum wage) Economists studied the effects of increasing the minimum wage in many low-wage US counties and found no sign that this causes loss of work. 25 July 2019 (Planned natural gas projects) The world's planned natural gas projects won't fit in the carbon budget. Indeed, the world cannot afford any new fossil fuel infrastructure, because once new infrastructure is built there will be tremendous pressure to use it and roast Earth's ecosphere. The idea of natural gas as a "bridge fuel" is an excuse, which appeared plausible only because we did not know the amount of methane leaks. 25 July 2019 (Audio recordings of people in public) ACLU: Bogus “Aggression Detectors” Are Audio-Recording People In Public. If we had proper laws, anyone trying to sell a system for aggression detection would be required to make it send nothing except reports about aggressions — not recordings of ordinary conversations. The audio recordings on buses in San Francisco (and maybe elsewhere) should be illegal too. 25 July 2019 (Seizing people's money without a trial) Congress and the bully have passed a law to stop the IRS from seizing people's money without a trial on mere suspicion that they were evading the requirement to report depositing more than $10,000 by depositing smaller amounts. Yes, it was as absurd as it looks. 25 July 2019 (Urgent: BOOST Act) US citizens: call on Congress to pass the BOOST Act, which would give a sum of money to each poor person or family in the US. If you sign, please spread the word! 25 July 2019 (Murals in San Francisco) San Francisco will cover up murals that were painted to show how some of the US founding fathers participated in owning slaves and in conquest of indigenous peoples. People who can't bear to see a depiction of an injustice are useless for fighting it. Schools should lead people to face moral issues, not cower helplessly from them. 25 July 2019 (Richard Zimler) Author Richard Zimler reports that some of his talks in Britain have been cancelled because the hosts fear protests or violence because he is Jewish. They seem to fear they will meet with protests if they invite a Jew to speak. I am not convinced that his friends are correct in blaming Palestinian activists for this. That claim is not based on direct evidence. 25 July 2019 (Refugees in Australia) When Australia brings its refugees from Nauru or Manus because it can no longer deny they need medical treatment, it guards them like dangerous criminals. They are not allowed to see their families. Australia even exposes them to bedbugs, which it could easily avoid. 25 July 2019 (Thugs shooting blacks) Why do thugs often gratuitously shoot and threaten blacks? It seems that some thugs literally think of blacks as subhuman. 25 July 2019 (Solar Foods) Solar Foods makes a protein supplement from electricity, water and air. 25 July 2019 (Extinction Rebellion) Extinction Rebellion blocked a bridge in Paris to call attention to the implications of the hottest day ever recorded there. 25 July 2019 (Fearful of the Census) 'The Damage Has Been Done': Despite Court Ruling, Experts Say Trump Succeeded in Making Immigrant Communities Fearful of Census. 25 July 2019 (Piecework sweatshops) 10% of the workers in Britain have been captured by the piecework sweatshop dis-services. We must extend all the rights and benefits of employees to cover these forms of work. 25 July 2019 (Evidence of product defects) Thousands of Americans — perhaps hundreds of thousands — have been killed because judges sealed evidence of deadly defects in products and kept the defects secret for years as more people died. The dangerous flaws of OxyContin, which spread opioid addiction, were concealed for 12 years. Trade secrecy is always bad for the public. Occasionally it is deadly, but usually merely harmful. We should change the law so that no significant problem can be concealed in this way. Businesses should not be allowed to enforce an NDA to conceal mistreatment of workers, customers, or the public. Agreeing to nondisclosure of generally useful technical information, such as software, is betrayal of society as a whole. I refuse on principle to do this. 25 July 2019 (Getting shot while pregnant) A woman in Alabama has been charged with manslaughter for getting shot while pregnant. The state treats the fetus as a person. More information. This is the natural conclusion of the twisted premises of those who treat fetuses as sacred. But the problem may be broader than that. Suppose she had been shot while carrying a three-year-old child in her arms? Suppose someone else had shot at her and killed the child. I don't think people should be prosecuted for the effects of being shot at. 24 July 2019 (Conman's appointees) The conman's appointees on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission want to inspect nuclear power plants less often. The owners won't need to fix problems if they can avoid finding out about them. The only way we will know about them is if they lead to an accident. A nuclear power plan accident typically results from a combination of factors, each one of which might have seemed not to be a big deal by itself. Just the sort of the things that the owners would suggest could be ignored. 24 July 2019 (Right to operate a union) An appeals court decided it had no authority over whether the conman could effectively eliminate federal workers right to operate a union. I wonder how many of the judges involved were appointed recently by Republicans. 24 July 2019 ("Prominent politicians" on Twitter) Twitter will give "prominent politicians" an exception from its rules against posting hatred. I think this is a combination of circumstances in which there is simply no choice that Twitter can make which isn't bad. 24 July 2019 (Democratic politicians) Americans are ready to stop trying to dominate the world. Most Democratic politicians have yet to catch up. 24 July 2019 (British state arrested dissident for China) China pressured the British state to arrest an exiled Chinese dissident preemptively for Xi's visit in 2015. 24 July 2019 (The bullshitter and North Korea) The bullshitter is making progress with North Korea — progress towards a deal that would accept its possession of nuclear weapons. This is the only possible avenue towards any sort of deal, since Dictator Kim will not give up those nuclear weapons. Thus, in a way this is a wise policy. But the bullshitter can't acknowledge it, as it would highlight the absurdity of his policy towards Iran. 24 July 2019 (Katharine Gun) A two-part interview with British whistleblower Katharine Gun, who revealed how the UK was helping Dubya try to bully UN security council members into approving his attack on Iraq. 24 July 2019 (Emotion recognition) Experts Say 'Emotion Recognition' Lacks Scientific Foundation. 24 July 2019 (Banksters funding Bully's racism) Banksters and plutocrats are happy to keep funding the bully's racism. The bully promotes and spreads racism, but is he really racist? He lies almost all the time, so why expect him to be sincere in this? Maybe he spreads racism as a cynical strategy. The strategy can be very effective. However, since plutocratist Democrats support much of the wrongs that Republicans do, it is a mistake to conclude we would be better off if we had not elected progressive leaders such as Ocasio-Cortez. To win in 2020, Democrats need to motivate massive turnout, and they are the ones who can do that. 24 July 2019 (River floods) Using levees to contain flooding rivers makes for bigger floods downstream. Cities need to leave space along the river for floods to spread out. 24 July 2019 (Private browser modes) "Private" and "incognito" modes of browsers are no protection against being tracked by Google and Oracle (and to a lesser extent Facebook). Tracking people's porn browsing could cause trouble for some people who pretend to be prudes, but there are much more damaging things they could track. 24 July 2019 (Plastic manufacturers) Plastic manufacturers are buying state laws to make sure nothing gets in the way of selling lots of plastic bags (and plastic everything else). 24 July 2019 (North Carolina hurricanes) Fair Bluff, North Carolina, was half wiped out by rain from two recent hurricanes. If another hurricane hits there, it could finish the job. Global heating tends to make storms drop more rain. 24 July 2019 (Online photo editing dis-service) More concern about how online photo-editing dis-services make use of the photos people send them. The deeper problem with these "apps", which send photos to a remote server to edit it, is that they send photos to a remote server to edit it. We call that "service as a software substitute" because the job ought to be done by a program you install on your own computer — a free program, in order to respect your freedom and autonomy — and never sent anywhere. 24 July 2019 (Hawaiians protest telescope) Hawaiians are protesting against plans to construct a new telescope with a very large mirror, which would advance our knowledge of the universe. The idea that a place is "sacred" is an irrational sensitivity. It is good to cater to such sensitivities as long as that doesn't sacrifice something important -- such as the telescope. The telescope should be built. However, removing obsolete structures and making those areas of land nice again does no harm, and doesn't involve sacrificing anything more than funds. Hawaii should make and carry out such a deal. 24 July 2019 (Centralist PAC) Democrat-Backed Centrist PAC Is Supporting a Republican Against a Vulnerable Swing-District Incumbent. 24 July 2019 (California Uber employee law) California is considering a law to make Uber treat drivers as employees. This would eliminate one of the huge injustices of Uber. But it would not eliminate the injustices to the customers. I hope therefore that it would make Uber give up. 24 July 2019 (Thugs infiltrate anti-fascist protests) Thugs in Los Angeles are infiltrating anti-fascist protests, and using it to charge organizers for protesting. 24 July 2019 (Israel spraying herbicides) Israel is spraying herbicides near the Gaza border, and it drifts almost 400 yards into Gaza and kills Palestinians' crops. 24 July 2019 (Persecution of nonreligious) Prominent humanists decry the persecution of the nonreligious in various countries. 24 July 2019 (EPA drops surprise inspections) EPA Drops Surprise Inspections. This will help companies that deny their polluting activities. 24 July 2019 (Births near oil wells cause heart defects) Babies Born Near Oil and Gas Wells Are Up to 70% More Likely to Have Congenital Heart Defects, New Study Shows. 24 July 2019 ((satire) Trump store discount) (satire) In an effort to distance the President from a racist remark chanted about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) earlier this week, the Trump campaign store reportedly began offering a special disavowed discount Friday on all ‘Send Her Back’ merchandise. 24 July 2019 (Greta Thunberg explains accomplishment) Greta Thunberg explains what it means to have accomplished something, People always tell me and the other millions of school strikers that we should be proud of ourselves for what we have accomplished. But the only thing that we need to look at is the emission curve. And I’m sorry, but it’s still rising. That curve is the only thing we should look at. In the same way, I don't measure the advances of the free software movement simply by how much free software we now have and use, but also in terms of how much nonfree software remains in use — which we need to eliminate. 24 July 2019 (Nonfree browser extensions) Many nonfree browser extensions snoop on the user's browsing and inform some company. The article does not say that these extensions are nonfree, but that seems pretty certain from the information given. The author of the article did not recognize that this was a part of the problem. So people are likely to draw misguided conclusions such as "Don't trust browser extensions", instead of the correct conclusion, "Don't trust nonfree programs anywhere." 24 July 2019 (Small doses of radiation) Small doses of radiation promote the spread of a mutation that is one step on the road to cancer. At least, that is true in the esophagus of mice. Nothing is known about how this might affect other mouse tissues, or any human tissues. Humans have, in general, much better defenses against aging than other mammals, so I would not generalize from non-human animals to humans about any of these effects. 24 July 2019 (Contraceptive pills eliminate periods) Thanks to contraceptive pills, women do not have to menstruate at all. This reminds me of a story by James Tiptree (Alice Sheldon), "Even the Queen", about a woman whose daughter decided to join a movement for natural menstruation. She couldn't convince her daughter to abandon that foolish idea, but the experience of menstruating did the job pretty fast. 24 July 2019 (Private space missions) Should all crewed space missions be run by private business? In some cases, there is no harm in that. But if we let them build settlements in space or on the Moon, those will be "company towns" in which no one can do anything except under the control of the company. Working there will be like working in an Amazon warehouse. 25 July 2019 (Kazakhstan HTTPS spying) The government of Kazakhstan has injected itself as a man-in-the-middle for all HTTPS communication — in effect, spying on the browsing of everyone in the country. We would expect such things from an overtly repressive state, but powerful "free" countries such as Australia, UK and US have done, or are trying to do, comparable things. 24 July 2019 (Unprivitalizaton of government) Labour will organize the unprivatization of local government activities. 24 July 2019 (UK &mdash Iran tanker standoff) UK and Iran are now in a tanker-seizure standoff. It appears that Bolton told the UK, "Let's you and them fight." 24 July 2019 (Tech's battle for attention) People are becoming aware that there is a battle against digital tech companies for control of each person's attention, What people do not yet recognize is that this as a consequence of the unjust power that companies (even small companies) derive from nonfree software and from online disservices. So their proposed solutions are not deep enough. 24 July 2019 (Job inequality) New US jobs are now concentrating in a few cities, with others left behind. Of course, it is expensive to live in the few successful cities. So the overall effect of this is to screw the poor in yet another way. 24 July 2019 (Ban face recognition) Opinion: Don’t Regulate Facial Recognition. Ban It. This article is noteworthy because it attacks face recognition by business, not just by government. 24 July 2019 (Cost of preventing childbirth death increases) Cost of Global Push to Prevent Women Dying in Childbirth to Increase Sixfold. This goal requires a combination of better medical care for when women do give birth, and contraception and abortion to help women avoid giving birth. 24 July 2019 (Crimes against nature) The Rich Are Committing Crimes Against Nature. 24 July 2019 (EPA refused to ban chlorpyrifos) The Environmental Poisoning Agency refused to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which seems to cause brain damage in children. Wheeler, the head of the Environmental Poisoning Agency (EPA), is more personally honest, and that has enabled him to arrange for a lot more future damage to our environment and our health. 24 July 2019 ((satire) Cop vows revenge) (satire) Cop Vows To Get Revenge On Eric Garner For Trying To Frame Him For Murder. 24 July 2019 (Rising economic inequality) As rising economic inequality gives the rich more power, they use it to push the inequality even harder. 24 July 2019 (Replaced US constitution if Republicans win) With a big Republican victory in 2020, plutocratists could replace the US Constitution with something as plutocratist as they wish. And they are already designing it. Pompeo is already trying to redefine human rights. Their idea of human rights will say that if you're a plutocrat you have the right to grab anyone's genitals, and if perse complains, to get per fired. 24 July 2019 (Republican's case for medicare) This Republican's Case for Medicare for All. 24 July 2019 (Jewish Voice for Peace) Jewish Voice for Peace praised Rep. Ilhan Omar's resolution affirming the right to boycott. 24 July 2019 (Remove Confederate ghosts) (satire) Virginia Agrees To Remove Confederate Ghosts From State Capitol. 24 July 2019 (Exaggerated idea of technology) The fairly quick achievement of landing on the moon gave people an exaggerated idea of what we can expect to achieve with technology. It turns out that technology can't necessarily cure the harm that massive use of technology is doing. 24 July 2019 (Getting tough with Extinction Rebellion) UK thugs want laws changed so they can get tough with Extinction Rebellion protesters. This will avoid some annoying small disruptions, and guarantee enormous disruptions starting 20 or 30 years from now and continuing for centuries. 24 July 2019 (UK extends global heating) The UK has extended global heating by cutting insulation improvements from 65,000 per month to 10,000 per month. 24 July 2019 (Bully wants to send Iraqis back) The bully wants to send Iraqi Christian refugees back to Iraq, where they would face murder. Some might starve first because they don't know anyone there and don't speak Arabic. 24 July 2019 (Moscow rally) Thousands Rally in Moscow over Opposition Exclusion in City Parliament Vote. The machine said that the nominating signatures were fake. 24 July 2019 (Councils refusing to share data for deportation) Some local governments in the UK refuse to give homeless people's personal data to the deportation office. 24 July 2019 (Artificial snow) Proposing a mega project to make snow on top of the west Antarctic ice sheet. I think it would be better, and less practical work, to curb the CO2 emissions. What's more, that would also end ocean acidification and avoid heating the land. But if the plutocrats block that, it would be better to do this project than not do it. 24 July 2019 (Urgent: Ban FBI and ICE access to DMV photos) US citizens: call on Congress to ban FBI and ICE from accessing drivers' license photos. If you sign, please spread the word! 24 July 2019 (Population in Congo) Population is reaching crunch point in the Congo. The Pygmies, who lived there before, demand to cut down the forest that lowland gorillas live in. As the world's human population bloats, there won't be enough land for everyone. People will get desperate, and try to hang on a little longer by destroying forests, farming land that isn't suitable, catching the last few fish, and so on. But that won't do more than postpone the end. The human population will eventually be limited — after everything else is gone. We need to limit the human population earlier, before that destruction occurs. 24 July 2019 (Thugs attack protesters in Hong Kong) Masked non uniformed thugs attacked protesters in Hong Kong. Protesters say that the uniformed thugs took a suspiciously long time to arrive, but the article does not indicate how long that was. 24 July 2019 (Thailand's military rulers) Thailand's military rulers have gone beyond charging democracy activists with crimes. Now it is sending non uniformed thugs to club them on the head. 24 July 2019 (Discouraging searches without censoring) Platforms can discourage searches for dangerous extremism by adopting methods that stop short of censoring the search results. 24 July 2019 (Labour Party proposals) A Labour Party study proposed a list of ways to restructure the global economy to replace plutocracy. It is a good start, but I think it can be improved in some areas. For example, it makes general statements about "intellectual property" which lump together various laws as a single confused mixture, and considers this only in regard to its effects on taxation of business. Making big businesses pay more tax is very important, but some of these laws also harm people directly — while others do not. A wise policy on each of these laws can't be formulated at the vague, abstract level that the term "intellectual property" implies. And my tax proposal can deal with the problem with no need to pay any attention to any of these specific laws. 24 July 2019 (Corruption investigation in Brazil) Sergio Moro privately talked about protecting Bolsonaro's son from a corruption investigation. 24 July 2019 (Sabotage by political party operative) A political party operative was the middleman in leaking the confidential messages of the UK's ambassador to the US. That's not journalism, that's sabotage. 24 July 2019 (Extremist hatred and falsehoods) Illinois Republicans Remove Offensive Facebook Post About "Jihad Squad." This is interesting because it demonstrates how extremist hatred has no scruples about falsehoods, The four representatives they attack are progressives, not Islamists, but right-wing extremists don't care. (Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley are not even Muslims.) It reminds me of when Bush I called Michael Dukakis a "card-carrying member of the ACLU". In effect, Bush equated defending the US Constitution with Communism. That just goes to show what Bush really thought about the Constitution he swore to uphold. 24 July 2019 (Psychedelic drugs) Arguing that psychedelic drugs should be decriminalized but not fully legalized. I could support this option if there is a lawful way for adults to get these drugs, made in properly regulated factories, so that they don't need to but who-knows-what on the black market. 24 July 2019 (Memorial to a glacier) Iceland has put up a memorial to a glacier which has almost completely melted. 24 July 2019 (Guaidó's supporters) Guaidó's supporters have lost their enthusiasm but mostly still support him. Except for the conman, who finds different scapegoats more useful for the moment than Maduro. I can estimate what Guaidó would do to Venezuela, with support from US plutocrats. They don't give a dam about anyone in Venezuela except those that will serve as their agents. The country would come out like Honduras or Colombia, and the trees of the Amazon region would be made into products for the Amazon warehouse. 24 July 2019 (Urgent: Rights of queer people) Everyone: call on AT&T, T-Mobile, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Dell to stop supporting politicians that attack the rights of queer people. If you sign, please spread the word! 24 July 2019 (Credit card with zero credit limit) A credit card with zero credit limit is ideal for signing up for a "free trial period" and avoiding the dark patterns that are designed to stop customers from cancelling afterward. Is it possible to use that service without running nonfree Javascript code? Would someone like to test it and tell me? 24 July 2019 (California Nazis sentenced to prison) Three California Nazis Sentenced to Prison for Their Participation in the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" Rally. Their crime was planning to have physical fights with antifascists. 24 July 2019 (Google retaliates against employees) The Google employees who led the campaign against certain egregious projects have been pushed out by retaliation. While it was refreshing to see tech employees object to projects based on moral scruples, their scruples cover only unusual kinds of wrong, not the everyday wrong in the foundations of most computing nowadays. 24 July 2019 (Urgent: Campaign contribution rejection) US citizens: call on Democratic candidates to reject campaign contributions from big pharma and big insurance. If you sign, please spread the word! 24 July 2019 (Urgent: DCH1 Amazonians United) Everyone: call on Amazon management to meet with the new union, DCH1 Amazonians United. If you sign, please spread the word! 24 July 2019 (Women with lack of time) One reason why it has been unusual for women to do great creative work was that women could barely find 10 minutes at a stretch to think about something. 24 July 2019 (Librarians protest CIA's recruiting) Citing CIA's Dark History, Librarians Protest Agency's Recruiting at Their Conference. 24 July 2019 (Energy efficiency for poor people) The state needs to invest in energy efficiency for poor people; they can't afford to do it themselves. 24 July 2019 (Shopping while black) Blacks are allowed nowadays to shop in any retail store, but they often face nasty treatment from the staff, apparently due to their skin color. 24 July 2019 (Survival of the natural world) The survival of the natural world upon which humanity depends hangs in the balance, according to the new chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. 24 July 2019 (Individuals can change course of history) Individual people — whether great or merely grandiose — can change the course of history. Here is an example. And more. Powerful impersonal forces are also at work in the UK's decision about leaving the EU. They constitute the pinball machine in which this loose cannonball bounces around. That does not imply the outcome is predictable. 24 July 2019 (Mayor of Istanbul) The secularist opposition candidate for mayor of Istanbul has won again, with a much bigger margin this time. 24 July 2019 (College economics courses) College economics courses teach students that the economy has nothing to do with the ecosphere. Most of the students don't recognize the error in this. This may not be coincidence. It may be the result of business influence on academia](https://www.stallman.org/images/anuran-bevan.jpg){kind=link}