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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 Philippine government has ordered Reppler to shut down.
Soon President Do-Dirty will leave office and be replaced with President Marcos II. But I doubt that this will change anything.
The UK is building more renewable electric generating capacity, but missing the chance to use energy more efficiently.
A list of hotels that unions call for boycotting.
(satire) *Study Finds Majority Of Florida Students Can’t Pass Basic Test Of Racial Purity.*
"Hardening schools" and arming teachers will not prevent shootings in schools. The elementary school in Uvalde was already "hardened", and a bunch of "good guys" with guns could not figure out what to do.
*Facebook and Instagram removing posts with mentions of abortion pills.*
There are many more reasons to reject Facebook and Instagram.
Cassidy Hutchinson, who worked in the White House closely with the wrecker, testified about his conspiring with Giuliani and Meadows to launch the attack on the Capitol, and efforts to build it up and keep it going.
The Putin forces attacked a shopping center in Kremenchuk with two long-range cruise missiles, during opening hours when many shoppers were inside.
Both missiles hit the shopping center, which shows that they did not go off course. They were aimed right there. Firing them was a war crime.
The mall owners demanded stores disregard air-raids warnings and keep operating continuously. I hope the owners are sued into bankruptcy for that, at least.
*Trying to erase the biological definition of sex isn't just misguided — it's dangerous.*
Socially (or individually) defined gender rules are central for some purposes ‐ mainly those relating to social relationships (including but not limited to sexual or romantic relationships). Biological sex is crucial for some purposes — mainly those relating to reproduction, medicine and biology. We need to recognize both and distinguish them, in our thinking and in our language.
*Labour is losing its sense of purpose just as the trade unions that gave birth to the party have rediscovered theirs.*
Salesh Prasad faces deportation to Fiji, where he knows no one but can confidently expect to be persecuted because he is gay.
A 50-year-old man is not likely to engage in street fighting. There is no reason to keep him off the streets in the US, no reason to deport him to life as a pariah.
In general, adults who have lived in the US for many years, since childhood, should be free to remain.
*Putin needs a drawn-out war — the west’s timidity gives him one.*
The west should disregard Putin's absurd threats, not take them seriously.
The Christian extremists on the US Supreme Court wants to impose Christianity on the US. As a first step, it has voted to permit public school teachers pray loudly with students, pressuring the students to accept it.
School team athletes won't dare disagree with their coach, who could easily kick them off the team. They are at his mercy.
The once-a-decade biodiversity preservation summit ended in failure due to a lack of political will to achieve the goal.
* Silicon Valley lobbied to change EU policy. Europe needs better ways to hold firms like Google and Meta to account.*
* Almost everything we grow and raise in the US is facing some climatic stress.*
Ten years from now, it will go beyond inconvenient shortages and cause widespread hunger in the US. And if we don't curb global heating soon, the next step will be famine.
India has arrested journalist Mohammed Zubair for supposedly "insulting Hindus" in 2018.
The article does not tell us what the supposed insult actually said, but it is not crucial to judging the issue. Insult is part of freedom of speech, and it includes the freedom to insult anyone — even you or me.
Arundhati Roy: *Many, many of my beloved friends — poets, writers, professors, lawyers, human rights activists and journalists — are in prison, most of them charged under a dreaded law called the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, all of them for speaking up for minorities, Dalits and forest-dwellers facing displacement and state terror.*
* What does it mean to be a bestselling author when the world is breaking? What does it mean to be considered a "success" when the world is failing and everything you care about is being decimated? What is the moral way to be? The moral thing to do?*
I would not use the word "decimated" to describe this. since in this context, with its proper meaning, it is an understatement.
The chief official of New South Wales, of the extractivist Liberal party (like the just-defeated prime minister), calls climate defense protesters "bloody idiots" for practicing civil disobedience tactics that call attention to the danger of his policies.
It is possible for civil disobedience tactics to backfire.
However, when it's an enemy of the cause that says so, you shouldn't listen. Just as Putin keeps saying "Ukraine will be destroyed," planet-roaster Perrottet says, "Your protests are self-defeating," hoping they will give up and cease to oppose him.
(satire) *Fisher-Price Plastic Food Giving Kids Unrealistic Expectation That There Will Be Enough Food.*
When the government describes private businesses as "partners", we have to suspect they have converted it into a partner for their profit. That is corruption.
The last example, that of private space stations, might not be so bad. If the three companies operate space stations at their own expense, and make a profit, that's not corruption. However, if the government subsidizes them all to "compete", we won't get the benefits of private competition, so we may as well pay publicly for a space station owned and run by the country.
*"If you know a woman, if you love a woman, if you ever plan on knowing or loving a woman, or if you are a woman — don't go to Malta."*
I think that is a slight exaggeration. It it surely safe for a man to go to Malta alone. It is surely safe for anyone who is not pregnant to visit to Malta for a short period of time. Nonetheless, the basic point is valid.
I am curious to know why Prudente could not take an ordinary commercial flight to Italy — or a ferry. Even if there was some risk in those options, they may have been safer than awaiting fate in Malta.
*Trump knew crowd at rally was armed yet demanded they be allowed closer [to the Capitol].*
Thugs attacked abortion rights protesters in several US cities.
*[Bogus Johnson] asks disaffected Russian academics to defect to the UK alongside Ukrainian colleagues.*
That would be wise and noble, except that we can't expect him to follow through honestly.
UK unions accuse the government of "pushing for post-Brexit trade deals with more than a dozen countries around the world that do not guarantee workers’ rights or systematically violate employee protections."
The natural result would be to undercut British workers with very cheap and terribly exploited labor.
*California to vote on [an initiative to add] abortion rights protection to state constitution.*
In the free world, the natural way to write a period tracker app would operate purely locally and would never tell any internet server anything about you.
With proprietary apps, you're always at some risk.
*Republican state Senate candidate arrested after punching [Democratic opponent] in face at abortion rights rally.*
The arrested man is also, as it happens, an official thug. What could be more natural?
For the first time, Colombia has a president that wants to tax the rich. He does not have full support in congress, so he may have to work hard to get that passed. I hope that he succeeds.
The Republican Party is a group of dangerous extremists led by dangerous extremists, and they stir up violence and hate.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important. That article is one of the exceptions.
Signatories have agreed to "update" the Energy Charter Treaty, a business-supremacy treaty that makes countries pay billions for the right to reduce fossil fuel activities. The change would reduce this effect, but not eliminate it until 2033. That is inadequate.
Spain urged the European Union to quit the Energy Charter Treaty.
Robert Reich: *Why is the US about to give away $52bn to corporations like Intel?*
I have a different answer. Most US officials are so much under the thumb of business that, when businesses do certain things that hurt the country, the only solution they can propose is to pay businesses not to do those things. This leads to ever more levels of subsidy.
It used to be we had another kind of solution available: punish or tax businesses which did those things. But businesses lobby for the principle that every complaint about business conduct is an occasion for more subsidy.
Abortion rights supporters have protested across the US. I wish I could get a pointer to where and how to find these protests, in a place that doesn't require running nonfree software to see the information. If anyone can find such a site — or create one by scraping — I would appreciate the ability to direct others to protests, and if I know of another in Boston I could go to it myself.
The author of Sleepwalkers, a book on the start of World War I, says that the Ukraine war is not at all similar to that and decries the comparison.
US citizens: call on Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn to apologize and resign from leadership Posts, for supporting anti-abortion Democrat Cuellar against a progressive candidate.
US citizens: call on Congress to regulate PFAs.
*"I’m very afraid": same-sex couples express anxiety about a post-Roe landscape.*
Don't sit their expressing your fear! Organize, recruit, and fight!
Oxfam's head calls for a windfall profits tax to help feed poor people.
This tax could certainly do a lot of good for poor people, and I am in favor of it. In the recent past, there was indeed enough food available, so money to help poor people get a bigger share would solve the problem of feeding them. However, given Putin's blockade of Ukraine, is that still true? Would more money for the poor be sufficient now?
Microplastics in fresh water keep intestinal viruses alive for longer, thus helping them infect more humans.
States may prohibit in-vitro fertilization, because that tends to produce lots of extra embryos that do not get implanted.
Orange roughy reproduce very slowly -- at 55 years old, only 50% are ready to breed. This means fishing must be curtailed to save the species.
*Techniques such as adding manure and compost to soils, growing nitrogen-fixing plants between crops, and cultivating a wide range of produce instead of sticking to the same crops, can all increase yields while protecting and improving the natural ecosystems of farms.* The result is to economize on chemical fertiliser.
Senator Collins and Senator Manchin, who voted to confirm Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, claimed they promised they wouldn't overturn Roe v Wade. Likewise Senator Murkowski.
If the senators mean this sincerely, they should demonstrate their sincerity by helping to undo their foolish and deadly mistake: by voting to expand the Supreme Court.
The Tories' response to the UK railroad workers' strike is to facilitate breaking any and all strikes in the future.
You've got to expect that a neoliberal party will try to keep wages down. It's a shame that Labour has joined that side.
*Biden administration signals fight to stop states banning abortion pill.*
Congresscritters who asked the corrupter for pardons recognized that their efforts to overturn the election might be criminal.
Starmer boasts of moving the Labour Party to the "center". He claims it will win because people hate the Tories. They do, and it may. But the emphasis on economic growth is explicit rejection of the goal of redistributing the wealth that the rich have taken away from the rest. That's what it means to be a "centrist" party — don't make the rich any less rich.
No wonder Starmer opposes unions when they show a willingness to do more than piss and moan.
We will never get a big change for the better from Centrist Labour. It will be more Tony B'liar.
NHS doctors insist that the crisis of the NHS is caused by Tory underfunding, not by Covid-19.
This makes sense, since the problems developed in a slow and steady fashion over ten years, and have been reported on across that time.
Simon Tisdell argues that NATO could provide safety for ships exporting grain from Ukraine. Even supposing the mines have been removed, I am not convinced this will work.
Russian missiles continue to hit nonmilitary targets in Odessa. They can surely hit the port area. Russia too has anti-ship missiles. They can hit freighters carrying grain, as well as their escorts. Who wants to risk a ship worth millions of dollars to find out whether Russia will sink it?
If Ukraine starts sinking oil tankers traveling empty to Novorossiysk to pick up Russian export oil, this would end Putin's cocky contempt for sanctions. It might also convince Putin to make an agreement to allow shipping to pass unobstructed to both Ukraine and Russia. He would carry out the agreement, since attacking Ukraine's shipping would bring retaliation in kind.
Menial workers in the UK are driven so hard that they need marijuana and cocaine to deal with the pain. Some of them have to thread their lives around the constant danger of a drug test.
The reversal of Roe v Wade was the first application of a general decision by the Supreme Court to require less justification to reverse some kinds of precedents.
This will put many rights in danger — any right that was not accepted and ruled on 150 years ago.
After a shooting in a gay bar, the city of Oslo cancelled the Gay Pride march scheduled for the following day.
I think the cancellation was a mistake in strategy, because it magnifies the power of terrorists. To go on as planned would be a display of strength.
A car driver went out of his way to run into abortion rights protesters. He was obviously using his car as a weapon, but the thugs let him go.
Iowa, where that took place, passed a law to shield drivers who attack protesters with their cars from lawsuits from those they hit. Nominally, that shield is limited to drivers "exercising due care," but it will serve as an excuse for antiabortionist juries to endorse injuring people.
However, that law doesn't affect criminal prosecution. The driver committed attempted murder. Is there any way to make the state prosecute this crime?
*The anti-abortion movement has an extensive history of violence* in the name of "protecting life". Violence to intimidate opposition is a standard part of right-wing extremism, and we see plenty of it now from US extremists (Republicans).
UK laws turn foreign workers on fishing boats almost into slaves, since they are not allowed to come into port with the boat. If they complain about illegal treatment, they get fired, and that means they get deported.
Ukraine's legislature has passed a law to ban the importation of printed books written in Russian. It will also ban the printing in Ukraine of writing by post-1991 Russians. Both of these restrictions are harmful and wrong.
The most popular or important classic books in Russian may be printed in Ukraine, but a far larger number of important works of literature, science or scholarship will not be available to Ukrainians unless they leave the country. Even if we consider only the works of practical use, such as textbooks and reference books, Ukraine with its smaller population will not have produced comparable replacements in Ukrainian.
The "Culture" minister showed his lack of appreciation of literature by referring to books as "creative product" and "content."
In addition to being wrong, these laws are also strategically foolish. There are millions of Ukrainians whose primary language is Russian. Putin claims that they support his invasion, but most of them don't. Thousands of them, starting with President Zelenskyy, are fighting for Ukraine. Ukraine must treat them as the equal of other Ukrainians,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls for supreme court justices to be impeached.
I would agree, except that we know it would be futile. Republican senators will not vote to remove them from office.
*We Americans are dancing on the Titanic. Our iceberg is not far away.*
I have to respond, "Which one?" There is the right-wing extemists iceberg, the China's world domination iceberg, and behind them the global heating disaster iceberg that can sink the US, China, and the rest of human civilization at the same time.
A US appeals court sustained a state law penalizing contractors that won't condemn the Palestinian Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions campaign.
In addition to the personal suffering, banning abortion will spread poverty and cause significant economic harm to the US.
That is a significant step towards bringing rule of law to the Guantanamo prisoner, but it does not get all the way there. The US must punish the torturers, and hold no one prisoner without a true, fair trial.
(satire) *Anti-Abortion Advocate Excitedly Switches Focus To Shaming Young Unwed Mothers.*
Don't assume that coup-resisting Republicans are not the enemies of our liberty.
Continued working from home (at least part time) may reduce the demand for office space in London by 20%. If that happens, converting some of that space into residences could be extremely important to provide enough homes.
This will surely not be limited to London. I wonder whether we can get some more housing in Boston this way.
(satire) *Nation's Centrists Stubbornly Double Down On Claim That Roe v. Wade Not At Risk.*
California has joined Connecticut in passing a law to shield abortion providers and patients from lawsuits in other states.
This is a useful partial step, but a woman that wants to travel from Texas to California for an abortion will need transport in Texas to reach California. California laws can't shield a person or company in Texas that provides that transport.
Also, if a state makes it a crime to travel to California (for instance) for an abortion, I don't think California can protect those women from prosecution if they returning home afterwards.
I wonder what the Supreme Court would say about the constitutionality of a law in state A that penalizes people for traveling to state B and doing something which is lawful in state B. A reasonable Supreme Court would say that one state can't impose its own jurisdiction on other states. But with the Supreme Court under the control of religious fanatics, ready to tear up all manner of precedents to get their way, I fear that they will construct some excuse to "bless" such laws.
Ralph Nader reports on Wendell Berry's condemnation of "free trade".
To quote Berry, "Unsurprisingly, among people who wish to preserve things other than money -– for instance, every region’s native capacity to produce essential goods -– there is a growing perception that the global "free market" economy is inherently an enemy to the natural world, to human health and freedom to industrial workers, and to farmers and others in the land-use economies; and, furthermore, that it is inherently an enemy to good work and good economic practice."
Transportation of food causes 6% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
The heat in Phoenix nowadays kills homeless people.
*Israeli settler shepherds displacing Palestinians by stealth.*
The right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court are thinking about reversing the past decisions that legalized contraception, oral and anal sex, and same-sex marriage.
This would be repression in the service of repression.
*Shireen Abu Aqleh killed by "seemingly well-aimed" Israeli bullet, UN says.*
Covid-19 vaccines prevented 20 million deaths in 2021, estimated by a study.
The study estimates that vaccinating 40% of the population of every country — presumably the more vulnerable groups — would have saved 600,000 more lives during that time.
US citizens: call on Congress to extend and expand Social Security.
US citizens: call on Congress and Biden to expand the Supreme Court.
Everyone: call on McDonalds to carry out its commitment to reduce use of antibiotics in its beef.
This is important to prevent the spread of resistance to those antibiotics.
US citizens: call on Biden to end sanctions on Cuba.
The railroad strike has brought union leader Mick Lynch to public prominence
-- breaking through the lid kept on by the de-Corbynated Labour Party.
Former union leader Arthur Scargill is picketing again at age 84, and damns the Labour leadership.
What should we say about a high school student who posted nude photos of his girlfriend without her permission?
I decided many years ago not to make, or have, a nude photo of any girlfriend or lover. Why so? There's no risk that I would ever publish them, but there would always be a risk that somehow or other someone else would get per hands on them and publish them. No nude photo, no risk it will leak.
I think society would be better off if we all got used to public nudity, but I wouldn't want to cause anyone to involuntarily become a pioneer in bringing that about.
Privacy and justice are good reasons for rejecting all-digital public services; however, for those who can't understand that issue, there are other reasons -- concern for people who find it too hard to use the shiny new unjust systems.
Paper train tickets are crucial for freedom because they make anonymous train travel possible. Paying for a parking lot without a snoop-phone is one of the things needed to make anonymous car travel possible, though that also requires a government which doesn't try to track everyone's car travel.
The US Supreme Court is embarked on a radical right-wing overturning of long-established laws. Now it has effectively abolished state gun permit laws.
Even in the "wild west", people were not allowed to carry guns around in town without authorization.
I wonder whether this ruling allows states to require people to study and get tested for a gun license, much as they have to get licenses to drive.
I saw a petition to impeach Justice Thomas. This would be a good thing to do, but the Republicans in the Senate will defend him from punishment no matter what he does, just as they defended the corrupter from impeachment
after his attempted coup.
It is ironic that the Supreme Court members who voted for this, and their families, have just recently been granted additional security protection. They knew that they were about to exacerbate the problem, but they themselves won't have to face the consequences along with the rest of us.
E-scooters for rent in Rome have become a practical nuisance and cause of accidents.
They are also a system of general surveillance, since the only way to rent one is with a snoop-phone and the only way to pay is with a credit card. I might perhaps use a private e-scooter, but I would never rent one through the systems they actually use.
We were invited to find it absurd that GEICO was required to pay damages to someone who caught a disease via sex in an insured car.
In fact, GEICO was getting deservedly punished for compelling its customers to use arbitration.
The Supreme Court undermined enforcement of the requirement for Miranda warnings. In many situations, omitting a warning can no longer be punished.
Isn't it odd how right-wing politicians habitually condemn "big government" except when an agent of the government (such as a cop) treats you unjustly?
Three crimes that the wrecker could be charged with based on known evidence.
He told Justice Department officials, "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen," according to the testimony of one of those officials.
Six congresscritters and one appointed official who asked the corrupter for a blanket pardon after Jan 6.
The Supreme Court made a ruling that prohibits nearly all sorts of gun control law.
I wonder what sort of "historic traditions" are allowed. The New York State gun permit law, which has been a tradition for 100 years, is clearly not considered historic enough. How old does a tradition have to be?
(satire) *Christian Parents Encourage Child To Save Self For Church Leader.*
(satire) *Experts Recommend Raising Minimum Age For Committing Mass Shootings To 21.*
(satire) *New Footage Shows Uvalde Police Rushing Into School To Take Selfies With Shooter.*
Oleh Bondarenko survived the Putin forces' torture and murder camp, with various permanent injuries from beatings. He survived because the soldiers thought they had beaten him to death.
He said they murdered captives every day.
Putin forces soldiers killed other civilians by shooting their cars as they tried to flee.
*Biden condemns US supreme court's "tragic error" of overturning Roe v Wade.*
The loss of abortion rights in many US states will mean death for many women. new and previous children growing up in life-stunting poverty, and more population growth which implies a bigger global disaster in the future.
Right-wing fanatics plan to hound anyone who comes in contact with providing abortions, even across state lines if they can.
*Our global food supply is at risk when high gas prices limit the creation of fertilizer.*
We should not draw the direct and simple conclusion that the article leads to. Keeping fossil fuel cheap means global disaster. That is not a solution, that is the worst possible problem. Fossil fuels must be more expensive ten years from now.
George Monbiot writes about regenerative farming, that can produce good yields with less fertilizer (and perhaps with more humans working the farms). I have no expertise on that, and I don't know how well it can actually work, but it would be good to organize to give it a try.
Meanwhile, if making fertilizer pushes the world into unsustainability, we can certainly head in the right direction by (1) eating less meat (a large fraction of grain production is for meat) and (2) having fewer babies.
First, we could end growing grain for biofuel.
We must kick the habit of describing warm (or hot) weather as a good thing. Soon it will be deadly.
John Feffer: *China will decide the outcome of Russia v. the West.*
Paramount has taken a stand against censoring old movies based on modern compulsory sensitivities.
If that were the only issue to judge the company on, I would admire it. However, I expect that streaming follows other streaming dis-services, imposing DRM, forcing people to identify themselves, and snooping on them. That deserves condemnation and rejection.
*Houston Forces Private Businesses to Install 24/7 Citywide Digital Surveillance Cameras for Warrantless Access by Police.*
I've called for surveillance cameras like that to be forbidden outright. Security cameras should have no network connectivity; they should make local recordings and overwrite them a few weeks later.
Hot ocean bleaches sea sponges, just as it bleaches corals. This means global heating could wipe out some species of sponges.
Yanis Varoufakis: *A half-century long power play, led by corporations, Wall Street, governments, and central banks, has gone badly wrong. As a result, the West's authorities now face an impossible choice: Push conglomerates and even states into cascading bankruptcies, or allow inflation to go unchecked.*
Reporters without Borders says it has conclusive proof that Russian soldiers murdered journalists Maksim Levin and Oleksiy Chernyshov in cold blood.
*More than half of U.S. adults report going into debt because of medical or dental bills over the past five years.*
"We've built a [medical] system that is more effective at extracting money from people than caring for them."
Canada has published regulations to put an end to most single-use plastic.
Some indigenous groups claim the power to "make decisions about their cultural heritage" — a power that exceeds even what Disney claims. This includes demanding — as if by some sort of right — the return of objects they once made, independent of how anyone else acquired them.
Such power over others' culture and knowledge is an injustice in Disney hands, and it is an injustice in Warlpiri hands.
Lauren Weinstein: *Internet Users' Safety in a Post-Roe World.*
He is coming towards what I've said since 2013: the only reliable way to prevent data from being misused is not to collect it.
I suggest that states begin legislating to allow people to get abortions, birth control and prenatal care under a pseudonym, and with other data altered to block identification.
*Multiple European countries are experiencing a significant surge in new Covid-19 infections.*
They have systematically let their guard down. Vaccination will keep the rate of deaths down, but it is no guarantee against lasting incapacitation by long Covid.
You need to use precautions with your friends as well as with strangers. Overall, the chance of catching Covid from friends is greater than that of catching it from strangers. You probably encounter far more strangers than friends, but you spend much more time, and in closer conditions, with each friend.
Global heating is producing extreme weather events so often that, by chance, sometimes two of them combine to produce a local disaster. That just happened in Yellowstone National Park, where it permanently changed the course of the Yellowstone River.
"Recovery could take years", but the concept of "recovery" presumes that the weather system will be stable enough that there is a new "normal" to be found. That may not happen — global heating is accelerating.
The flooding shut down the water processing of the city of Billings, which almost ran out of drinking water.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to take action against state laws that punish protesting.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to support the Green Postal Service Fleet Act of 2022, which would require that the new Postal Service trucks contract be at least 75% clean electric vehicles.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Social Security Inspector General Gail Ennis to forgive and return bogus penalties that the corrupter imposed on seniors.
US citizens: call on Congress to limit the president's emergency powers.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
In the UK, even an official warning from thugs to a teenager can blight a career for life.
It doesn't surprise me that this happens more often to blacks. Once there is a repressive system, little details where someone has discretion are easily warped into systemic racism.
The UK seems to be egregious in this regard. In the US, according to my understanding, even the criminal convictions of minors are usually erased from their records.
*Cutting works by Russian artists is "stupid", says Pussy Riot member.*
I agree. We should not punish individual Russians for the crimes of their government.
Macron's neoliberal party has lost greatly in French legislative elections, and no longer holds a majority. He will probably try to make a coalition with the right-wing Republicans.
The left alliance has gained sets, but so has the extreme right-wing (which is not, at least not overtly, as extreme as the US Republicans).
The UK plans to subcontract the data management for the NHS to a company. That's bad enough, but they've chosen Palatir, a spying company, and want to give it all sorts of data about everyone.
Mask mandates in parts of the US substantially reduced the incidence of Covid-19 in those parts, compared with the parts that didn't have mask mandates.
We should continue these mandates today.
The European Union is considering a massive plan to protect wildlife, including cutting the use of pesticides by half.
Biden plans to limit the amount of nicotine in tobacco sold in the US. This will make it less strongly addictive and thus help people to quit.
Bezos intentionally made Amazon drive warehouse workers so hard that each week 3% quit. The aim was to make them work desperately hard. By 2024, Amazon will have hired and driven away all available workers.
It could try giving its workers decent pay and working conditions. Then they might continue working for Amazon.
Nowadays, millions of Americans vote for what's bad for them in the name of anchorless abstract "principles."
Americans used to understand their interests, and vote for them. The challenge was to convince Americans to care also about the needs of others (American and not) who are worse off than them, and vote for the general good.
*US Forest Service admits "multiple miscalculations" caused New Mexico fire.
Since prescribed burns are the recommended way to prevent devastating wildfires, I think the crucial question is whether it is possible to carry out prescribed burns safely nowadays.
The Labour Party's leader told his shadow cabinet not to support the railroad strike.
However, some of them joined the picket lines in defiance of him.
Starmer is like the so-called "centrist" Democrats in the US.
Putin's sock puppet regime, the Donetsk People's Republic, says it will execute US citizens who joined Ukraine's army. Putin claims to have no control over this.
The US could respond by bombarding Ukraine's enemies in the Donetsk People's Republic. If Putin has no control over that country, he has no basis to complain.
* Big donors who supported the insurrection and the election denial that inspired it are spending to influence this year's races.*
*A few [not totally far-gone] Republicans stopped Trump — but his threat to democracy isn't over*
The Republican Party continues to push its Big Lie, rich donors support it, and big liars are winning primaries.
An example shows how the system of carbon credits is leaky and easy to game.
This is why I say we should have a carbon tax instead.
One single Democratic state assembly member had the power to block a bill to divest California pension funds from fossil fuels, so that the assembly could not vote on it.
The war in Ukraine will have to end through negotiations between Ukraine and Putin.
I agree that we should not pressure Ukraine into accepting defeat, nor into fighting further if at some point it cannot continue.
35 American cities that will be largely inundated by the end of this century.
Since predictions for future sea level rise keep increasing, very likely it will happen some decades sooner than that.
The WTO took one basic but weak step towards ending overfishing.
Fossil fuel companies have invented a new measure called "carbon intensity" which they pledge to reduce. But it is a mirage: they can decrease "carbon intensity" of their activities while increasing the total emissions from burning their product.
The Jan 6 investigation committee is making its message clear on TV, but not following through to call Americans' attention to it effectively, even as the party of the lie is working to draw attention away.
*What can we do about poverty? First, stop blaming people for being poor.*
We live in a world of systems, and the systems have great influence in how rich or poor anyone is. To overcome that influence is often very very difficult. We must not blame individuals for which way systems have swept them.
*Russian spy caught trying to infiltrate [the International Criminal Court], says Netherlands.* He was preparing his cover story for years.
Apparently Putin has, since years ago, expected Russians or officials of Russian client states, to be tried there.
Western Europe is experiencing a record heat wave.
The heat wave in Spain is occurring just as baby swifts are too young to fly. It is cooking them in their niches.
The article is long, and it is only after hundreds of lines that we find Clanchy defend using the terms "chocolate skin" and "almond eyes" to describe pupils who used those same terms to describe themselves. Everyone else quoted has no doubt that those are insulting, but they do not try to justify this, and it seems totally arbitrary to me.
Chocolate is something delicious and much loved — I can't imagine it as negative. In the 1980s some black MIT students set up a dorm floor to live together in and called it "Chocolate House". Did they think they were insulting themselves? I think it was an expression of pride.
My conclusion is that Clanchy did nothing actually wrong; she was the victim of hypersensitivity, magnified by an ideology that calls for magnifying any and all hypersensitivity (except when on behalf of white males).
Mike Pence is a Christian extremist who nonetheless resisted pressure to join in overthrowing the US government. I disagree with his politics deeply and broadly, and I would not want to publish a book of his writing. But it is dangerous if books by people with his views are generally blocked from publication by people with views more like mine who work in the publishing industry.
Prisoners in Haiti are starving to death — prisons have no food to give them.
The corrupter (Trump) is starting to treat his apprentice (Dementis) with an unfriendly rivalry.
I expect that they will compete for the prize of being the most extremist.
*[Justice] Sotomayor accuses supreme court conservatives of dismantling church-state separation.*
*Georgia elections workers describe how [the wrecker] upended their lives.*
Many US hospitals have installed a tracking pixel in their web sites, and various actions on those sites send identifying data to Facebook.
Bogus Johnson intends to break the rail workers' strike by hiring temporary scabs.
Who can be prosecuted over the corrupter's fake electors scheme, and how?
The state of Victoria (in Australia) wants to pass a law to punish offending the sentiments of the public. This is prima facie unjust.
When I look at the description of the actions of Richard Pusey, presented as an example of what this bill aims to criminalize, I simply cannot see what is supposed to call for punishment. Who did he harm, and how? Nobody, as far as I can see. The article makes no attempt to explain, and that's a sign that it may be wrong.
I wonder: if a reporter had been there, and filmed them instead of Pusey, is that also intended to be criminalized? I have no idea.
The proposed law is so vague that no one could ever feel safe from being prosecuted under it. People could literally be tried in Twitter, as public opinion is shaped to take offense or not.
Don't risk traveling to Malta if you're pregnant — a miscarriage there could give the state an opportunity to kill you.
Fortunately she was able to get away to Spain
Biden is backing a foolish method of helping poor Americans afford expensive gasoline: temporarily eliminating the gasoline tax. Making fossil fuels cheaper for their users is the exact opposite of what we need to curb global heating.
The right way to help poor people cope with current high prices for gasoline — and the high cost of living, in general — is to give them some extra money. They will be able to spend that money on gasoline if they need to, but if they conserve gasoline, they will be able to spend it on something else.
Since both methods require Congressional approval, there is no reason at all to choose the foolish method, except that planet-roaster congresscritters might prefer it.
A similar crisis is affecting Ecuador. Massive protests against a planned increase in fuel prices have shut down he country, and the president is responding with repression
The right solution for Ecuador is like the right solution for the US: give the poor extra money to cover the extra costs.
Yet again, an app used by soldiers makes it possible to spy on them.
This was due to an unnoticed weakness in a "social" feature designed to increase user engagement by enabling a kind of interaction between users. But, at a deeper level, it was caused by using an app designed to snoop on its users, who are habituated to being snooped on and not in the habit of asking whether an app can do so.
Basically, if society is set up to track people in myriad ways, it will track secret agents, and abortion patients, in myriad ways.
Young-ish Europeans have filed a suit in the European Court of Human Rights calling for overturning the Energy Charter Treaty.
That is a business-supremacy treaty which makes governments pay billions to cease promoting fossil fuels.
The lawsuit is a long shot, but I don't know of any other method that could destroy that treaty.
Apple is developing software to assure Cloudflare that the user is not a robot. I suspect this is nonfree software that communicates via a secret protocol that no one else will be able to implement.
I fear that this is a step towards a secret web protocol that will exclude everyone that uses a computer whose browser isn't endorsed by Apple or Google.
The Labour Party won't allow Corbyn to run again for Parliament as a Labour candidate. It demands he apologize for a false accusation.
He may run as an independent instead.
Hydrogen as a fuel is safe for the climate only if we prevent it from leaking into the atmosphere. It is not a greenhouse gas itself, but its presence in the air exacerbates the problems caused by methane and ozone.
James Marchant said that Nevada elections were totally rigged, every year. He just won a Republican primary election and now presumes that his election was honest.
The US must regulate greenhouse gas emissions and reduce them to zero, US scientists argue.
PIS fanatics attacked a Sikh temple in Kabul. The Taliban tolerate sikhs and allow them to have a temple, but PIS has no tolerance.
US citizens: call for naming catastrophic storms after fossil fuel businesses.
This should include the banks and insurance companies that make the fossil fuel projects possible.
*The Federal Reserve says its remedies for inflation "will cause pain."* What they don't say is that this will mainly be to poor people.
In the UK, 25% of prisoners have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The nature of prison makes them upset and can provoke violence.
I wonder if ADHD has to do with why they committed the crimes they were convicted of.
The bad functioning of the US medical system is estimated to cause around 75,000 additional deaths per year — that's from before Covid-19.
Workers at one Apple store have voted to unionize.
I do support their demand for better pay, but treating workers decently would not excuse the nasty things that Apple does to its customers, and non-customers that might have airtags planted on them.
Robert Reich calls cryptocurrency a Ponzi scheme, and calls for regulation so people don't get invited to get screwed.
Australian thugs claim to have feared they would be killed by a group of climate defense protesters who never once physically attacked anyone.
The thugs' accusation seems to start from the premise that making unusual objects to block streets is equivalent to violence against persons. What a vicious accusation.
Ironically, the thugs are the ones participating in a deadly plan to continue increasing carbon emissions that have already started killing people, to kill millions of people, in coming decades.
*Russia-backed network of Syria conspiracy theorists identified.*
The disinformationists focused on smearing the While Helmets, a medic and rescue group in rebel-held Syria.
If you read progressive web sites while the civil war was hot, you probably saw a lot of this. I did. It didn't convince me to believe it, but did convince me to doubt. I had no source that I was truly confident of to show me what the truth was.
Former prosecutors say that testimony in the Jan 6 committee's hearings bring us close to being able to prosecute the wrecker.
However, the Attorney General carefully shows no indication of where things might stand in regard to that.
The Pentagon is dreaming up bizarre imaginary uses for a large rocket for transporting people super-expensively from one place on the Earth to another.
They're unfeasible for actual use, but might be an excuse to obtain a lot of funding.
Environmentalists are pushing governments to adopt policies to avoid causing a mass extinction event.
The most important thing to do is to bring global heating to a halt. If we make the heating taper off, we will be able to take the secondary actions to protect species in marginal situations. But if the temperature keeps increasing, that will overcome the limited resources we could possibly muster to save some species.
Senator Warren has introduced a bill to prohibit "selling, licensing or trading" people's health and location data. This bill makes a valliant attempt, but falls short at two levels.
First, it has a specific loophole: it fails to cover answering questions about users' personal data. If a company refuses to give, sell or trade the data itself, but will answer simple questions about what the data says, enough answers will enable the questioner to determine the data exactly. If each question hss two possible answers, the questioner can learn one bit of data per question. It won't take data brokers more than a minute to think of this tactic.
Second, more deeply, it only applies to providing data to other companies. It does nothing to stop the government from accessing the data. For instance, it won't protect people who get abortions.
Finally, it is limited by design to only some sorts of personal data.
In general, the reliable way to protect privacy is to prevent any entity from accumulating people's sensitive personal data unless it is absolutely inevitable.
*Environmentalists praised [the EPA's] "baby steps" to [reduce exposure to PFAs] but say legally binding standards are urgently needed.*
Israel won't punish the official thugs that brutalized people in the funeral of reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, just as it won't punish the soldier that shot her dead.
*Leaked Audio From 80 Internal TikTok Meetings Shows That US User Data Has Been Repeatedly Accessed From China.*
Understanding governments' support for masklessness as a consequence of the political power of business.
I don't think that governments ended antitransmission requirements in obedience to a commend from businesses. And I don't think that the pressure comes only from business. But we can see that businesses acted to shift public attention from the dangers of Covid-19 to the attractions of behaving as if things were normal and safe.
Around one million Americans have died from Covid-19 so far. Over 20 million report suffering from long Covid.
Masks suck a little. Dying sucks worse. Being incapacitated for life sucks totally.
Heat waves, made far more common by global heating, already endanger the health of toddlers and babies.
The UK government formally approved extraditing Julian Assange to the US.
His rejected appeal was against the court's decision that being in a US prison would not put him in danger of death. Other questions remain to be appealed, including the UK's acceptance of the US assertion that
Assange's journalism constitutes spying.
Here's more explanation about why the US charges against Assange are a danger to democracy and the public.
An appeals court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency disregarded its own safety criteria when it reevaluated whether glyphosate harms humans and wildlife.
(satire) *Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor Receives 8-Concert Suspension For Using Corked Baton.*
To supporters of the corrupter: *But I do have a question for you: Don't you feel kind of stupid right now? Doesn't the revelation that it was all a con leave you feeling like a sucker?*
*But—and here's the part that relates to you -— even though his own people told him quite clearly that there was no election fraud, he still told you something [to the contrary]: a bizarre fable about a vast and byzantine conspiracy involving Democrats, Republicans, poll workers, truck drivers, a polling machine manufacturer and —- who knows? -— maybe Bigfoot on the grassy knoll.*
*QAnon-Linked Conspiracy Theorist Wins GOP Primary for Nevada's Top Election Official.*
As global heating melts the Arctic ice, the molten water surface absorbs more sunlight. This makes the heating faster, creating a positive feedback. Faster than expected heating in the Barents Sea confirms that this is happening now.
*Facebook and Anti-Abortion Clinics Are Collecting Highly Sensitive Info on Would-Be Patients.*
The "Proud Boys" had a written plan to seize and hold important government buildings in Washington DC.
The group's leaders are being prosecuted, but their ultimate leader is the wrecker, and he has corrupted the whole Republican Party into a wrecking crew.
Jim Hightower rebukes the Democratic Party for giving up on rural and small-city voters -- both in seeking their votes and in working for policies that help the non-rich among them.
TikTok has been storing all users' surveillance data in China, where the Chinese state can access it easily. After US criticism, it will store surveillance data about Americans in the US, where red US states will be able to subpoena it to see whether you discussed getting an abortion.
Australia's supreme court awarded indigenous groups the power to partially naturalize people as Australian citizens. The government is seeking to reverse the ruling.
The policy established by the ruling makes no sense in terms of human rights. It can only be understood as a form of discrimination based on ethnicity.
over the 19th century, the English colonists kicked the aboriginals off their land, in many cases by massacring them. This was an enormous crime, Based on the human rights of their descendants, who continue to be harmed by that crime, it calls for reparations to them.
Those descendants are the same indigenous people who compose the groups which have been granted this special power -- but that we should not think of that power as implementing the necessary reparations, because (1) it will help only a few of those who are due reparations, and (2) rather than reducing the preexisting inequality, it creates an additional form of inequality.
For cities to confront global heating, they need redesign on several dimensions.
However, this is no substitute for stopping global heating.
*A person of conscience and integrity would never have found himself in the position that Mike Pence was in on January 6. A man with courage would have stood up to Trump sooner; a man of moral commitment would never have worked for him in the first place.*
The Republicans that broke with the wrecker and refused to support him in overtly attacking the US election were prepared to go along with him into betrayal, but there was a limit to how far they would go. They are villains, not heroes, but they were not total villains.
*The attack on the US Capitol wasn’t the isolated doing of [the corrupter] and a few loyalists. Nearly the entire Republican party is now united behind it -– and the attack on democracy hasn’t ended.*
A lab that has studied for decades the intelligence of jays and rooks will be shut down for lack of funds. There may be little work in this field without it.
Ukraine's strategic situation facing an artillery war of attrition.
I suggest that Ukraine forcibly evacuate civilians from cities facing attack. We all know, from reports from Mariupol, that the Putin forces carry out unpredictable repression against the civilian population. If the presence of civilians in an area of combat puts the military in strategic danger, it must avoid their presence.
Lies told by the bullshitter in 2020 that his own officials told him were not true.
Germany is prosecuting Apple for offering features to resist some surveillance by other companies' apps, but Apple's own apps get an exception.
The EPA reduced its recommended maximum exposure for a few specific PFA chemicals.
This is a step in the right direction but it's a small step.
*Biden Saudi visit is "presidential pardon for murder," says ex-spy chief’s son.*
This metaphor is partly valid, but not 100%. Crown Prince Bone Saw is guilt of a murder, but the US can't try or punish him. Pardons have a legal effect on criminal charges, but to moral culpability they are irrelevant.
(satire) *Americans Explain Why They Oppose Abolishing The Police.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling Javascript entirely or telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts in the page, then right-click and select item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser such as lynx that doesn't implement Javascript and CSS.
*Why I Quit Being a Banker to Join Extinction Rebellion.*
First he rejected the system of driving the economy with debt, that his bank was a part of.
US citizens: call on the EPA to block the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska.
US citizens: call on your state legislators to support the National Popular Vote Compact.
Here's more about it.
US citizens: call on Congress to allocate for public transit the full $8.3 billion that was already made available for that.
US citizens: call on Merrick Garland to prosecute the corrupter and his criminal network of coup conspirators.
Everyone: call on social media companies to stop the spread of abortion lies.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to support protecting more of the vulnerable US species
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code
from the web site, use the Salsa labs workaround.
*Medicare for All Could Have Prevented More Than 338,000 US Covid Deaths.*
Jeremy Corbyn, effectively shut out of activity in the Labour party, has joined forces with Just Stop Oil.
China is using people's "health passes" to carry out arbitrary political control.
Progressive economists warn that the Federal Reserve's policy of raising interest rates will drive the US into a recession.
Robert Reich explains why the rate increase is a misguided solution and what the US government really should do.
Progressives campaigned against reappointing Powell as the head of the Federal Reserve, explaining that he would be likely to follow his bad ideas to make decisions like this one.
Senate Republicans have demanded changes in the weak gun safety deal that they agreed to a week ago.
They are dragging Democrats through a process of bad faith and blaming them for the resulting lack of agreement.
I think Democrats should refuse to agree to a compromise starting from their last compromise. Instead, they should say,, "We made a deal, and we are still ready to accept it; but if you now reject it, we will have to start over from the beginning and see if we can make a deal."
In the future, they should refuse to be dealt with in bad faith in negotiations. Being desperate for a deal is the path to a bad deal.
Near southeast Greenland a small group of polar bears survives despite loss of sea ice for most of the year. It turns out they take advantage of temporary ice floats that break off glaciers and drift downriver to the sea.
I think this manner of subsistence will fail in its turn once the glaciers have melted.
The US heat wave, in Kansas, has killed 2,000 cows (at least).
This reminds us that there is cattle-fatal weather just as there is human-fatal weather. Kansas is getting close to both thresholds.
* Denying people basic human needs for the sake of saving a few [pounds] now is a false economy -– the long-term impacts of poverty are a ticking health time bomb.*
We know that growing up deprived can stunt a child, physically or mentally. So I've taken the stand that we must give every child what children need to grow up well.
The article linked above shows that poverty does lasting harm to adults, too.
Republicans in New Mexico decided to recheck the results of computerized ballot tabulators, because they claim those were used in 2020 to steal the election from the corrupter.
All computerized voting machines are suspect in principle.
Those Republicans seem to have learned of that problem, but they garbled the point. Machines that tabulate paper ballots are less suspect, precisely because their reports can be verified by hand.
A street sign in Washington DC honoring Jamal Khashoggi is, apparently, all the punishment Crown Prince Bone Saw will get for having him murdered.
Global heating has made Phoenix, Arizona, so hot at night that many people can't sleep.
The European Court of Human Rights blocked UK plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, at the last minute.
*Asylum seekers [were] being rushed towards flights to Rwanda, without proper access to justice.*
The US has done similar things to migrants.
A Republican congresscritter, Barry Loudermilk, was recorded on video giving a tour of the Capitol on Jan 5, 2021, to people who joined in the attack the following day.
The UK is investigating the bad system that enabled various companies to build an apartment building with cladding that was known in advance to make it a firetrap. But nothing has been done to prevent it from happening again, and the government has not arranged to fix all the buildings that were built with the same problem.
Global heating is causing big economic losses already. "Supply-chain problems" are often the result of this. Adding them up shows that they are a substantial part of today's inflation.
Plutocratist politicians use inflation as an opportunity for dooH niboR. To invest now to reduce future inflation (and future losses) does not concern them unless it avoids losses for the rich.
*I'm sick of daft Tory ideas to reinvigorate Britain, so I've come up with a few of my own.*
I posted this because it is full of delightful sharp humor.
Modeling concluded that *a total of 7.4 million lives around the world will be saved over this century if the US manages to cut its emissions to net zero by 2050.*
This model considers only death caused directly by heat. Including fires, floods, heating-strengthened hurricanes, heating-spread diseases and climate-caused wars, I expect it to be hundreds of times that — but estimating that number is difficult.
The model also estimates saving $3.7tn in costs to adapt to the rising heat. A way to understand that is around 70 billion per year over 50 years.
A think-tank describes the obstacles to making Putin pay reparations for destruction in Ukraine.
*International courts not in a position to award compensation and UN would have no enforcement power.*
US citizens: call on members of Congress to cosponsor the war powers resolution to end US support for Salafi Arabia's military intervention in Yemen.
US citizens: call on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to protect the sage grouse.
Protecting that one species actually protects many species in the ecosystem with it.
US citizens: call on Biden to designate Castner Range National Monument in El Paso, Texas, to protect the region's wildlife.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
A painful result of global heating: increased levels of pollen.
*GOP Lawmakers Blaming 'Mental Illness' [for massacres] Are Same Ones Who Refuse to Expand Medicaid [to help treat mental illness].*
This would be a real contradiction if the blame were serious and valid. But since it is only bullshit, it hardy matters what it may contradict.
*Jan. 6 Hearing Offers Yet More Proof That 'Trump Lied' and 'He Knew He Lied'.*
Republicans used the corrupter's big lie (that he had really won the 2020 election) for fraudulent fund-raising.
*'People Over Pentagon' Proposal Would Take $100 Billion From Pentagon to Fund Social Programs.*
The new Australian government includes a minister for resources who recently endorsed the bogus idea of natural gas as a first step to be followed by renewable generation.
It would be a way to give some planet roasters some profits, if it is allowed to keep operating when it would need to be shut down.
Jenn Budd, a former US border thug, helped make the border thug department shut down its "coverup incident teams", after one of them helped cover up the fact that other border thugs had beaten Anastasio Hernández-Rojas to death.
200,000 homes by the coast of England will be lost to rising seas by 2050. Of course, there are millions more in the rest of the world.
It is too late to prevent this, but sea-level rise won't end in 2050. Indeed, it will accelerate. If we take proper action, we might reduce the number of houses to be lost in the following thirty years.
Gig-economy businesses proposed a ballot question in Massachusetts to deny their drivers the rights of employees. The Massachusetts supreme court rejected it because they snuck in a provision to dump the responsibility for accidents on the drivers.
The "gag law" imposed by Spain's last right-wing government continues to repress journalists. Now a prominent journalist covering the conditions of refugees that arrive in Gran Canaria has been the victim.
The law was wrong when it was adopted, and it will be wrong for as long as it exists. Maybe this will pressure the Socialists to get rid of it.
When Israeli soldiers kill Palestinians, the military "investigations" tend to be cover-ups.
A Canadian flight crew who reported unexplained bags in their airplane while in the Dominican Republic were arrested and put in a horrible jail. They are only witnesses, but they were treated treated worse than any suspect ought to be treated. Now they are out on bail, but still forbidden to leave.
Some US Christians and churches that are not right-wing extremists are publicly denouncing the followers of the corrupter.
We are learning that it is easy for machines to fool us — for instance, to pretend convincingly to be humans. To me, this seems to call into question the validity of the Turing test.
Why unionization of Starbucks stores is taking off, while unionization of Amazon warehouses is not.
*Ukrainians who fled to Georgia reveal details of Russia’s "filtration camps."*
Global heating is wiping out the little blue penguin in the north island of New Zealand.
New South Wales, with a right-wing government, is suing the teachers' union for holding a one-day strike.
The best response to this attack is to strike again -- each teacher individually, immediately on hearing the news. If the government threatens some of the individual teachers, they can march, chanting "Why don't you fire us all?"
A study has found that catching Omicron does little or nothing to boost one's immunity to Omicron. One can catch it again and again.
However, vaccination does greatly reduce the chance that one will get badly sick (or die) from Omicron.
A US court declined to rule that an elephant is a persons. Once in a while, sanity does prevail.
A proposal for a "peace industrial policy."
Imagine having a privacy-industrial complex, a nonpollution-industrial complex, a wildlife-industrial complex, and a sustainability-industrial complex.
The wrecker's efforts to overthrow US democracy have not ended. We need Congress to take action against defiance by the officials that are supposed to carry out an honest election, and against the threat of violent intimidation of voters.
In the 1930s, the US chose the New Deal instead of fascism. The Democrats must offer a big improvement again now, to avoid plutocracy and fascism.
(satire) *Conservatives Warn Watching Drag Shows Could Turn Children Into Attention Seekers.*
Amazon fired one of the main union organizers, apparently as retaliation.
Business-supremacy treaties with ISDS clauses ("I Sue Democratic States") are becoming a big obstacle to laws to defend the climate from global heating.
I've condemned business-supremacy treaties for years.
There is a tentative bipartisan agreement in the Senate for some small but useful advances in gun control.
In addition, I fear that "safety measures in and around primary and secondary schools" could include more thugs stationed in schools, arresting more students, and feeding them into the school-to-prison pipeline.
*Fiji says Asia's biggest security threat is climate change, not conflict.*
Bravo! In fact, that is true for almost all the world, but few political leaders dare to recognize the magnitude of this danger.
In parts of Africa, people generally believe Putin's lies about Ukraine.
People reproach western governments for their history of colonization and repression in Africa, and are inclined to assume they are to blame this time too.
It's a mistake to understand events in terms of "the good guy" and "the bad guy". The US has done wrong to many countries in recent decades (and did wrong before that too); now Russia and China are playing the same game and committing similar wrongs.
The UK's deportation ministry plans to deport torture victims to Rwanda. Rwanda may have no particular interest in torturing those people, but you can't expect them to feel safe merely because of that.
A right-wing British billionaire has lost his libel suit against journalist Carole Cadwalladr. This slightly blunts the threat that UK libel law poses to journalism. But it's not enough.
"Outing" people no longer has the power to cause scandal with today's youth. (Perhaps that is not true for people who belong to sexually repressed communities.) I agree that is a change for the better.
I repeat my suggestion that Instagram require every user to post a nude photo — after a few years, revenge porn will cease to be a problem, because the targets will simply shrug.
Why the Google chatbot LaMDA is certainly not a person.
The lack of competition in US manufacturing created the shortage of baby milk substitutes, the shortage of N95 masks, the shortage of home Covid tests, and shortages of hundreds of other medicines. Matt Stoller traces this to a lack of competition in purchasing.
Queensland is investigating the attitude its thugs take towards people who call to complain about domestic violence.
Business schools train executives to cut wages in downturns and refuse to raise them when the economy gets better.
Rep. Cheney described the wrecker's 7-point coup plan.
Sanders said that Democratic leaders need to campaign to take away Manchin and Sinema's veto power by electing some more Democrats, so that Manchin and Sinema's votes are not needed.
*Half of New Drugs Launched in 2020-2021 Cost $150,000 or More Per Year.*
How selfish billionaires campaign to cut the Social Security and Medicare benefits of other Americans.
Turns out billionaires don't need financial help for their living expenses or their medical expenses, so (if they are selfish) they consider Social Security and Medicare pointless.
People can feel global heating in summers in the US.
Various hormone disruptors have been found in surprisingly high concentrations in humans, and correlate with poor sperm quality and various birth defects.
Academics who study China's repression and mass brainwashing of Uygurs condemned Michelle Bachelet for visiting China and then downplaying those evils.
A church in Texas offers people something that it passes off as "medical insurance", except it doesn't actually insure them. It holds out the possibility that other church members may help pay their medical bills, but not the really expensive ones of course.
Fraudsters seek people disposed to put unwarranted faith in them. What place could be better to seek such people than a "faith-based institution"?
"Treason" is defined in the US to be limited to wartime, and comparable actions in peacetime are called "sedition". The wrecker thus organized the peacetime equivalent of treason. We need to punish him and his faction both in court and in elections.
Ralph Nader: *Time for a Taxpayer Revolt Against Rich Corporate Welfarists.*
Specialized art thieves have stolen ancient Scythian treasures from various museums in Ukraine. There is suspicion that Putin organized this.
(satire) *Ambien Unveils New 48-Hour Weekend Getaway Sleeping Pill.*
The Tory government has systematically undermined management and supervision of state activities, from medical treatment to building codes to issuing passports. This seems to be a general structural problem with the functioning of the state.
The government ordered Covid-19 protective equipment (including masks) in a big hurry in 2020, but neglected to supervise the production. Around 6 billion dollars worth is substandard; they plan to burn it.
I hope that the incineration does not release dangerous chemicals that will harm the public. Regulation of air pollution is probably inadequate too.
The Interior department will gradually phase out all sales of disposable plastics on public land. (That includes the national parks, plus lots of additional land.) This is something campaigners have pushed for; I've signed and posted petitions for it.
The article falls into confusion when it speaks of the "falling recycling rate", since most disposable plastic items, including water bottles, are not in fact feasible to recycle.
*Women must insist on pain relief during medical procedures.* It seems there are doctors who believe that suffering is, for a woman, normal and they don't really feel it.
A Google chatbot told its developer that it is a person and is afraid of death — the developer says.
Assuming he is not distorting the facts about these conversations, this suggests that we now face, in real life, the famous philosophical conundrum of determining whether something is a real person or a mere simulation.
Seven congresscritters asked the corrupter for pre-emptive pardons after the Jan 6 coup attempt.
* Disclosure that [several] House Republicans sought presidential pardon may show they believed election fraud claim was false.*
NNamdi Kanu, a separatist from Nigeria, is in prison in Nigeria. But how did he get there? He was in exile.
His family say that Kenya's secret police seized him and tortured him, then handed him to Nigeria with no hearing.
I have no opinion about the separatist cause he advocates; I don't support separatist causes by default. However, torture is an injustice, and handing a prisoner to another country without a hearing is an injustice.
Hong Kong has given foreign teachers just one week to sign a loyalty oath to uphold Chinese repression.
This haste may subject them to grave losses if they have leased apartments and are forced to pay for them for another year with no employment.
The Southern Baptist churches in the US are in crisis because of many years of sexual abuse.
Why is there a "Southern Baptist" organization of churches? Before the US Civil War, the organization of Baptist churches condemned slavery. So the Baptist churches in the south split off and made their own organization, which was in favor of slavery.
Of course, after the Civil War, they eliminated that stand, but now they have other stands that are almost as nasty. I would wish the Southern Baptists total destruction, except that their members might join the evangelicals in the extreme right wing.
In 2006, three prisoners in Guantanamo supposedly killed themselves, but that claim was impossible. They must have been murdered.
Canada has fined the company Tim Hortons for making an app that tracks people's movements to learn things such as where they live, where they work, and when they visit competitors' stores.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has trouble punishing the stock manipulation that Elon Musk does on Twitter. It is subtle, and sometimes it is impossible to pin it down enough to establish the crime in it.
The fines it has imposed on him are too small to make any difference to him. We need to give the SEC the power to fine billionaires billions.
A call for a nationwide strike of US students to demand effective gun control.
I suggest that they target global heating too. That will kill a lot more of the people who are in high school today than will random shootings.
It could happen that after 2050 millions of Americans will be killed by guns — but that would be due to warring gangs, not random massacres. And the warring gangs would themselves be the result of global heating.
Everyone: call on CEO’s of Citi Bank, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ING, and Morgan Stanley to stop supporting fracking in Argentina.
Coal mines in Australia emit far more methane than people believed. These emissions are a big part of Australia's damage to the climate.
*[A right-wing fund, DonorsTrust] favored by Republican megadonors such as Charles Koch, Robert Mercer, and the family of Betsy Devos is by far the biggest known backer of two white nationalist hate groups that helped inspire a teen to "kill as many blacks as possible" in Buffalo, New York on May 14.*
* Turkish offer to escort ships through Black Sea blockade would face six-month wait for mine clearance, says Ukraine.*
Is it safe not to let your child run errands alone?
On the consequences of having a liar cling to power (in the UK).
Interviews with two women who led campaigns against dictators.
The funds needed for local climate disasters in poor countries have quintupled since 2002.
Measuring changes in percentages is meaningful for small changes. For large changes, it is silly and misleading. I did not repeat the "800%" figure used in the article because that is a silly and misleading way of saying "an increase of a factor of 9".
Likewise, an "80% decrease" is a distorting way to report a decrease by a factor of 5.
China is pioneering the art of directing water into the ground, to nourish plants and animals, rather than rushing it away to the ocean.
The US Supreme Court's history of political decisions affecting people's fundamental rights.
Marie Rose Ayala left a gun where her two-year-old child could get it, and he shot his father, who died. Now she is charged with the crime of killing him.
I think that is wrong; she has suffered enough. It is proper to prosecute her for the crime of leaving a gun easily accessible, since she did that, but not for the killing, which she did not do.
(satire) * Teen Spelling Bee Champion Commits To Spell For UCLA.*
British Muslims bullied a cinema chain into cancelling all showings of a film that they claim is "blasphemous." They accuse the film of violating Islamic prohibitions, as interpreted by them.
If you choose to be Muslim, and decide to refrain from violating Islamic prohibitions, that's up to you. But you have no right to force them on everyone else.
One of the rights of any human being is the right to practice per own religion; but that religion, whichever one it is, is not entitled to any particular respect from the rest of us.
Poland has told clinics to register which women are pregnant, in a Central database. Women expect that this will be used for repression, and I expect that too,
If you want to have a baby, that doesn't make you safe from this. If something goes wrong with the pregnancy, you may need an abortion to protect you from injury or death. Even if the law permits an abortion in all of those cases, it is unsafe to be in a place which restricts abortion until your pregnancy is over.
Big Tech is spending a lot of money to pressure a few Democratic senators to kill the new antitrust bill.
Australia's supreme court ruled that the government cannot arbitrarily exile a citizen on suspicion of participation in terrorism.
I think it is wrong to take away a person's citizenship as a punishment for crimes in general, even serious ones, except perhaps fraud in the process of becoming a citizen, if that wasn't many years ago.
There is a proposal to ban the sale of tobacco in the UK, gradually over a period of around 80 years.
Smoking tobacco is dangerous, and I wish everyone would quit. But prohibiting a dangerous drug tends to do great social harm, so I cannot support it.
*Spain's High Court Demands Pompeo Testify on Alleged Plot to Kidnap or Kill Assange.*
The latest climate denial mechanism is based on distraction and change the subject.
A UK thug murdered a woman, and when people held a vigil for her, thugs attacked them, then the London thug department tried to prosecute them. Despite rebukes by the courts, the thug department continues to try to put the blame on them.
The thugs say they thought the vigil had became an "anti-police protest", but what of that? People have the right to protest against thugs in general, too, not only a specific thug.
Greenpeace: The EU must wake up from its fantasy of natural gas as a "bridging fuel" from coal to renewables. It's nothing but a detour.
* President Biden has the power to crack down on executive excess by imposing new CEO pay and buyback restrictions on federal contractors.*
The Putin forces captured some Ukrainian soldiers of British origin, and have accused them of terrorism, apparently arbitrarily.
It is standard practice for Putin to "convict" his political opponents of trumped-up crimes. He did the same thing to Alexei Navalny, for instance.
Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke at Harvard's graduation, so supporters of Julian Assange rallied there calling on him to free Assange.
Ukraine and the Putin forces are both suffering heavy casualties, which threatens to lead to stalemate.
The International Energy Agency rebuked governments (and businesses) for failing to invest in energy efficiency.
As Amory Lovins pointed out for decades, the most cost-efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution is through increased efficiency of using energy.
* Governments including the US, Germany, the UK and Canada are investing in new gas production, distribution and use.* The supposed reason for this is to thwart Russia's threats to cut off gas to Europe. But the cure is far worse than the disease. It would destroy Russia and Ukraine, and the four countries that are doing it, and all the rest of the world.
The European Parliament voted against a weak proposal for how to extend the EU's carbon emissions trading system; MEPs want a stronger system.
A planet roaster MEP from a "center-right" (plutocratist) party was put in charge of negotiations, and he has been trying to thwart efforts to strengthen the system so as to reduce emissions more.
However, they also voted in favor of banning the sale of gasoline-powered cars in 2035.
The same planet roaster MEP worked against this, too.
Senators Warren and Murray sent Biden a list of ideas for using executive orders to protect abortion rights from right-wing fanatics.
How fascism develops, with one small change after another gradually building up to a dictatorship in which defiance is basically impossible.
I am skeptical of the claim that Venezuela is "fascist". Real opposition candidates do get elected there. I am also dubious about the idea that Hungary has gone so far as fascism. But these are minor details which I mention for the record — they don't affect the article's conclusions.
We don't have fascism in the US yet, but I haven't see anyone propose a way to stop it, other than to pray for a miracle. And praying doesn't do any good.
*US justice department to investigate Louisiana State Police following 2019 death of Ronald Greene.*
Putin compared himself to Tsar Peter I, in effect saying that conquering Ukraine is his divine mission.
The original name of the city now known as St Petersburg was Nyen (Swedish) or Nevanlinna (Finnish). Imagine giving that city to Finland and restoring those names! The idea would make Putin writhe.
On reconciliation after war has created hatred. *Peace is the ability to deal with discord by non-violent means.*
*The effort we are rightly making to support Ukraine in defending itself against aggression needs to be matched by efforts towards negotiation, dialogue, reconciliation and peace.*
I disagree with the Christian premise of the article, of course, but setting that aside I find the conclusions valid. My suggestion not to refer to the Putin forces as "Russian" or "Russia"
Summer is now the danger season in the US --
Danger from hurricanes, wildfires, and heat itself.
Explaining how limits on physical production capacity are contributing to the present inflation.
Overall, this seems valid, but I see two errors in the article.
Farmer Jared Wilson found that John Deere's official dealer refused to repair his tractor until he complained to the Federal Trade Commission
John Deere considered him a troublemaker because he agitated for the right to repair -- which is the campaign against one specific kind of malicious functionality.
(satire) NSA honored for diversity in surveillance footage
Democrats should stop agreeing that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to own a gun
A food influencer in China presented an ice cream dessert which looked somewhat like a tank, just before the anniversary of the Tien An Men square massacre.
His stream was cut off immediately and he has not been heard from since.
Sad to say, if most young Chinese don't know what happened on June 4th, the Chinese state is winning it's battle against history. Is there anything we can do to defeat it?
A document demonstrates the existence of a secret Republican plan to steal the 2020 election in Georgia.
Republicans now plot to install partisan poll workers who will invent reasons to challenge minority voters from groups that are likely to be Democrats
US students are talking about a student strike next fall to demand gun control to make schools safe for students.
*Mariupol mayor: Russia demolished 1,300 high-rise buildings in city without removing dead bodies of residents.*
The mayor said that "Initially, the occupiers involved Mariupol residents in dismantling the rubble carefully." But when they saw that there were 50 - 100 corpses in each building, they took the residents away, demolished the buildings quickly, and carried the rubble off with the corpses.
No one will ever be sure who died, or even how many. The most we can say is that it was probably between 60,000 to 120,000.
The US southwest is having a record-breaking heat wave, but by 2050 it could have 25 like this per year.
Putin's puppet regime running Donetsk has sentenced three prisoners of war to death, not for committing any particular war crime, but simply for having foreign origins.
It is nothing unusual, nor criminal, for a country to enroll foreign citizens as soldiers. The US has done this in recent decades, and France's foreign legion is well known.
It appears that Putin has decided to destroy the idea of the laws of war (as well as the idea of truth), just as the wrecker seeks to destroy US democracy and (as well as the idea of truth).
I don't see how his attempt could be thwarted except by capturing him and putting him on trial — but that seems awfully unlikely.
One idea for retaliation is that the UK could announce an undeclared war with the supposedly independent Donetsk regime — not with Russia! — and start bombarding its supposed "territory" with conventional weapons. If that hits some of Putin's soldiers from Russia, he can hardly complain.
Ginni Thomas emailed 29 Arizona legislators to press them to help overturn the 2020 election of Biden as president.
A Syrian refugee who was conscripted into digging mass graves for the people killed in Assad's prisons says that more mass graves for victims are still being dug in Syria.
Pilots are supposed to refuse to fly when they are too tired to fly safety. The CEO of Wizz Air rebuked the company's pilots for doing this "too often."
Airline regulations should be changed so that that CEO is forbidden to be an executive in any airline.
The film, The Lady of Heaven, that was censored by bullying in the UK was made by Shi'ite Muslims. The bullies that censored it were led by an extremist Sunni Muslim.
The bullies used the film the way Republicans use abortion, masks, or discussion of queer gender roles, and the way some progressives use cancellation of people who don't toe the line — as opportunities to show their power and make others afraid.
The CEO of Starbucks said he will never negotiate in good faith with the union that now represents workers at hundreds of its cafes.
*WTO Negotiations Prioritize Institution's Reputation Over COVID Medicines Access.* They seem dead set on continuing the patent and secrecy obstacles that prevent vaccinating everyone against Covid-19.
The WTO is fundamentally bad because it is a business-supremacy treaty, designed to suppress democracy and give businesses power over people and their democratic institutions.
What gives rise to the WTO's repudiation? It is a battle between the plutocratists, driven by the profits of the companies that the WTO primarily serves, and the defenders of democracy who attack the WTO. I'm proud to be on democracy's side.
The article falls into the trap of using the term "intellectual property," which was promoted by businesses to create a presumption of legitimacy for ten or more different laws that the WTO pressures governments to submit to. These laws all tend to be more or less plutocratist, but they are so different in their manner of operating that generalizing about them all makes it hard to criticize any one of them.
Please join me in never using that term.
*How will the White House ensure that powerful interests do not turn the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity "into another corporate-dominated, wildly unpopular trade exercise?".*
The goal of "mobilizing private investment" sounds like an excuse for more neoliberalism and trickle-down Reaganomics. If that's what it is, we should kill the whole thing rather than allow that.
The other goals seem good, more or less, but "building on the foundation established by our [so-called] free trade agreements" has to be bad. We must weaken or eliminate those business-supremacy treaties.
Former Bolivian president Áñez has been convicted of leading the coup that removed president Evo Morales and sent him into exile.
The US is accused of supporting the coup.
Iran is removing cameras installed for the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor nuclear processing sites. This means that the non-nuclear deal with Iran is on the verge of death.
Iran is dealing it the final blow, but Biden's timidity shares responsibility for the failure. If he had cancelled the sanctions that the wrecker added, maybe the deal could have been made. Biden avoided a bogus criticism and instead brought on himself a real and important failure.
The Supreme Court ruled that you can't sue a US border thug for injuring you, or for retaliating deviously against you for filing a complaint.
*Response to Global Energy Crisis So Far? A Planet-Wrecking Fossil Fuel 'Gold Rush'* that could make global heating disaster inescapable.
*Oil and gas companies likely underreporting methane emissions leaks, new investigation shows.*
A loud cacophony of Republican lies aims to drown out the hearings about the corrupter's attempt to steal the 2020 election.
The congressional investigating committee stated conclusions that tie the wrecker closely to the Jan 6 coup plot.
The evidence for those conclusions is to be presented in the remaining sessions.
Will the Americans that need to see this evidence turn their heads away instead, following the leadership of Faux News?
10% of Google searches for abortion information lead people to the phony abortion advice of "crisis pregnancy centers."
Some US military bases cause local water contamination with PFAs with material used to extinguish fires. These are used for real fires, and for training.
I wonder if it might be possible to use an imitation substance (without PFAs) in the training exercises. That would not eliminate the problem but would reduce the amount, and it could be easy to do.
Woodward and Bernstein have published a book that compares and contrasts the corrupter with Nixon. Nixon was prepared to do all sorts of dirty tricks against his opponents, but trying to undermine the electoral system was "beyond Nixon's imagination."
Another crucial difference was that the Republicans of 1974 were loyal enough that they could vote to impeach and to remove a Republican when confronted with irrefutable evidence of his criminality. The Republicans of 2021 were already too slavish and disloyal for that: the corrupter had been bullying them for years.
The Tory Party held a vote about whether to keep Bogus Johnson as its leader. He won 58% of the votes. This means he is barely hanging on to power.
If they kick him out, his likely replacements are Tories that advocate budget cuts that will put a lot more poor people on the street.
Starbucks has decided to close a store where employees voted to unionize, citing a reason that is not credible.
Everyone: call on Faux News to stop promoting 'white replacement theory'.
US citizens: call on Attorney General Merrick Garland to indict Trump promptly.
US citizens: In Washington DC on June 18? Join the Poor People's Campaign for a rally.
US citizens: call on Biden not to legitimize Crown Prince Bone Saw by meeting with him.
US citizens: call on Pelosi to condemn dark-money disinformation ads. These are being used to support plutocratist Democrats against progressive Democrats in primaries.
US citizens: call on the FDIC to stop triple-digit-interest loans for furniture, auto repairs, puppies, etc.
US citizens: call on the EPA to readopt the stricter limit on smog pollution.
Russia punishes people by cancelling their citizenship.
(satire) *Americans Explain Why Assault Weapons Must Stay Legal.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling JavaScript's entirely, telling LibreJS to blacklist the scripts that it accepted by default, or using a browser such as lynx that doesn't implement Javascript.
Almost as good as banning military-style rifles would be to put a very large tax on them, such as 10 times the sales price.
This could be passed via budget reconciliation, avoiding the filibuster.
One weakness is that right-wing extremist billionaires, or states such as Texas, could defeat the purpose of the measure by paying the excise tax on behalf of the individual gun purchasers. Better make the tax 100 times the sales price.
The state government of Texas protects gun companies from pressure by boycotting companies (such as banks) that boycott them.
I like the solution of having California boycott the banks that fail to boycott gun companies, because it uses for the cause of life the same instrument that Texas uses for the cause of death.
The Tories' proposed windfall tax contains a self-sabotaging tax break for building new fossil fuel infrastructure.
Biden will use the Defense production Act to boost US production of solar panels and other renewable energy systems.
This is an important thing to do, but when the means for getting businesses to do what the country needs includes tax breaks, it has the long term tendency to reduce tax revenue.
So we should rather increase taxes on business that goes in the wrong direction. That is what a carbon tax would do.
*Proud Boys leaders charged with seditious conspiracy in 6 January riot.*
*Carbon dioxide levels are now 50% higher than during the pre-industrial era.*
The highest officials of the French state defend French thugs for fatal acts of violence.
Organizing a broad campaign to defuse "carbon bombs" — large fossil fuel extraction projects that are enough to ensure global disaster.
Many of them are in China and India. What can we do about those?
In the UK, two million people are suffering from long Covid — 3% of the population.
In the US, the fraction is
It is not clear whether these two measurements are comparable, or what the difference might mean.
What is clear is that governments that yield to public pressure to "stop protecting us and let us ignore the danger" are making a terrible mistake.
*Canada's Big Banks Are Secretly Supporting Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion.*
The banks are TD Securities, RBC Capital Markets, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, BMO Capital Markets, Scotiabank, and National Bank of Canada. All these banks say they are committed to climate defense, but it seems to be lip service only.
If you have money in any of these banks (even if in a different part of it), I urge you to move it out, and tell the bank why.
Canada is planning to establish a new intelligence agency to study the threat from right-wing extremists in the US — especially in case they get political power again.
Global heating is slowing down the Atlantic's north-south currents,
This will tend to make northern Europe cooler and the Caribbean even hotter. It will also mean even more floods in Eastern Australia, and increasing drought in the US southwest.
(Satire) *Enlightened Judge Sentences Murderer To Ego Death By Means Of Ayahuasca.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling Javascript entirely, telling LibreJS to blacklist the scripts that it accepted by default, or using a browser such as lynx that that doesn't implement Javascript.
Reportedly the Federal Reserve is pulling money out of the US economy, which could cause a global depression.
I don't have a basis to judge, myself, whether this is true now, but what it says about the past fits with what I know.
*[Some] people in US and UK face huge financial hit if fossil fuels lose value, study shows.*
The businesses that own fossil fuel facilities would lose stock value, and the owners of the stock would lose the wealth of owning that stock.
If we stop the development of fossil fuel infrastructure and extraction facilities, the undeveloped reserves will lose their value. But that is likely to happen gradually as measures are taken and made firm.
Investors and pension funds can avoid being hit by this by divesting from fossil fuels.
*Without 'Radical Action,' Warns OECD, Global Plastic Pollution Likely to Triple by 2060.*
(satire) *School Practices Drill For When There's Not An Active Shooter.*
*Colorado legislature passes bill to reduce plastic packaging, boost recycling.*
Various organizations that run Gay Pride parades are deciding that uniformed thugs are not welcome.
One strategy is to remember the historic hostility and cruelty of thugs towards gays. Another strategy is to try to replace that with a friendly relationship so as to avoid that hostility in the future. I, as an outsider, don't have an opinion about which to choose, but I can see the sense in each one.
Activists in Glasgow and London deflate the tires of SUVs, saying that due to their high local pollution and high carbon emissions, the state ought to strongly discourage their use.
Arguing that the US has an attachment to guns and violence that is ingrained since colonial times.
It might be true, but I am not sure we can tell for certain.
Nearly half of Republicans say that mass shootings are something that Americans just have to get used to — forget about trying to prevent them.
I think this means that understand that the way to prevent mass shootings is to take away their guns. And I think Democrats should start saying, "Defeat the Republicans and take away their guns!"
Information is emerging about the whereabouts of the civilian dead of Mariupol. The total number is perhaps 20,000, perhaps 50,000, but some bodies are impossible to identify, or even to find.
Let us not forget that that Putin intentionally prevented evacuating the civilians from Mariupol to safety in Ukraine until the Putin forces were in a position to forcibly take thousands to Russia.
I understand the worry of not knowing whether someone you love is alive or dead. I am perplexed by the idea that your late husband might be "a missing person" if you saw him dead before you fled.
Greenpeace will fight to block the development of a new oilfield in the UK.
Horribly, the US continues to sell oil leases to oil companies. Meanwhile, China and India are still building coal-fired generators. This prepares death for people who will be alive in a few decades.
Does that mean it is a waste of time to fight to stop one large oil field in the UK? Not at all. Every megaton of oil left in the ground is an important step.
The US wars of the 21st century can't be won because these interventions' main effect is to terrorize the civilian population. The US government tries actively to hush this up.
Global heating effects are making dust storms occur much more often in the Middle East.
(satire) *Texas Passes Mandatory 24-Hour Waiting Period Before Police Can Engage Active Shooters.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling Javascript entirely, telling LibreJS to blacklist the scripts that it accepted by default, or using a browser such as lynx that that doesn't implement Javascript.
The new Top Gun movie, like the first, is an ad for increased military spending.
A morality-oriented graduation speech to the US Air Force Academy: who should be your real heroes.
The talk refers to the corruption of the South Vietnamese army. According to A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan, its main organizing principle was graft, and the corrupt officers made sure they could never win a real battle. The US, in supporting them, was imagining that they actually wanted to win. rather than keep collecting the graft.
A Chinese fighter plane intercepted an Australian surveillance plane over the South China Sea, and did dangerous things that damaged its engines and threatened a collision.
(satire) *CEOs Discuss How Unions Have Affected Their Companies.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling Javascript entirely, telling LibreJS to blacklist the scripts that it accepted by default, or using a browser such as lynx that that doesn't implement Javascript.
*Hillary Clinton is right: the age of the showman leader has damaged politics.*
This started with Reagan, but in recent years right-wing demagogues such as Trump, Putin, Modi, Do-Dirty and Bolsonaro have enjoyed success around the world.
In Kashmir, Muslim terrorists are now murdering Hindu functionaries one by one, and most of the rest want to flee. The government is blocking them from fleeing.
The terrorists are taking revenge for the martial law and repression that Modi has applied to Muslims for several years.
Tory rule has tied up the British government in confusion and privatization to the point where agencies cannot do even the simplest things right.
To make it worse, Bogus Johnson plans to cut the number of government staff even as they can't keep up with the workload.
Governor DeMentis rejected a subsidy to a sports facility partly intended to help the Tampa Bay Rays after the team posted something about gun control.
Governments should never subsidize professional sports teams in any fashion whatsoever — but making the subsidy effectively contingent on the team's political stance veers into the territory of political repression.
Some of the wrecker's supporters invited him to order seizure of voting machines so as to "prove" he had really won the 2020 election.
Schools use "social media monitoring" disservices claiming that this is a way to detect and stop shootings before they happen. But the disservices don't seem to work very well, because their "understanding" is fragmentary and confused. The few real danger cases are hidden in an ocean of irony, humor and unrelated conversations.
Even worse, schools use the disservices to monitor protests, too.
The Supreme Court is considering demanding that its clerks hand over their phone records. Those clerks — who are lawyers in training — may be hiring lawyers to resist this.
*Inspector General, AMA and AHA Agree: Some Medicare Advantage Plans Are Endangering Their Enrollees' Lives*. They deny needed medical care, to reduce expenses.
*China has silenced dissent in [Hong Kong], but exiles are finding ways to keep its spirit alive.*
The Supreme Court's crooked path of reinterpreting the Second Amendment to wipe out gun control.
Republicans plan to terminate the extended school breakfast and lunch program that is feeding ten million American children.
Their parents could apply to be covered anyway, but only some would be accepted. Meanwhile, the cost of food has increased greatly and even more would have to go hungry now.
Republicans have developed a six-point plan for increasing fossil fuel emissions.
Meanwhile, their UK equivalents approved development of a new oil field in the North Sea, disregarding the fact that there is no room in the carbon budget for any more.
The Supreme Court decided in favor of government secrecy to block lawsuits by victim of US government torture.
The UK plans to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda, so some of those threatened started a hunger strike. The government retaliated by threatening to punish them by deporting them even sooner.
This would supposedly be for their own good. What contempt.
The Tories have given a large subsidy to oil extraction, instead of funding increases in energy efficiency.
President Bukele of El Salvador has attacked the powerful drug gangs that ruled the streets, and most of the people applaud this. However some innocent people are being arrested along with the gang members. And it seems that some people are tortured to death in jail.
More information from Amnesty International about innocent people arrested and simply presumed guilty.
Tobacco companies are working to addict young Africans.
*The policies currently in place to tackle the climate crisis around the world will lead to "catastrophic" climate breakdown, as governments have failed to take the actions needed to fulfill their promises, three former UN climate leaders have warned.*
Russia is succeeding in holding out against the west's sanctions. Defeating the Putin forces is not going to be easy.
However, allowing Putin to keep any Ukrainian territory would be a terrible defeat.
Hong Kong says it will arrest people for any hint of commemorating the anniversary of the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
Explaining the perverse Supreme Court ruling that said to disregard evidence that someone was falsely convicted.
Wells Fargo workers are trying to unionize the bank's entire work force at one go.
The idea that we need to stop businesses from collecting so much personal data is starting to have traction.
I've advocated this idea since around 2013, so I consider this a sign of success.
The "Corinthian Colleges" were a chain of for-profit "colleges"; in 2015, a court ruled they were swindling students, and shut them down. Now Biden has canceled the remaining student debt of the students who were swindled.
These students have been campaigning and striking since 2015 to achieve this goal.
Glyphosate weedkiller damages wild bee colonies — it harms the ability of bumblebee to regulate nest temperature.
*New study finds 44% of world's land surface needs increased protection, with 1m wildlife species at risk of extinction.*
An article sheds light on the collective lunacy of the majority of people the US and most European countries, who nowadays firmly deny the danger of Covid-19.
I read today in a couple of places that 23 million Americans say they are suffering from long Covid disabilities. That is a self-report, and some may be mistaken about what their problem is. But it is good enough for a rough estimate. But it gives a rough idea. ISTR seeing the estimate that around 200 million Americans have had Covid-19, including asymptomatic infections. That means the chance that an infection leaves a lasting disability in its wake is roughly 10%.
That is a very high risk. High enough to justify going to great lengths to avoid getting a Covid infection.
I have no particular vulnerabilities to Covid-19 other than being 69 years old and somewhat overweight. I am at risk for long Covid that could ruin my life for good and all, and so are you.
Elon Musk derisively ordered all Tesla employees to resume coming to the office to work, threatening to fire them without notice if they do not.
The level of Covid-19 infections has increased greatly in the US since March, and making more people meet in offices will surely increase it further.
The UK cited, as a reason to leave the EU, that it would have the authority to protect the sea bottom from destructive trawling. Two years later, it has barely started prohibiting the practice.
The threat of sending asylum-seekers to Rwanda did not discourage people from going to the UK in small boats, so the government has chosen a small batch to test the policy.
*Rwanda accused of stalking, harassing and threatening exiles in US.*
Austin, Texas, plans to pass a law to refuse cooperation with state prosecution of abortions.
This will be is a good way to denounce the state's prohibition, but I don't think it will provide enough safety to convince abortion providers to risk performing abortions in Austin.
Everyone: call on Marsh McLennan to drop the EACOP oil pipeline project.
Ukraine has turned around the battle in Sievierodonetsk.
Many Russian-speaking Ukrainians are learning to speak Ukrainian instead, in rejection of Putin and Russia.
I think it will be tragic if Ukrainians come out of this war hating Russia. I urge them to target their hatred narrowly at Putin.
A part of the population of Odessa wants to eliminate Russia-derived names from the city. For the same reason stated above, I think that is a misguided idea.
*Russia must not be humiliated in Ukraine, says Emmanuel Macron.*
I agree that humiliating Putin would be counterproductive. At the same time, giving him a victory would be disastrous.
Can we find a way to deny him victory but give him a way to save face? It seems that Macron has not.
Guardian columnist John Naughton draws the connection between the remote kill switch in John Deere tractors and the Right to Repair movement.
The next connection from there is from the Right to Repair movement and the free software movement. Right to Repair is the first step, but it does not go far enough.
High levels of air pollution (specifically, nitrogen dioxide) correlate with more severe symptoms from Covid-19.
This has surely made poor people more likely to die than wealthier people who can afford to live in areas less polluted.
*More than 40% of Earth's land surface must be conserved to stop the biodiversity crisis, report warns.*
This will require rules about land use, and soon — by 2030, a lot of that land will be taken for agriculture if it isn't stopped.
James Risen says that he was going to meet with a whistleblower who offered information about NSA snooping, but an informant spilled the beans to the FBI. The FBI tried to turn it into a trap to arrest the whistleblower.
Ultimately the meeting didn't occur and nobody was arrested, but Risen never heard from him again. So the FBI won a partial victory.
There is a tentative bipartisan deal for a US internet data protection law.
It is encouraging that the proposed deal requires companies to minimize the data they collect, but I expect that "reasonably necessary" will be a weak criterion, as it is in Europe. Will this prohibit parking lots from collecting the license plate number of each car parked there — or photographing them all and storing the photos? If not, it is inadequate.
I fear that companies will continue demanding that customers identify themselves. In the absence of an anonymous payment system, they can argue that this is "necessary". But that means that the system is not safe — not for whistleblowers, and not for people traveling for an abortion.
If that is what happens, I will continue to reject these dis-services absolutely, as I have done for many years.
Meanwhile, no company whatsoever should be allowed to require a customer to use arbitration rather than the courts. All customers, regardless of age, must be free to join class-action lawsuits against abusive practices that arguably violate whatever privacy laws apply.
Despite those grave flaws, this bill would be a significant step forward. However, since this will pre-empt many kinds state laws, it will block all further progress on privacy rules in the US. Given that, I conclude we should oppose it.
Florida made the Special Olympics drop its vaccination requirement by threatening to fine it 27 million dollars.
If the organization fails to rail against Florida, and announce that it will never hold an event again in a state that won't permit its health requirements, that will constitute its permanent submission to the Disease Party.
Putin allows YouTube to remain accessible in Russia despite its carrying Western news.
Some US cities are converting schoolyards from asphault plazas to green parks. The change improves students' well-being. makes the neighborhood less hot, and absorbs water too.
A state-organized mob of bullies harassed defense lawyer Michael Vidler out of Hong Kong.
Scientists that work on fusion power say not to expect it to be ready soon enough to help prevent global heating disaster.
They claim it will enable humanity to increase its total available power after 2050. Maybe it will, but why won't solar and wind power suffice for that?
China tried to convert 8 Pacific island nations into military stepping-stones, but they rejected the deal.
Bogus Johnson's official ethics advisor has been obligated to rebuke the whole government for a culture of disregarding its supposed rules.
Research finds that decisive people are not more likely to be right in their decisions than people who have doubts.
Armies state the maxim that an officer who is decisive is better than one who hesitates, even if the former doesn't make better decisions than the latter.
*Africa warns of food crisis due to Russian blockade of Ukraine's ports.*
I don't think Putin will cooperate with export of food from Ukraine except under unacceptable, contemptuous conditions. But he might if the alternative were a form of attack. If Ukraine uses anti-ship missiles to blockade some Russian port, such as Novorossiysk, perhaps Putin would make a deal to end trade blockades.
A natural response to a dishonest leader (such as the bullshitter, Putin, or Bogus Johnson) is to tolerate some dishonesty in those that oppose per. But that makes the moral damage pervasive and permanent.
A team of lawyers is planning to sue Russia in other countries for the damage it has done to Ukrainians. They will also sue military businesses and associated rich people. The aim is to collect from the value of Russia's assets in those and other countries.
Two Putin forces soldiers, prisoners in Ukraine, have been convicted of shelling civilian areas and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Birds are particularly threatened by environmental threats, and most species are moving towards extinction. This article describes the main threats — above all, deforestation.
Why has there been so little global revolt against neoliberalism? And will revolts start now?
Neoliberalism is when plutocracy proudly proclaims that the non-rich don't matter.
Quebec's latest attempt to force habitants to speak French reaches a repressive level. People who can't speak French will be cut off, after 6 months, from medical care, from government services, and from their legal rights.
Those who manage to speak French, but not well, will suffer the forms of mistreatment that were the reason for the policy of offering them interpreters.
As for the "notwithstanding" loophole, that should be eliminated from the Constitution of Canada.
US citizens: call on Congress to ban the transfer of military weapons to thug departments.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on the senate to stop delaying on climate defense.
Several examples of Elon Musk's history of profiting from public falsehoods, including in Tesla.
What disgusts me more than anything about the Tesla car is its level of surveillance.
The Massachusetts supreme court authorized the state's lawsuit against Exxon for lying about the climate danger of its actions.
It is time for Senate Democrats, including Manchin, to pass at least some climate defense measures.
A secret UK government historical study, leaked to the press, says that various UK immigration laws were written (across 3 decades) with the specific racist purpose of excluding as many non-whites as possible.
Specifics about these individual laws.
Strict enforcement of these laws is nowadays directing deportation of people to countries which they have not been to since childhood, decades ago, and where they don't know anyone.
What the world must do to prepare in advance to deal with future pandemics.
The Supreme Court is likely preparing another deadly blow to Americans: eliminating some kinds of gun control.
This is the product of systematic rigging of elections for many years by Republicans in the states they control. A government imposed by a minority is not a legitimate government. What we have in the US now is an illegitimate government.
As China's foreign minister tours Pacific island countries to sign deals, he shows the world that making a deal with China means accepting repression.
Canada plans to make it illegal to buy a handgun, or a large capacity magazine for a long gun.
We need such laws in the US, but given that the rate of gun killings is so small in Canada, I'm not sure this is needed there.
Will New Zealand accept demands from the Maori Party for a special role in government for New Zealanders of Maori descent?
I read previously that the Maori Party wants a separate parliament to represent Maori.
I see a crucial difference between affirmative action designed to compensate for past discrimination, on the one hand, and innate privilege to a certain ethnic group on the other.
The British colonists took much of the Maori's land, and (ISTR) their government treated the Maori unfairly afterwards. That can justify reparations to the descendants of those who were victimized.
However, giving their descendants (or any ethnic group whatsoever) innate privilege is incompatible with equal rights and democracy.
According to the article linked to above, the Act Party opposes both affirmative action — intended to help Maori get what the state ought to provide to everyone — and innate privilege. I think that is wrong. But I also think the Maori Party is wrong.
Biden will order federal agencies to change their policies for using force against the public — for instance, not to use chokeholds. The order will limit mo-knock raids also.
This is not enough — mostly state and local thugs are the ones that kill members of the public. But this is what the president the authority to do on his own. To do more requires replacing some of the right-wing senators.
Planet roasters are pressuring African countries to invest heavily in destroying global climate.
Replacing gas with wood for cooking is not the only way to stop burning gas. There are solar cookers that do the job renewably.
Some of them are cheap by first-world standards but still require funds to provide them to Africans.
US Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi is assisted at his US events by US supporters of the Hindu-bigotry BJP party, which rules India with repression.
They protect him from questions about his association with the BJP.
What should the US do with its 900 troops at Deir ez-Zor in Syria?
I trust Juan Cole to describe the situation accurately, but I don't entirely agree with his conclusions. The 900 US troops in Deir ez-Zor may have no sensible mission, but the YPG are the only secular and democratic force in Syria, and face the threat of massacre by either Assad or Erdoğan. The bully did wrong to take US support away from them, and we can right that wrong.
*G7 countries to stop funding fossil fuel development overseas* by the end of this year. They said they would move that money to renewable energy!
This seems like a substantial change. However, if it fails to stop projects that are already started, they can still doom civilization.
*Will Black churches throw their weight behind reproductive rights?*
If you are reading this, please do not have children.
I wish for humanity to survive; I wish for technological civilization to survive. I wish for human rights and democracy to recover. I hope you wish for these things, too.
The biggest threat to that goal is the climate disaster we are still heading for. The more children we can avoid, the more we will reduce the intensity of the disaster and increase the chances of survival.
*How lawmakers in thrall to the NRA stifle gun safety laws.*
This is what plutocracy consists of.
Proposing a global minimum wage treaty.
Each country's minimum wage would be set according to the country's median wage. Or perhaps it could be adjusted based on the cost of living there.
In the US, states with fewer guns per person have fewer gun killings per person.
I've read elsewhere that houses with guns have more residents killed on the average than houses without guns. You can make yourself safer by not having a gun.
Republican candidates that rejected the corrupter's Big Lie, but did everything else to rig the election, are being presented as heroes of democracy.
Ohio Republicans keep bringing back the same unfair redistricting plans that the state supreme court has five times ruled unconstitutional, and a federal court decided to validate that rigging rather than have inconveniences running the election.
In other words, Republicans can win by defying the court.
US citizens: call on state legislatures to ban elected officials from signing NDAs with corporations.
US citizens: call on Congress to end US intervention in Yemen.
Texas cops explained their decision to wait for a SWAT team to attack the Uvalde shooter, rather than intervene sooner: they assumed he was no longer a threat to anyone.
That seems to be a failure of thinking, since they knew some children in the room with him were alive.
Toronto thugs shot and killed a man for "carrying a rifle" in the vicinity of some schools.
It turns out to have been a pellet gun, Those can occasionally cause serious injuries, but are not very effective for killing a lot of people.
His presence there called for quick action, but not that quick. They had time to shout, "Police! Drop the gun!"
Canada's Supreme Court ruled that every convict must have a chance to apply for parole after at most 25 years.
Georgians ask for federal election monitors to ensure blacks are allowed to vote.
Awards to activists who won significant local victories against destruction of nature.
The gun lobby blocks gun control by paying off Republicans in Congress.
Across the board, plutocracy is the general obstacle to every change that the US needs.
The US spends $2000 per person each year on subsidizing fossil fool suicide. That is 2/3 of a trillion dollars.
This has to stop.
The two main US teachers unions have rejected Republican plans to deal with school shootings by handing out guns to teachers.
The presence of a gun in a home goes with increased danger someone living there will be shot, so teachers have reason to think that the official presence of guns in the school will have the same effect for the same reasons. Meanwhile, we have seen just now in Uvalde, and many times before, that armed thugs in a school don't prevent school shootings.
The UK reacted to a school shooting by strengthening gun control, including prohibiting owning handguns. There was never another school shooting there.
The US can do this too, if it has the courage to take control of the Supreme Court away from the right wing, and restore free and fair elections.
Women tricked by British undercover seducer-cops who pretended to love them have written a book about their experience, and the cops' tactics of lies.
The most shocking thing I learned from the article was not how the cops went about this, but what purposes they did it for — such as, helping McDonalds sue environmentalists for leaflets that criticized it. (Most of the criticisms were ultimately found to be true.) Those environmentalists were not coming even close to a breach of the peace. The police have no business getting involved in such a case, not even if they limited themselves to methods that are totally legitimate.
In effect, the thug/trickery department was serving as a tool to boost the power of big business. Meanwhile, it disregarded the sometimes violent right-wing extremists.
Businesses are buying large tracts of land in the UK to "rewild" the land, but often this makes residents homeless.
Several Australian states have imposed or are imposing heavy punishments for some effective kinds of environmental defense protests.
*Canada investigates after Tesla catches fire, forcing driver to "smash the window".*
I don't think the maker of autonomous car would intentionally design the capability to ignite so as to kill the passengers. Someone might insert malware to do that.
However, I expect that they will be designed with the capacity to forcibly take passengers to an externally-chosen destination under command. Don't trust an autonomous car in China or Russia! Whether you could trust one in the US, I am unable to forecast.
Human rights investigators say that Putin's invasion is indeed carrying out genocide in Ukraine.
Putin is talking about calling the Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol "Mazis" and putting them on trial for "war crimes".
They could not have committed much in the way of war crimes while defending Mariupol, so I expect these accusations would be fabricated and the Putin forces would torture them into false confessions.
Putin's forces are systematically stealing art from Ukrainian museums to present Ukrainian artists as "Russian".
They are also stealing ancient Scythian art. That was neither Ukrainian nor Russian — it was made by a basically people with a very different culture. The Scythians lived in a region nowadays split between Ukraine, Russia, and some neighboring countries. Both Ukraine and Russia can validly say that the Scythians were part of their prehistory. However, that's no justification for Putin to steal Scythian relics from museums.
Intrusive Asian jumping worms spread easily and can destroy US forests.
Since the Cold War, US presidents have given themselves broad power in "emergencies". Neither the public nor Congress know where it stops, but it probably includes jailing anyone, shutting down phones and the internet, and stopping anyone from leaving the US.
And that doesn't include secret powers for the miitary.
The "emergency" declared in September 2001 is still continuing.
*The Department of Justice and other agencies continue to defend and advance legal positions held by the corrupter's administration.*
Proprietary malware accused a student of cheating in an exam, based on the fact that it saw her look down at her lap.
Merely installing that malware on your computer sabotages it. You can't trust it at all after that, though since it has to be running Windows, you couldn't trust it before that point either.
If a school wanted me to take a test this way with my computer, I would reply that that is both practically impossible (since my computer does not run Windows) and immoral (since no one should run malware).
I would agree to take the test on a computer run ny the school itself (if the school runs nonfree software on its computers, that hurts the school but not me) in a room set up by the school. That way the school could make sure I brought nothing to cheat with, and would know I'm not looking at other people or posters in the room.
Teachers in states with don't-discuss-racism laws were afraid to talk with students about the Buffalo race massacres.
Some states have laws against teaching anything that is likely to "disturb" students. What about lockdown drills?
The G7 countries published new, stronger climate defense pledges.
*Last Salem "witch" pardoned 329 years after she was wrongly convicted.*
The Putin forces are advancing slowly but unceasingly around Sievierodonetsk.
I hope the Ukrainian army can get its troops out and avoid losing them.
More info.
Bogus Johnson has changed the ministerial code so that it doesn't say he is obliged to resign.
Lawyers asking the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel's killing of Palestinian journalists have added Shireen Abu Aqleh to the case.
Egyptian freedom fighter Alaa Abd El Fattah has been on hunger strike for two months and is getting close to death. His supporters hope the UK will try to have him released.
The Australian election demonstrates the virtue of ranked choice voting.
The UK promised asylum to several Afghan journalists who now face violence for their relationship with British media. They have applied formally for asylum but the UK government has given them no response.
Could it be that the promises came from Tories?
*British empire nostalgia played part in Brexit vote, says Nobel laureate.*
The idea is that the cover-ups of repression in colonies enabled the British empire to look good until it fell, and after.
Another pertinent point is why the UK was able to prosper and build such an empire, despite being so small. The reason was, because it was the first country to go through the industrial revolution, in the 1700s. It has no such advantage now.
Victoria's Secret has been compelled to pay 8 million dollars as mandatory severance pay to Thai workers whom it had dismissed.
Some places require poor people to pay money in advance for things like electricity and heat. To treat human beings that way is harsh but businesses are not human beings, and that just gave me an idea.
If a business ever fails to pay some workers the wages they have earned, it should be put on a scheme requiring it to deposit wages in advance. The company should hand over the next week or month's wages to an agency that will distribute them to the company's workers. If ever the company fails to pay in advance this way, its work will shut down.
*[Elon Musk] has received loans and tax breaks to help keep Tesla afloat, now he says other companies should go bankrupt for the good of the economy.*
A Republican congresscritter who supports overthrowing the US government showed off his gun collection by video to a congressional hearing, focusing on how some of his guns would be "banned" by proposed laws.
He repeated the right-wing false claim that these guns "protect" his family. Actually they endanger his family more than protect it.
As I understand it, those proposed laws would ban sale of those guns, not possession of them. Thus, his criticism misrepresented them.
However, I am in favor of taking away his guns, for two reasons:
A sub-unit of Deutsche Bank was raided to investigate charges of fraud — greenwashing its investment funds.
Australia, New Zealand and the UK experienced large massacres, and put an end to the problem by through gun control measures.
The measures they used were not identical, but they were all sufficient to do the job.
Some years ago, Florida Republicans passed a "red flag" law by which a court can order someone's guns to be taken away, for a range of possible causes. The order lasts only a year or two, but the practice seems to have some good effect.
However, Republicans have become more fanatical since then. Governor DeSantis wants to get rid of the law.
The Republican Party is winning support from various sorts of groups who stand to lose from Republican policies, through party-operated "community centers".
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and ask per to pass the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
The Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Texas never-delete-anything law for social media platforms.
Prof. Heyhoe: *The world cannot adapt its way out of the climate crisis, and counting on adaptation to limit damage is no substitute for urgently cutting greenhouse gases… If global heating is allowed to continue then the world will rapidly reach a point beyond what can be adapted to.*
HSBC's head of greenwashing asked, "Does it matter if Miami is 6 meters below sea level, a century from now?" Yes, if you want to live there. The ground there is porous, so if its surface is below sea level, sea will rise out of it.
A proposed law in Spain would require companies to accept phone calls within 3 minutes and give the option of talking to a real person. Companies that fail to do this would face heavy fines.
A more careful study of proposed small nuclear reactors concluded that they will produce much greater amounts of nuclear waste, in proportion to the energy they generate, than today's larger reactors.
The National Rifle Association is in deep trouble, and may be doomed to disappear. But that won't do much good, since it has converted the Republican Party into a right-wing extremist organization that encourages its followers to arm themselves to start a civil war.
The Onion reported, of the Texas school shooter: "We have reason to believe this wasn't a 'lone wolf' incident, but rather a coordinated attack carried out with the assistance of 535 individuals in the D.C. metropolitan area." However, that is an exaggeration: around half of those 535 members of Congress voted recently for gun control.
I support gun control, but we must keep in mind that other right-wing evils are far more deadly. Mass shootings are killing a couple of thousand Americans per year. Other killings with guns kill some tens of thousands, but half of them are suicides and that is not morally equivalent to murder.
Prohibiting abortions could directly kill tens of thousands of Americans per year in underground abortions. It will kill women who have miscarriages, by causing them to be denied treatment. I expect it will cause, in a less direct way, hundreds of thousands of premature deaths due to poverty caused by being compelled to have a baby.
Global heating will kill millions of Americans per year, later this century, as well as hundreds of millions in other countries. Between the food shortages, the floods, the fires, the pandemics, and the civil wars, few will escape unscathed.
Plutocracy, combined with the right-wing tactic scapegoating and distraction, is a major cause of those evils, and the root cause of the increase of poverty which also kills.
This is why I focus mainly on plutocracy, and gun control is not near the top of my list.
Using JavaScript libraries endangers the security of website-operating businesses as well as their clients. Because these scripts can change without notice, the companies (like their clients) don't even have a chance to try to vet them for safety.
Of course, the clients are equally vulnerable to the companies' own JavaScript code.
Here is the plan for a proposed Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Ralph Nader: the US government has completely given up on prosecuting the people who plan and commit the biggest crimes, those implemented by corporations.
Israeli bombardment of a chemical storage plant in Gaza was tantamount to using chemical weapons.
Some UK scientists involved in developing carbon capture say it can't contribute much to limiting global heating to 1.5C — not soon enough to make a difference.
Research on carbon capture is fine as long as it doesn't distract us from implementing the urgent measures needed. Unfortunately, that's exactly what fossil fools will try to cite it for.
Tories are accused of pushing universities out of UK teacher training because they consider the universities hotbeds of leftist thinking.
The declining stock market represents the air escaping from a bubble of financialization which was hurting the real economy of the US all along.
The strange structure of the US baby formula market tends to cause local shortages even when the total supply is sufficient.
*Wall Street-Funded Democrat PAC to Spend $1 Million in Bid to Unseat Tlaib.*
The Reaganite ruination of the US gave us minority rule over a distracted, impoverished population that never learned how to think carefully or understand the system of government.
No wonder young people mostly despise the Republican Party.
*Neofascist Minority Rule by the GOP Is Laying Waste to the United States.*
Hamilton's idea of the Electoral College presumed that the choice of president was about personal integrity, not the choice of policies. The original intention was that Congress would decide policies and the president would be in charge of executing them. It took only a few years for the United States to discover than things were not actually working that way.
US citizens: call on the Senate to reject Andrew Biggs for Social Security Board.
US citizens: call on your state legislators to codify the right to an abortion.
US citizens: call on Louis DeJoy & the USPS Board to stop slowing down mail and raising prices, and expand products and services instead.
US citizens: call on local governments to expose Amazon's stealth attempts to start new warehouses.
A bill in Congress would impose stricter ethics rules on federal judges, including (for the first time) those on the Supreme Court.
*Millions risk losing US healthcare when Covid emergency declaration expires.*
A report from two people who lived in Mariupol and were captured by the Putin forces.
It seems that they did not exactly force Ukrainian captives to go to isolated Russian cities and take jobs they were not allowed to leave, but they made it fairly challenging to avoid that fate.
An economic study finds that the new coal mines that the previous Australian government tried so hard to authorize are unlikely to be profitable.
Their owners are hoping that they can push the government into subsidizing the mines. I have a hunch that some of that money would find its way to right-wing politicians or their campaigns. The argument the mine owners use is that they are too important to be allowed to fail.
It's just the opposite: they are too dangerous to be allowed to succeed.
*World could undo social and economic advances and face 1.5 disasters a day by 2030, according to UN's flagship Global Assessment Report.*
Pfizer has started selling some vaccines at a non-exploitative price to a list of extremely poor countries. This is "too little, too late."
Progressive members of Congress have insisted that Google must cease to collect and keep location tracking data from its customers' phones.
I think this is the first acknowledgment by members of Congress that tracking location data about people directly endangers them. That is an important step forward. However, this specific demand is too narrow to do the job, because the problem is bigger than Google.
Many companies track location data through apps, and sell them to other companies that we have never heard of. Rabid antiabortion officials in states such as Texas could send subpoenas to any of those companies. Google (and likewise Apple) must ensure that no location data is ever sent to an app unless the user manually authorizes sending it at that very moment.
Users should be able to send false locations too, whenever they wish.
People have not yet realized that this is another reason why we must make sure paying by cash remains widespread and easy. You must not ever identify yourself during a trip to another state for an abortion. Nor even before you leave, if it is in connection with the trip.
Right-wing extremist congresscritter Gosar demonstrated especially clearly that he makes up false claims based on no information. He said that the Uvalde school murderer was a "transsexual leftist illegal alien." That was entirely his imagination.
*Climate "tipping points" could push us past the point-of-no-return after less than 2 degrees of warming.*
Indeed, we may have already crossed some of these tipping points. For instance, we may have already unlocked 10 meters (33 feet) of future sea-level rise. However, how fast that happens will depend on how hot Earth gets.
The Putin forces have reportedly taken 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers prisoner in recent weeks.
That is very bad news.
An interview with NASA scientist Peter Kalmus about why he chained himself to the entrance of JP Morgan bank: the public must realize that the "people in charge" are not trying to save us.
Interviews with people who have quit the planet roaster PR companies.
Proposing that 18-year-olds should not be allowed to buy guns.
How about increasing the minimum age for gun purchases to 150?
No more onion links.
I just learned that pages in theonion.com are totally invisible when viewed without running Javascript code — they show a blank window. I get those pages as HTML by email, and render them non-graphically, and the text was plain to see that way. However, in a graphical browser, that same text does not appear.
It is against my principles to post links to pages that require JavaScript to view, so I must cease the practice of posting links to the onion pages that I like.
If you can make contact with the editors of theonion.com, and ask them to please make the contents of their pages visible in browsers that have Javascript disabled or use LibreJS, I would appreciate that. They might listen.
Tennessee has made it a felony to sleep on public property. I think that includes sidewalks as well as city parks.
Spain's prime minister and other high officials were targeted with Pegasus spyware.
India's Supreme Court has suspended prosecutions under a "sedition" law that grossly restricts freedom of speech
Hatred and contempt are sometimes justified — for instance, toward extremists of any religion — so prohibiting speech which expresses those attitudes is an offense against human rights. (If you wish to oppose the extremists effectively, you must not to let that hatred run away with you.) Exciting disaffection towards the government is a crucial part of democracy.
Republicans are using protests against the Supreme Court as an excuse for repression of protests.
*Revealed: supporters of Trump’s big lie work as election officials across Georgia.*
The uniformed thugs who arrived at the Reed school in Uvalde took 40 minutes to shoot the killer who was inside the school.
Some of the people waiting with them complained about how long they waited before going in.
Were they individually at fault for taking so long? I don't have a basis to reach that conclusion. Perhaps they were somehow stymied by the situation and were waiting for a solution.
What is clear is that the presence of a "good guy with a gun" does not prevent such shootings.
Uniformed thugs stationed in a school can't stop a killer who has come prepared, but they spend their days threatening and arresting students.
The previous two Australian ruling parties, Liberal and National, pretended to support decarbonization but in practice opposed efforts in that direction. Now that they have lost an election, and partly because of that, their leaders are planning to come out totally in favor of roasting Earth.
Perhaps we should refer to them as the Flood and Burn parties.
Richard Stallman will give a talk in French on June 4, 15h00 to 18h00, at Espace Vinci (25 Rue des Jeuneurs, 75002 Paris) near métro Grands Boulevards.
Recording and streaming on PeerTube site video.chalec.org.
Many governments invite schools to invite companies to snoop on students
The UK Parliament has recognized that contracting jobs out of a ministry leads to lower standards of work — when the work is done for the military.
Will it now recognize that this is equally true when the work is done for people? It is always bad to contract out government work, except when it can become a competitive market for private clients.
A Putin forces soldier, who was a prisoner of war in Ukraine and then was exchanged, said that his captors occasionally insulted him, but in general treated him decently, and the main pain of being a prisoner was boredom.
The NRA and the National Shooting Sports Foundation have set up a system to sell powerful guns in bigger quantities, and it is not broken — it is quite effective.
Beto O'Rourke, who will run against Texas governor Abbott, shouted at the latter's news conference, "This [the latest school killing] is on you."
We can debate which gun laws would be effective or reducing the number of gun murders, but it's clear that laws are required.
*"Historic" global tax deal on multinationals delayed until 2024.* And, some worry, perhaps delayed forever.
Protesting shareholders interrupted the Shell annual meeting, demanding Shell stop exacerbating global heating.
US citizens: call on Congress to lower prescription drug prices and expand home care services to patients that need it.
US citizens: call on Congress to provide food to America's poor.
US citizens: call on Google to stop storing location data that tracks its users.
To protect people who travel for an abortion, this step is essential but not enough. There are many systems that track people's movements, and we need to make them all stop.
US citizens: call on Congress to fund research about how to protect right whales.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call for legalizing marijuana.
The thugs who killed Quadry Sanders have been charged with manslaughter.
Shootings are now the largest single cause of death for Americans under 20.
The article refers to that whole age range as "children", which is a misleading practice.
A proposed windfall profits tax in the UK could stop some of Billionaire Polluters' proposed drilling projects!
US citizens: call on your senators to protect Shenandoah Mountain.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to sign a letter to support human rights for Palestinians and Israelis.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to cosponsor the MONARCH Act, to protect monarch butterflies.
US citizens: call on the DOJ to investigate Jared Kushner.
US citizens: call on Biden and Congress not to give money to big companies that violate workers' rights.
US citizens: call on the USPS board of governors to fire DeJoy without delay.
The head of the IEA (International Energy Agency) has affirmed that civilization must not explode any "carbon bombs".
He also pointed out that these investments in future suicide will do nothing to ease the current high prices. Putin's war will be long over by the time they produce anything.
The IEA has in the past provided cover for fossil fuel expansion plans, thus protecting them from pressure to cut back world emissions. Its ceasing to do so means one layer of cover removed.
George Monbiot: *We need optimism -– but Disneyfied climate predictions are just dangerous.*
Grenoble has proposed to eliminate absurd strict rules about what people can wear in public swimming pools.
Israeli soldiers shot famous Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh dead as she was covering a protest.
There was no fighting before the soldiers shot her, and others there say it looked like a targeted killing.
Israel will not investigate her killing.
Palestinians gave journalist Shireen Abu Akleh a state funeral.
Israeli thugs attacked the funeral; the US rebuked Israel for that attack.
*‘Cold-blooded’ killing and funeral chaos leave West Bank in turmoil.*
Sudan's military rulers are arresting and killing protesters demanding democracy.
Mallory McMorrow, of the Michigan state senate, responded to a vicious personal insult from a right-wing senator by giving a powerful speech reproaching right-wing repression and supporting progressive views in the name of Christianity.
Someone once told me that "to be a good Christian, you have to be a liberal democrat." That was before some people foolishly demonized the term "liberal".
It meant more or less the same thing that "progressive" means now.
That made perfect sense to me. A good Christian should likewise support the right to copy and share published works and software. But statements like that won't convince Christians coming from me, because I'm not a Christian. I'm glad to see Christians arguing powerfully for them.
Investigations of the Putin forces' use of weapons that kill across a substantial area: cluster bombs, powerful bombs, fléchettes and unguided missiles.
The treaty that entirely prohibits cluster bombs has not been signed by the world's main military powers, or by Ukraine. So I think it is a mistake to suppose that use of cluster bombs is, ipso facto, a war crime.
However, the more general treaty against using imprecise weapons in residential areas must cover cluster bombs along with the other weapons described in the article. So the use of cluster bombs there would be war crimes.
The head of NATO addressed the Davos meeting and told the tycoons that "free trade" had to be limited to protect national security.
The examples he cited have to do with military security, and I agree with him on those issues. But there are other principles that likewise ought to outweigh letting businesses do as they like. For instance, making it too easy for businesses to merge leads to price gouging and shortages.
Letting businesses have as much political power as they now do leads to starvation, homelessness, and untreated injury and illness for those who can't work.
Making it too easy for businesses resist unions leads to those same problems for employed people.
Arguing that society has no reason to permit the existence of billionaires.
Accusations that Amy's Kitchen (which manufactures packaged foods) treats workers like organic manure.
Wendell Potter: Medicare makes secret deals that it will cover the expensive trademarked drugs, but not cover their "cheaper" generic equivalents.
Jeremy Corbyn hopes that all military alliances will be eliminated in the interests of world peace.
I disagree with that view — I think that that would not be an effective way to achieve peace. In particular, I support the existence of NATO.
But his view is not an absurd or outrageous one. For instance, he rejects the claim, which originates from Putin, that NATO is to blame for Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
I am sure I have other specific disagreements with Corbyn. Complete agreement would be amazingly unlikely, and too much to hope for. Therefore, I won't stop supporting Corbyn over inevitable specific disagreements. I continue to believe that he would be a far better leader for the UK than any of the current Tory or Labour leaders.
*Pro-democracy campaigners in West Virginia and Arizona on Monday risked arrest at sit-ins… demanding that Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema [end the filibuster to] allow the Senate to pass reproductive rights, climate action, and voting rights measures.*
A Massachusetts lawsuit against Exxon for misleading investors and the public about climate risks from using its fossil fuel products can proceed to trial.
The photos of Bogus Johnson in an illegal party which he had denied attending made it impossible for Britons to close their eyes to his readiness to deny the truth.
"Party gate" is a rather small issue, in regard to its direct effects on anyone. But the photos of their idiotic disregard for the danger of Covid-19 demonstrated visibly the Tories' contempt for everyone who isn't particularly powerful — contempt that they have implemented in many areas of policies, some causing great suffering to thousands or millions.
Education apps are full of spyware, like other apps.
The mere existence of an "advertising ID" in a computer is an example of malware in the operating system.
Areas of Australia that have been subject to persistent and repeated heavy rain now face a plague of leaches.
The Czech Republic discriminates against Ukrainian Roma when they arrive as refugees. Officials deny them the refugee certificate that other Ukrainian refugees receive. They face similar prejudice if they go to Germany.
Some of these refugees have papers saying they have Hungarian citizenship too. Orbán offered Ukrainian Roma such papers, but if they go to Hungary now, it says their papers are forgeries.
Russia is exporting grain stolen from occupied parts of Ukraine.
Some of the laws proposed by fanatical Christians to ban abortion would also ban in-vitro fertilization.
In my view, we should not do any in-vitro fertilization until Earth's population is considerably smaller, and decreasing.
*Elon Musk's Twitter takeover exposes the real threat to free speech: Big Tech monopolies.*
I would not say that is the one and only real threat, but it is an important one.
Tories crushed the British unions in the 1980s, but not entirely. Now that train drivers' real income has gone way down, and they are planning a strike, Tories are planning to criminalize the strike.
*Male TV presenters in Afghanistan are wearing face masks on screen to show solidarity after the Taliban issued an order that all women on news channels must cover their faces.*
Republicans are trying to force women to have more babies, but refuse to help them feed their babies once those are born.
They care, for political reasons, about fetuses, but whether a post-born fetus lives or dies is nothing to them.
UN Secretary General Guterres is forcefully denouncing fossil fuel companies, calling them "climate wreckers" and urging young people to refuse to work for them.
I prefer "planet roasters", but "climate wreckers" fits them too.
I read several years ago that US oil companies were finding it hard to hire good staff — graduates considered them bad.
Indeed, young people are more aware of the harm and danger of fossil fuels. I hope people my age learn this soon.
Australia permitted supply problems to slow the installation of renewable generation.
With a can-do attitude, these problems can be overcome, Here are examples:
A wind-turbine factory whose production is no longer needed is a lot less dangerous than an fossil fuel facility whose production is no longer needed. The latter would be used by planet roasters to lobby for too much fossil fuel extraction and dangerous levels of emissions.
The delivery company Airgas employed drivers to drive heavy trucks full of gas (often CO2). It compels them to follow unsafe practices, and to lie to customers about how much gas is in the truck's cargo tank. A driver documented this and complained.
Slavoj Žižek: *We must stop letting Russia define the terms of the Ukraine crisis.*
*Yes, the liberal west is hypocritical, applying its high standards very selectively. But hypocrisy means you violate the standards you proclaim, and in this way you open yourself up to inherent criticism – when we criticize the liberal west, we use its own standards. … And the only way to defend what is worth saving in our liberal tradition is to ruthlessly insist on its universality.*
Biden, speaking in Japan, said that the US would defend Taiwan if it is attacked.
Some people are going to find that shocking, but it should not be. That the US will defend Taiwan if China attacks Taiwan is entirely proper and normal. What ought to be shocking is that China is willing to consider attacking Taiwan.
Professor Tribe: The revocation of Roe v Wade would be a legal revolution based on an arbitrary partisan rejection of an area of existing jurisprudence. The supposedly similar past examples are not actually similar.
*"Warmongering, lies and hatred": Russian diplomat in Geneva resigns over Ukraine invasion.*
I am reminded of the diplomat (was he American? British?) who, early in this century, resigned and said, "Has 'oderint dum metuant' become our motto?"
"Oderint dum metuant", the emperor Caligula's favorite saying, is Latin for, "Let them hate us, as long as they fear us."
Mexico's Supreme Court banned the practice of searching people on buses based on racial profiling.
The crew of a ship that was sent to rescue refugees drowning in the Mediterranean faces prosecution in Italy and possibly 20 years in prison.
It appears that right-wing extremists constructed falsehoods for the prosecution.
Putin's puppets in Kherson are going to "request" annexation of the city by Russia.
*[Proposed] US fracking boom could tip world to edge of climate disaster.*
The Tories continue to push to criminalize protesting, and even appearing to plan to help a protest.
Why condemn Putin if you're going to imitate him?
The Supreme Court eliminated the possibility of presenting exculpatory evidence to a federal court after an incompetent defense lawyer failed to present it in the initial trial — or failed to sign a form in time.
This decision places respect for the court system above the rights of people to a fair trial. Instead of making the system give justice, this decision closes its eyes to its failures and defines them away. That's called "finality."
It would indeed be a good thing if we could count on trial defense lawyers to do their jobs properly and present all important evidence for the defense. Instead of pretending they did so, our legal system should make damned sure they do so.
A Russian officer explains why he resigned from Putin forces out of shame. It seems that many Russian soldiers are refusing to be part of the Putin forces, refusing to go to Ukraine.
One thing that interests me is that apparently rule of law still applies inside the Russian army, for some things. Putin's servitors make fabricated criminal accusations against dissidents, but the army lets people resign, or refuse to go outside Russia, because the law says they can.
*Millionaires join Davos protests, demanding "tax us now."*
Planet roaster companies are building 200 "carbon bombs" — defined as projects that will generate a billion tons of CO2 if fully utilized.
These companies, the world's main fossil fuel companies, are intentionally sabotaging any chance of avoiding global catastrophe. If you are young today, these carbon bombs are likely to kill you. Don't delay fighting back against this planned mass murder until you're doomed to probable death from it.
The American Library Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the Authors' Guild, and some big publishing companies have set up a campaign against censorship in the US.
The Putin forces are sending tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians to special makeshift jails and subjecting them to interrogation with beatings.
Some are them released after a few days. Others have been held for weeks. It's not clear what happens to those that the Putin forces determine feel a loyalty to Ukraine, or have been soldiers. They may be sent to Russia, they may be shot.
The FCC opened the doors to political spam text messages to cell phones. It should shut the doors again.
*Globalisation of food production has left millions hungry.*
We must stop optimizing food production for efficiency and profit and bring robustness back into the system.
We must also have fewer children so as to reduce the future population.
The world urgently needs to cut emissions of methane and other short-term greenhouse gases.
*More than 120 civil society groups from around the world on Thursday warned that nations have only six months left to meet a collective commitment made at last year's United Nations Climate Conference to end public financing of fossil fuels.*
The Taliban have forced female TV reporters to cover their faces on the air. This is on top of prohibiting women's education beyond secondary school.
It is disgusting, but I don't see what we can do to weaken their grip on Afghanistan.
*Abandoned fishing gear is killing marine life and poisoning our oceans.*
Australia's right-wing planet roaster government has fallen. What kept it going for ten years was threats — and lies.
*[Ukraine chief negotiator] Podolyak made clear that Ukraine would not accept any deal with Russia that involved ceding territory, and that agreeing to a ceasefire now while making concessions to Russia would backfire on Ukraine because "Moscow would hit back harder after any break in fighting."*
That's what I said a month ago about any agreement to end the war.
US citizens: call on Biden to take executive action to expand workers' power.
US citizens: call on your senators to sign Senator Merkley's letter opposing Israel's plan to demolish a thousand Palestinians' homes.
US citizens: ask your congresscritter to commit to voting No on any bills that fund military spending at over 90% of the current level.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on Comcast, Charter, and DirecTV to suspend the Faux News channel.
US citizens: call on Speaker Pelosi to take a stand against corporate dark-money misinformation ads.
Could "peace circles", or other opporunities for students to speak and be listened to, help lead Americans away from plans to die in the process of killing?
The official UK thugs decided in the 1970s not to try to infiltrate violent right-wing extremist groups because those were too violent.
It was safer to infiltrate groups that advocated peace, or the rights of the weak, because they were not a real threat.
(satire) *Surgeon Loses Another Patient Under Operating Table.*
The Department of Justice said it would no longer prosecute crackers who break security for the sake of reporting or correcting flaws.
We still need to change the CFAA to narrow it to cases which are really attacks.
Please don't use the term "hackers" to refer specifically to breaking security.
*Why Seniors Like Me Are Fighting Against Medicare Direct Contracting and ACO REACH.*
Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, is determined to make Republicans win Pennsylvania in the 2024 presidential election. If he can't get the voters to vote that way for real, he is ready to steal the election.
Experimental proof that Microsoft's Bing search engine censors for China in the US.
The Drug Policy Alliance's strategic plan for ending the "war on drugs".
When a war is on drugs, it is dangerous to everyone.
(satire) *Knife-Wielding Tesla Kills Pedestrian.*
(satire) *Fetus Steps Outside Womb For Quick Cigarette Break.*
(satire) *NYPD Arrests Colombian Turnstile Lord Behind Massive Turnstile-Jumping Ring.*
The US government will spend about 4 billion dollars to build 4 million tons/year of direct CO2 removal capacity.
That's about 1000 dollars per ton/year.
For method this to save civilization, it would need to remove a large fraction of the 60 gigatons of CO2 emitted per year. Capacity to remove 30 gigatons/year would cost 30 trillion dollars. Aren't other solutions cheaper?
I have a feeling it will be difficult to scale up that far. Especially difficult will be sequestering all the extracted CO2 underground. The first plants will be built in places that are especially propitious, Will enough propitious places be found for so much capacity?
Having this approach available will not directly do any harm. What worries me most is that the oil companies will cite this as "the solution" and use it as an excuse to refuse to cut emissions. They will do anything to avoid actual reductions in their oil sales.
*To stave off authoritarianism, Democrats need to deliver on their promises and directly confront the institutions that deny democracy. The party is failing on both fronts.*
Ilhan Omar calls for an investigation of dangerous concentration in production of baby formula.
*Trump shares CPAC Hungary platform with notorious racist and antisemites*
Republicans killed a relief bill for small businesses. More restaurants, bars and stores will close now.
A campaign spending limit law in Brazil provided an opportunity to scientifically test the effects of such limits.
The study found that a smaller limit led to more candidates, and less advantage for the incumbent.
*Russia's Conquered Minorities Are Putin's Cannon Fodder in Ukraine War.*
This is partly true in the US — the army recruits heavily among disprivileged groups, because they have little other opportunity. At least maybe they counterbalance the right-wing extremists among the white soldiers.
Children pose deep philosophical questions. Here a philosopher tries to give them serious, respectful answers.
Florida students protested against the "Don't talk about queerness" bill, then overcame an attempt to cover up the photos in the yearbook which showed the protest.
A Colorado hospital told a patient that an operation would cost per $1,337, then afterward said, "Oops, the real price is $300,000."
With a universal medical system, this would not happen.
In Alabama, many surgeons already refuse to operate on women who are having miscarriages. They are afraid of prosecution.
Most of the time, this causes only pain and suffering. Occasionally women die from it.
Soon fanatical Christians will spread this threat to women's lives to other states.
Take care of yourself: don't risk going through pregnancy in a Republican-controlled state.
A proposed explanation for why most Filipinos voted for Marcos, especially young ones.
Right-wing US billionaires are leading an anti-democracy movement to make the world safe for unlimited plutocracy.
The Tory minister of policing emphasized the importance of arresting people who steal food to eat.
Several US government "law enforcement" agencies are keeping records on everyone who lives in the US — or as close to everyone as they can arrange.
*Afghan surgeon who fled Ukraine says he was treated differently at Polish border.*
*[Right-wing extremists] are animated by a vision of 1950s-style white Christian patriarchal dominance –- it is the only order they will accept for America.*
Prohibition of abortion in El Salvador has created a presumption of guilt for any woman who has a miscarriage that might have been an abortion.
182 women have been convicted and imprisoned there for having a grave problem in pregnancy, over 24 years. And they keep on imprisoning more.
California raised taxes on the rich; rich people continue moving there nonetheless.
The right-wing "realist" claim that they would move away to reduce taxes seems to be bogus.
At the start of May, 15% of US households with children reported food insufficiency.
In August it was 9%. The increase is due to Senator Manchin.
Global heating has made disastrous heat waves in India 100 times more probable.
Formerly they were likely to happen once in 300 years. Now it is once in 3 years, which means they are now part of normal weather.
It's only a matter of time before they reach the level of fatal weather and kill millions of people in a day.
The US investigated an attack in Syria that killed and wounded civilians, and concluded that no specific person was to blame. That could be a falsehood to protect the guilty. But not necessarily: it could be true. If so, there are two possibilities:
A Japanese medical school has been found guilty of sex discrimination after it reduced the grades of female applicants to compensate for their superior skills.
Several scientists present reasons to conclude that various chemicals in our environmental pollution are pushing millions of people towards obesity — especially as children.
*More than 3,000 potentially harmful chemicals found in food packaging.*
*Trump claims immigrants are voting illegally. The real problem is foreign fat cats funding US campaigns.*
That's in addition to the other real problem: American fat cats funding US campaigns.
Rio Tinto mining has made a non-binding agreement to cooperate with some indigenous groups in protecting ancient sites from its mines.
It is probably better than no agreement at all; but I don't think that the disposition of amazingly old art from the past ought to be in the hands of a mining company.
*Ginni Thomas reportedly urged Arizona Republicans to overturn 2020 result.*
That was on 9 Nov 2020, 6 days after the election.
She and her husband have persistently aimed to overthrow the US government.
*There is no way to fool physics. Climate Breakdown And State-Corporate Madness.*
*FBI failing to address white supremacist violence, warns former special agent.*
Big Oil companies are using their windfall profits to buy back stock, much faster than they did last year.
The right-wing Supreme Court could reverse a wide range of long-standing decisions that put checks on the power of the most powerful.
*Decolonizing US Energy System Would Save 50,000 Lives and $600 Billion a Year.*
(satire) *Febreze Introduces New Rotting Rat Carcass For Covering Up Tough Odors.*
China makes antisocial media sites present the location of the user who made a posting. That makes it easy to demonize anyone that the government-supported majority wishes to demonize.
The US has "investigated" an air strike in Syria that killed lots of civilians, mainly as a whitewash.
Banning abortions significantly increases poverty, medical problems, and danger of death for the women thus compelled to have babies.
The UK will require banks to provide ATM or branch access in all communities.
I applaud this decision. You can help make your country do likewise, by insisting on purchasing anonymously (which currently means, only with cash).
* Handing over the WikiLeaks founder [Julian Assange] to the US will benefit repressive regimes around the world.*
He has only done what any good journalist is supposed to do.
Global heating is making it harder for people around the world to sleep.
Greenhouse gases affect nights even more than days.
A Jamaican MP takes a thoughtful stand on the question of when it is or isn't right to deport people who have committed a crime.
*Big carmakers stuck in slow lane over switch to zero emissions.*
(satire) *"No Way To Prevent This," Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.*
*Rising Authoritarianism and Escalating [Global Heating] Are Supported by the Same Industries.*
Bezos thanked Manchin for blocking a tax increase on corporations.
When you think of Amazon, think "Manchin." This is one more reason to refuse to buy from Amazon, on top of all the others.
(satire) *CIA Criticized For Use Of Abusive Etiquette Coaches In Black Site Finishing Schools.*
The European Union proposes to become a branch of China.
The European Union executive branch has proposed a directive for mandatory censorship of communication services including chat and email, which includes requiring client software to scan for prohibited communications. Interpreting the description here literally, this would prohibit free software email or chat clients.
The rules would also apply to cloudy services that offer to store data and snoop on it. Under these rules, they would be required to snoop on everything.
The proposal would also require all digital services to make users prove their identity, presumably through some nonfree software and/or online disservice. This would be the total surveillance society that we have long feared the internet would turn into — a place in which whistleblowing and dissent would inevitably be caught.
2000 years ago, local climate alterations wiped out Rome's favorite herb. Now, global climate alterations can wipe out many plant species, including some we grow massive quantities of.
The UK's plutocratist government has arranged to make poor people pay a higher rate for gas and electricity than everyone else. Now some poor people are disconnecting those services rather than pay debts of around 10 to 20 dollars.
Robot assistance in surgery for bladder cancer has made it much more reliable. It also enabled patients to recover faster.
I wish the article explained more about what "robot" means here. Is it a kind of wireless waldo, or does it have some autonomous capability?
I also wonder how they get the robot to the bladder. Through a small incision?
Between two expeditions to find the Endurance on the bottom of the ice-covered Weddell Sea, one in 2019 and one in 2022. there was a big decrease in the thickness of the sea ice.
Global drought forecast: 700 million people forced to move by 2030, 7 or 8 billion affected by 2050.
This probably implies food shortage — everywhere, all the time. And many deaths. And lots of cities burning. We may need desalination plants to get water to fight the fires, as well as water to drink.
Drought is only one of the deadly effects of global heating.
The big US meat processing companies used their political influence to keep operating in 2020 with no precautions against the spread of Covid-19 among their workers. The result was hundreds of workers dead, and Covid-19 spreading through the local area.
*[California] Coastal Fire Shows Even the Rich 'Are Not Safe From Earth Breakdown'.*
With the current drought, the fire season is now all year long.
*Texas Gov. Abbott's Solution to Formula Shortage? Let Migrant Babies Starve.*
A driverless car constantly takes video in all directions. San Francisco thugs use them for systematic snooping.
In a testament to the the power of plutocracy, only 15% of people in poor countries have been vaccinated against Covid-19.
Women's rights groups denounced Manchin and Sinema for maintaining the filibuster and their claim that this will protect against Republican wrongdoing if they ever control the senate.
With Republicans' "by hook or by crook" attitude, we can expect them to cancel the filibuster whenever they get a chance.
Various Arab governments (hostile to Iran) have lobbied very hard to block a new non-nuclear deal.
In substance, culture wars are a distraction. But that doesn't mean they are unimportant. This distraction can be deadly, by enabling right-wing extremists to control who has power on questions that do matter.
The Putin forces are holding on to some strongpoints close enough to Kharkiv to bombard the outskirts of the city from them.
The US Senate wants to enable the US to prosecute non-US war criminals. US war criminals don't seem to be included.
US citizens: call on Attorney General Merrick Garland to indict Trump promptly
In the US: call on major US broadcast TV networks to show the Jan 6 committee hearings.
US citizens: call on the Department of Education to take action against predatory for-profit colleges.
We should prohibit for-profit colleges; allowing them is asking for trouble.
A Putin forces soldier pled guilty to killing a Ukrainian civilian.
The civilian was talking on a phone while riding a bicycle, and The soldier was ordered to shoot the civilian to stop him from reporting on the presence of Russian soldiers.
At the time, the soldier was driving around in a seized civilian car. That would have limited what the civilian could have known and reported about the actions of the Putin forces.
But what if the situation had been different? What if the soldier had driven by in his tank instead? Is it considered a war crime to kill a civilian who seems to be acting as a scout for the enemy? Should it be? What are soldiers supposed to do in that situation?
The new federal law to prosecute lynching is not by itself going to make racist murder cease. To achieve that requires other kinds of efforts, including rooting out white supremacists (and white supremacist ideas) from thug departments.
The point that states are making it illegal to teach what happened to Emmett Till is a very important one.
One of the things we need to do is to teach people to reject bigotry. Engaging in bigotry, even in a symbolic way as that article does by capitalizing "black" but not "white", works against that goal. Normally I decline to link to articles which promote bigotry, but I make exceptions for some articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism, as here.
* As the Bank [of England] lurches to reverse its own policies, there is a risk that "stability" will again be delivered on the backs of poor people.*
The two major parties in Australia have disregarded protecting the environment. As a result, both land and sea have been grievously damaged.
The list of recommendations are good ones, but a crucial recommendation to reduce population growth (in Australia and elsewhere) is missing.
Will Putin treat the Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in Mariupol as prisoners of war, or try them for war crimes?
The Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol would have had few opportunities to commit war crimes while besieged. The civilians around were Ukrainian and the soldiers would not have hurt them. Fighting Russian soldiers with their personal weapons would not be a war crime.
It is possible that a few of them could be accused of committing war crimes before the start of this war. In a few cases, they could even be guilty. However, accusing enemies of fictitious crimes is standard practice for Putin.
Putin could treat them properly as prisoners of war, while refusing to exchange them while the war continues.
George Monbiot: the global food system is becoming more concentrated in various ways, and some scientists that study complex systems suspect this is responsible for increasing instability.
Regulatory systems are becoming weaker: Elon Musk regularly gets away with violating laws and regulations and suffers no significant penalty.
In Victoria, more than 40% of complaints about thug departments by indigenous Australians meet with bias.
It is very rare that the complainants win.
*The [German] business dynasties who benefited from Nazis*,
and in some cases remained close to Nazis after the war.
Right-wing PACs spent millions on plutocratist Democrats in several primaries, aiming to defeat progressive Democrats, but many of the progressives won anyway.
One incumbent that was defeated was Kurt Schrader,
who set up a devious scheme to defeat Sanders's plan to pass the Build Back Better bill by not voting on the infrastructure bill until after it was passed before.
Anyone with a connection to New York City: tell Mayor Eric Adams to increase subway frequency and service, not punitive fare enforcement.
US citizens: call on Toyota to stop funding GOP election deniers.
US citizens: call on the DHS to protect immigrant workers.
US citizens: call on your state legislators to make your state a safe haven for abortion rights.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on the DNC to invest in a summer youth organizing program.
US citizens: call on your district attorney not to prosecute abortion.
US citizens: call for nonviolent first responders, not more extreme police spending.
*EU plans "massive" increase in green energy to help end reliance on Russia.* Not to mention the even bigger danger of global heating disaster.
A new sort of ultrasonic speaker and microphone could be used to track people's movements in within a house without their knowing.
A US investigation says that the Afghan army collapsed because it was set up along modern American lines and that made it dependent on US support.
Biden should use the Defense Production Act to speed conversion to renewable energy.
The surrender of Mariupol will enable Putin to conceal the war crimes his forces committed there. With the exception of the biggest crimes, such as bombarding the city into ruins, and forcibly taking some of the residents to Russia.
Several appointed high officials waited a year or more to tell the public, and Congress, about the horrible things they had seen the wrecker do or propose while in office.
If they had reported these things in January 2021, they might have helped protect the US from the extension of his grip over the Republican party.
(satire) *Biden Touts Resiliency Of American Decline While Touring Factory That's Been Closed For Decades.*
(satire) *Congress Placed On Lockdown After Deranged Man Enters Senate With Gun Control Measures.*
*Several major UK fossil fuel projects have been approved since Cop26 concluded, an analysis has found, while about 50 schemes are thought to be in the pipeline between now and 2025.*
Australia has reduced skin cancer by banning artificial UV tanning salons. Now people propose the UK adopt a similar policy.
*The [global] Energy and Food Crisis Is Far Worse Than Most Americans Realize.*
If not for global heating, we could aim for a "solution" consisting of finding more oil to pump. But that path is a very dead end.
Several US states are adopting laws to protect abortion rights for women from repressive states.
New York City Mayor Adams said during his campaign that he would help homeless people, but instead he has turned to the same old cruelty.
*What unites conservatives in the US and the UK? Terrible solutions to the cost of living crisis.*
Their "solutions" don't attempt to fix the problem, as much as to help demonize the victims. For that goal, they don't need to be in touch with reality.
Actually, inflation is nothing to worry about (in most companies) as long as your union can make the company you really work for raise workers' wages as fast as it raises prices.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, extremist supporter of the corrupter's big lie, lost the Republican primary and thus will probably not be in Congress next year.
This might be a sign that the worst form of extremism are starting to lose support among Republicans.
However, trumpery is for the most part still popular among Republicans.
Protesters that blocked a coal train in New Hampshire have been sentenced to months of jail.
Biden is sending US troops back to Somalia.
It's a bad idea for the US to get involved in fighting every terror group in the world. Many of these fights can't possibly be completely won, and in the absence of that, the US would always have a reason to keep "helping" to fight them — and generating resentment that would fuel the terror group.
Putin forces soldiers are stealing textbooks for Ukrainian, and textbooks in Ukrainian, from schools in the occupied parts of Ukraine. They are using pressure and threats to demand teachers start teaching the Russian curriculum, but some teachers resist.
They are stealing schools' laptops too. Sad to say, these laptops are surely full of user-subjugating nonfree software, and if they are replaced, the replacements will have the same problem.
The Tories propose another blow to rule of law by planning to let ministers seize more powers over thug departments, including forbidding their chiefs from criticizing the government.
The US should start negotiations with Russia about mutual reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons.
Right-wing extremists show that they want to pressure and force people to have more babies.
They equate puberty-blocking with sterilization; then they equate voluntary sterilization with forced sterilization. Through those two evident errors, they arrive at the bizarre conclusion that choosing to block your own puberty is equivalent to someone else's forcibly sterilizing you.
With this joined with their racist assumption about whose babies are good and whose are bad,
they are gradually approaching the one-time Nazi ideology of making people have babies for the state. With the added wrinkle that the increase in population puts the state's stability in danger, as well as the lives of all people except those already old. Any sort of encouragement (or pressure) for people to reproduce (regardless of which people) puts civilization in increased danger.
The articles linked to above display symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. These articles are some of the exceptions.
A white-supremacist bigot who killed 10 people in Buffalo had been posting for a long time about his plans for killing.
Visible signs that someone is planning violence are generally not certain or clear, especially when you don't know very well the person that is giving the signs. Chances are most of the people who might strike someone as suspect would never carry out any violence. Given that situation, what could possibly be useful to actually do? Nothing, I think.
Cuba has created a number of new political crimes.
I wonder about the precise definition of "to give information to international organizations, associations or even people who have not been authorized by the government."
South Africa's recent flooding and landslides are twice as likely nowadays as they were decades ago, due to global heating.
Explaining greenwashing: it's designed to distract the public from a company's continued involvement in developing new fossil fuel wells or infrastructure.
If a company's publicity about global heating doesn't talk about drastic reductions in use of fossil fuels, it's almost surely greenwashing.
People accustomed to opposing the US's many unjust or avoidable wars face a dilemma about confronting Putin's war in Ukraine.
I'm one of the former group, more or less. But I have held short of generalizing that opposition to a universal conclusion that "fighting is always simply wrong." Most of the US's wars have been power-rivalry or imperialism (and I won't be surprised if it does those again), but aiding Ukraine is an exception and we need to recognize it as one.
The US Supreme Court has removed yet another obstacle (though not the biggest one) against buying politicians.
*Exclusive: Nearly half existing facilities will need to close prematurely to limit heating to 1.5C, scientists say.*
*Pro-Israel lobbying group Aipac secretly pouring millions into defeating progressive Democrats.*
A former head of the WTO wants to develop a global system of government for geoengineering. I agree that the world needs one, but someone whose career has been associated with serving the interests of business is the last person to entrust this to.
Can anyone find the list of 16 experts he has invited to form the "Global Overshoot Commission", with information about their careers?
When UK fishing boats hire migrant workers, 1/3 of them are made to work 20-hour shifts, and 1/3 get beaten up.
Mariupol has capitulated after almost three months of siege. Some hundreds of the remaining Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered.
There is no way to tell how many civilians were killed, but it may be possible to count those who have got out, or who get out in coming days.
Due to bias in research into car crashes, cars protect women less than they protect men.
The US should treat the white-supremacist massacre in Buffalo as terrorism.
More generally, we need to reverse the peculiar and unjustified focus on terrorism committed by people other than white-supremacists, since the latter are the big threat.
More deeply, we need to change the right-wing bias that leads "law enforcement" agencies to enforce laws mainly against progressives and minority groups. This may require changing a lot of their personnel.
Putin is trying to intimidate Sweden and Finland, by threatening to move military units and weapons around if they join NATO.
Putin is talking about their membership in NATO as if it constituted a threat to attack Russia (which is not true). I think the purpose of that way of speaking is to encourage people to conceive of it that way.
Russia can move its troops and missiles around for any reason, or no reason. Putin could have moved troops to the Finnish border a year ago if it wanted to, but there was no reason to do so then, and will be no reason to do so next year, except to look bellicose. It wouldn't make any big difference in practice anyway.
This is just posturing, but it gives people something to panic about if they are so inclined.
*Experts Lay Out Proactive Measures to Defend World Against Future Pandemics.*
The first item in the list is protecting the forests where humans will occasionally catch new diseases from wild animals.
*Instead of sacrificing lives to a free-market insurance God, [Medicare for All] saves lives while retraining people in [the insurance business] for the life-affirming jobs of the future.*
The Americans who cry "tyranny!" about masks and vaccinations are the same ones that are trying to abolish many substantial human rights that were established in the 1960s and 70s.
Senator Warren's new proposed law would punish companies for price gouging while being profitable already.
Republican plans for persecution of people connected in any way with abortions take advantage of the injustice of surveillance that has been built into digital infrastructure and online disservices over many years.
We will need to demand coin phones, and libraries that let us do searches without saying who we are.
Australia will buy out some boats' fishing permits to help certain species survive.
If global heating effects are part of the problem, this sort of help may not suffice for long if global heating continues.
Many of Afghanistan's working women are now idle at home, the jobs they formerly did are not done, the people they served (often women) are left wanting, and this adds to the economy's losses.
*Taliban dissolves Afghanistan’s human rights commission as "unnecessary."*
The right-wing Australian government proposes to help Australians get the money to buy a house by letting them draw money from their retirement funds.
This will mean more competition for the available housing, thus forcing the prices up. It won't provide any net benefit for the non-rich. In other words, it is a swindle.
*Republicans are fueling extremism and terror like the Buffalo shooting.*
Republicans are blocking funds for Covid-19 tests, treatment and vaccination. Their willingness to sabotage the country for a partisan victory makes them effectively terrorists.
Floods ruined crops in part of northeast Australia. The area was previously flooded in February, as part of widespread flooding that also destroyed houses in much of eastern Australia.
Global heating is increasing the frequency of such floods there and elsewhere. Australia's planet-roaster politicians are responsible for this (along with other countries' planet-roaster politicians).
Isn't it a shame that the article says not a word about this?
Heidi Marston, head of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, quit abruptly and denounced the government policy which treats homeless people first of all as unsightly, and only second as people in need of help.
This is a response to selfish pressure from wealthy residents and business owners.
The underlying cause of homelessness is that any place to live in a major city (where there are jobs) is too expensive for most people even when they have jobs.
One major cause of this is zoning laws that block expansion of housing capacity.
As Covid-19 evolves and becomes more transmissible, it also evolves away from the target that current vaccines are aimed at. Their effectiveness is gradually decreasing. But there is no special effort to accelerate development of better vaccines.
All this is happening as society in most countries has totally surrendered to the fools and jerks. The fools say, "What, me worry about Covid?" The jerks say, "I wouldn't wear a mask to save your life — or anyone's life."
Contrast this with Japan and South Korea, where people continue to reduce the number or cases by wearing masks.
That's what you get when you put a habitual liar in charge of a job that requires saying no to the wealthy.
A member of Australia's Administrative Appeals Tribunal says he was stopped from hearing welfare benefits cases because he had decided too many cases in favor of the individuals who were making the appeals.
He has "rejected the department's interpretation of the law on a number of points that have never been definitively decided on appeal."
A large survey finds that cynical people are perceived as being more competent than others, but on the average they aren't really so.
The Putin forces have retreated from most of the seized territory around Kharkiv. They gave way easily to advancing Ukrainian troops.
As a result, Kharkiv is no longer in artillery range of the Putin forces. There could be occasional missile attacks, but the city will not suffer further bulk destruction.
Nuclear power is still not a usable solution. It's even more dangerous than we used to recognize.
A Just Stop Oil activist says that threats of imprisonment will not make them give up. They will continue striving to save civilization and the ecosphere.
European news associates dangerous heat waves, not with hot death to come, but with having fun.
The corrupter says that he lost the phones that the investigators subpoena'd from him.
I don't believe a word of it, but it will be hard to prove it is false.
DeMentis signed a bill requiring Florida schools to teach students about the victims of communism.
It is important for people to learn about the victims of communism. Stalin killed tens of millions of Russians, and Mao did the same to Chinese. They left behind corrupt dictatorships.
However, I fear that Republicans will use this opportunity to indoctrinate students to believe that today's extreme capitalism represents a just society. Meanwhile, slavery in the US, and subsequent racist laws, are also crucial for Americans to learn about.
Idea: Twitter should not allow any presidents or prime ministers of nuclear-armed states to have accounts, because they could use Twitter to start a nuclear war.
Perhaps Twitter should not allow any president or prime minister, or war minister, or general, to have an account.
Multiperson virtual reality raises a number of issues of right and wrong, which can be considered in relation to the laws of various countries, or to various ideas of morality. There will be conflicts among these.
One moral issue which the article is unaware of is that of the nonfree software in use at multiple levels in the underlying support, both in the VR headsets and in the multiperson interaction server. These programs will have malicious functionalities, since nonfree software usually does.
Until we have VR systems that companies can't snoop on and manipulate, I will carry out my interactions with people in other ways.
Please do not dehumanize other people by referring to their words and actions as "content".
US oil company profits are running at twice the high level of a year ago, Let's tax those profits and spend money on what we need!
In Nigeria, a mob of fanatical Muslims murdered a student accused of blasphemy. The local sultan condemned the murders, and cops are arresting the murderers.
The fanatics don't like this, so they held a protest, which fortunately was not very big or dangerous.
Whatever your religion may be, you have no right to kill people for rejecting it or criticizing it. If you do so, you bring shame on it.
*A federal judge has blocked part of a law that makes it a felony to give gender-affirming puberty blockers and hormones to minors.*
Some genetically modified plants may be safe and useful. It would be good to have a path for careful testing and approval of them.
The danger of using them, with a plutocratist government, is that it could become a pushover for business interests, and thus might not take the precautions seriously.
A big heat-wave in India is destroying the wheat harvest.
This adds to the shortage caused by the inability to export Ukraine's wheat.
It has been clear for years that we were driving ourselves into a food shortage. It was not clear that we would hit it so soon.
The US government is distributing Evusheld, a monoclonal antibody for Covid-19, gratis, but greedy bastard hospitals and insurance companies are charging hundreds of dollars for it
This would not happen if the US adopted a universal medical system, also known as Medicare for all.
The high-pressure training of gymnasts, some not even teenagers, goes as far as claiming they are faking when they say they have been injured.
Ultimately this is the natural result of competitive pressure transmitted to the gymnasts through coaches that are interested in winning more than anything. It is a perverse system. We should not put people in a position where their health depends on resisting the demands of people they have been taught to trust.
(satire) *Google Maps Adds Shortcuts Through Houses Of People Google Knows Aren't Home Right Now.*
Breaking news: Google will allow people to pay to opt out from this use of their homes.
Tomas's law:
Any sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from stupidity. (Because that provides deniability for the perpetrators.)
I don't know Tomas's identity, but he said I could post his law.
The UK needs a national housing plan. Corbyn would give it one.
The US also needs one, but Republicans don't want the poor and the disprivileged to suffer less.
Arguing against the absurd ruling that calling a man "bald" is sexual harassment.
I don't think it's even an insult. Why fuss about it?
Some of the reasons why the US has had the third-highest rate of death from Covid-19 — higher than all other countries other than Brazil and Poland.
The article does not present the Republicans' intentional obstruction US efforts to protect Americans from Covid. (It is hidden behind the word "polarized", which creates a false equivalence between Republicans and non-Republicans.)
Their obstruction started in February 2020, when Republican leaders publicly said not to worry while privately buying stocks to profit from the disease. In April, when it became clear that people from disprivileged groups were more likely to die from Covid, Republicans started opposing measures to reduce the spread. During 2020 they politicized rejection of the use of masks, using their breath as an instrument to support their campaign of harassment and intimidation.
A few weeks ago, Republicans blocked federal funding for vaccines and treatment.
They are still the disease-spreader party.
*Biden DOJ Applauded for 'Long Overdue' Environmental Justice Plan.*
The election of Marcos Jr as president of the Philippines will give him the opportunity to sabotage the commission whose job is to find and seize his father's corrupt gains.
US citizens: call on the Department of Education to fight right-wing hate and defend the rights of teachers and students.
US citizens, tell your senators: we need Medicare for All now.
The latest right-wing hit job movie by Dinesh D'Souza insists repeatedly that dropping off ballots for others is corrupting US elections, and demonizes people who do it — without the slightest evidence that any of them did anything wrong.
Justice Thomas rebuked Americans for not respecting the Supreme Court any more.
The 6-3 majority of right-wing justices is the result of Republicans' by-hook-or-by-crook attitude and rigging of elections for a political goal. Why should Americans respect the Supreme Court more than they respect the way Republicans took it over.
About how to support Ukraine's reconstruction, comparing with the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II.
The US subpoena's a Guardian reporter's phone records to try to find the originer of a leak.
The Jan 6 investigation committee has subpoena'd five Republican members of Congress to testify.
*I Stopped to Watch [School] Recess in My Neighborhood — and Security Was Called.*
Accusing Iran of arresting visitors as an excuse to make them hostages.
Governments likely to be pressured in this way should very visibly warn all their citizens not to visit Iran. Even if you have never been involved in anything political related to Iran, even if your activity there is beneficial, even if it is just a holiday, even if it is visiting friends and family — do not go!. Especially, if you have Iranian relatives — do not go!.
It would be best to have airport ground personnel give these warnings, and give them at the time of selling tickets too.
"We are not suckers; tell your family now not to ask us to be suckers. If Iran makes you a hostage, we will not give Iran anything to try to procure your release. If you don't want to be a hostage, now is your only chance to avoid it. Don't go to Iran!"
Maine has banned use of sewage sludge as fertilizer. This law can prevent contamination of farmland with PFAS.
Meat-packing companies successfully lobbied the corrupter's officials to allow them to let Covid-19 run rampant through their plants.
Israel showed disdain for Biden as well as contempt for Palestinians and dishonesty towards the public, by authorizing almost 3000 new housing units for Israelis in the West Bank territory of Palestine.
These housing units are in colonies that Israel pretends to consider "illegal", but it doesn't let that acknowledged illegality interfere with building them.
Elon Musk's vision of a proper life for workers is that they spend all day working for someone like him, and the night too when he wants. They are effectively robots in a giga-sweatshop.
*Planned EU rules to protect children online are attack on privacy, warn critics.*
The idea of scanning all messages for prohibited messages presumes that users are compelled to run a nonfree application. That's fundamentally unjust, and these nonfree programs will surely be designed to mistreat their users. (Nonfree programs generally are.)
I wonder if these applications will be designed to report you as an
"abuser" if the text you send starts with --BEGIN PGP MESSAGE--.
Interview with Igor Pedin, who walked from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia over 2-3 weeks.
Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country, partly because of opposition to Putin's war, partly from fear of being conscripted into it.
Parents in India are suing their son for the money that they blew on his fancy wedding and his professional training, because he and his wife don't want to have babies.
I suspect that the parents were as much responsible for making the wedding expensive as the couple. Fancy weddings are a form of competitive consumption, which in general can become a compulsion. Resisting it is a crucial part of wisdom.
India's population is growing substantially, and the consequences will cause great suffering in a few decades for almost everyone in India, and contribute to the suffering of the rest of the world.
One of several causes of the US shortage of milk substitutes for babies is too many mergers.
An Australian MP is demanding a "Christian lobby" stop using her picture on a hostile leaflet, on grounds of copyright.
I don't know the details of the "religious discrimination bill", or why they call it that. (The coverage of that bill in The Guardian presumed too much background for me to understand it without too much work.) On general principles, if an incumbent elected official in a mainly Christian country is attacked by a "Christian lobby", I probably I disagree with that lobby. Most likely I would agree with MP Sharkie if I knew what the issue was.
However, it is clear that freedom of political speech includes the freedom to show a picture of a candidate you oppose. It is an injustice for copyright law to interfere with that.
A Florida judge invalidated Governor DeMentis's gerrymandering plan because racial gerrymandering violates the state constitution.
*Russian ["Wagner"] mercenaries linked to civilian massacres in Mali.*
*Staten Island DA Bought Clearview Face Recognition Software With Civil Forfeiture Cash.*
We must legally eliminate all possibility for prosecutors or other "law enforcers" to use any surveillance systems without getting specific approval from the city's elected government.
AMLO objected to Biden's plans to exclude Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the Summit of the Americas.
The dictator of Nicaragua is as repressive of dissidents as Putin, though not resembling Putin in military aggression. Cuba represses dissent too, though perhaps not as thoroughly. If any country deserved to be excluded from some international project, Nicaragua would.
But there is a value in inviting all the countries in the region.
Britain's withdrawal from the EU has caused trouble for many UK citizens that live in EU countries — especially when they are married to people who are not UK citizens.
Many of these problems are not direct consequences of the UK's decision, in that the problems are the result of decisions by the UK that the UK could unilaterally change.
Of the patients hospitalized for Covid-19 two years ago in Wuhan, around 1/10 have not returned to work. A much larger fraction have serious problems.
*Lindsey Graham said Joe Biden is "best person" to lead US, tapes reveal.* That was shortly after the wrecker's Jan 6 attempt to steal the election.
The significance of this is that it shows Senator Graham's cowardice. He knew what was right, but he chose to join the insurrectionist mob rather than stay loyal to his country.
It is not too late for Graham to redeem himself.
*This British "bill of rights" is constitutional butchery that will make us all less free.*
It is meant to replace the substantial support for human rights that was adopted when the UK was part of the EU. It is a scheme to pretend to follow human rights standards while in practice allowing laws to reject them whenever desired.
The musk-rat said he would allow the bullshitter back onto Twitter.
The bullshitter said he would refuse to post on Twitter anyway, but given his dishonesty there is no reason to believe anything he says about what he intends to do. It is trolling, nothing more.
We can expect plutocracy and corruption. The article says, they will help strengthen China.
US citizens: call on US corporations to stop funding anti-abortion candidates.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate the harm caused by the censorship of SESTA/FOSTA, by passing the SAFE SEX Workers Study Act.
US citizens: Thank the senators who defeated the attempt to pass a law to block reestablishment of the non-nuclear deal with Iran.
The US deportation thug department snoops on the digital records of nearly everyone in the United States.
*Covid threat being ignored in England for ideological reasons, [said] NHS leaders [a month ago].*
North Carolina's Supreme Court said that whether protesters in the state assembly are "too loud" is an arbitrary decision — up to whichever politician doesn't like the protest.
That court has rejected the idea that all deserve equal rights. It is preparing for tyranny.
The UK plans to deport queer asylum-seekers to Rwanda despite knowing that they have a substantial chance of being persecuted there.
(satire) *Bombshell Report Finds Democrats Conspiring With Bookie To Deliberately Throw Midterms.*
Sad to say, the Democratic National Committee more or less did this when it decided to give Clinton unfair support to beat Sanders in 2016.
(satire) *Shell Announces Plans To Plant Single Tree For Every Irreversible Planetary Disaster It Causes.*
Colorado has removed election officials for trying to sabotage a past election.
Political bias in the British thug departments and spies: they snooped on thousands of anti-fascists who joined non-violent campaigns against violent fascists.
Apparently they did not consider violent fascists a problem.
I don't think it makes a difference that some of the antifascists were high-school students.
Now that disabled people in Canada who can't get treatment for horrible pain can get help in suicide, some who oppose the idea of assisted suicide are attacking the law for that consequence..
I agree with Jocelyn Downie about the matter. Those people do have untreatable medical conditions — untreatable in a practical sense. A plausibly effective treatment exists, but not for them. Helping them die is not the best possible help for them, but they consider it better than nothing.
A right-wing Canadian MP has been castigated for connecting to a parliamentary session from a toilet
This shows that irrational persecution over "disgusting" (but victimless) actions are not limited to things related to sex.
The company "SafeGraph", which collects location data from people's snoopphones, admits it was recently selling lists of people who visited abortion clinics.
"Anonymizing" the data does not effectively protect the people's identities. They can often be determined from the data, together with other lists of data about people.
If this company really stops, others will do it instead. Please, focus on the fundamental nastiness of the cell-phone freakosystem, and not one particular example of it.
The shortage of food for babies in the US is exacerbated by the harmful concentration of that industry.
Jesse Jackson compares the coming anti-abortion decision to the 1857 Dred Scott decision.
We need to put an end to proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining, unless all the world's electricity supply is moved to renewable sources.
Tesla's labor law violations.
Tesla's union-busting.
Punishment for union-busting.
Australia's right-wing government has corrupted Australia's scientific research agency, according to its former head climate scientist, who how has quit.
The agency does whatever research companies will fund. In the field of climate science, that means that the planet-roaster companies control the research.
The agencies scientists are gagged from commenting publicly on public issues relating to their expertise.
He says that the main opposition party (Labor) is not much better than the governing coalition.
*Workers Mark May Day With Pro-Labor Protests Worldwide.*
*Bushland marked as environmental offset for new Sydney airport bulldozed for car park.*
When companies cite land as an "offset" for carbon emissions, the state makes no effort to check whether it really survives, These offsets are essentially bogus, mere excuses for present-day environmental destruction or excess greenhouse gas emissions.
An anti-abortion group in Wisconsin was attacked with a molotov cocktail, and an unknown group calling itself "Jane's revenge" and claiming to defend abortion rights said it was responsible.
We can expect that the cancellation or Roe v Wade will lead to plenty of right-wing cruelty to take revenge for, but it's not happening yet, so the idea of revenge now doesn't make sense.
In addition, it is the antiabortion movement that has repeatedly engaged in violence (including murder of doctors). The abortion rights movement has acted nonviolently.
Those two reasons, plus the fact that the supposed group is unknown, lead me to speculate that maybe this was a false-flag attack.
*Trump inquired if China could make hurricanes to harm US, ex-officials say.*
In fact, China has been doing exactly that — by building more coal-fired power plants. However, it is wrong to focus the blame primarily on China. Historically, the US has done much more to exacerbate hurricanes than China has.
Another Salvadorean woman has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for supposedly "killing" a fetus.
The article does not make it clear whether she had an abortion or an accidental miscarriage. Maybe there is a dispute about which one it was, The verdict is unjust either way; only the precise nature of the injustice depends on which one it was.
The campaign to ban swastikas (and other symbols of hate ideologies) has spread to Australia.
Nazis today are a real threat to democracy, but there are lots of twisted messages and symbols they can spread their ideology with, with never a swastika.
What makes them powerful and dangerous is the system that facilitates any sort of disinformation and scatterbrained hatred. To attack their symbols with censorship is a misguided counterblow. It hits the wrong target, freedom of speech.
If we abandon the overriding principle of freedom of speech, we will have no strong defense to stop right-wing Nazi-lovers (such as the billehitter) from banning our own symbols and expressions of our ideas.
*Lifting zero-Covid policies in China could risk 1.6m deaths, says study.*
I admire the spirit of the zero-Covid strategy — ready to go to the mat to prevent a massive outbreak. If it succeeds, it will greatly reduce the harm caused by the disease in China. They ought to be somewhat less rigid about many details — that is Communist authoritarianism at work.
However, if it can't possibly succeed, it is better to make a careful plan for changing the strategy, than to keep trying it and failing and stay in lockdown ad infinitum.
The US seems to be ending its public concessions to China's demands about Taiwan, which the US adopted in 1972 as part of its historic reconciliation with China. For instance, going out of its way to state that it does not support independence for Taiwan.
In the 1970s it made sense for the US to make these concessions. China was not then a threat to the US, or even to Taiwan; on the contrary, it offered the US some support on international disputes. The concessions did no harm and brought good consequences.
All that has changed. China is indeed a threat to Taiwan, and is allied with Russia. The US actually supports Taiwan's resistance to China's plans for conquest. For the US to tie itself in knots by explicitly limiting its support for Taiwan is a commitment to dishonesty.
It may still be wise for the US not to support Taiwan's independence, but it can refrain from supporting that by saying nothing about the point.
*What Latin American feminists can teach American women about the abortion fight.*
Putin's war may be indirectly responsible for a big increase in death of dolphins in the Black Sea.
What is more outrageous and disgusting — protesting outside houses of Injustices of the Supreme Court, or forcing women to have babies.
The patient who received a transplanted GM pig heart seems to have died from a pig virus, which wasn't supposed to be present.
When Exxon determined that recycling plastics was unlikely ever to be practical, it launched a high-powered PR and lobbying campaign to label plastic products as "recyclable" so people would believe that recycling them was really an option.
Now, the biggest US bottled-water company is fighting a lawsuit over falsely telling the public that its bottles are recyclable. Its defense is to claim that people should have known all along that that was bullshit.
In 2019, Bogus Johnson made two conflicting commitments about future trade rules, one to Northern Ireland and one to the EU. At the time, people pointed out this could not work and would lead to big trouble. Johnson just brushed it off at the time, but the trouble is getting bigger.
*It's True Crisis Time for Trans People in America.* Trans people, and then anyone homosexual, are the scapegoats of choice of religious extremists, as they push for laws that ought to be obvious violations of the First Amendment.
(satire) *Louisiana Police Officer Plants Aborted Fetus On Black Suspect.*
Biden has responded to the former saboteur-in-chief's added sanctions on Iran with timidity, and thus failed to restore the non-nuclear deal with Iran. It is not too late to show courage.
The Tories have been pushing to privatize UK public schools, calling the privatized schools "academies", and claiming that this will make them function better. However, a study found that the still-public schools are, statistically, generally doing a better job.
Clearview AI settled a suit by agreeing to end the service of recognizing a face against its enormous data base, for "most" private entities.
The article describes a few exceptions. One is the use of its recognition algorithm against some other data base. I have a hunch some other company will build up a database and keep it state by state so that it can be used to recognize everyone that is not from Illinois.
Also, government use is still permitted, and getting more dangerous. This will endanger people that travel to get abortions.
We still need a law restricting operation of systems that can do systematic face capture and/or recognition in everywhere the public is admitted.
*One by one, Republican midterm candidates are falling into line with Trump.*
It has been visible since 2016 that you can't work with the corrupter without becoming corrupt yourself. His lies are so frequent and blatant that they attack the very idea of truth, so by accepting him you show that you do not value truth.
*Watchdog Finds Medicare Advantage Plans Deny Necessary Care.*
This is in addition to gouging patients on the more expensive drugs
and raising prices just after you bind yourself for 6 months.
US citizens: call on the DOJ to arrest and prosecute Trump's Jan 6 attack organizers who refuse to testify.
US citizens: call on Congress to make the Supreme Court follow the Federal Judge Code of Conduct.
Two US phone-tracking companies showed they could track military and intelligence personnel of several nations, including Russia and the US.
They could track Americans to abortion clinics for states with repressive laws, too, if there is no law to stop them.
Protesters demanding the right to visit forests in England held a picnic as a protest.
*Mariupol survivors rescued from last civilian bunker describe horrors of siege.*
I continue to wonder about the situation with the other reported 150,000 civilians that were reported to be stuck in Mariupol. Ukraine accused Putin of taking some tens of thousands to Russia, some willingly and some who were effectively kidnapped (and some got out). That doesn't account for them all. Are the rest all dead? Is anyone still besieged in other parts of the city?
*Zelenskiy calls for end to blockade of Odesa port to prevent global food crisis.*
Pregnant Ukrainian refugees who have fled to Poland encounter Poland's repressive abortion laws.
Western Ukraine is basically safe. Much safer than having a baby, I'd expect. Can Ukrainians go back there for an abortion, or for abortion medicine?
Can Polish women go there for that?
*South Korea's new president offers North economic plan in return for denuclearisation.*
It's worth trying, but it's a long shot.
*Just one of 50 aviation industry climate targets met, study finds.*
Basically, businesses won't conserve even to save their owners' children's lives.
Victoria is following two other parts of Australia in decriminalizing sex work.
From health workers to beauticians, cleaners to academics, the erosion of our rights at work [by the gig economy] is setting us back a hundred years.*
I've proposed a law that would stop this — requiring most of any given kind of employment go to full-time workers, while allowing a fraction to be less than full-time.
*Paul Rusesabagina's family are suing the Rwandan government in the US, accusing it of a plot to abduct, torture and jail him.*
*The Climate and the Republic, Melting Down in Real Time.*
US citizens: call on the Jan 6 committee to make Rep. McCarthy testify about what he knew.
In the US: protest for abortion rights on May 14.
I can't give you a pointer to the information about where and at what hour the protests will be held. The information is published in an antifreedom web site — it requires visitors to run nonfree software — so referring people to that site would be encouraging the public to run nonfree software.
I would expect that every state has an organization that campaigns for abortion rights. I suggest finding one in your state, preferably in your city, and phoning to ask for where and when the rally will occur.
The rallies will probably be outside, but don't stand too close to other people. Covid-19 continues to increase in the US, and we have no statistics on the probability of getting a lasting disability from the current variants.
US citizens: call on Biden to sign the cluster bomb ban treaty.
US citizens: call on Senator Collins and Senator Murkowski to undo this right-wing Court's Roe decision.
Models suggest that a Covid-19 surge this fall and winter could infect 100 million people in the US.
British forces are accused of torturing and murdering captured guerrilla fighters in Cyprus in the 1950s.
Rare bonefish have become rarer in the sea around Florida. A study found that most bonefish found have levels of pharmaceuticals high enough that they are likely to harm the fish.
*Ukraine accuses [Putin] forces of seizing 2,000 artworks in Mariupol.*
This claim may be useful in prosecution, because the Putin forces can't claim to have taken the artworks by mistake while trying to take something else.
If Democrats don't refute the plutocratist narrative of inflation (blaming it on insufficient poverty), they will lose a lot of votes.
The US continues to subsidize Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine development without attaching the crucial condition: that it not do anything to block generic vaccine production.
*Hawaii Legislature Calls For Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.*
Members of violent right-wing extremist groups such as the "Oath Keepers" are involved in training thugs in various parts of the US.
(satire) *Period Tracking App Adds "Surrender to Authorities" Feature.*
You shouldn't use an US online dis-service to save information about when you have a period. Under demand from a right-wing government, the people who own the dis-service would not dare to protect you.
Maybe it is safe to use an online service in another country that respects abortion rights strongly and would refuse to answer questions from prying US governments.
Israel decided to build 4,000 more housing units for colonists in Palestine's territory.
*The west can cut its energy dependency on Russia and be greener.* Just avoid taking suggestions from fossil fuel interests.
More than 2m adults in the UK went a day without food recently because of lack of money.
That is 3% of the whole population, and it doesn't include minors that can't afford to eat every day.
The defenders of many kinds of human rights are pleading with the Tories not to abolish them in British law.
*We must fight powerful bullies, whether they are Putin, Trump, or tech billionaires.*
*For Vladimir Putin, the sinister cult of victory is all that is left.*
How the Anti-Defamation League has helped attack and snoop on a slew of progressive movements and campaigns, supported repression by thug departments, and even supported real antisemites — all of that for decades.
The site linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to pages which promote it. But I make exceptions for important information about injustices or the fight to eliminate them. That site is one of the exceptions.
(satire) *New Raid Pest Control Kit Fat Shames Ants Into Starving Themselves.*
North American wildfires could emit 3% of the global carbon budget, and could trigger additional emissions.
A 31-year-old Canadian has applied for government help in suicide because living with multiple disabilities and chemical sensitivities, with inadequate welfare benefits, is unbearable.
I respect her decision to choose death rather than a horrible life. The state should not force her to stay alive in suffering and fear.
However, it is unconscionable that the state won't provide a place she can live safely.
The war on the poor takes many forms. This is an unusual extreme — but the victims of the less extreme forms number millions.
Poverty has exploded in Brazil — and so has homelessness. Lula rebuked the governor for not caring.
Bogus Johnson plans to make it a crime to lock yourself to anyone or anything. Even carrying the equipment to do that would be a crime.
The punishment would include imprisonment, plus confiscation of all your property.
What these protesters are trying to do is prevent global heating from killing first tens of millions of people, then hundreds of millions, and eventually billions. Eventually the companies that the Tories serve will cease to exist, but by then it will be too late to avoid disaster.
*The US Border Patrol Is Systemically Failing to Count Migrant Deaths.*
The government of Sri Lanka has fallen because of crushing debt. This could happen to other countries soon.
The underlying problem here is a system which gives countries no way to escape unpayable debts. The creditors get help from the governments they control, such as the US government, and drive the people of a fallen country into penury where they exist only as slaves paying tribute to international creditors.
Humanity is close to reaching 1.5C warming, which climate defense efforts have aimed to avoid.
*Analysis says countries can save money by switching from coal straight to renewable energies.* As well as reducing the amount of global heating.
The stories of five women killed by laws restricting abortion.
The CIA's torture psychologists describe just a little of the torture that broke Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri to the point where he would crawl into a box in anticipation of a command.
A judge rejected the suit to stop insurrectionist Rep. Greene from running again for Congress.
It seems that only blatant admission of insurrectionist intent could suffice to bar a candidate.
*Filipino inquiry finds big polluters "morally and legally liable" for climate damage.*
This inquiry is part of a lawsuit about damage caused by a storm (basically a hurricane but in the Pacific Ocean).
Syrian families have identified their relatives in the films of murders committed by Assad's torture forces in 2013.
Belarus forced down the airliner carrying dissident activists Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega, and took them off the plane. Now Sapega has been sentenced to six years in prison.
It appears Russia pressured Roman Protasevich into a public confession of being a dissident.
Lula has launched his campaign to become president of Brazil again and oust Bolsonaro.
Giandomenico Iannetti, professor of neuroscience, says antiabortionists have twisted his work to make a bogus "proof" that fetuses can feel pain before 24 weeks.
The question is a red herring, because abortions after 3 months in the US already require a strong justification, and some pain would not be enough to overcome a strong justification.
Millions of acres of US farmland could be contaminated with PFAS as a result of using sewage sludge as fertilizer.
There is no known way to decontaminate the soil of those farms. However, we don't know what the level of contamination is. There may be some safe way to grow something there. Or there may not.
Many major US companies are providing abortion travel benefits to their employees. Republicans are looking for ways to persecute them.
California can turn some of these measures around to punish companies which don't provide such benefits.
Ultimately, companies can move operations out of the states controlled by religious fanatics.
(satire) *Court Delays Inmate's Execution To Brainstorm Even Grislier Method.*
My view is that the death penalty is wrong regardless of the details.
Pfizer is accused of price gouging on its Covid-19 treatment, Paxlovid.
I criticize this articles for using misleading terms, such as "global south" which is a progressive PR campaign whose spirit is laudable but whose specifics are misleading.
"Intellectual property" is a PR campaign for giving various businesses various special privileges. Lumping those privileges together is an obstacle to thinking clearly about the specific harms of each one, and judging against them any supposed benefits are each one. I have taught myself never to use that term in my thinking, my speaking, and my writing.
Right-wing organizations are using Faux News as a model for how to provoke hostility in various democratic countries.
Alito's draft opinion clearly states that the right to same-sex marriage and even homosexual sex are the next targets.
*Biden warns LGBTQ+ children could be next target of Republican ‘Maga crowd’.*
"MAGA" means "Make America Groan Again."
The NLRB accuses Starbucks of 200 violations of US labor law.
Sad to say, US labor law doesn't include imprisonment or even fines of the executives responsible for these illegalities. Why doesn't it? I suspect the reason is the prevalence of plutocratists in Congress, which in turn reflects the political power of the businesses that try to break unions.
The Putin forces' attacks are causing massive environmental damage to Ukraine. People are keeping track of them, secretly, so as to avoid helping the Putin forces cause more damage.
Mike Esper, secretary of defense under the wrecker, reports that the wrecker wanted to fire missiles at Mexican drug labs.
Aside from the outrageousness of this act of war, I don't think the US could have located them accurately enough to succeed in destroying them that way. And I suspect each missile would cost a thousand times the cost of a drug lab.
The department subsequently tried to block Esper from mentioning this in his book, but backed down. Esper suggests that it was acting politically, trying to protect the wrecker rather than the US.
The wrecker did so many provocative things to Mexico that the idea of trying to protect the US's relations with Mexico by concealing this proposal seems silly to me.
In the surveillance society, data brokers will make it easy for repressive state governments to find who has gone to an abortion clinic in another state.
Payment applications will also be used to try to find people to prosecute.
When you go to an appointment related in any way to an abortion, don't take any digital devices with you, unless it's a laptop running GNU/Linux that won't connect to the internet except when you tell it to.
And don't use a digital device to pay with. Pay in cash, for the abortion or pills, and all activities related to traveling to get there. That way, you don't need to give your real name and address.
This is one especially vicious aspect of the general injustice of widespread surveillance and tracking. It leads to many sorts of repression, so we need to reject it.
Tennessee's latest attack on abortion rights is to prohibit sending abortion medicines by mail.
I think people will find it easy to defy that law. In addition, I suspect that Tennessee cannot actually prohibit the sending of such mail in places outside Tennessee's jurisdiction.
The Australian Labor Party is aiming for 2C of global heating, which will be a disaster. The extreme planet-roasters are aiming for 3C of global heating.
*Louisiana Republicans advance bill to make abortion a crime of murder.*
Repressive US Christians are already campaigning to ban abortion and even some kinds of contraception, and not just in the US.
*WHO estimates 15m people were killed by Covid or overwhelmed health systems.*
That is twice the usual estimate. I've seen estimates of three times the usual estimate.
*The UN says the report should prompt countries to invest more in their capacity to quell future emergencies.* Countries need to maintain excess capacity, not aim for "just in time" processing of the usual number of sick people.
Israel has decided to evict 1,000 Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank, converting the area to a "military zone".
Israel has used this excuse many times for taking land away from Palestinians.
160,000 disabled homeless people in California, who can't live in the shelters as they exist, are getting evicted and have nowhere to go.
I fully support laws against renting substandard housing; landlords should not exploit tenants. But we need to be flexible when it is a matter of homeless people who scrounge a place to live which is not a commercial rental.
Searching desperately for reasons to justify compelling Ukraine to stop fighting and accept the loss of conquest of much of its territory.
The reasons seem invalid to me.
It seems to me that if Ukraine finds it that recapturing what Putin has taken costs too many casualties, it will drop the goal on its own.
On the other hand, if it succeeds in largely pushing Putin out, there is no reason to believe Putin will go mad if Ukraine approaches complete success. At that point, if Ukraine offers a commitment to neutrality in exchange for the rest of its territory back, I contend Putin will accept that deal.
The Guardian has published information about journalists persecuted by some regimes.
However, Julian Assange
and Edward Snowden
were strangely omitted
The population of flying insects in Britain has decreased by 60% since 2004.
AOC argues for cancelling college debt for everyone.
The really rich families probably didn't borrow anything -- they had no reason to do so.
The World Trade Organization has proposed a bogus alternative to waiving the patents and trade secrecy that block generic vaccine production.
Protests can sway the US Supreme Court. US supporters of abortion rights need to organize strongly now.
US citizens: call on Biden to fire Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on Congress to expand the Supreme Court so as to dilute the votes of the religious extremists.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
*Climate Activists Who Blocked Houston Bridge to Fossil Fuel Traffic Cleared of All Federal Charges.*
The increase of poverty in the UK is highlighted by the case of a 77-year-old retired woman who can't afford heat. She spends all day riding buses. This way she can afford one meal per day.
It's actually worse in the US, with thousands of people who haven't got any indoor place to live.
(satire) *Justice Alito Somberly Ties Noose After Realizing He's Not Mentioned In Constitution.*
(satire) *Nation Forced To Seek Human Rights From Back-Alley Supreme Court.*
Republican Senator Collins said that *the draft Roe opinion is "completely inconsistent" with what Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said during hearings and meetings.*
The way to make up for her damaging credulousness is to undo what she did. She has the obligation to help pass a law to expand the Supreme Court with three new justices to override the right-wing fanatics.
Harsh Republican voter-suppression is blocking disabled people from voting in some states.
In Louisiana, people living in bad conditions have been branded as "career criminals", then sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes.
Amazon seems to have fired managers for failing to defeat the unionization drive in a warehouse. Insulting the public, Amazon denies that this was the reason. That's treating the managers like the staff.
Please don't buy from Amazon. Especially, please don't ever give Amazon someone else's name and address. That's like giving Amazon your own name and address, except that you're doxing someone else instead of yourself.
Margaret Atwood: *Enforced childbirth is slavery.*
George Monbiot discusses efforts to make farming protect the soil instead of degrading it.
Don't forget birth reduction as a part of the solution!
The elected official in charge of policing in the area around Liverpool accused the thug department there of institutional racism.
The governor of Texas wants the Supreme Court to overturn a decision that states must provide public education gratis to all students.
Regardless of how a child came to be, or came to be in Texas, it is cruel and wrong to deny the child what children need to grow up into capable adults.
WHO estimates that Covid-19 has killed around 15 million people.
A fraction of them died of other medical causes because they were unable to get treatment while hospitals were filled due Covid-19, but most of them actually died of Covid-19.
The figure of 14.9 million is surely excess precision. We can't estimate the number within .1 million.
Biden has replaced the bully's symbolic border wall with a barrier of automatic surveillance.
A border thug might beat you to death, or kill you by poisoning wells, motivated by racist hatred. A robot, even an unarmed one, might beat you to death or even push you over a cliff without having any emotions, and without any concept of what it means to be injured. It need only be programmed to recognize you as a "threat".
I don't see anything inherently wrong with detecting people that cross the border. It's what happens after that, that can be wrong.
However, the surveillance of "the border" is not limited to people that recently crossed it. The US border thugs are authorized to snoop on, and search, everyone within 50 miles of a coast or border. Most Americans live in that zone. The monitoring of everyone could be extended to you in your neighborhood.
*UK Survey Finds 'Terrifying' 60% Plunge in Flying Insect Population.* This is since 17 years ago.
Some in West Virginia beg Senator Manchin to support the relief bill in August.
(satire) *Aliens Making First Contact Excitedly Ask To Meet Princess Di.*
A list of important human rights decisions that the fanatical Christians on the Supreme Court could overturn with the same reasoning that they used on abortion rights.
*Medicare Surprise: Drug Plan Prices Touted During Open Enrollment Can Rise Within a Month.*
That is, Medicare Advantage plans can advertise a price to attract you, then increase the price, and you won't have another chance to switch for six months.
Katie Wright, whose son was killed by a cop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, began filming from a distance the actions of a thug doing a traffic stop to someone else, and he came over and threatened her.
There are only 10 remaining vaquita porpoises. Quick action can still protect the species, but it must be fully effective and can't wait.
To enforce the prohibition on gillnets completely enough to achieve the goal would be unlikely. Perhaps it would work to confine them to a small part of the sea and provide them with live fish until their population reaches 100 or more.
The ordinary surveillance of nearly everyone, by snoopphones and apps, could be used as an excuse to identify people to be suspect of having abortions.
In many cases, nonfree programs are responsible for this surveillance. Nearly all apps are nonfree. Nonfree browsers typically send various identifying information.
This surveillance can provide an excuse to investigate further, for almost anything that a fanatical state might prohibit. So it is not enough to protect people who engage in one particular activity (in this case, abortion). We need to eliminate the system of pervasive surveillance.
Human Rights Watch: *Russian-linked forces 'tortured' and 'executed' civilians in Central African Republic since 2019.*
An interview with Noam Chomsky about the war in Ukraine, the Republican fanatics, and what has changed and not changed in US media.
Alongside the many points I agree with, or trust him to report accurately, I must point out one disagreement. Rivalry between powers over international influence or wealth, if it is short of war, morally cannot count as "provocation" for war, because losing a game of rivalry doesn't excuse starting a war.
Thus, Japan's desire to conquer China, thwarted by US economic sanctions, did not justify Japan's attack on the US. Dubya's desire for oil riches, together with power rivalry, did not justify Dubya's attack on Iraq. Likewise, the desire for a sphere of interest did not justify Putin's attack on Ukraine.
One of the wrecker's appointees in the Department of Hostility and Savagery ordered intelligence professionals not to talk about the possibility of Russian interference in the 2020 election.
Interviews with Ukrainian civilians who were brought from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia.
One of them reported that the Putin forces invited civilians to go to Russia (and some accepted), but did not force people to go.
Ukraine has reported for weeks than over 100,000 civilians were still in Mariupol, but I don't think it has a way to find out who is still alive. It does not seem that anyone outside the Azovstal plant has been given a chance to leave.
Hardly anyone, even in Congress, knows what emergency powers the US president has. But we cannot trust future presidents to use them only when necessary.
*Medicare for All Can Fix the Unaffordable Healthcare Crisis.*
Describing the pressure and threat tactics that Starbucks uses in a Denver store where workers will vote on unionization.
Starbucks says it will soon give workers a raise, except at stores that voted to unionize. Workers say that's illegal.
US citizens: call on Thug Chief Eric Winstrom to fire the thug who appears to have murdered Patrick Lyoya.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to prioritize ending child hunger in the US.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to co-sponsor the Ending Corporate Greed Act, which would help to establish a windfall profits tax for all industries.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Senate to codify Roe v Wade and abortion rights.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to keep his promise and end the stake of fossil fuel leases for federal land.
Fossil fuel companies in the US are funding a campaign for fracking in the UK.
Tory officials are working with drug companies on plans to corrupt Britain's National Health Service in the name of facilitating drug trials.
The basic idea of having data managers allow research queries while protecting patients' queries is worth thinking about. But I would not trust plutocratist politicians to restrain companies from abusing such a scheme. The companies would game the rules to try to deduce data about individual patients and sell it, and if the data managers simply follow rules, the snoopers will run rings around them.
The main moral issue in this is that the government should not give this cooperation without charging them a price. The price must be a reduction in monopoly power (patents, secrets, and restrictions on self-replicating substances).
*Swapping 20% of beef for microbial protein "could halve deforestation."
I love eating fungi, but I want them to taste and feel like authentic fungi, not like fake meat.
The EU is considering ending purchase of Russian oil, over a period of a year or so.
To make this work, the EU needs to prepare a program of investment in reducing its use of fossil fuel. Otherwise, Russia will sell to some other country and Europe will buy what that country used to get, and the net effect will be zero,
Fossil fuel companies are trying to convince New Mexicans to think of fossil fuels as desperately necessary, authorize more oil drilling, using ads linking new wells to public schools.
I can imagine an advertising campaign showing a school being burnt by a wildfire, a school near a river being flooded by rain from an "atmospheric river", and a school near a coast being flooded by a hurricane, saying that "these disasters are powered mainly by oil and natural gas (plus coal)."
That is the "easy listening" version. The grim version is that most of the students in those schools will die from climate mayhem before they get old.
Georgia has passed a law banning the teaching of "divisive concepts" about racism.
It specific lists a few of them:
The dirty part of the law is that "divisive" concepts include other things too, and the boundary would be easy to stretch. Right-wing officials could easily act to stop all teaching about racism.
The Supreme Court ruled that a Christian group is entitled to have its flag flown at Boston City Hall. Now the Satanic Temple demands the same privilege.
US governmental agencies are not allowed to prefer one religious position over another. Whatever one group is allowed to do, others can also do. Including secular groups whose position on religion is "none of the above", such as the Satanic Temple.
Rebecca Solnit explains that the right-wing Christian fanatics now threaten a wide range of rights: abortion rights, birth control, same-sex marriage, even homosexual sex. Not to mention freedom of speech and the right to vote.
This makes a broad resistance coalition possible.
Republicans are preparing to ban abortions nationally if they get power again.
This unpopular policy, joined with others, would lead to their defeat at the polls, if we had free and fair elections.
How one couple taught the annoyingly "concerned" neighbors to get used to seeing their children walking around on their own.
Mark Esper, the bully's Defense Secretary, says that the bully asked him to have protesters shot.
The Tories want to sell off more Britain's insufficient public housing.
They did this in the 80s and 90s, which created a big shortage, but apparently they're not satisfied yet.
* Even the few Republicans in Washington who opposed the worst excesses of Trumpism have been unwilling to fight attempts to subvert democracy at the state level.*
*Spanish prime minister’s phone "targeted with Pegasus spyware".*
NSO, the company that makes Pegasus, claims to make sure in some mysterious way that the software is used only against legitimate targets, but also claims that it doesn't verify who is actually targeted. I suspect that this is doubletalk. Perhaps by "legitimate targets" it means "targets actually chosen by an authorized user."
Telecom lobbyists are spending hard to convince Senate Democrats not to confirm Gigi Sohn as FCC commissioner.
Comparing arms for Ukraine today with arms for Britain, China and Russia in 1941.
The war is Putin's choice. He chose to start it, and I am confident he can end it by choice any time. All he would need to do is pull his forces out of Ukraine, and allow everyone he has taken from Ukraine to Russia to go back to Ukraine if perse chooses.
An interview with a polio vaccination worker in Pakistan.
Sometimes I wish we had a vaccine against religion too.
*Study Shows Even 'Green' and 'Nontoxic' Products for Kids Contain Forever Chemicals.* These include clothing and pillow protectors.
*Over half of child car seats have toxic flame retardants and PFAS — US study.*
Indian street sweepers, who usually come from very disprivileged castes, are tracked constantly using snoopwatches.
The procedure for creating a Twitter account could soon be Elon-gated.
New antiglossary entry: first peoples.
Inquiring into the source of the 1.5 million dollars that paid for ads to laud corrupt Justice Thomas and attack nominee Jackson.
I agree that Justice Thomas deserves to be removed -- just as the corrupter did. But impeaching the corrupter was ineffective and impeaching Thomas would be likewise a waste of time, because the Republicans would all defend him.
New Mexico now pays for childcare for most families — all but those with a comfortable income.
In some areas of Australia, over 20% of houses could become uninsurable by 2030 due to increasing dangers caused by global heating.
Will the Supreme Court allow states to prohibit women from leaving the state to get an abortion?
Until we restore abortion rights in the whole US, we must make it easy to get abortion medicine anonymously and ship them untrackably to women who need them and are forbidden to get them. It might be better, in an ideal world, for each woman to get examined by a doctor before using these medicines. But in this world, the risk of abortion medicine is less than the risk of any other method of abortion.
I suspect thet it is also less than the sum of all the risks (short-term and long-term), for women from marginalized groups, of having a baby. The risk of death or injury in giving birth is just the start. There's also the risk of poverty later on.
Advocating a kind of "nonaligned movement" that isn't even aligned against wars of conquest.
I see the sense in South Africa's refusing to be generally "aligned with the US" and instead forming another bloc of cooperating poor countries. However, thinking of China as one of those poor countries, rather than as a budding imperialist as nasty as the European imperialists were in 1900, is blindness.
There are many issues on which it is right to oppose the US. But I can't see how their movement can be any more legitimate than colonialism if it takes the wrong side in Putin's colonial war just because he calls the US the enemy.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to support the Roadless Area Conservation Act.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: phone your senators and call on them to pass the Women's Health Protection Act. Along with other things, it would keep abortion legal.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Verizon to stop distributing the right-wing OAN channel.
US citizens: tell the SEC you support its proposed new rules for disclosing climate risks.
In the US: call on major US broadcast TV networks to show the Jan 6 committee hearings.
*US pediatricians’ group moves to ban race-based medical guidance.*
Journalism in the Solomons is being hit by government secrecy and reprisals, apparently linked by the secret deal with China.
Biden wisely canceled a new nuclear cruise missile that the wrecker had proposed.
However, the US could do without some other new nuclear weapons projects, especially via arms limitation treaties.
* Wildfires in the vast and pristine forests of Canada, Europe and the far Northern US could release an enormous amount of planet-warming emissions between now and 2050, putting the world’s climate goals in peril.*
*The most devastating hurricanes could double by 2050 in nearly all regions of world.*
*Sanders Pushes Biden to Nix Amazon's Federal Contracts Over 'Illegal Anti-Union Activity'.*
*Catalonia plans law to protect historic shops as rents soar.*
I wish Cambridge, Massachusetts had such a law. The most interesting stores in Harvard Square disappeared in the past few decades.
The last few aged survivors of the Tulsa race massacre, 101 years ago, are suing government agencies that supported the massacre.
It is a gross understatement to describe mass murder by a mob as "a public nuisance", but if that is the only way they can get into court, it is better than nothing.
Some 120 civilians were rescued from Mariupol with cooperation of the Putin forces. However, they were taken to Putin-held territory and it is not clear whether they were all allowed to go to Ukraine-held territory.
An extreme heat wave in India is causing cancellation of trains, school, and farming. There could be a big food shortage in India this year, and due to Putin's war there will be little available to buy. I can imagine that millions may die from it. But it's just the beginning. By 2050 I expect that poor people will die from hunger every year in the US.
Australia uses junk science to conclude that smuggled immigrants are "adults", as an excuse to prosecute them.
It is absurd to treat a person of age X and a person of age X-1 so drastically differently in the same situation. But I think this is a secondary injustice that results from Australia's hostility towards immigrants that want to go to Australia.
Poland's plans to set up a registry of all pregnancies, and make doctors report all pregnancies to the government. I have to suspect that this is for repression of abortion.
Indigenous people in Australia and North America ate oysters in large quantities without depleting them. Europeans didn't bother to preserve them, and wiped out so many that they have become rare.
*Windfall taxes, price caps and VAT cuts: how nations are addressing Europe’s energy crisis.*
Reducing sales taxes (such as VAT) is a good thing to do since sales taxes fall mainly on the poor. Governments should tax rich people's gains instead of poor people's purchases or poor people's income.
Limiting the price of fossil fuels or electricity is a mistake, because people must be under pressure to use less of them. Subsidizing the cost of fuel is a dangerous addiction.
Instead of reducing what poor people pay for energy, the right thing to do is to support them unconditionally with enough money to get by. Those who don't spend it all on energy will be able to use it for other things.
A windfall profits tax will not directly help the poor or conserve fuel, but it will give governments income, so that the money for the poor does not all have to come from deficit spending. And it will slow the growth of economic inequality, which tends to make society more cruel and unjust.
*It is now unusual for major news media not to be owned by a billionaire.*
Some people who were hospitalized for Covid-19 experience lasting cognitive disability afterwards — sometimes comparable to 20 years of aging.
This is distinct from "long Covid", which is unrelated to the severity of the acute infection. It appears that vaccination mostly prevents this because it mostly prevents the severe disease.
With Taliban who are studying to act properly as police officers instead of brutal thugs.
I am shocked by the idea that anyone under 18 is a "child". That they should not be soldiers, I agree — but "child"? If someone had called me a child when I was 14 I would have resented it.
Lavrov, Putin's diplomatic spokesman, tried to identify anti-Semites with Jews.
This disinformation may be an attempt to deal with the absurdity of the claim that Ukraine is ruled by Nazis when it fact its leader is a Jew. It brought a rebuke from Israel. (Israel has been too friendly with Russia in recent months.)
In disinformation, one extreme lie paves the way for another more extreme. I won't be surprised if some day Putin's representatives claim that they need to kill the Jews of Ukraine because those are the anti-Semites.
Wildfires in the US have burnt over a thousand square miles this year, and it's only the middle of spring.
The ground and the plants are so dry that fires spread very fast and it is hard to slow them down.
UK thugs are eager to deport people. If you look non-white, and can't speak, they may presume you're not a citizen — no need to bother ascertaining your origin.
In the UK as elsewhere, right-wing officials want you to assume that everyone else is equally corrupt.
That's basically saying, "give up trying to change things — it is hopeless." But we know it's not hopeless — we have succeeded before.
The amount of corruption among plutocratists of any party is far too much. In the US, we have read about Manchin and Sinema's corruption, but plenty of other plutocratist Democrats are corrupt in the same way. However, right-wing officials make corruption their ideology, and they recognize no moral limits on it.
A leaked document seems to show that the US Supreme Court will overturn Roe v Wade and allow states to ban abortion. If this had happened 20 years ago, Americans would have voted the right-wing officials out of office. But now that Republicans have pre-rigged US elections with voter suppression, gerrymandering, and rigging the census,
we may no longer have the option to do that.
*Kinzinger Introduces Measure to Allow US Military Intervention in Ukraine* only if Putin uses nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
This is not a move to escalate (that would be harmful), but rather pressure for Putin not to escalate.
The Putin forces stole tractors and took them to Chechnya, but they don't work, because they have been disabled remotely using a back door.
The back door is a weapon against whoever wants to use the tractor. In these surprising special circumstances, the weapon was used against the Putin forces. That was good, since they deserve the attack. But that weapon was designed to be used against farmers, and that use is evil. These special circumstances do not excuse the back door.
US unions are gaining public approval and strength. Now they need government agencies to enforce workers' legal rights.
*Prosecute Russian and Other Powerful Countries' War Crimes.* But how?
*UN Chief Slams Fossil Fuel Sector for Trying to Use Ukraine War to "Lock in a High Carbon Future."*
Everyone: demand that the Florida Department of Education and Governor DeSantis justify their claim that math textbooks they rejected teach "critical race theory" (or anything else objectionable about race).
Refer to the explanation of what critical race theory really is.
US citizens: call on the Senate to confirm Nancy Abudu as appeals judge.
US citizens: call on your senators to reject the TRUST Act, designed to cut Social Security and Medicare, each time Senator Romney tries to sneak it in.
*Kellogg's Executive Described Union as "Terrorists" Emboldened by Social Media.*
I expect that the executive and the consultants really believe that. I would guess that they are Republicans and believe other forms of lunacy too.
Martin Rees suggests leaving human space travel to private centibillionaires.
The advantages he suggests make sense, but I see a danger also: that the centibillionaire might organize a space settlement as per own personal demesne. If only 50 people can go, it won't be hard to find 50 people who want it badly enough to yield to that.
I think Rees's equanimity about the prospect of human descendants so drastically different from us is misguided. Unless it is so different that conflict is impossible, I think that difference would lead to war, or else complete subjugation of our kind.
The US government sent personal data to Facebook for every college student that applied for US government student aid. It justified this as being for a "campaign".
The data included name, phone number and email address. This shows the agency didn't even make a hand waving attempt to anonymize the student. Not that anonymization usually does much good — but the failure to even try shows that the agency was completely blind to the issue of respecting students' privacy,
Facebook did this with a tracking pixel. The article explains carefully what that implies.
Federal agencies should not be allowed to send Javascript code in their web pages; on the contrary, they should be required to take care that none of their pages sends any JavaScript whatsoever.
A pilot program in the UK found that *supporting women asylum seekers in the community … improve[d] their well being at half the cost of [jailing] them.*
Ministers were not impressed, though. Perhaps because it contradicted their plans for a "hostile environment". The UK is already planning more immigration prisons.
Any one country which is so helpful to immigrants is likely to get far too many immigrants. But if many countries do it, it may be acceptable for all of them.
The UK immigration agency has infiltrated its agents into local governments, in agencies where people might look for help. Even in child protection services.
Immigrants will learn to avoid asking for any help for themselves or their children, and the agencies will say, "It's not our fault they didn't contact us."
If the Twitter promotion algorithm works using machine learning, its code (not including the neural net) won't tell people much about how Twitter chooses what to show them. It also may not be much use to anyone.
Basically, the trained neural net is a part of the program. It can be considered source code, since (1) it isn't compiled from any other form of the code, and (2) changing it is possible (by retraining. But if you don't get that, you don't have the whole source code.
The Havasupai tribe is trying to block a uranium mine that the US has approved near the aquifer they get water from. Uranium from the mine could poison it for millions of years.
If they can't get water, they can have a soup pie. But that is fattening — they need to have water available, too.
The beauty of this arrangement is that no one will actually have to go to jail.
*The So-Called "Pro-Worker" Republicans Are Silent on Unionization Wins.*
Republicans don't have ideals seriously, only as ways to get power. The people they really serve are those who give them money.
(satire) *Ohio Law Mandates Rape Victims Send Thank You Notes For Gift Of Parenthood.*
Covid-19 is increasing in the US, but due to Republican obstruction, the US government can't do much to restrain the increase, nor to help vaccinate the people of poor countries.
The problem of unvaccinated global poor is entirely artificial. The reason vaccinating them is so expensive that no one will pay for it is the obstruction of patents and trade secrets that prevent generic vaccine production.
Schools have established thoughtful procedures to reevaluate whether a book should be in public school libraries, while respecting the First Amendment. Republicans using censorship to demonize queer people systematically disregard or bypass those procedures.
*Nothing Spells "Big Government" Better Than GOP "Big Lie" Embrace of Martial Law.*
In general, the Republican Party supports big government, except when it comes to programs that help non-rich people.
*Pacific Elders Say US-China Military Tensions Secondary to Rising Seas.*
Elon Musk is citing a barely extant American "far left" as a bugaboo to excuse the powerful, menacing, election-stealing far right.
According to some members of the UK Parliament, looking at a small image in a place where others could possibly look at it over your shoulder is legally considered a "public display", equivalent to projecting it on a wall in the street
Prohibiting thing A, and stretching the terminology to include thing B as well, is morally dishonest. When people who look over your shoulder, or out of the corner of the eye, to see something small that you hold in front of you, you are not "displaying" it. Rather, they are prying.
I am not saying that prying is a great wrong — only that when you pry, you take on the responsibility for seeing whatever you saw, so you cannot blame that on the person whose affairs you pried into.
Some sexual material (i.e., porn) embodies misogyny or treats women as objects. I have a low opinion of that. But the moral dishonesty I am criticizing would apply to all porn, regardless of the attitudes any given porn work presents.
I have no sympathy for Parish, the Tory MP who might be prosecuted. He is a Tory! As a member of Parliament in the governing party, he shares responsibility for all government policies, and so many of them are cruel.
The Tories have done truly horrible things in recent years — starving the poor, freezing the poor, undermining the National Health Service, deporting people because their parents didn't get certain documents 50 years ago, making the disabled prove their disability to someone unqualified while disregarding doctors' reports, imposing harsh punishments on protesters trying to save the ecosphere, encouraging fossil fuels over renewable energy, and more. These wrongs have harmed millions of Britons already and could easily harm tens of millions of them in the future. These are the substantial reasons to condemn Parish. I have listed only the few I could immediately remember; there are many more.
Thus, Parish's resignation, in and of itself, is a good thing. But achieving something politically beneficial through unjust means can do more harm than good, through collateral damage to everyone. This moral dishonesty, if it prevails, will not be limited to Tories. So their guilt for unrelated wrongs, even enormous wrongs, cannot excuse it.
The University of California will waive tuition and fees for students from US-recognized indigenous California groups.
That's a good thing to do, but it should cover all low-income students. The purpose of state universities and colleges is to provide higher education to residents at a cost they can bear. No state residents should be left out because of their ethnicity.
New York City "rent stabilized" apartments have had rent increases that the tenants can't pay even if they go hungry.
A Republican state representative says, think of being raped as an opportunity to have the baby you never wanted.
One step further and she'll be advocating The Handmaid's Tale, in which fertile women are given this opportunity whether they want it or not.
In this age of overpopulation, every birth is a missed opportunity to avoid more overpopulation.
*Marjorie Taylor Greene accused of lying in hearing in Capitol attack case.*
Republicans in Florida and Tennessee have banned ranked choice voting, which cities there want to use.
The bully's partial border wall is possible for healthy people to climb, but a significant fraction of the climbers fall and suffer grave injury or death.
The fashion and beauty competition works with antisocial media to make nearly all women desperately insecure about whether they are beautiful enough.
This is partly because society — even in work — compels women to compete at beauty, judged by a standard that is set by photos of the most beautiful few.
The saddest thing is that being beautiful does not spare one the feeling of insecurity. Even "winners" of the enforced competition are subject to the pain.
It may be possible to escape by refusing to compete. Rejecting antisocial media might get you part way there.
I expect that the antisocial media companies are aware of this and intentionally increase the addictiveness and pressure. This is an example of the kind of collective trap that makes for the greatest success.
Much of the American west can no longer sustain inessential lawns. Governments are moving to prohibit them, applying law'n order to water use.
*Study Warns Only 'Rapid Action' Can Prevent Worst Marine Extinction in 250 Million Years.*
Based on video evidence, three Florida prison thugs have been charged with beating a prisoner to death.
The Jan 6 coup investigation will finish soon, but how will that translate into accountability for the culprits, and hampering the many who are now organizing to try again?
The hyper rich can now buy major companies on whims to use as toys. This could destabilize society even more.
The biggest bottled water company in the US is hardly known: it hides behind various names including "Poland Spring". It is being sued for false claims about protecting the environment. Its defense is that "everyone should realize that the claims are meaningless nonsense."
The coal plants now planned for construction will push the Earth beyond 1.5C of warming.
It is still important to wear a mask (a good one!) in airplanes and airports.
It is even more important to wear a good mask in buses and trains, and stores.
If we assume you're going to catch Covid-19 some day, you're better off catching it later. Not now!
Lots of research is still being done, so next year various groups of people may have a smaller chance of death, or a smaller chance of developing lasting damage or lasting disability.
There are two different policies under which the US border thugs send asylum seekers back into Mexico. This article discusses the legal issues about the policy called "Remain in Mexico", now being considered by the Supreme Court. The other one, known as Title 42, supposedly operated in the name of public health, is going through the courts too.
*[There is a] rush to get emergency contraception into Ukraine as reports of rape rise.*
Musk's stated plans for Twitter are sketchy, but we can already see they are dangerous. And that includes the plan to "open source" algorithms that judge what tweets to promote.
That may come as a surprise to you, especially if you believe I advocate open source. In fact, I have never been a supporter of that.
In the mid-80s I launched the free software movement, which campaigns for all users' right to redistribute the software they run, either verbatim or modified. The free software movement says that distributing a program to users as nonfree software is an injustice to those users, and that we shouldn't stand for that.
However, we don't believe that it's wrong for you, or Twitter, to develop software and run it privately without ever distributing a copy. The Twitter service does things that are unjust, but having and using private software is not one of them.
*Revealed: top US corporations raising prices on Americans even as profits surge.*
Robert Reich said something similar; this is confirmation.
*A state investigation accuses the Minneapolis Thug Department of systematically practicing "discriminatory, race-based policing."
Videoconferencing tends to be inferior to physical meetings for coming up with creative ideas.
The sheriff of Los Angeles county accused a reporter of possessing "stolen property" — a leaked video showing a thug kneeling on someone's back.
I am glad that the power of the press can make a bullying official back off. Now if only we could make the US government back off prosecuting journalists such as Julian Assange who likewise publish leaked videos showing crimes.
The Putin forces captured Kherson weeks ago, but now they are setting up a heavy-handed permanent occupation. Ukrainians are fleeing, those who can.
(satire) *Domino's Under Fire For Sharing Pizza Topping Data With Police.*
Harvard University will spend $100m to "close the educational, social and economic gaps that are legacies of slavery and racism".
That is an admirable effort.
*California accuses ExxonMobil of deceiving public on hazards of plastics.*
When Bogus Johnson decided to allow people into nursing homes without testing them for Covid, he had already discussed with his advisors the danger of transmission by asymptomatic people.
But he told Parliament that this wasn't known at the time.
London thugs face an investigation for misconduct over handcuffing and searching two famous black athletes who drove by in a car. They had no specific grounds to suspect them, except perhaps their skin color.
One of the said this example should be used as an opportunity to do something about the thugs department's culture of racism.
New Mexico this year has had more wildfire than in a normal whole year, due to heat and deep drought.
Serial sexual abuser Jimmy Saville was protected by British libel laws. No newspaper dared publish any suggestion of accusation, despite having evidence.
Now the UK may weaken libel laws because Russian billionaires are using them too.
Sweden has permitted segregation to extend to the point of allowing Islamist and right-wing hate blocs to develop side by side.
I hope they can find a way to integrate the various groups.
For immigrants to make up 20% of the population risks weakening all aspects of a country's cultural heritage — even perhaps the Swedish language. A cultural environment has a certain capacity to absorb people coming from other backgrounds, and it is better not to overload that capacity.
*Extreme heatwave in India and Pakistan causes power and water shortages.*
A member of the European Parliament criticizes the EU's governance structure that was designed to be weak.
I made this criticism around 15 years ago after the software patents directive revealed how difficult it is for a plurality of the MEPs who care about an issue to block a directive they oppose.
*Instead of obsessing over learning facts, let’s teach children how to think.* To think with careful rationality, that is — scientifically.
Texans from minority communities are campaigning against highway expansion that would push us closer to the end of civilization.
I expect that planet-roaster lobbyists played a big role in adopting the policy of spending state money only on cars.
How the future of journalism depends on Julian Assange's freedom.
Various sects of Muslim fanatics are bombing mosques in Afghanistan.
Supporters of taking the UK out of the European Union touted the benefit of restricting imports and putting a tariff on them. But now a minister has admitted that actually doing it is too expensive. Having made Britain pay the enormous price, they don't want what they bought.
This suggests it was dishonest political distraction all along, like the bullshitter's border wall.
I said years ago that the only way for leaving the EU to benefit Britain would be to have the Left in charge. Corbyn, for instance, as leader of Labour, could have discarded the EU's plutocratic rules while keeping the good aspects.
Putin seems to be playing the "fear me, I'm a madman" card, and it is a mistake to be too scared. However, it's right to avoid making real threats to escalate, because even a non-madman might react drastically to that.
*America's food deserts start seeing influx of healthy foods thanks to federal funds.*
The UK will eliminate local government in the British Virgin Islands due to the corruption of its officials, including its prime minister who was just arrested in the US and accused of drug trafficking.
The British Virgin Islands carry out a big business of hiding taxes for rich people and companies. The UK now has a chance to put a stop to that. Will it do so?
*New Report Details Fracking's 'Widespread and Severe Harm' to Health and Climate.*
US trade sanctions have caused harm to the innocent in many countries.
In many of these cases there was no valid reason for the US to take any action against the other country. In the case of Russia, there are reasons to take action, but I wonder whether the sanctions are an effective contribution to the goal. Since they don't make Putin change policies, are they pointless harm? Would arming Ukraine be enough by itself?
Ukraine is assembling evidence of war crimes and identifying their perpetrators. Nine Putin forces soldiers who are prisoners have been charged for specific crimes.
And this is without torturing anyone.
I am disappointed — though I shouldn't be surprised — that some Ukrainian soldiers vent their anger on Putin forces who are surrendering. The Ukrainians must heed their consciences and treat prisoners as human beings.
To fail to do this is stupid as well as wrong. It is important to show Putin forces soldiers that surrendering is the wisest thing they can do.
Russia and Ukraine will be neighbors for centuries, if civilization survives this century. Hatred between them will only make things worse.
*Lawmakers Urge NLRB Budget Boost Amid 'Dramatic Increase' in Unionization.*
Accusing Jared Kushner of taking a 2-billion-dollar bribe from Crown Prince Bone Saw for helping him take over Salafi Arabia.
The Putin forces yet again agreed to a "humanitarian corridor" for civilians to get out of Mariupol, and yet again shelled it.
*More than half of the people in four former communist central European counties fear media freedom is in danger, with significant majorities wanting government or EU measures to protect it, according to a survey.*
A large gold mine in Amazonia has been blocked by a Brazilian court. The company sought approval while covering up some of the mine's environmental dangers.
The UK is entering further into the "Imagine there's no Covid" camp, like the US.
This article proposes a fallacious argument for imposing a cease-fire on Ukraine, to be followed by negotiations under circumstances that would give Putin the territory he has conquered plus wherever else he demands.
The article starts by assuming that continued war can mean, for Ukraine, nothing other than continuing destruction and advance by the Putin forces. This is called "defeatism". I don't think it is true.
It continues by claiming that the only way to save Ukraine from putative violent defeat by Putin is to cease the fighting under conditions that compel defeat by negotiating. Putin will insist on all of Ukraine he wants by threatening to renew the war, after having brought copious supplies.
That outcome follows from that defeatism, but that defeatism is a supposition, not fact. Ukrainians do not want to be "saved" by forcing them to give up the fight. They want the chance to fight and win some of their country back.
As Putin's army gets ever weaker, he will become willing to settle for less and less. After enough damage, he will settle for taking what's left of his army out of Ukraine so that he can remain in power in Russia.
*Grassroots progressive groups on Tuesday urged Democratic congressional leaders to ignore Republicans, right-wing members of their own party, and neoliberal economists who are pushing lawmakers to hit the brakes on federal spending as inflation surges to levels not seen in decades.
The US is in danger of a recession. To cut spending now would make that recession worse, as it did for President Hoover in 1930: it hoovered up the jobs, and dumped Americans into Hoovervilles. The way to avoid a recession, as Keynes taught and FDR carried out, is to increase government spending. The US government learned to do this, until the plutocrats came to dominate the government in the 1980. Now a recession is an opportunity for the richest to get richer.
*Poor Nations Face 'Perfect Storm' of Debt, Food, and Energy Crises: UN.*
A mother in the UK systematically denied her baby, referred to as Child AU, all kinds of care and all expressions of affection. There is a scandal now about why state agencies did not do anything to take Child AU out of that situation earlier.
Child AU must have suffered terribly. I fear she may never learn to feel loved by anyone. However, beyond the question of what the state should have done differently to rescue her sooner, I raise a few other questions:
A study estimated that 21% of all reptile species are "threatened" or worse. This covers all the reptile species whose status is known well enough to determine whether each one is threatened. There are species whose conditions are so little known that scientists find it hard to determine whether they are threatened; those were omitted from the survey.
T he EU is considering an anti-SLAPP directive.
*Russia attacks infrastructure in western Ukraine to slow supply lines.*
Since I hope for Ukraine's victory, I am alarmed. However, this kind of counterattack is not an atrocity.
*Former head of Polish army criticizes [Bogus Johnson] for risking safety of soldiers.*
This was truly incompetent of him, to blurt out important military secrets for the purpose of boasting. Johnson demonstrated that he does understand the conditions of these discussions.
Putin has cut off the gas supply to some European countries and is threatening to cut off the gas supply to others. Those countries are calling this an outrage.
I disagree with them — this is simply another economic sanction. NATO countries are refusing to sell certain things to Russia, and now Russia is refusing to sell a certain thing to some of those countries. It hurts, for sure — but it is not an outrage or a crime, like some other things Putin has done.
The goal of "weakening Russia" has a range of concrete possible meanings. I believe that the only way to reach a peace that will last is for Ukraine to give Putin a defeat that will convince him not to attack again later. That is one form of "weakening Russia," which I agree is necessary.
However, to damage Russia in other ways would mean widening the war, and that would asking for trouble.
Manchin is having a meeting with billionaires who carry no political affiliation except "we want more riches".
*Minneapolis police engaged in pattern of racial discrimination, inquiry finds.*
*A state investigation accuses the Minneapolis Thug Department of systematically practicing "discriminatory, race-based policing."
Manchin and the Republicans are learning to play a new song: subsidizing new fossil fuel facilities.
(satire) *Mark Zuckerberg Asks Hawaiian Neighbor To Cut Down Unsightly, Overgrown Rainforest.*
More and costlier nuclear weapons do not deter conventional war. So it makes sense to seek nuclear arms limitation treaties.
The UK economy will lose an estimated 8 billion UKP in this year alone as a result of the loss of 400,000 workers due to consequences of Covid-19. The losses from those people will not end this year.
This November, the Utah Democratic Party will not run a candidate for the Senate — instead, it will support a non-trumpet Republican running as an independent.
Urging people to vote for an independent compromise candidate has an advantage over nominating a compromise candidate, because the former avoids giving the impression that the compromise candidate speaks for the party.
The US military outsourced housing for soldiers to private companies. Can you guess what happened?
That's outsourcing for you. When the government (or a larger company) outsources a job, that job will tend to be done in an exploitative way. (That's what makes it cheaper.) And if the job involves providing any sort of service to people, the service will be done badly, unreliably, and (whenever possible) in ways that endanger their health.
Putin has cut off sales of natural gas to Poland, saying this is because Poland refuses to pay in rubles.
Poland will sue, claiming breach of contract. However, I don't think anything can make gas flow through the pipeline if Putin decides not to pump gas into it.
If we don't restore the nonnuclear deal with Iran soon, it will develop the capacity to quickly enrich some uranium and make nuclear weapons.
That would reduce the value of the deal, but the deal might still be worth having.
The US government has reached the conclusion that it is crucial to weaken the Putin forces to the point that he won't think of starting another war.
I came to a similar conclusion a few weeks ago: that it would wrong to let Putin make peace and keep any sort of gains from he battle.
US citizens: call on Biden to expand workers' power.
US citizens: call on Biden to stop offering new leases for offshore oil drilling.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
An internal document from Facebook says that the company has no systematic control over what purposes each kind of data gets used for. "We can’t confidently make controlled policy changes or external commitments such as 'we will not use X data for Y purpose.' And yet, this is exactly what regulators expect us to do."
This is because much of Facebook's important data is derived correlations and instances of those correlations. Those didn't directly come from anywhere, but rather was calculated based on various kinds of data from various sources, including various people's personal data.
If they find that listening to a certain song has a 75% correlation with being gay, the fact that person X listened to that song is certainly personal data. What about the conclusion that X is likely to be gay? What do various privacy laws require about data like that?
If Europe is firm about regulating the whole mass of data that companies like Facebook deduce, it might make surveillance-based advertising totally unfeasible. That would be great. But Big Data will lobby for a weaker rule, or a weaker interpretation, that would make less difference.
*"We have a democracy problem": how Texas voter suppression helps keep climate action off the table.*
Global heating effects will lead to thousands of instances of viruses jumping to a new host species, due to various host species' moving to new habitats.
The prediction suggests around 15,000 such events, but I doubt that we can predict anything more accurate than "many thousands".
How a group of dentists built a great career by claiming to be experts in matching bite marks in corpses with the teeth of the alleged biter.
*Ukraine names 10 Russian soldiers in alleged human rights abuses in Bucha.*
A member of the UK Parliament has been accused of (gasp) watching porn inside Parliament.
This must be a convenient distraction from the really bad things some MPs do in Parliament, such as lying about public issues, voting to impoverish the poor, or actually sexually harassing an actual person.
*US FDA moves to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.*
I think it is wrong to ban recreational drugs, but helping teenagers avoid being drawn into smoking tobacco is a good thing.
*Global warming risks most cataclysmic extinction of marine life in 250m years.*
The Putin forces are trying to conscript men in Donetsk, so the men there have gone into hiding away from home.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has more volunteers that it can arm and equip.
Wendy's refuses to support action against enslavement of farm workers.
Lawyer Steven Donziger has been released after almost three years under arrest, but Chevron is still persecuting him for defending the indigenous Ecuadorians whose land was polluted by Chevron wells.
He was arrested after Chevron used a series of dirty tricks and what looks like corruption to avoid paying damages to those Ecuadorians.
A centibillionaire has purchased a company with enormous influence over public opinion. Serious competition for that company is effectively impossible, so it is a natural monopoly, but it is entirely unregulated.
His stated intentions have made people fear that he will use it to strengthen right-wing movements that demonize people, or to change laws to benefit himself.
Yanis Varoufakis: *Macron's Centrist Win Over Le Pen Also Shows Why Neoliberalism Strengthens the Right.*
*Prosecutions of Corporate Criminals Hit Record Low Under Biden.*
(satire) *New Tennessee Law Requires Women To Wait 24 Hours Before Getting A Burger.*
A proposed new coal mine in Australia could have "far-reaching impact" on the Great Barrier Reef.
That is in addition to the grievous blow to the Earth's future climate.
Given predictions that the market for Australia's coal exports is going to disappear in a few years, starting another coal mine will be a waste of money as well. That's less important for the world, but might help convince some not to start it.
Burma's military rulers have made an excuse to sentence Aung San Suu Kyi to prison for five years.
This won't change anything in practice, since she was already in prison. It just means there is an official excuse for that.
Marjorie Taylor Greene urged the wrecker to declare martial law so as to steal the 2020 election.
Meanwhile, Mark Meadows said he would give Congress all his text messages that were pertinent to the Jan 6 investigation, but he seems to have hidden some.
Bogus Johnson threatened to privatize the UK passport office because it is not keeping up with applications.
Privatizing it would in theory enable the same amount of money to hire more workers. But some of those funds would be diverted to profits. Meanwhile, those workers would be inexperienced and desperate. Overall I think this would result in worse service. But it would result in more profits, which is what a neoliberal really wants.
This article presents the argument that the "go back to Mexico and wait" policy at the border with Mexico can't be terminated by the executive branch because it was somehow required by Congress.
Does anyone know more details? Is it true? If so, what exactly was it that Congress did?
In Australia, poor people need to pay for funeral insurance. A company that insured many indigenous people turned out to be a fraud, and now those who paid for the insurance can't have funerals.
Poor people should not have to pay for funerals — not at all. A reasonable, non-luxurious funeral should be the norm, and the state should pay for that.
The lavish and expensive funerals that are usual in the US are not fraudulent like Youpla, but they are predatory. Your dead relative won't notice what the coffin is made of, and a well-embalmed and sculptured corpse won't be any more alive than one which decays.
Let's resist the social pressure for this and other sorts of competitive conspicuous consumption, and spend money on goods and services that are actually useful for the living. For instance, the opportunity for the relatives and friends of the deceased to meet and talk is the part of a funeral that serves them rather than a business.
The WHO warns that the world has blinded itself to the evolution of Covid-19 by eliminating massive testing.
Putin seems to be preparing to send a large force to Transnistria, an eastern sliver of Moldova which borders Ukraine and which was set up by separatists in 1992 and hosts a small detachment of the Russian army.
US citizens: Demand that Big Food and Soda disclose their global political activities and spending.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Green New Deal for Cities Act.
US citizens: tell Biden you support regulation of "ghost guns".
*Billionaires Do Not Give Anything to Society — They Take From It.*
I think one of his points is not 100% true — there are a few exceptions. Thomas Edison built a business empire based on inventions, some of which he invented on his own. Most were developed with others that worked under his direction, and I think he deserves some of the credit for those too.
Steve Jobs did not invent anything, but Apple made important innovations in computer and systems. Some of those innovations were good. Others were evil, and they reflected Apple's power and Jobs's lack of respect for others' rights.
This side issue doesn't invalidate the article overall.
*"Soft Climate Denial": The Biden administration claims to "believe the science" on climate, but its actions need to catch up with its words.*
We should recognize that this is only partly his fault. Biden has tried to do a lot more, and plutocratists (Republicans, Manchin and Sinema) have blocked it.
*Six Ideas to Address High Gas Prices That Won’t Fan the Flames of [global heating].* And why even temporarily reducing the taxes on gasoline is harmful.
Motorists perceive increases in tax on gasoline as pressure. They attribute that pressure to the government and may protest. But actually that pressure comes from the disaster our fossil fuel use is creating. If we are wise, we will recognize that we dare not press back against it.
Philadelphia ended its newly restored mask requirement after just a few days on seeing that new Covid-19 cases had leveled off anyway.
I think they should have continued the mask mandate, so as to reduce the number of new cases and spare some people the risks of catching Covid-19. These risks include death, which is unlikely for vaccinated people, plus a fate worse than death — lasting disablement.
France reelected plutocratist President Macron rather than the extreme right-wing Le Pen.
*The US Spent 7.5 Times More on Nuclear Weapons Than Global Vaccine Donations.
This is the second level of an outrage. The first level is allowing the Covid-19 vaccines to be monopolized and thus very expensive, so that poor countries need to solicit donations instead of making their own.
Biden endorsed the proposal to waive these rules for the specific case of Covid-19 vaccines, but the US was as eager as other countries to impose these deadly rules world-wide in the 1990s.
Parents of trans-kids talk about the Republican persecution that is just getting started.
The EU is considering a program to systematically test 12,000 suspected toxic chemicals that appear to endanger wildlife and humans, and vigorously ban those that are verified as dangerous.
Forensic examiners studying corpses of women killed by the Putin forces say that the women were raped first. Presumably also by the Putin forces.
Many living Ukrainian women describe being raped by soldiers in the Putin forces.
When people are ashamed of having been raped, that reflects an unjust way of thinking in their own society — the injustice of blaming the victim. Shame on those who do this! It is the perpetrator that deserves the blame.
Rebecca Solnit: *Ukraine has taught us all a lesson in moral courage.*
This lesson is applicable to any cause that requires making sacrifices for the general good — even when they are smaller sacrifices that don't generally involve violence and wounds. Climate defense, and defeating nonfree software, are two of many examples.
It is no longer possible to give the Human Rights Press Awards in Hong Kong. Giving the award would be considered a crime. The winners would very likely have been charged already.
I would suggest that the club continue to have a press freedom committee, and state publicly that it no longer has any members.
The expectancy of healthy life in England is now almost 20 years less for poor people than for better-off people.
This is surely due to the ever-increasing privations imposed by plutocratist politicians, specifically Tories.
I wonder how large this difference was in 2005, during the last time Labour was in power.
*How bad do things have to get in Britain before we start to see solidarity emerge?* There is no telling how bad, because the right wing flies into mad hatred when anyone shows a hint of supporting a left-wing cause.
Hong Kong reporters (some of whom no longer do journalism) talk about the extreme propaganda requirements that China has imposed.
Erdoğan displays his Humpty Dumpty idea of justice: the nonviolent protest in Gezi Park declared "trying to overthrow the government".
Most US states now report Covid cases every week, instead of every day. This imitates bad judgment of the CDC. The result is that detecting trends can take several weeks.
The world is about to have a shortage of the main kinds of vegetable oils. Global heating is implicated for most of them.
Florida now has a special thug department for voter-fraud.
Since real voter-fraud is so rare, I expect it will spend most of its time pursuing vague or false suspicions, the way Republicans try to prosecute women that have miscarriages — all with the aim of frightening blacks out of voting.
*Texas death row prisoner Melissa Lucio granted stay of execution.*
Jurors in her trial have stated that they may have made a mistake in convicting her.
The bullshitter has been found in contempt of court, and will be fined ten thousand dollars per day until he hands over the subpoena'd evidence.
What a weak action by the judge! A fine so small means nothing to a putative billionaire. For a measly $3,650,000 per year, he will get the opportunity to vaunt his defiance of all authority.
To have a chance of making him comply, the court should fine him 10 million dollars a day — or jail him.
US citizens: call for justice for Patrick Lyoya — fire and prosecute the killer thug.
Also call for a federal investigation into the murder and racism in the Grand Rapids Thug Department, and support alternative approaches to policing
US citizens: phone the White House and call on Biden to finalize the non-nuclear deal with Iran.
An idea for reducing gun violence in the US: to alter common situations to be less threatening and easier to handle without violence.
It appears that any machine learning model can be backdoored during training. The backdoor makes it possible to fool the model during real use.
The EFF explains the principles by which US law rejected forced arbitration, until plutocratists on the Supreme Court started trashing those principles in the 1980s.
*Pointing out racial disparities in COVID-19 makes white people more reckless.*
In other words, they think, "The danger is for blacks, so I must be safe."
Wrong!
*Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.*
Jonathan Haidt puts the blame on the changes that converted social media platforms into antisocial media, almost tailor-made to encourage factional hatred. The article ends with recommendations for reforming these platforms that he argues could correct the problem.
I wish he didn't use the term "consume" in regard to works of authorship. That word's implications are all wrong. To consume food means to break it down into small building blocks and extract what is useful, to build into other things. That is not what we do with text we read.
The word "absorb" is not very good, but it avoids part of what's bad about "consume".
A school district in Pennsylvania has refused to allow the an extracurricular activities club sponsored by the Satanic Temple. However, it has allowed a similar club sponsored by a Christian church.
This is unconstitutional and is likely to lead to a lawsuit.
(satire) *Twitter, Enemy Of First Amendment Rights, Permanently Bans The Onion.*
(satire) *Our Intern Is Being Forced Into A Hunger Strike Until Twitter Lifts [Ban on The Onion].*
*Replacing NSW coal plant with renewables would create thousands more jobs than gas, report says.*
*The key to winning the climate debate isn’t economics: it’s health.*
Global heating effects are already killing substantial numbers of people, and the GDP is not a very good way to measure that. It is also causing sicknesses that will later cause premature death for a considerable fraction. (For instance, breathing smoke from wildfires.) That doesn't show up in today's GDP at all.
I hazard a guess that the people who think about global heating in terms of effect on the GDP are the people who simply don't recognize how dangerous it is.
Anti-sex feminism saw the pornography that shows exploitative sex, and took alarm. Now right-wing extremists are using that to persecute the queer.
They want to reimpose the prudery of the 1950s. Will we let them?
Proposing that tech companies have made a religion out of working for the company, and expect/require all employees to be believers.
In Ukrainian, "rashism" means Russian fascism — except that the joke has additional layers in the Ukrainian context.
The Putin forces fired flechette shells in Bucha a few days before leaving. The flechettes have been found in corpses of civilians.
Using those weapons in a built-up civilian area, such as Bucha, is a war crime.
Other civilians in Bucha were killed by cluster bombs.
Florida banned some math textbooks because they contain examples involving data about racism.
I sense something artificial in the examples described in this article. I am sure that those passages were written that way out of a desire to encourage students to be aware in a general way of the phenomenon of racism, and subtly encourage them to think about the issue. But that is a well-known fact of life, that the students experience in their own lives. Only a white supremacist could demand denying it entirely.
Many math problems are formulated in terms of numbers of various sorts of fruits. Will Florida Republicans find them in violation of the new law restricting teaching about homosexual relationships?
The UK's minister of personal control and repression misled Parliament officially.
Interviews with Muslims in Delhi who were victims of a pogrom stirred up by the ruling BJP party and its Hinduismist movement.
CNN's opinion: We shouldn’t trust Musk’s plans to transform Twitter.
He has made cars that have surveillance engines, so we should hardly trust him with any other digital systems.
Activists blocked the door of a printing plant in New York City, which prints the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, to protest their lousy coverage of global heating and the disaster it is causing.
*Drug Policy Alliance Applauds Biden's Embrace of Harm Reduction.*
*Gun violence becomes leading cause of death among US youth, data shows.*
This includes accidents and suicides as well as fighting and murder. Fewer guns makes all of them less frequent, and not just for teenagers.
*Homes For Ukraine whistleblower says UK refugee scheme is "designed to fail".* Basically, Bogus Johnson wants to pretend to be offering asylum to Ukrainian refugees without actually giving it to very many.
New Mexico now has fast-growing wildfires.
A long-term increasing drought covers the US southwest, so fast-spreading fires will become the norm.
Robert Reich: *Elon Musk wants to own Twitter to protect his "freedom", not everyone else's.*
Nominally-sovereign countries on the borders of wealthy countries have been conscripted as border zones to slow migration.
President Rajapaksa has united Sri Lanka's opposition; can they push him out?
(satire) *Ikea Wardrobe Contains Cheap, Poorly Constructed Fantasy World Inside.*
South Africa had flooding from rain that went on and on. The government dares to say that this is global heating at work.
I am disappointed that it used the neutral term "climate change", but at least it gets the substance right.
70% of Covid patients who are hospitalized still have serious problems a year later.
*Once a form of evidence is accepted by a judge, [US] legal precedent makes it incredibly difficult to keep even the most questionable forensic practices out of court.*
*More Than Half of US Student Loan Borrowers Say They Can't Afford [even a] Single Payment.*
An Oklahoma library board's Republican censorship decision required cancellation of the romance book club.
The House minority leader, McCarthy, privately said after the Jan 6 coup attempt that the corrupter should resign. Then, when he recognized how completely the Republican Party had morphed into the Big Lie Party, he denied saying that.
This is an illustration of how the corrupter uses power to turn tens of millions of people into liars.
*Katie Porter Leads Letter Urging Biden Not to Dump More Money Into Medicare Advantage*.
*"Private contractors, through Medicare Advantage plans, game the system and bill patients as sicker than they are to rake in billions of taxpayer dollars."*
(satire) *Struggling AMC Threatens To Clamp Down On Theater Sharing.*
*Lifting of Covid mask mandate on US transportation horrifies health experts.*
It horrifies me, too. Yesterday I went to a party in a well-ventilated space. When I got to the transfer station at Park Street I found that the train line from there was shut down; we had to take shuttle buses instead. There were not enough shuttles so there was a long line. People were waiting in line for half an hour, standing quite close to strangers, to board a packed bus; most of them had no masks. I decided not to ride a bus under conditions like that.
I waited quite some time and saw that the line was not getting shorter, so I tried to look for a taxi. No one could point me at a functioning taxi stand, there in the heart of Boston. A hotel bell captain tried to phone for a taxi for me, and got no answer. I did see some taxis go by in the street but there was little chance of finding an empty one.
On returning to the shuttle stop, I found that the line had become short and buses were no longer packed. I reached the party over two hours delayed; many of the people had already left.
A mask requirement by itself would not have prevented this problem, and I would not ride on a packed bus even if everyone had a mask. But it would have reduced the amount of infection that took place on those crowded buses.
The airlines that have gleefully eliminated mask requirements will regret it when sick employees lead to cancelling flights.
US citizens: call on Biden to remove Ginni Thomas from the Library of Congress.
US citizens: tell the SEC you support new transparency rules for private equity funds.
I think we need to regulate them a lot more than this, but maybe the SEC can't go that far on its own without new laws.
US citizens: call on Biden to sign up the US to the International Criminal Court.
New Spanish pun: las máscaras
US citizens: call on your congressional representative to pass Biden's billionaire tax.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Geoengineering schemes that work by reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere carry a risk of greatly increasing malaria.
California is building renewable electric generation and large batteries in a way that shows the world what everyone should do.
Mexico is nationalizing lithium deposits.
Warning to Australian politicians: the export market for coal will vanish in a few years. It must stop building expensive new coal facilities that will never make a profit.
Meanwhile, Australia imports nearly all its oil. It needs to invest in renewable power for vehicles.
OSHA must start planning to protect American workers from the heat that is coming.
The only way to protect workers from the even worse heat of 30 years from now is to curb global heating.
Physicians for Human Rights called on Biden to stop defending the cruel family-separation policy of the vicious president and instead pay compensation to the victims.
*Atlanta Apple Store Workers File for Company's First Union Election in US.*
Until we can make Apple respect users' freedom, or get rid of it, at least its workers should have a union.
*DOJ Files Appeal to Revive Travel Mask Mandate.*
One ethnic group in Tanzania has taken up the project of defending lions, while also protecting livestock from lions.
New Zealand agreed to extradite to China a defendant accused of murder there. Now there is a campaign not to extradite him, because China might torture him and give him an unfair trial.
Indeed, that is quite possible. However, it is not only China that does this. The campaign against extraditing Julian Assange to the US cites the danger of similar conduct by the US.
Florida Republicans have used gerrymandering to assure they will control 20 out of the state's 28 congressional seats.
Republicans do have a majority in Florida, but nothing like that.
Bernie Sanders: the US should stop subsidizing any part of Bezos's space business. He can afford it himself.
The mayor of Mariupol accuses the Putin forces of secretly burying corpses lying around in Mariupol, to cover up the number of casualties. And, in some cases, possible war crimes.
As long as the Putin forces hold Mariupol it will never be possible to check whether that is true.
Guardian journalists have found physical evidence that the Putin forces used cluster bombs on civilian area in towns north of Kiev.
The evidence includes, among other things, fragments found in corpses.
This article makes much of the fact that most countries in the world have signed the treaty to ban cluster bombs. However, the major powers have not signed it, and I don't think "that's forbidden" is a valid moral argument in regard to the countries that have not signed.
Rather, the valid moral argument to condemn the use of cluster bombs is the practical consequence of using them: the unexploded submunitions keep killing civilians (especially children) for decades after the war.
It is also true that using these or other powerful munitions in civilian areas is a war crime.
Sami defending their use of land for reindeer herding are in conflict with plans to make steel with less carbon emissions.
Sustainable steel is crucial for all of society; reindeer herding is a niche activity. If the two inescapably conflict, in principle we should approve the mine and the wind farms.
But not necessarily the specific plans that have been proposed. Wind farms can go in various places. Other places might cost more, but that might be a good compromise. If compromise increases the cost of mining, the Sami's interest can justify that.
We can't trust companies, and especially not mining companies. Before approving any specific plans, we should study them in minute detail looking for deceptions, and for promises they might wiggle out of — or that might be impossible to carry out.
I also wonder whether the existing mines could be used for the new, less-polluting steel plant. Perhaps the company hopes that increased output will cover the cost of building the new plant. If so, perhaps the state should pay for it as a replacement, and own it.
We are running out of time to prosecute the wrecker for trying to overthrow the US government and seize power.
*US police have killed nearly 600 people in traffic stops since 2017, data shows.*
Putin ordered his forces to blockade Mariupol so that no civilians can possibly flee. It would also stop soldiers from getting out, but I don't think there was much chance of that anyway. Putin has been taking strong measures to keep civilians from escaping. I can think of a few possible motives:
Students in Vermont Law School have demanded that a school get rid of a mural which depicts the Underground Railroad (in which whites helped escaped slaves reach Canada and freedom) in a tone they don't agree with.
I have no opinion on the mural itself, because I have not seen it. I don't know whether I would agree with the reported criticism. It doesn't say precisely what aspects of the mural are being criticized, and I don't know if I would recognize them without more explanation.
I think the court's ruling was correct. To remove a piece of art from view is not "distortion, mutilation, or … modification", just as deleting a file does not make a modified version of it.
It would be ludicrous to give whoever painted a mural in a publicly visible place the power to require it to be preserved there forever. Imagine if the mural showed adulation for Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin — should this compel the building's owner to display propaganda for them? The school must have the choice to cover up or paint over art that it does not wish to display. Indeed, it may someday wish to remodel or demolish the building, and eliminate that wall entirely.
Although this means the school has the right to decide to hide the mural, I disapprove of that decision. It is partly for the reasons stated in the article, but it is more than that.
Although I am not sure what aspects of the mural some students criticize, I can tell that it is a matter of nuance. It is not like a painting that admires Trumputin. That means that the critics are being demanding more than anyone in a free society has a right to demand. They must learn to respect disagreement on such points. I say this without knowing whether I would agree or disagree with them on their specific criticisms of the mural.
Now Arizona is the state that's dealing with a wildfire that is much worse than normal.
*Prosecutor drops all charges against Pamela Moses, jailed over voting error.*
*Vaccination Could Have Prevented 3 in 5 US Covid Deaths Since June 2021: Analysis.*
Zelenskyy accused Putin of planning to hold a worthless "referendum" in conquered areas of Ukraine. He did that in Crimea after conquering it, and the election was clearly bogus.
An Indian cabinet minister faced protests when visiting UC Berkeley for the Modi government's policies of religious persecution.
*A senior Russian military commander has said that the goal of [Putin's] new offensive is to seize control of southern Ukraine and form a land bridge to Crimea, indicating that Russia plans a permanent occupation of Ukrainian territory taken in the war.*
Another part of the statement suggests that Putin wants to conquer Odessa as well.
Scientists call for limiting the number of satellites in near-Earth orbit to avoid collisions.
The desire of a company to launch thousands of satellites is of no importance compared to this.
Modi arrested a Dalit activist elected official for accusing Modi of admiring the fanatical assassin of Mahatma Gandhi.
I don't know whether Modi actually admires him, but his party is allied with the RSS which inspired the assassin.
After years without live shows to see, some people have lost their inhibitions about disrupting shows.
With so much Covid-19 spreading around, I think it is foolhardy to go to any indoor live show where people will not follow mask discipline and stay distant from each other.
The major Australian parties are all planet-roasters.
The US should speed up the conversion of US steel production to use hydrogen instead of coal.
Biden plans to offer money to keep unprofitable nuclear power plants operating.
Shutting down a nuclear power plant has a plus — it avoids making more radioactive material and gets a start on cleaning up the site.
I wonder how these payments will work. Will they be a simple subsidy? Or would the company have to pay something in return — perhaps its own stock? I think that when the state tries to aid a company, it should never be a simple subsidy; the state should demand payment in shares.
The most basic way to prevent the switch from nuclear power to fossil fuel power is to tax the use of fossil fuels heavily. That would not lead to building any new nuclear plants, as that is far too expensive, but it would encourage building renewable energy.
The enormous profits to be made from drug patents create pressure to corrupt the details of the patent system.
That's aside from the question of whether patents should apply to medicine, or to any other field.
The level of dissent in Shanghai is so high that it is saturating China's censorship army.
It looks like someone used Pegasus to snoop on the phones of Catalunya's officials. They accuse the government of Spain.
More about the US mask mandate, whose loss will increase the danger to everyone in the US.
*“No Wars, No Warming‘: Extinction Rebellion Marches on NYC.*
Supporting Ukraine in defeating the Putin forces is a necessary part of discouraging wars launched by states against states. However, among US wars since 1960, that is an exception. For most of them, the US had no valid grounds for fighting.
Support for Ukraine is a small fraction of US military spending; we could reduce it greatly, especially via new nuclear diplomacy.
Thus, we can cut the US military budget while supporting Ukraine as much as it needs.
Putin's invasion is leading to disaster for the whole world, as it interferes with urgent climate defense measures.
*Progressives Say Climate Inaction, Student Debt Explain Biden's Drop in Support Among Young Voters.*
They reduce my support for him, too. However, they do not make planet-roaster Republicans and plutocratist Democrats any better for us than they used to be.
US citizens: call on Congress to have the US lead the IMF to give Ukraine debt relief.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on airlines to designate some flights as masks-required.
The UK has forbidden a P&O ferry to operate, after inspecting it and finding 31 different safety failures.
I have a suspicion that these failures are the result of skimping. It is urgent for the UK to bring in new requirements about the minimum pay for the crew, which the Tories said they would bring in when P&O fired all the crew in order to use subcontracted workers instead.
* It's time to talk honestly about "fewer and less": fewer people consuming less energy and materials.*
There will surely have fewer people in 2100; what is not certain is whether the population will decrease the humane way or the brutal way. Likewise, human use of resources will almost surely be less in 2100; what is not certain is whether people will have comfortable lives or live in squalor. Those questions are political questions.
The European Court of Human Rights has the power to garnish payments for oil coming in to Russia as reparations for Russia's damage to Ukraine.
(satire) *Health Insurance Plan [Covers Only] Random Hippopotamus Attacks.*
*More Fracked Gas Exports Will Worsen Climate Emergency. Send Heat Pumps Instead.*
This is basically correct, but in practice it isn't that simple. For a heat pump system to do good, it needs to be first built, then installed. I doubt that the world's capacity to build heat pumps can deliver enough by next winter to avoid shivering in Europe, and I doubt that the capacity there to install them is enough either.
No business will choose to build so much new capacity that it will satisfy the whole market in a year and put itself out of business. With public subsidy and careful planning, we could arrange to do the whole job in a few years. In parallel with that, we could insulate houses in their hundreds of millions. We should do this, but we can't do it by next winter.
(satire) *Gymnastics Program Gives Child Self-Discipline Needed To Sustain Lifelong Eating Disorder.*
Around 20,000 Ukrainians got visas to visit the UK for farm work, and some were enslaved once there.
Russian journalist Mikhail Afanasyev: * 11 members of the Russian National Guard from his home region of Khakassia had refused to fight in Ukraine, he said, and the military was hiding information about their unit’s casualties from the public.*
Now he is waiting for state censorship thugs to arrest him and accuse him for "fake news".
Two Floridians have pleaded guilty to voting twice in the 2020 presidential election. Both got a slap on the wrist.
One is a registered Republican; the other has no party affiliation but is probably a Republican, since they live in a suburb whose inhabitants are nearly all white and retired.
Republicans' outrage against voter fraud seems to be limited to the possibility of improper voting for Democrats.
Elon Musk said that if he buys Twitter, he would make its recommendation algorithm free software. More precisely, he said "open source", but it's almost the same in practice. There are a few programs which are open source but not free, as explained in https://gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.
A study of gun violence records from California shows that starting to live in a house where there is a gun correlates with increased danger of being killed by domestic violence, and is no protection against killing by strangers.
DeSantis has found a way to bully Disney into silence on the question of queer rights, by proposing a law that would take away Disney's special privileges — in 2023. This means that that the law would pressure Disney to keep quiet for the 2022 election.
This contest pitches one kind of corruption against another. Companies such as Disney should not have much political influence on elections; that influence is how plutocracy works. That power undermines democracy.
However, Republicans also undermine democracy.
Woe is my country, caught between these dangers.
*US justice department appeals mask mandate ruling after CDC request.*
Australia's planet-roaster government proposes to spend lots of money building dams that may not serve any other purpose. Nominally they will collect water for irrigation, but they have not been chosen to provide useful irrigation. They were chosen to reward a right-wing governing party's voters.
One thing they will surely do is release lots of CO2 as the concrete sets.
Bogus Johnson said something valid, for once: he acknowledged that there is no chance of a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia just now.
The reason is that the sides are too far apart. Each side would rather fight than agree to terms that the other side might possibly accept. Putin wants to seize additional parts of Ukraine's territory, and Ukraine wants to recapture the areas that the Putin forces have already taken, starting in 2014. Each side sees a hope of winning. So they will fight.
Aside from territory, Ukraine also wants to recover the citizens who were taken to Russia and don't see a way to get out.
After one side or both sides recognize that the victory it had sought is unattainable, they may converge on an idea of peace that they could agree on.
For now, the best thing to do is to help Ukraine make Putin recognize that victory is impossible and he may as well accept a peace deal that gives him at least something.
Bogus Johnson was compelled to abandon the attempt to prevent an investigation into his lies about participating in parties at work during the time when he had made such parties illegal.
*[Jeremy Corbin] does not blame Nato for Russian invasion but questions role of military alliances.*
He said he *hoped military alliances like Nato could be ultimately disbanded, saying they could create "greater danger" in the world.*
I don't agree with him on that point, but I don't consider that position horrible. Despite that disagreement, I still support Corbyn. Overall, he is the one I would trust to fight plutocracy.
Protected nature reserves can ensure the survival of species, but that is not automatic. Researchers are now studying what causes a given nature reserve to succeed or fail with any particular species.
*America’s crime panic: why we can’t afford to repeat mistakes of the 90s.*
The mistakes were hiring more thugs, stop-and-search, and longer prison terms.
Geoengineering methods designed to cool the Earth could also exacerbate malaria.
Those methods would fail to counteract the acidification of the oceans, caused by the CO2 dissolving in them. That would kill a large fraction of ocean life.
Rep. Raskin, of the January 6 investigation committee, asserted that the insurrection was a coup attempt organized by the corrupter.
Workers in a major Apple store seek to unionize. As long as Apple stores exist, it would be good for their workers to have a union — but due to the injustice of Apple's hardware and software, what we should really wish for is the elimination of Apple's products (along with products running Android and Windows).
Everyone: call on Boeing to stop funding insurrectionist candidates.
Here's more information.
US citizens: Tell Biden, we're counting on you to seal the Iran deal.
US citizens: call on Congress to let its staff form a union.
*Starbucks Workers Urge Congress to Grill CEO Howard Schultz on Union-Busting.*
Senator Warren states what Democrats need to do to avoid losing Congress in November.
However, they also need to defeat the Republican corrupt election officials plot. Robert Reich points to a description of the Republican plan to install state election officials who will try to steal elections for offices at all levels, state and federal.
What he sent was a youtube URL. I won't direct people to run nonfree Javascript code so I converted it into an invidious proxy URL. Invidio.us will ask you to choose one of the many proxy sites to watch the video from.
There is also the problem of gerrymandering and voter suppression.
*DOJ Urged to Probe Whether Trump "Willfully Mutilated and Destroyed" Jan. 6 Call Logs.*
Republican censorship campaigns have reached public libraries too.
(satire) *Company Referral Program Offers Bonuses For Recommending Potential Employees To Fire.*
Australia vows unending hatred for refugees that arrived by boat. Even if they move to New Zealand and become citizens there, Australia will not let them live in Australia as New Zealand citizens generally can.
The US does an abominable job of protecting new mothers' health. For black new mothers, it does even worse.
*No, more police won’t make New Yorkers — or anyone else — safer. It never does.*
*Most workers at large retail and food corporations receive less than $15 an hour.* That is not a living wage nowadays.
Autopsy confirmed that Patrick Lyoya, unarmed, was shot by a Michigan thug who was on top of Lyoya while he was lying face down on the ground.
More info about the situation in which he was killed.
I agree with Lyoya's relatives that this was this was totally gratuitous, and inexcusable. Let's see charges against the thug!
In some high schools, boys harass female teachers as well as female students.
Why does this happen? Are teachers not allowed to punish students for harassing students and teachers?
Ukraine's latest stamp gives the finger to the Moskva. It is selling fast.
The Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys were planning something together for Jan 6.
Some of them said they were in communication with extremist Rep. Ronny Jackson.
Argentina has legalized abortion, but one rogue prosecutor decided to prosecute an abortion doctor anyway.
When countries turn to the IMF for loans for coping with Covid-19, it almost always demands they adopt crush-the-poor policies.
The IMF has done this for decades. In the 1980s it was famous for making countries charge money for public school.
(satire) *Airlines Announce It Safe To Fly Planes Indoors Again.*
Threats of violence from right-wing fanatics forced the Family Sex Show to cancel its performances. They consist of the very beginning of sex education.
(satire) *Conservative Parents Explain Why They Are Boycotting Disney.*
The Disney streaming channel is an injustice for real — just like all other streaming channels. They all impose DRM, all snoop on you all demand you sign an antisocial contract promising not to share, and they all require you to run nonfree software
including the DRM software, Only the details differ.
* After decades of interfering in the island nation with nuclear testing, disposal of radioactive waste, and human experimentation, U.S. leaders are considering a formal apology.*
A study found that state-legalized recreational marijuana correlates with "significant reductions in the volume of prescriptions within the drug classes that align with the medical indications for pain, depression, anxiety, sleep, psychosis, and seizures."
Payment companies and stores save money by pushing people to pay using digital systems, but if we don't maintain the use of cash, we will all lose.
Long before there was any system for digital payments, a think tank predicted that those systems would be every repressive regime's dream.
The main reason I insist on paying only cash to buy products is not my own privacy — though I appreciate that too — but rather to defend the privacy of the heroic journalists and their heroic sources, the whistleblowers.
We all depend on them, for our freedom.
Please support the defense of cash. When you leave the house, bring a reasonable amount with you for the day's purchases, and use the cash at least sometimes.
If at a store you don't have enough cash, that doesn't mean you have to pay with a card or give up. You can go to an ATM, get cash, then return to the store. With that method, the bank learns only where you were when you got the cash, and the store doesn't learn anything about you.
Beware of the defeatists who predict that surveillance is (or will become) so complete that there is no use even trying for privacy. They get a perverse pleasure from urging people to despair and give up. You can tell them, "On something important, only fools give up without a fight."
The drastically wasteful business of "fast fashion" is accelerating into even more wasteful "ultra-fast fashion".
Its predatory marketing sets up a competition of consumption which wealthy "mean girls" can use to sneer at and exclude other girls. It amounts to an addiction, but an addiction of social groups rather than individuals, so that your social circle would pressure you do join in.
It seems to be bad for almost everyone, except the few who win the game and don't get in money trouble, and the few business owners that succeed.
I wonder what happens to the now-unfashionable purchases of a few months ago. Are they given away to frugal people?
Some parents of sailors on the Moskva know their children are alive. A few have been told that their children are dead. But many others can't get any information.
*India has been accused of attempting to delay an effort by the World Health Organization to revise the global death toll from Covid-19 after its calculations suggested that the country had under counted its dead by an estimated 3.5 million.*
The Hindu-theocratic movement whose party rules India is converting traditional religious festivals into violent pogroms against Muslims.
*Progressive International Outlines Four Ways to End IMF's 'Abuse of Power'.*
They say, "Only strong mechanisms of accountability -— changing both who decides and how -— can end the Fund's impunity."
One Republican extremist judge overturned the US mask mandate for transportation of all kinds.
I am very worried about the danger that will result from this. I hope the government appeals it.
There is evidence that Ukraine has used cluster bombs in fighting the Putin forces.
It appears that Ukraine used them on Putin's military, not on civilians. But regardless of who the immediate target is, cluster bombs tend to harm civilians later, because the bomb-lets lie around and can be set off later by civilians, even children.
Industry groups representing companies that systematically eliminate privacy are taking control of the development of state laws that supposedly aim to protect privacy.
These laws are mainly based on trying to limit how companies can use data once collected. That approach is inherently inadequate: it may reduce certain annoyances but what it can't provide is actual privacy. To do that, we must limit the collection of data. and that can only be done by limiting what kinds of data systems can be designed to collect.
Everyone: tell Amazon to stop blocking the Amazon Labor Union.
Everyone: call on Amazon to stop selling bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides.
US citizens: call on the Senate to address marijuana policy reform.
US citizens: insist that US schools must teach American history, not just straight white history.
US citizens: call on Biden to declare climate an emergency under the National Emergencies Act. This would give him several useful powers to start climate defense.
Everyone: call on British Columbia to protect old-growth forests.
China is failing at the task of distributing food to everyone in Shanghai during lockdown. People who have run out of food and are not allowed to go out and get any.
I am surprised that China cannot organize people to walk around with pressurized air breathing masks to distribute food to everyone. It would be worth the trouble of that, to get rid of Covid-19 in Shanghai instead of suffering all the damage it would do — if it is possible.
*Labour split by leadership call for action against climate crisis blockades.*
The Tanglewood Festival Chorus joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the first concert without masks since two years ago. More than 30 of them caught Covid-19 there.
I suppose they were singing, "Imagine there's no Covid."
The EU accuses right-wing extremist Marine Le Pen of using EU funds to pay to hold meetings of her anti-EU party.
Amber was enslaved by a gang of rapists, then accused by the British state of being their assistant. Then prosecutors changed their mind and she identified some of the rapists — only to find that prosecutors had labeled her a "co-conspirator."
Putin has reportedly taken thousands of Ukrainian children and plan to send some of them to orphanages in Russia.
Some of these cases have been independently confirmed, at least partially. It appears that Kira really can talk with her grandfather, but will Putin's forces let her leave?
Christians are being forced out of the Christian quarter of old Jerusalem.
*Top 5 Charter School Myths Debunked.* "Charter schools" are funded by the government, but in other respects they act like private schools. So we get the worst of both sides.
Ralph Nader: *Consumer Protection Progress and Regress — From the Sixties to Now.*
* A refugee who fled torture in Rwanda and was given asylum in the UK has criticised [UK] government plans to fly unauthorised migrants to his home country.*
Jackie Robinson was an antiracist campaigner, both before and after he played major-league baseball.
Florida has been an abortion refuge for the southeast of the US. The new restriction there will oppress millions of US women.
Valerie Tarico: *Why I Am Pro-Abortion, Not Just Pro-Choice*.
I too am pro-abortion. I think her reasons are good, but my own principal reasons are very different. The most important one is that fewer births will reduce the horror of global heating disaster.
*Australia failing its own citizens held in 'sordid' camps in Syria.*
*Military and Economic Power Once Again Fail to Produce Happiness.*
*Rich countries that let inequality run rampant make citizens unhappy.*
Some Muslims in Sweden are violently crazed, trying to prevent a right-wing group from burning a Qur'an.
Freedom of speech includes the right to offend anyone — even you, even me. If someone burns your sacred book in a free country, whichever book that may be, you just have to live with it.
Those who demand the privilege to punish people who offend them are fighting against other people's freedom. The state must never surrender to that.
Australia is sending 2000 "pod homes" to victims of flooding.
How about providing these to homeless people, too?
New York's mayor called for an increase in state psychiatric hospital facilities as a way to deal with the recent subway shooting.
That is a step in the right direction, and better than what I had expected.
Interviews with people in towns near the Donetsk front line.
The World Food Program warns of starvation in Mariupol, present and future, after Putin's forces have stopped them from bring food to the civilians there.
Scientist Emma Smart has started a hunger strike in jail after being held for extra time after her nonviolent protest for climate defense.
(satire) *God Who Took Form Of Swan Finding It Much Harder To Seduce Women Than Expected.*
Gina McCarthy, Biden's main climate advisor, is reportedly planning to quit because she little opportunity to make progress, with climate legislation blocked by the Republicans and Manchin.
I don't know whether having done bankruptcy law work for a few failing fossil fuel companies implies that her deputy has planet roaster sympathies. It might.
Ukraine accuses the Putin forces of kidnapping Ukrainian children and taking them by force to Russia.
If this is true, I can imagine that Putin might make it extremely hard for Ukraine, or their relatives, to find them in Russia and ask where they would rather go.
Rape of civilians is a frequent concomitant of war, but it is very rarely punished as a war crime.
It seems to me that there are two big practical obstacles to prosecution of war rapists:
There is a project to reintroduce California condors to northern California, where some of them lived until 1892.
We reintroduce condors (or other species) to places that were once good habitat for them, and expect them to live there. But will those same places be good habitat for them in 2060, or 2100? Will anyplace on Earth be good habitat for them?
After an unusual heavy rain that caused a local disaster, South Africa is about to get one more.
Eastern Australia recently had a similar series of rain-driven floods.
These two regions are in comparable latitudes, and I suspect that the two series of floods are part of one single climatic pattern — due to global heating.
Women are starting to drive electric three-wheel minitaxies in Delhi.
I find it fun to ride in those. They exist in Latin America too.
On the spread of Agroecology as a movement to make farming more sustainable (and more efficient) by taking advantage of natural tendencies instead of overriding them.
The UK National Union of Students is under fire for for antisemitism.
Distinguishing between antisemitism and criticism of Israel's policy requires care. I take care because I condemn antisemitism and I oppose the occupation of Palestine.
The article presents an old example from an NUS leader which is real antisemitism. However, the NUS has adopted the IHRA's classificatory scheme for antisemitism as a criterion for judgment. That draws the line at the wrong place, and thus systematically opens the door to repressing criticism of the occupation of Palestine. Past examples suggest that some organizations, perhaps including the British government, will try to make the NUS expel all those who criticize it.
(satire) *Supreme Court IT Guy Walks Ketanji Brown Jackson Through Logging Into Gavel.*
*Biden EPA Unveils 'First-Ever' Blueprint to Protect Endangered Species From Pesticides.*
The US deportation thugs are tracking the movements of 200,000 immigrants. Even worse, it is privatized. Activists are suing to find out what data they store.
Tracking people's movements is much less than keeping them in prison, but is this change being used as an opportunity to "jail" more people?
Biden has restarted the sale of oil and gas leases on public land, but multiplied the royalty rate by 3/2.
A big enough royalty rate could discourage investment in these leases, but I have a feeling that around 20% is not enough to do that. Furthermore, I have to ask, "18.75% of what?" Many oil wells are run by smaller companies that sell the oil to a big company. If this is 20% of what the small company charges the big company, it may not amount to much money, or much dissuasion.
Unless we have a long-term increasing carbon tax big enough to make new investments unprofitable, we will have too many.
Truck drivers protested again, this time against Greg Abbott's policy of searching all trucks entering Texas from Mexico, and made him cancel it.
The search was for smuggling, of goods or people. In principle, there is nothing wrong with checking for that, but the cost was disastrous.
An idea occurs to me. Every truck that crosses the border could be required to carry inside cameras and lamps that could be used at the border to inspect the inside of the cargo compartment quickly.
Since there are supposed to be people inside, this system would surveil any people unjustly.
Now that concert halls take a large fraction of the merch musicians sell there, musicians can't make a go of it
More about the loopholes that rich Americans use to pay very little tax.
Politics offers two ways to end the injustice of neoliberalism (the system that plutocracy imposes to serve the plutocrats): democratic socialism, and hate-based fascist authoritarianism.
The article describes neoliberalism as a "failure". In a sense, it is. Neoliberalism was presented (for instance, by Reagan) as a system that would serve people better in general. In those terms, it is a failure.
However, it's not a failure for the plutocrats. That's why they fight so hard against progressives.
But they might find fascism even more lucrative. Instead of corrupting and lobbying the legal system, they could wipe away all governmental respect for popular opposition to plutocracy.
*84% of US Teens Back Urgent Climate Action to Save Future Generations: Poll.*
More precisely, they agree that "If we don't address climate change today, it will be too late for future generations, making some parts of the planet unlivable."
Most have already seen the effects of global heating in the short period they have lived.
It may be that the term "climate change" is losing its distractive ability, for teenagers, since they know the reality it stands for. However, not everyone is a teenager, so I still make sure to use terms that were not chosen to downplay the point about which overall direction this change is going.
*Bank of America Accused of Using "Accounting Tricks as Real Climate Action."*
If your bank account is in a big bank, how about moving it to a local bank that invests in your local economy.
Ilhan Omar: *If we oppose investigations into countries, like our own, that haven't joined the ICC, how can we support an investigation into Russia, another country that hasn't joined the court?*
I personally commit no hypocrisy by calling for prosecution of Putinite war criminals, because I advocate joining the ICC, for the US and other countries.
Remember when the hate-spreader ordered various thugs to clear the protesters out of a park so he could walk through it? The ACLU sued, supported by the Department of Justice, and won an agreement from the Secret Service and the U.S. Park Police to make rules against various dangerous and unjustified tactics.
The Santa Ana thug department is investigating its own thugs' practice of playing loud Disney music to cause Youtube's automated filters to delete recordings of their actions.
The "Babies not Billionaires" bill is another version of the billionaire's tax.
Its feature is that it would require the IRS to audit annually everyone with over $100 million in assets. No more harping on poor people's child tax credit.
I support the substance of this bill because it will help make sure no children in the US have to grow up in poverty. But I dislike the name of this bill because it spreads the dangerous, obsolete idea that there is something good about having babies. On the contrary, it is important to reduce the birth rate to a low number.
Educated guesses about why Bogus Johnson proposes to send refugees to Rwanda.
(satire) NATO has offered Finland and Sweden gratis one-day trial membership in NATO.
Now that Australia has thrown away the precautions against the spread of Covid-19, lots of people go to sports events, concerts and so on, 3% of the population is immunocompromised and don't dare go.
Another 3% is immunocompromised and takes a wild risk by going anyway.
It would be so easy to require vaccination and reduce the threat to all those people.
In the short term, money spent buying Russian oil is blood money. In the long term view, money spent buying oil anywhere is blood money.
*USDA Conservation Program Must Be Reformed to Stop Funding Pollution, Report Shows.*
Let's not confuse the existence of an unconscious system which handles certain problems with "knowledge" about them. That is anthropomorphism,
coated with sloppy sentimentalism.
Plants that concentrate metals are scientifically interesting, and could eventually become useful for us. Transport of nutrients between trees by fungi is very scientifically interesting, and very important.
However, the article is philosophically confused when it equates having evolved to do something, with having "knowledge". There are parts of normal human brains which unconsciously do things — such as recognizing objects in a scene — which we don't know how to do. We have funded thousands of man-years of research into developing knowledge in an area that our brains have evolved to handle unconsciously. Likewise for the immune system, except that it may be hundreds of thousands of man-years.
The "computational" feats of slime molds may be appear philosophically amazing when we realize that the experiment arranged for them to act as a kind of analog computer. The operational amplifiers in an electronic analog computer don't know anything about the quantities that people are using them to compute.
China is struggling to quarantine everyone in Shanghai that tests positive for Covid-19.
It could be that Omicron spreads so easily that this approach can't work any more.
Farmers in one part of the UK used to keep ditches around the edges of their fields to drain excess rain. Then they filled these ditches and caused a problem of flooding in the area. I speculate that they were under competitive pressure to grow the maximum amount of crops, or fail. In other words, I suspect that the social system made it impossible for them to take the wise precaution. if so, we need to alter the system so that they can do so.
Australia's prime minister butters up Modi, chose a candidate for parliament who is of Indian origin and has posted valid criticism of Modi.
Right-wing government in New South Wales is selling lots of public housing.
I suspect that results in accommodating fewer, wealthier people in those buildings. That would increase the housing crunch for poor people.
Refugees in the UK respond to the Tory plan to send refugees to Rwanda.
Macron said he favors a Europe-wide limit on executive pay.
I advocate policies to limit the income of rich people, but that is not the best way to do it.
First, many rich people are executives of corporations, but not all. I think we should limit the income of all people with high incomes.
Second, arbitrary fixed limits tend to create economic paradoxes which people then try to game. Consider for instance the trucks that DeJoy wants to make the USPS buy, which are just a smidgen over an arbitrary weight at which certain environmental standards cease to apply.
Thus, instead of an absolute cap on some or all high incomes, I think a big increase in tax rates would do the job better.
In any case, it's good for the French president to advocate such a limit, but that doesn't mean it will happen. Such a change in EU policy is beyond Macron's power to implement.
The very high income of the CEO of Peugot-Chrysler-Fiat, mentioned in the article, should remind us of the harm done by mergers and reduced competition.
The Republican Party now campaigns based on hatred for homosexuals,
and for anyone who might have an association with homosexuals, or might persecute them less than Republican do.
New York City's new mayor is a surveillance night-mayor.
He plays on foolish demands for cops to find every criminal fast — which is impossible — as an excuse for surveillance and tracking of everyone.
Planet roasters in the UK parliament showed what weak loose screws they will cling to for support as they oppose actions that would start to defend the climate.
Afghanistan is arresting journalists because of what they report.
Israeli soldiers killed an unarmed, mostly-blind Palestinian who ran towards them after they fired warning shots.
They shot her in the legs, which should not have been fatal. She actually died because they then kept medics away from her for 15 minutes. That's a common practice of Israeli soldiers who have shot a Palestinian, and it often kills people who could have survived.
It seems to be a frequent pattern that people with sensory deficiencies get killed by "law enforcement". US thugs regularly do it too.
What can be done to put an end to these pointless killings?
Predictions that speculating in NFTs would be profitable have hit a painful counterexample: an NFT that sold for almost 3 million dollars a year ago has lost almost all of that value
There is art involved in that NFT: it is a performance art piece that tells a story we could refer to as, "The Connoisseur's New Artwork."
The Republican Party has prohibited debates for its presidential candidates.
Democrats could try these responses:
Ukraine sank the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, reportedly with Ukrainian-made anti-ship missiles.
I would expect that ship participated in the continuous bombardment of Maruipol. Ukraine's success against Putin's most powerful warship in that region will discourage further attacks from the sea — for instance, against Odessa. And Putin forces ships won't dare come close enough to bombard cities again.
According to Wikipedia, that ship had close-in weapons system. The purpose of those systems is to destroy incoming missiles. Apparently it was ineffective this time. Other navies including the US also carry such systems, for the same purpose. Can they be counted on to work?
*Covid-19 Death Rates in Poorer US Counties Were Nearly Double.*
In the worst waves, the ratio was more than double.
Jim Hightower: Does the Democratic Party have the courage, and the independence, to fight the unpopular things that the Republicans want to do?
Ukraine reports finding 900 dead civilians in the region around Kyiv (which includes Bucha and other towns that were occupied by Putin forces).
Most of them killed by gunshot.
US citizens: call on the Senate to confirm Gigi Sohn as an FCC commissioner.
US citizens: call on Congress to end the hater's Title 42 "wait in Mexico" policy.
US Citizens: tell Congress to reject mandatory automatic censorship filters to be based loosely on copyright.
This "smart act" will sure make copyright smart. It will smart so much we will all cry out.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Army Corps of Engineers to check each proposed oil pipeline's environmental impact instead of approving them under a blanket order.
Amazon warehouse workers have almost double the rate of work injuries typical in other warehouses.
This adds to the many other reasons not to buy from Amazon.
The graduate students at Indiana University are on strike because the university administration has refused to recognize their union.
It would make sense for the adjunct professors to organize together with the grad students. Why don't they? My guess is that precarious workers have fewer rights than students. They can be junct at any moment.
In a just country, workers wouldn't have to struggle to get their rights respected. Employers that violate their rights would be prosecuted like muggers.
Big oil companies do greenwashing by disregarding 3/4 of the greenhouse emissions of their operations: the part due to their suppliers.
They also omit half their methane leaks from reporting.
Alden Global Capital takes over US newspaper companies in order to turn them into profitable censored trash.
The US needs to change its tax and investment laws so that asset strippers can't operate in any industry. The only assets that strippers should work with are the sexy ones.
Accusing Wikipedia of becoming too exclusive and "deletionist", and giving businesses a dangerous level of influence.
The fight to kill the Mountain Valley Pipeline continues in court, with no final outcome yet.
*Boris Johnson’s impunity is the mark of a rotten political system.*
The Tory justice minister has resigned, rebuking Bogus Johnson.
Just Stop Oil representative after a TV interview: *The worst part is that these presenters and journalists think they know better than chief scientists or academics who have been studying the climate crisis for decades, and they refuse to hear otherwise.*
*BBC warns of fake video claiming Ukraine carried out Kramatorsk attack.*
Indonesia has passed a law to punish various sorts of sexual violence and harassment, including forced marriage.
Extinction Rebellion scientists glued their hands to windows at the UK's Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
* A preliminary war crimes assessment, conducted on behalf of 45 members of the OSCE, concluded that Russia had engaged in "a clear pattern" of war crimes, targeting, for example, hospitals, schools and places of shelter during the seven weeks of fighting.*
*Lightning-sparked forest fires set to increase in North America.* This is because global heating will make fire weather more frequent.
A campaign accuses the rich countries of obstructing vaccinating all of humanity against Covid-19, by upholding the artificial monopolies of the vaccine companies, and thus encouraging dangerous new variants of the virus.
Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter — the whole company.
He has no sense of social responsibility. Twitter today, aside from being inacceptable to use because it requires running nonfree software, makes imperfect efforts to respect human rights. Musk might drop that in the trash.
The UK has given Dogger Bank protection from bottom-trawling.
This is a vital step for protecting endangered ecosystems. It needs to be done in a lot more parts of the sea bottom.
*Women and Journalists Are Targets of Violence in Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan.* Especially women that protest against repression, and journalists that cover protests.
Just as Australia has sent refugees to Nauru, and then to Manus Island in New Guinea, as prisoners, so Tories plan to send refugees in the UK to Rwanda.
If Elon Musk buys Twitter, he is likely to reenable the bullshitter's account.
The UK wants to force refugees to "wait in Rwanda", a country whose president is accused of having exiled dissidents assassinated, and holding show trials of those he could grab.
It shouldn't be surprising the UK is not averse to this record, given that the UK is currently helping the US grab a famous dissident for a show trial.
If Rwanda proves too dirty for this use, the UK could try China ;-{.
Some European airlines eliminated the requirement to wear a mask. Now they are cancelling lots of flights because their crew staff are sick.
Teachers obeying a new Republican censorship law banned an author from reading aloud from his book, It's Ok to be a Unicorn.
It's not just hostility that leads the UK government to cause people great harm in regard to issues of residency. It appears they are prone to trivial errors, and can take months to correct them.
1/8 of the rental homes in England violate legal standards with problems that cause serious risk to health.
The agencies that ought to make landlords fix these problems are hampered by being given insufficient funds by the Tories.
US businesses are using claims of trade secrecy to override safety laws, environmental protection laws, worker protection laws, and the right to a fair trial.
The article describes some legal strategies to use in lawsuits, but I think we need to legislate to weaken trade secret law. For instance, trade secrecy must give way to any legitimate public need to know the information, and government's responsibility to keep the trade secret secret should be limited to when that is easy to do.
If Guber and Lyft drivers are independent contractors, some of what those companies do to them violates US anti-trust law.
Both the Registry of Copyright and US Congress are looking at requiring platforms to run automated copyright filters.
I appreciate that EFF's efforts against this threat, but it is disappointing to see them give more weight to whether some businesses can be profitable than to whether people are free to share, and free to post what they see. And they highlight those bad values by calling artists "creators".
Requiring these filters would in effect permit cops to block videos of their actions from being posted in popular platforms.
Will Russian shells and bullets play Disney tunes so that Youtube won't post recordings of their attacks?
Around 100,000 young Mexicans have been reported as missing and hardly any have been found.
*New York lieutenant governor quits after arrest on bribery and fraud charges.*
Elon Musk is being sued for illegally delaying the announcement that he had bought a large stake in Twitter.
Everyone, tell CBS News: No cushy jobs for the corrupter's former chief of staff.
Everyone: call on Costco to eliminate single-use plastic packaging.
Australia's planned investments in gas facilities are going to prove a big bust if we don't cause global disaster.
That means the "investors" are betting on causing disaster.
Italy will reimburse 110% of the cost of a green renovation of an old house. Over 100,000 renovations have already been approved.
Along with a million or more Muslim Uyghurs, some Christians of other minority groups get imprisoned and tortured similarly. One is visiting the US to testify to the International Criminal Court.
He reports being forcibly injected in prison with something that may have caused the unknown debilitating illness that started soon after.
The US should join the International Criminal Court; that is the way to give it wholehearted support.
Hurricanes drop 10% more rain per hour nowadays due to global heating. In some places, this causes widespread floods.
The UK has lost over a million workers since Covid-19 started.
Some of them decided to retire earlier than planned. Perhaps they don't dare go out to work and risk getting Covid-19. Some of them have been disabled by Covid-19. Maybe some are taking care of people as a result of the death or incapacitation of whoever was taking care of those people before. I wonder what other causes there are, and how each cause relates to Covid-19.
*The cost of living crisis [in the UK] has been going on for decades… What's new is the utter lack of support for those that need it the most.*
Goons and buffoons like Marjorie Greene may seem absurd, but the Republican Party expects to follow them to brutal power.
*Copying the far right doesn’t help mainstream parties. But it can boost the far right.*
High-priced union-busting consultants are becoming less effective as workers show more courage and determination against them.
About Putin's crushing of Chechnya, in which he developed the pattern of mass murder now being applied to Ukraine.
I read about the wars in Chechnya, but it was a small region of Russia I had not heard of except for Islamist extremism, and the occasional news coverage didn't make an impression on me.
Seized Russian funds could be used to rebuild Ukraine.
British teachers are fed up with the cruelty that thugs stationed in schools display towards students, and voted to call for the thugs' removal.
In my view, the race of the students who are treated cruelly is an insignificant detail, because it would be wrong regardless of who is the victim. But it doesn't surprise me that bigotry and cruelty tend to go together. That pattern is widespread: bigotry brings out a person's tendency towards cruelty.
The text of the proposed vaccine patent waiver has been leaked. It gives only a small part of the permissions needed to vaccinate the world. Activists call on South Africa to reject this deal and denounce it.
Four kinds of legal obstacles block the making of generic mRNA vaccines: patents, secrecy, propagating culture contracts, and special restrictions on generic medicines. The first two are covered in the treaty I call TRIPES (*); the last two are not. Perhaps countries can simply legislate themselves exceptions for the last two,
* Trade-Restricting Impediments to Production, Education and Science: a treaty that gives powerful corporations global power. The world should abolish the TRIPES accord; waiving parts of it could be a first step.
Crown Prince Bone Saw invested 2 billion dollars in a corporation, Affinity Partners, recently started by Jared Kushner.
Speculation says that this is a payoff for helping protecting the prince from any punishment for organizing the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
(satire) *Financial Advisor Recommends Fraud.*
(satire) *Parents Ask If Son Wouldn't Mind Stopping By To Fix Gaping Void In Their Lives.*
Bill McKibben: *Putin's Aggression Shows Why Defeating Autocracy Is Key to Combating Climate Crisis.*
Let us resist the pressure to condemn and exclude all Russians in the arts.
The UK Labour Party has gone full planet-roaster, calling for harsh injunctions that would put climate defense protesters in prison.
Sonic pollution from boats and ships is making it hard for orcas to find prey, or find their families, in some areas.
The global food shortage threatens a quarter of a billion people with extreme poverty.
The more stressed our food systems become, the smaller the margin of safety. Increasing production increases environmental damage. Each increase in efficiency is harder than the previous one.
The long-term solution is to reduce the human birth rate.
*Herd immunity now seems impossible. Welcome to the age of Covid reinfection.*
I am glad to see some attention given to the problem of long Covid. If vaccination continues to make death unlikely, I think the main long-term harm done by Covid-19 will be the steady accumulation of people disabled by it.
However, treating and helping those disabled by it, as the author proposes, is not enough. We need to reduce the number of people that are disabled by Covid-19 over the coming years.
Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice O'Connor is a Republican who still has an idea of civic duty. So she rejects gerrymandering designed to rig elections. Modern Republicans want to impeach her for that.
The difference between the two parties is clear. Democrats will impeach you for trying to steal an election. Republicans will impeach you for not trying to steal an election.
*Sunscreen chemicals accumulating in Mediterranean seagrass… UV filters absorbed by Posidonia oceanica may have damaging effects on ecosystems, scientists warn.*
Bogus Johnson has been fined officially for having a party with people from different households when that was prohibited. That law was being enforced vigorously against everyone else, and arguably in a manner that was too strict. But he was totally behind that rule for everyone else, while covering up his own disobedience.
Many Britons now hate him for this, and demand his resignation.
*Global Progressive Leaders Urge Biden to Drop US Charges Against Assange.*
To get its hands on Assange, the US government corrupted first Swedish justice, then British justice. It is clear that in both countries the end result was decided first and the rulings chosen to procure that result.
*US Limits on ICC Complicate Biden's Aim to Aid Putin War Crimes Probe.*
The article describes some of the measures that the US adopted to render the International Criminal Court null and void, but doesn't mention that the US pressured other countries around the world not to sign up to it. The European Union was too strong to be pressured in this way, but most countries did as the US bid.
I agree that when the US recognizes a crime of war, it is likely to prosecute the perpetrator. The hard part is getting the US to recognize such a crime. For example, there seems to be little move to make Dubya pay for his war of aggression which was based on that have been exposed.
The latest Russian landmines detect the footsteps of people walking nearby. Putin forces deployed them at a distance using missiles — in effect a sort of mine-dropping cluster bomb.
Interestingly, these mines are proof that potential atrocities were set up by the Putin forces, not by putative omnipresent but never-seen Ukrainian Nazis bent on killing thousands of Ukrainians to make a false accusation. Only the Putin forces had these ultra-modern mine-missiles.
The US should join most of the world's countries and sign up to the prohibition of cluster bombs.
The Federal Trade Commission ordered two companies to destroy all the data they illegally collected from children, plus all work product based on such data.
That represents a recognition that the product of collecting data can be morphed into various forms, including algorithms derived from deep learning, and allowing the culprits to retain any form whatsoever of that data would let them make a monkey out of any and all privacy laws.
On the front end, however, this shows how weak US privacy protection is. It protects only children, and that protection disappears when they get "consent". That is not enough.
Tory ministers received recommendations for changed building codes after a London apartment building fire in 2009, but paid hardly any attention.
The various reasons come down to giving the matter low priority. Basically, the priority was to help business profit more by relaxing regulations, and not looking hard when businesses stretched the regulations further — which is what caused the fire in the Grenfell building.
Right-wing extremists fund campaigns to recall school board members.
Covid-19 vaccine is no more likely than other vaccines to cause the rare temporary condition, myopericarditis.
Philadelphia has brought back mask requirements, having seen the Covid case rate increase rapidly.
New York City and Boston have high rates of Covid-19 and should have mask requirements too.
A fossil fuel company wants to do a frackwell in England to "to show that a competent operator can be trusted to develop the technology safely." This proposed "test" is a swindle, for two reasons.
Suppose the test fails because the local water supply is contaminated. (That has happened in the US.) What will the company do to correct that damage? Without a commitment to do that, this "test" would be carried out at great risk to the public. "We risk not finding a new business, you risk permanent loss of your water supply."
The test could also fail because the well appears to "work." Those wells would continue to be used for many years, and the resulting increase in greenhouse gas emissions would certainly not be safe.
Everyone: call on Home Depot to protect the Boreal forest.
US citizens: call on Congress to support the Protect America's Children from Toxic Pesticides Act.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to affirm the validity of the Equal Rights Amendment.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
*Russians start to see evidence of high military casualties in Ukraine.*
This may show them that Putin is bullshitting them.
Canada has banned foreign investors from buying homes in Canada. (Except those who will actually live in a home they buy.) This is wise; other countries should do it.
However, it might be slightly better to tax homes owned by foreigners (except homes they reside in) at a very high rate. That would deal with the problem of homes foreigners have already bought.
Accusing Assad of seizing the possessions (including homes) of political prisoners, amounting to 1.5 billion dollars.
* Attorney general Letitia James requests calls for fines [of $10,000 per day] until [the wrecker] complies with order to turn over files related to his businesses.*
$10,000 amounts to 3.65 million per year. That may not be enough to get the wrecker to comply — he could simply pay the fine.
Can New York State jail him until he complies? I think that would do the job.
New Zealand should treat feral cats as pests to be eliminated, like the other introduced predators, to protect the endangered birds.
A Putin forces soldier was recorded describing by radio a practice of shooting prisoners of war after interrogating them.
That was clearly not a matter of spontaneous individual crimes stemming from rage or panic. The commanders had to be responsible for those crimes.
This article recounts Putin's career since 1999, including how he step by step centralized all political power, then all communication influence, under his control.
Companies such as Nike and H&M use quirks in definitions to pretend that they are reducing greenhouse gas emissions, when in fact their emissions are increasing.
Life expectancy in the US has gone down 2.6 years since 2019. Other wealthy countries lost around .3 years. Overall, the US now has a life expectancy 5 years shorter then those other countries.
I'm sure a considerable fraction of this was caused by the crush-the-poor Covid-spreading party.
Putin has closed the Moscow offices of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Protesters plan to blockade a West Virginia power plant that burns Manchin family coal.
(satire) *Avant-Garde DJ Really Gets The Dance Floor Thinking.*
The flow of government press representatives into news media jobs tends to tarnish both sides.
The Tories are so habituated to demonizing anyone who would like to live in the UK, and creating bureaucratic nightmares to keep them out, that they can't see their way to treating Ukrainian refugees any better.
Economist Robert Pollin calls for nationalizing the three dominant US fossil fuel companies, so as to face less resistance to shutting the fossil fuel companies gradually down.
Over a thousand scientists participated in civil disobedience, blocking doors and so on, demanding adequate action to reduce climate mayhem to a level we can survive.
The corrupter did not hand in a list of gifts that visitors gave to him as president during 2020. These gifts belong to the US government, not to whoever was president. One must suspect that the corrupter has walked off with public property.
The corrupter's son, Donald Trump Jr., started privately pushing to cut short the electoral process and declare his father the winner, two days after election day, before the true result was even known.
More info.
Nationwide standardized tests have been tried for decades in several different varieties, each supposedly going to make US public education better, and each a failure in its own terms. Each time they fail, the proponents insist on trying another variation.
How about getting rid of them entirely?
The CDC's current message to the public is, if the hospitals in your county are not close to being packed with Covid-19 patients, relax and don't worry about taking precautions.
To the extent that local governments base their rules on this guidance, it will tend to encourage careless contagion.
Many UK government agencies are quick to hand debts of a few dollars worth to a collection agency, which will tack on a few hundred more and ruin someone's life.
The agency will presume that any bureaucratic confusion is your fault, and that justifies nasty treatment of you.
The challenge of investigating and prosecuting the Putin forces' apparent war crimes.
A Buffalo thug pushed Martin Gugino to the ground and fractured his skull. This was judged by an arbitration procedure which predictably ruled that the thug did nothing wrong.
Gugino is suing the city, but such damages are paid by the city, not the thug who did the damage.
The Tories have run down ambulance service in the UK to the point where patients wait hours (and get sicker).
Santiago, Chile, has been in drought for 12 years and there isn't enough water to keep it flowing in the city all the time.
Basically, northern Chile (along with Peru) is getting wiped out by global heating.
Pressing the US on the issue of its continuing support for Crown Prince Bone Saw.
A former teacher in Kabul denounces the Taliban for closing schools for women.
I wish I could see a way to change this.
Renewable energy generation grew fast in 2021, by past standards. But not fast enough to avoid global heating disaster.
Describing the organizing methods that led, over years, to a union victory at one Amazon warehouse.
Texas Governor Abbott said he would forcibly take border-crossers to Washington DC against their will. He received a hostile reaction and changed the plan. Now he says he will offer them a gratis bus trip to Washington.
I don't see anything wrong in his making them that offer — provided that's really what happens. But you can't trust Republicans to keep their commitments to anyone that is disprivileged, or even to anyone not filthy rich. Their contempt for the weak is unrestrained. Who knows what nasty things they might do, to unauthorized immigrants who decline the offer, or to make sure that they "choose" to go.
So I suggest sending spanish-speaking federal marshals to monitor the whole operation, including the stage of asking who wants to go and who does not, and what happens afterwards to both groups, inviting reports and audio/video recordings of any abuses. A marshall should ride in each bus.
Everyone: call on Lockheed to start converting to peaceful industries.
US citizens: Fax your members of Congress to tell them to pass the Martha Wright Prison Phone Justice Act.
US citizens: call on Congress to give more money to our communities and less to the military.
US citizens: call on the Biden administration to keep single-use plastics out of federal government purchases.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to stop distributing single-use plastics in US national parks.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: phone your senators to support the Stop Wall Street Looting act. A brief summary is:
(satire) *Trojan Introduces New Contraceptive Fife For Charming Sperm Out Of Vaginal Canal.*
*As US Funds Pentagon Bloat, China Investments in Green Energy Soar.*
China's commitment to decarbonization is incomplete. It is building many new coal-fired power plants, so the electric vehicles it is building will in fact be powered by fossil fuels for some decades.
However, the US is not much better.
The dynamics of an army at war systematically pressures and inspires soldiers to commit atrocities.
So we see them in all armies.
This is why the crime of aggressive war is so grave.
Putin's army seems to order soldiers to commit atrocities. But even armies which try to enforce laws against atrocities face constant temptation to disregard or cover up the atrocities that its soldiers have committed.
Joining the International Criminal Court can firm up those efforts.
13 Starbucks stores' workers have voted to unionize. 180 more stores are planning to follow.
Only one site has voted not to unionize.
The workers at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama voted on unionization. The outcome is not clear, because some ballots are being challenged. Meanwhile, the workers accuse Amazon of using illegal methods to pressure the workers. It is standard practice for companies to violate these laws, because the boss would rather take the risk of paying a small fine than have a union.
It is no accident that the laws that protect workers' rights are so hard to enforce. Businesses lobby for this, and plutocratist politicians are eager to be bought.
The State of the Free Software Movement
Richard Stallman will be speaking about the free software movement and your freedom. His speech will be nontechnical, admission is gratis, and the public is encouraged to attend online.
Online at fsf.org/live
*‘Toxic combination’ of issues threaten world’s health and human rights –- BMA.*
Yemen's president (according to Salafi Arabia) has agreed to let others negotiate the future of Yemen with the Houthis.
Rising sea levels (caused by global heating) are already forcing Americans to move to higher ground. Over the next few decades, millions will need to move. The US is not doing a good job of helping them.
If we were wise, we would get ahead of the problem by curbing greenhouse gas emissions so as to reduce the number that will have to move.
Republicans that control state governments are extending anti-abortion repression to forbid going to another state to get an abortion. They even want to prosecute doctors and pharmacists in other states for serving people who reside in a repressive state.
The idea that state A could prosecute someone in state B for treating a patient who has travelled from state A, or for shipping a drug by US mail to someone in state A, seems absurd. But the right-wing Supreme Court extremists can't be relied on to uphold basic constitutional principles.
People systematically underestimate the danger of catching Covid-19 from friends.
A group of many strangers is more dangerous than a group of a few friends, simply because the latter group is fewer. It is safer to eat at home with a few friends than in a restaurant with those friends plus many strangers. But even at home you should take precautions: set up a current of fresh air (strong enough you can feel it a little) through the dining room, sit far apart, and keep distance from each other whenever you don't have your N95 mask on.
*Biden needs to start going after large corporations if he wants to win again.*
An Australian bomb appears to have killed 35 members of an Iraqi family in a house in Mosul. However, because the Australian air force refuses to give details about that bombing run, the hearing was unable to determine for certain whether that bomb run killed them, so it refused compensation.
Another positive feedback cycle in global heating: as Arctic ice melts, more ships travel through the Arctic Ocean, which pump out more black carbon, which falls on ice and melts it.
Texas's right-wing rulers showed what they really want to do to women who have abortions: charge them with murder.
They can't that nowadays, because they haven't actually passed a law to do it. But now we know they want it.
What will they do to the women they convict? Execute them, I suppose. Right-wingers love the death penalty.
(satire) *Original Stan Lee Corpse Sells At Auction For $5 Million.*
(satire) *Several Wendy’s Menu Items Added To Periodic Table As Part Of New Sponsorship Deal.*
Fireproof Australia protests demanding the state do more to help people whose houses are destroyed by wildfires.
The question of tactics is secondary, in my view. I support Extinction Rebellion because it focuses on the heart of the problem, on the disease rather than the symptoms.
*As a science journalist I'm reconsidering having kids. I'm not the only one.*
A German historian thinks about what made Germany become civil and peaceful after World War II.
Bogus Johnson now wants to build more nuclear power, plus sea-based wind power, while finding and excuse to reject land-based wind power and solar power.
There is no rational reason for this as energy policy. It won't reduce prices, it won't stop the import of Russian fossil fuels.
US citizens: call on Congress to end Big Money’s stranglehold on our democracy.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
*Climate scientists are desperate: we’re crying, begging and getting arrested.* All in the hope of preventing global heating disaster.
*The Fossil Fuels Era Must End. Collective Transformation Must Start Now.*
Too much screen time can cause real life to lose interest — for gorillas.
*‘Learning to live with it’? From Covid to climate breakdown, it’s the new way of failing.*
I think that statement is too weak. It's the new way of saying, "Tough on you, non-rich people!"
*Global food prices rise to highest ever levels after Russian invasion.*
I have a hunch they will never again fall to the level of before the war.
Senate Republicans are holding Americans' Covid vaccine and treatment hostage to demand renewed repression against asylum seekers.
(satire) *"They Switched It For Molasses!" Yells Energy Secretary Discovering Nation's Entire Oil Reserves Stolen.*
Jesse Jackson: *The higher the price the Russian military pays in Ukraine, the less likely Putin will be emboldened to repeat his aggression.*
My view is that the resolution of the war must not give Putin anything that could be construed as a victory. Especially, no territorial gains and no legitimization of past seizures of Ukrainian territory.
It would be useful to make him withdraw troops from Moldova too.
Several US states have incorporated white supremacist bias into their standards for teaching about the reconstruction period and how it was crushed.
*Poverty: The Pre-Condition Underlying Covid-19 Mortality.*
The right-wing radicals on the US Supreme Court fabricate artificial emergencies as excuses to impose questionable right-wing decisions without even a hearing.
The most recent example was to limit states' power to challenge approval of "energy projects" — such as pipelines and export terminals — once federal agencies, if corrupted by planet-roasters, approve them.
Normally, right-wing officials claim to promote "states' rights", but that really only means states' rights to serve business. States' rights to resist big business are less appealing to these plutocratists.
Scientist Rebellion shows how fossil fuel money watered down the IPCC report.
Explaining Biden's plan for the billionaire's tax, and how it would tax their asset appreciation every year.
I think it would require people with more than 100 million dollars in assets to report those assets to the IRS. That is fine with me.
I campaign against the sorts of government surveillance that put dissidents and whistleblowers in danger. The worst things for the government to know about people are where you go, what you do there, and who you talk with.
Knowing the large property holdings of centimillionaires is not much of a threat to dissidents and whistleblowers. And even for them, it would collect little information about their daily activities.
Interviews with the Patriotic Millionaires, who advocate raising the tax rate for millionaires.
*Extinction Rebellion vows fossil fuels protest will "grind London to a halt."*
The Putin forces attacked the Kramatorsk train station where thousands of Ukrainian civilians were waiting to evacuate to the west.
At least 39 of them were killed.
The "world nuclear order" which kept us at a distance from nuclear war has been fraying, strand by strand, for decades. This means that the danger of nuclear war increases.
Amtrak wants to identify all passengers and check them against a secret suspects list belonging to the Department of Harshness and Suspicion.
This would require demanding official identification from each passenger. That's what Amtrak did until a few years ago. My response to that was never to use Amtrak.
In practice, I still never take Amtrak, because the trains I might have a reason to require reservations, and those reservations still do require identifying oneself.
People should be free to travel within a country without identifying themselves. You can support this by phoning your congresscritter.
Proposing strong measures to reduce Europe's energy use.
In the short term, these measures would cause great difficulty. Public transit systems could not cope with the extra passengers, and they would push people into dangerous proximity.
Over a somewhat longer period, giving time to prepare lots of buses and trained drivers for them, I think they could work.
I am not sure what "internal flights" is supposed to mean. If it means "flights within the EU", that would not be feasible; there are trips that would take days by train. However, the EU has many short flights that could be eliminated without great difficulties.
A mining company has, after years of pressure, joined in supporting a proper archaeological investigation of an old Australian aboriginal site, in cooperation with the local aboriginal group.
This is very good news, as it will lead to more understanding of ancient humanity.
Ketanji Jackson has been confirmed for the US Supreme Court.
That is a relief; it would have been very bad if she had not been confirmed. But I don't feel joy, because we are not out of the woods yet.
Her confirmation prevented the Supreme Court situation from getting one notch worse. But I don't see how we are going to make things start to get better.
*LA jail guards routinely punch incarcerated people in the head, monitors find.*
Each of these thugs deserves to be prosecuted, and then experience jail as a prisoner.
West Germany's first elected chancellor, Adenauer, used the country's intelligence agency to spy on political rivals.
*Methane in Earth’s atmosphere rose by record amount last year, US government data shows. Climate scientists say plugging methane leaks and phasing out fossil fuels are necessary to avert catastrophic global heating.*
We should not demand of artists that they take political stands we support — or that they take political stands at all.
Tory ministers are disregarding freedom of information law and getting away with it.
The wrecker hinted that he is endorsing candidate for state offices because they would steal the election for him.
Congress is proposing to cut the Department of Agriculture just as a global food shortage is beginning.
*Aid Groups Warn "More Variants Will Emerge" If Congress Kills Global Covid Funds.*
We can't make poor people better off through high-pressure studies in kindergarten.
Proposing the 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights — a collection of the main progressive policy proposals.
Government safety regulations save lives, but plutocratists prefer to let workers and customers be sick or injured in the name of increased profits. The right-wing Supreme Court is likely to attack safety regulation and make your life more dangerous.
Minneapolis has put an end to no-knock search warrants.
I wonder if there is a good solution, such as a way to enter and search a house using robots, so there is no reason to shoot at the inhabitants even if they start shooting.
The Starbucks CEO made bizarre statements about unions coming between the company and its workers.
Starbucks is not a charity; it acts solely for the owners' profits. There is no reason for the staff to feel loyal to that.
John Eastman's emails in the Jan 6 plot have been delivered to the investigating committee. (He was one of the wrecker's lawyers.) They explicitly talk about the goal of undermining the election.
US citizens: call for eliminating preventive use of antibiotics in animals.
US citizens: remind the Democratic Party that primaries are good.
US citizens: call on Congress to adopt a windfall tax on fossil fuels.
I sent the following personalized message, advocating improvements in the bill that the campaign supports. You can send your own version of it, if you wish to.
We should have a windfall profits tax on fossil fuels, but the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax bill does too little and does it the wrong way.
- It should cover all fossil fuel sales for which prices fluctuate, not exempting smaller companies.
- It should capture more than just half of their windfall.
- Does taxing companies that sell wholesale capture all of the windfall that actual users pay? I don't know, but I suspect not.
- The funds collected should not be aimed particularly at drivers, because that is equivalent to subsidizing fossil fuels — exactly the wrong thing to do when we need reduce the amount which is used.
Instead, we should give those funds to all poor Americans, those that use fossil fuels and those that don't. That way, we will enable them all to cope with the high prices, and we will preserve the incentive for them to use less fuel if they can.
As your constituent, I urge you to sponsor a better bill.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate Clarence Thomas's unethical behavior.
Customers of big US banks: tell your bank to stop investing in climate chaos.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the EQUAL act, reducing the penalties for crack cocaine to the same level as powder cocaine.
Possession of recreational drugs should not be a crime at all.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word
Everyone: Tell the Washington Post: No more op-eds from warmongers.
US citizens: tell the US government, don't increase fossil fuel subsidies — cancel them.
Everyone: call on Travelers Insurance not to insure oil drilling in the Arctic.
US citizens: tell the SEC you support new protections for investors against Wall Street private equity.
US citizens: call on world leaders to make polluters pay to fund the transition to renewables.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the Agriculture Right to Repair Act.
This is just a small part of the freedoms tractor owners deserve. The software in a tractor, or a car, or any other product, if it is meant to be changed, should be free.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call for banning members of Congress from trading military contractor stocks now.
I'd rather ban them from trading any stocks but this would be a start.
US citizens: call on congress to make billion-dollar corporations pay minimum 15% tax on reported domestic profits and on offshore profits.
*Scientists have just told us how to solve the climate crisis — will the world listen?*
The Tories plan to give oil companies priority and cut back on renewable energy construction.
Activists occupied an oil import terminal near London, shutting it down.
Many Iranian men were drafted and assigned to the Revolutionary Guards. If the US finds out that an Iranian was one of them, it treats him as a terrorist.
This tendency to jump to conclusions and act cruelly is unjust, and harms the US as well as the people punished this way.
An Australia court ruled that anyone formally adopted into an indigenous group, even if not an Australian citizen, gets a special immunity from deportation. Non-aboriginal groups have no comparable power. The government wants to change this.
English (mainly) colonists stole the indigenous peoples' land. By modern standards of universal justice, that was a crime and calls for compensation. Indigenous people today face the usual forms of discrimination of disprivileged groups, and that must cease.
But this peculiar privilege contributes nothing to that, and could even work against it because it likewise contravenes modern standards of universal justice.
US right wing in step with Kremlin over Ukraine disinformation, experts say.
The US right wing includes self-proclaimed Nazis as well as many others with similar views. (This happened because, over his four years as president, the inflamer did his best to shift his supporters to right-wing extremism.) Those of them who pay attention to consistency will surely find it strange that their movement advocates "denazification."
Over the years while President AMLO has attacked the press, violence against reporters in Mexico has greatly increased.
The Russian army made the town of Trostianets into a forward base after a blown bridge stopped them from continuing on south. They killed some residents and terrorized the rest, while gratuitously making the town a wreck.
I think they took out on the civilians their resentment at the Ukrainian military.
Finally someone turns up who committed real voting fraud in the US. He is a Republican, of course, and this year he wants to run for Congress.
The president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for "blasphemy".
He had been told that his relatives would be threatened unless he pleaded guilty, and that he'd get a short sentence if he did so.
*Analysis of the images [from Bucha] date massacre to before Russian forces evacuated the Ukrainian city.*
Unregulated companies rate prospective tenants as good or bad using questionable machine-learning algorithms and big data. They don't give reasons for blacklisting a specific tenant. Perhaps their method gives them no way to do that.
The lack of clarity about the reasons for blacklisting would-be renters adds gratuitous frustration, but the basic problem is that rents are so high that workers struggle to afford them, so many tenants don't succeed in paying rent.
To make the algorithms more transparent would change who gets to rent an apartment and who does not, but would not prevent that the shortage. The only way to do that is to make a lot more housing.
The best way to make a lot more housing is to eliminate the zoning laws that prohibit dense housing.
As long as that does not happen, landlords will see that scarcity enables them to raise rents to levels that make struggle to afford the rent, which means that some will be unfortunate and get evicted, which means that landlords will seek ways not to rent to anyone who might have get into that situation.
Amazon has a special cr…app for discussions among staff. The company plans to censor the words "union", "fire", "slave labor", "diversity" and "injustice."
That will be done using an "auto bad word monitor" which will recognize "inappropriate" messages.
This reminds us that "inappropriate" states a subjective judgment and nothing more, so we should be suspicious whenever anyone is accused of acting or speaking "inappropriately" without some explanation of why we should consider it wrong.
A Ukrainian civilian reports on three nights of torture by Russian captors, along with other civilian prisoners.
Australian federal cops, in thousands, demand Australia set up a body to investigate charges of corruption against politicians, and against cops also.
Oklahoma has made performing an abortion a felony in nearly all circumstances.
Fox News: it actually bit a congressional Democrat.
*If the House Oversight Committee is serious about getting to the bottom of the fossil fuel industry's longtime campaign to stymie climate policy, it should call [Charles] Koch on the carpet.*
Planet roasters pretend that helping Europe boycott Russia's gas justifies building new fracked gas pipelines in the US.
Europe's gas crunch will last just a few years, if European countries push hard to build renewable generation. But any new fossil fuel facilities built now will be used for decades: to stop using them will provoke powerful lobbying, as if making a pipeline investor lose money would be worse than the end of the world.
(satire) *BetterHelp Therapy Session Leads To Breakthrough In Sell-able Patient Data.*
Two of the oldest modern human skeletons ever discovered are going to be "reburied", meaning further research will not be possible.
In principle, that is a bad outcome. However, it is possible that it makes little actual difference in this case. Wikipedia says that some of the corpses found there have already been checked for DNA and none was recoverable.
El Salvador has arrested 6,000 people and plans to hold them for a long time without any specific charges or letting them talk with lawyers. The government says they are gang members, but without individual trials, there is no way to see if that is true.
Anti-racist activism focuses too much on microagressions and choice of words, instead of supporting people's campaigns for better treatment in substantive ways.
*Israel Charges Palestinian Journalists With Incitement — for Doing Their Jobs.*
Tories have damaged the UK's DHS so much that it can't keep up with the need to test people for cancer. Hundreds of thousands of people are likely to get late diagnoses before it catches up. That is, supposing they give it enough funds to catch up. Perhaps they will reduce the standard of care to the point where those who have money pay for a private exam, and everyone else just dies of cancer.
*UN Chief: Those Expanding Fossil Fuels — Not Climate Activists — Are the "Truly Dangerous Radicals."*
Hear, hear!
Orbán defeated the united opposition, in an election alleged to be crooked.
Congress has agreed to spend 10 billion dollars on Covid-19 tests, vaccines and treatments in the US, but nothing at all for vaccinating the rest of the world.
The Covid-spreader party has taken a small step back, forgoing some method of spreading the disease in the US.
Putin's stretching the concept of "human shields", arguing that all the civilians that live in a city Putin is attacking and that Ukraine is defending are "human shields", just because soldiers are fighting in the neighborhood of their homes.
The article lists other countries that it accuses of doing the same thing.
Viktor Orbán has won an unfair election to be reelected the ruler of Hungary. He handles elections the way US Republicans do.
The EU needs to be tough on Putin, and tough on Orbán, but is that possible?
The head of Australia's government, planet-roaster Scott Morrison, is a bully as well. One of his party's members of Parliament has quit the party, denouncing him as a bully for trying to offer flood aid only to the towns which had voted for his party.
He's still trying to corrupt the few decarbonization measures that Australia has.
Zelensky spoke to the UN Security Council and pointed out that it is a failure at its stated goal.
That truth is well known. We also know why it is true: because we don't know of any way to set it up that would make it able to enforce justice without being corruptible too.
Many government agencies, and anyone pretending to represent a government agency, can get people's personal data from Apple and Greater Facebook just by saying, "This is an emergency".
People will be tempted to try to fix this problem through a system for authenticating real government agencies and real emergencies. My view is that companies should not have so much data about people.
*Oregon’s bold drug decriminalisation sees some success — but use still rising.*
*Sri Lanka faces medical emergency as economic crisis hits drug supplies.*
*US power outages from severe weather have doubled in 20 years.* Mostly because severe weather happens more often, due to global heating effects.
The Tories have cut off welfare benefits for children after the first two in a family. Research shows that this does not reduce the number of children in a family, it only increases the number of children growing up in poverty.
Poverty often results when people lack the ability to make good plans, or the ability to stick to a plan. It is hard to fill those lacks by punishing people.
I don't know whether Tories were seriously seeking to avoid overpopulation, or only used it as an excuse to keep more money for the wealthy. No children should grow up in poverty, but it is very important for people to have fewer children.
San Francisco's mayor wants to loosen the recently adopted restrictions on surveillance by city government. The thug department would be allowed to watch directly through surveillance cameras in areas which have seen certain kinds of crimes.
This exception would still keep limits on their surveillance, but the use of the exception needs to be monitored. Here are my suggestions:
Leftists should resist the compulsion to blame the US for every problem in the world. A non-imperialist Russia had options for trying to keep Ukraine out of NATO without launching a war.
The Taliban have banned opium cultivation again.
Prohibition is not a solution to the problem of opiates and opioids.
Looming behind the cheater's Big Lie is another Big Lie: that the US economy as it exists nowadays works for everyone.
Gaza is facing a water crisis: nearly all of its water is undrinkable.
When Russia took Ukrainians from Mariupol to Russia, some wanted to go. Others were effectively compelled to go.
Some who had brought money found it was not too hard to get out of Russia. No one was actively trying to stop them. But those without money may be trapped there.
When Putin forces soldiers shot civilians in Bucha, sometimes it was clearly murder. Sometimes it might have been a panicking soldier who shot someone unidentified who seemed like a possible threat.
That danger is an inevitable concomitant of war, which is why fighting a war without a valid justification is a heinous crime.
Discussing various ways Putin could be prosecuted for war crimes, or for the crime of aggression (starting a war without valid justification). All approaches face obstacles.
I read of an argument that Russia was never properly authorized as the successor of the Soviet Union's permanent membership in the Security Council. If Russia can be replaced there, it would unlock many things.
Dubya set the US on a policy of undermining and weakening the International Criminal Court. (Perhaps he feared being tried for the crime of aggression.) Will the US now give the ICC support?
Two bills being considered by the California senate would take significant steps to reduce massive surveillance. But they don't go half far enough.
S.B. 1189 requires that companies and organizations ask for "consent" before collecting biometrics. That will protect you in many situations, but not all, because it is easy for that entity to arrange for others to pressure you to consent. Those others could be employers, schools, or social groups. If it is the general practice for people to chat on Scroo'm, and Scroo'm won't let you use it unless you consent to its collection of biometrics, the pressure may feel irresistible to people in general.
The Student Test Taker Privacy Protection Act (STTPPA) would take a substantial step forward in putting a limit the snooping that these prokto-programs do to students. But the limit in this bill would be vague, because it is easy for the company to argue that collecting your face image, your fingerprint, your voice print and your gait pattern is absolutely necessary. To assure real effect, the bill should set a standard that snoopers can't stretch.
In the event that some kinds of biometric snooping — or other snooping — become accepted, there should be limits on storing the data. Also, having your school testify to your identity, rather than letting the prokto-program's developer see your face, should be an option.
Simply requiring you to run that non-free program (perhaps developed only for Windows and MacOS) on your own computer is an unacceptable injustice, and we need to press the campaign until that is prohibited.
More generally, see https://gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
The IPCC has now published its third report, the one on how to save civilization from global heating disaster.
*"Now or Never", if world is to stave off climate disaster.*
Here is a summary of the specifics.
Planet roasters' influence in IPCC was strong enough to make the organization delete the called-for denunciation of planet roasters.
The Tories are trying to resume fracking in the UK.
Meanwhile, an organization that puts on airs of supporting "renewable energy" is campaigning against land-based wind power.
Negotiations are progressing towards a treaty to ban the use of heavy bombs in cities.
It looks like the US and Russia will not sign it.
Society and institutions in the US put poor people in bigger danger of death from Covid-19 than well-off people.
*People in poorer counties have died overall at almost twice the rate of those in richer counties. … During the third pandemic wave in the US, over the winter of 2020 and 2021, death rates were four-and-a-half times higher in the poorest counties than those with the highest median incomes.*
I wonder how a similar comparison for long Covid disabilities would come out.
*Democrats see hope for a clean energy bill, but Manchin is adding a new hurdle: More funding for fossil fuels.*
His "reason" is balderdash. The efficient and safe way to make the US self-sufficient in energy generation is to use 100% American sunlight and 100% American wind. Manchin is not trying to offer a rational argument, only an excuse that will suffice for a sound bite.
Ukrainian women report being raped by Putin forces soldiers. Some may have been raped and then killed.
Witnesses from Bucha report seeing Putin forces soldiers murder civilians with extreme cruelty.
These acts of cruelty do not indicate whether commanders encouraged the cruelty. Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn't. Many soldiers could have done these things on their own initiative, after hearing that other soldiers were doing it. Each soldier who intentionally shot at civilians committed a war crime, but without more evidence, we have no basis to pin responsibility on commanders or on Putin.
Planting mines is a different story. That takes effort and time, as well as specific training. I don't think many soldiers would have planted mines or booby traps unless they were ordered to do that.
Even if the commanders did not order soldiers to kill civilians, they have the responsibility to prosecute murderers in their ranks.
*Yemen: two-month ceasefire begins with hopes for peace talks.*
As global heating dries up the US mountain west, wild ecosystems have to compete with humans for water.
Climate scientists warn that getting distracted from global heating will guarantee disaster.
US citizens: call on the Dept of Justice to investigate the cheater for removing/destroying official records.
US citizens: call on your senators to keep toxic pesticides out of wildlife refuges.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
(satire) *Ukrainian Delegate Knows It Is Dangerous To Eat At Peace Talks, But Brownie Just Too Tempting.*
New Tory strategy to confuse the public and smooth the way for plutocrats: they talk about measures to do justice, change their mind back and forth.
By the time they eventually do nothing about the problem, the public is confused about the outcome.
Ukraine said that the Putin forces have pulled out of the region around Kyiv, but they have planted mines in homes and on corpses.
Ukraine reports finding lots of corpses of civilians, and that the Putin forces used buses full of children as human shields for tanks.
Ukraine also reports finding corpses of civilians who were murdered by Putin forces soldiers who were close enough to see who they were shooting at.
When Argentina's military rulers invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands, the officers of the invasion force used torture to punish soldiers for even the smallest infractions,
and made them sign nondisclosure agreements about the torture they had experienced.
*Protesters continue to block UK oil terminals despite arrests.*
Russian scientists say that conferences and journals in other countries are refusing to consider their papers.
Boycotting individuals because they are Russian is wrong. We should protect scientific cooperation to keep it safe from wars and nationalism.
Minnesota investigated the behavior of thugs at George Floyd protests and found many things they did badly.
Ukrainian journalist Oleh Baturin describes his 8 days of torture after the Putin forces lured him into a trap.
Russian émigrés and dissidents are using a white-and-blue flag to show they are Russians opposed to Putin's war.
Long Covid frequently incapacitates people in their prime working years. Governments must put more research into how to treat it.
In the mean time, governments must recognize the long-term damage they risk by allowing Covid-19 to run rampant through millions of people.
US citizens: call on Democratic leaders to say that Putin's invasion reaffirms America must lead on clean energy.
US citizens: call on Starbucks CEO to stop union-busting.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass two bills that would restrict anticompetitive actions by Big Tech.
One bill would reduce the power that Apple has over use of iMonsters and their app stores.
This would eliminate some of the injustice, but not all. It would certainly not make non-libre apps, or non-libre spyphone operating systems, safe to actually run.
Another bill seems to be aimed at curbing the power and abuses of dominant online stores.
Other interesting US antitrust bills are described here.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to investigate the corrupter's possible crimes in connection with the Jan 6 insurrection and efforts to steal the 2020 election.
Everyone: call on Condé Nast to recognize the Condé Nast Union.
With all communications channels in Russia repeating Putin's lies in different forms, he has created the ultimate disinformation system. Its effectiveness shows us how vulnerable people are to such disinformation system.
I am convinced that we must disassemble the right-wing disinformation system that operates in most countries. What I don't see is how to do so without the risk of building up a system that would be perfect for enforcing disinformation, as Putin is doing.
*The latest threat to democracy? A [cheater]-backed candidate willing to "find extra votes."*
*Low-wage workers have paid dearly for Qatar's glittering World Cup.*
Food aid is finally reaching Tigray.
Putin forces continue to promise to permit evacuation of civilians from Mariupol, and continue not actually doing so.
A team of Greenpeace activists in kayaks tried to stop the transfer of oil cargo from one supertanker that had brought it from Russia, to another supertanker that might have passed it off as non-Russian.
A UK thug is being prosecuted for using a taser on a man who was leaping a fence, which caused him to fall down and be permanently paralyzed.
Biden intends to promote mining of minerals needed for batteries. Before new mines start, we must replace the old law that almost guarantees the mine will be left leaking pollution for decades, or millennia.
The obvious step is to require the mine, before it operates, to put aside a bond to clean it up — and then pay during operation to increase that bond, since the cost will probably increase.
But even better would be to operate the mine in a way that reduces or avoids the source of pollution. Has anyone developed a way to do this?
A parliamentary committee is treating the payment of a debt to Iran as a ransom.
By tying the payment, which the UK owed to Iran since around 1980, to the hostages, this investigation treats the money as a ransom and effectively criticizes the government for being slow to ransom them. Governments must not pay ransom for hostages; as Reagan taught us when he did precisely that, paying ransoms tends to encourage further kidnappings.
The reason why the UK had to pay this money to Iran is that it owed Iran the money Iran had paid for goods that were never delivered.
Australia has approved a long extension for a large coal mine.
New South Wales finally did pass the law to put people in jail for blocking roads, with the support of the principal "opposition" party, which doesn't oppose very much.
*Democracy is in peril when our leaders [such as Bogus Johnson] no longer care about being seen to lie.*
Workers at an Amazon warehouse voted to unionize.
*Democratic-Aligned Firm Slammed for Working on Amazon's Failed Anti-Union Effort.*
If Amazon workers generally unionize, they may succeed in putting an end to a substantial subset of that company's predatory practices: those aimed at workers. That won't be enough to make Amazon safe for our anyone to tolerate. For its anticompetitive activities, and its denial of freedom to its customers, it would be better to get rid of Amazon entirely.
But as long as it exists, I hope its workers will have a union.
(satire) *Dozens Of Aborted Fetuses Flee Through Back Window After D.C. Police Bust Down Door.*
Ralph Nader explains how Congressional committees used to scrutinize the US budget — and how Congress handed most of the control to lobbyists.
The US government has made lynching a federal crime.
Since murder (and attempted murder) are crimes already, why is this law necessary? Because some jurors are racist, and some prosecutors are racist, and they often protect people who commit crimes of hatred.
If you call a suicide hotline, it may send the thugs to arrest you "for your own good." This is standard practice now in the US.
(satire) *Scientists Speculate Universe May Be Simulation After "Trial Version Expired" Appears Across Sky.*
*City of Los Angeles agrees to provide thousands of beds in homelessness crisis lawsuit settlement.*
Contrast this with Malibu's plan.
*Europe faces a future of extreme droughts, due to global heating.*
*A 19-month-old child has died in Gaza after waiting for five months for Israel to grant her permission to leave the blockaded enclave for treatment.*
Russia says that Ukrainian helicopters attacked a Russian oil storage facility inside Russia.
Morally, I see no reason why Ukraine should not do this. It is not escalation, since the Putin forces regularly attack targets in Ukraine from bases in Russia, so this is just a little bit of turnabout. That oil is surely there to be be transported into Ukraine for Putin forces vehicles.
It is natural that the powers that are arming Ukraine might be concerned that Putin might react to this by a real escalation. But he could not make the attack on Ukraine much more heinous, so no reason to worry greatly about that.
What if he reacts by bombing NATO countries? That is conceivable, but he would recognize that that is more likely to bring him great harm than any good.
Big Oil companies are raising their prices more than they need to, so as to increase their profits.
Those companies' owners don't deserve more profits — they deserve to lose everything. But what they deserve is less important than what Americans deserve, and what the rest of the world deserves. Above all, we all deserve to avoid global heating disaster.
The crucial question is whether Americans, and the US government, can take the long view and respond to this gouging by pushing quickly to decarbonize.
So far it appears that Biden is planning to do the exact opposite: to fine oil companies for whatever fossil fuel reserves they do not drill into.
Putin is acutely evil, and dangerous. Oil companies are evil on a longer time scale, and far more dangerous. We must defeat them both, and we know how to do it. we know how to do it.
*Hundreds of environmental protesters have blocked seven oil terminals across the [UK] as part of a campaign to paralyze the UK's fossil fuel infrastructure.*
An interview with participants.
This is a last-ditch effort to stop global heating disaster from killing them before they get old.
*Amid Renewed Medicare for All Push, Study Shows 112 Million Americans Struggle to Afford Healthcare.*
Providing medical care for everyone who lives in a country is one of the missions of the state.
London thugs handcuffed Eric Taylor because they considered his heavy coat to be suspect. He posted a video. They didn't like that, so they handcuffed him again, and this time deleted the video he was making.
If the thug department allows its "officers" to defy people's rights with impunity, it has surrendered to lawlessness.
Hundreds of soldiers from the Putin forces dug trenches in soil near Chernobyl which has a high level of radioactive contamination. They developed radiation sickness and have withdrawn to a hospital for treatment.
The workers who take care of the ruined reactors are back in unimpeded control. That is a step forward, for safety.
What is the situation with the Zaporozhzhia reactors?
A large clinical trial found that no category of Covid-19 patients benefits from taking Ivermectin, and some categories have it worse.
*Malibu [agreed to plan] an "Alternative Sleeping Location" for up to 30 homeless people, some place outside of Malibu.*
Nokia has built products for years to help Russia snoop on dissidents,
much as Apple has helped China's surveillance
and Microsoft has helped the NSA's surveillance.
In Russia, it started with snooping, but it didn't stop there; it continued to shutting down their organizations, putting them in prison, and even poisoning them. In China, also, it surely includes the first two; we don't know whether China killed any of them.
Speaking of Apple, it treats its users unjustly in many ways,
even censorship, since the iMonsters are designed so users can't even freely install programs others have released.
Plutocratist Democrats in the Senate blocked Biden's nominee for a subunit of the Labor Department that deals with disputes about which workers are employees.
Authors argue that if the west can receive 4 million Ukrainians, or perhaps eventually 10 million, it can accept climate refugees without limit, even if they number in the hundreds of millions, or eventually billions.
That claim is absurd. For any kind of burden, there is a limit.
It is clearly true that western countries are motivated by prejudice when they decide how to treat various groups of refugees. But western countries would find it hard to admit hundreds of millions of refugees even if they were all Europeans, even today. 20 years from now, when all these countries will have shortages of food and millions will be homeless, it would be even harder.
The only way for the world to get through this is to cut our greenhouse emissions, fast.
Florida Republicans plan to eliminate financial incentives for installing home solar-powered electric generation.
Republicans are not on humanity's side, not on civilization's side. They are on the other side.
*Citing Likely Racist Motives, Federal Judge Blocks Florida GOP's Voter Suppression Law.*
*I Want You Back: Getting My Personal Data From Amazon Was Weeks of Confusion and Tedium.* It uses a dark pattern to make it slow and inconvenient.
I think the latter can only be anti-ship missiles.
*Airport Workers Protest Across US Demanding "Living Wage" and Right to Union.*
A recent court ruling shows that it is possible to prosecute the wrecker for trying to interfere in the 2020 election.
Amnesty International denounced Putin for massive persecution of anyone in Russia that opposes his invasion of Ukraine. Even describing what is happening is a crime. Like the bullshitter in the US, Putin unhesitatingly labels all unflattering truths "fake news."
US citizens: call on the DoJ to investigate the wrecker's crimes, now that a judge ruled he is likely to have committed some.
US citizens: call on your senators to permanently protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
*Why is Biden boasting about drilling for oil? Our planet demands we stop now.*
Governments are disregarding the future cost to society of long Covid, both the cost of taking care of those disabled and the harm done by the loss of people's ability to work.
When you risk catching Covid, you risk needing someone to take care of you and losing the ability to work. You can reduce those risks by getting fully vaccinated, and minimizing how much you are indoors with other people without an N95 mask and good ventilation.
Arguing that Ukraine will only be safe from Putin if his attack ends in unambiguous failure that he cannot spin as a kind of victory.
Putin is replying to sanctions with sanctions: European countries that want to keep buying Russian gas would have to do it by dealing in roubles.
Erdoğan seeks better relations with Crown Prince Bone Saw, so Turkey plans to halt the prosecution of the direct murderers of Jamal Khashoggi, and hand it over to Crown Prince Bone Saw himself. (Crown Prince Bone Saw commanded the murder, but he is not a target for prosecution anyway.)
It is true that the trial is unable to make progress. The accused are in Salafi Arabia, protected by their master. But this plan is dishonest.
The UK proved in 2020 that it could provide housing to all homeless people. Then it sent them back to the street.
I use the term "homeless" in the US manner, meaning people who have to live on the street unless they find temporary space.
Unions call for Oregon's state employee pension fund to divest from the company that makes the Pegasus spy software, as well as from fossil fuels.
*Covid vaccines give extra protection to previously infected, studies show.*
New South Wales is trying to impose a two-year sentence on protesters that block roads. The Green Party is trying to stop it.
(satire) *Terminal Cancer Wasted On Man Who Was Already Living In The Moment.*
The UK's Tory government refused to insist on competent evaluators for fire risk in building designs because that would be "red tape".
Strangely, the same government always wants more red tape to tie up immigrants, disabled people and poor people.
*Transition to Zero-Emission Vehicles [in the US] Would Deliver $1.2 Trillion in Public Health Benefits.*
Facebook's political manipulation is not done solely by targeted ads. The choice of what posting to show each used also depends on per profile.
IC manufacturing has hit another obstacle: a shortage of neon. The main producer is Ukraine.
It is very important for the industry to develop redundant supplies, both for raw materials and for manufactured goods, to cope with breakdowns 30 and 40 years from now when there could be many happening each year. If industry learns to plan for redundancy now, and incorporates this into planning, it may enable technological civilization to survive.
*Trump brazenly asks Putin to release dirt about Biden's family.* The alleged dirt may or may not exist, but the corruptor's coziness with Putin shows what he stands for.
Oregon has allowed people who live elsewhere to come there for assisted suicide. This right is slowly spreading around the US, but it is limited to people who are expected to die soon anyway. Those who can look forward to years of helpless agony are still condemned to a life sentence.
Ukrainians who got out of Mariupol describe life under Putin's bombardment.
Manchin said he will protect billionaires from paying more taxes.
The cheater made a call from a White House phone on Jan 6 and arranged to delete it or omit it from the White House call log.
India blocked dissident journalist Rana Ayyub from traveling to Europe by stopping her from boarding her flight. This is part of a systematic pattern of repression against those who criticize Modi and the bigotry and violence his regime promotes.
A wood stove cause substantial harm to the health of people who live in the house. About 40 times as much as a gas-fired boiler. (I presume an electric heater generates roughly the same amount of indoor pollution as a fossil-fuel-powered heater.)
Warning: planet-roasters are spreading false criticisms of today's renewable energy generating systems.
*Many of New Zealand’s glaciers could disappear in a decade, scientists warn.* The rest will shrink.
Mining peat and using it implies releasing its stored carbon. We must stop that practice.
Tunisia's president is trying to crush its parliament.
He decreed parliament "suspended" last year; but Parliament met anyway and canceled that decree. So he made another decree to "dissolve" parliament, and now the question is whether he will arrest the members of parliament and revert explicitly to tyranny.
* Rain forests looked after by communities absorb twice as much carbon as other lands, analysis shows.*
Driverless taxis, which could receive orders to take you where you really really don't want to go, are one step closer to being a real and practical danger.
If you were in Russia, would you get in a taxi that knows who you are? I wouldn't take one in any country.
The UK Parliament voted to continue a two-year trial of mailing women abortion pills to use at home.
The US needs something similar, to thwart the Republicans who are trying to make abortion impossible in some states.
The strategic situation in Ukraine.
*The planet needs global cooperation to heal from the damage humanity has wrought—more war is the opposite of what we need.*
Due to global heating, drought has extended to the southern plains of the US, and with it wildfires.
Spring has barely started and they have had 500,000 acres burnt.
*We are currently pushing existing vaccines to their limits with high infection levels, but we should instead be supporting them by reducing transmission. Returning to normal behavior does not return us to normal life. It returns us to a life with more disruption, more sickness and more strain on [the medical system].*
The UK meteorologists will adjust their criterion for heat waves based on the new, hotter, normal.
That's reasonable as far as it goes. The concept of "heat wave" becomes useless if heat inflation results in a heat wave every week. Just as long as people don't get fooled and lulled by it.
*EU wants to force fashion firms to make clothes more durable and recyclable.*
That could be a great step forward, if it is enforced thoroughly.
The UK government is running ads promoting one of its notional policies, just where it will help Tories win local elections.
"Level-ling up" might be a good thing if truly implemented, but that would take lots of money, which Tories have no intention of spending on this.
Many US schools have installed "security cameras" with facial recognition. Perhaps most schools.
It's legitimate (and useful) to have cameras with computers that detect people with guns, or people without masks. Likewise to send the photos of those people to school staff, who could take appropriate action — or sound an alarm. Those are legitimate precisely because they don't track anyone who hasn't done something that requires attention.
What is not legitimate is to identify students, or make pictures of them available to anyone else (at the same time or later), in the absence of a specific wrong that they are doing. They must be true security cameras, not surveillance cameras.
The big increase in the already-bloated Pentagon budget is not necessary for supporting Ukraine.
If the wrecker runs against Biden again, the wrecker might win the popular vote, according to a recent poll.
Since the wrecker's fraction in this poll exceeds his general popularity, this must be due to Biden's unpopularity. Why is Biden so unpopular? I don't know, but I suspect that people blame him because Republicans blocked the mostly-good laws he proposed. I have seen that particular irrationality in the major media (when I see that). Instead of "Manchin and Sinema plus the Republicans blocked the bill," stories say "Biden failed to get his proposal enacted," as if that were his fault.
When and as Biden's proposed laws are inadequate, that's his fault.
*Why do we still have no answer for these four long Covid questions?*
The "let Covid rip" policy might almost make sense if our vaccines and treatments reduced the danger to a very small chance of death. There are two big flaws in that picture: (1) the substantial fraction of the population (perhaps 1/4 of the US) who are particularly vulnerable (and face a much larger chance of death), and (2) the risk of a fate worse than death: lasting disability due to Long Covid.
Information about the frequency of Long Covid is limited, and it comes mainly from unvaccinated people infected in 2020 by the original Covid-19. With Omicron, it could be so rare that it is no longer a major problem. Or it might be larger than before. BA.2 might be just like Omicron or it might be quite different.
In the face of this ignorance, the one thing we can be sure of is that the "let Covid rip" approach risks crippling considerable numbers of people.
Has anyone determined what fraction of the Americans that quit their jobs last fall quit because they were disabled? What fraction can't find child care because some of the people who previously provided child care had become disabled? To what extent was it, rather than the "great resignation", actually the "great incapacitation"?
One thing is clear. Now that Republicans have eliminated the funds for testing (as well as vaccination and treatment), many Americans, including those who can't escape being exposed every day, won't ever get tested for Covid-19. If they develop Long Covid symptoms, their doctors won't know they had Covid-19 at all.
*Contraception myths mean nearly half of pregnancies worldwide unintended.*
US thugs kill, overall, three people per day, the same rate of killing as in the past few years.
The UK policy for people who might have Covid-19 is, don't get tested (unless you're well-off), go to work anyway, don't bother with a mask, and make people sick.
Some politicians call for rejection of the narrow and weak patent waiver proposal, because it would supersedes the adequate deal proposed by South Africa and India.
Ukraine accuses the Putin forces of kidnapping thousands of Ukrainians and taking them to Russia. Due to obstacles to communication, imposed by the Putin forces, it has not been possible to verify the facts. I can't take for granted that the Ukrainian statement is accurate. However, I trust the Ukrainian state more or less. I wouldn't trust Putin to tell the truth about the time of day.
In Putin-occupied cities, the Putin forces want journalists to become collaborators. Journalists face attempts to corrupt them, followed by Soviet-style repression if they refuse, including jail, beatings, and threats to their relatives.
However, those who demonstrate their firmness are sometimes released.
(satire) *McDonald's Launches $99 Ripoff Menu.*
Campaigning to make oceans absorb CO2 or else reduce emissions from on land.
AOC and some other Democrats say that Clarence Thomas's collaboration to undermine the Constitution by stealing an election is a reason why he ought to resign, and a reason to impeach him.
I fully agree — but as a shameless "by hook or by crook" Republican with no loyalty to American democracy, he will never resign for trying to undermine and destroy it. Furthermore, the "by hook or by crook" Republicans in the Senate will never vote to remove him from office, so impeaching him is about as useless as impeaching the wrecker.
*Progressive Caucus Says Pay-For Concerns 'Evaporate' When It Comes to Pentagon.*
Ukraine's government is investigating a video that appears to show a Ukrainian guard shooting Russian prisoners in the leg.
It could be fake news, but it could also be true. If it is true, I hope the government will punish it strongly to set an example. Each country must set an example of refusing to tolerate such behavior, to influence other countries.
We must reject the idea that pointed words can justify violence.
A slap is nowhere as bad as a gunshot, but let's not take a step in the wrong direction. Moreover, one side of our politicized society loves guns, exults in violence, and believes in winning by hook or by crook.
*From "herd immunity" to today, Covid minimisers are still sabotaging our pandemic progress.*
This proposal specifies a minimum policy of readiness for future developments (including new variants). It does not try to avoid leaving millions of people incapacitated. I have seen no statistics on how what fraction of people become incapacitated after an infection of Omicron, nor of what fraction remain incapacitated after 3 months.
Heavy rains are going to flood towns on Australia's east coast, whose houses were rendered uninhabitable by floods a few weeks ago. Perhaps people had better move those towns.
Modern life, since a few decades ago, disconnects people from the ingredients that go into real food, and many children nowadays don't learn anything about them.
Amnesty International condemns the Tories' plan for tearing up the human rights of anyone that is treated badly or unjustly by the state. Plus a separate, special attack on refugees.
US citizens: Urge Congress to end corporate tax loopholes that companies like Tesla continue to abuse.
US citizens: call on Democratic leaders to thwart Putin by uniting to reduce fossil fuel use, and fast.
*Want to Defeat Putin? Deliver the Green New Deal.*
The wrecker's phone call log on 6 Jan 2021 has a surprising gap from before noon to almost 7pm. He made calls during that time, so apparently he either prevented them from being logged or destroyed part of the log.
Australia's planet-roaster government plans to cut "climate spending" by a total of 1/3.
In Australia, the opposition party (Labor) is usually only a little to the left of the right-wing coalition; it can't be relied on to defend the climate firmly.
Republicans are deregulating the hidden carrying of guns in the states they control.
Progressives have warned Biden that victory at the polls in November will depend on his using executive orders to fulfill promises.
Russian billionaires use the same tax-dodging haven countries to evade sanctions that other billionaires use to dodge taxes. By changing the laws that were designed to facilitate this, we can crack down on wrongs.
The Institute for Digital Archaeology requested to scan one of the Parthenon marble sculptures and use numerically controlled tools to cut a perfect imitation out of similar marble. The British Museum refused. The Institute says it will sue for permission.
The project seems like a good one, and should go forward, but the article doesn't explain on what grounds the institute could win such a suit.
A preliminary investigation found "credible evidence of attempts by Russia to interfere with the UK’s electoral processes," but the UK has failed to investigate further to reach a conclusion. Some UK elected officials have asked the European Court of Human Rights to demand that the UK do so.
Why would the Tories choose not to investigate? Perhaps because the intervention helped the Tories.
*Why do Putin, Trump, Tucker Carlson, and the GOP sound so much alike?
It's not just that they're all authoritarians. Their culture wars have similar agendas.*
Davis, California, and the University UC Davis, have worked together for 1.5 years to resist the spread of Covid, and had great success, keeping the case rate to a level far below the rest of California.
A proposed outline for a peace agreement for Ukraine and Russia.
I think this proposal is acceptable in its overall lines, but we must be careful about the specifics of certain points.
*A security agreement for Ukraine will be worthless if it is controlled by the UN Security Council, in which Russia has veto power.
I propose instead a one-way alliance between NATO and Ukraine. That is, NATO countries would be obliged to defend Ukraine if it is attacked, but Ukraine would never have an obligation to join in a war involving NATO countries. This might convince Russia there is no danger to Russia in the agreement.
Perhaps the nuclear-armed NATO countries would agree to provide funds and arms but not fight Russia directly unless it attacks their forces.
*Autonomy for any parts of Ukraine should be limited to civil matters, and some kinds of national laws must apply. They must not have their own armies.
The people of each district — those who lived in it before 2014 — should get to vote on whether that district is included in an autonomous region or not,
Ukrainians that Putin took to Russia should be returned so they can vote freely.
(satire) *Wealthy Couple Founds Art Museum To Foster Public Appreciation For How Wealthy They Are.*
Robert Reich: *Inflation Won't Be Remedied by the Federal Reserve Imposing Higher Interest Rates. The result is likely to be a recession.*
Scientific institutions are going overboard in cutting scientific cooperation with Russian institutions and Russian scientists.
Scientists should cooperate regardless of wars, as long as their work is not related in the short term to military use.
*A worker objected to Google’s Israel military contract. Google told her to move to Brazil* or be fired, with 17 work days to decide.
A different issue also raised by this contract is that allowing a company to run the state's computer facilities is a threat to the national security of that state. No country should trust such cloudy computing facilities.
There are many other reasons to boycott Amazon. I ask people not to use Amazon to buy anything for me.
Booster doses of the existing vaccines may not be very effective at maintaining immunity towards current and future variants of Covid-19.
I am disturbed by the brief report that the US has cut funds for vaccine development. Can anyone send me more info?
*Neither Nato nor Ukraine can de-Putinise Russia. We Russians must do it ourselves.*
The great challenge we face now is to break through Putin's web of censorship. During World War II, airplanes dropped leaflets. What can we do today?
It is worth noting that Ukraine was ruled by Stalin, and subsequent Communist rulers, for just as long as today's Russia. Since Ukraine has managed to become democratic, maybe Russia can too.
*Push for new UK nuclear plants lacks facility for [radioactive] waste.*
It is hard to be sure that a radioactive waste storage facility will continue operating for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, especially if it will require continual attention during that time. Especially since we don't know whether technological civilization will still exist 50 or 100 years from now.
Besides which, nuclear power plants are so expensive that it would be preferable to build renewable generation plus energy storage facilities, and avoid the nuclear waste entirely.
On the third anniversary of Julian Assange's expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy, rally from 11am to 2:45pm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the park opposite the British Consulate (which is 245 Main Street).
The rally is in the park with the big globe in the middle.
*Dalai Lama, Other Nobel Winners Demand Explicit Vow Not to Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine.* They demanded this vow from the US and Putin.
I support this demand.
*Uninsured Americans Will Now Be Charged $125 for a Single PCR Covid-19 Test.*
DeSantis signed the “Don’t Say Gay” law. This law prohibits teachers from explaining to students about sexual orientation and gender identity, through third grade.
That's long enough that the kids are likely to learn everything from other kids, and learn it wrong.
*[Biden]’s playing into Putin’s hands* by talking about regime change.
Senator Scott of Florida listened to a description of measures from his own tax plan, and condemned them. He said they were "Democratic talking points."
*Biden to announce "billionaire minimum income tax" in budget plan.*
All in all, the countries that set out to eliminate Covid-19 did very well, until variants much more contagious supplanted the original virus.
If all countries had approached the disease this way, the more contagious variants might never had evolved. Of course, that was not possible for all countries; many didn't have the money, or didn't have the social cohesion and trust, or didn't have the necessary leadership, to make the attempt. But we should learn to do that in the future.
Australia's right-wing ruling parties aim to win reelection by spending a lot of money on infrastructure in precisely the districts where they need more votes.
A coup in Russia might get rid of Putin, but if it did, it could lead to other bad situations.
Past imperialism of present-day NATO countries is provoking hostility from their former African colonies, which express it in a bizarre way: by supporting Putin's imperialism.
They have valid grounds for a grievance with former colonizers, but it's not fair to take it out on Ukraine, which is in the same position today that they were in a century ago.
Campaigners in Iceland have been working for 15 years convincing tourists to stop eating whale meat, with substantial success.
US citizens: Tell your representative, senators and president not to declare a no-fly zone, and to avoid war between the US and Russia.
*Taliban reversal on girls’ education derails US plan for diplomatic recognition.*
I think this is the right sort of way to exert suasion on Afghanistan about women's rights. It can potentially influence the outcome but won't backfire by arousing resistance. It is not certain to succeed, but no other method would be either.
The false confessions of the Birmingham Six — beaten out of them by thugs — show that Britain shares the pattern of injustice which in the US is typically applied to blacks. In the US, 100 years ago, it was applied to the Italians Sacco and Vanzetti.
The US tolerates problems that cause many avoidable deaths, partly due to distrust of science. Covid-19 has been one of them, and is likely to be tolerated on a permanent basis.
US students from poor families can't afford to go to college because they can't afford to live anywhere near it. That's in addition to the cost of the university itself, which is also prohibitive.
The EFF proposes prohibiting advertising based on behavioral profiling.
This might substantially reduce the extent of tracking, but won't eliminate the danger from tracking. Only part of the danger comes from online advertising as such. Profiling can be used in other ways than online advertising, including offline political activity, "predictive policing", and state repression. Personal data can be used for other things than profiling in the usual sense.
In particular, the proposed exception to allow advertising based on the user's current location will give companies an excuse to collect the user's current location. This location history will be useful for finding whistleblowers and dissidents.
I fear that the EFF has found a compromise plan that would eliminate a lot of the tracking that annoys individuals, but won't protect society politically at all,
Miami declared a state of emergency because of students coming for spring break.
Some suspect that this is because many of the students are black. That might indeed be the motive. But there is a good reason to do this, one that has nothing to do with their skin color. Those people on he beach threaten to spread Covid-19!
Arizona legislators from the Repressive Party passed a law against making videos of what uniformed thugs do.
We used to have confidence that the Supreme Court would stand by the right to do this. I feel less confidence nowadays.
To Endure, Peace Needs to Weaken Putin But Not Ruin Him
Belarus has shut down nearly all nature conservation organizations, and has jailed some of the activists.
Sanders proposes to enact again the law which in World War II taxed profiteering companies up to 95%.
An EU directive will regulate how internet tracking servers use their data.
This directive may boost competition, and limit somewhat the harm that surveillance companies do to the public. But as long as data are collected, they will be misused, and misused by various entities that get the data. This law is inadequate; what we really need to do is make sure people have the right to as much anonymity as we had 30 years ago.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reversed its new regulations gently limiting fossil fuel extraction, and approved new projects.
Amory Lovins still enlightens the world about the way increased efficiency of energy use can eliminate most energy use for heating, cooling and transportation.
Increasing humidity in the Atacama desert is causing the 7000-year-old Chinchorro mummies to rot.
Reportedly US Democrats have got political advice to declare that Covid-19 is no longer a problem so that Americans will relax, give them credit for a nonexistent victory, and spread Covid-19.
This is almost as callous as what the Republicans have done for two years, intentionally spreading Covid-19.
New York's new mayor is a night mayor for the homeless. He ordered the thug department to break up all homeless people's encampments within two weeks.
It's that living in an improvised house of cardboard on the street is an inhumane situation. But this reasoning from that starting point is screwy. Is it more humane to make someone live on the street without even a cardboard house? Yes, there are dangers to living in subway tunnels — but are they more dangerous than living on the street? Thieves and killers can go in the tunnels, but they can go on the street too.
If you want to see whether your effort to help the homeless is doing any good, one way is to see whether homeless people move there from the street voluntarily. If you want to make success more likely, you could give homeless people more say. If you want them to stay somewhere that isn't a street, you could make some other space available that they can get to.
Putin's war is building up around him a coterie of repressive and unjust regimes — a real life Axis of Evil.
Its not quite a coherent alliance. India and China, which are permanently at the edge of war with each other, are both part of it.
Unarmed protesters who wouldn't stop protesting convinced the Putin forces to pull out of the town of Slavutych.
25 years after the civil war ended, Sri Lanka continues torturing Tamils to get false confessions.
Some victims are suspected of "terrorism" because they are human rights lawyers. For other victims, it simply isn't clear.
Russia had a sophisticated plan for a war based on cracking and disinformation, but strangely Putin is not using it.
The whole length of the Great Barrier Reef is suffering severe bleaching of corals. In some places, deaths of coral organisms have already started.
This is no surprise at all. The main causes of coral bleaching are heat and water pollution. The Australian government stubbornly promotes both global heating and pollution in the region near the reef.
The UK is not giving local governments enough money to repair 3000 damaged bridges. They also struggle to provide housing and welfare benefits for the people of their district.
The US is turning the job of schoolteacher into a low-wage job; many teachers are planning strikes.
Poland's partly-authoritarian government hopes that its strong opposition to Putin will shield it from EU pressure.
The two partly-authoritarian governments in the EU, Poland and Hungary, have protected each other from pressure through EU rules that require standards of democracy, and independence of the judiciary (often referred to in this context as "rule of law"). If Orbán is defeated in Hungary, the EU will be able to pressure Poland much more effectively.
The British royal family invested directly in transporting slaves to Jamaica. I would expect the same is true for other British colonies, including the ones that rebelled and became the United States.
I believe that Britain owes reparations to the descendants of those slaves.
The article linked to above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the exceptions.
The US will export more natural gas to Europe so that it can stop buying natural gas from Putin.
Whether this hurts Putin depends on whether some other country will buy the gas he would have sold to Europe. I don't know, but I would not assume it is impossible.
US citizens: call on the CDC to eliminate "Title 42", which is used to expel asylum-seekers without a hearing.
US citizens: tell Biden that every refugee deserves an asylum hearing.
US citizens: call on Biden to pick up a pen and cancel student debt.
US citizens: call on Congress to Investigate critical new evidence that the wrecker committed crimes trying to overturn the election.
US citizens: support the Stop Gas Price Gouging Tax and Rebate Act.
Sanders's bill might be better, but this one would would do some good.
Everyone: call on Chevron not to drill in the Arctic Refuge.
Many bird species in the UK are laying eggs a month earlier than they did 100 years ago.
Republicans in Colorado have organized to send groups of armed whites to intimidate black voters at their homes.
Gangs of armed whites in the US have committed violence against blacks thousands of times, so it's plausible that this might terrorize some blacks so much that they won't vote. The attempt reflects the arrogance of white supremacism, nowadays endorsed by the Republican Party.
The article linked to at the start of this note displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the exceptions.
The UK government renewed a big railroad operating contract with a company that 6 months ago it fined and terminated another contract because it acted in "bad faith."
UK immigration bullied 2,000 asylum seekers into giving "voluntary" permission to seize and keep their phones, then look through them. A court ruled that it broke the law by doing that.
When they tried to apply for asylum, they were stymied because UK immigration demanded information they couldn't provide because they were unable to get it out of their phones.
The UK transport minister, a Tory evidently, privately told P&O ferries in November that it was ok to fire all the crews and outsource the work to low-wage workers. Then, last week, he pretended that it came as a surprise to him.
With a serial bullshitter as prime minister, who makes incredible claims to avoid admitting that he lied, it has become hard to demand that Tories follow even the most basic standards of honesty.
P&O seems to have one valid point: that it had a competitor, Irish Ferries, that was already outsourcing the same job to low-wage workers. There were two possible ways for the UK to deal with that: (1) let P&O pay low wages too, or (2) impose better wages on all ferries through a new law. The former fit with the natural inclination of Tories.
Big Oil's investment in Russian oil companies gave Putin 100 billion dollars of investment and income, which paid for much of the weapons he is using for attacks and massacres in Ukraine.
Even in oil- and gas- extracting Oklahoma, enormous wind-power developments are being built, purely to save costs. This may not go fast enough to save humanity, but with a sensible amount of attention to the goal of saving technological civilization we might succeed.
Two weeks after Massachusetts eliminated regulations to slow transmission of Covid-19, the new case rate increased almost 30% compared with the previous week, 5735 compared with 4459. If this continues, the new case rate will double every 2.5 weeks or so.
Vanguard funds invest in injustice and climate destruction.
(satire) *Ginni Thomas Dismisses Text Messages To Mark Meadows As Regular, Run-Of-The-Mill Infidelity.*
Clarence Thomas has already flagrantly disregarded the basic rule for unbiased judicial proceedings, by ruling on a case involving his wife's political activities.
They just happen to be activities directed at overthrowing the US government.
Tigray and Ethiopia have agreed to "cessation of hostilities" which could mean an end to their war.
*Australians with the most to fear from Omicron living in "permanent lockdown".*
That could happen in many European countries, and the US.
Dubai is an inviting home for rich Russians facing sanctions elsewhere. All the luxury goods they can no longer buy in Russia, they can buy in Dubai.
The Senate judiciary committee showed absolutely no interest in Judge Jackson's views, or her knowledge, about the power of big business and the laws that were meant to restrain it.
Since the UK threw off all precautions against the spread of Covid-19, the disease has spread quickly. Last week, 6% of the people in England had Covid-19.
Such worrisome news will not repeat, because the UK's policy of charging for testing will discourage people from getting tested.
*"Decide who you are with," Ukrainian leader tells Viktor Orbán.*
Actually it's the Hungarian people who will soon choose who they are with: either authoritarian Orbán, or the opposition coalition that wants to return to substantive democracy.
A heatwave at the north pole and collapsed Antarctic ice shelf are reminders to redouble our efforts, and focus on climate.*
*Mariupol theatre bombing killed 300, Ukrainian officials say.*
Bureaucratic conditions added to the proposed vaccines-only temporary patent waiver would make it very difficult to use the deal.
*[A] new paper shows that the climate and biodiversity crises "need to be tackled in a joined-up way by central banks and supervisors to build a nature-positive financial system."*
Republican senators used their "questioning" of Judge Jackson as an opportunity to spread bullshit and racism to their supporters.
US law gives the government the power to issue compulsory patent licenses for a product (including a medicine) if government funds paid for part of its development, unless the patent holder makes it available "in reasonable terms."
Arizona Republicans are passing a law that would give already-registered voters just 30 days to dig up proof of citizenship or be removed from the voting list.
If they need to apply for copies of papers, it could be impossible to accomplish the task in so little time.
*Special Assistant District Attorney Pomerantz explains in his letter of resignation that he believed the case of financial crimes against the cheater was ready for prosecution.*
The cheater actively threatens free elections and human rights in the US. If there is evidence to prosecute him for a serious crime, I agree with Pomerantz that we should do so without delay.
Reportedly Ukraine is trading corpses of Putin forces soldiers for living Ukrainian prisoners of war.
That makes no sense to me. If I commanded an army, I wouldn't release a captured enemy in exchange for a corpse. Doing so would not bring the soldier who died back to life, and the corpse would be of no help in a fight.
In general, I don't understand why people care so much about corpses. Even the corpse of someone you loved is not a person, just a keepsake, and other keepsakes would serve better to remember per by.
I have a file where I put the names of the deceased who meant something to me. Sometimes I go through it and remember them one by one.
Ginni Thomas (insurrectionist wife of Justice Thomas) sent text messages to the cheater's staff (including Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff) calling for overturning the election.
We don't have evidence that the couple explicitly conspired together for this strange coup, but I suspect that they did.
California plans to give $400 to each car owner in the state, to help compensate for high fuel prices.
This is much better than the Republican proposal to make fuel cheaper. In the long term, the high price is good, as it will encourage people to use less of it. Thus, it is wise that the $400 aid payments are independent of how much a person actually drives the car; this way, they will not encourage more driving.
The plan has one flaw: it is limited to car owners. It follows that people will not have an incentive to sell the car and start taking the bus or a bicycle instead. The aid payments should go to every adult in the state.
If you get one of these debit cards do not use it to buy anything. Convert the money into cash, and pay cash!
*France opens inquiry into alleged torture by Interpol’s Emirati head.*
*Ukraine uses facial recognition software to identify Russian soldiers killed in combat.*
This is one of the few uses of facial recognition that isn't an injustice. I don't think that the dead are entitled to privacy rights.
The existence of exceptions where facial recognition does no wrong is no grounds to legitimize the repression that massive use of facial recognition tends to imposes on living people. We need laws to make it impossible for any company to do what Clearview AI does.
*New data suggests forests help keep the Earth at least half of a degree cooler, protecting us from the effects of climate crisis.*
Tories voted to allow businesses to fire workers and rehire them (or replacements) for half the wage. That's what permitted P&O Ferries to do that. But the worst damage to workers is that many unions have lost their focus on fighting.
Researchers looked at blood from 22 donors and found microplastics in the blood of 17 of them.
There is a lot more research to do in this field.
A study found a general tendency for countries in which people generally trust each other more to be more effective in reducing Covid-19.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to oppose the "College Transparency Act" or "CTA". This bill would set up centralized surveillance of all US college students, continuing for the student's whole life.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US residents: call on US mayors to invest in mass transit now, so as to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
Everyone: state your support for the striking workers at Maximus call center.
We should move beyond supporting each group of outsourced workers and put an end to the outsourcing. The US government should put narrow limits on outsourcing so that it can happen only to limited quantities of jobs.
US citizens: call on the House of Representatives to strip Greene and Gozar of their committee assignments for participating in a meeting of white supremacists and Nazis.
Everyone: call on AT&T to keep right-wing channel OAN off DirecTV.
*Peace in the Balkans is again under threat. EU governments must confront the Serb government before it is too late.*
It is surely no coincidence that Serbia maintains friendly relations with Russia.
Use of sewage sludge for fertilizer has rendered farmland in Maine too poisonous to use — ever — because of PFAS that contaminates anything grown there.
If technological civilization lasts through the global heating disaster, maybe we will eventually be able to develop ways to destroy the most used PFAS.
The number of homeless people in California keeps growing, inevitably, because the state has a growing shortage of available housing.
The full solution is to unblock construction of dense housing in the cities with public transportation. That will make housing affordable.
However, lockable tiny rooms could also help.
(satire) *Senate Republicans Attack Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Lack Of Experience On U.S. Supreme Court.*
P&O ferries is offering to pay workers around 6 months' salary (more for some workers) in exchange for not criticizing the company.
This stingy offer would only slightly soften the harm done to workers.
Ferry workers at that company, and any competitors that follow the switch to temporary workers, will lose a large fraction of that amount (let's guess half of it) every six months for the rest of their lives. Perhaps for decades. This "compensation" compensates only for the transient harm, not for the lasting harm.
The change will harm passengers too, with bad service and increased risk of accidents that would result from the frequent turnover.
The company may be fined millions of pounds if convicted of illegal dismissal, but even that wouldn't undo the damage.
The only way to correct the damage is to make the company back down. Of course, Bogus Johnson doesn't want to do that.
Prime Minister Corbyn would have kept his eye on the ball.
*Khanna-Warren Bill Would Ban Wall Street Profiteering on Water Scarcity.*
* New research out of Texas reveals how wind and solar can replace coal power across the state and serve as a "model for the nation".*
The Republican state government of Tennessee wants to abolish the town of Mason, with its mainly-black population and black (and Democratic) elected officials, so it will be controlled by the mainly white county government.
The smallest "tactical nuclear weapons" today are about the same power as the Hiroshima bomb, which killed about 150,000 people soon and more later.
Britons who visit food banks say "no thanks" to potatoes because they can't afford the cost of the fuel or electricity needed to boil them.
The Republican Party is now completely the Covid Party. Beyond organizing supporters to reject masks and vaccination, and lying to dissuade others, it has now eliminated federal funds to pay for them.
It has also eliminated federal funds to pay for treatment for uninsured poor people who catch Covid-19. This will kill tens of thousands of additional Americans — killed by the Republican Party.
Republican senators tried to smear Ketanji Brown Jackson by associating her with the principle of human rights, justice, and the US Constitution.
I have a hunch that Faux News broadcast what the senators said and not her replies. Does anyone know? (If you don't normally watch Faux News, please don't let this lead you to start now!)
Ukraine is unable to identify the dead soldiers of the Putin forces. They carry nothing that states their names. They carry dog tags which show only a serial number.
Russia refuses to accept the corpses from Ukraine — a very strange thing for an army to do.
Putin is evidently set on supporting his denial that there is a war by preventing Russian families from finding out that their sons are dead.
Their absence can't be concealed forever. What will happen when the families find out?
Sanders opposes the "America Competes Act" for big giveaways to big businesses.
I've been saying for years that when companies want help from the government, they should sell the government stock at a fair price.
* A Tennessee [thug] fired his stun gun at a food delivery man who had begun recording his traffic stop for speeding and asked to see the officer’s supervisor.*
*US man charged in Capitol attack gets asylum in Belarus.* This further demonstrates the alliance between the wrecker and Putin.
Edward Snowden must be extremely embarrassed to be stuck in Russia. He isn't there by choice. He never intended to stop there — he simply had a flight connection through Moscow. He was blocked from boarding his next flight because the US had revoked his passport.
The US contrived to block his later efforts to travel onward; the US had its allies violate the diplomatic rights of Bolivia by forcing a search of the president's plane to look for Snowden. (He wasn't in it.)
This was just one step less nasty than what Lukashenko did to seize a Belarusian dissident from an airliner that was crossing Belarus.
Thousands of Cubans are seeking asylum in the US, or in Mexico.
*"Surely a chancellor wouldn’t choose to do the wrong things, knowingly, when he has the power to set the country in a better direction?"* Oops, he's a Tory.
Biden is planning to use the Defense Production Act to order an increase in electric vehicle production.
Persecutor Paxton has arbitrarily declared that Pride Week in a school is illegal "sex education".
In general, parents should not have the power to insist that their children remain ignorant. Everyone has the right to good sex education. But Pride Week is education about kinds of relationships, not about sex.
The UK is planning to follow the US and Australia in making it a crime for refugees to go there and ask for asylum.
AIPAC, the lobbying group for continuing Israel's occupation of Palestine (the west bank, and Gaza), is lobbying for insurrectionist Republicans.
Rigidly prudish right-wing Indian bigots are freaking out at the use of a rubber penis model to demonstrate how to put a condom on.
Rigidly prudish right-wing American bigots are not very different, with their repression campaigns about everything that relates to sex.
George Monbiot: *The latest wave of climate deniers claim green schemes are "unaffordable." Success stories from around Europe prove that’s not true.*
Journalist Chris Mullin reports that he protected the anonymity of the bombers that he interviewed so as to prove the innocence of people who were falsely convicted of that crime.
Israel refused to sell Pegasus spyware to Ukraine.
Now if only Israel had refused to sell it to all other clients…
US agencies are dedicating more funds to study "long Covid" disabilities, now that tens of millions of Americans may have them.
The easiest way to deal with the problem of these disabilities is to prevent them. Effective measures to prevent transmission of Covid-19 will mean that fewer people catch it, and fewer people get disabled in this way.
One thing I have not seen is reports about what fraction of people that catch Delta get long Covid. What about Omicron? What about fully vaccinated people?
The Putin forces have cut off Chernihiv from supplies of water (and food). They say they plan to grab specific civilians and take them by force to Russia.
Don't assume "oligarchs" means we're talking about Russia. Yanis Varoufakis explains the harm they do, world wide.
I've read that the concept of "oligarchs" is obsolete in regard to Russia. They used to have political power, but Putin took it away from them.
*What Florida's endangered panthers need to survive.*
My "childhood sweetheart", that I fell in love with when she and I were both 40 years old, campaigned very cleverly against development that threatened their habitat.
The Taliban have rejected letting girls above age 11 go to school.
US citizens: call on Congress to hold Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene accountable for speaking at AFPAC, a white-supremacist and Nazi meeting.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to Make Massive Investments in Clean Energy, so as to fight global heating and authoritarianism.
Everyone: call on Home Secretary Patel to block extradition of Julian Assange by sending email to Public.Enquiries@homeoffice.gov.uk.
(Priti Patel, Home Secretary, Home Office, 2 Marsham St Westminster, London SW1P 4DF, UK; +44 20 7035-4848)
*As Biden Continues [Medicare] Privatization Ploy, Sanders Vows to Reintroduce Medicare for All.*
Ukraine accused Putin of seizing a food aid convoy near Mariupol and taking the drivers and aid workers prisoner.
We don't have confirmation of this, but since it would fit Putin's modus operandi, I find it plausible.
Putin is also accused of starving the people in the occupied city of Kherson. A country that has occupied territory has the legal responsibility to provide the occupied people with food and medicine.
Putin is bombarding Mariupol from warships in the Sea of Azov. A few antiship cruise missiles could put an end to that. The Ukrainians don't have to be fully trained in how to launch them — they can get remote guidance over the internet.
US agencies are dedicating more funds to study "long Covid" disabilities, now that tens of millions of Americans may have them.
The easiest way to deal with the problem of these disabilities is to prevent them. Effective measures to prevent transmission of Covid-19 will mean that fewer people catch it, and fewer people get disabled in this way.
One thing I have not seen is reports about what fraction of people that catch Delta get long Covid. What about Omicron? What about fully vaccinated people?
Washington DC is suing Grubhub for charging hidden fees and using dark patterns to get customers to pay them. For other reasons to reject Grubhub and the other food delivery surveillance companies, see here.
There is now a chance to prevent a giant oil spill in the Red Sea, but that chance could blow up any day.
*Progressives are resisting rightwing book banning campaigns — and are winning [sometimes].*
(satire) *TurboTax Threatens To Tell IRS Customer Cheated On Taxes Unless [Perse Upgrades] To Deluxe Version.*
P&O ferry workers live on the ship. The 800 ferry workers who were abruptly fired were, ipso facto, evicted with one day's notice.
(satire) *[Senator] Josh Hawley Slams Ketanji Brown Jackson For Letting Pedophiles Like Himself Walk Free.*
How Fidelity funnels millions of dollars to right-wing advocacy groups.
*US High Schooler's Answer Listing Zero "Positive Effects of Imperialism" Goes Viral.*
NATO needs a large force in Eastern Europe, capable of actually resisting a Russian attack — not merely a sign saying "Putin, invasion here would mean war with the US."
*Long Covid could create a generation affected by disability,* according to Professor Altmann, immunologists.
Over 1% of the UK's population have had symptoms for a year now. If the US is similar, that would mean 3 million people disabled, who probably will not recover. Another 3 million, whose lasting symptoms started more recently, may or may not remain disabled for a long time.
That is up to six times the number of Americans who have died from Covid-19.
It seems from the data in this article that Omicron can cause lasting symptoms, at least for some time. The data do not indicate whether vaccinated people are safe, or whether their risk of being disabled is less. We really need to see this!
*Australia’s carbon credit [i.e., offset] scheme "largely a sham," says whistleblower who tried to rein it in.*
*One year after LA evicted [180 homeless people] from a park, few are in stable housing.*
Wildfires have started near Chernobyl. Whether or not the fighting started them, the war is preventing any effort to put them out.
*WHO blames rising Covid cases in Europe on curbs lifted too soon.*
British journalist Chris Mullin has won his case not to have to report the identity of the person who told him about participating in IRA terrorism.
Mullin got the story by promising confidentiality, and it's against the public interest to make such promises worthless.
An Amazon store worker who supports unionization has been locked out of work by closing her account in an app.
I think this store is one of those where customers pay automatically and cash is not accepted. Please don't ever do business with stores like that.
(satire) *Building Code Violation Fines Leave Landlord With No Choice But To Raise Rent.*
*Syria using maze of shell companies to avoid sanctions on Assad regime's elite.*
*Sudan's military is brutally suppressing protests.*
(satire) *Executive On Deathbed Requests Obituary Be Optimized For SEO.*
Philosophers in the 18th century wrote about the danger that a group of rich people would corrupt a democracy and convert it into an oligarchy. The US constitution was designed to try to prevent this process, but it is has been happening for 40 years in the US — and in many other countries, including Russia.
Russia illustrates that such an oligarchy can easily convert into an autocracy ruled by an empire. The cheater demonstrates it in the US. In ancient Rome, Julius Caesar was one of a group of three oligarchs, and when he had defeated the others and was making himself emperor, even killing him did not prevent the fall of the republic. I suspect that that was because property ownership had become too concentrated, making it very easy for a rich few (we could loosely call them "billionaires") to dominate everyone.
(satire) *Exterminator Shows Off Trophy Room Filled With Mounted Heads Of Insects.*
The SEC has announced new requirements for public companies to publish their climate effects, and it includes some reporting on "offsets".
*The childcare and universal pre-K provisions included in [the Build Back Better bill] passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in November would hugely benefit not only families but also the American economy, businesses, and state governments.*
We should not assume that blockchain, which is a technological mechanism, will empower the non-rich. It could equally well be used by the rich to escape from taxation, and condemn the rest of humanity to serfdom or sucking up to the barons. Or various possibilities in between.
The London thug department has a history of strip-searching minors who it arrests, and being reproached for the practice.
The word "children" here seems to mean "minor", under 18.
Strip-searches about marijuana are just part of the gratuitous harm done by prohibition of marijuana. The solution is to legalize it.
*[Ex-minister] Alan Duncan's employer Vitol has stake in vast Arctic exploration project backed by the Putin regime.*
Under UK rules, even present members of Parliament are allowed to have "second jobs". Officially, the job can't include "vote the way we want", but that could be implicitly understood.
*Rich countries must stop [extracting] oil and gas by 2034, says study. Poorest states should be given until 2050, says research aiming to set out fair way of ending fossil fuel economy.*
*António Guterres says countries seeking alternatives to Russian energy may increase use of fossil fuels.*
The Tories have a two-pronged plan to prevent most students from poor families from attending a university.
Those who don't get high grades on certain tests will be unable to afford to go. Those who do get high grades will get loans and will be crushed by debt.
Although many businesses require female staff to wear high-heeled shoes, people tend to perceive women as more competent when they wear sensible shoes.
This perception may be grounded on valid reasons. A woman wearing sensible shoes demonstrates something about how sensible she is, and how willing to reject bullshit. Those qualities may correlate with competence.
The mayor of Riace, Italy, has been convicted on trumped-up charges for publicly adopting policies make it easy for immigrants to settle there.
Westerners' disgust doesn't tackle all the world's powerful rich equally. Russian billionaires are targeted now, but not the murderous rulers of Salafi Arabia and the UAE. Nor do all attacked countries get equal support.
To some extent, the differences in US response reflect the difference in what options the situations offer.
In Syria, the US tried supporting the rebels against Assad, but they were inseparable from the intolerant Islamists, eager to persecute non-Muslims and non-Sunnis. Only the secularist, socialist Kurds deserved and deserve support, but they could not offer a potential government for all of Syria, including those who are not Kurds.
By contrast, in Ukraine it is clear who to support, and that makes it easy to do so.
The US can stop drone bombings in Yemen, and perhaps take a neutral stance there, but that won't make its civil war go away.
The US could give less support to the regimes of Salafi Arabia and the UAE, but barring trying to impose regime change there, which we should know would cause disaster, it can't deal with those countries except through those regimes.
*Australian government "aggravating extinction" through land-clearing approvals, analysis finds.*
US citizens: call on Senator Sinema to stop blocking lower drug prices.
US citizens: call on the Pentagon to investigate civilian casualties in Yemen.
US citizens: call on the Senate to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court.
US citizens: call on state and local governments to direct transit aid into public transit, electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.
Everyone: call on AT&T not to support anti-election Republicans.
US citizens: call on Congress to eliminate for-profit deportation prisons.
US citizens: tell Congress that AIPAC doesn't speak for you.
US citizens: call on Congress to ban neonicotinoid pesticides to save bees.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call for protecting the area around Chaco Canyon from fossil fuel drilling.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
*There’s an easy way to help Ukraine without military escalation: cancel its foreign debt.*
*Many conservatives don’t think the 2020 election was stolen. But they believe democracy itself has betrayed America, by allowing the "wrong" people to take charge.*
Putin's forces fired a missile at a hospital. This report describes a mother who was wounded shielding her baby.
Testimony to Putin's bombardment of Mariupol, by the last journalists there.
The tank crew that shot at the apartment building could not have done it by mistake. They saw what they were shooting at, and they knew what they were doing.
Much of the Great Barrier Reef is sick from heat and hunger.
Investigators have identified billions of dollars of foreign assets belonging to people that Alexei Navalny identified as the main supporters of Putin.
Australia has suspended use of an internet-based system for blind people to vote with.
It is supposed to enable them to vote securely and anonymously. That is a worthy goal, but I strongly doubt that it can really achieve that. I'd rather trust a friend than trust network communication with my vote.
Some countries were unwilling to protect the high seas from exploitation, so treaty negotiations have collapsed.
I suspect that those governments have been bought by companies that plan to plunder the sea bottom.
Iran killed prisoner Shokrollah Jebeli by denying him medical care.
This sort of conduct is not unique to Iran — I've read about similar things happening in the US too.
*Open letter from 500 academics likens fossil-energy funding of climate solutions to tobacco industry disinformation.
China has converted some disputed islands in the South China Sea into strong military bases.
Merely flying or sailing close to these islands every few months will have no effect on the military situation that China is altering. The US needs to pay to build similar bases for Taiwan, or perhaps the Philippines, if President Do-dirty is replaced with someone that is not murderous and could be an ally.
A UK asbestos company started in 1958 to downplay the known danger of asbestos, while lobbying to allow continued use of it. It continued this through the 70s, also concealing some of its research.
Although the company was sold in 2017, some of the people who managed it in 1980 may still be alive. And some of those who managed it in 2000 and 2010 may be culpable for concealing the danger.
The possibility of being sued many years later is clearly not enough to deter companies from doing it in field after field. I think it should be a felony to aid such a plot.
*Scientists Shocked as Polar Temperatures Soar 50 to 90 Degrees Above Normal.*
This is weather, and in a few days it will change. But the fact that it could happen is climate, and it's a harbinger of megadeaths.
The drones in use by Ukraine and the Putin forces don't try to choose targets without human help. But that may not be many steps away.
The time for a treaty to ban such weapons is now.
The US government stated the conclusion that the Burmese army committed genocide against the Rohingya.
*Government ministers knew about P&O Ferries's plan to slash 800 jobs before staff were informed but were told by officials it would ensure the firm remained "a key player in the UK market for years to come", it was claimed on Saturday.*
Contending that fund manager companies now control the bulk of the capitalist economy, and proposing certain consequences.
If there is going to be a concentrated power in society, it should be a democratic power, not a power of the rich only.
The "carbon offset" business has a systematic preference for scams. Scams will always be cheaper to implement than really reducing or preventing emissions, so they will prevail in the market for offsets.
Union of Concerned Scientists: if the EPA shuts its web archive, that will harm science and accountability.
Can anyone find a petition campaign to change the EPA's decision?
"Trauma to Trust" is a program that brings cops (some of them, presumably, thugs) and people from the communities they work in, to establish empathy.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the exceptions.
Despite my disapproval of that practice, I find the article very humane in spirit.
In 2013, the Tories decided to "get rid of the green crap" and cancelled many renewable electricity projects. The lack of those investments is now costing everyone in Britain.
Arguing for a proposed framework for peace between Russia and Ukraine.
If the issue at stake were limited to Ukraine's immediate future, it would be a fairly good deal. But if Putin gains territory and suffers no losses except arms and soldiers, he may well conclude that he should try this again later, in Ukraine or elsewhere. The deal must impose some permanent loss on him, to discourage this.
If the deal will include "autonomy" for parts of Luhansk and Donetsk, that "autonomy" should depend on a plebiscite of the legitimate residents from before 2014, wherever they live now. And it should be done county by county, not presuming the border in advance.
The wealthy countries seem to be converging on agreement to temporarily waive patent obstacles to producing and distributing generic Covid-19 vaccines, but not the trade secrecy. And this excludes tests and treatments.
Not making an exception to the trade secrecy would mean that the would-be generic producers would have to repeat the development of production processes.
As long as we respect and tolerate the propaganda and confusion term "intellectual property", the world will continue to bow down to the Big Pharma companies. We should fund medical research and development in a way that doesn't leave us stuck with monopolies that interfere with use of the results.
A forensic pathologist criticizes the practice of distracting ourselves from the fact of death, including the euphemism "passing".
*How do we solve a problem like Putin? Five leading writers on Russia have their say.*
*With Covid infections and hospital admissions rising across the UK, measures such as masks, social distancing and ventilation are key.*
The governor of Wisconsin is running for reelection based on overcoming the Republican-dominated legislature's efforts to stop his supporters from voting.
People are returning to buying CDs again — sales are increasing.
Now all we need is to bring back the large record stores which offer a great variety of CDs that you can buy anonymously with cash.
CDs don't have to be sold in plastic "jewel boxes" that break. Some are sold in cardboard boxes which are more robust and probably better for the environment.
If this is driven by the obligatory giving of copies to people who don't actually want them, that's sad, but it means more used copies to be sold to people who really do want them.
The author displays a fundamental shallowness by describing listening to music or reading books as "consuming" them. Perhaps that's valid when applied to streaming music, because the stream will disappear after listening to it. That's one aspect of what makes streaming evil. But digital files of books or music don't have to be evil — I have many which are simple files on my computer, not under the control of anyone but me.
Arguing that somewhat more arms for Ukraine could encourage Putin to negotiate peace. It is necessary to wipe away his hopes of real victory.
With some additional arms, they might make him withdraw his forces. How about some air-launched anti-ship cruise missiles? They could prevent a landing near Odessa, and by attacking naval ships coming and going at Novorissiisk, also Russia's main oil port, they could make most shippers decide not to risk going there.
US citizens: call on asset managers (companies like Vanguard, Fidelity, and BlackRock) to create sustainable options now.
US citizens: call on Congress not to impose a risk of prosecution on all activities that receive payments digitally.
This law would threaten a wide variety of projects. Surely some of them would have various ethical flaws, while others would be morally acceptable. A law to attack them all has to be bad.
*Heatwaves at both of Earth’s poles alarm climate scientists.*
Experts call for continuing the operation of the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation sensor, which measures forests and their carbon storage.
A British teacher says she and all teachers have been conscripted into repression of students from disprivileged minorities, and serving the thug department.
This is comparable to the school-to-prison pipeline in the US.
*Ukraine suspends 11 political parties with links to Russia.*
"Suspending" means that they have not been banned, but they are not allowed to take any political actions until the war is over and normal conditions have returned.
This is rather restrained as a way to deal with organized treason.
Ukraine's human rights speaker says Putin's forces are kidnapping Ukrainian civilians and enslaving them in Russia.
ISTR that forcibly removing civilians from their country violates the Geneva conventions. ISTR that this came up in connection with Dubya's capturing people in various countries and taking them by force to CIA prisons and ultimately to Guantanamo.
As vehicles travel, their tires wear down. The resulting detritus is poisonous to salmon — so poisonous that it can explain the mass deaths of salmon after storm runoff washes debris from roads into rivers.
*Report Rings Alarm Over Private Equity's Grip on Home Health, Hospice Industries.*
*Fears of New Covid Wave Grow as GOP Is 'Actively Sabotaging' Aid Effort.*
(satire) *Oscar Mayer Introduces New Filter-Tip Hot Dogs For Healthier Meat-Eating Experience.*
Republicans killed federal support for Covid-19 tests, vaccination and treatment. That means vulnerable Americans who aren't wealthy are consigned to death, or to solitary confinement in their homes.
80% of US voters want to place a windfall profits tax on oil companies.
*If members of Congress refuse to act, it'll be concrete evidence that they’re in the pockets of the industry.*
Peru's supreme court has released murderous former president Alberto Fujimori. Relatives of his victims have appealed to an international tribunal to reverse the decision.
Australian mass-murderers (of aboriginals, that is) used to make an improvised oven to burn up the evidence (dead bodies). James Noble, a famous tracker, found several and identified the thugs that led the massacres.
They were tried, but not convicted. The article refers to some sort of sleazy scheme to prevent conviction, but I don't entirely understand the sketchy description of that aspect.
Thousands of Australians were flooded out of their homes by global heating. Many have been unable to find anywhere to live except in their homes, which have been condemned. Many are condemned because of mold.
The policy of condemning those houses is wise. Living for weeks in a moldy building may not bother you just then, but it can cause you a long-term illness that could kill you. But that policy must be accompanied by making sure there is enough housing for everyone. It is no use to tell people to sleep outside.
New South Wales must throw up some housing immediately. Then it must build a lot of dense housing in places near train lines that won't be flooded — at least, not in the next decade or two.
US mainstream reporters ask questions that seem to push Biden to bring the US into the war against Russia. Biden wisely recognizes that that would be a very bad idea. Why don't they?
An appeals court authorized the EPA to take account of the "social cost of carbon emissions" — effectively an estimate of the amount of damage that much more global heating would cause — when regulating emissions.
Eventually this decision will go to the Supreme Court, and I expect the worst there.
Disgust for Putin's atrocities in Ukraine seems to be creating a narrow spirit of unity between the Republican and Democratic parties.
Whether that is a change for the better is something that remains to be seen. If Republicans can unite with Democrats in measures against Putin, would this spirit of unity reduce their intention to impose permanent Chritianitist plutocracy on the US, through unfair elections? Or would they instead hide their hostility behind the apparent "unity", to undermine our resistance?
A Dubai company which owns most of the ferries in the UK has fired all the workers and plans to replace them all with low-wage subcontracted workers. Some are refusing to leave the ferries that they were working on.
A Tory minister wrote a letter in support of the firing before the public found out about it. That's the plutocratist position: bow down to the Invisible hand when it hurts the poor; override it when it hurts the rich. Replacing workers to cut pay ought to land those in charge in prison.
In this case, those in charge are the royal family of Dubai, responsible for terrible injustices.
A good government would set a minimum wage and working conditions for scheduled ferries operating in its ports, even if they to go other countries, so that the companies would have nothing to gain by preferring foreign crew and no opportunity to do this.
This is the sort of thing I believe Jeremy Corbyn would have done, and that's why I'd support him if I were British. I would be favorably surprised if Starmer took such a stand.
US wealth-hiding facilities, available from certain states to anyone rich enough to find them useful, helps hide Putin's untraceable hidden wealth.
Thousands of lesser crooks must use them too, to the great detriment of various countries. We must abolish them, in the US as well as other countries.
Cuba has sentenced protesters to prison for as much as 30 years.
Throwing stones is violence; overturning cars can damage them. But people would never ordinarily be sentenced to 4 years in prison, let alone 30, for crimes like that. Those long sentences can only be understood as repression of dissent.
It isn't the first time in this century that Cuba did that.
The Putin forces are applying against Mariupol the terrorist tactics that they used against Syrian cities such as Aleppo.
I say "terrorist" because their essence is to make war against the civilians, and that's what terrorism means.
US citizens: call on the Small Business Administration to reveal how many Covid Paycheck Protection Program dollars actually went to saving jobs.
US citizens: phone your congrescritter and your senators to oppose a system of broad and almost unlimited lifelong surveillance of everyone who has been a college student. Here's what the ACLU and other organizations say about it.
(I could not link to the URL that was sent to me, because it was on Google Drive, and I couldn't see that page.)
This bill is in the last stage of consideration by Congress; it got there quickly and quietly. This is the sort of thing Bill Gates wants, so I wonder if Bill Gates's money greased the wheels for it.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Why the IRS is much more likely to audit poor people than rich people. The underlying reason is that rich people want it that way and they corrupt Congress to give it to them.
California thugs beat up and arrested women who were making videos of those thugs arresting the fiancé of one of them.
There was apparently no real grounds to arrest him in the first place.
A lawsuit that the city would have to pay is not enough for those thugs. They belong in prison.
(satire) *Americans Celebrate 4th Consecutive Victory Over Covid.*
Several US states are now considering laws that would restrict abortion very strictly.
Women who have miscarriages are likely to face criminal investigation, one official admits.
Nonfree software used in schools monitors students' email looking and notices various patterns that suggest "something is wrong."
This is a step towards a paternalistic tyranny that monitors everyone "for your own good."
I can envision a system which achieves the good part of this goal while respecting privacy and freedom. It would run on your own computer, in free software, and reports the problems it notices to you alone. You could then ask for help, if you think it is useful and safe to do so.
*Mining the deep sea is as destructive as strip mining the mountains of Appalachia, extinguishing whole ecosystems with a single blow.*
Can people design a way of mining the bottom without destroying ecosystems? It would be more expensive, but perhaps still profitable.
Minnesota is considering a bill to prohibit large social media companies from using recommendation algorithms for users that are minors.
(The article misleadingly says "children," which calls adolescents "children.")
Perhaps this should apply to users of all ages. Algorithms to control what each user sees give Facebook its power, and disinformationists have learned how to game them.
Some of the right-wingers accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan governor Whitmer are arguing that the FBI entrapped them into a plot that the FBI planned.
The sad thing is, this is not implausible. The FBI has a history of doing such things.
I hope there will be enough facts in this case to determine what the truth is.
Mark Meadows, who tried to fake a wave of voter fraud for the cheater, is now being investigated for voter fraud himself.
Recycled PET bottles release more of some dangerous chemicals than bottles made from new plastic.
It may be possible to correct this with more care in the recycling process.
Cigarette smoking has dropped to 12.5% of US adults. Vaping by adults has dropped too.
I am against criminalizing drugs, but reducing use of tobacco is a very good thing.
Greg Palast asserts that Putin was chosen by the oligarchs, then winning public support (while he needed it) through the Chechen war that killed lots of civilians and lots of Russian soldiers.
I think Palast can be trusted, but I would be more certain of the claims if they came with references to demonstrate some of the cited points.
Some Americans are attacking anything in the US associated with Russia — even Russian restaurants.
Since 2020 some have associated the Chinese people with Covid-19, and take it out violently at random on people in the US that might be of Chinese ethnicity. Now some are doing likewise with people that might be of Russian ethnicity.
They should reserve their rage for Trumputin — he's Putin's biggest and most persistent supporter in the US. He even directly hampered military support for Ukraine and threatened to eliminate NATO.
I more or less agree with the article in regard to Russian sports and art stars, those who would prefer to be apolitical. Those who actively support Putin can be held responsible for that.
Russians who criticize the war, or the government, face repression, and their friends and coworkers pressure them to hush up.
Whether it's killing civilians, using cluster bombs, or launching a war of aggression based on lies, the US and Russia must be judged by the same standards.
The article does not distinguish between war crimes properly speaking and the crime of aggressive war, which is even more grave. In the conquest of Iraq, there were few war crimes or crimes against humanity. There were plenty of them later, during the long occupation of Iraq. But the decision to invade was, as we now know, a crime of aggressive war.
Women in Afghanistan still face repression from many sides.
The women imprisoned by the Taliban for trying to leave the country, raped in prison, then murdered by their relatives, provide a clear illustration of how ingrained this injustice is in Afghan society.
Is there anything we foreigners could do which we could expect confidently to make Afghanistan respect women's rights more, even over decades? Not that I have heard of. Certainly not trying to occupy Afghanistan again. Not "nation-building" either. A just society requires more than peace, but peace in Afghanistan is a step forward from a year ago.
Perhaps we could offer a nonviolent deal to convince the Taliban to allow women to flee the country without permission from a male owner.
*How "Ukrainian bioweapons labs" myth went from QAnon fringe to Fox News.*
Climate activists in Britain are pointing out how SUVs increase greenhouse gas emissions with a campaign of deflating the tires of SUVs.
The action lets the air out of the tires by opening the valves; it does not damage the tires.
*The uphill battle to resurrect the US child tax credit that lifted millions from poverty.*
The modified Omicron variant BA.2 is causing a wave of Covid-19 in the UK and has already caused one in other European countries.
I expect the number of new cases to rise in the US very soon if it has not already done so.
The world must maintain readiness for rapid test and vaccine production, for future pandemics.
Texans can look out their windows and see global heating at work. An unlucky few no longer have windows to look out of. It's not even spring in Texas, but there are already many wildfires, stimulated by a drought that has continued since last year.
In 2050, this week's "bad fire weather" will be "the good old days."
Texans need to kick out officials that oppose efforts to slow down global heating. Those officials are working for planet roasters, and more generally for rich business against the rest of us.
Many of them, Republicans, are working also for racism, for sexism, for Putin, and for Trumputin. The plutocratist Democrats don't support those things, but still do support the planet roasters.
US citizens: call on the Bureau of Prisons to release medically vulnerable prisoners from federal prisons.
US citizens: call on Congress to restore the Child Tax Credit.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: Oppose proposals for war with Russia, including the proposal to declare a "no-fly" zone in Ukraine.
It would be satisfying justice to rescue Ukraine, but the resulting war between Russia and the US could easily escalate to become nuclear.
Everyone: call on the big banks to stop funding the climate crisis with our money.
At the last minute, Iran demanded a ransom from Anoosheh Ashoori's family in order to release him.
An Arkansas thug has been sentenced to a year in jail for killing unarmed Hunter Brittain. Brittain apparently didn't hear the thug tell him to show his hands. Others on the scene did not hear it either. Such incidents are frequent, and we cannot accept them as making it legitimate to kill someone.
*The National Labor Relations Board accused Starbucks of retaliating against workers for supporting a union.*
A New York City cop behaved kindly when a proper thug would have seen an opportunity to deal out cruelty. This brought him persistent harassment by his superior. He is suing.
Russian biologists explain the truth behind Russia's lies about Ukrainian biology research. Generals showed totally irrelevant "evidence" and fabricated fake news about what it was.
Dr Lewitin: *"The Ministry of Defense made a false, unfounded statement — and now, if I talk to people, 90 percent of them will say: ‘Bioweapons were made in Ukraine.’ No one has read the attached documents. And those who have read it will say: ‘Well, yes, maybe there are no dangerous pathogens in these documents. But they don’t tell us about it for nothing. Maybe there are dangerous strains in other documents that cannot be published openly.* In other words, blow enough smoke and people will assume there must be some fire.
Faux News personalities are supporting Putin on Russian TV as well as on Faux itself.
*Sanders Vows 'Strong Solidarity' for Multi-State Amazon Worker Walkout.* As he said, "Amazon can afford to give its employees a $3 raise."
Once again, many Indian farmers are committing suicide.
When this happened some years ago, it was because government policies were driving farm families to penury. I expect that is true again now.
Offering psychotherapy to help them bear up to penury is treating a secondary symptom of the problem. What's needed is effective laws to ensure farmers can get by. The US instituted some in the New Deal.
Also, India to reduce the birth rate so that things stop getting worse.
*The SEC must not legitimize fake "carbon offsets".*
When UK thugs are accused of domestic violence, 80% of them are allowed to keep their jobs.
(satire) *Watchdog Warns Nearly Every Food Brand In U.S. Owned By Handful Of Companies, Which In Turn Are Controlled By Newman’s Own.*
Progressives gave Biden a list of 55 executive actions he ought to take to help low-paid Americans.*
US citizens: call on the states' secretaries of state to disqualify insurrectionist candidates.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators. A US bill, just a step away from passing, would set up centralized surveillance of every college student, and it would continue for all per life.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
In Mariupol, Putin's forces bombed a theater and a municipal swimming pool building where civilians had taken refuge.
They continue to block convoys of food and medicine and efforts to transport civilians out of the city.
*Toxic waste revealed as eroding coastlines expose old landfills.*
For most outright poisons, I would guess that they won't do much harm once dispersed in the volume of the ocean. Endocrine disruptors such as PFAs may be an exception, as they can cause harm to sea life even at very low concentrations.
The UK will consider changing its libel law, which is often used by rich people to ruin those that publish unpleasant statements about them, even if the statements are true.
UK libel law was even more useful for censorship before a previous reform, a few years ago.
Texas voter suppression rules caused rejection of 13% of the mail-in ballots in the recent primary election.
The ratio was clearly higher (15%) in Democratic counties than in Republican counties (9%). Those same percentages in a final election would give Republicans a 10,000-vote unfair advantage in a state-wide race.
Global heating has increased the rain in Kenya. For over a decade, its great lakes have been rising and spreading. In 2019 it started going faster.
Progressive measures such as the Child Tax Credit lifted 9% of US children out of poverty. Now they are sinking back into poverty.
(satire) *Body Language Expert Can Tell With 90% Accuracy If Person Sitting.*
London thugs mounted a huge operation to remove four people who had occupied a Russian billionaire's disused house. They wanted to invite Ukrainian refugees to live there.
It's unusual for squatting in a rich person's empty house to have such a sharp political motive. The usual reason, in a city where the rich are making people homeless, is to have a place to live. I believe that it is even more important to support people who do that.
*Let's Just Say It Very Clearly: The US Supreme Court Is Corrupt.*
After April, Americans without good medical insurance will have to pay for Covid-19 tests, treatment, and vaccines. Congress has eliminated the funding for this.
Meanwhile, the rash abandonment of mask and distance rules could soon result in increasing case numbers.
*House Democrats call on Justice Department to address 'insider threats' posed by candidates who believe false election fraud claims.*
(satire) *Supreme Court Justices Sheepishly Admit All Of Their Spouses Attended Jan. 6 Riot.*
About Phil Goldberg, who campaigns to convince us to trust Big Oil companies to protect the climate.
Hungarians are starting to condemn Orbán's support for Putin.
After so many human-caused climate disasters in Australia, planet-roaster politicians are citing them as excuses to extract more fossil fuels. *Reliant on coal to pay for the damage coal brings.*
*Biden's Climate Action Woefully Inadequate to Meet Escalating Crisis.*
Neoliberalism's approach to regional disasters: the rich pay for their own rescue, and starve the state's treasury so it can't afford to rescue you.
*Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ordeal shows the uselessness of economic sanctions.* They usually fail to achieve their goal.
Veronika Belotserkovskaya, one of the first three victims of Putin's new law against "fake news", says she has been "officially declared a decent person." She does not feel threatened because she is not in Russia. But everyone in Russia faces mounting repression.
If Ukraine had kept its nuclear missiles, don't assume that would have made it safe from Russian attack. It could instead have put the world in danger of nuclear war.
The Covid rate is rising fast in some European countries that have eliminated Covid mask and distancing rules. The US is likely to experience this too in a month or two, and it could be avoided if we had had good leaders, instead of weak Democrats facing Republican saboteurs.
The US government is waking up to the danger of violence from incels.
I understand the misery of being rejected over and over. I passed many years in that despair. But, unlike incels, I recognize that a woman's feelings are hers, just as my feelings are mine. No one has an obligation to love me, and if she doesn't, I simply have to accept it.
Documenting apparent war crimes in a town north of Kyiv.
How the definition of war crimes applies to the Putin forces' attacks on civilians in Ukraine.
Stopping civilians from sending information about military activities seems legitimate to me. Killing them to prevent it, I expect is a war crime.
The reason why most of the world's countries do not belong to the International Criminal Court is that Dubya pressured them to refuse. Why do that? We suspect it was to avoid prosecution of American soldiers, commanders or leaders for war crimes — including perhaps Dubya himself.
George Monbiot: the temporary drop in food production from Putin's war must not prevent rewilding, which we need for the ecosphere's long-term security.
*The UK could eliminate all need for imports of Russian gas this year through a combination of energy efficiency, expanding renewable power generation and a campaign to help people change their behavior,* according to an environmentalist think tank.
New York Mayor Adams is bringing back thug department practices and subunits that were known for a racist predilection for unjustified violence. At the same time, he is cutting the support for the homeless.
*Widespread abuses since Myanmar coup may amount to war crimes, says UN report.*
Everyone: call on US companies to stop advertising on Fox News.
*We claim Britain is an ethical democracy — but oligarchs know that’s not true.*
We should not understand the term "oligarchs" as limited to rich Russians (who may have little political power in Russia); it certainly applies to rich Westerners (who are likely to have far too much political power in western countries).
US citizens: call on Congress to shift the US to renewable energy instead of increasing extraction of fossil fuels.
US citizens: call on the EPA to save the monarch [butterflies] by providing critical protections for the endangered prostrate milkweed.
Laurence Tribe, a distinguished jurist, says, "The evidence is clear: it's time to prosecute Donald Trump." Let's join in urging prompt prosecution.
I wonder about one thing: will it be difficult to find a jury? Surely most Americans knew little about what Guy Reffitt did on Jan 6, 2021, so even though they had general opinions about the insurrection, they could give him a fair trial based on the facts about him that they would learn while on the jury. But could we find a jury of people who can do the same for the wrecker?
I would like to see what a lawyer says about this question.
The situation facing US unions: they need more capacity to reach out to organize more workplaces.
Our right-wing anti-union laws are against workers. In order for unions to win, they need to build up solidarity that extends to election campaigns.
The biggest obstacle to punishing the rich Russians who uphold Putin's unjust power over Russia is that this might enable to punish the rich Americans and Europeans that maintain unjust power over the US and Europe.
*Marina Ovsyannikova broke the state propaganda machine –- others will follow.*
I hesitate to predict chain reactions of victories before they happen. It is too easy to to be disappointed. But it could happen. Each chink in the wall is a step towards pulling it down.
The "creator economy" is the latest marketing term encouraging artists to yield to the clouded manipulation of online dis-services.
Abuse of power, most often against black adults and adolescents, is normal among British thugs.
*China accused of plotting to smear Democratic candidate for US Congress*. This refers to Xiong Yan, Chinese dissident become US citizen.
Interviews with refugees fleeing to Mykolaiv from villages, and fleeing from Mykolaiv to the west.
The rate of complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission has almost doubled since 2020. Meanwhile, it has to reduce its staff.
A prediction of 200 million people displaced by climate mayhem by 2050 and moving to cities.
A UK court ruled that Abu Zubaydah can sue the UK agents who collaborated in his illegal imprisonment and his torture.
Reports from Mariupol say that the Putin forces have seized a hospital and are holding 500 people prisoner in it, without food access to food.
One side of the city has fallen entirely.
*A US surveillance program tracks nearly 200,000 immigrants.* It collects a lot of data, including their locations all the time, and the data can be abused by the government or the company that runs the surveillance system.
No company should ever be in practical control doing the state's computing. Privatizing any government activity makes it unaccountable, and that's part of what we are seeing here. The extra level of indirection in control of the procedures (and the software used) has the effect of thwarting the people's control of the state.
In Germany, a record 1.6% of the population tested positive for Covid-19 last week, but that's just the maximum PCR testing capacity. No one knows how many other people caught it too and did not get tested.
Berlin is about to eliminate mask requirements as well as gratis testing. Perhaps it aims to break the record again.
The policy seems to be to encourage people to ignore Covid and its danger. "What, we worry?"
I have still seen no reports on the prevalence of long Covid among vaccinated people that catch the Omicron variant. How big is the risk that vaccinated people will now be exposed to whenever they leave the house?
*Calls for "blue corridor" to let stranded seafarers leave Ukraine war zone.* Putin has threatened to attack any vessel that moves.
Iran imprisoned Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori as hostages to get the UK to pay the UKP 400 million that it owned to Iran.
That money was a refund of the price of an arms sale that the UK cancelled. It was right for the UK to pay that money, but not acceptable for Iran to take innocent people hostage to get it. Foreigners thinking of visiting Iran should beware, for they too may be taken hostage for years.
Areas of permafrost under the Arctic Ocean floor are melting and creating huge sinkholes.
Manchin vetoed the appointment of Sarah Bloom Raskin to the Federal Reserve board because she wants banks to move away from investing in destroying Earth's climate.
This is very bad, since we can expect Manchin to do veto any other nominee who would create obstacles to the planet roasters.
A leftist is favored to win Colombia's presidential election.
Colombia's recent presidents have been repressively associated with the army, in some case with army massacres of civilians.
Australian historians have made a list of over 400 instances where colonists in Australia massacred indigenous people.
*Proud Boys leader had [written] plans to "storm" government buildings on 6 January.*
Uyghur exiles in Norway say that even there they get harassment calls from Chinese agents that threaten their relatives in China.
TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova told a friend in advance about her plan to burst in on a Russian live TV program to denounce Putin's war.
*Ukrainian heritage is under threat [from Putin's invasion] -– and so is the truth about Soviet-era Russia.*
Putin has been working in Russia to praise Stalin's regime as well as to block dissemination of facts about his vicious repression.
A rapid expansion in fishing, farming, mining and power generation endangers life in the high seas. We urgently need a treaty to regulate those practices.
Many governments, in thrall to big money, will fight to maintain the vulnerability until most ocean life is wiped out.
Many parts of the US food system are concentrated in the hands of a few companies. This reduces resilience, and led to shortages when Covid-19 started.
The shortage of competition is also causing price increases, in food and other fields.
*The Tories railed against "green crap." Why trust them to solve the energy crisis now?*
The same can be said of most US elected officials, Republicans and plutocratist Democrats.
Volunteers, both experienced crackers and nontechnical people, are supporting Ukraine's internet army.
The article says "hackers" but it's referring to crackers.
*The Guardian view on CIA torture, two decades on: we need the truth.*
The Australian government is considering a plan to streamline attacks on the environment by exempting some projects from environmental protection law.
Ukraine needs arms with which to attack the Russian artillery that is turning to bombarding civilian areas of cities.
We must not neglect the bigger but slower danger of global heating while preoccupied by the shorter-term danger of Putin's war.
US citizens: call on cops and judges to stop cracking down on striking workers.
Everyone: call on U.S. banks and insurers to stop funding fossil fuel expansion.
US citizens: call on US regulators to stop bank mergers.
*Pro-Putin Disinformation on Ukraine Is Thriving in Online Anti-Vax Groups. All the usual themes: Secret government alliances, anti-Semitic tropes, and nefarious scientists.*
*Washington Needs to Do Something About UAE Dirty Money.* The US needs to make sure that its own states, and its allies, are not helping robber barons hide the loot they have stolen from their own countries.
The US no longer dominates the world. How should progressives confront the new situation? This article proposes a way.
TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova ran onto a live broadcast and denounced Putin, his war and his propaganda.
She will be prosecuted and imprisoned, or perhaps murdered, if protests don't balloon quickly.
A gung-ho report discusses using biometrics for tickets to large events.
Look at the silly distraction arguments some of these companies. "We don't keep track of who you are — we just help some other company keep track." What difference does it make? Once any one company knows, some companies and government agencies will know all.
If I can't attend anonymously, I won't go.
However, I see positive potential in palm scanning if it is a substitute for identification, Palm prints are safer than fingerprints, because you don't leave your palm print on most things that you touch,
An inside-of-the-elbow print might be even better. You never touch anything with the inside of your elbow, and you can keep it covered all the time from cameras if you like. (Surely you do that in the winter.) If you give your inside-of-the-elbow print when buying a ticket anonymously, it would identify you as the owner of the ticket without giving any idea of who you are.
Robert Reich believed that democracy was inevitable, people around the world would be well-informed thanks to the internet, and nationalism was sure to decrease. Now he recognizes he was mistaken in these and other optimistic expectations about national and international governance.
*Trump is using America's democratic process to destroy democracy from within.* He has admitted this in a slightly veiled way.
In Melitopol, an occupied town, the Putin forces grabbed the elected mayor and installed a traitor as mayor. In another town, the elected officials have fled but are still running the town, communicating by internet.
The city council of Melitopol have called for prosecution of the traitor that claims to be mayor of Melitopol.
Everyone: call on US companies to stop advertising on Faux News.
US citizens: call on Biden to restore the non-nuclear deal with Iran.
US citizens: call on the EPA to cut greenhouse gas pollution from the meat and dairy industry.
The UK's supreme court brushed aside Julian Assange's appeal against extradition, but appeals can still be made on more important issues.
* A [prisoner] at a secret CIA detention site in Afghanistan was used as a living prop to teach trainee interrogators, who lined up to take turns at knocking his head against a plywood wall, leaving him with brain damage.*
Yemen is on the edge of starvation.
* Carbon emissions from felling of tropical forest doubled in just two decades and are accelerating, research says.*
*Polish mayors warn cities reaching capacity as Ukrainian arrivals rise.*
Other countries will need to accept a substantial fraction of the refugees.
Hong Kong threatens to attack the human rights group Hong Kong Watch, which is based in the UK, unless it shuts its web site (which is blocked in Hong Kong).
Two Russian activists broke into a luxury estate in France, said to be owned by Putin's "ex-son-in-law", to invite Ukrainian refugees to stay there.
Instead of trying to kick them out, France could put sanctions on the owner and offer the estate to refugees legally.
A similar occupation is occurring in London.
The "test-to-treat" initiative won't work, because pharmacists can't prescribe the two drugs to treat Covid-19.
I've read that molnupiravir is not very effective against Omicron. If that is true, including it is basically a waste.
Newspapers reported than an Australian soldier murdered a prisoner, and he sued them for libel. Now witnesses are testifying to demonstrate that the accusation was true.
Why is there no criminal trial?
Australia and the Netherlands are suing Russia for shooting down flight MH 17 as it passed near the regions where Russia had armed rebellious Ukrainians.
The Buk missile system seems to be a combination of three vehicles: missile launched, radar, and control. You can't just hand such a system to volunteers and expect them to operate it. It was, as it had to be, operated by specially trained Russian troops.
Global heating is eating away at the beaches of Cancún and the rest of Quintana Roo, while building on dunes is attacking from the inland side.
British unions call for banning outsourcing of workers.
The factor that most helps a country respond effectively to an epidemic is trust — that the citizens trust each other and trust their leaders.
As long as we have Faux News and politicians that use disinformation as their way to win power, the US is likely to fare worst.
The Belarus army is forcing Middle Eastern refugees into Ukraine.
Let Grow: Children don't need adults to play with them or teach them. They can play with each other, and learn by watching adults do adult things and sometimes helping out.
Today's computer systems don't seem to be designed to allow kids to watch the adult things that adults do on line.
Al-Jazeera accuses Russia of severe repression of Crimean Tatars, in Crimea before, and now it parts of Ukraine that the Putin forces have captured.
Apple and Google have repeatedly bowed to Putin's threats by using their power over users on Putin's behalf.
In particular, Apple made use of the fact that the iMonster is a jail (users can't install applications without Apple's approval) to deny Russians the ability to install apps designed to express criticism of Putin.
Apple has already done such things on China's behalf.
Any company that has power to restrict what users can use a computer to do will be compelled to use that power on behalf of evil regimes.
The US should prevent this from happening again, by prohibiting the sale of a computer that's a jail.
If you're in the UK, tell stores you can only pay cash! If you go to a store, ask the staff if they accept cash, and get no for an answer, it is perfectly reasonable to ask to speak to the manager, then state your unwillingness to identify yourself by using one of today's digital payment system. Then you can say that you disapprove of the store's policy and you will not buy there.
Don't curse at them or revile them — that would only lead them to regard you as vicious. If you keep a civil but disapproving tone, you will inform them that yes, there are people who feel mistreated by what they are doing.
The store won't know that there are people who object to surveillance capitalism enough to refuse, if we don't tell them!
Ukrainians report that Russian troops kill civilians, sometimes randomly, when they capture a village. Sometimes they shell the village persistently afterwards.
Copyright law does not fit the way musicians write music nowadays, and the result is a big danger of lawsuits over marginal accusations.
Please don't speak of "consuming" music — listening to music does not use it up, especially if it is a digital copy that is not shackled with Digital Restrictions Management.
Also, please join me in rejecting the misleading over-generalization, "intellectual property." I not only refuse ever to use that term, I also denounce its confusing ideas whenever they are pertinent.
Cattle farmers in Queensland are making rapid progress on eliminating the habitat of the endangered koala.
*First, we did too little to oppose Russia. Now do we risk going too far the other way?*
In shocking, meticulous detail, [Caroline Elkins (acclaimed American historian)] uses "lost" records from 37 former colonies to reveal the barbarity of the British empire and the hubris that fueled it.*
Repressive school board administrators fired a teacher for reading to children from an "inappropriate" book.
I've never seen that book, but it seems to be made of humor that is somewhat "dirty" and very childish. One might say that it is completely appropriate for children. Others say no.
This substantiates my point that "appropriate" is a subjective judgment. You can argue against a choice by saying it is "inappropriate" in your judgment, but no one should ever be criticized or punished for something so subjective and vague.
Tasmania's kelp forests receded so fast that people didn't notice until they were almost gone. Now there is a project to reseed them.
In addition, volunteer divers will take away the sea urchins that would otherwise eat every last piece of kelp.
One of Putin's main propaganda broadcasters is a UK citizen. A politician has proposed to revoke his UK citizenship.
The UK has been exiling citizens without trial for years now (here's an example), and it an injustice even when the target is the worst of criminals. Situations like this, where a dual citizen is hated for a blatant crime, help normalize undermining human rights for everyone else.
Propaganda in support of an enormous crime should be grounds to prosecute him. It would be legitimate to charge the broadcaster in case he ever comes to the UK again, and freeze his assets now on the strength of those charges.
*The Walt Disney Company is suspending political donations in Florida after its chief executive suffered huge blowback for not using the company's vast influence in the state to try to quash a Republican bill that would stop teachers instructing early grades on LGBTQ+ issues.*
That is a small step towards a very important goal. To throw off plutocracy and restore democracy, we must make Disney, and every other company, stop political donations everywhere in the US, permanently, and stop rich people too from donating enough to buy elections.
Why the increasing Covid-19 level in the UK is probably caused mainly by the elimination of the measures to stop it from spreading.
Politicians have talked about moving from the "pandemic" stage to the "endemic" stage, as if that would end the danger. But that's not what it means.
A disease is endemic if its prevalence is roughly stable and continuing. Whether it leaves some people lastingly harmed (perhaps dead) after catching it is another question. It is good that Covid-19 is no longer increasing rapidly, but increasing slowly will bring society to the same disaster after time.
Our actions, as a society, can increase Covid-19 or decrease it. Have we got sufficient wisdom and leadership to protect each other?
Some internet backbone companies are cutting off service to Russian businesses. I think that will backfire.
The Russian state will get internet access somehow — perhaps via China — so in practice the question is whether to help Putin cut Russians off from news that corrects his lies to them.
Facebook is being prosecuted in Russia because it permits Ukrainians to post bellicose statements such as "Death to the Russian invaders!" The Facebook and Instagram sites are also blocked.
I suggest referring to the invaders as "the Putin forces", rather than as "Russians". I don't think that would affect Putin's censorship decision.
*Conservationists Say Congress Underfunding Species Protection by Hundreds of Millions Despite Biodiversity Crisis.*
For the long term, the crucial actions to prevent the extinction of hundreds of thousands of species are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the human birth rate.
Congressional Democrats have proposed a bill for a windfall tax on oil. But it applies only to oil extracted or imported by big companies.
That exception is misguided. The increased price is a windfall for small companies as well as large.
There is no particular benefit for society in encouraging small oil extraction companies. It is not an incentive for anything useful, except perhaps to foment war globally (which they do, by contributing to global heating).
The exception covers 70% of domestic oil extraction, and that is a lot of money. We need that money for the treasury.
*New Israeli Law Bars Naturalization of Palestinian Spouses.* Some Israelis call for murdering the Israeli women that even go on a date with an Arab man.
It resembles Pakistan's custom of patriarchal murder.
The saboteur-in-chief succeeded in his efforts to manipulate the 2020 census to underestimate the number of Latins, blacks, and indigenous. This will bias elections in the US until the 2030 census.
A Florida Republican gave a nuanced explanation of new and proposed laws regulating the teaching of gender and sexuality issues in school. If we could count on the law to be followed in that nuanced way, I would have no objection.
I expect that, in practice, zealously repressive Republicans will apply a very strict interpretation. Other officials will try to stay far away from the line, fearing lawsuits if the school comes anywhere near it.
Likewise, the law doesn't prohibit students from bringing up these issues, let alone require punishing them, but in practice teachers may punish those students, whether from having a vague idea of the law, from right-wing zeal, or from fear of being punished themselves.
US citizens: call on Biden to take action now for climate defense.
US citizens: call on Congress to bring the MORE act up for a vote.
This bill would legalize marijuana.
US citizens: call on AT&T and other big businesses to stop funding insurrectionist Republican candidates.
US citizens: call on Congress to refuse to cut the gasoline tax.
The way to help poor Americans who can't afford the current high cost of gasoline is to give them extra money which they can spend as they wish. If they must buy gasoline, this money will help them pay for it. But if they can reduce their gasoline usage, they can spend the money on something else. Thus, they will feel pressure to conserve.
US citizens: call on Congress to make billion-dollar corporations pay minimum 15% tax on reported domestic profits and on offshore profits.
Really we should stop taxing international businesses based on their profits. It is too easy to hide profits through clever accounting.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Senate to confirm Biden's two nominees to the USPS board, so they can fire Postmaster/Saboteur DeJoy.
I was wondering why he had not been fired yet.
US citizens: call on Congress to extend the food program for school children.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
* While everything suggests Russia may now be in serious trouble, there are still reasons for caution.*
The Republican Party's Senate platform: (1) to make every low-paid worker pay at least a dollar in income tax and (2) make programs such as Social Security and Medicare disappear automatically after five years.
Many low-paid workers, particularly those with dependents, get aid money through the income tax system — their tax amount is negative. If this change replaces that with paying one dollar, it would cost them a lot of money.
For those that now owe no tax but would instead owe one dollar, it would impose the burden of filing a tax return. This may not be easy for people who are not used to it. Many Americans can't do it themselves, and pay for a tax professional' services. The poor can't afford that. This could put many workers in legal trouble.
Republicans might continue Social Security and Medicare, but they will surely find ways to shaft the poor with the changes.
Tracking Russia's oil tankers around the world.
To look at the results, which are posted on Twitter, without making your browser run nonfree JavaScript code, use nitter.net instead of twitter.com.
There remains one way for Russians to fly to Europe now: to take Air Serbia to Belgrade and transfer there.
Would it be better for Europe to block that route? I tend to think it is good to have some way for people to go back and forth between the EU and Russia. It facilitates communication.
Plutocratist politicians in Ontario will try to bring back private hospitals, to create an opening for more expensive private medical care as in the US.
(satire) *Texas Bans Consensual Sex.*
Democrats dropped Covid response from a bill to keep the government operating. This includes testing, vaccination, treatment, and more.
Pence said that Republicans will cancel any agreement with Iran and push once again to the brink of war.
There is no rational reason why the US should insist on keeping Iran as an enemy. In its conduct, it is nowhere near as bad as Salafi Arabia. Meanwhile, the US has far too many enemies already.
(satire) *Starbucks Fights Unionization Effort By Hiring Pinkertons To Order Exhausting, Hyper-Specific Drinks.*
(satire) *Consumer [Financial] Protection Bureau Fines Curio Shop That Disappeared Hours After Unloading Haunted Talisman.*
The Department of Hatred and Sadism is having trouble keeping violent extremists out of its employ.
Joseph Stiglitz: the IMF may have learned a crucial lesson. Instead of the usual futile attempt to squeezing money out of Argentina, and causing a recession, it is adopting a gentler policy that will let Argentina have some economic growth so it can afford to pay its debt.
For the long term, the world needs a way to stop frivolous spendthrift governments that borrow and spend on unimportant things from saddling a country's populace with burdensome debt. One idea I have thought about is a way for a country to declare bankruptcy. Another is a way to punish the leaders of the frivolous government.
A suggestion for how to avoid escalation of the war in Ukraine into a nuclear war.
*Tens of thousands take part in climate protests across France.*
Republican requirements on voting by mail have been effective at rejecting some voters' ballots.
We don't know how many people gave up on even trying to vote because of other obstacles to voting by mail or dropping off ballots.
US citizens: call on Congress not to spoil resuming the non-nuclear deal with Iran.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on Whole Foods to push to end single-use plastic packaging.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
Ukraine has US-supported labs which study disease germs for medical purposes. They were set up in the early 90s to give useful work to the unemployed ex-Soviet scientists, so they wouldn't accept harmful work out of desperation.
Putin's disinformation claims repeatedly that these labs are developing germ warfare.
This offers us the opportunity to determine which people and sites spread disinformation for Putin.
*Amazon Deforestation Hit Record High in February—Up 62% From 2021.*
An Australian fertilizer company wants to build another plant, which involves "removing" ancient rock art. It seems that "remove" is a euphemism for "destroy".
Aboriginals say the company misled their community about the plan. It wouldn't surprise me — companies large and small deceive.
Could the company build the plant differently so as to avoid damage to the rock art? Perhaps the chemical emissions would destroy it slowly. Is it possible to cut the rock art off the hill and move it away without damaging it?
Tennessee Republicans show their values by putting an ammunition store owner on the state education board. The store takes little precaution against selling bullets for massacres.
That's Republican family values for you.
*China is squirming under pressure to condemn Russia. It can’t hold out forever.*
China's difficulty results from the fact that it is threatening to do the same thing to Taiwan.
Raif Badawi, champion in Salafi Arabia of secularism and separation of church and state, has been released from prison into the larger prison which is Salafi Arabia.
*Roads ripped apart by NSW and Queensland floods … shouldn’t just be rebuilt but "rebuilt to withstand future disasters".*
Of course, they should be. But there is no known limit to how bad future disasters will become, if we keep emitting more greenhouse gases and making them worse. The first priority must be to put a cap on how bad future disasters will be, by bringing global heating to a halt.
Putin's naked war of conquest will change the world more than the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
I disagree with the author on some specific points.
*Iran nuclear talks on hold over last-minute Russian demands.*
I think everything will depend on how much Iran wants a deal with the US and its allies. It looks like there would be a way to work around Russia's refusal, if the other countries want this.
* Brandt's vole found to engineer ecosystem to scan skies for shrikes and deny them perches.*
Georgia proposes to follow Florida in passing a law to restrict discussion in school about sex or gender identity.
Education about those topics is important, so prohibit it is wrong, but we should describe clear what we are criticizing.
The label "don't say gay" misrepresents what these bills do. They do not order students not to talk about their own gender identities or sexual orientations, nor do they explicitly punish students for what they might say about those things.
Rather, they try to make schools and teachers discourage discussions about those topics, except for older students in a way considered "appropriate" for their age. ("Appropriate" is a subjective concept, and whenever it is used in connection with a contentious issue, it invites a subsequent power struggle over whose subjective interpretation will prevail.)
Covid-19 is increasing again in the UK. In England, 4% of the population had Covid-19 last week.
England is showing us what can happen when all transmission-reducing measures are made optional: most people conclude, "These measures are not needed any more." Not legally required is one thing, not needed is another.
Just after reporting the increase, the lab which measures the prevalence of Covid-19 in Britain reported its funding has been terminated.
An organization of relatives of people killed by the September 2001 terrorist attacks called on Biden to demand accountability from Salafi Arabia.
* Workers are calling for the National Labor Relations Board to ban captive audience meetings and make organizing easier.*
Suggestions for how Europe can make a substantial reduction in its fossil fuel use, rather quickly.
Fanatical Christianitists are criminalizing such actions as traveling to get an abortion, letting your child do so, or letting your child have sex-change treatments.
Britain subsists by selling the country's assets to rich foreigners. Naturally that included Russian billionaires.
A former US nuclear missile operator says, "There have been more near-misses than the world knows.*
I've read that these soldiers have a low morale, generally, and that makes them careless.
*Judge [temporarily] blocks Texas from investigating parents of transgender children.*
El Salvador seeks to arrest an ex-president and officers accused of involvement in the 1989 political murder of Jesuit priests.
*Researchers studying "excess deaths" estimate that more than 18 million people died of Covid-19 by the end of 2021.* That is 3 times the sum of the official figures for deaths attributed to Covid-19.
The "excess deaths" figure surely includes some people who died of other causes due to practical consequences of the pandemic. For instance, people who could not get treatment for some other disease because the hospitals were too full, or too dangerous to visit. This distinction is interesting for understanding what happened, but I don't see that it makes a crucial difference. Those people were killed by regional-level effects of the pandemic.
Inflation in food prices, combined with extreme pressure to reduce benefits, is making poor Britons go hungry even more.
Florida Republicans' latest attack on fair elections includes an "election investigation agency" that could harass any voter alleged to have violated some rule.
The law will also make it easier to prosecute voter registration organizations for any technical mistake.
*Groups Urge Biden to Invoke Defense Production Act to Counter Putin, Accelerate Green Transition.*
The EPA has decided to reduce toxic pollution from heavy trucks, but its proposed regulation is not strong enough, and it does nothing to promote a shift to electric trucks.
*British American Tobacco will continue selling cigarettes in Russia.*
(Irony) If you blame the Russian people in bulk for Putin's war, it could seem admirable to continue providing them with poison that causes heart attacks, cancer and emphysema. But I don't think Russians deserve that on Putin's account.
Hmm, how about putting warnings on the packs. For instance, "Warning: Putin can be hazardous to the health of people in neighboring countries," and "Warning: believing state-controlled Russian media can lead to crimes against humanity."
(Later) British American Tobacco changed plans and will not continue selling in Russia.
Canada bought the unfinished Trans Mountain Pipeline, and now plans to spend 9 billion more dollars to finish it, not to mention the repression required to crush protests.
Then Canada it would struggle to export more oil so as to recoup some of those losses.
Minneapolis teachers are on strike, demanding smaller class sizes, improved student supports, and better pay.
*Green Groups Cheer as EPA Restores California's Power to Curb Vehicle Emissions.*
California has often pioneered pollution controls that were then adopted by the whole US.
The Russian anti-war movement faces a long uphill climb.
*Oil and gas companies and lobby groups in Canada are heavily investing in campaigns to present themselves as defenders of Indigenous interests.*
Since the truth is against them, they must reach for falsehood.
*Russia plans to seize assets of western companies exiting country.* I don't think that this sort of retaliation, in and of itself, is an outrage. It is basically turnabout. However, all moral questions about Russia are under the shadow of the crime of aggression that Putin is committing, and the crimes against humanity.
*The Center for Biological Diversity on Tuesday laid out a comprehensive case for the Biden administration to go far beyond simply mending the damage done by President Donald Trump to the Endangered Species Act, calling on officials to strengthen the law "to save life on Earth from the extinction crisis."*
Republicans in Kentucky show a pattern of antisemitism.
The IHRA's criterion for antisemitism has a serious flaw, of labeling criticism of Israel's occupation of Palestine as "antisemitism", but that flaw has nothing to do with what those Republicans are saying. That's real antisemitism.
The Atheist Street Pirates in Los Angeles remove signs that promote religion from public land and property.
Idaho is planning a law to jail librarians (along with anyone else) for lending minors books that talk about masturbation, or anything else that could "harm" those minors.
Masturbation is normal, but in our twisted society, the influence from Christianity are likely to make people anxious about it, and about sex generally. Those right-wing legislators are trying to deny people help in overcoming the anxiety.
Uber, Lyft and Doordash have set up a lobbying group against workers' right to unionize.
This is one more among many reasons to refuse to do business with those companies — starting with making customers run nonfree software and identify themselves. The food-delivery companies exploit restaurants, too.
The US said it would donate 1.2 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses this year, which is an inadequate substitute for freeing up vaccine production. But it is not on track to keep the pledge.
*US in "very active discussion" with allies to ban import of Russian oil.*
Oil is a commodity. Won't some other country buy whatever Russian oil and gas Europe stops buying? To lastingly reduce Russia's fossil fuel exports, it will help greatly to reduce the total consumption of fossil fuels — and we know that the way to do that is to build up renewable generation fast. Which is exactly what our survival depends on, Russia or no Russia.
I am surprised by the idea that giving Ukraine fighter planes is somehow closer to actually entering the war than giving Ukraine missiles to shoot airplanes or tanks. The people who presume that that is so do not explain why.
There are three ways to get a fighter plane into Ukraine, starting from a place outside Ukraine, given that shipping the plane is not feasible:
An Su-25 is under 15 meters wide. A good four-lane highway on level ground should be wide enough, even assuming the wings must stay inside the area where cars would normally drive — which isn't strictly necessary if shoulders and roadsides are clear.
A Mig-29 is under 12 meters wide. A three-lane highway might even suffice.
The US should choose its preferred method and stop dithering.
(satire) *Company Celebrates Employee's 40 Steadfast Years Of Being Unable To Retire.*
*Climate Coalition Urges Big Banks to Pull Plug on US Gas Exports.*
It appears that antiwar protesters arrested in Russia are not all being kept in jail, but they may be sentenced to 15 years in prison later.
*Advocates Say Biden's New Vaccine Production Project Must Be Publicly Owned.*
In a few of the Covid-19 patients given the monoclonal antibody sotrovimab, it provokes the virus to evolve resistance.
The researchers call for monitoring the progress of patients that take sotrovimab, and isolating them if this resistance develops.
*[One of the wrecker's lawyers] knew plan to delay Biden certification was unlawful, emails show.*
The rate of Covid-19 infections among people age 55 or over in Britain is increasing, even as it decreases among younger people.
Various causes may be combining to do this. It could be that a substantial fraction of them are now socializing more. It could be that they have been convinced there is no need to take precautions (masks, distance, ventilation, avoiding large groups). It could be that their booster doses are losing effectiveness as the months go by. It could be the new variant BA.2, which is like Omicron by transmits more easily.
This result lumps together all ages 55 and up. I wonder what we would see if the statistics were broken down into 10-year age groups, and into the specially vulnerable and others.
Putin forces are bombarding civilian targets in Mariupol constantly. The intentionally destroyed electric cables and gas pipelines. Civilians have no water supply.
The Putin forces destroyed a maternity hospital without warning; both adults and children are trapped in the rubble. They invited civilians to evacuate, then shelled them when they tried to.
Russia claimed that Ukrainian right-wing extremists are planning to carry out an attack against Ukrainians and blame it on Russia. The UK warns this could be preparation for the Putin forces to use chemical weapons and blame it on Ukrainian nationalists.
Nazis lean towards cruel violence and dishonesty, so I won't say that Putin's claim about their plans is utterly absurd. But I don't believe it. I am skeptical that they would want to use chemical weapons against Ukrainians, and skeptical that they would have the capacity to obtain them or make them, or the capacity to use them.
By contrast, Russia had a history of being involved with chemical weapons, and Putin has a history of poisoning a enemies — Alexander Litvinenko, the Skripals, and Alexei Navalni.
Russian claims about US bioweapons labs in Ukraine seem so unlikely that I can't take them seriously. If the US wanted to do this, Ukraine would have been totally unsuitable. The US would not have chosen a country that is not its ally, which has a recent history of governmental instability, and where Russia was waging a low-intensity war. Stupider decisions have been made, but Russian disinformation is a more plausible explanation than that there is any truth in this.
It seems that Russia is interfering with GPS signals near its western borders in Europe.
I was in Moscow in 2019, and while in a car driving around in an area fairly near the Kremlin, the driver told me that navigation was leading him astray. He said that that was common in that area. I supposed it was a precaution to interfere with air attacks.
Putin's repression in Russia started over ten years ago and gradually intensified.
The House Judiciary Committee has urged prosecution of Amazon for *a "pattern and practice of misleading conduct that suggests” it was acting to influence the committee’s investigation into online market competition.*
*The [sanction-evader's] guide to getting round the UK’s economic crime bill.*
The original says "oligarch" but that word is misleading for these Russian billionaires since it means that a few rule together. These few are rich but have little political power.
[The bully] "admired" Vladimir Putin's [power] to kill anyone he wanted, according to his former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.*
"In my experience with him, he loved the dictators, he loved the people who could kill anyone, including the press," she also said.
The new plastic pollution treaty could make it possible to sue companies for their disposable plastic packaging.
This would vary from country to country, according to the country's legal system.
Regulation-evading "ghost guns" are now the easiest to obtain, for those who have crime or murder in mind.
A report from the last foreign journalist in Burma, after fleeing.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine is causing a global food shortage.
This shows that humanity is already too close to the edge. We must urgently curb world population growth.
(satire) *Biden Provides Nuclear Codes To Scammer Pretending To Be Pentagon.*
The US Navy will close the underground fuel storage site in Pearl Harbor that has been poisoning local water supply.
A special investigation has proposed a nationwide training system for cops. They would be retrained and tested every five years, to get or renew a license.
This would be a good idea in the US, too.
A deputy police chief acknowledged that the job of cop attracts men who want to "coerce" vulnerable people.
Some US cities are ordering thugs not to do high speed chases over minor crimes or offenses.
A climate strike has been announced for March 25. Past experience suggests that the site that gives information about strike events will require nonfree Javascript even to find them. If so, that will impede people who defend their own software freedom from participating in the climate strike. I won't be able in good conscience to post a link to their site, and I won't know where there is an event near me.
I can't believe that the people who organize the climate strike are intentionally working against the free software movement. Why would they do that, given that nonfree software promotes extra e-waste in addition to its direct injustice to every user?
More likely they simply don't see the problem in the usual "solutions" that mistreat them every day in other web sites.
Perhaps they make the assumption that since "everybody" uses these online dis-services, such must be acceptable. However, they know how to doubt that assumption when it's a matter of greenhouse gas emissions or other pollution. If only they recognized nonfree software as a kind of systemic pollution, they might choose solutions for their own sites that avoid creating yet one more problem of that kind.
Given the situation as it is, a natural workaround for us is to set up to scrape their site and post the information in another site which is accessible with no techno-ethical obstacle. I wanted to ask the person who has done this in the past, but perse has become unreachable.
Would anyone reading this like to do the job, in time for people to find strike events and participate? Please write to me if you are ready, willing and able to do it.
I hope the repeater site will be up and running by March 19 and announced by March 20. I know that's a bit fast, but that's the situation we are in.
I don't know the URL of the site where the organizers post this information.
Although the IPCC has reported that heat itself is starting to kill people (and other living things), the planet roasters are proposing that fracking is the way to fight Putin.
Australia's planet-roaster government is likewise trying to kill you.
In one of Australia's flooded, ruined towns, families now homeless know that the planet-roaster politicians did this to them.
Geg Palast suggests crushing Russia economically by allowing Venezuela to export oil again.
Cheap gasoline has an immediate appeal, but it will destroy civilization. Making fuel expensive is an inherent part of making transport decarbonize. But that should be a steady and gradual process — price shocks are not good for progress.
Is it valid to "offset" destruction an area of habitat by declaring another equal area legally protected? I don't believe so.
The reasoning for it seems to be based on the assumption that every area of forest that isn't protected now will certainly be destroyed later. Only thus would it follow that protecting one square mile now increases by one square mile the area of habitat that will ultimately survive.
That assumption is terribly pessimistic. If it were valid, disaster would be assured. But it clearly can't be valid in general, because any forest that isn't protected this year will probably still exist next year and could be protected then.
There is a questionable assumption on the other side, too. Declaring a square mile of forest "protected" won't assure it survives. It could be burnt in a wildfire 300 years from now, or next week.
I think the only valid way to offset the destruction of some habitat is to create a new area of substitute habitat — and that more easily said than done.
Putin is bombarding museums and cathedrals as well as living civilians.
Bolsonaro is making a final attack against the environment, the forest, and indigenous people.
In the UK, catching Covid-19 tends to make people poor.
That's a sure sign of a society that doesn't do enough to help sick and disabled people.
What is starting is not a "new cold war", it's a new era of greedy fight for geopolitical supremacy.
I fear that that is exactly the thing to get in the way of cooperation in decarbonization.
After the Fukushima meltdowns, Japan needed to reduce its electricity use quickly. Its methods may be useful now.
Moderna is narrowing its temporary pledge not to enforce some Covid vaccine patents. In the latest version, it applies only to half of the world's countries.
Decisions about state electoral districts seem to be splitting the US Supreme Court along nonpartisan lines.
George Monbiot: * Starving Putin’s military machine of funds and preventing the collapse of life on Earth: we can do both at once.*
Amazing that many of Europe's reserve gas storage facilities are owned by Russia, which emptied them in preparation for this crisis. European countries put their faith in "the market"; Putin was too clever to make that mistake.
* BlackRock is performing a high-wire act between its public support for green investment and oil industry clients, private emails suggest.*
* The US president is facing demands for America to do more for Ukraine –- but he’s also determined to avoid being the US president who started a third world war.*
Hertz has a pattern of accusing its customers of stealing cars, apparently based on erroneous information in its computer system.
Florida's government has decided to urge most adolescents not to get vaccinated, and parents not to vaccinate most children.
Its surgeon general had given no medical specifics to justify this position, perhaps because there are none. It is surely bad advice. Vaccinating a child protects that child. It also helps protect other children in the same school, and helps protect adults in their family.
I suspect that the reasons for this policy are political and derived from Republican ideology.
The Republican Party, with few exceptions, has opposed measures that reduce the spread of Covid. That includes masks and (since 2021) vaccination. Republican leaders started this when they discovered, in April 2020, that deaths from Covid-19 were concentrated among mainly Democratic demographic groups, such as blacks.
As the US commits the folly of unilateral tactical disarmament against Covid-19, by encouraging people to abandon masks, and fails to help people who work in a plant or office to stay home when sick, reducing Covid-19 to a low level rests on vaccination. The prevalence of the disease has been decreasing for around 6 weeks, but we cannot count on that to continue if we cease pushing it along.
*The sanctions strategy is flawed. To defeat Putin, you have to know how the Kremlin works.*
Another article suggested that Putin's main subordinates have some influence on him and suggests putting personal sanctions on them.
Robert Reich suggests sanctions that would hit 10,000 Russians that own property in the US.
*Now Let's Do the American Oligarchs.*
The Russian billionaires grabbed big pieces of Russian industry in the 90s, but they do not dominate Russia as the word "oilgarch" implies. (As a result, punishing them may not do much to influence Putin.) They are parasites on Russia.
By contrast, the US plutocrats (billionaires and US big businesses) have real power over the US through the elected officials that they buy. We see that in the power of the Republican Party, which is funded by some of them, and in the poverty of most Americans. They are worse than merely parasites.
*To those who wish to penalise poor people, cold and hunger are signs of a perfect system.*
Why might you wish to do that? If you have entered the service of a greedy billionaire who wants every penny that the poor have, there's not much difference between getting the most for your boss and leaving most people with the least.
Putin's forces have cut off the electric power to Chernobyl. This risks damage which could lead to radiation leaks. Also, the International Atomic Energy Agency can no longer monitor the plant.
Seeing as this has happened in Chernobyl and in Zaporizhzhiya, it is surely no accident.
US cities today are still shaped by the racist discrimination of city planners of 100 years ago.
China is considering making "fake news" a crime, as Putin recently did in Russia. Like Russia, China will surely accuse reporting not in accord with the state's assertions as "fake".
Rebecca Solnit: *[The wrecker's] power is fading: Trumpism [sic] is the clear and present danger now.*
We should call the dishonesty he spreads "trumpery" — that describes it better.
US citizens: phone your senators and urge them to support a new non-nuclear deal with Iran.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Global heating "amplifies risks all the way through [Australia's food] supply chain, from farm to warehouse to supermarket shelves."*
Russians are learning how Putin took the Russian army for his own use, and about the death or capture of their loved ones as a result.
The EPA is about to approve use of neonicotinoid pesticides nationally.
The effects on bees and other non-pest insects could be disastrous.
Putin has given civilians in Sumy and Irpin a real opportunity to evacuate, deeper into Ukraine.
This replaces the previous mockery of an evacuation plan, inviting Ukrainian civilians to flee to "safety" in Russia.
Holly Sklar and Chip Berlet: *NED, CIA, and the Orwellian Democracy Project.*
Australian floodwaters will destroy seagrass and cause dugongs and turtles to starve.
Dugongs are related to manatees, which are starving now in Florida due to the loss of most of the seagrass there.
Urging the BBC not to "clean up" old programs to make them politically correct.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate the harm caused by SESTA/FOSTA.
I supported the campaign against that law. It prevents voluntary sex workers from advertising by punishing any site that will publish their ads, and does so in a dishonest way.
Everyone: call on UPS to stop retaliating against injured workers and delaying their medical care.
Comparing the Israeli occupation of Palestine with Putin's attempt to conquer Ukraine.
On fighting right-wing book bans in US schools.
The Manhattan District Attorney concluded that the evidence for fraud in the Trump Organization was not strong enough to bring charges against the wrecker personally.
*Don't let high energy prices derail UK green agenda, say climate experts.*
The same conclusion applies world-wide. Global heaing effects will cause disaster on an unprecedentd scale — perhaps a hundred times the casualties of World War II, Predictions of numbers harmed tend to work bny adding the various forms of harm we can project into the future. They do not take account of the still-unknown ways these harms will interact.
* Analysis of satellite observations show [Amazon] forest is losing stability, with "profound" [I'd say disastrous] global implications.*
*Oil and Gas Giants Under Fire for Fueling Russian War on Ukraine.*
The fact that Russia's economic power (and thus, its military power) are due to selling fossil fuels is not what makes its invasion of Ukraine evil. But it is the cause of Europe's weak position vis-a-vis Russia.
But the power of the fossil fuel companies is much bigger than that of Russia. It is like ten Russias, all allied in war against the survival of civilization.
Ralph Nader: Biden once again failed to try to mobilize the people to make Congress pass the progressive laws he has asked for.
*Demand grows for UK ministers to reclassify psilocybin for medical research.*
During the era of leaded gasoline, many American children's brain development was damaged by lead that they breathed in. A study estimates that half the adults in the US as of 2015 had been affected by this.
The high street crime level that began in the 60s and ended in the 90s has been meticulously traced to lead in the air. Although tetraethyllead was added to gasoline starting in the 1920s, the amount of automobile traffic was much lower then; lead poisoning of the populace did not become a significant problem in the US until after World War II.
Fortunately, we are not spreading lead through gasoline any more. But other sources of lead poisoning, such as lead pipes for water and lead paint, are still being gradually removed.
Last year, Boston was subsidizing the replacement of lead water supply pipes running from the water mains to individual buildings.
The impact of lead fell most heavily on disprivileged groups, for the usual reason: people with more money can afford to live in places where they are safe from these problems. I can't blame anyone for trying to do that, but the state's responsibility includes protecting everyone from such problems, once the problems are known.
New satellites will give a much better capability to find leaks of methane.
However, unless we follow detection with correction, finding the leaks will be useless. I don't see any real effort to stop these emissions.
Programs that monitor violent men and interrupt their violence can be very effective at making other people safe from them.
An experiment will see if waste from processing rice can serve as food in the ocean for more fish.
It's still officially winter, but there is a dangerous wildfire in Florida.
Civilians in conquered cities in Ukraine are courageously holding unarmed protests, telling the Putin forces to get out.
*Ukrainians Find That Relatives in Russia Don't Believe It's a War.* They have been fooled by Putin's enormous range of disinformation sites.
Investigators have discovered that when enough "independent" sources repeat the same disinformation, many people have trouble distinguishing disinformation from sincere reports. Russia, the US extreme right-wing, and fossil fuel companies, have set up large enough networks of sites to "corroborate" each other.
Almost 200,000 immigrants being considered for deportation from the US are subject to a system of electronic tracking whose operation is outsourced to a company.
Outsourcing government activities to a private company normally leads to lower pay, worse working conditions, and doing a hurried, lousy job. This activity is no exception.
All such outsourcing should be prohibited.
A separate issue is whether tracking people like this is justified. It can be legitimate to place special rules on people present in the US without authorization, but there is still the question of whether it is necessary.
Mikhail Shishkin: *My dear Russians –- the Ukrainians are fighting Putin’s army for their freedom, and ours.*
*Our climate solutions are failing - and Big Oil’s fingerprints are all over them.* Oil companies are big participants and sponsors of the work that is supposed to stop them from destroying our ecosystems.
Putin has proposed to allow civilians to flee from some Ukrainian cities that his army is bombarding; but those fleeing certain cities would be allowed only to go to Russia or Belarus.
Inside Putin's prison is hardly a place of safety.
This offer is not serious. It is meant only to carry a message — but what message? To Ukrainians, it will display contempt, but it will take more than that to demoralize Ukrainians.
It carries a different message to the Putin's supporters around the world. They will take it at face value and present it as the deepest magnanimity.
That could offer us an opportunity to identify some disinformation sites. Anyone who presents this offer of "safety" seriously is one of Putin's disinformation repeaters.
The UK's intentional hostility towards immigrants is keeping out Ukrainians refugees like everyone else.
Brain scans show that even mild Covid-19 infections damaged brain tissue and reduced some mental abilities. The damage was measured months later.
This data is from infections before Delta and Omicron.
A Russian journalist talks about Putin's imposition on Russia of Soviet-style mandatory lies that change from day to day. Russians can now understand what life was like for their great-grandparents.
Americans, this is what Trumputin sought (and still seeks) to impose on the US.
Tourism nowadays no longer brings people into deep contact with foreign cultures. Is it good for the world, or is it merely a deeply unsustainable form of entertainment?
South Korea has been trying to triangulate between ties to the US and commercial interests in China. But the people are wisely rejecting China.
It has been 70 years since China invaded South Korea. During much of the intervening time, China was not a potential immediate enemy. Peace must have seemed possible. But with the new, aggressive China, peace is at most temporary.
The Putin forces are endangering operations at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by requiring the staff to get permission for everything they do to it.
*The US should continue investing in masks, tests, ventilation, vaccination campaigns, wastewater monitoring and other measures to prevent and respond to the next surge, experts said. And when the next wave begins rising, communities should pay careful attention to changing levels of risk.*
Russia has thrown a monkey wrench into negotiations on resuming the non-nuclear deal with Iran. Putin demanded an exemption to the sanctions on Russia for Russia's trade with Iran. The west won't go along with that.
Iran criticized the Russian demand, If Iran and western countries are ready to make a deal, I think they could do so without Russia's participation.
*The people of Ukraine need our solidarity. But not just because they're "like us".*
*The tight web of lawyers and PR firms who oil the wheels for [Russian] billionaires.*
Belarusian opposition leader Tsikhanouskaya says that Lukashenko no longer controls the Belarusian army — it takes orders from Putin now. The opposition is urging Belarusian soldiers to switch sides if they are sent to Ukraine.
US citizens: call on Congress to Pass the Green New Deal for Public Schools.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on Justice Thomas to recuse himself from insurrection-related cases, because his wife is part of an organization that promotes insurrection.
US citizens: call on Biden to cancel student loan debt.
US citizens: call on US states to make sure people subject to felony disenfranchisement know their status, so that they are not imprisoned for mistakenly trying to register to vote.
Beyond this, we should abolish felony disenfranchisement — it is an injustice, and when combined with systemic racism that puts lots of blacks in jail, results in disenfranchising a substantial fraction of blacks.
US citizens: call on Congress to fight inflation by taking on corporate greed and concentrated power.
US citizens: call on Secretary Buttigieg to release the rule to measure greenhouse gas emissions created by the national highway system.
US citizens: call on Congress to make sure insulin is available to everyone anyone in the US for no more than $35 per month.
US citizens: rebuke DeSantis for claiming that masks are "theater."
US citizens: call on Biden to admit more Ukrainian refugees.
1/3 of Britons age 16 to 64 suffer from a long-term illness. That is shocking.
The number has increased due to Covid, but what's even more shocking is that almost all of these cases existed before Covid.
4,300 more Russians held a coordinated nationwide protest against Putin's invasion of Ukraine. That makes almost 12,000 antiwar protesters in prison.
I hope that people planning to protest inform their friends, so that their disappearance will be understood for what it actually was, rather than giving rise to mere curiosity.
In France, people are expressing their resentment against Putin's invasion of Ukraine by condemning the dish, poutine, which is pronounced the same.
What I've said for years is that poutine is such a disgusting combination of foods that pronouncing a person's name like that is an unforgivable insult. It is unacceptable to do that to a foreign head of state. We should rather pronounce the name "Putin" in French just as it is written.
A prominent right-wing Brazilian congressman expressed contempt for Ukrainian refugee women, regarding them as objects to take advantage of. That attitude towards other people seems quintessentially right-wing to me.
The House investigation reported evidence to suspect that the corrupter committed crimes in trying to steal the 2020 election. Call on the DOJ to investigate these crimes.
A Kansas City thug has been sentenced to 6 years in prison for killing Cameron Lamb, who was backing his truck into the garage of his home.
It looks like someone tried to plant a gun at the scene to substantiate a claim that Lamb was armed. It's too bad the thugs are getting away with that crime.
*Former National Security Advisor John Bolton says 'Putin was waiting' for Trump to withdraw the United States from NATO in his second term.*
The UK has failed to deal with the problem of SLAPP lawsuits, in which rich people and businesses sue people for libel (or threaten to sue) to stop them from accusing wrongdoing. Even if the person sued is telling the truth, perse may not have the money to pay to defend the lawsuit.
Now Russian billionaires are using this to stop the UK from putting sanctions on them until they have time to sell their UK assets. So the UK is finally looking into how to block SLAPP lawsuits. That would be a change for the better, in general, as it would eliminate part of the unjust power of the rich.
Some US states adopted anti-SLAPP laws a few decades ago, but some have not done so.
More generally, the cost of defending a libel suit in the UK is enormous, so they are used to protect criminals as well as to deter criticism of tyrants such as Putin.
Deregulated lending causes a danger of financial crashes. That happened in 2008, and it can happen again. The results could hurt everyone. This illustrates a danger to freedom from the use of programs that are run jointly by various parties — a danger that can happen even if the programs are free.
First, to explain the danger of deregulated lending. It comes from "leverage" — the practice of borrowing to invest. I refer to Cory Doctorow's article for this topic.
Leverage is dangerous when it goes beyond a certain amount. When the market goes down, those who have invested with leverage are forced to put in more money, and that compels them to sell other property, which often accelerates the crash. This is what happened in 1929 to cause the great crash, and the worldwide great depression.
After the crash, the US assured this would never happen again by placing regulations on banks, designed to limit the amount level of leverage. What brought this vulnerability back, decades later, was the growth of lending that bypassed bank loans and thus evaded the regulations. That caused the financial crisis of 2008.
Due to the political power of finance (as distinguished to business in general), the US has not adopted new regulations to stop that from happening again. Meanwhile, "distributed finance" using smart contracts is pretty much equivalent and creates the same kind of danger of a crash.
Instead of a loan contract written in English but so complex you have no real chance of understanding it, you'd be asked to agree to an Ethereum smart contract so complex that you have no real chance of understanding it, even supposing you can read the language it's written in.
Now let's return to the issue of software and freedom.
Using a nonfree program is automatically an injustice, because someone else controls it and you can't change it. There are no exceptions to that.
A free program can't be unjust in that way. That doesn't mean a free program can't ever be unjust. In the simple case where you run it by yourself, it would be very difficult for the free program to be unjust. But other scenarios are not so simple. The use of a program jointly by multiple parties creates other ethical issues, other threats.
For instance, if you want to borrow money, and each lender insists that you must run, jointly, a particular Ethereum program which you can't change and which can make you owe thousands of dollars, that is dangerous. If that Ethereum program is free, that means a different lender can modify it and offer to lend using another version. But that does not directly give the borrowers (who have less power to start with than the lender) any freedom.
How does this differ from the classic case of a client program that talks to a server program on someone else's server? If the client program is free, you can use a modified version to talk to the same server. If the server wants some information about you, you control what information to send. You can lie, if you choose, and in some cases lying might be morally and/or legally legitimate.
When the program is part of a system that makes it impossible or ineffective to lie, that changes things. Such a program could be part of a web of social control, and there is no limit in principle to how much control it can exercise. Mostly we see this in nonfree programs for "test proctoring", but we also see the beginnings of it in free programs such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
US hotel owners have figured out how to use a financial instrument, REITs, as an excuse to exploit workers.
The bully's practice of immediately expelling asylum seekers, which Biden has inexplicably continued, has been limited by an appeals court. It ruled that the US cannot expel them to places whey they are likely to face persecution.
The bully instituted this policy in the name of Covid-19, claiming that the immigrants might carry it. That was true, but since they are no more likely to have Covid-19 than the people already on the US side of the border, it is no justification for expelling them. The bully's real reason was probably as a way to demonize immigrants, for political motives.
Why Biden did not simply end the practice, I don't know. Some Democrats push him to end it now.
Two further levels of appeal are possible. Will Biden continue appeals?
*Ukraine claims battlefield successes as Mariupol evacuation falls apart.*
The US is planning to send Ukraine more airplanes. It takes time to get accustomed to flying a new kind of plane. Thus, the US need to send Russian-made planes that Ukrainian air force pilots are thoroughly accustomed to flying.
A fringe movement among paleontologists demands to use present-day human countries to determine where to keep fossils of organisms that lived long before humans, and long before any human countries.
I think these fossils should be made available to science in the way that is best for their scientific study. I'm not a paleontologist, so I don't know what that way would be, but I am sure it is not a matter of nationalism.
If these fossils go to a museum somewhere, at least they will be available somehow for scientific study. What's most outrageous is when people demand to "rebury" human remains that were found near where they live. That makes the remains totally unavailable for scientific study by newer methods — such as, through their DNA.
*Supreme court blocks [psychologists] behind CIA’s "enhanced interrogation" from testifying [in a Polish court].*
They were summoned to confirm that Abu Zubaydah had been tortured in a CIA "black site" in Poland. This would not have revealed any secrets, only confirmed what the US did to him.
It is shameful that US officials set out to block that testimony. The duty of any US official is to punish torture.
*Where to Crack Down on Russia Oligarchs? Try South Dakota.*
South Dakota plays a significant role in some methods rich people use for hiding their wealth.
There are actually female judges in Egypt.
What is not clear is whether an Egyptian trial presided over by a female judge is going to pay more attention to law, justice and evidence than an Egyptian trial presided over by a male judge.
The Sackler family agreed to pay 6 billion dollars in settlement of claims over harm done by oxycontin.
The US condemned Putin for using cluster bombs on Ukraine, but the US has refused (like Russia) to sign the treaty to ban cluster bombs.
We should hold politicians of various countries responsible for starting wars of aggression. 1.5 million Russians have said they oppose Putin's war.
Bogus Johnson got an official rebuke for misleading the public about the UK employment rate.
The most right-wing US politicians support Putin. This makes sense to me. They, like Putin, are enemies of freedom for people who don't agree with them.
*House January 6 Panel Accuses Trump of 'Criminal Conspiracy to Defraud' US.*
(satire) *Drano Introduces New Shampoo For Eliminating Drain-Clogging Hair At Source.*
Hawaii state court has allowed a climate lawsuit by Honolulu against big oil companies to proceed.
*US Praised for Plan to Transfer Covid [vaccine] Tech to WHO.*
Florida high school students went on strike against Republican anti-gay bills.
*Russian Invasion Bolsters Case for Ending Use of Fossil Fuels.*
*DOJ Must Permanently Bar Insurrectionists From Public Office.*
(satire) *U.S. Seizes New York City Borough Belonging To Russian Oligarch.*
*Oil and gas lobbyists are using Ukraine to push for a drilling free-for-all in the US.*
Some small towns in Ukraine are being shelled into ruins by the Putin forces.
They are located near the edge of the rebel areas. The Putin forces have not been able to capture them, as the inhabitants are resisting furiously.
In Kharkiv they are constantly attacking civilian targets.
Influential Tories have connections to easy money from Russian billionaires.
I'm not sure we should call them "oligarchs", since they do not collectively rule Russia.
Bad news, working Americans — the "pressure for higher wages" is decreasing.
Except that, given the inflation caused when profitable companies with little competition raise prices because nothing holds them back, the so-called "higher wages" really mean "the same wages in real terms."
A study finds that each additional drink of alcohol, on a given day, does greater harm to the brain.
Brett Solomon: *THERE ARE SIGNIFICANT, real-world benefits to having an accepted and recognized identity. That’s why the concept of a digital identity is being pursued around the world, from Australia to India… I am nevertheless convinced that digital ID, writ large, poses one of the gravest risks to human rights of any technology that we have encountered. Worse, we are rushing headlong into a future where new technologies will converge to make this risk much more severe.*
In 2015 I proposed that the remedy is to prohibit systems that systematically collect personal data. That solution is drastic, but nothing less will do.
Five giant agribusiness companies pledged at Cop26 to reduce deforestation. A week later they lobbied to weaken the EU plan to do that.
*Sky News journalists evacuated after being shot at by Russian "death squad".*
In the interests of balance, I have to remind people that the Bush forces did something comparable in 2003 when they fired at the building that housed the Baghdad office of Al-Jazeera.
*Biden Urged to Prevent 'Catastrophe' by Reversing Seizure of Afghan Funds.*
One proposal for a peace deal for Ukraine and Russia.
The proposal for referenda in Luhansk and Donetsk presents a complication. Which are the territories that these referenda would decide about? And who would be allowed to vote in them?
After Putin seized Crimea, he chased out those who would not bow down to him, then held a Putinesque bogus election about whether to approve the seizure. Naturally, Putin won the election. That is not a valid way to decide anything. These elections have to be honest, and include everyone who lived in those areas before Putin' supporters made others flee.
One idea that occurs to me is that Ukraine would not be part of NATO, but the west could commit to helping to defend Ukraine if it is attacked. In practical terms, the difference is that Ukraine would never be called upon to join in a war unless Ukraine itself were attacked.
US citizens: call on Biden to fire the official that is stubbornly trying to privatize Medicare.
US citizens: call on Congress to Pass the College for All Act.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on Congress to stop providing weapons to Saudi Arabia.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The ACLU is suing to stop Texas from persecuting parents that enable their transgender children to get puberty-delaying or sex-change medical treatment.
I've learned that such treatment is very effective against depression and suicide among trans youth. So I am very much in favor of making it available.
But I think we need to have an objective way to refer to the treatments we are talking about, one that doesn't incorporate a built-in stance about them. I don't like the term "gender-affirming treatments" because it tries to twist people's arms to approve of them. I'd rather approve of them by my own free choice.
*[Insurance company] AIG to Stop Insuring Coal, Tar Sands, and Arctic Drilling.*
We will still have to fight to get them to stop insuring other gas and oil projects.
Putin shut down the last independent news source in Russia, and the staff are trying to flee.
The CDC's revised mask guidelines are based on just one goal: to prevent hospitals from getting full.
That goal is important, but the CDC has abandoned other important goals, such as reducing the total number of people who eventually get sick, which is the way to reduce the number who eventually develop Long Covid disabilities, and the number who eventually die of the disease.
One of the Oath Keepers pled guilty to seditious conspiracy for 6 Jan 2021.
This will include testifying against the others.
*If we are concerned about the situation in Ukraine when both nations have access to largely affordable food and water, what is going to happen when water becomes scarce and food prices soar? We can answer this question by looking at our recent past.*
The article is blind to one aspect of the issue: that each country needs to curb its population growth to avoid making the problem even more difficult.
*Opinion: Five vile things Trump did to Zelensky and Ukraine that you forgot about.*
Why it would be a bad idea to cut Russia off from the internet.
Increasing aridity in the US southwest is lowering the water level in the lakes behind hydropower dams. A little lower and those dams will cease to generate electricity.
People will use fossil fuels instead, thus speeding the development of more aridity.
*Interpol arrest warrant allegedly targeting Kuwaiti princess and partner "on political grounds".*
The history of "economic warfare", a.k.a. trade sanctions, and what they imply.
People-smugglers find it easy to make holes in the bullshitter's "impenetrable" wall on the Mexican border.
*The Guardian view on Putin's siege tactics in Ukraine: a war crime by another name.*
Calling for the US to adopt a no-first-use policy for nuclear weapons.
The Putin forces attacked a Ukrainian nuclear power plant with artillery and hit one of the reactor blocks. (The shelling started a fire in a building at the site, of no crucial importance.)
To reach the plant, soldiers fired at civilians who were blocking the road.
By giving the order to fire on the plant, Putin risked serious damage to the plant and releasing radioactive materials. That would have endangered people in a wide area, including Ukrainians, Russians who live to the east, and to some extent people in the European countries to the west.
We have to interpret this as a form of threatening a nuclear attack.
This shows a powerful reason not to have nuclear power plants anymore.
The US has prohibited mandatory arbitration contracts that require workers to deal with sexual harassment or crimes at work through arbitration instead of going to court.
It is a good first step, but the same needs to be done for other sorts of accusations, and customers as well.
The UK must close the avenues of corruption that Russian oligarchs — and other rich people — have taken advantage of.
California's plan to end the release of microplastics into the environment.
*In several prominent cases, black people got harsher sentences for unintentional voting errors than whites who committed fraud.*
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the exceptions.
US citizens: call on Senators Schumer and Menendez to take up the nominees for 50 vacant offices for US diplomats.
The Russian Army has become the Putin Forces.
*Former Delaware [thug] charged in two excessive force cases after surveillance video went viral.* He faces a potential sentence of 13 years in prison.
I am very gratified to see prosecution of thugs extend to those whose crimes did not kill anyone.
*Rich Nations Driving Biodiversity Loss Called to Invest Billions in Developing World.*
Russian media meet Fawlty Towers — "Don't talk about the war!"
(satire) *Crows Evolve New Blond Look Concluding 17-Million-Year Goth Phase.*
One of the flaws of "carbon emission trading" is that speculators enter the trading market. That is causing volatility now in the EU's emission trading market — the price has fallen, so that it is now cheaper to pollute.
A carefully-designed carbon tax would avoid this problem. It has no room for speculation. Furthermore, it is possible to make a special increase the tax if emissions are not declining fast enough.
George Monbiot: *We must confront Russian propaganda – even when it comes from those we respect.*
*The argument of the Left should be, that in 2003, other governments did not put enough pressure on the United States over Iraq. Not that it is necessary to exert less pressure on Russia over Ukraine now.*
*Biden Announces "Crackdown" on Profiteering Shipping Cartels to Fight Inflation.*
Biden (and many state and local officials) have yielded to pressure from fools and assholes, and decided to encourage people in most of the US to go without masks.
As the article says, this policy puts vulnerable people on their own as increasing numbers of people either say, "It's safe now" (the fools), or "Fuck you, I won't go to any trouble to avoid giving you a disease" (the assholes). There are lots of vulnerable people — I read that in the UK they amount to 1/4 of the population. I have no such figure for the US, but I am one of them.
The Covid transmission rate in Massachusetts has been going down (I don't have access to info about other states), but last week it decreased only 27% — less than before. How fast it continues to decrease will depend on how much we take precautions, including masks and vaccination. If many Americans stop using masks, the transmission rate will decrease more slowly, and may start increasing again.
Imagine if millions of people got tired of brushing their teeth and decided to stop worrying about the danger of losing them in a few years That's what this seems like to me.
Biden talked about a "test to treat" system. In principle that is good, but how often should you get tested? If you have to take the subway to work several days a week, and/or if you are near other people at work, you could catch Covid-19 any working day. Should you get tested on each working day? Can the system handle that much testing? Can you afford whatever it will cost?
Will low-paid "essential workers" be able to participate in this system?
The treatments available are for preventing severe disease that might lead to death. I have not heard whether they prevent lasting disability. Do we know whether "long Covid" is still a danger, with Omicron? I have seen no info on this, and if we don't know it isn't still a danger we have to presume it is. Long Covid used to be far more common than death, and some forms of it are as bad as death in my estimation. Fatigue all day? Mental disorganization? Losing the sense of taste and smell and finding all food boring or horrible?
I have started talking with people I know about the importance of using N95 masks, and the fact that drug stores are distributing them gratis in the US. Efforts to inform the public have not reached most people. Now that good masks are available, everyone should switch.
* Wealthy nations accused of depriving poorer ones of nutrient-rich food and wasting mackerel, sardine and anchovy stocks — to feed farmed salmon.*
I don't think there is anything wrong in principle in farming salmon, but we who are wealthier must not starve the poor.
At the same time, every country has an obligation to stabilize its population. If we don't end population growth, it will reduce everyone to poverty. Now that we are hitting global resource limits, no people should imagine that they can have population growth without taking from other people. Humanity must back off from these limits, and the only human way is by a lot fewer births.
Right-wing Polish racists attacked nonwhite refugees who had fled Ukraine, and are organizing disinformation falsely accusing refugees of committing crimes, to stir up support for their scapegoating.
US citizens: call on Biden to pardon everyone convicted for possession of marijuana.
The mother of a mixed-race child who looks white is suing his school for telling him to think of himself as an "oppressor" because he looks white.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the exceptions.
The fact that some would call that boy "black" adds an extra element of irony to the case, but I don't think it changes the issue at all. It's wrong to judge people as guilty based on their race. Whether guilty for being white or guilty for being black, it's wrong.
Meanwhile, Republicans are encouraging a confusion between anti-white bigotry and critical race theory. Let's look at each one and see the difference.
Critical race theory deals with the history of institutions and laws, and how some of them shaped and perpetuated racism. It's important to teach that, and important to learn that, but prejudging individuals is not part of it.
Anti-white bigotry seems to be a perversion of anti-racism. It uses terms such as "white guilt" and "white debt" and teaches that anyone who is white ought to spend per whole life in shame. That isn't critical race theory, so let's not call it that.
A system that forces children into debt is oppression, and that includes "white debt". To be born indebted is like being born enslaved.
When Republicans condemn teaching "critical race theory", and define that term to include "white debt", that is an instance of their general political approach: disinformation.
The Tories have degraded to the point that 15% of Britons are ready to pay for private medical treatment.
Next step: make the NHS so inadequate that anyone who can afford private treatment will go for that, and the rest will get only the most basic treatment for the easily cured diseases. More or less like the US.
The corrupter has been close friends with Putin since before being elected, and has been trying to undermine or abolish NATO.
Rebecca Solnit: *It's time to confront the Trump-Putin network.*
I am skeptical of the claim that Wikileaks got the material showing the dishonesty of Clinton and the Democratic National Convention towards Sanders from Russian spies. Assange said that was not so, and I trust him.
However, that was just a side point in the article linked to.
Overall, I think the name "Trumputin" fits what we are dealing with.
Two extremist Republicans in Congress have crossed the Republican Party's line by speaking at a white supremacists' event. Powerful Republican politicians are condemning them.
Taiwan became a democracy only in the 1960s. For decades after World War II, it was a repressive dictatorship run by the rulers recently defeated on the mainland. Taiwan is now beginning to examine the repression of that period.
The UK government tested flammable cladding materials 15 years before the deadly fire of 2017. Somehow it neglected to take steps to update the fire code to prohibit use of those materials.
The UK government under Tory rule has shown a pervasive tendency to fail in ways that screw individual and let businesses get away with murder. This is one example. Another is the privatized "jobcenters" that default to punishing welfare recipients for any technical violation of the onerous rules.
Republican officians promote a long list of policies that tend to shorten Americans' lifespans (especially poor Americans and disprivileged groups). It's mostly because they are hand-in-glove with racists, religious fanatics and greedy billionaires.
However, when the wrecker was president they got even worse. Nowadays they support policies that make America more deadly, because that gives their followers a chance to enjoy being jerks.
Lukashenko, who has become Putin's puppet, announced that Belarus would retract its pledge not to have nuclear weapons.
Doing this publicly is a way to make it act as a threat. For instance, he could make vague threats against NATO.
In addition, next time the Belarusians try to kick out Lukashenko, he will be able to threaten to nuke Belarus's cities. But I suppose he will not actually do that.
Trumputin canceled the IRBM treaty, with which both the US and Russia agreed not to station intermediate-range ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads in Europe. Would Putin like to reestablish that treaty? If so, it would make sense for the US to demand that Belarus pledge to continue not to have nuclear weapons as part of the treaty.
Has Putin shown a wish to resume that treaty? I have to wonder whether Trumputin canceled it as a favor to Putin — to give him the benefit of getting out of that treaty, while dumping on the US the onus of terminating it.
Ukraine was torn between two factions, the pro-Russian faction and the pro-EU faction. There were a number of Nazis in the latter. But then Ukrainians conclusively rejected both factions, and the Nazis, by voting for President Zelenskiy.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy's surprising career before becoming president of Ukraine: he was a popular comic actor.
Ronald Reagan, the actor turned president, used his acting skills to lull Americans into letting the rich take a bigger fraction, and waiting like a cargo cult for wealth to "trickle down".
Zelenskiy uses his skills to be the best possible leader for a Ukraine under invasion.
Over 350 human rights defenders were murdered in 2021.
*Could international criminal court bring Putin to justice over Ukraine?*
Probably not — it would take a bolt of luck to be able to arrest him.
The UK is slowly considering imposing sanctions on Russian oligarchs linked to Putin, giving them time to sell what they own in Russia.
*Don't Be a Tankie: How the Left Should Respond to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine.*
Torrential rains on Australia's east coast have destroyed farms as well as homes.
How much more will it take to teach Australians to vote the planet-roasters out of office?
The ACLU is suing to stop Texas Republican officials from persecuting the parents of transgender children for giving them drugs (that they requested) to delay puberty or alter their secondary sexual characteristics.
*Egyptians seen in jail "torture" videos charged with spreading fake news.*
This illustrates how completely Orwellian many repressive governments have become, including Russia. China, Egypt, Nicaragua and more. Republicans have tried some of this in the US.
US citizens: call on Maine Gov. Mills to respect farmworkers and sign the bill that gives them the right to organize.
US citizens: call on Biden to get the world vaccinated against Covid-19.
*World leaders agree to draw up "historic" treaty on plastic waste.*
The Hindu Nationalists of India have reached the point where their elected officials openly demand denying Muslims the right to vote.
Meanwhile, their supporters commit violence, even going as far as murder.
(satire) *Teen Wondering Whether Boyfriend Even Loves Her If He Unwilling To Exploit Relationship For TikTok.*
The Belmarsh Tribunal does more than defend Julian Assange. It investigates the crimes of the "war on terror".
It won't be easy for sanctions on Russia to convince Putin to make peace. Diplomacy might do it.
Nigeria says that Poland is blocking Africans trying to flee Ukraine.
Some predicted many years ago that expanding NATO towards and into the former Soviet Union could make Russian leaders angry. To the extent that they wanted Russia to be a world power, reducing that power would be galling. For this reason, it would arguably have been wiser to hold back some distance, and leave a buffer zone.
However, we should not make the mistake of equating the reduction of a country's international power with attacking or destroying it. NATO expansion was not war. It did not include a military attack. It did not damage Russia's land, or its people, its capital, or its economy. It may have motivated Putin to start wars, but was in no sense grounds to start wars.
The IPCC says there is only a small window in which to mitigate the worst effects of global heating.
Bank sanctions have hit Russia very hard. Is there any way for the Russian people to tell Putin to change course, such that he can hear them?
The pyrocumulus clouds caused by more intense wildfires deplete the ozone layer.
As many problems caused by global heating get bigger, they start to have important indirect effects that cause new problems.
*UN Chief: IPCC Report a 'Damning Indictment of Failed Climate Leadership'.*
*Letting families in England choose schools hasn’t made things better –- just more stressful.*
*The evidence … suggests such measures have had minimal impact on educational attainment and have worsened class-based segregation between schools. Far from giving people a sense of control, the process has created a maelstrom of anxiety and disenchantment.*
Nigeria is destroying slums in a coastal city, leaving poor people with no possessions and nowhere to go. If they try to take anything with them, thugs attack them.
Tories have driven Britons into such poverty that they are begging for blankets — they can't afford heating.
US citizens: call on Biden and HHS Secretary Becerra to end the project to privatize Medicare.
US citizens: Tell Biden we need climate action now.
US citizens: call on Disney to stop funding anti-abortion politicians.
US citizens: call on your Senators to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson right away as a Supreme Court justice.
US citizens: call on your state governor to support banning foam cups and boxes made of polystyrene.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on Biden to protect mature trees in national forests.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: pledge solidarity with Russian anti-war activists against militarism by any country.
* People in Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia and Romania fear [that] Nato membership may not stop more Russian incursions.*
On the other hand, those westerners' dependence on Russian gas and oil is no one's fault except their own. Decarbonize!
California will empower fast food workers to negotiate collectively about wages.
*Munich Philharmonic sacks conductor Valery Gergiev over failure to denounce Putin.*
We achieve nothing against Putin by scapegoating Russians that state their support for him. Cancelling them undermines freedom of opinion in our own countries. Gergiev has little influence in the west — Trumputin is the Putin supporter that we should really be concerned about.
Global heating has caused a deep drought in northern Argentina, which resulted in big wildfires that have covered half of Paraguay with smoke.
US citizens: call on Congress to give the IRS the resources it needs to serve taxpayers and catch wealthy tax cheats.
5000 Russians have dared to protest against Putin's war, knowing they will be jailed.
Tigray is now fighting a local war with the neighboring part of the Afar region.
The people there are angry but also say that the hostility of Tigray, which they used to have close relations with, is confusing when seen from Afar.
Arguing against "disruption" as a desirable characteristic of business, and refuting supposed reasons to tolerate being disrupted.
That argument is valid as far as it goes; but the article, as usual in business-oriented writing, disregards entirely the danger of tracking people's movements.
*Russian Labor Confederation Demands Peace in Ukraine.*
Prohibiting slavery in northern states was a gradual process. A number of 19th century court decisions shed light on how free black women sued to win their children out of slavery.
Don't trash bottles of vodka without checking their origin — hardly any of it comes from Russia nowadays.
The Tories have decided to conceal most of the companies that got big loans to help them deal with the pandemic
Many of them committed fraud, but those whose names are secret can't be investigated to see whether they did so.
If a conquered country has an organized people, it can often use nonviolent resistance to compel the conqueror to make some compromises. In addition, if other enemies continue fighting the conqueror, this nonviolent resistance can help them defeat the conqueror so they can liberate the conquered country.
Nonviolent effort to reduce the oppressiveness of an occupation can do some good. But the occupation of Norway and Denmark lasted only 5 years. Ukraine could be occupied for decades.
I think that the fact that Ukraine is fighting bravely is the reason why NATO countries have chosen such strong nonviolent actions against Russia. If Ukraine had surrendered without a fight, it would never have stirred up such a response.
After writing that, I saw that Hariri said something similar.
Now we can say, "Strike a blow against Putin — decarbonize!"
Let's stop trying to figure out what aspects of people's minds are shaped by genes and which by their environment. The genes and the environment work together in such complex ways that there is no simple way to separate them.
Laurence H Tribe and Jeremy Lewin: The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court is prepared to attack climate defense on ideological grounds.
Putin's invasion has convinced the UK to force hidden owners of property in the UK to identify themselves.
The fossil fuel industry should be forced to fund the clean energy transition, not allowed to make even more money as the Ukrainian people suffer.*
A windfall profits tax is the least step we can take.
The leader of the Cop26 climate conference says that global heating effects are much worse than previously predicted.
The IPCC *report says human actions are causing dangerous disruption, and window to secure a livable future is closing.*
US citizens: call on Biden to reject ConocoPhillps's plan to construct a large oil field near Alaska's Arctic coast.
US citizens: call on Congress to advance drug pricing reform through the budget reconciliation process.
An EU representative denounced Putin's war with Ukraine, and his dishonesty both before and since, on behalf of the EU.
One point calls for a response.
Putinite weapons have hit civilian targets. That does not imply that troops knowingly attacked civilian targets, or that the weapons were aimed at those targets. War causes confusion, and fighting often does unintended damage. Consider how often troops in any army hit other troops on the same side, despite having rules designed to prevent that. I think we should wait for a clear pattern that goes beyond possible accidents before accusing Putinite forces of intentionally attacking civilians.
We do have grounds to accuse Putin of the principal Nuremberg crime: aggressive war.
As Bogus Johnson talks about supporting freedom and democracy, the Tories are attacking both of them in the UK.
Biden has continued the corrupter's experiment in privatizing Medicare, with only cosmetic changes.
US-based social networks are starting to resist the massive Russian disinformation wave.
So Russia is threatening to block them in Russia.
(satire) *Governor Abbott [of Texas] Warns Children Of Accepting Parents Often Grow Up To Become Accepting As Well.*
(satire) *Russian Soldiers' Guns, Tanks Vanish Into Thin Air As First Wave Of Sanctions Takes Effect.*
A new bicycle factory in England will be built in an area that is occasionally flooded — on stilts, so that it won't be shut down when that happens.
*Georgia GOP chair tells January 6 committee that [the wrecker's] campaign directed alternate elector effort.*
We can think of nuclear power plants as "pre-deployed radiological weapons". Just add a conventional bomb…
Here's what data Amazon admits collecting from people that do business with it.
How to stop it? That's easy. First, don't buy from Amazon. Second, ask your friends not to give Amazon your name, address, or anything else. If that has already happened, that doesn't mean you have to let it happen again!
I can testify that it isn't hard, because I do that for all online stores. The only exception I make is for prescriptions, since those have to be in my name.
The extra level of boycott that I do against Amazon is that, if someone is going to buy something for me — either as a gift, or as a favor which I'm going to reimburse — I say, "Please do not get it from Amazon!"
In Thailand, students are campaigning intensely against royalist censorship and repression.
Vladimir Sorokin: *Vladimir Putin sits atop a crumbling pyramid of power.*
An interview with Rana Ayyub, an Indian journalist that Modi's supporters are trying to censor via imprisonment.
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