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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.
British offshore wind-farms pay large sums to rich aristocrats for the "right" to operate.
There may be injustice in these details, and maybe some of these details should be changed. Perhaps some of the laws that require payment to the rich for permission to set up a wind farm.
But none of that calls into question the need to make the wind farm!
Canadians love their national medical system, but privatizers never give up trying to eliminate it.
*Lula Applauded for Naming Amazon Defenders as Brazilian Ministers.*
Hikvision video systems can classify people by many dimensions of personal characteristics, and purports to identify patterns of actions that suggest forbidden dissent.
*The crime victims’ advocate [who is] fighting mass incarceration.*
*Al Sharpton has warned Democratic leaders that they must step up the party’s appeal to African American voters or risk …Republican leaders making greater inroads with the Black electorate.*
I've read that the danger is even greater among Hispanics.
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 denounce 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.
*Sanders Calls on Buttigieg to Hold Southwest CEO Accountable for "Greed and Incompetence."*
The Taliban have forbidden women to work for NGOs. Decades of war have left many families with only women to earn money; now that they cannot work, they are desperate. Are they desperate enough to kill Taliban -- any Taliban they can get?
The west tried sending armies to defeat the Taliban, but the Taliban defeated them. The western-sponsored Afghan government was corrupt, and its army did not have the will to win that the Taliban had. There is no sense in trying that approach again. What could defeat the Taliban?
If Afghan women, in total desperation and with total determination, start killing whatever Taliban they can get their hands on, they can put an end to religious tyranny.
Nursing home care for disabled or demented old people in the UK is utterly lousy, because the nursing homes cannot hire enough staff to do the job right.
The necessary first step to fix this is to tax the rich more, and use some of that money to give nursing home staff a raise and increase the number of staff. But are there more workers available to hire? Where did the former staff go? Were they foreigners who cannot now work in the UK? The government could fix that by allowing more foreigners to immigrate and work. Are they disabled by long Covid? Fixing that would be harder.k
West Virginia Journalist Fired in Alleged Retaliation Over Reporting on Abuse in State [psychiatric] Facilities.*
*Danish Reporter Says Ukrainian Intelligence Tried to Coerce Her Into Working as a Propagandist.*
Human rights advocates are alarmed about Israel's new government, the most right-wing it has ever had, which is endorsing fascist, racist and colonialist policies towards Palestine.
Netanyahu has promised to legalize thefts of Palestinians' land carried out by private groups of Israelis, and to annex the whole West Bank. I expect that the next goal after that will be to expel all Palestinians, a few at a time so that it can deny the intention to expel them all.
iMonsters can be tracked for 24 hours after being switched "off." The author of the article considers this harmless in and of itself, but I disagree: simply recording your movements is harm.
A Minneapolis thug faces major charges for beating up Jaleel Stallings and seriously injuring him, while Stallings was lying prone on the ground. It also has financial relationships with major companies that would like to influence that policy.
Apple said it will implement end-to-end encryption for many purposes, including storing backups on Apple servers.
One can't really trust the security of this encryption, because it will be done by nonfree software running in a nonfree operating system. There would be nothing to stop Apple from making that software send Apple every encryption key the user uses.
A 28-year-old man, running for Congress, had to sleep on friends' couches at the end of the campaign. He won the election, and was rejected for an apartment in Washington because of his campaign debts.
(satire) D.C. Landlord Clarifies He Rejected Gen Z Congressman Because He’s Black.
The FDA disregarded its rules to approve the super-expensive and questionable Alzheimer's preventative, Aduhelm.
US citizens: call on USDA to plant prairie habitat for bees.
Robert Reich: *How the Corporate Takeover of American Politics Began*, in the 1970s.
*Big Pharma and [Republican] Allies Aim to Sabotage Medicare Drug Price Reforms.*
The House of Representatives decided not to give the Senate or the DoJ the evidence it has obtained in a year of investigating Big Oil.
How global heating causes occasional bursts of very cold air in the northern hemisphere.
The melting of so much Arctic sea ice has made the Arctic considerably warmer than it used to be, and that makes it easier for an air mass of Arctic air to head south and freeze people.
A company distributes software to crack the security on surveillance cameras and alter the recordings stored in them.
This is an additional reason why security cameras must not be connected to a network. To uphold security, they must be secure, and that means air-gapped.
The original reasons why security cameras must not be connected to a network is to avoid furthering massive surveillance of people in general, with the terrible threat of China-style repression.
Finally, the US is making substantial investments in decarbonizing electricity and ground transportation.
Other major sources of greenhouse gas emissions include agriculture, concrete. air transportation and plastic. The US needs to work on reducing emissions from all of them.
The question of whether to allow exposed total liar George Santos to take a seat in the House of Representatives will compel each other Republican member to take a public stand on whether there is any limit to what lies they will accept for grabbing power.
When programmers try to save time by using AI assistants to write code, they tend to overlook bugs.
(satire) *Self-Loving Tesla Forgives Itself For Running Over Child.*
France has required packaging and utensils provided with food to eat in a restaurant be reusable, and used many times.
Right wing politics is based on cruelty, and the behavior of its leaders and movement is sociopathic.
Mastodon's founder, Eugen Rochko, has rejected offers to convert Mastodon into a business and give him lots of money. He says that accepting such investment would make Mastodon as bad as Twitter.
Bravo!
*'The System' Is Ruining Our Present and Collective Future.* Especially for young people. This creates a special opportunity for political organizing.
The article proposes the AARP as an example to follow. Sad to say, the AARP attracts old people by offering them opportunities to save money, but it doesn't represent their interests.
Restrictions on abortion in US states led to measurably higher rates of suicide among women of reproductive age.
This is especially significant since it largely compares the same states before and after introducing restrictions.
The other result, that states which restrict abortion also show a worse state of health for women and infants, does not necessary demonstrate consequences of restricting abortion. They may be the more general consequences of being ruled by right-wing government.
*Flush With Record Profits, Exxon Sues to Block EU Windfall Tax.*
48,000 student academic workers at the University of California have accepted a new contract with big wage increases.
Recently released secret documents add to the evidence that the CIA was involved in something with Lee Harvey Oswald before the assassination of President Kennedy. However, it's not clear what they were doing. The CIA has 4,000 still-unreleased documents relating to Kennedy.
Describing the dynamic where companies make discussion sites that build real communities, then spoil them hoping to make the users purchase more.
There is an interesting aside about LiveJournal (which I never used), claiming it was used a lot by Russian dissidents, and eventually sold to a company that worked for Putin.
US corporations amass enormous quasi-monopolies by buying many small businesses one by one. The US government never investigates.
Details of the Global Minimum Tax system for corporations that the EU and US are plannimg to adopt.
My proposal for a progressive tax on a corporation's gross income, with the tax rate to depend on the global corporation's total gross income, is simpler and I expect it to have better results.
In addition to the standard moral reasons to treat prisoners of war with respect, Ukraine has a special practical interest in doing so. Every conscript in the Putin forces must wonder, "Should I look for a chance to surrender?" Ukraine should act so that the answer will be an unhesitating "Yes!"
Describing the requirements of the EU's Digital Services Act.
Every time I encounter the term "content", referring to publications, postings or messages, it makes me angry.
However, most of the substantial requirements look reasonable to me.
What I worry about is that some of the requirements may have the effect of requiring users to prove their identity. For instance, rules about "protecting children" could have the effect of imposing censorship on adults unless they prove their age by showing official identity documents.
Senator Warnock's victory in the Georgia runoff had to overcome very strong voter-suppression efforts.
California's antitrust lawsuit against Amazon could force it to change its operations, world-wide.
Even if we stop Amazon from doing wrong to its warehouse workers and its competitors, that won't end the injustice of snooping on its customers and making them run nonfree software. Please join me in refusing to accept such treatment.
The president can and should take steps to reduce rents for many Americans.
*How Private Equity Gave Rise to Extreme Inequality.*
Staff at the University of Leiden took down a painting of former administrators of the university because (1) they were depicted smoking and (2) they were all male.
The university president said that some people "do not feel represented" by the painting. So what? It doesn't represent me, either. It doesn't represent present-day people at all, and it wasn't meant to.
It's right to call for changing the past sexism which is visible in the painting. Evidently the university has already started doing so, since its current president is a woman.
It is sometimes necessary to break with past errors; to erase references to the past because of past errors is outrageous. The people of today have no right to demand that the art of the past be replaced to represent them.
BP tries to present itself falsely as a green oil company while planning to spend a lot more in fossil fuels than in renewable energy.
Summer camps in Crimea turned into prison camps for some Ukrainian children.
Australia is taking a stern attitude towards soldiers that try to cover up or disguise war crimes.
*UK aid to Afghanistan entrenched corruption and injustice, report finds.*
A powerful elite received most of the benefits.
The governor of New York said that the current blizzard is a "war with mother nature." I think that well describes the things humans have done to produce the global heating that made a storm this powerful happen.
She also called it "the blizzard of the century," which is an over-optimistic prediction about the storms of the next 77 years.
There is a campaign to make the word "Indian", referring to indigenous groups of the Americas, taboo.
The article claims that any use whatsoever of that term is "offensive", regardless of the intended meaning. I am skeptical of this, so I challenge those who think so to provide grounds for the claim.
The use of "Indian" to refer to people from the Americas started with an error, when Columbus believed he had reached India or what is now Indonesia. It also invites confusion, since there are more people in the US that were born in India than members of indigenous tribes. For clarity I usually write "indigenous" to identify the latter.
But those things do not add up to an offense or justify imposing yet another language taboo. There is no need to eradicate "Indian" from place names around the US.
Another conjecture about Musk's goal in dealing with Twitter: that he aims to make it explicitly serve as a tool for right-wing extremism.
The doctors that worked on US sleeping car trains created a special branch of medicine, known as Pullmanary medicine.
US citizens: Kavanaugh's ugly holiday party proves we need a SCOTUS code of ethics; call on Congress to enact one.
US citizens: tell Democrats such as Biden that the kind of "bipartisanship" that is desirable is to fight for progressive policies that most Americans support, even many Republicans — not making deals with right-wing extremists.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed documents from big oil companies and studied the tactics they use for climate disinformation. The committee was going to publish the documents, but seems to have been pressured out of it. Soon Republicans will take over that committee and kill the investigation completely.
The Putin forces shelled the market at the center of Kherson.
This leads me to think that they can't be terribly short of artillery shells.
(satire) *U.S. Treasury Introduces New Wild Bills That Can Be Used For Any Dollar Amount.*
*[Some of] the monsters of American capitalism: Trump, Bankman-Fried's, and Musk.*
The Tories hide behind "pay review bodies" instituted to set pay for NHS workers. These bodies do what the government wants, but the government can pretend it has nothing to do with the issue.
How Haiti's history of colonization and slavery drove it to today's ruin.
The "elections" of presidents Martelly and Moise were quietly imposed by the US government.
(satire) *New Sponsored Google Maps Feature Directs Every Driver To Denny's.*
This is a joke, but it illustrates a serious danger about Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS).
*The 17 findings in the January 6 committee’s final report.*
Peru's congress sneakily plans to eliminate the protected lands for "uncontacted" indigenous groups.
Over half a million current members of the US military have drunk PFAS-tainted water, preceded by millions of others in the past.
Chile will open an embassy to Palestine in occupied territory.
We can't help the very poor more than a little unless we tax the very rich much more.
*This Is the Dying Phase of Reaganism — and It's Hideous.*
*The question today is whether we as a nation and a people will recover from it, or if it will, as Reagan promised, destroy the American experiment of pluralistic liberal democracy.*
*Positive signals from Iran over nuclear deal put west in a tricky position.* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/20/positive-signals-from-iran-over-nuclear-deal-put-west-in-a-tricky-position
I suggest dropping sanctions against Iran, then inviting it to decide whether to continue arming Russia (and face sanctions for that) or stop arming Russia (and continue without sanctions).
*Israel's New Far-Right Government to Lift Ban on Parliamentary Candidates Inciting Racism.*
The US government is investigating a Texas school district's book ban as a civil rights issue.
Republicans in the Senate are fighting tooth and nail to keep poor Americans in hunger.
At least this deal replaces a temporary aid program with a permanent aid program. In the long term, that is a step forward. However, the permanent aid program is limited to families with children.
*Markey Asks Biden to Draft Plan for Ending Public Funding of Overseas Fossil Fuel Projects.*
Two-thirds of Antarctica’s native species are threatened by global heating.
The species most threatened is the emperor penguin, beloved by everyone.
*Make Big Oil Pay to Clean Up Their Mess on Public Lands.*
Medea Benjamin describes 10 good developments during 2022.
I disagree with her about one of them. The use of dollars as the standard international exchange currency gives the US a considerable economic advantage. 15 years ago, with US power more or less dominating the world and starting wars, I figured that ending that advantage would be a change for the better.
Today, however, US power is reduced while China's economic and military power is growing. China's government is repressive and aggressive, and it denies facts like any fascist. The US is the nucleus of resistance to China's aggression. If the US avoids falling into fascism, we will appreciate US power to resist China's dominion.
New York Governor Hochul nominated an anti-union conservative judge to the state's highest judgeship.
(satire) *FIFA Officials Open For 2030 World Cup Bribes.*
(satire) *Hundreds Of Swimmers Die Every Year Getting Tangled Up In Plastic Lane Dividers.*
*Court Finds EPA Approval of Bee-Killing Sulfoxaflor [a neonicotinoid] Unlawful.*
Long Covid is sometimes fatal. Just how often that occurs is an open question.
The Department of Justice has joined the lawsuit against Georgia election vigilantes.
The US is throwing a monkey wrench into the WTO's system for business-friendly resolution of trade disputes, by blocking nomination of judges to hear appeals. If you are in favor of business-friendly resolution of trade disputes, as the author of the article is, you will conclude that the US is doing something wrong.
I've condemned the WTO since the beginning, first because of its patent rules, and later because its system for "resolution of trade disputes" is used to stop countries from protecting themselves against harmful products that happen to be imported from other countries. The US tried to protect itself against flavored cigarettes, and to protect marine mammals from tuna caught in ways that killed them, and each time the WTO reached a judgment that compelled the US to give up on it.
I am sure the WTO has harmed other countries in similar ways, all based on the idea that every kind of business opportunity must be permitted.
Australia proposes to require people to prove their identity to sign up for a dating app, and undergo criminal background checks.
This is likely to mean that the app companies get a lot more data about each user, which they can then abuse.
If Australia passes a law to require these checks, it should also pass a law strictly limiting what other personal data the company can collect. It should not be allowed to know any user's location, ever, and it must delete all copies of a user's data when the user says to do so. Messages between users should be encrypted such that the company cannot decrypt them.
Even with this law, I would refuse to use those apps because they are nonfree software.
The Putin forces have stolen the collections of several archaeological museums in the captured areas of Ukraine. They have also destroyed archaeological sites by building fortifications on them.
*The [UK's] Rwanda deportation scheme might be legal, but it remains deeply shameful.*
The need to work for income as well as study, leaving students with no time to do their homework, is a major factor leading university students to cheat.
India's Hindu-nationalist government is also a Hindi-nationalist government, trying to impose Hindi on the 3/4 of Indians that don't speak Hindi.
Many defend English as India's de-facto "lingua anglica", because it is neutral — it does not prefer any one part of India over the others.
The evidence in the Jan 6 committee's report shows the Department of Justice that there is a basis to prosecute the corrupter.
I think its most important effect will be to show the public that prosecuting him is legitimate.
Dean Baker: *Industrial Policy Is Not a Remedy for Income Inequality.*
Fixing vulnerabilities in the function of the electoral college is not enough: we need to replace it with popular vote.
The electoral college was designed when the United States was founded. People thought of themselves as citizens of the various states, and thought of the union as literally a federation of states. In terms of those concepts, the electoral college made sense as a way for states to choose the chief executive of their federation. But we no longer think of the US that way.
Please urge your state to sign up to the National Popular Vote.
In the US, right-wing state governments reduce working people's life expectancy. But the mainstream media don't dare admit that one of the two political sides is better than the other.
US citizens: call on Senator Mary Peters to push to appoint people to the USPS board of governors who will replace DeJoy with a good postmaster.
US citizens: call on Senator Schumer to give Sellout Sinema no special favors.
Counsel for Democrats for how to gain in the 2024 elections.
A lot of this seems valid to me, but I see one pitfall to avoid. The next Republican presidential candidate could easily be DeMentis. To focus on the corrupter too strongly could be weak in opposing DeMentis.
I am not sure what is the best way to prevent that, but I have an idea: to focus condemnation on Republican demonization/distraction. All Republican candidates try to demonize weak "enemies" to take our minds off the powerful enemies: billionaires (both individuals and businesses).
* Congress should pass laws to ensure both transparency (about income) and proper auditing of the most powerful in politics.* The same law could help protect the privacy of everyone else from Republican threats.
*Transcripts reveal Cassidy Hutchinson was pressured to protect [the bullshitter].* For instance, not to try to remember the answers to questions she was asked while testifying.
Polar bears are vanishing from the region where they were formerly most numerous.
7 states have amended their constitutions to prohibit treating convicts as slaves, but practical changes in the practice of forcing convicts to work for a pittance are just starting.
American workers should keep in mind that forcing prisoners to work for a low wage undercuts the wages of free workers.
I think it makes sense to distinguish prison chores (for instance, cooking food for for the prisoners to eat, and cleaning their clothing) from work on products or services for use outside the prison. It is legitimate to require prisoners to do the chores they need done, but that cannot legitimately take more than a few hours a week.
Many American teenagers have so little experience of independent activity that they perceive basic adult activities as risky.
It is plausible that this is a frequent result of treating adolescents like children, and children like infants.
Legal steps needed to block avenues for future presidential coup attempts in the US.
To have unrigged elections, we need also to prohibit gerrymandering and voter suppression. To have fair elections for president, we need to do away with the electoral college.
US citizens: call on the Senate to replace Senator Manchin as energy chairman.
Proposing a system for acquiring property on celestial bodies and objects which avoids the bad outcome that the early space travelers claim everything.
My view of property rights is very different from an antisocialist's. People are not inherently entitled to own any kind of property, but a system of property rights can be beneficial on the margin for people in general. In normal circumstances, where no one is in penury, it is useful for individuals to own clothing, books, furniture, bicycles, food, and so on, and maybe even houses. I mean "useful" in the sense that in those circumstances the system of property rights benefits everyone. This presumes that overall economic system protects people from poverty, so that every individual gets to own a reasonable amount of those things.
However, property rights must not be absolute. If the system does push someone into poverty, "property rights" can't justify keeping that person in penury. If you need food to survive, you are entitled to "steal" some, with a few special exceptions such as taking the food some other penurious person was about to eat, or taking a farmer's seed corn.
That said, the temporary property rental system proposed in the article linked to could be a useful method to add to a system of non-absolute property.
*Freedom of Press is Dealt Deadly Blows by Modi's Proto-Fascist Regime in India.*
*Global heating to drive stronger La Niña and El Niño events by 2030, researchers say.*
These events already cause havoc — droughts and fires in some places and times, floods in others. Global heating is likely to make them worse.
Next year's climate conference will be hosted (and run) by the UAE.
The UAE is a repressive regime that recognizes human rights only when that pleases the emirs, so protest will be crushed and most activists kept out, as happened this year in Egypt.
In addition, the UAE is a big oil exporter, which means that next year's event will be even more corrupted by global heating denialists than this year's.
The UAE spends lots of money to manipulate the US government and policies.
If any powerful countries really want to make progress in defending the climate, they should denounce the UN climate conferences as corrupt betrayals, refuse to attend, and organize a new kind of event. But maybe they are corrupted enough to be content with this corruption.
Big US banks are lobbying against a proposed rule that would stop them from managing retirement funds any more if they are caught committing crimes in doing that.
*"The [Putin forces] mined everything": why making Kherson safe could take years.*
Please distinguish between the Putin forces and Russia. Ukraine will need to live with Russia, and Ukrainians will need to live with their Russian relatives, for centuries, assuming those countries survive coming global disaster. Hate Putin, not Russia!
Fiji has ousted coup-leader Bainimarama through a democratic election. But it is not yet clear he won't stage another coup.
16 cities in Puerto Rico are suing fossil fuel companies and their PR tools for conspiring to deny the dangers of burning oil — in particular, increasingly devastating hurricanes.
Campaigning against plans to restart a US nuclear reactor that has been permanently shut down for being dangerous to operate.
Convicting the wrecker on the charges recommended by the Jan 6 committee may be difficult.
But it is crucial to try.
However, putting the wrecker in prison won't be enough. Other fascists are jockeying to be his successor as the leader of American fascism.
Australians propose a "right to protest" law to override state laws that impose severe punishments on nonviolent protests.
I've read that Australia does not have anything like the US Bill of Rights in its constitution. It needs one.
Musk's response to a disappointing result in a poll on Twitter: voter suppression.
(satire) *Man Who Could Have Been Holding Gun In Diverging Timeline Shot Dead By Police.*
Deepening the satire of this item is the fact that it describes the way racist stereotyping actually works. When thugs see a black man, they imagine what they believe a black man might have been doing and may shoot for those imaginings.
The Senate considered a harmful trade: to extend tax credits for poor families with children in exchange for tax cuts for corporations (mostly for the rich).
The article does not make it clear which of those two changes were temporary and which were permanent. But I expect that the increase in tax credits for children was temporary.
This sort of deal is bad and we should defeat it. Continuing to reduce taxes for the rich will paralyze the government, leaving it unable to afford tax credits for the poor, or anything else. We need to increase taxes on the rich.
The real "great replacement": a broad range of Republican attitudes lead whites to die younger (especially those without a college education).
Some of these attitudes lead people to take foolish risks, from which some die. But in areas where Republican attitudes dominate, they also lead to laws that put people in increasing danger. The Republican Party has become the Republican DEATH CULT.
Biden privately sees the non-nuclear deal with Iran as impossible to resurrect. However, he is still open to diplomacy on the matter.
*Experts Welcome New Biden Policy to Facilitate Humanitarian Aid in Sanctioned Nations.*
It is clearly established that US trade sanctions harm poor people in those countries, by interfering with imports of food and medicine. This was the case in Iraq in the 1990s and until the Bush forces conquered that country. People have been clamoring for changes to avoid that result ever since then.
*Sixty years on from the Cuban missile crisis, the US has learned its lessons — but Putin has not.*
The challenge is to give Putin an exit that isn't either a victory for him or a disaster for everyone. I can't offer an answer, but the start of an answer is to stop pushing to oust or prosecute Putin. Desirable and just they would be, but not wise.
*Bullshit is a greater enemy of truth than lies are.*
A lie denies specific truths. Bullshit attacks the very idea of truth.
Retirement tax changes: *This bill does not make it easier for workers to save for retirement, it just makes it easier for high-income earners to shelter more of their earnings from taxes.*
*Elon Musk claims the FBI paid Twitter to "censor info from the public." Here's what the Twitter Files actually show.*
The Keystone tar sands oil pipeline has had several big leaks, more than one would expect. Its safety record is deteriorating, and it may have been built with low-quality materials.
It's a good thing that the Keystone XL pipeline was not built.
Given the extra corrosivity of tar sands oil, and the extra pollution caused by extracting and burning it, we should probably shut down the existing Keystone pipeline and stop the extraction of tar sands oil.
Why the Democratic Party keeps doing badly against Republicans that despise the non-rich.
‘First Night Against the Wars’ is coming up. Let's have our next stand-out for Julian starting at 2pm on Dec 31 in *Copley Sq*. at the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth, in front of the Public Library. We are expecting more activists this year as we join forces with Boston’s new coalition ‘Solidarity Action Network’. The coalition group will be gathering from noon to 5, bringing all our issues together, crushing inequality, climate collapse, endless war, nuclear Armageddon and, of course, free speech! It grew out of the Earth Day Strike a few months back.
US citizens: call on the DOJ to act on the criminal referrals for the wrecker.
Everyone: call on Amazon to Stop the sale of neonicotinoid pesticides.
Even if we sentence the wrecker to prison, the fascists he unleashed will remain dangerous.
Elon Musk compared with Henry Ford — brilliant entrepreneurs that turned to spreading hatred and almost destroyed their companies.
*Seven reasons to be cheerful about the Amazon in 2023 — and three to be terrified.*
Micah Lee reports that Musk is still blocking his Twitter account and those of some other journalists that have criticized Musk.
However, instead of marking the accounts "suspended", so the public can see how Twitter is treating them, they are blocked from logging in.
The US seized funds from Afghanistan's central bank, and in September set up a channel to donate those funds for food for Afghans. But it's not doing anything.
There are hints that Musk is preparing Twitter for bankruptcy.
I speculated that his aim might be to eliminate it.
Sherif Osman is an Egyptian dissident who moved to the US long ago. On a visit to Dubai, he was arrested and may now be handed over to Egypt to be a political prisoner.
*The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) failed to pursue mandatory audits of [the corrupter] on a timely basis during his presidency.*
Alameda county passed a law prohibiting landlords from doing criminal background checks on would-be tenants.
It looks like the UK government is going to join in a campaign of repression against people who share Netflix passwords.
The name "Intellectual Property Office" indicates a basic leaning towards dividing people and imposing repression. This is a typical example. If you allow that term to shape your thinking, you will be evil too. Likewise for calling sharing "piracy."
Netflix does so many unjust things to its customers that I urge everyone to reject it entirely. In particular, it requires customers to run nonfree software designed specifically to restrict them.
Using it and sharing a subscription deals the company a small blow, which it deserves, but does not protect customers from most of the injustice.
*Anti-Vaxxers' disregard for basic human safety also makes them lousy drivers.*
The outgoing governor of Oregon has commuted all of Oregon's death sentences. Slowly the US advances toward abolishing the death penalty.
Progress, though slow, in understanding long Covid.
Google is adding client-side encryption, but due to the basic architecture it's not entirely trustworthy.
Google encryption may be effective against snoopers that have no special relationship with Google. However, Google remains ultimately in control of the encryption software and the operating system it runs on, so you can't trust it fully. Google will have the power to give you an "upgrade" that shows Google the plaintext of every encrypted message.
The right-wing allies of Bolsonaro won a majority in Brazil's congress. Human rights, conservation and democracy in Brazil are still in danger from them.
Iran's secret police are cracking protesters' Telegram accounts to get information to arrest people.
One weakness of the global biodiversity pact is that it allows countries to give permission to destroy natural ecosystems based on "offsets" as an excuse. This means a promise to construct a new wild area to replace the one that was destroyed. Such replacement is easy to say and hard to do.
The Jan 6 committee voted to recommend prosecution of the wrecker for four crimes, including supporting an insurrection.
The wrecker's lawyers tried to bribe witnesses to mislead federal investigators.
Republican George Santos, who was recently elected to Congress, seems to have filled up his biography with falsehoods.
Turkey may block Sweden from joining NATO because Sweden's supreme court has rejected the extradition of a Turkish journalist wanted by Erdoğan for political persecution.
*Dutch PM apologizes for Netherlands’ role in slave trade.* Activists in former Dutch colonies imperiously rejected the apology because its words and its ceremony were not done to their satisfaction.
Twitter intentionally hid the origin of Pentagon political propaganda aimed at the Middle East.
* Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have ordered an indefinite ban on university education for the country’s women,*
*3M sets 2025 deadline to stop making [PFAS].*
After the wrecker's veiled but undeniable launch of an attack against the US government, prosecuting him is a necessary part of loyalty.
The CFPB has ordered Wells Fargo Bank to pay almost 4 billion dollars for fraud committed against 16 million customers.
The CFPB called Wells Fargo a "repeat offender" and said that this is just the beginning of its actions against the bank.
UN Secretary-General Guterres announced a "no-nonsense" climate defense conference for September 2023 for which *the price of entry is non-negotiable -— credible, serious, and new climate action and nature-based solutions that will move the needle forward and respond to the urgency of the climate crisis must be presented.*
A last-minute deal in a must-pass spending bill gave Maine fishermen 6 more years before they have to protect North Atlantic Right Whales.
Given the rate at which the population of those whales is decreasing, that could wipe them out.
Senator Warren rebuked the Pentagon for "vastly" underreporting civilian casualties in its required annual report.
In various countries, people are suing governments for failing to protect them from the harm global heating will do to them.
Radio City Music Hall decided in advance to exclude certain people from its shows, and sent bouncers to get one from a show, and identified her through facial recognition.
The reason they did not want her to watch the show is that she is a lawyer that works for a law firm that is handling someone's a legal dispute with the operators of Radio City Music Hall.
In addition to being a bizarre overreaction, it demonstrates why we need to ban the practice of identifying people by their faces, outside of very limited circumstances.
However, the crucial step in the chain of surveillance is not the step of matching the face in a picture against a database. Rather, it is systematically collecting images of people (whether video or still) that could be used to identify people. That is what we need to prohibit. We must prohibit surveillance cameras and allow only security cameras.
Right-wing extremist candidates combine racism and disinformation with promises to help the poor (but excluding poor blacks and poor immigrants).
Even if we stop thug departments from putting weapons on robots, some robots will endanger human rights in other ways. This article suggests some rules to limit use of robots by thug departments.
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 denounce 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.
Why is it that so many US prosecutors so often violate the rights of the accused by making trials unfair? Perhaps it's because the Supreme Court has barred them from being sued for such illegalities.
Biden has a plan for how to eradicate homelessness in the US.
Everyone: tell the Starbucks board you will not cross the picket line.
US citizens: call for passage of the Youth Voting Rights Act, which would defend younger voters from tactics used to impede them from voting.
US citizens: call on Biden to give endangered species protection to manatees.
US citizens: call on Biden to drop Espionage Act charges against Julian Assange.
Modeling suggests 1/10 of all living species will be extinct by the end of this century, if global heating continues as projected.
Crown Prince Bone Saw is trying to "sportswash" Salafi Arabia's cruel and repressive reputation.
Tobacco companies used sportswashing, and maybe still do in some places. In the US, that was eventually prohibited.
*Crypto was supposed to solve financial corruption. But FTX shows it’s just got worse.*
I am not sure this is an inherent part of using cryptocurrencies. It may be due to a twisted way of using them: people buy and sell them through companies called "exchanges" rather than trading them directly. Those exchanges seem to tend particularly to corruption.
However, even if all users did everything directly in the currency's blockchain, it would seem to be just perfect for bribing politicians untraceably.
*Global corporations "cheating public out of billions in tax," say campaigners.*
This is why we designed GNU Taler to reliably identify the payee. It gives anonymity to the payer only.
Former enslaved migrant workers in Thailand are suing the UK supermarket Tesco for selling the clothing that they were forced to make.
Amy Goodman: *The US Justice Department Must Drop Charges Against Julian Assange.*
Cinderella as a joke on Louis XIV's fancy for glass.
US right-wingers have danced with fascism and Nazism since the 1930s and have only occasionally been afraid to show it.
Peru's suppression forces have killed 20 protesters, generally by shooting them. This caused protests to spread. People demand that Congress resign for new elections, but Congress refuses.
Musk has banned Twitter users from posting information about where to find them on other sites.
Of course, you shouldn't be used by Facebook or Instagram at all, anyway.
Twitter's policy may be illegal in the US. I wonder, though, whether FTC enforcement power can prevail against a billionaire who is willing to lose millions of dollars as a result of his choice of policies. If he chooses to defy the FTC, can they do more than fine Twitter a few million?
(satire) *Johnson & Johnson Raises Price Of Band-Aids To $100,000 Apiece.*
*[The wrecker] Is Not Our Biggest Problem: It's the Open Fascism He Has Unleashed.* Many fascists are flexible enough to follow another authoritarian leader, such as DeMentis, instead of the wrecker.
The article discusses a conjecture that fascism wakes up in the US every 80 years as the people who defeated fascism before die and cease to lead the country to reject fascism.
How light pollution pushes animals and plants to extinction.
*Cop15 deal includes target to protect 30% of nature on Earth by 2030.*
The basic question is, will countries give this more than lip service? For instance, most of the UK's "protected marine areas" are hardly protected at all.
The article claims that China imposed the deal despite objections from many countries. Given that the survival of civilization and the natural world are at stake, I feel little sympathy for anyone that refuses to help save endangered species. But these objections may make the treaty a dead letter.
The biodiversity movement seems to have adopted as a matter of faith that indigenous humans will always protect biodiversity and ecosystems. In many cases they will, because they depend on those ecosystems for their living. In those cases, damage to those ecosystems will harm them so they will oppose such damage.
But this is not invariably guaranteed. Human beings have been polluting their environments for short-term benefit for millennia. Humans often bend and redraw their moral rules to excuse their own benefit. Humans can resist this tendency, but nobody is automatically above it due to descent alone.
The part of this agreement that is absolutely perverse: the plan to establish a parallel patent system in the name of preventing "biopiracy." The patent system we already have is harmful and unjust; this plan creates a second parallel system of restrictions on the use of knowledge, adds a second harm, a second injustice, to the first.
The goal, clearly, is to give some income to poor countries. That goal is fine, but do it in some other way!
*Tokyo will require new homes built from 2025 to have solar panels.*
California adopted a "blueprint" for achieving a "net zero emissions", but the plan is bogus since it calls for carbon capture and storage, which has never been made to work properly.
A blueprint means a precise set of measurements for something to be made. A rough sketch is not a blueprint.
The UN-brokered truce in Yemen could lead to an end to the war.
Joseph Stiglitz: *The Road to Fascism*
* Growing hardship is all but assured in 2023, and it will provide even more fertile ground for dangerous demagogues.*
The story of the US bombing of Hanoi in 1972 makes me think of Putin's shelling and missile attacks on Ukraine.
Everyone: call for a treaty to regulate production of plastics.
US citizens: call on Congress to put an end to private prisons.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: tell Federal Insurance Office that renters and homeowners need data on how global heating impacts their insurance.
Increased heat may explain around 8000 shootings each year in the US.
The thugs who killed Ronald Greene have been charged with crimes including homicide.
I can't tell whether one of these charges does justice to the lies the thugs told about how Greene died.
We are all waiting to see if high officials of the thug department will face charges for trying to protect the killers themselves from charges.
The reason Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested seems to have been an illegal funds transfer between two parts of FTX whose funds were supposed to be kept separate.
*Ellsberg, Donziger Among Those Demanding Freedom for Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale.*
Biden endorsed Manchin's dirty deal to undermine environmental regulations on energy projects. Even worse, he endorsed the values that deal is based on: that hypothetical reductions in the price of fossil fuel is more important than protecting or planet from global heating or pollution.
Colombia has implemented a progressive wealth tax and other tax increases for the rich. The specific details of the wealth tax respond to problems encountered by previous wealth taxes in Europe, to ensure it touches only the rich.
Leftist film director Ken Loach accused the BBC of helping to write Corbyn out of history, including trying to make Corbyn out as anti-semitic.
He also stated that 200,000 members or more have left the Labour Party in response to Starmer's right-wing shift.
Workers at 100 Starbucks stores will strike for three days.
Biden said, during the campaign, that he wanted to eliminate the death penalty. However, the US just voted against a UN resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions.
An interesting example of collective governance of an organization.
Tunisia's authoritarian president has reorganized how the legislature functions and held an election under totally new rules. There were not many candidates and not many voters.
*[Famous] Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti arrested after criticism of death penalty [given to protesters].*
Pointing at technological advances that are supposed to eliminate global heating in a few years is a standard denialist tactic. They have often cited fusion power for this, but also carbon capture and storage and "carbon offsets" (which tend to be bogus).
We don't have time to wait for these things.
Insulate Britain protests met with ire from motorists, but everyone now sees that they were right.
Australia will build more large grid storage batteries so as to keep unneeded renewable electricity for when it is needed.
The corrupter is marketing NFT "trading cards". The money people pay for them goes to a secret business, and I suspect it won't appear in the corrupter's future tax returns.
QAnonenties are starting to transfer their worship from the wrecker to Musk.
They are mostly authoritarian followers and it isn't crucial to them which authoritarian leader they can follow.
AT&T, Amazon, Comcast and Intel donated to the campaigns of Republican election denialists, well before this year's election.
Article talking about how the world is tailored toward men.
For the most part, of the issues listed, I agree that we should change practices so that they serve women as well as men. I disagree in regard to office temperature, though, for the simple reason that you can wear more clothing without limit, but there are limits to how much clothing you can remove in an office with other workers. If at that point some people are still too hot, the only solution that can satisfy everyone is to make the office cool enough for them, and for those who find that too cold to wear another layer.
There were times that my office in the Stata Center was so hot that I needed to be nude to be comfortable. I kept the door locked so that visitors would knock and I could ask them to wait a minute. I did not usually explain that this was so I could put my shirt and pants on.
The presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, and Mexico condemned the ouster of Peru's President Castillo as a "legislative coup", saying it was backed by the US.
This is not an absurd idea; the US backed such a coup in Bolivia a few years ago, and in Honduras a few years before that.
Information in the article suggests that the poor voted him into office and still support him. They are now protesting vigorously, and the "forces of law and order" are shooting and gassing them from helicopters. It sounds like the thugs support the right wing and treat the people as the enemy.
This does not necessarily imply that the coup story is the whole truth; there are valid reasons to argue that it is Castillo who tried to overthrow constitutional order, as President Boric of Chile said.
It seems clear that there was a process of reciprocal escalation. In such a situation, it is easy to perceive the escalations by the side you oppose as injustice, and the escalations by the side you support as legitimate self-defense.
To judge the right and wrong of such a process requires a lot of facts about the actions and the background. All I can do is try to judge which of the other presidents to trust.
(satire) *Elementary School Lesson On Water Cycle Explains How Water Becomes Property Of Nestlé.*
*Twitter suspends accounts of several journalists who had reported on Elon Musk.* Musk defines "free speech" the way autocrats do.
*Workers, Not "Stockbrokers and CEOs," Will Pay Price for Fed Rate Hikes: Warren.*
*Plastic ‘nurdles’ stop sea urchins developing properly, study finds.*
It would be nice to imagine that this provides a way to protect kelp forests, but enough plastic to do that would surely harm other species too.
Australia has revoked a rule, made by the previous planet-roaster government, that permitted the burning of wood waste from native trees to count as "renewable".
In practice, native forests are not renewable under present conditions.
The world-wide campaign to prevent nondisclosure agreements from being used by employers to cover up any abuses, from harassment to rape, is making substantial progress, but not in the UK.
You can't expect the Tories to eagerly pursue this goal, because they represent the rich who commit the abuses and want them covered up.
My first experience with a nondisclosure agreement was when I asked someone at CMU for a copy of the Xerox laser printer software source code. He said he had actually promised in advance to refuse to share that code with me and other colleagues at MIT. Shame on him! He had made a commitment to be a jerk and deny his cooperation to his colleagues.
From this I learned that signing a nondisclosure agreement for generally useful technical information, such as software, was betraying the whole world — so I vowed I would never agree to one, and I never knowingly done so.
That led me, a year or two later, to the conclusion that nonfree software was an injustice, regardless of whether the nonfreedom was brought about by a nondisclosure agreement.
"Crisis pregnancy centers" look like abortion clinics, but their mission is to confuse females so that they don't get abortions. They get away with lies because they are almost exempt from regulation.
The right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court have protected them from regulations intended to protect women from being deceived.
*Chinese doctors and nurses reportedly told to work while infected as Covid surges.*
In the US, this is achieved by denying workers paid sick leave. They can't afford to do the right thing and avoid infecting follow workers, even customers.
The infection is spreading very fast. I presume it is one of the recent Omicron variants. At least that will reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries.
Ukraine's plans to reconquer Crimea military may be impossible or unwise.
The places that Russian troops were stationed since 2014 include, as a fact, parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but Putin always denied that this was the case. He should not be invited to acknowledge it belatedly now and reap any benefit.
To negotiate the fate of Crimea is more sensible. An honest election would have been a legitimate approach in 2014, but Putin drove out or exiled those who supported Ukraine, then (according to this article) lost anyway lied about the result.
Putin's elections in Russia are blatantly dishonest.
The population of Crimea today is different from the population in 2014. If an election is to be held now about which country Crimea should belong to, which people should vote in it? To give the decision to the current population would mean that Putin (or anyone else) can conquer territory and legitimize that with an unfair election. To give the decision to the 2014 population might be asking for further violence.
Global heating is killing millions of fir trees in Oregon.
China's relaxation of restrictions on capturing wildlife for food *could weaken animal protection and pose a hazard to public health, say experts.
The term "post-pandemic" is wishful thinking, not reality.
There is a suspicion of fraud in the vote-counting of Fiji's election.
Fiji has a history of real trouble in its elections. I wonder whether it will be possible to assure the honesty of this election.
*CFPB Applauded for Proposing "Public Rap Sheet" for Corporate Criminals.*
Drivers in London forcibly moved Just Stop Oil protesters out of the road.
I agree fully with the Just Stop Oil's arguments for these protests. If you think being delayed for half an hour is painful, wait and see what food rationing feels like, or a flood or wildfire smoke or heat prostration.
But if this approach to protesting inspires the passersby to fight the protesters, it is not useful or constructive.
Here are suggestions for new tactics for climate protesters.
Ukraine's plans to reconquer Crimea militarily may be impossible or unwise.
The places that Russian troops were stationed since 2014 include, as a fact, parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but Putin always denied that this was the case. He should not be invited to acknowledge it belatedly now and reap any benefit.
To negotiate the fate of Crimea is more sensible. An honest election would have been a legitimate approach in 2014, but Putin drove out or exiled those who supported Ukraine, then (according to this article) lost anyway and lied about the result.
Putin's elections in Russia are blatantly dishonest.
The population of Crimea today is different from the population in 2014. If an election is to be held now about which country Crimea should belong to, which people should vote in it? To give the decision to the current population would mean that Putin (or anyone else) can conquer territory and legitimize that with an unfair election. To give the decision to the 2014 population might be asking for further violence.
The incredibly complex history of reprocessing and disposing of nuclear waste in the UK.
In theory, the process is clearly simple. In practice, it keeps getting more complex.
*Flying insect numbers plunge 64% since 2004, UK survey finds.*
Some years ago, a similar decline was observed in Germany.
This portends ecological disaster.
US citizens: call on the House Ways and Means Committee to share the wrecker's tax returns with the Senate Finance Committee ASAP. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Democrats including Biden to seek the kind of "bipartisanship" that means progressive policies that many Republicans support — not deals with right-wing extremist Republicans. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Senate to investigate corruption and ethical lapses at the Supreme Court. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to hold corporations accountable for price gouging. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
(satire) *Elon Musk Receives Experimental Neuralink Implant In Attempt To Delete Memory Of Being Booed.*
The EU is setting up a system of "green tariffs" to charge imports based on how much greenhouse gas is emitted in producing them.
Anti-abortion fanatics have proposed to move on from laws criminalizing performing abortions to prosecuting people who have abortions.
* Without a plan in place to minimise infection [by Covid-19], a "moving on" strategy leaves vulnerable people behind.*
Most people want to believe the danger is gone, and governments have decided to let them do so. It's good for business also. How easy it is to dismiss suggestions to protect yourself and others with a mask by saying, "It is no longer obligatory."
It's no longer legally obligatory, but it is morally obligatory.
When someone without a mask sits near me on a train or plane, I ask per to please wear a mask. If perse says, "I don't have a mask," I offer per an unused N95 mask, still in its plastic wrapper. The masks sold by BYD are simple to put on, so I offer those.
One of Erdoğan's political rivals has been convicted of insulting Turkey’s supreme election council, calling them "fools."
Many countries make it a crime to insult officials. Indonesia just made itself one of them.
Freedom of speech includes the freedom to insult anyone — even me, even you. Erdoğan shows plenty of contempt for freedom and democracy. He even started a small civil war to reverse an electoral defeat.
Just after Cabot Oil & Gas (part of Coterra Energy) accepted 15 criminal charges for polluting the water of Dimock. Pennsylvania, the state government allowed it to resume fracking there.
Fracking should be illegal. The risk of poisoning groundwater for centuries or more is too high a price to pay for some more fossil fuel to burn — especially since burning it is harmful globally.
The Arctic: Hotter, rainier, wetter, and less ice and birds.
Extreme weather (which is partly caused by global heating) has devastated the Florida orange crop.
We must expect all sorts of crops to be harmed by global heating effects.
Musk urged his Twitter followers to adopt QAnonsense.
Maybe he is trying to compete with the wrecker to seize power in the US.
US citizens: phone your senators and implore them to reject any bill containing Manchin's environmental planning deregulation deal.
You can phone (888) 997-5380. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US corporations gave 8 million dollars to Republican election liars.
Explaining the enormous challenges of going from "ignition" in a laser-fusion target to the production of commercially useful power, and why this is likely to take decades.
We need to quit using fossil fuels fast — we can't wait for fusion to be usable for this job.
*Brazil goldminers carve illegal ‘Road to Chaos’ out of Amazon reserve.*
They use bulldozers and power-diggers, and carry submachine guns.
The US keeps using economic sanctions to punish unjust or aggressive governments, but the sanctions almost never have any positive effect.
Without a big increase in humanitarian aid donations, the UN predicts that 200 million people will die in 2023 for the lack of aid.
200 million is a very large number of deaths in one year. The average number is around 83 million. The human population will decrease in 2023 if this forecast comes true. The 200 million maybe in addition to the 80 million that would have died anyway.
The typical annual increase in human population is around 18 million. It follows that 200 million deaths will mean that the total human population decreases by several years' worth of population growth.
It sees that we have reached the point at which the global disaster we have caused starts to kill so many people that it reduces the human population. This is very bad.
I have begged humans to reduce their birth rate, so that we could reduce the population the painless way and avoid ever reaching this point.
*Eels facing population collapse, conservation groups warn.*
The EU has given in to the usual short-term thinking, prioritizing short-term profits over sustainability. Such a decision is tantamout to saying, "Let's make one last batch of money by wiping out the fish."
DeMentis has started an "investigation" of everything about Covid-19 vaccines.
They may not find any serious problem or wrongdoing, but they will have plenty of opportunities to talk endlessly about hypothetical, conceivable problems, thus blowing smoke that they can claim implies the presence of a fire.
The US government protected people against possible right-wing attempts to ban interracial and same-sex marriages.
This is good, but it is just a part of the harm that right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court threaten to do. Since Democrats refused to eliminate the filibuster and expand the court, Americans are now sitting ducks for at least two years.
The NLRB funding is inadequate, and the result is that workers' rights go undefended.
Varoufakis calls for two major economic changes: to make corporations belong to their workers, and to reduce the dependence on banks for financial transactions.
A thug in Vallejo, California, attacked a documentalist who was standing on his own porch, making a video of the thug's traffic stop.
The documentalist sued and the city paid $300,000 to settle the dispute.
The recording showed the thug making false accusations against Burrell. Such false accusations are a common first step in an attempted frame-up. Any thug caught doing this, even if nothing worse results, should be fired and blacklisted for all jobs that involve special authority over the public.
The Keystone 1 tar sands oil pipeline leaked 600,000 gallons of oil into a creek in Kansas that feeds a river and a reservoir for 800,000 people.
The pilot program to privatize Medicare includes insurance companies that have been fined for inflating charges.
Twitter has more or less blocked access to a bot account that tweets where Musk's private jet goes.
*Covid-19 vaccines have saved more than 3 million lives in US, study says, but the fight isn't over.*
Three million is around one percent of the US population.
*Hundreds of Oath Keepers Have Worked for DHS in Recent Years, Report Finds.*
There are probably tens of thousands of workers for the DHS, so this is not necessarily a large fraction. Nonetheless, it is dangerous.
Protecting biodiversity (or any aspect of the environment) requires ending government subsidies to activities which damage biodiversity. Allowing businesses to excuse damage to habitats by means of "offsets" is asking to be lied to.
*Framing men as the "villains" gets women no closer to better romantic relationships.*
That assumption means getting stuck in a shallow form of feminism based on not believing things can get any better.
*Labor proposal to fix Australia’s broken environmental protection system could revolutionise sector.*
*The 50-Year Takeaway From Middle-Class America. We [Americans] should be demanding the same benefits enjoyed by less wealthy but more progressive nations.*
US states provide enormous special tax breaks to companies — almost always big companies that can play one state against another. A campaign seeks to put an end to this, first of all by limiting them and publishing them.
I proposed a federal law to enable any one state to object to any special subsidy propsed by any other (competing) states. This would prevent a company from playing one state against another.
The governor of Bali reassures foreign tourists and visitors that the prohibition against sex outside of marriage won't threaten them in Bali.
There are other places in Indonesia which are also interesting to visit, but maybe they won't be safe.
More importantly for Indonesia, this law also restricts freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
No country should allow a prudish religion any influence in its laws. Laws driven by Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism are causing cruelty and repression around the world.
Although no court has proved that Governor Snyder conspired to put the people of Flint at risk of lead poisoning, we have plenty of reason to believe he and his high officials did so. I can't put him in prison, but my conclusion is that he's guilty, partly because the ideology of the Republican Party is to do things like that to the poor, weak, and disprivileged.
*Biden faces growing pressure to drop charges against Julian Assange.* Pressure is coming from Australia and Brazil, as well as American defenders of freedom of the press.
So phone the White House and say, drop the charges against Assange — reporting on leaked dirty secrets must not be a crime. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
New Zealand will gradually ban tobacco by raising the age requirement to buy tobacco by one year per year, Tobacco is death, and I hope you will not smoke it. But banning a widely used drug generally leads to widespread corruption and injustice.
China does not allow fair trials. To bias the trial of opposition publisher Jimmy Lai to be fair, China kicked his British lawyer out of Hong Kong.
The UK plans to hand out 130 more fossil fuel licenses for the North Sea. This puts civilization in danger. So environmentalists are suing.
*Plan to protect 30% of Earth divides and inspires at Cop15.*
Tories have undermined the National Health Service to the point where it can't even tackle the backlog of millions of important but non-urgent operations.
Iran is executing protesters after bogus trials.
Peruvians detest Congress, which removed President Castillo from office, even more than they detest President Castillo.
I wish I had a basic understanding of politics in Peru, or knew someone who could explain it to me, so that I could have a background against which to judge what is happening.
Scientists started a fusion reaction that released about 25% more energy than what was used to start it. This demonstrates in principle that controlled fusion can be used to generate energy.
There is a long way to go to develop fusion into a practical energy source. For the next few decades, survival of civilization still depends on replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy as fast as possible.
Lula has sued Bolsonaro for various reasons, one of which is accusing the country's computerized voting system of being vulnerable.
Bolsonaro has done much to undermine democracy and elections in Brazil, and morally deserves punishment. However, the general claim that Brazil's computerized voting system makes Brazil's elections vulnerable is valid. That is because the machines record only totals, and do not keep individual paper ballots that voters marked by hand. Such systems are vulnerable to someone, somehow.
Brazilian experts campaigned against this system when it was adopted, demanding a system that enabled the results to be audited, but they lost the battle.
There is no evidence that anything wrong happened in the voting machines in this election, but Brazil should change to an audit-able voting system for the sake of the future.
US citizens: phone your senators and call on them to vote to end US support for Salafi Arabia's war with Yemen.
*UN Report Shows 11,000 Children Killed or Maimed in This US-Backed War.*
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the U.S. Senate to investigate corruption and ethical lapses at the Supreme Court.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Most managers in the UK say that stress over the cost of living is making workers anxious and interfering with their work.
Those managers are in a special position to tell the company executives, "Give the workers a raise!" Will they do it?
How Big Pharma used threats against governments to defeat the proposed "patent waiver" for Covid-19 vaccines in the World Trade Organization.
The WTO is a business-supremacy treaty; its basic purpose is to give business more power over the world's governments. We need to eliminate most of that power by greatly weakening every business-supremacy treaty.
4400 homeless people live. in the "skid row" of Los Angeles, and they have only 9 toilets to use at night.
The UN standard for refugee camps calls for far more than that.
Rep. Greene declares her support for an armed coup.
When she takes her oath of office again in January, she will say it insincerely. Is there any way to exclude her from Congress over this?
The UK nurses say Tories are making false statements rather than negotiating, while the "Labour" party doubts that Britain can afford a 10% raise for them.
This reflects Starmer's implicit rejection of a change in the general policy of starving and freezing the poor to enrich the rich.
Here's what a true Labour leader would say.
Some pertinent facts.
The US is blocking the full adoption and effective enforcement of many crucial treaties.
To present one extreme example, every member of the UN has ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, except for the US.
The House of Commons will observe a minute of silence in remembrance of the Nazi genocide of Jews (and some others).
The threat of Nazism still exists ad is growing. I suggest that the House of Representatives adopt a similar annual practice, starting this month. It won't be easy for the Republicans that will control the House next year to reject this. They support Nazis but don't want to admit it.
The Tories want to start a new coal mine in England, so they claim that steelmaking companies want that coal.
Turns out, they don't.
Others say it is a boondoggle to artificially create jobs in a certain region. That could be true, but why do it this way? There are many kinds of jobs that could really be needed. Indeed, Many of the region's inhabitants oppose the mine.
I suspect that the Tories' real motive is to help some rich donor get richer.
Ralph Nader: As Republicans push numerous plans that most Americans would oppose, most Democratic candidates fail to go on the offensive against them.
A US Forest Service crew head carried out a prescribed burn to reduce the danger of wildfires. Things went wrong and it started a big wildfire. But is that a reason to arrest him?
Perhaps the Forest Service needs to change some aspects of its practices. I am not an expert on prescribed burns, and I don't want to become one, so I have no opinion on that.
But what is absolutely clear is that arresting the employees who carry them out is absurd trumpery.
The bullshitter falsely claimed that Black Lives Matter protesters were part of a conspiracy called "Antifa", and told the DHS to find proof.
An internal investigation by the DHS published a report that *describes attempts by top officials to link protesters to an imaginary terrorist plot in an apparent effort to boost Trump's reelection odds, raising concerns now about the ability of a sitting president to co-opt billions of dollars' worth of domestic intelligence assets for their own political gain.*
An investigation by the House of Representatives found that the idea of natural gas as a temporary "bridge fuel" was an intentional deception: Big Oil's real goal was always to make it a permanent choice.
The article points out a number of ways in which extracting transporting and burning gas are dangerous. But Big Oil's propaganda still tries to convince people that gas is safe.
What's at stake in the biodiversity conference? *We are tearing holes in the fabric of life on Earth.*
*US Can End Its Complicity in Horrendous Yemen War Today.*
The US needs mask mandates to stop the spread of flu, RSC and Covid-19.
This one measure is effective against all pathogens that spread through the air.
When someone sits near me in a train or plane and isn't wearing a mask, I ask per to wear one. If perse says perse doeesn't have one, I offer per an unused N95 mask, still in its unbroken plastic wrapper.
Often perse responds that it is not obligatory. I'm going to try out this response: "Legally it is not obligatory. Morally it is obligatory."
A campaign to give all US personnel stationed at bases in the UK training in driving on the left side of the road.
People have shot at electric power stations in Oregon and Washington.
The attackers have not been identified, but the obvious suspects are right-wing extremists. That region (outside its big cities) is known for the presence of people who hate the very idea of government and can consider any sort of sabotage justified if it damages government.
Afghan refugees being smuggled into Greece were caught and charged with doing the smuggling. One such conviction has been overturned on appeal.
Warnock won the election for senator from Georgia in the face of powerful and effective Republican voter suppression. The Warnock's general election for senator in 2022 had a million fewer voters than Warnock's general election in 2020. And the subsequent runoff in 2022 had a million fewer voters than the runoff for the 2020 election.
Republican voter suppression is intended to hit Democrats harder than Republicans. Why it did not succeed this time in defeating Warnock, I don't know, and I wonder.
The article explains that Georgia Republicans have already passed further laws to make it harder to fight voter suppression in 2024.
An Italian is trapped in the Italian embassy in the United Arab Emirates because he has been sentenced to a large fine and he has no money.
UK ministers refused to negotiate with the NHS workers who are preparing to strike soon.
This confirms, in my view, their intention to destroy the NHS.
Se me dijo que mis chistes son polisemias. Dije, "No, polisemia es tener polizontes en la sangre."
US citizens: call on Biden to extend paid sick leave to railway workers.
Everyone: call on Wall Street banks to keep their pledge to stand against racial injustice by forcing their lobbyists to drop their lawsuit against the CFPB.
*Court Orders U.S. to Examine California Shipping Lanes' Role in Endangered Whale Deaths.*
Ayatollah Khamenei is badly ill and may be dying. If he dies, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is likely to take power.
The writer speculates that the IRGC might give Iranians personal freedoms, to reduce resistance to their rule, but not democracy, and expects power rivalries to continue unchanged.
I would rejoice to see Iranians have somewhat more freedom. I hope that the US and Iran can make peace some day.
An extremely corrupt Kansas City thug faces charges of collaborating with a drug gang to force 73 women into slavery and prostitution. He is also accused of raping people to intimidate them, and a series of frame-ups.
The whole thug department knew about his pattern of crime, and stood behind their fellow thug.
*‘Only 100 meters apart’: Ukrainians and [Putin forces] face off in Donetsk.*
I read that the Putin forces' persistent focus on taking Bakhmut is that it is the next step toward capturing 100% of the Donetsk oblast. If they take Bakhmut, and then take Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, they could boast of holding 100% of one of the regions that Putin claims to have annexed this year.
In military terms, this would be worth nothing, but that's the sort of irrationality that tends to happen under an absolute ruler.
*Press Freedom Champions Renew Call for DOJ to Drop Charges Against Assange.*
*Macron announces free condoms for 18- to 25-year-olds in France.*
This offer is a good start; it should be extended to everyone.
*[Dissident Ilya Yashin] sentenced to eight and a half years over series of posts about [Putin forces] atrocities in Bucha.*
Putin's obedient servants lie on command, too afraid to refuse. The wrecker has led US Republicans to do likewise. Yashin has chosen to go to prison rather than become a tool of falsehood.
Comparing imprisoned antipollution protester Violet Coco with convicted polluters: *less than 6% of people charged with environmental pollution and property damage offenses are sent to prison.*
*Racism poses public health threat to millions worldwide, finds report.*
Joseph Stiglitz: *Raising interest rates to tame inflation will only cause more pain.*
Biden has taken significant steps towards releasing all the prisoners remaining in Guantanamo. That would enable the US to put an end to its national shame.
Senator Sinema has officially left the Democratic Party, which suggests that she will run as an independent in 2024.
As the article said, we already knew she belongs to the Plutocratic Party. What matters is, will this make it easier or harder to elect a better senator in her place? I fear this will make it harder — because it won't be possible to eliminate her in the Democratic Party. I don't know whether her presence in the general election as an independent candidate would help or hurt.
Congress is trying to impose a link tax through an increasingly frequent sneaky method — last minute inclusion in "must pass" omnibus bills.
(satire) *Elon Musk Worried He Won't Have Enough Twitter Employees Left To Fire On Christmas Eve.*
US zoning laws obstruct the conversion of surplus office space into badly needed residential space.
Republicans have added to the NDAA a clause to repeal the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for the military.
This is more harmful than it appears. The vaccination requirement has convinced some right-wing fanatics to leave the US military, and we need to keep it going.
It also helps keep the troops healthy.
Accusing the US rail unions of being weak-spirited and divided.
*Rural Arizona county certifies midterm results after judge orders vote.*
The Republican county supervisors in Cochise county had refused to certify that county's election. Then they got a court order which required them to certify the vote, so they did.
They presented no grounds for refusing to certify the results, but we can see that it was mad hatred: they hate the election so much that they wanted to fight it regardless of what effects that would have.
Ironically, if they had got away with not certifying that county's vote, the result would have been to elect one more Democrat to the House of Representatives. That would have been a major setback to Republican power nationwide.
I therefore conclude that the refusal was not an instance of Republican "by hook or by crook" cheating, but rather mad rage against free elections.
I previously posted that Cochise county's vote was majority Democratic, because had I read that in another article. That would have made the refusal consistent with by-hook-or-by-crook cheating. But it appears that that other article was mistaken about this.
US citizens: call on the US to end subsidies for fracking in Argentina.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators and say to reject anything like the SECURE Act (HR 2954) and the EARN Act (S 4808). These bills would change Social Security to give less to the poor and more to the rich. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The FTC has blocked the merger of Microsoft and Activision, both giants in making video games.
These video games are nonfree software, which means they treat users unjustly. I would not allow any of them on my computers, and I urge you to reject them too.
Notwithstanding that, it is still important to stop them from merging. Allowing them to merge would exacerbate the evil of concentration of industry, and do nothing to reduce the evil o f nonfree software.
The president of Peru was removed from office by Congress. He had attempted to prevent this by dismissing Congress.
I don't have enough contact with Peru to judge which side was basically at fault, but I lean towards trusting Arce's view. He is a leftist elected president in a country that borders on Peru, so he has surely paid plenty of attention.
More about the new president Dina Boluarte, who was previously the vice president.
Raphael Warnock defeated Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate runoff by under 3%.
It is good that he won, but the closeness of the outcome shows that most Republicans hate our freedoms so much that they will vote for even a lying creep who will help destroy them.
* Republicans are literally running a political platform on weakening teachers, schools and education because they need the poorly educated to make up their voting base.*
*Brown University bans caste discrimination throughout campus in a first for the Ivy League.*
I think caste discrimination should be prohibited like race or sex discrimination.
Apple has dropped its plan to scan every user's photos and will use another approach to protect children from would-be abusers.
The new approach seems not to be a threat to other users' privacy.
Plutocratist "mainstream" Democrats continue to control the party's leadership in the House of Representatives.
The Labour Party is turning to mythical trickle-down economics, saying it aims to turn the UK into a "global start-up hub."
Poor Britain. Competing to help the rich dominate society won't help anyone but the rich.
Congress is considering a kind of "link tax" to require discussion platforms to pay for hosting links to news sites. It would harm libraries and smaller news media.
It would also give lots of subsidy to Big Media.
Criticizing Effective Altruism: to program people as donation robots is desocializing, isolating and alienating.
I suspect those things reduce people's lifespan.
*Pegasus spyware was used to [crack] reporters’ phones. I’m suing its [developers].*
Referring to the developers of a program as "creators" is propaganda for ideas we would be wiser not to promote.
The US rescued hostage Brittney Griner by trading an important Russian arms dealer for her.
Griner deserved to be freed for the simple reason that what she did was not wrong. However, I don't understand why Americans clamor for Griner's release more than for the release of everyone imprisoned in the US for possession of marijuana. There are many Americans unjustly imprisoned in the US for doing nothing more than what Griner did. They too deserve to be freed.
It is a shame to let arms merchant Viktor Bout go free, though.
I think we should not pressure the US to try to ransom hostages, because that pressure benefits the regimes that take hostages at the expense of the US. If I were a hostage, I would say, "Don't ransom me if the ransom hurts my country!"
Denying the call to boycott Russian music.
I take a stronger stand: it is misguided and destructive to blame "Russia" for Putin's crime of aggressive war. Putin is the one responsible. Let us not refer to the army that invaded Ukraine as "the Russian army" — call them the Putin forces.
The Tories plan to open a new coal mine in England. Supposedly the reason is to reduce the cost of electricity, but the mine will produce coking coal to be exported to make steel. Meanwhile, the steel industry is looking to replace the use of coking coal to reduce its emissions.
*The "fate of the entire living world" will be determined at the Cop15 UN biodiversity summit, according to leading scientists.* It is considering a partly concrete plan to slow the destruction of the Earth's natural ecosystems.
[Effective altruism] is "profoundly individualistic" and reliant on the status quo. EA's calculations assume that humans won't change. But humans have to change if we are going to [save] life on Earth.*
Superstitious anti-vaxxers have convinced each other that a blood transfusion with "vaccinated blood" is somehow dangerous. One couple tried to prevent their baby from getting a transfusion unless it was with "unvaccinated blood"; since the baby would have died without surgery and a transfusion, the state intervened and took guardianship to authorize the operation.
Qatar promises to vastly expand its fossil fuel exports; the resulting greenhouse gas emissions would imply global disaster.
The specific point that the total emissions from Qatar's exports would eventually add up to more than one year of the whole world's emissions seems like a red herring to me. I would expect that the same is true for the US too, and perhaps several other countries.
But even though this is just a red herring, I think the article's conclusions are plausible anyway.
At least four on the Supreme Court seem to lean towards the bizarre "independent state legislature" theory. The confrontation in Arizona, in which one county refused to certify its vote, is exactly the kind of situation where a state legislature could (under this theory) arbitrarily make up its own presidential election results.
The revised Electoral Count Act could close that mad loophole, if Congress passes it this month.
US citizens: call on the US government to block Amazon's planned merger with One Medical.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to stand up for keeping Ilhan Omar on the foreign affairs committee.i
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Biden administration not to allow oil drilling near Chaco Canyon.
Chaco Canyon is beautiful, as well as having great historic significance.
Global heating is causing sea animals to move to different habitats. The result will be to wipe out most of the seabirds in western Europe.
Climate defense activists defeated Manchin's "dirty deal" to undermine environmental regulations in the US Senate.
He could try again to pass it in another way, so the fight is not conclusively finished.
*DOJ subpoenas officials in Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona for communications with [the wrecker] around 2020 election.*
Al Jazeera asserts it has proof that Israeli forces fired directly at reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, and has filed a case with the International Criminal Court about this.
The Biden administration has given Haitians in the US temporary protected status through August, 2024.
(satire) *SWAT Team Busts Down Door Of Denver Woman's Home To Apologize For Previous Raid.*
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.
US citizens: call on Congress to abolish the debt ceiling now.
Lawyers hired by the corrupter searched a rented storage unit and found additional secret government documents.
Great 1970s whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg dares the US to prosecute him like Julian Assange. He wants to challenge the constitutionality of such prosecutions.
Ellsberg faced the threat of prosecution at the time, but ultimately officials decided not to prosecute him.
A right-wing conspiracy in Germany plotted to attack Parliament and overthrow the government.
Their ideology was a strange mixture of Nazism, anarchism, and superstition. But they had real weapons and could surely have done real killing.
The Tories plan to deal with strikes by NHS workers by prohibiting strikes.
This approach would be of little use for fixing the broken NHS, but assuming their real goal is to ruin it, this could be quite effective.
San Francisco responded to public revulsion and reversed its recent decision to authorize the thug department to use robots for killing people.
To halt (and then reverse) the general militarization of US thug departments is a much bigger job.
Some Republican senators are condemning the wrecker for showing contempt for the Constitution.
It could be that they are looking for a chance to publicly split from him, having seen that his endorsements of candidates turned out to be disadvantageous for them. They may have decided they will be better off with a new, fresh fascist leader.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to support the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which would prohibit some of the harmful practices of Amazon and some other platforms.
This bill would not do anything to make anonymous purchase possible, or insist that the sites work without sending nonfree software to the user's browser, so I would sill refuse more or less to do use those sites. But their overall injustice would be reduced.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to support the Open App Markets Act. It would require Apple to allow users to install apps obtained from places other than Apple's store.
It looks like this would make it possible to distribute free software for the iThings which users could build from source. That means iThings would no longer be jails.
Of course, they would still be nasty in many other ways, so I would still urge everyone to reject iThings, along with Android.
Abortion rights activists are considering ballot initiatives to legalize abortion in 10 states.
In 2020, when much of the world was desperate for masks and other Covid-19 protective equipment, the Tories gave contracts to companies owned by their cronies. Many of those companies had no experience or manufacturing capacity.
*Australian government overturns decision to cancel citizenship of man on death row in Iraq.*
It is very good news that Australia has overturned the law used to cancel people's citizenship over alleged crimes. That law was an inspiration for various other countries with right-wing governments that base their popularity on performative cruelty.
Those other countries remain to be convinced to eliminate those unjust policies.
Labour has proposed some good reforms for the structure and rules of the UK government.
Shocking rare crimes against children create an impulse and a pressure to overprotect children by locking them up. For the children's sake, we must resist that pressure.
*Argentina's [vice president and ex-president] Cristina Fernández sentenced to six years in $1bn fraud case.*
*Dutch king commissions research into royal role in colonialism.*
*Trump Organization guilty of tax fraud, New York jury finds.*
The corrupter was not personally charged with the crime, but if prosecutors have evidence that he knew about the scheme, they should charge him too.
The US has delayed yet again the requirement for "REAL ID" drivers licenses for purposes such as getting on an commercial flight.
There is too much identifying and tracking people in the US. Let's keep resisting, and see how many years we can block this.
South Korean President Yoon threatened truck drivers with years in prison if they didn't end their strike. They defied him.
The way to end a strike that causes great inconvenience for society is to make the employers pay proper wages and offer proper working conditions. Whose side are you on, Yoon?
(satire) *Fate Of Christmas Uncertain After Eric Adams Institutionalizes Real Santa.*
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.
The TSA has a "pilot program" to use facial recognition to identify airline passengers. And a second generation coming which will do the matching against a database.
Widespread use of facial recognition enables the sort of tracking that China's pervasive repression is based on. We cannot allow such systems to exist.
For now, you can refuse to participate in the TSA's facial matching. Please refuse! To maintain even a little privacy, we must fight tooth and nail against massive surveillance systems, both new systems like this one and existing systems such as Clearview AI.
Biden wants South Carolina to be the Democratic Party's first primary in 2024 so that no progressive candidate can challenge him for the presidential nomination. He is confident of winning heavily there.
New York City is spending a lot of money to prevent a repeat of some of the damage done by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, but the overall effort is far inadequate.
For the longer term, there is no hope of protecting New York City from future inundation with local measures. The only way is to curb global heating.
Qatar paid British MPs to give Qatar support in Parliament.
I find it hard to understand how this could be lawful, but in my sense of justice this is outright bribery and ought to land the participants in prison.
Drivers in London forcibly moved Just Stop Oil protesters out of the road.
I agree fully with the Just Stop Oil's arguments for these protests. If you think being delayed for half an hour is painful, wait and see what food rationing feels like, or a flood or wildfire smoke or heat prostration.
But if this approach to protesting inspires the passersby to fight the protesters, it is not useful or constructive.
Here are suggestions for new tactics for climate protesters. [New note has corrected link to suggestions]
Republican extremists are supporting Putin's lies about Ukraine.
That includes a Faux News announcer. Does an airport near you show Faux News most of the time? You could complain to the airport and say to show something else instead.
*Just Stop Oil's message to Suella Braverman: threaten us all you like — we're not listening.*
*Facebook moderation system favours "business partners", says oversight board.*
US citizens: call on Missouri schools to reverse overzealous book bans.
The chinook salmon are heading rapidly towards extinction, though no one is sure why.
A strange aspect of this article is that it assumes that only by identifying with the sadness of a local indigenous group can we appreciate that the loss of these salmon is a great loss. In effect, it treats their feelings about the possible extinction of chinook salmon as the primary issue.
I can empathize with their sense of loss. I recognize the loss too. But I insist that the objective loss is more important than how people feel about it.
Peoples adapt their cultures to their environments. The ancestors of that group, long enough ago, lived elsewhere and perhaps did not encounter salmon. If the group survives through the coming global disaster, in time it will get used to the absence of chinook salmon. But the damage done by their extinction and the loss of ecosystem they was part of will never go away.
If a species goes extinct and there is no indigenous group to notice, did the extinction really happen?
Stop burning trees to make energy, say 650 scientists before Cop15 biodiversity summit.*
The University of California academic workers are on strike. The management is trying to break their solidarity by offering raises to everyone but the graduate student employees.
Ukraine has reportedly attacked distant Russian airfields used as bases for heavy bombers that bomb Ukraine, and for cruise missiles. Some bombers were damaged.
To attack Russian aircraft and missiles on the ground is a legitimate and natural tactic, but challenging to carry out. Bravo, Ukraine!
The Ukrainian Army seems to have a genius for figuring out clever ways to win the war. Meanwhile, the Putin forces have only a plodding hunger for bigger war crimes.
Leaving the EU was supposed to let the UK "take back control" over its laws and policies, but instead the international banksters have control.
Tories fundamentally believe in letting the rich have power, even if they dislike some of the consequences. Naturally they were never going to fight hard against it. Corbyn would have.
The Intercept interviews two Iranian exiles about the continuing protests, one of whom says we should rather call this a revolution in progress.
Cory Doctorow: in many kinds of products, adding a media-player and its DRM creates an excuse to use the DMCA to forbid users to tinker with any aspect.
Nowadays, any product with DRM is no longer merely defective by design. It is oppressive by design also.
US citizens: call on Biden to commit to the full $100 million for climate finance pledges.
Volunteers are installing public phones in Philadelphia. They are like payphones except gratis.
Every city and town ought to provide these, and you should never have to walk half an hour to reach one.
More on the wrecker's declaration of war on America and everything that is good about it.
Nothing is perfect. There are a number of things in the US Constitution that ought to be changed, Republicans have highlighted some of them in recent decades by stretching them for abuse. The Constitution must protect the environment much more, and the rights and well-being of the disprivileged and disadvantaged. Fairly taxing the rich and curbing the power of business would make that possible. Eliminating the electoral college could make elections more democratic.
The wrecker would not do any of that. He would make himself dictator.
I forecast years ago that leaving the EU could be beneficial if Corbyn were in charge, but would be harmful with Tories in charge. Sad to say, Britain did the latter and has been harmed. Leaving the EU created opportunities to change policies, laws and relationships — opportunities that Britain could use in various ways. Assuming that each party would use those opportunities to achieve its goals, the consequences were clear.
I have updated the page stallman-computing.html.
I have updated the page rms-lifestyle.html.
China has dropped the zero-Covid policy of trying, via tests and quarantines, to stamp out transmission.
It is to be celebrated that powerful protests can make China change rigid, harsh policies. But is this change the wise change to make?
My recommendation was to make the quarantine system less harsh and rigid, so people would not die or get badly sick from being in quarantine for a while.
Two weeks ago, The wrecker publicly associated with a white nationalist and a Nazi, and thus took a clear stand against justice and equal rights.
Since then, he called for abolishing the US Constitution, and thus revealed himself indisputably as an enemy of US democracy and freedom.
Perhaps other Republican leaders, such as Governor Dementis, are less hostile to justice, equal rights, democracy and freedom. But I tend to think they are simply more circumspect.
The UN is considering a resolution to prosecute Putin and other high officials for systematic war crimes by the Putin forces.
They deserve prosecution, but I think it would be a mistake to demand they surrender to prosecution. That would be, in effect, a decision to pursue regime change as a war goal.
That decision would have bad consequences for Ukraine, for the kidnapped Ukrainians, and for the Russian people as well. If Putin yields up all of Ukraine's territory, and returns the kidnapped Ukrainians, he will have had a defeat, not a victory. Those war aims are enough. If Putin is willing to give those, we should offer him peace.
To demand more than that would give him more reason to keep fighting instead of making peace.
*Iranian protesters call for three-day strike as pressure on regime builds.*
I would not be so quick to conclude that the repressive regime will fall soon. Repressive regimes have faced very strong protests and stayed in power.
Five Connecticut prison thugs face charges of reckless endangerment for transporting Richard Cox in a van without a seat belt and thus breaking his neck.
Shouldn't they be charged with gross bodily harm, too?
US citizens: call on Congress to help families, not give tax cuts to corporations.
*"Turn Off the Tap on Plastic," UN Chief Declares Amid Debate Over New Global Treaty.*
I think it is crucial to stop the production of plastic products which are fundamentally difficult to recycle — for instance, different materials joined together.
Elnaz Rekabi participated in an international sports competition without wearing the required head-covering. Her family's home was then demolished.
If the Iranian state did this, then ironically it joins Israel in the practice of punishing an entire family for one person's infraction.
(satire) *Right-Wingers Criticize Kanye For Not Using Platform To Raise Awareness Of Lesser-Known Nazis.*
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.
Macron threatens to invoke business-supremacy treaties to stop the US from carrying out its insufficient but helpful greenhouse gas reduction plans. Environmental activists protest this when Macron was visiting the White House.
Will French activists protest this too? I hope so?
Business-supremacy treaties are fundamentally unjust because they elevate trade over democracy. Businesses had too much power already, and these treaties gave them even more.
Biden joined Congress to impose on railroad workers the contract that the railroads had proposed — with no paid sick days.
*Biden Urged to Sign Executive Order Guaranteeing Rail Workers Paid Sick Leave.*
These same railroads commit safety violations repeatedly, and get fined over and over, but they do not correct the dangers.
(satire) *Biden Signs Legislation To Avert Crisis Of Treating Rail Workers Like Humans.*
(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.)
*The pilots flying passengers across US state lines for abortions.*
The Hinduismists that rule India are attacking hundreds of old mosques by fabricating claims that the buildings are former Hindu temples which were seized centuries ago and converted into mosques. In most cases there is no real evidence that this ever happened. But such is the fanaticism and contempt for truth on the part of the ruling BJP and its supporters that they disregard evidence. The track record of repression and pogroms suggests they are hoping this gives them an excuse to kill some Muslims.
Historians who know about the history of these sites face threats to shut them up. The threats range from firing them to murdering them.
This note has been corrected by a newer note
*Rural Arizona county certifies midterm results after judge orders vote.*
The county supervisors voted to certify the results they had because refusing was illegal.
They presented no grounds to refuse to certify the results, but we can determine what their motives were: The country's voters had voted majority Democratic, and the Republican election officials figured that they could steal some statewide elections by (in effect) discarding all the votes from their own county.
A large fraction of Republicans are traitors at heart, and seek opportunities to steal any election that they lose. If imprisonment is required to thwart their treachery, prison it should be.
Everyone: call on Costco to commit to protecting the boreal forest.
US citizens: call on Congress to work towards a world that is free of nuclear weapons. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Minnesota is considering small reforms in rules for thug departments to better control their predilection to bully people, brutalize people from time to time, and associate with racists, Nazis and insurrectionist organizations. The thugs' unions are pushing back hard.
More information.
NIH has set up a web site for reporting the results of your at-home Covid-19 test, if you wish. It is a good idea, but you should not use the site as currently implemented, because it requires you to run nonfree Javascript code. What a shame.
The San Antonio thug who shot at Erik Cantu 10 times and maimed him faces charges of attempted murder.
The increased willingness to prosecute thugs for violent crimes even if the victim does not die will help control cop crime.
*A woman who sold fake COVID-19 immunization cards gets three years in Federal prison.*
There is no market any more for fake vaccination records, but one more naturopathic "doctor" taken off the streets is likely to make the public safer.
Republicans just barely won control of the House of Representatives, and they did it because of the right-wing partisans that Republicans put on the Supreme Court.
The UK's registrar of corporations was "reformed" to make it cheap, quick and easy to create a corporation. Crooks started many fraudulent corporations and used them to steal and hide millions.
An economist official at Bank of England says that leaving the EU has a large share of responsibility for the increase in food prices in the UK.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Pelosi's successor as leader of the Democratic minority in the House of Representatives, is a strong and firm plutocratist, who supports a few progressive positions so people won't recognize how plutocratist he is.
Perhaps in your eyes the fact that he is black and Muslim makes his election to that position something to celebrate. In my eyes, he's just another plutocratist congresscritter that we should try to replace with a progressive.
Australia is investigating the use of slave labor in building its renewable power systems.
*[The right-wing Australian government's] "grassroots" nuclear power survey linked to consulting firm [working for US nuclear reactor industry].*
Should we call this a "public-private partnership for profit"?
*World's biggest food [corporations] made £20bn in profits — while warning of price rises to come.*
Curbing global heating will not save our planet's ecosystems. They are threatened more immediately by other human activities including deforestation, overgrazing, overfishing, desertification, and soil degradation.
A relationship does exist: global heating will eventually destroy many ecosystems, if they survive that long. But we have to curb the other environmental threats, too.
Having fewer children will help reduce all those forms of excessive human impact, all at once. And will free up your effort to work on the other problems.
Australia has sentenced a climate protester to over a year in prison for blocking one lane of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The US should pressure Israel to agree to nuclear disarmament. Maybe Iran and Israel would agree to nuclear disarmament together.
*President Lula da Silva wants to establish a new Federal Police unit focused on deterring environmental crimes.*
*Campaigners Demand Deep Cuts to Plastic Production as Global Treaty Negotiations Ramp Up.*
Here is a set of narrow arguments against the "KOSA" bill that is supposed to protect "children's" privacy, but will instead deny the privacy of all internet services.
I agree with the arguments in general, but I need to state these points of disagreement.
The British government has become simply incompetent. They summon people to court by mistake, after reporting judgments against them by mistake, after failing to notify them at all.
Indonesia plans political and sexual repression: it will be a crime to (1) insult the president, the state, or the official ideology or (2) have sex (except for married couples).
Reportedly Islamists are behind this attack on freedom in Indonesia.
Frontier Airlines has eliminated telephone customer support. The only way to communicate with the airline is through its web site.
I once flew on a Frontier flight, and noted that the staff seemed to have a right ear and a left ear, but no front ear. That cast its name in question. Now it should be called "No-ear Airlines."
I tried looking around that web site. For the most part, the information seemed to be present and navigation worked. But I think that most inquiries and actions depend on nonfree Javascript code, which excludes me from doing them.
They invite people to use a chat system to get in contact with an agent. That might be an acceptable solution, except that that chat system is part of the web site and it seems to depend on Javascript too.
One thing I noticed on the site is that the company is pressuring people to use its cr…app rather than its web site. Surveillance by the web site is limited; surveillance by a cr…app is much more complete.
Google promised not to save location data about "sensitive" places such as abortion clinics, which some states threaten to sue or prosecute people for going near. It did not make enough change to eliminate the danger.
I am not surprised, because surveillance-based companies will always tend to collect too much data and hold on to too much data.
However, data tends to get duplicated and get stored in various places. The root of the search problem is (1) collecting location data, (2) collecting personal identifying data, and (3) identifying return visitors (with cookies).
An acceptable web service must not find out any of those facts about you unless you request to send them. And it must do its job even if you choose not to send them.
US citizens: call on drug stores to require people to wear masks.
41 Republicans plus Manchin used a filibuster to kill the proposed railroad workers' contract that gave them sick leave. Then the Senate approved the contract lacking sick leave, the version that Biden had asked for.
*Three UK Universities Ban Fossil Fuel Industry Recruiters From Campus.*
The UK's immigation department sent 20 asylum seekers letters inviting them to come to meetings to discuss their cases. When they arrived, which in some cases was a big expense for them, they were told that the staff did no plans for meetings with them that day.
Either these letters were a prank, or the UK government has become so incompetent and confused that it can't carry out the simplest plan. After seeing how incompetent Tories are, I think the latter is more plausible.
Senator Merkely has proposed a bill to put a heavy tax on single family homes when they are owned by big companies that own hundreds of them.
The history, since 1940, of the series of US tax cuts for the rich that impoverished the country.
Want to really make America great again? Tax the rich!
*The [corrupter's] supporters can no longer avoid testifying before grand juries in Washington DC and Georgia.*
*Big polluters given almost €100bn[-worth] in carbon [emissions] permits [gratis] by EU.* That was over a period of 9 years.
The FBI and DHS focus disproportionately on foreign terrorists as possible threats, and insufficienly on (right-wing) domestic terrorists such as white supreacists and Nazis.
The Tyre Extinguishers have deflated the tires of 900 SUVs around the world as a protest against these dangerous gas guzzlers.
A Just Stop Oil protester was sentenced to 6 months in prison for blocking a highway for a while. The court called this "causing a public nuisance," and I'm sure it did. As these protesters say, it's nothing compared to the unending public nuisance conditions that increased use of fossil fuels will cause.
*Ukraine needs tanks, and the west should supply them. They could finish off Putin and Russia.* The proposal includes modern aircraft and longer-range missiles. Careful strategic thought is required about whether to donate the latter.
Herschel Walker, MAGA maggot candidate for the Senate in Georgia, filed for a tax break on a "primary residence" in Texas where he really lives. This may have been illegal.
Pheromone-assisted insect traps can photograph and identify pests via image recognition. This technique can potentially save greatly on the use of pesticides.
Unfortunately, under today's general practices, it will also be a trap for farmers. It will be run by nonfree software, so it will snoop on the farm and put the farm at a disadvantage. And the farmers won't be able to repair it.
The US system of producing medicines suffers from too much commercial centralization (few producers) without much central planning. Also a tendency to optimize for efficiency rather than reliability.
The result is susceptibility to shortages.
Anti-vax fanatics in New Zealand would rather let their baby die than let it get a transfusion of "vaccinated blood" for surgery.
They and others have convinced each other that there is some danger in this.
George Monbiot: Farming and its subsidies are an increasing danger to nature and the climate.
There is no mystery to why governments subsidizes farming. It is not just that rich people want to profit from them; everyone wants the results. But we need to cut down this unsustainable practice.
Fewer babies will certainly help!
A fracking company accepted criminal liability for poisoning the water of Dimock, Pennsylvania and will pay to replace the wells with new water systems and to deliver clean water for the next 75 years.
Here is a timeline of how the company caused the damage, of enforcement efforts, and how the company resisted them.
This is justice in a narrow sense, but it won't clean up the water of that region. It won't undo the lasting diminiution of water supplies in Pennsylvania. There may not be any feasible way to do that.
There must be many other regions of the US which have already suffered similar damage.
We must not allow it to happen in any more places.
Leaders of the Oath Keepers have been convicted of secitious conspiracy for organizing the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol, based on their conversations about same.
This gives the Department of Justice a basis for confidence in bringing that charge against others who were involved, including potentially the corrupter himself.
Antifascist individuals and groups are finding their Twitter accounts suspended. Apparently Musk's idea of freedom of speech has a right-wing bias.
New York City's night-mayor has asked a wide variety of workers to incarcerate homeless people in mental hospitals — including people who are supposed to help the public. This plan is explicitly not limited to people who seem to pose a threat to others.
Many homeless people run away from shelters because the conditions there are so unpleasant they would rather be on the street.
A host of criticisms of this plan.
Once you get committed to a hospital — even if you did it by faking insanity — it is reported to be very hard to prove you are sane.
*Australian PM Anthony Albanese urges US government to end pursuit of Julian Assange.* Assange has been hounded for over a decade using a series of dirty tricks and twisting of the law. But this injustice has a bigger target than Julian Assange. Its main target is the freedom of the press to report on crimes committed by governments.
Democracy depends on whistleblowers, and it depends on journalists to publish what whistleblowers report. The prosecution puts democracy too in danger.
Massive surveillance is part of the threat to democracy. That is why we must limit the collection of databases of personal data, not merely regulate how the data are used.
The Tories have adopted a "voter ID" law, which as always is systematic suppression of voting by voters who are poor, young, or marginalized. In addition, merely through the extra work it requires at underfunded polling places, it will cause chaos.
*Plibersek's "determination" alone won’t save the Great Barrier Reef –- here’s what needs to happen.*
Amnesty Interational: Colombian thugs used torture, rape, and kidnaping to repress the mass protests of 2021. They also used lesser forms of psychological punishment, such as forcing people to strip.
The article embodies a strange set of values. It seems to take for granted that acting based on sexism or racism is a more serious wrong than rape.
I disagree with that. In my view, rape is wrong regardless of the details of the victim.
The UK could pretty much end transmission of HIV and illness from HIV, but it doesn't spend the money to do so.
Victoria (in Australia) has adopted ambitious greenhouse gas goals. Here are suggestions for how to achieve them.
*Israel has stripped a prominent Palestinian-French human rights lawyer of his Jerusalem residency and is expected to deport him to France.*
Israel has had a pattern of repression of lawyers that defend the rights of Palestinians.
Also a pattern of causing suffering by inventing excuses to take away Jerusalem residency permits. For example, being away studying in a university for a few years.
The article refers to "administrative detention", a euphemism for putting people in jail without trial.
A Nigerian student faces criminal charges of "defamation" after beatings in jail were not enough to make him confess.
The details of what the student said are a side issue — treating defamation as a crime always endangers freedom of speech.
The "big four" accounting firms are structurally embedded in systematic corruption. They are "too big to fail", but sooner or later one of them will fail.
The way to end the corruption is clear: prohibit accounting companies from doing anything other than auditing.
If a sudden change is hard to implement, here's a way to force them to make them separate gradually.
Tax the consulting gross sales of accounting firms a stated percentage that rises annually. It could be 3% in the first year, 6% in the second year, and so on. I think that in 5 years they will have moved most of the consulting business to some new sister company.
The details could be adjusted so as to require splitting each current company's non-auditing work into N or more independent new companies.
Other adjustments could make them split the auditing work among a larger number of new auditing companies.
The insufficient competition in the US allows businesses with market power to gouge by piling on "junk fees". Booz Alan has a monopoly over some kinds of access to some US national parks and other public lands, exercised via a "government" web site run by that company, and pulls in much more income from junk fees than the US government agency concerned actually gets.
But it's worse than that. Aside from the matter of price, use of that "government" web site requires running nonfree software. Those parks are off-limits to the free world.
I have visited some US national parks, and I paid cash to enter them. Is that still possible? Can anyone investigate that site (see the article) and report which parks and places can't be entered by paying cash, without using any web site?
Or which parks and places can still be entered by paying cash, without any web site?
Whichever list is shorter would be the more useful.
*Arizona elections official goes into hiding after post-midterm threats* from right-wing Big Lie fanatics.
*Three Georgia sheriff's deputies, all white, charged with battery after beating black inmate.*
The video shows that they prepared to attack him, while he was standing in a cell, doing nothing significant.
Two versions of the video have been published, one in which the attack was intentionally blurred and one which shows what happened. The thug department promoted the former and the latter is hard to find.
*Canada accused of putting its timber trade ahead of global environment.*
Could the US and China collaborate to curb global heating?
It seems to me that neither government has a strong enough commitment to that cause. In the US, it is because Republicans are determined to keep driving straight at the cliff. As for China, it seems to assume that doing this slowly and arriving decades late is sufficient. The two countries need to be set individually on the goal before they can collaborate on it.
US citizens: phone President Biden and urge him to issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose all of their political spending.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on your state legislature to implement fair districting.
The EU has proposed a plan to cut plastic waste from consumer goods.
This is good, but what about the fishing nets?
When billionaires pledge to donate most of their wealth to charity, there is no guarantee that that money will ever reach a charity, The system is complicated and the pledge may be almost meaningless.
Never mind their pledges — let's tax them a lot more.
*UK super-rich [are] less charitable than decade ago, says charity chief.*
Stop depending on them to give voluntarily, and tax them more!
*Biden urged to threaten Israel weapons halt over far-right concerns.*
How will Tories face the NHS strikes that are due to their 12 years of budget cuts?
The House of Representatives narrowly passed a law to give railroad workers the seven days of paid sick leave (is that per year?) that they want. Now the question is whether Republicans will filibuster it and kill it, to ensure a strike.
*ALEC Lawmakers and Corporate Lobbyists Meet in D.C. to Debate Rewriting the Constitution, Punishing Socially Responsible Businesses, and Protecting Misinformation.*
George Takei talks about growing up in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans, and later coming out as gay.
Railroads in England cancel a lot of trains. But the ones they cancel before 10pm the night before are omitted from the statistics, so the statistics don't show how bad this really is.
Privatization makes this worse. Instead of government agency, which would obey orders to report more useful figures, these are "private companies" that have "rights" to state their cancellation rate in a way that minimizes it.
The railroad passengers deserve rights, and the railroad workers deserve rights, but there should be no stockholders or executives involved in running trains that "deserve rights" over how the trains run.
90% of US counties have had at least one weather disaster from 2011 through 2022. This figure does not count heatwaves.
There is no information about how much each disaster was due to global heating, but it is a big cause of weather disasters now and going forward. Each American should recognize that "global heating is going to hit the place I live."
That doesn't count the crop failures that are going to affect us all even though the place they occur may be far away.
The article points out also that it would be more economical to do things to prevent disasters than to repair them.
Businesses are pushing for a federal tax cut this year. As if they didn't pay too little tax already!
US citizens: call on Congress to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
By deciding to investigate Israel's killing of Shirin Abu Akleh, the US is putting limits on its willingness to support Israel no matter what Israel does.
Qatar believes it can bully any and all parts of the British government by pulling some of the investments that harm Britain.
The UK NHS is trying to suggest that nurses should not strike because it would cause some operations to be delayed.
That statement is literally true, but the argument it is part of is invalid. The main cause of postponing millions of operations every year is mismanagement and underfunding by the government, and the harmful consequences include the pay that is inadequate for nurses to live on.
*China censors maskless crowd footage in World Cup broadcasts.*
Apparently the contrast with them puts China in a bad light, in the minds of many Chinese. Are they right? I won't assume that. They can see when people die from the rigidity and harshness of the Chinese state. But if China drops the effort to eradicate Covid outbreaks, it could kill millions of Chinese. I think it would be better to correct the rigidity and harshness.
I agree with Sridhar that in what China needs in the long term to get better vaccines and get most people vaccinated.
A court order not to retaliate against union organizers also requires Amazon to read the court's decision to all the employees at the unionized plant in Staten Island.
I hope this requires Amazon to pay the workers for the time they pass listening to this reading.
Comparing the US and British medical systems: both horrible but in different ways.
The British medical system (the NHS) did not just grow with its current problems. It worked much better until the Tories started cutting its budget, through trickle-down politics based on worship of the Invisible Hand. It is clear how to fix them: give the NHS enough money to do its job.
The US medical system's problems did just grow, as the worshipers of the Invisible Hand let gouging private companies get whatever they wished for and blocked efforts to stop them. It is clear how to fix these problems: create a public national medical system and sweep away those greedy bastards. The usual term for this nowadays is "Medicare for all", though I think we should go further and set up a system of VA hospitals for all.
*Netanyahu strikes Israeli coalition deal with far-right [antigay fanatic].*
Hatred of gay or queer people is not a phobia, it is bigotry.
*War in space would have immediate effects [on civilian life.] Attacks on satellites could take out GPS systems, banking systems, power grids …*
A group of UN experts call for putting the Great Barrier Reef on UNESCO's list of world heritage sites that are in danger.
*Monkeypox to be renamed mpox to avoid stigma, says WHO.*
This illustrates our society's tendency to cater excessively to hypersensitivity. There is nothing in the name "monkeypox" which insults anyone, and monkeys can't understand the word "pox".
What next — will they rename "chicken pox" to protect the feelings of chickens, or people accused of timidity? How about renaming "Rock Mountain Spotted Fever" so that the Rocky Mountains don't feel stigmatized?
It is futile to bully people to eliminate locutions because racists or right-wingers could spin them in a nasty way. They can invent more such things at any moment. The bullying would be a never-ending series of self-inflicted blows, at which bigots would laugh and say, "See how easily we make them go nuts!"
Forecast: expect Xi to do in many parts of China what he did to the Uyghurs and to Hong Kong.
The island of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji, is being taken over by intrusive vines that grow too fast to remove. Vines are covering buildings, farms, paths, and forests. People find it hard to keep their farms going.
Massachusetts voters amended the state constitution to increase the tax rate a few percent for incomes over a million dollars a year. So far so good. But the greedy rich have many ways to get rid of laws that make them pay their fair share.
In the UK, many necessary life activities exclude people that don't use snoop-phones full of nonfree software. This article shows how common that is.
The author cannot envision the idea of choosing to reject snoop-phones as a matter of justice if you are capable of using one. But you can. Every one of the restrictive activities that excludes the old people that can't use a snoop-phone are likewise doing wrong to everyone that refuses to use them.
And doing wrong to each person that does contact them with a snoop-phone.
India is exporting Hindu-supremacism and its violence to Britain. And to the US.
Finally some influential newspapers argue for dropping the charges against Julian Assange.
The UK governmen admits that tens of thousands of homes in the UK are not safe for people to live in.
This, together with various other issues including the Grenfell fire shows that the UK has lost its ability to enforce regulations on businesses that are meant to protect public safety and well-being.
It can't even run railroads well, because it has privatized them.
I am not sure what the causes are. I've seen "cronyism" sugested as a cause for some, but I suspect that another cause is catering excessively to the wealthy and business. The companies that run the privatized railroads get more importance than the passengers.
Watch out for a false sense of security. The US is still in danger of being taken over by fascism.
The Republicans, by a margin of one seat in the House of Representatives, seem to have succeeded in ensuring that the federal government can't do anything before the 2024 elections to ensure our elections are not rigged then.
Vaccine disinformation has convinced many to refuse measles vaccination, and that is creating a completely unnecessary threat of measles.
(satire) *Cash-Strapped Subway Threatens To Reveal Identities Of Customers Who Eat Subway [food] If They Don’t Pay [ransom].*
The Tories have heard the voice of Insulate Britain and proposed a plan to insulate the homes of middle-class Britons.
It's a good idea, but middle-class homeowners could afford to pay back this support out of the savings they will have. The government should lend the money for middle-class homes, and give the money for insulating poor people's homes.
Yanis Varoufakis conjectures that Musk wants to turn Twitter into a platform for surveillance capitalism, and that everything he said about freedom of speech was a red herring.
Global heating killed 20,000 people in Europe through heat waves last summer that were possible due to local heating.
Brains learn to predict other people's likely behavior and to save the unconscious effort of figuring about concerns that never arise for them. As a result, powerful people learn to be ruthless and not to concern themselves with the feelings of the obedient people around them.
Putin has banned any public mention of same-sex or same-gender relationships. Like DeMentis, his law prohibits this only under certain conditions, but when his followers interpret the conditions, there is nothing that is safe to say.
"Green Capitalism" sounds promising, but is it really capable of preventing global climate disaster. A book argues that it is not: that measuring the value of each thing in the world in monetary terms just won't do the job.
A committee came up with an estimate of the monetary value of a great whale, One can question whether the monetary value captures the importance of continued existence of whales, but maybe the result would be adequate.
But what about the continued existence of a rare, endangered species of small animals? If people calculate that without adding a term to represent the value of simple existence of a distinct species, they might get a minuscule number.
How many endangered species preserved are worth one living whale? It's hard to make that question meaningful, It's like asking how much money a human life is worth. Insurance needs to find a way to answer that question, but is that the right way to understand the importance of various things? Is that the right way to decide who lives and who dies?
If you buy the book, please do not get it from Amazon.
Private equity companies are buying up medical specialist clinics in the US, and creating local monopolies that systematically gouge, and even defraud.
This problem afflicts many areas of medicine, just as it affects many other areas of life in the US.
For medicine, the full solution is a national medical system. It would save the US money overall, but might require taxing the rich more.
However, the problem of concentration of industry needs a general solution too.
Some US universities have made deals with sports betting companies. The university helps promote gambling to the students, and in return gets a share of what the students spend.
I don't believe in prohibiting gambling, but those who have your well-being in mind will not encourage you to gamble.
* Major tax filing services such as H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer have been quietly transmitting sensitive financial information to [Facebook+Instagram].* As well as other basic personal information.
The do this through a tracking pixel on their web sites. The info sent comes from what the user enters in the web site; it seems that does not include the detailed financial data that users hand over for the tax return itself. Sending the latter to some other company might, I suspect, be a crime.
Millions of sites use the Facebook&Instagram tracking pixel to send data about their visitors.
Google Analytics collects much of the same data, but not the user's name. However, often it can figure out the user's identity in other ways.
The iMonsters' app store client program collects many kinds of data about the user's actions.
There is a command to disable this collection, but it seems not to have an effect.
Does it matter that Julian Assange has Asperger's syndrome? (I avoid the term "autistic spectrum" because it is a misleading overgeneralization.)
In principle, no. Publishing leaks about the horrible crimes of governments is admirable and no one should be punished for that.
In practice, if it helps prevent Assange's extradition, I will be glad. However, to avoid putting journalism in danger globally, saving Assange from US vengeance based on personal grounds will not be enough. We need to protect journalists and whistleblowers from punishment for serving the public.
*Far-right extremist [Ben-Gvir] to be Israel's national security minister.*
He wants to give immunity to Israeli soldiers that shoot at Palestinians, and execute Palestinians for various sorts of crimes. In this ministry he would be in charge of thugs, and would surely encourage them to commit violence. In Israel I was told that the border police were especially cruel and violent towards Palestinians.
The documentary "Tantura" tells the story of Israel's expulsion of the Palestinians of a town near Haifa, in 1948. The film-maker, Alon Schwarz, faces revulsion for this.
I wish that Uri Avnery were alive to talk about the film and the events. His article, Truth Against Truth, provides some context.
Faux News hammered viewers with frequent reports about crime, until election day.
"Think about crime — don't think about the help Republicans won't let the government give you!"
Walmart drives its workers hard, but especially hard in the "holiday" season. They are compelled to work 55 or even 60 hours a week and can't take time off even for an emergency.
Australia will accept the wives and children of PISSI fighters
*SpaceX Workers Say They Were Illegally Fired for Open Letter Criticizing Elon [Musk].*
Republicans have a broad plan: *to destabilize, weaken, and even destroy the institutions that give a voice to people who don't agree with their vision.*
Suggesting that NATO should make a rule to have dialog with a possible attacker before any NATO state fights back against an apparent attack.
A UK thug department has paid damages for attacking protesters. The thugs made a sudden attack at a peaceful demonstration. The thugs cited Covid lockdown regulations in force at the time, but that can't justify a violent attack!
Paying damages and not admitting wrongdoing is not enough.
Tory budget plans are likely to degrade UK public services even further.
San Francisco thugs propose using robots that can carry deadly weapons, to respond to reports of incidents.
The criterion they propose for using this sounds very similar to the criterion for shooting people. As we know, thugs often shoot people dead in situations where that justification was not a good criterion.
The UK gave every homeless person a place indoors to sleep, for a short time during the pandemic.
I think the UK did not continue this for very long, but that doesn't mean it can't be done again.
It may require taxing the rich more.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say, don't starve critical investments in healthcare, children and transit. Pass government funding before the end of the year.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice not to let the wrecker use his new presidential campaign to get off the hook for criminal charges.
US citizens: call on Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to remove all medical debt from credit reports.
US citizens: call on state officials to disqualify the wrecker from running for president or other offices, as the Constitution calls for.
US citizens: call on Congress to raise the debt ceiling now so Republicans can't use it as a lever for sabotage later.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
US citizens: call on Biden to advocate repeal of the ‘02 AUMF.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the FTC to require platforms to make their direct messages end-to-end encrypted.
This is a half-measure. Truly secure encrytion has to be done by a free client program that the user installs independently of the platform. Therefore it can't be implemented by a communication platform.
If the encryption is done by the platform — either in its server, or in its nonfree client program, or in code sent to the user's browser (for instance, in Javascript) — then the platform has control over the encryption, and can backdoor it at will.
Musk has readmitted many right-wing extremists to Twitter, including the bullshitter and people who deny that he lost the 2020 election.
However, it prohibits all users from posting links to the Distributed Denial of Secrets web site, ddosecrets.com, which posts government secrets leaked by whistleblowers.
A furniture company shut down its operations abruptly and fired all its workers instantly, without notice. It also tried to deny them all benefits — even the option to continue their medical insurance at their own expense.
It may be illegal for a company to do that, but that's not enough. It ought to be a crime for the executives and managers involved in the decision.
I wonder why they shut down the company abruptly. Two ideas that occur to me are (1) they decided to move operations to another country and (2) the company was owned by private equity. Neither one makes the action any less wrong.
As for the fact that they did this on one day of the year rather than one of the other 364 days, or what method they used to inform the staff, or the fact that some of them were sleeping, don't let those minor details distract you. If your condemnation of bad treatment of workers can be mollified by choosing such details better, that will help businesses attack workers rights ore effectively. We must demand the substance of treating workers decently, not merely the show.
Bolsonaro's Nazi propaganda and relaxation of gun laws in Brazil have led to massacres by Nazi fanatics.
*"A Death Sentence": Biden Blasted for Approving Oil Export Project.*
Failing to decrease oil extraction now can easily doom most people.
(satire) *Biden Meets With Turkeys Who've Lost Loved Ones To Thanksgiving.*
Ukraine is now sending subsidized food to some African countries.
Protests against strict Covid lockdowns have spread in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.
The next climate conference will occur in the UAE, a fossil-fuel kingdom that is attacking Yemen with US support. There is not much hope from an event held there. So Naomi Klein suggests that civil society boycott it and hold a parallel event.
Democrats had successes among rural voters, and if they try harder they can develop real strength there.
Calling on the IMF to eliminate the extra interest that it charges poor countries.
Steven Donziger argues for ways to tackle global heating in international law.
Creating the crime of ecocide is one of his solutions.
In the UK, workers who are sick are not interested in notes excusing time off work — they are so desperately poor that they are compelled to work while sick.
Facebook closed accounts that it found were spreading false information on behalf of the US government.
CIA officials, appointed by the wrecker, discussed assassinating Julian Assange. Instead they took the slow path that has been in use for several years.
The summary of Assange's history, in that article, is misleading on a number of points. This is a better reference.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposes to deregulate new kinds of nuclear power plants.
They have a history of seeking to please and serve the companies that make nuclear power plants, so such a proposal makes me suspicious. We should not build new, "small" nuclear plants because that is too slow, expensive and risky to be of service in preventing global heating disaster.
To go fast, we need to use the solution that is fastest and cheapest to build: renewable power.
Iran is expanding its uranium-refining capacity. This suggests it intends to produce nuclear weapons — though it could be a plan to generate nuclear power instead of burning so much oil.
Sydney thugs violently arrested habitual prank protester Danny Lim and left him seriously injured.
He told them at the outset he needed an ambulance, and when a passerby offered to call one, the thugs threatened to charge him with a crime if he did so.
Thugs should face criminal charges for making threats to falsely accuse people, just as for actually doing so.
I don't quite get the jobe of his sign, nor the point of his protest — but those details don't affect the issue here.
There are big protests in an Apple factory in China, and videos are circulating despite Chinese censorship.
Surveillance jungle: rental e-scooters in Paris are very strictly tracked. And of course the renter has to identify perself to rent one.
"Convenient" disservices like these are what teach people to accept surveillance. If we don't want a society in which one's every move is known, we have to reject surveillance disservices.
*There will come a time for [peace] negotiations — but calls to reach a deal with the Kremlin now are more wrong-headed than ever.*
I think it can't hurt to have negotiators continue to meet, since occasionally they can agree on a significant side issue. But they must not aim to to pressure Ukraine into inviting defeat.
*The massacre at Club Q didn’t happen in a vacuum. There has been a dangerous escalation in hateful anti-LGBT rhetoric.*
Japan is meddling in Australian politics by trying to pressure Queensland not to increase the tax on exported coal.
That tax increase is a tiny step towards the vital goal of reducing coal consumption. It is terribly insufficient, but opposing it endangers all of us.
Biden's delay on ruling on whether Crown Prince Bone Saw could be sued in a US court gave him an opportunity to appoint himself "prime minister" and thus gain the benefit of a shelter in a pertinent treaty.
US citizens: phone your representative and senators and call on them not to pass any tax cuts for business. Handouts should be directed to non-rich Americans!
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
(satire) *New STEM Program Teaches Students Skills To Appease Whims Of Capricious Tech CEO.*
I find this especially on target because the absurdity it attacks is the basis of the buzzword "STEM" itself.
(satire) *British World Cup Attendees Accused Of Smuggling Alcohol Into Stadium Through Bloodstreams.*
(satire) *Landlord Pledges To Address Tenant Infestation.*
An ironically misguided petition asks the US government to require communication platforms to encrypt all private messages.
It would sure be wise for users to encrypt those messages. But that won't be secure if the platform sets up the encryption and the decryption. If you do that with software that the platform provides, the platform could put in a back door to bypass it, making it ineffective for security against snooping by that platform. If you want encryption to provide real security, install the GNU Privacy Guard and use it — to encrypt a message before you send it, and to decrypt a message after you receive it.
Major US railroad workers' unions have rejected a contract offer that didn't offer them enough.
The railroads are profitable and they should share these profits with their workers. I'm disappointed with Biden for proposing a contract that didn't give them enough.
A federal court issued an injunction for Amazon to stop firing workers for protesting unsafe working conditions.
Some players in the football world cup in Qatar planned to wear armbands to support equal rights for queer people. Qatar said it would respond by taking a step to expel them from the game, so they abandoned these plans.
Qatar violates human rights egregiously — this is one example, but the mistreatment of workers who built the facilities is even more blatant.
We should not allow Qatar any sort of position of special power over any international activity. *By consenting to Qatar's illiberal policies for residents and guests alike, FIFA has further besmirched its already tainted reputation.*
The EU would have the power to make FIFA yield to various human rights rules and agree to require all future world cup hosts to accept them.
Starbucks is closing stores, and 40% of those stores have unionized or are organizing.
Starbucks has taken anti-union measures before.
Oregon's governor pardoned everyone convicted in Oregon of possessing a small amount of marijuana.
Unlike Biden's pardons, this included non-US-citizens.
Many states and territories still need to do legalize marijuana and pardon everyone convicted of possessing it.
"Stakeholder capitalism" turns out to do little for the groups it is supposed to benefit — it is at best lip service, sometimes even a fraud.
*Senior officers ordered "unlawful" arrests of journalists at Just Stop Oil protests.*
They didn't explicitly say "arrest journalists", but they gave orders to arrest protesters, and did not mention that journalists were a special case.
I don't think they should be in a position of authority if they disregard freedom of the press. Meanwhile, arresting protesters is bad too.
*SpaceX employees say they were fired for criticizing Elon Musk in open letter.*
Heather Wallace, of suburban Texas, asked her child to walk half a mile to their home. For this she was arrested, then pressured to plead guilty to "endangering a child". Eventually Texas decided it was ok to let the child walk, but the guilty plea has taken away her career and tied her up in mandatory lying.
It is horrible to force someone to apologize for something that was not wrong. A group of bullies tried to do that to me. Fortunately, they did not have the power to imprison me, so I stood up to them and did not apologize except for certain things that I really felt it would be better not to have done.
Using state eminent domain power to seize land and houses for the sake of a private project is an attractive nuisance that inspires corruption.
Carbon-removal programs have always been a long shot. But now that the planet-roasters have blocked the more reliable forms of action, they may be the Earth's last best hope.
The thing is, they won't do much good if the planet-roasters treat them as excuses to increase their emissions.
Democrats in Congress plan to pass a resolution to recognize that the wrecker has violated his oath to defend the US Constitution, and therefore is barred by the Constitution from running for any office in the US.
Comparing the economic situation of Americans in their 30s in 1990 with Americans in their 30s today measures the tremendous harm that right-wing politics has done to Americans generally.
The Senate found that US immigration thugs have sent women prisoners for medical operations without getting their consent, and without properly supervising the operations.
Twelve Senate Democrats voted to end the US Covid emergency law.
This would prevent Biden from suspending repayment of student loans. It could also kick millions of Americans off medicaid. Right-wingers would in general like poor people to die.
The Ukrainian soldiers and border guards on Snake Island, who told the Moskva, "Russian warship, go fuck yourself," were captured. The Putin forces gave Ukraine no word about them and Ukraine believed they were dead. In fact, they were imprisoned, and tortured, but not killed.
One, Bohdan Hotskiy, was eventually swapped for a Russian prisoner of war, which is how we know how he was tortured. The rest remain prisoners, as far as I can tell from this article.
About another woman who almost died from getting pregnant while living in Texas.
Republican operative Senator Manchin is making sure the Democrats cannot eliminate the debt ceiling this year, and thus ensuring the Republicans can use it for blackmail next year.
US citizens: call on your senators to oppose a forestry bill that would require cutting down lots of mature trees. These trees store lots of carbon from the air, and offer habitats that many species depend on.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on Biden to extend student loan repayments freeze until cancellation is awarded.
US citizens: call on officials of your state to disqualify the wrecker from holding office, on grounds of insurrection.
*With Democrats in charge of the Senate and White House, "Republicans will try to impose economic pain on families so they can blame us and seize power for themselves," [Senator] Warren noted.
Cutting Social Security and Medicare is the start of this, but they plan to do more too.
Mainstream media don't admit that's what Republicans are doing, and I don't think Biden will do it either.
The US is working with other countries in which China has set up secret repression stations to pressure Chinese expats.
The Momentum movement, which was supported by a large fraction of Labour members, has lost many supporters as they see that Labour has been taken over by Starmer and his plutocrats.
The question is, have they still got any chance of winning anything by supporting Labour?
The US has laws to find people who might intend to buy guns and kill people, and stop them from buying guns, but makes little effort to make that system actually work.
I suspect that the system has another problem: people are not that reliably predictable. Identifying some of those people is easy, but setting the net fine enough to identify all of them would identify lots of false positives too.
Examples of how damaging a part of the natural environment can cause enormous harm to humans who didn't know how they depended on it.
Deforesters in the Beni region of the Bolivian lowlands don't just cut down the trees. They go on to flatten and destroy the uninvestigated middens left by ancient inhabitants whose culture is very little known.
The Bolivian government is encouraging deforestation to boost agriculture. This contributes to global disaster, which could lead our civilization to end up in ruins like the ones they are destroying.
The thugs in Western Australia have a notable pattern of letting their dogs attack indigenous Australians, especially minors.
It is clear that the thugs handling these dogs fail to keep the dogs under proper control. Whether this is due to malice or irresponsibility is not clear from this statistical information. They should publish the videos of the dog attack on Jayden Abraham.
The US approved keeping the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant running 10 additional years, from 2025 to 2035.
The article asserts that California is having trouble coming up with renewable generation to replace the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, but also that ten-ish US power reactors have closed since 2013 due to competition from cheaper renewable generation. It is not easy to reconcile those two statements.
If California doesn't expect to have enough renewable generation working by 2025, why doesn't it spend more money on building more rather than on keeping the Diablo Canyon power plant running?
The important decision about whether to build a third runway at Heathrow airport, which would imply a lasting increase in flying out of the UK, is being made as a battle over the business interests of various investors, including foreign governments such as Qatar and China that are absolutely vicious.
The corruption/privatization of the UK government has squeezed the public interest out of the decision.
A new tactic for right-wing global heating denialists — "Have faith in the market to solve the problem!"
What about when we see where "the market" is taking us, and it leads to disastrous heating? "Have faith, 2 or 3 degrees C of heating won't be that bad." But we are barely coping with 1.1 degrees now.
"The market" operates constantly — always under the explicit and implicit rules that society imposes on it. Societies frequently change those rules, either explicitly and intentionally or unconsciously. The question we face now is how to change the rules to reduce the disaster we are creating. "Just let the rules sweep you away" is not even an answer.
(satire) *Qatar World Cup Games To Cut Off Human Sales After 75th Minute.*
Wealthy people in Britain can pay hundreds of pounds for an ordinary appointment with a general practitioner, because the NHS has been starved to the point it takes weeks to be seen.
A Pakistani film about a trans woman, which won a prize at Cannes, is now unbanned in Pakistan, but it is still banned in part of India.
India is very bad in regard to censorship; many important works have been banned.
* After being repeatedly humiliated by Prince Mohammed, Biden continues to appease an autocrat who disdains him.*
The international climate conferences have never agreed on the goal of reducing use of fossil fuels. This year's conference saw a move to come closer to that position, but it failed.
This shows how resolutely some governments insist on maintaining or increasing their use of fossil fuels.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate retired military members working for foreign governments.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate the Ticketmaster-Live Nation monopoly and break it up.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
South Korea's president is attacking freedom of the press, by punishing specific organizations that criticize him.
Since young voters mostly voted for democrats, Republicans propose to raise the minimum age for voting.
Voters around the US approved ballot initiatives to fund aid for affordable housing and taxes on sale of expensive dwellings.
Robots that carry guns and can select targets are already being made. The ones mentioned in this article cannot fire the guns without an order from a human soldier.
If we want robot weapons to appreciate the value of human lives, we had better treat their lives as having value too. If and when they become capable of appreciating the value of lives of others, they may be ready to deserve that.
The scenario of cracking the security on robot weapons should remind us that humans too are vulnerable to this too. Right-wing extremists cracked the mental security of US soldiers and thugs, brainwashing them to attack US democracy in the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol. No system
*The big takeaway from Cop27? These climate conferences just aren’t working.*
*There was no commitment to cutting the emissions causing accelerating this crisis, without which this agreement is nothing more … than a "down-payment on disaster."*
The planet roasters have spread their influence both overtly at the events and out of sight through influence on governments. And then there are the business-supremacy treaties.
Considering that the effect of these systems of influence will be to kill hundreds of millions of people, I think it is time to wipe out those systems, and never mind what property and financial interests get "harmed." Indeed, "harming" those interests is necessary — their wealth gives them power to keep disaster going, so the only way to reduce the damage they can do is to is to wreck some of their wealth.
Shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant caused damage to structures that are not critical.
Who fired these shells? They chose targets that would provoke anxiety but were unlikely to cause real danger. In other words, it appears to have been a sort of bluff. This is indication (though not proof) that the Putin forces did the shelling.
We should not take seriously their claim that the shots came from Ukraine; they have no credibility.
T appears that Putin's plan does not include causing any significant damage, but plans occasionally go wrong. It behooves Ukraine and Putin to agree on a plan to demilitarize the power plant itself.
But I don't expect Putin to agree to this.
Animals bred in zoos evolve to be less fit to survive in the wild.
This is a predictable consequence of natural selection. Animals' survival in a breeding program does not depend on the characteristics that are needed for survival in the wild, but maintaining those characteristics has costs. So they will tend to lose those characteristics.
It would be interesting to see what happens after those captivity-adapted animals are released. Do they respond to the selection pressure of wild existence by evolving in the other direction? That seems likely if enough of the original wild population remains. But if there is very little of the original wild population, the superior wild characteristics might have been lost entirely.
*The 1.5C climate goal died at Cop27 — but hope must not.*
Alas, that was our only chance for a world free of blatant changes in weather and climate.
*McDonald’s and Walmart beef suppliers criticised for "reckless" antibiotics use.*
I've been posting about this danger for many years. These producers are choosing the actions in their short-term best interest, and our government hasn't got the power to force them to follow long-term interests.
South Koreans separate food waste from other waste, and hand it in in special bags for municipal composting. This almost completely prevents the social burden of food waste.
*Beware self-made "genius": entrepreneurs promising the earth. Just look at Elon Musk.*
Starmer is proud of having many Tory friends.
I conjecture that this is because he doesn't disagree with them all that deeply.
An international vote adopted more protections on sharks, which are being wiped out by the trade in shark fins for Chinese conspicuous consumption.
Kiribati's president wants the rest of the world to pay the cost of protecting the Kiribati islands from rising seas.
To do this for 10 or 20 years might be feasible. If we curb global heating fast, the problem may then vanish as a result. But if global heating continues unchecked, the idea is hopeless.
Perhaps the president is well aware of this and is actually pushing for the major countries to curb global heating quickly. It is worth a try, for the sake of each and every one of us.
While Covid-19 preoccupied the medical systems of Europe, a million or so people who had contracted cancer did not get tested until late. They may die from this.
Three Russian officers were convicted of murder on grounds of being responsible for deploying the Buk missile launcher that was used to shoot down flight MH17.
I think it is wrong to charge soldiers with murder, in any form, simply for being involved with deploying a weapon, which weapon was later fired at civilians by mistake with fatal intent. That is not murder.
If soldiers had knowingly fired it at a civilian aircraft, that would be murder. But no one tried to prove that such a thing happened.
To respect the laws of war includes steadfastly refusing to stretch or twist them to "get at" people because they are on a side we oppose. We must support applying them evenhandedly.
*Seventy five countries led by the US, UK and France are expected to sign a declaration in Dublin on Friday to refrain from urban bombing.*
Russia, China, Israel, and India said they would not sign. Ukraine also refuses to sign, but maybe it would sign if Russia does.
*If you're outraged by XR and Just Stop Oil, imagine how disruptive climate breakdown will be.*
If you are concerned about the works of art that Just Stop Oil protesters threw liquids at, keep in mind that if civilization ceases to have spare funds to maintain museums, some of them will be exposed to the elements and decaying. The rest will have been taken by billionaires who expect to save a fraction of you, at the cost of becoming their slaves.
Some people are convinced that prosperity requires a growing population — even in the US.
We can't afford a growing population in the US. It uses too much resources already. I'd say that survival, in the long term, requires a gradually shrinking US population. People in the US consume so much resources that a decrease in the US population is crucial for the world as a whole.
A "young population" is a harbinger of disaster.
We can enable ordinary Americans to prosper and cut down the resources we use, if only we could put an end to plutocracy that demands ever more billions for each billionaire.
We have plutocracy because the billionaire plutocrats have purchased laws (and judges) that assure them the power to buy more laws and court decisions.
Playwright Caryl Churchill was given a lifetime achievement award. Then the award committee took the award back because Churchill had expressed support for Palestinians' Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.
Artists are entitled to have political views, like anyone else, but judgments about their merit as artists should not judge them by their views on political issues.
Climate talks must consider reforming agriculture so as to end its large greenhouse emissions.
Workers at over 110 Starbucks stores went on strike Thursday.
A few activists heckled Biden's speech at Cop29. They were banned from the whole event after that, under the excuse that they "put lives in danger".
We expect Egypt to carry out censorship, but US officials should be better than that.
Kari Lake, a Republican election liar, was defeated for governor of Arizona. Now the question is whether she will try to bluff by claiming she actually won, and, if so, how the state will put a halt to the imposture.
Supposedly leftist President Boric wants Chile to sign the TPP — which would eliminate Chile's right to regulate many areas of business and health.
Fossil fuel companies use these business-supremacy treaties to attack measures for decarbonizing. Boric also wants Chile to sign the Energy Charter Treaty, a business-supremacy treaty designed specifically to interfere with measures to reduce use of fossil fuels. It is effectively a suicide pact.
If you are in Chile, launch a fight against this absurd plan.
Right-wing politicians in Texas have, surprisingly, supported criminal justice reform, and this has allowed Texas to close many of its prisons.
*Secrecy Enabled by Rich Countries Lets Corporations Dodge $90 Billion in Taxes Per Year.*
The Cop27 climate conference achieved very little of its main goals.
but did make progress towards an agreement about having heavy-emissions countries pay to help poor low-emissions countries. The armies of fossil fuel lobbyists seem to have stymied it.
Kemp arranged to rig the Georgia election for governor, just as he did when he was first elected governor.
The Netherlands will ban possession of nitrous oxide because a small fraction of car collisions are attribute to use of it.
The cops say (about a three-year period) there were almost 1,800 road accidents involving nitrous oxide, including 63 fatal collisions, according to a police survey reported by the Dutch public broadcaster ONS.
There were a total of 582 road fatalities in 2021. These figures are not quite comparable, but we can estimate around 20 road fatalities in 2021 that were related to use of nitrous oxide. That is a rather small fraction of 600. I don't think drugs should be banned for such small reasons. I believe they ought to try an education campaign to help people use nitrous oxide safely. Certain basic safety precautions that San Francisco hippies make an effort to teach each other could win the community's support and be more effective than a prohibition.
The Tories have told housing inspectors to put the blame for dangerous situations on the residents, not on the building owner who could actually fix the problem. In some cases, fixing substandard housing requires changes that the tenants would not be allowed to make, even if they knew how, since they don't own the house.
Ticketmaster has a monopoly on selling tickets for many kinds of events. Now Americans may demand to break it up.
Over a century ago, the US government knew how to break up monopolies, and it did so systematically in every area. That is what we need. But my progressive tax on gross income may convince companies to split themselves up.
Musk invited Twitter users, including bots, to "vote" on whether to give the corrupter an account again.
Since it was Musk who decided who could vote, and how often, his unofficial elections are no more meaningful than Republicans' official elections,
Supreme Court justices sternly condemned this year's leak of the as-yet-unpublished Dobbs decision that would overturn Roe v Wade. One of them, Alito, is now proved to have leaked a future decision to a rich right-wing supporter in 2014.
Let's not let secondary matters such as leaks steal the stage from primary matters. The leaking of either of these rulings was a secondary issue compared with the two bad rulings themselves. Alito is a participant in both of these rulings, as well as one of the leaks.
Everyone involved in using water from the Colorado River is being told to reduce the amount used. It won't be easy, but otherwise the Glen Canyon Dam will stop generating electricity.
Twitter contains many years of tweets that are crucial records for historians, and now there is a danger that all or a large part of them will suddenly be lost.
We don't know who carried out a terrorist bombing on the street in Istanbul, but Erdoğan has made this an excuse to bomb the Syrian Kurds.
US citizens: call on the U.S. to support a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Faux News and associated newspapers have turned on the bullshitter, and are now supporting governor DeMentis.
The Tories plan to cut spending to help the poor after years of cuts that cut into the bone. This is not inevitable, it is a choice.
The underlying choice is about who matters and who does not. As usual, for Tories, those who matter are the rich. The mainstream media support that choice by selectively presenting parts of the truth, and the views of banksters.
Attacking famous works of art in ways that won't actually damage them is a sort of a sham attack. It may reassure people that there is no real danger. There is indeed no real danger in these protests, but the danger of global heating disaster is quite real.
Eventually, these protests will lose the power to startle, and stop doing any good.
*How Michigan Democrats took control for the first time in decades.*
*Draft Cop27 agreement fails to call for "phase-down" of all fossil fuels.*
*John Fetterman shows how Democrats can win back working-class Trump voters.*
A bird of ill omen: pallid swifts, which normally winter around the Mediterranean Sea, are wintering up north in Britain.
Scientists are collecting samples of the hundreds of thousands of tons of microbes that wash, annually, off the surface of melted parts of glaciers.
A false accusation on Instagram against the Iranian government claimed that it had sentenced 15,000 protesters to death. In fact, only one protester has been sentenced to death, though some others may also face execution.
To kill even one person for protesting is very shameful, but opponents of the regime must take more care to ensure they continue to deserve to be trusted.
Egypt has not sentenced Alaa Abd el-Fattah to death, but he may die from a hunger strike.
Most people in the UK agree that the UK should pay part of the costs for poor countries of "climate action".
The problem with this poll is that it poses the questions in the wrong order. First of all, how much will "climate action" (a vague term) cost? That depends on another question: what exactly is "climate action"? Are we talking about sea walls and drains, or are we talking about decarbonization?
If we get cracking on reducing global heating and other damage to natural ecosystems, the total price will be less; it may be bearable. In that case, it will make sense to adjudicate who ought to pay what share.
If on the contrary the planet roasters continue to delay actions to reduce the damage, the cost may grow to far more than the whole world can ever pay. That will mean we have hit total disaster, and there is no longer a global system in which any adjudication could actually be carried out, so the question has become purely theoretical.
What about intermediate scenarios? I can imagine that millions of people in wealthier countries would say, "Yes, I agreed we should pay part of the costs of helping poor countries cope with global heating, but there is a limit. We refuse to live in penury!"
To help poor countries is feasible and just only if the rich people in the wealthy countries bear most of this burden. We non-rich must not accept this burden for our countries while leaving until later the question of how much of that burden falls on the rich people. We know that they will try to dump all of it on the non-rich.
*Republicans scrape back control of US House after underwhelming midterms.* This means that one dissenter among them can defeat any legislative plan. The Senate is likely block their bills, too.
The question is, how far will Republicans go in holding the whole country hostage to impose their demands.
NATO has pretty much concluded that the missiles which hit Polish territory were Ukrainian anti-missile missiles, which were fired at a Russian missile and not at the ground where they hit.
* Island countries are more vulnerable to government oppression after natural disasters — according to new research — and there are concerns that the increased frequency of weather-related events due to the climate crisis, could see the further rise of autocracies around the world.*
*Australia told to end new fossil fuel subsidies if it wants Pacific [island nations'] support to host climate summit.*
To subsidize fossil fuels is a terrible thing for any country to do. The Labor government is much less friendly to fossil fuels than the previous right-wing government, and it has reduced the subsidy, but not reduced it to zero.
Smoking both marijuana and tobacco is more likely to cause lung damage than tobacco alone.
Lula spoke at Cop27 and warned that no place on Earth is safe from climate disaster. His program for Brazil is to protect the forest.
Curbing population growth will not help the urgent measures we need in order to curb global heating in this decade. Reducing the birth rate won't make a big difference in just a few years.
However, if we do enough in this decade to win a chance for civilization's future, the task of preventing global disaster will not be finished. That will take decades. During that time, reducing the birth rate will make a difference — especially when it comes to returning large amounts of land to the wild and reducing total consumption of natural resources.
Iranian thugs were recorded shooting at the public in a metro train station in Tehran. Other thugs attacked women inside the train.
To thwart the plan to use face recognition against protesters, I suggest protesters arm themselves with the tools required for destroying the state repression cameras mounted in public places where protests are likely. That would include ladders.
*Xi Jinping's cordial tone at G20 does not herald softer foreign policy.*
He is playing two roles in parallel: good empire-conqueror and bad empire-conqueror.
A volley of Musketry has driven out 3/4 of Twitter's remaining employees.
This reinforces my suspicions that Musk's damage to the company is his aim, not a mistake.
One Tory minister is a bold champion of defending nature and the climate. *Nature restoration, the climate crisis, sewage in our rivers — people care fundamentally about these things.*
Assad released around 7,000 political prisoners, and "only" around 130,000 of them remain in prison.
Tanzania suffers from a "young population,"due to a government that pushed for a bigger population.
A young population is a harbinger of probable megadeaths to come.
*All hail Jeff Bezos the philanthropist! The rest of us will just keep paying our taxes.* I despise Bezos for more than just the reasons that are widely agreed with. Because of the unjust policies of Amazon, I would refuse to deal with it even if it were just 5% of its actual size. And all of its competitors too, if they do similar bad things.
*Germans turning 18 to be offered €200 culture pass "birthday present".*
I think this is a wise policy.
US citizens: call on the FTC to thoroughly investigate supermarket giant Kroger's proposed merger with Albertsons.
A court already ruled against it, but that's not inevitably final.
Everyone: call on the Florida High School Athletic Association remove questions about menstruation from its student health forms.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to fight Republican election lies.
US citizens: call for an investigation of Salafi Arabia's ownership of a significant part of Twitter.
A terrorist bombing took place in Istanbul, targeting civilians. Turkey blamed the Kurdish militant group PKK, and the Syrian Kurds, but the PKK says that it does not approve of attacking civilians and had nothing to do with it.
The Putin forces have admitted that they were forced out of the north Kherson region by Ukraine's interdiction of supplies.
This article gives more information on their widespread looting and sabotage. Some looting had to have been organized by the Putin forces commanders. Some sabotage was carried out on the Nova Kakhova dam, Ukraine cannot try to repair the dam until it has chased the Putin forces out of artillery range. Even then, the Putin forces might fire missiles at it,
Google will pay damages of around $400 billion for tracking locations of users who had said not to track them.
This suggests three questions to me.
Most UK newspapers are right-wing and will attack any personal detail about an important Labour politician in innumerable absurd and vicious ways. Trying to give them nothing they could attack is self-defeating.
Angela Rayner, who I believe is the only former ally of Corbyn in an important position in Labour, just tried the opposite tactic: tell them something about her they are sure to revile (but not actually wrong in any way), and dare them to attack her.
Bravo, Ms Rayner!
Medical care in US prisons tends to be inadequate. If you have a minor treatable problem, the prison staff can deny you treatment so you develop a serious problem. If you have a serious problem, they can treat it insufficiently or badly, so that you die from it.
I suspect that their attitude is that anyone who isn't satisfied with the medical treatment received is a troublemaker and should be punished by suffering from the disease.
Interviews with Republicans reveal their split between the corrupter and DeMentis.
We must all recognize that increasing human population is a major obstacle to saving civilization from environmental danger.
See also
We need the human population to start decreasing, to save civilization. But if we want civilization to survive, we must also prevent human species from dying out entirely. The decrease in sperm counts, recorded since 1970, is global, and has sped up since 2000.
There is some evidence that the decrease is due to prenatal environmental pollution.
*India "committed to clean energy" but continues to boost coal production.*
The FBI is investigating the shooting of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen abu Akleh. Israel condemns the investigation on principle.
The need for this investigation is because Israel's investigation refused to recognize that soldiers must have chosen to kill her for no legitimate reason.
The Energy Charter Treaty, a business-supremacy treaty designed to prevent any and all measures to reduce fossil fuel extraction, incorporates a fundamental conflict of interest which tends to bias its judgments in favor of fossil fuel companies.
However, that is a secondary problem, because the treaty is explicitly designed to promote fossil fuel companies and interfere with measures to regulate them. Even if every judgment were made in a perfectly honest fashion, the tendency would be for them to do harm.
Interestingly, most CEOs don't say they believe they morally deserve to be paid enormous sums. On the contrary, many say the gap should be smaller. But they are accustomed to receiving high pay offers, for practical reasons that the article explains, and they don't insist on being paid less than that.
What should society do about this? We could ask investors, executives and directors to consider making executive salaries smaller. But the same factors that have made executive salaries so high are likely to make that request ineffective.
I suggest we instead increase the tax rate on high incomes, and close the loopholes that they use to avoid taxation entirely. It is the obvious solution that many people don't consider because plutocratists have smeared it.
How about the restoring the Eisenhower income tax?
"Feminist" education that reduces gender stereotyping is good for boys as well as for girls.
The UK is considering imposing a national ID card once again.
Britons, you defeated ID cards 15 years ago. Now you will have to defeat it again.
The question of what data the state will or won't link to the national ID number is a red herring, because many other organizations are likely to index databases by national ID number. It will become the easiest way to keep a data base about individuals. They will do this even if they don't really need to verify anyone's identity.
In Barcelona, I learned 15 years ago, the municipal swimming pools recorded who was a paying member by their national ID numbers. All they really need is to verify that a client paid for a membership, but checking the national ID card was quick and easy — and unjust.
The state too is likely to include a person's national ID number in other data bases of personal data.
Stephen Kinnock is the MP for Aberavon in Wales. If you know people who live there, please talking about the issue with them.
*Australia criticised for resisting Cop27 push to end international fossil fuel subsidies.*
Two apparently Russian missiles hit Poland in the region near the Ukrainian border. NATO will probably not respond directly militarily.
Although anything Putin says is likely to include lies, it is possible that these missiles were not fired intentionally at Poland.
Young people living near an Iraqi oilfield have a very high frequency of cancer, apparently due to pollution from flaring gas from the oil wells.
*Study suggests 24% of 12- to 34-year-olds globally listen at "unsafe level" on devices and visit noisy venues.*
*Trump repeats prison rape threat against journalists, has plans to "brutally imprison significant numbers of reporters," says Rolling Stone.*
*Elon Musk Would Have Done Better With Twitter If He’d Read Noam Chomsky.*
It is amusing to see Musk wildly change Twitter's rules and find that each change backfires worse than the previous one.
I don't care about Twitter the way many people do, because the requirements for having a Twitter account include things I won't do. And even if I did them, I couldn't afford the time it would cost me to actually use Twitter.
*The 1.5C climate target is dead — to prevent total catastrophe, Cop27 must admit it.*
Every target will be cursed by planet roasters just as this one was, until the world conclusively defeats them and renders them powerless.
* All students at the University of Barcelona will have to take a mandatory course on the climate crisis.*
*'Welcome' But 'Must Be Improved': Groups React as Biden Unveils Plan to Cut Methane [emissions].*
The Putin forces meticulously destroyed all sorts of infrastructure in the areas of Kherson as they retreated.
This destruction was not limited to electricity, phones, and the Nova Kakhova dam. They destroyed even a small town school building, according to another article.
Fanatical Muslims in Pakistan banned the release of a Pakistani film that was submitted as Pakistan's entry for consideration for an award.
There is no chance that Corbyn will be allowed to run again under the Labour Party banner. Starmer is blocking anyone who wants change that goes beyond tweaks. Corbyn says he will run for reelection; perhaps he will have to run as an independent.
Given Starmer's plutocratist policies and dirty tricks for imposing them on the party, it is clear he will not allow Momentum or anyone else who wants more leftist policies to have any influence. If I were British, and if Corbyn had inspired me to join Labour, I would quit and support something else.
Could Corbyn join the Green Party and perhaps run as a Green candidate?
Important hospitals are closing in US inner cities, leaving the people who live there (mainly poor, mainly from disprivileged groups) in danger of dying on the way to a more distant hospital.
*When universities accept money from the fossil fuel industry, they demonstrate a complete lack of regard for their students' futures.*
*Tasmanian salmon farms used more than a tonne of antibiotics in 2022 disease outbreaks.*
This tends to make bacteria evolve resistance, which can kill people. Bacteria can share genes even between species, so resistant bacteria infecting salmon can transmit resistance to other bacteria that infect humans.
Faux News brings up distraction pseudo-issues to swing elections. The mainstream media pick up the same pseudo-issues.
Melting permafrost in the Arctic leaks CO2 and methane, and promotes large wildfires. That can make the difference between survival of civilization and destruction of civilization.
Secondarily, the melting causes buildings to sink into the melting permafrost underneath them.
Countries can continue scientific cooperation even when they are at war, if they decide to. It is important for the US and Russia to agree to do this. The US can make an exception to its sanctions for specific research projects.
Automated car control features supposedly will make the car safer, but they can just as easily backfire.
A court blocked the proposed merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.
We should not have allowed Penguin and Random House to merge. And we should not have allowed a giant conglomerate to buy either Simon & Schuster. The bigger a company is, the harder it is to keep it from harming people, intimidating people, or cheating people.
Musk's takeover of Twitter is a leveraged buyout. Musk could have borrowed the money himself, but he chose to foist the debt on Twitter. That will make it difficult for Twitter to survive, and he could hardly be unaware of this.
This approach means $13 billion less that Musk will lose if Twitter goes bankrupt. These facts increase my suspicion that he aims to destroy Twitter.
Nonetheless, this is only speculation. I can't be sure it is true.
Democrats now control the government of Michigan.
This is the result of an initiative petition for impartial redistricting. Republicans can no longer elect a majority of the legislature with a minority of votes.
Musk's new "free speech" Twitter put a spam warning on a message that made a quip criticizing Musk for his handling of Twitter.
Should we call that site "Musk-ovy" now?
*Profits at world's seven biggest oil firms soar to almost £150bn ($173bn) this year.*
The Taliban will henceforth impose the full cruelty of Islamic law.
Is the US EPA distorting its criteria to please the pesticide industry by avoiding banning the herbicide paraquat?
The article offers reasons to suspect it may be doing that, but not conclusive proof.
It is an exaggeration to say that paraquat is "banned across the world"; According to Wikipedia, it is banned in the EU since 2007, and the UK and Switzerland; the article says it is also banned in China.
How many years will be required to conclusively determine whether there has been a decrease in Parkinson's disease among agricultural workers in Europe, those who are working on crops on which paraquat was used before 2007?
Australia will buy the land of people in Lismore whose homes are now vulnerable to repeated flooding, so they can move without being made destitute.
This is the right way to deal with the spread of flooding, However, it doesn't mean that sea-level rise is no longer a problem. One way or another, society will inevitably bear that cost, and must go to great lengths to curb global heating to minimize this and other costs.
Republican voter-suppression measures make it very difficult for some disabled people to vote at all.
Serbia is politically dominated by an ideology that calls for conquest of neighboring lands that "are supposed to be" part of Serbia, and lionizes the war criminals of the 1990s. They idolize Putin for trying to conquer Ukraine, because that provides an example of what they want Serbia to do on a smaller scale.
Syria is investing in convincing tourists to come there and ignore Assad's record of murder and torture.
They must feel that since Egypt and Salafi Arabia succeed at this, Syria can do it too.
(satire) *AI Software Company Patches Bug That Caused App To Treat Black People Equally.*
(serious): This being a piece of nonfree software, I presume the correction made it treat everyone equally badly.
*Voters in Alabama, Tennessee, Oregon, and Vermont approved ballot measures Tuesday that would bar forced labor as punishment for those convicted of crimes in those states.*
The citizens of Nebraska voted to raise the minimum wage, step by step up to 15 dollars per hour.
Future US elections will be in danger from 210 or more election liars who were elected to federal and state offices.
(satire) *New Legislation Would Prohibit Texting While Stabbing.*
1/5 of all black adult citizens in Tennessee have been disenfranchised due to past felony convictions.
DeMentis may be supplanting the corrupter as the paramount leader of US fascists.
The US has threatened Australia with punishment if it signs or even praises the global treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.
A student at the University of Kentucky got drunk and shouted a taboo racist insult at another student. She has been expelled and charged with various crimes.
Racist insults are nasty behavior, and it makes sense to respond discipline students for them, as as to teach them not to be nasty to other students. But this punishment is too much for any insulting words to deserve.
We have already used up the carbon budget with the fossil fuel reserves now being pumped, but the planet roasters plan to develop a lot more reserves which we cannot afford to burn.
*Automakers Poised to Sell 400 Million More Gas-Powered Cars Than Planet Can Handle.*
*US Mega-Banks [are] Behind 1/3 of [the world's] Climate-Destroying Oil and Gas Expansion.*
Thee banks are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs.
Democrats supported the campaigns of several extremists Republicans in the Republican primaries, hoping that they would be easier to defeat. This tactic worked: all those Republicans lost in the general election this month.
It appears that most of the Putin forces managed to escape across the Dniepr river, while Ukrainian forces moved in and took control of the northern part of the Kherson region.
I was hoping they would deal the Putin forces an additional defeat in the process. It will be hard for Ukraine to advance across the Dniepr. Its next attack will have to be elsewhere else.
Democrats will retain control of the Senate, and a victory in Georgia's coming runoff could give Democrats a 52 to 49 lead (counting Vice President Harris). That would enable them to overcome the opposition of Manchin and Sinema.
However, they won't be able to pass much legislation for the next two years if they don't control the House of Representatives.
Ethiopia and Tigray have made a deal about delivery of humanitarian aid.
Z-library, which hosted unauthorized copies of millions of e-books, has been somehow shut down by the US government, This is an injustice to the readers of books.
Shame on the US government for taking side of repressive publishers' against readers. The US government wants you to use the authorized copies of e-books, but in this area "authorized" does not mean "just." Quite the contrary, most "authorized" commercial e-books are intentionally unjust to the readers, designed to impose repression.
When the authorized copies are repressive, the only morally legitimate digital copies are the unauthorized copies. Accept nothing less!
Many of them are distributed by amazon.com, a company so nasty that it deserves an across-the-board total boycott.
US citizens: call on the Senate to eliminate the filibuster, then pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act before the end of the year,
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Senate to confirm Biden's judicial nominees.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: for protecting the tricolored bat as an endangered species.
Putin's officials announced that the Putin forces will pull out of the city of Kherson.
Assuming this is serious, Ukraine should not let those soldiers leave without a fight. If they do, Ukraine will have to fight them on another front next year. Ukraine now has the opportunity to try to cut them off so that the survivors are compelled to surrender. The loss of Kherson will embarrass Putin, but the loss of thousands more troops will weaken the Putin forces.
More than 50 poor countries are in danger of defaulting on their debts. The article says, "bankruptcy," but there is no system of bankruptcy for countries. They face being hounded for the payments they cannot make, having their public assets taken, and having their education and medical systems shut down.
Climate defense will also be undermined, which could kill us all.
*To those who sneer at [and repress] activists blocking roads: what are you doing to save the planet?*
Rats can move in time to the beat of music.
The corrupter and DeMentis are the now rivals to lead the Repub-lie-can party.
Explaining the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.
*The UK property market is being abused to the tune of billions of pounds by those wishing to hide wealth or launder money.*
Ultimately, the support for abortion rights brought Democrats many votes and saved them a big defeat. Disgust for election lies seems to have helped too.
But I think Sanders was right nonetheless: Democrats should have campaigned for the progressive economic and environmental policies that most Americans support, as well as abortion rights. With the two, they could have won a substantial victory.
I expect that the progressive Democratic candidates did exactly that, but the plutocratist Democratic candidates didn't dare.
Arguing that Biden should choose different legal authority to use to cancel student debt.
Maybe so, but I can also see an argument that Warnock is more likely to win if his winning will enable Congress to legislate to cancel the debt.
Junk food ads in the US try to make children pressure their parents to buy junk food for their children. That is surely harming children and promoting obesity. Curiously, the advertisers appear to target these ads primarily at black families.
Does that make the practice more wrong? I don't think so. I think that luring children to eat junk food is equally wrong regardless of details about those children.
Why do they advertisers target mainly black families? I doubt that racist thinking plays a direct part, and the article doesn't say it does. As far as I know, advertising agencies are motivated by unscrupulous greed and will target whoever appears vulnerable. The article mentions various reasons why black families are likely to be more vulnerable, on the average.
Those reasons seem to be aspects of systemic racism; they are probably consequences of other forms of racism, such as housing discrimination.
Should we restrict these ads? If we can find an effective way to do so, I think we should. Corporations are not human beings, and neither is a large business even if it is owned by one human being. But what goal should the restrictions aim for? To make advertising agencies target white children just as much as they target black children? I think the goal should be to stop targeting children of whatever race.
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 denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important. I made an exception for this article because it is an opportunity to explore a moral point.
*Gas producers using Cop27 to rebrand [natural] gas as "transitional fuel", experts warn.*
Switching from coal to natural gas makes no sense. We already know that the system of using natural gas emits, in practice, as much greenhouse gas as the system of using coal.
*UK should match Norway’s 78% North Sea oil and gas tax, thinktank says.*
* The [supposed] global dash for gas amid the Ukraine war will accelerate climate breakdown and could send temperatures soaring far beyond the 1.5C limit of safety.*
There is no "global dash" — that term is a misleading excuse. What is really happening is that planet roasters want to do more drilling, and they use the temporary gas shortage as an excuse. More drilling will do nothing in the short term to reduce the price spike, but the excuse works as long as mainstream media and plutocratist politicians pretend it makes some sort of sense.
*Discipline the poor, protect the rich — it’s the same old Tories, same old class war.*
The US and around 20 other countries established a Forest and Climate Leaders' Partnership, supposedly to reduce deforestation. Greenpeace says it's ineffective, just for show.
*[Entities that] continue to invest in fossil fuels, deforestation, and other activities that exacerbate the climate emergency cannot claim to be net-zero.*
I take a stronger stand. "Net zero" is an excuse for bogus "offset" schemes, a way to pretend that they will reduce emissions, while in fact failing to do so. We must stop using that concept and focus on reducing actual emissions.
Consider for instance Partanna's CO2-absorbing building material. Building with it helps reduce CO2 in the air, but if these reductions are converted into a "credit", that indirectly lets someone else keep emitting more.
States that adopt liberal policies towards the non-rich have a lower death rate for adults age 25 to 64. States with right-wing policies have a higher death rate.
Projecting from the data, *"Changing all policy domains in all states to a fully liberal orientation might have saved 171,030 lives in 2019," the researchers estimate, "while changing them to a fully [right-wing] orientation might have cost 217,635 lives."*
I replaced the word "conservative" because today's right-wingers are radical, not conservative.
The US Supreme Court has put itself in a state of war with the people, by obstructing climate defense; but there is a court decision from 2016 which ruled that future generations have a right to a stable climate, which might help.
Republican officials in Georgia have rigged up a way to block 149,000 residents of Georgia from voting. Volunteers have stepped forward to "challenge" them. One person "challenged" 32,000 voters, based on no knowledge except that their names appeared on a partisan list of targets. Most of the targets are black, or young, thus likely to vote Democratic.
If your right to vote is challenged, you have to return physically to Georgia in order to get it restored. That can be effectively impossible if you are staying somewhere far away.
This is obviously unjust, but Republicans don't care about justice, only winning by hook or by crook.
* Toyota, Volkswagen and Hyundai/Kia on track to make far more petrol and diesel cars than is sustainable.*
US citizen Carly Morris traveled with her daughter to Salafi Arabia in 2019 so her daughter could spend time with her ex-husband's family. Then she found she was trapped there and unable to leave. Her ex-husband had taken their passports away.
She complained about this on Twitter, and the monstrous authorities charged her with a political crime and jailed her for talking about what they had done to her.
Don't take the risk of going to Salafi Arabia. Don't even trust a flight connection in its airports.
The UK says that Egypt did not allow its consular officials to visit Alaa Abd el-Fattah in prison, and they don't even know whether he is still alive.
His hunger-and-thirst strike is a dying effort to rebuke Egypt's harsh repression; spreading the word about this, as the British minister did, multiplies the effect. My posting about it here will multiply it a little more.
Two Hungarian judges met with the US ambassador; Orbán organized a media defamation campaign aimed at them. Other judges say this is a campaign of intimidation designed to make sure no one else in Hungary meets with anyone from the US government.
South Dakotans voted to require the Republican state government to accept the offer of federal funds to extend Medicaid.
Republican politicians rejected the offer in accord with their practice of performative cruelty to the poor.
*Rapid rain bursts over the greater Sydney region have intensified by at least 40% over the last two decades.*
Such rapid increase is a sign of the age of climate calamity.
US citizens: call on Vanguard to stop financing human rights abuses through oil company Petroperú.
Egypt told the participants in the Cop27 climate conference to use a special app, which shows signs that it is snooping on them.
Given the repression of the Egyptian government, that is something to be feared.
I wonder if it is possible to participate in Cop27 without extra restrictions if you don't run that app.
Apps are generally nonfree software — on iMonsters, all apps are nonfree software — and any nonfree program is likely to be malware. The operating systems of those devices are also malware, which is one of the reasons I don't have one.
The US National Hockey League kicked out a newly hired athlete for bullying a student in school at the age of 14.
Bullying is nasty, but what people do at age 14 should not follow them for their adult lives.
Young people often commit minor crimes. The point of the juvenile courts is to give give them a chance for a fresh start as adults. But the system won't achieve that goal if employers persecute them for those juvenile crimes.
*Queensland [thugs] to get expanded powers to randomly scan people for knives [with a metal detector].*
This is not as bad as the usual "stop and search", but I find it worrisome that the thugs find "other minor crimes" when they do this. What crimes, and how do they find those crimes? The finding of those other crimes could involve a more intrusive search than just waving a wand. That could be an opportunity for racial profiling to do some harm.
I am shocked by the reference to carrying knitting needles as a "crime". Lots of women used to carry knitting needles with them, and knit whenever they had a chance to sit for a while. Is knitting outside your house now illegal? Does it require a permit?
A passenger on a long-distance bus in Turkey asked the driver to stop the bus to give per a chance to say prayers. (This can't be done sitting on a seat.) The bus driver refused, saying it would be unfair to delay the other passengers. This has created a nationwide controversy.
As you might expect, I agree with the bus driver. A passenger's wish to pray is not an emergency, so the bus should keep its schedule.
Iranian students are demanding a referendum on changing the country's constitution.
Hosseini is right that Salafi Arabia is more repressive and arbitrary than Iran, but "not as bad as Salafi Arabia" is not the standard of good government.
British thugs arrested two press photographers taking pictures at a Just Stop Oil protest. According to the photographers, the thugs had made up their mind in advance, in the absence of grounds, and then interrogated them for 13 hours about their journalism.
*World Cup stadium workers in Qatar "had their money stolen and lives ruined", says rights group.*
*As long as the Democrats wage war on Trump, they avoid the more important work of building a New Deal-style majority.*
Of course, not all Democrats want to do that. Many of them are in hock to plutocrats.
Analysis of captured Iranian drones shows that they were supplied after Putin started his invasion.
Robert Reich: *America is still on the brink of Trumpism fueling hate, paranoia and violence.*
Activists in the Cop27 meeting in Egypt report that the event is full of "staff" that blatantly converge on them to listen to their conversations, harass them, or interfere with them.
The word "activism" seems to be their wake-up word. The intimidation of activists is so strong that the meeting is almost useless, except for showing the world how repressive Egypt is.
The World Summit on the Information Society, part II, took place in Tunis, and was heavily repressed. The dictator's men tried to keep us from meeting any Tunisians who were not approved conference attendees.
Meanwhile, this year's meeting has 626 lobbyists for fossil fuel companies, up 25% from last year.
*How dash for African gas could wipe out Congo basin tropical forests.*
*Oil and gas firms planning "frightening" fossil fuels growth, report finds.*
ALEC is asking states to pass laws prohibiting any company from boycotting businesses, industries, or activities.
For example, it would be illegal to boycott fossil fuel businesses.
The Camargue, a peculiar wetland in Arles, is being gradually destroyed by sea level rise.
It can't be saved for very long except by curbing global heating.
Apple imposed a new limit on file-sharing following a demand by the Chinese government.
Most Democrats didn't stand for anything in particular except keeping things normal for business, but several new progressive Democrats were elected to the House this year.
Cop27 has been thoroughly corrupted by planet-roasters.
Iran seeks to kill imprisoned protesters. At least one has been charged with "waging war against god". Perhaps as many as two thousand.
Twitter seems to be falling apart under volleys of Musk-et fire. He warned that the company might go bankrupt.
He seems awfully blasé about the prospect of losing the company he just bought for 44 billion dollars. It makes me wonder: was destroying Twitter his motive for buying it?
The Putin forces are building barriers of big concrete blocks to stop tanks from reaching certain strongpoints in the Ukrainian territory they have conquered.
Philippine cops accuse a high official of arranging the murder of journalist Percival Mabasa.
1000 Georgia voters requested postal ballots but none were sent to them.
*Ontario to repeal new law threatening workers' right to strike following pushback.*
This is a victory for the brave school workers.
A large part of plastic pollution in oceans comes from fishing gear that gets lost at sea (usually by accident). Various pilot projects are trying ways to reduce the loss, or recover the lost nets.
The London thug department is arresting people for "planning" disruptive but nonviolent protests against fossil fuel developments that are likely to kill them in a few decades.
If only it were possible to arrest the people planning to disrupt civilization by building more oil wells, we might have a safer future.
A study of the carbon emissions of 125 billionaires, including companies they own, found that on the average each emits as much as 500,000 people in France.
I suppose that same figure would equal the emissions of around 1 million average Americans.
Protests in Iran have intensified. In Baluchistan, sectarian and ethnic opposition is also at work.
Australia is going to prosecute whistleblower David McBride for telling journalists about alleged war crimes committed by Australian soldiers.
Naturally, Australia has laws on which this decision is based.
The use of programs that compose articles based on machine learning poses philosophical problems for education in writing.
Here's an idea: if these systems tend to be led by their training towards expressing the usual points of view, assign to a student the task of arguing for an unusual point of view, whether perse really believes it or not.
The idea that there is no point in learning to write well if a program can do that for you is misguided. A calculator, or various programs such as dc or Emacs, can do arithmetic for you, but you need to learn how to add and multiply or you you won't understand those operations fully. Once you know how, you can use a program to actually do it.
Proposing we stop referring to machine learning as "AI", and saving that term for programs that really understand what they say and do.
*Climate activists storm Amsterdam airport and block private jets.*
This tactic makes a lot of sense, and is far better than gluing oneself to the glass protective cover over a painting.
First, because neither those jets, nor the private jet terminals, are precious. Expensive, yes, but that's not the same thing as precious.
Second, because the jets emit lots of CO2.
Third, because the people who fly in them and will be inconvenienced by the protest are rich, and are probably significantly to blame for the world's inadequate efforts for climate defense.
I used to fly more than most people Americans, back before Covid-19. Nonetheless, my overall global heating footprint is modest, because of my conscious decision to avoid the action that, for most people, adds the most: having children. One child produces many times as much greenhouse gas as all the flights I will take in my life.
Here is a proposal for increased diplomatic discussion between the US and Russia which is worth considering. Agreement on the proposed areas could encourage Putin's withdrawal from Ukraine, and would in any case make the world a better place. The proposal carefully avoids undermining Ukraine's fight to repel the invasion.
The Putin forces are kidnapping adults and children in Kherson and taking them to places further away from Ukraine's army, or to unknown locations.
The Putin forces are also torturing and murdering some people. Perhaps they selectively do this to those who formerly were in the Ukrainian army or police. This has been seen in the east.
One potato corporation claims to provide 1/3 of the world's french fries. We should not allow a company to thus dominate a market — we need laws to prevent it.
I also wonder whether that 1/3 includes any of the really good fries, which are made in Belgium.
Attorney General Garland's policies to protect reporters from prosecution for their journalism are a big improvement, but an authoritarian president could twist them or simply replace them.
Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) pledge to work together to protect their rain forests. The whole world depends on those forests they are all threatened.
The concept of "the OPEC of rainforests" seems like a misguided analogy to me, because oil and rainforests are not very similar in how they relate to the world. Rainforests provide an important service by living. By contrast, oil underground does nothing to the world; extracting it makes it harmful.
If we could make more rainforest, that would be good. If we could make more underground petroleum deposits, that would be disaster.
It can be effective for campaigns to show that prohibiting abortion does harm to Americans' prosperity as well as to human rights.
I personally can't understand the thinking of people who might base their decisions about abortion rights on this. But if it convinces people, that's good.
Legalizing abortion may also save your children's lives. Population growth exacerbates global heating, so more population growth is likely to make global disaster worse and thus reduce the number of humans that survive it, as well as reducing the level of technology they can hold on to.
*The Global Food System Enables Russia to Use Food as a Weapon.*
*Wells are running dry in drought-weary Southwest as foreign-owned farms guzzle water to feed cattle overseas.*
It's illegal to sell the water itself, so farmers grow crops that need lots of water, such as alfalfa, and sell the crops. The result is to drain the aquifers.
When money talks, plutocratist politicians say, "Yes sir." If the people of Arizona want to stop this practice, they should elect progressive Democrats.
Cop27 will discuss whether part of the world should be liable for damage already done by burning fossil fuel.
I suggest that we make fossil fuel companies liable. With that big debt, they won't be worth much in money. So let's nationalize them and buy them out, paying what their shares are worth at that time.
The US has done this many times, in times of crisis, as described in the article linked above. We should not listen when planet roasters claim this is unthinkable now.
Whatever is left of those companies after fossil fuels have been mostly replaced by renewable energy, it could be safe to sell off to private owners.
*House Democrats Propose End to Wall Street Rent-Gouging.*
*Nurses across UK vote to strike in first ever national action.*
*An abortion clinic on wheels: Planned Parenthood in Illinois to reduce travel times for patients in red states by bringing abortion care [closer] to them.*
One crucial need, not yet addressed in general, is to spare abortion patients the requirement to stay overnight near the clinic. That can be very expensive: in addition to the cost of a room, there is the cost of missing an additional day of work.
Robert Reich: *Rather Than Ignore Him, We Must Demand Trump Be Prosecuted.*
Summer sea ice will inevitably disappear in a few decades. That will make polar oceans absorb a lot more sunlight, and that in turn will speed the melting of ice on land. Even if we curb global heating in general, this will raise sea level several meters and inundate many of the world's major cities.
*"There’s nothing we can do about that now, we’ve just screwed up and let the system warm too much already,"*
An important religious figure in Iran has criticized the government for giving Putin drones which he is using against civilians and civilian infrastructure, saying that this contradicts the moral rules of Islam.
Given the level of repression in Iran, I always feel surprise when I am reminded that some questions can be openly debated there, and some government policies criticized.
*Cop27 wifi in Egypt blocks human rights and key news websites.* It blocks VPNs as well. The article does not say whether it blocks Tor.
It appears this is nothing special; such censorship is standard in Egypt. Participants in the conference will at least have the chance to learn how repressive Egypt is.
Even climate scientists who already knew extreme weather was going to become a problem have been nonetheless shocked by how fast and furiously that problem is now growing.
Identifying similarities between Elon Musk and the bullshitter.
When Australia adopted an automated system to demand people (typically still poor) refund supposed "overpayments" in their benefit payments, this caused great suffering for hundreds of thousands of victims. Some committed suicide. In other words, exactly the results that a right-wing government would desire, to show how harsh it is on those greedy, grasping poor people.
One government employee asked for legal advice about the plan when he read about it, before it was adopted, and got a report saying that it was illegal.
An inquiry has found that the government kept the details of the report secret, and repeatedly cited its existence as justification for the program. That's right-wing politicians for you.
An official of the Federal Reserve suggests a plan to raise interest rates until most Americans' bank accounts are empty.
A proposal to allow internet voting in Washington, DC, now has the lobbying muscle of a rich venture capitalist.
In addition to the inherent insecurity of this procedure, it would naturally be set up so that you vote while watching political disinformation ads on the same screen.
I am not impressed by making it "open source", because
One of the supposed benefits of bringing the UK out of the EU was that it would have the sovereign power to limit fishing and thus manage fish stocks according to science. But the government disregards the opportunity and permits overfishing just as before.
Having plentiful cod in British waters may also require curbing global heating. The increased temperature of the ocean is making cod move north.
Eritrea charges a tax on expatriates, and some of the income is currently being used to fund Eritrea's war with Tigray. Does that make the tax a bad thing?
We don't have enough information about that war to formulate an opinion about which sides are right or wrong. So we can't conclude that we should use economic sanctions on that very poor country to make it drop out of that war.
But there are worse things about Eritrea that we do know. For instance, conscripting just about all adults into slave labor. That is why so many Eritreans flee and seek asylum in other countries, no matter how big the obstacles.
Perhaps that is a good reason to stop Eritrea from collecting the tax on expats.
Thousands of obsolete, decrepit and hazardous dams on US rivers cause floods and block fish migrations. Some are being demolished.
Robert Reich says that the Supreme Court will surely eliminate affirmative action for admission to universities.
More about the affirmative action issue.
(satire) *Biden Warns Americans That Ability To Even Pretend U.S. A Democracy At Stake.*
That item is funny, but when you look at the bills that Democrats fought hard to pass this year, and the parts that Sinema and Manchin defeated, this shows that two more real Democrats in the Senate could have made a big difference.
A US appeals court upheld a St Louis law that imposed such strict conditions on sharing food with homeless people that it became effectively impossible.
Is it valid to call a deadly heat wave "extreme", now that extremes are pushing further than that?
Republicans are spending a lot of money to control the courts of many states.
*Haitians, Peace Activists Denounce Plan for Another US-Backed Intervention.*
Only 1/3 of the world's countries have made quantitative plans for coping with near-term global heating in coming decades.
I maintain that reducing global heating must take priority over coping with its effects. Countries' efforts for that have been inadequate too. We must demand they do a batter job; if they can do a good job of both, that's ideal. But if it is a choice of one or the other, we must insist on long-term survival of civilization rather than just postponing the end.
An interview with one of Egypt's few independent journalists. He reports that Egypt holds tens of thousands of political prisoners, most of them charged with "spreading false information" and "belonging to a prohibited organization". Egypt is using the Cop27 climate conference to appoint itself global negotiator for poor countries,
Activists that might criticize the repressive Egyptian state have been excluded. Raising environmental issues is not allowed when that implies criticizing the state.
Protests aimed at the event are limited to a far-away "free speech zone", as they were called in developed countries around 2000. The idea is that no one will notice protests there, but it will serve as an excuse to prohibit protest anywhere else.
Holding an international meeting in a repressive country is a standard technique for silencing the public about it, and this seems to be an example.
The terms "global south" and "global north" are bogus, empty buzzwords. I'd rather speak of wealthy countries and poor countries.
A former gun company lobbyist testified to Congress that he left that job because gun companies wanted to market guns directly to right-wing extremists and would-be mass murderers.
Since Biden was elected, they market directly to right-wing extremists that have in mind political violence.
Responding to plans stated by the Department of "Homeland Security" to control disinformation online, Edward Snowden called for elimination of the DHS.
To eliminate fake news would be a good thing; inventing lies is wrong. However, when governments try to block what they call "fake news", that tends to turn into a campaign of censorship. Whatever news the government dislikes, it calls "fake". Egypt is the latest example to be mentioned here.
A leaked draft of a proposed business-supremacy treaty between India and the UK would impose extended patent monopolies on drugs. This means that drugs will not become generic in the future.
It is no surprise that the draft treaty uses the propaganda term "intellectual property". It is unfortunate that the critics of this treaty fell into using that term too, instead of rebuking the treaty for that.
Ukraine called on Google and Apple to deny Russia the use of their services and products.
*Progressive Economists Warn of 'Catastrophic Outcomes' for Workers as Fed Hikes Interest Rates.*
* The big social media platforms don’t reflect back our views so much as form them.*
I am leading to the view that we should regulate recommendation algorithms by law. Perhaps that regulation should include offering each user a choice between different recommendation algorithms, each one regulated by law.
We could even start requiring that platforms allow users to program their own recommendation algorithms, in a limited language to avoid risk of breaking the server.
US citizens: call on Biden to support a Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax.
US citizens: call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to Protect the rusty patched bumblebee.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on Biden to cancel the Willow project — a large new oilfield in Alaska.
US citizens: Because of Justice Barrett's secrecy about conflicts of interest, call for Congress to impose a code of ethics on the Supreme Court.
An example of making excessive fuss about North Korea's missile tests.
The author insists we "cannot ignore" North Korea's "nuclear threat", but it's the just opposite: ignoring these missile tests is exactly what we should do.
It is a fact that North Korea has nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. We have to recognize that fact. But then what?
It is clear that diplomacy, offering deals, cannot convince Dictator Kim to give them up. To start a war would not improve anything; it would risk a response with some of those nuclear weapons.
Fussing about how horrible this situation is useless too, so and we only make ourselves look foolish. Until there is some course of action that would lead to a good reasons, let's ignore him.
*Israel's Far-Right Kingmakers Draw on U.S. Funding — Despite Terror Classifications.*
Ethiopia and Tigray have announced a peace agreement. The Amhara region, which has its own army (puzzling since the capital of Ethiopia is in the Amhara region and Amharas have dominated Ethiopia for a long time), says it is not part of the peace deal. This makes me wonder how long the peace deal will last.
Brazilian soccer fans cleared the roadblocks of Bolsonaro supporters so that they could travel to watch games.
Netanyahu seems to have got back into power with the help of Israel's right-wing religious extremists. They aim to undermine democracy in Israel, much as Republicans are trying to do in the US.
I wonder where secularist Israelis will find a country where they can be safe from persecution.
The Republican candidate for governor of Wisconsin says that the Republicans will never, ever lose an election there if he wins.
Since no one can predict the reversals of history, he cannot mean that they would always win honestly. He is stating, in typical deceptive Republican language, that they would rig, swindle or steal all future elections.
Global heating is on the verge of making the vast Congo peat bogs start releasing carbon instead of absorbing it. That would tip the Earth into disaster.
It is not unusual for homeless people in the US to commit crimes so they can sleep in jail.
Homeless shelters are very uncomfortable places, and have painful rules, such as that you must go out and spend your day on the street. I expect that you are forced to sleep in a small room with several strangers.
Per inmate, a prison is far more expensive than a shelter. I expect that even a comfortable shelter with all the advantages of a jail, giving a person a small room to call per own and lock behind per when going out, would be much cheaper to build and run than a prison.
Sadism is what gets in the way. The US is unwilling to spend money on helping the homeless, but it pays millions for prisons.
British thug departments have a pattern of hiring people who acted like thugs even before they were hired.
US corporations are lobbying Congress at feverish pace to block bills that would hamper them from gouging.
It could be more effective to do that by increasing competition, which requires breaking up the oligopolies that mergers have saddled us with. My proposal for a progressive tax on gross income could do this.
Ralph Nader: Americans, it is very important for you to vote this year.
You may think you can "leave politics alone", but the real effect of that is to let the worst plutocrats mistreat you at their ease.
Iranian suppression forces are grabbing students as they leave universities, beating them so badly that some are gravely injured, then taking them away and not telling anyone what happened to them.
Many reporters have been arrested.
The government is preparing to execute some of the protesters.
55,000 school workers in Ontario have gone on strike, showing they refuse to be intimidated by the law to fine them CAN 4,000 per day for striking.
Perhaps it would be better tactics to quit their jobs instead of striking. I suppose they can't be fined for quitting.
The UK's principal ministers have a history of quietly opposing abortion rights.
* Governments meeting for [Cop27] climate talks have been accused of making positive commitments in public but denying them later in the privacy of the negotiating rooms.*
Ontario, a province of Canada, is working on passing a law prohibiting school employees from striking, and claims it has the power to stop the national courts from reviewing the constitutionality of the law.
What's the use of having national standards of human rights if a part of the country can violate the standard at will? Canada must put an end to this.
Perhaps the national courts can rule that this exception to their authority is invalid.
A study provides information about some of the US's many secret wars that were authorized by the 2021 Authorization for Use of Military Force.
The 2022 Authorization for Use of Military Force is separate: that authorized Dubya's invasion of Iraq. The US Congress should repeal both.
George Monbiot: the worst mass extinction in Earth's history, at the start of the Mesozoic era, seems to have been caused by the burning of lots of oil deposits in the ground. It made so much CO2 that a large part of the globe was lifeless for 5 million years.
The causes of that global heating episode were quite different from the situation today, but the effects today could be similar. What is not certain is how much global heating we will cause, this time.
"Home compostable" plastics don't compost well enough for that disposal to be viable.
I received a gift recently that was cushioned by "peanuts", but instead of styrofoam, they were made of spun cornstarch. When exposed to water, they dissolve in a minute.
Many Big Food companies agreed that we must reform agriculture to avoid risk of disaster.
Senate report: *Republicans' crusade against women's reproductive freedoms has created national chaos that is a mortal threat to women's health.*
*G20 Nations' Banks Spent Nearly Twice as Much Financing Fossil Fuels as Renewables.*
(satire) *Republican Voters Given Toll-Free Number To Call If They Witness Legitimate Vote.*
The US needs to mine more lithium, but the mines raise issues.
I know of three kinds of issues about operating a mine of any kind:
The result was, naturally, that mines have polluted many areas. Whenever a mine shut down, it dumped the burden of cleanup on the public.
We must develop a new, cleaner method of mining, which we could call zero pollution mining, and require mines to use it. A mine must set aside funds for future shutdown costs each year it operates, in an account it cannot withdraw money from, at a rate set by the an environmental agency.
If that makes the extracted mineral more expensive, so be it. The cost of avoiding the need for future cleanup, and carrying out whatever part can't be avoided, should be part of the price of the mineral.
If adjustment to the plan will make some people happier, let's do so. But this is a secondary issue, not as important as preventing global disaster.
The Lancet reports that global heating is already damaging people's health globally, and the world's medical systems are not strong enough to cope. In addition, since decarbonization is going too slowly, that problem is getting worse.
Musk personally spread an absurd conspiracy theory on Twitter. This shows he is not fit to be in charge of such a company.
Aged Britons are being cut off from many activities that now require a snoop-phone,
There are utilities that won't accept payment by check. That problem is easy to fix: pass a law that important businesses must accept payment by check and must make appointments by phone.
The author takes for granted that snoop-phones and online dis-services are fine things, and the only problem is that they are hard for poor Doris to adapt to. It never crosses her mind that they might be unjust as well. I don't use them because they are unjust and unacceptable. I'm sure I could learn to use them, but I won't yield to them. I suffer some of the same annoyances, though not as many — the US is not cutting off the traditional non-digital options for old activities such as paying bills.
Planet roasters claim that policies to curb global heating make energy more expensive. Actually, these investments do the opposite.
If we had started pushing hard for renewable energy 15 years ago, we would not be having much of a price spike now.
What does increase prices is a carbon tax — but that money should be handed out to poor people. All in all, the carbon tax will reduce the cost of living for them, when you count the increased support they will receive.
The article refers to planet roasters as "conservatives", but that term is misleading.
A thug with a pattern of violence and cover-ups killed Kumanjayi Walker, an aboriginal man, while trying to wrongly arrest him.
The arrest was wrong because it was based on mistaken identity. Everyone makes mistakes like that, but members of disprivileged groups often learn to expect brutality to follow such mistakes. And it appears that that particular thug enjoyed the opportunity to brutalize someone.
Republicans are instituting a culture of fear in the parts of the US they control, by asking people to denounce acquaintances for things that previously they had no need to hide, but can now be occasions for repression. For instance, having children who are transgender.
*French court convicts former Liberian rebel commander over atrocities.*
*FBI arrests two alleged far-right Boogaloo Boys group members,* for threatening violence and preparing machine guns to carry it out.
*Trump allies saw Clarence Thomas as key to efforts to challenge 2020 election.*
In general, we can't blame a person simply because others expect per cooperation in doing wrong. In the case of Thomas, he gave them reason with his own actions to expect his help in attacking democracy.
An experiment found that psilocybin cured depression in around 1/3 of the test subjects.
I am surprised that the study did not include the clearest form of control group — some patients whose treatment did not actually include any psilocybin. The contrast in results between 25mg of psilocybin and 1mg may have demonstrated that the benefits are real, but a placebo control would have given more certainty.
US citizens: call on the EPA to adopt its proposed rule to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances.
US citizens: call on the FTC to ban surveillance-based advertising.
This is not enough to make us safe from massive surveillance.
*Sentenced to life for stealing $14: "I needed help, but was given jail."*
This extreme treatment is common in California under the "three strikes" law. *"By design, the law has targeted crimes of poverty, like small-time robbery, burglary, breaking windows, purse snatching".*
Like the War on Drugs, these laws are designed to put a lot of people in prison. At that point, many of them are compelled to do work for private companies at a pittance, and that pushes down wages for Americans who are not in prison.
*If we keep abusing nature it will collapse, taking us with it. We need a new mindset.*
* Ellekan, an islet in Marshall Islands, has been reduced to a pile of sand in the middle of the reef. Those who loved it have already held its funeral.*
Many other low islands face inundation due to global heating, and their inhabitants will become climate refugees. Entire countries will be wiped out in this way.
The whole territory of the United States won't be inundated, only a small percentage. But it includes parts of big cities, so the inhabitants displaced will amount to millions. Likewise in China, India, and Europe.
(satire) *Texas Launches Outreach Program To Provide Troubled Teens With Assault Rifles.*
A bizarre combination of laws limits how much you or I could donate to an election campaign, but billionaires can lawfully spend millions on them.
Australia is hosting an international conference about mining, including coal mining, and threatens protesters with harsh punishments if they get in the way.
Thugs are visiting activists at home to threaten them personally. Here's an example: environmental activist Alister Ferguson.
The repressive law that has been applied to Ferguson was passed by the right-wing government that remains in power in New South Wales. How twisted it is to pin the label of "terrorists" on environment defenders instead of on coal miners.
*Sale of oil and gas permits casts shadow over [Congo] rainforest.* (It is the world's second-largest rainforest.)
In the UK, and probably elsewhere, high earners emit far more greenhouse gases than poor people. This is a reason to establish a carbon tax.
*US judge blocks $2.2bn Penguin Random House merger.*
We should never allow megacorps to merge with any other businesses.
Governor Kemp's family has a long history in Georgia. One of his forebears legalized slavery in Georgia so he could import slaves for his plantation.
Kemp's school censorship law makes it dangerous for teachers to teach that history.
*What [more] Kids Want, We Can't Give Them (Simple Though It Is).*
All the main Israeli political parties advocate annexation and/or violence as the policy towards Palestine.
The US should take the opportunity of Lula's election to strengthen ties with Brazil.
The article cites Brazil's "youthful population" as a strength. To me it is an alarm bell: "Danger, fast population growth!" What is the obvious way for the increased population to get more food and income? Cut down forests, of course. Protecting wilderness and curbing population growth must go hand in hand.
*UK agrees to negotiate with Mauritius over handover of Chagos Islands.*
Reports about Ukrainians refusing to leave Kherson.
US citizens: call on Congress to establish an ethical code for the Supreme Court.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
A fanatical Republican broke into Nancy Pelosi's home, armed and planning to attack her. She was out, so he attacked her husband instead.
Republican leaders cannot fail to know that their barely veiled support for violence will inspire real attacks. That must be their intention.
I think it is a mistake to equate violent fanaticism with mental illness. Mental illness only rarely leads people to contemplate violence towards others. Violent political fanatics often do at least contemplate it.
Lula won the Brazilian presidential election by 51% to 49%.
It is disturbing that 49% voted for a fascist like Bolsonaro, but Lula's victory is clear. With Bolsonaro's main supporters acknowledging Lula's victory. Bolsonaro won't be in a position to try to stay in power.
*Planetary heating could reach a catastrophic 2.9°C by the end of the century without immediate action from the world's largest polluters.*
A doctor's perspective on abortion and her patients' needs.
An experienced ad-man explains that right-wing billionaires' money is effectively buying US elections nowadays — by convincing the public to focus on side issues.
Inspectors found that a UK camp for immigrants is *unsafe, understaffed and "wretched."*
Of course it is. All public services in the UK have been reduced in this way to wretchedness, all are understaffed, and many are also unsafe. That is called "austerity" or "Tory budget cuts."
It turns out that the new "bivalent" booster vaccines work as well as the original vaccine, but not better.
Extinction Rebellion scientists who glued themselves to a UK government building were accused of criminal damage. They were acquitted because the government could not show their protest had actually damaged anything.
*100 UK universities pledge to divest from fossil fuels.*
Street crime in the US increased in 2017 and 2018. What may have caused this, and how are politicians responsible?
US politicians and candidates, as a class, rarely raise the issue of poverty and the suffering it causes.
(satire) *Herschel Walker Claims He's Honorary Confederate Soldier.*
Greta Thunberg accuses the Cop27 climate summit of being mere greenwashing.
It is already clear that they are not set up to bring about the rapid changes that could perhaps avoid disaster.
Musk took a stab at endorsing right-wing disinformation.
I would guess that he was exploring how to make use of the power that he obtained by buying Twitter. We don't yet know what he will settle on, but we can see his decision process isn't mainly a matter of judging what is right.
Brazil's federal police, commanded by a supporter of Bolsonaro, set up road blocks on election day in areas where Lula had a lot of support — apparently as voter suppression.
Europe is experiencing global heating at twice the average global rate.
Egypt is applying its usual extreme repression to climate protesters, even though they are not protesting against Egypt.
*Fifteen Nobel Prize winners called on world leaders visiting Egypt next week for the … COP27 climate talks … to demand freedom for political prisoners, "most urgently, the Egyptian-British writer and philosopher, Alaa Abd El Fattah, now six months into a hunger strike and at risk of death.".*
*Parents of Iranian woman killed during protests "harassed by security forces."*
*Jokes about Paul Pelosi aren’t just in bad taste. They normalize [and advocate] political violence.*
How the UK could cut methane emissions by over 40% by 2030.
Everyone: call on the leaders of American Jewish and Pro-Israel organizations to condemn far-right extremism in Israel.
US citizens: call on Congress to increase the income tax rate for high incomes.
That alone is not enough — we also need to limit the deductions and dodges that rich people use to avoid taxation on most of their income.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: please vote for Democrats, including all the offices. Don't neglect the secondary offices, such as secretary of state (in charge of running elections in many states) as well as state legislators.
Many Democrats are "centrist" — they are plutocratists. A few months ago I donated to organizations that campaigned, in primaries, to replace them with progressive Democrats. The "centrists" running now are the ones we did not succeed in replacing. With Republicans today supporting disinformation and trying to steal control of the US, even a plutocratist Democrat means one less Republican to do this.
Therefore I urge you to defeat those Republicans. Our chance to replace the current plutocratist Democrats will come in the Democratic primaries of the next election.
*Sanders Urges Massive Midterm Voter Turnout to "Preserve American Democracy."*
US citizens: call on Congress to ban members of Congress from owning or trading stocks.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
The oil transported by the East African crude oil pipeline will, when transported and burned, generate vast amounts of greenhouse gas, far more than the countries of Uganda and Tanzania through which it would run.
Arguing that the main British banks have been controlling the UK's economic policy since the 1980s.
The Federal Trade Commission is using its authority to fight monopolies that use their power to crush farm businesses.
*'Cold Hard Threat to Democracy': GOP (the Republican Party) Sowing Chaos at Polls Even Before Election Day.*
Designing US government policies based on economic optimization has led to very bad results.
Like the author, I advocate a carbon tax, but not based on trying to calculate the "amount of damage" that each ton of CO2 will cause. I see it as flexible a way to make businesses decarbonize their practices faster.
A plan to protect New York City from storm surges would cost $50 billion to construct, and would perhaps save $300 billion in damage over the rest of this century.
But if global heating speeds up, and sea level rises faster, it will become inadequate sooner.
Bullhead City, Arizona, prosecuted Norma Thornton for handing out food to the homeless.
The charges were dropped, and now she is suing the city for "criminalizing kindness." Bravo!
In the 1980s, San Francisco repeatedly arrested activists of Food Not Bombs were prosecuted for handing out food to the homeless. That city goes to extremes in persecuting homeless people.
The UK is making progress against the racism expressed, in school and office, by discrimination against kinky hair.
Putin has sent 80,000 conscripts into Ukraine, and many are fighting on the front line. They have slowed Ukraine's advance.
I would expect that many of them want an opportunity to surrender, but is that actually happening?
*Musk probably bought Twitter for the same reason that sickeningly rich people throughout history have become press barons: to try to control the conversation.*
Here's a list of occasions when Musk tried to censor people whose statements caused inconvenience for him.
To prevent Twitter from being a sinkhole for billions of dollars per year, Musk needs to keep advertisers happy by discouraging messages they won't like.
Contrast: some progressive Democrats in Congress asked for direct negotiations between the US and Putin, over Ukraine's head. This could only make a difference if it becomes a pathway to handing part of Ukraine or some Ukrainians to Putin.
Some Republicans in Congress (or running for it) simply don't care what happens to Ukraine, and are ready to let Putin have all or part of Ukraine
just to be done with it.
I think those Democrats' proposal is misguided, but I understand their wish to end the suffering caused by the war. I doubt that the Republicans care about that.
Over 500 million children (or perhaps minors) face frequent heat waves, which tend to damage their health. By 2050, that could rise to over 2 billion.
*World close to "irreversible" climate breakdown,* according to UN environmental agency.
Italian fascists celebrated Mussolini's takeover of the Italian government, 100 years ago. Will the right-wing government, which certainly sympathizes with fascism, seriously oppose the fascists? If not, they will provide the fascists with cover for expanding their power.
Mahsa Amini's memorial service after 40 days reinvigorated protests across Iran.
* Billions of dollars ostensibly committed to addressing the impacts of the climate crisis in poorer countries are not being delivered.*
Europe must try not to cut off contacts with Russians in general. We need more understanding between Russians and Europeans/Americans.
Republican-dominated state legislatures are fabricating creative new excuses for making elections unfair, hoping that the Republican-dominated Supreme Court will rule them legitimate.
*We can't afford US Congress wavering in its support for Ukraine.*
I agree with the general position stated in this article. Putin's eagerness to arrest Ukrainian civilians, kill some, and force most of them rest into servitude in Russia, adds strength to the conclusion.
We will eventually need negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to end the war, but those negotiations won't achieve anything until Putin is willing to accept peace on terms that do not subjugate Ukraine and Ukrainians.
*Fears Bolsonaro may not accept defeat as son cries fraud before Brazil election.*
Bolsonaro's campaign relies on bribery using government funds.
Funds have been designated to help poor countries cope with global heating effects, but the funds are not reaching those countries.
*Americans die younger in states run by [right-wingers], study finds.*
Describing two occasions during the Cuban missile crisis when war almost started between the US and the USSR due to confusion.
The US supermarket business is already far too concentrated. Just 4 companies made 2/3 of US grocery sales in 2019.
To allow two large companies to merge would result in neighborhoods with no supermarket near by, and would raise the price of the least expensive foods of many kinds, which are the store brands.
*Donald Trump Isn't the Biggest Grifter in This Country. The Republican Party Is.*
It is customary to call Republicans "conservative". It was partly true, decades ago, but nowadays it is simply false, as they are busy tearing up Americans' way of life in order to build an army of fanatics.
The Supreme Court will hear a case about whether section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives platforms a right to make recommendation engines recommend anything whatsoever on the site.
I think that regulating the recommendation engines is a good idea. It might be a way to make those platforms take care not to recommend bigotry, hatred, violence, disinformation, and QAnonsense, without blocking or banning any point of view.
If it makes surveillance companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook less profitable, hooray!
*Thousands of London protesters call for UK to rejoin EU.*
A petition to Uber stops just short of mentioning the crucial changes we ought to fight for. Namely, to stop making customers run nonfree software, and stop making them identify themselves.
Identifying and tracking people is an injustice even if you don't sell use of that data to anyone else. Whereas if you don't identify and track people, the advertising problem disappears too.
Republicans are trying to show how determined they are to make it hard for poor and hard-working people to vote — by proposing federal laws to do so.
Those bills can't possibly pass this year; the reason for them is specifically to win support, in the coming election, from people who don't want to allow Democrats to vote.
Kanye West has been giving out hints of antisemitism for 10 years, but only recently made it so blatant that people and businesses couldn't avoid noticing it. Previously, people who wished to disregard it found no difficulty in doing so.
I don't particularly like rap, except when it's parody and makes me laugh, like Can't Watch This by Weird Al, so I never paid attention to West except when I read in national news that he had showed support for the corrupter. That was enough to motivate me to disregard any further news about him.
*UK music industry to implement anti-racism code of conduct from 2023.* This code applies to how businesses treat workers. It looks like a good plan to me.
The EU pledged to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030, but has not implemented policies to make this happen.
To rear fewer cattle in the EU will not help if the EU imports meat instead. That would transfer the cattle's methane emissions to some other country but not eliminate the emissions. To achieve this necessary goal would require either reducing the emissions per unit of meat or milk produced, or reducing the amounts of meat and milk going into products sold in the EU.
The former may perhaps be possible (I don't know) with different breeds of cattle or different feed. But there is not time to develop them, not before 2030. It would have to be done using existing methods.
A judge in Québec ruled that allowing thugs to stop drivers for no specific reason is unconstitutional. The reason is that thugs often choose drivers to stop based on prejudice, for instance racism.
US citizens: call on Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: tell the Department of Justice that anyone who tried to overturn 2020 election results must be held accountable to the full extent of the law.
*New Zealand Uber drivers win landmark case declaring them employees.* At least, some of them will be employees. Just which ones is not yet clear.
Anyway, that's the right policy as regards gig workers who work under the direction of a company. I hope the drivers for Uber will be treated better in the future.
This does not cure the basic injustice of Uber towards its customers. So I will continue my stance of refusing to board an Uber car. Protect your freedom and privacy — don't be a customer of Uber.
The US accuses Russia and China of blocking the creation of new protected marine zones near Antarctica.
Egypt has cancelled events inside the climate conference where NGOs planned to invite scientists to meet visiting politicians.
Farmers in Kenya are selling some of their old baobab trees, which they want to get rid of to use that land.
There may be valid reasons to want to preserve the old baobab trees in Kenya, and/or cultivate new ones. However, that aside, transplanting some (provided they can actually take root and thrive in their new homes) is not particularly bad, especially if the farmers would otherwise have cut them down. It is absurd to claim this is some sort of crime.
The concept of "biopiracy" is used here with a meaning I had not seen before, but it is just as bogus as the other meaning.
It's not enough to have "grownups" as political leaders. We need grownups that feel compassion for poor people rather than for fortunes.
*'Not a Single Global Indicator Is on Track' to Reverse Deforestation by 2030.*
*Global deforestation reduction pledge [for 2030] will be missed without urgent action, say researchers.*
*Australia's Covid lockdown rules found to have lacked fairness and compassion.*
Massachusetts closed various sorts of stores and group activities, but did not have a "lockdown" in the usual sense.
*Gun used by Mexican cartel to shoot down military helicopter bought in US.*
Ohio Republicans subsidize the right-wing disinformation of a "crisis pregnancy center", but not the medical services of Planned Parenthood.
(satire) *Biblical Historians Reveal Jesus Christ Chose Stage Name To Sound Less Jewish.*
*Progressives Have But One Option on Election Day: Vote to Defeat the Neofascist GOP.*
(satire) *Netflix Limits Users To One Eye Per Screen.*
Seriously, Netflix treats users unjustly. Please don't yield to that — instead, flick off Netflix!
*Human Rights Watch Condemns Qatar Over Arrests, Abuse of LGBTQ+ People Ahead of World Cup.*
Will governments allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Putin for the crime of aggressive war? The US may try to protect Dubya from a similar prosecution for conquering and occupying Iraq — a war which he started without grounds or need, based on lies.
Dubya deserves to be prosecuted for that crime, and I would love to see him imprisoned for it.
A group of people with guns were found hanging around near a ballot drop box in Arizona, evidently to intimidate potential voters.
To increase the intimidating effect, they wore clothes suggestive of soldiers.
Millions of Americans get federal medical benefits (Medicaid) and food benefits due to a federal medical emergency proclamation that could end on Jan 11 if Biden does not extend it.
Bitcoin miners bought a mostly disused fossil fuel power plant in New York State to use solely to power their mining computers. People in the state launched a campaign that denied it an updated permit for its intensified operations.
The Nevada Republican candidate for Secretary of State (in charge of elections) has extended his election lies to cover Rep. Pelosi and other members of Congress.
New York City responded to increased violent crime in the subways by pushing out homeless people who were living there.
Does this make sense? I wonder what fraction of violent crimes in the subway are committed by homeless people. My guess is that it is minuscule, because the factors that could make you homeless have little to do with the factors that could make you violent. My guess is that this is simply a way to "arrest the usual suspects" and show that you're "doing something about it."
If the city's night-mayor has any evidence to the contrary, I'd like to see it.
I also guess that an increase in the number of cops patrolling in the subway will change little, because criminals that commit crimes for profit and can think about it will simply commit their crimes where no cop is present. However, the patrols might result in catching more of the criminals who are mentally incompetent to plan like that.
*Former Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann … called on European lawmakers to take on the "disproportionate" and "undemocratic" power held by tech companies* such as Uber.
*He recalled the "almost unlimited finance" executives had to lobby and silence drivers with legal disputes.*
* MacGann said it would be unfair for drivers to be required to hire expensive lawyers and go to labour courts to prove they were employees.*
I agree with what he said, but he surely did not mention the injustice of requiring customers to run a nonfree app on a nonfree operating system (iOS or Android), and identifying themselves to pay. This adds up to tracking the public's movements — something that a free society must ensure no one can do.
Prime Monster Sunak was educated in an elite school that teaches rich boys to be greedy but not at all compassionate.
He keeps a lot of money in a secret account in the Cayman Islands so that no one can tell what he invests in. This means he has continual opportunities for insider trading.
One journalist's struggle to find out about US military operations in Africa. AFRICOM won't admit where its bases are or what countries it is fighting in.
30 progressive Democrats privately signed a letter in July calling for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. It was published and sent to Biden just now, and provoked much opposition.
If it were possible to work out a just peace with Putin, one that avoided crowning his attack on Ukraine with success, I might be in favor of that — but he's not having it.
Total agreement with me is too much to demand of the politicians I support. I support Ayanna Pressley because of the many issues on which she fights for the rights and well-being of non-rich Americans, despite disagreeing with her on this issue.
Emperor penguins face extinction as global heating eliminates the sea ice they depend on.
Xi has imposed total repression, strict even by comparison to the CCP of ten years ago. The only way one can criticize the government is by writing in a public toilet.
The author left China in 2009, and says that the straitjacket of repression in China today makes the country unrecognizable to her now.
*Xi Jinping's party purge prompts fears of greater Taiwan invasion risk.*
*Republicans want working-class voters — without actually supporting workers.*
In the 1980s, the British government had a department whose mission was to write objective nonpartisan descriptions of government practices and rules. Thatcher turned it into an advertising agency.
San Francisco decided to build another public toilet. The project will cost 1.7 million dollars and take 13 years to finish.
Building dedicated public toilets as separate facilities is a surrender to business. The cheap way to address this need is to require all restaurants, whenever open, to permit any orderly person to enter and use the toilet. If a restaurant complains about the cost of fulfilling this requirement, just invite it to move to a place with less pedestrian traffic.
* Publicly subsidized insurers are jacking up prices [on their Medicare Advantage plans] while Americans lose coverage.*
Arguing that the proposed Journalism Competition and Preservation Act would help large US newspapers get more advertising money out of adtech companies, but would not help support local newspapers or local journalism.
Robert Reich: That the US has inflation, like most other countries, is not the fault of the Democrats in office, but they must confront the issue honestly.
The Chinese consul in England who ordered his staff to kidnap and attack a protester, and participated personally in the attack, claims that he was justified because the protest signs constituted an attack against China.
This statement reflects China's contempt for dissent and freedom of speech. It illustrates how the Chinese government is a force for tyranny and repression. Alas, we can find similar views in the US too. Right-wing bullies, including the wrecker himself, frequently call for, and carry out, violence against people for disagreeing with them. At heart, would-be American tyrants are not very different from Chinese tyrants.
We also find progressives who take a similar stance, equating expression of right-wing views, or even depicting events those progressives condemn, to violence. They may claim to be "harmed" by the mere sight of them.
If we join with would-be tyrants in equating criticism with violence, we will have no basis to condemn right-wing violence except that we disagree with the right-wing views.
Just recently the leader of the Proud Boys was invited to speak at Penn State University, by a group of right-wing students. Progressive students demanded the university ban the talk.
I don't agree with the Proud Boys position any more than those students do, but if the disapproval of a group with some power is enough to ban a speech, lots of views will be banned.
On the other hand, if that speech would amount to a call to violence, that could be a valid reason to stop it.
Alan Singer: *Understanding History in the "Age of the Big Lie."*
Singer refers to E.H. Carr, who claimed that "Concern with the future is what really motivates the study of the past. I disagree, because I agree with Singer's concluding paragraph: there are many possible motivations and purposes in studying history.
In particular, it can be interesting to study history seeking the causes and explanations of the present, but we need to avoid transferring our present-day thinking and moral ideas anachronistically to people of the past.
The ACLU asked the Supreme Court to rule that laws prohibiting specific kinds of boycotts are unconstitutional, after one federal appeals court ruled to the contrary.
The authoritarian campaign to prohibit boycotting Israel has put the US in danger of broad-spectrum plutocratist authoritarianism.
After a series of ever-more-radical right-wing prime monsters pushing for ever-deeper political and economic separation from the EU, Britons are waking up to the idea that it was a mistake to leave the EU.
Many years ago, I said that splitting from the EU would have horrible results with plutocratists in charge, but could have good results with antiplutocratists in charge. Splitting would enable the plutocrats to rampage through the UK unrestrained by EU laws, if the UK government were on their side. At the same time, EU laws impose a considerable amount of plutocracy, so leaving the EU would make it possible for the UK to have less.
Now that the "Labour" Party has made sure it can never be a channel to oppose plutocracy, I see little hope that the UK could make positive use of being outside the EU. So it may as well rejoin.
Maha-Rishi Sunak is about to choose to crush the poor so as to reduce the UK's debt. He'd rather cause great suffering than raise taxes.
However, with most Britons now in poverty, they should not have to pay any tax.
He has millions and his wife has hundreds of millions. We call him Rich Sunak.
The UK could raise a lot of money by closing the loophole that many rich UK citizens (including Sunak's wife) use to pay very little tax.
2/3 of Britons support nonviolent direct action to protect the environment.
I'm impressed by their ability to value long-term well-being above short-term inconvenience.
Illegal fishing in poor countries' waters is denying local people their food, and destroying ecosystems.
Evidence casts doubt on the conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is asking for a new trial.
George Monbiot: Britain is so deeply broken that it will need more than an election to fix it.
*Queensland to change laws that prevented UN inspectors entering mental health wards.*
*Cut meat consumption to two burgers a week to save planet, study suggests.* *Public transport [must be] expanded about six times faster than its current rate.* And the world must stop increasing the use of methane (natural gas).
A couple of New Zealand travel bloggers were jailed for months for trying to drive across Iran.
Perhaps it was because they were driving an American make of car, which Iran has prohibited. But that seems unlikely.
*Meet the Industry Lobbyists Fighting Efforts to Solve the Biodiversity Crisis.*
I told a gathering that I was in favor of mousetraps. A mouse replied, claiming that they are de-bait-able.
Biden's Labor Department has proposed an employment rule that would classify the drivers of Uber and Lyft as employees.
This would be a big step forward for employee's rights, but it won't do anything about the injustice of Uber and Lyft to the passengers: making them run nonfree software (an app) and identify themselves (enabling surveillance). This should be forbidden.
So I will continue to refuse to get into an Uber or Lyft car. I go out of my way to get a real taxi that I can board anonymously and pay with cash. Or I take a bus. Or I walk.
In some places, such as New York City, even taxis are part of a surveillance machine. A cab driver there told me that all NYC taxis are required to have cameras that transmit the passengers' face images immediately by radio to the city department of massive surveillance. Such surveillance is a bigger threat than terrorism, because tracking people threatens to subjugate everyone.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to co-sponsor the Resolution Recognizing the Human Rights to Utilities (electric, phone, internet, water, etc).
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Republicans blocked funding for COVID-19 vaccines and testing. As a result, next year vaccination will cost around $110.
Many Americans, who are on the brink of penury and can barely afford food and heat, will go without vaccination. That's unjust for them, and dangerous for everyone. Those who are not current on vaccination are more likely to spread the virus — to you or anyone else.
Catching COVID-19 if you're vaccinated still has a substantial chance of incapacitating you for months or years, so don't take a foolish risk. Obtain N95 masks and use them as a precaution whenever you are near other people in an enclosed space. That's what I do, and I am doing it right now. I am in an airplane, and I am going to keep my N95 mask on until I am outside the terminal after arrival.
Putin's tactic of destroying Ukraine's electric generators is having devastating effect. The drones and missiles are cheap, so the Putin forces fire many of them, day after day. Even though Ukraine destroys most of them, each power plant damaged will be out of service for weeks.
Putin's forces are also talking about blowing up a major dam near Kherson. This might destroy a lot of the infrastructure around Kherson, and maybe much of the city itself.
Parts of Australia blocked UN inspectors from visiting their prisons to check for respect for human rights.
Qatar made a start at reforming its unjust labor laws, but undid it when the big employers complained. Once again it is thoroughly unjust.
Chairman Xi has chosen China's highest officials (aside from him) based on personal obedience to him.
In the short term, this will encourage grave mistakes. It will also very likely leave China with weak leaders whenever Xi dies or retires. But that could be ten years from now.
China's repression in Xinjiang and Hong Kong has brought China a well-deserved increase in world condemnation.
Can we envision a way that China could become a free, successful country?
Vague glimpses of the developments in the war between Ethiopia and Tigray show that Ethiopia is doing great harm to Tigrayan civilians.
I have never seen enough clear information on what is happening in Ethiopia to understand what is going on in that war, or why. I wish I knew.
Starmer is trying to make Labour the preferred choice of British business. Perhaps it should change its name to the "Shareholding/Management Party."
*Corporate America's Big Money Could Fuel Victory for "Big Lie" Candidates.*
Harris County in Texas has asked for federal election monitors to make sure the state's Republican election monitors don't intimidate voters.
This year's election shows that the billionaires' power to buy elections is almost total.
It includes the influence of the mainstream media — which belong to billionaires — which deflect attention from the issues that electing the right politicians could fix, to other issues such as inflation.
Cancellation is done by right-wing bullies and left-wing bullies, but the right-wing bullies often utilize state power and spread much more fear.
When Florida prison thugs beat up prisoners, sometimes they break their necks and paralyze them. They did this to Craig Ridley, and he starved to death.
They left food for him every day, but he was unable to pick it up and eat it. He told them he was paralyzed, but they insisted he was malingering.
*EU Parliament Backs Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.*
*YouTube and Facebook letting Brazil election disinformation spread, NGO says.* Global Witness produced many misleading ads and ads that attacked the election, and asked for approval from YouTube and Facebook. YouTube approved all of them, and Facebook many of them. The organization did not actually run the misleading ads.
The state of Victoria, in Australia, has plans to build renewable electric generation facilities and produce 95% of the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2035.
The new generating facilities will be owned mostly by the state.
The Economist advocates legalizing cocaine, to reduce the danger from contaminants and reduce its corrupting power.
Campaigners are suing Amazon for a practice promoting "special offers" that are not actually better deals for the customer, but are presented to give the impression that they are better deals.
Australia plans to make another try at laws to strip citizenship from people suspected of involvement with terrorism.
Australia's previous laws that allowed ministers to cancel citizenship based on suspicion were ruled unconstitutional.
The proposed replacement will be somewhat less unjust, simply because there will be some sort of court hearing to decide. But will that hearing be supposed to respect the same rights that a trial is supposed to respect? I fear it will follow a lesser standard, and that would make it an injustice.
Exile is a severe punishment, and it should not be imposed without the same safeguards that imprisonment would require.
I suggest that if a country wants to take away someone's citizenship over alleged terrorism, it should first arrest per, then put per on trial for that terrorism. If the accused chooses to remain in exile to avoid the trial, this achieves the same goal indirectly. However, person must have the right to return and face trial so as to clear per name.
Laws to empower a government to impose temporary exile on a citizen are likewise unjust. Any form of arbitrary state power can be useful for "managing risks", but that is not enough to excuse it.
Bogus Johnson abandoned his attempt to become Prime Monster again, with the parting bogus claim that he would probably have won and was withdrawing from the race only for the sake of "party unity".
Can you trust an app as a medium for "confidential" communication with psychotherapists or mental health coaches?
Obviously not — cr…apps are made for snooping.
China continues to use enforced quarantines trying to stamp out Covid-19, though the evolution of the virus makes that ever more of a struggle.
Is it possible to develop a system that lets you show your Covid status at the door of a building or store, but won't say who you are? It should be inherently anonymous. Of course, China would not use that even if it were available, but other countries could.
I wonder how people in quarantine are supposed to get food to eat. Is it delivered to them? All sorts of things can go wrong with such a system, when you are compelled to use it and it is run by people who act hastily and don't respect the people they protect.
For instance, is the danger of dying from a bus collision in China more today than it was in 2019? I doubt it. If it wasn't a big issue then, it isn't a big issue now.
Privatized prisons fund lobbying for laws to criminalize homelessness.
Privatization of prisons creates a force that will always lobby for imprisoning more people. This is why we must abolish privatized prisons.
The price of medical insurance in the US has increased 24% in the past year. The cost of actual medical care has not increased anywhere near so much.
This pattern has continued for several years, with 2020 as the sole exception. The insurance companies are gouging.
The article ends with a comparison between this and the low price of a TV set. A modern TV set is a surveillance device — they are cheap because surveillance is part of the price.
Lawyers and law firms have come to view their work as an "industry" rather than as a "profession". The consequence, often, is that they unhesitatingly undertake to do the nastiest jobs for the nastiest rich bastards.
*Biden implores US oil companies to pass on record profits to consumers.*
How pitiable it is to see the US government reduced by Republicans to begging callous businesses to reduce prices — when it ought to legislate to tax those businesses to give aid to the poor. A few weeks ago he implored Crown Prince Bone Saw to reduce prices. Won't he ever learn that imploring your enemies does not have good results?
New variants of SARS-Cov-2, descendants of Omicron, are unaffected by the monoclonal antibody treatment. We need to develop a new one, but Republicans won't allow it.
They rejected funding for treatment and prevention of Covid-19.
*So-Called GOP "Solutions" to Inflation Are Just Another Giveaway to the Rich and Corporations.*
How the Patriotic Millionaires recommend revamping US taxes so that the rich pay a higher fraction of their income, instead of a lower fraction.
An appeals court ruled (at the first level) that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is unconstitutional.
I expect this case will go to the Supreme Court and that the plutocratist majority will wipe out the CFPB.
YouTube claims to give the user ways to influence what videos it will recommend to per, but researchers report that these features empirically prove to have little effect.
The story errs in asserting that users "consume" YouTube videos. Watching a video does not use it up; it remains available to be shown to others.
For your freedom's sake, don't visit youtube.com directly, Use the proxy system of invidio.us instead.
India has arbitrarily stopped Kashmiri journalists from departing on trips to other countries. Now Sanna Irshad Mattoo has been barred from leaving for the US to receive a Pulitzer Prize.
Chinese agents in the US have been arrested for trying to pressure a Chinese exile to go to China.
3% of the population of the UK have been infected with Covid-19 this month.
Ilhan Omar: *We need a Marshall plan for Africa.*
To do this, we need to make rich people and big companies pay a fair amount of tax: a much higher rate than the less-rich pay.
* Who would think a lying, hypocritical degenerate [such as Bogus Johnson] was the answer to this crisis? A large number of Conservatives, apparently.*
I can see why. Johnson is glib and can invent a lie to excuse almost anything, for the short term. Of course, people suspected the lies but it took ages to pin him down on one. That is why an act of hypocrisy which was small-scale by his standards caused such a scandal: it was one that could be proved. After Truss was brutally honest about plans so outrageous that Tories compelled her to resign, they may wish for Johnson's bogus glibness again — but it won't work. After so much time, his dishonesty has become impossible to disguise.
Iran's thugs have arrested around 12,500 people for protesting, and killed around 250. They claim to have crushed the protests.
The new right-Wing Swedish government has made the environmental ministry a part of the energy, business, and industry ministry. This is a clear statement of a policy to allow the powerful to plunder and pollute almost without limit.
The article's statement about biofuels is based on an error, the same error that EU biofuel policy is based on. The requirement to include biofuels in fuels is supposedly a way of reducing carbon emissions, because the biofuels are supposedly renewable. But they aren't, because because producing today's biofuels uses fertilizer made from petroleum.
In the future, perhaps biofuels made by microbes will actually reduce emissions. Until then, it is harmful to require the use of biofuels as they now exist.
(satire) *Food Banks Begin Accepting Donations From Homosexuals.*
(satire) *Twitter To Promote Healthier Discussion By Letting One User Tweet At A Time.*
Dean Baker: the corporate media artificially drum up concern about inflation.
This could be a way to advance Republican candidates, and it could be the work of the same billionaires that fund them.
Stiglitz: the west must adjust its economy to meet the needs of war.
One adjustment is to impose a windfall profits tax.
He advocates a nonlinear price scheme for electricity. The first 90% of the electricity you used last year, you can buy at last year's price, the next 20% you can by at 1.5 times that price, and any more beyond that you would buy at a price based on current conditions.
He also advocates an end to paying farmers to grow less food. (I think this would have to be accompanied by rules to give wildlife a home in farms.)
DeMentis is having ineligible Florida voters arrested as a political show.
Those people, convicted of felonies, registered and voted because state officials told them — erroneously — that they were allowed to do so.
DeMentis knows they will be convicted of a crime for following officials' advice. Indeed, one's case has already been dismissed. But this may suffice as political grandstanding and make right-wing haters feel vicariously powerful.
*Early voters in Arizona midterms report harassment by poll watchers.*
The large fully-protected marine area near Hawaii is achieving what protected marine areas often do: increasing the number of fish caught in nearby unprotected areas.
State abortion bans force imprisoned women to have babies.
Parkinson's disease is caused mainly by environmental factors. The weed killer paraquat may be one of them, and farmers who used it are suing.
Lawsuits and damages are not a very good method for deciding whether a chemical is safe to use. The US does it this way for lack of a better system. The absence of a national medical system means that the people affected by expensive diseases desperately need to sue someone and collect damages to pay for their treatment.
With a national medical system, the people who are sick would get treatment without suing. The determination of whether any particular chemical is responsible for the disease, and the decision of whether to ban it, could be made separately.
*The "election-denier trifecta": alarm over [Trump-pets]' efforts to win key posts.*
The spread of bird flu among wild birds has made it impossible to leave farmed fowl outdoors. There can no longer be "free range" poultry.
Berlusconi was recorded admitting privately to exchanging expensive gifts with Putin to "reestablish ties".
We should expect two autocratically inclined right wing rich bastards to have much in common. Naturally they are friends, unless they are rivals.
Trying to grow cell cultures of fish cells, as a substitute for fish as food.
The Tories discarded Truss's plan for tax cuts for the rich. Now their goal is to reduce the deficit — quite opposite to what Truss wanted — but they plan to achieve it by cutting the UK's already-starved public services.
I've claimed that the Tories intend to wreck the NHS.
I think these cuts will finish it, as well as other services.
*Nike makes money off progressive celebrities, then donates money to far-right candidates.*
If we can make it embarrassing to be caught wearing Nike symbolism, we can put a dent in the company.
On the true cost of "fast fashion".
*American[/Saudi dual] citizen tortured in [Salafi Arabian] prison for tweets he made in Florida criticizing Saudi government.*
*What a pregnancy actually looks like at nine weeks.* (It doesn't look much like a human being.)
Parts of British Columbia, known for normally having a lot of rain, are now in drought.
The immediate causes of the drought are complex, but the short explanation is, "global heating." But over-logging made it worse.
Previous foreign interventions in Haiti have only helped to implant elites that serve foreign interests. There is no reason to think that another one will do Haiti any good.
I can't imagine what kind of actions have a chance of doing any good.
Laws proposed for the UK offer systems to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of things used in the UK, independent of where they are produced. Tories have not supported these proposals much, but perhaps they should change their stance.
Ukraine and the US say that Iran is selling exploding drones to Russia. Iran and Russia deny this and say that Russia is building the drones. I don't see why this should matter.
The wrecker broke the old non-nuclear deal, and Biden's weak efforts to restore it have more or less collapsed. That is quite unfortunate, but since that is the case, why does Iran's exporting exploding drones change anything significant?
Workers at another Apple Store voted to unionize.
If only the users of Apple computers would go on strike against the injustice in those computers,
* New Jersey on Tuesday sued five oil and gas companies and a leading fossil fuel lobby group for knowingly lying to the public about the existence of climate change and the role their products play in exacerbating human-caused global heating.*
*Pesticide use around world almost doubles since 1990, report finds.*
The pesticides harm the health of almost 400 million people every year, and are part of the cause of the great decrease of bird and insect populations.
Putin's new conscripts find that they are not issued proper equipment, armor, weapons, or even uniforms. Some beg their relatives to buy some of what is missing.
I can't imagine anything worse for relatives of conscripts to do than pay for equipment to enable sending those conscripts to the front. That is self-defeating.
If you don't have warm underwear, you might get sick or frostbitten and be sent to the rear. Isn't that a good outcome?
I've read that British soldiers in France in World War I, knowing that the generals' incompetent tactics would get almost all soldiers killed uselessly sooner or later, used to pray for wounds that would make them invalids — that was a chance for survival.
If they give you a fake helmet that won't protect you, how about throwing it away? Likewise, a rusted rifle that you can't rely on. Why disguise the fact that you lack necessary equipment? The army needs to know this.
On the other hand, asking your relatives for a bulletproof vest might make sense; that would tend to protect you from the hits that are likely to kill you.
Arguing that Salafi Arabia's oil output cut is an attempt to intervene in the US election against the Democratic Party. I fear it may be very effective.
Racism on the part of judges is visibly present in British courts.
If half of all lawyers have seen instances of this, that doesn't mean half the judges have demonstrated such behavior. I expect it is more like 1%. If one out of 100 judges displays racism, and those that do so do it frequently, and if the average lawyer gets to see observe 50 judges' behavior, then half of all lawyers would see a judge act racist.
It is unacceptable for any judge to act in a biased way in court. What's needed is a system for helping biased judges learn, or excluding them.
Economic growth based on real work depends on keeping workers healthy and well. The UK's right-wing government is not keeping the NHS functioning enough to achieve that.
The UK plans to deport Sri Lankan refugees in the Chagos Islands to some other country, disregarding the UN's ruling that the UK must return the Chagos Islands to the inhabitants it forcibly expelled.
*How the Tories' "war on nature" outraged everyone from the RSPB to farmers.*
The Tory MPs have gone through Prime Monster Bogus Johnson and Prime Monster Liz Truss. She resigned so that they can choose the next Prime Monster without an election.
This way they will still have a chance to enact arbitrary repression of protesters before the people are consulted about it.
* Three Louisiana men incarcerated for over 28 years were found to have been wrongfully convicted of murder on Wednesday, after newly uncovered evidence linked the original police investigation to a notorious [thug] found guilty of murder conspiracy and endemic corruption in the New Orleans police department.*
**Republicans aim to pass national "don't say gay" law.*
These laws spread broad fear because Republicans have a pattern of stretching the repressive potential of any law that fits their ideology. We cannot judge these laws by interpretations that would be reasonable.
Israel has announced new apartheid rules that would greatly interfere with anything but a short visit to Palestinian territory. People born in the few countries where most Palestinian refugees live would be banned entirely from entering Palestinian territory.
One good thing Liz Truss did for Britain: tying trickle-down tax cuts and dooH niboR to a crushing response from markets.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to resist Republican pressure to increase the cost of medicine.
And vote for a Democrat for Congress!
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on COP27 to stop excluding military pollution from climate agreements.
Robert Reich: *It's not just the Big Lie. Republicans are telling three other lies they hope will swing the midterms.*
The lies are about crime (rising faster in Republican, Trump-supporting states), about inflation (caused in the US by corporations as well as by shortages and the war), and the IRS (which will use its new funding to go after rich cheaters that give money to Republican candidates).
Chinese thugs came out of the Chinese consulate in Manchester, England, grabbed a protester, and beat him up.
British political leaders including Tories said that peaceful protesters must not be attacked in the UK, which makes an interesting contrast to the ways they plan to attack protesters in the future.
UC Berkeley is "repatriating" over 50,000 "sacred items" to indigenous groups.
Imagine if everything in museums that had come from a church or temple, from an idol or a statue of a god, all ancient scriptures and myths of whatever religion, or anything that was associated with them, were "returned" to someone! There would be almost nothing left about the ancient world. It would be a calamity for anthropology.
At least there is not much danger that this will be extended to artifacts from Europe, or most of Asia. So far, people of European and Asian ancestry are not trying to extend this policy of excluding our own ancestors and past from anthropology. But there may be little trace in 2050 of cultures from the Americans, Australia and Africa to compare them with.
For what it's worth, I see nothing wrong with digging up the graves or artifacts of people related to me for the sake of scientific study. And that includes my own "remains" — but I've arranged for scientists to get first crack at those, after my death.
*The Litany of Lies the GOP Tells in Order to Destroy Public Education.*
The new de-facto head of the British government is another Tory, Jeremy Hunt. He has cancelled various tax cuts, which mostly benefit the rich. So far, so good. But he plans to cut government spending, and there is nothing superfluous to cut.
(satire) *Astronaut Returns From ISS With Annoying Space Accent.*
The corrupter and his Republicans hope to finish off the remains of democracy that plutocratist Democrats have not already wiped out.
Polls suggest Americans will express their resentment of rising prices by voting for Republicans. Which means, punishing non-rich Americans for it and destroying what remains of democracy.
How foolish of them, and how sad.
*Ron Johnson’s campaign paid law firm associated with January 6 false elector scheme.*
Over a million Americans with diabetes were unable to afford (in 2021) all the insulin they needed to take.
World Meteorological Organization: *Clean Energy Production Must Double by 2030 to Stave Off Catastrophe.*
Otherwise *there is an increased risk that worsening extreme weather disasters turbocharged by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis will further diminish energy security and even imperil renewable power generation.*
* The defeat of free market ideology will be worthless if it results in a fear of public spending and an unquestioning faith in the markets.*
I think we can count on Starmer to fall into that trap. He already leans that way.
*House [of Representatives] report alleges [the wrecker's] aides blocked [CDC] officials from providing accurate Covid-19 information during pandemic.*
Arguing that for Musk to own Twitter would threaten US national security (as well as democracy and human rights).
Republicans plan to cut taxes for the rich permanently.
They hope that non-rich Americans will be too busy to vote, especially when voting gets really hard for them.
Various people's opinions about Just Stop Oil protests.
The Putin forces are planning to move the population of Kherson into Russia, claiming that they are going voluntarily.
To make damned sure they all "volunteer", the Putin forces claim the city will be destroyed by shelling. I guess that means they are planning to destroy the city by shelling it.
US citizens: call on Congress to protect the Boundary Waters in Minnesota.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Wall Street banks to stop supporting a lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
A letter from a Just Stop Oil protester in prison, defending the need to overcome the British government's determination to drill more.
*Oil addiction will keep the west in hock to dictators.* It also helps dictators take over western countries.
*Belarus jails opposition activists on charges of terrorism and treason.*
When Ukraine is through with Putin, he may no longer have the strength to keep Lukashenko in power.
Jeremy Corbyn presents a basic economic program to repair the damage that Tories have done in 12 years in power.
Dr Anthony Fauci acknowledges: *Long Covid is an "insidious" public health emergency.*
He calls on Congress to put funds into research on treating it. I agree — but we already know of ways to protect people from developing long Covid: masks, distance, and improved ventilation. Every level of government should use all methods it can use to convince or require more Americans to use masks and keep distance, and help and require all work and gathering places to increase the rate of replacing the air.
Research is already starting, and it may eventually help people with various other long-term "post-viral" syndromes whose mechanisms are mysterious.
Global heating has caused hurricanes to increase in intensity faster than before. This will make them do more damage.
The Oakland thug department wants armed robots that can shoot people.
If this is allowed, the next step will be to allow robots to decide when to shoot someone, based on heuristics.
Autistic scholar Temple Grandin: *The education system is screening out visual thinkers.… essential skills are being lost.*
Senator Warren rebuked the Federal Reserve for pushing the US into recession.
Half the sale of PFAs in the US are authorized by EPA loopholes that should not properly apply to them.
George Monbiot: *Do we really care more about Van Gogh’s sunflowers than real ones?*
His points, about the shocking level of repression that the UK plans to impose without trial on anyone who has participated in a protest, comparable to putting per on probation, and about the danger government plans pose to nature at every scale, are valid. But I want to quibble with the hook that he has used in the title.
Do I care more about that series of paintings (or just the one in the UK's National Gallery) than about some real sunflowers?
I think any painting by an admired artist has more value to the world than a few cut flowers in a vase. The species of sunflowers is not one I personally adore, but preventing any species' extinction is important, arguably more so than saving a famous painting. But so what?
Those comparisons are pure distraction because there is no reason to compare them. Humanity does not face a choice of "this painting or that species."
Neither did the protesters — their protest did not risk damaging the painting.
So why does the comparison suggest itself? I think it is implied, though misleadingly, by that method of protest. Even if it can't actually damage the painting, it suggests an attempt, threat or wish to do so.
That is why I think that particular form of protest is misguided. It leads people to make the misleading comparison.
A painting won't survive for millennia without help — it needs protection, conservation, and restoration. If global heating wipes out technological civilization, the humans that survive won't have the skill, tools, or spare wealth to attend to such work.
So we can argue that Just Stop Oil's goal is necessary for preserving that very painting, along with the civilization it forms a part of.
*UK data shows authoritarian or neglectful parenting linked to higher weight in children and adolescents.*
Modern life under plutocracy, with parents under stress all the time and having little time for their children, is likely to result in the kind of relationship that might make children seek comfort from junk food. This could be part cause of the increase in obesity.
Public pressure has convinced many large insurance companies to stop insuring coal mine development. Refusal is spreading in oil and gas extraction too. The article argues that this already makes it almost impossible to start a new large coal mine, except in China, which still tears through our atmosphere. China does not allow environmentalist protests.
Around 15% of people in the UK can't afford enough to eat. More than half are reducing their use of heat, hot water and electricity.
It is hard for me to understand why they don't all march demanding Corbyn as their next prime minister.
* The Scottish farmed salmon industry is using loopholes to cover up evidence of environmental harm, poor animal welfare and high levels of disease, an investigation has found..*
Texas governor Abbott calls Mexican drug mobs "terrorists" while adopting gun laws that help them get lots of guns.
Everyone: call on Amazon to radically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
You can help reduce Amazon's emissions by boycotting Amazon, as I do.
Just Stop Oil has returned to protesting by blocking streets in London, and now demands subsidy for public transport as well as quick reductions in oil extraction.
* Guatemala cracks down on protesters in the streets and in the halls of congress—where lawmakers are pushing a bill that would justify the use of deadly force.*
Criticism of The Woman King for presenting a sanitized and false picture of Dahomey, and hiding the fact that its main business was capturing Africans and selling them as slaves.
The first article I read about that movie mentioned that it was about Dahomey, and I immediately wondered how it treated this basic fact. This article shows the answer.
There may be much to appreciate in The Woman King, but this is an important flaw. In general, I'd always prefer if "based on a true story" were more true and less "based on."
After Hurricane Ian wiped out Cuba's electric system and destroyed some buildings, Cubans protested, and the state responded with repression.
Cuban repression is wrong, now as it was in the past, but I don't think the Cuban state is responsible for the weakness of its power grid. US sanctions, increased by the wrecker, are responsible for that.
Poor People's Campaign marches aim to reach 5 million US voters before the election.
Atlanta thugs have a habit of harassing air passengers just as they are about to get into an airplane, and asking them to "voluntarily" answer questions about whether they are carrying illegal drugs.
Of the 400-odd passengers questioned. the thugs took the cash that 25 of them were carrying. It added up to a million dollars. Only one of those 25 was charged with a crime. How very lucrative.
How one county in Minnesota gives homeless people apartments and helps them learn how to pay for them.
The Republican candidate for governor of Arizona is suggesting, in a vague dogwhistle manner, that if she loses the election she will try to steal it by pretending that she had won it, and hope other Republicans will support lie.
This sort of conduct ought to land a candidate in prison.
The London thug department allowed hundreds of "racist, corrupt and misogynist officers remain in their jobs."
Even worse, the new head of the department says he may not even have the authority to fire them.
A retired London cop says that the London thug department was "corrupt, racist and misogynistic" for the 30 years she worked there.
Iranian government thugs attacked a girls' high school and ordered students to sing a song that praises Ayatollah Khomeini, whom they call "the dictator". They refused, so the thugs attacked them, arresting some and injuring others. One of the girls died afterwards; protesters claim she was beaten to death.
There is an ethnic element in protests in the Kurdish and Baloch regions. I wonder how strong the protests are in the rest of Iran.
One person argues, *If you don't like climate activists staging art gallery protests, organize something better.*
I think it is wrong to damage art as a protest. To make a statement, there is no need to damage things at random.
However, it turns out that Van Gogh's painting, Sunflowers, was in no danger of being harmed by the soup that protesters threw at it. It is protected behind a piece of plastic. I suppose they knew this. So there was no objective harm in protesting that way, no objective reason why they should not.
Still, that method may still have been self-defeating, influencing people such as me who did not know how the painting is protected.
It appears that the Putin forces are aiming missiles at monuments to Ukrainian historical nationalists of the past.
Putin says he aims to eliminate Ukraine as a nation. Destroying those monuments might be one method of trying.
*Wildfires in US west causing extreme weather in other states, study finds.*
The extreme weather has caused $100 million in damage, including to houses and crops.
The Tories have left Truss in position as "prime minister", but allowed a newly appointed Chancellor Hunt to reverse all her economic policy decisions. This seems paradoxical to me, but my knowledge of the UK's unwritten constitution is limited.
Practically speaking, Hunt has cancelled plans for tax cuts (mainly for the rich) that were supposed to to achieve mythical trickle-down, and is perhaps amenable to a windfall profits tax.
He has cancelled plans to limit what people pay for heating their homes, but so far he doesn't seem to intend to replace that flawed method for protecting the poor from inability to afford heating with any better method.
He also intends cuts in government programs that non-rich Britons depend on: education, medicine, and such. He seems to be ideologically opposed to even trying to protect poor people from being driven out to starve on the street while dying of illness.
Anti-insurrection Republican congresscritter Kinzinger is campaigning for the Democratic opponents of Republican Big Liars.
I hope this defeats them, but at the same time, counting elections honestly is just the beginning of the duties of a politician loyal to democracy. We need Democrats that will defy the plutocracy and reduce its power.
Queensland lags behind the rest of Australia in renewable electricity, but now has a plan to invest big and advance.
The UN accuses the Putin forces of planning the use of rape as a part of war.
The UK's health secretary admitted giving partial prescriptions of leftover antibiotics to others. This is very dangerous as taking a short course of antibiotics promotes resistance.
It may also be illegal in the UK, but that is less important, morally, than the fact that it can be harmful. Preventing antibiotic resistance is the responsibility of everyone — including, above all, the farms that promote resistance by dispensing pounds and pounds of antibiotics to large numbers of animals that are not even sick.
The UK's new "climate minister" is a denialist across the board. Two scientists debunk his claims that fracking benefits the environment and can lower prices in the short term.
*Alaska cancels snow crab season over population decline.
King crabs are in trouble, too.
Although scientists don't know the full cause of the problem, it is clear that global heating plays a role.
The Tory Party is rapidly self-destructing, and Britain may have a general election soon.
One lesson from this is the system of allowing the governing party's members to choose a new prime minister when one steps down is a disaster. The Tories have done this three times since they got into power, and each one was worse than the last. The right thing to do is to hold a general election.
Another lesson is that the Tory approach to leaving the European Union was too extreme. Corbyn wanted to negotiate a customs union, and in general a closer relationship that the Tories wanted. This would have been much less damaging, and might even have done some good.
We can expect Labour to return the UK to sober and sensible implementation of a somewhat gentler form of plutocracy. Maybe it will move to renewable energy faster. But non-rich Britons need bigger changes, and I doubt Labour will advocate them.
Ukraine accuses the Putin forces of murdering conductor Yuriy Kerpatenko for refusing to conduct an orchestra in a celebration of Putin's conquest of Kherson.
Three Republican lies corrected:
Central banks aren't "fighting the last war", they are fighting some dimly remembered war from long ago. According to UNCTAD, it's entirely wrong way to control today's inflation.
Arguing for breaking diplomatic relations with Russia, on the grounds that Putin does not want peace except on the basis of conquest, and his "negotiations" and "diplomacy" are all dishonest.
That's 90% true, but I am not convinced. Even though there is no hope that diplomacy will lead to an acceptable peace now, that may change in the coming year. We should be ready for that. In the mean time, there are other issues to be discussed, and some of them are important. The Ukraine food export deal, by itself, is no small thing for the poor people of the world.
US Muslims join with US Christians to advocate censorship in the name of repression.
Two soldiers being trained by the Putin forces opened fire on the other trainees, causing many casualties before they were killed.
Things like this happened repeatedly in the Afghan government army which was supported by the US.
Those soldiers were not from Russia, and volunteered for the Russian army. It bespeaks powerful hatred, though I am not sure what they hate or why.
Iran's regime is applying repression to the press, forcing formerly honest journalists to become puppets for the state.
If a troll farm is directed to systematically promote war crimes or crimes against humanity, can we draw a line between that and freedom or speech?
US citizens: call on Biden to acknowledge that Israel's colonies in Palestinian territory are illegal.
US citizens: call on the the Department of Justice to investigate Govs. Abbott, DeMentis and Ducey for their human rights abuses against migrants.
Cancer in adults before middle-age is increasing every decade, in many countries.
The cause is not known, but the obvious suspects are lifestyle trends (such as obesity) and environmental pollution.
(satire) *LIV Golfers On Saudi Course Forced To Putt Around Woman Being Beheaded.*
On life and death for Palestinian children, in villages invaded repeatedly by Israeli soldiers who are protecting Israeli colonies that shouldn't be there in the first place.
Both India and Pakistan have called for "return" of the Koh-i-noor diamond by the remnant of the British Empire.
These requests are silly because they are anachronistic. The Koh-i-noor was part of the spoils of conquest on several occasions, across centuries, back when despoiling after conquest was normal.
Nowadays we reject the idea that victors in war have the right to loot whatever wealth they find in a defeated country, and we try to prevent that. That is a step forward. But it is absurd to selectively denounce one specific long-ago instance of this practice, and demand "restitution" of specific pieces of loot to a previous conqueror.
*5 Things Biden Should Do to "Re-evaluate" Saudi Relations.*
The misleading details of Big Oil's greenwashing PR.
(satire) *Ron Johnson Shows He's Tough On Crime By Hanging Bread Thief In Town Square.*
The current labor shortage is a good opportunity to for businesses to start seriously considering candidates that don't have college degrees.
This could help people avoid the expensive student loans that would shackle them for life, and still get good jobs.
As bullshitter-supporting Republican Adam Laxalt runs for the Senate in Nevada, 14 of his relatives have endorsed Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto.
*ALEC Held Third Voter Suppression Summit with Dark Money Group This Summer.*
Drought has stopped freight transportation on the Mississippi river. This is going to happen more and more in the future.
Using ground transport would enormously increase the fossil fuel required. I wonder if it is possible to correct the problem by dredging a narrow channel in the riverbed. The same amount of water would be deeper if it is narrower.
Bernie Sanders: *Democrats shouldn't focus only on abortion in the midterms. That's a mistake.*
Simple reasoning from basic facts shows that the Republican "stolen election" claim is bogus.
Peter Thiel is a declared enemy of democracy and is spending tens of millions on politicians who aim to sabotage it.
He is also specifically working to sabotage climate defense. It follows that, unless you are old, his plan includes your probable death, and most people's death, though not right away.
And he is not the only billionaire Republican megadonor, but he is the one that is most deeply hostile to Democracy.
The movement to end the death penalty reports that 170 countries have abolished it or stopped using it.
However, some of the recalcitrant countries are executing more people now than before.
(satire) *Trump Outmaneuvers New York Lawsuit By Changing Name To Donald 2.*
*[Human Rights Watch] Says Egypt's Pre-COP27 Silencing of Climate Voices Should Be a "Wake-Up Call."*
Iran confiscated director Mani Haghighi's passport and stopped him from attending the London film festival, where one of his films will be shown. He believes this was meant as punishment for stating his support for the protest movement.
The US election on Nov 8 will depend, as always, on volunteer poll workers — around a million of them.
A free and fair election depends on impartial poll workers.
CSIRO (Australia's scientific research organization) had an admired program for forecasting future climate, but in 2021 a government minister forced CSIRO to shut it down.
That government, right-wing, was firmly on the planet roaster side,
so it would naturally prefer to eliminate honest and thoughtful forecasts to leave a gap for its patrons' bullshit.
It is now 16 months later — is it possible to resume what was cancelled?
CSIRO has been accused of abandoning research of importance for whatever research business wants.
Musk changed his mind and said SpaceX would continue to pay for Ukraine's use of Starlink satellite communications.
* Lost nets, lines and hooks (including 25 million pots and traps and 14 billion hooks) trap wildlife for years as they float in the ocean, sink to the bottom or are washed ashore.*
Proposed solutions: *local governments introducing buy-backs of older fishing gear which tended to get lost more often than new equipment. Tags or labels could be attached to gear, and free facilities could be introduced at harbors to allow fishers to discard unusable nets safely.*
If Kroger and Albertsons are allowed to merge, it will probably increase the prices in US supermarkets.
*Corporate Media Mostly Ignoring GOP Ploy to Cut Social Security and Medicare.*
As climate disaster settles in on the US west, more and more effort to adapt is required.
Victories in the US against the spread of Hinduismist bigotry and hate.
Almost 1/5 of the world's population lives in countries that can't pay their debts. Many of them spend more on debt interest than on health, education and social protection combined. The system is headed for a collapse.
It is fundamentally unjust to the people of poor countries to keep making them pay interest on unpayable debts. The world must make a way to cancel those debts.
Eastern tree frogs in the neighborhood of Chernobyl have evolved black skin. This benefits them because melanin protects tissues from radiation.
The Florida law restricting discussion of racism, slavery and other injustices by teachers is no joke. The right-wing fanatics in the Supreme Court may be inclined to uphold it, thus attacking academic freedom. That may lead to firing many teachers, even for what they say outside of working hours. The US did not recognize academic freedom as a legal priority until 1957.
DeMentis may be surprised to learn that flying refugees to Martha's Vineyard ended up helping them, indirectly.
But he won't care. His goal was to show Republicans he will find excuses to be cruel.
Several cases before the Supreme Court provide the right-wing extremists with opportunities to limit governments' ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and protect the environment.
An unusual public protest in Beijing caused Chinese to spread the word intensely.
This despite systematic intimidation of suspected protesters for the past month.
*Egypt silenced climate experts' voices before hosting Cop27, HRW says.*
*January 6 panel’s case against Trump lays out roadmap for prosecution,* using evidence provided by the non-corrupt Republicans that worked for the wrecker or had been elected.
Turkey is considering a law to criminalize "fake news." Following other right-wing bullies, such as the bullshitter, Bolsonaro and Putin, Erdoğan will call news "fake" if he does not like it.
The last hearing of the Jan 6 coup investigation committee filled in the last part of the criminal case that the wrecker planned and led an insurrection on that day.
I wonder whether Attorney General Garland has the courage to charge him now. But I also wonder whether today's Republicans would hesitate to vote for the supporters of this criminal plan.
Various hospitals in the US gag the doctors that work for them from describing their experiences of harm and danger to patients caused by denying them needed abortions.
The article describes this censorship even in states where abortion is still lawful.
The worst part is that these hospitals' censorship conceals their censorship, too, so that we cannot condemn them for it specifically.
Interesting idea: a higher tax bracket for millionaires can act as a trap to reveal the real intentions of trickle-downers.
However, to make these brackets just a little higher misses the opportunity to make the rich contribute substantially to help the poor. We should do that too. With so much dooH niboR, we need more Robin Hood.
The Brothers of Italy party claims not to be fascist, but its founders show nostalgia for fascism. One, Ignazio La Russa, collects fascist memorabilia.
Meloni, the party leader, has moved the party partly away from fascism but its symbols continues to allude to it.
Putin's puppets in Donetsk are denying the International Red Cross access to prisoners of war. (Perhaps they don't want to admit having murdered some.)
Putin's ceremonial annexation of Donetsk could offer an avenue to make progress on this — he can no longer deny that he is responsible for everything that happens there.
The article also reports that Putin's "help to evacuate civilians from Kherson" means conscription.
Musk has punished Ukraine for responding negatively to his "peace plan," which consisted of letting Putin keep his conquests. The punishment consists of withdrawing Ukraine's Starlink service, which SpaceX had been providing.
Musk has shown a tendency to shape facts to suit his own wishes. Now he claims that the cutoff of service is due to financial motives. I doubt that it is true.
Two large US supermarket chains, Kroger and Albertsons, want to merge. Progressives have told Biden to prevent this. I fully agree.
Protesters disrupted the IMF/World Bank meeting, demanding that those organizations stop funding planet-roasting fossil fuel projects. Bravo!
I disapprove of protests that consist of throwing soup on famous paintings. Why risk damage to humanity's heritage, when it has nothing directly to do with the problem?
By contrast, these protests against organizations that directly promote global heating disaster are right on target.
(satire) *New Corkscrew Whirlycoaster IUD Gets Sperm Cell Too Dizzy To Find Uterus.*
US citizens: call on the EPA to speed up the rest of its climate and clean air standards.
US citizens: call on Congress to support the SEC's plan to protect retirement savings from climate-related financial risks, by making investment funds publish more about their exposure to such risks.
Everyone: call on Maximus to cease union-busting efforts.
US citizens: call on Biden to replace Donald Moak on the USPS board of governors with someone that will replace DeJoy.
An employee at Mar-a-Lago testified to helping move boxes of documents at the cheater's orders after he received a subpoena to return them.
The DART planetary defense test was a success. We can save the Earth from being hit by an asteroid.
Can we save the Earth from being hit by human-caused global heating?
* Transform Trade charity says British-based companies are among main bringers of cases based on [business-supremacy treaties].
These cases aim to use ISDS clauses (I Sue Democratic States clauses) to sue states that respond to their citizens' demands by adopting laws that protect the public but reduce the profits of foreign companies. Usually they force the retraction of those laws — or ensure the laws are never passed.
ISDS also stands for I Spread Death and Suffering. We must put an end to the regime of these treaties. It's not easy to effectively abolish the treaties, or for a country to pull out of them, since normally a country remains subject to the treaty for a long time after that.
What is needed is to make powerful countries pass laws that they will not enforce these treaties, perhaps limited to certain cases where those laws are crucial.
Several sensible US policies that won't hurt Ukraine but can reduce the danger of nuclear war, both now and for the long term.
The original note was updated and can be found here.
One of the undercover British thugs that was detailed to infiltrate nonviolent dissident groups traveled outside the UK to infiltrate dissidents in other countries. A German court has ruled that this was illegal since it was not authorized by a German judge.
I wonder what consequences this will have, for the British state and for that thug.
Why the paradoxical claim of "trickle-down economics" continues to be taken seriously despite never achieving the claimed result.
A new EU directive will make companies that use AI algorithms to decide how to treat individuals liable for damages if they cause harm to those individuals thereby.
I don't know the details; I can't judge the directive at that level. But I approve of the general idea, because innovation must not be our highest goal. Innovation can do good or harm. Treating people justly and helpfully is more important than innovation.
Freedom is also more important than innovation; the argument that nonfree software leads to "progress" is fallacious because using nonfree software is inherently a change for the worse.
*The cheater privately admitted he lost 2020 election, top aides testify.*
Putin's stooge has announced a plan to "evacuate civilians" from Kherson. Given what we have seen the Putin forces do to civilians in Donetsk, I think this is an item in Putin newspeak and stands for capturing Ukrainian civilians in Kherson and taking them forcibly and permanently to Russia, or perhaps other parts of conquered Ukrainian territory.
It would be easy for the Putin forces to allow Ukrainian civilians to evacuate to Mykolaiv or Kryvy Rih, but we saw in Mariupol that Putin doesn't want to permit that. He would rather take them to Russia and pretend that they chose Russia over Ukraine, interrogating them along the way (and murdering some) in transit prisons he calls "filtration".
Global heating has disrupted Australia's wheat harvest, and it's getting worse.
10% of dwellings in Canada are now uninsurable because the climate risk has become too great.
People whose homes are destroyed won't have the capital to buy another. Government must buy them out, while imposing building codes that make new housing safer.
The article did not mention tar sands, but the Canadian government has a duty to recognize that its tar sands exports are fueling disaster for Canadians (as well as for the rest of the world). Fossil fuel extraction is tantamount to planet roasting. The Canadian government must reverse its policy of supporting that.
Demand for surgical sterilization is increasing considerably in the US, and some clinics are offering gratis vasectomy. I don't think the rate is large enough to visibly affect the future population.
*Let Saudi Arabia’s friendship with Putin be a wake-up call for the west.* But not only for realpolitik, and the larger goals should not be limited to human rights and democracy. Curbing global heating fast must also be a first-priority goal, and that means that, starting as soon as possible, we must keep the wholesale price of oil low and the retail price high.
The natural way to do that is with a heavy tax on fossil fuels that is scheduled to increase predictably every year.
During the Covid-19 emergency, a few UK ministers imposed laws by decree, which Parliament hardly looked at. This could easily happen again.
This year over 150,000 refugees have crossed the Darién Gap, the wild area that straddles the border between Panama and Colombia. You have to be totally desperate to undertake a trek so difficult and dangerous. Most of them are people from countries where things are very desperate — last year Haiti, now Venezuela. Nearly all heading towards the US border, more than 3400 miles away.
The main Palestinian parties, Hamas and Fatah, have agreed on a plan for national elections.
An Iranian official says that thugs are putting arrested student protesters into mental hospitals.
Scientists that publish in Elsevier journals called on Elsevier to stop its support for fossil fuel companies.
I agree, but I point out that Elsevier does other things that are even worse. For instance, keeping many articles under a paywall. For the sake of science, scientists should drive Elsevier and other paywalled journal publishers out of business.
Sad to say, this includes many scientific professional organizations.
Most of the large companies operating Medicare Advantage plans have padded their bills to the US government. Some are being sued for fraud.
They will do it again, too, if they don't get charged punitive damages in the tens of billions.
"Utility redlining": systematic underinvestment in the infrastructure of neighborhoods with a large nonwhite population. The result, in the case of electricity in Detroit, is that they get frequent power outages which the same company prevents (with newer equipment) for the wealthier neighborhoods (where more whites live).
Do all electricity customers pay the same rates? If so, some other factor convinced the electric company to serve the white neighborhoods better. It would be interesting to find out how that operated.
*Judge says Walmart and CVS must face lawsuit for placing homeopathic nostrums with actual medicines.*
Hooray!
US businesses have been inventing "holidays" as excuses to get people to spend money for more than a century.
About 10 of the many examples.
I decided long ago to disregard all the holidays that pressure people to give gifts.
The strange history of Candy Day.
I would not "celebrate" Record Store Day, but I do wish there were a good record store in Boston, with a big selection of classical and world records — I would visit it from time to time to look for interesting CDs to buy. The CD is the last media substrate that was invented without malfeatures to restrict people or impose nonfree technology, and I am happy to use it.
Meanwhile: Out, out, damned Spotify!
It has the same injustices as Amazon e-books(PDF), and even one of those injustices is too much.
People who use a digital method to pay for parking are contributing to a system of tracking which endangers human rights and democracy. Occasionally, some of them also get scammed and then screwed.
Robert Reich: *A personal question to powerful people who continue to deny the results of the 2020 election: What do you tell yourself in private?*
Reich cannot expect an actual answer, but his speculations about the possibilities are interesting.
* IMF says taking swift action to achieve 25% cut in greenhouse gases by end of decade will cost less than failing to act.*
Since this goes against the pressure from powerful planet roasters, I think we can trust it confidently.
*21 out of 70 low- and lower-middle-income countries spent more on external debt repayment than on education in 2020.*
The 70 countries considered are those for which data was available.
Due to Republican votes against, the US does not have an adequate supply of Covid-19 tests or vaccines for this winter. However, public anti-vax sentiment is an even bigger problem. A study forecasts around 90,000 additional deaths from Covid-19 through this winter that more booster shots now would prevent.
A trump-pet burned his own camper van to commit insurance fraud, and claimed "antifa" started the fire. He was caught and charged.
The bullshitter taught his supporters that lying for victory for their party is acceptable; this naturally leads people to think up many different lies to try.
*Want to Punish [Salafia Arabia and Crown Prince Bone Saw]? Fast-Track [the non-nuclear] Agreement With Iran and the Green New Deal.*
Regardless of oil prices, the US should end its cooperation with Salafi Arabia and the UAE's war in Yemen.
Wild animal populations (of birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles) have fallen 70% on the average since 1970.
When a population becomes small and localized, it is at high risk of being wiped out by random events. One wildfire, one storm, one new mine, one new housing development, and it could be gone. Mines and housing are made by humans; nowadays, wildfires and storms are, too.
The Tories plan to treat enslavement of foreign workers in Britain as an opportunity to punish those enslaved.
As most Americans choose to forget that Covid-19 is still here and infecting many new people, measures to track infections have been discarded along with measures to prevent them.
One measure may still show us that the Covid rate is increasing: people buy scented candles and report that they seem to have no odor.
How the Espionage Act, together with kidnappings and threats of violence, were used to crush the American Socialist Party, which was pushing for a national medical system as well as to keep the US out of World War I.
Now it is being used to prosecute Julian Assange and to force Edward Snowden to remain in exile in an oppressive country where he never intended to go.
In the US, Republicans have been more likely to die from Covid-19 than Democrats. Especially since vaccines became available and Republicans convinced other Republicans not to get vaccinated.
This holds *even after controlling for location and age differences.*
Robert Reich: "Trickle down" economics never deliver the paradoxical benefits that they promise. They deliver more riches to the rich. The rich buy politicians to get them enacted, and they buy economics departments so paint them as beneficial.
*New evidence details Oath Keepers' "civil war" timeline.*
UK "libertarians" believe the state should let rich people do whatever they like … while actively restricting the poor as well as letting the rich walk all over them.
For example, *Poorest families would lose £400 a year under Liz Truss benefits plan.*
Among all forms of government we know of, the only one that doesn't allow crushing the non-rich is democracy — when the non-rich understand that that is its purpose and know how to use it.
*Over 2 million people in the United States live without running water..*
*Toxic air pollution particles found in lungs and brains of unborn babies.*
Air pollution, whether generated by natural phenomena or made by human activities (which nowadays include wildfires), puts each person born at risk, and harms society with complete certainty. However, some people profit greatly from continuing to cause pollution, and fight hard to resist efforts to reduce it.
*Children of mothers who eat junk food more likely to be overweight.*
Coal companies around the world, but mainly in in China, India, Australia, Russia and South Africa, are planning to build new mines and increase production.
That implies almost certain global disaster.
The US is not building new coal-burning power plants, but it is not shutting down the existing ones fast enough.
*Just Stop Oil activists arrested after gluing themselves to road in Whitehall.*
One protester sang a protest song as cops carried her off.
*The secret British plan to keep Italy's communists from winning the 1976 election in Italy.*
*Pro-Kremlin neo-Nazi militia inciting the torture and murder of Ukrainian prisoners.*
They murder prisoners without reporting having captured them.
A drug combination that might treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is being sold for $158,000 per patient.
The US Patent Office is such a patsy that it will allow a company to patent using two known drugs together.
The fact that this combination might not even work well is a side issue.
The Student Borrower Bankruptcy Relief Act would allow people who owe student debt to get rid of it through bankruptcy.
Until around 2000, Americans with burdensome student debt could declare bankruptcy and eliminate it. Then a law was passed to make an exception for student debt: it was exempt from bankruptcy. This bill would eliminate that exception.
The Onion filed a parody as an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, in the spirit of Ha Ha Only Serious, to defend a man who was jailed for parodying the web site of the local thug department.
*Perils of UN Climate Summit Hosted by Despotic Egyptian Regime.*
*Unless political freedoms are defended, there will be no meaningful climate action. Not in Egypt, nor anywhere else. These issues are intertwined, as are our fates.*
*We are deeply concerned that the Biden administration is minimizing Covid at a time when it needs to be redoubling its efforts to ensure funding and resources to prevent another surge.*
Biden pardoned US citizens that were convicted of possession of marijuana. He ought to pardon noncitizens, too.
Biden has established stricter controls on drone bombing attacks by the US military and the CIA.
Despite these rules, drone attacks against civilians, away from battlefields, will continue.
Russia states it has repaired the train tracks on the Kerch bridge. I expect it is true.
This is unfortunate, because it means the bridge is once again functional for delivering military supplies to the Putin forces.
Logging companies are cutting tall trees in Papua New Guinea, and crushing whatever gets in their way.
The protests in Iran did not happen now by sheer chance. They are the response to a recent intensification of repression, which was itself the regime's reaction to public opinion's shift away from strictness.
There is a lot of other interesting material in the article.
China's repression of racial minorities, and dissidents, is pervasive. The state uses a dissident's relatives as hostages.
Imagine the worst injustices of the US, as the official and systematically enforces policy of the state, and you get China.
* Despite the passage of nearly $370 billion in renewable energy funding, the nation's utilities are squandering "a massive opportunity for clean electricity and electrification."*
Mozambique has large reserves of natural gas. Oil companies describe natural gas as a "transition fuel to get us to support extracting them. Too bad that the extra global heating could destroy civilization.
There is no hint of that in this article,
which focuses on the threat that a predatory terrorist army (related to PISSI) might prevent the extraction (and unwittingly save us all).
This form of distraction is a standard pattern for global heating denialism nowadays.
The UK's "Online Harms" bill will grievously harm privacy and freedom of speech.
Article 19 also warned of a threat to freedom of speech.
There is currently a moral panic in the UK about a teenager who committed suicide, apparently under the influence of antisocial media sites' recommendation algorithm.
When they saw she was looking at postings of despair, they directed her to more despair, which became overwhelming.
This suggests another approach which could achieve the goal without threatening people's freedom of speech or people's privacy: namely, to restrict the recommendation algorithms only.
The most basic way is to make a rule that the site must not offer any recommendations, any "promoted" posts, except when the user makes an explicit request — "please show me something you think might interest me". Even if the site's algorithm for deciding what to show you when you request this is unchanged, it will operate less often and show you fewer things.
The next step might be to have a way for users to mark a posting as "not nice". A posting thus marked would still be on line, so you could still see it if you ask for it specifically, but the site would never recommend it automatically to anyone.
We can conceive of many variations of this idea. Surely some variation of them will avoid the real danger without causing real repression.
Analysis of pertinent events showed that US antitrust law was eviscerated 40 years ago by a conspiracy of big US businesses that wanted to buy their competitors.
Other political causes for that change have been ruled out by the data.
The UN Human Rights Council voted to do nothing at all with the Human Rights Commissioner's report on China's oppression in Xinjiang.
In effect, most of the world treats China as too big to criticize, probably due to having been corrupted by China.
The US has done plenty of such corrupting, and plenty of oppressing, but China will do more because it lacks any substantial domestic opposition or criticism.
Nowhere in the world is safe if China continues to extend its power.
New Zealand is considering a carbon tax that would cover farm animals as well as fossil fuels.
I think we need such a tax, or some other strong measures worldwide to press reduction in emissions.
*California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont will hold referendums on abortion next month.*
If you live in one of those states, please vote!
If you live in some other state of the US, please vote!
Starmer is very effectively excluding potential Labour candidates for parliament who would aim to make substantial changes for the better
In effect, this finalizing the conversion of the Labour Party into a right-wing party more "sensible" than the Tories, and nailing the coffin of the Labour Party that inspired my support a few years ago.
If I were in the UK, I would probably vote Green.
Putin has appointed a supreme commander for the war against Ukraine. Perhaps he has come to understand that filling that role himself is resulting in losses.
The new commander is cruel and vicious, and cheerfully kills civilians when he thinks he has an excuse. It is only a matter of time before he commits war crimes. Indeed, he may already have done so, if he gave the order for the volley of missiles recently aimed at Kyiv.
*OPEC's Slap in the Face Shows Biden Critics Were Right About Meeting With Murderous Saudi Prince.*
Some people will respond to a gesture of friendship with cooperation, but a murderous power-hungry despot may interpret it as a sign of that you are weak and desperate.
US citizens: call on the head of the World Bank to resign, since he is a global heating denialist.
* US-style negotiations for reduced sentences in England and Wales raises fears of false confessions and lack of informed consent.*
It ought to raise concern — those are the results in the US.
*US midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracy.*
The violent hatred of India's Hindu-nationalist ruling party (BJP) is spreading into other countries where people of Indian descent live. In England it sparked a riot.
I don't know if it has generated a riot yet in the US, but they are working on building the foundation for one.
Naturally there is a counter-movement among Indian Muslims, but the Hindu nationalist's hostility covers Christians, Buddhists, and other minority religions.
*From barristers to bin collectors, strikers are working to empower us all.*
But it isn't easy — the plutocratists are fighting hard.
CODEPINK activists crashed a meeting of the IMF and World Bank, calling on them to release poor countries from the debt trap that is impossible to escape from.
* Igor Danchenko, who played a vital role in creating the Steele dossier, has been indicted on five counts of lying to the FBI.*
The Steele dossier made accusations about the bullshitter; it seems that some of the accusations may have been fabricated by Danchenko.
An important Iranian politician called for more freedom for Iranians and less imposition of Islamic customs by force.
A study of Putin's official Newspeak.
The real and complex history of Crimea, Ukraine and Russia, since around 1100 years ago, have almost nothing to do with Putin's fantasy justification for conquest.
I've read about parts of this history before, and the article accords with what I read.
* The Federal Reserve’s fight to squash inflation will cause the US economy to start losing tens of thousands of jobs a month beginning early next year, Bank of America Warns.*
US citizens: call on Congress to pass a wealth tax on the ultra-rich.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Army Corps of Engineers to reject the underwater tunnel for the Line 5 oil pipeline.
US citizens: call on NOAA to save the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
US citizens: call on state legislators to reject an Article V constitutional convention.
US citizens: call on Biden to decriminalize marijuana.
US citizens: support the Reproductive Health Care Accessibility Act.
Everyone: call on Ford and GM to stop funding candidates that want to rig elections and ban abortion.
Republicans have been repeating since the 1930s the lies they told to attack the New Deal.
It is true that the corrupter added some new lies to go with the old lies.
*New Report Reveals How 13 US States "Shield the Fortunes of the World's Richest People."* In other words, they are tax havens.
(Satire) *FEMA Requires Flood Victims To Pass Drug Test Before Qualifying For Rescue.*
Without campaign finance reform, rich Republicans will be able to buy themselves almost any office by spending tens of millions of dollars.
* Journalists working for foreign-owned outlets could face jail under Australia's foreign interference laws for exposing defense force war crimes or misuse of surveillance powers, a new paper has warned.*
There is a general pattern in which Australian laws to "protect security" lack safeguards against repression. Consider the Australian equivalent of the Espionage Act, which was used to prosecute whistleblower Witness K, and the law allowing Australia to force anyone to sabotage any computer system (that perse has access to) or be put in prison.
*Climate crisis made [northern hemisphere] summer drought 20 times more likely, scientists find.*
The White House published a draft statement of rules for how AIs treat people. Although these rules are not legally binding, it makes sense to test a set of rules — for a while — before making it binding.
However, from what I can see in this article, these rules are based on the usual wrong assumption: that rules about the use of data about individuals can eliminate the danger posed by of accumulation of that data.
Does it require an AI used to judge people be free software? If not, we know it is too weak.
The dangers of collecting data about you include repression, for instance when China does it, and putting you at a disadvantage, for instance when a John Deere tractor does it.
To make data collection by tractors respect the rights of farmers, it must deliver that data about a given farm only to the farm owner, and if an AI analyzes the data, that should be free software running on the farmer's computer.
A Welsh thug has been convicted of attacking a teenager for making a video of the exterior of a police station. The thug said he had decided to assume arbitrarily that anyone making a video of the police station was a terrorist.
The judge described the victim as a "vulnerable boy". This suggests to me that the judge may believe there are people who are "not vulnerable" and that it would have been acceptable to attack one of them this way. I don't think so.
The climate emergency has already started. We need to push hard to avoid disaster. Most Americans understand this, but rich planet-roasters dominate the media.
OPEC has decided to cut supplies of oil and drive the price back up.
If it were only a matter of prices and the short-term economy, I would recommend that the US ship a lot of oil — that would really screw OPEC. However, the most important issue at stake is global heating and the disaster we must avoid. To do the right thing now means helping people get through this winter, in ways that will reduce the long-term demand for fossil fuels.
Correction about Republican candidate Herschel Walker: the woman whose abortion he paid for in 2009 was not his son's girlfriend, as I wrote. She was, rather, his own girlfriend. It appears I misunderstood some of the text in the previous article.
Paying for her abortion was the right thing for him to do. We should not criticize him for that — not in the slightest. (In a country with a good national medical system, she would not have needed such help, but that's a different issue.)
When Walker has done which does deserve criticism is (1) advocating a ban on abortions in the future, and (2) covering up his history to win support from others who want to ban abortions. In other words, when you criticize a right-wing extremist for hypocrisy, take care to make it clear you are not endorsing the right-wing extremism that the extremist failed to put into practice!
It does children no favor to bring them into a world in which climate crisis is developing into climate disaster — so please help avoid it. Avoiding this will also help stop the process short of total disaster.
After a machine fire in an Amazon warehouse, some workers in the next shift refused to work, perhaps fearing the smoke could damage their respiratory tracts. Amazon "suspended" them.
The FBI has asked US thug departments to submit more detailed crime statistics, but does not require them to offer data at all. Many thug departments did not submit any.
These reports are important, so they should be mandatory.
Someone beat Iranian protester Nika Shahkarami to death, then the state buried her body and ordered her relatives to say she jumped off a building.
Massachusetts citizens: Pledge to vote yes on question 4, to allow non-citizens to get Massachusetts driver's licenses, and then tell others you know.
A law to allow this was passed this year, but this referendum was requested by people who want to reverse that decision.
Proposed new Tory policy would make it nearly impossible to get political asylum in the UK, and violate UN treaties.
An Australian lawyer, Bernard Collaery, calls for reforms in the National Security Information Act which allowed the government to put his client, a whistleblower, and Collaery himself on trial secretly.
The national shame that they revealed was that Australia spied on East Timor's negotiators in order to impose a disadvantageous deal on East Timor about undersea fossil fuel reserves between the two countries.
That deal was eventually replaced with a fairer deal, but both versions of the deal were dangerous for humanity because both permitted the fossil fuels to be extracted and burnt. The only safe thing to do with new fossil fuel reserves is keep them in the ground.
Michigan has used an sneaky and arguably dishonest legal maneuver to drop the criminal charges against state officials accused of poisoning the people of Flint.
Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines is developing a Covid-19 vaccine to distribute in Africa, but has to fear that Moderna, or perhaps Pfizer, will use patents to destroy it.
We should not allow patents on medicines that people's health depends on.
Please reject the perverted concept of "intellectual property", which was [promoted starting as the 1960s] as a campaign to shape public opinion in favor of various kinds of imposed monopolies.
A Philadelphia thug has been convicted for shooting an unarmed, unthreatening motorist dead.
Israel has imprisoned human rights lawyer Salah Hamouri for six months without charges. He is now starting a hunger strike.
Israel's law allows imprisoning a person for life without a conviction or even a stated accusation, based on secret (supposed) evidence. This resembles what South Africa did under its apartheid system (as shown in the film, A World Apart).
*Study links in utero [PFAS] exposure to low sperm count and mobility.*
George Monbiot: *Rightwing thinktanks run this government. But first, they had to capture the BBC.*
Monbiot explains that these "think tanks" are effectively lobbyists that conceal their clients. I suspect they are called "think tanks" because they are the equivalent, in the field of political persuasion, of armored vehicles with treads and cannons.
Liz Truss follows the doctrinaire dooH niboR philosophy introduced by Margaret Thatcher, who promised increased total economic growth in exchange for greater poverty. She delivered the poverty but economic growth went down.
Now Labour needs the courage to reject the bogus assumptions and values underlying that plutocratist plan.
It could get that courage from Corbyn.
Crown Prince Bone Saw is switching to the Putin camp.
It makes some sense, in terms of pure selfishness, that two major oil exporters with no goal other than greed would get together in this way.
* Environmental damage of producing [Bitcoin] averages 35% of its market value over past five years.*
* Vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking, according to a major review of nicotine products, but action is needed to tackle the sharp rise in e-cigarette use among [minors].*
The article says "children" referring to students in "secondary schools", people who are teenagers, not children. I support efforts to discourage them from using nicotine, but calling them "children" is not going to win their cooperation on this or anything else.
*The liberal belief that diversity would have a mellowing or eradicating effect on racism has proven to be a costly fallacy.*
Instead, Tories and other powerful organizations have learned to present their "diversity" as an excuse for policies that contribute to systemic racism, as they actively boost systemic class prejudice.
Is Kwasi Kwarteng "superficially black"? Anyone's skin color is superficial. Rupa Huq's error was in treating that superficial characteristic as determining what a person ought to think and feel. In effect, a form of stereotyping that denies people's diverse forms of lived experience and the values they develop.
I don't think it was necessary to formally punish Huq for expressing that erroneous concept. Surely there was a way to help her clarify it in her mind.
Kwarteng has a duty to have a heart for the poor and those that the powerful mistreat. But the reason is not his skin color. If that were the reason, it would follow that white Tories were excused for lacking one.
The valid reason is that everyone has this duty.
*‘Brexit freedoms bill’ could abolish all pesticide protections, campaigners say.*
The UK National Health Service is paying some staff so badly that some quit to work for more money in pubs and shops. Some call in sick the in days before they get paid, because they can't afford to travel to work. Some have to skip meals at work.
The only thing preventing the NHS from paying staff adequately is the Tory Party.
*House Democratic Leadership Designed Stock Trade Ban to Fail, Negotiators Say.*
*US justice department says [the bullshitter] didn’t turn over all [government] documents — report.*
James K Galbraith: *The broken US economy breeds inequality and insecurity. Here's how to fix it.*
(satire) *High Schoolers Given Detention For Cutting Class During Active Shooting.*
*As Fed Pushes to "Get Wages Down," Study Shows CEO Pay Has Soared by [a factor of 15] Since 1978.*
The CEO of Shell calls for European countries to tax oil companies and use the money to help the poor.
This is instead of capping the price that individuals pay — because such a cap entails a big subsidy to the oil companies.
The European Commission wants to abolish or get out of the Energy Charter Treaty, a business-supremacy treaty that makes countries pay oil companies "compensation" for laws that cut down oil extraction.
*Hand-washing and mask-wearing: Covid rules we would be wise to keep.*
Likewise higher mandatory standards for indoor ventilation in schools, workplaces, stores and transport.
*Toxic [PFOS] detected in commonly used insecticides in US, study finds.*
Six prominent robot manufacturers committed not to add weapons to "general use" robots.
I think that means they will have a separate product line for militarized robots.
A big explosion on the Kerch bridge (between Russia and Crimea) has made the bridge unusable until major repairs are finished. If Ukrainian forces in Donetsk get within artillery range of the Sea of Azov, they will be able to cut off most supply to most of the territory that Putin has conquered. Putin's attempts to send supplies by ship have resulted in defeat.
Hundreds of thousands protested in the UK against the Tories' piss-on-the-poor economic policies.
The National Archives say that some of the corrupter's high officials are still holding on to government records that they should have handed in to the national archives.
Watch Robert Reich explain how billionaires get their wealth: not creating it, but taking it from the rest of us.
(satire) *Far-Right Republican Wondering What He Has To Do To Get Media To Stop Calling Him "Moderate."*
He should feel much better once he realizes that "moderate", in mainstream US journalism, always means "right wing."
*The US ultra-rich justify their low tax rates with three myths — all of them rubbish.*
Elon Musk proposed to consign 20 million people to Chinese repression for the sake of his profits.
China has gone out of its way to show, in Hong Kong, how little its promises of a "special administrative zone" are worth. Musk evidently hopes people will choose to forget this because they fawn on him so much.
Arguably, Russians fleeing to avoid being conscripted have a valid claim for asylum under international treaties.
That is an interesting argument, but it ought not to be secondary. If a country wants to support Ukraine, it would be utterly foolish not to help Russians avoid fighting for Putin against Ukraine. Isn't this obvious? I can't understand how officials can miss this.
Beware of right-wing domination and indoctrination in US colleges and universities.
* [A UN] Report says policies of high interest rates and austerity risk triggering global recession that will hit developing nations hardest.*
Ralph Nader: * The GOP has blocked pro-family votes and pushed for corporate anti-family policies.*
US Big Oil profits grew by 4 times between 1st quarter and 2nd quarter 2022.
They raised prices because they found they could get away with it.
To cut inflation, we need to tax them a lot more, and distribute the funds to the non-rich.
*Permian Basin [gas pipelines] Leaking 14 Times More Methane Than EPA Estimates: Study.*
Several human beings and one company that tried to acknowledge the apartheid system of Israel's occupation of Palestine have recently been silenced.
On a side issue raised by the article, people have the right to criticize or to defend Israel's occupation practices; UC Berkeley must respect academic and political freedom by allowing people to present either of those sides (and other sides of the issue as well). We must reject all claims that "presenting a certain political stand is harassment because it makes the campus unsafe for group XYZ," because we cannot accept any excuse to abolish political freedom of speech.
*Supreme Court Poised to Shred What's Left of Voting Rights Act, Plaintiffs Warn.*
What can we possibly do to stop this?
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 denounce 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.
Complacent Europe is seeing the start of another wave of Covid-19.
The president of Kenya says Africa can get out of the fossil fuel trap, and points to what Kenya has already achieved.
Can African countries help each other get out of fossil fuel? That would enable them to get out of poverty.
UK Green leader: *Energy crisis? It isn’t that we have too little oil and gas. It’s that we have too much.*
A panel of a federal appeals court overturned the DACA policy that protects immigrants who have grown up in the US.
There are two more stages of appeal before a final judgment, but right-wing judges are likely to eliminate it. What is needed is to pass a law explicitly to give then residency, and the opportunity to apply for citizenship. But this will be hard to do, with the Senate split 51-50 and no way to eliminate the filibuster.
*Over 330,000 excess deaths in Great Britain linked to [cutting the support for poor people], finds study.*
Now Truss wants to cut even more, which will surely increase the rate of death of poor people.
(satire) *Police Apologize For Tasing Innocent Man They Meant To Shoot.*
The US issues monthly reports on prices, jobs, and wages. But there are no such reports on corporations' profits. We ought to have those reports too.
Ukraine's economic advisor calls for privatization and flexibility of work. (I presume that last would include making it easier to fire employees.) Also, more borrowing.
It may be that Ukraine's system is too inflexible, but any steps in that direction must be taken with great care, because there are plenty of advisors who serve the banks that want to lend you more than you can pay and denominate the loans in a foreign currency. This path has led many countries into a debt trap.
(satire) Things you should never say to your Amazon listening device.
Fetterman rebukes Mehmet Oz for peddling dangerous quackery.
Truss backed down from a planned tax cut for rich people, but many planned giveaways to companies remain in the plan.
Reporting on the battle that expelled the Putin forces from Lyman.
The CIA predicted the Putin forces would rapidly conquer Ukraine. Asked to explain this failure to predict correctly, they say they underestimated the effect of the pervasive corruption in Russia.
The US also suffers from pervasive corruption — less than Russia historically, but Republicans' by-hook-or-by-crook attitude is boosting it. The military-industrial complex is a major center of corruption. I hope Congress thinks about this when funding more F35 airplanes.
On the futile demand for "climate justice".
The supporters of this demand are responding to the level of disaster that we have seen in the past few years — disasters that civilization, countries, and international trade can for the most part survive, albeit with considerable pain. To rebuild after these disasters is well within the capabilities of wealthy countries.
After a disaster of that level, a country can find those responsible and make them compensate those who suffered the most. It would be right to do so.
Global heating disaster is going to be far too bad for compensation. To measure the damages in money would give a meaningless number, far beyond what anyone could pay. The countries that today are wealthy will by that time be struggling to save the lives of most of their own people — and eventually fail to do so. If you had that much money, in Africa, say, you couldn't buy feed the hungry with it, as food will be scarce globally.
Our priority for action, and our main demand, must be to reduce the extent of the coming disaster.
The drought on the Pacific northwest of Canada has dried out some rivers, and killed lots of salmon.
Since the drought is due to global heating, such even worse droughts are to be expected frequently.
*US Covid recovery in "jeopardy" unless poorer countries helped, group [of members of congress] warns.*
*Ukraine won back territory and support, but Russia will test the west’s resolve again.*
The article presents several indications that Putin has no real intention of using nuclear weapons. Let's not be defeated by shadows.
* The RSPB, National Trust, green farmers and anti-frackers all got it in the neck at the Conservative conference.*
Is "growth" a desirable goal? Putting aside the deeper long-term questions about whether further economic growth is sustainable, it is clear that "growth" under plutocratist Tories would go to the wealthy, and would not benefit most Britons. Why should that kind of "growth" be a valid goal for government policies?
Greenpeace activists: *No one voted for Liz Truss's policies. That's why we stormed her conference speech.*
That statement is basically true, but it exaggerates: some small number of Britons did vote for them. Truss is an MP and won that seat in a district election. A minority of the Tory MPs agree with her, and some Britons voted for them. But these voters add up to far too few to win a national election.
*Greenpeace UK analysis has identified at least seven areas across environmental protection, climate action, workers’ rights and tackling inequality where policies either confirmed or being considered by Truss and her ministers are at odds with the 2019 Conservative manifesto.*
High School girls in Iran are now protesting against clothing restrictions.
The Iranian regime is nonplussed by masses of young women, even girls, who are burning their veils in public and chanting "Death to Khamenei."
I speculate that it is a mistake for the US to apply additional sanctions — surely minuscule in their practical effect — since that lends justification to the regimes' claim that the protesters are in cahoots with the US. As far as can see, there is nothing effective that the US can do to help the protesters.
Dissident TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova has fled from house arrest in Russia. She faces possibly 10 years in prison for criticizing Putin on live TV in March.
Much like his some-time American ally, the corrupter, Putin regards any reports that contradict his propaganda "fake news". Putin has made that a crime and prosecutes people for it. The corrupter would do the same, if he could.
US citizens: call on the Dept of Education to defend free speech, due process, and the right to learn without fear of right-wing hate.
US citizens: call on Congress to give the Supreme Court a Code of Ethics.
*EU votes to force all phones to use same charger by 2024.*
This is a victory over callous abuse of power by a nasty corporation which makes for massive waste. However, this is hardly the worst thing that Apple does. Apple won't let the "owner" of an iMonster install free software in it! The EU should very deliberately force Apple to change this practice.
Mexican journalists that investigate corruption have been snooped on with Pegasus spyware after the Mexican government promised to stop doing this.
Big Oil is gouging American customers with a 13% increase in retail prices compared to the last time the crude price was the same as now.
A tax on oil would boost conservation by raising the price in a predictable way. People could plan long-term investments in reducing their greenhouse emissions based on that. But this unpredictable gouging doesn't encourage anything positive.
Candidate Herschel Walker's son publicly called him a lying hypocrite for denying he paid for the son's girlfriend's abortion.
That doesn't surprise me. Right-wing leaders talk about "morality" to stir up hatred that is the fuel for their campaigns, but they often believe that they and their family are exempt from the rules.
A famous Iranian pop musician played a song whose words are the words protesters have posted. The regime arrested him, but the song is heard everywhere.
The article says that copyright threats are being used to try to get the song taken down. The details are not clear in the article, but it seems to involve a false attribution of the song; why that claim is there is not explained.
Technical systems of copyright enforcement are repressive in their own right, and here they are being used to support of more general repression.
Several French cities, including Paris, will refuse to present the video of the world cup of soccer, as a rebuke to Qatar for its abuse of human rights and the environment. In particular, the abusive treatment of the foreign workers who built the facilities for the world cup.
* The White House hunger conference last week was a step in the right direction.*
*Policymakers should be focusing on those causes if they want to solve hunger, said Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food. Racism, corporate control and poverty contribute heavily to hunger, he said.*
The US military depends on poverty and debt to push young people into joining up. To militarists, the widespread poverty in the US looks like a good thing and reducing it looks like weakening the army.
*The lesson from the first round of Brazil’s election: Bolsonarismo is here to stay.*
Relabeling "white supremacism" as "whiteness", a calculated ambiguity, morphs the opposition to white supremacy — opposition which I support — into a new form of racial hostility which is more or less the reverse of white supremacy.
Instead of "whiteness", let's call it "white inferioricism" for clarity.
I oppose both white supremacism and white inferioricism.
The Paris Metro is replacing paper Metro tickets with a digital payment system.
There are more than sentimental reasons to find this horrible: the digital payment methods track the passenger.
Paying with a mobile phone inevitably identifies the payer. It is not inevitable that travelcards identify the payer — in New York City and Boston, the payment cards can be anonymous. (Be careful, never feed money into the card with anything but cash!) But Paris has set them up so that it is not feasible.
Ohio's abortion ban puts pregnant females in danger when some things go wrong with the pregnancy. The supporters of that ban deal with this by pretending it isn't so.
China is not content with facial recognition; it is pushing to get DNA samples and voice prints of everyone.
In Hong Kong, China is arresting people for having indirect relationships with past protesters. Increased data to identify people will compel people to act like robots.
Meanwhile, San Francisco has invited private owners of surveillance cameras to let the thug department look through them live.
No one should be allowed to set up surveillance cameras that see and show everyone that passes a certain place, with out a specific court order for a limited time and a limited place. Not a thug department, and not a private entity.
Nuclear industry has pushed in many countries for "small, modular" power reactors, but the only projects that were actually completed had giant cost overruns.
And there remains the question of what to do with the long-term radioactive waste.
In May 2021, the National Archives complained that the cheater had taken some documents — including documents from Obama's term — and had to return them.
The article does not say whether the cheater has yet all of those documents.
Australia will bring home some Australian children from prison camps in Syria. Some of their mothers, who fought for PISSI, will also be brought to Australia for trial.
About 5% of people who get infected with Covid-19 have long-term problems with taste and smell. For some, the sense of smell is gone. For others smells get mixed up — the foods you used to like may smell bad.
The railroad between Los Angeles and San Diego runs so close to the ocean that big storms are likely to mess up the tracks and require repairs.
I don't think the approach of repairing the damage each time will be adequate for another few decades. Hadn't they better start planning to move the tracks inland?
Yanis Varoufakis: tax cuts for the rich can't make wealth trickle down to the poor, because those tax cuts don't increase economic growth at all. Rich people and companies given extra wealth don't seek, nowadays, to invest it in increased production. Instead they manipulate markets.
California has passed a law intended to help farm workers unionize.
Timid Labour can't suggest raising taxes on the rich beyond what the Tories have left after almost 10 years in power.
*Eliminating Nuclear Weapons "Is Not Only Possible, It Is Necessary" — UN Chief.*
I agree it is necessary. But is it possible to get the nuclear powers to agree to disarm?
The history of right-wing politics in Italy in the past few decades, and where that is leading now.
I have a general theory that the right-wing has been strengthened in EU countries by the power that the EU's banks have over spending and money. Italy and Greece suffered economic crises after the 2009 recession and the EU blocked them from applying the necessary Keynesian policies. The non-extreme left was stymied and had nothing to offer. Right-wing parties couldn't fix the problem either, but they could propose useless attacks on scapegoats.
General Petraeus suggested how to retaliate for Putin's possible use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, with more or less the approach I suggested. I think his idea does not go quite far enough.
NATO should not limit itself to the rather small Black Sea fleet. It should capture or sink every ship in the Russian navy, explicitly and carefully excluding nuclear missile submarines because we don't want to lead Putin to think that he must use them fast or lose them.
In addition, we should seize as much as possible of Russia's civilian shipping, including their giant fishing ships.
Russia would be unable to prevent this, and the effects would last for many years. Announcing the plan should have a substantial deterrent effect.
A deterrent effect is what we want. Our goal is to deter Putin's use of nuclear weapons, not punish them.
Turkey seized Jamal Khashoggi's phone after he was murdered, for a planned trial of accused murderers. But Turkey made a deal to let Crown Prince Bone Saw, the probable murderer, take charge of the trial. Khashoggi's widow demands that evidence.
Georgia Republicans are trying many different methods of discouraging disadvantaged people from voting. The idea is that eventually these obstacles will impose more trouble and hassle than non-rich people can free up.
*Iranian students defy [suppression forces] as anti-regime protests continue.*
Experts say it will take at least a decade to remove the landmines that the Putin forces have planted in Ukraine.
*Australia announces plan to halt extinction crisis and save 110 species.* Plus other species that share their habitats.
*The Supreme Court Will Decide the Future of Clean Water for Generations. Polluters' legal challenge aims to maximize profits at the expense of the health of communities and our environment.*
Starbucks made concessions to the strikers in the store near Boston University, and they ended the strike.
That was after the Boston thug department threatened to arrest the picketers for trespassing, and the community chased the thugs away.
US citizens: call on Secretaries of State to end voter suppression among college students.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the PRO Act.
Peter Kalmus: *It has been a summer of climate insanity … on average, the coolest summer with the least climate chaos for the rest of your life. That is just the nature of trends.*
*The desperation I feel over this clear failure of world leaders to take the obvious and necessary actions to halt Earth breakdown and potentially save billions of lives led me to engage in civil disobedience earlier this year, an action that resulted in my arrest.*
The rate of Covid-19 hospitalizations in the UK increased by over 1/3 last week. With the hospitals damaged by Tory under-funding, and understaffed, they are already having trouble coping at all.
Planet-roaster politicians in Australia continue to insist that Australia will need coal-powered electricity for decades more, These claims are based on combining falsehoods with exaggerations. This article spells it out.
*Eight Reasons Why There Hasn't Been a Global Climate Revolt Yet.*
* "When the 'all-time low' of uninsured Americans is still 26 MILLION, something needs to change," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.*
Republican lawsuits on behalf of loan management companies compelled Biden to exclude .77 million Americans from student loan forgiveness.
The US government has put billions of dollars into efforts at carbon capture and storage, and the only result is to provide an imaginary excuse to delay serious efforts to cut down on greenhouse emissions. Now Congress proposes to do more of the same.
"Flaring" of natural gas burns the methane to convert it into CO2. However, the process is not totally effective; the amount of methane that survives to heat the Earth is 5 times what was calculated.
Russia is starting to block Ukrainians from leaving the supposedly annexed parts of Ukraine into Russia, and also from Russia to EU countries.
The right-wing extremists that dominate the Republican Party still intend to ban abortion in the whole US.
The only thing they disagree on is whether to hide it for the meantime.
Richard Boyle, a whistleblower in the Australian Taxation Office, reports that the management had adopted a stance of contempt towards taxpayers who felt suicidal because tax debt collectors had left them with no way out.
I can see that there is something insincere about telling a creditor that your debt makes you suicidal. The temptation to exaggerate is obvious.
However, people in debt have often suffered much worse treatment at the hands of rich businesses and the plutocratic state, and all in all I think we must forgive them for lesser wrongs like this.
Boyle is facing criminal charges and could be sent to prison for years.
(satire) *CNN’s Chief Nihilist Correspondent Gives Perspective On Why None Of This Matters.*
The US military keeps itself in power, and keeps itself fighting wars, by lying about failures and lying to cover up the previous lies.
DeMentis as governor of Florida has systematically obstructed efforts to reduce global heating, or help the poor. Now Florida has been hit by a symptom of global heating.
DeMentis deserves this, but the people of Florida do not.
They say money talks.
The Tories are privatizing Britain's public museums.
*How Amazon, Google, and Facebook Helped Fund the Campaign to Overturn Roe.*
Hurricanes today are no longer natural disasters. These disasters are augmented by human-made global heating, which causes stronger winds, stronger rain for a longer period of time, and bigger storm surges starting from a higher mean sea level.
*Geico workers accuse company of aggressive tactics to deter union push.*
*Why is Labour ignoring its own members on electoral reform?*
I can't prove it, but I suspect that plutocratists are now in control of Labour, and changes outside of a limited range are beyond the range of thinking.
The protests in Iran keep growing, showing enormous resentment against the rigidity of the regime.
George Monbiot: *The prime minister's ideology encourages the extraction of as much income as possible from nature before abandoning it.*
*Those desiring regime change in Russia should be careful what they wish for.*
*Further destruction under Bolsonaro could push vital rainforest past irreversible tipping point.*
To stop the deforestation will not be easy even with Lula's support. The Workers' Party presidents governed for around 13 years, and their laws slowed the rate of deforestation, but never succeeded in stopping it.
Zelenskiy said that Ukraine has applied for membership in NATO.
That threatens to embarrass Ukraine's supporters, since they can't possibly accept. They have good reasons not to get involved in actual fighting with the Putin forces — to avoid a step down a path that could lead to nuclear war.
It might be useful for NATO to announce that it will treat Ukraine as a NATO member, for the duration of this war, if Putin uses nuclear weapons. That might convince him not to take the risk.
Big hit songs are hit with copyright infringement claims over vague similarities to other songs.
I think this is a sign that the criteria for infringement are too loose. But it is also a consequence of the increased practice of songwriters' or their heirs' selling their whole catalogs to companies. I speculate that they are using AI to search databases of thousands of songs to find opportunities to sue.
Copyright lasts far too long. A 1973 work should not be copyrighted today.
A UN investigative team concluded that Venezuelan government officials are using torture against oppositionists and human rights defenders, sometimes at the direct request of high officials including the president.
The people of Tuvalu hope to develop a virtual replica of their home, to remember it by after it has been inundated permanently.
If we had started seriously fighting global heating 20 years ago, perhaps Tuvalu could have remained habitable. The planet roasters decided to sacrifice it to their profit.
US citizens: call on the Anti-Defamation League to stop defaming Rashida Tlaib, Human Rights Watch, and perhaps also you.
US citizens: call on your members of Congress to keep Manchin's environmental sabotage deal dead.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Department of the Interior to eliminate sales of fossil fuel leases.
An Australian mining magnate estimates that only 15% (at most) of supposed carbon offsets offered for sale correspond to real avoidance of carbon emissions. He is converting his iron mining business to zero emissions for real, rejecting the use of offsets.
I've been criticizing emissions trading as ineffective, and vulnerable to cheating, since 2007,
India has banned the Popular Front of India, whose stated purpose is to defend the rights of minorities. The government said it is involved in Islamist terrorism. The organization says it isn't.
I know nothing about the facts of the matter, but I am sure that it is unjust for any government to declare arbitrarily that a group is "terrorist." Such condemnation should require a trial.
*Chicago Fourth of July parade shooting survivors sue Smith & Wesson*, alleging that it practiced *illegally targeting ads at young men at risk of committing violence.*
* Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Fiona dumped great amounts of water across larger stretches of land — global heating is to blame.*
Wolves are back on the US list of protected species.
Lanternfish are plentiful, and grow fast. To catch them and use them to feed fish farms is tempting. But they also transport large amounts of carbon to the bottom of the ocean, and it mostly stays there. Catching enough of them to make a difference could speed global heating.
The UK government created low-tax "enterprise zones" with the aim of increasing the jobs available in those places, but this did not achieve very much.
I also wonder to what extent businesses moved jobs there from other places. If you give businesses special benefits to move jobs to X, they tend to take the jobs from Y and Z.
Whatever the specific effect of any special benefits for some businesses, it always contributes to the transfer of wealth to business owners from the rest of society.
* Biden promised to tackle climate crisis but administration’s rhetoric "changed substantially" after the onset of the Ukraine war and it adopted the [fossil fuel] industry's major demands.*
One reason why businesses move jobs to subcontractors is that it helps them get away with treating workers illegally.
This is why I advocate laws to strictly limit the amount of any kind of work that can be done by subcontracting.
The development of genetically engineered trees is likely to lead to replacing forests with plantations. Tree plantations won't support a variety of wildlife like a forest.
We licked the first attempt to pass Manchin's sabotage of environmental permit requirements. But Biden seems determined to pass it.
Shame on you for this, Biden.
Alabama prisoners, condemned to work for a pittance, are going on strike. A strike requires even more courage for prisoners than it does for desperate low-wage employees, because the prisoners may face solitary confinement and other privations.
In the US, "nonprofit" hospital chains cheat poor patients, demanding they pay even when state law says they don't have to, and sending debt collectors after them.
I suspect that mergers and competition for mergers are part of what turns formerly altruistic organizations greedy. Competition with for-profit companies may be part of it true.
I propose that states pass laws to prohibit mergers of organizations that provide medical care, and to prohibit for-profit companies from doing that. They should never have existed; let's get rid of them.
Universities must refuse donations from fossil fuel companies, to avoid being corrupted by them.
US citizens: call on the EPA to ban consumer sale of bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides. Use in commercial farms should be banned too.
After Las Vegas corruption reporter Jeff German was murdered, the thugs seized his phone and computers. The Las Vegas Review Journal is suing because this is likely to identify his confidential sources.
The two Nord Stream pipelines, which used to carry methane from Russia to Germany, have been sabotaged — gas now leaks out and bubbles up to the surface of the Baltic Sea.
Putin shut down the pipelines to put economic pressure on Europe. Putin could have resumed the gas supply at any time. But no longer: the sabotage has eliminated the option of resuming delivery. The economic difficulties for Europe continue, but Putin no longer has the power to switch them on and off. Thus, Europe no longer has the option of ending the economic difficulties by caving to Putin.
Some are accusing Putin of causing the sabotage, but I don't see how that would have given him any advantage.
The world's fossil fools plan to build 15000 miles of new oil pipelines.
This at a time when reducing fossil fuel consumption is the only way to reduce global disaster.
Zoom cancelled by fiat a round table discussion that San Francisco State University planned to hold, because it included an actual terrorist who hijacked an airplane in the 1970s.
Zoom claimed that the discussion was illegal. The article explains why that is not so; the protection of freedom of association and freedom of speech under the US Constitution are so broad and firm that "so and so is a terrorist," even if true, cannot justify censoring the meeting.
However, Zoom went beyond citing a putative censorship interpretation of those laws. It asserted that its "terms of service" gave it the power to dictate what topics the university could discuss.
It is intolerable for a company to have veto power over what topics universities can cover in remote discussions. The side issue of how it would use that power, which topics the company wishes to censor, must not distract us from the wrong of putting the company in charge.
Universities should cancel their contracts with Zoom rather than tolerate this censorship.
This is in addition to the injustices that Zoom does to each user: for instance, the requirement to run nonfree software, the requirement to identify oneself (by making an account), and the requirement to agree to an unfair contract.
The Labour Party punished one of its MPs for calling Chancellor Kwarteng, a Tory, "superficially black" — presuming that truly having your skin of a certain color depends on something other than skin color.
Ms Huq's statement was both racist and a distraction from what matters. The problem with Kwarteng is not his skin color. Whether he is "superficially" black or really and truly black, whether he is black at all, are hardly even politically significant.
What's wrong with Kwarteng is that he's really and truly Tory — a plutocratist and a henchman of dooH niboR. He's lower than vermin.
He is trying to impoverish everyone in Britain who's not wealthy or specially fortunate, whatever color per skin is. Why even try to look for a worse thing to say about him than that?
Due to patchy European restrictions on late-term abortions, women need to travel from other EU countries to the Netherlands to get one.
How the local community showed their support to defend a book store and its Drag Story Hour from right-wing bullying.
85% of the human population is being hit by government spending cuts and privatizations that will cause suffering for the poor.
Stiglitz and some associates say, let's tax rich individuals and companies instead.
Famous English castles, beloved of sightseers, are in danger from rising sea levels.
We have increased the level of CO2 in the air to 421 parts per million. In the past, when it was above 400 ppm, Antarctica's marine ice sheets melted; this would have led to a lot of loss of ice from the ice cap, and sea level rise of perhaps tens of meters.
*[DeMentis] privately elevates election deniers while publicly staying mum on 2020.*
*Nearly 80% of Americans Support Legislation to Ban … Stock Trading [by members of Congress].*
*More than 1,700 environmental activists murdered in the past decade.*
*Richest 1% Now Owns Over 1/3 of US Wealth.*
More details of the increased concentration of wealth in the US.
The EPA rejected a petition to ban using neonicotinoids to coat seeds.
The pesticide gets into the whole plant, and kills bees.
The French government owns the UK's nuclear power plants, and is considering extending their operation again.
This seems logical if you don't look at the numbers, but Amory Lovins has shown that it is an inefficient, wasteful expense. It would be cheaper to build additional renewable generation to replace the nuclear plants than to keep operating them for much additional time.
The idea that the UK is "behind" on building new nuclear power plants flies in the face of all economics. It makes no sense to do that since building renewable generating capacity is far cheaper, safer and faster.
*CEO Says He's Been "Praying for Inflation" Because It's an Excuse to Jack Up Prices.*
*US courts must stop shielding government surveillance programs from accountability.*
To do this, we must also crack down on all kinds of commercial surveillance. Once the data have been put in a database, the state will surely arrange to access them.
*Italy's Giorgia Meloni is no Mussolini — but she may be a Trump.*
Cuba has held a referendum on a proposed law — to legalize same-sex marriage.
The new law was approved, with 2/3 of the votes in favor and 1/3 against. It appears there was actual public disagreement about the law. Allowing democracy in one policy area and tolerating public disagreement is a step forward for Cuba.
Starbucks has agreed to negotiate with all 230 of the US stores that have unionized.
A university student recruiting service has adopted a policy of rejecting oil, gas and mining companies.
*World's central banks financing destruction of the rainforest.*
Palestinian villages such as Masafer Yatta are being slowly strangled by the demolition of all the houses.
*Patagonia's radical business move is great — but governments, not billionaires, should be saving the planet.*
*We cannot simply stand back and hope that the elite will give away their wealth to tackle the climate emergency.* Most of them won't help voluntarily, so we need laws to compel them.
US citizens: call on Congress to protect Social Security.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
*Britain is crying out for radical solutions, but Labour still thinks it’s in the 1990s.* Warning that if Labour doesn't support what non-wealthy Britons demand, if they have no hope of supporting Corbyn, they will turn to radicals that are authoritarian.
I stand by my cartoon contrasting B'liar's "New Labour" with the Labour government that established the great social democratic policies that lifted most Britons out of poverty after World War II. Just imagine that Tony B'liar is replaced by keir Starmer.
If you won't recognize that "The Tories are lower than vermin," you will never offer anything more than a lesser evil.
A campaign to define "ecocide" as an international crime, comparable to genocide.
I don't think that prosecuting ecocide is a panacea. It is easy to understand intentional deforestation as ecocide. Each piece of the forest is cut down or burnt by certain people.
However, when a lightning-sparked wildfire destroys a forest, it is harder to pin the destruction on anyone. Everyone's CO2 emissions contribute a little to each wildfire.
Nonetheless, prosecuting people like Bolosonaro could help, and they certainly deserve it.
*We watch the protests in Iran and hope, but false optimism may be clouding our eyes.*
Disregard for the goal of reducing the spread of Covid has put millions of elderly Americans in a vice between the need to go out to do things (even seeing doctors) and the danger of being exposed by a risk denier.
Please wear a good mask whenever you are indoors sharing air with other people.
*EPA's Environmental Justice Office 'Won't Make Up for' Manchin Deal, Campaigner Says.*
Women in Dagestan (part of Russia) are holding mass protests against conscription.
(satire) *Struggling U.S. Military Requires Every Soldier To Recruit Additional 300 New Troops.*
A panel of judges rated Starmer's policy speech as more progressive than they expected from him.
Crabs, enjoying the warming ocean around Normandy and Brittany and the delicious mussel farms there, are staying most of the year and devouring the mussels.
Since their numbers are growing, we should encourage people to eat them and keep the numbers stable.
On the campaign to end prison slavery — forcing prisoners to work for private employers for a pittance.
*Hydrogen is unsuitable for home heating, review concludes.*
Hydrogen made from renewable electricity may be useful for decarbonizing transport, but that's a different issue.
The University of Idaho has banned its employees from saying anything about abortion. Even medical personnel. And they are warned not to offer anything under the rubric of contraception.
This requirement, if attributed to a law, seems to be unconstitutional.
*As resistance grows to the fossil fuel regime, laws are springing up everywhere to suppress climate activists.*
The global climate disaster, which I expect will cause gigadeaths, will not be an accident. It will be mass murder, carried out by the power of the planet roasters.
What punishment will they deserve for these murders? What actions would people be justified in using to prevent mass murder?
Italy's new right-wing government is expected to demonize immigrants and queer people. It may also attack the right to an abortion.
Finally, something good from Labour: increasing taxes for the rich, and funding the NHS.
*More than 24,000km of [fossil fuel] pipelines planned around world, showing "an almost deliberate failure to meet climate goals."*
Mexico's president, AMLO, has created a new nationwide police and made it part of the military. That means the military are the thugs.
We don't know yet whether the Jan 6 coup attempt will lead to the overthrow of American democracy. The fanatical party, now committed to contempt for truth, has not given up.
Biden has launched a plan to end hunger in the US, and reduce obesity, with federal help. To pass this plan requires electing more democrats.
Some people are rejecting Spotify for reasons that have to do with their emotional relationship with music.
To use Spotify is inconceivable for me — its injustices (the same as those of Amazon e-books) overrides all the secondary details.
If you stop using Spotify, please choose alternatives that don't impose those injustices. Check that you don't need to use nonfree software, don't have to identify yourself to listen, and don't have to make an antisocial agreement not to share.
You can access Youtube without running nonfree Javascript code by means of the proxy system, invidio.us.
Edward Snowden speaks about being granted Russian citizenship — Russia being the only country that will let him stay and not hand him over for prosecution. He wishes that he could safely return to the US and live here.
Snowden did not choose to go to Russia at all. He had a flight connection in Moscow, and was unable to board the second flight because the US had cancelled his passport.
I hope that whatever happens at the end of the war doesn't result in handing over Snowden to the US.
Arguing that, if Putin falls, it would be good for the west to offer his successor a deal that perse could present to the Russian people as a good one.
I am in favor of this, provided the deal doesn't include keeping any of Ukraine.
A whale-detection system will inform ships in a narrow bay in Chile that they should slow down to avoid hitting whales.
I am only guessing, but I tend to think that this will not be sufficient change — that we need to reduce the overall level of human-generated noise if we want whales to be safe.
Some state laws banning abortions restrict all prescriptions for drugs widely used to treat other medical problems, other than the problem of unwanted pregnancy that is. If these laws covered the whole US, it would interfere with the treatment of millions of patients.
Let us not make the usual mistake of emphasizing the uncontroversial collateral damage over the more controversial intended damage. Those religious fanatics want to force people to have babies!
Institutions have impoverished British society and communication to the point where jumping into a wave of deference to the monarchy is the only outlet for the yearning for a sense of common social feeling and purpose.
The article speaks of "consuming" a "national account of ourselves"
(referring to the British, thus not including me). This is not as
twisted as the idea of "consuming" books or movies,
but I think "absorbing" fits better.
A Russian about to be drafted shot the official that was trying to
draft him.
California now gives all school students gratis breakfast and lunch.
Students, no longer going hungry, are doing better.
It seemed to me that lunch in my schools in New York City was gratis
in the 1960s. I certainly was never asked to pay for lunch. Could it
be that my mother bills paid for my school lunches? It never occurred
to me to wonder about this before, and it is too late to ask her now.
Some churches pressure members to install spyware so the church can
shame them for what they look at on the web.
Westport, Connecticut, has set up a system to help its police department
deescalate confrontations with people who are freaking out. The system
helps them quickly find friends or relatives to calm someone down,
rather than a cop who is a stranger.
British-Ukrainian Aiden Aslin describes the torture and brainwashing
he was subjected to during 5 months as a prisoner of war, before he
was exchanged.
It ranged from solitary confinement to threats to murder him
summarily.
It is interesting that the guards in the supposedly independent
Donetsk People's Republic forced prisoners to sing Russia's national
anthem, not an anthem of their supposed country. They seem not to
take its "independence" more seriously than it warrants.
US citizens: tell Congress and state legislatures that no one
should be jailed or imprisoned for an unintentional voting error.
Iranians are enraged at the state, and keep protesting around the country
despite 35 killings — mostly protesters, it is clear, but not all.
They are angry about a lot more than the death of Mahsa Amini.
Iranians, led by women, demand changes in laws to respect their
rights.
*California to Ban Sale of Gas Heaters and Furnaces by 2030.*
Setting a sad precedent: a museum has bowed to the pressure of an
indigenous group that demanded the "return" of four artifacts that the
museum legitimately owns.
The group agrees that these artifacts were not stolen; that the
anthropologist who gave them to the museum had acquired them
legitimately. Why should the museum feel an obligation to give in?
What justification can the group present for demanding to get them
back? The article does not present any, it only cites someone who
takes this for granted. The people in that group are not the only
ones concerned here.
In general, should anthropologists obey demands to discard part of
anthropological knowledge? I contend this should require a reason
stronger than, "These artifacts are related to us so only we can have
them."
The Tories are adopting plans for greatly increasing CO2 emissions in
the UK.
(satire) *Putin Stays Up Late Constantly Refreshing Website For
Results From Rigged Elections.*
(satire) *U.N. Mysteriously Disappears After Criticising Russia.*
There is a secret legal dispute about whether the wrecker can use
"executive privilege" to block some of his henchmen from testifying to
a grand jury about what appears to be a conspiracy to overturn part of
the 2020 election.
*To fix its broken welfare system, the U.S. must move away from its
fixation on fraud, exclusions by design, and the stigmatization of
people in poverty.*
Britain is ready to reform its broken electoral system, but the conservative
leaders in control of the Labour Party refuse to advocate that.
Now that California has passed a law to protect fast-food workers pay
and rights, the big fast-food companies want Californians to vote to
restore the power to abuse those workers, in the name of low prices.
DeMentis now claims to have sincerely transported immigrants to
Martha's Vineyard to help them.
One could ask him, "If you really wanted to help them, why did you give
them a false picture of the support they would find there?"
The head of the World Bank really is a global heating denialist, and
it appears he was put in that position by the wrecker precisely to
obstruct climate defense. The world needs to oust him.
The government of California, and local governments, took away black
citizens' land and houses systematically in various parts of the state.
*Corporate greed, not wages, is behind inflation. It's time for price
controls.*
Rigid price controls cause a different kind of market distortion. I
wonder if there is a way to get a similar effect but less rigid. For
instance, what if any increase of X in the price of a product resulted
in an additional tex starting at .9X and decreasing linearly over the
following year down to .1X, then ending after that year. This might
discourage price increases that are not meant to be long-term.
The Crimean Tatars, those that remain in the Crimea, say that Putin is
targeting them for conscription as a method of getting rid of them.
*Autumn has arrived in the UK — but the season is not [as] it used to be.*
*The US Must Ends Its Complicity in Illicit Financial Flows Out of Africa.*
*UK climate activists held in jail for up to six months before trial.*
If they are convicted, their sentences will probably not be as long as
they were in jail. They are moved frequently from one prison to
another, and their friends can't find them.
I suspect this is an intentional practice of nonjudicial punishment.
The surveillance of employees by US employers is reaching levels
reminiscent of Chinese repression.
We must establish the rule that by default surveillance systems are
forbidden, aside from certain limited exceptions.
The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates too fast — not waiting
to see the full effects of previous increases before moving on to another
increase.
This creates a risk of overshoot — of raising interest rates so
much that it is producing a result bigger than the organisation wants.
If you keep increasing a signal again and again, faster than results
can possibly come back to you, you will overcontrol and cause a
crisis.
The governors of the Fed ought to know this, since it is basic
business economics.
*The Guardian view on the Tory trickle up policies: redistributing to
the rich.*
An Australian mobile phone company suffered a data theft which took
personal data about millions of customers. The company had lobbied
against changes to laws about customers' rights over that data.
The harmful consequences of this breach are partly the Australian
government's fault, since it required the company to collect and save
various items of personal data for each customer. The reliable way to
prevent the release of people's personal data is not to possess copies
of it, but Australia did not permit this company to use that method.
Labour proposes to stop giving government contracts to businesses
connected with tax havens.
It would be a change for the better, but only a small one. It would
be simple to require all companies that do business in in Britain to
reveal their real owners, whereas this would only affect those businesses
that get government contracts.
*Giorgia Meloni is a danger to Italy and the rest of Europe.
The Brothers of Italy leader denies she is a fascist but clings to the
Mussolini-era slogan "God, homeland, family."*
*Meloni appears the most dangerous Italian political figure not because
she explicitly evokes fascism or the practices of the black-shirted
squadristi (militia), but because of her ambiguity.*
*Vanuatu makes bold call for global treaty to phase out fossil fuels.*
*Pope calls for courage in halting use of fossil fuels to protect
planet.*
*Attempts by [the wrecker] to delay the criminal investigation into
his unlawful retention of government secrets have been largely thwarted
after the Department of Justice regained access to about 100 documents
with classified markings that the FBI seized from the former US
president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.*
Big businesses openly and shamelessly hire Congressional staff
to lobby their former coworkers.
They hire former Congressional representatives, too, but they disguise that
behind polite veils.
*80% of US Voters Want Congress to Enact National Paid Family Leave:
Poll.*
Politicians that call themselves "centrists" are opposed to this,
but they are nowhere near the political center of Americans.
*[The Tories] are borrowing big to fund tax cuts for the rich.*
UN investigators have reported evidence of many war crimes committed
by the Putin forces,
as well as a couple of instances of war crimes by Ukrainians.
US citizens: call on ShotSpotter to stop selling surveillance (and
consequent repression).
Republican officials are trying to stop credit card companies from
adopting a new merchant code for gun stores by threatening lawsuits.
I'd be surprised if laws say anything about the question of how
to establish categories of stores for credit cards, so I suspect
this is a way of threatening legal harassment.
The Justice Department succeeded in an appeal and can now examine
the secret government documents that the wrecker took home to determine
whether that was a crime.
1300 Russians have been jailed for protesting against the war.
Some of them were punished by immediate conscription.
Iran has sent thugs to crush protests against imposed religious codes,
killing six protesters.
The injustice of this repression — which Iran has practiced for 30
years — has no effect on my support for resuming the non-nuclear
deal, if any chance of that remains.
*The Tories spent a decade putting fossil fuel profits first [in the
UK]. Now we’re all paying the price.*
Russian men are fleeing Russia to escape being drafted.
EU countries should resume admitting Russian men as visitors.
Why help Putin by forcing them to remain in Russia and be drafted?
Schumer and Manchin's deal to undermine environmental permitting
requirements has been revealed, and it is is broader and deeper than
we knew. It would be a disaster for the environment, including a
massive increase in future fossil fuel extraction.
This deal was a dirty trick by Schumer and Manchin.
It would be much safer to let Republicans shut down the government
than to pass this bill. A shut-down is a short pain in the neck; much
better than a permanent disaster.
Artists have hacked many different airline advertising posters to highlight
the effect of their carbon emissions.
Putin's general mobilization threatens to destabilize the balance
between his military supporters and his formerly-the-KGB supporters.
The cost of cleaning up the UK's nuclear reactors and nuclear waste
is now estimated at UKP 260bn. That would be around 300 billion dollars.
There is no way to avoid these costs, for the reactors that have
already been operated. That suggests to me that it would be worth
billions to cancel the two reactors now being build, even if that
costs billions in indemnities, just to avoid the ever-increasing
cost of cleaning them up after.
France has protected independent book stores with a minimum delivery
fee of 3 euros.
It would be good to do this for all products. Physical stores normally offer
the crucial right to buy anonymously (and this should be required by law).
*Pressure builds for Levi’s to protect factory employees.*
The factories are in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
In Bangladesh, unjust treatment of employees is rife.
I wonder whether the factories in Pakistan still exist;
they may still be flooded.
The practice of having many products delivered is increasing urban
air pollution (as well as use of fuel).
The UK's current prime minister was chosen by the members of the Tory Party.
They include foreigners who don't live in Britain and can't vote in elections.
They also include rich people who secretly buy a share in party decisions.
*The more loudly a politician proclaims [per] patriotism, the more
likely [perse is] to act on behalf of foreign money. Every recent
Conservative prime minister has placed the interests of transnational
capital above the interests of the nation. But, to a greater
extent than any previous leader, Truss’s politics have been shaped by
organisations that call themselves thinktanks, but would be better
described as lobbyists who refuse to reveal who funds them. Now she
has brought them into the heart of government.*
Starbucks plans to replace the current system for Covid sick leave
with a new one, and deny the new system to union workers.
Do you want your coffee to be made by someone who has a transmissible
respiratory illness? Of course not. The law should require paid sick
leave for all employees who, when working, can transmit a disease to
others.
In the mean time, if you do business with Starbucks, tell the managers
of the stores that you disapprove of Starbucks's exclusion of sick pay
for union workers.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the PRESS act, protecting
reporters from searches to find their sources.
US citizens: call on the Federal Reserve to issue strong guidelines
to stop greenwashing by Wall Street banks.
US citizens: call on Biden not to allow more offshore oil drilling.
*Deforestation is accelerating in Brazil as Bolsonaro's first term
ends, experts say.*
Forest destroyers are trying to pack in as much destruction as they can
while Bolsonaro before Lula gets a chance to try to stop them.
Some Louisiana Republicans want to imprison females that get abortions.
(satire) *U.S. Landlord General Announces Plans To Fix
Constant Flooding Sometime In Next Few Months.*
The head of the World Bank is a global heating denialist, appointed by
the wrecker.
The wrecker is now the leader of the US Christian fascist movement,
a sworn enemy of the flawed democracy of the United States and all the
incomplete political freedoms the country champions.
The relatives of Shireen Abu Akleh have presented evidence that the shooting
that killed her was difficult to do by accident or by mistake.
They are presenting this to the International Criminal Court.
Venezuela arrested fugitive Leonard Glenn Francis at the request of
the US.
It is interesting to see that the two governments still cooperate to
this extent. It gives me hope that maybe the US can stop treating
Venezuela as a monster.
Cheap add-ons can convert semiautomatic weapons that are lawfully sold
into machine guns.
Why doesn't Starmer, head of the UK Labour Party, criticize all the
disastrous harm Tories have done?
My theory is because that would be too radical — almost something
Corbyn might say — and anything that hints at such thinking is now
unwelcome in Labour.
Qatar seems to have suggested to construction companies that they send
most foreign workers home before the soccer world cup tournament.
Many workers are being sent home early, denied expected earnings
and robbed of some wages already earned.
Qatar can't have it both ways. If it did not intend to have many workers
sent home, it should tell the companies to bring those workers back and
make restitution for the costs this imposed. Perhaps at state expense.
The practice of charging money to find someone a job should be
strictly punished with confiscation of all the agent's income,
as well as prison — whatever it takes to end the practice.
The companies that seek the employees should directly pay the cost
of finding employees.
Ranchers near the Shasta river in California believe that keeping
their ranches and pets going justifies drying up the river and wiping
out the fish.
Ranching near the Shasta river is doomed. There may be occasional
periods in the future with sufficient water, but they will be few and
decreasing.
We cannot allow people to cause extra permanent damage in a futile effort
to keep their doomed businesses going a little while longer. Such
efforts will magnify the harm done by the increasing drought.
It's not particularly those ranchers' fault that sustainable ranching
there has become impossible — not more than it is our fault. We
(through our governments) should help them by buying them out and converting
that land into parks.
At the same time, we should make it a crime punished by imprisonment
to draw water for ranching in that region. Ranching sustainably there
will not be possible for decades even in an optimistic scenario, and
by that time we will have perfected vat meat and won't need much
ranching.
The US lead industry pooled funds to corrupt city governments and
plumbers' unions so that they would insist on the use of lead pipes.
These rules continued in Chicago through the 1980s.
I would like to know what they did to promote lead paint and lead in
gasoline.
A mother in Arizona was put on a 25-year blacklist which would cost
her her job because she let her child play outside a store for half
an hour with a friend.
She figured that was safer than bringing them
inside the store, where they might catch Covid-19 from customers or
staff. (This was in November 2020.)
Some thoughts on how to progress towards nuclear disarmament.
The recent nonproliferation conference broke down because some
countries put a phrase criticizing of Russia into the draft agreement
which Putin then refused to accept. The criticism was valid, but
there was nothing to gain by raising the topic in that context except
to make the text unacceptable. It appears to me that this was
intended to make the conference fail and blame Russia.
*Global fossil fuel subsidies almost doubled in 2021, analysis finds.*
Everyone: call on the New York Times to correct an article that
called Stacey Abrams' campaign a example of a bad campaign, citing a
source who had in fact called it an example of a good campaign.
US citizens: call on corporations to keep their pledge, and stop donations
to insurrectionist members of Congress.
Everyone: call on General Mills to reduce the plastic in its
packaging.
*New Bill Would Protect Workers Who Walk Off the Job Because of
… Disasters.*
It starts with the right to stop working or flee the workplace for
safety from a disaster, without being fired or punished for doing so.
The bill refers earthquakes and tornadoes as "climate disasters",
which is certainly erroneous for earthquakes and perhaps also for
tornadoes. It is right to include those disasters in legal protection
for workers' safety, but the law should use some other name for them
all, one that isn't flat-out incorrect.
When DeMentis (more precisely, people working for him) lied to
migrants released by US immigration in Texas to convince them to
get on a plane to Martha's Vineyard, they committed a crime under
Texas law.
Those migrants received a brochure that was deceptive, and was given
out in connection with leading migrants to take the flight, but it's
not clear who published it or how it was given to those migrants.
Alas, I don't think the Republican officials of Texas will prosecute
Republicans for crimes committed while mistreating weak and powerless
people in the name of the Republican Party. Mistreating the weak and
powerless is what the Republican Party stands for. Closing the eye to
right-wing hate crimes, even when much worse than these, is standard
practice, hardly even denied.
Is there a Democratic prosecutor in Texas with the jurisdiction and
guts to prosecute this crime?
*Don’t cheer for the Espionage Act being used against Donald Trump. It
will backfire. Wishing to see Trump called to account need not make
us champion a 100-year-old statute used to target whistleblowers.*
More or less all stain-resistant school uniforms in the US contain PFAS.
Putin has declared a partial mobilization, that will probably enable him to
force more Russian soldiers to fight in Ukraine. I doubt it will make
a big difference.
In addition he growled and grated his teeth.
Attorney General Letitia James of New York State has sued the
corrupter, his family business, and some of his family for defrauding
banks by misrepresenting the organization's finances.
James stated that New York had presented information to the US government
that could lead to federal criminal charges.
A fracker says that the geology of the UK makes it unsuitable for fracking,
except on a small scale that would hardly be worth the trouble.
That is good news for the UK. Experience in the US shows fracking can
poison aquifers, which is long-term damage that the balance sheets don't count.
Because Truss is an ideological right-winger, I could imagine
her as going all-out to push for fracking, even if it isn't profitable.
*Poverty is a political choice.* In 2021, US government interventions
to help poor Americans reduced the number in poverty by 45 million,
even as millions lost their jobs.
*Republicans want to ban abortion nationwide, and they have the nerve to
claim that this is a compromise.*
It may indeed be a compromise between what they really want, and what
Americans want. But if that is so, what does it imply? It implies
that what they really want is an absolute ban that would kill pregnant
females who have medical problems.
*Russian nuclear sabre-rattling is designed to create fear in the west.*
The draft is provoking opposition and protest against the war.
Relatives of Shireen Abu Akleh have filed a complaint with the
International Criminal Court about her killing (apparently
intentional) by an Israeli soldier.
Spain has designated a lagoon called the Mar Menor as a "person".
It is right to protect the lagoon and its wildlife, but that does not
require proclaiming absurdities like this. Designating a lagoon or a
river as a "person" is as absurd as designating a corporation as a
"person".
*Drought [caused by global heating] threatens UK government’s mass
forestry scheme.* The scheme is intended to reduce global heating.
This is an example of an unexpected positive feedback in global
heating.
The special master, specifically proposed by the bullshitter,
is not proving subservient.
*How to beat a book ban: students, parents and librarians fight back.*
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 denounce 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.
Plastic manufacturers seek to exempt incinerators from environmental laws
by relabeling them as "advanced recycling".
US citizens: call on Congress to protect the National Environmental
Policy Act.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code
from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Senate to support the Protecting America's
Wilderness and Public Lands Act.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code
from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to use US diplomatic power to stop Israeli
demolitions of Palestinian homes, farms, clinics, schools and businesses
on the West Bank.
Truss's plans for policy changes amount to an across-the-board attack
on the non-rich, the dreams of an antisocialist ideologue.
I fear that they will include business-supremacy treaties
that would be difficult for the next government to fix or escape from.
Meanwhile, I suspect that Starmer, who is rather right-wing himself,
like a US plutocratist Democrat, won't seek to fix more than a
fraction of them.
Protests in many parts of Iran continue, triggered by the death of
Mahsa Amini, who seems to have been beaten by religious thugs on
account of her clothing.
The thugs and the state take the usual authoritarian "We never do
anything wrong, shame on you" stance, that we have seen in many
countries before, including the US.
Israel is about to extract natural gas from an undersea deposit
claimed also by Lebanon.
As with all international disputes about which country has the right
to extract certain deposits of fossil fuel, the only acceptable answer
is, "Leave it in the Earth!"
Burning all the currently known fossil fuel reserves would exceed the
carbon budget by 7 times.
In the absence of some massively deployed future CO2 extraction system,
that would bring certain disaster.
On a secondary issue, the fossil fuel industry claims falsely to
employ 11 million Americans. In fact, jobs numbered roughly 700,000
in 2019, and only 500,000 today.
Obviously, destroying civilization and the ecosphere in a few decades
is too high a price to pay to keep a few million people employed for a
decade or two — even if it would really achieve that. There are lots
of other ways for the state to support workers.
Biden pandered to Americans' desire to forget the danger of Covid-19,
by saying that "the pandemic is over." For proof, he cited that
Americans have stopped taking sensible precautions.
*"What's ending here," tweeted University of Washington medical
anthropologist Nora Kenworthy, "is political commitment and funding,
not cases or deaths."* Or, let's not forget, instances of permanent
organ damage, short of deaths.
Republicans called for keeping college expensive to pressure poor
Americans to join the military.
Representative Bowers, a Republican and currently speaker of the
Arizona state house of representatives, denounced the trumpery of most
Republican candidates there as "fascism".
More Perfect Union accuses Florida Republicans, starting from Governor
Dementis, of handing control of the state's electric utility into the
hands of cronies who allow it to keep raising prices. That was in
exchange for the company's secretly funding sound-alike candidates,
whose names would confuse voters so as to defeat some Democratic
legislators.
I don't know whether any of this is illegal, but it clearly shows
Dementis's real contempt towards the residents of Florida, and his
country.
Republican-controlled states refuse to test sewage sludge for PFAs before
spreading it on farmland.
A British-Pakistani novelist talks about corruption of democracy, in
Pakistan and in Britain.
Boys and men today face a difficult situation — the flip side of the
difficult situation that girls and women face.
Men can no longer win respect by being the "bread winner" for a wife,
not only because that role is no longer respected, but because most
jobs don't pay enough to enable a worker to support anyone else.
It is hard for me to empathize with people who want to be the "bread
winner", since I was repelled by that idea of the male role ever since
I learned about it. I yearned for a relationship of love, not for one
of being valued only for bringing in money.
But this problem is real enough for those in it, and the US right wing has
taken advantage of this to recruit fanatics.
Prominent lawyers rip the "special master" decision to shreds
and explain its partisan contempt for established law.
US citizens: Oppose new offshore drilling.
US citizens: call on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from
he case about the "independent state legislature theory."
Here's more info about that theory and why it would enable Republicans to
steal the 2024 presidential election.
US citizens: call on Biden, Congress and the EPA to protect Americans
from environmental carcinogens.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code
from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The reappearance of polio in the US shows that vaccine refusal
endangers everyone.
Republican senator Ron Johnson uses China as a target for posturing,
but he has not hesitated to make millions from a company that works
closely with China.
Where Republicans are concerned, we must deactivate our usual practice
of supposing that a person at least to some extent means what person says.
*Meet the Members of Congress Who Traded Defense Stocks While Making
National Security Policy.*
Refuting plutocratist bullshit arguments against cancelling student debt.
("DeSantis" is is not a plural, and neither is "DeMentis", so the "s"
after the apostrophe should not be elided.)
Migrants shipped to Martha's Vineyard and Washington DC from Texas
state that they were induced to accept by promises of assistance,
which the people who shipped them did not provide.
If people in the US want to travel, and you wish to give them a ride,
you should be allowed to do so. (Ironically, Republicans are trying
to prohibit that.)
However, luring people to travel with false promises is fraud.
The Cult of Positive thinking teaches Americans whose lives are
difficult that faith in success is all they need for reaching
success. No need to condemn your employer for firing you and hundreds
of others.
ShotSpotter analyzes microphone data using proprietary algorithms, and
claims to report when and where shots occurred. Those reports can't
be trusted because courts cannot verify the validity of those
algorithms.
In addition, thugs have the opportunity to falsify the reports later
so as to inculpate the chosen suspect.
Congress published a report showing how the main US fossil fuel
companies have been talking up their "investments" in renewable electricity
while acting to perpetuate fossil fuels. They refused to attend the
hearing afterwards.
Ukraine asks the UN to rule that governments can seize Russian
overseas assets to use as reparations for Ukraine.
*Russian pop star Alla Pugacheva speaks out [patriotically] against
war in Ukraine.*
The Tories plan to adopt another excuse to tax business less: to declare
some low-tax "investment zones" and encourage businesses to move operations
there from the rest of the UK.
Mahsa Amini's funeral became an opportunity for the public to show
anger at the religious "morality" thugs that killed her. A movement
to condemn their brutal repression is growing.
The supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, seems to be ill, and he might
need to be replaced soon. That could be a turning point for Iran.
Research comparing various US universities shows a correlation between
when Facebook started operating in each and when there was an increase
in depression.
A new Texas law forbids web sites from deleting user-contributed hatred.
If this prevents Facebook from operating there, the Republicans of Texas
will, for once, have actually helped the well-being of most people in Texas.
Tying the ecological crisis (including global heating disaster) to Capitalism.
Communism is not the solution — it is based on repression, which we
have seen in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. (We have seen it in
Ukraine too; Russia is not communist now, but Putin got his start in
the secret police of a communist state.)
The solution needs to include Socialism, but a state which is pure
Socialism will push everything into a uniform mold in the name of
efficiency and security. The things that everyone depends on should
be handled in a socialist way, including public transit, public
schools, medical care, electricity, water, and some aspect of food
production (but not small farms). However, other areas of life that
should be decentralized so that they are not regimented or uniform.
Would a fully socialist country permit us to make or have computers that
let us reject nonfree software? I think it is more likely it would
legislate a requirement for a back door.
The corrupter publicly endorsed QAnonsense.
Well, why wouldn't he? He has already promoted insurrection in various ways.
John Deere puts locked-down nonfree software in its farm machines,
arousing the right-to-repair movement among farmers.
Nowadays it seems to be producing more de-tractors than tractors.
US citizens: call on your state legislators to adopt ranked-choice voting.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code
from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on MGM to cancel its TV program "Ring Nation", which
would glorify and promote Amazon's surveillance device.
*Australia must set higher climate ambitions "to avert impending
disaster," Pacific island leaders say.*
I agree completely, but it's even more important to say this to China.
China's emissions dwarf Australia's. These Pacific island leaders
now have influence there; I hope they use it.
The same is true of the United States, and we Americans have to keep
badgering the government about this.
*Hungary is no longer a full democracy, says European parliament.*
The structure of the EU gives it no way to take action against Poland
and Hungary, because each one protects the other.
DeMentis lied to 50 migrants to convince them to board planes to
Martha's Vineyard.
Long Covid has especially struck cooks, teachers and medical workers,
as their work made them particularly exposed. Now that echoes in the
shortage of American workers for those jobs.
Long Covid could be responsible for up to one-third of the US labor
shortage.
(satire) *Black Homeowner Receives Higher Appraisal
After Displaying Pictures Of Klan Members.*
The Putin forces systematically took away Ukrainian military veterans
that they found in Izium, especially veterans of previous fighting
between Ukraine and Putin's Donbas proxies, No one in Izium knows
what happened to them.
The Putin forces tortured some civilians, and some of those killed
themselves afterward.
There is a political battle in Detroit over whether to spend federal
relief funds on a ShotSpotter microphone system, which purports to
detect gunshots reliably but is less reliable than advertised.
The article explains that opponents warn that each false alarm will
draw a team of thugs expecting more shots into an area filled with
poor people, many of whom are black. That could be fatal for the
latter. They also say that helping poor people deal with the great
difficulty of getting through life under neoliberalism will reduce
crime.
In addition, ShotSpotter microphones listen to the conversation of
people talking on the street. That is tyranny, and ought to be
forbidden.
We must not judge a system mainly by what it is nominally intended
to do; we must judge it by all the things it actually does. If a
system were only capable of detecting gunshots, it might be a good
thing (supposing it worked reliably), but it might still be less
desirable than other ways of spending the money.
*US court revokes permits for plastics plant in Louisiana's "Cancer
Alley."*
With new technology, the harmful emissions of chemical processing can
be greatly reduced. We should replace all the existing chemical plants
that emit pollution.
*Fossil Fuel Industry Seeks to Expand Free Speech for Corporations and
Limit It for Citizens.* (These are two separate, parallel efforts.)
Here's more information about the latter: laws to stifle protests.
The Tories plan across-the-board deregulation, aiming to let
businesses in Britain have their will. Mere human beings will be
powerless to stop them.
One example is fracking.
Is the Labour Party doing anything to stop this? It could warn that
it will restore the eliminated rights when it takes power in two years,
and require all businesses that tried to take advantage to apply for
re-approval. That might discourage businesses from trying to take advantage
of the gap. It's worth a try, but will it try?
Mississippi Republicans have seen the chance to ruin Jackson's water system
forever — by privatizing it — and they won't let go.
Schumer will not allow a Senate vote on antimonopoly bills before the
election. Progressives accuse him of doing this in exchange for their
funds.
Conjecture: Dementis is using migrants as pawns to trigger outrage
from Democrats. That builds him up in the eyes of Republicans.
This suggests we should downplay the importance of his stunts.
I think that Martha's Vinyard's response will be helpful.
Republican officials tricked migrants into accepting flights to
Martha's Vineyard via false promises. The migrants' lawyers are suing
and calling for prosecution.
That's more significant than mere helpless outrage.
When it comes to meeting people's basic needs, the US is not number 1.
It is now ranked number 41, ranking between Cuba and Bulgaria.
Those two are "developing countries", but the US is an "undeveloping
country."
I suppose the reasons for specific faults are complex,
but it is clear that plutocracy is the fundamental reason the US
does so badly with so much money.
The bullshitter appointed a special investigator in 2020 to investigate
alleged crimes committed by Hillary Clinton with Russia. The investigation is winding down and appears to have found little or nothing against her.
The bullshitter may choose not to notice the facts and continue repeating
his accusations.
What will NATO do if Putin uses nuclear, biological or chemical weapons?
As long as Putin does not use weapons of mass destruction, even
"tactical" ones, the reasoning remains valid that we should not have
NATO troops fight in the war, so as to avoid direct fighting between
NATO and Putin, since that fighting could turn nuclear.
However, that reason will lose its validity if Putin does use them.
To deter him from using them, we should make it clear that his use of
weapons of mass destruction could trigger NATO's use of conventional
weapons against the Putin forces and Russia's military power, at least
for a while.
After a week or two of that fighting, it would make sense to give him
a chance to deescalate — offering to pull the NATO troops out of the
fighting if Putin commits to ceasing use of weapons of mass
destruction.
The Putin forces are using many levels of pressure to force children
in occupied Ukraine to study a brainwashing curriculum, and force teachers
to teach it.
When people don't want the pain of resisting oppression, they tend to
justify collaborating with it by claiming that by participating they
can soften the oppression. In principle, that can be true. In
practice, it is usually self-delusion. You can pretend you are
resisting in a subtle way, while actually doing exactly what the
oppressor wants.
Collaboration plus dragging your feet may seem like an opportunity to
be neutral, but the occupying forces don't stand for neutrality: they
demand that everyone give complete support and participate in the
repression.
Thus, the teachers who agreed to collaborate were compelled to do more
than just teach the Putin curriculum. They also had to join in
measures to attack and punish teachers who did not join in. The price
of collaborating under these circumstances is to become totally
corrupt and totally evil. Then how can you live with yourself?
Has Putin ever organized such complete dishonesty before? I have to
wonder if he is getting advice on brainwashing from his Chinese
allies.
The US is in a position to join the treaty to ban cluster bombs,
and it ought to do so.
Internal documents subpoenaed by congressional investigation show that
what companies publish to imply they are trying to curb global heating is
pure bullshit.
What employees say to each other goes directly against it.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, "defeated" in Belarus's last election when
Lukashenko stole it, says that additional
western sanctions on Belarus
can drive him out.
Morale is why Ukraine has a
good chance of winning the war.
California's new "privacy" and "transparency" bills, supposedly meant
to "protect children", are likely to subject everyone to surveillance
and mysterious
moderation/censorship policies.
The US Army sets a standard of excellence in winning battles, and its contrast
shows the incompetence of the Russian Army. However, the US as a country
shows similar incompetence ast the level of winning wars; it can
get stuck
in a losing war for years.
The US is to quick to assume that starting a war is a good idea.
Prime Minister Truss is a market ideologue, a deadly menace
like
Thatcher and Reagan.
*This doctrine insists that politics submits to "the market", which
means, when translated, that democracy must submit to the power of
money. Any impediment to the accumulation of wealth — such as public
ownership, tax, regulation, trade unions and political protest — should
be torn down, either quickly and noisily or slowly and stealthily."
Ukraine has found 440 graves in Izium made during the Putinite
occupation. Those buried included civilians and soldiers. Some of
each were
murdered with their hands tied.
Republicans thought with glee that they could lie to penniless
refugees and dump them on wealthy Liberals in Martha's Vineyard.
Instead, the people of Martha's Vineyard organized to help the migrants,
showing the
contrast between good will and Republican hatred.
Why do poor people suffer more from heat and pollution? It's not only
that rich people compete for more comfortable neighborhoods. It's
also that they use their influence to direct municipal investment,
making parks, beaches and trees on the sidewalls,
to the areas where
they live.
And direct highway construction and chemical plants into the places where poor people live.
(satire) *Apple Announces New iPhones Will No Longer Be
Compatible
With Human Hand.*
They have always been incompatible with natural human society.
*Louisiana woman carrying [totally unviable] skull-less fetus forced
to travel to
New York for an abortion.*
Bird flu has spread to additional bird species, so it has become
endemic
all year in parts of Europe.
It has evolved to infect some mammals too, which means infecting
humans may not be far away.
*Health groups call for global fossil
fuel non-proliferation treaty.*
Unusual heavy rains, and deadly floods,
have now struck Italy.
The Sizewell B nuclear power plant, that the UK is paying exorbitantly
to construct by the seaside, could be dangerous in the
future as
sea-level rise brings the sea up to it.
It is a terrible waste of money that ought to be spent on efficient
decarbonization — with renewable energy.
US citizens: call on Congress to extend the
Radiation Exposure and
Compensation Act for another 30 years.
US citizens: call on Senator Schumer to reject
Manchin's fossil fuel
deregulation bill.
*New UN Report Shows Fossil Fuel Addiction Is a "Recipe for
Permanent
Climate Chaos."*
US citizens: call on Oklahoma district attorneys not to prosecute
females for using
marijuana while pregnant.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the
Roadless Area Conservation Act.
To sign without
running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site,
use the
Salsalabs workaround.
The UK media project an image of rapt devotion towards the monarchy,
but this is false. Even people who conversed outside Buckingham
Palace
presented various attitudes and opinions.
US freight railroads were facing a strike because workers demanded
more control over when they would work. At the last minute, the
railroads offered them more control, and this may have avoided the
strike. President Biden's pressure helped make the railroads give in.
In the US, a wave of unionization is being met with a wave of illegal
retaliation.
Ask your Democratic candidates for Congress whether they intend to
make the NLRB more powerful, so employers will fear to violate
workers' rights.
An analysis indicates that long Covid has taken at least half a
million
people out of the US labor force.
This is in addition to 250,000 working people that Covid-19 removed from
the labor force via death.
Senator Graham has proposed a federal law to
ban abortions after 15 weeks.
The law promotes several noteworthy confusions, such as calling that
"late term" when the arbitrary stopping point is
less than half the
usual gestation period.
He surely knows that it will not pass, so I wonder what political motive
leads him to propose something that most Americans disagree with.
US inflation is going down; the Federal Reserve should understand the danger
of applying a harmful remedy to correct a
problem that is correcting itself.
Pieper Lewis killed a man that she accused of raping her. She has been
sentenced to 5 years' probation, with the requirement to
pay $150k to
the man's family.
She can't possibly make that much money, because nearly good jobs are
off limits to people with criminal convictions. So this would be an
impossible demand, and that cannot be just. By luck, she raised
the money by asking for donations, but that doesn't excuse an impossible
demand in a sentence.
In California, Jay Jordan has won a campaign to change that policy
of
excluding convicts from good jobs.
Biden has acknowledged the right-wing threat to US democracy, but he has
not dared to
call for solutions that would change it.
California will stop high school classes from starting at the insane hour
of 7am.
They will instead start at the painfully early hour of 8:30am.
Some large private equity funds are still investing billions in into
increasing the use of fossil fuels.
* When overpaid corporate boneheads … substitute slogans and
computer metrics for real solutions, they're admitting that they
are the problem; they simply don't know how to motivate and manage
a creative workforce.
They should resign in shame.*
They have the power, so they won't resign. We should demand laws
to prohibit measuring workers moment by moment.
*EU proposes $140 billion windfall
tax on energy companies.*
*More than half of Republican Senate nominees have rejected, cast
doubt upon or
tried to overturn the 2020 election results.*
Republicans are working very hard to take workers off the voter lists.
Here are
some of the excuses they employ.
You can check your voter registration to make sure it has not been
cancelled. However, the article doesn't say how to tell whether they
are purging you by caging, or how to prevent that.
*Why did the Queen’s death receive saturation media coverage while the future
of the
Earth goes largely ignored?*
I conjecture that it's because global heating implies a responsibility
to try to stop it, whereas the death of the Queen does not imply any
responsibility for most people.
*Ukraine mass grave with 440 bodies
discovered in recaptured Izium.*
Several recent Supreme Court decisions will kill Americans at random.
This reality is not quite analogous to the mythical "death panels"
that were not in Obama's medical insurance scheme, neither as
proposed nor as adopted. Those were supposedly going to decide
whether individual persons were worthy of medical treatment. The
Supreme Court decisions will lead indirectly to the death of victims
selected by circumstances at random.
The US adopted the child poverty tax credit as a response to Covid-19.
It lifted millions of children out of poverty.
Now Republicans (with Manchin's help) have brought it to an end.
I guess they figure that sloppy-thinking voters will blame Biden for
the change, because it will happen while he is president.
*Nearly 100 Members of Congress Reported Stock Trades That Overlap With
Committee Work.*
A protest camp for resistance against the Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline
has won a protective order against harassment by local thugs.
The pipeline opponents are protecting more than their local water
supply (though that is a valid reason to oppose a pipeline). They are
fighting one of the local battles to curb global heating and prevent
the early death of billions of people.
The local thugs are on the side of money. Probably because the local
politicians are, too.
(satire) *Disney Wins Emmy For Best Profits.*
A Disney executive probably would deprecate all movies by calling them
"content".
The Putinite occupiers arrived in Izium believing Putin's lie that
they were liberating the people from "Nazis". Civilians set them
straight.
It appears that thugs in San Francisco take DNA samples they get from
people reporting rape and compare them with a large database of DNA
from crime scenes, looking for a match.
I doubt that San Francisco is the only place that does this.
The Department of Justice has sent subpoenas to many officials and associates
of the wrecker, seeking communications that might be about plotting.
The US military is finishing up the first step of renaming bases, ships and
other things whose names honor the Confederacy. This step is to recommend
what to rename.
It is arguable that Matthew Fontaine Maury's contributions to
oceanography and navigation were more significant than anything he did
for the Confederacy. I hope that people will not seek to deny him of
civilian recognition for the former.
(satire) *New California Water Restrictions Limit Shower Sex To Once
Per Week.*
Republican election saboteurs are overloading election officials with
requests for many kinds of records about the 2020 election.
In the areas of Australia that global heating has made flood-prone,
residents are systematically learning to use sandbags to protect their
houses, stockpile food and potable water, and clear road blockages.
Can they put their houses up on stilts? That would protect more than sandbags
could possibly do. Especially if a house needs rebuilding, they should
not make it as vulnerable as the old one.
Indiana and West Virginia have banned abortion.
*Children whose [fathers] breathed cigarette smoke more likely to get
asthma — study finds.*
The Putin forces fired missiles at a dam protecting the city of Kryvyi
Rih, causing a river to rise 8 feet and flood part of the city.
The owner of Patagonia company has donated the whole company to a foundation that will use the income for curbing global heating.
California has sued Amazon for anticompetitive practices.
When the Putin forces captured Izium, they had a list of people to arrest
and disappear.
LED bulbs for night illumination give out more blue light. This increases
interference with sleep for humans and other animals.
The European Parliament voted in a vague way to reduce the felling of
trees to make "renewable" fuel.
Making hydrogen by electrolysis using renewable electricity should
now be cheaper than natural gas, at least in Britain.
Starmer says people have a right to protest at the ceremonies of the
monarchy provided they do it in a way that will hardly attract any
attention.
The UK's two main parties are now the extreme wild right-wing (Tory)
and the tepid right-wing (Labour).
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and ask for funding for
Covid-19 treatment and vaccination, and likewise for Monkeypox, in the
annual spending authorization.
Also insist on keeping Manchin's sabotage of environmental impact
regulations for oil pipelines out of this bill.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
People in Balakliia said that the Putin forces committed some war crimes,
but not massively as in places near Kyiv.
They also say that a fair number in Balakliia collaborated with the
occupation, and most of those have gone to Russia. The supporters of
Putin, all across Ukraine, have been fleeing to Russia, shaken by the
Putin forces' sudden collapse.
I am sure many collaborated with the occupation to a limited extent
because they were terrified of refusing, and expected the occupation
to be permanent. Except for those who informed on others or did
considerably more than the minimum, it would be wrong to punish them.
The military-industrial complex has captured the US Congress, which
hardly even tries to resist funding waste and fraud by weapons
companies.
I am all in favor of spending government funds to make jobs in the US,
but which jobs should they be? Any job will support a worker, if its
wages are decent. So let's choose the jobs that also produce
things that the US needs or that Americans can use.
Congress resists spending money on cancel all student debts,
but it has poured the same amount of money into the failing F-35
without hesitating.
Why the difference? One can guess that Congress values the
military-industrial complex more than mere people.
Australia sees a battle of wits between humans and sulphur-crested cockatoos.
Humans currently seem to be winning.
Must the two species be adversaries? Why not cooperate?
What people dislike about the cockatoos seems to be that they screech.
Could some hacker design a device that offers a button for cockatoos
to open the bin door so they can eat, but closes the door slowly if it
hears a nearby screech? After closing, it could keep the door closed
for 30 seconds, responding to the button during that time with "No,
no, no." They might learn to stop screeching in order to get at the
food.
When the 30-second closure period ends, the device could speak,
"Hello, Cockie!"
Another question is, what is a good way to minimize the scattering of
waste outside the bin while they pick through the bins? Perhaps just
leaving a foot of empty space at the top of the bin would do the job.
*The two main parties may not support striking workers, but the [UK]
Green party does.*
The US is now being hit by the patents that endanger Covid-19 vaccines
and other mRNA vaccines.
(satire) *Delta Lifts Pandemic-Era Restrictions On
Abusing Flight Crew.*
Planet roasters in the US have launched 150 campaigns of legal
harassment against climate-defense activists.
The biggest culprits were Chevron and Exxon.
Starbucks is offering some new benefits to workers who don't join the
union.
They can't be very large benefits, because the company expects to increase
profits by fighting unionization.
An interview with Symon Hill, who was arrested for briefly heckling at
a kingship ceremony in England.
The bullshitter's claims of "executive privilege" over government
documents that he wrongfully took home start from something that the
Supreme Court said in a case against Nixon's claims, but distort and
exaggerate it.
The court only avoided insisting that a former president could not
possibly have executive privilege in some situation regarding some
documents.
The bullshitter has exaggerated this vague hypothetical possibility in
several dimensions at once.
Sanders rebuked the medical industry for spending billions to prevent
the US from moving to universal medical care.
*Russia has spent $300m since 2014 to influence foreign officials, US
says.*
Australia has weakened the influence of planet roasters in its Climate
Change Authority.
Next it should change the name to Climate Defense Authority.
Defending the Earth's climate from human attack is its mission.
To remove a lot of CO2 from the air, we need to preserve the large,
mature trees that continue to do so.
Rebuking Palestinian leaders for focusing on armed war against Israel, and
using their arms to just so they can say they are fighting.
Palestinians in the West Bank have made considerable use of nonviolent
resistance, but they don't have nonviolence discipline. There tends to be a
crowd of stone-throwing youths alongside protests; Israel cites them
as an excuse for its repressive treatment of protesters.
That excuse is not truly valid, but Israel makes it seem valid.
*The UK needs better insulated homes to free us from Putin and the
fossil fuel giants.*
US citizens: call on Congress not to give any handouts to the
cryptocurrency industry. Let regulators do their jobs and protect
consumers now.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: urge the DOT to finalize a strong rule requiring
states to reduce transportation emissions.
Some local officials in Russia have called for impeachment of Putin,
and have been charged with a crime for that.
It's one small addition to his long list of crimes against Russia.
China has sentenced some Hong Kongers to 19 months in prison for
publishing a book. The book can be interpreted as suggesting
criticisms of Chinese rule in Hong Kong.
A new merchant code for credit card charges will eventually make it easier
to see who is purchasing a lot of arms or ammunition from firearms stores with a credit card.
It seems that a substantial fraction of people who commit a massacre
spend a substantial sum to buy weapons for it, and a credit card is
the only way they can pay.
Some Africans blame Queen Elizabeth II for the evils of the British Empire.
Since the British monarchs did not make policy decisions in the 20th
century, I don't see that they were to blame for injustices that the
British Empire committed then. It's the elected officials that we
must blame.
In the US, UK, Mexico and China, non-rich people who have been shafted and
cannot possibly afford the payments they are compelled to make are starting
payment strikes.
I am puzzled by the concept of "energy bills" used in articles about
the UK. What is an "energy bill"? I have never received one. I get
bills for gas and bills for electricity. Some people use fuel oil and
get an oil bill. Is the term "energy bill" an oversimplified way of
generalizing about various kinds of bills? Does the system in the UK
send people just one bill for all kinds of energy?
The US "Business Roundtable" represents businesses that claimed to promote
decarbonization, but secretly lobbied against measures that would achieve it.
Shortages and crises trigger food price increases, then banks and
giant food companies take advantage to push the price up.
*Coalition Tells FTC to Curb Amazon 'Surveillance Empire' by Blocking Purchase
of iRobot.*
It is a good reason to do so, but Amazon is simply too big and should
not be allowed to buy any other companies.
The latest Apple spy-watch uses sensors to monitor when you ovulate;
it doesn't need to ask you. And it will give that data to various
companies and governments.
With that data, governments can tell that you probably had a
miscarriage or an abortion. That will provides grounds to subpoena
more data so as to decide whether to prosecute you.
The device may offer you the choice to disable the feature, but since
the software is non-free,
which implies it is controlled by Apple rather than by the
users, it could be drawing those conclusions and showing them to
companies and governments, while pretending that it does not.
Brittany Martin was sentenced to four years in prison for talking back
brashly to some South Carolina thugs while she was in a Black Lives
Matter protest.
In November 2020, the bully insisted to his aides that he had won the
election and would refuse to leave the White House.
Britons who call for elimination of the monarchy, even just by holding
signs, are being arrested.
The Tories officially eliminated many human rights this year. This
could be the way Britons learn what has been taken from them.
I don't care much whether the UK is a monarchy or a republic
provided it is democratic and respects human rights. But that's
precisely what Tories are destroying.
*A federal judge blocked an Arizona law that restricts video recording
of police.*
That was obviously what ought to happen. But we must worry whether the
Supreme Court will allow it to stand.
*A low-carbon chemical industry "could create 29m jobs and double turnover."*
The Ukrainian operators of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant have shut
down the last operating reactor there, as a safety measure.
Is this actually an improvement in safety? I have doubts.
While one reactor was operating, the plant had three options for
obtaining the electricity needed to prevent meltdowns in the shut-down
reactors: electricity generated by the one operating reactor,
electricity obtained by cable from a distance, and the diesel backup
generators.
With all reactors shut down, the first option is gone, and the other
two are no more reliable than before.
The number of people living in slavery today is estimated at 50 million,
including 10 million who have been forced into slavery (including
involuntary marriage) in the past five years.
*Why is Liz Truss sacking top civil servants? Because she wants to suppress
dissent.*
*Alabama is jailing pregnant marijuana users to "protect" fetuses.*
This also has the effect of preventing them from getting an abortion,
which they ought to do if pregnant and using marijuana.
What about pregnant tobacco users? Pregnant alcohol users?
The same logic applies to them, but tobacco and alcohol are not illegal,
so the state has no basis to arrest them. If the US government legalizes
marijuana, it might protect the victim of this law.
The London thug department has a new commissioner whose job is to
teach the thugs to be police officers: not to be cruel or racist
towards the public, and to stop protecting elected officials who break
laws.
Some Republican candidates are running on the platform of "I won't
try to restrict abortion in this state."
But it's not enough to stop the advance of the anti-abortion
movement — we must liberate the states they have taken.
The Republican Party, overall, is the party of lies and cheating,
and most Republican politicians support stealing the next election.
*Princeton University is now [gratis] for families making under $100,000.*
The article said "free", but I've decided to use that word only
in regard to freedom, not in regard to price.
*To Win in November, Democrats Must Listen to Citizen Groups.*
US citizens: call for strengthening the protection of North Atlantic
right whales.
An inexpensive new malaria vaccine is reportedly 80% effective in preventing
malaria.
Although it is comparatively inexpensive, 200 million doses will still
cost 2 billion dollars to make and administer in Africa.
Malaria can't continue to exist in a mosquito for longer than a
mosquito's short life span. If we can prevent it in humans, we can
get rid of it entirely — if we can overcome vaccine denialism.
There is a lot of vagueness in "80% protective," so I don't know whether
this vaccine could eventually eradicate malaria over time. Perhaps in
combination with modern genetic engineering that can greatly reduce the
mosquito population in an area.
Bucks County, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, has rejected an attempt
to privatize the sewer system.
Private ownership of water and sewer systems should be illegal.
No matter how much money the city or county gets for selling one,
it will always lose in the long term.
San Francisco has adopted a policy of not enforcing drug laws against psychedelic drugs made from "plants",
which appears to include drugs made from fungi even though fungi are
not plants. (The higher fungi are more closely related to animals.)
Many US thug departments systematically purchase access to the Fog
Reveal "service" which provides access to an enormous data base of
people's movements.
*Tell Congress to Stop Big Oil. Tax Windfall Profits Now.*
Biden has proposed firmer policies for making the results of
federally-funded research, and the experimental data, available to the
public(PDF).
This is a good step in the right direction, but we also need to do
something about the harm done by trade secrecy for science and
engineering that isn't federally funded. This harms medicine and
denies users' right to repair hardware and program free software to
run it.
The proposal has one small problem that is potentially disastrous: the
new systems of publication don't have to take effect until 2025. If a
right-wing government is elected in 2024, it could cancel them before
they even take effect. Yes, that election would cause bigger
disasters — but why enable it to cause another one?
A mother writes about swapping household roles with her three children
for five days, seriously, and how her children became more mature and
responsible and developed better relationships with her and each
other.
Environmentalists are suing the US Forest Service for approving a new
railroad through a protected "roadless area", for the sake of opening
up a new oil field.
The Forest Service paid no attention to the danger
of exacerbating global heating disaster.
Amory Lovins argues that most existing nuclear power plants are so
expensive to operate that we would be better off in just a few years
by shutting them down and investing the savings in constructing
renewable electric generation.
When British people mourn the queen, they may be mourning the safety
of their lives, as they watch Tories destroy the social welfare state
that their lives depend on.
Vague state laws prohibiting abortion, under criteria that are not
entirely clear, can kill patients who need medical care that may be
prohibited, because doctors are afraid to do it.
*Two [of the wrecker's] officials subpoenaed for fundraising to
undermine elections.*
Ukraine launched an attack to the east near Kharkiv and has captured
the strategic rail junction of Kupiansk, which the Putin forces have
been using to send supplies to a substantial part of the front.
The Putin forces soldiers who are cut off may have to surrender.
That would be a very good thing — more victory with less bloodshed.
Reportedly Ukraine's army advanced 30 miles along a narrow route.
That exposes them to the danger of counterattack from the flank, but
perhaps the Putin forces are not capable of doing such a thing.
Jackson, Mississippi, now has running water, but making it safe to drink
will take lots of money, spent on decades of work.
Some employers monitor workers minute by minute. Some won't pay for
work that wasn't recorded by the monitoring software.
To prevent competitive advantage (or the belief that there is
competitive advantage) from stampeding all businesses into intrusive
monitoring of workers as if they were machines, we should legislate
rules that limit monitoring. When a business argues that "We will be
at a disadvantage if we don't do this to our workers, we will have two
responses: (1) your competitors can't do this either, and (2) respect
for human beings is more important than how much profit you make".
Shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has destroyed part of the
fossil-fuel power plant which provided power to keep the nuclear plant
cool if it were to shut down.
This is a step closer to a nuclear disaster that would affect the
whole region.
I have seen no conclusive evidence that proves which side is doing the
shelling, but Ukraine has nothing to gain from it, whereas Putin has
made a strategy of outrageous threats. It is plausible that he would
say, "I'll poison this land if I can't have it. And some of my own
land at the same time."
Bluffing is also part of his strategy. That he would say that does not
imply he would actually do it.
Greenpeace dropped boulders into a "protected" area of the sea to
physically protect it from bottom trawling. The UK government
responded with unusual vigor to block plans to drop additional
boulders.
Most "protected" maritime areas in UK waters are not protected from
much. But at least they are now protected from slowly falling boulders.
Debunking Manchin's bogus reasons to build the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
*One in 10 US households struggles to afford enough food, study finds.*
Activists are pressuring big western banks to stop supporting Russian
oil companies.
After several failures, one 14th Amendment case has succeeded in knocking
a participant in the Jan 6 insurrection off a ballot.
See how US representatives and senators voted on bills(PDF) to defend and assure
voting rights.
Republican poll worker training in Michigan urged trainees to break rules
and hide it.
A judge overturned the rule that employer-funded medical insurance
must cover medicine to control HIV.
Requiring employers to pay for employees' medical care gets the job
done, but has bad side effects. For instance, it gives employers an
incentive to replace workers with robots. And people who don't have
an employer to fill this role get left out.
Instead, the state ought to pay directly for medical care, and raise
income by taxing the rich. That would avoid all these problems,
including the issue of whether the employer's religion should govern
the employee's medical care.
However, there is no chance of passing the laws to do this unless we
elect many more progressives to Congress, and in the mean time, this
decision will be a setback for preventing further cases of HIV in the US.
*Oil and gas firms’ green investments fail to match promise of adverts.*
Legal experts rebuke the "special master" decision.
It has never made sense to me that an ex-official could claim
"executive privilege" over the use of public documents to investigate
per for possible prosecution. Surely the current officials are the
ones who decide whether privilege applies.
However, I've seen claims, from people it seemed ought to know, that
it is accepted that ex-presidents have a certain amount of executive
privilege over the documents from their activities.
I wish I understood how to reconcile this disagreement.
*The Democrats are gaining because Americans want jobs, not Capitol mobs.*
*US farmers face plague of pests as global heating raises soil temperatures.*
The Oath Keepers' leaked lists of members include over 80 public
officials and candidates, 370 thugs, and 100 soldiers.
Not everyone in the lists is or was a real member.
Michigan will vote on an initiative to legalize abortion.
Activists have looked through federal laws and found many executive powers
that can be used to move the US away from fossil fuels.
In the UK, motorists that want to park are in many places forced to
choose between one kind of oppression and another.
In some places, they are required to pay through a snoop-phone.
That is unjust because it identifies them, and makes them run nonfree software.
In others, they are charged for parking by a system that recognizes
car license plates. That spares them the nonfree software, but it is
unjust because it identifies them,
There should be a law requiring all charged parking spaces to allow cash
payment and not record who parked there.
Everyone: call on CEOs of GM and Ford: stop funding candidates
that promote voter suppression.
US citizens: call on your senators to pass the Pregnant Workers
Fairness Act.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
The wrecker's effort to make Georgia officials arbitrarily replace
Georgia's electors could put him in prison. It seems that prosecutors
are working to assemble a solid case.
California plans to subsidize some women from anti-abortion states to
travel to California to get an abortion.
Prime Minister Truss has appointed the head of a lobbying company as
her chief of staff, and he now has her office entirely trussed up.
As minister, she gave farmers permission to dump large amounts of agricultural waste, polluting the rivers.
Rules and inspections serve a crucial purpose, and deregulation can
cause disasters, sometimes permanent ones.
She plans to push ahead with fracking in the UK.
She also plans to rescue fossil fuel companies
and cut taxes for the wealthy, while probably making working people
bear the burden.
Perhaps not by coincidence, she got a lot of campaign funds from
planet roasters.
The wrecker's dream wall on the border with Mexico is the perfect
symbol of the spirit of trumpery: claiming to protect working-class
whites against notional threats, while actually screwing and cheating
them (and the other working-class Americans too).
Ginni Thomas has close relationships with various anti-abortion
organizations that called on the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v Wade.
Tajikistan has forcibly deported hundreds of the Afghan refugees that
came there a year ago after the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
It seems to be trying to deport many more.
Many will find life difficult as they have none of the identity papers
that people there are now required to have.
After the superflood in Pakistan, famine will follow.
As continued global heating smashes into the increasing human
population, disasters get ever larger. Eventually the world's
capacity to help stricken regions will prove insufficient. Maybe that
is happening now — several drought-caused famines are happening in
Africa, and they are getting insufficient aid.
Even if we do our best to decarbonize, global heating will continue
for many years. We need to limit the human population or it will be
limited by disasters that kill millions.
*Big oil companies are spending millions to appear 'green'. Their
investments tell a different story, report shows.*
Sea-level rise will destroy 100,000 buildings in the US by 2050,
and perhaps a million by 2100.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to ban use of sewage
sludge, contaminated with PFAS, as fertilizer.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on TV networks to show the final January 6
committee hearings in prime time.
California has passed a law empowering the state to set minimum pay
rates and working conditions for fast food workers.
Iran has found a new repressive use for facial recognition: punishing women
who violate imposed religious dress codes.
Stalkers are using AirTags to track people. Apple will warn you if someone is tracking you with an AirTag, but only if you allow Apple to
track you — all the time, for certain.
(Tracker Detect surely works by telling Apple where you are — and
what more data does it send?)
That does not fix the problem, it just replaces one tracking system
with another.
Making the AirTag give a sound is a step towards a real fix, but it
should also give off radio waves that allow you to find it using a
portable radio receiver nearby to get a fix on it.
A real solution would be to require AirTag-like products to emit
radio waves that one could detect with some non-computerized receiver.
Putin is formally eliminating the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta,
which in practice has already been forced to shut down by jailing its
reporters.
Israel admits that a soldier "probably" shot Shireen Abu Aqleh, but claims
it was a mistake.
I don't consider "mistake" an acceptable excuse for shooting an
unarmed person at a substantial distance away when no fighting is
going on. That is not a natural mistake, it is one you'd have
to go out of your way for — meaning, not really a mistake.
So why did it happen? Israel does not try to explain.
A Chilean thug shot Fabiola Campillai in the face with a tear gas
cannister, and the resulting injuries caused brain damage: she can no
longer see, taste or smell. He has been convicted for this attack and
is now awaiting sentence.
Such attacks are not unusual in Chile (nor indeed in many other
places). Chilean thugs blinded 400 people during the 2019 wave of
protests. Thugs anywhere tend to have right-wing views, and may hate
leftist protesters to the point of killing or framing them. This thug
shot someone who was not even protesting.
Sra. Campillai did not let these injuries crush her. She ran for the
Chilean Senate, and I've been informed that she won.
*Russian journalist facing 24-year jail term for treason refuses to
sign "confession."*
Psychotherapy must consider the external situation that makes
people depressed or anxious.
Can some sort of change in your mind help you cope with the external
situation? I think it can, because different people respond
differently to the same external situation. Some can face up to the
bad situation and try to help deal with it, while as others succumb to
counterproductive rage, despair, or jealousy.
(satire) *Shocking Video Captures Calm Police Officers Handling
Situation Nonviolently.*
After seeing the basic plan for Australia's proposed "indigenous voice
to Parliament", I think it is ok.
The reticence about stating any specifics made me wonder what it was
they did not want to talk about. I was concerned, specifically, that
the plan might incorporate racial distinctions into Australians'
political rights. Australia did just that for most of the 20th
century, to the detriment of the indigenous people, but two such
wrongs would not make a right.
I'm relieved that there is none of that in the proposal. So I'm in
favor of it. Indigenous Australians suffer from racism and its
effects, and this may help them encourage measures to improve the
situation.
Rich countries (and rich businesses) are responsible for most of the
greenhouse emissions that have destroyed nearly all of the food
growing in Pakistan, as well as a large fraction of its housing. They
ought to be held liable.
However, as experience with Covid-19 vaccines shows, rich businesses
don't hesitate to drive people to death for their profit, and rich
country governments mostly serve those rich businesses. Even when it
comes to saving the lives of their own future citizens from the
consequences of global heating, those governments are paralyzed.
Biden has started using the US Petroleum Reserve to stabilize oil
prices, which ideally ought to regulate the rate of oil drilling and
maintain a strong incentive to conserve.
This plan will do some good, but I think it will not, by itself, bring
about fast enough decarbonization. And it certainly won't prevent
busting the carbon budget. We need to accompany it with a carbon tax
that will increase yearly on a predefined schedule. However, the
Republicans plus Sinema and Manchin block that, for now.
If the public has an incentive to conserve fossil fuels, that doesn't
make it practical for people to do so. That requires investment,
and most Americans have no money to invest, in this or in anything.
We need governments, at whatever level, to make this investment.
School closures, and "remote learning", did considerable harm to the education
of a generation of American children.
They were necessary, but they lasted longer in the US than in other
wealthy countries. That was partly because US plutocratists had
eliminated the incomplete social safety net that had existed in the
1970s ("Why waste our money on those poor people?"), and partly
because of politicized sabotage of other methods of reducing disease
transmission, and only school shutdowns were available to compensate.
The damage it did was more than most people recognize — it pushed most people
into use of unjust software
such as Zoom.
A positive feedback in the climate system: hot weather encourages
right-wing hatred, and right-wing politics supports more global
heating.
*Body of British aid worker captured by Russian proxies shows "signs
of torture".*
Michigan's ban on abortions has been overturned based on the state
constitution.
The wrecker brought documents to Mar-a-Lago that discuss US spies in
foreign countries.
There was little security there against foreign spies
who might have sought to identify them.
Earth is approaching five major climate tipping points.
Research identified 11 more major climate tipping points that
are further in the future. If we don't get our act in gear,
we will fall over them too.
A number of right-wing Russian bloggers lambaste the Putin forces as a
failure.
Why, I wonder, does Putin let them continue to say these things? He
has to have a reason. I speculate that it is because they are
building support for Putin to declare war and start forcing lots of
Russians into fighting it.
The US Army discovered one of the many rabid right-wing fanatics in its ranks
in the process of investigating him for another reason.
*Serbia and Kosovo reach free movement agreement.*
This is a first step in reducing the hostility between those two countries,
The mainstream media, in covering Biden's speech about the Republican attack on
America's system of government, treated truth and lies as equivalent.
*Trader Joe's broke labor laws in effort to stop stores unionizing,
workers say.*
The UK as "regulatory state": government no longer believes it can, or
should, actually do anything, but only regulate the procedures used by
businesses that actually do things. And it does not try to ensure
that jobs are done right, or that they are done at all.
Once the state is seen not to be doing enough in some area, it rations
out whatever capacity happens to exist.
Bernie Sanders calls on working class Americans
to stand up to dooH niboR.
The wrecker's motive for taking home secret documents may have been to
threaten the government
so it would not prosecute him for other, bigger crimes,
such as trying to falsify the election's results.
If the US charges him with the crime of taking those records home and
leaving them in an insecure place, that will appear to be a political
act. If it does not, that too will appear to be a political act.
Faced with the choice, it should take the bold choice.
As we have seen, the Espionage Act needs to be amended to allow
a public interest defense so heroes such as Chelsea Manning and Julian
Assange will not be convicted. That would have no effect on the
wrecker's trial; he cannot point to any public interest purpose for
taking those secret documents home.
Los Angeles is in a heat wave worse than that of a few weeks ago.
This is causing acute danger, especially to homeless people, but also
to firefighters and people who work in food trucks.
A museum is going to "repatriate" many artifacts (and some remains)
excavated in archaeological digs. A campaign has convinced the museum's
administration that rationally exploring humanity's past is "theft".
One advisor is quoted as citing supernatural beliefs as the basis for
that claim, asserting that "ancestors" have a "home" and can "return"
to it. A living person can cherish a home, or miss a cherished former
home, but a former person (former because deceased) is no longer
capable of either one. And only a living person can go somewhere.
Remains can only be put here or there.
Were those long-dead people anyone's ancestors? Presumably, some had
descendants and some did not, but the person cited calls them all
"ancestors." We are not dealing with rational belief here. Can
anyone relate some of those deceased in a concrete way to anyone
living? The article does not say so, and I think it would have said
so, if that were so.
Living people have the right to believe what they wish, and it's kind
to cater to anyone's belief when that doesn't sacrifice anything
important. However, their belief, no matter how much certainty they
feel, is not a compelling reason for society to adopt policies that
interfere with science.
In 2020 I signed a form to donate my body to medical research and/or
teaching after I die. The office that handles these donations was
closed in 2020, but I recently determined that it was open again, and
mailed the form. I suppose my organs will be too old to be worth
transplanting, but I've kept that option open too. This way, my dead
body will be able to do some good for humanity. Too bad about those
that won't.
The Minnesota Nurses Association will go on strike against private
hospitals in the state.
(satire) *Mississippi Governor Sends Emergency Workers To Contain
Jackson Flood To Black Areas.*
Elections in Texas and Kentucky are at risk as many election officials
quit in response to threats of violence.
An out-and-out planet roaster is now the minister in charge of the UK's
decarbonization.
Chileans wanted to replace Pinochet's constitution, but rejected the new
one that was drafted. What next?
Kiribati's government has "suspended" all the judges of its appeals court, causing a constitutional crisis.
On a hunch, I pose the question of whether that government is
negotiating with China.
Some states have amended their constitutions to grant people the right
to a "healthful" or clean environment. Some now require regulators
to apply much stricter standards for potentially polluting activities.
Making an extrovert
Q: How can you make your child grow up to be an extrovert?
A: Feed per lots of extroversion olive oil.
Calling on the Democratic Party to ban the use of
SuperPAC funds in
its primary elections.
* There is a fatal disconnect between a political system that promises
democratic equality and freedom while carrying out socioeconomic
injustices that result in grotesque
income inequality and political
stagnation.*
As long as rich people can effectively manipulate elections, we
effectively have plutocracy rather than democracy. That's why I have
called so many times for Americans to
recognize plutocracy as the enemy
and fight to restore democracy.
*Facebook Accused of
Fueling Bolsonaro's Coup-Mongering.*
Having reduced Jackson's water supply to a
fragile state by
under funding it,
right-wing politicians in Mississippi now want to
use that as an
excuse to privatize the system.
This is the same thing that the Tories are doing to the British
National Health System.
There are of course differences in detail; it is possible to
privatize the NHS a little at a time by encouraging first the wealthy,
then the not quite so wealthy, and eventually anyone not abjectly
poor, to move one by one to private medicine, but it is not so easy to
do that with the municipal water supply. But I don't think they are
greatly important.
Basically, this is a standard right-wing plan of operation
to achieve their goal of reducing most people to poverty so that
the rich (who fund the right-wing campaigns) will get richer.
*The [wrecker's] officials who took children from
their parents should be prosecuted.*
That includes the wrecker himself, as the one who planned those
actions.
An idea for how the government should help the poor pay for fuel and
electricity: pay for all of it up to a certain necessary level, then
tax
purchases beyond that much.
Legislators have proposed a bill to add a defense for
whistleblowers
to the Espionage Act.
This could save Julian Assange, and other heroes in the future.
The IAEA inspectors at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant report
that the damage from shelling of the plant did not create a danger of
nuclear disaster, but this was due to luck. They called for
establishing a "nuclear safety and security protection zone,"
which
would demilitarize the plant.
*195 Election Deniers [supporters of the bullshitter's Big Lie] Are on
the Ballot in November — And Many Are Expected to Win.*
195 Election Deniers Are on the Ballot in November—And Many Are Expected to Win
(satire) *U.S. Escalates Campaign Against Spotted Lanternflies
By
Arming Praying Mantises.*
Queensland, a state in Australia, states that it has "returned" several
national
parks to indigenous "traditional owners".
What does it mean, practically speaking, for these parks to be returned to
an owner other than Australia?
Does this mean they aren't national parks any more?
Will people from other groups face interference in visiting these parks?
Labour will almost certainly win the next UK election; Prime Minister Truss
has
little that can inspire voters.
The doubt is whether the Labour Party, as it is now, will go beyond
just taking the harshest edge off Tory policies.
Facebook engineers testifying to Congress said that nobody is capable
of saying where
Facebook stores its useds' data.
*Sudan accused of trying to ‘bury the truth’
with mass graves for
protesters.*
In Hong Kong, metaphors that could mean criticism of China
now lead
to conviction in court.
US citizens: call on your state representative to help end the
construction of new natural gas infrastructure.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code
from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on the Federal Reserve to protect our economy and
communities from Wall Street funded climate chaos.
EU citizens: call on your MEPs to vote to stop classifying "forest
biomass" as a "renewable energy source".
Burning wood on a small scale is renewable, but it tends to get out of
hand and result in destruction of forests. Lots of small-scale users
in Haiti eliminated most of the forests in that country. Nowadays,
the EU policy encourages industrial-scale burning of wood, and the
deforestation at industrial scale.
There isn't time, before the disaster we need to try to avoid, for new
trees to grow. We must stop the cutting and burning of the existing
trees.
*South African court bans offshore oil and gas exploration by Shell.*
This has a good chance of keeping some fossil fuels unextracted,
which is what we need to do world-wide to avoid global heating disaster,
given the fact that we have used up the carbon budget.
New York State has passed new gun control rules to replace those
that the Supreme Court ruled against.
Pressure from China — threats of noncooperation — delayed the UN report
on repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang for a whole year.
Bad as racism, plutocracy and media bias are in the US, we must not
forget that things can get far, far worse — and China shows what that
is like.
The US bullies some Muslims to act as spies on their friends. China
bullies all Chinese to act as spies and agents of pressure, and
bullies international institutions to serve its will.
Putin has recently reshaped Russia into a sort of quasi-China. He
engages in cruelty massively, but in a more emotional fashion than
China's machine-like callousness; meanwhile, his grip on Russians is
still not as tight as Chairman Xi's. There is a chance to defeat Putin
before he can reach that point.
A Tory minister has surprisingly acknowledged that a good family
is any group of people that make children feel loved and supported.
I did not have a good family — after age 8 or so, I did not feel that
either parent's house was my home. The next time that I felt I had a
home was when I lived in Currier House at Harvard. After I was
expelled for passing too many classes (I was too grief-stricken to
attend the graduation ceremony), I felt that the MIT AI lab was my
home, for a few years. Perhaps the support I felt there is what
enabled me to develop the strength to begin, in the late 70s, to stand
up against wrongs I saw around me.
Tory strangulation of the National Health Service has left 10% of
staff positions unfilled.
Patients who have money are turning to private doctors.
When they have all given up on the NHS, plutocratist politicians will dare to
render the NHS totally ineffective; non-rich Britons will get little
medical care, and some will die, and Tories will be satisfied.
A government ready to spend more money on making life easier for
the non-rich would find it easy to fix this problem. Perhaps that
would call for taxing the rich, instead of "trickle down" economics.
Russia's fossil fuel industry has been hit by a series of mysterious
deaths in the past few months.
I don't have proof that any of them was murdered, but it is
implausible that they were not. I am sure Russian repression agents,
as well as gangsters, remember the Defenestration of Prague, iteration
2, in which Soviet agents murdered Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk.
Amazon and Starbucks are refusing to negotiate with newly unionized
employees.
At the Starbucks at 874 Comm Ave in Boston, the company put in a new
manager who cut the hours of many of the staff so that they could no
longer make a living. Rather than give up, they went on strike.
The store has been entirely closed for many weeks.
*Ginni Thomas lobbied Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn 2020 election.*
*[The corrupter] says he plans to pardon US Capitol attack
participants if elected.*
Finally, one case in which he actually demonstrates loyalty to someone
who is not rich.
*Top [Guatemalan] corruption prosecutor held in jail as Guatemalan
elite bids to purge foes.*
Carbon capture and storage can't be a path to ending fossil fuel
emissions if the CO2 that it captures is pumped into oil fields to
squeeze out more oil.
It becomes just another way to extract more oil.
*Burning native forest wood waste for electricity shouldn’t be classed as
renewable energy, [Australia] report suggests.*
Planet roasters search constantly for excuses to bend the definition
of "renewable energy."
The likelihood of Bolsonaro's defeat in the next election has inspired a rush
to cut down the Amazon forest as fast as possible.
Several major economies are planning to impose a limit on the price
paid to Russia for oil, starting in December.
The price limit could apply to imports by other countries when the
shipping involves EU countries in some way.
Russia says it will refuse to sell at that low price, and that will
continue the contest of economic muscle. So far, Putin has come out
ahead in this contest. The question will be whether other customers
will buy all the oil Putin needs to sell.
Ukrainian prosecutors have charged a specific Russian soldier with
joining in the murder of two civilians.
The soldiers talked with the civilians, then shot them in the back
as the latter were walking away.
Biden proposes to spend 13 billion dollars to hire 100,000 more cops,
supposedly to reduce the danger of violent crime. But it might not
achieve anything on that dimension, and it would
ramp up repression in
the form of arrests for drug possession.
It would be more effective to put that money into social programs and
low-rent housing.
FEMA's director acknowledges that FEMA's maps of flood danger need to
be updated to
reflect changes due to global heating.
Chileans rejected the draft constitution written by the
constitutional
convention.
Pinochet's constitution was designed for repression; it needs to be
replaced. But with what? I suggest asking the public to vote on
several questions about which of the major changes they like or
dislike. Those answers might help in writing a constitution that
a substantial majority of the public will support.
New and old unusual ways to raise funds for critical infrastructure
to help farms and
people cope with drought.
South Africa has banned seismic blasting in the ocean off the
Wild
Coast area.
Shell was going to do the blasting to search for
fossil fuels that
humanity cannot afford to extract anyway.
The blasting itself would
have
harmed whales and other wildlife.
I celebrate the outcome of this case, but I think that the views of
people living near the proposed area of exploitation are a weak foundation
for something as important as limiting fossil fuel extraction. The dangers
of the extraction are global, and the ban should be global too.
Fiji's government has bounced from coup to coup, and the current prime
minister rules in an
authoritarian and vengeful way.
Meanwhile, competition with China for influence blocks Australia
from using its influence to promote human rights in the Pacific.
Governments would respond to that by jumping to China's side; China
does not seek to promote democracy.
Gentrification is driven by powerful business forces, often supported
by the state. If you oppose the change, focus on those forces,
not on
the visible symptoms.
Some people are prepared to pay thousands of dollars for "just the
right" puppy, without ever actually seeing it. Sometimes they pay
the thousands and
never even get the puppy — it is a scam.
Nothing can excuse swindling, but the victims would never have fallen
prey to this scan if they had not started with a foolish approach. An
adult ought to know better than to believe that one specific puppy,
that perse has never met, is the one and only right one.
There is a certain tendency for people to believe that spending a lot
of money on something unusual and different in your life will make it
better. But it doesn't usually have that effect.
The Credible Messenger Mentoring Movement helps teenagers from
disprivileged groups avoid the temptation of gangs and drugs by
offering them mentors: adults
who grew up in the same community and
succeeded in meeting that challenge.
The mentors are credible in that they personally experienced the situation
that they guide the teenagers in coping with.
Artist Ken Lum made two sculptures, a bison and a fur trader (perhaps
also a bison hunter), to display in the city of Edmonton so as to
provoke thought about the extermination of the bison. The city
cancelled their display in the name of
hyper concern for some people's hypersensitivity.
Hunters did not kill 100.000000 percent of the bison — the species still
survives in some protected places.
Starbucks carefully cultivates a let's-be-kind-to-each-other image
while treating employees like dirt and punishing
them illegally for
organizing.
I too stopped by the strike site at 874 Comm Ave, Boston, and I found out
how the workers have been able to keep the picket going 24/7 for months:
it's not just the workers! Volunteers from the community help out.
I wish I could post a link to more information, but that site won't
show anything unless the visitor runs nonfree JavaScript code, and I
will not direct people to such a site. Is there a web developer who
would be interested in setting up a freedom-respecting site to show
the same information? The strikers might be happy to adopt that site
if some developers set it up.
Recommending that the abortion rights movement take inspiration from
the 80s/90s organization Act Up, which campaigned for
AIDS patients'
rights and medical care.
Scientists conclude that parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and
Bolivia have already reached a tipping point, and
will not regrow as
forest if left alone.
We can't be sure just how big a disaster this will be, but it will be
big.
*Doomscrolling linked to poor physical and
mental health, study finds.*
The Tory Party has selected a plutocratist
extremist as the new prime
minister.
The nation mostly opposes her already. As most Britons are forced
into poverty, her program is to cut taxes (a benefit for the wealthier
Britons) and
cut spending (more Tory cruelty).
Perhaps recognizing her unpopularity, she intends to delay elections
as late as possible. Two years in power will allow her and the Tories
to do no end of harm.
Identitarians may rejoice that, for the first time, none of the four
principal ministers in the cabinet will be a white man. Perhaps being
forced into poverty, and allowing the government to get away with
mistreating people illegally, will hurt less this way than if white
men had done it.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the No Tax Breaks for
Union Busting Act.
This would eliminate the tax deduction for the money that companies
spend on union-busting. I think this won't be enough to eliminate
union-busting, but I think it will convince some companies to do less
of that.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Department of Education to take legal action
against Florida's law that tries to censor discussion of uncomfortable
topics in school.
US citizens: call on Congress and the White House to make
Afghanistan's fund reserves available to the Afghan people.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code
from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call for stopping Florida law that is designed to
intimidate and censor university professors and students.
US citizens: call on the Federal Reserve not to raise interest rates on working people. Government must fight corporate greed instead.
Raising a child through high school now costs $310,000 in the US.
That is for a middle-income married couple's second child.
(The first would presumably cost more.)
This doesn't count the breakup of the relationship, which is a
frequent result of having a child.
One Republican senate candidate used to claim on his web site
that the Democrats stole the 2020 election — for the Republican
primary. Now that he has won that, he has deleted the claim.
For Republicans, deceit is habitual.
Some thug departments in the UK require each thug to list any
reporters perse knows.
US court cases are considering whether litigation insurance policies
for oil companies include lawsuits for damaging the climate.
*Greece to launch parliamentary inquiry into spy scandal*
about government spying on political leaders.
*Sudan journalists defy military rule by forming first union in 30 years.*
The head of World Vision International (a charity)'s work in Gaza,
Mohammad el Halabi, has been convicted by Israel of supposedly
routing aid funds to Hamas, but the trial appears to have been bogus.
Human Rights Watch, the government of Australia, and others have concluded
that the conviction is not based on evidence.
* Once-in-a-decade plans to protect the natural world and halt its
destruction will be decided in Canada in December.*
Salafi Arabia has sentenced Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani to 45 years
in prison for some unstated acts of dissent.
Americans are catching on to the threat that right-wing extremists pose
with their persistent dishonesty and violence.
Advocating attacks on our system of government, or on Americans who
disagree with them, is far beyond merely holding views about policies
— even major policies — that we disagree with. Those are citizens,
whose freedom we must respect even as we try to convince them.
The attackers hate our freedoms, and have declared their intention to
use dishonest and/or violent means to eliminate them. We must prepare
to fight them, and we can't be nice about it.
Breathing nitrous oxide too much and too often can cause grave nerve
injuries, if you don't protect yourself with supplements of vitamin B12.
This is a job for … public health education!
In some cities in France, people now need to put a sticker on the
mailbox if they wish to permit delivery of junk mail.
This is intended to reduce waste of resources and waste to be disposed of.
*Polling shows that US voters favor climate bills — yet assume fellow
Americans don’t.*
I suspect that the propaganda term "centrist" is part of the cause of
this. Plutocratist Democratic politicians discourage firm climate
defense action to serve the plutocrats who fund them, and the
mainstream media refer to them as "centrist." This is designed to,
and often does, convince most Americans that those plutocratists
represent the political "center" — but
the real political center is well to the left of there.
Many folders intended for secret files were found empty
in the
corrupter's possession.
I wonder whether the government knows what documents were in those
folders. The article does not clearly say.
*Arkansas [thugs] suspended after bystander films
savage street
beating of shoe less man.*
I would like to suggest suspending them by the neck, but not seriously
— I oppose the death penalty, without exception. What those thugs
deserve is a long prison sentence — longer because they betrayed the
duties of their job as police officers.
*GOP operative wants LGBTQ community put in "isolation
camps for their own
protection".*
A right-wing manipulation group, the Tea Party Patriots, undertook to
sabotage the US efforts to resist Covid-19.
It may have been
substantially effective.
I do not believe anyone is entitled to the "freedom" to go unmasked
indoors, risking spreading Covid-19, from mere preference.
500 deaths per day adds up to around 180,000 per year. That is around
a 4% increment in the death rate.
The number of people developing long Covid per day is likely to be in
the thousands, and the number of people unable to work is estimated as
on the order of
2.5% of the entire working population.
When Dubya released some British prisoners from Guantánamo, his
officials asked the UK government to jail them arbitrarily or through
unjust trials.
The UK government refused to do this.
New York City is suing Starbucks for firing a union organizer.
Rather than using federal labor law, which generally prohibits this too,
it is using a
New York City law that is stronger.
*Columbus [thug] shot Donovan Lewis within a second of opening the door
to his room, and then, while he was dying,
told him to 'stop
resisting.'"*
I have a hunch that thug said "stop resisting" to a man who was not resisting
as a way of pretending that he was resisting — to create a fake excuse
to use later.
*There can be no middle ground in the fight between
democracy and
authoritarian fascism.*
Right-wing extremists make threats of domestic terrorism in the hope of
intimidating the defenders of democracy. We must not be intimidated
out of defending it.
Ralph Nader invites people to help form an organization to defend the right
(and the option) of
using cash to pay.
Proposing a progressive price system for electricity and fossil fuels,
as a way of helping the poor without
subsidizing fossil fuel for the rich.
That would be much better than giving rich people the same subsidy as
the poor, but I've already explained that a subsidy for energy is a
terrible mistake.
(satire) *Hawaiian Travel Ad Boasts Sandy White Tourists
As Far As The
Eye Can See.*
Don't worry about the resources — tourists pay high prices for those.
*Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies
Nearly Doubled in 2021.*
Protests are planned against the US banks and insurance
companies that make
fossil fuel expansion possible.
Here is the full list of events,
viewable without Javascript.
I am very glad that the campaign has made the info available in this way. It means I can promot the campaign without promoting nonfree software
*The 'Green Revolution' Has Failed in Africa and
It's Time for a New
Direction.*
I have no special knowledge about on this field — this seems plausible,
but I can't be sure whether it is true.
*Schools must teach the history of strategic non-violent campaigns
that
won civil rights and women's rights.*
US citizens: call on Congress to keep censorship of abortion advice illegal.
The Capitol Switchboard number is +1-202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
*Chipotle Workers in Michigan Vote to Form Fastfood Chain's First
Union.*
Officially forming a union is just the first step. A bigger hurdle follows:
getting the company to negotiate with the union in good faith.
*Irish farmers say they will be forced to cull cows to meet climate targets.*
Most of us will have to make sacrifices in the effort to avoid total
disaster. Would those farmers prefer collapse of civilization?
Let's just make sure that the billionaires don't dump their share of
the sacrifices onto the rest of us.
*The Violence at the Heart of [Republican extremism].*
A feminist recognizes that having women elected to office is not going
to help women's rights, if the women who are elected are right-wing.
*Invasions and illegal exploitation of indigenous lands in Brazil tripled
under Bolsonaro, says advocacy group.*
Darya Dugina, who was killed by a car bomb recently, was reportedly
an important figure in Russian disinformation campaigns.
Perhaps the car bomb attack was aimed at her rather than her father,
but I think it would have been an unreliable plan. I don't think
Ukraine would have burned such a capability on a propoagandist or
a philosopher.
A US judge ruled that the US government cannot seize the funds of the
Afghan central bank, and that they belong to the Afghan people, but
not (if I understand correctly) to the Taliban.
The arguments cited are legal arguments, not moral ones. Nonetheless,
I'm happy with the outcome — I hope it will not be reversed.
Greenland's ice will melt enough to raise sea level about one foot.
It is too late to prevent this, but we may be able to prevent further
melting in Greenland.
Ice is melting elsewhere too, so the actual rise that is now inevitable
will be more than one foot.
Bogus Johnson is trying to arrange a comeback, aided by the fact that
the two contenders from which Tory Party members will soon choose a
new prime minister are inclined to make poor people suffer, and likely
to lead to a big Tory defeat in the next election.
Ukraine has built wooden imitations of US HIMARS missile launchers,
to use as decoys. The Putin forces fire expensive missiles at them.
It was a good hack, but I'm afraid that whoever revealed it has ruined
it. What a pity.
*California approves landmark bill to give fast-food workers more
power.*
Restaurant owners argued that improving low-paid workers' pay and
treatment would increase the prices of restaurant food. I am sure
that will happen, to some extent, but we restaurant customers can live
with that. I also expect that the restaurant owners are exaggerating.
The water supply of Jackson, Mississippi, has broken down and is out
of service. The immediate cause was flooding that affected the water
purification plant.
Mississippi is a Republican-controlled state, and many of the
residents of Jackson are black. I suspect that the state has underfunded
all civic systems in Jackson for a long time, and that this is the
underlying reason for the failure.
An excavation in Norwich, England, found the bodies of 17 Jews
murdered in a pogrom in 1190.
Antisemitism in medieval Europe often led to murder.
* The European Union's power sector is a good example of what market
fundamentalism has done to electricity networks the world over.*
The teachers of Columbus, Ohio, went on strike and gained important
victories.
The Federal Trade Commission is suing a data broker for selling
location data and including data about visits to "sensitive"
locations. This shows how fundamentally weak the US approach
to privacy is.
Any location data record can be sensitive for some people. The way to
truly protect people's privacy is to ensure that people's locations
are not tracked.
*Prevent tree extinctions or face global ecological catastrophe,
scientists warn.* Over 1/4 of tree species are endangered.
US citizens: call on Congress to block any new fossil fuel handouts,
including the Manchin deal.
Bernie Sanders: *The US has a ruling class — and Americans must stand
up to it.*
California's worst heatwave yet is making firemen collapse, even as it
sparks wildfires.
*"They are human beings": Chicago mayor welcomes migrants bussed by Texas.*
What a delightful way to highlight Republicans' inhumanity and cruel spirit.
A Canadian spy inside PISSI helped Shamima Begum and two other British
girls get to Syria to join PISSI.
The British government reportedly decided to cover this up as a favor
to Canada.
The fact that the girls received assistance from a surprising source
does not reduce the gravity of the crime they had already gone to great
lengths to commit. However, aiding volunteers for PISSI rather than
stopping them made the British and Canadian governments partially responsible
for their arrival in Syria and participation in PISSI.
To punish Shamima Begum for that crime may well be justified,
but exiling a citizen is not a legitimate punishment even as a sentence.
To do it as an administrative decision is punishment without trial,
and that is never acceptable.
Statistics on long Covid in the UK. 400,000 people still have it two years
after their acute infection.
I wonder how many people in the UK had been infected, by that point in time.
*Hawaii to close its only coal power plant in a step toward renewable
energy.*
*Democrat Mary Peltola wins Alaska special election over Sarah Palin.*
Peltola will be a representative until the end of this year, and will
have to run for reelection in November along with everyone else in the
House of Representatives.
A US diplomat says that Libyans have mostly given up hope that the two
factions that rule parts of Libya can ever make peace and unite the
country.
Michigan has a body, with two Democrats and two Republicans, whose approval
is needed for ballot initiatives. The two Republicans voted against
the abortion rights initiative and the voting rights initiative, causing a tie
which blocked both initiatives.
An official UN report describes China's torture and brainwashing of
Uyghurs.
Watering flowers while black can get you arrested in Alabama.
Jackson's water supply has been slowly failing for years because of a lack of
funds to maintain it.
This was decided by the state's Republican government.
The Republican Party has been going all out to help its [richest] backers
avoid paying taxes..*
Recent observations of Greenland's melting ice show that climate models
have underestimated the rate of sea-level rise.
I've been predicting for years that models underestimate the effects
of future global heating. They forecast disaster, but the real
disaster will be worse.
(satire) *More MLB Teams Trying To Attract Younger
Audience With Free Prostate Exam Day.*
(satire) *Casting Director Can Tell That Child Actor Doesn't Have The
Abusive Parents It Takes To Make It In Entertainment.*
(satire) *Solar Power Investment Skyrockets Upon Discovery Of Massive
Underground Deposit Of Sunlight.*
How activists in Los Angeles blocked a program to build a lot more jails,
and instead won programs to help people avoid committing crimes and stay
out of jail.
Bernie Sanders comments on today's alignment of unions with
progressives, and other political issues.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to pass the
bills to establish Medicare for All.
To sign without running
nonfree JavaScript code
from the web site, use the
Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act
which will treat Afghan refugees better.
US citizens: call on Congress to overhaul the US credit reporting system.
Google canceled a man's account on seeing he sent a doctor photos of
his baby son' injured genitals.
Despite the publicity, Google has not reinstated his account.
This highlights well-known dangers of automated detection of
possible child sexual abuse images. Beyond that, it also shows that
having humans involved in making the decision is not guaranteed to
correct an erroneous automated detection.
Furthermore, it shows the danger of having various different digital
services provided by a single company, or by companies that have agreed
to work together to kick "offenders" off the services of all of them.
Child sexual abuse is a real problem, but people accused of doing that
are entitled to have a trial before they are punished. We cannot
allow online disservices to implement unofficial punishment without trial.
US citizens: call on Biden to declare a climate emergency.
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