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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.
*Since the attempted assassination of the prime minister of Slovakia, the far right has wasted no time in silencing its critics.*
US citizens: call on Congress not to allow a military draft.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Robert Reich: *The "free market" is nothing but a set of rules, established and enforced by government.* There are many possible sets of rules, and no one of them is "the" free market. Some rules are better for society than others.
The rules we have now were decided by the power of plutocrats that bought politicians. Those rules are bad for most of us. Biden has made improvements in some, but big improvements would require Congress's support.
Everyone: call on T-Mobile, CVS, GM, and Elevance Health to stop funding the right-wing Republican Attorney Generals Association.
*Colorado oil and gas wells can’t fund their own cleanup. Taxpayers may foot the bill.*
*A Carbon Tracker report shows the cost to safely shut down low-producing wells is $3bn more than what they earn.*
The efforts in the US to make mine owners pay the cost of closing up and cleaning up a mine has been haphazard and half-hearted, and mines have continued to cheat the public by dumping these costs on the public.
*Labour is telling Britain it is now a conservative party — and we should believe it.*
Britons who used to look to the Labour Party for something more than small change cling to the hope it will try to But it can't be soon — Starmer has promised so clearly and firmly to reject all that the Labour Party used to stand for that if he did much of that he would be accused of lying.
Wikileaks changed the nature of journalism, but with many organizations now set up to publish leaks, there may not be a need for Wikileaks itself to resume doing so. However, Wikileaks has a reputation for separating the truth from the disinformation, and that could help the public distinguish the two.
Turkey's urban street dogs befriend the people who live nearby and are taken care of by them. Now Erdoğan wants to eliminate them.
This article suggests some questions to me:
Republican Senator Graham warns of a campaign to invent excuses to prosecute Biden, as a way of pretending that the corrupter's serious criminal accusations are mere Republican-style bullshit.
That is the tactic right-wingers use to normalize the persecution of opposition in a right-wing authoritarian regime.
In the recent Indian election, Congress Party election monitors checked the numbers and security seals of individual digital voting machines to detect tampering or failures.
US citizens: call on Congress to ensure no American citizen is denied the right to vote on account of felony convictions.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Climate defense activists are on trial in the UK, charged with organizing a nonviolent and nondestructive protest, intended to be massively disruptive.
I dislike the disruption caused by protests, just as many people do. But climate disaster will be fatal, perhaps for most of humanity, and will cause massive injustice and suffering along the way. The strategies of Just Obey Orders, Just Complain and Just Give Up have failed, so what should humanity do to protect itself if not this?
Everyone: call on Vanguard's new CEO to take the lead in defending the climate.
Some journalists were arbitrarily excluded from an "energy industry" conference in Azerbaijan, one of the preparations for the COP29 climate defense discussion.
The event last year was in Dubai, and was headed by the country's oil minister, who seems to have ensured it made no progress towards achieving its mission.
Several US states require Uber and Lyft to pay drivers a determined minimum wage, and to provide benefits including paid sick leave.
This step forward is a step forward, in those states; it eliminates, there, one of the many reasons to refuse to do business with those companies.
However, the injustices to customers — making users identify themselves to book a ride and to pay, making them run nonfree software, add tracking their movements — are unchanged. As long as that continues, I hope you will join me in refusing to do business with them.
Billionaire Polluters is blowing off what it told the public to convince us that it was trying not to be a planet roaster.
The Supreme Court ruled that cities can imprison people for being homeless.
This is likely to put tens of thousands of Americans in faraway camps that are essentially prisons and faraway dumping grounds. Once there, they are likely to die from all sorts of diseases.
Here is the ACLU's response.
For me, it is clear that punishing people for being poor is inexcusably poor. Forcing poor people to live in a place from which they can't get to work is cruel and self-defeating.
*Biden's agonizing debate performance doesn’t change the reality of this election.*
The biggest question is whether the mob of liars and wreckers led by the corrupter will win and impose authoritarian, plutocratist rule on the US, and persecute his enemies.
Research suggests PFAS are absorbed significantly through human skin.
(satire) *British Science Museum Forced To Return Fire Exhibit Originally Plundered From The Gods.*
US citizens: call on Congress not to cut SNAP benefits.
Some of Biden's important supporters are pressing him to step aside for some other Democrat.
Biden is around 30% progressive. That means (1) a real progressive would be much better, but (2) he is the most progressive president the US has had since the 1970s, and it is causing improvements already, despite opposition from Congress and the Supreme Court.
Choosing a stronger Democratic candidate would help prevent the wrecker from winning or stealing the presidency. But perse would be chosen entirely by the smoke-filled rooms of political insiders, with no primaries for the public to influence the choice. I am afraid that will give us a plutocratist like Hillary Clinton.
Israel's parliament is working on a law to allow the Communications Minister to arbitrarily shut down any foreign journalist organization by citing "national security".
Microplastics (which includes pieces as big as 5mm, which I would call milliplastics) have been found in human penises and testes. It is possible that they are responsible for the world-wide decrease in human fertility over the past few decades.
But that is not proved. The cause could be PFAS. Or something else.
Israel and the US jointly affirmed that the US is not withholding any weapons deliveries except for one shipment of large bombs. Any other delays were due to bureaucratic complexity.
Of course, I find this news very discouraging. Biden showed he had some leverage, Netanyahu dared him to use it some more, and Biden has not tried.
The North Sea’s biggest oil and gas infrastructure company is risking fires and environmental disasters by failing to plug and decommission old wells. Sometimes it is many years late.
A high advisor to Biden defended US plans to increase export of fossil gas by saying the US would contribute an important sum to helping poor countries cope with the consequences.
*An international scheme to tax the wealth of the world’s 3,000 billionaires is technically feasible and could net up to $250bn (£197bn) a year in extra revenue, a new report says.*
Six leading Israelis, not in political office now, call on the US Congress to rescind its invitation for Netanyahu to speak. This is their letter to Congress.
Denmark plans to make farmers pay a tax on their cattle and sheep to compensate for the harm done by the methane those animals emit.
The plan was negotiated with farmers' organizations, which suggests a chance that farmers won't protest it later.
Lawyers assert it should be possible to sue oil companies for their part in causing a deadly heatwave in Arizona.
I hate it when a "true story" has in fact been altered to make it "more dramatic". People falsely portrayed as bad guys may hate it enough to sue.
People writing works of non-fiction should try to be honest to the facts.
*China-owned British Steel said to have requested £600m of taxpayer support.*
Whether the owners are Chinese is a question that there is no need to ask, because the state should never give money to a business "to support it." Instead it should offer to lend money to the company for suitable repayment, or else buy equity at a fair price.
These two ways of supporting a company avoid giving the owners an opportunity to rip off the state -- which the company's owners are likely to try to do, if they can, regardless of which country they are from.
With a policy like this, it wouldn't matter which country the company's owners are from.
*Stella Assange has urged Australian journalists to lodge freedom of information requests with the United States government to extract details on its criminal case against her husband because the now-returned WikiLeaks publisher's plea deal bans him from doing so.*
*Oklahoma state superintendent orders public schools to teach the Bible.*
Ten years ago we could have confidently counted on the Supreme Court to overturn that. And officials, realizing that, probably wouldn't have tried it.
Nowadays, which sympathizers of Christian Nationalism forming a majority of the court, we can't be sure. We need to get those fanatics off the court -- and ensure no more get put on it,
This means we need to make sure that their openly dictatorial leader does NOT get to be president in 2025. All the bad things that Biden has done. even if we don't count the good things he has done, are small potatoes compared to the tyranny and repression that the wrecker would systematically wreck under Project 2025.
*The US supreme court just legalized bribery.*
The bribe has to be given after the service it rewards is done, and there must be at least the pretense that it wasn't promised in advance.
Boeing made a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department to avoid prosecution for causing two fatal crashes. Then it did not carry out the agreement.
As global heating reduces the rainfall in Algeria, the government is building desalination plants, but not fast enough.
George Monbiot: *Things are not going to get better as long as oligarchs rule the roost in our democracies.*
That is true to first order, but not exactly 100% true. The dominion of the billionaires is not an all-or-nothing thing, and there are issues important to us which are not particularly important to them.
Bolivia put down a right-wing coup by army generals. Right-wingers, including followers of Bolsonaro, applauded the attempt, demonstrating their opposition to democracy.
An arrested coup leader said that the president ordered him to carry out a phony coup, as political theater.
I don't know enough about Bolivia to have any basis for trying to judge whether this is true.
In the debate, the bullshitter pummeled Biden with high speed lies, making him seem old and weak.
Each candidate has had time to show us who [perse is], and one is a felon trying to destroy democracy.
If you have to choose between a weak and tottering friend and a vigorous, greedy, hostile cheater, which should you choose? I'd choose the friend, because the cheater is sure to do more harm.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject Republican tax breaks for big corporations.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Cheap talk about expensive nuclear reactors.
Smotrich, a right-wing extremist in Netanyahu's cabinet, stated his aim to annex the West Bank. I suppose that would lead to making it araberrein, as Uri Avnery foretold.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject KOSA, so-called "protection" for children that would compel users of all ages to prove their identity.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Vanguard's new CEO to protect retirement savers from climate-related financial risks.
Those risks would be just a part of the colossal damage that climate disaster causes to everyone. But it is useful as a basis to raise the issue here. An investment company can easily shrug off damage it will do to the whole world, but damage specifically to its clients is hard to disregard.
Robert Reich: *[The wrecker] has convinced many Americans that stridency is a sign of strength while truth and humility signal weakness.*
The US judge in Julian Assange's case approved his plea bargain, but warned that future journalists were indeed in danger from the US.
*The International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Russian officials over alleged Ukraine war crimes,* such as firing missiles at civilian targets.
Fedja Stukan, a Bosnian, recently wrote a book about his experiences in the civil war in the 90s. It criticized Serbia for that; he has also accused Serbia's current government of running nonfree elections.
Recently he tried to go to a book festival in Serbia, but was denied entry.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject Republican efforts to cancel climate defense measures.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pass a wealth tax on billionaires.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to ban bump stocks. They effectively convert rifles into machine guns.
Right-wing judges recently ruled against an executive order to treat them as machine guns. So a new law is needed.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*Rising sea levels will disrupt millions of Americans’ lives by 2050, study finds.*
The same is true in various other countries. I've seen places in France, Italy and Turkey that are likely to be inundated in a few decades. Some of them have millennia of history. Some of them are very important to excavate for archeology.
The UK's right-wing extremist leader, Farage, said that Ukraine should give Putin some of its territory.
Many right-wing leaders seem to be allied with Putin -- starting with the wrecker. The ones in the US blocked arms for Ukraine to help Putin conquer some more territory, while Farage cites that as a reason to accept defeat.
It may prove impossible to defeat the Putin forces completely, It may be unavoidable for Ukraine to cede some territory to him, but that would be a very sad victory for tyrannical conquest. We should not let a tyrant conquer without a hard fight.
The Great Barrier Reef has suffered 97% bleaching in some areas.
A coral reef typically has many species of coral. I have a suspicion that different species have different rates of survival. If the overall rate of survival is 10%, some species may have 20% survival and some 5% survival, and some 0% survival. If some species have become locally extinct, that region's coral reef may be changed permanently.
A substantial fraction Israelis are recognizing that letting the extreme right wing and the fanatical colonists lead Israel is harmful to Israel. Now Israelis are recognizing that they act like tyrants and lead the state into repression.
For decades there have always been Israelis who wanted to make peace with Palestinians, but their numbers have dwindled since the 90s. Maybe now they will increase.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Protecting just 1.2% of Earth’s land could save most-threatened species.*
*Newly identified tipping point for ice sheets could mean greater sea level rise.* Small increase in temperature of intruding water could lead to very big increase in loss of ice, scientists say.
*Sea level rise is the greatest long-term impact of the climate crisis and is set to redraw the world map in coming centuries. It has the potential to put scores of major cities, from New York City to Shanghai, below sea level and to affect billions of people.*
*EU-regulated "sustainable" funds invest [around 20 billion dollars] in biggest polluters.*
Israel's army has defined journalists working for organizations linked with HAMAS as enemy combatants, to be killed.
This is a bogus excuse for killing civilians, and a war crime.
*The Day Israeli Tanks Fired Directly at AFP's Gaza Bureau.*
Israeli snipers murdered an al-Jazeera cameraman.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Julian Assange may be on his way to freedom but this is not a clear victory for freedom of the press.*
US citizens: call on CNN to ask the candidates, at the first presidential debate, "How will you work to reduce nuclear tensions as President?"
US citizens: call on Biden to declare a climate emergency now.
US citizens: call on Congress to defend the CFPB's new rule limiting credit card late fees. These hit mainly Americans who are poor.
US citizens: call on Congress and Biden to stop the $18 billion sale of bombs and fighter jets to Israel.
The expensive US pier, meant to provide a way to land aid from ships, has been mostly a failure. As of June 23, it had been physically functional for 12 days out of the 37 days it had been in place. This is because the waves on the Gaza coast have been higher than normal, and the designers did not allow enough safety margin for it.
On most of those 12 days when the pier itself was usable, there was no transport to take the aid to the starving civilians.
The rules of war say that attacking a military target with some civilians nearby must satisfy the criterion of "proportionality". If there are a few HAMAS cops near an aid convoy, who are there to keep security for the convoy, attacking them and endangering the more numerous] civilians handling the aid (and this ought to count those whose lives depend on its arrival) cannot satisfy that criterion. To attack the convoy would be a war crime.
If Israel did attack the convoy, that would be interference with delivery of US humanitarian aid. Under US law the US would have to suspend weapons deliveries to Israel.
The US thus has plenty of leverage to make Israel stop blocking this aid, but does not use it.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Biden pardons thousands of US veterans convicted under law banning gay sex.*
This should have been done years ago, but better late than never.
Julian Assange has accepted a plea bargain according to which he will be sentenced to the time he has already spent in Belmarch prison. (One charge has been filed already by the US for him to plead guilty to.) He is now supposed to go to the Mariana Islands (near Guam) to plead guilty and be sentenced to "time served", and then leave for Australia.
Reportedly Australia's support for Assange played a major part in convincing the US to agree to this deal.
I am very glad for Assange for being out of prison, but I am alarmed that the danger of being treated similarly will face other journalists and publishers in the future. If the US had prosecuted the perpetrators of the actions in the "collateral murder" video, none of this would have been necessary.
The plea deal requires approval from the judge. I wonder what will happen to Assange if the judge declines to accept the deal. Could he be sent to a US prison to await trial?
*One in five households in Gaza go whole days without food, draft UN report says.*
Documents show Israeli-influence funds target US college campuses and push to redefine antisemitism in US law.
The redefinition they push for is to adopt the distorted IHRA criterion for judging antisemitism.
I think it would be justified for Biden to take an action to block or punish this influence attempt — something sharp enough that Netanyahu will conclude he is going too far and must stop.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Southern China hit by floods as north suffers from drought.*
Last I heard, China was rapidly increasing its burning of coal, so its own actions are partly responsible for these twin disasters.
Netanyahu rejected the idea of a lasting cease fire in Gaza. He spoke of "pauses" but it is not clear that those would allow in enough aid to save Palestinians from dying from shortages.
I think that whatever Netanyahu says about what he will or might do in the future is bullshit, just as if it came from the wrecker. Furthermore, since Netanyahu wants the wrecker to win the election, he will say whatever will cause trouble for Biden now. As long as Biden doesn't dare to do defy Netanyahu in something with consequences, Netanyahu will drag Biden around on a chain and he may indeed lose.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
A young right-wing American, a supporter of the wrecker, told Robert Reich, "Think of Putin, Xi, Kim, Ali Khamenei, Netanyahu — they’re all odious thugs," he said. "We need our own odious thug to stand up to them."
That thinking has a blatant flaw. The other "odious thugs" (his words) he listed, aside from Netanyahu, made their own peoples the first and principal target of their oppression, though they hurt some minorities worse. I think the wrecker would be similar. An American would need to be very lucky to benefit from being under the wrecker's heel.
Sweden's foolish campaign to push everyone into using tracked digital payments instead of anonymous cash is unjust to everyone who uses the digital system. Ironically, it has also boosted fraud.
A digital payment systems fraud can steal far more money than a small store would ever have on hand as cash. Thus, leaving cash has magnified the danger from crime.
If they were using GNU Taler for digital payments, instead of BankID, that would fix both problems. A Taler payment never reveals the payer's identity, and does not enable fraud against merchants.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to prosecute Big Oil.
Apple's narrow and restricted provisions for alternate app stores have been found to violate the EU's Digital Markets Act.
If the EU stands by this, it may eventually compel Apple to allow something comparable to F-droid.
Posting a religious text in a public school classroom isn't harmless, let alone neutral.
It would be difficult to write it in English and be neutral between monotheism and polytheism, and including atheism in the range of views respected would be even harder.
*Over half of US women on probation or parole need permission to travel for abortion.*
*Toys, spices, sewing machines [and many other things]: the items Israel banned from entering Gaza.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*The climate crisis is driving an exponential rise in the most extreme wildfires in key regions around the world.*
Extreme fires are a small fraction of total wildfires, but they release more greenhouse gases because they burn whole trees. The gases accelerate global heating.
Whether the effect of this feedback loop is truly exponential remains to be observed, but if it is, reducing greenhouse emissions may become impossible. We should not wait for those observations before we act vigorously to reduce greenhouse emissions while we still can do so.
Photojournalist Linda Tirado was covering a protest about the murder of George Floyd when a uniformed thug shot her in the eye, perhaps with a tear gas canister. She is now dying from the damage that did to her brain.
Thugs know from their training that firing a gas canister at someone's face is likely to kill. That one should be charged with murder.
Colorado's new law will regulate sale of products that contain PFAS.
US citizens: call on CNN to ask candidates how they would reduce nuclear tensions.
*Elected officials in sweltering US states prioritizing fossil fuel cash over people.*
This includes the Republican governors of Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Nevada.
One right-wing billionaire has given $75 million to the wrecker's campaign and $25 to the confuser's campaign (RFK Jr).
Labour is considering plans for a wealth tax in the UK. At last it is looking for a way to make a substantial improvement in all the problems caused by Tory spending cuts.
The UN seeks to hold an international meeting about Afghanistan and have the government of Afghanistan participate. That government demands the total exclusion of Afghan women from the event. (I can't tell from the article whether the UN has accepted it or not.)
Should the UN accept that demand?
I can understand the desire for the Afghan government's participation, but if the UN decides to help the people of Afghanistan via non-state channels, the government will have only two choices: to permit the aid, or to block it. By blocking it, it would help no one in Afghanistan and would incur condemnation. Either way, it would look bad, and the UN would be seen to be helpful and dutiful.
Mozilla has deactivated the blockage that it had placed on downloading certain anti-censorship add-ons from computers in Russia.
China threatens to execute Taiwanese for advocating Taiwan's independence, if it gets its hands on them.
I expect that some day, perhaps a few years from now, China will arrest Taiwanese tourists and sentence them to death on the basis of social media postings from the past. After a Chinese-style bogus trial, of course.
It would be appropriate for Taiwan to criminalize advocacy of war against Taiwan. This way, if China seizes Taiwanese hostages to threaten, Taiwan could seize some Chinese hostages in return.
Yanis Varoufakis: establishing a state of Palestine should not aim for symmetrical two-way apartheid; the proper goal is to bring the two groups closer together.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Israel tried to assassinate a HAMAS commander, disregarding the presence of numerous civilian bystanders nearby and the evident likelihood of many civilian casualties. Not surprisingly, many civilians were killed by the attack.
This was a war crime according to the Geneva conventions, if I understand this point correctly. The presence of a valid military target, even an important one, does not excuse predictably killing many civilians.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
The Australian right wing plan for new nuclear power plants has been revealed as a bogus business boondoggle to make a poisonous pile of pollution.
I expect them to show as much respect for truth as the bullshitter does in the US, by continuing to champion the debunked claims.
*EU Council has withdrawn the vote on Chat Control, because the plan no longer has majority support.
Chatcontrol is the plan to impose massive censorship on internet communications, and its defeat is a great victory. Of course, it is not guaranteed to be a permanent victory.
*[New York Thug Department] complaints surge under [night-mayor] Adams to reach highest level since 2012.*
You have to expect an ex-cop in a powerful office to encourage cruelty and brutality by cops — simply by tending to take their side in disputes. And even if the ex-cop is black, encouraging cops' cruelty will promote white supremacism, because the two go together.
A British court ruled that planning agencies must consider the climate damage that will result from the fossil fuel to be extracted when they consider whether to approve fossil fuel development.
This is exactly the needed policy, but the planet roasters will try anything to get it reversed or undermined. If they fail, it will set an example for the world.
*Deluge of fake news websites threatens to drown out truth during US election.* *Most people in petrostates want a quick switch to clean energy, UN poll finds.*
In the US, 54% want a quick switch. Alas, democracy in the US is not running very smoothly.
*Fossil fuel use reaches global record despite clean energy growth.*
No amount of renewable generation will save us unless we use it to contrive a drastic reduction in greenhouse emissions.
Vanuatu has cleaned up its lagoons by prohibiting several common kinds of disposable plastic items — including artificial flowers.
An account of how Ethiopia and the west fell for Abiy Ahmed as a messiah and how his government collapsed into war and chaos.
The article is too long for me to read it all carefully. I would like to have done so.
A psychotherapist writes about the error of trying to help someone by rushing or pressuring per to "cheer up" after a real loss.
Years ago, I had no "feelings police". If something made me despair, I cried.
Five years of cancellation have helped me develop a "feelings police" of a sort. It does not blank out feelings of danger, loss and suffering, but enables me to set them aside in order to deal with the situation in a calm and steady way.
McDonald's tried to replace human workers with a bullshit generator, but even in the narrow domain of ordering food from a menu it worked badly.
Netanyahu complained that Biden is carrying out his announced intention to delay delivery of heavy bombs to Israel.
AIPAC, the Israeli Hawks' (and extremists') lobby, has been putting lots of effort into defeating Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a primary this Tuesday.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Nuclear engineer dismisses [Australian right wing's] claim that small modular reactors could be commercially viable soon.*
This confirms what I said recently.
I am not an expert like him, but I know what experts have concluded for years about nuclear power's lack of practical use for electric power on Earth. For the public it is a waste of money; for business it is an opportunity to get paid lots of money and achieve no good.
*Police have used the "very legitimate grievance" the public has with large tech companies like Meta about data collection and surveillance as a pretext to undermine user privacy*.
The first step in protecting our privacy from snooping dis-services is to reject nonfree (non-libre) clients and apps. Nearly all apps are nonfree, and most organizations' web sites run nonfree software in the users' browser. Once they send private data to the server, there is hardly any limit in practice to where it will go. (There are some dis-services that explicit demand users enter sensitive private data — those pose various more complex problems.)
I've considered using Signal, since the client program (what I would need to run) is free software. However, it requires having a portable phone, and that requirement conclusively excludes me.
*U.S. Intelligence Helped Israel [plan the operation to] Rescue Four Hostages in Gaza*.
Since the plans were designed to minimize civilian casualties, I don't see anything wrong in that part of the operation. Many civilians were killed and wounded after something went wrong during the getaway phase. At that point they started to improvise as the plan was no longer usable.
The obligation to safeguard civilians does not end when a plan goes awry.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
The US insists that Israel did not use the US aid pier for the deadly hostage rescue operation. What Israel did use was the area of land near the pier.
This makes sense to me. I don't think that area of land is or was under US control. But I have seen it described as a "safe area", which I think implies some sort of agreement to do no fighting there.
If that agreement included Israel and HAMAS, then using it for a combat operation (such as the hostage rescue operation) was a violation of that agreement by Israel;
I've read that the World Food Program stopped transporting aid from the pier because of this. This makes sense. No humanitarian organization will be allowed to continue operations in Gaza unless it satisfies all parties that it is militarily neutral.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
New pun: My argument with guaifenesin
The Ukrainian journalists of Texty refute the arguments of Putin's disinformation.
Ukrainian data-journalists studied published statements and made a list of prominent people in the US who were publicly opposing support for Ukraine's defense.
The summary of their conclusions.
*The Biden administration is protecting old-growth forests.*
Super-rich major league sports team owners continue to squeeze money out of the public by making one city or state bid against another to subsidize the team.
Many years ago I condemned this and proposed a federal law to regulate such backwards competition. The idea was that if a company makes location A compete against location B, any subsidy from A must get B's approval and vice versa.
For the specific case of sports teams, a law outright prohibiting all governmental subsidy to them might do the job well, but the proposal above would help also in situations which are not cartels and which do work that is more important than artificial contests.
*Study finds same-sex sexual behaviour in primates and other mammals widely observed but seldom published.*
*Democrats move to repeal anti-obscenity and anti-abortion act from 1873.*
I expect Republicans will fight to keep the Comstock Act, hoping to use it for repression. But maybe that will convince some people not to vote for them.
The Supreme Court approved a tax that the corrupter put on moving money to the US, and thus left the legal door open to wealth taxes on big business.
Israel gave fanatical "settlers" control over expansion of its colonies in the West Bank. They can authorize their own construction of new colonies.
*Peruvian soldiers found guilty of rapes committed during civil war in historic verdict.*
Most or all armies have a tendency to overlook crimes against committed against enemy soldiers, and even against civilians. Progress in establishing a tradition of prosecuting soldiers for these crimes makes the statement, "We are not like Putin."
*Activists tell UK arms makers they may face criminal liability over sales to Israel.*
They include companies building parts of the American F-35 fighter.
Comparing the insurrectionist's attack on US democracy with three previous attacks, by Presidents John Adams, President Andrew Jackson and President Richard Nixon.
The challenge for Americans today is to recognize the threat of the insurrectionist, and be permitted to vote against him.
Ten US states have state holidays that celebrate the Confederacy. They include nearly all the states that formed the Confederacy in 1861 and fought to perpetuate slavery, plus one (Kentucky) in which the unionists triumphed then and prevented secession.
It is a mistake to take one negative moral judgment of a person as erasing all good that perse did. We should judge a person by the magnitudes of the good and the bad.
Any individual who owned slaves or supported the Confederacy did wrong that way, but each such individual did other things too. In most cases those other things were of no special importance, so they don't change our conclusions. But there are exceptions. In rare cases, a person's other activities have been such great contributions to humanity as to justify our admiring that person despite per involvement with slavery (though we should criticize that anyway).
A holiday that explicitly celebrates the Confederacy or its leaders is a much simpler moral subject than a real human being's life. Such a holiday stands only for the Confederacy and what that stood for: slavery and bigotry, with disloyalty as sauce. Those holidays deserve pure and simple condemnation.
A few states celebrate a conjoined holiday, "Martin Luther King / Robert E Lee Day". They juxtapose commemoration of racism with commemoration of the movement against racism. I am not sure what to think of them, but I think they are too soft on slavery.
It is ironic that 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 usually I will not link to articles that practice it, but I make some exceptions. I think the article linked to above is interesting enough to justify an exception. But when I make a such exception, I rebuke the symbolic bigotry also.
The head of NATO argued for making more nuclear weapons.
More nuclear weapons than the US has cannot improve deterrence. With a sane enemy, the use of 100 nuclear weapons, producing a nuclear winter that would cause starvation around the world, is enough deterrent. With an insane enemy, 10,000 nuclear weapons would not be enough.
This provoked a lot of opposition, but I am sure that the businesses that would profit from making and deploying them will come up with lots of flimsy reasons in favor.
*The normalisation of dehumanisation in the Israel-Palestine conflict.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Stock traders are trying to beat the market — by copying lawmakers [stock trades].*
There seems to be far too little attention to coming climate disaster in the UK general election.
However, the lunatic right-wing party proposes to replace climate defense with climate surrender.
Measures to limit overcrowding and avoid dangers in climbing Mount Fuji have the unjust side effect of requiring each climbers to (1) identify perself and (2) carry a snoop-phone.
If I ever go to Japan again, that is one thing I certainly won't do.
The Pentagon is thinking about using large numbers of more-or-less autonomous drones for fighting China.
This raises concerns that the drones will chose targets autonomously, and kill lots of civilians — something I expect Ukraine's drone controllers avoid, although Israel's drone controllers may not care.
Putting that issue aside, it seems like a good plan, but I don't see how the US can expect to be better at this than China.
Congress is about to dilute the safety mission of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with toxic fallout — a second mission to keep nuclear industry profitable.
Everyone: Call on Canada to enforce its environmental laws against logging to export wood chips for burning.
US citizens: call on Biden to fund the transition to renewables and stop funding fossil fuels.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
*‘I have seen the decline’: pesticides linked to falling UK insect numbers.*
Decreases in overall insect populations will cause repercussions through each ecosystem. Many animals (including humans) eat insects. Many plants depend on insects to pollinate them and disperse their seeds.
Louisiana Republicans passed a law to require every public school classroom to display a copy of the Ten Commandments.
This sectarian requirement obviously contradicts the First Amendment (combined with the subsequent amendment which says states can't do those things either). It prohibits establishment of religion. But we can't count on those Republican wreckers on the Supreme Court to honor that.
China is erasing the Uyghur past in the region they have lived in.
Politicians bought by fossil fuel companies are working on laws to make protesting near pipelines a crime.
In Japan, many restaurants have required customers to order using the restaurants' tablets, or even with their own snoop-phones. This makes it impossible for blind customers. The restaurants have cut staff drastically, so blind customers find no one who can help them. They are effectively excluded.
If the restaurant requires customers to bring a snoop-phone, or to pay using a digital system that identifies the user, that would exclude me, too. Even the task of reading the menu can exclude me — if I would need to have a snoop-phone to see it, or if it is so high up that I can't make out the letters. (My eyes are not as good as they were a couple of years ago.)
US citizens: call on Democratic leaders to rescind their support for Netanyahu's speech to Congress, and all Democrats to boycott the speech.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
At a signing ceremony in Australia's Parliament building, Chinese embassy personnel tried to hide views of formerly imprisoned journalist Cheng Lei from Chinese cameras. Australian personnel had to physically stand in their way.
The Chinese government made itself ridiculous by doing this, but think about the process that must have led to it. The least powerful of those given the duty of going to Australia's Parliament were surely not of the lowest rank, and some higher official must have ordered them to do this. That displays the rigidity of a self-important dictatorship, and the dangerous hostility latent in its arrogance sense of entitlement to power.
Enormous amounts of plastic debris wash ashore on Easter Island. They have to clean the beaches repeatedly.
Over 5 million pieces of rubbish wash ashore there each year. They have no way to dispose of it all.
A horrible idea: New York Governor Hochul is thinking of banning masks in the New York City subways.
Everyone in the subway (or buses) should wear a mouth and nose mask! Policy should encourage everyone to do so. To ban or discourage masks will cause real infections and real deaths — merely so people will feel less worried.
US citizens and residents: phone your state governor to say to veto any attempt to restrict or criminalize mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs used to cause abortions and for various other purposes.
If you phone, please spread the word! Your state governor's phone number is at USA.gov (Thanks to those who told me.)
The US murder rate today is less than in the 70s, 80s and 90s, but parents are more terrified than ever.
We know that the high crime rates of the 60s to 90s were due to lead in the gasoline; eliminating leaded gas was followed, after under 20 years, by decreases in crime.
UNRWA says that 50000 minors in Gaza are on the edge of starvation. UNICEF describes the constant obstruction applied by Israel to transport of aid into and within Gaza.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens and residents: call for parole for Leonard Pelletier.
This is an actionnetwork.org "send a letter" campaigns with a single, fixed destination. It normally runs nonfree JavaScript code. Here's how you can sign it while using LibreJS to block nonfree JavaScript code from running.
The first step, I have done for you. I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign's URL. That parameter directs the server not to add unnecessary material that depends on JavaScript.
Following that link should show you a page that starts with the message, `Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!' But that message mostly refers to material that `?nowrapper=true' has suppressed.
In that page, fill in the personal information in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. You will get a page that does not work at all, but by editing its URL in the browser's address bar, you can finish sending your letter.
First, if `&redirect' appears in the address bar, delete that and everything after it, until the end of the URL you see. Then, unconditionally, add `&nowrapper=true'. Then type ENTER to make the browser access the modified URL.
This will give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. In that page you can edit the text of your letter, and send it.
That step, editing the URL and visiting it, is the only additional work needed to sign with nonfree JavaScript code blocked. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort to stop some unjust, and potentially malicious, software from running on your computer.
This method works for letter campaigns that send letters to a fixed destinee, the same destinee for all senders. I have posted this campaign, and these instructions, because it is of that kind.
Alas, there is no workaround for the letter campaigns that send to "your elected representatives." That problem is caused by something outside actionnetwork's control. The nonfree JavaScript for those campaigns comes from the officials' own web sites in the official web sites of Congress, not from actionnetwork.org, and I know of no way to bypass it, and no way to reach them digitally. All I can do is phone them.
It's sad and ironic that our elected representatives require their constituents to run nonfree software to communicate digitally with them. I do not hold them personally responsible for this wrong, because they are surely not aware of the issue. But I can't close my eyes to its presence and let it run on my computer.
The US has greatly increased its spending on nuclear weapons, and other countries have followed suit.
A proposed nuclear power plant for Kenya's coast is sure to be an enormous waste of money at best, contributing to global heating because renewable generation would have been cheaper and finished many years sooner.
At worst, a tsunami will destroy he reactor. As global heading raises sea level, the size of tsunami sufficient to cause a disaster will decrease. Meanwhile, they surely don't know what they will do with the nuclear waste.
Nuclear generation is so expensive that it cannot be worth that cost anywhere in the world. Simply for this reason, I have to suspect corruption is behind it somehow.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to demand an investigation into corruption in the Supreme Court.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*Microsoft Chose Profit Over Security and Left U.S. Government Vulnerable to Russian [crackers], Whistleblower Says.*
This shows the error of assuming that a proprietary program is going to be more secure than free software, and why you should not systematically expect programs under the control of a company to maintain your security. Even if it never seeks to attack you, it can have a motive to let you down.
Side issues about terminology: the article uses misleading propaganda terms such as "intellectual property" and "cloud", and says "hackers" when it ought to say "crackers".
US citizens: call on Justices Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves from cases about the Jan 6 insurrection.
India will prosecute Arundhati Roy for her political opinions, under a law passed by Modi's party for that purpose. Other human rights defenders in India have been persecuted too.
India promised Kashmir a referendum on whether to be part of India, then never held the referendum. There has been unrest in Kashmir ever since. A few years ago, Modi imposed martial law and an internet shutdown on the whole state (which India asserts is no longer a state).
*Former White House staffer says [she heard the wrecker] call for leaker to be executed.*
*Labour and Tories would both leave NHS worse off than under [previous] austerity, says thinktank.*
*Tories and Labour on course for lowest [combined] share of the vote since 1945.*
It looks like a lot of people don't want to vote for plutocratists.
Sweden ransomed Johan Floderus, who had been imprisoned in Iran based on political accusations, by releasing Iranian convict Hamid Noury, who was convicted of participating in the killing of over a hundred political prisoners of Iran.
One must suspect that the accusations against Floderus were fabricated specifically to use him for this trade. Governments should tell their officials to refuse to visit countries that might be seeking pawns to capture and trade.
US citizens: call on Biden not to imitate the bully's asylum restrictions.
*Republicans want to make it harder to get a divorce in the US.*
That fits into the general plan to impose their religion, and its sexual prudery, on everyone. We must defeat them.
*Amy Pritchard is the first person to be jailed for a campaign in which climate protesters targeted banks across London.* She explains her decision to break windows at the office of JP Morgan.
Adobe corrected some misconceptions that were suggested by loose wording in its newly imposed requirement that users give Adobe permission to snoop on their work. Adobe agreed not to publish their work (Please don't call anyone's artwork "content"!), and won't train machine learning models with it. (Please don't call them "artificial intelligence"!)
But it does indeed intend to snoop, having effectively forced users to give permission for that.
This is a big step towards a society of total surveillance, in which privacy and the US fourth amendment are reduced to fragmentary relics.
Cheng Lei, formerly a political prisoner in China, has used her prison experience as the basis for stand-up comedy in Australia.
Cheng Lei is an Australian citizen who was working in China as a journalist for an Australian organization. China allowed her to return to Australia. Chinese who have been political prisoners in China are often not allowed to leave China.
Using Eventbrite for access to an event is always bad because signing up using Eventbrite requires running nonfree software. Also, it requires identifying yourself. Those are two injustices to the attendee; I would not attend a performance if it required me to give my name to get a ticket.
In this specific situation, the injustices put some attendees in danger, too. It would not surprise me if Chinese crackers broke into the Eventbrite data base to find out who attended this performance. The performers were aware that China would try to identify the attendees; they should have protected their audience from digital identification as well as from cameras.
And did they insist on making it possible to pay cash? As China demonstrates every day, making people identify themselves to buy things is the foundation of repression.
Analyzing the Labour platform: parts sound good, but crucial parts are missing.
*[The wrecker]'s [planned] mass purge of state department likely to sow chaos, US diplomats say.*
*[UNRWA] says [Israeli] authorities are hampering [aid delivery] operations by failing to grant requests for access permits.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Cocaine traffickers have put two-thirds of Central America's key habitats for threatened birds under threat, study finds.*
New York State is about to prohibit communication platforms from offering user's-history-dependent feeds to users under age 18.
I think this policy is very wise, but limiting it to only some users, based on their age, is misguided. Millions of adults have been sucked into conspiracy theories and even plots for insurrections by such systems. This policy also threatens to lead to requiring a user to show ID so as to prove per age.
So the policy should apply to all users regardless of age.
Instead of basing suggestions on what you have previously looked at, a platform should make available for download that list , as URLs one per line. Given that list, you could process it any way you like to get suggestions, then ask to look at those.
Please do not use the word "children" or "child" to refer to anyone under age 18. A 17-year-old is not a child. A 13-year-old is a teenager.
Singer who joined the Four Tops in 2019 was involuntarily hospitalized for claiming to be a member of the Four Tops.
A US court convicted Chiquita (the banana company) of paying a terrorist group (paramilitaries) to kill some of its workers.
*Washington teen returning replica gun to store shot dead by security guard.*
Robert Reich: for most US voters, the most important issue is the high prices that are caused by greedy corporations without much competition to restrain them, and most voters think that the wrecker will push prices down. I don't think the wrecker will even try to reduce prices. He seeks to bamboozle the public, not to serve it. Promises from a bullshitter are meaningless. Lately more billionaires have been giving their support to the wrecker, so they must not think he will reduce their unparalleled profits.
So why does anyone believe that the wrecker will drive prices down?
Some plutocratist Democrats in Congress are pushing to fund new export terminals for fossil gas, provided it is "certified" as emitting somewhat less greenhouse gas than other fossil gas.
This is a swindle — replacing a small but real contribution to climate defense with mere lip service.
Some teenagers can recover from antisocial media addiction if they simply don't have a user-manipulating device to be used by.
Remember that part of what enables them to manipulate the users so much is that the client programs of the antisocial media platforms are nonfree software. Companies design them to be addictive, and users cannot modify them to be less so.
Republican state attorneys general are working with Big Oil to block lawsuits over harm to people caused by oil combustion.
*US imposes sanctions on "extremist Israeli group" for blocking Gaza aid.*
So far, so good, but what about when the Israeli government blocks aid by not permitting it to be brought to Gaza.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: call on the Senate to oppose fake abortion clinics.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Schumer and Jeffries to withdraw their invitation to Netanyahu to address Congress.
*Tory party CEO is director at cancer care firm benefiting from NHS waiting lists.*
The Labour candidate running against Jeremy Corbyn is an owner of a company that profits from the NHS's failings.
I'd want to support a party in which such people would feel out of step with the party's goals.
US citizens: call on Congress to overturn the "Citizens" United decision.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to support legislation banning political contributions from utilities, monopoly corporations, and corporations seeking government contracts.
US citizens: call on Congress to undo the corrupter's tax cuts for the rich.
*The Christian right[-wing] is coming for divorce next.*
Stanford University is shutting down the elections research of the Stanford Internet Observatory because defending against Republican lawfare was too expensive.
(satire) *Tesla Announces Plan To Add Up-Skirt Cameras On All Vehicles.*
US citizens: call on judges to uphold the Voting Rights Act.
*Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War.* It was paid for by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and used fake social media accounts urging U.S. lawmakers to fund Israel’s military.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*The Libertarian [sic] Party's controversial plan is to "stop Biden" and extract promises from [the insurrectionist] along the way.*
This plan demonstrates a total lack of value for civil liberties, which the insurrectionist has announced his intention to crush. But this plan makes the party cynical as well, which previously it was not.
It is also utterly foolish to think that a promise from the insurrectionist (who is also the bullshitter) will be kept. Once democracy is crushed, if you're not a billionaire he won't hesitate to break his promise to you.
I have contended for years that that party, and its political stance, did not merit the name "libertarian", because its supporters valued reduction of their taxes, and termination of programs to help the poor and disadvantaged, more highly than they valued liberty. So I called them "antisocialist".
Some of the party's supporters may still be antisocialists, but the party itself deserves for a harsher name than that.
*The [US Supreme Court] unanimously rejected the mifepristone case on technical grounds. Their ruling is not the victory it may seem.*
Alito's wife vowed revenge on the people who criticized Alito for displaying an upside-down flag, after Jan 6 when that was a symbol of claiming falsely that the corrupter had won the election.
Note the typical right-wing thinking, which regards a truthful criticism of a false claim as a vicious attack that deserves revenge. If those critics made false claims of their own, revenge in kind (refuting the false claims) would be possible and legitimate. But Ms Alito does not claim that they did so.
Perhaps, for her, opposing militant Christianitism, and defending the separation of church and state, is enough grounds to label someone as evil.
Putin announced that he won't make peace with Ukraine unless it gives him more territory along with what he has captured.
This indicates a combination of thinking he can win the war, and some amount of bluster (present in everything he says).
The only sensible response is to teach him he must expect to lose.
Robert Reich: *Don't be fooled by the myth that people are paid what they're "worth" — that the rich deserve their ever-increasing incomes and wealth because they're worth far more to the economy now than years ago […]*
*The distribution of income and wealth increasingly depends on who has the power to set the rules of the game.*
It is a context of clout, not a contest of productivity.
*A braver Labour would call an end to the focus on growth.*
Starmer has made up his mind to seek the votes of former Tories. The only way to make Labour pay attention to this issue is to elect Greens or Lib Dems, or the independents such as Corbyn who agree with this.
*Phoenix [thugs] have pattern of violating civil rights and using excessive force, Justice Department says.*
*Ex-prosecutors and historians warn that Republicans' parroting of ex-president's wild allegations of political bias could erode trust and lead to violence.*
Eroding trust in anything that he considers a rival is his purpose. And while the claim is not true now, he intends, if he wins or steals the election, to make it so. He plans to pervert the US justice system to imprison his political enemies, as part of Project 2025.
The US justice system is in fact untrustworthy for defendants who belong to disprivileged groups, and for poor people since they can't afford good lawyers. But the corrupter is not at risk for this: he is a white male, and even if he may theoretically be bankrupt due to court judgments, still has good lawyers.
Some varieties of bamboo spread almost irresistibly and can destroy houses from underground.
Could we wipe them out, in the countries they don't belong in, by releasing a sufficient number of pandas? China only leases them, but it might be possible to buy unrestricted pandas from Taiwan.
In Mexico, growing avocados is so lucrative that cartels fight over land to grow them, as they cut down forests.
It amazes me that this happens for a product that is not illegal.
I don't think this would happen for any of the widely used illegal drugs, though. The sheer volume consumed would not be enough.
Alito admitted at an organization dinner that his vote to overturn Roe v Wade was part of an overall campaign to impose his religion on the US.
The rescue of hostages from Gaza started out clean, but developed into a street battle. That is when the civilians were killed.
This suggests that most of those killed were civilians.
Testimony of witnesses to the attack on Nuseirat refugee camp, in which the Israeli army killed at least 274 Palestinians to rescue four hostages.
The number of killed that were civilians was almost certainly over 100, and likely considerably more. But I think I can make a better estimate.
I think that "children" means minors. Most minors there were probably civilians, thought some of the older ones may have been HAMAS fighters. I would expect that HAMAS, being Islamist, would not recruit women as fighters (can anyone tell me whether that is true?), so it would follow that the 57 women killed were all civilians.
I expect roughly equal numbers of men and women among the civilians, since they were in and around their homes. That would suggest there were around 160-170 civilians killed, and maybe 100 HAMAS fighters.
It is therefore likely that most of the Palestinians in the area were civilians.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Fanatical supporters of the corrupter regularly get heat stroke at his rallies, because of increasing global heating, but it doesn't occur to them that we should stop drilling for all and making it hotter.
*Investment in clean energy likely to be double figure for fossil fuels in 2024, IEA says [; however,] oil and gas spending still too high to meet climate goals.*
New pun: What do you need Tylenol for?
*Russia accused of "deliberate" starvation tactics in Mariupol in submission to ICC.*
Biden should put up a fight as John Deere Inc. moves US factory jobs to Mexico.
John Deere also mistreats the purchasers of its tractors: it designs them with nonfree software that the farmers cannot change or replace, and which snoops on them.
George Monbiot: Britons should respond to Labour's "anticipatory betrayal" by turning to the Green Party.
Biden's dignified acceptance of the jury's conviction of his son may help show the corrupter for what he is.
US citizens: call on Biden to cut off arms deliveries to Israel unless it accepts a permanent cease fire in Gaza.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: call on Congress to end the "Citizens" United era by passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the DISCLOSE Act.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on state legislatures not to allow teachers to carry guns in school.
The myth that a "good guy with a gun" will protect people from a murderer with a gun is true often on Have Gun Will Travel, but that is fiction. In real life it is rarely effective.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and ask per to sign the discharge petition for the Right to Contraception Act.
*Supreme court ruling delays climate litigation big oil has sought to thwart.*
*Millions of US voters lack access to documents to prove citizenship.*
Workers at one of the Kroger supermarket chains are planning to strike.
South Australia will ban donations to political campaigns and parties. It will provide campaign funds to all the candidates and parties.
UK Green Party calls for *wealth levy, rent controls, house-building, and water and energy firm nationalisation.*
Their plans for increasing taxes will fall *mainly on wealthy people*.
*Israel and Hamas have both committed war crimes since 7 October, says [the UN Human Rights Council].*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Mozilla has blocked users in Russia from loading several censorship-bypassing add-ons into Firefox.
I am somewhat puzzled by this. Why would Mozilla want to do this?
Also, why would it be effective? I understand it, you can load an add-on into Firefox if you can access a page where it is distributed. I also don't see what threat Russia could make against Firefox that could make Mozilla comply with this demand.
An Israeli shepherd was killed in the West Bank. In revenge, Israeli "settlers" set cars and houses on fire as well as shooting many Palestinians one by one.
Both attacks were acts of terrorism, but the "settlers" cannot justify their terrorism by pointing to the Palestinians' terrorism.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Violent crime in the US dropped by 15% in the first three months of the year, new figures have shown, the latest evidence in a broader decline of crime across the country that has occurred over the past year.*
Murders, and reported rapes, decreased by 25%. Robberies decreased by 17%.
I expect this is due to improvement in the economy for most Americans.
*UN security council endorses US-backed hostages-for-ceasefire Gaza deal.*
Why young American adults see America's social and economic systems as carrying them into disaster, despite favorable short-term economic trends.
If your Facebook account gets suspended for bogus reasons, Facebook will delete it after 30 days, and gives you no way to ask the company for help with the problem in the mean time.
If you decide to be used by Facebook, at the very least assume that everything in that account could disappear any day. To be safe, you should back up everything important from the account on your own computer. (Does Facebook make that possible? I am happy to say I have never been a used of Facebook.)
Bullshit generators have been hooked up to Facebook and Instagram. In some cases they post bullshit in discussion groups, pretending to be humans.
*Air in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" likely more toxic than previously thought.*
*World's top banks "greenwashing their role in destruction of the Amazon".*
The Columbia Law Review editors (students) prevailed in their confrontation with the board of directors (not students) who shut down the magazine's web site in order to censor Rabea Eghbariah's article. The site is back up and the article remains on it.
I salute this victory for academic freedom.
Vice President Harris told the public how bad the corrupter really is: "Cheaters don’t like getting caught."
Microsoft bowed to public criticism and said that the new "take a screenshot of all output" feature would be disabled by default.
That's nice, but since Windows is proprietary software, Microsoft could secretly insert any sort of snooping feature at any time without informing users. Basically, a nonfree program cannot be trusted.
Robert Reich talks about the inseparability of economics and morality.
(satire) *… wealthy patient Duncan Barrow reportedly ordered three of each procedure upon his admittance to the facility Friday.*
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.
*As climate change increases the likelihood of deadly landslides, cities like Juneau are stuck between a rock and a hard place.*
Or, rather, between a rock and a muddy place.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Election Worker and Polling Place Protection Act.
An Israeli military operation rescued four hostages at the cost of killing 109 Palestinians.
It is not easy to tell how many of the 109 Palestinians killed were HAMAS fighters and how many were civilians, but at least dozens were civilians.
If HAMAS set up a military base in the middle of civilians, that violated the rules of war -- in effect, using those civilians as human shields.
Or it could be that the place was not full of civilians until they moved there fleeing Israel's bombing elsewhere in Gaza. In that case, Israel would be responsible for driving them into harm's way.
In either case, their lives do not become worthless because of their situation.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: call on the Federal Housing Finance Agency to Require Modern Energy Efficiency Standards for All New Homes with FHFA-backed Mortgages.
US citizens: call on the Department of Education E and local school boards to reject face recognition in schools.
US citizens: call on Judge Aileen Cannon to recuse herself from the corrupter's secret documents case.
Everyone: Oppose the right-wing campaign to disregard global heating.
Arguing that Putin won't stop with Ukraine; his ambitions will lead towards bigger conflict. The article compares Russia and China today with the Germany and Japan of 1938 -- and Ukraine today with the Czechoslovakia of 1938.
Romania asks Louis Vuitton to give credit to the Romanian design that inspired one of his latest fashion products.
The campaign to condemn and eliminate "cultural appropriation" is unjust and wrong, because learning from other people and imitating them is what culture is all about, and this is how culture develops.
However, asking the imitator to give credit is no obstacle to cultural development, and I think it is a reasonable request.
*A Federal Judge Visited Israel on a Junket Designed to Sway Public Opinion. Now He's Hearing a Gaza Case.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: call on Attorney General Merrick Garland to require Justices Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves from cases about the insurrectionist.
US citizens: call on the Edison Electric Institute to stop suing the EPA to keep coal polluting.
*The EU is braced for a rise in the hard right [wing]. But will the centre normalise it?*
Putin, a repeated supporter of the corrupter, claims that the felony conviction of the corrupter proves that the US is failing as a democracy.
That is backwards, of course. The corrupter's conviction shows that the US is trying to defend its democracy from a campaign to corrupt it. Putin supports that campaign and lies much as its members do.
Jeremy Corbyn argues for aiming for nuclear disarmament rather than nuclear weapon buildup.
US citizens: call on Congress and the Biden administration to stop shielding Israel from accountability for war crimes.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*US state abortion ban exemptions aren’t vague by accident. Uncertainty is the point.*
Minneapolis made Uber and Lyft agree to pay workers more and improve some other working conditions.
However, this does nothing to reduce those companies power over drivers, nor to reduce their unjust treatment of passengers (identifying them and requiring them to run nonfree software).
If I am me, I will continue to refuse to do business with Uber and Lyft.
*The fascist leader plots capture of DoJ in renewed assault on US justice system.*
Deepfakes displaying politicians and other public figures, clothed normally, have been used on Facebook to promote scams.
I think the crucial issue raised by deepfakes is not nudity. It is fraud. False nudity in the deepfake is one kind of fraud, but the other kinds of fraud are just as bad. I've called unauthorized deepfakes the moral equivalent of perjury.
Thus, rather than criminalizing making nude deepfakes only, I suggest we criminalize making and showing any sort of deepfake without the subject's permission.
If you want to show a fictional or satirical picture of a hypothetical action, you can express the idea just as well with an evidently non-evidential cartoon.
*[Corrupter's] ally Kari Lake gave speech in front of Confederate flag.*
Fascists, Nazis, Confederates — it seems that the corrupter and his followers endorse all of them almost indiscriminately. Why so nonselective about it? All they have in common is their rejection of the ideals of the United States.
I think that's exactly the point: that the corrupter seeks to ridicule those ideals by encouraging any and all sorts of disloyalty to them.
Loyal Americans should warn Kari Lake that they will drive her out to Texas, as their predecessors did to the last band of Confederate supporters to invade Arizona.
*[Boeing employee] Roy Irvin alleges he was reprimanded as "insubordinate" for flagging issues on 787 Dreamliner planes.*
A Briton has been charged with "criminal damage" for throwing a milkshake at right-wing extremist politician Nigel Farage.
I am surprised that superficial contact with a milkshake is considered to cause damage. {-; Perhaps McDonald's milkshakes contain toxic substances that are absorbed through the skin. Good for him that he did not consume it! ;-}
Everyone: call on Amazon to implement zero-waste delivery.
Of course, we shouldn't buy from Amazon either way, and I don't; but that is no reason not to sign.
Various drugs, some legal and some illegal, used in large quantities by humans get into waterways and alter wildlife.
*More intense, frequent tropical cyclones may devastate seabird colonies.*
Tornadoes in Maryland??? That has not been normal, but the pattern is shifting.
Reading Netanyahu, a former Israeli official says that he killed a peace plan that Israel had privately agreed to, because he is determined not to have peace in Gaza.
I think the only way Biden can make progress from here is with pressure that Netanyahu cannot defy -- such as, to cut off arms supplies to Israel. As people in Gaza are suffering death and permanent damage from the lack of food, Biden must not dither.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Incoming ministers "will face UK public services on brink of collapse."*
It may be necessary to raise taxes to prevent the collapse.
Musk increasingly imitates the bully/corrupter's behavior as well as supporting his politics.
US citizens: call on Biden to end support for the Israeli military's atrocities.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: call on Congress to protect public servants' retirement.
US citizens: call on Congress to get rid of the wrecker's tax cuts and end tax loopholes for big corporations.
*One young child in [every four in the world] at risk of ‘irreversible’ harm due to restricted diet, UN report says.* These children rarely get vegetables, let alone meat.
Local shortages of food are one of the main causes, but heavy marketing of non-nutritious foods to parents who don't know what is bad about them is also a cause. In Gaza, the Israeli siege is the main cause.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Starvation already causing mass death and lasting harm in Gaza, agencies say.*
Children that live through this may suffer lifelong damage from their current malnutrition.
Secretary General Guterres calls for a global ban on fossil-fuel advertising.
I support the idea. The challenge is to overcome the domination of the planet roasters and their PR funds.
Perhaps this suggests a new idea for climate defense protests: covering or tearing off the advertisements for fossil fuels and the products that use them, and the companies involved with those.
That should include greenwashing, whose message is, "Forget about our enormous fossil fuel business, please associate us with our comparatively small renewable electricity business."
*Fast food chains are successfully influencing news outlets [in Australia] to produce "covert marketing" for their brands, a new study has found.*
*French military instructors in Ukraine would be "legitimate target",* according to the Putin forces.
They should bring anti-aircraft and anti-missile defenses with them so they can protect themselves if attacked. These defenses will not escalate the war, since they could not engage any of the Putin forces except when said Putin forces are attacking them.
US citizens: call on Congress to tax the rich.
Many of America's problems can be corrected by this, both those that call for spending money and those that involve weakness of democracy.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on COP29 to remove the head of Azerbaijan's state oil company from the position of its organizer.
US citizens: call on the IRS to make a libre site for filing tax returns.
US citizens: call on The Department of Justice to sue big fossil fuel for denying global heating.
Georgia Republicans are arranging systematically to challenge the voting credentials of large numbers of black voters, just as the KKK did in 1946.
Robert Reich: Billionaires including Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Michael Milken and Steven Mnuchin are working together to make the corrupter president again. Reich contends that their aim is to roll back democracy itself.
Musk has x-terminated the truth on Ex-Twitter by repeatedly endorsing the corrupter's lies about the 2020 election. That makes him systematically and fundamentally dishonest, like the corrupter himself.
US citizens: call on Congress to side with working people, not billionaires and Big Business.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on your senators to support the FOREST Act, which would ban imports made with products of illegally deforested land.
See the detailed, general issue.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to protect abortion and birth control by repealing the Comstock Act.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Modi's domination of India has suffered a setback: the Hinduismist party did not win a majority of the legislature itself. However, it can still form a government with the support of other parties.
Can the opposition coalition, not in government, alter Modi's repression? If it lacks the strength to do that now, will its supporters be patient until the next election and not give up?
Faiza Shaheen, a previous Labour candidate for Parliament who was just canceled, is running as an independent.
The issues over which she was canceled seem like quibbles to me, and some were statements she made ten years ago. I probably don't agree with her 100% regarding Israel and Palestine, but I think I could vote for her.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
New York-Mayor Adams wants to cut the city's budget for useful services such as public libraries, and put the money into a sort of Cop City training center for uniformed thugs.
(satire) *Study Finds Only 1 In 3 Americans Can Name Their Representatives' Corporate Donors.*
*Columbia Law Review Refused to Take Down Article on [how Israeli law is applied to] Palestine, So Its Board of Directors Nuked the Whole Website.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*World will miss target of tripling renewable electricity generation by 2030.*
US citizens: call on ISO-New England to stop funding fossil fuel "peaker" plants.
The European CO2 emissions trading system proved to be an excellent vehicle for VAT fraud.
I did not know about this wrinkle until today, but I realized when I read about emissions trading that it would provide opportunities for fraud at the expense of Earth's climate.
The proponents of a "carbon market" tend to assume that such a market would effectively give the same results as a carbon tax. They disregard that every trade of emissions quota from A to B is an opportunity for sleight of hand to hide some emissions somewhere between A and B.
Bernie Sanders explains why he will not attend Netanyahu's speech to the US Congress.
He describes the enormous atrocities of Israel's bombardment and siege of Gaza, which have killed or wounded 5% of the whole population.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Biden plans to "close" the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers entirely, imitating what the wrecker tried to do as president.
Meanwhile, the Democratic leaders of the Senate negotiated a deal for restricting immigration based on right-wing Republican policies, whereupon the Republicans rejected the deal, calling it insufficiently harsh. Trying to make a compromise with Republicans who are obeying the wrecker is a fool's errand.
The right to request asylum, and be considered for it according to the facts of your case, is one of the triumphs of the movement for international human rights law that followed World War II. I fear that we are witnessing the effective abolition of that right.
Republicans are creating irrational outrage over Washington DC's policy of allowing non-citizen residents to vote in local elections.
The outrage is irrational because those targeted for outrage mostly don't live there and therefore are not affected by the practice.
Many places in Europe allow non-citizen residents of a city to vote in local elections. The idea shocked me at first, but on further thought I concluded it made sense. Non-citizen residents have the same relationship to the city that citizen residents have: they benefit from local services and support them with taxes.
Republicans would have us conflate the act of lawfully voting as a non-citizen, when and where that is authorized, with the act of voting fraudulently. But the two are completely different. The latter is extremely unlikely, because what one can personally gain by voting is not enough to motivate people to break a law. In fact, individual voter fraud is very rare.
*Anthony Fauci says Marjorie Taylor Greene drove death threats against him.*
*Wisconsin attorney general charges three former [insurrectionist's] associates in plot to overturn 2020 election.*
*Oceans face "triple threat" of extreme heat, oxygen loss and acidification.*
Mexico's new president is a climate scientist.
That ought to be a hopeful sign. But I am worried about the plan to increase fossil fuel extraction as an "investment" and use the profits to switch to renewable energy later. Fossil fuel "investment" has a tendency to carry society along into more and more of the same — then, before you expected it, you're out of time and it's too late for civilization to survive.
In the UK, systematic shoplifting has become the supplier for fences who act as a discount store chain for the many whose income is too low to get by.
This is not a good solution for the problem. I suspect that some criminals are enriching themselves from it. It may also lead some stores to close. But it is better than no solution at all.
*Biden: "every reason" to believe Netanyahu is prolonging Gaza war for political gain.*
I agree — so Biden, when will you put your foot down and stop this?
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
The use by parents of music-streaming dis-services is cutting children off from playing music on their own.
This is an example of the injustice that results inevitably from locking up music (or any kind of recording) behind a web site or app that works only for someone who has an account, and which blocks and forbids distributing copies.
As tends to happen, the author does not carry the criticism down to the root of the problem. Perse suggests superficial workarounds that leave the system's injustice uncriticized.
The solution is to get DRM-free copies of music, and copy them into a player made with free software that a child can use.
(satire) *Biden Signs Executive Order To Deport All 340 Million Americans And Start From Scratch.*
US citizens: call on the Federal Reserve to support curbing global heating.
*Socialism isn't a dirty word. It's simply about wanting to make a fairer society.*
US citizens: call on Congress to stop insurance companies from vetoing treatments ordered by doctors.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Western culture nowadays is fascinated by the word "kafkaesque".
US citizens: call on Biden to close the gun-show loophole and ban sale of assault-like rifles.
*Big Food, Big Profits, Big Lies.*
US food companies have raised prices by 25% since 2020. Much of this was to increase profits or increase stock prices, rather than because of increased costs.
*Hamas still strong in areas "cleared" by Israel in northern Gaza, say experts.*
I forecast in October that Israel would not be able to wipe out HAMAS. In general, an underground guerrilla uprising cannot be wiped out as long as it can recruit new supporters. It follows that when Netanyahu says he will continue the war in Gaza until HAMAS is wiped out, this means in practice that he intends to continue it as long as there are Palestinian in Gaza.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: call on Biden to send no more weapons to Israel until it ceases atrocities in Gaza.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Ocasio-Cortez Says Biden Must Suspend Israeli Aid After "Indefensible Atrocity" in Rafah.*
I deplore the article's use of the name "X" to refer to Ex-Twitter.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: call on Biden to end the broad sanctions against Venezuela.
Maduro has no respect for democracy, but the sanctions against Venezuela harm the people rather than the rulers.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Biden to extend the "pause" on new fossil gas export facilities into a permanent ban.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Biden to end all fossil fuel subsidies.
Another nasty thing men do to dump women who have immigrated so as to be with them: "exit trafficking".
Another instance of hairtrigger violence by a uniformed thug against a black man has led to the resignation of the thug.
Is this enough to teach other thugs not to do this in the future?
*[The insurrectionist] has spent years complaining that American police and the criminal legal system should be "very much tougher," arguing that some criminals should not be protected by civil liberties, police should rough up suspects, and that a much wider range of people should face the death penalty for breaking the law.*
How about you, Mr Felon?
He should not be executed, though, because the death penalty is inherently unjust regardless of what the crime.
The University of Chicago, like several other US universities, withheld the degrees of some student protesters pending possible worse punishment.
"We must shut down your protest for the sake of safety" is a veiled way of saying, "If you keep up this protest, right-wing provocateurs or our security forces may do you violence, so we must do you violence now to protect you."
Biden's cease-fire deal failed because he thought to gain Netanyahu's agreement using influence alone. Netanyahu told him, contemptuously, to buzz off.
Biden could succeed if he dares to use real pressure, not merely influence.
Starmer tried to purge Diane Abbott MP along with the rest of the Labour left, but he had to retract this after it blew up in his face.
This purge accompanies many plutocratist policy commitments, such as not to raise taxes on the rich. But the purge is worse, because it threatens to convert Labour forever into a less radical version of the Tory Party.
Resisting purges is the only way I can envision to enable Labour to be once again the "moral crusade" it was meant to be. Corbyn is resisting his purge by running as an independent, against a Labour candidate who is so right-wing that he epitomizes what's wrong with Starmer Labour. (He has a business which competes against the NHS — just the sort of person you do not want in Parliament.) Abbott convinced the party to un-purge her. Both count as successes.
But there have been several other purges that have not been resisted yet, including Faiza Shaheen.
*Neighbors say Alito's used security detail car to threaten them after dispute.*
US citizens: call on Clarence Thomas to recuses himself in Trump's immunity case.
Britain's post office, privatized by Tories a decade ago, is now threatened with a leveraged buyout by a foreign billionaire.
*Samsung Requires Independent Repair Shops to [report] Customer Data, and Snitch on People Who Use Aftermarket Parts — Leaked Contract Shows.* Furthermore, the nominally independent repair shop is then required to "disassemble" the phone which was repaired with truly independent parts.
All of those practices ought to be forbidden by law.
It is perverse to refer to systematic surveillance as "sharing" of the data that is collected. Please join me in reserving the word "sharing" to refer to voluntary cooperation.
Cory Doctorow conjectures why Biden doesn't talk much about the good things he has done — it is to avoid alienating his plutocratist supporters.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass Biden's budget for the IRS.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax to limit the political power of America's richest families.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: support the Resolution Recognizing the Human Right to Utilities.
Coca Cola publicity usually shows the old-style reusable glass bottles that in reality it uses for only 10% of sales.
*Israeli journalist describes threats [by Israeli officials] over reporting on spy chief and ICC.*
Military censorship of news reporting is standard practice in Israel. In Israel's first three decades, it feared invasion at any time by Arab armies, and was always partly on a war footing. But that has changed. In the 21st century, the threat of political embarrassment became the focus of press censorship.
In 2011, Israel's leading investigative journalist was prosecuted and silenced.
Guantanamo prosecutors are trying to use one prisoner's confession under torture as evidence against another prisoner. They failed to inform the defendant's lawyers about the torture, in effect passing it off as a sincere confession.
Netanyahu obdurately rejects Biden's cease-fire plan and insists on fighting HAMAS until it is totally destroyed.
Destroying an underground resistance movement, even one without tunnels, is generally nearly impossible as long as it can recruit from the population. So this decision implies an intention to keep killing Palestinians until there is hardly anyone left in Gaza to recruit.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Everyone: call on Universities to divest from the war industry.
The UK Liberal Democrats call for abolishing the right-wing voter-ID law. I wonder whether Starmer will support this.
*Kansas supreme court rules state constitution does not provide the right to vote.*
US citizens: call on Discussion and comment platforms to protect election integrity.
The petition misuses the term "AI".
US citizens: call on the DOJ to investigate Ted Cruz for apparent campaign finance violations
*The corrupter has been found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.*
This means his efforts to bully and intimidate the court did not succeed.
US citizens: call on Congress to rename the closest federal prison to Mar-a-Lago as the "Donald J. Trump Federal Correctional Institution."
Let's look forward to seeing him as an inmate there.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Maj Leader Schumer not to give Netanyahu a platform in front of Congress.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*Vermont becomes first state to require big oil to pay for climate damages.*
US citizens: call on the Federal Reserve to support curbing global heating.
The world has enough fossil fuel resources in existence and in development to last until 2050, without licensing any more.
After 2050, if civilization is to survive, it will have reduced consumption to the point where no more will be needed.
The report provides *“a rigorous scientific basis” for global governments to ban new fossil fuel projects and begin a managed decline of the fossil fuel industry, while encouraging investment in clean energy alternatives.*
Spotify sold a product to make cars listen to Spotify's dis-service. Now Spotify plans to make them all stop working.
The customers who ask Spotify to release free software to power those devices are on the right track, but as long as they call it "open source" instead of "free software", they will undermine their own efforts.
US citizens: call on the major media to make sure voters know the stakes for Social Security in this year's election.
Columbia University has abruptly changed its hearing rules to make it harder for students accused of protesting to defend themselves.
US citizens: call on Congress to ban members of Congress from buying and selling individual stocks.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the State-Based Universal Health Care Act.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: support Biden's latest effort for student debt relief.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
*Republican activist with ties to DeSantis and Rubio indicted over January 6.*
Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch: *The ICC spying revelations show the Israeli government to be a lawless regime.*
Israel's army now controls the whole border of Gaza, including the whole border with Egypt.
If the flow of humanitarian aid is insufficient for the people of Gaza, Israel will be completely and directly responsible. (Aside from the meager quantities delivered by air and sea, but they are not enough to change who survives.) Other governments must hold Israel responsible for any shortfall.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
The UK has jailed asylum seekers from some very dangerous countries as preparation for sending them to Rwanda. These include Sudan, Eritrea and Afghanistan. A refugee from one of those countries has a good chance of qualifying for asylum.
The UK has become incompetent at all sorts of ordinary government transactions. I don't know why, but I suspect (1) budget cuts have left insufficient staff to do the job and (2) a desire to punish asylum seekers and drive them away. Perhaps also bureaucratic rigidity and unwillingness to give those staff any responsibility.
The result of this is that judging an asylum case takes years, so the number of asylum seekers grows and grows.
US citizens: call on Biden to do all he can to avoid devastation in Rafah.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
The US is considering a law to bail out farmers whose land was contaminated by PFAS in sewage sludge.
I sympathize with those farmers, and bailing them out is fair, since they were not themselves to blame for the problem. But what happens to those farmers is a secondary issue. If it turns out that those PFAS make food unhealthful, the main problem will be how and where to grow safe food.
Meanwhile, the most urgent measure to take, in this domain, is to prevent ruining any more farmland this way.
Ships switched to cleaner fuel in 2020. The resulting decrease in air pollution resulted in a jump in global heating.
US citizens: call on Facebook to preserve the CrowdTangle analysis tool.
I refuse to let Facebook use me, and I hope you do likewise; but since Facebook exists, we should preserve methods to analyze how it uses people.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass clean energy transmission legislation — to speed the connection of new renewable energy generators to the power grid.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the bill to improve prenatal and maternity support for women who are poor or disprivileged.
The bill's name is misleading, but its substance is good.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on states not to divert public school funds to private schools.
Experimenters passed 517 questions from Stack Overflow to ChatGPT to see what output it would respond with. Around half the answers, when interpreted semantically by humans, turned out to be incorrect.
This is to be expected, because ChatGPT is not intelligent and does not understand the meaning of text that it operates on. It can do more sophisticated text manipulation than Query Replace, but it has no more knowledge or understanding than Query Replace.
How Google decided to make its search work worse so as to make more profit.
If I had experienced the recent enshittification of Google Search with so-called "AI", it might have moved me to stop using it. However, I had stopped using Google Search many years ago because LibreJS could determine that Google Search wouldn't function without running nonfree JavaScript code.
US citizens: call on university administrators and boards to end the repressive tactics used against Gaza solidarity encampments.
US citizens: call on Congress to do everything it can to fight voter suppression.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
Putin's propaganda and news blackout are effectively teaching thousands of young Russians to want to fight for Putin.
This is a sad change. It used to be that many soldiers in the Putin forces looked for an opportunity to surrender, and some eagerly joined Ukraine's army.
*Increasing use of renewable energy in US [yielded around 250 billion] dollars of benefits [over 4 years].*
Policies proposed by Sanders for the Democratic Party to to protect jobs from businesses' predation.
*Why is Nikki Haley scrawling genocidal messages on Israeli bombs?*
My conjecture is, she is trying to out-hate the fascist leader so as to be chosen as his running mate.
Whether or not Israel's atrocities in Gaza add up to enough to be qualify as "genocide", there is no doubt that what Haley advocates would be genocide.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Public Housing for the 21st Century Act. It will set up information-sharing to help the many cities that want to build more public housing.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Biden to oppose use of the national guard to crush protests.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on news networks not to give election deniers a platform.
US citizens: state your disgust for the fascist's Project 2025.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on state attorneys general to investigate the antiabortion mills (self-called "crisis pregnancy centers") for mistreating clients and abusing their personal data.
US citizens: Call on Congress to let parts of the corrupter's 2017 tax cuts expire.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on the USPS Inspector General and Board of Governors to protect vote-by-mail from DeJoy.
An Israeli air strike on refugee tents in Rafah killed around 45 civilians at once.
If the Israeli air force really tries not to kill civilians, it was not trying very hard that day. The pilot could not have failed to see that the area was full of tents, if perse considered the question.
Israel should obey the International Court of Justice, and the US should insist that it do so.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Some of the biggest [Australian] waste companies broke rules meant to keep contamination [such as asbestos] out of landscaping products.*
*"Crippling" drought in Zambia threatens hunger for millions, says minister.*
This is climate mayhem. We may be able to slow it and stop it, but first we need to adopt a plan adequate to fully do the job.
*Spying, [cracking] and intimidation: Israel's nine-year "war" on the ICC exposed.*
There was no shooting between Israel and the ICC, but Israeli officials described the fight as "war". I wish that Israel had refrained from war crimes against Palestine and Gaza.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Regularly feeding babies peanuts at the age of 4 months prevents 2/3 of the cases of allergy to peanuts.
This suggests that the cause of the great increase in allergy rate in recent decades is due to a risk-averse behavior pattern.
Each time E Jean Carroll sues the bully for defamation and wins, the bully responds by conspicuously doing it again,
He expects that this wins support from his followers, who imagine themselves joining in his arrogance towards people weaker than he. And he figures that if he wins or steals the election, he will never have to pay those judgments.
Can the court hit him with something more unpleasant than another damage award that he assumes he will never pay?
Georgia has adopted a law to label NGOs with foreign support, such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, as "serving the interests of a foreign power".
There are suggestions that the adoption of this law represents an act of adherence to Putin — but is that adherence manifest in any other way? I have not seen any described.
Meanwhile, Georgia and Russia have been hostile for decades, and sometimes even at war. If that has changed, how did it change and when?
*Rwanda's top UK diplomat oversaw use of Interpol to target regime opponents.*
To deport people to an undesired third country violates the right to ask for asylum. When that country has a repressive government, as Rwanda has, that makes it even worse.
Today's bullshit generators are already adequate for generating political propaganda.
Google Search's bullshit generator, described misleadingly by Google as "AI", encourages users to run with scissors and to eat rocks.
If only users were not told repeatedly that this is "artificial intelligence" they would call it a bullshit generator.
US citizens: call on Congress to cancel Boeing's nuclear weapons testing contract.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate Mercedes's union busting.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on the DOJ to break up UnitedHealth's medical monopoly.
US citizens: call on Democrats in Congress to reject AIPAC, which supports enemies of US democracy.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Biden to declare a climate emergency.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
The taboo about reevaluating departure from the EU makes it impossible to honestly confront the issues raised by its consequences.
*The ICC arrest request is a fire alarm for Israel. Will it take heed?*
*In dismissing calls for Netanyahu’s arrest, the west is undermining its own world order.*
*I run a university — people like me should be backing students' right to protest over Gaza.*
*[A former White House lawyer] says [the corrupter's secret documents case] could have easily gotten to trial and that Aileen Cannon has delayed on issues most judges would have handled.*
This is more reason to suspect that that judge is trying to serve the corrupter.
The abortion rate in the US has increased since the Supreme Court was taken over by the right-wing. So has the sterilization rate for women, who are taking precautions to ensure they can't need an abortion.
I hope to see Congress swing Democratic this year because of grass-roots support for abortion rights.
Greenpeace won a court victory in the Philippines blocking commercial cultivation of rice that has been genetically modified to produce Vitamin A. Deficiency of vitamin A kills around 100,000 people each year, world wide.
Any given genetically modified crop may be harmful, or not, depending on its practical effects, which include whether it is restricts sharing among farmers by means of an imposed legal monopoly (which could be a patent, or a plant variety monopoly).
The pesticide-resistant crops that campaigners denounce are harmful in practice, both because of their restriction of farmers' rights and because the pesticides used on them are harmful to wildlife and perhaps to humans too.
Vitamin-A-producing rice do neither of these kinds of harm, so they should be authorized.
See also my article, "Biopiracy or Bioprivateering?"
The Labour shadow energy secretary agrees that climate defense is an emergency but says the tactics of Just Stop Oil are counterproductive because they alienate people.
That might be true, but since they see that the climate emergency will kill them in a few decades, what does he suggest that they do instead? Should they join Just Trust the Government instead? Or Just Give Up?
It is the government's responsibility to be the climate leaders inspiring the people to more action. If they demonstrate that following them is more effective than following Just Give Up, millions will rejoice and follow them.
French activists have chosen a different tactic: picketing the energy company TotalEnergies and a big fund that invests in it.
I saw ads for TotalEnergies in Europe recently. It wants the public to associate it with "all kinds of energy", especially renewable electric generation, and forget the inconvenient fact that it is still increasing fossil fuel extraction.
One way to make use of bullshit generators on web sites safer would be for a court, or a law, to insist that their operators are legally responsible for the advice given by that they generate.
This would entail changing section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to distinguish between publishing other people's writing (for which the site is not liable) and publishing material generated by software that the site's owner generates (or contracts to generate) using software. If generative systems participate in writing the text, the site would be liable for that text.
An identified (even if pseudonymous) human author could use a generative system, but would then take responsibility for its output.
ChatGPT was asked programming questions based on items in StackOverflow. More than half of the generated answers were incorrect.
Take care against admitting a bullshit generator into the sources of what purport to be knowledge.
The UK's former chief scientific adviser warns that the world is not ready for the next pandemic.
US citizens: verify that your voter registration has not been purged. Republicans are doing their usual voter deregistration drive and you may have been targeted.
US citizens: call on Biden to respect the International Criminal Court and reject sanctions against it.
US citizens: call on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to endorse a global minimum tax on billionaire wealth ahead of the G20 summit.
US citizens: call on The Senate to investigate Justice Alito's public support for insurrection.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the BAIL and TERM acts to regulate membership of the Supreme Court,
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Biden to take the steps necessary to replace Postmaster DeJoy.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on US intelligence agencies: no national security briefings for the corrupter.
Whatever information he gets, he is likely to send to his friend, Putin.
*Electoral laws flouted, opposition MPs arrested — this is what it's like to stand against Modi's BJP.*
NYU demands student protesters write confessions for the crime of breaking rules with a protest.
This reminds the author of the imposed self-criticism sessions in China. It reminds me of the "apologies" that are demanded of people who are canceled.
I think it should be possible, by careful use of irony, to cast doubt on university's proclaimed ethical conclusions while nominally "confessing".
As for using episodes of The Simpsons to pose ethical questions, I think they are as good as any other story for the purpose of starting a conversation about ethics. What makes the Simpsons so much fun is that it includes irony and doubts its presuppositions. But watching The Simpsons may raise real moral issues.
Can anyone tell me whether the contracts students must agree to in order to access the materials for this exercise includes a promise not to redistribute copies of the materials? For instance, episodes of The Simpsons?
Does carrying out the exercise require running nonfree software — perhaps an app, or nonfree JavaScript code from that site?
If so, I think the kind of ethics being taught here is, "Obey the powerful and the laws they have imposed."
The article uses the term "hacking" to refer to cracking — please keep this distinction in mind when you write about either of them.
*Alarm as German climate activists charged with "forming a criminal organisation".*
This seems to refer to a German equivalent of the US "RICO" law,
Ever since I first read about the RICO law, I have worried that it could be used against democratic protest activities. The criteria for applying the RICO law are vague and general. They were written to facilitate using it against secret criminal gangs, but make it hard to guarantee that annoying protests are not targeted as well.
Starmer has copied Obama's slogan, "Change". This invites voters to think of the changes they would like to see, and fantasize that Labour would make those changes. However, Starmer makes it quite clear that the real change is that Labour now prioritizes wealthier voters. I was unimpressed when Obama used vague "hope" and "change" as slogans, and I am unimpressed now.
The fascist leader was repeatedly booed at the "Libertarian" convention when he asked that party to nominate him for president.
He was surprised by this powerful rejection, but it does not surprise me.
Their primary goal is to reduce taxes (which mostly benefits the rich), so I call them "antisocialists". They are libertarians also, but that goal is secondary for them. They advocate for laissez-faire, laissez-mourir capitalism, not dictatorship. Of course they scorned the wrecker.
We true libertarians support that same human rights goal, by supporting progressive candidates — who likewise defend human rights but also seek to tax the rich to fund crucial missions of the state.
As for the antisocialists, if they want to have any sort of human rights in the US as of 2025, they should vote tactically for Biden and other non-Republicans. Those alone can defeat the attempt to impose dictatorship.
Russia says that the corrupter is lying about having influence with Russia.
Since he and Putin both lie so much that we can't trust anything they say, the only thing we can be sure of is that having the corrupter as president is far too high a price to pay for the possible release of some of Putin's prisoners.
*Call to prosecute Netanyahu for war crimes exposes the west's moral doublethink.*
*The Media Still [Don't] Grasp the Danger of [the fascist].
*Israel appears to be forging ahead with its offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, despite a new ruling from the UN’s top court to halt the assault, which it said is worsening an already “disastrous” humanitarian crisis.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: Thank members of Congress who supported ending Israel's use of US-supplied weapons in Gaza.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: Thank reps that voted against unconditional military aid to Israel.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Your senators to reject S. 4136, which would authorize officials to eliminate any nonprofit organization by accusing it of vague "support for terrorism".
For instance, any organization that protests against Israel's atrocities in Gaza could find that people show up and chant, "HAMAS we love you", and it could be wiped out of existence for that.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: call on Congress to defeat the GOP bill to restart weapons shipments to Israel.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Biden to use every possible means of influence to get Israel to accept a ceasefire in Gaza.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US citizens: call on Biden to give no arms to Israel that it could use to attack Rafah.
Stop denying obvious implications!
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on Biden to stop trying to protect Israeli war criminals from the International Criminal Court.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
The prospects of selling a nuclear reactor to Australia have been undermined by a report on how much time and money it would cost.
The Republican who arranged to make deepfake robocalls pretending to be Biden's voice faces criminal charges for that.
*Don't Be Fooled: Voucher Programs Are Coming to Destroy Public Education.*
*Companies in the oil, hotel, meat and other sectors are price-gouging the US public. They’re not hiding it, either.*
This has to be a consequence of too little competition. With more competition, companies would have to reduce prices and increase production. In most cases, that would mean no gouging.
But the fossil fuel sector is an exception. Expanding production of fossil fuels until demand is satisfied is the road to gigadeaths, If our government were effective for terrible long-term problems, it would be organizing long-term contraction of that market.
*[The WWF] is suing the Norwegian government for opening up its seabed for deep-sea mining, claiming that Norway has failed to properly investigate the consequences of this move.*
Corporations are weaponizing "Free Speech" to eliminate safety notices regulations.
This is a consequence of the Corporations United decision which ruled that human rights apply to corporations, even though those are not in fact human.
*Why police killings like [that of] George Floyd get labeled "accidents", according to a forensic pathologist.*
(satire) *God Testing Out Potential New Commandment On Mice.*
In Denmark it is normal for people to trust strangers, and they have good reason to do so.
Accusing the United Arab Emirates of intentionally fueling the civil war in Sudan.
I don't have enough knowledge about the situation in Sudan to judge these accusations. In general, I have posted little about this civil war for lack of background knowledge with which to make sense of the situation.
*After vowing to oppose any Israeli offensive in Rafah, Washington and London now see nothing fitting their definition [of "Israeli offensive in Rafah"].*
* [Whistleblowers] describe Palestinian [prisoners] being beaten, kept shackled to hospital beds or made to stand for hours.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Israel has disappeared hundreds of Palestinian medical doctors.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Texas Governor Abbott pardoned the man convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester, for motives of racism.
In effect, Abbott has endorsed political murder.
Does he endorse political murder of anyone by anyone? Or only political murder of progressives by right-wing lunatics?
Barcelona's new city government, which is right-wing, illegally rented out the Parc Guell, and harassed residents of the neighborhood. When citizens organized a protest against this, thugs charged them, carrying sticks.
If a bus route is overloaded because of the number of tourists, the solution is to run more frequent buses on that route.
The International Court of Justice ordered Israel to stop its attack on Rafah, reiterating that it leads in a direction that heads towards genocide.
The "any other actions" that Israel is ordered to cease would seem to include its blockage of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Jeremy Corbyn is running for parliament as an independent.
*[The insurrectionist]'s "unified Reich" video was a message not a mistake.*
It was a deniable dog whistle to get the Nazi storm troopers excited.
*Louisiana expected to classify abortion pills as controlled and dangerous substances.*
This is an effort to ban drug-based abortions, but it could also endanger the lives of pregnant women with various medical conditions.
*Summer of natural disasters may be ahead in US with "above normal" hurricane season.* Caused by global heating, of course.
Damage from medium-size thunderstorms is increasing every year in the US, and the result is to make home insurance too expensive in large parts of the US.
In this way, global heating is causing real problems for tens of millions of Americans already.
*The head of the UK Environment Agency has admitted that freedom of information requests have been buried by the regulator because the truth about the environment in England is "embarrassing".*
Salman Rushdie: *Although he has “argued for a Palestinian state for most of my life — since the 1980s, probably &mdash right now, if there was a Palestinian state, it would be run by HAMAS, and that would make it a Taliban-like state, and it would be a client state of Iran."* He finds it strange that some progressive students support such a thing.
To me, it is disappointing but understandable — they are yielding to the tendency to oversimplify situations into "side A vs side B". If you think about the Gaza war in terms of "pro-Israel" vs "pro-Palestine", then your condemnation of Israel's bombardment and tends to lead you into supporting Israel's enemy, HAMAS.
Therefore I am firmly pro-Israel and firmly pro-Palestine.
*Can the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement rebuild after 7 October?*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
SCROTUS are proposing a law to promote increased gouging by military contractors.
DeJoy told senators he will not make drastic changes to mail delivery this year.
If that means what it sounds like, it could mean he will not undermine the effectiveness of vote by mail. I would not trust his word, though.
*Migratory fish populations have crashed by more than 80% since 1970.* Various human activities seem to be the cause.
This book review is a resume of a book about the ideological intolerance of the American left in recent years, by a reporter who formerly participated in that but eventually stopped complying.
I have not read the book itself — only the review.
A UK court ruled that a minister illegally ordered a broad interpretation of criteria for illegal protests, which was supposed to be a court's job.
The government has also passed unjust laws to restrict protest.
*Ministers are intent on restricting protest, and will flout the law to do it. Don’t rely on them to do the right thing.*
Right-wing UK politicians propose many new laws to restrict protests and punish protesters.
*A criminal case has been filed against the CEO and directors of the French oil company TotalEnergies, alleging its fossil fuel exploitation has contributed to the deaths of victims of climate-fueled extreme weather disasters.*
In northern Scotland, towns are being gradually washed away by storms exacerbated by global heating and sea level rise. Some towns are clearly going to be gone in a few years.
Similar things are happening elsewhere. Land in North America at the edge of the Arctic Ocean has been eroding even faster.
Oil Change International says, *Top oil firms' climate pledges failing on almost every metric.*
The pledges of BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies are basically greenwashing.
Those companies uses these pledges to stave off laws that would try to make them really reduce greenhouse emissions. At the same time, they lobby to weaken the application of the existing laws that could limit the destruction of civilization.
I expect that they help stir up farmers' protests against increases in the price of fossil fuels.
*Warming climate is turning rivers rusty with toxic metals.*
Australia plans to develop a test for being actually impaired as a driver by marijuana.
This is to avoid punishing drivers that are impaired, from those that have lawfully used marijuana but too little to be impaired as drivers by it.
*Biden is dramatically out of touch with voters on Gaza. He may lose because of it.*
*Conditioning Aid to Israel Would Boost Support for Biden in Key States, New Poll Finds.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
One of disinformationists' tools: the "thought-terminating cliche" that offers an excuse to give up really thinking about what the truth is.
Professor Appy of the University of Massachusetts rebukes the chancellor for calling in state thugs to arrest and torture students who had made an encampment, and reports the false claim that these arrests contributed to "safety" on campus. He mainly focuses on what inspired him to decide to be arrested.
*Investigate fossil fuel industry [for disinformation], top Democrats urge justice department.*
Google has moved the surveillance of fitbits to Google servers. It used to be done using fitbit-specific servers.
Both kinds of surveillance are morally intolerable, and I don't see why one is more or less bad than the other. The crucial point is that this sort of surveillance is gratuitous, because it can easily be avoided. The morally legitimate way to design such products is to let users communicate directly with them from their own computers, running free software. That way, no company would get to surveil users through the devices they supposedly own.
*The pretext of counter-terrorism as a reason to investigate Americans started with "red squads", HUAC and J Edgar Hoover.*
*Newsmax accused of deleting evidence that it was spreading 2020 election lies.
*Young Alaskans sue state over fossil fuel project they claim violates their rights.*
It would *roughly triple the state’s greenhouse gas emissions for decades*, the lawsuit claims.
Google is enbullshitifying Google Search to the max, converting it into presenting the ramblings of bullshit generators (described by Google as "artificial intelligence").
I reproach the article for swallowing that conceptual error, and also for referring to services as "products" (thus blurring an important distinction).
I have had no access to Google Search for many years, aside from a period of time when I could access it via a LibreX proxy. That is because it depends on nonfree JavaScript code, which I won't trust.
I recommend people ditch Google Search and switch to other engines such as duckduckgo.com.
The US released a Guantanamo prisoner to Algeria, which supposedly promised to allow him to live in freedom, but instead it jailed him.
*Green activists push Biden to freeze ‘disastrous’ deepwater oil export [facilities].*
Amazon warehouse workers claim Amazon has programmed the computers that give them orders so as to disrupt union organizing.
Global heating effects are damaging rail lines in Britain. The rate of damage is increasing rapidly, and some lines may eventually have to be abandoned, long before sea-level rise inundated them permanently.
*The Black Lives Matter era is over. It taught us the limits of diversity for diversity’s sake.*
I hope the Black Lives Matter campaign is not truly over. It is a campaign to put a stop to the hairtrigger racist violence of uniformed thugs. That campaign is as justified and necessary now as it ever was. It deserves our support.
Diversity is a different issue. Efforts for diversity are desirable when they operate at the long term -- aiding the members of disprivileged groups to overcome the unfair obstacles that bigotry puts in their way. But we should not be carried away in pursuit of diversity.
*Norman Finkelstein on Gaza, "from the river to the sea" and political messaging: "We need to bring unity to this struggle."*
Israel competes with HAMAS in regard to cruelty and violence towards prisoners. In effect, Israel is now using its political prisoners as hostages for revenge.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Republicans are campaigning to keep appliances inefficient and more expensive to run.
North Carolina's senate has attacked the right to protest by prohibiting wearing a mask for anonymity. Immunocompromised people like me are also endangered.
Union busting by Merecedes defeated a campaign to unionize its plant in Alabama. However, the company made significant concessions to workers to obtain this result.
*Sex education in English schools set to be banned before children are nine.* These guidelines cover education of teenagers as well as that of children, and some topics won't be allowed until age 15.
A fraction of teenagers find themselves (willingly or unwillingly) in sexual situations before that age. They would be better off knowing some crucial points about birth control and preventing disease, and how to say no firmly but without rejecting the person, before they need to know it.
Here is criticism of that rule.
*Members of security forces giving settlers who intercept vital supplies information on location of convoys, group says.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
* It’s not possible for the US to prosecute Assange while claiming to be a friend of press freedom. Biden should end this now.*
*Ebrahim Raisi was no moderate, but his death may mean Iran becomes even more hardline.*
I don't see any way that Iran could become less repressive, other than via a revolution which seems rather unlikely.
New York City thugs went to town beating up the protesters they had already arrested.
Even if those protesters deserved to be arrested — a question on which I won't presume to trust the judgment of thugs was valid — it could not justify that violence.
The fascist energizes supporters by saying "fuck you" to Liberals, Democrats, truth, justice, and human decency.
When they start their coup, will we be organized to fight them and defeat them?
Ilan Pappé: *I'm an Israeli critic of Zionism. Why did border agents detain me at a US airport?*
It seems that US government "security" agencies are meddling politically, which they have no business doing. Fortunately they did not bar his entry to the US this time.
I don't know Pappé's views in detail and I probably would disagree with part of them — but I am incensed at the US government for meddling in this way.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
The US faces a wave of McCarthyism, this time using "antisemitism" rather than "communism" as the target for repression. Congress is working on a bill to "combat antisemitism" which is based on the IHRA criterion for antisemitism, which is a way of arbitrarily declaring some views on political questions to be "antisemitism".
Jewish civil libertarians, including the author of the IHRA definition, are campaigning against this bill.
Americans, if you love our freedoms, now is the time to defend them.
*Biden will be remembered as a president who could have restrained Israel but instead made the US complicit in this war.* (Unless he pushes harder and actually changes Israel's actions.)
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Microsoft will make Windows save all the screen output so as to look through it later; but don't worry about snooping, it says.
What Microsoft says about privacy seems impressive until you think about the consequences of the universal back door that enables Microsoft to forcibly install any change in the installed software. If Microsoft wants to see some of the files in your computer, it can look at them at any time.
Indeed, can you be sure it isn't looking already?
Cops too could seize your computer and look at those records, perhaps to see whether you had an abortion.
Google has announced a new Android "feature" of analyzing the audio of phone calls and informing when it hears something resembling a deepfake scam.
That feature could potentially be useful, if it were implemented in a trustworthy way (with free software, for instance). But given that it is implemented using nonfree software, there is the danger it could be extended to scan for other things, perhaps conversations about "subversive" topics such as defending human rights or rejecting nonfree software. The notification when these are detected may go to the FBI instead of the user.
California has levied an excise tax on sales of guns.
*The VA Is Quietly Fast-Tracking MDMA Therapy for Veterans.*
The wrecker's campaign posted a video that uses Nazi terminology.
When challenged, the campaign said it was posted by someone who hadn't taken the trouble to check the wording in it. That level of carelessness strikes me as implausible.
Given how often the wrecker goes in for promoting fascism and Nazism, I think it is more plausible that this was intentional and the falsehood is intentional too.
*Israeli officials seize camera from [Associated Press] news agency, cutting live feed of Gaza.*
Israel's pretext for this action is not even worth discussing, since such pretexts cannot justify cutting off press coverage for the public.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
UNRWA says that it has no supplies to distribute in Rafah, and that no aid is actually arriving through the US's much-hyped pier for aid supplies.
Governor Dementis and the Florida Republicans have passed a range of laws that can only be described as "Do anything possible to roast our planet."
The US may use the ICC's possible prosecution of Israeli officials as an excuse to attack its existence.
Refuting US, UK and German criticism of the ICC's proposed war crime charges against Israeli leaders.
Julian Assange will be allowed to appeal against his extradition after the US failed to satisfy the court's demands.
*The case against Julian Assange has been a cruel folly. His right to appeal is a small step towards justice.*
The extradition treaty under which the US asked for his extradition is asymmetric because the US never ratified it; but the UK chooses to obey it anyway.
Iranians are celebrating the death of President Raisi.
A new president will have no effect on Iran's foreign policy.
*ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Israeli PM and HAMAS officials for war crimes.*
Here is discussion about how the ICC would decide whether to issue the warrants.
I hope it does so.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Academic workers at UC Santa Cruz strike over crackdown on Gaza protests.*
HAMAS does not allow the ICRC to visit the hostages it took on October 7. So Israel has retaliated by barring the ICRC from visiting Palestinian prisoners — in effect turning them into hostages.
HAMAS does not care much about Israel's Palestinian political prisoners. It is impossible to pressure HAMAS by being cruel to them. But Israel can gain something by treating its prisoners decently and showing the world that it is better than HAMAS in this and other ways.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Rwanda denies entry to senior human rights researcher.*
There have been credible accusations against President Kagame, and his interference with efforts to investigate them lends them credibility.
Unprecedented rain has flooded the city of Porto Alegre. Global heating is causing this sort of disaster in many parts of the world.
*OpenAI researcher resigns, claiming safety has taken "a backseat to shiny products."*
As far as I know, "Open"AI does not develop any products — only (dis-)services based on unreleased software that users can't even have as executables.
This news confirms my point that it is absurd to trust a company to prevent use of its dis-services for harmful or unjust purposes.
*A 1°C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world gross domestic product, researchers have found.*
The German group "Last Generation" blocked the operation of Munich Airport to call attention to the danger of global heating disaster. The group's name refers to the fact that future generations' lives are likely to be cut short by climate chaos.
I agree that this tactic seems to be ineffective, but we can't blame them for taking drastic actions when confronted by a problem that can expect to kill them, while the public, like most governments, ignores it.
*Three climate activists have been convicted of "interference with key national infrastructure" by marching in the road in West London for 20 minutes,*
The new system of repression of protests has functioned. Whether it will crush efforts to save humanity remains to be seen.
*Putin is seeking to weaponize threat of mass migration, says Estonian PM.*
Governor DeMentis has given Florida a law to unleash Florida's contribution to flooding the state's territory.
Justice Alito put up an upside-down flag outside his home in January 2021, when that gesture was a symbol of support for the corrupter's lie that the election had been stolen.
The US-built pier in Gaza has begun operating, but it lacks the capacity to replace the land crossings that Israel has now blocked.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Biden proposes end to new leases in US's largest coal-producing region.*
US employers are required to protect workers from falls, which can be done with standard methods. They are also required to report such incidents to workers' compensation. But often they don't do either one, and it is hard to make them.
The US legal system is generally inadequate for enforcing workers' rights of whatever kind. That includes union-related rights, the right to get paid one's wages, as well as the right to proper safety measures. If the US enforced workers' rights against their employers the way it enforces the laws that mainly benefit the rich, American workers would, practically speaking, have far more rights.
There is a new political article: Fight Modern Slavery, but Leave Astronomy Alone.
*[Life] insurance companies in Australia are fighting for access to these test results.* The tests show how likely a person is to die from some cancers.
It is obvious why insurance companies want these data: to charge more to people who have the harmful gene variants. The reason that practice is harmful is not so obvious but it is important: life insurance is presumed as part of the state social safety net. If you have dependents, you need life insurance.
Life insurance was developed back in the day when states hardly had a social safety net. In a country with a good enough state system, life insurance becomes unnecessary. That is the real fix.
The Putin forces torture Ukrainian prisoners of war, but they especially torture the musicians of military bands.
*Banks have given almost $7tn to fossil fuel firms since Paris deal, report reveals.*
Almost all of those trillions has been invested in plunging headfirst into making climate disaster worse.
The US left has largely come to define "Zionism" as the political philosophy of the apartheid system that Israel applies to occupied Palestine.
The danger is that valid condemnation of Israel's actual policies and behavior may lead to a sort of anti-Zionism, the opposite or reversal of each aspect of Zionism. This tends to transform the conflict into one which admits of no resolution other than the destruction of one of the two sides. That would be a horrible mistake.
I support the existence of Israel, which has the obligation (like every country) to respect human rights and democracy, alongside a state of Palestine which would (like every country) have the same obligation.
It is sad to see how little respect people get when they complain after companies charged them for mere access to a remote copy of something, and then put limits even on that access.
The author of this article bends over backwards to excuse companies for doing something that is inherently abusive. He grants moral authority to the laws companies have obtained so that they have power over people. He presupposes that companies deserve whatever power they can get governments to impose.
When you get a copy of anything that has been published, no one is entitled to the power to control whether, when or how you can use it. No one is entitled to the power to make it disappear. Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) is an injustice and ought to be a felony.
When people defy that through forbidden sharing, don't call that "piracy".
Australian border thugs stretched the lax Australian law to demand the passwords to unlock travelers' phones. That they do this arbitrarily, without court orders, is an offense against the rule of law. That they pretend it is "random", which clearly it is not, is a lie that shames the entire Australian government.
Of course, Australia is not the only semi-free country that does this, and non-free countries such as China do far worse. That is no excuse for Australia.
It is amusing, though, to see the complaining passenger complain that it is unthinkable to travel without a device that will snoop on him.
A Maga Maggot joked about giving homeless people counterfeit money to get them arrested. "How broken must you be to do this and think it's funny?", someone commented.
In the UK before Tory budget cuts, medicine for pregnancy and birth was adequate, except for some disprivileged groups. Budget cuts have made it generally horrible, leading to injuries.
*Israeli public opinion is shifting on the Gaza war — but this may make Netanyahu even more reckless.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Hospital surgical teams that include more female doctors improve patient outcomes, lower the risk of serious complications and could in turn reduce healthcare costs, according to the world’s largest study of its kind.*
The Philippines found a clever nonviolent way to respond to China's naval provocations in the disputed sea between them, which China is trying to seize.
*The 2024 Class of Gaza: The Students Have Done Their Part.*
Night-Mayor Adams argued for allowing unauthorized immigrants to work in the US by saying that they could fill New York City's lifeguard shortage.
I see no racism in that statement. (By the way, Adams is black; for most political issues that makes no difference, but in regard to whether his statements express racism it might be pertinent.)
It is true that only a small fraction of unauthorized immigrants reach the US by swimming, or by water at all. His words may have suggested otherwise; if so, that was inaccurate. But perhaps he did not intend that implication. His words say that many of them say they can swim.
Anyway, if he was serious rather than sarcastic about the political suggestion of allowing them to work, I think we can pardon that inaccurate possible point.
The corrupter's criminal trial is a tour through a world of pervasive corruption and immorality — the world he imposes on those around him.
Global heating is making seasons unpredictable. Some birds starve because after migration the things they would eat are not available; in some years the food has not appeared, and in other years it has already disappeared or changed form.
The target of limiting global heating to no more than 1.5°C was proposed as an ambitious plan. The evident failure to reach it does not mean all is lost.
Not yet.
The aid convoy attacked by Israeli nationalist fanatics was escorted by Israeli soldiers. They did nothing to stop the attack.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*The Nationwide Right-Wing Attack on Reform Prosecutors Is Now an Attack on Abortion Rights [as well].*
The American Communist Party "attracted egalitarian idealists, and it bred authoritarian zealots."
Nowadays what breeds authoritarian zealots is the right-wing MAGA movement. I wonder if it is possible to identify which common points are responsible for that result.
The author regrets American Communists' "willingness to subvert their own best instincts in their devotion to a flawed and irrelevant historical model." The American right-wing today can be described with similar words — their model includes laissez faire / laissez mourir, balanced budgets, minimizing taxes on the rich, and scapegoating minorities and immigrants.
(satire) *[The ganglord] reflexively asks Michael Cohen to silence Michael Cohen.*
*As Uber's Profit Margins Grow, Workers Make Less and Less.*
This is a valid social reason to boycott Guber — because it pays workers peanuts. But that company's operations directly mistreat its customers, as well as its drivers.
Human Rights Watch reports at least eight Israeli airstrikes on Gaza aid groups since October, with no warnings given.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Now that corporations have bought many single-family homes, they feel free to maintain them badly, because if tenants withhold rent to demand their rights, the corporation evicts them.
These corporations lobby hard against laws to protect tenants from being cheated. I think Republican-controlled states may not have codified rent strikes.
Several Jewish students, at least fairly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, state praise and criticism for views they encountered in recent encampments.
The Jewish population of Israel did not come from Europe, so cannot even theoretically go "back" there.
I support an independent state of Palestine, but abolishing Israel would be worse (because it's bigger) than abolishing Gaza.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*FBI warns [gay] Pride month celebrations could be targeted by terrorists.*
*As Europe's power shrinks, its fear is growing — and the result is huge mistakes.*
I have strongly criticized the EU for giving power to banksters instead of to the people.
A right-wing-extremist German candidate has been convicted of using a slogan used by Nazi paramilitaries in the 1930s.
I don't think that was a accident. Right-wing extremists are very clever about their dog whistles. Apparently that candidate chose to invoke the Nazi for per own success.
Which is worse: Nazis successfully recruiting with hate, or censorship of Nazi views? For me, either one is likely to destroy democracy.
Looking for a model of progress that does not depend on unending economic growth.
The US needs to spend a trillion dollars over the next 20 years in order to upgrade and repair water infrastructure.
That is presuming we do what is needed to curb global heating. If we don't do that, we are on the path to a world of disasters — so what difference does one disaster more or less make?
*[It seems that] Venezuela is the first country to have lost all its glaciers in modern times.*
Venezuela bears a fraction of the responsibility for this event through its export of oil. But it is just a small fraction.
Renewable generation provided 30% of the world's electricity in 2023. This is expected to continue growing rapidly.
Various restrictions imposed on abortion by some US states correlated with higher rates of domestic homicide.
It is too early to determine how the recent bans on abortion have affected this correlation, but one must suspect that bans correlate with even higher increases.
Laying out DeJoy's plans to make US mail less reliable and frequently but unpredictably slower.
The anticipated slowdowns will interfere with postal voting. Many ballots will arrive late due to USPS delays and then will not be counted.
Governments are noticing the terrible danger that business-supremacy treaties pose to prospects of reducing fossil fuel use.
Given the millions of people that those companies' use of business-supremacy treaties is likely to kill, in my view war is justified to defeat them. However, it is not obvious to me what strategy could be successful.
A deadly heat wave across Asia in April was impossible before humans caused global heating. Now we can expect one like it every few years.
Alternative jet fuel is not feasible in the time frame necessary to avert climate disaster.
Northern Canada is again beset by dangerous wildfires, including near Ft McMurray, a main center of tar sand oil extraction.
There is poetic justice in greenhouse-fueled wildfires burning Ft McMurray. I hope the people there reflect on what they have done to cause wildfires like these.
Wildfires in Canada damaged fiber optic cables and cut off communication with large areas. Without land lines and cash, everyone was screwed.
This is not one of my reasons for having cash on hand and always paying cash — I don't think fire damage to Boston's underground cables is likely. But in many places it is another good reason to make a habit of using cash. You can make sure that the stores you buy from are accustomed to cash payments and realize that they will lose business if they don't let you pay that way.
UNWRA has run out of food in southern 2/3 of Gaza, so it can't distribute any more. Israel is not letting in any more food, having captured and closed the Rafah crossing.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Israel closed the Rafah aid crossing from Egypt into Gaza, and is claiming that Egypt closed it. It says that reopening it is up to Egypt. But this is not true and Egypt vociferously denies it.
Who is this supposed to fool?
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Israeli tanks have entered Rafah's residential zones. This could result in killing thousands soon enough.
A UN vehicle was attacked, with casualties. I wish we could identify who attacked it.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
A split in Israel's cabinet about what to aim for after this war ends could lead to a shift of some sort.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Here is the cease-fire deal that HAMAS agreed to, two weeks ago. It includes releasing all the hostages. Israel did not accept it.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Fanatics of the Israeli violent "settler" movement attacked an aid convoy, which was traveling from Jordan to Gaza; its route passed through occupied Palestinian territory and then Israel.
The attack took place at a checkpoint where it was going to cross from Palestinian territory into Israel. These checkpoints are run by Israeli forces, who evidently chose not to defend the convoy from the fanatics. Such noninterference with mob violence against Arabs is quite usual for them.
Some Israelis openly demand to starve Gaza until HAMAS frees all the hostages. I don't think that has any chance of success; HAMAS will not yield so that Israel will forbear to kill thousands of Palestinian hostages. But if Israel wants to be judged as morally superior to HAMAS, it must save them.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Australia's government has surrendered to fossil gas.
The previous right-wing government was embarrassingly subservient, and it looked like the Labor government would be better. But no, it's the same track that leads to gigadeaths.
Australia plans to invest $23bn in a future industrial policy.
I am not one of those who claims that it is foolish to have an industrial policy, but there is always the risk that is used to hide a giveaway to big business. This one includes an investment in hydrogen production, and it sounds like renewable production is only the second step.
What is the first step of hydrogen production? Is it production from fossil fuels? That's the way that already works, but investing in boosting the amount of that is only going to make the climate crisis worse.
Students at Emery University in Atlanta have linked the violent repression of rallies for the Palestinians of Gaza with violent repression of protests against Cop City.
I think the relationship between the bombardment and siege of Gaza and Cop City is rather tenuous, but the two instances of repression have a considerable relationship as described by the article linked above.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Congress is investigating the corrupter for reportedly asking executives for bribes to abolish Biden's environmental rules.
Modi's party is accused of bullying opposition candidates to drop out of the race.
Modi has not gone as far to making democracy an empty shell as Putin went 17 years ago, but it's basically the same story. India is no democracy and we should not treat it as one.
*Political activist [Netiporn Sanae-sangkhom], held in Thai jail, dies after 65 days on hunger strike.*
She faced prosecution for allegedly insulting the king. It seems that the Thai monarchy's definition of "insulting the king" is far broader than the normal definition of "insult" in English.
*Labour and unions reach agreement on workers’ rights proposals. Labour commits to deal agreed last year, following weeks of tension.*
Starmer has specifically excluded local Labour members from choosing Labour's candidate in the district of Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbyn was kicked out of the Labour Party by weaponizing accusations of antisemitism, much as protesters for peace in Gaza are now being. Alleged antisemitism by employees of the Labour Party was blamed on him.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
The defection of a right-wing Tory to the Labour Party demonstrates that Starmer views the party as a mere faction, united only by the idea that by working together they can win power.
*UK is failing to put climate crisis at centre of national security measures, MPs told.*
I'm sure many governments are being lobbied to get this wrong ;-{.
40% of the world's laundered money is estimated to flow through the UK and some former colonies. The UK has failed to insist that those former colonies reveal the true owners of the dummy corporations they set up, often for money laundering.
If the UK cuts them off entirely, they could continue supporting business deceit as they do now, but without being able to relate to other countries through the UK, they might find their scheme ineffective.
Zhang Zhan, who reported on the early days of Covid-19 in China, was jailed for doing so. Now she has supposedly been released, but it seems she is being held incommunicado outside of formal prison.
This is common in China. The government's statements are meant to tell you what to think, not to describe reality.
An AT&T executive is charged with bribing an Illinois legislator to get two major pieces of legislation passed.
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has fled to Europe to escape persecution for his films.
This is a message about Julian Assange, from Susan McLucas and Paula Iasella.
“Julian is just one decision away from extradition” -- Stella Assange
On May 20th two UK High Court judges will rule on Assange’s appeal hearing after considering the U.S. assurances submitted mid-April.
We have sent 5,000 postcards, many personal and handwritten, to 100 senators, President Joe Biden, AG Merrick Garland and CIA director, William Burns. Now is the time to amplify those messages.
In the senate focus on these 5 representatives: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Jim Jordan (OH-4), Andy Biggs (AZ-5), and Mark Pocan (WI-2). Plus your own rep: 202-224-3121. They all can be written at US House of Reps, Washington, DC 20515. The Senate has so far done nothing to help Assange.
In the House push members to cosponsor H.Res.934. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, supportive of dropping the charges against Assange, has yet to add her name to this important bi-partisan legislation.
Please reach out to President Biden to encourage him to follow through on what he said on April 10 that he is "considering" dropping the charges on Julian Assange. Fill out the form at WhiteHouse.gov/contact. Call him (only Tues-Thur 11 to 3) at (202) 456-1111 or write him at The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Wash DC 20500.
*Ukraine facing ‘difficult’ situation in Kharkiv region, military chief says.*
Asylum seekers in Britain are asking themselves in terror, "Must I run now before they grab me for Rwanda?"
Except that a large fraction get little information and don't even know about the danger they may be put in deportation prison to be sent later to Rwanda.
*In the past year, in virtually every region, journalists and independent media outlets faced increasing repression, according to RSF.*
This includes Gaza, where Israeli forces have repeatedly killed reporters.
It also includes the US, where uniformed thugs have arrested reporters covering rallies against the killing of civilians there.
*Bayer Seeks Reapproval of Pesticide That Federal Courts Have Twice Banned for Causing Widespread Damage to Crops and Communities.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
(satire) *Bored Riot Cops Break Up Calculus Class.*
Rumor said that Starmer plans to yield to business by weakening the the "Labour" Party's commitment to improve workers' rights and pay.
Unions threatened to remove their support, and made Starmer firm up at least one pledge.
Utah made it a crime to use the "wrong" bathroom in schools and government buildings, and set up a way to report violations. Defenders of trans rights have filed 10,000 bogus reports so that any serious reports will be impossible to find among all those.
It looks like the UK will weaken is greenhouse gas targets to "make them easier to meet."
That is absurd — like reducing the treatment for cancer to make it easier to take. That's what you get in a hospice. Is this hospice care for Planet Earth?
A review of the danger of antibiotic resistance.
I've posted over the years about the need to stop farmers from giving antibiotics to entire herds in bulk. We must restrict them to giving antibiotics specifically to animals that are sick.
As for the lack of new antibiotics, we should take this entirely out of the hands of drug companies and create an international organization for the job. We should give it funds to develop last-ditch antibiotics, and to make doses for the whole world — prohibit the use of those antibiotics except in animals that are entitled to human rights.
*[The corrupter]’s scattershot attacks on justice system are causing real damage.*
US citizens: call on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to endorse a global minimum tax on billionaire wealth ahead of the G20 summit.
The UK has granted a license for a new nuclear power plant, Sizewell C.
It probably will never be finished, because at some point the government will have a crisis which will prevent it from continuing to pay for it. But the unfinished reactor will play a part in bringing the country to that disaster.
In the mean time, it will do plenty of harm to non-rich Britons.
Right-wing Senator Britt proposed a bill to set up a honey trap to lure pregnant Americans to giving their personal details to the US government. It would then send them right-wing-biased advice.
The AstraZeneca Covid vaccine has been withdrawn; it was effectively obsolete since it had not been updated.
A very rare side effect killed one person who took the vaccine. We should not forget that it saved millions of lives in 2021-2022.
I saw an article that crowed about the end of this vaccine as a victory. Over what, I must ask? Vaccination, it seems. To an anti-vaxxer, one death from being vaccinated counts more than hundreds of thousands of likely deaths that vaccination prevented.
Starmer has been surprised by the strength of criticism from within the Labour Party for allowing a right-wing Tory to join the Labour ranks.
Some of them still remember the moral crusade that Labour used to be.
She condemned firemen for going on strike. Unions reminded Starmer that that contradicts a Labour Party commitment to restore the right to strike
If the government considers some public employees so essential that they must not go on strike, the right way to avoid that is by paying the workers better without waiting for a strike. Rather than singling them out, it could pay all working people better.
*Righteous fury over Gaza must allow empathy for fearful Jewish students.*
Jewish students ought to be able to feel safe (and be safe) on campus. Likewise, students rallying to end an avoidable deadly war ought to be able to feel safe (and be safe) on campus. Safe, especially, from uniformed thugs.
We can do the right thing for both groups at once, if we think about it. Many of the Gaza protest rallies in the US are thinking about that.
*Faith groups want more say in secular Britain. Labour should tell them to go to hell.*
The principle of religious freedom says that that is the right way to treat any group of citizens' rituals: regardless of details, they have no right on push those on other people. Now, how to convince Starmer Labour to have principles other than "We must win"?
*National sovereignty is little defense against the global hunt for profits. Capitalism seems to enable companies to see staff as expendable units, not humans [or people].*
Expanding US financial sanctions on certain named Israeli participants in occupation violence could eventually cause big difficulties for continued colonization of Palestine.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
US courts have given cops immunity for any destruction of property that they cause in the course of their activity.
I agree that the government should compensate those whose property government agents destroy except pursuant to a court order to do so.
As I see it, this conclusion does not require calling the damage "taking of property." It's enough that it is damage. If you or I destroyed a house, even if it were in the course of some activity that was not wrong in itself, you or I would be liable. So should the city.
Robert Reich says that his conversations with US student protesters showed him that their protests are meant as a rebuke to Israel's deadly violence in Gaza. He reports that Biden said he has cut off supply of artillery shells for Israel to use in attacking Rafah, and credits this as an achievement for the protesters.
His article does not report the fine print of Biden's decision. Israel surely has lots of artillery shells already. Is this decision going to actually hamper Israel's current attack?
Even if it doesn't do that, it must help convince some of the Israeli government that Israel cannot continue down this path. Maybe that will suffice to change the government and end the bombardment and siege of Gaza.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Israel is fighting resurgent HAMAS in northern Gaza again.
As I've noted many times, it is impossible to defeat an underground guerrilla movement that has the popular support to recruit new members. HAMAS has that support.
Israel should recognize this and end the useless and deadly attempt to do the impossible. HAMAS is an evil group of terrorists, but there is no use in futile efforts to eradicate it, and the effort is no excuse for killing thousands of civilians.
Israel has also announced plans to attack central Rafah.
The "tens of thousands" reported fleeing sound like a small fraction of the people who have fled to Rafah. It seems that many must have decided not to leave.
I can see various reasons a Palestinian might conclude that per chances of survival are not much better there than in Rafah itself. So I think only a fraction will go there. A substantial fraction will stay in Rafah, where Israel has invented an excuse to define their lives as forfeit.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Reporters Without Borders accuses Italy's government of repressing journalists who criticize the government.
*H5N1 has been found in commercially available milk – but gaps in testing of cattle and humans are hampering effort to stop virus.*
It is crucial for public health to find out how many of the people working with infected cattle are catching the virus from them. Without that, we don't know whether one human can catch it from another. We need a law authorizing public health authorities to test cows and dairy workers for this virus.
The article does not say much about what we might do to slow the spread, if we find it is happening. I'm in favor of compensating farmers for cattle that have to be slaughtered, if that's the solution, but is it?
*Rise in Chinese espionage arrests alarms Europe. Increase in cases reflects changing mood across continent towards Chinese threats, say experts.*
An ex-thug known for harassment has been welcomed into Governor DeMentis's politicizable militia.
People like that are public dangers. He should not be in the National Guard either, nor any thug department.
* The former director of [UK] public prosecutions for England and Wales has warned against the risk of creating “thought crimes” amid the recent clampdown on protesters and demonization of demonstrators by politicians.*
*The Guardian view on Israel's far right: occupation of Palestinian territory feeds its extremism.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*The State Department lays out numerous suspected international humanitarian violations by Israel in its war on Gaza, yet suggests no changes in policy or consequences.*
This is a peculiar sort of mental blindness, the blindness of he who will not see.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Campus protest crackdowns claim to be about antisemitism — but they're part of a rightwing plan.*
*US campus protests give [the fascist leader] a target for his violent rhetoric of vengeance.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
A concrete Russian plot to assassinate President Zelenskiy has been exposed.
The Israeli army seized the Rafah crossing, the main path for the insufficient aid that still enters Gaza, and closed it. If any US aid travels to Gaza that way, US law (as I understand it) requires cutting off military assistance to Israel. Promised new routes for aid to enter Gaza are not possible replacements for the Rafah crossing because they are not actually ready for use.
I interpret this as Netanyahu's defiance to Biden: "You weakling, I dare you to obey that law." Since then, Biden has suspended delivery of one kind of weapon to Israel. Maybe that was a response telling Netanyahu, "Just you watch!" Has he found the courage to go further than that one suspension?
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
What the corrupter told an interviewer he would do if he wins or steals the election.
*To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country … he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.*
*[Sacramento State University] will pursue an investment strategy divested from “corporations & funds that profit from genocide, ethnic cleansing, and activities that violate fundamental human rights.”*
Several other US universities have made agreements with student protesters along roughly similar lines, including two that had first tried violence against the students.
This is a significant achievement for the student protesters, all the more so because it is general, not aimed only at Israel.
In and of itself, that is a good goal, but as a means for ending the bombardment and siege of Gaza, I fear it is too indirect and too slow.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Georgia (Sakartvelo)'s government is pushing a repressive law modeled after Putin's repression of NGOs. Georgians, especially young ones, are protesting this.
A prominent Iranian film director faces 8 years in prison for making a movie that has attracted international attention. The idea that the festival would drop the showing of the movie if the government flogs him into saying "Don't show my film!" is offensive. Film festivals should disregard whatever the director and other participants are forced to say, and they should make sure in advance that torturers know that approach is futile.
*Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna reveal bill aimed at eliminating medical debt.*
Northern Ireland thugs spied on journalists that were investigating them.
Starmer welcomed a defecting Tory MP whose views are very right wing.
It shows his goal is victory, and never mind for what cause.
*Natalie Elphicke's queasy welcome shows Labour will turn no one away.*
Contrast this flexibility about admitting right-wing politicians with the tenuous reasons used to oust long-term Labour members such as Corbyn, an incumbent mayor, and Shuguftah Quddoos in Nottingham Council.
*US public school officials push back in congressional hearing on antisemitism.*
A Republican on the committee accused the officials of lying, based on no grounds, and then threatened them with wrecking their careers. That's a Republican bully for you.
*What a 1968 Columbia University protester makes of today’s pro-Palestinian encampment.*
*Israeli airstrike that killed seven health workers in Lebanon used US munition.*
What conclusion follows from this depends on conclusions that would depend on an investigation. If Israeli forces knew it was targeting medical personnel, that was a war crime.
If it did not know, it may not have been a war crime. but it should be scandalous anyway. Why did they not know? Did they try hard enough to identify the target? Israel seems to be ready to kill lots of civilians in Gaza.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Biden has blocked a large shipment to Israel of large dumb bombs, demanding that Israel start avoiding harm to Palestinian civilians.
Thank you, Biden. You should have done this a few months ago, but better late than never.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*600,000 Palestinian [minors] in Rafah Can't "Evacuate" Safely, UNICEF Official Says.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Almost a quarter of Australia's cases of depression, anxiety and are caused by childhood maltreatment and could in principle be prevented.
*The climate crisis is making the farming business unsustainable — and without support for us, food security will suffer too.*
The article claims that a 30% increase in money what farmers receive would make up for a 30% decrease in crop yields. In financial terms, it would do that, but it would not at all fill the 30% shortage in food. What needs to be subsidized is curbing global heating, to make farming somewhat reliable again.
*Climate chaos [in Latin America] is threatening food production, trade and lives.*
*World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5°C target.* They expect a 2.5°C rise, which implies disaster.
David Boyd, until recently UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, says that government plans to curb global heating are succumbing to the pressure to profit by exploiting people and nature.
Journalists at Italy's public broadcaster plan to strike in protest against censorship by the right-wing government.
A nonfree and secret program is being consulted by courts about how to treat individuals accused of crimes. That should be forbidden; every method used to evaluate and partially judge suspects must be entirely disclosed, and courts must be free to change it so as to follow court rulings about the rights of the accused. Basically, courts must use only free software for such purposes.
The developer claims that the program does "artificial intelligence", but that term is usually bullshit in general.
Wales considers making it a crime for politicians to lie to the public.
* Two powerful politicians and Rio de Janeiro’s former chief of police have been arrested* in connection with the 2018 murder of city councilor Marielle Franco.*
At the University of Mississippi, a provocateur who harassed a protest on behalf of Palestine is being investigated over violence.
*Noem book contains threat against Biden dog: "Commander, say hello to Cricket."*
This is a hint at a threat of violence — a standard right wing tactic, popularized by the wrecker. It is designed to fill his opponents with helpless rage, because it is too vague for any legal action. Meanwhile it sends right-wing supporters on a power trip imagining violence against whoever does not support them.
All in all, it demonstrates the vicious hate right-wingers display towards their chosen targets and scapegoats. But this is mild compared with what they usually do and threaten. Usually they target human beings.
Palestinians who have left east Rafah and tried to go to the "safe area" Israel recommended say it is difficult to get there, it is not a good place for inhabitance, and it is already filled with people who fled there first.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
NYPD thugs beat up and injured some of the students they arrested. They put several in solitary for hours, and they denied water (and food) to one for 16 hours. This while fabricating accusations to smear the protesters.
*[Uniformed thugs] let violent mobs attack UCLA students. This is what lawlessness looks like.* A large mob attacked the protesters with firecrackers and sprayed gas, then attacked with fists and poles. 25 of the protester/victims were hospitalized. The thugs did nothing to protect them. The next day, thugs arrested 200 of the protesters.
Major news media disregarded the facts and pretended that the protesters and the mob were equally to blame.
A generation of American students is learning the old lessons: that cops are cruel, violent liars when they deal with members of groups they despise, and that the mainstream media work hard to create false justifications.
Biden endorsed that same injustice of blaming the protesters for the violence that was done to them.
I will vote for Biden anyway, because the corrupter hatefully proclaims that he will be even worse.
Meanwhile, the UCLA administration condemned the thugs failure to protect the protesters and said they will investigate what happened.
If this is sincere, if that investigation is honest and unbiased, it could be an important step forward. But I am skeptical of that. If the UCLA administration really feels this way about the attack on the protesters, why did it tell LA thugs to arrest them?
Two Columbia graduates who are journalists went back to campus to cover the student protest, and their mother, Nahla Al-Arian, came along for an hour. Night-Mayor Adams cited her as an example of an "outside agitator", fictitiously responsible for organizing the protest.
Their father, Professor Sami Al-Arian, was smeared as a terrorist by Dubya's men. The jury found him innocent on most of the charges, but there were some minor charges that the jury could not decide on. He was pressured into a plea bargain which is now being used by New York's thug department as an excuse to smear Nahla Al-Arian as an "outside organizer" of the protests, as if that would justify their violence.
*Venomous snakes likely to [move substantial distances to new habitats] en masse amid global heating, says study. Researchers find many countries unprepared for influx of new species and will be vulnerable to bites*
In medieval England, leprosy was transmitted between humans and red squirrels. It may have reached England on squirrels' furs.
Richard Stallman will give a talk, in French, Free Software and Freedom in a Digital Society at Centrale Supelec in Saclay, on May 15.
Israel has attacked part of Rafah, after calling on civilians there to move to another zone.
Has Israel come up with a way to attack HAMAS while not endangering civilians by the hundreds or thousands? I hope so, but I won't take that for granted. Israel has repeatedly failed to care about killing thousands of civilians.
The text suggests that the new "safe" zone is close to Rafah, but does not clearly say so, or how far one has to walk to get there.
For civilians weakened by hunger, and by untreated sickness and wounds, to carry their own bodies plus meager remaining belongings there may be beyond them. They also have reasons to distrust Israel's promise that it won't attack that zone. It has falsified such commitments before.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
A court ruled that the Tories "climate action plan" is illegal because it would be more properly called the "climate inaction plan".
Breakthroughs in reading text in ancient scrolls that were toasted by an eruption of Mt Vesuvius are giving us a way to read copies of books believed lost.
How great that would be — many mysteries of history could be understood.
* Job losses [in US journalism], declining circulations and local newspaper closures could mean spread of misinformation in pivotal election year.*
The drug diclofenac is poisonous to vultures. They eat dead cattle that were given diclofenac, and eventually they die from it. This has mostly wiped out vultures in India. As a result, Parsis cannot practice any more their religious duty to give corpses to the vultures.
I know a computing professor who told me he was a Parsi. I asked him, "Did you have a bad interaction with a Parser?" He collapsed in irresistible laughter — it was a delight.
Global heating leads to temperatures that exceed the capacity of bumblebees to cool their hive.
When Fawlty Towers was made, it was possible to have a character use a racial insult as a way of presenting that character as racist. John Cleese reports that this has become impossible, and *said some people "don't understand metaphor, irony or comedy exaggeration."*
I suggest that their deficiency is in "theory of mind": the faculty of distinguishing between what you think, what your interlocutor thinks, and what some other persons think.
Surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sitta volunteered to work in Gaza, and has testified about Israeli attacks he has seen. French senators invited him to speak to them, but Germany has banned him from entering anywhere in the Schengen zone.
Did Germany present any basis claimed to justify this, or is it purely arbitrary?
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*The US universities that allow protest encampments — and even negotiate.*
A university president who rushes to call the thug department is not fit for the office.
The Columbia College Student Council accuses the university administration of imposing a policy of arbitrary repression ever since October, and become ever more cruel, arbitrary and unjust in the past weeks.
The university directed violent uniformed thugs at students it was falsely accusing of violence, all the while interfering with video recording of their violence. While claiming it was striving to "keep all members of our community physically safe", it opened the door to physical danger to them. This is part of a broad pattern of thugs committing violence against nonviolent protesters.
Some protesters were not entirely nonviolent — throwing things at thugs is aggressive, as well as self-defeating since it gives thugs an excuse to commit violence against those protesters and others too. It may also provoke them to the point that they lose self-control. That is not an excuse for their violence, but it is a reason not to provoke them.
The protest movement needs to develop nonviolence discipline, and marshals to enforce it, just as the civil rights movement and Vietnam peace movement did.
A general heat wave in south-east Asia, stretching from Bangladesh to the Philippines, is killing people and destroying crops.
It is clear that our global heating activities are part of the cause. Even worse, they are sure to make it hotter in the future. People can't survive if farming does not work.
*[A group of prestigious] Australian universities reject calls for police to break up Gaza protests.*
That bespeaks thoughtful attention to their various responsibilities.
The US House of Representatives passed a bill which would judge cases of alleged antisemitism in education based on the criterion promulgated by the IHRA. This criterion mistakes some criticism of Israel for antisemitism and even one of its authors has condemned it.
I have no confidence that Senate Democrats will reject this for the sake of getting the distinction right.
The UK's right-wing extremist party, which I will call Deform UK, is running disinformationist candidates reminiscent of supporters of today's US Republicans.
Australia has ordered Ex-Twitter to delete some images on the grounds that they are somehow disgusting.
I think Musk is right on this issue. If one country has the power to order Ex-Twitter to delete something, then any other country could do likewise. That would lead to deletion of anything that any country wants to censor. For instance, China would demand deletion of photos of events to remember the Tian An Men Square massacre, and even photos of the protest and massacre themselves.
*Big oil spent decades sowing doubt about fossil fuel dangers, experts testify.*
Some independent journalists in Ukraine have encountered harassment through state agencies.
Israel claimed that the al-Shifa hospital was deeply integrated with HAMAS tunnels and that they were used for combat operations. The Washington Post found a tunnel and an entrance, but no evidence it was used for combat, or that it was designed to be of use for combat.
The US government asked people to take that on faith, but past experience says we cannot give the US or Israel the total and implicit trust they ask for.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Humans that come near chimpanzees transmit viruses that in humans cause only "colds" but can kill chimps.
Queensland, a part of Australia, has legalized sex work, but the right-wing opposition wants to criminalize it again if they win the next election.
*UK transgender actors appeal to be cast in non-trans roles.* Discrimination is in general a bad thing. If in general it gives good results to cast actors without discriminating between cis and trans, it is better not to discriminate.
The hard part is judging whether a trans actor can do a good job of playing a cis role, and likewise whether a cis actor can do a good job of playing a trans role. Whether actor A plays role R well is a question that is inherently subjective -- so how can you tell if you are giving way to discrimination?
Night-Mayor Adams asserted that the Gaza protest in Columbia was booted by "outside agitators". Reporters are skeptical, and Adams won't say who those were.
*Rebuilding homes in Gaza will cost $40bn and take 16 years, UN finds.*
The union of student workers at UCLA will strike against the school administration for using city thugs to crush a Gaza protest.
Rutgers and University of Minnesota reached compromises with protesting students, granting some of their demands, and students picked up their encampments.
If the students want to have an actual influence for peace in Gaza, and more rights for Palestine, they need to keep people thinking about the issue but not as a bitter knock-down confrontation.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Uniformed thugs let loose on protesters at Emory university went on a violent rampage against students and faculty — a gas-them-beat-them-and-frame-them operation.
The thugs that mauled protesters ought to go to jail. The university presidents that invited them to do that should resign.
(satire) *Columbia University Gives Students Option To Finish Classes From Prison.*
*We think loneliness is in our heads, but its source lies in the ruin of civil society.*
In 2019, I found that the Tech Model Railroad Club (famously associated with early computer hackers) was almost dead. A few years before members had been vigorously developing it. I told Professor Sussman, and he told me that several years before, most incoming MIT freshmen had lost interest in physical hobbies and activities (model railroading being one). We both speculated that widespread use of snoop-phones and antisocial media platforms, which were addictive to social groups, helped to bring that change about.
A decrease in Americans' use of those systems might perhaps expand the space for civil society.
Some of the protesters on behalf of Palestine in Columbia called for burning Tel Aviv and for eliminating Israel.
The references for this are on Ex-Twitter and therefore inaccessible to me. What they said advocated mass killing and ethnic cleansing of Jews in Israel.
This is the same sort of wrong that right-wing Israelis are advocating and doing to Palestinians. But having this on both sides is not a step towards peace. It is not on the path to having both sides treat each other with respect.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Biden is the most progressive, most liberal president the US has had since 1980. (I don't recall enough to judge how he compares with Jimmy Carter.) We should show our appreciation for that. On some important issues, he is doing great.
At the same time, on some other important issues he falls far short of what the US and the world needs and what we demand. We get frustrated and infuriated that he doesn't change for the better. One of these issues is ending the bombing and siege of Gaza.
How should we deal with this half-full, half-empty glass? I think we should make sure to keep showing both sides of what we feel.
We need to keep saying, "Yes, more of that," for the issues where Biden does the right thing, and "Stop this nonsense!" where he does not. To continue pressure on Biden, we need both sides. Sometimes we need both at once: "This is a big advance, but without more, we are still headed for disaster. Tackle the whole problem, fast!"
There are times for saying, "Yes, this measure is something to be proud of, for today." And there are times to say, "Don't make us laugh — that change is inadequate."
The student protests against Biden's inadequate efforts to protect the civilians of Gaza are running into increasing repression. Although not violent, they are calculated to provoke the schools to violence. This tends to make compromise impossible and leave no chance of agreeing on an outcome we would really want: It seems designed to lead to going down fighting, followed by years of hatred, rather than to a change for the better that leads to opportunities to demand further change.
British Columbia has modified its experimental system of decriminalizing some recreational drugs, limiting lawful use to private places.
I oppose prohibition of drugs, but requiring drug use to be in private places is not prohibition. I don't think it will cause the same great harm that prohibition has caused.
*US finds Israeli units committed human rights abuses before Gaza war.*
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
Because LLMs are not real intelligence, using them as a basis for web search is likely to lead to various bad results.
The article presumes that searching means "Google search", but for me it is just the opposite: I can't access Google search at all. For me, bizarre or inconvenient things that Google does to its search engine are things I won't notice.
So let's not forget that people can use other search engines if they get burned by Google's.
Recent advances against business-supremacy treaties, around the world.
More about business-supremacy treaties.
New Orleans thugs crushed a Gaza protest in a city park, using horrifying violence against participants and against bystanders.
*So the next time you hear Republicans complain about the federal debt and our swelling interest payments on it, remember that: (1) the debt has grown mainly because of Republican tax cuts, (2) those cuts have mostly benefited the rich, (3) the rich are now the major recipients of interest payments on that debt, (4) and those interest payments are crowding out spending on childcare, elder care, affordable housing, better schools, paid family leave, and everything Americans need.*
*Developed countries accused of bowing to lobbyists at plastic pollution talks[:] Campaigners say last-minute compromise plays into the hands of petrostates and industry influences.*
*Big oil privately acknowledged efforts to downplay climate crisis, Senate report finds.*
*Great Barrier Reef's worst bleaching [ever] leaves giant coral graveyard: "It looks as if it has been carpet bombed."*
*G7 agree to end use of unabated coal power plants by 2035.* However, they are failing to take action to reduce oil and gas use fast enough to avoid disaster.
Human activity is increasing the concentration of one PFAS in drinking water by a substantial amount each year. Finding out whether this is causing major damage to humans is a question that will take difficult research, so it will be many years before we know whether we are causing a disaster this way.
*Everyone laughed at Hitler in the 1920s. A century on, are we making the same mistake?*
If we Americans don't make sure the wrecker loses, and then block his supporters from stealing the next election, we will never have another real election.
It is possible that some large companies are so inefficient that staff working 32 hours per week could get as much done as they now get done in 40 hours. But that can't work for small businesses.
What could work is to offer employees the flexibility to work four 10-hour days in a week.
US citizens: call on Congress to side with working people, not billionaires and big business, by raising taxes on the latter.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Biden plans to put marijuana into a less strict category of prohibition instead of legalizing it.
This is simply not adequate.
Students at Columbia University occupied a building, and the president brought in cops to arrest them.
Was the occupation really organized by outside agitators unrelated to Columbia? I am skeptical of the claim, given that at least 50 students have been suspended. That sort of convenient accusation is easy to claim, whether it is true or not, because it is hard to disprove. I can't be sure it is false, but I would not trust Night-Mayor Adams' word for it, or President Shafik's.
Likewise for the claim that students destroyed doors and so on. I wonder what the protest organizers have to say about this claim.
What is unfortunate is that the confrontation has gone in a direction which is likely to lead university administrations to give priority to "showing who's boss" over all else. Which means that the protest movement can vent a lot of anger but it can't advance the cause of peace in Gaza. It can only create festering hostility.
It also plays into the hands of the right-wingers in Congress who bullied the university presidents, and the fascist leader they serve.
To make effective pressure for peace in Gaza, or more precisely to pressure the US to pressure Israel to allow peace in Gaza, would require different kind of protests.
Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.
*Junk science is cited in abortion ban cases. Researchers are [calling for retraction of] the "fatally flawed" work*. They object on the grounds of scientific methodology, not based on the conclusions as such.
An archeologist describes the enormous weight of evidence that shows there was never a lost ancient civilization. The archeological evidence shows hunter gatherers all around the inhabited worlds.
New Spanish pun:
La ninfa de roble
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