Urgent: de-escalate Israel-Hezbollah war
3 October 2024

US citizens: call on Biden to de-escalate the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Psilocybin
3 October 2024

A study comparing psilocybin with a prescription antidepressant found that the psilocybin was equally or more effective. It even tended to lead to other improvements.

US medical care compared to other wealthy countries
3 October 2024

A study compared ten wealthy countries' medical systems. The US system provided the worst medical care and charged twice as much for it.

The other nine countries do better because they have national medical systems. The US needs one of those. The US private-centered system is likely to eventually kill you by pushing you into bankruptcy.

For the billionaires, the function of the lunatic right wing (the bullshitter/corrupter and his supporters) is to make it difficult to challenge plutocratist Democrats from the left. Biden has moved partly in the progressive directions, and Harris is likely to continue that path, but what we really need is a Sanders.

Gazans killed in war
3 October 2024

*Gaza publishes identities of 34,344 Palestinians killed in war with Israel.*

The usual count of deaths includes 7,613 more -- corpses which have not been identified.

Federal taxes and CEO pay
3 October 2024

Democratic senators and Bernie Sanders shamed big US corporations that pay their CEOs more than they pay in federal taxes.

They are AIG, Agilent Tech. Alliant Energy, Ameren, American Electrical Power, AmerisourceBergen, Atmos Energy, CMS Energy, DISH, DTE Energy, Darden, Dominion, Duke Energy, Entergy, Evergy, First Energy, Kinder Morgan, Match Group, MetLife, NRG Energy, NextEra, Oneok, PPL, Principal Financial, Salesforce, Sempra Energy, T-Mobile, Tesla, U.S. Steel, UGI, Voya Financial, Williams, and Xcel Energy.

Australian coal mine expansion
3 October 2024

Australia's government approved expansion of three existing coal mines.

It is not as much of a planet roaster as the right-wing government it replaced, but (like most countries) it fails to recognize the desperate urgency of decarbonization.

California clothes recycling
3 October 2024

California is considering *the Responsible Textile Recovery Act, which would require producers of apparel, towels, bedding and upholstery to implement and fund a statewide reuse, repair and recycling program for their products.*

It may be difficult to design clothing to be recyclable -- and clothing that people have actually worn out (as I often do) are difficult to reuse or repair. But if this law is done right, it could pressure the companies that "produce" clothing to head in that direction

I wonder how the bill deals with outsourcing of clothing production. To try to enforce this law on the companies in poor countries which really make the clothing would be ineffective.

Insurance Apocalypse
2 October 2024

One effect of global heating is that rapidly increasing costs of no-longer-natural disasters are undermining the foundations of the system of insurance for buildings and property. A single mega disaster can collapse all levels.

This will tend to expose everyone to unpredictable risk of being wiped out.

Is it possible to develop building methods that are proof against the strongest hurricanes? The first step would be to cease building close in coastal areas that could be inundated, but that won't be enough; even buildings at a sufficient altitude can be wrecked by floods, fire, wind and flying trees or bricks.

Building storm shutters over all windows might help with the unforeseen flying objects. Building on stilts could help with the floors. Could suitable choices of building materials and keeping large pants away help with the fires?

Climate mandates
2 October 2024

A report argues that *policymakers could tip the world into a series of "positive tipping points", accelerating the switch from fossil fuels to clean energy sources, by simply introducing mandates requiring key sectors to make the change.*

The report claims that taxing emissions is not a strong enough pressures, and directly requiring certain specific activities to decarbonize would be more effective.

Filibuster
2 October 2024

*Harris calls for end to Senate filibuster to restore US abortion rights.*

When the wrecker was president, Republicans abolished the filibuster rule for appointing judges.

That enabled them to pack the courts with right-wing extremists, including the extreme court

So it is no use for Democrats to keep the filibuster rule in place in the hope that Republicans will consider it too sacred to touch.

If the Democrats control Congress next year, any measure to fix the Supreme Court or undo damage they have done will surely be blocked by a Republican filibuster unless Democrats abolish it.

Heavy rainfall
2 October 2024

Global heating is causing fast heavy rainfall all around the world. The most recent instance was in eastern Europe.

The speed of the rainfall tends to cause local mini-disasters by flooding places that had never been flooded before.

*Experts Unsurpassed at Intensity of Extreme Weather But Say Damage Wreaked Shows How Unprepared World Is.*

This flooding is one of several kinds of local disasters that global heating is increasing. Together they imperil the system of home insurance.

The problem shows up in the fact that many people can't get insurance again disasters that destroy They homes, but insurance is not the fundamental cause of this problem. Rather, it is the seam at which the overstuffed bag splits open. If rebuilding our House as fast as they are now being destroyed is unsustainable for society, insurance as such can't alter that. Either we make the rebuilding sustainable for society or we will end up without houses.

In the long term, curbing global heating needs to be part of making rebuilding sustainable in the future.

Marieha Hussain
2 October 2024

Marieha Hussain was charged with a crime for calling some Tory ministers "coconuts".

Ms Hussain is right that the thug department should make up for the harm it did to her with this evidently unjust charge. Criticizing politicians by calling them "coconuts" must not be a crime.

That criticism is, however, an example of a morally misguided assumption: that people of a certain demographic group have an obligation to hold certain political views, and are somehow betraying that group if they do not.

People are members of demographic groups, but thoughts are not. No one has an obligation to hold the views of the group perse was descended from.

The Tories Richi Sunak and Suella Braverman are very wrong to stand for plutocratist and repressive policies, and they are responsible for personally (as ministers of state) helping to impose those views on Britain. But that has nothing to do with their ethnicity. Those views are wrong no matter who holds them.

An additional reason to reject the "coconuts" approach of criticizing people's views as "betrayal of their demographic group" is that it tends to legitimize those views for people of other groups.

Mayor Adams
1 October 2024

NYC's night-mayor Adams has been indicted for taking bribes and foreign campaign contributions.

Here is more of suspicions about him.

This reminds me of what Pseudolus said about being insensitive to physical pain. "I am going to crack down on crime … Not my own!"

Anti-monuments
1 October 2024

*Mexico’s ‘anti-monuments’ force country to remember its [tens of thousands of people who are] missing.*

UN antimicrobial resistance
1 October 2024

The world's countries pledged to reduce the death rate due to antibiotic resistance by 10% by 2030.

there is a simple way to slow the increase in antibiotic resistance: simply end the mass use of antibiotics in livestock.

What makes this difficult to do in practice is that massive use of antibiotics in livestock is what makes factory farms profitable, so their owners lobby hard against it. Will this pledge help overcome the lobbying?

Most people in wealthy countries endanger their health by eating too much meat. Discouraging that practice could help slow the increase in antibiotic resistance, but that too faces a powerful lobby.

To achieve more than that will require advances in medicine. But in order for them to do the good we would hope for, we must keep them safe from patents. If the US government subsidizes the research, it could keep them un-patented in the US.

Could it prevent US companies from patenting them in other countries? Maybe that requires in world patent treaties — which ought to be made anyway.

That research is a very important project to subsidize. Secondary to [pol note] curbing global heating,

because if climate disaster destroys civilization I expect humanity will completely lose 20th century technology including antibiotics.

Cultural taboo
1 October 2024

7 to 15% of mothers regret that they had children.

Orchestrated killing
1 October 2024

*Pakistan says police orchestrated killing of doctor [Shah Nawaz] accused of blasphemy.*

This practice, which repeats frequently, shows how Pakistan is dominated by brutal, drooling religious fanaticism. This is of of the reasons to refuse to visit Pakistan, and why I have never gone there.

Typhoid fever
1 October 2024

Typhoid fever is becoming a dangerous disease again as is bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics. People who catch it once again often die.

The same is in various stages of happening with other diseases.

British activist
1 October 2024

* [Egyptian dissident] Alaa Abd el-Fattah is due to complete five-year sentence over social media post but family fear further charges.*

His relatives ask the British government to press Egypt to release him.

Harris economic agenda
1 October 2024

Harris has stated economic policies that focus on helping Americans become and remain middle class.

I am in favor of these plans, but I would put more emphasis on helping the poor, the people who have to survive on the lowest paid jobs or who are unable to work. To pay for this, we should tax the rich — not only to reverse the grab by rich they got so rich at the expense of everyone else, but to reduce the power that they get from their wealth.

Social media bill
1 October 2024

California has legislated to make antisocial media less addictive.

The law forbids (1) showing the user posts chronologically rather than choosing them for manipulative purposes and (2) sending notifications during the usual sleep and work hours.

These limits on sites could be a big help for reducing the harmful effects of those sites' behavior, but the law has the flaw of limiting these protections to users that are children. This causes two problems:

  • Applying different rules for children may lead to requiring some sort of age verification for adults. The means to prove a user's age are likely to prove per identity as well, and that is unjust. They may also require the user to run nonfree software, and may exclude those who cannot get official government identification, both of which are unjust.
  • To protect only children from addiction schemes leaves the mission unfinished. All users, including teenagers and adults, are vulnerable to artificial addictiveness, which helps push disinformation that can threaten elections and social cohesion as well as individuals.

    Applying these rules to all users would protect society better and avoid unjust restrictions.

    The problems that the law aims to prevent did not occur by happenstance. The tech companies impose them on the user by requiring per to run nonfree client-side software to access the platform. If that software were free/libre,

    as by rights it ought to be,

    users could enable these protections for themselves by choosing a suitably modified version of the client-side software.

    For instance, they could run modified versions which (1) reorder the posts to be shown or discard some of them, according to rules the user could select, and/or (2) block or delay notifications in certain periods of the day. Some users who know how to program would make these and release them, and all users would then be able to use them.

  • Assault on press freedom
    1 October 2024

    Al Jazeeera: *By storming our Al Jazeera offices in Ramallah, Israel has stepped up its assault on press freedom.*

    Conference vote
    1 October 2024

    Delegates at Britain's Labour Party congress voted to call on the party to reverse what did in Parliament — cutting poor people's winter home heating subsidy.

    Subsidizing fossil fuel use is, in general, a bad policy. But when it's a subsidy for poor people and is needed for them to stay alive and well, cutting it is dangerous and heartless. The safe way to reduce this subsidy is through helping the poor in other ways, not through harming them.

    One way is to invest in insulating their homes so that they don't need as much artificial heating. Starmer keeps talking about "investment", so invest here.

    The other way I know of is to increase welfare payments for the poor as a substitute for subsidizing their heating costs.

    Abortion pill stockpile
    1 October 2024

    *Washington state to keep abortion pill stockpile in case [the wrecker grabs the presidency].*

    Life without Aadhaar
    1 October 2024

    A surveillance resister in India describes the gratuitous and purposeless ways in which Indians are pressured to submit to the national ID system Aadhar, and clever ways people are resisting.

    His persistence in refusing to use Aadhar is inspiring, and he does win some victories.

    Gender discrimination
    1 October 2024

    Several countries are suing Afghanistan in the International Court of Justice for discrimination against women.

    The case would seem to be so strong that the court must surely find against Afghanistan. But the Taliban will surely not obey any judgment, so why hold hearings to prove the obvious? It seems that the aim is to discourage other countries from recognizing the Taliban government.

    Trump on Ukraine
    1 October 2024

    The bully said that Ukraine should have surrendered immediately and let Putin seize part of Ukraine.

    This is more evidence that the bully is a supporter of Putin.

    If he seizes the US presidency, he may make the US an ally of Putin, or a vassal of Putin.

    Trump’s Health-Care Plan
    1 October 2024

    The wrecking crew want to deregulate medical insurance so that most Americans who are sick won't be able to afford it.

    It is a mistake to think of medical care as "insurance" since that implies that each subscriber pays the amount perse is predicted probably to need spent on per. What we need is a national medical system that will be funded by taxing those with lots of money.

    Group’s tobacco links
    1 October 2024

    The company that publishes The Economist (magazine) has been secretly taking tobacco money to support events about medicine. When this became known, many organizations decided to refuse to participate.

    This pressure has made the company commit to taking no further money from tobacco.

    Side issue: the phrase "editorial content" causes me revulsion, like any use of "content" in that sense.

    Hurricane Helene
    1 October 2024

    Some of the wrecker's campaign events are being wrecked by effects of global heating, and some of the attendees are becoming ill from them.

    Land incursion
    1 October 2024

    If Israel attacks Hezbollah on the ground, it is likely to have trouble seizing all the territory it seeks to occupy.

    Hezbollah succeeded in resisting Israel's invasion in 2006, and is likely to have even better fortifications now.

    In Gaza, Israeli units can occupy any piece of ground but can't wipe out HAMAS in its tunnels. Hezbollah's tunnels are designed for fighting from, not only for hiding in, so Israel can't expect to have control of the surface as it does in Gaza.

    I think this threat represents Netanyahu's scheme to stay in power by unceasing escalation.

    Israeli PM
    1 October 2024

    It is impossible to negotiate with Netanyahu, because he does not negotiate in good faith. When he agrees to a deal in private, he then rejects it in public.

    The US should punish him for this by cutting off important kinds of military support to Israel until it negotiates a cease fire for Lebanon and Gaza, and accepts it, and carries it out. Or until Netanyahu is no longer in charge there.

    Toxins from food packaging
    1 October 2024

    *More than 3,600 chemicals approved for food contact in packaging, kitchenware or food processing equipment have been found in humans.*

    Some of them are already suspected of being damaging.

    Hacking Kia
    1 October 2024

    KIA cars were built with a back door so that the company's server can locate them and take control of them.

    The car's owner had access to these controls through the KIA server. That in itself is not objectionable. However, that KIA itself has such control is Orwellian, and ought to be illegal.

    The icing on the Orwellian cake is that the server had a security fault which allowed absolutely anyone to activate those controls for any KIA car.

    Many people will be outraged at that security bug, but that was presumably an accident. The fact that KIA had such control over cars after selling them to customers is what outrages me, and that must have been intentional on KIA's part.

    Energy efficiency
    1 October 2024

    *Green roofs and solar chimneys are here — experts say it’s time to use them.*

    Governments in the US and elsewhere must take the lead here, to change building codes so as to press for new buildings to use various technologies that have been found to work. We also need funds to retrofit millions of old buildings.

    Journalists illegal crossing
    1 October 2024

    The Putin regime is prosecuting reporters for "illegal immigration" for going with Ukrainian forces into the Kursk region to cover the war.

    Ironically, this is the only way reporters can cover news in Russia without submitting to Putinite censorship.

    Fossil fuel
    1 October 2024

    Awareness of the approaching danger of climate mayhem is causing anxiety and despair among young adults in the UK, who see that the planet roasters have barricaded every door through which to prevent disaster they profit from increasing.

    University funding crisis
    1 October 2024

    *Gifts to politicians are all about buying influence,* but Starmer persists in denying that.

    *Declaring potential conflicts of interest does not eradicate them as conflicts of interest. For example, studies done on the efficacy of psychiatric medications and many influential medical papers list the benefits the authors received; it is not unusual to see whole pages devoted to their financial connections to pharmaceutical firms. That must cast some doubt on the validity of the studies.*

    Palestinian worker pay
    1 October 2024

    Israel is accused of depriving Palestinian workers of pay they are owed for work they have already done in Israel.

    Drug pollution
    1 October 2024

    Rural rivers and creeks can have high levels of various medicines that people flush down the toilet in places whose sewage runs to them.

    Since the drugs include antibiotics, this breeds antibiotic resistance. People swimming in rivers and lakes can catch resistant infections. But it is worse than that: bacteria pass genes around in various ways, so the resistance gene can end up far away in a different species.

    Voter rolls
    1 October 2024

    US Department of Justice sues Alabama for purging people from voter rolls.*

    *Officials say purge violates "quiet period provision" prohibiting name removals 90 days before federal election.*

    Food waste
    1 October 2024

    *Force companies to report their food waste, say leading UK retailers.*

    I am surprised that retailers are in favor of this, but it seems like a wise policy to me.

    Courts reporter
    1 October 2024

    Microsoft's bullshit generator read many articles associating Martin Bernklau with criminal accusations, and output that he was a wanted criminal who had escaped from a mental hospital.

    Bernklau's actual association was that he was a crime journalist and had written those articles. But you can't expect bullshit generators to understand that distinction — to do so requires intelligence, which is what they totally lack.

    Monarch Butterfly
    1 October 2024

    Several factors are simultaneously acting to wipe out monarch butterflies.

    Interference review
    1 October 2024

    Federal prosecutors report on Putin's interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

    They did not find grounds to charge the corrupter with a crime. I expect that some exist, but that is not proof.

    Global-oligarchy obstructionism, Oxfam
    28 September 2024

    *"Global Oligarchy" Reigns as Top 1% Controls More Wealth Than [least wealthy] 95% of Humanity.*

    Court acquits Hakamata
    28 September 2024

    Iwao Hakamat1 was convicted of murder in 1968 in Japan. Now a retrial judge has ruled that investigators falsified evidence and bullied him into a false confession. (His name was misreported as "Hakamada".)

    Hakamata is 88 years old, and is mentally unwell as a result of spending years on death row. He was unable to attend the retrial because of that.

    Concerning level of power
    28 September 2024

    *Elon Musk has gained a concerning level of power over US national security.*

    Professor Finkelstein
    28 September 2024

    Muhlenberg College fired Professor Finkelstein, a tenured professor, for condemning Israeli atrocities in Gaza, by making the usual false equivalence between "Zionists" and "Jews".

    The American Association of University Professors may sue on her behalf.

    Anti-pipeline protesters
    28 September 2024

    Fossil fuel lobbyists work with supportive legislators to criminalize nonviolent (but inconvenient) protest around the US.

    I suspect that they collaborate with AIPAC to achieve their common goal, so that protesters calling for an end to Israel's bombing and siege can be imprisoned too. The measures seem similar in practical effect to those recently used by the UK to convict climate defense protesters.