Urgent: Seeking speaking invitations
20 December 2024
I'm looking for speaking invitations for a trip in January and February that will include some part of Europe, then India, then some other part of Europe.
The first visit to Europe will be roughly Jan 16 to 22. The visit to India will start Jan 22 and can continue into February. The second visit to Europe will be after that. Those dates are flexible.
One advantage of this period for you is that the intercontinental flights are already covered, so you won't need to pay for that.
If you are interested in inviting me, and you have a venue to use and a public to invite, please email me soon with "speaking invitation" in the Subject field, using the name rms and the host gnu dot org.
Urgent: Lula and Brazil as climate leaders
20 December 2024
US citizens: call on Lula and Brazil to be the world's climate leaders in COP 30 next year.
Urgent: Don't allow wrecker to make recess appointments
20 December 2024
US citizens: call on the Senate: don't allow the wrecker to make recess appointments. Don't abdicate your duty to vet the wrecker's nominees.
Urgent: Oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare
20 December 2024
US citizens: call on Congress to oppose any cuts to, and any efforts to privatize, Social Security and Medicare.
Urgent: Pardon Edward Snowden and Julian Assange
20 December 2024
US citizens: call on Biden to Pardon Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.
Mangione's political views
20 December 2024
Mangione's political views are a mixture of right-wing and left-wing, and he has crystallized hatred of US medical deinsurance companies among both sides. Right-wing leaders are trying to attach that to "wokism", but it doesn't stick.
In fact, most Deinsurance in Congress and most Republicans in Congress are plutocratists, and that goes double for the wrecker. If you want to find an official, or candidate who seeks to put an end to medical deinsurance, you'll find that progressive Democrats stand for this.
I've said that Biden is 1/3 progressive. He has a history of trying to reduce medical deinsurance, but he did not push to go all the way by instituting a universal medical system.
Rainfall patterns changing
20 December 2024
* Rainfall patterns are changing, crops are ripening earlier, and the normal rhythms of farming have fallen off — exactly as climate scientists warned.*
We are already encountering the next step, which is shortages of some foods. That can lead, some years later, to mass hunger and eventually to mass death and breakdown of society. My addition to this forecast is the end of globalized manufacturing and the loss of all high technology. You and the hundred people in your fortified farming village won't be able to make ICs or solar cells, thus soon no computers and no electricity.
You won't even be able to keep the local all-devouring weeb from taking the land away from you. Sure, you could cut it and uproot it in any particular small area. However, doing that in a large area will take too much work, especially when the only power available is muscle power.
Bird flue strain circulating in dairy cows
20 December 2024
* A strain now circulating in dairy cows appears to carry little risk for humans at present, but we need to develop an effective strategy before it mutates*
In particular, we will need vaccine for whatever strain becomes a threat. Now the US faces the danger that crazy politicians might forbid this.
Freedom status of Signal client
20 December 2024
The Signal client's own code is free/libre, but it farms out some activities to Google services. Depending on what Signal uses each of those services to do, using it might be SaaSS, which is as subjugating to the user as locally running a nonfree program.
I don't use Signal, because it is almost impossible to make a Signal account without having a cellular phone, so I can't. Since I can't use Signal, I don't try to learn anything else about it. I know almost as little about the specific Google services named in the article — I don't have a Google account, and most of its services require the user to run nonfree client software.
As a result, I don't know whether it is possible to get some real use out of Signal without using the Google services listed in the article, or whether the job each one does constitutes SaaSS.
I can correct two errors made in comments in that page: (1) free software is a matter of freedom, not price and (2) Android is contains nonfree components, and has contained them since almost the beginning.
(satire) Exonerated after execution
20 December 2024
(satire) *Wrongly Convicted Death Row Inmate Exonerated Mere Hours After Execution.*
Balance of gov. powers, US
20 December 2024
The bully is trying to bully the judge who refused to dismiss civil claims against him.
Urgent: Extend the premium tax credits
17 December 2024
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators urging them to extend the premium tax credits in the current session of Congress.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Urgent: Protect Social Security and Medicare from the wrecker
17 December 2024
US citizens: call on Congress to protect Social Security and Medicare from the cuts that the wrecker, the musk-ox, and that wiseacre of Oz want to make.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Iran's threat to finish building nuclear weapons
17 December 2024
Iran has threatened to finish building nuclear weapons if the West resumes trade sanctions against Iran.
It looks like the West and Iran agree that the better choice is no sanctions and no Iranian nuclear weapons. Obama negotiated an agreement to bring that about, and the wrecker broke it. Biden tried to negotiate resumption, but this failed. I never found out why it failed.
Ecology of places humans abandoned
17 December 2024
Studying the ecology of places that humans have abandoned.
Sometimes human presence enables many species to make a complex ecosystem, where otherwise a suffocating monoculture of one dominant species could take over and exclude all else.
Priority of environmental protection
17 December 2024
Australia's Labor Party said it was going to prioritize environmental protection — but dropped the proposed law at the last minute.
This decision, shocking to Labor supporters, strikes me as entirely consistent with the policy of allowing major expansion of fossil fuel extraction. After all, if the new federal Environmental Protection Agency were going to be effective, it would need to brake that expansion.
Here's more about the complex political dispute.
If "not giving the Greens a victory" is enough to motivate Labor to leave the environment in danger, I have a feeling its priorities are weak.
Whole Foods workers file to unionize
17 December 2024
Workers at a Whole Foods store have filed to unionize. The next step will be for the company to harass them to change their minds before the actual vote.
Medical records systems
17 December 2024
How Epic medical records systems help hospitals cheat medical insurance companies by finding opportunities to exaggerate what treatments were done, so as to charge more.
This requires doctors to spend more time entering additional data that are useful for such "upcoding". Here is more information.
Epic also makes the nonfree Javascript code and apps that hospitals pressure patients to use to access these servers. If I used them, Epic would control the computing on my computer. I refuse to give the control of the computing on my computer to Epic (or anyone else), so I refuse to use those web sites and apps.
Maybe, as a result of my noncooperation, EPIC misses some opportunities for "upcoding".
Mistake to let companies analyze your genetic data
17 December 2024
It is a terrible mistake to let a company analyze your genetic data. If that company goes bankrupt, as 23 And Me has done, it will be forced to see that data to people who will use it against you.
Allowing Syria to recover
17 December 2024
To enable Syria to recover, the US should cancel sanctions on Syria. Those sanctions were meant to defeat Assad. Now that Assad's enemies have defeated him, the sanctions don't make sense any more.
I can imagine the US negotiating an agreement with the Syrian rebels and Rojava, using the dropping of the sanctions as an incentive for them to come to a peaceful accommodation.
Polio vaccine approval
17 December 2024
One of RFK Jr's close associates filed to revoke approval of polio vaccine. Loss of the polio vaccine would produce an epidemic after a few years.
I wonder how billionaires' families would respond to this. Get vaccinated in other countries, while most Americans have to go without?
Musk-rat's conflicts of interests
17 December 2024
*The musk-rat's six major conflicts of interest with the federal government.*
Abortion pills mailed into Texas from New York doctor
17 December 2024
Texas is suing a New York doctor for mailing abortion pills to a woman in Texas. Texas has passed a law prohibiting mailing abortion pills into the state; meanwhile, New York State has passed a law meant to protect against any such lawsuits from Texas.
I've read that there are networks of women who send each other these pills. I have a feeling that women in Texas can best keep their helpers safe by arranging for anonymous mailing of these pills.
BBC complained to Apple over fake news
17 December 2024
*BBC says it has complained to Apple over fake news [output from a bullshit generator] attributed to [BBC].*
Democrats must dump neoliberal economics
17 December 2024
Joseph Stiglitz: *The message to Democrats is clear: you must dump neoliberal economics [and become progressive].*
Syrian rebel offensive
17 December 2024
Syrians backed by Turkey are having border clashes with Rojava,
Which is distracting Rojava from keeping PISSI
under control.
How to tax billionaires
17 December 2024
Thomas Piketty refutes the claims that governments cannot tax billionaires, offering methods to overcome supposed obstacles.
Shell lawsuit
17 December 2024
Various big oil companies are suing Greenpeace in an attempt to wipe it out
We should not have to depend on organizations such as Greenpeace to protect civilization from environmental disaster (including global heating and more). This is governments' mission.
Amazon donates to Trump
17 December 2024
Amazon has donated a million dollars to the wrecker's inauguration fund, as a token of loyal greed.
The CEO suck-ups to Trump
17 December 2024
When a bully is powerful enough, rich people (and those who want to be rich) all fawn on per, hoping perse will pave their way to more riches. That is what the executives of big companies are doing now for the wrecker.
Consumer protectionism
17 December 2024
* For all its supposed "populism", the new administration will probably target offices that protect consumers* and workers.
Stand up to Chevron
17 December 2024
*President Biden: stand up to Chevron and pardon Steven Donziger.*
Amazon Labor Union
17 December 2024
Amazon warehouse in Staten Island workers are on strike.
If Americans had elected Kamala Harris, these workers would have a good chance of making Amazon give them better wages and working conditions. But Bezos just had Amazon pay a million dollars to the corrupter's inaugural ceremony, and we must expect him to do what he was paid to do.
Universal Healthcare
17 December 2024
*Debunking Every Myth You Hear Against Universal [Medical]care.*
Meta donation to Trump
17 December 2024
Facebook donated a million dollars to the corrupter's inauguration.
I suppose this is not a crime, but it is in effect a bribe.
SafeRent discrimination
17 December 2024
A woman who was rejected for renting an apartment on the strength of some computation's result sued for racial discrimination.
People have proposed laws to prohibit using the output of an program to evaluate individuals and decide how to treat them. Those laws were aimed at decisions made by government bodies, meaning that the government would be the user of that program.
This example shows that judging people to make advice for private entities to judge people by can be likewise devastating.
If we wanted to address this problem with a law, what might that law require? Perhaps it should require the advice-giver to show everyone concerned what recorded facts the evaluation is based on.
The article assumes that when SafeRent describes the software a "AI", that has some substantial meaning. We have no reason to think it does. That could be nothing more than hype for SafeRent's marketing. Or it could be an excuse for refusing to tell a court how the score is calculated.
Kash Patel
17 December 2024
*Ex-FBI officials worry that Kash Patel as director may wield unlimited power.*
That could include *opening investigations unilaterally*.
Some past FBI directors have done such things, and their power threatened freedom in the US. The fascist might relish that.
EPA air quality
17 December 2024
*White US neighborhoods have more EPA air quality monitors, study finds.*
This despite the fact that white US neighborhoods tend on the average to have more pollution than black neighborhoods — so the EPA is not doing that part of its job fairly.
This systematic racial unfairness is one of many kinds, which add up to what is called structural racism.
I have a hunch that the system involved, in this particular case, is a simpler system than in many other cases. Perhaps studying how this system functions, and how it produces unfair results, could shed like on how structural racism more generally, and on how to prevent it.
Historic military case
17 December 2024
A US army officer was convicted of sexual harassment after pressuring a junior officer under his command to have sex with him.
I gather that this sort of thing happens often but is rarely punished. So this is an improvement. But this was worse than most cases of sexual harassment, so the sentence he received seems too weak to me.
Raw milk battle
17 December 2024
Man Americans are jumping on a bandwagon for raw milk based on choosing a political side
— rather than based on medical facts.
Some of the arguments are evidently irrational. For instance, one proponent argues that more dangers is virtuous because that requires producers to be more careful: if raw milk increases the danger caused by "cutting corners".that will make everyone more careful.
Experience says, however, that increasing the danger that can result from any sort of slip-up will mean more people harmed by slip-ups. Safety engineering is based on recognizing that everyone makes mistakes, so we should design a system in which mistakes don't cause bad consequences.
UK considers limiting political donations
16 December 2024
The UK is considering limiting donations to political campaigns and parties to stop Musk from trying to buy triumph for the more-or-less fascist party.
Urgent: Corrupter's Big Money cabinet
15 December 2024
US citizens: fight back against the corrupter's proposed Big Money cabinet.
Urgent: Slashing spending for nonrich Americans
15 December 2024
US citizens: oppose the muskrat's plan to slash spending for nonrich Amercans.
Support striking IKEA workers
15 December 2024
In the US: support striking IKEA workers.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code.
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers 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. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the string &redirect=... and delete everything from there to the end of that URL. Then insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Enter the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort compared with the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
Urgent: ACA Advance Premium Tax Credits
15 December 2024
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators and tell them to extend the ACA Advance Premium Tax Credits, to avoid a large increase in the cost of medical insurance.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Urgent: Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency"
15 December 2024
US citizens: Oppose the creation of Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency" (or, better described, Department of Government Evisceration").
Urgent: Support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
13 December 2024
US citizens: call on House Democrats to support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Ranking [Democratic] Member of Oversight and Accountability Committee.
Urgent: Cut off military support for Israel
13 December 2024
US citizens: call on Biden to cut off military support for Israel's atrocities in Gaza.
Urgent: Oppose Dr. Oz
13 December 2024
US citizens: call on the Senate to oppose Dr. Oz as head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Sting operation from 1980's
13 December 2024
In the 1980s, the Broward County Sheriff's department made and sold drugs as a sting. That sting was illegal, so the current state attorney plans to vacate all those convictions.