For current political commentary, see the daily political notes.
The site linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to pages which promote it. But I make exceptions for important information about injustices or the fight to eliminate them. That site is one of the exceptions.
It also shows clearly why it is possible to learn many things about a person (for instance, sexual orientation) from a few "what do you like" questions.
In regard to the case of trying to learn about movie preference associations from crowdsourcing, identifying a person from a data base that lists which movies each person has watched seems to be possible only if you know some set of movies the target person has watched. But I think that if you don't have a way of getting that starting data about a person, it is impossible to identify anyone.
If your ISP says this is not allowed, you should do it anyway. If someone powerful pressures you to promise to mistreat your neighbors, that is not an excuse to carry out the promise.
Many well-known US companies fund right-wing attack ads. Take a look, and don't buy from them.
Support La Quadrature du Net, and help defeat ACTA.
US citizens: support the constitutional amendment to reenable regulation of corporations' political advertisements.
US citizens: support the Just Say Now campaign to legalize and regulate marijuana.
US citizens: sign the petition for a real
investigation of the Sep 2001 terrorist attacks.
They especially seek architects and engineers, but others are welcome to
sign.
In the US: tell your senators to support the DISCLOSE act, which would require corporations to identify the political ads they fund.
And phone them too — a phone call carries more weight. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Everyone: sign the petition for libel reform in the UK.
Remind the religious fanatics who oppose gay marriage what they should really be fighting against: eating shrimp.
Japanese citizens: sign the petition to abolish fingerprinting of visitors to Japan.
Support the ACLU's campaign to hold the US government and its agents accountable for torture.
In the UK, support the Open Rights Group's campaign against disconnecting Internet users for sharing files. I support this campaign because its aim is good, but the reasons it gives exemplify a common mistake: criticizing only side effects of the unjust law has the effect of granting legitimacy to its purpose, which is the unjust War on Sharing.
Support I'm a photographer, not a terrorist in the UK
US citizens: phone or write your congresscritter to oppose the "Fair Copyright in Research Works" act, proposed by the journal publishers to sabotage open access to scientific works. See http://taxpayeraccess.org/.
For more information.
Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641, and 888-355-3588.
Support the Appel de Blois, which calls for an end to laws that censor views on historical events.
The fish species you should avoid eating. Either they are endangered or catching them is very destructive.
Buy a printer which does not report your activities to the police.
We cannot assume that personal voluntary changes will suffice, so treaties and laws are needed as well.
After reading this, I have a suggestion: to denounce the term "piracy" as a propaganda smear when applied to copying and sharing. (See words to avoid.)
A crucial part of rejecting the term is never using the term yourself. Another crucial part is explaining frequently that it is propaganda, that you reject it, and that that is why you don't use it.
It is not surprising to me that an official whose title includes the term "intellectual property rights" would act in the grasping, greedy fashion reported in that page. The term is propaganda, and interferes with clear thinking about the various disparate laws it lumps together. In general, anyone who uses the term is either trying to confuse you, or confused himself.
People will say, "That makes no sense--what does one have to do with the other?" Which provides a chance to explain:
We don't know who the perpetrators are--perhaps Muslim fanatics, perhaps Christian fanatics (in the Bush regime), perhaps both. It is tricky to get even with people when you can't identify them. How can we do it in this case?
Both of those groups hate gays and oppose gay rights. Thus, supporting gay marriage offers us a way we can be sure to make the perpetrators miserable, whoever they were.
This is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough. The PAT RIOT act was extended in December 2003 to give the police equally easy access to many kinds of transaction records about you. The PAT RIOT act attacks your freedom in other ways, too. See https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security.