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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.
US citizens: oppose the US/Colombia free exploitation treaty.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Support repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which discriminates against gay couples.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Microsoft admits that the US government can collect data about users from any Microsoft subsidiary, anywhere around the world.
The Supreme Court rejected a crucial provision of public funding election laws: giving candidates funds to compensate for the excess spending of a rich opponent.
This seems to be part of the right-wing campaign to block every means of resisting the power of the rich to buy public opinion.
Everyone: demand that Hamas allow verification that Gilad Shalit is being treated humanely.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Israel is not the only party that has the obligation to respect human rights.
What the NRC's report on nuclear power plant safety won't mention.
Israel has withdrawn the threat to punish journalists on the Gaza aid ships.
Due to global heating, in 100 years there may be no Joshua trees in Joshua tree national park. Or maybe none at all.
As global heating accelerates, plant species will have to move faster and faster to survive, and many of them cannot move very fast.
The Greek parliament voted for the austerity plan, and police launched a massive toxic teargas attack on the protesters outside.
Boeing charges the US $644 for a small helicopter gear that normally sells for $12.51.
This shows what is likely to happen when the government uses private contractors. The cult of the Invisible Hand says that this has to be cheaper, but apparently its credo does not fit reality.
Orlando, Florida, has arrested 21 people for handing out food to homeless people in a park.
Food Not Bombs has faced repression in other parts of the US, from city governments who find homeless people unpleasant and wish they would go off somewhere and die.
The Mexican congress passed a resolution rejecting ACTA.
According to movie studios' creative accounting, the latest Harry Potter movie "lost money" despite being a big success.
Make sure it doesn't get any of your money! Boycott Harry Potter books, and films too!
Internal documents show that the TSA ignored cancer clusters that might be caused by body scanners, refusing to give its staff dosimeters which could determine whether in fact they are exposed to too much radiation.
It also lied and said that NIST had "affirmed the safety" of the scanners, which NIST denies doing.
The Israeli Parliament is considering a law to ban the boycott of products made in the Israeli colonies in the West Bank.
Global heating skeptic Willie Soon has received a million dollars in research grants from oil and coal companies.
The headline says he "received" the money, but the text seems to show this is a matter of research funding rather than personal payments to him. Nonetheless, it is an ethical issue.
I am not surprised Exxon (remember the "xx" is pronounced like "ch" in German "ach") funds "hundreds of organisations". Funding just one wouldn't achieve the purpose of distracting humanity from the disaster it needs urgently to avoid. Exxon, yexx!
How Corporations Award Themselves Legal Immunity.
Refuting absurd claims that wind power generators would cause a climate disaster.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Haitian farmers protested for more support from their government, which has allowed subsidized US farm products to crush local agriculture, and is now accepting poisonous US gifts of seed treated with toxic chemicals.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Major Australian ISPs have agreed to censor Internet connections "voluntarily" — but it's not voluntary for the users.
The excuse is "child pornography", one of the standard excuses for crushing civil liberties on the Internet. Once filtering is set up, they can extend it to whatever else they wish.
The MPAA is trying to impose Internet filtering on the UK through a lawsuit.
A rebuttal of the claim that thorium reactors make dangerous waste products which was the point of a previous political note ("Making nuclear reactors use thorium instead of uranium does not make their waste safe").
However, there is one error in this article: it claims that existing nuclear reactors did not need a public subsidy.
The "child pornography" witch-hunt has made a possession of this high-school yearbook a crime - because of what two students in the background of a photo are doing.
Imagine if the photo had been published in a newspaper. That could turn thousands of people into criminals.
Doing foreplay in a dance is a little daring - it must have been fun. It suggests those two students are normal teenagers with a normal interest in sex. If there was anything harmful, wrong, or shameful about this photo, it wasn't them. Yet (according to an article on a site not suitable to link to) they might face prosecution, with the danger of being listed as "sex offenders", effectively "perverts", for being normal and hurting nobody.
These laws are the perverted intersection of two irrational hot buttons: "sex is dirty" and "we must protect the children". Remember this when Internet filtering is imposed in order to block "child pornography".
The charges against Emily Good were dropped, and the Mayor of Rochester condemned her arrest and the police harassment of her supporters.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The TSA says it didn't require an old woman dying of cancer to remove her diaper. The woman's daughter, who was with her, insists it did.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
People suspect the TSA is playing a dishonest word game to evade responsibility for its actions. Whatever the TSA demands, they pretend it is "not required" because you have the option of missing your flight. These lies won't fool anyone who pays attention, but they hope to fool many people who listen to a soundbite.
Fracking may be limited in many regions by lack of water.
This issue is a pertinent one for technologies that consume water. However, this presentation tries to generalize the idea too far. It is ridiculous to talk about the amount of water needed for hydroelectric generation, because people build dams where water already flows downhill - and the water that flows through the generator is not used up in the process. It remains available for other uses.
As for growing crops for biofuels, that is a wasteful practice in every respect, and should not be treated as a serious option.
A Syrian soldier defected when he was ordered to shoot protesters and told, "The men with guns are ours."
Canada is blocking a treaty to ban export of asbestos, which causes lung disease.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US has tried to smear the activists on the Gaza aid fleet by mentioning that "aiding Hamas" is illegal.
Of course, the US government knows that that is irrelevant, since bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza is not aiding Hamas. It is engaged in evident dishonesty comparable to what Bush used to do to defend his lies about Iraq.
A new USGS report shows how much we don't know about the dangers of undersea oil drilling in the Arctic.
Israel is trying to prevent press coverage of the Gaza aid fleet by threatening to deny journalists entry to Israel and Palestine for 10 years.
A letter from a naive peace activist (on the Gaza aid ships) to an Israeli naval officer.
Ray McGovern is on the ship too, and explains an inconvenient truth that the US tries to suppress: US support for the occupation of Palestine and siege of Gaza are crucial motivating factors for terrorists that attack the US.
Craig Murray, a former naval attache who knows the relevant law thoroughly, explains why an Israeli attack on these ships would be illegal, as is the siege.
However, far from acting to protect US citizens on the high seas, Obama would be glad to see them killed in an illegal Israeli attack against a US ship.
We already know that Obama thinks it is ok to kill Americans abroad if he does not approve of their views.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to sign Rep. Chris Murphy's letter calling for a hearing for HR 862, which would deal with the unethical activities of Clarence Thomas. Also sign this petition.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: send messages to your senators and representatives in favor of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
This bill would limit use of antibiotics on farm animals.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to call for investigation of Clarence Thomas' unethical political dealings.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Sign Rob Zerban's petition telling Paul Ryan to stop attacking Medicare.
Republicans want to destroy the Clean Water Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US has the weakest protections for workers of any developed country, but companies such as Boeing and Target are trying to crush those, with help from Republicans.
Turkey is now allowing journalists to talk with Syrian refugees and the people aiding them. Meanwhile, the Lebanese government is helping Syria by arresting Syrian dissidents and even refugees.
I disagree with Turkey's government on many issues, such as censorship, but I admire its willingness to set aside superficial political interests for human decency. If only the US were so moral.
The US has set up massive programs to spy on millions of Arabs
and manipulate public opinion in the Arab world, known only from the
leaked HBGary emails.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The government says it won't use this capability on Americans, but it already has.
Emily Wood was arrested for making a video of police as they were doing a traffic stop.
She was accused of "obstructing" their activities, but how could making a video possibly do that? Perhaps if they were planning to do something illegal, or lie about their actions. Such lies on the part of cops are not unusual.
Police then proceeded to harass people attending a neighborhood meeting to support her.
These thugs and bullies think that laws are their tools for hurting anyone who opposes them. That is the reason cops often lie.
Pakistan is carrying out a long term campaign of repression against
Balochis, the people of a region that Pakistan conquered in 1947.
Over 14,000 Balochis have been disappeared in the past decade.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Wikileaks cables show how the US government pushed business exploitation in Haiti.
20 years ago, Croatia used national ID cards for ethnic cleansing.
Now they are used for illegal foreclosure without trial.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Belarus arrested 450 people who made an unusual protest:
not merely nonviolent, but silent too.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Republicans are now attacking food stamps, using false accusations of fraud.
In the UK: tell your MP you oppose the dishonest scheme for "voluntary" filtering of the Internet - unless it's voluntary for you.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Venture capitalists have signed a letter opposing some of the provisions of the "PROTECT IP" act.
The term "IP" in the name of that bill is propaganda - don't repeat it in your own discourse.
We all understand that the wishes of businesses and investors carry more weight with the US Congress than the wishes of citizens. That means democracy is sick. I am glad to see investors oppose this fundamentally unjust bill, since they may be able to kill it. The same sickness of democracy gave Hollywood and the record companies the power which they are using to try to pass it.
While we can be glad that some of these non-citizens are using their power on our side, we must not let that lead us to tolerate corporatocracy.
A blogger in Taiwan was jailed for criticizing the food she ate in a restaurant.
It is very hard to speak with the precision that this court punished her for failing to use. I try to do so, but I don't always succeed. However, even if she carelessly stretched her statement, that does not justify imprisonment.
It appears that online reviews create psychological pressure to exaggerate.
If we would like to discourage exaggeration, harsh punishments against a few of those who succumb to this pressure will not do the job (in addition to being unjust). Changing the structure of the system might perhaps work.
FAIR documents bias in the US mainstream media, which often is expressed through presuppositions. Here's an example: the Washington Post presumes that withdrawal from Afghanistan should be slowed down, not sped up.
Another example: how the New York Times pushes to cut public workers' pensions, condemning unions in the process.
I see a flaw in the Times' argument that FAIR didn't point out. The article cites a police chief and a deputy fire chief as examples - but those are managers. Normally they would not even be members of the union, and their salary and pension have nothing to do with those of ordinary policemen or firemen.
The University of Michigan library is taking a small step towards making the "orphan works" in its collection available digitally.
Since their availability is very limited, this is just a first step.
If Palestine declares statehood unilaterally in September, it will be following the same path as Israel in 1948.
Foreign maids working in Saudi Arabia are effectively slaves, since they are forbidden to return home without the consent of their employer. If that employer is cruel, doesn't pay the salary, or rapes them, they have no way to escape.
Meaningful accomplishments give more satisfaction than material career goals.
So instead of trying to make money from proprietary software, it is wiser to become a free software activist.
In Egypt, the youth wing of the Muslim Brotherhood has broken away to form a new party which is more secular.
In the US: tell AT&T and Comcast you object to the three-strikes punishment plan they intend to impose on their customers.
Al Gore, blaming the US for the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks, has recognized that US democracy has been corrupted and that Obama is weak.
Republican laws in 8 states are designed to cause more abortions - by obstacles to contraception, and cuts in prenatal care and education.
Even more nasty, they are prosecuting women who had miscarriages.
This is the War on Women.
Making nuclear reactors use thorium instead of uranium does not make their waste safe.
Thousands of village women in India have been trained as solar engineers to set up solar power systems in their villages.
If this small operation has saved over a million liters of fossil fuel a year, imagine what could be achieved by a full national effort in India. All that is missing is the political will.
The House of Representatives refused to authorize the intervention in Libya.
Syria's protests have spread to Damascus, where protesters were shot dead.
Ai Weiwei's associates remain disappeared even though he himself has been released.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
No matter what crimes a person may be guilty of, disappearing him is never justified - and the fact that these people have been disappeared, and that Ai Weiwei has been gagged as a condition of parole, is grounds to believe the worst accusations against the Chinese Government.
The TSA is selling the "dangerous" snow-globes that it takes away from surprised passengers.
It cost a lot of money for the US to occupy and destroy Iraq, so some politicians want Iraq to pay for the service.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Nine blackwhiting words that define the US idea of war.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
California is considering a bill to require disclosure of chemicals used in fracking.
Political prisoners in Iran say the prison guards are encouraging prisoners to rape them. I would guess that Islam considers homosexual rape a grave crime, but no hypocrisy is too much for the Islamic Republic.
There is a bill in the House of Representatives to end marijuana prohibition (leaving it to states to decide).
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Police in Denmark want to ban anonymous access to the Internet.
France already has such a law, which makes it effectively impossible for me to use public internet sites in France (since I refuse to identify myself). Will anyone in Denmark campaign against this?
Cutting the US deficit makes no rational sense in terms of the US economy.
I suspect it makes rational sense for whoever paid US politicians to push for deficit reduction.
Toronto police have promised never again to besiege protesters.
The biggest ISPs in the US are planning to punish their customers extrajudicially for sharing.
This is possible because in large parts of the US there are few choices of ISP for broadband.
It is Obama's fault. Obama is practicing divide-and-rule on behalf of the corporations he serves.
This article uses the propaganda term "piracy" (for sharing) and uses the propaganda term "intellectual property" in a twisted way to refer to works of authorship. Don't make the mistake of repeating their propaganda.
UK representatives of the copyright industry proposed a rapid-response web filtering system that China would envy.
There is a high level of birth defects in states where mountaintop mining is practiced.
To establish whether mountaintop mining is responsible would require further experiments. It is important to carry out those experiments.
Renewable energy offers the chance to decentralize and democratize electricity production.
Obama raised the official US troop strength in Afghanistan from 34,000 to 100,000, and this is not counting the 100,000 contractors or mercenaries. Thus, withdrawing 33,000 would still leave more forces than Bush had there.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
3,000 nurses protested on Wall Street for a tax on financial transactions to fund health care.
Everyone: sign this petition to Brazil's president Rousseff to protect the Amazon forest, and reject the bill that would weaken forest protections.
Ai Weiwei has been freed on bail in exchange for agreeing not to talk about how he was treated.
If Ai Weiwei is really guilty of tax evasion, that would justify arresting him — but not holding him incommunicado. And I think they would not have done so. Thus, the Chinese officials are lying.
Likewise, requiring a released prisoner to promise not to talk about prison conditions is evident and inexcusable tyranny.
HBGary and other countries apparently set up a system for the US to secretly manipulate "public opinion" on the Internet.
It is the automated equivalent of the astroturf campaigns and media bias that corporations use to twist US politics.
Dissidents and human rights defenders in Bahrain were sentenced to life imprisonment in a military court, based on false confessions extracted by torture.
Sounds like Guantanamo. Bahrain must respect human rights, but it is far more important to make the US respect them.
Iranian women's rights campaigner Maryam Majd has been arrested and disappeared.
Tyranny in Iran has reached the point where anyone that wants a change is considered an enemy, even if the change would not alter who holds the power.
A man is on trial in France for making anti-semitic insults to strangers in a restaurant.
Insults are not nice, and racism is disgusting, but prosecuting people for speaking insults is even more disgusting. It sounds like this man was (and maybe still is) a prize jerk, but that should not be a crime.
Russia has banned an opposition party.
This resembles the previous election, where would-be opposition candidate Kasparov was blocked from forming a party to run.
Facebook's identify-your-friends feature is facing a challenge in Connecticut.
Oil
companies are funding an astroturf campaign to demand cheap
gasoline.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Such a campaign could not achieve its supposed goal except by reducing the taxes that help discourage gasoline use. But it might have other benefits for the oil companies.
Obama is trying to disregard the War Powers Act with a wacky claim that the intervention in Libya is not "hostilities".
By Obama's logic, firing ICBMs would not be hostilities either.
Morocco's king has announced substantial democratic reforms, but they don't go all the way to the constitutional monarchy that protesters called for.
International climate talks remained stalled: another meeting has gone by with only minor progress.
Countries are fighting for bigger pieces of mansion rather than put out the fire that is destroying it.
Wildlife populations in some African wild areas are crashing.
Naturally, human intrusion plays a substantial role in this.
Greenpeace protesters have been arrested after protesting on an oil rig.
Note the ridiculous argument that drilling near Greenland is safe because wells have been drilled in Norway's Arctic. Were they safe, or just lucky? If a well in the Barents Sea had blown up, could Norway have shut it off and cleaned up the spill?
It appears Obama supports Argentina's demand to conquer the Falkland Islands.
Many specialist doctors in the US refuse to make appointments for children with public health insurance.
Wyden and Chaffetz' bill to require warrants for police to get geolocation data seems to be better than Franken's bill, which applies only to commercial use of the data.
30 Saudi women held their drive-in, but the police responded by not taking notice.
Everyone: call on India to free environmental activists imprisoned on absurd charges.
How the empire of the corporations is using Arab revolutions as an opportunity to impose cruel austerity programs.
US citizens: the campaign to email senators against the "PROTECT IP" act is having an effect. Have you sent email yet? If not, please do it now.
US citizens: call on Clarence Thomas to resign for what would,
in any other US court,
be ethics violations.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: call on the US to
apologize to Maher Arar for having
him tortured by proxy in Syria.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US-backed civil war in Guatemala has officially ended,
but
persistent violence against women is its result.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The TSA is searching trains and buses, using the imaginary danger of terrorists as an excuse to check people's persons and papers everywhere.
Obama, by renewing the PAT RIOT Act, extended Bush's war on the Bill of Rights.
UK's biggest ISPs have lost an appeal against the DEA (Denial of E-citizenship Act).
Of 6 million hectares of land stolen during Colombia's civil war, the restitution law will only restore 2 million to the previous owners. The government does not intend to return the land which was taken by companies or by the state itself.
A call to break up the US communications duopoly of AT&T and Verizon, just as AT&T's monopoly was broken up in the past.
When the Nuclear Regulatory Commission finds that an old reactor does not meet a safety standard, it changes the standard to fit the reactor.
A major Egyptian diplomat calls for negotiating a ceasefire in Libya.
In the US, the way to get medical treatment is to rob a bank.
The conference of US mayors approved a resolution for speeding up withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has gone
very easy on US nuclear
reactor operators.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The campaign to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining was successful.
However, even to have considered allowing uranium mining there shows how soft on pollution the Obama regime is.
US citizens: oppose the ban on
DC funding for abortions for poor
women.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: tell world leader:
cut nuclear weapons, not things people
need.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Scientists measuring the march towards extinction of ocean life were shocked by how fast it is proceeding.
Republicans have cut off funding for Planned Parenthood birth control services in several states.
Opposition to birth control has become part of the unofficial Republican platform, as part of their perverted War on Pleasure (they want people to suffer for having sex).
The US has long oppressed other countries, especially poor weak ones. This continues today in Haiti, Honduras, and Colombia, as well as (obviously) Iraq.
Now the oppression is spreading within the US. Future Americans will ask how the US was turned into a fear-state of poverty.
The Supreme Court ruled that Wal-Mart is too big for its female employees to sue together for discrimination.
A semi-independent report on the lessons of Fukushima shows that nuclear plants with proper safety precautions have to be even more absurdly expensive than they are now.
US state laws requiring disclosure of fracking chemicals are weak because they have catered to companies' wish for trade secrecy.
The public has no obligation to take any risk for the sake of that wish. Let's tell those companies, "Publish or perish."
A US company saves everyone's Internet postings for 7 years to show to their possible future employers.
I can't say that this company is doing something unjust. If the outcome is harmful, I would blame it on the competitivity of the job market in the US, which is caused by practices such as outsourcing, budget-cutting, and banksterism.
The head of GLAAD resigned after a scandal because he had given the group's support to AT&T's merger with T-mobile.
100,000 protested in Spain against plans to give business more power over workers all across the EU.
Sarkozy has proposed total censorship for the Internet in France.
Bad news for Wall Street companies could be good news for the rest of the US.
A reporter who wrote about his arrest and torture in Pakistan was attacked and beaten again by police.
The Bank of Kabul is almost bankrupt, and with it the Afghan state.
The bank collapsed due to corruption.
It seems that the corruption of Karzai's regime has finally got so bad that the US will no longer pour billions down that drain.
As Southern Sudan becomes independent, the Nuba people, whose territory falls in the north, are being crushed.
Michele Bachmann wants to abolish the EPA, effectively letting business pollute at will.
Libyan rebels in Misrata say they have captured documents where Gaddafi ordered his troops there to commit war crimes.
Ex-Spy alleges Bush White House
sought to discredit war critic
(Juan Cole)
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
UK police say their censorship efforts have "safeguarded or protected" 414 children in the past year, but fail to say what this means, or how the danger to those children related to the pornography. Were these children being used to make pornography? Stopping that would indeed be protecting them, but the police had achieved this, they could have stated it in a clear and concrete way. The vagueness of the statement suggests that they are stretching things. My researcher was unable to find any details.
The UK government is not greatly concerned with children's welfare in general, as shown by its other actions. For instance, closing homes for orphans. In 2010 there were around 6900 children in state-managed homes in the UK. I'm not sure how many of them would be forced onto the street by this closure.
The UK government also plans to cut benefits for 100,000 disabled children.
So did the state really protect these 414 children, and did that really relate to pornography? Or is it only trying to make censorship look necessary?
Colombia's land restitution law
has a serious problem: victims
are
required to prove their land was taken by an armed group and that it
was
connected with the civil war.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
sign this petition to include no-cost birth control
as part of the US health care system.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone the White House at (202) 456-1111 and say that Obama should firmly defend Medicare, like the Senate leadership, and block any Republican attempts to cut it.
US citizens: Tell Congress to protect whistleblowers as the founding fathers did in 1777.
The founding fathers did not subordinate the state to megacorporations.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the Shareholder
Protection Act, which would require shareholders to approve political
campaign spending by corporations.
This page
gives more info and
other suggestions for action.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Canadians: participate in the
fundamental
freedoms festival
in Toronto on the anniversary of mass arrests and tyranny.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose world-wide authorization
for presidents to go to war anywhere. Also communicate with them
through
this
page.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
A UK student faces extradition to the US for maintaining a site with links to possibly illegal filesharing sites.
This is another illustration of the fundamental injustice of the UK-US extradition treaty.
As far as I know, posting such links isn't a crime in the US anyway. However, more importantly, it isn't wrong. File sharing isn't wrong. The wrong is in the laws that try to stop people from sharing.
Jimmy Carter: Call Off the Global Drug War.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Battery farms, where animals don't have space to move, endanger human
lives because only with antibiotics can the animals avoid sickness.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Thus, banning the distribution of antibiotics to farm animals would benefit humans in several ways. First, they would preserve the function of antibiotics for when we need them. Second, they would make meat more expensive in the developed countries where these battery farms are, so most people in these countries would eat less meat (which is good for health). Third, it would make farming more efficient, which would help provide enough food for everyone in poor countries. Fourth, it would reduce global warming.
A study found that trying psilocybin mushrooms at a moderate dose gifted most people with long-term improvements in their family and work relationships and increased their happiness.
It may have one negative side effect: a tendency to "increased spiritual practice". However, that is very general, and whether it is truly bad depends on details not stated here.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose S.978 which would punish unauthorized streaming with imprisonment. Also send them email through this page.
As the article explains, people who post lipsynching or karaoke videos could be imprisoned under this bill. But even if it were corrected to avoid that, it would still be an injustice.
I used the following message text:
As your constituent, I urge you to reject S. 978. Copyright law is already too restrictive for the public, and S.978 would make it worse. That's going in the wrong direction. Please represent the people, not Hollywood special interests.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Governor Walker promised to have no votes after midnight, but he's in a hurry to do as much damage as possible before the Republicans get recalled that he set this promise aside.
Obama has increased the billions being spent on Afghan "development programs", most if which can't deliver any benefit.
If the idea is simply to pour money into Afghanistan and buy support, I won't say that is necessarily bad. But why spend it on building useless things? Just give everyone in Afghanistan $100 a year.
US citizens:
support the ACLU in calling on the FBI to tighten the rules
for investigating dissidents not suspected of crimes, not loosen them.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone your senators to support S.J. Res 18 to prohibit ground troops in Libya and reassert Congress's control over war.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Facebook's face recognition demonstrates a threat to everyone's privacy.
I ask people not to put photos of me on Facebook; you can do likewise.
Many human rights organizations called on the US to end deportations to Haiti.
Colombian human rights defenders continue receiving death threats from paramilitaries.
Honduran ex-president Zelaya says the coup-installed government is cheating on the deal that allowed him to return.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
However, this is less significant than the state's violence against dissidents.
How much money did each US senator get from the oil industry?
Amnesty International says that China is obliged to arrest Sudan's president for trial in the Hague.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Why do the NAACP and GLAAD support AT&T's merger with T-mobile? Why do they even care about such an issue? For the money, it appears.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Former undercover cop Kennedy offers to expose apparent selective prosecution of protesters.
Geoengineering solutions are being considered to compensate for the humanity's CO2 and methane emissions.
CO2 emissions cause two problems: global heating, and acidification of the ocean. The latter will kill off most shellfish and coral in a few decades, causing the extinction of most of the life in the ocean.
Thus, solutions that only deal with heating are inadequate.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose the NAFTA-like treaty with Korea. One NAFTA is already too many!
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Kucinich and nine other congressional representatives have sued the President for violating the War Powers Act by intervening in Libya without Congressional authorization.
I support the intervention in Libya, but the president should do it lawfully.
Colombia has adopted a law to compensate 4 million victims of its civil war — including, apparently, the victims of aggression by the police, the army, and the paramilitaries.
It looks like Santos is better than Alvaro Horrible.
The Greek government is unable to pass the austerity program demanded of it. The prime minister has offered to resign as protesters demanding default on the debt battle police outside.
Greeks, take your country back from the banks!
A general strike in Greece demands an end to austerity.
The iCloud "just works" ... but in whose favor?
For the first time, a US domain name "seizure" is being challenged in court.
Civil forfeiture was invented to evade the constitutional protection against punishing you without convicting you of a crime. The government takes your property on the grounds it was used in a crime, without trying to prove you committed a crime, and says that is OK because it isn't punishment.
This is unfair when applied to domain names, and equally so when applied to physical property. To restore human rights, the US must end civil forfeiture.
The article uses the term "intellectual property", apparently to refer to copyright law and trademark law. That is a confusing practice because others use the same term to refer to other unrelated laws. They should have said "copyright law and trademark law" and avoided the term that always spreads confusion.
The US repeatedly transfers accused illegal immigrants to different prisons, cutting them off from lawyers and evidence they need to make the case they are allowed to live in the US.
Part of the motivation seems to be to move them to places where the courts are hostile and they can't find a lawyer.
I read long ago that some convicted federal prisoners are moved repeatedly from prison to prison as a way of cutting them off from their families and friends.
An oil company threatens to use CAFTA to force Costa Rica to allow oil drilling.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Costa Rica should leave CAFTA.
6 lies about health care from the Republican presidential debate.
Most US schools today are miniature police states, educating a generation of Americans to fear and obey —or react with violence.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Krugman: both parties are dominated by the Pain Caucus, which is prepared to ruin everyone else to serve the interests of creditors.
The AFL-CIO will go all out to block the US-Colombia free exploitation treaty.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
New FBI rules will facilitate spying on political dissidents in the absence of any valid suspicion.
Israel will build a Museum of Tolerance on top of a Muslim cemetery.
Corpses are not important in themselves, except to the extent that studying them is useful for science. But giving offense that is easily avoided is not a model of tolerance.
A WikiLeaks document shows how US and international donors pushed ahead with the Burmese-style presidential election and imposed a choice between two right-wing candidates.
Pakistan's spy agency (which originally helped launch al Qa'ida) has arrested people who gave the US information about Osama bin Laden.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US is "negotiating" with Karzai to keep troops in Afghanistan permanently.
I doubt that the Taliban would agree to this, so the plan implies permanent war. Karzai's corrupt government will never inspire loyalty so the US and/or NATO would have to wage that war permanently.
Syrian soldier Servet Arafat had the courage to escape rather than shoot unarmed protesters.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
He also reports seeing torture of protesters, even children age 10.
Thousands of Syrian refugees remain in Syria near the Turkish border because Turkey limits the rate that they can cross.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Some US states have made abortion nearly illegal for some women.
Wisconsin Republicans considered running Democratic candidates as spoilers to delay the recall elections.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Sri Lankan soldiers took "trophy videos" of the murder of prisoners.
This reminds me of the Abu Ghraib torture photos. It seems that soldiers who get involved in war crimes have an irresistible yearning to boast about them. If they were clever, they would avoid preserving (or even making) such evidence. Maybe these soldiers, like violent street criminals, tend to be stupid.
Belarus has arrested organizers of an Internet-based call for protests.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Israeli "settlers" attacked a Palestinian mosque.
Wachovia bank laundered billions of dollars of Mexican drug money, and tried to block its own investigator from finding out about this. (It's the typical response of the arrogant and powerful to exposure of crimes.)
I believe that cocaine addicts should be able to get their drug from doctors, but I am not necessarily in favor of legalizing commercial sale of cocaine. However, maybe it needs to be legalized if only to prevent the damage that the War on Drugs does to society. Nothing is going to stop drug traffickers from finding ways to legitimize their money; they have so much to pay to whoever helps that they can corrupt people in almost any social role. The only thing that can stop them is to undercut their captive market of addicts.
Congress is considering a bill requiring police to get a warrant to get any geolocation information.
Palestinian villagers accompanied by Israelis, peacefully protesting an illegal quarry on the village land, were shot with bullets and tear gas.
Tennessee has imposed stiff censorship on the Internet, by banning the posting of images that are likely to "cause emotional distress" to someone.
Will antiabortionists be prosecuted for posting images of fetuses? (They certainly should know that these images can cause emotional distress.) Probably not — because the ban will be selectively enforced by right-wing Christians.
Interviews with Syrian refugees who were shot by the regime and tortured.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
One describes tanks destroying whole villages indiscriminately. Another says that armed men who were not from his region shot at soldiers.
UK prosecutors who convicted anti-coal protesters were concealing evidence for the defense.
Syria is destroying the town of Jisr al-Shughour, burning the farms around it, and arresting all the adult men.
How is the US stretching the PAT RIOT Act? Perhaps by collecting cell phone location data without a warrant.
Terry Pratchett's film about assisted suicide in Switzerland must be effective, because the torture-till-the-end brigade is really annoyed.
Six friends of mine died in the past two years. I miss them, and I wish they were still alive and well. But I wouldn't force them to stay alive if they were suffering and death were their only way out.
General Petraeus boasted of capturing thousands of Taliban fighters, but 90% of them turned out to be noncombatants.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Miami police pointed their guns at a man who was making a video of them as they shot at a suspect in a car, handcuffed him, and smashed his phone.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Maybe that car's driver was an armed robber — I don't know. But that could not justify threatening bystanders, or trying to stop them from recording what the police were doing. The police are doing a public job, in public, so they are not entitled to privacy. If they are doing nothing wrong, why don't they want to be filmed?
Palm oil cultivation in Brazil could replace cattle ranching and help the environment in the process.
This seems almost too good to be true, and I worry that there is a hole in this argument. If the low profits from cattle ranching are enough to drive deforestation in the Amazon, won't higher profits from palm oil drive more deforestation?
Several fallacious arguments used to justify unnecessary security measures at the expense of our rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Many US schools use web filters that block access to queer web sites. The ACLU is campaigning to unblock those sites.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
I agree with the ACLU in condemning this blockage, but I hesitate to support this campaign because arguing about what sites should or should not be blocked seems to legitimize web filtering.
A man in Thailand faces 22 years in prison for a web reference to a banned book that criticizes the king.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Due to the siege of Gaza, hospitals in Gaza are forced to cancel operations for lack of medical supplies.
Turkey has arrested people accused of participating in Anonymous protests.
The Turkish government ought to be arrested, if anyone.
Peru's stock market fell only 12% after Ollanta Humala's victory.
This is because he has agreed not to attack the base of the megacorporations' unjust power: the free exploitation treaties.
The United Fresh Produce Association boasted it had "helped block over 100 legislative proposals on food safety in Congress" in the past two years. Some of this was done using taxpayers' money.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
India and Pakistan are among the five worst countries for women.
Israelis and Palestinians work together to rebuild homes demolished by the Israeli military occupation.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
The patriotic millionaires tell the US, "Please raise our taxes to help the country."
The US treasury has lost 2.5 trillion dollars due to the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Here are some things the US could have bought with that money.
Jack Christie, a Toronto student, was suspended from his high school which demanded he remove his videos from YouTube.
The president of the "student government" was threatened with suspension for collecting signatures on a petition for him. The school was apparently imitating what passes for "democracy" today.
How personalized filtering driven by tremendous data bases is closing people off from knowledge and each other.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The article makes a mistake when it presents this as a change in the Internet itself. The Internet is no different, except where tyrannical states such as France, Spain, China and the US impose censorship. What has changed is that many (maybe most) people use the Internet in new ways that do tremendous surveillance.
It is possible to refuse — I do. I don't use most of the web sites that do surveillance. I fetch pages with wget so that sites know only that someone fetched the page. I don't have a spyPhone so it can't tell anyone anything about where I am.
Google and Facebook have very little data about me; I never identify myself to Google, and I use it from various computers that others use too. And if I want to visit a page that appears in a Google search, I don't click on the link (since that is set up to inform Google you clicked there). Instead I copy the address and go to it. If Google tracks me, it must think I am not very interested in most things I search for.
If you don't want to be herded, you need to do likewise.
Many US companies check the credit ratings of potential employees; the result is that anyone who becomes unemployed and falls behind on bills does not get hired again.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
While this is a crowning unfairness, fixing this would at best mean that some people rotate more often in and out of unemployment. The US must do more to help the long-term unemployed and underemployed.
North Dakota's example shows that a public state bank can protect a state's economy from big bank robbery.
NATO is restraining the Libyan rebels from advancing, urging them to stay where NATO knows they are so they won't get bombed.
Peru has elected the ex-Leftist Ollanta Humala.
He probably won't make things worse, but his acceptance of the free exploitation treaties means he can't make things much better either.
In a town in Syria, some of the suppression forces apparently refused to shoot the people, and the other suppression forces fought them and the people came out to defend them. Now the population has either fled or remains in hiding.
Jellyfish are rapidly increasing in the oceans, and this makes more CO2 emissions.
Increased CO2 levels may be partly responsible for the increase, but so is overfishing by humans. We killed the fish that used to keep the jellyfish numbers down.
Jellyfish waste does not serve as food for the rest of normal marine fauna.
If jellyfish numbers increase enough, fish may never be able to come back.
Global heating is contributing to destabilizing the world's food system.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
A Florida homeowner foreclosed an office of Bank of America.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Florida has passed a law privatizing Medicaid, which will profit the company owned by Governor Scott.
Thousands marched in Tel Aviv in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
On the contradictions of the campaigns that fight for the right of gay people to be tough and be in the US armed forces, but don't fight not for their right to have some other option.
I supported and still support ending the US military's discrimination against homosexuals, but there were many campaign actions I would not sign and did not post here, because they described this as "serving their country" and we know that in Iraq they were serving the oil companies.
The Fukushima reactor meltdowns appear to have melted the inner containment vessels.
Shouldn't every reactor be equipped with sensors so that there would be no uncertainty about this?
They hope to filter radioactive isotopes out of the cooling water. Shouldn't every reactor be required to have such apparatus standing by in case it is needed?
The leakage of radioactive materials was twice the earlier estimates, and the meltdown happened much faster than previously believed.
Egypt's military government is resisting calls to investigate the use of military tribunals against protesters.
Iraq has pre-emptively arrested a dozen protest organizers and several remain in jail.
Greenpeace is campaigning to make Mattel stop buying paper made by destroying Indonesian rainforests.
To really solve this problem requires new laws; however, the WTO stands in the way. Someday we can blame the WTO for the extinction of thousands of species (and perhaps the deaths of tens of millions of people as a result).
Maliki has crushed the protest movement in Iraq with a slow campaign of beatings and arrests.
Arundhati Roy says she will not condemn rebellion against the Indian government.
Her reasoning seems valid to me.
A video message in Spanish supporting the protests in Spain in 2011. Also in webm format.
The last decade was worse, for American workers' wages, than the 1930s.
New York City police have arrested and framed minority group members a million times in recent years.
Fleeing Syrians say 'Soldiers killed all the young men in the village'.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The UK government warned that some universities are recruiting zones for Islamic extremism. However, that's not the only form of extremist cruelty that recruits in universities, as this response points out.
Pakistani paramilitaries murdered a teenager as he was begging for mercy.
Uri Avnery accuses Israeli forces of gratuitously shooting Palestinian protesters at the border — even shooting people who tried to help wounded.
Israel is entitled to use force if necessary to stop people from crossing the border, but that can't justify shooting people to make a point.
The WTO has banned the US dolphin-safe tuna labeling program.
In other words, we can either wipe out dolphins or wipe out the WTO.
The WTO operates to reduce wages by making countries compete to bow down to business. We can either have good paying jobs or the WTO.
The purpose of the WTO is to make governments serve business. We can either have democracy or the WTO.
Destroy the WTO!
The University of Nottingham had two students arrested for downloading a web publication — then did surveillance of students who protested on their behalf, and fired a lecturer who criticized the university's conduct.
Robin Hood, you're needed!
Big Oil spends more money on stock buybacks and dividends than on producing oil.
Thanks to Wikileaks, we know that oil is Obama's motive for intervening in Libya.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The intervention in Libya is necessary for other reasons. If Gaddafi had put down the insurrection, he would have used his oil to make Europe suck up to him again. However, I would not expect Obama to take action for reasons like that.
Obama is campaigning in the Supreme Court to allow states to gut Medicaid and avoid being sued for it.
US universities and hedge funds are forcing millions of Africans off their land.
The excuse is the same old trickle-down ideology that is known to fail. I suspect the real reason that African governments permit these deals is corruption.
Sooner or later the farmers will retake those lands, with guns.
Sarah Palin begged BP to build a pipeline from Alaska to the rest of the US, just a year after BP caused the biggest oil spill on land in Alaska.
A anti-gay psychologist's de-effeminization therapy was based on cruel beatings, and his prize success later committed suicide.
Australian climate scientists have received death threats for reporting the danger of global warming.
Over half the murders of trade unionists in 2010 were in Colombia.
However, the government pretends the country is now safe for union organizing in order to sign the free exploitation treaty with the US, which is designed to harm democracy in both countries.
Keeping species alive in small refuges can work as long as nothing goes wrong. But when there's a fire, it can be the end.
A US court ruled that a bank was not liable when a customer account was robbed by collecting the customer's password.
My understanding is that customers were (and still are) not liable when banks paid forged checks. The bank must absorb those losses. If so, this represents another way in which the move to the Internet has provided companies an opportunity to increase their rights at the expense of individuals' rights.
The old policy was chosen for society's good. For the client, fraud against his bank account is an unpredictable disaster; for the bank, it is a steady loss which the bank can cope with (by adjusting interest rates and feeds) and can also take measures to reduce. Thus, it is better to put this liability on the bank.
Nowadays, governments are too much under the control of business to employ such reasoning to choose good policies.
California's lower house has voted to ban trade in shark fins.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The significance of the Anthony Weiner story is only to demonstrate society's hypocrisy about sex.
US citizens: tell your congressional representatives to support the Arbitration Fairness Act, which would block companies from making people sign away their rights to make class-action lawsuits.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to
oppose
the free
exploitation agreements that Obama wants to sign with Korea, Colombia
and other countries.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Indians:
oppose
the plan
to destroy large forests for coal mining,
and support renewable energy in India.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Dadaab refugee camp, with half a million Somali refugees, has no room for the additional refugees who keep arriving.
A slightly radical suggestion: occupy a small nearby area of Somalia for the refugees to live in. Somalia is a failed state and the local militia would not fight over otherwise unimportant territory.
Samir Feriani, a policeman in Tunisia, accused officials of crimes from destroying archives ton murder, and has been imprisoned for it.
Former European ambassadors argue that Iran is not trying to make nuclear weapons, and that sanctions are not justified or needed.
I am skeptical, because I can't see why else Iran would bother putting so much effort into uranium enrichment against so much resistance.
Ayat al-Gormezi poet was 'beaten across the face with electric cable' in Bahrain for reciting a poem that criticized the government.
That tyrannical regime says criticism is a crime.
Protests in Wisconsin against Walker's tyranny have continued for a hundred days. Activists and union organizers have taken energy from the need to fight back.
Police in Puerto Rico have attacked peaceful protesters and journalists many times in recent years.
NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake has accepted a plea bargain where he pleads guilty to a misdemeanor and won't go to prison.
With this deal, the government effectively admits it had no grounds to accuse him of espionage. But the deal is an injustice because it fails to give Drake the medal and reward he deserves for helping to inform us of government abuses.
The Canadian province of Manitoba has formally decided not to buy small bottles of water.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
I too avoid buying bottled water almost completely when in countries where tap water is safe to drink. One method I use is to refill water bottles with tap water. Where tap water is not safe, I often refill a water bottle from some other supply of drinking water, such as a large bottle or purified water.
US Republicans should repeat one of the few good things Ronald Reagan did: by increasing taxes on corporations.
Some senators want to ban bitcoin, a form of digital cash, because some are using it to pay for illegal drugs.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Next they will ban cash because that too is used to pay for illegal drugs.
Israel is trying to get the US to start a war with Iran.
Just as the former Mossad head warned.
Cut Wall Street Down to Size With a Financial Speculation Tax.
Around 100,000 protested in Athens in favor of defaulting on the national debt.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Norway, where abortion is completely integrated into the national health system, is also the best country to be a mother in. The US, in which Christian fanatics create obstacles for abortion, is the worst of the developed countries to be a mother in.
This is not a coincidence. The Christian fanatics' hatred is expressed in cruelty to poor children.
The ACLU has asked the US government to declassify the Wikileaks cables and stop pretending they are secret.
Egyptians who protested say the police continue to punish them.
A host of nasty companies have supported AT&T's merger with T-mobile, including Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle, and Research in Motion.
Egypt has imposed new limits on the Rafah crossing so that the border is not much more open than before.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Russia's War on Drugs is causing lots of suffering and spreading disease, so the government proposes to escalate it.
The US has spent billions on nation-building projects in Afghanistan, but most of it is not sustainable.
In 2002 and 2003, it made sense to provide foreign aid to Afghanistan for these purposes. The country was mostly peaceful then, and such projects could have helped if properly designed and managed.
Facebook has turned on automatic face recognition on photos.
Facebook says that it only suggests identifications for faces in photos for people who are the user's friends. However, it might run the algorithm over every photo posted and not publicly announce the results.
I ask people not to post photos of me on Facebook.
Walmart will allow its workers to unionize in South Africa, and does in several other countries. If only they would do this in the US.
Walmart also illegally fired a US employee for using medical marijuana to treat pain from an inoperable brain tumor.
Wind turbines kill substantial numbers of raptors and bats, including protected golden eagles.
Fortunately there are ways to reduce the damage, but more work needs to be done. Could ultrasound generators keep bats away? Could painting the turbines or illuminating them help eagles avoid them?
The US spends billions to try to stop production and shipment of illegal drugs, but this appears to have little effect.
The drug traffickers have lots of money for bribes.
US doctors injected 1500 Guatemalans with syphilis in 1946. Some have gone untreated ever since.
German and Japanese doctors were convicted of war crimes for gruesome medical experiments. It is a shame those responsible for this outrage were not similarly prosecuted.
I am puzzled that the victims were not diagnosed and treated in the meanwhile, and likewise the children that inherited the disease. Why not?
It does not surprise me that this study yielded no useful information. That should have been obvious in advance. Plenty of people contract syphilis without medical intervention, and testing penicillin on them would be just as good an experiment.
Apple applies censorhip to iBad apps when others pressure it.
Wikileaks cables show the US, EU and UN were aware that the Haitian presidential election was totally unfair while they supported it.
And since the second round was illegal, Martelly cannot even claim to be president.
An Algerian man was denied French citizenship because he won't let his wife leave the house.
They could offer to change their decision if his wife visits a government office every day for a month — without him — to plead his case. By then he might get used to respecting her rights.
Many UK schools make students use fingerprint recognition to get lunch.
And there is a plan to give teachers the power to search students' computers at will, and delete files from them at will.
Butterflies in the UK appeared weeks earlier than normal.
This is a sign of global heating. It may be good for the butterflies, but other plants and insects may face extinction due to similar changes.
Why whistleblowers should regard the Wall Street Journal and Al Jazeera leak sites as legal traps.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose the "free trade" agreement with Colombia.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: call on Secretary of State Clinton to firmly condemn repression in Bahrain.
Everyone: tell YouTube
to restore FreedomMessenger's YouTube channel,
which was closed down due to false accusations of copyright infringement.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
If you watch videos in YouTube, don't use Flash. Use the new Webm format. Adding &html5=True to the URL should get you this, without need to identify yourself.
US citizens: please send email to your senators to oppose the PROTECT "IP" Act.
In this case, sending an email is the best action to take, but it can't hurt to phone as well.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: sign this petition telling Obama to stand firm against Republican attacks against Medicare.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Koch brothers' business was crucial in a decades-long campaign to deregulate oil speculation, which is now a large part of that business.
I don't sympathize much with Americans who complain about "pain at the pump." Americans need to reduce their use of gasoline. However, to make that happen calls for a gradual and predictable price increase such as we could get with a carbon tax, not speculative price spikes.
Banning lead in gasoline and paint may be partly responsible for the big decrease in violent crime in the US in the 90s.
I wonder if it might also be responsible for the big increase in violent crime in the 60s. I think that far more Americans drove cars starting around 1950 than before. This would have meant a lot more lead in the air, especially in cities.
Nabi Saleh protest organizer Bassem Tamimi's statement to the Israeli military court.
Everyone:
Tell the directors of Caterpillar to stop selling bulldozers for
Israel to demolish Palestinian houses.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Global heating is contributing to
destabilizing the world's food
system.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Belarus has arrested organizers of an Internet-based call for protests.
How is the US stretching the PAT RIOT Act? Perhaps by collecting cell phone location data without a warrant.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the TRADE act, an alternative to free exploitation treaties.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Florida has passed a law privatizing Medicaid, which will profit the company owned by Governor Scott.
Arundhati Roy says she will not condemn rebellion against the Indian government.
Her reasoning seems valid to me.
Peru has elected the ex-Leftist Ollanta Humala.
He probably won't make things worse, but his acceptance of the free exploitation treaties means he can't make things much better either.
Palestinian "protesters" in Syria attacked the Israeli border again.
Throwing molotov cocktails is not a nonviolent protest, and throwing them at an army across a cease-fire line is more or less a military operation.
The IMF, amazingly, praised a budget in Egypt that provides an increase in social spending.
I wish I could believe that the IMF has reversed its decades-long policy of pushing austerity that leads to recession, but a priori it seems more likely this is some sort of aberration. I would be glad to see an analysis from someone who understands.
Indian police violently dispersed the peaceful protest of guru Ramdev.
India censored The Economist for publishing a map showing the disputed boundaries of Kashmir.
The new face of US war: counterinsurgency means assassinating people the government doesn't like.
An Indian yoga guru has started a hunger strike
demanding that the
Indian
goverment take certain steps to curtail corruption.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Indian government is very corrupt; the Congress party, once that of Gandhi and nehru, has totally sold out to business. The right-wing parties that support this guru are religious bigots. Not a great choice.
A UN report on freedom of expression condemns laws that punish people with disconnection from the Internet.
The density of forests is increasing in most of the world, compensating for a fraction of the effects of global heating.
We can't count on this to save us, because it is not world-wide. Large parts of North America now have dead pine forests, killed by global heating, and their carbon will get into the air.
And if people chop down most of these forests, it won't matter how thick they might have got.
There are large protests in Senegal because most people can't afford enough food to eat.
In addition to biofuel production (pushed by the US and EU), and large harvest failures loosely related to global heating (Russia, for instance), speculation is also part of the cause. So in many countries are free exploitation treaties that mean local farmers can't compete with subsidized US farm production — but I don't know whether that applies to Senegal.
Over the long term, global heating will make the problem worse, and increasing population will push humanity against the limit. The world must make firm efforts to stabilize population, as well as stopping global heating.
Going to the airport? Print out 20 copies of scanners.odt, cut each sheet into three parts, and hand them out while you wait for the TSA insecurity check. You could give some to the person in front of you and say, "Please take one and pass the rest."
US citizens:
urge
New York Governor Cuomo to push for gay marriage in
that state.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call your senators to support the FRAC Act, which would
let the EPA regulate fracking. Also sign this petition.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens:
sign
this petition
for the US media to cover real news,
not Sarah Palin.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign this petition calling on Hillary Clinton to demand that Israel not interfere with the US boat in the Gaza aid fleet.
US citizens: sign this petition to state legislators against laws that would prohibit sharing passwords.
These laws are part of the negative utopia, The Right to Read.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say to vote against the
Republican plan to cut Medicare. Also
sign this petition.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: sign
this petition calling on the FCC commissioners
to pledge not to work for AT&T or T-mobile later.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The point is that such employment would effectively be a bribe to approve their proposed merger.
Transit police falsely cited Patriot Act to illegally a detain man for taking pictures at a train station.
The underlying cause of Europe's deadly E. coli outbreak is the use of antibiotics in farm animals.
Greenpeace activists have shut down oil drilling off Greenland.
Syrian protesters are now condemning Hezbollah and Iran for their support for Assad's regime.
Blinded by the light: the Internet enemy within.
The House of Representatives voted to preserve funds for child nutrition, and instead undo a WTO-ordered deal to subsidize cotton farmers in Brazil.
The US agreed to subsidize the Brazilian farmers temporarily while reconsidering the subsidy for US cotton farmers, as demanded by the WTO.
The WTO decision against US cotton subsidies is a rare occasion where I agree with the WTO. However, this decision isn't enough to make the WTO a good thing for humanity. What we really need is a government not subservient to business; it would end cotton subsidies to agribusiness for the sake of the rest of the country. One obstacle to this is the WTO, which generally makes governments more subservient to business.
Anti-abortion group uses Google Ads to misdirect women seeking abortions.
Police accused of brutalizing Babar Ahmad were acquitted after a secret recording provided evidence his accusations were untrue.
I mention this because I posted about these accusations before.
100,000 people protested in Hama, Syria, and the insecurity forces killed over 30 of them.
A reward of $5000 is offered to anyone that provides evidence to destroy a nasty software patent.
There's no harm in trying this method. If it succeeds, that will be one software patent down, and hundreds of thousands to go. To make software development safe, we need to get rid of all of them.
Zelaya returns to Honduras, but justice is still not done.
Dr. Kevorkian, who helped 130 people escape from unending and useless pain, has died.
The impetus to prohibit assisted suicide in the US comes from Christianity, and this issue reveals the twisted nature of Christian morality. I agree with those Christians that murdering you would be wrong, but their reasons and mine are different. I think it's wrong for your sake, supposing you want to live. They think it's wrong because it goes against the orders of their deity.
So what happens if you are in horrible, unending pain and death is your only way out? Regardless of whether the pain is caused by illness or state-inflicted torture, I hope you succeed in escaping, but they go on following the orders of their deity, which say you are supposed to suffer and suffer and suffer. What you want is of no importance to them in either case.
It is entirely consistent that many of them think it is wrong to kill a fetus that isn't a person yet, but don't mind executing adults, and support policies of torture.
Assisting suicide must be legalized, but until it is, I salute the heroes that enable incapacitated suffering people to escape.
The right-wing former head of Israel's spy agency says the Israeli government is recklessly inclined to military aggression.
He also criticized its unwillingness to make concessions for peace with the Palestinians.
Ayat al-Gormezi, in Bahrain, has been imprisoned and tortured for reading a poem condemning the king.
US-funded "reconstruction" projects in Afghanistan and Iraq will fall apart or be useless unless millions more are spent to maintain and run them.
In other words, the plan implicitly depended on future spending.
The House of Representatives voted to criticize Obama for fighting in Libya without seeking approval.
I think this is the right decision, since I support the Libyan intervention (although I think a different kind would be better) but presidents should not be able to intervene without approval from Congress.
The ACLU is challenging a Florida law that requires all welfare recipients to take drug tests.
When private companies demand drug tests of their employees, it may not be unconstitutional, but it is unjust, and it ought to be illegal.
Even for safety-critical jobs, drug tests are not justified because there is a much better solution which is also less intrusive on people's rights: testing competence at the beginning of the workday. This is better than drug testing because it detects inability to carry out the job regardless of the cause (lack of sleep, emotional upset, sickness, or drugs).
Peruvians: celebrate Dependence Day, June 5, by voting for Humala for president.
June 5 is Dependence Day in Peru because it's the date on which President Garcia's submission to the US, and to multinational corporations, led to the killing of indigenous protesters.
It's too bad that Humala agreed not to make Peru independent again, but he is still better than Fujimori.
US citizens: tell your senators to reject the resolution
to
stop the FCC from defending network neutrality.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: sign
this petition calling on Obama to speed
removal
of US troops from Afghanistan.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: sign
this petition in support of the people's
budget
of the house progressive caucus.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
It's not just Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The
IMF itself should be on
trial.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Obama's three strikes of global heating means we'll be burned out.
Tempting new payment and banking technologies put users at risk of theft, and enable banks to circumvent consumer protection laws.
Campaigning for Congress to limit searches of laptops at the US border.
The same should be done for police when they stop drivers.
The article falls into a common kind of error when it says that "possession of child pornography is a heinous offense". It is the error of rhetorically legitimizing the previous attack against our rights in arguing against the next one.
This "child pornography" might be a photo of yourself or your lover that the two of you shared. It might be an image of a sexually mature teenager that any normal adult would find attractive. What's heinous about having such a photo?
But even when it is uncontroversial to call the subject depicted a "child", that is no excuse for censorship. Having a photo or drawing does not hurt anyone, so and if you or I think it is disgusting, that is no excuse for censorship.
The government will invent an unlimited number of opportunities to censor us and search us if we grant the legitimacy of its all-purpose excuses for doing so.
A Haitian denounces the US for
using threat of revoking US visas for
various Haitian politicians to control them.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
According to Erzili Danto, "The US canceled visas to get the election result they wished. They canceled to force the CEP to put Martelly on the ballot and then later to force the CEP to revise the members of the Parliament who were elected."
Vermont has legislated single-payer health care, through the efforts of small businesses that are fed up with the gouging insurance companies.
Syrian police tortured 13-year-old child; the parents got a video out and it was posted.
Here's the video in freedom-respecting Webm format.
Pictures of torture might appear disgusting — which demonstrates why that's no grounds for censorship.
The US holds 1700 people prisoner in Bagram in Afghanistan, without trial, and the majority are probably innocent.
The US wants Fujimori, the right-wing extremist, to win as president of Peru.
I remain disappointed that Humala said he would respect the free exploitation treaties, because every country's future depends on eliminating those. Nonetheless, he is clearly nowhere near as bad as Fujimori.
Election day in Peru, June 5, is also Dependence Day in Peru: the day that President Garcia's obedience to US domination led to the murder of indigenous protesters.
After Lynn Szymoniak blew the whistle on Deutsche Bank's foreclosure fraud, the bank launched a spurious lawsuit against her son for foreclosure of her home.
Monterrey Bay Aquarium provided a platform to Kellogg Garden Products' toxic sewage sludge, in exchange apparently for money.
Wikileaks reveals that the US tried to block Haiti from accepting an offer from Venezuela to sell oil to Haiti at a big discount.
Internet Censorship Secret Planning Meeting.
Iranian women's rights activist Haleh Sahabi was killed by police at her father's funeral.
Republican budget cuts caused the US economic downturn; now Republican candidate Romney blames Obama for it.
An international panel including several former presidents has called for an end to the War on Drugs
When the right wing machine creates sex scandals about male Democrats, they are based on nasty insult campaigns against women they know.
This article doesn't go deep enough. The most basic flaw in these insult campaigns is that they criticize women for allegedly having sex. What's wrong with that?
Maybe they did have sex with those candidates, and maybe they didn't. I hope that they did, and enjoyed it. But either way, it's nothing to criticize.
A UN climate official called on the world to hold global heating to 1.5 degrees C, saying that even 2 degrees will cause mass disaster.
Yet it is almost too late to keep heating to 2 degrees.
Obama plans to try five Guantanamo prisoners in a military tribunal (kangaroo court).
I don't know whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed committed terrorism. If he was tortured, he may not know anymore either.
Large plantations are being developed in Africa to grow biofuel for Europe, driving up food prices.
Important former police officials have supported a campaign to decriminalize possession of drugs in the UK.
Bahrain's government says martial law is over, but this may not make much difference to tortured prisoners.
Iraq's "democratic" government, President Obusha's vision of freedom, has imprisoned protesters and is holding them incommunicado.
Karzai ordered the US and NATO to stop air strikes on homes in Afghanistan.
He has also ordered the US and NATO to stop the tactics that Petraeus has adopted. But NATO does not seem to listen to him.
Sudan's army brushed aside UN peacekeepers to conquer the town of Abyei, whose future was supposed to be decided by a referendum.
Kucinich's resolution to end the intervention in Libya has been delayed.
It is vital for democracy in the US that Congress be asked to approve the Libyan intervention, but I don't want to end it.
The Public Patent Foundation is defending farmers against genetic contamination of their crops with patented Monsanto genes.
Geithner made a secret $30 billion loan to Goldman Sachs in 2008,
almost
interest-free.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
They should change the name to Goldmoney Sacks.
German police training for Saudi suppression forces is supposed to be about border control, but people involved say it is teaching them how to crush protests too.
The UK is also training Saudi troops.
Meanwhile, the US School of the Americas (or whatever they call it now) has trained torturers in Latin America for decades.
The Argentine government has accused the largest grain trading companies of tax fraud for shifting their profits to other countries where taxes are lower. This is illegal in Argentina.
It should be illegal in the US as well.
The US economy is moving back into recession.
I suspect Republican budget cuts are partly responsible.
The corporate media have
embraced Rep. Ryan's sabotage budget
while
scorning, or just ignoring, the progressive People's Budget.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Those who called Ryan's budget "courageous" have confused courage with chutzpah.
Fracking in England appears to have caused small earthquakes.
Senator Sanders has proposed a bill to replace patents on medicine with government prizes. This would allow the medicines to be sold cheaply.
Sharlotte Hydorn has sold hundreds of people simple equipment for painless suicide. The religious torture brigade is looking for some excuse to put her in jail.
Anyone who criticizes this, on the grounds that some people might use it who could benefit from treatment, should be challenged to campaign for a better system for providing these devices. In the mean time, they should leave this one alone.
Belgian protesters, including local farmers, destroyed a genetically modified potato trial by digging up the potatoes.
I don't believe that genetically modified crops are necessarily evil. But if they contain patented genes, that is evil in itself. Also, they need to be tested much more thoroughly than the company which develops them will want to permit. The testing has to include the risk of contaminating other farms in the region.
One way to avoid contamination would be to engineer a change in when the plant flowers. If the modified version flowers two weeks before or after other strains, neither wind nor insects are likely to cross-breed them.
Ecuador is making progress in its plan to obtain payment for not extracting a large field of oil, thus preserving a large rain forest and the people who live there.
If oil were the only fossil fuel, initiatives like this could suffice to avoid climate disaster. But if ordinary oil deposits are replaced with coal, fracked natural gas, and tar sand oil, it won't achieve that goal.
The UK is blocking the EU from banning importation of oil from tar sands.
The low price of fracked natural gas is pushing the world towards that and away from renewable energy. But this will exacerbate global heating, since fracked natural gas releases as much CO2 as burning coal. (Both coal and fracked natural gas are worse than oil.)
A Pakistani journalist was kidnapped and murdered, apparently by the ISI which had already threatened him.
Thanks to US attacks over decades, farm workers in Guatemala can't buy food to eat.
What Guatemala needs first is to break out of CAFTA.
Right-wingers want to blame the US deficit on Medicare and Social Security, but it's the wars that have created the problem.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
That together with too little taxation.
Civil society groups jointly condemned Sarkozy's EG8 plan for censorship and surveillance of the Internet.
Ralph Nader condemns non-negotiable contracts that say "take it or leave it" and attack consumers' rights.
I don't do business with most of the organizations that use these. I avoid shrink-wrap software licenses by rejecting all nonfree software on principle. But I can't avoid all these organizations, so the issue is just as important for me as it is for you.
NATO acknowledged having target-spotters on the ground in Misrata working with the rebels that defend the town.
That is a relief, because not having them would create a scandalous risk of killing rebels or civilians.
Germany's government has bowed to public pressure by deciding to shut all its nuclear reactors by 2022.
Greenpeace protesters have boarded a drilling rig operating off Greenland, hoping to prevent drilling.
We don't need to know where Cairn Energy keeps its emergency equipment. We do have a right to demand that it answer satisfactorily the claims that an oil spill in those regions cannot be cleaned up.
It is fine that Cairn Energy tows away icebergs. I don't know whether it is possible to tow away even the biggest icebergs under all conditions. I do know that the Big Spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened without icebergs.
The Egyptian army admitted applying "virginity tests" to arrested female protesters.
The EU's data protection authority condemned the EU data retention directive.
I am not sure whether this has the ability to lead to a real change.
Oxfam says food prices will double in 20 years.
Meanwhile, Republican idiots are trying to stop women from using contraception to avoid making things worse.
Obama's war policy is Bush Plus.
The US is now prosecuting executives as well as companies when they commit health insurance fraud.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
It is a good thing to hold these executives responsible if they encouraged the fraud. And if they had the authority and responsibility to prevent the fraud, maybe they are guilty. However, if underlings lied to them, maybe they had no chance to prevent it. It is hard to tell whether the top executives were duped, or whether they preferred not to know.
Everyone: sign this petition to end the War on Drugs world-wide.
When a war is on drugs, it endangers everyone.
The geography of hate groups in the US: they correlate with religion, poverty, low education, and voting Republican.
Japan has reverted its increase in permitted radiation levels for children.
Washington wants to slash funding for making walking and biking easier.
Did the oil companies pay for this, I wonder?
There were large protests in Casablanca, and police attacked protesters and journalists.
Carbon emissions jumped to a record level, effectively dooming Earth to climate disaster unless strong action is taken soon.
Would it be justified self-defense for people that are likely to be killed by global heating or ocean acidification later to destroy fossil fuel power plants and cars now?
Thousands of poor Haitians live in tent camps. The new president of
Haiti
wants to change that, so he is
sending troops with machetes to destroy
their tents and chase them away.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
This president was "elected" by a tiny fraction of Haitian voters in an election which excluded the main political party.
Canada's government refused to send troops to help deal with flooding
in Quebec because that
"would place the Canadian Forces in competition
with the private sector".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
This displays plainly the callousness that today's business-adoring states practice most of the time but usually manage to disguise.
Moil, which will boost global heating and probably send Quebec more floods.
Uri Avnery: nobody in the US senate
dared not to applaud
Netanyahu, but the US won't be able to block peace.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
NATO apologized for the latest killing civilians in Afghanistan.
If the people of Afghanistan were firm supporters of the war, they would forgive accidents such as this. But they don't see much to support in Karzai's government.
Syria sent the army, with tanks, to
attack towns that have had
protests.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The President of Turkey defended filtering of the Internet by saying
that nobody will have to use it, even though
its use is mandatory
(!).
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Former president Zelaya has returned to Honduras, and his supporters are celebrating.
They are closer to the situation than I am. Maybe they see a reason to believe that the oppression of dissidents will now end. I hope so.
The opposition's accusation that Zelaya was trying to arrange to remain as president was bogus, since the proposed constitutional assembly would, if approved, have been held after he had left office.
Obama's criticism of the coup was weak, just talk, while in practical terms he gave the coup government support.
US citizens: Defend Elizabeth Warren from
right-wing smears.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: File a public comment against the
tar sands petroleum
pipeline.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Bradley Manning was so mentally fragile he should never have been sent to Iraq, according to various confidential reports.
If Manning did indeed leak the Collateral Murder video and other documents, it shows that heroism can be found in people who seem unlikely.
The Saudi army is using UK training to crush the population of Bahrain.
Poor Indian girls work 12 hours a day, at less than the Indian minimum wage, making cotton clothing for us.
The demand for a dowry is partly responsible for this, but also to blame is the corruption of the Indian government. Don't forget the world-wide "free trade" system: the jobs that were lost in the US were replaced by these.
Sarkozy's plan to "civilize" the Internet was recognized as a plan for tyranny.
The limited life near Vulcano Island shows the void all oceans will become in a century due to acidification from the CO2 we are feeding into the atmosphere.
Acidification makes it hard for many species to make their shells. This is already destroying fisheries and coral reefs.
Gaddafi's soldiers have systematically raped Libyan women as a way of spitting at their families.
If a raped woman's relatives think of her rape as a loss to them, rather than taking her side, they don't deserve to be her family. These women need a chance to start over without the families that have betrayed them.
Corporations have set up a US-wide organization called ALEC which lobbies all states for laws to give those companies an advantage over their workers, their customers, and the public.
US citizens: call on Obama to ban political spending by companies
that
get most of their income from government contracts.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
NATO is bringing Apache helicopters to attack Gaddafi's troops in Libya.
Protesters dressed in doctors' coats with fake blood shut down many bank branches, accusing the banks of creating the deficits which are being used as an excuse to undermine the National Health Service.
A campaign by small stores in the UK, which said a ban on displaying tobacco would hurt them, was funded by a large tobacco company.
The Wisconsin law that triggered mass protests was overturned by a judge on the grounds it was passed in a illegal rushed manner.
Over 2600 protesters have been arrested in the US since Obama was inaugurated, and the rate of arrests is increasing.
Republicans say the US
can't afford to help tornado rebuilding
and has
to cut something else from the budget. The underlying problem is that
the US has reduced taxes too much.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US congress has
re-approved the U SAP AT RIOT act.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Senator Wyden says it is worse than we know, because the government twists the law and stretches its powers.
PBS is considering having commercials four times an hour. This would continue its drift towards being little different from television that admits it is "commercial".
However, the commercial connection viewers don't see is more harmful than the one they see. For decades, PBS programs have received substantial corporate funds, which they depend on. This gives corporations influence over their agenda.
Meanwhile, NPR is worried about how money from Soros foundation might influence the news but sees no need to worry about money from corporations.
How Wall Street is
based on many kinds of lawful fraud, and what
could be done about it.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Court decisions have increased Americans' vulnerability to warrantless searches and being murdered by police in their homes.
Chomsky writes about the killing of Osama bin Laden, including evidence that killing him was intended, and puts it in context.
US senators were scared not to applaud whatever Netanyahu said to them, no matter how outrageous it was.
Deforestation is on the rise in Brazil, and its government is planning to make things worse by relaxing the laws against illegal deforestation.
Egypt has opened the Rafah border crossing for people, but not for goods.
This will help Palestinians who want to leave Gaza for medical treatment; Israel will no longer be able to kill them by blocking their exit. It will also help those who wish to study or move abroad, or go to conferences, assuming Egypt does not give them trouble about visas.
But it won't end the siege.
Doctors that demand patients assign copyright to reviews of their treatment are using lies to justify the policy. Maybe they were lied to in convincing them to use it.
Even if these contracts would not stand up in court, that doesn't excuse them.
One additional problem in this copyright agreement is that by using the term "intellectual property" it claims to apply to a dozen or so other laws besides copyright. This makes the doctor's demand even broader.
A requisite for clear thinking about any of these laws is to avoid lumping them together. So we should never use the term "intellectual property". Whichever law you want to talk about, best to call it by its specific name and not confuse it with others.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html for more explanation.
Egyptians protested again in Tahrir Square, calling for a new constitution before elections. and criticizing the military's hasty and careless justice.
Republican officials are declaring official events "private" and ejecting Democrats and anyone that appears to disagree with them.
Yemen is sliding into civil war between the president and an important tribe.
I have no basis to believe that the other side would be any better than the president in respect for democracy or human rights.
Police attacked protesters in Barcelona, brutally, but then relented.
A US judge stretched the Citizens United decision by allowing unlimited direct campaign contributions by corporations.
Women in Sa'udi Arabia are planning a drive-in protest.
Ratko Mladic, general of the genocidal war against Bosnian Muslims, has been arrested.
An architect of the Rwandan massacres has also been arrested.
Serbia has cleansed the blot on its reputation, but the US has not, When will Bush, who ordered the invasion of Iraq based on lies, be tried for his crimes?
Some US officials are planning step-by-step establishment of China-style control of the Internet.
Republicans and coal companies don't want you to ask why there are so many big tornadoes, fires, droughts and floods in the last few years.
Hamas is no excuse of Israel to violate the human rights of people in Gaza.
Nasma Abu Lasheen died on October 16, 2010; Anas Saleh died on January 1, 2011, both killed by denying them the right to leave Gaza for medical care.
Three Fukushima reactors experienced partial meltdowns. It appears TEPCO kept this secret in order to manage public opinion.
A thousand teachers protested in San Francisco against crushing budget cuts.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Walmart Supplier Supports Torture, False Imprisonment of Labor Activists.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Most Israelis support the return to 1967 borders with some agreed-on swaps of land, if it is part of a package that amounts to real peace.
Why Wait for Congress? Enforce Net Neutrality through Local Law.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Countries that have defaulted on debts have generally gained from it. Greece should consider the option.
CBS Outdoor censored a billboard ad calling for end to Haiti deportations due to cholera.
Amnesty International accused both sides in Ivory Coast of war crimes, and Ouattara's supporters continue to commit them.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
An African splinter group of al Qa'ida has shut down a long-term research project studying water availability and climate in Africa.
India's Internet censorship makes sites remove anything anyone complains about, and its monitoring of Internet cafes is worse than China.
The Indian government is using a small danger (terrorist attacks as in Mumbai) to increase its control and weaken dissent. That exposes Indians to a much greater danger. The Mumbai attacks killed a few hundred of Indians. Corrupt government farm policies have driven tens of thousands to suicide, and destroyed thousands of tribals from their land.
Web sites in India should call the government evil because of this policy — and should move out of India to a country where they will not be censored.
People in India should resist government monitoring by leaving their wireless networks without passwords.
The SEC adopted a new system to reward whistleblowers that report corporate crime, and rejected lobbying to require them to report it first to the company's management.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Criticism from the US Chamber of Commerce suggests they are doing something right.
The Republican attack on Medicare was defeated in the US senate.
State legislators are organizing a campaign against TSA abuses.
A threat from the TSA made Texas drop its anti-groping bill.
States can't be allowed to nullify federal laws, but the federal government should start listening to people on this one.
The Rapescan naked body scanners were never properly tested for safety. The supposed test didn't use the real product. The test can't be repeated because crucial data is missing — as are the names of the people who did it. The software was not checked for safety at all.
This article explains a point that makes these machines potentially very dangerous if they break. They have a high intensity X-ray beam that scans across the body at high speed.
If the scanning mechanism breaks, the beam could remain fixed on one spot in the body, causing a radiation burn.
Don't take the risk. Tell them to feel you up!
José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, who fought against illegal logging in Brazil, has been murdered.
Meanwhile, Brazil's legislature is working on a plan to weaken the regulations that protect the Amazon forest.
It may not matter if we go on burning fossil fuels unchecked, because the rain will dry up and much of the forest will die anyway.
Obama is putting Thomas Drake on trial for reporting mismanagement at the NSA. If he succeeds in stretching the definition of "espionage", reporters will be threatened with prosecution too.
Given the extent of the US government's wrongs in spying on Americans, it does not have clean hands to make accusations against anyone who tries to tell us anything about those wrongs.
Electronics businesses join the opposition for the new push to clamp down on the Internet.
Greenpeace is in a standoff with the Danish army and navy near Greenland.
The army is protecting a UK company's plans to cause oil spills which, as the UK government secretly admitted, would be impossible to clean up.
US citizens: phone your federal officials and tell them to vote against the Internet blacklist bill.
I suggest telling them that copyright is unimportant and can't excuse this nasty treatment of the public.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
When Netanyahu spoke at AIPAC, the Israeli hawks' lobby in the US, protesters criticized Israeli policies towards Palestinians.
I saw a mainstream news article which called them "anti-Israel" protesters, which is clearly not true, but it is what AIPAC would like us to believe.
One of the policies criticized was that
of demolishing Palestinian homes.
Israel
continues doing this.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
Gershon Baskin went to Nabi Saleh to film the weekly protest.
What
he saw was cruel, gratuitous, and unprovoked violence by the army,
including the use of gas that causes terrible pain, against people
who were not threatening anyone.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
France attempts to "civilize" the Internet; Internet fights back.
This article argues that plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in one country (the UK in this case) are useless, since they do not count the emissions made in making goods imported from other countries.
The argument is partly correct: these plans are insufficient. But that does not make them useless.
To avoid climate disaster requires reducing global emissions, but the government of one country cannot do much to directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in another country. That requires a world-wide agreement, and the obstacles to that agreement are the US and China. Plans like these are the most a country can do on its own.
Moving energy generation in one country to renewables is a step forward independent of what happens elsewhere. And it can also serve as an example for pressure on the US and China to accept the global agreement that civilization needs to stop global heating.
Why
privacy should matter to you even if you
"have nothing to hide".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Note that the US government does "want to hurt" lots of people who did nothing to deserve it. For instance, most of the people who have been prisoners in Guantanamo.
The policeman who killed Ian Tomlinson will face prosecution.
Hosni Mubarak has been
charged with murder.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Byron Sonne faces
devastating retaliation from Canada for probing
the
edges of security plans for the G20 meeting.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Thanks to Obama, now Democrats as well as Republicans push for increased government surveillance power.
Kentucky gave $43 million to a creationist theme park while cutting funds for education.
Both are consistent with a policy of encouraging ignorance.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the amendments to the National "Defense" Authorization Act to end the war in Afghanistan.
More info at http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/blog/ndaa2012-updates
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Honduras has obtained reintegration into the OAS by allowing exiled former president Zelaya to return.
It was not required to end its repression.
I hope this turns out well, but I have a bad feeling about it.
Former Gaddafi secret police are being killed in Benghazi by people unknown.
I think it is entirely reasonable to treat former secret police as prisoners of war for the duration, if it seems they might still be working for Gaddafi now. In war, that is justified. When the war is over, they can be released, or tried if there is evidence they committed crimes under Gaddafi's regime.
However, there is no excuse for torturing or murdering them.
The Palestinian Authority is willing to have peace negotiations with
Israel
if they start from the legitimate basis that Obama recently
reaffirmed.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
In other words, what the PA rejects is only Netanyahu's rejection of that basis.
Texas state agencies systematically
falsified water tests to
avoid
a federal requirement to inform the residents of the areas.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Falungong members have sued Cisco for building censorship and surveillance equipment for China.
US conservatives are now effectively required to oppose contraception, whether or not they can offer a sensible reason.
After a Tibetan monk set himself on fire as a protest in March,
China's suppression forces
violently imprisoned 300 monks.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The article says this occurred in a Tibetan-inhabited part of Sichuan, put I strongly suspect it is actually part of Tibet which China annexed in the 1950s.
The US has indicted a Pakistani intelligence officer believed to have arranged the Mumbai terror attacks.
I am not sure how the US has jurisdiction over murders in India organized in Pakistan.
Environmentalists say that Indonesia's new forest protection policy is so weak that it won't change much.
If Strauss-Kahn tried to rape the chambermaid, it would be a follow-on to what he did to Africa.
Australian reporter Ben Grubb describes being arrested for a story reporting on a speech at a conference.
An 'army of hidden scribes' fabricates the scientific literature about the safety and efficacy of medicines.
Drug companies should not be allowed to fund drug trials directly; they should pay taxes to the government and the government should fund them. The experimenters should not be allowed to collaborate in this research, or its publication, with anyone that has a financial relationship with the company.
Right-wing millionaires are trying to privatize US education.
Some governments are pushing to reject right-wing French minister Lagarde as the new head of the IMF, and instead appoint a South African financial official, Trevor Manuel.
While all indications are that Lagarde would make the IMF as nasty as possible, I am not sure whether Manuel would be better. His support comes from countries that are economically strong, not countries that might be subject to IMF "rescues", and this in itself does not show us how he would treat those latter.
US banks are presenting ridiculous arguments to remain available as
tax evasion opportunities.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Mississippi flood precautions are insufficient because, in recent years, the amount flooding has increased over historic levels.
The increase is so much that, since 2008. every year there has been a flood so big that it was expected to occur just once every ten years.
This is apparently due to global heating, so it will get even worse.
A courageous Saudi woman posted a video showing herself
driving a
car.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Businesses are trying to pressure India to drop its new privacy protection rules for companies.
The privacy rules are good, and if businesses don't like them, that's because they want to mistreat people. What is really bad in this law is the part that inflicts censorship.
Web sites concerned with controversial topics must regard India as an unsafe place.
The Palestinian Authority said that Netanyahu's unwillingness to consider the 1967 borders makes peace talks a waste of time.
Women have taken the lead in protests in Syria, and are now experiencing powerful repression.
Massive protests by young people continue in Spain.
One of the demands of the Spanish protesters is to abolish the Ley Sinde which allows the state to shut down web sites without a trial, and to impose filtering on access to foreign sites.
Indian farmers now address their suicide notes to
the president and
the prime minister.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US mines systematically follow unsafe practices to cut costs,
and
blacklist anyone who reports violations.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
It would be easy to legislate solutions to this, but our legislators don't care about working people.
Unions are
starting to take note of this.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: rebuke the senators that
protected subsidies for oil
companies.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: tell the FCC to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger.
US citizens: phone your senators and urge them to filibuster the attempt to extend the PAT RIOT act. The vote will be Monday May 23.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: tell various Federal agencies to change the incentives
of bankers' bonuses so as
not to harm society.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Google has condemned the "Protect IP" Internet censorship bill.
Pension funds investing in food commodities are driving up the price of food, world-wide.
Someone claims he threw eggs and shoes at the man who established the Great Firewall of China.
Some environmental organizations are opposing the return of the Chagossians in the name of conservation.
In heavily populated areas, human population growth is an obstacle to protection of the wild.
However, as the first article explains, that need not be a problem in the Chagos Islands.
Walmart's supplier in Bangladesh has framed union organizers for attempted murder.
The police and business owners are morally responsible for these actions, but root cause of the problem is the system of business-dominated globalization that Bill Clinton and his friends set up.
Some Republican congresscritters are banning recordings at their meetings with constituents.
20,000 people protested in Chile against construction of large dams in Patagonia.
I am not sure where I stand on this project. I don't know how much environmental damage it will do, or how much environmental damage it will avoid. However, Pinera is a right-wing pro-business candidate, and can't be trusted to protect anything but corporate profits.
Texas passed a law requiring women to get a sonogram and wait 24 hours before having an abortion.
This is part of a general Republican policy of harassment of women who want abortions.
Paradoxically, the part of the US government most concerned about the danger of global heating is the Pentagon.
The Israeli Knesset is considering a bill that would imprison anyone that publishes "a call that negates the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State".
In effect, saying that Israel is not really democratic would be a crime.
This 2009 article by Uri Avnery discusses that bill and other
tyrannical legal proposals.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Both Obama and Congress are mostly disregarding the War Powers Act and
the question of whether Obama was
authorized to intervene in
Libya.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Far from insisting on its powers to be asked to authorize this intervention, Congress is proposing to authorize all future presidents to intervene military anywhere without consulting Congress.
I support the intervention in Libya, which I think will succeed because tactical stalemate implies strategic defeat for Gaddafi.
However, there is no telling what mischief Obama or some future president might do — perhaps conquering, occupying and ruining a country as Bush did to Iraq.
Obama should seek authorization for the Libyan intervention.
Some Apple addicts truly worship that company, suggest brain scans.
That must be why they allow it to abuse them so much and don't care.
German police confiscated the servers of the German Pirate Party, two days before an important election.
Finally Obama has criticized Bahrain's
oppression of the
opposition.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The TSA's secret "tests" of the X-ray body scanners were phony. They did not test a real scanner, and they kept important details of the test secret.
I never go through those machines; I always ask them to feel me up instead.
The UK requires some passengers to go through scanners, so I do not board flights in the UK. I leave the UK by train.
Obama took a small step to disconnect US policy from Israeli government control by reaffirming that peace needs to be based on the 1967 borders.
Netanyahu's sharp reaction was, in effect, a demand for a return to the unconditional support that Israel had previously achieved.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was praised for making the IMF less evil, but the extent of the changes have been exaggerated.
The IMF still puts the burden on the poor, pushing countries into depressions that can improverish them for years.
US citizens: call on the State Department to condemn Israel's
imprisonment
of Palestinian
nonviolent protest leaders.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The charges against them are based on evidence procured by torturing a 14-year-old boy.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Seven Bahrainis were sentenced to years in prison for protesting.
Several showed how they were tortured, and the court pointedly ignored this.
Several big banks that inflated the real estate bubble are now being investigated by New York State.
US justice is so soft on corporations that now they don't even get charged with a crime. They just agree to pay something instead of being accused.
A coal company made a
legal threat against the
coalcares.org
hoax site.
[References updated on 2018-02-15 because the old links were broken.]
25,000 people who live in homes in flood plains near the Mississippi will have to evacuate as waters flood the area.
I hope we learn the lesson and don't allow anything but throwaway structures to be built there again.
Israeli troops
fired at a hundreds of unarmed Palestinians who were
trying to swarm the border from Syria.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
This is a different issue entirely from trying to bring aid to Gaza. The boats that sail to Gaza do not enter Israel unless the Israeli military forces them to do so. It is also unlike the protests in Tunisia and Egypt, since those protested in their own country.
These protests seem basically wrong to me because the protesters are trying to enter Israel, not the West Bank or Gaza. In other words, entering the territory which, under any reasonable peace settlement, would not be part of Palestine. In effect, the message of these protests is to end oppose the existence of Israel, not to end the occupation.
Israel has the right to control who enters its territory from Syria. Also, terrorists (they still exist) might infiltrate among the unarmed protesters. Thus, if nothing else works, the Israeli border guards must shoot. However, Israel has a duty to try to control entry without shooting. A stronger wall on the border with Syria might do the job, but would take time to construct.
If Palestinians would like peace with a state alongside Israel, they should design their protests to conspicuously support this goal. Only thus can they refute the Israeli argument that "They still want to destroy us."
Gaddafi's officials ask, why prosecute Gaddafi & co in the International Criminal Court and not the rulers of Syria, Bahrain and Yemen.
He's right: they all deserve this treatment. That doesn't mean that the ICC warrants against Gaddafi should be cancelled.
The US Congress held a hearing about repression in Bahrain, and the State Department boycotted it.
Haiti's parliament, which was elected in fraud, has written constitutional amendments that concentrate power in the president — and which most Haitians can't read.
One of the leaders of the Rwandan genocide has been sentenced to prison.
This is worth celebrating, but meanwhile Rwanda now faces a new threat from its dictatorial President Kagame.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose authorizing presidents to launch military attacks all around the world.
Also sign this petition.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
The IPCC shows how 80% of energy could be renewable in 40 years.
It is a matter of adopting public policies that favor renewable energy, not oil, gas, coal or nuclear.
When the UK evicted the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands, it promised to maintain their buildings and plantations.
It ignored that promise, reflecting its intention to stop them from ever returning home. A Wikileaks cable shows that the UK intended its marine conservation zone as an additional obstacle to their return.
A great new option for your spyPhone: pay for purchases with it.
If the phone company and the store exchange data, both of them know what you bought, when, and where.
The UN is investigating reports that Iran tampered with reactor inspectors' portable computers.
If these computers have proprietary software in them, others could easily have tampered with them too.
As B'liar tried to distort Iraq intelligence to justify war, intelligence experts tried to resist this. Newly released papers show their efforts.
China is starting to admit that the Three Gorges Dam has caused major problems for the Yangtze River.
Republicans are lying about their plan to attack Medicare.
Many workplaces use computers to monitor employees' every action.
Police sprayed mace at old people who were protesting at a bank's shareholder meeting.
A UK man previously acquitted of murder will face a second trial using new evidence.
Maybe he is guilty; maybe this trial will right a previous wrong. I cannot assert it won't. But double jeopardy is very frightening.
A bill that would punish Israelis for voicing support for a boycott of Israeli institutions, or even a boycott of products of Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank.
This bill would abolish freedom of speech in Israel.
The claim that it is "in the United States it is considered illegal to
boycott Israel" is the half-truth that is worse than a lie. What is
penalized, though not exactly illegal, is for US entities to
promise in their contracts that they will
refuse to do
business with Israel (or whatever country) in response to foreign
pressure.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
There is no law against boycotting any country, business, activity, etc., because such a law would be unconstitutional.
Senator Sanders has introduced a single-payer health care bill.
Arizona's sheriff Arpaio,
who used hostility towards immigrants as
the
basis for his campaign, is accused of corruption amounting to
100
million dollars, as well as hostility towards Mexicans.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The record companies want warrantless searches to check for copying.
There is nothing they wouldn't gladly destroy in their crusade to maintain their parasitic stranglehold on music. These companies, which gave us the DMCA and lawsuits against teenagers, don't deserve any kind of "rights", because what they deserve is to be obliterated.
In the future, even fetuses will be sued often.
Republican bills in many states would hamper college students, minorities, old people and disabled people from voting.
Tobacco companies added appetite suppressant drugs to cigarettes.
Christopher Whitman, at a peaceful protest in Nabi Saleh, reports that an Israeli border policeman shot him in the head with a tear gas canister, after beating up and gassing the protesters.
This hit was certainly intentional; police are good shots, and they know how tear gas is supposed to be used. They also know that an "accidental" hit on a person's head can maim or kill.
Last time I was in Israel, I was told that the border police are especially sadistic. In the same protest, another person's arm was broken by a tear gas canister. Apparently shooting to maim or kill is accepted practice.
The Israeli deputy police commander of Galilee was so offended when a Palestinian lawyer asked why his men were arresting protesters that he slapped her in the face.
How dare anyone ask whether Israel respects human rights?
Warning: that page has a Facebook Like-button. Be sure to disable Javascript, and cookies from other sites, before you go to it.
Israel is destroying the main road into the Palestinian town of Al Aqaba. Next it may destroy the town.
Syrians now use
donkeynet to communicate with the rest of the
world.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The case against Goldman Sachs: a million or so frauds plus lying to Congress.
Panera restaurants give clients a suggested bill and ask them to pay that much, or more, or less.
There are massive protests in Spain against policies that have produced massive protests.
The uselessness of the two major parties, the Partido Corporatista and the Partido Pendular, is illustrated by the fact that they both voted to censor the Internet on behalf of the copyright industry.
The Taliban are reportedly making children act as suicide bombers by threatening them and lying to them.
This is such a vicious tactic I have to wonder whether the claim is a lie. I won't say the Taliban couldn't possibly do this; but just because they deserve to be fought does not mean they are totally without principle. NATO is not above lying.
I also wonder why Noor Mohammad, age 14, is on trial, since he never attacked anyone. Shouldn't he be in a foster home?
New Hampshire Republicans are trying to discourage voters by requiring photo IDs to vote.
The US Senate declined to abolish subsidies for oil companies.
Obama has
sync'ed US policy totally behind the Israeli Hawks'
lobby.
MJ Rosenberg believes he is challenging those who want to end the
occupation to speak louder and compete with AIPAC.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
Of course, we should try to make our views heard, but does Obama care? It would be nice to think so, but I don't believe it. Obama has shown no sign of championing peace, no will to resist or even criticize the Israeli policy of slow ethnic cleansing. Our voices can hardly compete in the mainstream media with the influence that AIPAC's donors purchase. I think Obama set MJ Rosenberg an impossible challenge to give himself an excuse to obey AIPAC.
Israel permanently exiled 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank because they travailed abroad.
Israeli private security guards
killed a protesting Palestinian
in East Jerusalem, and troops shot protesters directly at close range
with tear gas canisters.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Israel blocked the ship Spirit of Rachel Corrie from delivering sewage
pipe to Gaza by
attacking with artillery.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Israel uses soldiers disguised as civilians, even for assassination.
If we consider these operations as war, they are war crimes. Otherwise, they are extrajudicial killings of suspected criminals who should have been given a chance to surrender and be arrested.
(If we consider them as war, it doesn't matter whether the Palestinian fighters we on duty or not. Do the laws of war prohibit attacking soldiers just because they are not currently fighting? I don't think so.)
Israel also lets dogs run loose to maim Palestinians who are sneaking into Israel to work.
Israel's justification, that this is a method of protecting the wall, is invalid because the wall through the West Bank is a plan for annexation.
UK plans to build nuclear reactors underestimate the availability of tidal power generators and overestimate its future costs.
One of the Fukushima reactors was badly damaged by the quake itself, before the tsunami.
Tiger farms threaten the survival of wild tigers.
In simple theory, the existence of tiger farms means that wild tigers can be protected from poaching more easily. It would be enough to make poaching a tiger more expensive than raising one. With a stable population of wild tigers, a few could be captured each year for stud without damaging the wild population. But there may be practical obstacles that make the reality not fit that theory.
The head of the IMF is in jail in the US, accused of attempted rape, and it's not the first such accusation against him.
I have no idea whether he is guilty or not, but it is right to treat the rich and powerful just like anyone else. However, I think that the IMF which he heads has done harm far bigger than anything he could do personally.
Prostitutes in Korea protested against a police crackdown.
Prohibiting prostitution is simply unjust. It also interferes with the work that the police really ought to do: making sure that the prostitutes are not being abused or coerced by pimps.
Ohio citizens: sign the petition for a referendum on the law SB 5
which
attacked unions in Ohio.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: join the protests against Sarkozy's attempt to destroy Internet freedom in Europe.
In London: protest Colombia's ex-president Alvaro Horrible, who is linked with the murderous paramilitaries.
4pm-7pm, Saturday 21 May
27 Sussex Place, Regent's Park, NW1
Nearest tube: Baker Street
5pm-8pm, Monday 23 May
LSE Campus, Houghton Street, WC2
Nearest tubes: Covent Garden, Holborn, Temple
US citizens:
sign
this petition
against S.719, which would enable US
intelligence agencies to punish employees (and ex-employees) without
trial by cutting off their pensions.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Also phone your senators.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Swiss voters
preserved
the right of foreigners to come to commit suicide.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
This is a good thing. Sad we may be when someone's life is so painful that he only wants to end it, but it is crazy to express that concern by forcing him to go on suffering.
The UK government has adopted a plan for a major reduction in carbon emissions by 2027.
However, it includes hidden subsidies for nuclear power plants.
Thousands
protested in Turkey
against plans to filter the Internet.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Women and children made up most of the casualties of US air raids and shelling in Iraq.
David House and the ACLU have sued the US government for searching his laptop as he passed through customs.
Dropbox used to claim it couldn't decrypt users' files, but that wasn't true.
The subtle changes Dropbox has since made in its web site sustain the accusation.
The US "secure communities" program causes legal immigrants to be
deported if they are accused of a crime —
even
if the charges are dropped.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
I am glad someone had the sense to block this cruelty in the specific case at hand, but the system needs to be fixed.
Michael Moore: the SEALs are so precise — they avoided killing any
of the children that were in bin Laden's compound —
that
they must
have been ordered to kill bin Laden himself.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
I suspect something a little more subtle: that they were told to capture bin Laden "if possible", and given fine print which defined "possible" as "if pigs fly."
Natural gas drilling in the US is
destroying
archaeological sites
as well as water supplies.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The "PROTECT IP" bill amounts to criminalization of knowledge.
Anything law named "intellectual property" can be expected to be based on bad concepts.
Bahrain is torturing doctors and nurses because they witnessed the injuries of protesters who were brought to the hospital.
Banning slightly dangerous "legal highs" can endanger public health, because they can attract people away from more dangerous drugs.
It occurs to me that legal highs could also be made safer by spreading information about how to use them safely.
Thousands of handicapped people marched, and wheeled themselves, in London to protests cuts in aid that they need to live independent lives.
Drug companies are aggressively pushing doctors to prescribe demented old people drugs that are not known to do any good for their problem.
A report that Gaddafi was gaining support for an international bank for Africa that would have made Libyan currency an alternative to the dollar and the euro.
This report reminds us that a state can challenge the power of the corporate empire (good) while at the same being an vicious tyranny (bad). Good in one parameter can go with bad on another.
If the report is true, it might explain US participation in the intervention. But Obama was not eager to intervene — so I think this theory is more wrong than right.
Zaidi, who famously threw a shoe at Bush, preaches nonviolence and has set up a foundation to investigate the corruption of the US occupation of Iraq.
He says that Iraqi government torturers broke his bones and gave him electric shocks. Did they learn this from Saddam Hussein or from the Bush forces?
Police have software to correlate information about a person from a wide variety of sources, establishing a total surveillance system which they can turn on anyone.
India has imposed vague censorship on Internet sites.
The excuse that this is "based on India's criminal law and deal with blasphemous, obscene and defamatory material" is not only inaccurate, it would be no excuse anyway, since it is unjust to make any of those things a crime.
India has also followed the injustice of the USA PAT RIOT Act by allowing the state to collect information about people from companies without search warrants.
In an age where states have contempt for all human rights, every technological transition offers an opportunity to crush some.
President Saleh's troops shot at protesters in Yemen; then troops of an opposition division moved in and shot back at them.
That division's general opposes Saleh, but I have no idea whether he endorses democracy or human rights, or whether he just wants more power for himself. The situation is full of dangers, one of which is war between the factions of the army.
Facebook paid a PR agency to publish false stories against Google.
It is well established that people have been paid to spread false information saying that tobacco was safe, and that carbon emissions aren't causing global heating.
Death squads threaten community radio journalists in El Salvador.
Ugandan protest leader Kizza Besigye was arbitrarily blocked from flying back to Uganda.
He had fled to Kenya for medical treatment after Ugandan troops attacked and injured him during a protest.
That shows the danger of a no-fly list.
Police in Tunisia attacked protesters and journalists.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The interim government apologized for the attacks; perhaps the police acted in defiance of the state.
Bahrain's cruel monarch is sentencing protesters to long prison terms.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Doctors and nurses are to be put on trial for treating wounded protesters.
Shame on the US for continuing close relations with that evil regime.
New Jersey proposes to ban photography of minors.
An officer involved in making the UK's "dodgy dossier", which twisted intelligence data to support invading Iraq, said that they were explicitly tasked with squeezing an excuse for war out of that intelligence.
Is this grounds to charge B'liar with the crime of aggressive war?
James Hall refused to sign Wikileaks' internal anti-leaks contract. because he was afraid of being sued for millions of dollars over interviews already given.
Wikileaks has done a crucial job for the public. Can that job be done without ugly internal practices such as this contract? Assange seems to believe it can't be. I don't know that he is wrong, but I am not ready to conclude he is right.
Amnesty International says Colombia has made some progress in respecting human rights under President Santos, compared with former President Horrible, but not much.
As NATO increases the size of Afghan's "security" forces, they commit more crimes against civilians.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Comparing the oil company tax breaks with their profits.
Republicans want to move oil drilling lawsuits to a court full of judges with close ties to oil companies.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Ten Turkish writers and journalists have been arrested, apparently for their political writings.
France is on the way to ban fracking.
Ugandan insecurity forces attacked journalists as well as protesters who greeted Kizza Besigye's return to Uganda.
Microsoft Structured Acquisition Of Skype To Avoid U.S. Taxes.
Bill S.719 would give the US government the power to strip officials of their pensions just by accusing them of leaking classified information.
Some Democrats defended principles of justice when Bush showed contempt for them. Now that Obama has adopted Bush's opposition to human rights, Americans who defend them are being marginalized and smeared.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Israeli shelling in Gaza caused 80 casualties, mostly civilians.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
Two medics were killed by shelling their ambulances.
A UN agency has analyzed the computer files, reportedly seized from the FARC, which described collaboration between Venezuela and the FARC.
The FARC are terrorists and kidnappers. Whether it is justified to support them so as to oppose Colombia's worst terrorists and kidnappers, which are the US-supported government and the paramilitares, is a difficult question. (Latest reports say these terrorists are becoming more active and dangerous.)
Ziyad Clot explains why he leaked the Palestine Papers.
These papers blew the lid off the phony "peace process" which Israel used as a cover for a land grab.
Belarus has sentenced opposition candidate Andrei Sannikov to 5 years in prison in a political show trial.
Dalits in Indian higher education face prejudice and hatred which drives some to suicide.
Others disguise themselves as non-Dalits and live a double life.
I wonder if India's national ID card will make it impossible for them to do that.
The US worked with drug companies and treacherous officials in Ecuador to try to interfere with Ecuador's policy of compulsory licenses for patented medicines.
The US government represents the corporations, not Americans.
The Conservative Party of Canada violated election laws in the recent election. Its leader, Harper, did so personally.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Although bin Laden is dead, he still serves for fear-mongering.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
submit a comment
opposing Obama's plans
to weaken US forest protection.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
call on Congress
to investigate the conflict of interest
of the FCC commissioner who voted to approve the Comcast-NBC merger,
then quit to become a lobbyist for the merged company.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign this petition against the "PROTECT IP" bill, which would impose censorship duties on US ISPs and search engines.
The use of the propaganda term "intellectual property" shows that this law is based on mistaken goals and confused thinking.
More information about what's bad in this bill.
Israel has adopted racist laws that further penalize Palestinians as well as human rights organizations.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
Gazans injured by Israeli bombing were arbitrarily denied the chance to go to court. A deadline of two years was established, and then Israel did not let them leave Gaza to plead for two years.
The Israeli government gives secret support to an organization reminiscent of the KKK.
You don't have to do anything wrong to get on the US sex offender list.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The two cases appeared at first to be hypothetical, but reading further comments shows that they belong to one real family.
The US says it will fund development of software to fight the Internet censorship of China and Iran.
Meanwhile, the US is planning its own Internet censorship, aimed at search engines, domain registries, and other parts of the net.
You can tell this law is evil in spirit because it uses the propaganda term "intellectual property", which spreads both an authoritarian attitude and factual confusion whenever it is used.
Don't be their tool — join me in avoiding the term.
NATO bombs in Afghanistan often hit civilians. In one case, US intelligence targeted a civilian, a parliamentary candidate's agent living in Kabul, confusing him with a Taliban commander through gross negligence.
90,000 Bedouin in Israel live in "illegal" towns, sometimes where they were told to live by the Army decades ago, but they now face expulsion as part of a plan to squeeze them into a small fraction of the Negev.
Other Arabs are being expelled from Jerusalem.
An NRA-sponsored Florida bill, already approved by the legislature, will ban pediatricians from asking questions about gun safety at the patient's home.
The National Rifle Association should change its name to the National Irresponsible Gun-Owners Association, given its new mission to resist efforts to teach gun owners to be responsible.
The Koch brothers corrupted Florida State University, by endowing professorships and giving themselves veto power over whoever is appointed to them.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
These professors are supposed to teach that everything should be for sale.
Thousands marched in New York to protest budget cuts including the firing of 4,000 teachers.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Night-mayor Bloomberg believes these cuts are necessary because of the budget surplus.
If only the day-mayor of New York were someone other than Bloomberg.
Instead of taxing the rich, Haiti's not-really-elected president Martelly plans to tax remittances from foreign countries, which support their poor Haitian relatives.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: Congress proposes to preauthorize presidents to launch wars anywhere in the world. Phone your congresscritter to oppose it; also sign the following petition.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens:
sign
this petition
telling Senate leadership to
block the Republicans' War on Women.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Here's how far Afghanistan is from being able to set up a functioning state, police, or army.
I have doubts that the army unit declared as capable of standing on its own can really do so, that the provinces that will be "self-governing" (whatever that means) will be capable. And I am very skeptical of the claim that Afghanistan will be able to do much more with an army of 350,000 than with one of 300,000.
The officer interviewed presents all this as a reason to continue the war for many years. I think it rather demonstrates that there are better things to try to do.
A new Gaza aid fleet will set out in June, including once again the Mavi Marmara on which activists were killed last time by Israeli troops.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
An analysis of NATO hypocrisy and self-contradiction about Libya.
Whether US and European leaders are being honest is one question; whether they have any ethical concern about the issue is another. What these countries ought to do in regard to Libya is a third question, separate from those two.
The West should not throw up its hands and let Gaddafi reconquer Benghazi or Misrata, but its intervention is at once too violent and insufficient. Attacking Gaddafi's family should be off limits regardless of whether Gaddafi is with them.
Meanwhile, the failure to coordinate closely with the Libyan rebels is deadly stupidity. If NATO is determined to launch weapons only from the air, that is no reason not to have forward air controllers and radar on the ground, and even small units to protect them. Gaddafi's success in destroying Mistrara's gasoline supply with bombs from light planes, and the closure of Misrata's port, were possible because of the lack of such coordination.
What the rebels really need is the support of a trained Arab ground army.
The EU's tax-scam prevention body is made up of tax-avoidance experts.
I am sure they know the subject well, but do they want to succeed?
A year after the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Republicans are trying to hasten a repeat performance.
They got 4 million dollars from oil companies to promote global heating.
A thousand teachers protested California's budget cuts and refusal to raise taxes on the rich.
"Development aid" supports the spread of palm oil cultivation in Africa, which destroys ecosystems and communities and spreads oppressive working conditions.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
It probably contributes to global heating, too.
Rule of thumb: the opposite of what the US Chamber of Commerce says is good for the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The City University of New York decided to give Tony Kushner the honorary degree, rebuking the influence of a supporter of Israeli right-wing positions.
Mr. Wiesenfeld should listen to what Uri Avnery has to say about these issues.
Japan's prime minister has decided to cancel construction of planned new nuclear reactors.
Osama bin Laden's sons call for the UN to investigate why their father was killed and not arrested.
Former Pakistani dictator Musharraf made a deal that the US could attack top al Qa'ida leaders in Pakistan.
I am not sure whether the US can validly stand on a deal made 10 years ago by a dictator since removed from power. What does seem clear is that the dictator was dishonest to the Pakistani people in making the deal.
Refugees from Syria fled to Lebanon, but Lebanon handed them over to the Syrian government.
Repression in Bahrain extends to systematic destruction of Shi'ite mosques, even historic ones.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
It is interesting to contrast this with the uproar that resulted when Hindu fanatics destroyed a mosque 400 years old in India with the much weaker reaction when Muslim thugs destroy a mosque.
Journalist Khaled Sid Mohand was not tortured much in Syria, but he heard other prisoners' screams every day.
The US government knows all about this, which is why it handed over people to be tortured in Syria.
Morderchai Vanunu called on the Israeli government to apply a new law, meant to be punitive, and revoke his Israeli citizenship.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Holding Internet services legally responsible for what users post could be a disaster for the Internet, and for freedom of speech.
Peak floods on the Mississippi are a human-made disaster.
Foolish humans built houses in floodplains, and foolish humans poured greenhouse gases into the air which increases the chance of unusual heavy rain.
A scientific study finds that fracking frequently causes methane contamination of nearby water supplies at a dangerous level.
Sometimes you can set fire to the fast coming out of the faucet.
Human Rights Watch calls on the US to stop supporting Bangladesh's torture and assassination battalion.
Senator Schumer says Amtrak should check passengers against a no-ride list.
The movie The Longest Day demonstrates that people know how to bomb a train without riding on it. They only need access to the track. The reported tentative al Qa'ida plot involved damaging the track to derail a train. Senator Schumer's Orwellian measure would be useless against that.
I put myself on Amtrak's "no-ride" list when Amtrak started making passengers identify themselves; I'd rather take a bus anonymously. You should, too.
When corporations make threats so as to get lower taxes, the US could resist if the government chose.
But this would first require a officials who want to resist.
Turkey has proposed filtering of the Internet, and there are mass protests against it.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Ai Weiwei has been held incommunicado for a month; there is a rumor he has been tortured into confessing various crimes.
Torture is very effective for extracting confessions if it does not matter whether they are true. That is why it is just as despicable when done by China as when done by the US.
Everyone: sign this petition calling on Uganda not to adopt its bill to punish gays.
US citizens: call your senators and say, defend Medicare, and oppose the disguised plans to ruin Medicare with spending limits in a few years.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Thousands demonstrated in Marrakesh for a constitutional monarchy, and against terrorism.
Obama continues to support "free trade" with Colombia despite Colombia's increasing assassinations of union organizers.
Uri Avnery compares the apparent execution of Osama bin Laden to other executions of accused terrorists.
Muslim extremists in Egypt are picking a fight with Coptic Christians.
The details of the fight almost don't matter, since the issue is more of an excuse than anything else. But I do wonder what really happened to the woman who supposedly converted to Islam. Did she really exist? If so, is she still alive? Murdered?
Pakistan has imposed censorship on foreign journalism, and especially in Abbottabad, to impede investigation of how Osama bin Laden managed to hide there.
Babar Ahmed tells how the UK police that arrested him in 2003 beat him, then squeezed him in a headlock so he could not breathe. Medical tests support his accusations.
Babar Ahmad has been fighting the US extradition request in various courts since his second arrest in 2004.
Australia will send refugees to Malaysia, which has a record of abusing refugees.
UK policemen told their commanders they saw Tomlinson hit shoved to the ground, and the commanders concealed this information from the investigation.
Several cities in Syria are now patrolled by tanks and soldiers
who shoot at anyone.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
A French naval ship let migrants in a disabled boat drift and die rather than rescue them.
US war is very expensive in monetary terms. The point is that it has been made cheap in US lives; the blood shed is in foreign civilian casualties that the US government denies and pretends not to count.
Ashcroft, Bush's Attorney General who hated our freedoms, is now working for Blackwater.
The world is drowning in corporate fraud, and the executives responsible often go on to public office.
A man has been convicted of "aiding suicide" simply for talking with people that wanted to kill themselves.
This seems outrageous. I hope there will be an appeal.
This man pretended, in chat rooms, to be a female nurse. Pretending to be what you aren't is not nice, but that has nothing to do with the central issue: just talking with people about suicide is not participating in the event, no matter who you say you are.
As a separate matter, people who want to die should be allowed to get assistance (and not just advice) if they need it. They should be able to get it from people or institutions they can trust, and should not need to have recourse to a chat room. They should also have access to therapy, so that they might reconcile themselves to going on with their lives.
How the system of testing new drugs, to approve their sale, is fundamentally broken.
Chomsky comments on the apparent assassination of bin Laden — and the lack of proof he was involved in the 2001 attacks.
The New Bottom Line campaign protested in and outside the stockholders meeting of Wells Fargo Bank.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
One other thing people can do is to move their money out of large banks such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America, and into local banks.
13 reasons why the New Zealand "3 strikes" law is an injustice.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
A 14th reason, not mentioned in the article: the law's very goal is wrong.
Sharing is good — to attack sharing is the evil. Thus, any law designed to punish or block file sharing is evil at the root. What New Zealand ought to do is to recognize everyone's right to do noncommercial sharing of exact copies of any published work.
The reason that the government did the opposite, I suggest, is that the government is working for external powers — foreign states and multinational corporations — rather than for the citizens of New Zealand.
In the UK, women buy much more clothing than 20 years ago, and wear most of it very little, treating it as disposable. This is based on, and supports, the use of sweatshop labor to make the clothing.
I would suppose this all applies to the US as well as the UK, but I don't have any way of checking that.
The wasteful production of so much little-used clothing puts a tremendous burden on the Earth.
"Free trade" treaties surely play a role in making these sweatshops possible. In 1990, textile workers in poor countries could organize unions and get better wages; now each poor country has to compete against the rest, driving wages and working conditions down.
I don't see what can be done to stop this stupid game of competition, other than to eliminate the "free trade" treaties that are its basis.
The Wall Street Journal tried to set up a Wikileaks-style leak reception site, but did a lousy job that whistleblowers should not trust.
The WSJ later said it would fix the technical flaws, but did not offer to correct the legal shortcomings.
Many US states are planning to privatize prisons, to fund private schools instead of public schools, and to crush public sector unions.
Everyone: rebuke the CUNY board
for blocking the honorary degree
that was supposed to be offered to Tony Kushner,
because of his political views
that oppose right-wing Israeli policies.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Past recipients of honorary degrees from CUNY are returning them in condemnation of the board's action.
US citizens: phone your senators to call on them to resist Republican plans to use debt ceiling expansion to ban health insurance that covers abortion. Also sign this petition.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
This shows that Republicans are too dishonest to keep a budget deal for even a couple of months.
The nastiest part of their plan is to require women who were raped to convince the IRS of that. But it's not enough to block the nastiest part. They should not get even the tiniest bit.
Democrats in the Senate should make their own demands to reverse bad changes agreed to in March. Then there can be a "compromise" to stay with the deal of March.
Global heating has already harmed world food production and has increased some food prices, perhaps almost 20%.
The more global heating we create, the more we push agricultural systems towards collapse.
US proposals for "do not track" could backfire by requiring increased identification of users.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Donald Trump's record of racism.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Mass protests continue in Syria despite the killing of many protesters.
Foolish Australians oppose the planned carbon emissions tax because it could "make electricity cost more".
Of course it will. That is the point — to encourage efficiency.
Global heating increases flooding in parts of Australia. How much do these short-sighted people think bigger floods will cost their country?
The US reports that Osama bin Laden was directly involved in planning possible terrorist operations.
If this is truthful, it would imply that al Qa'ida, or some large part of it, has an overall organization. That does not mean that bin Laden's death is a blow to al Qa'ida. As long as such an organization can recruit, it always has new leaders who can take over from the old.
Ahmadinejad is trying to choose his own cabinet in defiance of Shah Khamenei, resulting in a power struggle within the Iranian regime's secular and clerical parts.
The UN projects a world population of 9.3 billion in 2050.
Given the damage done by global heating to agriculture we will not find it easy to feed so many.
The recent report of decreased population growth in China could mean it will be somewhat less. I hope so, because every increase makes it harder to cope.
Mozilla rejected a request to remove an add-on that helps users access domains that the US attempts to shut down.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
"Seizing" domains without first convicting their operators of a crime is tyranny. Bravo, Mozilla, for helping the US to resist tyranny.
Some of these sites enable members of the public to share files non-commercially. It's not clear whether those sites have committed a crime in the US, and the US does not prosecute them. What is clear is that, if there is a law that such a site violates, the injustice is in the law, not in the site. The right to share must be respected.
Sharing is good; to forbid sharing is to attack society.
The UN has effectively acknowledged that the UN troops brought cholera to Haiti.
It has killed over 5,000 people.
Several associates of Berlusconi will go on trial for finding prostitutes for him.
Whether or not Nicole Minetti was involved in finding prostitutes for Berlusconi, he showed disrespect for Italy by giving her a political post after meeting her in a situation that had nothing to do with political ability.
Alec Loorz has sued the US government demanding it act to prevent global heating disaster.
Being 16 now, his life expectancy would take him till 2070, by which time he would experience the real dimensions of the disaster we are creating.
The Internet has given voice to Singapore's opposition, but people fear their votes will not be secret.
Former US military interrogators reject the claim that torture "worked" for obtaining intelligence about bin Laden (or anything else).
The US says that bin Laden did not shoot at US troops, and did not have an gun when he was shot.
Why then was he shot rather than captured? Supposedly the troops were ordered to take prisoners "when possible". Is their idea of "possible" so cautious that in practice they couldn't possibly have taken any prisoners? Were they really ordered to kill?
A group working for Arab-Israeli peace has been censored twice in Seattle.
The idea that both sides deserve a good life is considered too controversial.
A US official proposed taxing cars by miles driven.
To replace the gas tax (which encourages use of more efficient cars) with a milage tax is in effect a plan to encourage wasting gasoline. I suspect the oil companies are behind it somehow.
It is also an advance in government surveillance, and thus attacks all citizens.
Honduras' coup-installed and US-supported government has declared war on school teachers.
Protests against the War on Drugs are planned for all across Mexico, sparked by a poet whose son was murdered.
If the US punishes Mexico for refusing to continue this foolish war, Mexico should retaliate by pulling out of NAFTA. (It needs to do that anyway, and this is a good excuse.)
When Obama decided not to use a drone missile against Osama bin Laden, he made an exception to a general practice of bombing in Pakistan that has killed far more bystanders than targets.
The article is mistaken when it says that "no sane person would wish any harm on American soldiers". If a Pakistani feels that way, perhaps in response to the civilians killed by US attacks, that does not make him insane. Fighting a guerrilla war against the US does not make the Taliban insane. I condemned the Taliban's repressive policies when they were in power, I condemn the Taliban's policy of murdering civilians now, and I expect to continue to condemn the Taliban when the US is no longer fighting them, but it is absurd to call enemies "insane" for being enemies.
Most terrorism in the US is done by right-wing extremists, but you'd never guess that from the mass media.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Even imaginary bombs that involve Muslim fanatics get much more news coverage than real bombs set by right-wing fanatics.
Anonymous responds to Sony's accusation that Anonymous was involved in credit card theft.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The "evidence" for this accusation is the sort of false trail you find in page 20 of a mystery novel. As proof, it's nothing, but it might satisfy the desire of some politicians for an excuse to launch a crusade against Anonymous.
Biomass energy projects currently planned are renewable energy sources, but only on the assumption that the forests they chop down will grow back. That is too long a time scale; in the shorter term, these projects can drive massive deforestation.
If the forests do not regrow as supposed, perhaps due to a global heating disaster, these projects will turn out not to have been renewable energy.
Dictator Franco had 120,000 prisoners killed in the course of seizing Spain from the Republican government. The present government has published a map of 2000 mass graves of these victims.
LA is suing Deutsche Bank for fraudulent foreclosures and illegal evictions.
Many other banks have made a practice of fraudulent foreclosures. I hope they will be sued too.
Major western media condemned Gaddafi's use of cluster bombs in Misrata. but didn't condemn the US for using them in Iraq and elsewhere.
This doesn't excuse Gaddafi's use of cluster bombs; rather, it means that Bush deserves the same condemnation. Bush should be tried for war crimes and for the crime of aggressive war, just as is now planned for Gaddafi.
A former Taliban minister says the Taliban
offered in October 2001 to
hand over Osama bin Laden for trial to an organization of Islamic
states.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Bush ostentatiously did not care and rejected negotiation. Based on Bush's supposed reason for the war, the war was gratuitous.
I supported the invasion of Afghanistan for another reason: to end the Taliban's oppression of Afghan women and men.
The UK's severe budget cuts have knocked it into a longer recession.
Peak oil has already occurred, but the world didn't notice, because it is switching to cheap natural gas and coal. The only problem with this "solution" is that they release even more greenhouse gas, Thus, instead of heading into an economic wall in the near term, we are heading for climate disaster in a few decades.
Many Ugandan lawyers asked the country's supreme court to restrain the president from attacking protesters.
The EU may pay fishermen to collect plastic at sea.
In 2007, BP was fined $20 million for a big leak in Alaska and ordered to maintain its pipelines properly. Now it has been fined $25 million more for not doing so.
The EFF reports on the FBI spyware that it sneaks into people's computers.
The EFF concludes that this obviates any reason for the proposal to require surveillance systems in VOIP and other communications systems.
Aaron's Furniture rents
computers equipped with spyware that transmits
photos of the user.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
I would guess that these computers also contained Windows, which also spies on the user.
Dispersed oil still threatens the safety of Gulf of Mexico seafood.
US government testing of the catch has several weaknesses.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Haiti's president Martelly, elected by 1/6 the voters, has friends connected with the US-arranged coup that overthrew President Aristide, and friends connected with the Duvaliers.
US media are
straining to encourage belief that waterboarding "worked"
for finding Osama bin Laden.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Finding him was a slow process that probably involved combining lots of information. For absolutely none of this to have been obtained from the suspects who were tortured would have been unlikely, a priori. So if some of the information did come from them, that doesn't prove torture "works".
Even if torture had "worked" in getting a clue that eventually led to bin Laden, this benefit for the US (for whatever it's worth) would be nothing compared to the harm the US did to itself by torturing ibn as-Sheikh al-Libi. He told the lies that Bush wanted to hear, and Bush used them as excuses to invade Iraq.
Torture can't "work" in general for getting information from prisoners, because what it does is make them say what the interrogators want to hear.
But even if torture did generally "work", that would not justify it. As Obama said, torture destroys the moral fiber of a nation. The US's moral fiber seems to be on the edge of tearing right open.
Bradley Manning is now held in fairly normal prison conditions, However, the US is still responsible for the way it treated him for most of a year, and Rep. Kucinich aims to the US government to account.
To punish injustice is not the only valid reason not to let this drop. Another is that many other prisoners in the US face similar conditions. Neither accused suspects nor convicted criminals deserve to be tortured.
Efforts to cut carbon emissions in some developed countries have been negated by a rise in emissions caused by exports to them from other countries.
Indian police arrested hundreds of people who were going to march to protest plans to build a nuclear power plant.
An inquest ruled that Ian Tomlinson was unlawfully killed by the policeman who knocked him down, for no reason, as he passed by a protest in London. Now the policeman may be prosecuted.
There are countless instances of unjustified police violence against protesters and bystanders in the UK — and elsewhere also.
North Korea's prison empire is full of people who
don't even know why they were arrested.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US has sued Deutsche Bank for systematic mortgage fraud in the US.
A
series of false copyright claims are being used to censor an Iranian
opposition group on YouTube.
Syrian repression forces crushed
a protest in Banias.
The discussion of arming Alawite militias suggests that Assad is also
trying to stimulate sectarian hostility.
The Israeli army sealed
off the village of Nabi Saleh and appears to plan to demolish
Palestinian homes there.
Nabi Saleh is the long-time hub of nonviolent protest.
Israel
is trying to build a railroad from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem —
through Palestinian territory.
Israeli "settlers" invaded a Palestinian village and burned a
prayer hall.
A Hamas leader says Hamas
is willing to make peace with Israel.
People
in the UK were arrested as "terrorists" for doing photography
"near" the Sellafield nuclear fuel processing plant.
The UK has a history of treating people as suspects for photography.
Protecting biodiversity is expensive, but the consequences of failing
to protect biodiversity are much
more painful.
Daniel Barenboim went to Gaza to conduct
a concert of Mozart there.
He said, "I am a Palestinian, and I am an Israeli." I hope Israel
won't arrest him for entering Gaza.
Many in the US are citing the killing of Osama bin Laden as a
reason for pulling out of Afghanistan.
The war in Afghanistan was never about bin Laden, so his death is not
a reason for the US to stop fighting there. However, removing the US
military from Afghanistan is the right thing to do, for other reasons.
If the US pulls out for a non-reason, at least that's
better than not pulling out.
Bahrain's tyrannical regime arrested
an opposition MP after he criticized the regime in an interview on
al Jazeera.
Colombian professor Miguel
Angel Beltrán was charged with "rebellion" because of his
published criticisms of the state.
If President Santos wants to show he is less horrible than former president
Alvaro Horrible, he should drop the charges against Beltrán.
In the Kyrgyz/Uzbek violence on Osh, part of Kyrgyzstan, the
Kyrgyzstan military was involved in attacking Uzbeks.
Syrian protesters and dissidents are being tortured
in prison.
The US under the Bush regime used Syria as a proxy for torture.
When Obama decided not to use a drone missile against Osama bin Laden,
he made an exception to a general practice of bombing in Pakistan that
has killed far more bystanders than targets.
The article is mistaken when it says that "no sane person would wish
any harm on American soldiers". If a Pakistani feels that way,
perhaps in response to the civilians killed by US attacks, that does
not make him insane. Fighting a guerrilla war against the US does not
make the Taliban insane. I condemned the Taliban's repressive
policies when they were in power, I condemn the Taliban's policy of
murdering civilians now, and I expect to continue to condemn the
Taliban when the US is no longer fighting them, but it is absurd to
call enemies "insane" for being enemies.
Mozilla rejected a request to remove an add-on that helps users access domains that the US attempts to shut down.
"Seizing" domains without first convicting their operators of a crime
is tyranny. Bravo, Mozilla, for helping the US to resist tyranny.
Some of these sites enable members of the public to share files
non-commercially. It's not clear whether those sites have committed a
crime in the US, and the US does not prosecute them. What is clear is
that, if there is a law that such a site violates, the injustice is in
the law, not in the site. The right to share must be respected.
Sharing is good; to forbid sharing is to attack society.
The Internet has given voice to Singapore's opposition, but people fear their votes will not be secret.
Ahmadinejad is trying to choose his own cabinet in defiance of Shah Khamenei, resulting in a power struggle within the Iranian regime's
secular and clerical parts.
Several associates of Berlusconi will go on trial for finding
prostitutes for him.
Whether or not Nicole Minetti was involved in finding prostitutes for
Berlusconi, he showed disrespect for Italy by giving her a political
post after meeting her in a situation that had nothing to do with
political ability.
Mass protests continue in Syria despite the killing of many protesters.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Tennessee is considering a law to ban middle schools from giving out any "material" that mentions the existence of homosexuality.
It does not seem to me that the law would punish students for talking about homosexuality, but it might censor their writing in class if other students are to read it.
Tornadoes cut the transmission lines from a nuclear power complex in Alabama, forcing it to shut down.
In this instance, the backup generators were undamaged, so we did not get another Fukushima disaster. I wonder what would have happened if the tornadoes had it the plant itself.
I also wonder whether the designers dismissed that danger as so unlikely that it was not worth taking precautions against.
When schools near the Fukushima reactors began to have radioactivity levels above the legal limit, Japan increased the limit.
I don't know whether the new limit is significantly dangerous. That may depend on how long this level of radioactivity is likely to last (which depends on how fast those isotopes decay or get transported elsewhere). However, dangerous or not, the decision making reflects a cavalier attitude.
Journalists and media in Sri Lanka face official censorship and
intimidation.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Finally, the Open Wireless Movement is being launched.
If you put a key on your wireless network, you become an enforcer in Big Brother's attempt to control and monitor all use of the Internet.
The US government has taken its attack on Wikileaks to a grand jury.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
If you know anyone in the Boston area computing community I suggest showing that person this article.
In Syria the suppression forces are arresting thousands of dissidents.
Uganda's protest leader speaks from the hospital in Kenya, where his eyes are being treated after the Ugandan police attacked him.
Gaddafi's forces are bombarding the port of Misrata to starve the city.
I don't understand why NATO does not establish better liaison with the rebels in Misrata. A few soldiers for liaison would not violate the UN resolution.
Stationing one firefinder radar system with crew in Misrata would make it easy to destroy Gaddafi's missile launchers and artillery.
If "America can do whatever we set our mind to", how about setting our mind to what the world really needs?
John Catt, inveterate UK protest participant, will sue the police for classifying him as a "domestic extremist" and systematically surveying him.
Here's more information about him and the police surveillance.
Child labor in Colombia has increased by 35% in just a few years.
The full cause may not be known, but right wing government is clearly part of it.
The US asked to write New Zealand's copyright law.
This good article would be clearer if the term "IP" were replaced everywhere by "copyright".
The term "intellectual property" spreads confusion because it lumps together a dozen unrelated laws, of which copyright is just one.
El Baradei called for a war crimes probe of Bush and his officials.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
A new mobile phone uses fingerprints for security.
If police or customs agents copy the data from that phone, they get the user's fingerprints automatically.
US citizens:
sign
this petition
for a big withdrawal of troops from
Afghanistan this summer.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: tell the EPA
you support limitation of toxic mercury
emissions from coal power plants.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: Tell India's prime minister to listen to protesters (instead of arresting them) and reconsider the planned new nuclear plant.
US citizens:
tell Hollywood
to stop greenwashing LA's sewage sludge.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
UK citizens: vote yes on AV.
US citizens: defend
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The banksters are conspiring with Republicans to eliminate it
or make it to weak to do its job.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose HR 1229, HR 1230 and HR 1231, bills designed to clear away environmental protection and allow drilling regardless of danger.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Also
sign
this petition.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US government has proposed an excuse to arbitrarily deny any citizen a passport: an impossible questionnaire that hardly anyone could answer.
Oil companies are threatening to shut old wells in the UK to avoid an increase in tax. Shutting down some old wells that are almost exhausted won't make a large difference in the long term. The UK should not make long term concessions to this short-term threat.
10,000 people protested in London against unnecessary budget cuts.
Egypt will open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
This appears to end the siege of Gaza, launched mainly by Israel but implemented with Egypt's help.
Guantanamo prisoners' lawyers are forbidden to read the leaked reports showing there is no evidence against their clients. This is to preserve the dishonesty of the legal process.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
When Obama declared Bradley Manning guilty, he denied Manning the possibility of a fair trial (supposing any military trial can be fair). Manning's judges will be soldiers under Obama's command, and they have now been explicitly told what verdict to issue.
Weeks ago, Uganda banned media coverage of protests which have since been attacked by police.
The US has finally killed Osama bin Laden. I don't consider his death any loss, but I don't expect this will do much harm to al Qa'ida. The only way this might have any important effect is psychologically: for instance, if al Qa'ida can use him as a martyr, or if Obama seizes this excuse to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. Greg Palast's book, Armed Madhouse, has the following joke.
So Osama walks into this bar, see, and George Bush says, "Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama says, "Well, George, what are you serving today?" and Bush says, "Fear," and Osama says, "Fear for everybody!" and George pours it on for the crowd. Then the presidential bartender says, "Hey, who's buying?" Osama points a thumb at the crowd sucking down their brew. "They are," he says — and the two of them share a quiet laugh.
Obama supports imprisonment without trial, pretending that the
prisoners in Guantanamo are dangerous terrorists. He could hardly not
have known that the supposed evidence against them is not even
credible.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Some Iraqi and US officials want U.S. troops to stay past
scheduled withdrawal date, but al Sadr is vetoing it.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Protests in Uganda have grown each time the police attacked peaceful protesters.
Police shot children and beat up journalists.
The government cannot make oil cheap — not sustain-ably — but it can respect people's human rights.
NATO's attempt to kill Gaddafi has provoked an international outcry. It can't be denied that Gaddafi is the head of one of the contending governments in Libya, and that this was an assassination attempt.
The current rules of war, as established by treaties, forbid assassination as a method. Some argue for changing this; some argue for assassination as a less violent substitute for war of armies against armies. I am not convinced, partly because I think assassination would be done in addition to war, not instead.
If we do change the rules of war, the change would apply to all the sides of a conflict. Should the rules of war allow the US try to kill Gaddafi? Should they allow Gaddafi's army try to kill Obama? It has to be both yes, or both no.
Green schemes are 'wide open to major corruption'.
Gaddafi's men are shelling randomly in Misrata, and tried to plant mines in the harbor.
Saudi Arabia has intensified media censorship rules.
I wonder what it means for events, being reported rather than carried out, to contradict Islamic law. Just what is prohibited by this rule? If a trial in the US gives a female witness equal importance to a male witness, is that news illegal to report in Saudi Arabia?
New Zealand's new anti-sharing law presumes people are guilty unless they can prove they are innocent.
Trashing basic principles of justice is standard practice for governments that serve the movie companies above their citizens. These companies' goal is to divide people; the means are evil, and the goal is evil too.
The latest proposal of US lunatic Christians is to require all
immigrants to convert to Christianity.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Others claim that teaching evolution encourages homosexuality (as if that were somehow bad).
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Hundreds of Syrian Baath party supporters have resigned in protest against Assad's killing of protesters.
Karzai's accounting is so bad that there is no way of telling
how many policemen there are in the Afghan National Police.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Austria is caving to the EU and implementing a directive to record information about people's phone calls and Internet contacts.
A UK company offered Mubarak's regime proprietary software to attack dissident's computers and accounts, and tap their communications using other proprietary software.
Guantanamo prison wardens accuse Shaker Aamer of practicing "counter-interrogation", and leading other prisoners in resistance such as hunger strikes and suicide attempts.
Whatever he may have done in Afghanistan, his response to imprisonment sounds admirable. His influence over other prisoners, if it really exists outside the guards' imagination, can't be due to gang violence as it might be in an ordinary prison. It could only come from moral leadership.
"Counter-Interrogation" must refer to something like the way The Prisoner dealt with Number 2.
China's population growth has become less than expected, leading to lower predictions of energy use and carbon emissions.
The reductions are not enough to make Earth safe, but they show that efforts to reduce population growth, worldwide, can be of great help in saving Earth from global heating.
Low birth rates might cause a decrease in human population over the 21st century, which would be a good thing for sustain-ability and ending poverty. By the end of the century we should be able to greatly extend human life span, so the population will start rising again; but we will have more advanced technology to cope with the consequences of that rise.
Facebook has mysteriously closed several pages of anti-budget-cut activists in the UK.
Some brave British Muslim women publicly oppose the usual misogynist variety of Islam.
A Wikileaks cable confirms that public opposition blocked Canada's nasty copyright bill in 2008.
It is unfortunate that the article uses the term "intellectual property issues", since that term lumps copyright law together with a dozen unrelated disparate laws.
Perhaps he was quoting from the cable, but he didn't write it as a direct quotation so he did not have to use these words. And if it had been a direct quotation, the term's misguided view calls for rebuttal as I'm doing here.
Every aspect of the New Orleans "justice system" is designed for systematic injustice towards the innocent.
The US and NATO hand over prisoners for Afghanistan to torture.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The major carbon-emitting states are nowhere near making an agreement to cut carbon emissions.
They intend to continue fiddling as Earth burns.
US corporations can now tell their employees who to vote for.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
They cannot (yet) verify that the employees obeyed.
UK police once again attacked peaceful protesters in Bristol.
The police say some protesters started it by throwing stones, but even if that is true. it doesn't excuse the police for attacking people indiscriminately.
Israel's Labor head called on the UN to insist a Palestinian unity government recognize Israel and accept past agreements with Israel.
That might be a legitimate demand, if suitable demands are applied to Israel as well, such as to start removing its colonies in Palestinian territory.
Martelly-Clinton Seal Deal for Next Wave of Disaster Capitalism in Haiti.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The San Francisco Chronicle faces US retribution for posting a video of a protest in an Obama fund-raiser.
US states encounter difficulty in obtaining drugs to use for executions
because foreign manufacturers refuse to supply them.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Israel used force against nonviolent protests in the West Bank.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Just before the royal wedding, UK police raided several squats and preemptively arrested people who might have wanted to protest.
The police deny this was related to the wedding, and give various other excuses. Likewise, China said Ai Weiwei was arrested for "economic crimes" and not for political activity.
However, given that the police announced they would make preemptive arrests, we must conclude that that's what these are.
They also arrested people who were making a "zombie wedding" video (and were nowhere near the wedding).
A Palestinian unity government will create an opportunity for a peace
agreement.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Bahraini Shi'ites have been sentenced to death for killing policemen, after a bogus trial with no defense lawyers.
Even supposing they did it — they may not even have been protesters, let alone attackers — I can't blame protesters for killing police while police were killing protesters.
US citizens: Tell the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, don't rubber-stamp reactor licenses!
Uri Avnery: Palestinian unity offers Israel the chance to make peace with all Palestinians, if it will start by carrying out the agreements it has already signed.
Author Paulo Coelho condemns the War on Sharing.
The US Supreme Court
gave
businesses power
to impose arbitration
contracts on customers, effectively denying them justice.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Gaddafi's son and some grandsons were killed
by a NATO bomb
apparently aimed at Gaddafi himself.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Gaddafi is not trustworthy in general, but I don't think this is a lie. I don't see any plausible scenario where this lie would fit and stand up. Nor is it plausible he would carry out a false flag attack against his own progeny. So I believe this report. It seems NATO is trying to assassinate him.
Foxconn says: if workers making Apple products work long hours, that's their choice because their regular pay is so low.
The United Arab Emirates have arrested human rights activists for posting political messages on the Internet.
The accusations against these people convict the government of tyranny.
Irina Khalip, journalist and wife of arrested presidential candidate Sannikov, is being held incommunicado in her home, and is threatened with imprisonment.
A resident of Deraa, in Syria, says that soldiers shoot anyone that goes outdoors, and they are running out of food.
US citizens: sign this petition to cut subsidies to oil companies.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say, end subsidies and tax credits for oil companies.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Also
sign
this petition.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: tell Facebook not to support Chinese censorship.
US citizens: sign this petition
supporting a requirement for corporations
that have government contracts to disclose all political spending.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign the ACLU's petition to major Internet companies to protect users' privacy and legal rights.
Israel says it will not continue piece talks with a Palestinian unity government.
The piece talks have been mere theater — giving Israel cover as it grabs more pieces of the West Bank. But the Palestinian Authority refused last year to continue the theater any longer. It appears Israel has switched to a different kind of theater, "rejecting" talks that were not in the cards anyway. I think this means Israel expects international pressure to make peace and is planning in advance to reject it.
Westerners should
avoid assuming that all dissidents in Iran
share one goal or one political view.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The new Tea Party congresscritters have been bought by the banksters lickety split.
Both
Republicans and Democrats endanger health care by blaming high
medical costs on Medicare and Medicaid.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The real culprit is the cost of supporting private insurance companies.
Vermont is close to legislating universal single-payer health care.
A man accused of releasing The Black Swan on the net has been raided by the police, and could face years in prison for sharing.
Possession of a cheap Casio watch was interpreted in Guantanamo as evidence that someone was a terrorist.
In the US today, chemistry sets come without any chemicals.
Microsoft collects location data from Windows phones, too.
Tibetans held a vigil at a monestary, and
Chinese police broke their
arms and legs; two of them died. This is "to protect religious freedom".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Thomas Tamm, who told the public in 2004, about illegal US government wiretapping (since legalized by legislators who hate our freedoms), will not be prosecuted.
Republicans in the US actively campaign against efforts to end the
bullying of gay students in school.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The UK has accused several protesters of exaggerated crimes in an attempt to intimidate dissidents.
Nauru, a state of low-lying islands that could be inundated due to global heating, hopes to use the Alliance of Small Island States to confront the larger nations that are busy destroying it.
Iran's President Ahmadinejad and Shah Khamanei seem to be in a power struggle.
Although I am not an expert, it seems to be that Khamanei has the real power. I think Ahmadinejad is trying to see how long his chain is, and now he has the answer.
A method of genetic engineering now being tested could make mosquitos stop biting humans.
To completely eliminate mosquitos, as is also proposed, would be an insane ecological risk. Many amimals eat mosquitos and could be wiped out too. The kind of experiments they are talking about would not be sufficient to measure the danger of this.
Egypt brokered a tentative peace between Fatah and Hamas which could lead to another Palestinian election.
I condemn Hamas's Islamist ideology, but Palestinians cannot have democracy by excluding a party that many Palestinians support.
There is no reason for Fatah to care what the Israeli government or the US government says or thinks about this. As Uri Avnery has explained, Netanyahu's "peace negotiations" are an intentional dead end, meant as a cover for a continuing land grab. Netanyahu's terms for peace are that if Palestinians concede everything, then Israel will give them nothing. Thus, the real choice for Fatah is peace with Hamas or nothing.
Hamas's election victory came after Fatah (which is secular) had been weakened by many years of uselessly begging Israel for peace. It has ceased to do that, so Hamas may lose some of its appeal. The success of secular resistance to dictatorship in several Arab countries, and the strength it has demonstrated in others, might show Palestinians that Islamism is not the only path that could possibly win them justice.
Massive protests convinced the French government to reconsider its decision to allow fracking.
An opposition presidential candidate is on trial in Belarus, threatened with 15 years in prison if the state says he is guilty.
If Sannikov had really received only 2.5 percent of the vote, why bother putting him on trial? It would be more effective to ignore him.
Egypt's ex-interior minister is on trial for ordering the shooting of protesters.
Women in Bangladesh are challenging the power of Islamists by supporting full implementation of a general law giving women equal rights. If that law is implemented, Bangladesh will do the US one better.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
A newspaper in Belarus defies the dictator's orders to shut it down.
Why the US and NATO Fed Detainees to Afghan Torture System.
BP continues getting big government contracts even no-bid noncompetitive contracts.
Israel arrested Palestinian writer Ahmad Qatamesh after taking several family members hostage.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The plan appears to be to hold him without trial as a political prisoner.
Right-wing fanatics in Israel are trying to crush academic freedom. They especially target events about "democracy" and "human rights".
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Famous brands say they require factories to treat labor decently, but it's all a lie: sweatshop labor conditions are getting worse.
The mothers of Colombian youths murdered by the army still demand justice and receive death threats instead.
A homeless Connecticut woman is threatened with 20 years in prison for registering her son in a public school in a neighboring city.
Government doctors in Guantanamo hid evidence of torture.
Wikileaks cables say that drug gangs have taken over large parts of Central America and are removing US-supplied heavy weapons from military arsenals.
Gaddafi has found ways to bypass the porous and incomplete sanctions.
In Bureaucratic Brazil, orders to demolish slums were executed even though the inhabitants were still there.
This is all for the sake of the Olympic Games, which are like an artificial disaster for whatever city they occur in.
In occupied Palestine, similar things are done from malice.
Suggestion: the outside world can support the labor movement in Iran.
Uganda may relax a death sentence for homosexual activity to mere life imprisonment.
Sai Baba invalidated his prophesy by dying before he said he would.
But his wrongs went far beyond that.
All the evidence against 255 Guantanamo prison came from just 8 prisoners, whose testimony is thought to be untrustworthy (in some cases because they were tortured).
Accusations of fraud in the Haitian elections are being investigated.
Fraud would not surprise me, though I wonder if the investigation can be trusted. But what was really wrong in the Haitian elections was the exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas and President Aristide.
Syria is now using tanks against the protesters, and has arrested and killed hundreds.
Sri Lanka will be allowed to veto a UN investigation into its war crimes.
BP had a blowout in 2008 that almost resembled the 2009 Big Spill. Because this was in Azerbaijan, BP kept it secret and was able to continue the same risky methods.
The Guantanamo prison command considered Pakistan's intelligence agency as a terrorist group. If a suspect had ties with ISI, that was considered equivalent to ties with al Qa'ida.
I can't criticize that policy. ISI has long been known to have ties with al Qa'ida, and it would be foolish to disregard this.
The injustice of Guantanamo lies in of imprisoning people without trial. Having suspicions is not an injustice.
The Libyan rebels are planting antivehicle mines and failing to keep track of them for future demining.
I don't think antivehicle mines are inherently an outrage.
The labor movement worldwide calls
for an end to repression in Bahrain.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Thousands of Pakistanis blocked NATO's main supply route as a protest against drone attacks in Pakistan.
Obama's attempt to distinguish Bradley Manning from Daniel Ellsberg got
the facts completely backwards.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Many religious schools in the UK fail to challenge bigotry and bullying.
It amazes me that bullying so often goes as far as death threats. Things seem to have changed a lot since I was young; bullies bothered me but never threatened to kill me. Saying "sticks and stones will break my bones" is not enough, apparently, to deal with this.
What we have learned from the leaked Guantanamo files.
The US government tries to justify torture and injustice in the name of protecting Americans. Don't you dare torture in my name!
The US government argues for keeping innocent people in prison because if freed they might seek revenge for their imprisonment. How would you feel if a callous government kept you in prison because it had done you an injustice? That is the behavior of a monstrous juggernaut that needs to be stopped.
If you have done someone a great wrong, and you don't want him to seek revenge, you ought to give him a very humble apology, together with a convincing demonstration that you won't do such things any more. Show you have learned your lesson. That is what the US must do.
Dalit students complain that their teachers force them to clean toilets and won't mark their work.
US citizens: call your congresscritter and say to oppose the War on Women (rights of abortion and birth control). Also sign this petition.
US citizens: tell Congress, raise
taxes on corporations rather than cutting social spending.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
A scientific paper reporting apparent evidence of precognition was published and then drew widespread media coverage. A repetition of the study, which found no sign of precognition, was refused publication.
Misrata is defended by thousands of citizens who took up arms to resist Gaddafi's attack.
Rebels in Benghazi talk about how the protests turned into a rebellion after Gaddafi's men shot protesters.
The situation in Libya has not yet reached a clear stalemate. Gaddafi's troops continue attacking because they still think they can win (whether or not they really can). If they become certain they cannot win, that they can never again dominate Libya and profit from its oil, that's when many of them will look for a way to get out.
Feathers from the endangered black-footed albatross demonstrate
mercury pollution from human activity, and this could be one of the
factors driving that bird towards extinction.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Dropbox says it will decrypt users' files for the government, which means they must have been lying when they said they couldn't decrypt users' files.
The article's first paragraph states misguided judgments and irrelevancies. It makes no difference how "passionate" their team is; what matters is how they treat their users. This service is not a product. No product or service can be "great" if it implements surveillance.
However, that doesn't invalidate the main points of the article. If you're going to use Dropbox, you should encrypt the files first on your own machine.
The UK needs to charge for water use, as high temperatures make water scarce. But the system needs to be designed not to crush the poor.
If the Conservative Party wins in Canada, and imposes Internet
censorship, the Pirate Party of Canada will offer VPN service for
Canadians to evade censorship.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Mukhtar Mai was gang-raped as a punishment for her brother. She became a women's rights campaigner and prosecuted her attackers. Most of them were freed on appeal, and now she is afraid they will kill her.
There have been mass protests in Casablanca for more democracy.
Two Syrian members of parliament resigned because of Assad's repeated massacres of protesters.
His forces shot 100 people at the funerals of others they had shot.
Given how much popular support Assad still reportedly has, despite repression, he could allow dissidents to freely express their views and still remain in power.
Five crucial questions for evaluating nuclear power.
If an oil well in the Arctic explodes, it might be impossible to cap the well and impossible to contain the oil.
Wikileaks files from Guantanamo show people were held prisoner with no evidence of guilt — in some cases, without even a suspicion!
An al-Jazeera journalist was held for interrogation about al-Jazeera.
"If you could only know what we can know, you would understand that what we are doing is right," they said, but now we know for certain it was thoroughly wrong.
Correction: The Guardian subsequently said that these files did not come from Wikileaks.
Peter Wilmshurst, MD., has apparently been saved from a bankrupting UK libel suit because the company whose medical devices he criticized has gone out of business.
I hope it is true that he is now safe, and not just a surmise. Can the creditors take up the libel suit as an "asset" of the failed company?
Robert Frost's heirs damaged his legacy by refusing to let composer Eric Whitacre publish his setting of a Frost poem.
Eric commissioned another poet to write words for the piece. In resentment, he says he will never publish it with Frost's words.
Michigan has effectively abolished the local government of a city. And all the public school teachers in Detroit have been fired.
The concrete structure over the ruins of the exploded Chernobyl reactor is just an interim step — the cleanup is just beginning.
UK police raided a squat in Bristol, triggering a protest. During the protest they ran amok, attacking protesters and passers-by at random.
Meanwhile the protest developed into a riot. I can't tell from the information in this article whether the police brutality was a reaction to the riot or its cause.
I don't see anything very bad about another Tesco convenience store. It would be better if it were independent, not part of a large chain, to increase competition and reduce concentration of wealth. But I would not feel like protesting such a store. It's the police that deserve to be protested.
The police accused the squatters of making "petrol bombs". The squatters deny those charges, and say they were not even part of the opposition to the Tesco store.
Is there any physical difference between petrol bombs "assembled" for use at a later time, and a collection of beverage bottles to be recycled? Anyway, the accusation seems implausible. Given how easy it is to break store windows, why would anyone plan to commit arson instead? Police are not known for scrupulous adherence to the truth.
Based on prior patterns, I predict that people who smashed the Tesco store windows will be sentenced to prison, while police that attacked and injured bystanders will not be prosecuted.
Japan limits public information about the Fukushima disaster. Most press conferences include only the major Japanese corporate media, which repeat what they are told and ask no probing questions. Moreover, there are new threats of censorship of others that publish "illegal information".
Various groups of armed supporters of President Ouattara began fighting in Ivory Coast.
This suggests those forces are simply a coalition of militias belonging to warlords, like the one that constituted the "government" of Afghanistan after the US kicked out the Taliban.
Yemenite Protesters rejected Saleh's plan to step down and for his deputy to preside over elections and the writing of a new constitution.
I would guess they don't trust that deputy. Also, they say they want to prosecute President Saleh; but Saleh could make that impossible by fleeing if he so desires.
Trolls are fooling jittery Chinese censors and police to arrest innocent people, block nonpolitical web sites, and so on.
This raises a nice ethical question: is it ethical to say there will be a protest at XYZ Square and cause some people strolling there to get arrested?
It has the effect of hurting innocent people, but the harm is done by the agents of tyranny, and nothing except their tyrannical goals requires them to do it. My conclusion is that if the people are only arrested, not maimed or killed, it is ethical.
European music publishers shut down the IMSLP public domain music score library with a bogus copyright claim.
That their claim was bogus made no difference because there was no trial.
Go-Daddy has participated in a number of denial of service attacks, and it seems that people should refuse to do business with it. But that will not deal with the underlying problem: that use of the Internet is precarious and anyone can be kicked off by intimidation.
Obama justifies prosecuting Bradley Manning based on an erroneous comparison with Daniel Ellsberg.
Facebook deleted a photo of two men kissing, which was used to support a kiss-in in a pub that had shown bias against gays.
The person who posted it thinks that Facebook is not anti-gay, but rather than it is quick to censor whatever someone complains about.
While it might seem that the former would be worse, I think the latter makes facebook really dangerous. Don't use Facebook as a substitute for your own web site!
Human numbers and global warming are endangering well-known migratory birds.
60 prominent Israeli intellectuals and artists have signed a call
to recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US continues to hamper democracy in many Arab countries,
but Saudi Arabia is at the heart of the repression.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Arab world faces catastrophic food shortages, with the population growing and aquifers being emptied.
This is a glimpse of what the whole world is heading for, a few decades from now, if we don't cut the birth rate further.
Remember that global warming will turn some inhabited areas into deserts.
Watch out for the medical insurance companies' new front group.
A Wisconsin railroad company is accused of making illegal veiled campaign contributions to Governor Walker, and it appears his campaign knew about it.
In Syria, President Assad lifted the emergency law and recognized a theoretical right to protest. But dozens of real protesters were shot.
Two Peruvian reporters say they were fired from a TV channel for refusing to slant the news in favor of the right-wing candidate.
Police looked aside as right-wingers drowned out rally in Tel Aviv for ending the occupation of Palestine.
Bahrain is now persecuting Shi'ites in many professions. A thousand people have been arrested.
It seems to me that the US has a responsibility to move its fleet on its own initiative.
US citizens: tell Senator Durbin not to consider cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Congress is considering
a law to remove the dangerous loopholes in regulation of oil and
gas drilling.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
How Tobacco companies use philanthropy as strategic PR to continue harmful practices.
The Gates foundation can be understood in the same light, as Microsoft PR, especially when it "donates" computers that run Windows.
American exceptionalism: how the US was exceptionally lucky, and is now exceptionally stupid. Now the US is #1 in many social problems.
"To aspire to the western model in Asia is a deadly lie."
The article's point is that rather than directing growth into an expanding middle class, with the false promise that everyone will get to join it later, Asian countries must direct some of the increase in wealth to reducing the poverty of the poor.
They must also work hard to reduce births.
Android also saves past location data, though if you're moving around the history buffer may get reused soon.
I wonder whether the code that does this is visible in the free source code of Android, and whether users have posted a patch to fix it.
The US will use drones in Libya.
This does not violate the UN resolution, but unless it is controlled in close coordination with the rebels, it creates a risk of hitting them, or civilians.
The Antarctic ozone hole could be changing the climate in parts of the Southern hemisphere — including parts of Australia which have seen disastrous floods in the past year.
The IMF "bailout" for Portugal is marginally less draconian than what
the EU offered, but it is still a disaster for
everyone that isn't rich.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Prenatal exposure to certain pesticides has
been linked to brain damage.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Tortured Iranian protesters who sought asylum in the UK are on hunger strike because the UK plans to send them back to Iran.
The murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis, founder of the Freedom Theater in Jenin, may have been motivated by the hatred of religious prudes.
The defenders of Misrata are citizens who took up arms against an army. They are barely holding out.
With 1000 people killed by Gaddafi's shelling, and snipers who shoot at anyone they can see, it is clear that attacking Gaddafi's army is authorized by the UN resolution that called for protecting civilians.
The iPhone file that records all its movements permanently gets even more sinister when combined with the practice of police to search portable phones without warrants.
The telephone network tracks phones regardless of whether they record locations, and for me that is enough reason not to carry one. But it takes a warrant (I think) to collect that information.
Colombia's "paramilitaries", really right-wing gangs of extortionists, are still operating in 1/3 of the country, despite having been formally "demobilized".
Former president Alvaro Horrible claimed to have demobilized them, but some of his close associates were connected with them. It was also Horrible who negotiated the proposed Free Exploitation Treaty than Obama now wants to ratify.
A company is trying to use the US-Peru Free Exploitation Treaty to evade pollution laws.
The US could save many trillions of dollars by discontinuing military spending that is nearly obsolete.
What use is an aircraft carrier that couldn't sail the seas and chew bubble gum at the same time — and would pardon the nation's worst enemies?
Rep. Ryan plans to privatize Medicare, turning it into a gift to medical insurance companies. He has planned with those insurance companies a PR campaign to mislead Americans into supporting it.
A hoax press release tricked Associated Press into announcing that GE had voluntarily decided to pay its fair share of US income tax.
US citizens:
sign
this petition condemning BP's $13b tax break due
to causing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and calling on BP to pay
those taxes anyway.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
tell
the EPA
to ban methyl iodide as a pesticide.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
UK police plan pre-emptive arrests of would-be protesters.
They say these will be directed at people "planning criminal activity", but those words are deceptive since many kinds of protest have been criminalized. And the police lie when it suits them.
The effects of doses of radiation are fairly well known to medical science, but the effects of consuming microscoping particles of radioactive substances are a completely different story.
US citizens: call on Obama to take steps on his own to protect our shores from dangerous undersea oil drilling.
In the US: call your senators to support S.186, Barbara Boxer's bill to require a timetable for removing US troops from Afghanistan.
Police have banned evacuated Japanese from returning to homes near Fukushima.
One person, in two hours, cannot recover much in the way of possessions. In effect, these people's possessions have been confiscated. That seems unjustified, since things kept indoors should be safe to use. Livestock, on the other hand, may have absorbed significant radioactivity by eating grass. I am not an expert, but if their meat and milk will not be considered safe to use, they ought to be condemned now.
Broad protests against fracking are spreading in France.
People fear pollution of their water that can ruin crops as well as their own health.
Here in detail is why fracking is not a way to reduce greenhouse gas emission.
The US will give the Libyan rebels communication equipment and body armor, but not weapons.
I believe they have plenty of guns, though maybe they need ammunition in some places. But what they need most is military skill.
Zainab al-Khawaja has ended her hunger strike after receiving some word about the condition of her imprisoned relatives.
The rationale for staying alive and continuing the struggle is valid, but given that she isn't going to fast to death, it would have been wiser not to say she was doing so.
Natural gas companies are dishonestly lobbying for Europe to promote natural gas instead of renewable energy.
This would be a disaster, given that fracking results in a lot of greenhouse gas. The claim that carbon emission reduction can be achieved this way is apparently pure fiction.
Radio Free Europe says students in Teheran University are protesting against a police garrison.
Everyone: call on the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole to commute Troy Davis' sentence and not execute him.
I added a personal comment saying that with the evidence against him so flimsy, he deserves a new trial.
Michigan police search drivers' cell phones at traffic stops.
The coup-installed regime in Honduras is working with the IMF to destroy public education and public water supplies, following (apparently) advice from the US.
Although some of the protest methods involve actions that in normal times would be properly punished, they are legitimate as a response to the murderous violence and grand theft of the coup regime. Does Al Jazeera have a bureau in Honduras?
The Egyptian government says at least 846 people were killed in the protests that drove Mubarak out of power.
Saudi Arabia has arrested 160 dissidents in the past couple of months.
Kucinich has introduced a resolution calling on Congress to decide the extent of US intervention in Libya.
I support the intervention in Libya (though what Libya really needs is one well-trained division from Egypt or conceivably some other Arab country), but the US should act according to its constitution.
Police shot more protesters in Yemen.
The country is sort of split between the president's forces and those of an opposition general, but they are not fighting each other.
Just 21 billion dollars (annually, I guess) would extend birth control
and reproductive health care to the world's poor. That would
greatly reduce population growth and help us avoid disaster in a few
decades.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
There is no need to be concerned that a low birth rate will cause problems. It would be a good thing if, a hundred years from now, the human population were a mere four billion.
Besides, in that much time, if technological civilization is still around, life extension will probably make the population start to increase again. We will need to establish space or ocean habitats for all the people to live in.
Madrid's mayor regards homeless people as a nuisance, and wants Spain
to force them out
of sight.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Many US cities have done this sort of thing for decades. It is the ultimate in callous evil.
Facebook is considering adding censorship to bow down to China.
The US says it will improve Bradley Manning's prison conditions, moving him out of solitary confinement.
The US's vindictive stubbornness is very large, but sometimes we can overcome it.
Massachusetts citizens: phone your state rep to restore family planning funds by supprting this amendment by Alice Wolf.
The iGroan records every place it has been, in a file, forever. And carefully preserves this information when syncing from one machine to another.
What else should you expect, with nonfree software controlled by a greedy psychopath (a corporation).
One year after the big spill, oil is still washing up, and Congress is doing nothing.
The big oil companies pay 2% income taxes. If they paid the official 35% income tax rate, their taxes would be more than the proposed budget cuts.
The EU is trying to tighten up drilling regulations, but the UK is opposing it.
Gaddafi proposed ceding power to an "interim government" that would hold elections.
The idea is worth pursuing, but in the mean time, nothing has changed yet. As long as his forces keep attacking, they need to be resisted.
The US will move Bradley Manning to a different prison, which does not imply he will be treated more humanely.
Bill Moyers explains plutocracy in America: how the rich have subverted our government and turned it into a weapon against us.
US citizens: sign this ACLU petition to limit the TSA's use of body
scanners.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the Fairness in Taxation Act. Also sign this petition.
The Fairness in Taxation Act would raise taxes to 45% on incomes over a million dollars a year. Much higher incomes would have a 49% rate.
Technological advance seems to be eliminating US jobs and not making new jobs.
I never use the self-checkout machines in stores, because I don't want the poor people who do the sales work to lose their jobs.
Despite changes in its rhetoric, the IMF continues blasting the countries it "rescues" into prolonged poverty.
The ruler of Bahrain is not satisfied with killing protesters, doctors, and journalists. He is also destroying Shi'ite mosques and shrines.
The protests were not religiously polarized, but the ruler is trying to make it a religious conflict. If he succeeds, it will probably go on for decades. Maybe he figures that will assure him external support to keep the Shi'ite minority down for however long it takes.
Zainab Alkhawaja's hunger strike for release of her arrested relatives is now in its 8th day.
5 months before the invasion of Iraq, Dubya and B'liar were squabbling over the expected oil loot.
Hungary's right-wing government has voted a new constitution that threatens the rights of atheists, of homosexuals, and women.
Iranian journalist Nazanin Khosravani has been sentenced to 6
years in prison.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The European Union is starting to enforce laws against illegal fishing.
Protesters occupied a square in Homs, but Syrian government thugs shot them.
Assad's government says it will now cancel the emergency law and make protests legal; but if they are sincere about this, why not start allowing protests now?
Although there is no evidence that Syria's protests have much to do with Salafism, that extremist sect does pose a real danger in Palestine and maybe elsewhere. But this danger spreads from Saudi Arabia, which the US treats as a great friend.
A degree in philosophy is better preparation for a career in management than an MBA.
Stephen Fry says he will continue retweeting Paul Chambers' "threatening message" even if it means prison.
The UAE will ban use of secure emails on the Blackberry. It is possible for states to do this because the software is nonfree; the company controls it, and can therefore be conscripted into serving as an enforcer for the state.
The US has similar plans.
Misrata is in siege conditions, as ships bring in limited quantities of aid supplies. The rebels ask for land troops to protect them.
The rate of teenage suicide is higher in right-wing regions of the US.
A woman in Indiana faces murder charges because she tried to kill herself while in a late stage of pregnancy.
It is inhumane to accuse someone of a crime for trying to kill herself in despair. It will teach her that she should have gone through with the suicide.
The fetus was advanced enough that it could have been born and survive. But a newborn baby, even after 9 months, is in the early stages of developing into a person, and is not yet able to have much in the way of rights. The killing of a newborn is mainly a wrong to the parents, not to it itself.
The EU wants to send a 1000-soldier force to Misrata to secure aid corridors, but not to fight unless attacked.
A UK tribunal ordered public disclosure of the UK military's cooperation with US "rendition" of prisoners.
With their protective ice largely gone, Arctic coasts are eroding at feet per year.
But in some areas it is 100 feet per year.
Poor farmers around the world are at risk from a global land grab.
Greeks are revolting against the austerity imposed by the IMF, which has put Greece into a recession in which it will never be able to pay that debt.
US citizens: sign
this petition calling for solar power installations to protect
wildlife.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Public health activists succeeded in blocking a plan to label sewage sludge as "compost" and use it on farms. So the proponents of the scheme called them "ecoterrorists".
The activists have threatened to sue for libel.
US citizens: if you might support Obama in 2012, pledge that you won't do so if he tolerates cuts in Medicare or Medicaid.
Normally when I recommend signing something, I have signed it myself. This is an exception: I feel I cannot honestly sign this, given that I would not support Obama anyway. Even before he was elected I considered him too right-wing. But those of you with somewhat different views might be able to sign this honestly.
Uri Avnery: Israel's government is increasingly dominated by the annexationist "settler movement".
A Firefox add-on automatically cancels out the tyrannical US domain name "seizures".
This should give the US government a seizure.
Biodigesters get rid of human waste and produce biofuel.
Egypt's military rulers sentenced a blogger to 3 years in prison for his writings.
Melting Antarctic ice is knocking
down fish populations, which is making most young penguins die.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Humpback whales spread hit songs across the ocean, then remix them.
Obama has shown timidity in protecting national landmarks from gold and uranium mining.
Bahrain's regime has arrested a doctor, accusing him of treating wounded protesters.
Chinese government thugs have besieged a Tibetan monastery.
China says that it is located in Sichuan, but I presume this is Tibetan territory that China arbitrarily annexed around 50 years ago.
The NDP in Canada seems to be less bad, on the copyright issue, than the Liberal and Conservative parties.
However, the idea that copyright reform should comply with "international treaty obligations" suggests that they plan to implement some restrictions on free software that can access encrypted media. What Canada should do with the WIPO Internet Treaty is reject it, not implement it.
In addition, a "balance between consumers' and creators' rights" is conceptually misguided. Referring to users as "consumers" misrepresents the nature of using digital works, and this concept of "balance" distorts the goal copyright law.
There is also harmful bias in the word "creators".
Canadians, can you educate the NDP about these issues?
The European Union is planning to conscript ISPs into the War on Sharing.
An interview with Aung San Suu Kyi, who still calls for sanctions against Burma.
Gender-selection in India has resulted in a 10% surplus of males over females. In some localities, the surplus is almost 30%.
Some people think this is very bad, but I disagree. While I feel for the men who will not find any woman to marry (having experienced the same thing myself in the absence a social gender imbalance), it seems plausible that this will greatly reduce the births in the next generation — and that is a vital need.
Why would parents want to have a boy in a world where girls are scarce? (Apparently they have not taken account of the consenquences of the imbalance.) It is partly economic because of the pressure for dowry for girls. It also partly reflects sexist prejudice. Feminists condemn gender-selection because they resent this prejudice, but the wrong is in the prejudice; the gender-selection does no wrong to women.
Gaddafi's forces are using cluster bombs against Misrata.
While condemning Gaddafi for this, we must not forget to condemn the US and Israel for use of cluster bombs in inhabited areas.
Has the US signed the convention to destroy cluster bombs? I think it has not, but I'd be glad if it did.
Yahoo used to advertise shorter data retention, but has abandoned that policy.
The three main US TV networks have nuclear power executives on their boards.
Obama is pretending that the public wants budget cuts.
The TSA says that criticism of the TSA is grounds for special suspicion (and special harassment).
The supposed justification for searching all airline passengers without probable cause to suspect them is to prevent bombings and hijackings on the flight. Catching the occasional criminal is not an acceptable justification for searching you and me. Thus, if the TSA says it is trying to do this, that in itself makes the TSA an affront to our rights. The TSA should be strictly limited to keeping weapons off planes, and should not be permitted to show the police evidence of any other illegality.
Wikileaks reveals Israel's head of intelligence was happy Hamas took control of Gaza.
Due to population growth, plus some countries' development out of
poverty, humans
will need twice as much food in 2050.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
It is good for more people to advance out of poverty, but we could do without the population growth. Just because it isn't as fast as it was a few decades ago does not mean it is harmless.
A few decades from now, we will probably be able to extend human life span greatly. The same birth rate that now leads to a stable or slightly decreasing population will then lead to renewed increase. So the world needs to make strenuous efforts to discourage births.
The opposition in Uganda will continue its
protests despite police repression.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
A convicted blackmailer who helped Putin crush independent media in Russia now owns a large stake in Facebook.
Croatian generals were convicted of violent ethnic cleansing in the 1990s war with Serbia and Serb secessionists.
Obama's planned US-Colombia trade treaty threatens a NAFTA-style disaster.
1000 economists have called on the G20 countries to enact the "Robin Hood tax" on financial transactions.
As Bahrain stifles protest movement, U.S.'s muted objections draw criticism.
Al Jazeera hardly mentions the protests in Bahrain or the atrocities committed against the dissidents.
The US "trusted identities" plan is much more dangerous than the problems it pretends to solve.
Hamas faces a challenge from murderous Islamic extremists.
It seems to be an inherent part of Islam that, even when moderate, it generates fanatical killers who think they are "better Muslims."
In the US: rebuke
the mass media for giving coverage to tiny Tea Party events while
ignoring large progressive marches.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign this petition for a criminal investigation of Goldman Sachs.
US citizens: support fines
to compensate Gulf Coast residents and measures to help them
control dangerous drilling.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
BP plotted to control US-funded research that will study the Big Spill.
Cuba is preparing capitalist reforms.
Cuba ought to respect human rights; I hope it will not follow China into capitalism without freedom. And it would be a shame if the benefits of the Cuban revolution, such as medical care and education for all, are discarded along with the disrespect for human rights.
Bahraini students in Britain who protested for human rights now fear reprisals against them and against their families in Bahrain.
A book by Craig Murray has been kept out of bookstores by the threat of a libel lawsuit. So he published it on the Internet.
The threat appears to be bogus, because the complainant has not sued Craig Murray. He must not expect to win a real case, but just the threat was enough to deny the book widespread distribution.
I have not read it myself, I just want to inform people of its existence.
Obama is talking about an expanded war in Libya to avoid "putting the rebels at the mercy of Gaddafi".
That must indeed be avoided, but surely an expanded US war is not the only way to prevent it.
For Google, a Chrome user is a locked-to-Google user.
The People's Budget, proposed by the house progressive caucus, will balance the budget putting the burden on the rich instead of the poor.
Police
in Honduras show little interest in investigating the increasing
attacks on journalists under the coup-installed regime.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Kucinich says that the Pentagon is giving him a "Kafkaesque" runaround to stop him from having an unmonitored meeting with Bradley Manning.
Australian aborigines are blocking a uranium mine, citing a combination of traditional myth and rational humane concern.
A Senate committee accused Goldman Sachs of intentionally
harming its investors, and lying to Congress.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
If they don't face prosecution, it will reaffirm what we know: that the US government has surrendered to the banksters.
Foreign journalists in Tripoli live in a fancy hotel that is a microcosm of the police state around it. They may be expelled for what they write, but while they stay, they hardly ever see anything that would be worth writing about.
Why do they stay in Tripoli under these conditions? They could get more news in Benghazi.
The other members of the committee led by Judge Goldstone say they stand fully by the report, and reject the idea that there would be any reason to write it differently.
Fishermen from the Gulf of Mexico protested in BP's annual meeting. The US has aided BP by declaring fishing open, but fishing is not really possible since people know better than to trust seafood from the area.
A UK court ruled that the police acted illegally by besieging ("kettling") and attacking peaceful protesters at the G20 protests (in the course of which siege, the police killed Ian Tomlinson). This ruling may enable thousands of protesters to sue the thugs.
Obama has opened the door to cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. To his credit, he has also pushed to reverse the Bush tax cuts for the rich.
The US does not need to choose between Republicans' right-wing budget
cuts and Obama's smaller right-wing budget cuts. The
Progressive Caucus proposes to balance the budget by 2014, protect
the safety net, and boost employment — by cutting the military.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
A really stupid plan: charge a special fee for antibiotics to cover research and encourage their proper use.
This fee would discourage use of antibiotics, both by people who don't need them and by people who do. Maybe funding is needed, but that's a foolish way to get the funding.
The French law requiring sites to store user data for a year does not in fact require them to store plaintext passwords.
It is nonetheless an attack on Internet users' rights.
In and near San Francisco: object to the plans to record faces and IDs of everyone attending events with more than 100 people.
The Federal Reserve "bailout" program gave trillions of dollars to rich people, including the wives of some banksters.
US government "seizures" of domain names did little harm on the sites that were targeted, but great harm to human rights in the US.
New Zealand's legislators attacked
the citizens with a new law to punish sharing with disconnection.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
This betrayal was so urgent that they attached it to an urgent bill for the reconstruction of Christchurch.
In the European Union: Write to your MEPs to oppose extending the copyright on sound recordings. You can use this page to do it.
In the US: join a rally against unfair taxation (on the poor, not the rich). There will be many rallies around the US.
China
says Ai Weiwei has confessed to various crimes.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
That may well be true, but proves little. Under torture, he would confess to anything, true or not.
North Korea has arrested a US citizen and plans to try him on unspecified charges.
When North Korea does this, we understand it is because North Korea is a nasty dictatorship. Knowing what that state is like, we can expect the trial to be phony.
By contrast, the US grabs people from other countries and puts them in prison (in Guantanamo, for instance), and gives them phony trials ("military tribunals"), or no trials at all.
Zainab al-Khawaja saw her father, a human rights activist, beaten unconscious and dragged out of his home by the Bahraini regime. She is on hunger strike for her father's release.
Here she rebukes Obama for supporting the regime.
US citizens: tell
Obama: hands off Medicare, and resist the Republican
hostage-takers.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Craig Murray describes Ivory Coast President Ouattara's background as an Ivory Coast dictator's right-hand man, and then as an IMF economic warfare agent.
Natural gas extracted by fracking causes
large methane leaks, as a result of which this gas contributes as
much to global warming as coal does.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The
EU advises some precautions to avoid radioactive iodine that blows
in from Fukushima. Certain people should not drink rainwater or eat
leafy leafy vegetables that might have got rained on.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
These precautions would apply more strongly to the US.
Bradley Manning's mother, who was not allowed to visit him in prison, has asked the UK government to protest the inhumane conditions of his imprisonment.
Protests in Yemen have grown to hundreds of thousands, but it looks like "President" Saleh's men will turn to violence.
Berlusconi has passed a law to cancel his corruption trial, and 14,000 others.
In other words, his own corruption required him to create an atmosphere that favors corruption. Bush had to do the same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Egypt's military has arrested Mubarak and his sons to investigate them for crimes, but this is not enough to placate Egyptians, who want Mubarak's former supporters removed from power.
Japanese evacuated from the vicinity of Fukushima protested to demand compensation.
China continues to condemn the US human rights record.
This time, China's criticisms seem to have partly missed the mark. Pornography does not violate human rights, and some of the accusations are not even true.
China could have made a stronger criticism of the US if it had mentioned the continued practice of imprisonment without trial, the prison conditions for Bradley Manning and thousands of others which amount to Chinese-style brainwashing, and the practice of the death penalty.
Israeli activists, arrested while protesting in solidarity with
Palestinians in Jerusalem who object to plans to force them out of
their homes, were awarded
compensation for the illegal arrest.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
If only Palestinians' human rights were similarly respected. A month after an Israeli family was murdered in an illegal colony in the West Bank, reprisals against Palestinians in the nearby town of Awarta continue. 71 Palestinians are being held incommunicado without charges, and raiding troops hold families prisoner at gunpoint in their homes.
This has nothing to do with investigating the killing. It is simply the taking of hostages.
Israel should support recognition of a Palestinian state.
Despite Goldstone's recent statement, most of what the Goldstone
Report says about Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians still
stands and nothing has
changed.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
Biofuel production damages the environment and human rights, says an independent study.
This is because the biofuel is made from farmed crops. Biofuel made from plant waste would be ideal, but that technology is not usable at present.
BP and the US government try to pretend that the big spill has all dissipated, but local shrimpers keep catching oiled shrimp, and a few scientists keep finding massive amounts of oil and devastation on the sea bottom.
Victims of the big spill and other BP mistreatment will be protesting inside and outside the BP annual meeting.
Louisiana tried to force a new mother to give personal data in exchange for a birth certificate for her baby.
Jacob Appelbaum still gets "randomly" detained every time he enters the US.
Everyone: sign this petition calling on Israel to recognize Munther Fahmi as a resident of Jerusalem, where he was born.
Uri Avnery: Goldstone mistake is focusing on specific war crimes. The war itself was the crime.
How IKEA avoids taxes and acts to crush unions.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Syrian soldiers who refused orders to shoot protesters were themselves shot by the regime's men.
Natural gas wells are causing dangerous pollution of wells and homes in Pennsylvania, and people's health has been damaged.
The corporate media
are enthralled by the numbers in Rep. Ryan's plan for disastrous
budget cuts, even though the
numbers do not add up.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The UK has backed off proper reform of the banking system (comparable to the former Glass-Steagel Act which the US ought to restore).
Berlusconi says he really believed his young friend was the granddaughter of Mubarak, and that he set her up in business so she could get out of sex work.
If he really believed that Mubarak's granddaughter would be short of money, he is a sucker and incompetent to run a country. And any Italian who believes he believed that is likewise a sucker.
More information about the veiled protesters arrested in France.
I firmly support the goal of ending social pressure on women to hide their faces, though I doubt Sarkozy really cares about it. Prohibiting the practice is too harsh and not justified. Meanwhile, because all face covering is banned, it attacks the freedom of everyone else too.
The Taliban are moderating some of their strict rules — against music, against schooling of girls — in an apparent bid for more popular support.
If this gets the Taliban back into full control of Afghanistan, they might become as nasty as before. But if they become a party in a coalition, the same political pressure will keep operating on them.
The UK will try to use trade treaties to force Iceland to cover the debts of a failed private Icelandic bank.
Any treaty that would make countries take on private debts creates moral hazard and must be cancelled.
An interview with Senator Wyden about COICA, the US plan to attack the Internet, which he is now blocking.
Juan Mendez, the UN special rapporteur on torture, rebuked the US for blocking him from an unmonitored meeting with Bradley Manning.
Protesters against France's law against covering the face have
been arrested.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone in France should protest this law, which prohibits people from blocking Big Brother's surveillance.
Laurent Gbagbo has been captured after UN peacekeepers retailated to attacks by Gbagbo's troops.
The European arrest warrant is supposed to be only for major crimes. The law needs to be rewritten to make that true.
A girl who was kidnapped, then taken to the UK and forced into prostitution, was prosecuted and deported there, while her kidnapper was let alone. She has won a suit and won asylum.
The obvious question is why Moldova is unable to protect her from a known kidnapper. Corrupt police?
Gaddafi accepted a South African proposal for a cease fire, but the rebels rejected it and NATO leaders treated it skeptically.
The rebels were incensed that South African president Zuma referred to Gaddafi as a "brother". I find that disgusting too.
Nonetheless, the rebels should accept the cease fire, and so should NATO.
Perhaps Gaddafi would not really respect a cease fire. He announced cease fires a few weeks ago which he did not respect. However, the rebels are on the defensive now. If they accept the cease fire but remain wary, the worst that could happen is that Gaddafi attacks again, just as he would have done without the cease fire. This is not a valid reason for rejecting it. Nor is the fact that people have died.
I don't know the rest of the proposed deal, so I can't have an opinion of that.
In foreign aid to help the poor people living in corrupt states, it is hard to prevent much of the aid money from fueling corruption.
Perhaps the solution is to give the money directly as income to poor individuals, since they are pretty smart about using it to improve their lives.
Rights groups in Bahrain report widespread arrests of dissidents. Some doctors have apparently been disappeared.
The Bangkok climate talks are already
deadlocked. Our world is slowly burning, but instead of putting
the fire out, our governments are arguing about who will get what
share after they do.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Koch brothers' lobbying is not based on Conservative principles; it is aimed directly at their own profits.
Wild Atlantic salmon are in decline, and conservationists accuse parasite-ridden fish farms of causing the problem.
The UK has arrested a right-wing extremist politician for burning a Qur'an.
Burning the Qur'an is a way of expressing disapproval of Islam. People have a fundamental right to express this opinion, or any other. To arrest people for expression of opinions is an act worthy of China or Iran. The UK government has violated the rights of Britons on behalf of murderous foreign fanatics.
The particular Briton arrested this time may be a fanatic of a different stripe. He may be a racist. If so, those views discredit him, but they do not excuse censorship.
I too disapprove of certain aspects of Islam, such as its contempt for women, and its contempt for the religious freedom of everyone (including Muslims). I express this condemnation in a more articulate fashion, writing words rather than burning words, to make a clearer point. But if the latter is criminalized, how long can it take before the former is criminalized too?
The Internet is very slow in Iran, which suggests the government is checking every packet.
The article also describes many other tactics purportedly used by the Iranian government to control Internet communication with foreign lands. It criticizes the TOR developers for not doing enough to defeat this, but I'm not sure they deserve to be blamed. There may not be any ideal solution.
France's latest attack on the Internet requires all network services to record users' passwords and hand them over to police.
As the article points out, this will require practices that facilitate disastrous security breaches, both accidental and caused by cracking. That unintended consequence may be useful. But we must avoid presenting this as the worst thing about the law; we must not say, "And, even worse, this law will lead to security holes." The worst thing about this law is its intended purpose: imposing the surveillance state.
Update: It now appears that this law does not require the storage of plaintext passwords.
US citizens: phone your senators to support Senator Lautenberg's Chemical Facilities Act and Secure Water Facilities Act, supported by Greenpeace, to reduce the danger of disastrous spills of industrial chemicals.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Russia is considering a proposal (from the ex KGB) to require access to encrypted communication services.
A similar proposal is being considered in the US.
Bolivia will establish a series of rights for nature. The biggest threat to nature in Bolivia comes from global heating, and Bolivia's own policies cannot protect it. However, this new law might set an example that could help spur other countries to reduce global heating. So it seems like a very wise decision.
Iceland's
voters stood up to international pressure to take failed bank's
debts on themselves.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
In a world of servile governments that say banks are "too big to fail", Iceland has set an example.
250 eminent legal scholars have condemned the US attempt to brainwash Bradley Manning.
Granting religions "respect" just for being religions is "the most cowardly evasion of intellectual duty of our day."
Gaddafi's troops entered Ajdabiya and are causing havoc.
Al Franken proposes
that Congress have to come up with the funds for
a war before deciding to fight one.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
In the current Republican climate of "Cut spending everywhere (but not the military)", this is a clever way to set one Republican goal against another, But I think it would have to be made a constitutional amendment to have binding effect.
Physicians for Human Rights reports that many medical doctors and medics in Bahrain have been disappeared. This goes together with the arrest of hundreds of dissidents, some of whom are being tortured.
Obama will probably choose to overlook this as he has done in Honduras.
Did Goldstone have sufficient grounds for saying he would now write his report differently?
The UK's plan for disposing of surplus plutonium was to mix it with uranium and use the mixture as nuclear fuel. Precisely the same kind of nuclear fuel that has made Fukushima unit 3 so dangerous.
Joseph E. Stiglitz: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%.
The US seems to be deciding not to protect Yemen's ruler, "President" Saleh.
Israel's Parliament has voted to remove the million land mines in the Golan Heights.
Mubarak's
privatization fueled the protests in Egypt.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Rep. Ryan's budget cuts and tax cuts would actually increase the US national debt 10 years from now.
After that, the debt would start to go down because old people would have to pay a lot more for their medical care. (Or just die.)
US and UK agents participated in the torture-interrogation of Kenyan human rights defender Omar Awadh Omar, who is a prisoner in Uganda.
Chiquita Banana says it paid protection money to the paramilitaries
in Colombia, but court documents show
it
was actually paying them for services.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
These services might include suppression of union organizers, which is what they did for Coca Cola.
Obama's "Yes we can" has become "Perhaps we could have".
Here is the legal scholars' open letter rebuking Obama for conniving at the brainwashing of Bradley Manning.
Bravo!
A report says that defectors from Gaddafi's regime worked
with French intelligence to prepare for the revolt against
Gaddafi.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
I don't know whether this is true, but if it is, it is not necessarily bad.
Obama's men are lobbying Congress not to extend search warrant requirements to more of people's email.
As many have long expected, the US is talking about keeping troops in Iraq after the supposed deadline for their departure.
Portugal faces crushing
bailout conditions.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Protests are spreading in Syria despite killings by the police.
Obama keeps trying to rehabilitate Honduras's illegitimate government, even as it continues murdering and arresting protesters.
The US admitted running
secret prisons in Afghanistan.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Human Rights Watch warns the US not to sign a free exploitation treaty with Colombia unless it sees progress in crushing the paramilitaries that murder union organizers.
This is an important issue, but, I think that position is not strong enough. The US should not sign any more free exploitation treaties, period. Every one of them is an attack on democracy.
Cease-fire negotiations are beginning between Gaddafi and the rebels.
I think Gaddafi will agree to go into exile in a few weeks if his attacks make no further progress.
I don't see any scandal in the fact that NATO planes have sometimes hit the rebel forces, because I am sure it was an accident. Such accidents happen in war; there is no way to avoid them. But better communications can reduce them. NATO and the rebels need better communications to make sure it does not happen again.
The immune bacteria in Delhi's water could ruin antibiotics around the world.
Australia plans to cut tobacco smoking by requiring boring, ugly cigarette packs, but tobacco companies claim they have a right to use their logos that overrides public health.
Apparently they think they get this right from some sort of treaty. The article does not say which treaty it is, but I think that is a very important question.
Germany's experiment with a legalized brothel district worked well for years. Then Bulgarian gangs moved in and ruined it.
The problem needs to be addressed, but I don't see how moving prostitutes back onto street corners will improve anything. I would suggest charging prostitutes a higher tax and using it to fund increased policing of the brothel district. It might be hard for gangs to exist in that climate.
Europeans must fight against plans to store more records of travel within the EU.
Amazon's profits are small publishers' losses.
The US government is putting money into developing cell phones that will forget the contact list when you push the "panic button".
If the phone was designed by the US government, and manufactured in China, can you rely on the feature to work?
Erzili Danto: Martelli's victory in the Haitian election was a good outcome, because it was a rejection of the political establishment, despite the illegitimacy of an election in which only 22% of the people voted.
Everyone: sign this petition to pressure Obama to treat prisoner Bradley Manning humanely.
The US would not have a deficit problem if
corporations paid their taxes.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Monsanto is trying to push genetically
modified maize on Mexico's farmers.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
This would make it almost impossible to maintain landraces that are not contaminated, anywhere in Mexico.
Unionists in Guatemala say the government has ignored the flimsy
requirements in CAFTA to uphold worker's rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The same thing is likely to happen in
Colombia if the US signs the proposed free exploitation treaty
with Colombia.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The kind of government that wants to sign a free exploitation treaty doesn't want these requirements to mean anything.
Honduras' coup-installed regime is crushing human rights, and is accused of killing 463 people.
Martelly was "elected" president of Haiti by the votes of under 17% of the voters.
I am not sure whether most Haitians were unable to vote, or whether they refused to vote because they support the Fanmi Lavalas party that was excluded from this dishonest election.
The latest Republican "compromise" is to destroy Medicare
and raise taxes for working people, but cut taxes for the rich.
Say no!
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Craig Murray believes that the Ivory Coast election was not free; that everyone who voted for either Gbagbo or Ouattara was coerced.
UK citizens: tell
your MP, no filtering of the Internet in the UK.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: support the Fair
Elections Now Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Google and Facebook will go to court to overturn a French law requiring online services to get lots of identifying data about their customers.
The SpyLamp lets you track your bicycle if it gets stolen. Others can track it even if it isn't stolen. The company that makes the device can track it, and the phone company can track it too.
Without using this device, you can get an education from it. Most of the new municipal bike rental programs collect the same information about your movements.
The Libyan rebels might get military training, perhaps in Jordan.
US citizens: tell the Dirty Air Democrats you disapprove.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
A gene that confers resistance to the last-resort antibiotics is widespread in the water supply in Delhi. Bacteria transfer genes between species, so even if these genes are present in bacteria that don't hurt people, they will be available to jump to other species inside a human gut.
The war in Afghanistan is now the US's most costly war. Ending that war would provide savings enough to cover the Republicans' US budget cuts.
If fighting in Afghanistan were necessary and justified, perhaps we would just have to bear these costs. But this war is neither justified nor winnable. The US should withdraw.
(The budget cuts are stupid anyway, because balacing the budget in a recession is stupid. This is the time for deficit spending.)
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to say, cut military spending
not social spending such as health care. Also sign
this petition.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Craig Murray was invited to a debate about the ethics of whistleblowing,
and then uninvited.
For one week:
US citizens: tell Republican representative Issa to repay the Federal
government the earmarks for the roads and sewers right next to the office building he owns.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Here's what he did.
The UK government wants the ISPs to agree to "voluntarily" block access to file-sharing sites.
The term "voluntarily" is dishonest, because participation won't be "voluntary" for the public.
The US is holding many prisoners without trial in Afghanistan,
some of whom are acknowledged to be innocent.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
In effect, it is another Guantanamo.
The IMF has a 2-billion-dollar windfall from gold that it could use for debt relief for poor countries.
Republican cuts in USAID would result in the death of 70,000 children.
Argentina's president is using jingoist rhetoric about the Falkland Islands as a campaign tool and distraction.
Evidently the US government is not the only one inclined to treat people as pawns and property for the sake of oil.
The inhabitants of the Falkland Islands have no relationship with Argentina and do not want to be ruled by Argentina. That decides the issue; they should not be handed over to Argentine control if they don't want to be.
The water leak to the sea in Fukishima was plugged with a peculiar mixture of substances.
If Israel does not begin real peace negotiations by September, Palestinians will ask the UN for recognition of their state.
Although Goldstone now believes Israel did not intentionally shoot at
civilians in Gaza, Israel remains responsible for fighting a war in a way
that killed hundreds of civilians.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
A "resilience training" program for US soldiers is actually an uncontrolled psychological experiment.
A patent troll is attacking research into Alzheimer's disease.
Former Taliban, and people in Afghanistan negotiating with the Taliban, are being attacked in their houses at night by NATO.
Massive amounts of fresh water released by melting Arctic ice could cause rapid changes in the climate of Europe and North America.
No one in the US government has been punished for torture in Guantanamo, but psychologists are suing to force an investigation of a military psychologist for violating the standards of his profession.
The center of Hebron is off limits to the Arabs who live there, thanks
to 800 Israeli colonists who seized the area. Every time they
attacked the Palestinians, Israel punished the Palestinians, worse
each time than the last.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
Israel quadrupled the rate of colony construction from 2009 to 2010.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
Can Israel's progress towards an apartheid state be stopped?
US citizens: tell the US government not to allow uranium mining in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon.
US citizens: phone the White House and say, "Don't surrender to the
Republicans' blackmail; don't make a budget deal that accepts their
policy changes or defunds programs they oppose."
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Bahrain's regime plans to put MPs on trial for backing protests.
Kenyans will sue the UK government for its occupation practices in the 1950s, which included murder as well as torture sometimes including castration.
Judge Goldstone says that he now believes Israeli troops in Gaza did not intentionally target civilians, but Israel's refusal to cooperate with his investigation prevented him from determining this before.
Uri Avnery: Non-cooperation with the Goldstone Commission caused Israel serious political damage.
Privately written state laws and regulations in the US can now be
freely copied.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Mangrove forests are an important shield against global warming. Too
bad they under attack all around the work.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
A new measurement technique shows glaciers in South America are melting faster than was thought.
Since 1980, the melting rate has increased a hundredfold.
The World Bank proposes to limit loans for building coal-fired power plants.
The UK put restrictions on funds for legal aid so that torture victims would in the future be unable to sue.
Some top doctors reject airport x-ray scanners as dangerous.
Tell them, "Please feel me up!"
Prominent Israelis including former high officials are launching a new campaign for recognizing a Palestinian state.
Obama plans a military kangaroo court for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Obama has never been a strong supporter of human rights; he has occasionally proposed to do something, but doesn't stand firm if he encounters any resistance.
The Moscow police sued a publisher for libel in order to confiscate a book criticizing police corruption.
A right-to-die campaigner got help in Switzerland to die and escape constant pain, which otherwise might have continued for many years.
Some think such people should be forced to endure pointless unending torture.
The UK press smears nonviolent protesters by lumping them in with a few who committed property damage. And it exaggerates the importance of minor property damage to distract attention from the danger of violence against people, committed solely by the police.
Police in Yemen injured 400 protesters.
It appears that "president" Saleh's talk of willingness to resign was empty words.
The US brainwashing of Bradley Manning is getting criticism from Human Rights Watch and in the UK parliament.
We must not forget about the many other prisoners that receive this treatment in the US.
Unconstitutional Confinement
Israel plans to exile the owner of its best English-language bookstore, a native of Jerusalem, using a bureaucratic excuse on top of a lie as an excuse for this violation of human rights.
Assad's killing and arrest of protesters have made more Syrians oppose him.
Pakistan's murderous fanatical Muslims have turned their sights on other Pakistani Muslims whose practices are not strict enough for them.
For Pakistan's mainstream Muslims to defeat the fanatics, they will first have to articulate a position that firmly defends the right to worship as (and if) one sees fit, rejecting the fanatics' claim to be entitled to bully people to be "better Muslims".
If they fight back and defeat the fanatics, they will sustain the claim that the Qur'an can be a book of peace. If they surrender to the fanatics' demands, they will prove that moderate Islam constitutes fertile ground for seeds of terrorism.
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been arrested, obviously for political reasons.
Since the Libyan rebels lack military training and leadership, and since Gaddafi's attacks have been stopped by NATO air power, Libya is settling into a stalemate.
One advantage of a stalemate would be a decrease in casualties. And I think that Gaddafi will not be able to hold out for the long term if he cannot reconquer all of Libya.
Reportedly the regime is trying to negotiate an exit for him now.
What oil drilling and deforestation mean to the 100 independent aboriginal tribes in the Amazon forest.
US citizens: tell
your senators to block Boehner's public subsidy for religious
schools.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Bahrain wages an
unrelenting crackdown on Shiites.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
In the US: Attend a talk by Palestinian students sponsored by Jewish Voices for Peace, in support of divestment from companies that support Israel's occupation of the West Bank.
The environmental costs of coal power are enormous, but the costs of nuclear power are incalculable.
How many dangerous are nuclear power accidents? Estimates of how many people were killed by Chernobyl run from a few thousand to almost a million.
Scientists point out flaws in the highest estimate.
Many of these criticisms seem valid. However, one simple argument in the report compares total death rates in provinces of Russia and Ukraine heavily affected by the fallout with total death rates in other comparable provinces, and finds hundreds of thousands of added deaths there, apparently due to Chernobyl. This is a very rough estimate, of course, but the issue deserves to be addressed and it has not been.
Obama appointed a former RIAA lobbyist as a judge, and that judge promptly ruled against the users in a copyright case.
The copyright industry has already purchased control over the executive and legislative branches of the US government, and is in the process of taking control over the judicial branch. Soon the US government will wholeheartedly serve these companies against the people.
An interview with two members of the black bloc in recent London protests.
Reportedly additional diplomats report that the US endorsed the Saudi repression against Bahrain's protesters in exchange for support for intervention against Gaddafi.
The author of that article condemns a straw man, the "Liberal imperialist", that defends both the US stance towards Libya and the US stance towards Bahrain. I as a Liberal do not believe many Liberals would support the US stance towards Bahrain.
If the US indeed faced the choice of abandoning either the protesters in Bahrain or the rebels in Libya, I as president would have found that a very hard choice. But I doubt the choice was really so stark, even if it was presented that way. There are usually many options in such a negotiation, not just two. If Obama endorsed repression in Bahrain, my theory is that Obama was never strongly against it. Obama is not much of a Liberal, after all.
Uri Avnery refutes many criticisms of intervention in Libya.
US citizens: phone Obama on April 5 to say renewal of the U SAP AT RIOT act must include checks and balances to protect civil liberties.
Muslim fanatics in Afghanistan killed UN workers, just to vent their outrage that a Christian fanatic in the US had burnt a Qur'an.
That Christian is a religious lunatic, but limited himself to burning a book which was not rare, and was (I suppose) his property. This was not nice, but it was not an atrocity. The Muslims who retaliated again innocent people are also religious lunatics, and their act was an atrocity.
However, other Christian religious lunatics in the US have committed atrocities, against gays and abortion providers. And many would commit atrocities against pregnant women by denying them the safety of an abortion.
Karzai's government is steadily attacking women's rights.
The Taliban would be worse, but this government is so bad that there is no sense in fighting to keep it in power.
In the 1992 Earth Summit, states pledged to carry out sustainable development. Bankers want to use the 2012 Earth Summit to get rid of all that, and define "Green" as another variant of Greed.
Various people, even a policewoman, testified that Ian Tomlinson was not threatening and there was no excuse for the police violence that killed him.
Assad's uncompromising speech stimulated more protests, and his police or troops have shot more protesters.
Norway will pay Guyana to preserve its forests; the payments will be based on success in doing so.
The Libyan rebels have proposed a cease fire to Gaddafi.
UK agencies that are supposed to help the jobless have been told to create excuses to deny benefits.
The Czech Republic joins several other European countries in having data retention requirements rejected as unconstitutional.
Former president Gbagbo of Ivory Coast refused to cede power peacefully; now he is about to be kicked out by force, as most of his soldiers have deserted and defected.
Foreign pressure and sanctions have probably played a substantial role in causing Gbagbo's army to fall apart. It can probably do the same in Libya, assuming Gaddafi cannot regain control of Libya's oil. If he were to do that, Europe would be compelled to drop much of the sanctions in exchange for that oil.
The US has granted Omar Barghouti a visa for
his book tour. Barghouti, who advocates political pressure to
supporty Palestinian independence, had been denied a visa for
ideological reasons.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
A former manager at the San Onofre nuclear power plant is suing the company, saying he was fired hours after he brought up safety concerns.
This reactor is located near the cost and very close to an active fault.
Samsung
was reported to have installed a keylogger in its new laptops,
perhaps with a back door to collect the information remotely.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
It turns out this was a false accusation (though it is strange that the company made a false confession — and without torture, too).
Samsung
did not install a keylogger. But it did install Windows, which is
effectively equivalent. Using
this backdoor, Microsoft could remotely install such a keylogger
at any time. And how would you know it hasn't already done so?
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Freedom-disrespecting software such as Windows makes users defenseless against abuse by the developer.
North Carolina has halfway approved a law to prohibit cities from setting up nonprofit ISPs to improve Internet access.
By voting for this, the North Carolina assembly has demonstrated that it is an organ of the corporate empire, not a legitimate government.
The FBI has a billion-dollar project to track people's biometrics.
This will do no good against the most harmful form of crime, the betrayal of our democracy to the power of business.
Singer Willie Nelson's punishment for possession of marijuana will be to sing a song for the judge.
I see nothing wrong with that. What's unjust is that others who are arrested for possession of marijuana are jailed and/or fined.
Gaddafi's forces have started an offensive again, retaking the two towns between Sirte and Ajdabiya, so civilians began fleeing Ajdabiya in case Gaddafi attacks it again.
This shows Obama was right in saying that the air strikes already made did not leave Gaddafi powerless and he was still a threat to Libya's civilians.
This also shows that the rebels are not an effective fighting force. They don't have military training or discipline, so they have trouble fighting against a real army, even a small one. I think continued outside support is the only way to prevent Gaddafi from recapturing Benghazi (and surely carrying out a massacre).
The defection of Gaddafi's foreign minister shows that the pressure on his aides to abandon him is real and does work. But they only feel the pressure strongly once they recognize that victory is impossible. The foreign minister is probably exceptionally cunning and calculating, so he has already reached the conclusion that staying with Gaddafi is a dead end. The others will take longer to convince. Soldiers are not going to believe the war is lost if they can still mount successful attacks. Thus, to defeat Gaddafi through defection requires protecting the rebels for a sufficient period of time.
Several weeks ago I suggested that one Egyptian division would be the best kind of support they could have. Subsequent events support that view. I don't think Gaddafi would dare fight such a force at all. If that's not available, NATO air power can do the job, but that requires actual fighting.
Iman al-Obaidi now faces charges of defamation for saying she was raped while a prisoner of Gaddafi's men.
US citizens: phone the White House on April 5 to fix the U. S.A.P. A.T. R.I.O.T. act to protect civil liberties. Click here to get a suggested calling script.
Part of an archeological region in Argentina has been designated
a UNESCO world heritage site. The rest is threatened with
destruction by mining companies.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
How Western Corporations Have Been Helping Tyrants Suppress Rebellions (and protests) in the Arab World.
US citizens: sign this petition to put an end to debtor's prison in the US.
Here is a discussion of the problem.
Peru is doomed to US dominion: former leftist candidane Humala says he will respect the free exploitation treaties, such as the one that almost caused a civil war two years ago.
Texas is considering a law to ban discrimination against creationist college professors.
For biology professors, this is tantamount to saying, "Hire the incompetent."
After 50 years of false reassurances and covering up failures, the nuclear power industry cannot be trusted.
US regulation of nuclear plants is a joke. When a company can't cover up a problem, it can get the NRC to ignore it.
US citizens: phone your senators and say, "No loan guarantees or any sort of subsidy for nuclear power."
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
In Balochistan, a part of Pakistan, there is a war of assassination between the government of Pakistan and nationalist rebels that want independence.
The US is providing robots to Japan to help clean up the Fukushima reactors.
This raises two questions.
First, why weren't they sent the day after the earthquake?
Second, why didn't TEPCO have robots in Fukushima ready for use? Evidently they were overconfident; they assumed they knew precisely how bad a problem could be, and how much they might need to correct it. To save money, they provided that much and no more.
That attitude, reminiscent of BP's, invites disaster. We don't know how or when the disaster will happen, but we can be sure it will happen someday.
Oregon, Washington and Texas are considering laws to tax electric vehicles as much as if they used gasoline. Worse, the principal method used would be tracking the cars. That would give people a strong reason to reject these vehicle.
We need to encourage electric vehicles. The right way to make up for lost gasoline tax revenue due to electric vehicles is to increase the gasoline tax rate, and thus push more people to electric vehicles.
In the future, when gasoline cars have been mostly replaced, fast recharge services and battery swaps could be taxed. But better than that, why not tax only trucks? Trucks cause far more road wear than cars.
US citizens: call
on White House chief of staff Daley, closely tied to AT&T, to
stay out of the AT&T/T-mobile merger issue.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Five reasons why the AT&T / T-mobile merger should be blocked.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
A Texas billionaire has opened a private nuclear waste dump which threatens to contaminate the region's ground water.
Will he pay for replacement water supplies for the affected area, and buy up any agricultural land that can is no longer safe to use?
Armed construction workers are forcing thousands of Cambodians out of their homes without warning, for an upscale development project.
US citizens: oppose uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.
You might think a place as special as the Grand Canyon would be protected without question, but not with today's politicians, bought and sold by big business.
With any luck, though, the price of uranium will fall as plans to construct nuclear power plants get cancelled. Fukushima may save the Grand Canyon.
In the US: tell
PBS's News Hour to stop limiting its discussion of the
intervention in Libya to ex-officials and right-wingers.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
To think some people say PBS has a Liberal bias!
In the US: join a
protest or vigil on April 4 against the Republican attacks on
working people and unions.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
18 Palestinian protesters in Nabi Saleh have been arrested
by Israeli troops, including organizers and a boy of age 11.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
In protests on March 9, the Egyptian army arrested female protesters
and subjected
them to "virginity tests". Those who failed the tests were
tortured.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign
this petition against oil drilling in Artic waters where a spill
could kill all polar bears in the region.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Iran's regime is using US copyright law
to censor its dissidents.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
London police told protesters in Topshop they would be escorted away to safety after their protest, then arrested them instead.
These dishonest arrests are being lumped together with others as an excuse for new restrictions on protesters.
The town of Iitate, 25 miles from the Fukushima reactors, has dangerous radiation levels and needs to be evacuated.
Craig Murray says that the NATO intervention in Libya has exceeded the limits of the UN resolution that authorized it.
Can bombing Gaddafi's army be justified when it is not attacking? It depends on the interpretation of the goal, "to protect civilians". With narrowest possible interpretation, Gaddafi's forces can only be attacked while they are doing something that endangers civilians. But I think the resolution allows attacking Gaddafi's forces if they could be a threat to civilians in the future.
Also, we should not assume that all the civilians in Sirte are safe from Gaddafi. Maybe most of them are his backers and are safe from him, but there may be some who are not.
Nonetheless, Murray's point is partly valid. To start a bloody battle over Sirte would not be protecting civilians.
A Libyan woman in Tripoli tried to tell Western journalists that Gaddafi's men had raped her in prison, but Gaddafi's men dragged her out of their hotel.
China is censoring the word "protest" in telephone calls.
If people make up a few verbal aliases for "protest", they can tie China in knots.
US citizens: sign this petition to tax the rich more
rather than damage social services.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Chernobyl's old coolant lake still needs water pumped in constantly, lest it evaporate and allow toxic (radioactive?) sediment to disperse in the wind.
This pumping is no difficulty as long as civilization keeps going. But if we have a global eco-disaster, or a local war, the pumps might well stop.
There are countless small and large disasters in waiting that humanity holds off through engineering that requires maintenance. Each one has the potential to blow up if, for whatever reason, people are no longer available to pay attention to it.
India's latest tiger census shows a 10% improvement, but it is hard to be sure the figure is real.
The protests in Yemen have spurred a breakdown in Yemen's tribal rule: more individuals now think in terms of Western political rights.
The Century Foundation says that the war in Afghanistan is stalemated and recommends negotiation without preconditions under neutral auspices.
Libyan rebels have retaken Ras Lanuf. A doctor there said that Gaddafi's troops brutalized civilians, but says he saw no sign of foreign mercenaries among them.
Israel has legalized racial discrimination in housing, and is planning its attack on freedom to support any kind of boycott directed against Israeli policies.
When I was born, there were neighborhoods in the US that didn't allow Jews to live there.
Microsoft pandered to a dozen tyrants by disabling the "always HTTPS" option on Hotmail in the countries they oppress.
Update: Microsoft said this was an accidental bug, but I am skeptical.
The Wisconsin Republican Party is trying to use the state's open records law to get the private emails of a professor, as punishment for an article about the evolution of the Republican party.
A
free-to-share science
fiction video series
seeks subscribers to
finance it, chapter by chapter.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Criticizing Chomsky for valuing independence (for a country) over human rights (for its inhabitants).
I mostly agree, but Chomsky is right in one way.
The empire of the megacorporations, which dominates most of the world's states, tries to impose exploitative laws everywhere it can, threatening the environment, public health, and the general standard of living. To defeat this attack, we need governments that are independent (that reject the empire).
A truly free government would reject the empire's rule. But many governments that mostly respect human rights, as does the US, bow down totally to the empire. We need to judge governments on both characteristics. A good government is one that respects human rights and tries to destroy the empire.
Republican Christian fanatics in many states are trying to attack the teaching of biology.
India says that leprosy has been eradicated, but that exaggerated claim impedes raising funds to cure the people who catch leprosy.
Congress
wants
to cut funds
to the agency responsible for safety of
undersea oil drilling.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
There has been no accident or oil spill for decades, and corporations would never take unnecessary risks, so why regulate?
In Radio Free Europe, the US condemns the US soldiers who murdered Afghan civilians.
Children in Australia are threatened with punishment for drawing in chalk on the sidewalk.
Libya's rebels have recaptured Ajdabiya, which means the whole of Eastern Libya is more or less safe from Gaddafi. The civilian population of Ajdabiya, which fled, is happy and returning.
This victory depended on foreign air strikes, suggesting that the rebels still cannot defeat Gaddafi's forces. However, it is now clear to them that they cannot reconquer Libya and cannot exploit its oil riches again. I think most of them will abandon Gaddafi after this sinks in, provided they have appealing ways to surrender or leave Libya.
A Tasmanian forest which has 60 rare species would deserve protection, but the Australian government is hoping to delay this protection to give mining a chance to eliminate the reason.
A store in Montana offers a gun gratis with every TV satellite antenna.
This means you can endanger your children in two ways for the price of one.
100 years after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire that inspired the first
worker protection laws in the US,
Republicans
are trying to eliminate them.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Republican Party philosophy is, "Enrich business owners at any cost, even workers' lives." It is sad that the Democratic Party is not far behind them.
250,000 or 500,000 people protested in London against right-wing budget cuts that threaten to create a further recession.
It was mostly peaceful, but police besieged some groups of protesters.
Note that the crime of "aggravated trespass" really means "a protest in a place where it isn't wanted"; it was created specifically to criminalize peaceful protest. Thus, arrest figures which include that "crime" overestimate any real violence that there was.
UK teacher Leonora Rustamova was determined to help 5 students who had totally rejected studying, so she wrote a novel for them, using their first names for characters. It turned their lives around, so the school board fired her for "violating confidentiality".
The accusation against Leonora Rustamova is false in its own terms, because her book did not really indentify the five students, let alone give information about them. More deeply, it is standard bureaucratic tyranny to accuse an activity of violating someone's confidentiality when the supposed victims give it their full and unpressured support.
I do have one criticism of Ms. Rustamova: how dare she apologize for the book's web publication? That apology legitimizes the system's injustice. She has a right to forgive the injustice done to her, but this undeserved legitimacy effectively supports the threat of future unjust punishment of someone else.
I urge Ms. Rustamova to stop apologizing to tyrants, put the book up on the web again with a suitable CC license, and build a new career on rebuking the mentality that punished her. Make them rue what they did!
Yemen's president Saleh has agreed to step down if he and protesters can agree on a successor.
Tens of thousands joined protests in Syria, and soldiers shot at them.
India's intention to block the .xxx domain entirely shows that it is a recipe for censorship.
A proposed road in Tanzania could endanger the migration of gnus.
The US announced massive plan to expand coal mining, which implies 300,000 megawatts of added coal-burning generating capacity.
This plan dwarfs the 12,000 megawatts of planned renewable energy. It would also spew mercury and other toxins into the air. It reflects Obama's decision to surrender completely to the polluting industries.
Iraqis Take to the Streets, Call
for Real Democracy.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Syria's government has killed dozens of protesters in the past few days.
US citizens: call
on the EPA to ban the pesticide clothianidin, which is toxic to
honey bees and suspected of playing a central role in the drastic
decline in honey bee population in the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call
on the EPA to regulate power plant emissions of mercury, arsenic,
lead, and other toxins.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Sex education in the Netherlands starts at age 4, and is very effective in teaching teenagers to avoid the various problems of sex gone wrong.
Thousands
protested against the "free trade" treaty CAFTA during Obama's
visit to El Salvador.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The total solitary confinement now imposed on Bradley Manning, and on
thousands of convicts and suspects, represents the negation of
the US Constitution and previous US ideas of justice.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
South Korea wants to require all computer users to run proprietary malware.
The UN Human Rights Council launched an investigation into Iran's attacks on opposition and protest.
An opposition leader from Belarus has been given asylum in the Czech Republic.
The same rich people and large companies that backed Gov. Walker's anti-union law in Wisconsin also backed the Michigan law to destroy local government, through a secretive political organization.
The Wisconsin union-busting law has been blocked from taking effect because it was voted on illegally, violating the state's open meetings law.
Unions are calling on the public to boycott the businesses that have supported Gov. Walker.
Oil company flunkies are claiming that the moratorium on drilling for
oil in the Gulf of Mexico has caused
a rise in oil prices. It's a lie.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Low oil prices are a mistaken goal anyway. The US should put a tax on all CO2-producing fuels so as to encourage renewable energy, and should give a compensatory handout to poor people in rural areas whether they use fossil fuels or not.
(Another recent post on this topic here.)
US citizens: call on Obama
to give back the ten-million-dollar
loan that Duke Energy (a nuclear power company) made to Obama's campaign.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
It seems inherently corrupt for political campaigns to accept loans from companies. It should be illegal.
Tokyo tapwater is considered unsafe for infants due to radioactive fallout.
ACLU's lawsuit against illegal government spying has been reinstated by federal court.
Iran installed expensive technology to block use of TOR, but
TOR
was ready with a defense.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
NATO air strikes drove off the Gaddafi armored troops that were attacking Misrata, but Gaddafi's snipers continue shooting people at random.
Meanwhile, refugees from Ajdabiya say Gaddafi's troops, including foreign mercenaries, continue to kill civilians there.
I have seen arguments that the motivation for this intervention has to do with Libya's oil. That seems plausible to me. But that has nothing to do with whether the intervention is good or bad.
Iran accused of
sending troops to Syria to kill protesters.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Google Book Search settlement was rejected.
The FSF joined many others in opposing the settlement. Our reason was that it would give Google special rights that would not be available to anyone else. To give everyone the same rights would be fair and a good thing.
A student in Louisiana was suspended for wearing long hair.
The ACLU's response was too narrow, because it made a special exception for this one student on religious grounds.
Where does this school get off dictating short hair to male students? Will it next demand females wear skirts?
Most Haitians boycotted the burmese-style election imposed by the UN (and the US behind it).
Medical malpractice in the US costs 2.4% of the total spent on health care.
Thus, claims that "tort reform" could result in big savings are false.
When Pharma companies publish supposed costs of drug trials, they exaggerate in many ways, perhaps by a factor of 5.
This largely invalidates the argument they make in favor of allowing patents on drugs.
The Koch brothers praise the Harley Davidson workers who accepted pay cuts while the boss took home 6.5 million.
While the US and other states intervene to protect Libya's rebels from Gaddafi, Bahrain's king is using US weapons to attack protesters that have mostly remained nonviolent.
TEPCO repeatedly skipped safety checks in Fukushima number 2 reactor, and stored too much old nuclear fuel there — as a cost-cutting measure.
This is, ultimately, why we can't trust nuclear power reactors run by large companies. It's the same reason why we can't trust undersee oil drilling by large companies. Safety standards are worthless unless they are enforced, and enforcing them requires zero-tolerance for violations. If zero-tolerance is not feasible, then the project is unsafe.
Police in Ukraine are persecuting people who
take methadone.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Israeli troops kept the Palestinian village of Awarta under total curfew
for 5 days, repeatedly searching the same houses, destroying
property, wounding helpless people and having dogs bite them, then
blocking ambulances from helping them.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
Someone (presumed to be Palestinians) murdered a family in an illegal settlement in Palestinian territory. There is no indication of who committed the crime, so Israelis punished Awarta because it was nearby. The searches were clearly sadism rather than a serious attempt to find the murderers (who probably don't live there).
Where did they get the idea? The Nazis did something similar: when the resistance attacked Nazis or their power, their policy was to retaliate against people living nearby. In effect, the civilians of any town were hostages of the Nazis.
Some Israelis must have remembered this and been inspired by it. Now Palestinians too are hostages.
A project that gave a monthly stipend to all inhabitants (except retirees) of a region in Namibia had many good effects.
It reduced indebtedness, school absenteeism, unemployment, and even crime.
I think it is a bad thing to make people give their fingerprints, however.
London protesters are suing the police to stop the practice of "kettling" or besieging protesters, which involves violence towards protesters who have committed no violence.
NPR was the latest victim of a dishonest Republican edited video attack.
TEPCO has falsified safety records of nuclear plants.
Bahrain's king tries to excuse crushing unarmed protesters by falsely claiming they represented Iranian subversion.
The US Congress demands human rights progress from Colombia before ratifying the Free Exploitation Treaty.
Colombians deserve more respect for their human rights, but they also deserve respect for their democracy, which is the opposite of what this treaty will do if it comes into force.
US Congressional representatives say Obama should have asked Congress to approve fighting in Libya.
I agree, but I also think Congress should vote authorization for this military action forthwith.
The US will soon say it is handing over security over parts of Afghanistan to Karzai's regime, but this is just for show.
The UN Human Right Council is considering a resolution to condemn Israel for ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories.
A Yemeni general says his forces will "protect protesters".
The nuclear industry, with Congress' help, has gained
control over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, so the
US
does not take proper precautions with its old
nuclear fuel rods.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Republican cuts in funds for vaccination could kill lots of US children.
Major oil spills continue happening in the Gulf of Mexico,
but
they get ignored because they are not in the same
class as the big one last year.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Google accuses China of subtly sabotaging access to Gmail.
US soldiers face murder charges for detaining and then killing Afghan civilians, and pretending they were Taliban fighters.
I am glad that the US Army is not protecting them as it has so often done in the past. Such crimes probably happen often, in less spectacular ways, and it is rare to find evidence to prosecute anyone for them. However, one prominent prosecution might make soldiers think twice about the dehumanisation of Afghans which is what leads to this.
I am disturbed however by the charge of "possession of images of human casualties". That sounds like censorship which could threaten journalism.
Massive protests have resumed in Yemen even though many were killed by snipers on Friday. The "president" has fired the cabinet, but the protesters want him to quit.
Bahrain's monarchy continues to stop doctors from treating injured protesters.
Large protests for democracy are occurring in Morocco.
The Israeli Army recognizes that Palestinians still own the wells of
al-Tawamin, but they can't use the wells because the surrounding
land has been "seized" for settlers.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
Thousands are continuing to protest in Syria for political rights and an end to the 50-year "emergency".
I am not sure what to make of the government's claims that "infiltrators" tried to get police to shoot protesters. It could be a lie meant to transfer responsibility for the shooting to some imaginary conspiracy. However, if they wanted to lie, why tell such a strange lie instead of scapegoating some police commander? But if it is true, who might those infiltrators be, and what might they want? Neither theory seems plausible.
The Fukushima reactors seem to be getting under control.
The radioactive fallout dispersed thus far is not a big danger. However, even if all goes well from now on, and even if few people are harmed, the economic cost of the reactor damage will be tremendous.
Chomsky does not recognize that Iran has changed from a limited, restricted democracy to outright tyranny.
A letter reveals how some of Iran's ayatollahs planned for religious tyranny while recognizing they were a minority among their colleagues.
Arguing that the Voice of America is being used to support Shah Khamenei's regime in Iran.
The author believes that the US and the Shah secretly support each other. I would not put it past the US government to lie like that, but I am not convinced it is doing so now. Nonetheless, if the VOA supports the Iranian regime, that calls for some explaining even if it does not result from a deeper scandal.
Uri Avnery believes there is a duty to intervene to stop states from massacring their peoples.
I agree with him. The hard part is how to prevent this from being used (as it was in Iraq) as an excuse for conquest, and making sure it won't lead to even worse massacres (as it did in Iraq).
I don't have a general solution, but there are many important differences between Libya today and Iraq in 2003. One difference is that between protecting a popular rebellion and intervening where there is none.
The US government wants to fund development of advanced sockpuppet software so that a few operatives can fake 50 people.
Even if the US government only uses this in Afhanistan and Pakistan, sabotage of democracy there is still bad. And if the US government does not use this in the US, others will — and maybe already do.
Kyrgyzstan is accused of imprisoning a nonviolent human rights defender on false charges, and torturing him.
The new .xxx domain seems to be intended for censorship, and seems to imply that porn sites will be forced to move there so they can be blocked more easily.
I think that if we are to have a domain for porn, it should be called . o r g y.
This
article talks about how Saudi and other troops attacked protesters
in Bahrain.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
This claims Saudi Arabia invaded Bahrain and got its "invitation" afterward. I don't have a way to check the facts about this.
This article criticizes the US for its weak support for the protests. Craig Murray reports hearing from another diplomat that the US endorsed the Saudi intervention in return for support for the UN endorsed intervention in Libya. Whereas the Washington Post report says that the US opposed the intervention in Bahrain but Saudi Arabia did it anyway.
I have no way of determining which one is accurate.
Gaddafi's "cease fire" proved to be a lie; the attacks continued. So various countries have begun attacking his planes and tanks.
A Catholic school in Canada led
the students in an anti-abortion protest and suspended students
who showed their dissent by wearing pro-abortion-rights stickers.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
I refuse to refer to those who oppose abortion rights as "pro-life", and I won't be namby-pamby by calling my side "pro-choice". I am in favor of abortion rights, and also to some extent in favor of abortion.
Egyptians protested on March 9 against the army's plans for Egypt, and were tortured.
Aristide arrived in Haiti and said, "Modern-day slavery will have to end today."
Colombia has been saved from a trade treaty with the US for 4 years by concern about murdered union leaders.
I hope that Colombia takes action to stop the murder of union leaders, but it would be an awful shame if this enabled an attack on democracy in Colombia to proceed.
A town in Germany recycles 70% of household waste through financial incentives.
To make this widely applicable, it needs to be adapted to work in the cities where most of the human population now lives.
Republicans want the IRS to ask US women probing questions about abortions.
The FDA has given a company a monopoly on progesterone for preventing premature births, and the company raised the price from $10 to $1500.
Since the drug is cheap to make, that price is pure monopoly rent.
The UN's authorization of military support for the Libyan rebels excludes "foreign occupation forces" and maintains an arms embargo on the rebels as well as Gaddafi.
Troops to fight alongside the rebels might not count as an "occupation force".
I disagree with Murray's opinions about the intervention.
The last report I had seen is that Gaddafi declared a cease fire but his troops were continuing to attack. By the time this is posted you will probably know whether the cease fire is real. If so, this intervention will have been extremely successful with no casualties. If not, it may still be successful and might reduce the casualties of the war.
Egypt's constitution, with the amendments proposed by the military, will still have
major flaws, one of them being a great obstacle to further
amendments that might fix the flaws.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Muslim Brotherhood likes the changes, but protest leaders say to vote no. It seems the changes will create a regime like the Obama regime: better than Mubarak, but not good.
I am sure the US's hand is behind this.
The Iranian supreme court approves death sentences in under 10 days. This includes death sentences for opposition to the regime (which is called "fighting god").
Iran is accused of secret executions.
Right-wing politicians in the US often say they want to make capital punishment more efficient. They should move to Iran where they belong.
The prominent condemnation of the psychological torture of Bradley Manning is calling attention to the broader cruelty of US prisons which keep many prisoners isolated for long periods.
There was a substantial protest for democracy in Armenia.
Some US nuclear power plants were licensed based
on a wrong-headed assumption that the simultaneous occurrence of
an earthquake and some other problem was too unlikely to be worth
considering.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
There is a campaign in Italy to censor web sites that encourage anorexia.
Which idea will they censor next? Support for Berlusconi? Opposition to Berlusconi?
100,000 people protested in Yemen, and the police shot 45 of them.
Israel
kidnapped the deputy director of Gaza's power plant from Ukraine,
and won't let a lawyer see him.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Nonviolent Palestinian campaigner Abu Rahman has
been released from prison (which he should never have been put in)
and says he will go straight back to activism.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
Some
Israelis blame the peace camp for the murder of a family of
Israelis living on Palestinian territory that Israel seized.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-13 because the old link was broken.]
This is totally irrational. The Israelis that are indirectly partly responsible for these killings are those who established the settlements.
All
Palestinians are being blamed too for the killings.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Should we blame all Israelis every time Israeli police or soldiers kill Palestinians?
A Danish company will stop
supplying security equipment to the Israeli settlements and
checkpoints in the West Bank.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign
the petition for Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US was criticized in the UN Human Rights Council for imprisonment without trial and military kangaroo courts. (Previous note here.)
It is hypocritical for Cuba and Iran to make these criticisms, since they too practice imprisonment without trial, and Iran's trials are even worse than Guantanamo military tribunals. However, let's not be distracted by that; the criticisms are valid nonetheless. The US cannot justify its disrespect for human rights by saying that other countries are worse.
The US claim that it does not tolerate torture is belied by Obama's acceptance of the torture of Bradley Manning.
Accusing the UN of underreporting the
Afghan civilians killed in US Special Forces raids, estimating
them at around 400 rather than 80.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
It also says the US uses double standards to exaggerate the killings of civilians by the Taliban, and underestimate those by NATO.
Maybe this helps explain why Afghans in general seem to be more angry at NATO than the Taliban about such killings.
Development in Canada's boreal forests threatens
to increase global heating.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Wikileaks cables allege that the Indian ruling Congress party bought votes in Parliament.
This is not proof, but the suspicion adds to lots more suspected and proven corruption.
Global heating means stronger hurricanes and more flooding, and these can cause nuclear power plant disasters.
Europe's chief climate official says that offshore wind power is cheaper to build than nuclear power.
The EU carbon emission credit trading scheme is failing to reduce emissions.
The mega-heatwave of 2003, which killed thousands in Europe, will recur more or less each decade by mid-century.
The US is stll trying to collect the debts contracted by Lon Nol's government in the 70s. Cambodia is asking them to be partly forgiven in various ways.
Cambodia could argue that Lon Nol's involvement made it a tbed rather than a debt.
A Tibetan monk set himself on a fire. Chinese police put the fire out, then beat him badly. Now he has died.
There is no way of knowing how much his death was due to the fire and how much it was due to the beating.
Between the Taliban and the US, civilian casualties in Afghanistan are higher than ever since the war began.
US citizens: sign this
petition against Wall Street payment practices that encourage
putting society at risk.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Bahrain has arrested
leaders of the protests, accusing them of "contacting foreign
agents".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
This article asserts the Bahraini protest movement took a secular position, and the regime twisted it into a matter of Shi'a versus Sunni.
Aristide is on his way back to Haiti, and the US rebuked him for trying to "impact the election"?
And why shouldn't he? He has more right to a say in the matter than the occupying powers that set up this Burmese-style election. He is the candidate most Haitians want, and the occupiers contrived to block him from running by keeping him out of Haiti.
Aristide was outside Haiti because US troops kidnaped him. Why should those kidnapers expect him to cater to them now? Does they think he has Stockholm syndrome?
I hope his supporters force a restart of this fraudulent election.
However, this article warns that someone else might start violence, and blame it on Aristide.
Western and Arab armies will protect Benghazi from Gaddafi.
In addition to protecting the civilians in Benghazi, it will prevent Gaddafi from fully controlling Libya ever again. That might be enough to defeat him, but I think it will be necessary to deny him control over oil production there. Otherwise European countries will have to compete to buy Libyan oil, and the one that helps him the most will win.
Large protests in Wisconsin are still
going on.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: Tell Democrats
to stand firm against Republicans cuts in aid for poor Americans.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Many journalists have been attacked or threatened in Yemen.
The Egyptian secret police seem to have selectively
destroyed documents including records of torturing suspects
brought by the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Glenn
Greenwald: "protecting those who are abusing Manning, while firing
Crowley for condemning the abuse, is perfectly consistent with the
President's sense of justice."
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Uzbekistan kicked out Human Rights Watch.
Apparently it doesn't want people to notice the systematic torture.
US citizens: Call
on the US to support action on Gaza war crimes by the
International Criminal Court.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The speaker of the Majlis accused Ahmadinejad of massive fraud.
The Washington Post says that Obama tried to discourage Saudi intervention in Bahrain, but failed.
Witnesses in Bahrain describe the soldiers' attack on protesters, and on a main hospital.
Major report debunks alleged link between unauthorized commercial copying and terrorism.
I am not in favor of allowing unlimited commercial copying of artistic and entertainment works, but it's still wrong to call it "piracy".
Pete Bethune says he will outfit up ships to board illegal fishing boats in areas where governments don't enforce fishing rules.
Police are using water canons to cool reactors and old fuel rods in Japan. But they can't tell whether this is working, because workers can't enter the reactor buildings. (Why don't they have robots or waldoes? Those have been used for decades for work on reactors.)
This writer says uranium and plutonium could contaminate a large area around the reactors, but that the main danger at a greater distance is from milk and meat contaminated by fallout.
Even if the disaster had been avoided, and the sole cost of the failure were the loss of the value of the reactors and the cost of cleaning them up, that is still enough to make reactors a lousy investment for society (if they weren't one already).
New
Jersey is considering a law to reduce penalties on teenagers who
share naked photos of themselves with their lovers, or even keep such
photos themselves.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
It is just a first step towards a return to sanity. "Child pornography" should be illegal only for those involved in an activity that involves real abuse or exploitation of a real child.
Free haircuts if you
donate your hair to clean up a future oil spill!
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: Obama said he had ended federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries legalized by states, but he has resumed them. Sign this petition.
Basij thugs
killed another student in Iran.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
500 were arrested celebrating the fire festival.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Students and teachers in Iran face punishment in secret because their families have been threatened if they report what has happened.
India subsidizes "waste to energy" incinerators that
emit toxins
and don't produce much energy.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Real Risks to America's Security.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Benghazi faces a siege by Gaddafi's troops. Without rescue, it will fall, and Gaddafi is likely to kill thousands.
The rest of the world has left the rebels to defeat on their own. Will it at least give them a way to evacuate so Gaddafi can't massacre them?
If I were the rebels, I would demolish the oil installations of Libya as thoroughly as possible so that Gaddafi would need years to rebuild them. If Gaddafi gets them back, he will make Europe accept his terms to get the oil. We will see those countries crawl and praise him and sell him whatever arms he wants to maintain his power, and this will be a salient lesson to every other dictator.
Pharma companies are effectively bribing doctors to push the psychiatric profession towards prescribing drugs rather than therapy.
The US National Association of Manufacturers supports policies to promote outsourcing of manufacturing from the US.
I don't know whether this currency manipulation issue is a real one; I have not heard of it before. I suspect that the trade treaties themselves are more responsible for sweatshops than this particular narrow issue.
What is interesting here is that the NAM has been subverted by the most powerful members and exploits its other members (real manufacturers) for their benefit. This resembles the way the US Chamber of Commerce exploits many local chambers of commerce and the way the American Association of Retired People exploits millions of Americans to lobby for right-wing policies most of the members don't even know about.
The Obama regime has admitted it seeks to keep Aristide out of Haiti.
This is in the name of finishing the Burmese-style fraudulent elections meant to impose a president that few Haitians voted for.
Protesters in Bahrain are being attacked by soldiers, and soldiers (including Saudis) are blocking doctors from treating the wounded.
The spent fuel rods in a Japanese reactor still contain plenty of uranium, and they might go critical again if the water leaks out.
The engineers that argue that reactors are safe are claiming, in effect, that they know everything that could possibly happen. They calculate the outcome for each possible event, and design the system to stand up against that. Then they claim the system is safe.
This reminds me of the arguments of the antievolutionists that a certain organ or a certain system of reactions is too complex to have ever evolved in a series of small steps. Those arguments presume one knows all the ways it might have happened, and can show all are impossible. The flaw is that there might be another way nobody has thought of.
Likewise, nuclear engineers can't envision everything that might happen. There is always a chance that a freak accident, or some clever enemy, can cause just the right series of events to make the system fail.
For other purposes, that approach might be adequate. Suppose the system is an airliner. If a freak accident can make an airliner crash, it could still be very safe, if such an accident is rare. That's because there would only be hundreds of casualties each time.
But a freak accident affecting a nuclear reactor could irradiate a large area, which is far worse than a plane crash. These plants are fundamentally unsafe.
Companies involved in fraudulent safety reports are supposed to build new nuclear plants in the US.
Spanish MP Arnaldo Otegi, who was convicted of the "crime" of accusing the king of protecting torturers, has won a claim of compensation.
Obama protects torturers too, but fortunately the US does not have a law that criminalizes insulting the president by saying so. Such laws are inexcusable tyranny.
Nuclear power plants inland need tremendous amounts of fresh water, and periods of heat and drought can make plants shut down. But coastal nuclear power plants using sea water are vulnerable to tsunamis and hurricanes.
Physicians for Human Rights have accused the military psychologists at Quantico of conniving at torture.
CVS and Walgreen sell customer prescription information to drug companies.
In an act of
brilliant design, the "waste ponds" for spent fuel of the
GE reactors now failing in Japan are above the reactor in the same
building.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
So explosions in those buildings, such as have occurred, can damage the "ponds" and make the spent fuel catch fire. This could release far more fallout than Chernobyl.
Things are just one step away from that. Japan is now improvising last-ditch expedients to try to prevent such a fire.
This design was reported as dangerous in 1972, but Japan continued building such reactors until around 1980.
Some accuse TEPCO of concealing radiation readings, and it wouldn't be the first time that TEPCO covered up nuclear safety problems.
Would you trust Obama to tell you truthfully what is happening in a nuclear accident?
Ralph Nader refutes charges that NPR has a Liberal bias.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Shah Khamenei has forbidden the traditional Persian fire festival.
Protesters around Iran are celebrating it anyway, chanting, "Death to Mullahs".
Protesters on motorcycles fought the Basij militia, so the militia began confiscating motorcycles.
People are going to hate them even more for that.
Israel has placed a Palestinian village under curfew for four days as
collective punishment. They are breaking furniture and windows and
people's bodies.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Following in the footsteps of China, Iran, and Gaddafi, they have excluded journalists so that their dirty work won't be noticed.
35 years later, forests in Vietnam destroyed by agent orange are still devastated.
Where acacia trees grow, maybe the wild forest could grow again. But it would be a lot of work to restore.
Greece has been given a small relief on its debt in exchange for a massive privatization.
Republicans in Wisconsin plan to use even a brief term in office to
privatize and wreck the state's institutions.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Many countries are planning to build more nuclear power plants in earthquake zones.
It's not just that this particular policy is risky to the point of insanity. It also shows a misguided approach to evaluation of risk, which probably results in other bad decisions.
Massive protests have resumed in Bahrain.
The fact that Bahrain is divided between Shi'ites and Sunnis is a great obstacle there, because a nonviolent campaign for civil rights needs to avoid inspiring the members of the privileged group to defend themselves at any cost. The smaller the privileged group, the harder this is. Blacks in the US are only around 10% of the population, so civil rights leaders who preached equality for all, and opposed racism, were able to gather support from most Whites. To achieve that in Bahrain will be a great challenge.
Bahrain expects Saudi military help to crush protests.
The chief spokesman of the State Department had to resign after he criticized the abusive conditions of Bradley Manning's imprisonment, which amount to brainwashing.
Obama, meanwhile, has made himself personally responsible for yet another instance of US government torture by explicitly refusing to recognize the problem.
The wastes from Alberta tar sands are killing at least 2000 birds a year, maybe a lot more.
Various regions of Indonesia have banned Ahmadiya, a reformed sect of
Islam that believes Mohammed was followed by another prophet.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
In West Java, people are forbidden to identify themselves as followers of Ahmadiya.
These bans were imposed by decree, after fanatical Muslims violently attacked some Ahmadiya believers. On the excuse of "protecting" them, the state is oppressing them all. It seems they are acting out Islam's basic disrespect for religious freedom.
I have no information about the doctrines of Ahmadiya, but I suppose I would think they are mistaken. That's what I think about all religions. But they deserve the right to practice and to state their views.
US citizens:
call
on the US
to act in the UN Human Rights Council to
enable the ICC to take action on Gaza war crimes.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone the State Department to demand an end to Bahrain's violence against protesters (which includes use of Saudi troops), and an arms embargo for their use of US military equipment against civilians.
US citizens:
sign this petition
to Obama to end subsidies for nuclear
power plants.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Without subsidies, they won't be built.
Michigan Republicans are passing a bill that would allow the state to supplant local governments with appointed ones, void union contracts, forcibly merge cities and school districts, and generally wreak havoc.
Iran's president Ahmadinejad says he can ignore laws passed by the Iranian Majlis.
The Iranian state presents a democratic face, but is a dictatorship in reality. The face is now slipping.
Obama and other pro-nuclear US politicians presented Japan as proof that nuclear power can be safe in the US.
There is no indication that the Japanese plants were not built correctly according to their plans, but you can't even count on that much in the US.
An opposition candidate in Belarus who was arrested and tortured has escaped from that country.
US regulations for nuclear reactors are not sufficient to make them safe from earthquakes.
For any site, scientists have some idea of the strongest quake ever recorded for that site. But this is not a guarantee against worse quakes.
Leaked documents seem to show Bank of America in an attempt to cover up facts about its loans.
India has won a significant victory over pirates.
An expert analyst says the nuclear accidents in Japan will probably not hurt people, but still demonstrate that nuclear proponents overlook unlikely but possible disasters.
Meanwhile, the situation in Japan
has
gone one step beyond what the
expert thought was likely to occur.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Meanwhile,
Obama
tells us to stop worrying
because the government is making sure we are safe.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
He would have said the same thing a year ago about oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Craig Murray reports that the US agreed to tolerate Saudi troops in Bahrain in exchange for the Arab League vote to support no-fly zone in Libya.
If indeed the US was offered the choice of both or neither, I find it hard to say which choice was worse. With one choice, the protests in Bahrain are likely to be suppressed brutally, and with the other, the rebellion in Libya is likely to be suppressed brutally.
I think Murray's parting statement underestimates Gaddafi's strength. Without intervention in Libya, the rebels are likely to be crushed, and so now will the protesters in Bahrain.
In addition to Saudi troops, police from other nearby countries are in Bahrain, supposedly to "calm" the protests. What a euphemism that is.
The US left has been reinvigorated, and now has everything going for it except organization.
Wikileaks shows the Bush forces knew of 66,000 civilians killed in
Iraq. Iraq Body Count recorded 104,000 civilians killed.
But only 19% of the latter match the Bush forces records.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
It follows that only around 30% of the Bush forces civilian death records are in Iraq Body Count.
This leads to a very rough estimate that around 350,000 civilians were killed.
Al Jazeera says Gaddafi's forces lured its camera team into an ambush and shot the cameraman.
A Guardian reporter is Gaddafi's prisoner.
Israel's retaliation for the crime of killing a settler family is a crime against all Palestinians.
Someone murdered an Israeli settler family in their home; now Palestinians in the vicinity are being subject to general reprisals by soldiers.
These killings were a war crime. However, the settlements are all illegal, so I think that chasing settlers out without murdering them would be justified retaliation for creating the settlements.
As Gaddafi's troops continue to capture rebel cities, the Arab League called for military intervention to support them.
Iranian dissidents say the Iranian regime is arming rural children with clubs and air guns, and setting them to attack protesters.
This congress is the most anti-science congress in history.
How plain packaging for cigarettes blocks tobacco company lies and helps smokers quit.
A second reactor in Japan has lost its emergency cooling system.
Japan's nuclear meltdown has galvanized opposition to nuclear power in Europe.
Building nuclear power plants is not effective as a way to reduce carbon emissions. As Amory Lovins has shown, efficiency improvements and renewable energy give more improvement per dollar.
Also read: Nuclear reactor protection
Reuters reports more of Gaddafi's soldiers defected while attacking Misrata.
In the US: tell Obama you're against subsidy for new nuclear power plants.
US citizens:
call on Rep. Issa
to disclose his meetings with lobbyists.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
He
has staffed the oversign committee he chairs with corporate
flunkies.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Atheist
soldiers are suing
after Fort Bragg spent government funds on
an event to convert soldiers to evangelical Christianity, then
sabotaged their attempt to run their own event.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Missouri Republicans have a solution to low wages in the US: allow teenagers of 14 to work late on school days.
Next step will be to end school at age 14 because, for the jobs they will get, they won't need school.
The TSA discovered that some x-rated scanners are emitting 10 times as much x-rays as they were supposed to.
As if ACTA were not bad enough, the US wants to make the Trans-Pacific Partnership an all-out attack on computer users.
Police in Yemen fired at protesters, killing several and wounding hundreds.
Texas is planning a bill to ban most abortions, and other states are also trying to ban them.
Japan has built many nuclear power plants in seismic zones and without sufficient protection.
They built the nuclear plants near sea level, then failed to protect them (and their backup generators) from tsunamis. This shows that the question of safety was mismanaged. They must have given priority to saving money rather than protecting against a plausible disaster scenario.
It's not just Japan where nuclear plants are accidents waiting to happen. Some US plants are near seismic faults too.
You can't trust a US corporation to spend money to avoid an accident, since lobbying Congress to avoid liability for it is cheaper.
The nuclear lobby has been buying politicians in the US and the UK, trying to get a subsidy one way or other (since these plants are money-losers). Let's learn the lesson before we throw away billions more on creating disasters.
Whistleblowers
at the World Bank still face retaliation. The policies to protect
them look good on paper but are ignored.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Perhaps some democratically-minded country should offer a large reward to anyone that exposes major corruption in the World Bank.
How a US consulting firm used American academics to rehab Muammar Qaddafi's image.
Gasoline price increases are necessary to encourage conservation. Thus, the way to shield poor drivers from suffering from the impact of the high price is to give some money to poor people — whether they drive or not. That way, they too will have an incentive to conserve.
Climate change activist Tim DeChristopher is content to have protected pristine land from oil drilling even at the cost of a prison sentence, but was disappointed by how the judge intimidated jurors out of voting their consciences.
If you are ever on a jury, you must resist that pressure, or you could do something that would make you ashamed for the rest of your life.
US citizens: sign the petition to tell Senate Democrats: take a lesson from Wisconsin; stand and fight the Republican War on America.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Double-dealing Rep. King is using his divisive hearings about Muslim radicals, trying to call Muslims "terrorists", while he strives to keep the US vulnerable to terrorist attacks, accidents, and natural disasters in plants that store poisonous gases.
The companies that don't want to tighten security must be giving him something in exchange for this.
The Libyan rebels are begging for foreign help, including air strikes against Gaddafi's army.
14,000 people a year are murdered in Venezuela, many of them in gang wars.
Legalizing drugs would take a lot of the fuel out of this fire.
By the way, the comparison with Iraq is at least somewhat misleading because the civil war in Iraq killed more like 140,000 people a year during the peak years.
The US defense budget is larger than ever in history, not even counting the wars.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Amnesty International reports on Iraqi torture of political dissidents.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The earthquake in Japan damaged some nuclear reactors, and the workers had to release radioactive vapor from one of them to relieve pressure.
If they don't make progress soon, they could have an accident like Three Mile Island after around a day.
A Chernobyl-style accident is less likely given that these reactors have more layers of enclosure than the Chernobyl reactor. But it is not impossible, especially if the earthquake has damaged those layers.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Some US nuclear reactors are quite near major fault lines and near cities too.
It is hard to do anything about them, but we can avoid creating more such problems.
The UK's proposed policies for reducing CO2 emissions for electric power seem tailor-made to encourage more nuclear power.
Which US senator killed the Whistleblower Protection Act?
Citizens are trying to find out.
Russian environmental campaigners ask for European support to preserve the Khimki forest.
US workers have to compete with prison labor.
For the New York Times, waterboarding is torture except when the US does it.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The UK is considering abolishing the census in the face of substantial public resistance.
I am disappointed with the article for publishing Professor Voas' shallow dismissal of concerns about the census; he does not seriously address them. "Credit card information is more detailed"? Only if you allow it to be; mine shows only that I fly. "This is the most secure data set around"? Only until someone decides to leak your data — and there is no longer a penalty for doing so. The practice of fuzzing the published figures to protect personal privacy is the right thing to do, but it addresses a different issue, so it's effectively a change of subject.
If you do answer the UK census, consider answering "No religion" if you no longer really believe.
Help stop privatization of public libraries in the US:
send
a message
to the Santa Clarita city council.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Sign this too:
http://action.seiu.org/page/s/CAlibraries
New York's Democratic governor is trying to
shaft
the parents of babies brain-damaged through malpractice.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
It is good to punish malpractice, but as the article reminds us, it would be better to prevent some malpractice by barring incompetent doctors from practicing at all.
I think that the right to life really starts some time after birth, and that extending it back to birth is a matter of giving the benefit of the doubt. If a baby is born with severe damage, whatever the cause, euthanasia might be the best solution.
Eco-farming
could double food output of poor countries, says UN.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
It looks like grain will be more scarce next year than this year.
Humanity is pushing against the world's limits, and running an annual overdraft against some of them. Sure, there are ways to adjust, such as improved techniques, feeding less grain to cattle, and not using food-type crops for fuel, but people resist those changes.
Thus, we must also make further efforts to reduce population growth. A population peak of 9 billion may mean many countries experience disaster. Avoiding hundreds of millions of those expected births may avoid most of the disaster.
Most Americans now want troops removed from Afghanistan within a year.
Colombia has the largest number of internal refugees of any country, and the planned FTA with the US will make it worse.
India threatens to restrict blogs.
The Pentagon pretends to be "making progress" in Afghanistan, but those claims conceal gaping flaws.
Karzai's corrupt government and rigged elections can't win anyone's loyalty, and so he can never win. The most he can do is give the US an excuse for a war that will never end.
The US mainstream media
gave
very little coverage
to the US bombing
that killed 9 Afghan kids.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
I think they may give more attention to Karzai's cousin, killed in a US raid on his home.
Obama: worse than Nixon in regard to whistleblowers.
Bradley Manning has been allowed to publish an official complaint about the prison's inhumane treatment of him.
Gaddafi's army
continues
to advance against the rebels.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The UK plans a pension cut for 6 million public sector employees, inviting them all to strike.
Gaddafi's men arrested and tortured BBC reporters.
Wisconsin Republicans passed their law to crush public sector unions by disconnecting it from the budget bill.
I don't think it is valid to call it cheating to keep this separate from the budget bill. To attach it to that was artificial anyway. I think they did that in imitation of the Republicas in Congress, without realizing that this only impeded their purpose.
It remains an attack on the people of Wisconsin no matter how they do it.
Both candidates in Haiti's Burmese-style presidential election want to
reinstitute
the Haitian army, which was abolished by Aristide because it had
nothing to do except try to rule and bully Haiti.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
This suggests that the US wants to restore the Haitian army as an instrument of US control.
Frankly speaking, Haiti has no use for an army unless that army could throw off foreign control.
The ultimate nimby: well-off jerks in a chic part of Brooklyn are trying to get rid of a bicycle lane that could save lives and gasoline, because it reduced their parking spaces. In the process they could kill off New York's plans for conservation.
The president of NPR has resigned because a fund-raiser said his personal view wass that Tea Party is xenophobic, has hijacked the Republican Party, and is racist.
I don't know about the accusation of racism, but the rest seems pretty valid. Meanwhile, why does the organization's president need to resign because of this?
I am afraid that these resignations will give credence to false charges that NPR has a Liberal bias. I found in the 90s that NPR had a right-wing bias, so I mostly stopped listening to it.
In the US: participate
in a protest against Republican budget cuts.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call and ask your congresscritter to support Rep. Lee's letter, which will ask Obama to start pulling troops out of Afghanistan.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
The UK recently sold Yemen body armor that is probably being used now to oppose protesters, and bullets probably being used to shoot them.
The International Criminal Court wants to prosecute ministers in Kenya for organizing the killings of 1300 people in 2007.
The Libyan rebels have asked for foreign support.
I think they deserve help.
My understanding is that other countries can recognize them as a government, then provide military support to them without a Security Council resolution.
Illinois has abolished the death penalty.
Now on to Texas!
Tens of thousands protested again in Wisconsin against Gov. Walker's plans to attack the whole state.
A student has sued the FBI for planting a tracking device in his car without a warrant.
A service hires actors to phone in to talk radio shows and not admit they are acting.
Texas is considering a law to ban TSA x-ray scanners and x-rated pat-downs.
US citizens: sign this petition for TIAA-CREF to divest from companies that profit from Israel's occupation of the West Bank or its attack and siege of Gaza.
China is likely to further relax the one-child policy.
This is dangerous and misguided, because China's environment is already under pressure from the human population, which is still increasing even with the current policy. Increases standard of living, which poor Chinese deserve, will multiply by the population. Changing the policy to allow even greater population growth will exacerbate every problem.
Gaddafi launched a heavy attack on Zawiya, and his tanks have destroyed many buildings in the city. The rebels are barely holding out.
Israel says it will destroy the "illegal settlement outposts".
All the settlements in Palestinian territory are illegal under international law. These "outposts" are illegal under Israeli law too, but the government has often supported their construction.
How sweatshops fool the auditors that are supposed to check how the workers are treated.
Many bank CEOs violated the Sarbanes Oxley law that required them to affirm they had set up adequate internal controls. Obama does not want to prosecute them.
Republican cuts would devastate housing programs for old people, handicapped people, and veterans. Many would lose their homes.
The US needs deficit spending now, not budget cuts. Obama's willingness to talk about cuts as a "compromise" demonstrates how little he differs from a Republican.
Journalists from Jordan's state-controlled media protested against censorship.
Will this spread to Faux News?
The US and UK are showing interest in imposing a no-fly zone in Libya, if given UN approval.
This could help the rebels, but it could also cause civilian casualties.
What to do? I think the UN should authorize a no-fly zone if the Libyan rebels ask for one, and then the US should let the rebels decide.
Meanwhile, Gaddafi's tanks are more important than his aircraft. So a no-fly zone might not be enough to make the difference. Would Egypt be willing to aidt he rebels in Libya?
The US has asked Saudi Arabia to provide weapons to the Libyan rebels.
I see no particular benefit in involving Saudi Arabia. Why not deliver arms directly to the rebels?
Tens of thousands are protesting in Yemen. Yemen's president had police shoot at protesters, wounding around 100, many of them seriously.
Genetic engineering is being used to protect bananas from a disease that could wipe them out.
I don't think genetic engineering is inherently wrong, but it must respect farmers' rights to save and breed their crops, and the resulting organisms must be tested carefully to ensure they are safe for the consumer and for wildlife. This seems like a case which is ok.
Now it's Philadelphia's Catholic Church which is accused of protecting pedophile priests.
A proposed Hungarian law that would have attacked freedom on the Internet was amended not to cover the Internet.
20 lies (and counting) told by Gov. Walker.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US is considering publishing all the information on where private planes travel.
While I recognize this is useful for investigating possible corruption or other bad activities, I believe everyone deserves the right to anonymous travel. I am not convinced there should be an exception for private planes.
Perhaps public officials should be required to disclose this information as a condition of office.
Organizations anywhere: sign
this petition to the Council of Europe against demanding biometric
information from people who are not criminals.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Michael Newdow's lawsuit over the religious motto "In god we trust" on US currency was rejected by the Supreme Court.
Here are many incidents in which fracking natural gas is suspected
of polluting water in the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Egypt's new PM appointed a caretaker cabinet, removing Mubarak's former ministers.
Protesters
sacked the State Security offices, and former prisoners saw their
old cells again.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
I hope the records are being carefully preserved.
Some web sites now allow only facebook users to post comments.
This means the discussion is limited to people who are willing to let facebook abuse them — in effect slanting the discussion against criticism of Facebook.
What's needed to avoid destroying the world's coral reefs.
A proposed dam in Ethiopia would ruin the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The dictatorship has crushed local opposition.
The Obama regime is restarting
Guantanamo kangaroo trials.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
These men might be guilty, but they deserve a fair trial like anyone threatened with punishment.
Karzai has backed down from expelling mercenaries from Afghanistan.
Karzai's government can't live with 'em and can't live without 'em.
Global heating is causing a risk of water-born disease for humans in the Arctic.
And not just in the Arctic.
What's Happening in Iran Explained.
Through the modern miracle of surgery, virginity can now be restored.
This offers women a way to protect themselves from prejudice. However, that any woman believes she needs this surgery is probably a sign she is being pressured to marry someone she does not trust. That, rather than the lack of a hymen, is her real problem.
Halliburton and other oil companies are lobbying against US sanctions on Libya; they want to be able to keep selling to Gaddafi.
The recent reported US job gain is
mythical, the result of methods that systematically err towards
the positive when times are bad.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
An Iranian student reports that part of his university has been used as a prison for protesters.
As part of the Republican War on America, they want spending cuts that would devastate America on a broad range of areas.
It's hard for the US to pretend the latest Afghan civilians killed by bombs were Taliban, since none of them was older than 12.
Bradley Manning is forced to strip every night as a cruel punishment for a sarcastic quip.
The US uses nudity as a tool to break prisoners.
George Monbiot explains economic measures that the UK should protest for.
To implement these proposals may require a party to commit to supporting them. Perhaps it could be called the Old Labour Party.
Libyan rebels captured an armed British special forces unit which had been landed by helicopter.
I doubt the official claim that this was a diplomatic mission to talk with the rebels, and I wonder what their mission really was.
There is heavy fighting around Libya, and so far the rebels seem to be gaining a little more than they are losing.
The Iranian opposition candidates seem to be disappeared: their children cannot find out what happened to them.
Italian public TV censored a film trailer for criticizing Berlusconi.
Afghans protested another bombing raid that killed children.
Protests have been called for March 11 in Azerbaijan.
There are already protests in Armenia.
Armenia is effectively a Russian client state, since Russian troops protected Armenia from the threat of Turkish attack in the early 90s during the war over Nagorno Karabakh. A few years ago, I was told, border controls in Armenia were carried out by Russians.
The Iranian regime is accused of massive corruption to the benefit of Shah Khamenei's children.
Right-wing front groups are buying TV ads to support Wisconsin Governor Walker.
Their money got him elected in the first place.
Tuvalu is losing its fish and plant food resources, due to improper disposal of wastes and to rising sea levels caused by global heating.
Libyans report that Gaddafi's forces have encircled Zawiyah, and snipers and tanks are shooting at people there.
The
Obama regime systematically lies about Bradley Manning's prison
conditions, and the compliant press doesn't question the lies.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Congressman Kucinich asked to visit Bradley Manning and investigate the allegations that Manning is being abused. The Pentagon is stonewalling.
Using a person's privacy as an excuse to cover up abuse of that person is the sort of dishonest excuse that a tyrannical regime makes.
Saudi Arabia has banned a mass protest called for Friday, saying that protests violate Islamic values.
The US Chamber of Commerce is a lobbying group for the nastiest megacorps. A campaign asks US small businesses to announce, "The US Chamber of Commerce does not speak for us."
Massey Energy broke the mining union by switching to strip mining. Now a few local people get jobs, but nearly everyone has had to move away.
Massey succeeds in buying enough local support from poor people by offering them a tiny amount of money. That's because they are divided and thinking short term.
The cry of freedom is pouring out of the Middle East, but Washington's echo chamber does not hear it.
Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam's doctoral thesis argued in favor of intervention to protect the human rights of people suffering under a dictatorship.
Growing economic inequality in the US is not the result of different
abilities or even different educational opportunities. It is caused
by several government
policies that help the rich.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
A UK phone company is forcing users to identify themselves in order to get uncensored access to the Internet.
South Korea is dropping leaflets into North Korea describing the virtue of democracy and freedom.
The US-Korea "free trade" treaty will devastate Korean farmers.
The South Korean government distributes many documents in proprietary formats.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
South Korea also undermines its safety and pollution standards to please the US government.
Recently, South Koreans have been imprisoned
for handing out political pamphlets condemning their government.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Despite this, South Korea's government is miles above North Korea's, which by all accouts is hell on Earth. But since when is that the standard for judging a government? Koreans deserve better than this.
US Republicans are attacking every aspect of environmental protection, apparently just from spite, and Obama is doing little to resist them.
The growth of the environmental movement into mass support was fueled by the US middle class in the 1960s. They had enough money and goods, and they wanted things money could not buy, such as better health through clean air and water, and wilderness whose existence they were glad about.
The US middle class is getting smaller, so perhaps fewer people can afford to care whether they are getting poisoned.
Violent crime and robbery in Oregon have been decreasing for years and are now the lowest since 1966. But most people in Oregon have been led by the media to think it is getting worse (except in their own home town).
This study was about Oregon, but the phenomenon is probably not limited to Oregon. And the erroneous fear boosts right-wing politics.
China plans systematic tracking of people in Beijing through their cell phones.
False reports are coming from both Gaddafi and his opponents.
However, we do have a first-hand report of attacks by Gaddafi's forces against a town in the east.
Latest reports from the Guardian say Gaddafi is stepping up the attacks.
Doctors without Borders reports over 1800
wounded people in Benghazi.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
US Uncut protested the Bank of America for paying lavish bonuses but no taxes.
Here's what it takes to be serious about selling
sustainable fish.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The
ACLU argued before the Supreme Court to hold Ashcroft responsible
for imprisoning an American then restricting him for a year as a
"material witness".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Libyans in Tripoli dared to protest again.
Maliki's thugs sealed off whole neighborhoods of Baghdad, as they killed and arrested protesters and beat up journalists.
The pressure of the downtrodden in Muslim countries seeks an exit, and if denied others, it will support Islamic extremism.
Iranian women have called for a protest on March 8.
US citizens: sign
this petition telling Congress: not one dollar more for the
Pentagon.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
Yemeni opposition is asking presidet Saleh to step down by the end of the year.
Israeli diplomat Ilan Baruch resigned from the foreign service saying he cannot defend Israel's policy towards the Palestinians.
He also condemned the frequent tactic of accusing anyone that criticizes Israel of being "antisemitic".
Rising oil prices could push biofuel as a substitute.
When biofuel plants transpire more water, that could mean they also need more water in order to grow. However, many regions are short of water already, and this is going to get worse.
Biofuel is good when it uses plant waste, or land not otherwise arable. But when it replaces food production (such as by using land or water needed to grow food), it is a disaster. When it needs fertilizer made from petroleum, it is self-defeating.
About the group that wants to legalize killing abortion providers.
A minister in Pakistan was assassinated for standing for freedom of speech.
Saudi authorities arrested a Shi'ite cleric for advocating constitutional monarchy
Everyone: sign this petition urging Canada to pass a law facilitating provision of cheap pharmaceuticals to poor countries.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support HR 780, the bill to de-fund the war in Afghanistan. Also sign this petition.
More info
about the bill.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens:
sign
this petition
to put lions on the endangered species
list.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The budget cutting debate between Democrats and Republicans
is
a distraction from the real issue: unemployment.
The debate is between a harmful policy and a disastrous one.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
A list
of Gov. Walker's lies.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Republicans'
attack
on the EPA's regulation of mercury in the air
will kill almost as many Americans as the 9/11 attacks did.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Speaking of those attacks, we still don't know whether the Republicans' participated in them too. Support the call for a thorough and honest investigation.
A former Guantanamo prisoner says he was given drugs against his will and wasn't even told what they were.
His accusation is supported by other evidence.
The TSA has been working on plans to search people in train stations and on the street with x-ray scanners.
Gaddafi's forces are trying to reconquer the rebel areas of Libya. So far, the rebels are mainly holding, but they are taking substantial casualties.
Wisconsin governor Walker excluded the public illegally from his budget address, and brought in his own unidentified supporters to pack the room.
Some US schools lock students in all day. One of them suspended
a student for opening a door.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Bradley Manning faces additional charges including the threat of execution.
If we cannot free him, I think that the citizens of Cambridge Massachusetts should erect a statue to honor him. I would like to contribute, and I think many others will too.
Israel has announced another settlement in East Jerusalem.
Mexico complains that the US makes it too easy to buy guns and smuggle them into Mexico. It turns out one of those guns was used to kill a US agent working in Mexico.
In a flagrant act of censorship, a man is being prosecuted in France for "public insults" involving bigotry.
One of his insults was directed at "Jews" as an ethnic group. That targets me; but I find his prosecution more offensive than what he said.
An Iran accuses the BBC Persian service of supporting the regime.
Thousands in Tehran protested the imprisonment of opposition leaders.
Indiana asst attorney general Cox has resigned. He had called for shooting protesters.
Obama has for once done something progressive, cancelling a Bush regulation that let hospital employees opt out of various medical procedures for women.
It was the right thing to do, but why did it take him two years to get around to it?
American Muslims actually do quite
a bit to prevent terrorism.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The US Supreme Court ruled that companies are not entitled to "personal privacy" under the Freedom of Information Act.
Police systematically attacked journalists in Yemen and Iraq.
Hunting by humans, often for trophies, is driving lions to extinction.
A Mexican politician says that former Mexican presidents protected drug trafficking in order to avoid war with the traffickers.
Children of former Chilean presidents want the US to release documents about their parents' deaths and Pinochet.
The gulf oil spill's toxic legacy.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
The
American rich have screwed the rest by focusing public attention
on lowering taxes, then on hurting the poor, and now on hurting public
employees.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
When the Israeli hawks' lobby pretends to speak for all Jews, it is to blame if some are fooled by this and criticize a "Jewish lobby".
Gaddafi's air force has attacked rebel-held towns, so far without much effect.
Western powers are talking about intervening against Gaddafi, but the security council is unlikely to approve it. However, if the rebels start a government, they could ask for assistance. I still think that my suggestion to ask Egypt for support is better.
Clinton, speaking in the UN Human Rights Council, called for an investigation of the Iranian regime's human rights abuses.
I support this initiative wholeheartedly, but why limit to Iran (and Libya). Why omit the US? Its regime still practices torture and imprisonment without trial.
US spending on "security" amounts to around 1,201 billion dollars.
I disagree with the author's decision to include the entire foreign relations budget of 18 billion dollars in the total, so I reduced the article's total by 18 billion.
Tennessee is considering a law to ban organizations that "advocate shari'a law".
Shari'a law is brutal and violates human rights. It ought to be banned world-wide. However, censoring those who hold such views is just as bad.
A Massey mining manager has been arrested for destroying evidence.
That evidence probably showed that the company was responsible for the fatal mine disaster.
UN inspectors in Ivory Coast, trying to check whether Gbagbo received helicopters from Belarus, were shot at by Gbagbo's forces.
That ought to count as tentative verification.
China has banned reporters from covering certain areas in Beijing and Shanghai.
The protest announcement, whether or not it was intended to lead to a real protest, has succeeded in making China embarrass itself.
The London police refuse to explicitly say whether they will infiltrate March 26 protests with undercover cops.
They do, however, admit they expect "troublemakers" to be among the protesters. Perhaps they refer to their infiltrators.
A poisonous weed from South America threatens to wipe out the native wildlife in the Masai Mara wildlife reserve.
The US has cut taxes on the rich by almost 2/3 since the 1960s.
Raising their taxes again, and not just a few percent, is something America needs.
Should foreign countries attack the Iranian dictators' regime?
Intervening in a country to establish a free democratic government is justified if that we know the people of that country want this kind of help, and we can be confident that the new regime will be free and democratic. How does this apply to Iran?
If Iranians in general want help overthrowing the tyranny that rules them, we ought to help them. But it is hard to tell if Iranians in general would welcome such an invasion. Many Iranians are angry at the regime, but many could still be a minority; we have no way to tell.
The Shah's regime constantly says that the opposition is a tool of the US. I don't think this is true now, but some Iranians must believe it. If the opposition were visibly linked with foreign invaders, would that win the regime enough support to fight a long guerrilla war?
We also have to ask whether such an invasion would achieve its goal. The invasion of Afghanistan seemed to turn out well, for a while, but things are much worse now. And the invasion of Iraq, which Bush claimed was meant to free Iraq from a regime that killed unjustly and tortured, gave them another regime that killed unjustly and tortured, and most Iraqis said they were better off under Saddam. An invasion of Iran could go bad too.
Obama is not Bush. Bush cared nothing for freedom or democracy in his own country, so it was clear he would not care about them in Iraq. Obama cares a little about freedom and democracy, just not enough to let them get in the way of his higher priorities. If we asked Obama, "Would you prefer democracy or dictatorship in Iran?", he might say "democracy, all else being equal". At least he would prefer democracy to the present Islamic dictatorship. But I would not count on Obama to be a reliable custodian for democracy in Iran after he has failed to be one in the US.
At present, much as I would like to see the Iranian regime overthrown, I have to conclude that the conditions to justify foreign intervention do not exist.
Tim de Christopher saved land from oil drilling and pollution by bidding a high price in the auction Bush arranged for. Obama withdrew the land from oil drilling, but de Christopher faces ten years in prison for saving it.
Everyone:
state
your solidarity
with the campaign to recall
Republican state senators in Wisconsin.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone:
urge
the Wisconsin Demoractic senators not to return and
let Walker crush the unions.
[Reference updated on 2018-02-15 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: sign this petition calling on NOAA to release the research funds to study the big spill's effects.
Congressional Republicans promote gratuitous conspicuous waste as a symbol of their rejection of rationality.
BP says most of the damage claims from the big spill "lack proof".
That doesn't mean they are false (though some of them might be). It means that BP harmed large segments of society in ways that are hard to prove specifically, and now it will avoid compensating the damage it did.
An opposition politician in Belarus describes being tortured by the KGB.
It sounds a lot like US torture practices.
I wonder how landlocked Belarus managed to sell arms to Ivory Coast. Did some neighbor of Belarus also violate the arms embargo?
A US ISP has started doing Deep Packet Interference: inserting its own advertisements into pages coming from other sites.
Thousands protested in Baghdad on Friday against al Maliki's corruption and imposed religious restrictions.
As the US rebuilt relations with Gaddafi, human rights concerns took a back seat.
The US is stopping Aristide from leaving South Africa until after the Burmese-style election is finished.
The UK Labour party shows its weakness by proposing tax incentives for employers to pay an adequate wage.
A real Labor party would enact a higher minimum wage and not reduce business taxes at all.
Obama seems ready to end US efforts against global heating rather than let the Republicans shut down the US government.
When Clinton faced a similar threat, he refused to capitulate, and he won. Obama knows this, of course, but he doesn't care enough to fight.
A painstakingly reconstructed rainforest farm is being destroyed by a fire apparently caused by arson.
Although this sabotage might not have happened, natural fires do occur. I think that such projects are futile in places which have a long dry season that makes them so vulnerable.
Global heating will destroy many forests. A few decades of drying and most of the Amazon rain forest could be ready to burn up — and there will always be sparks.
Iranian opposition leaders Mousavi and Karoubi are now in a real prison, and so are their wives.
Obama frequently hobnobs with
executives and promotes their business, but does not seem to even
think about NGOs.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
That is, except when (as Wikileaks did) they get in his way.
Ralph Nader suggests lessons to
draw from the Wisconsin resistance.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
An Iranian blogger argues that ncr-iran.org is the Iranian version of Faux News.
I don't know enough facts about the NCR or PMOI to judge the criticism's validity.
How to keep up the pressure on Wisconsin governor Walker when the protesters "have to" stop protesting and return to work?
As the protesters in Egypt showed, the way to keep up the pressure is not to stop protesting. In the long view, you don't have to return to work. You have to keep up the fight.
Everyone sign this petition calling on US Customs to stop seizing Internet domains.
Note that "seizing a criminal's car" is not as acceptable as it might sound, because the US does this without giving the alleged "criminal" a proper trial.
Everyone: sign this petition not to let Rupert Murdoch (owner of Faux News) control most UK television.
US citizens: phone your senators saying don't allow cuts in the agencies
that regulate Wall Street. Also
sign
this petition.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to make the Pentagon follow whatever
spending reductions apply to the rest of the federal government.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-15 because the old link was broken.]
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Copyright (C) 2011 Richard Stallman
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