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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.
The Montreal Neurological Institute has decided to publish all its data, results, and software, and to reject patenting anything.
This is a great step forward. It is unfortunate that they refer to it with the vague and usually weak word "open".
Does anyone know what license they will use for publishing software?
Everyone: call on NBC to cut its business ties with the troll.
Even in 2011, the Republicans had embraced post-truth politics, where what they say to win has nothing to do with the policies they will actually impose. Every time Obama foolishly offered them a concession, hoping for a compromise, the Republicans said, "Now give us another concession."
However, part of the explanation is that Obama acted for a weak, centrist program, not a progressive one.
Twitter would close the troll's account, if it applied its usual rules.
A church in Maryland has been fined heavily for giving homeless people a place to sleep.
High inequality in the US is not inevitable. The obstacles are political.
Wells Fargo bank cheated customers by charging them for useless insurance policies they never signed up for.
This means there are now several reasons to move your money out of Wells Fargo. In addition to the ethical reasons, such as financing part of the Dakota Access Pipeline, there is also the protection of your money. Don't leave your money where Wells Fargo has access to it. If we move enough money into smaller banks, we can defeat Wells Fargo.
National Security Advisor-to-be Flynn violates conflict of interest law.
Charter schools undermine public education, in Africa just as in the US.
Cities and even public service campaigns are outsourcing transportation to Uber, which is a form of privatization of public transit. This excludes poor people, and subjects those who do use the service to being tracked.
Lyft is no better than Uber in this regard.
The DEA corrupted employees of the TSA, airlines and Amtrak to finger people who might carry illegal drugs, or totally lawful cash.
How to get by on social security disability in the US: be homeless.
Evernote has given itself additional right to read users' notes.
Even before this change, Evernote notes were susceptible to being read under various circumstances. The way to protect your privacy is to keep your notes in your own computer.
Since North Carolina elected a Democrat as governor, the Republicans in the state legislature are passing laws to reduce the governor's authority.
The Republicans control the legislature due to gerrymandering that make it nearly impossible to remove them from control.
The troll embodies a lifestyle of the rich and famous. Some voted for him out of identification with that lifestyle — never mind that that he will get even more of it at their expense.
Calling out intentional, coded racism is not a matter of "political correctness." Such racism is not innocent, it is a system of propaganda.
Mass protests blocked the doors of Poland's parliament after the ruling party claimed to have unconstitutionally passed a budget.
Everyone: tell some big banks to stop funding the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Condemning the IHRA redefinition of "antisemitism".
Another conflict of interest for the troll: he owes Wells Fargo Bank a lot of money, and he could let it off the punishment for its crimes and dishonesty.
Israel seized a medical van that Italy gave to Palestinians. This is part of the decade-long campaign to exile all Palestinians from that area.
Powerful Democratic politicians still want to serve Wall Street.
Refuting six common conspiracy theories about the Middle East.
With various sides eager to lie, and willing to kill journalists, the war in Syria is endangering our ability to find out the truth about the events of war.
Thai fishing boats operated by slave labor now operate for long periods far in the ocean, transferring their catch to other ships to be ferried to land. This way, the fishing boats escape from all laws, and slaves can never escape.
Greenpeace reports that this provides an entry path for tainted seafood, and urges prohibition of the practice of transferring caught fish to transport ships.
Technology has made fishing ever more efficient, and the result is overfishing, as well as idleness for many fishing boats. More efficiency in fishing is the last thing we need.
The UK government has converted public schooling into a system for tracking children of illegal immigrants.
The express purpose of this is to "create hostility" in the school system.
They will respond by keeping their children out of school.
The right-wing double standard at work: Flynn, the troll's national security advisor, was rebuked twice for revealing secrets to foreign officers.
The inspector general of the NSA condemned Snowden for releasing information to the public instead of "going through channels" to report abuses internally in the NSA.
Reportedly the same inspector general retaliated against another NSA staffer who did exactly that, and he faces punishment for it.
As this example shows, reporting some illegality internally would be inadequate even if it were safe. We can't rely on internal reports to make the NSA obey laws, let alone to make it respect our freedom.
In Reed College, radical students intimidate teachers based on their "identity". This sort of bigotry becomes ludicrous when, as in Reed College, the students are factually mistaken about the people they label. But it's equally wrong when the labels are accurate. This form of bigotry is a part of the "political correctness" that some right-wing Americans resent.
There are much bigger patterns of bigotry in our society. Many studies have shown that blacks and women are systematically judged by a harsher standard than while males. To measure this bigotry, we have to classify people as bigotry does. Then we can institute measures to change the bigoted judgments.
That's where the classification should stop. To condemn speakers, to say their views should not be heard, because of labeling them is an injustice (which, as it happens, plays into the hands of right-wing bigots).
Thousands in Venezuela are using bitcoin to get away from the inflation of the national currency.
Protests against the troll's rule need to focus strategically on undermining his power base.
How fake news succeeds in perverting the systems of Facebook and Google.
Some of the promoters of fake news are only in it for the money. They promoted mainly anti-Clinton fake news once they saw that Clinton's supporters were not as easy to fool as supporters of the troll.
Russia had little to do with the fake news problem.
In Turkey, the politics of contempt for truth led to a tyranny in which people are attacked unless they repeat lies.
California has released many prisoners, but they can't find drug treatment and many have trouble finding a way to live without crime.
This is a general problem in the US. 50 years ago, there were many jobs you could get after being released from prison, and you could live on one. Nowadays that is difficult.
Jennings, Missouri, a suburb of St Louis comparable to Ferguson, jailed 2000 people for not paying fines. In 2014 it issued more arrest warrants than it had adult residents.
Basically, it set up a scheme to fund the city by squeezing money out of the poor and weak.
1/3 of US cities prohibit homeless people (and others) from "camping" on sidewalks, and use this as an excuse to steal their possessions.
When business owners and rich people demand that the city persecute the homeless, the response they deserve is, "How would you like to be homeless?"
500 climate scientists joined a "stand up for science" rally.
Uber's autonomous cars frequently violate traffic laws.
Uber tries to put the blame on human safety monitors, who could in principle intervene to stop this.
That's the general Uber attitude: profits to the company, burdens to the drivers.
I would guess that the safety monitors would be hard-pressed to react fast enough to prevent these maneuvers — which would mean that they are an excuse and a scapegoat, not a real safety system.
Mosques in Cameroon are starting education for girls as a campaign to turn the social climate against Boko Haram.
An autistic teenager in Australia gave radio commands to pilots, pretending to be speaking from the control tower.
This kind of hack is very dangerous. I hope he can learn to understand why he should not do it.
Many civilians were evacuated from Aleppo, but no places have been prepared for them to shelter.
Then the cease-fire was broken after rebels refused to allow evacuation of civilians from villages they have besieged.
We must condemn Russian atrocities just as we condemn US atrocities. But the existence of Russian atrocities doesn't mean western intervention is the solution.
The evidence does not clearly link the cracking of the DNC to Russia. It is only suggestive, not conclusive.
I wouldn't be shocked if Putin ordered this. He has a penchant for dirty tricks and for rigging elections (primarily in Russia). But I also wouldn't be shocked if Putin had nothing to do with it.
Trump offered a major foreign policy post to John Bolton, whose scheming made it possible for Dubya to pretend that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons.
Facebook will use several outside fact-checkers to downgrade fake news.
New Map Reveals Shattering Effect of Roads on Nature.
HBO sent a DMCA takedown notice to a piece of art that used the phrase "winter is coming".
The article suggests that at some point in this issue, people confused copyright law with trademark law. The two have nothing to do with each other.
HBO has no copyright claim based on that phrase. That phrase might be a trademark, but the DMCA is only concerned with copyright law and is not applicable to trademarks at all. Anyway, using a trademarked word or symbol in a noncommercial way is not trademark infringement.
Unprecedented rapid heating in the Arctic is showing in many different measurements.
Michigan refused to count 75,000 votes for president, most of them in Detroit and Flint which means they are likely to be Democratic votes. The margin of Republican so-called victory was 10,000.
Do you think the troll really won Michigan? Not likely.
When people are conscripted by the DMCA into the War on Sharing.
Reasons not to use evernote.com.
The troll's choice to head the Interior Department promotes coal mining at all costs to society.
American Held Over 900 Days in Egypt Begs US for Help Before Trump's Reign.
Many Britons would rather die than live in a typical lousy nursing home using up the money they could otherwise leave to their children.
As the British state finds excuses to punish people by leaving them destitute, they end up in food banks.
Evacuation of wounded people from east Aleppo has begun.
San Francisco has passed a law stopping landlords from limiting their tenants' choice of ISP.
This is a small positive step, but not applicable in many places in the US because most places have few high-speed ISPs to choose among.
For the US to get much benefit from ISP competition, it needs to offer most Americans a choice of many competing ISPs. Failing that, we should prohibit ISPs from keeping any records of what their customers connect to.
House Passes Bill Allowing Government to Microchip Citizens With "Mental Disabilities."
California Governor Says His State Will Be a Sanctuary for Science Under Trump.
George Monbiot: Neither the market nor the state can provide what people need. We need commons as well.
The article starts with a brilliant presentation of the contradictions of today's plutocratic capitalism.
Ironically, the article refers to the GNU system as "Linux" and mentions "open source". Monbiot is probably not aware that "open source" is a corporate-friendly cover-up for views more like his.
Ohio has passed a law banning abortion after 20 weeks.
The aim is to create an opportunity for the Supreme Court to reverse the Roe v Wade decision, in case Trump gets to put a theocratic fanatic on the court.
US citizens: call on Obama to block the Trans-Pecos pipeline (intended to carry fracked gas).
Many presidential electors (members of the electoral college) are reportedly considering disregarding their states' official election results and not voting for the troll.
It would be improper for electors to disregard the voters' choice over political disagreement. However, on this occasion there are two reasons why electors might legitimately decide to override the official election results: because the troll intends to violate the emoluments requirement of the Constitution, and is therefore unfit for office, and because of voter-suppression, which means that the official election results in some states are false and Clinton actually won.
Haiti's Fraudulent Presidential Frontrunner Seizes Land for His Own Banana Republic.
The cease-fire arranged by Turkey and Russia may have failed to hold because Assad needed Hezbollah's militia more than Russian bombers.
Reported details of the phishing attack that obtained John Podesta's password.
The article ends with claims about Russian cracking groups, but I can't tell from this article whether those claims are credible.
Craig Murray says that the Democratic Party emails came from a whistleblower, not from a cracker, and that he knows the whistleblower.
I trust Craig Murray, but I am not sure which of the conflicting stories is true.
UK women campaign against applying shari'a law in British family courts.
How Roberto Kozak saved thousands of people from Pinochet's torturers and murderers.
Duterte said that he used to drive around town looking for opportunities to kill suspected criminals.
The main Malaysian opposition candidate has been imprisoned and excluded on absurd grounds ("sodomy").
The US Senate unanimously approved a definition of "antisemitism" that includes political positions about Israel. If this law is passed, it will endanger political freedom in US universities.
An Israeli soldier shot a Palestinian for taking photos as the soldiers raided his town.
Two Palestinians imprisoned by Israel without charges have been on hunger strike for 80 days. After a court refused to release them, they have decided to stop drinking water.
Many other Palestinians are imprisoned without trial.
President you-know-what might be driven to distraction if people don't say his name.
A US hospital chain tricks people into committing themselves as mentally incompetent, then holds them as long as insurance will pay for.
This is one of many reasons to eliminate for-profit hospitals.
Officials accused of corruption in several countries have found shelter in the US.
In some cases, there are valid reasons for not deporting them — for instance, that the justice system in their home country is suspect.
Trump has announced he will paper over his conflicts of interest, rather than actually eliminate them.
Price Waterhouse Coopers tried to suppress knowledge of a security flaw by making legal threats against the security company that found it.
All proprietary software must be suspected of concealing flaws, but software from Price Waterhouse Coopers now has an extra reason for distrust.
US government scientists are rushing to save copies of climate data before Trump can destroy them.
Harper in Canada ordered climate research data thrown in the dumpster.
We shouldn't let accusations of Russian interference blind us to the bigger wrong of Republican election-rigging.
Assad's almost-completed conquest of Aleppo, together with the recent UN resolution, create opportunities for intervention (not by fighting) to protect civilians in Syria.
The cease-fire agreed on did not hold, and civilians have not been able to leave.
Men need to be concerned about gender violence.
Solar power backfire: in Australia, houses with solar power systems buy more electricity from the grid than houses without solar power.
This defeats the intended social benefit of reducing fossil fuel use.
It seems that the people who have got solar power don't think about how much electricity they are using. Perhaps they need very visible meters to show them how much power they are taking from the grid. Or perhaps there needs to be a higher tax on electricity from the grid.
Why Donald Trump's Potential Conflicts of Interest Are So Important.
The EU has increased fishing quotas in the teeth of existing overfishing, yielding to short-termers' political pressure.
Across the US, the practice of keeping poor people accused of crimes in jail unless they can pay to get out is being eliminated, but some places hold out.
In theory, you can post bail and get it back. But nearly everyone pays a bail bonds company to post the bail. The bail bonds company charges a certain fraction of the bail, and keeps it.
Philippine Senator De Lima faces prosecution for criticizing Duterte's murder campaign and his removal of her from being in charge of it.
The ACLU is suing to overturn a Florida abortion-repression law that requires any person or organization giving anyone advice about abortion to register with the state, to hand out a state publication (surely full of anti-abortion lies), and to tell the woman's parents.
The Voice of America and related US government broadcasters have been placed directly under the president's control, and they are now allowed to try to influence US public opinion and beliefs.
Trump could turn them into the Voice of Trumpery, like a US version of RT.
It appears that civilians in PISSI-held territory in Syria were killed by a gas attack, perhaps sarin.
The US will stop selling some missiles to Salafi Arabia because of its using them for war crimes in Yemen.
This decision does not come because the US has learned new information about that intervention, in which it has been closely involved all along. It is a political decision.
At least it's a change in the right direction, so I won't quibble.
Human activity emits 130 times as much CO2 as volcanoes do.
CO2 from fossil fuel combustion can be collected through a process that makes limestone, avoiding the need to quarry limestone.
Most Americans no longer earn more than their parents did. The "land of opportunity" is no more.
What the Department of Energy does, and why Rick Perry is a bad choice to run it.
I think there is something sleazy about funding nuclear weapons through the Department of Energy. It looks like a way to disguise how much of US government spending is actually on weapons and war.
Global heating generated a million climate refugees in Africa in 2015.
The EPA Withdraws Claim that Fracking has no "Widespread Systemic Impacts" on Drinking Water.
US citizens: Tell Congress not to create the neo-McCarthyite intelligence committee.
Here's more information about why not.
To sign the petition with Javascript disabled, you need to use the "salsalabs method".
Brazil's senate has approved a 20-year cut in government spending, which 60% of Brazilians oppose.
Brazil is in an economic slump, and cuts in spending are just the thing to make it worse.
Heroin use is down in the US, but deaths from overdoeses are up. It seems that the war on drugs is making heroin more dangerous.
Heroin is not particularly dangerous if it is manufactured under proper regulation. It is dangerous because it is sold on the black market.
The incomplete recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have shown substantial abnormalities.
Individuals, and the city of Seattle, are protesting Wells Fargo Bank for financing the Dakota Access Pipeline.
While Bermuda is the world's most damaging tax haven, the top ten include the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Jersey.
Tax havens are not the only way business gets out of paying taxes. Low tax rates on businesses, combined with plenty of special exceptions, are also big parts of the problem.
The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters without Borders complained to the US about interrogation and search of journalists trying to enter the US.
The UK blocked 19 delegates to the annual Trust Women conference that aims to end enslavement of women.
Canada did something similar in August, blocking speakers coming to the World Social Forum.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate Trump's ties to Russia.
The CIA has not provided proof of its claims of Russian interference in the election, and that claim might or might not be true. But we don't need to wait for certain knowledge before we investigate.
Mental Illness And Poverty: You Can't Tackle One Without The Other. Indeed, each tends to cause the other.
India requires the national anthem to be played before every showing of a movie, and people who refuse to stand up are arrested.
Orthodox Jews threaten secular Israelis with "modesty police".
130,000 gallons of petroleum have poisoned an area in North Dakota, not far from the Standing Rock pipeline. The test equipment that was supposed to detect leaks failed to detect this one.
To get 130,000, I have subtracted the amount of oil that was recovered from the total amount that was spilled.
The UK has adopted a formal definition of antisemitism.
I see no problem in the definition itself, which comes from the IHRA.
However, some of the suggested interpretations pose problems. For instance, one says that it is antisemitic to claim that the existence of Israel is racism. I've met people who argued that the establishment of Israel was itself an act of racism, and while I don't agree with them, their reasoning was not based on bigotry.
Another says that it is antisemitic to compare Israel's policies towards Palestinians to those of the Nazis. Uri Avnery has made such comparisons and it is absurd to call him antisemitic
In a free country, people can argue about these points, but the state is not concerned. The injustice in Britain is that the state is concerned through its censorship policies. What makes this definition is important is that it sets the criteria for state censorship, the boundary between opinions that are permissible and opinions that are criminalized.
Some UK local regions have set targets for how many children to remove from their families and send for adoption.
The targets are a response to the annual Tory budget cuts. At this point, there is no harmless place to cut, except the money that goes to rich people.
10 years of European attempts to "engage" with Eritrea show that the very idea is ridiculous.
In principle, abolishing such a cruel regime justifies war, if Eritreans want that sort of rescue — which we cannot take for granted — how could it be done?
Ethiopia is no friend of Eritrea. Conceivably it is possible to bring Eritrean exiles to Ethiopia to train as an army, so that they can kick out the government that rules Eritrea.
Of course, there are many possible reasons this could be a bad idea.
Everyone: call on tech companies to refuse to help Trump set up a registry of Muslims.
Neonicotinoid pesticides damage bumblebees' brains so that they can't learn the way to get pollen out of some flowers.
Prepare for 50 million refugees from flooding and water shortages by 2020, according to a report form the Institute for Environment and Human Security.
Daiwon McPherson staged an arrest scene with the local thug department to make a spectacular proposal of marriage.
To avoid accidents, they carefully informed everyone concerned — except one, the woman who was the target of the scene. She might have done something drastic to protect her boyfriend. But that was unlikely and it didn't happen.
I tend to think that starting off a marriage in such a theatrical way bodes ill for its durability. It puts the emphasis on getting married rather than on the relationship itself.
Amnesty International says that Qatar's "labor law reforms" are too weak to protect foreign workers from enslavement.
Obama has declared the CIA torture report secret for at least 12 years.
This decision protects the report from being destroyed by Senate Republicans, but I'm not convinced it is safe from being destroyed by Trump. The only way to preserve it for sure is to publish it, which I hope will occur one way or another.
Candidate Trump criticized Goldman Sachs, and condemned Clinton for being close to that company, but he has already named three people from that company as officials — now including its president.
Obama must release the intelligence that purports to show Russian interference in the US election.
"Inclusive economic development is the only socially and economically sustainable form of development," say Stiglitz and 12 other prestigious economists.
Food studies funded by food companies show a big tendency to praise those company's products.
This is corporate corruption of science, comparable to the corruption practiced by drug companies.
Some academics even publish articles that have been written for them by food companies. Drug companies have done that, too.
We can develop specific measures to reduce this corruption, but the root cause is that companies have too much money and the state has too little. That makes all institutions of society vulnerable to corruption.
There is a movement to reject end-of-year obligatory gifts.
I rejected this when I was a teenager, and am glad that I did. For me, it was easy, as I was living nowhere near any of my family. I didn't try to convince others about it.
Elif Shafak writes about how the imprisonment of writers in Turkey affects the writers not yet in prison.
Malak al-Shehri, a woman in Salafi Arabia, posted a photo showing herself with uncovered head. She has been arrested for this, demonstrating the misogyny of that Islamist monarchy.
The damaging effects of that country's ultra-harsh version of Islam can be seen in the people who demand that she be killed.
European Surveillance Companies Were Eager to Sell Syria Tools of Oppression.
Conjecture: Putin intervened to help make Trump president for the sake of an oil deal that was blocked by US sanctions.
If this is true, the US is in the position of a banana republic, with a government imposed to serve the local elite and foreign business interests.
US coal production is on the way out, with or without the EPA.
Note, however, that the reason natural gas is so cheap in the US is fracking, and that's likely to poison people's drinking water unless the EPA starts doing its job.
And it may have as much greenhouse effect as coal, when all the leaks of gas (methane) are counted.
Rapid Rise in Methane Emissions in 10 Years Surprises Scientists.
A suicide bombing was seized on by Erdoğan to arrest over 200 dissidents and opposition politicians, calling them "terrorists".
It's clear that those people couldn't all be connected with the bombing. Most of them, perhaps all, must be falsely accused.
Terrorism means political violence aimed at civilians. This bombing appears to have been aimed at armed agents of the state, not at civilians. If so, that makes it rebellion rather than terrorism.
Turkey and the PKK had a cease-fire that lasted for many years, until it was broken by Erdoğan for political reasons. I hope that they mutually reestablish the cease fire, and that Turkey returns to respecting human rights, for the benefit of all its citizens of whatever ethnic group and whatever politics or religion.
After years of effort, almost 1/4 of the girls in Somaliland escape FGM nowadays.
Somaliland is a mainly peaceful country next to Somalia.
US citizens: call on Trump to fire Bannon for promoting bigotry.
More information about Bannon.
Here's one of the cited examples: an article that attacks Anne Applebaum mainly for her political activities.
The article, by Matthew Tyrmand and published under Bannon's authority, mentions that she is a Jew as a brief aside; that point is not a focus of the article. However, the aside is harsh in tone, and entirely irrelevant to the political points. The only possible reason for including it was as an anti-semitic cheap shot.
A smog protest in Chengdu, China, met with heavy repression.
Because protesters wore smog masks, people wearing masks to protect themselves from smog were also suspect.
Due to global heating, Britons will have to learn to eat squid instead of fish.
Crimean Tatars that oppose Russia's annexation of Crimea face prosecution, exile, psychiatric investigations, even disappearances.
This is what Putin does to opposition everywhere in Russia. But the Tatars also face collective repression.
The Tatars are a minority in the Crimea, and would not be entitled to determine the Crimea's fate on their own. The Crimea is full of people of Russian origin, and it is possible that most of them in 2014 wanted the Crimea to become part of Russia. There's a good case that they were entitled to a real referendum about this question.
But you can't tell anything about the public's views from an election run under Putin's repression. His elections are sham.
Kyrgyzstan, the one country in central Asia with some amount of real democracy, has adopted constitutional changes that may reduce democracy.
Bermuda Is World's Worst Corporate Tax Haven, Says Oxfam.
Global heating effects in the Arctic are affecting reindeer in Spitzbergen; they can't find as much food in the winter.
South Korea's president has been impeached for corruption, and protesters now celebrate.
US citizens: Call on Trump not to corrupt the FCC.
Willful blindness: Australia plans to invest 4 billion dollars in a second airport in Sydney, to prepare for increased air travel.
It takes decades for those investments to pay off, but if they keep increasing carbon emissions, flying won't continue long enough for that.
Apple buys US government bonds with its profits while still keeping them "outside the US".
Some remote exams demand total control over your computer. To agree to that is extremely dangerous: they could insert malware and copying your files.
The exam service company says it does "proctoring", but I think "proctoscopy" describes it better.
Letting a company have total control over your computer is simply nuts. Imagine a computer security school which asks every student to submit to this, and flunks whoever says yes.
This was reported for a job interview for Amazon. Amazon reportedly no longer uses that method, but the employee's words suggest that this disservice is mainly used for course exams. There is no reason to think schools have stopped doing this.
New York City will cease retaining personal data about people who apply for the NYC ID card, to protect them from repression by Trump.
UK thugs ripped a phone out of a suspect's hands in order to access the data in it.
The article fails to say whether the thugs got a specific court order to authorize the operation, but that is the crucial question. We can accept such operations if a court has to authorize each one; however, if thugs can do this on their own authority, that is dangerous.
Global heating has altered air and water circulation in the Arctic.
It looks like the Earth's ecosphere is already crossing the edge of the cliff. Exxon has already brought about the disaster it has been campaigning to stop us from avoiding.
Trump will now try to prevent US scientists from telling us about it.
The French government wants to extend the "state of emergency" yet again.
Couldn't they at least limit these powers to some extent?
Mohamed Tamalt, imprisoned in Algeria for a poem, has died after months on hunger strike.
Merry Grav-Mass!
Trump has nominated another arsonist official: a global heating denialist who would ruin federally managed land pulling out fossil fuels and burning them.
Uber claims its drivers are independent contractors, but not very independent, since they are not allowed to contract for other ride companies.
By the way, it is clear that Juno has the same basic injustice as Uber: customers must run nonfree software and identify themselves. Uber is more nasty and arrogant, but both of them are enemies of our freedom. We should should reject both of them completely.
Censorship on WeChat for Chinese people is now deceptive: you can't tell that your message was blocked.
A poll found that more Americans endorse torture than oppose it. Apparently Trump was right about how to exploit the evil side of Americans.
Thousands of civilians have fled east Aleppo, and report that the rebels shoot at civilians that try to leave.
Russia and Syria, encouraged by the example of Guantanamo and CIA torture, have overturned the Geneva conventions. They have established that no atrocity is beneath them.
I am not convinced that a victorious Assad would make Syria into an "Iranian-led Shia protectorate". (Assad would surely continue a friendly relationship with Iran, but that's not the same thing.) But if it does, I don't see that it would be as bad for the world as Salafi Arabia already is.
Nonetheless, I agree with the article overall. The US must stop its imprisonment without trial.
Obama proposed measures to punish US companies that moved jobs out of the US. Republicans defeated them.
Obama also proposed foolish measures to "reward" companies for not doing so. Imagine offering each millionaire a government subsidy for each day he didn't do some antisocial thing.
Why is it that our government tries to influence the poor by punishing them, and to influence the rich by making them richer?
A small quantity of fentanyl can be an overdose, and due to prohibition of opioids, it is being included in varying concentrations in pills labeled as other opioids.
A new treatment for opioid addiction is on the way.
The Pentagon reports intentionally bombing a building in an Iraqi hospital, saying that PISSI fighters were firing from it.
If this is what really took place, it might have been justified. To find out what really took place, we need another Chelsea Manning.
Everyone: call on the International Criminal court to prosecute American war criminals too.
PISSI has recaptured Palmyra, defeating Assad's forces despite Russian air support.
The Exxon oilman, Tillerson, that Trump proposes for Secretary of State has a long history of making deals with Putin's men.
Geert Wilders, a Dutch populist, was convicted of "inciting discrimination" for suggesting it would be desirable to have "fewer Moroccans" in the Netherlands.
The question of how many immigrants a country should have is a valid political question, and it should not be a crime to say "fewer".
However, some points in Wilders' party platform are outright tyranny. "Preventive" imprisonment is Guantanamo — an injustice. So is exiling citizens for crimes. Banning the Qur'an is outrageous censorship. Kicking out asylum seekers is cruelty.
Cutting foreign aid is cruel. Cutting public broadcasting won't save much money and seems foolish. Not supporting research is certainly foolish.
Some aspects of the program might be good. Increased direct democracy could be good if implemented the Swiss way, where plebiscites can be held to validate or to reject laws passed by the legislature.
The promise to reduce taxes and increase benefits is questionable. That can be done for a while by deficit spending, which is the right way to give the economy an emergency boost, but is harmful to continue for the long haul. Does the Netherlands need an emergency economic boost just now?
How will rents be lowered? Building more housing would do the job well, but they might try some other less healthy method.
Cutting taxes for owning a car is a way of subsidizing fossil fuels. Do they want the sea to overflow their dikes?
An estimated 1/4 of US prisoners were imprisoned in the absence of any public interest in keeping them in prison.
Nuns that feed the homeless in San Francisco got money to buy a permanent base, but the other residents don't want any kindness in their building.
Everyone: call on two large California retirement funds to divest from the Dakota Access Pipeline.
They should be required by law not to invest in any fossil fuels or fossil fuel infrastructure.
Students suggest names to add to the Professor Watchlist.
US citizens: stand in support of the First Amendment.
Repressive Hungary warns us of what Trump and the Trumpets might try to do.
Why we must keep the resistance to trumpery nonviolent.
The coverup of the CIA-cocaine scandal of the 1980s shows we can't trust the major newspapers to separate truth from falsehood.
However, the situation today, where hate groups and political manipulators fabricate a dozen fake stories a day and supporters take them as truth, is even worse.
I think it is an important insight that this is not a matter of ceasing to care about the truth, but active rejection of unpleasant truths.
As for those that invent and post fake news, they don't believe it. They are lying and they don't care, because they want to win by hook or by crook.
Did you know that, when Trump is inaugurated, he will give everyone that voted for him the ability to fly by holding their arms out to the side? It will be easy for them to try this: just step out the nearest window.
Trump voters are factually mistaken about what happened under Obama.
This shows how effective the right-wing noise machine is at misinforming people.
Global heating positive feedback: it will speed up the action of soil bacteria that metabolize carbon and release greenhouse gas.
The effect is huge — like "adding another United States" to the world's climate cycle.
I don't think global heating is likely to cause the extinction of humans. That would be almost as hard as making cockroaches extinct. But it could destroy technological society and kill most of the humans alive at the time. If you're young today, you could live to see this happen.
Trump seems to be planning a witch hunt against government employees that did any work related to global heating.
Everyone:
call
on Obama to commute Chelsea Manning's sentence.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Batteries won a substantial fraction of the auction to provide nighttime and peak power in the UK.
Some existing coal plants also won, but no new large gas plants.
The article refers to some who inexplicably think it would be better to burn gas rather than charge batteries from windfarms. I can't imagine a rational argument for that.
Bigotry/hate groups have figured out how to SEO Google's page rank algorithm, so that sites saying "Jews are evil", and falsehoods such as denial of the holocaust, come up at the top of search questions.
It isn't clear how to defend against this. If Google chooses the results of specific searches, it will become legally responsible for its choices, which currently it is not.
Maybe opponents of bigotry need to play the SEO game against the hate groups.
The Middle East still used leaded gas until 10-20 years ago. The effects might include today's level of terrorist violence there.
If so, the level of terrorism there might decrease in 5-10 years.
Spikes and railings are increasingly used in the UK to deny the homeless any place they can sleep. When they do find a place, people are hired to spray them with hoses.
Loud music prevents sleeping in public space. Park benches are designed with bars so people can't sleep on them or under them. This suggests that one way to help the homeless would be to saw off those bars, or deactivate the speakers.
Government programs in the US are gradually reducing homelessness. Trump's spending cuts could put an end to that.
The occupants of just one non-state-authorized Israeli colony in the West Bank face demolition of their houses, much as thousands of Palestinians have.
The inhabitants of Amona have a lot of warning, and won't have to pay for the demolition. They won't find it impossible to get a building permit anywhere else. And they, unlike most of those Palestinians, did something to deserve this — stealing Palestinians' land.
Perhaps the US should convert its aid to Israel into purchase of the housing in these Israeli colonies, which it could then turn over to Palestinians.
The Indian state of Goa is trying to require all merchants, even in the market, to accept digital payments.
Present-day digital payments for purchases disrespect the purchaser's freedom because they are not anonymous. When governments pressure people to identify themselves when they buy, we should not rely on their pressure to be defeated by natural resistance. We should push back, and hard.
That's why I don't use my bank card to buy anything but airline tickets.
Senator Reid accuses FBI chief Comey of suppressing evidence that Russia was responsible for cracking the Democratic National Committee.
We don't actually know whether Russia was responsible, though I would not be shocked if it were. Whether or not Putin was responsible for this, he has done nastier things already.
More importantly, we should not let the proof that the DNC corruptly favored Clinton over Sanders be eclipsed by the question of who obtained and released that information. If the DNC had not rigged the primary election for Clinton then Trump would not have come close enough to winning for Republican officials to steal the rest of the way.
A fracked gas pipeline is being built across Florida, and the public is only beginning to notice it.
US farmers are losing money (on the average) each year because big food corporations are taking all the profit in the system.
The long-term effect is that farmers lose their land, and it can be taken over by a big corporation.
Charges against Backpage.com and its owners, because prostitutes advertise there in coded ways, have been dropped. Long live the First Amendment.
Prostitution should be legalized, too, and regulated to protect the rights and safety of prostitutes.
Trump says he won't actually work on Celebrity Apprentice, just get credit.
A typical piece of trumpery, because the question is not whether he does work, but whether he gets paid.
The US Border Patrol chases border crossers on the Mexican border into harsh terrain, as a tactic to kill lots of them.
The Trump energy plan: going all-out to boost greenhouse gas emissions.
France requires products of Israeli colonies in the West Bank to be labeled explicitly as such.
The US government makes its photo data base available for stores to recognize people.
The announcement says that only criminal's photos are offered for matching. But we know that the US government has photos of millions of other Americans. Does it secretly match the photos companies send against all of them, too, and make a private tracking list?
Trump's choice to head the Labor department wants the minimum wage to be low.
Due to Trump's intimidation, no US book publisher dares to publish a book of spoof Trump photos made using lookalikes.
The newspaper lobby wants to reduce fair use.
I would not oppose very narrow laws to make very large companies such as Facebook and Google pay more money to newspapers when their articles are read through those sites.
The state of the political battle in Europe over state surveillance and the right to use encryption.
We Must Find New Ways to Protect Human Rights Defenders.
One aspect that the article does not cover is that the US cooperated in establishing some of the regimes that crush human rights defenders — for instance, the one in Honduras.
Facebook tends to lead its useds into a sort of trance in which they believe, more or less, whatever comes up in the feed.
In a small act of defiance, Greece gave pensioners a Christmas bonus. The euro-banksters are outraged that their crushing cruelty was diminished even a little.
They demand that Greece be totally obedient and treat the Greek people with total contempt.
I still believe that Greece should leave the euro zone.
Uri Avnery: Israelis that want to make peace with Palestine are the true and sincere Israeli nationalists.
The case of Hamid Kehazaei, imprisoned by Australia on Manus Island, shows how Australia set up a system with multiple levels of bureaucratic hurdles against bringing any refugee to Australia, and run by functionaries who put all rules above human life.
Gambian president Yahya Jammeh conceded the election, but now has changed his mind and says he will not let go of power.
On World Human Rights Day, many writers and officials of PEN called on China to release imprisoned writers.
The US and EU also said something similar. In the case of the US, the moral weight of its statements is limited by the fact that its holding of prisoners without trial in Guantanamo, and its association with cruel buffoon Trump.
Trump Makes America Goldman'ss Again! No better than Clinton — indeed, perhaps even worse, because Trump doesn't try to hide it.
US citizens: phone Democratic senators and urge them not to try to "work with" Trump.
US citizens:
call
on the senate to think carefully about whether to approve Scott
Pruitt to head the EPA.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: call on Ohio Governor Kasich to veto the Ohio bills that would more or less ban abortion.
US citizens: phone Senate Republicans to urge them to oppose Trump's corrupt and racist appointees.
If the Republicans cancel Obama's medical insurance law, millions of Trump voters will lose their coverage.
Obama's system was a step forward but with serious flaws. It was designed to give people coverage, not to reduce costs, so coverage costs too much. If we want to save money and give all Americans good medical care, we should set up a National Health Service like the one that works well in Canada.
It is important to ridicule Trump, because he has trouble handling it.
The US government, and US states, are paying almost 100 billion in ransoms to companies so that they won't move jobs to other states or other countries.
The states can put a stop to companies' practice of playing one against the other, by forming a union against the companies. I've suggested calling it the United States of America.
Stopping this sort of competition with other countries would require a treaty — the Make Companies Pay Taxes treaty. It would be a treaty to assure state supremacy over business, the opposite of a business supremacy treaty.
The UK foreign minister, Boris Johnson, is considered a semi-Trump buffoon, but he was right on target when criticizing Salafi Arabia.
[Union president] Chuck Jones Is a Better President Than Donald Trump Will Ever Be.
Jones is receiving death threats from Trump's attack dogs, who he trained in the campaign to attack whoever Trump insults.
This seems to indicate that Trump aims to destroy unions. Unions are workers' principal real defense.
Thousands of Brazilians protested outside Congress, which is busy ignoring them to amend the constitution for crushing austerity.
Big cuts in state spending tend to lead to economic collapse. Maybe that will inspire the political changes needed to reverse austerity.
Two Moroccan girls who faced years in prison for charges of homosexuality were acquitted, but the law that threatened them is still there.
Trump may threaten sanctuary cities with cutoff of federal funds.
If they cut off a city's funds for the War on Drugs, the obvious response is to pull out of that crazy war. While I have no sympathy for the members of gangs that sell drugs, who may well commit violent crimes too, the War on Drugs does more harm than good overall and we should seize any excuse to drop it.
Trump plans to keep his conflict of interest in the TV program, Celebrity Apprentice.
The Boston thug department plans to monitor all "social media" posts for opportunities to arrest someone.
Trump has appointed a professional harasser of climate scientists, David Schnare, to tie up the EPA.
Hey, White Working Class, Donald Trump Is Already Screwing You Over.
The 800 Carrier jobs that Trump "saved" from going to Mexico will be replaced by robots instead.
Indigenous people in Peru vow to block oil drilling in their land, imposed by the central government.
Andrew Puzder, Trump's choice for Secretary of Labor, is another saboteur; he has led extreme attacks on workers.
Uber in the UK is running as a sweatshop, with drivers often making less than the minimum wage.
Clinton supporters circulated fake news to discredit Wikileaks' accurate reporting.
A "satanic" display in Florida resists pressure to have a religion.
Putting Pruitt in charge of the EPA is like "putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires."
The Japanese antiwar movement is campaigning to preserve the provision in the constitution that Japan cannot deploy its army for fighting outside Japan.
I don't entirely sympathize with the people of Okinawa that object to US military bases there. It seems they are exaggerating the effect of some very rare dangers. They could have a valid argument if they said that their island bears too big a share of the burden of the bases.
If Japan dropped its alliance with the US, it could tell all the US troops to leave. But Japan would have to become much more militarized, or else fall under Chinese dominion.
Patriarchal murder is surging in Jordan. Various laws facilitate the practice, as do men so cowardly that they can't refuse family pressure to murder their sisters.
As was the case with lynching of blacks in the US, the women actually murdered are the tip of the iceberg, since the point is to intimidate millions.
The European Central Bank is investing billions in fossil fuels.
After 15 years with no major airline accident in the US, many people still perceive flying as dangerous. In the same way, they perceive leaving a child in a parked car with ventilation as dangerous.
Don't forget some things that do endanger children in the US: poverty, food insecurity, underfunded schools that prepare them only for Mcjobs, riding in cars, and peer pressure to take foolish risks.
Feminism is the campaign for equality for women. Individual women who overcome the odds to be very successful are a distraction from that goal unless they help lead the way for all women to join in the equality.
It's a mistake to focus disporportionally on the minority of women that have high status, well paid jobs.
Most women workers need the same thing that most men workers need: better pay and better working conditions. Since women tend to get less pay for the same work, women need this even more than men do.
Wolfgang Streeck forecasts the collapse of capitalism: eventually people won't stand any more dooH niboR, and will destroy the system.
Children's Characters May Disappear from Unhealthy Food in Netherlands.
US citizens: save the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.
China will require universities to indoctrinate obedience to the dictatorship. All teachers will be required to indoctrinate.
The Great Barrier Reef will not exist in 2050 if heating continues.
Low wages and cuts in welfare benefits have squeezed working Britons against the high rents, so many of them live in permanent poverty.
The Tories made all three jaws of this vice, with help from New Labor.
Along with the Salafi-US bombardment, Yemen is afflicted by economic warfare.
Amazon's new grocery stores do not accept cash. They impose the same surveillance as ordering online from Amazon.
In addition, success of this would mean the loss of thousands of jobs.
I refuse absolutely to use automatic checkout machines in stores: I insist on going to the human sales agent, not because I desire a conversation, but specifically to defend their jobs.
What's more, I often shout out loud, "If you use these machines, you're putting Americans out of work," once when I enter and once when I leave. Please join this movement!
Technological "advance" is not an imperative, and it is not always an advance. It is for us to judge whether a technological change is an advance for society. Then society can decide which technologies to use. We can reject harmful technology if we dare to try.
US citizens:
call
on Obama not to let Arch Coal do mining in roadless Colorado
forest.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: call on Cameroon to free Fomusoh Ivo Feh, who has been imprisoned for sending a joke mocking Boko Haram via SMS message.
What makes the joke so funny is the idea that Boko Haram would want recruits to have western education (i.e., to study from the "boko", books, that it calls "haram", anathema).
US citizens: call on Obama to dismantle the NSEERS program so that Trump can't use it to register all Muslim visitors.
If your family chooses to participate in obligatory holiday purchasing, try adopting this rule: buy only second-hand goods, with a stated maximum price.
The article suggests that books and music ought to "go digital" — meaning, using internet distribution. Beware of that! Don't "buy" DRM-restricted copies or copies with End-User License Agreements. Insist on paying anonymously.
For books and music from major publishers, the only digital copies that do not oppress their users are the unauthorized ones.
The Five Stars party in Italy wants a referendum on moving Italy away from the euro.
Spain and Greece would also benefit from leaving the euro zone.
Senate Democrats hope some Republicans will join them to block saboteur Scott Pruitt from becoming head of the EPA.
Exxon is trying to harass the activists investigating its climate deception through subpoenas meant to burden them with lots of work and lead to a fishing expedition.
Exxon's lies are known because of internal documents from Exxon, which showed that Exxon was publicly denying global heating while its own research demonstrated the reality of the danger.
Remember, the name "Exxon" is not pronounced "Ekson".
Uber is trying again to force all customers to agree to arbitration of disputes — rather than lawsuits.
Newly elected Florida prosecutor Melissa Nelson wants to reform prosecution so that the goal is to do justice, rather than to convict people whether they deserve it or not.
Consortiumnews.com is concerned that it will be labeled as "fake news" for disagreeing with the official line.
ISTR seeing articles from Consortiumnews that were biased and one-sided — for instance, they denied that Russia's takeover of Crimea was a military conquest, and appealed to the subsequent Putin-organized plebiscite in the Crimea as proving something about what the inhabitants wanted.
I have not seen in Consortiumnews any fabricated factual claims such as we call "fake news". If the labeling system is run honestly, I think Consortiumnews has nothing to worry about. But can we trust it will be run honestly?
SCROTUS are trying to eliminate the requirement to buy US-made steel for Federally funded water pipes.
The next step in the "deform" of public schools is to eliminate schools of education and replace teachers with customer service workers.
Jill Stein's recount in Michigan was cancelled by the judge.
Seafood in the US will require digital tracking to identify where it was caught or grown, and what species it is.
I'm in favor of this system, because it it doesn't track human beings. I don't think live fish have a right to privacy, let alone dead fish.
The War on Drugs is even more blitzed in Mexico than in the US.
Court documents show some California thugs committed perjury and destroyed evidence.
Will they be prosecuted? Blue Lies Matter!
A national campaign seeks to make all US states prohibit sex between humans and nonhuman animals.
This campaign seems to be sheer bull-headed prudery, using the perverse assumption that sex between a human and an animal hurts the animal. That's true for some ways of having sex, and false for others.
For instance, I've heard that some women get dogs to lick them off. That doesn't hurt the dog at all. Why should it be prohibited?
When male dolphins have sex with people, that doesn't hurt the dolphins. Quite the contrary, they like it very much. Why should it be prohibited?
I've also read that female gorillas sometimes express desire for sex with men. If they both like it, who is harmed? Why should this be prohibited?
The proponents of this law claim that any kind of sex between humans and other species implies that the human is a "predator" that we need to lock up. That's clearly false, for the cases listed above. Making a prohibition based on prejudice, writing it in an overbroad way, is what prissy governments tend to do where sex is concerned. The next step is to interpret it too strongly with "zero tolerance".
Will people convicted of having dogs lick them off be required to live at least 1000 feet from any dogs?
This law should be changed to prohibit only acts in which the animal is physically forced to have sex, or physically injured.
Students at Georgetown University demand the school end a clothing contract with Nike because of the cruel conditions in Nike's factory in Vietnam.
E-cigarettes get young people addicted to nicotine, and tobacco companies market them towards young people.
Trump's phone call to Taiwan's president was no gaffe. It was a calculated measure, prearranged with lobbyists, probably aimed at profit for his business.
Aside from demonstrating once more that Trump is a liar, and that he views the presidency as an opportunity for profit for himself and billionaire cronies, it shows us that Bob Dole has sold out his country by working for a foreign government.
Taiwan is a democracy. The US properly treats it as a friend and ally. However, a former US official that represents a foreign government has sold out his country even if that foreign government is a friend and ally. Friendly countries often have different interests, and disagreements. Dole has given his loyalty to Taiwan before the US on those disagreements; that's not what a patriot does.
Hundreds of UK thugs face accusations of sexual abuse of criminal suspects and victims of crime.
I would guess that most of the suspects that were abused were suspected of some "crime" related to prostitution. One of the reasons those things should not be criminalized is to avoid putting prostitutes and their associates at the mercy of abusive thugs.
Snowden files show that the UK spied on the head of the World Trade Organization as well as many companies and heads of state.
Another reason not to keep your money in Wells Fargo bank: it forces its customers into arbitration, which is biased against them.
I suggest moving your money out of any of the large US banks.
French law makes it a crime to repeatedly view publications of PISSI.
That activity is grounds for suspicion, and might persuade a court to order an investigation, but it is an injustice to punish people for being suspect.
The UK does that, too, and it is unjust there too.
US citizens: call on the EPA to retract its forcibly altered report that said fracking was safe.
The low oil price has led more people to travel by car or plane, rather than more efficient buses.
Nobel laureates call on the Nobel Foundation to divest from fossil fuels.
Registered sex offender Steven Folster was forced to move into a tent in the woods, or be imprisoned. Either one could kill him, since he is supposed to spend 8 hours a day on an oxygen tank.
I don't see how someone in such bad health is likely to be a danger to children, but if he were, living in a tent in the woods would not prevent it.
Telling him that his new house was a permissible place for him to live, then deciding the opposite after he had spent the money to move, was a dirty trick.
US citizens: call on Trump not to appoint Tillerson as Secretary of State.
A Canadian court has ordered Google to remove a page from searches world-wide, triggering an appeal on a question of world-wide importance.
The article spreads gratuitous confusion by calling this trade secret case an "intellectual property" case. Other so-called "intellectual property" laws are totally different from trade secret law, so associating this case with them can only spread misunderstanding.
The US government can collect US citizens' emails "accidentally on purpose" as part of its massive searches for everything else in the world.
Donald Slump proposes to put global heating denialist Scott Pruitt and other denialists in charge of the EPA.
Meanwhile, the national chicken coop will be monitored by Fox News.
Global heating is wiping out some species of seabirds on St Kilda island in Scotland.
If the sea life they eat moves north, it is moving away from land. These birds won't find many places to breed up north.
Maybe we could save them by creating artificial islands, or floating breeding platforms. But with so many kinds of damage being caused by our CO2 emissions, the only feasible way to stop all the damage is to stop increasing the atmospheric greenhouse gas level.
Australian politicians are seeking legalistic excuses for preventing public exposure of how farms treat animals.
Some US states have already done this with Ag-gag laws.
Farmers have two legitimate choices: either treat animals in ways the public finds acceptable, or convince the public to accept more. Finding excuses to stop the public from finding out about farm practices is not legitimate.
Now, if only the campaign could convince the public that farms' treatment of animals is a kind of sex…
A Rio Tinto mine plans to track employees totally, even when they are off duty, using sensors on lampposts as well as drones.
Tracking people this much should be prohibited by law, even employees on duty.
The response to the Oakland fire is eviction of many poor people and art centers.
Are electric cars really zero-emissions vehicles? That depends on whether the electricity is generated from fossil fuels.
This doubt is for the short term. In the long run, electric cars are a step forward because we can generate all our electricity renewably just by ramping up existing technology. The car batteries can serve as load buffers.
We have to make sure that recharging electric cars is anonymous.
Giraffes are listed as "vulnerable" after their population has fallen 40% in a 3 decades.
We can still save them.
Libraries in the UK are hit hard by the effect of austerity on local governments.
Democracy in Central Asia has turned out to mean dictatorship and poverty. Most people there wish they could have the Soviet Union back.
A new US law prohibits companies from restricting how their customers post reviews of the company's products or services.
The article ends with a fatuous statement that companies "should protect" their "intellectual property". That term is so broad that it is fatuous to say that people "should" (or "shouldn't") do any particular thing with it.
If we make the subject narrower and concrete by replacing "intellectual property" with something specific, such as copyrights, then it becomes mistake. It is wrong to endorse in a blanket way all the things that companies do to enforce copyrights. Some are legitimate, and some are not.
Repealing Obama's medical care extension would cause between 27000 and 36000 deaths per year.
That's more or less what SCROTUS plan to do.
Unemployment in the UK has gone down, but most people can barely live on the pay of their precarious jobs, and they have no career path to a better job.
It's easy to get full employment by letting employers pay people too little to live on. That is not enough to qualify as successful management of the economy.
I think the answer to their needs is Corbyn and his supporters, who want to make the Labour Party a real Labour Party again.
Israel has permitted Gaza to export strawberries to Europe.
Americans have come to accept recognition of Palestine and opposition to Israel's colonies in Palestinian territory. Especially Democrats.
US Jews will mostly go along with this too.
The reason US politicians don't generally condemn the occupation is the money offered by some donors for not doing so.
US citizens: take a stand for freedom of the press and freedom to dissent, and against bigotry.
US privacy law is based on whether a person has an "expectation of privacy", and this gives a bad result with license plate tracking.
States should pass laws limiting the data that license plate cameras can save.
New York City Thug Department lawyers specially prosecute protesters, to pressure them to make deals that include admissions such that would stop them from suing the city for their false arrests.
Why Does a Woman Stay with a Violent Man? Sometimes, to Save Her Life. Women are most likely to be murdered by men just after leaving them.
The US congress protected many ecosystems by refusing to resuscitate the Export-Import Bank.
The Export-Import Bank has funded lots of fossil fuel projects and getting rid of it is substantial progress.
The danger is that Trump will bring it back next year.
A public campaign forced the EU's plutocratist president to give up on a plan to "reform" wildlife protection directives to serve business.
Azza Soliman, Egyptian women's rights activist, has been arrested, and her NGO shut down.
"Detained" is a fashionable euphemism for "arrested". I never use it, because I think we should call an arrest an arrest.
Acid water in an old open pit mine in Montana killed thousands of migrating geese that found no other place in the area to stop in.
It goes to show that we need to clean up old mines — putting up "danger" signs is does not make them safe. Cleaning up the mine has to be treated as part of running the mine. Indeed, starting to operate a mine should require posting a bond for the expected costs of cleanup.
Assad's troops have captured the old city of Aleppo and most of the former rebel areas.
Australia is lobbying the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to support coal and nuclear projects rather than renewables.
One small positive step: Trump fired a crony's son for spreading the false "Pizzagate" accusations against Clinton.
This in itself isn't much, but just maybe it will develop into something more.
We will see.
Many of Trump's choices for cabinet offices are closely linked with the Koch brothers.
Julian Assange has published his answers to the Swedish prosecutor's questions, in effect daring the prosecutor to either charge him for real or let the issue drop so he can leave the Ecuadorian embassy.
Assange says they can't actually charge him because the evidence offers no legal grounds to do so.
I don't know what went on between Assange and the woman, but I do see that the prosecutors are using the charges as an excuse rather than really concerned about them. If they were serious about the alleged sex crime, they would have made the formal commitment not to send Assange to the US, and he would have gone to Sweden to face the legal proceedings.
"Democrats must become progressive or get out of the way."
I disagree with one background point: Trump did not win the election. Rather the Republican Party stole the election through voter-suppression. The Crosscheck scheme denied a million Americans the right to vote.
With this unjust advantage, Trump didn't need to actually win; it was sufficient for him to get within stealing range. He did that against Clinton because of her nonprogressive policies.
Sanders might have won by a bigger margin, beyond stealing range.
Rep. Ellison faces a smear campaign for insisting that Israel should make peace with Palestine.
If you feel your organization needs a "presence" in Facebook.
Eran Cohen, running to lead Britain's Union of Jewish Students, supports the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions movement against Israel where he was born.
Israel fears boycott of products of its colonies because that could easily extend to a broader boycott of companies that operate there.
Israel calls Shuafat refugee camp a part of Jerusalem, but it is surrounded by walls and some residents are in effect imprisoned by them.
They have to pay taxes for city services that they never get. Israeli thugs enter only to arrest people or demolish buildings. Aside from that, they protect the drug dealers that operate near a checkpoint in the walls.
Residents estimate that 1/3 of the people are addicts of this drug, which leads some of its users to suicidally attack Israelis with knives. This gives Israeli thugs an excuse for illegal collective punishment: blowing up the family's house.
US citizens: support Keith Ellison for chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Disinformation, Not Fake News, Got Trump Elected, and It Won't Go Away.
Replacing printed newspapers with digital distribution turns out to make censorship easier.
For a while it was the opposite, but that was before states began trying in earnest to censor.
Accusing Venezuela's president Maduro of becoming a dictator.
It seems pretty much true to me. Chavez held real elections, and really won them. Maduro doesn't do that.
While it is true that Chavez started some of the policies that are today causing economic problems, he did so to correct other economic problems (poor people had trouble buying necessities of life). I think he would have corrected the details of those policies if they had caused big problems while he was president.
Jihadis boast that Trump will play into their hands, by spreading bigotry and thus provoking hatred from other Muslims. I fear it may be true.
When neonicotinoid pesticides were banned in Europe, farm yields have not decreased. There is no reason to hesitate about banning them to save the bees.
Personalized Pricing in the Air? Why Consumers Should Be Wary of a New Airline Pricing Proposal.
About the book, We Sue an Artist — by an artist that was sued.
Want to Discredit Donald Trump? Show His Base He's Part of the Elite.
[Global heating] Threatens Ability of Insurers to Manage Risk.
This is a consequence of increases in extreme weather of various kinds. Each instance of extreme weather has some chance of causing lots of damage.
The US opposition to Assad is not about an oil pipeline, as some claim.
North Dakota has around 4 oil spills each year from existing pipelines.
In November the Arctic set a record for the least sea ice ever observed.
If Republicans Want to "Cut Fat", They Might Start at the Pentagon.
For plutocratist politicians, "cut fat from the budget" means "cut spending that goes to the non-rich." Paying businesses to build arms or run prisons never counts as "fat."
It suits Russia to make the West distrust the internet, because Russian elites already did.
Trump's advisors want to privatize indigenous peoples' land in order to deregulate drilling for fossil fuels.
Privatization of tribal lands has been used in the US as a means to take it away. Once an individual, rather than the tribe, can sell the land, desperate poverty is likely to make that happen. The result is that the tribe's members end up just as poor, and without land. And in some cases poisoned by toxic releases from the wells.
How Trump's Grift Gave Government to the 0.01 Percent.
What the Robots Are Doing to the Middle Class. The new middle class is smaller and requires a higher level of training.
Obama's latest report says that terrorist suspects must have proper trials in real courts, and that that the Authorization for Use of Military Force does not permit attacking any and all suspects of terrorism no matter where they are.
Publishing a good policy so late in Obama's term of office is unlikely to restrain Trump very much.
If he had published these decisions in 2008, and put them fully into effect, the US would be more respectable and more respected today, and it would be politically harder for a subsequent president to go against them.
Dominic Ongwen was kidnaped at age 10 by the Lords Resistance Army and forced to be a soldier, then became a brutal leader. Was he a victim, or a war criminal?
Clearly he started out as a victim; the question is to what extent he later became culpable.
When children are forced to become soldiers, we can't hold them responsible for what they are forced to do. No 10-year-old can be expected to have the force of will needed to stand up to such pressure; few adults could do it.
If the same person continues to do similar crimes when older, in a predatory army that punishes soldiers for not doing them, I think it is still senseless to put that person individually on trial.
However, when a solider becomes a leader, and orders others to commit crimes, at that point I think person becomes responsible for them and cannot plead coercion.
Nicole Bolden is suing officials in the St Louis region for jailing her for being too poor to pay fines.
Online sales, with tracking and surveillance of customers, enables businesses to show different people different prices.
I protect myself from tracking and surveillance by paying cash in stores.
US citizens: call on Congress to resist Trump and Ryan by preserving Medicare.
A book of satire, meant to expose and mock racism, has been withdrawn in response to condemnation from people who thought it was serious.
The Chilean agents that murdered exile Orlando Letelier in the US in 1976 have been living safely in the US since then. Now Chile will try to extradite them.
George Monbiot: "No country with a McDonald's can remain a democracy." McDonald's, here, stands for the multinational companies that atomize and dominate society in each place.
UN Human Rights Experts Demand Answers from China over Missing Lawyer. Reportedly they suspect he was imprisoned for meeting with someone from the US.
Israel denied entry to the general secretary of the World Council of Churches because she advocates boycott and divestment of Israel.
A state that excludes people for peaceful criticism is moving towards tyranny. Israel calls itself the "only democracy in the Middle East", but it is getting too repressive to qualify any more.
Extreme rains (and flooding) in the US could increase 400% by the end of this century.
These strong rains will destroy crops.
Courts in three US states have ruled that broad restrictions on the lives of registered sex offenders are unconstitutional.
There may be some convicted sex criminals that are so dangerous to children (or, in some cases, to adults) that we need to prevent them from having a chance to attack anyone. But it's absurd to do this by putting most work, most education, and many civic activities off limits for them based on broad and dumb criteria.
Surely there are smarter ways to achieve the goal — perhaps achieve it more completely — without forbidding them from walking around town.
It would be better to sentence a few who are likely to commit more crimes to lifelong prison or parole, rather than impose such restrictions on a far larger number of people.
The thug that killed Walter Scott had a mistrial, because at least one juror refused to consider a guilty verdict.
This article argues that the US has a presumption of guilt for black men.
Bacteria resistant to carbapenem antibiotics have been found in pigs in a US farm. When this resistance spreads to human environments, we will be left with no antibiotics that bacteria can't resist.
Thanks to the practice of giving regular doses of antibiotics to all pigs, you'll be able to buy cheaper pork, and you'll die if you get an infection.
US citizens: call on Trump to reject Bahraini government payments to his hotel.
Here's part of why it's bad for the president to legitimize Bahrain.
General Petraeus leaked more sensitive secrets than Snowden, and did so for his own personal benefit. He got a slap on the wrist and now is considered for cabinet positions.
Snowden, who risked imprisonment go give the public vital information, ought to be treated better than Petraeus.
What workers need, for a better life, is a union. Politicians that are sincere about helping working people will support laws making unions stronger and helping workers form unions and remain in them.
A virtual distance-midwife can't do the job of a real midwife.
China Torturing Suspects in 'War on Corruption', Says Human Rights Watch.
Does Trump want the US to follow China's example?
"Poverty graduation" enables poor people in Bangladesh to become permanently self-supporting for years. It costs $100 per family.
Another important Brazilian politician, the president of the Senate, has been indicted for corruption.
Portland, Oregon, is considering an extra tax on companies whose CEOs are paid more than the median salary of workers.
I hope this takes into account workers that are hired through temporary agencies or obligated to act as "independent contractors".
I also hope it is not limited to companies whose headquarters are in Portland. It needs to include all companies that have any business activity located there.
"Australia must choose between coal and coral — the Great Barrier Reef depends on it."
Fortunately, Australians strongly oppose providing subsidies to the proposed giant coal mine's railroad link.
Israel's parliament has voted for a bill to retroactively legalize the theft of private Palestinian land for unauthorized Israeli colonies in the West Bank.
All the Israeli colonies in the West Bank violate international law. These colonies were built in violation of Israeli law.
An armed man attacked a pizzeria in Washington DC to "investigate" fabricated stories that it Hillary Clinton was holding "child sex slaves" there.
Private Prisons Are Really Bad, But Good Enough for Immigrants, Concludes Homeland Security Report.
The new, democratically elected president of Gambia has freed the opposition leaders that were imprisoned in protests in April.
The US could take a lesson from Gambia.
The UN has identified 41 peacekeepers active in the Central African Republic as suspects for sexual abuse.
Rising temperatures have eliminated at least 40 marine species from the eastern Mediterranean coast.
Why Land Rights for Indigenous Peoples Could Be the Answer to [global heating].
I quibble with one point in the article, where it asks, "How do you compensate industries reliant on the agriculture that entails deforestation?" Why should they get compensation, rather than punishment?
Russia is imposing Chinese-style censorship and control over the internet.
US citizens: call on Trump to sell his businesses and eliminate his conflict of interest.
The European Parliament will have to vote on CETA. If it does not reject that business-supremacy treaty, it will strengthen the right-wing "populist" parties.
The Ogoni people of Nigeria want to sue Shell in the UK for polluting their land and groundwater through repeated oil spills.
The corrupt politicians that rule Brazil are pushing a constitutional amendment to impose austerity until 2037.
US citizens: call on the Senate to block the AT&T - Time Warner merger.
The danger is that Trump will approve it.
US citizens: call on the Senate to reject Mnuchin.
The price of an Uber ride is only around 40% of its cost. This shows how intensely much the company is running at a loss.
The only way this can be rational is if Uber plans to greatly increase its fees (perhaps after destroying its competitors) or else greatly reduce costs (by getting rid of drivers).
Either way, let's not help Uber bring that future about.
A study has found that a child's cognitive ability correlates with how much time they spend with their mothers in ages 3-7.
This may or may not be true for fathers too; the study did not get much data about fathers.
In other words, pushing parents back into full-time work could impose a lasting handicap on their children.
Police Violence Against Native Americans Goes Far Beyond Standing Rock.
Illegal mistreatment of workers is the norm in Chinese factories (in this case, making cheap toys for westerners).
Australia is racing through its carbon budget from now to 2050. At this rate, it will use all of that up by 2032.
Ralph Nader: Trump and His Betraying Makeover.
I support the campaign to move Oregon to score runoff voting, also known as range voting.
Jews in New York protested against Trump's association with antisemitism, and against pro-occupation Jewish organizations that cozy up to Trump by turning a blind eye to antisemitism.
Sea Shepherd faces credible accusations of lying about the sinking of the Ady Gil. However, it has been very effective, first against whaling and second against illegal fishing.
Recommending books that shed light on today's right-wing trumpery, and on why America's working poor are so mind-numbed by their lives that they don't try to organize politically to make it better.
Tories say that leaving the EU is an opportunity for more "free trade" in Britain. In other words, they advocate face-planting surrender to business, this time supported by Britain's remaining naval power. Plus selling arms to regimes that don't deserve support.
The main problem with the EU is that it surrenders to business. There is no sense leaving the EU except to stop surrendering to business.
Giant avalanches in Tibet are probably due to global heating.
The US Army denied permission to finish the Dakota Access pipeline on its current planned route, and will consider rerouting it.
This could be a victory for protecting the local water. But if the pipeline crosses the Missouri somewhere else, it will only move the threat to a different backyard. Meanwhile, its contribution to increased global heating will be unaffected by changes in its route.
The only real victory would be to stop the pipeline completely.
The decision about the route also requires a proper environmental impact statement. Maybe that will provide an opportunity to stop it completely.
Melon pickers in Honduras ask people to boycott Fyffes melons because the company blacklists those that join a union.
Amnesty International says Fiji's thugs torture suspects, even kill them.
Relations Between US And UN Strained over Afghanistan War Reports.
Europe is in danger of choosing the not-quite-extreme repressive right wing as a lesser evil than the extreme repressive right wing.
Both of them, like Trump, scapegoat immigrants for economic setbacks that most people experience as a consequence of concentration of wealth, and neither one proposes to end that concentration process.
Indigenous Sámi activists in Norway convinced Norway's largest bank to pull its investments out of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Trump threatens an extra tax on products imported from companies that moved manufacturing out of the US.
It might be a positive step, but companies will easily find ways to game the rule.
The crucial thing is to make large companies in general (and rich people) pay more tax, and Trump seems to be planning the opposite.
Australia is considering a government subsidy to a giant proposed coal mine.
How suicidal can humans get?
How the Media Iced Out Bernie Sanders & Helped Donald Trump Win.
Mattis has suggested eliminating land-based nuclear missiles. This could be a good idea, since it would reduce the hair-trigger readiness as well as saving lots of money.
As the need for humanitarian aid around the world keeps growing, wealthy countries' governments have ceased donating what is needed.
The need increases because of global heating effects, population growth and degraded natural systems. The reason governments no longer donate what is needed is that neoliberal policies have cut taxes on the rich and on business.
These are the things we need to change.
The Rockefeller family foundation will divest entirely from fossil fuels.
Elizabeth Warren called Steven Mnuchin, Trump's choice for the US treasury "a self-dealing, Wall Street tool."
Trump attacked hedge fund managers in his campaign, but now he's selling out to them totally.
Trump's "cleaning up the swamp" was pure bullshit — he's filling it up with alligators.
Howard Dean, who seeks leadership of the Democratic Party, is similarly bad.
Obama has been pretty lousy in that area, too.
Clinton, like Trump, wanted to jail people for burning the US flag.
Russia is copying China's system of making the Internet effectively useless for dissent or criticism of the state.
The Grand Tradition of Burning the American Flag. It's part of America's even grander tradition of respecting freedom of expression.
No One Should Be Diagnosed at a Distance — Even Donald Trump.
Using antibiotics makes a subsequent drug-resistant infection much more likely for at least the next few months.
Many of Trump's cronies are involved with ALEC.
A respected Canadian journalist was barred from entering the US to cover the pipeline protests at Standing Rock.
The US immigration agents took his phones and copied their contents before refusing to let him in.
A former UK "job adviser" says the purpose of her job was to find opportunities to punish unemployed people for any failure to go through the all the required steps.
Even being in the hospital was not accepted as an excuse.
Steven Mnuchin's bank foreclosed on an old woman's house because of a 27-cent error in her mortgage payments.
Trump's choice to administer Medicare and Medicaid designed Indiana's Medicaid plan, which was intended to shaft poor people.
Bigots have tricked Google search completion into promoting bigotry sites that attack women and Jews.
The United Kingdom plans to sentence drivers to life in prison if they kill someone by driving while speeding or holding a phone, or while drunk, etc.
If the goal is to discourage drivers from doing those dangerous things, this approach is big on harshness but low on effectiveness. Only a tiny fraction of people that today drive speeding, holding a phone, or drunk, will cause actual harm and be punished for it. The rest tell themselves, "Nothing will go wrong", so they don't worry about what the penalty would be if something did go wrong.
The effective way to discourage those dangerous behaviors is to apply a small punishment more often. If 10% of the people who did one of these things on any given day were sentenced to one night in jail, almost all of them would soon learn not to do it any more. Even 1% might be enough, since everyone would know people who were caught.
US citizens: oppose putting Exxon in charge of US diplomacy.
Everyone: call on the Anti-Defamation League to stop condemning criticism of Israeli colonization in Palestine, and focus on its proper mission, fighting against antisemitism and other bigotry.
2000 unarmed US military veterans are headed for Standing Rock to act as human shields for the pipeline protesters.
Trump Allies in Battleground States Rush to Stop Jill Stein's Recount Efforts.
There is no possible legitimate reason to oppose a more careful count of the ballots. The reasons they give are trivial. We know what the unstated motive is: "If there's a mistake in our favor, we don't want you to find it!"
Everyone: call on TIAA to reject palm oil from deforestation.
US citizens: call for endangered species protection for bluefin tuna.
US citizens: call on Rep. Chaffetz to investigate Trump's conflicts of interest, as he said he would.
Everyone: call on journalists not to disguise racism behind the innocent-sounding term "alt-right".
US citizens: phone the White House at (202) 456-1111 and call on Obama to stop the siege of pipeline protesters. Thugs are cutting off supplies and ambulances; if the thugs attack again and injure more protesters, they could lose organs or die due to this.
US citizens: call on your senators to
oppose
bills that undermine science and science-based policies.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Trump wants to pass a law allowing people to carry concealed guns anywhere in the US if they get approval in some (any) state.
If all states had strict standards, this might be ok.
Brazil's lower house used the plane crash of a football team as cover for passing a bill to eliminate penalties for corruption of officials.
Of the 513 members of the lower house, 450 voted for this.
US white-supremacists are supporting Trump, but also using Trump to make people think that all Trump's supporters support them too.
The denialist-controlled House Science Committee claimed that world temperatures are decreasing.
They are paid to repeat that message; they feel no shame about its obvious falsehood.
The habit of online gambling affects more teenage boys in the UK than drugs or alcohol.
If they need it to unwind, could a game which doesn't cost money give them the same sensation? For me, it could.
Assad's forces have captured half of east Aleppo and might capture all within a few weeks.
The US Senate voted to continue sanctions on Iran.
Iran says this violates the nuclear agreement. Can anyone find an expert analysis of whether that is true? I can't take either side's word about the matter.
Why Is the Obama Administration Opposing Rights for Immigrant Detainees?
Some will have a good case, and some will have a bad one, but each immigrant should have the chance to present the case to a judge.
The UK's new law authorizing massive surveillance also requires back doors in encryption.
It is a threat to academic freedom and to the subjects of academic research.
Trump cleverly makes scandalous announcements to distract attention from the scandals of substance.
Women the World Over Have Shown the US How to Deal with Sexism And Racism.
Australia rejected Greenpeace's freedom of information request for details of offshore drilling plans based on a laughable excuse — that Greenpeace might use the information to oppose the plans.
If the US really wanted to reduce illegal immigration, then rather than building walls or imprisoning deporting people, it would only need to punish employers that hire immigrants illegally.
I am not strongly concerned about the number of unauthorized immigrants. As a US citizen, though, I object to the requirement for employees who are US citizens to prove they are. I would have no difficulty proving it, but I resent being required to do so.
"Fears around gender-neutral toilets are all in the mind". Men can attack women anywhere, if they are minded to do that sort of thing, but trans people face real danger.
Barrett Brown has been released from prison. The court convicted him for Anonymous's cracking of Stratfor's systems.
It now appears that the US government suppressed evidence that he was reporting on the cracking but not participating.
Banning drones at pipeline protests is a way of suppressing journalism that can expose the violence of the thugs.
Before Trump phoned the president of Taiwan, a representative of his hotel business called to discuss a hotel investment there.
People who are almost blind, but not 100%, face a lot of misunderstandings.
The right-wing theocratic rule that limited use of embryonic stem cells impeded research into treating retinitis pigmentosa with stem cells to restore people's sight. Their objection was based entirely on religious irrationality. Obama eliminated this restriction; will Trump impose it again?
The Trump building across the Hudson from Manhattan was built using a government subsidy for visas for foreign workers.
The Canadian government has approved a new oil pipeline, to be built by the company we could call Unkind Warmin', but Canadians are determined to stop it anyway.
Most of the inhabitants have returned to the town of Jalawla, liberated from PISSI in February, but there is no money to rebuild what was destroyed.
Meanwhile, the Kurds and the Iraqi government dispute control of the town.
How people learn to prefer new technically advanced diminished substitutes for direct conversation.
Here are suggested ways to support the pipeline protesters in North Dakota.
The election stolen by Trump, like the attacks of September 2001, are blow-back from years of dangerous actions.
Warren Refuses to Let Trump's Luxury Hotel Conflict Slide.
Peace with the FARC could be an opportunity for Colombia to have peace, but that won't follow automatically.
One of the ways the US legal system systematically squeezes the poor is jailing women because a thug suspects they are prostitutes.
As far as I can tell, the only motive for prohibiting prostitution is that some people find the idea disgusting. What kind of justification is that?
Historians discuss the similarities and differences between Trump and 20th century fascism.
Activists are protesting against the banks that have invested in the Dakota Access Pipeline.
A hedge fund manager says he feels "glee" that Trump has "conned the voters" by promising to curb hedge fund profits and now, when elected, heading in the opposite direction.
US grassland is being rapidly converted to farmland. This releases lots of carbon that grasslands store up.
A right-wing blacklist, the "professor watchlist", labels professors as "anti-American" and falsely accuses them of "discrimination against conservative students", because they do things such as teach a feminist approach to things such as Trump's attitude towards women.
The real point of that activity is harassment and intimidation.
This is one of many examples of where right-wingers systematically and falsely accuse others of the sort of wrongs they actually do. Others include Trump's accusations of election rigging on the Democratic side (when actually the Republicans are the ones that do this) are another example.
Steve Mnuchin, the foreclosure king.
Several big US banks were guilty of fraudulent foreclosures during several years after the financial crisis.
It seems that Mnuchin's bank took that one step worse, buying up old mortgages in order to foreclose houses based on similar invalid justifications.
Andorra has yielded to pressure and ceased maintaining banking secrecy for EU citizens.
It may still be a tax haven for rich Americans.
Trump's method of "keeping Carrier's jobs in the US" was to offer the company a tax subsidy.
As Sanders put it, the company "took Trump hostage and won" — a victory over the US government.
We can't afford to pay thousands of companies to keep jobs in the US. We can afford to make them pay to move jobs out of the US.
Trump has sued to prevent the recount in Michigan.
Trump is now the avowed enemy of free and fair elections.
A series of court decisions have made "national security letter"
secret subpoenas
less secret and easier to challenge.
We need to give the state power to subpoena specific information with
specific grounds. To keep them from becoming oppressive, we must
insist on narrow and specific subpoenas only, with concrete
justification each time.
Trump appointed a science-denier to take charge of NASA.
Russians Talk with Syrian Rebels as Eastern Aleppo Runs Out of Food.
Imprisoned Iranian musician Mehdi Rajabian has been hospitalized after a month of hunger strike.
Stephen Hawking: politicians must reduce inequality if humanity is to work together to deal with the global challenges that endanger the survival of civilization.
Australians have grasped that they must reduce chemical pollution
in order to
save the Great Barrier Reef.
Will they recognize that this also requires capping the level of CO2
in the atmosphere?
Excessive heat of the water kills corals,
and so does
the acidity that will result from additional CO2 dissolved in the water.
The UN admitted responsibility for introducing cholera to Haiti and has stated long-term plans to eradicate it.
Netanyahu accused a critical journalist of "brainwashing" the Israeli people for publishing stories about possibly corrupt activities in his family.
Want to Know Why Young People Are Sexting? Try Asking Them.
London: Squatters Evicted from Building of Company That Works to Stop Squatting.
We Cubans Will Restore Civil Liberties — Without Help from Donald Trump.
The Texas requirement to bury or cremate fetuses
as if they were human
beings is extremely cruel to women who have abortions — or miscarriages.
And if the women have to pay for this sick ceremony, it will put some of them
out on the street.
Perhaps hospitals and abortion clinics can arrange to bury 100 fetuses
at a time — at least that way it won't cost much, and the women won't
be required to come and dwell on the situation.
Sexual harassment and even assault are widespread in schools in the UK.
Teachers want action to protect students.
I support that demand, but
adopting a policy of "zero tolerance" in a
school
is asking for trouble no matter what issue it's about. We
don't want children to bring weapons to school, but "zero tolerance"
for weapons leads to things like kicking children out for pictures of
guns.
Greg Palast explains why the recounts are essential: so many ways that ballots can be counted wrong, or rejected entirely.
Gamergate, in 2014, was the
training campaign for Trump's army of
bullies.
The other Trump supporters provide a sea of people in which the
bullies can swim. They disapprove of the bullying, but they never go
so far as to make the bullies go away.
Colombia has
signed a revised peace deal with the FARC.
This time, without a referendum. I hope the people accept the peace.
Adolescents and adults fall victim to manipulative strangers that pressure
them to make nude videos, and then
threaten to post those videos on the
net
unless the victims pay.
The blackmailers are doing something very nasty, and I'm glad if they
are imprisoned for their crime. However, what enables them to get
money this way is the prudish prejudice of the victims' friends,
family and actual or potential colleagues. If not for this, the
victims would only laugh at the demand for money.
Scientists that study pollinating insects say we urgently need to restrict pesticide use to save the pollinators.
Large companies use palm oil made systematically with child labor, and on their labels claim that it is "sustainable".
CIA Chief Warns Trump Against Torture.
Elizabeth Warren reminds us that Republicans do not have majority support in the US.
Trump's choice for Health and Human Services (Tom Price) would like to
take away non-wealthy people's medical care.
Trump will offer them
small tax credits as a partial substitute.
Price aims to
enrich those who get rich from medical care.
He is also a
fanatical activist against women's rights,
including
birth control, and opposed a law to help protect women from domestic
violence.
Poor rural citizens of Kentucky, who voted for Trump,
are now afraid
of what he will do
to the health insurance that Obama gave them.
The article uses the word "moron", but I think that is uncalled for. It's not that these people are stupid, but that they asked to be
fooled. What they lack is sense.
Uber has started tracking users' movements before and after rides.
It is unacceptable for a ride service to localize identified people ever. The fact that Uber knows passengers' names is already inexcusable.
The Internet Archive will create a backup copy in Canada as protection against the danger of being trumped by censorship.
North Korea faces new sanctions, supported by China, in response to its nuclear test in September.
We don't expect airlines to behave decently, so it is news when one does.
Airlines' reduction of seat space tends to provoke air rage, and that it follows that airlines share the culpability for it. Most people take for granted, in such cases, that the culpability must fall on one or the other; that assumption means letting one or the other off the hook.
Castro sent troops to Africa to fight colonial regimes, and sent doctors to countries when the US ignored them.
[Global heating] will stir 'unimaginable' refugee crisis, says [UK] military.
Psilocybin has been effective for treating depression.
Right-wing bullies stretch the term "political correctness" to present any disapproval as mere narrowminded ideology.
The pressures criticized as "political correctness" do exist. The term "trigger warnings" is used by people who ask for them, even demand them. "Microaggressions" and "cultural appropriation" derive from schools of thought that use them for actions that they disapprove of. They are meant to criticize acts seen as mistreatment of those who are weak or hurt.
I agree with them on some issues, but on some points I think they go too far. For instance, telling people to say "black" instead of "negro" (which was not a pejorative word), then to say "African-American" instead of "black", then to say "people of color" instead of "African-American", led me to decline to follow them. ("Of color" is so clumsy that using it strikes me as conspicuous subservience.) I stuck with "blacks". (Then I learned Spanish, in which they are called "los negros", which means "the blacks".) I feel vindicated now that blacks have come around to using the term "black" again.
What right-wingers have done is apply the label of "political correctness" to any disapproval of anything — even substantive condemnation of a nasty actions.
Trump uses this distortion (see examples in the first article) when he bullies the weak, to imply that disapproval of bullying is mere "political correctness".
Some neurobiological support for the maxim not to go to bed angry.
Finally, A Chance To Remake The Democratic Party.
A wildfire in Tennessee entered the city of Gatlinburg and destroyed buildings.
For wildfires to be dangerous almost at the start of winter is shocking. Part of the cause was drought. That this is the hottest year humans have ever experienced is probably pertinent.
The Pentagon recognizes it bombed Syrian army soldiers in September by mistake.
The Tories have never tried to verify whether punishing unemployed people for every failure to carry out the job search dance really led to more of them in employment.
I'm not surprised that the Tories have not tried to measure the "effectiveness" of these punishments in achieving their supposed goals, because the goals don't make sense anyway, and I don't think the Tories were honest about their goals.
I think the Tories' real motive for these punishments is to demonize the unemployed and the disabled (often labeled as capable of working, through a carefully arranged system of excuses to disregard their medical evaluations) and to make it seem they don't deserve any help, which in the long term serves as an excuse for ceasing to help them. That will "save" money, making it possible to further cut taxes or increase welfare payments for the rich.
As for the non-rich unemployed and disabled, with no state help they won't live many more years, and the Tories will say, "Mission accomplished."
"The Tories are lower than vermin" — Aneurin Bevan.
The EU has a plan to cut energy use and stop subsidizing coal by 2030.
Clearly these officials do not understand the gravity of the problem. They should have eliminated coal subsidies 10 years ago, but since they didn't, they should eliminate the subsidies tomorrow.
Trump said he would protect Social Security and Medicare, but seems to be choosing officials and allies that want to privatize them.
Chiquita, the fruit company, pled guilty to supporting a terrorist organization (the paramilitares of Colombia). Now the paramilitares' victims are suing Chiquita in the US.
High officials directly altered an EPA report about how fracking can poison water supplies.
The report was written by scientists who said that the danger is real, but was altered to deny the danger.
Boys and young men seem especially susceptible to Trump's message of hate and bullying.
Trump made a splashy announcement that on Dec 15 he will announce some way of distancing himself from his business.
Why tell us only that he will tell us later? This media manipulation leads me to suppose he will announce some inadequate step, such as letting his children run it for him.
Jimmy Carter: America Must Recognize Palestine.
A private meeting with the heads of the New York Times, who described making deals with US and foreign politicians about how their coverage would read.
The Associated Press has decided to explicitly identify US white-supremacists as such, rather than let them use "alt-right" as a mask.
Israel will keep interrogations of accused terrorists secret, which means the thugs can get away with doing anything whatever to the accused.
Israelis that have taken houses in Hebron
have now started building in
a Palestinian school's yard.
If they keep going, they will eventually force all the Palestinian students
to leave the school, on the grounds that some of them might someday attack
Israeli colonists.
Arabs in Israel can be prosecuted for sarcastically condemning crimes
such as arson,
"because someone might misunderstand".
Yes, there is a chance someone might misunderstand. I've sometimes
asked people to rewrite certain statements to avoid the risk that
someone will misunderstand them and draw a meaning that is the opposite
of what was intended. I've also occasionally written statements that
some people have misunderstood, because I didn't make them clear enough.
Suggesting clarification is one thing; prosecution is another.
A university in an Israeli colony in Palestinian territory invited foreign speakers on the false pretense that it is located in Israel. Gush Shalom informed the speakers of the error, and at least one cancelled participation.
Right-wing fake news is sometimes attributed to fake journalists.
No lie is too sleazy for the US right wing today.
Uri Avnery reports how drought in Israel led to a wave of forest fires; right-wing politicians found an opportunity to blame Arabs for the inevitable effects of planting trees in a drought-prone land.
The history of a politically motivated conspiracy theory invented by a mob.
US citizens: call on Senate Democrats to oppose the 21st Century Cures bill.
It was written to improve health care, but corporate lobbyists hijacked it and converted it (in substance) into the "21st Century Curse Act".
Some details are in this article whose main point is how US "patient advocacy" groups have been paid by big pharma to lobby for that hijacking.
The 21st Century Curse Act would allow drug companies to make secret payments to doctors.
Drug companies have gone to great lengths to corrupt the medical system, even going to the point of making phony "scientific journals" to publish resmercials that praise their products. It is not a mere possibility that these secret payments would be in exchange for prescribing their drugs.
Haitians protested massively, claiming the presidential election was rigged.
With just a million people voting out of a population of 10 million, the election was surely no good.
The previous "president" Martelly was imposed by the US, not honestly elected. I would guess that Moïse was also imposed by the US.
In the 10 days after the election the US had a high rate of racist incidents.
It's clear that the bulk of them were inspired by Trump.
Pipeline protesters have sued various thug departments for wanton, dangerous and unjustified violence that threatens people's lives.
Thugs also systematically fabricate false charges against them.
I bet most of those thugs call themselves Christians. Have they ever heard of the commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness"? That refers to making false charges against others.
Fake News and the Internet Shell Game: the dishonest need not convince people of specific falsehoods; it is enough to make it too difficult to identify truth among the many conflicting claims.
Putin has developed a state propaganda arm that spews a constant political bullshit stream.
Trump's history of public racism goes back to the 1970s.
Former congressional staff, participants in the Church Committee's investigation of CIA crimes, called on Obama to make a deal for Snowden to return to the US.
Trump is in bed with people that have led funded disinformation campaigns for many years.
Trudeau has approved an additional pipeline to transport tar sands oil to the Pacific coast for export.
Once new fossil fuel supply infrastructure is built, it makes reduction of fossil fuel use much harder. The pipeline owners always pressure for it to continue to be used. "We have a right to return on our investment", they say.
Not at the cost of millions of lives, they don't!
Note how Trudeau justifies his decision based on assuming that oil extraction in Canada will increase. In other — in other words, assuming that we won't avoid disaster. That's defeatism.
Thousands of low-paid workers went on strike Tuesday in 340 US cities.
Hundreds of them were arrested.
Brennan, head of the CIA, warned Trump that cancelling the nuclear agreement with Iran would be disastrous.
The US Export-Import Bank has put over 30 billion dollars into construction of fossil fuel infrastructure that will continue pushing the world towards disaster.
Trump and his proposed secretary of education wish to undermine and destroy public education.
The result would be great for the private owners that squeeze money out of cheap private schools at the expense of children and teachers.
Nazism and comparable right-wing parties are gaining support in various European countries.
Trump convinced Carrier to keep 1000 jobs in Indiana. It will move 1000 other jobs to Mexico as planned.
He has done some good, but I doubt it will last more than a couple of years. Once people forget, the company could move the jobs just as they planned.
Firms Such As Kellogg's, Unilever And Nestlé "Use Child-Labor Palm Oil".
Budget cuts have made UK prisons drug-ridden, spirit-crushing and violent.
US citizens: phone Obama and call on him to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The White House comments line is 202-456-1111.
US citizens: Call on Republicans to respect Medicare.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate any possible conflict of interest that Trump has.
US citizens: phone your senators to support the Stalling Mass Damaging Hacking Act.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Is there anything Mitt Romney won't do, to get appointed Secretary of State? Apparently not much; he has just given Trump effusive praise.
One of the worst effects that Trump has is to normalize the practice of sucking up to him and denying his faults. People do this for various reasons, but none of them can excuse it.
China has arrested the publisher of an important human rights web site.
How journalism should deal with a bullshitter as president.
US citizens: call on Trump not to appoint Ebell.
Using a smartphone is bad for your romantic relationships.
The thugs that attacked pipeline protesters subsequently lied about what they had done.
If we are ever to be safe, we have to make those bullies pay for their lies. Blue Lies Matter!
US airport workers and fast food workers will strike on Dec 1.
Albuquerque thugs don't just cover up videos of their killings, they alter it too.
Medicare covers only part of the costs of treating cancer, leaving old Americans with bills they may not survive.
Assange has been questioned in the Ecuadorian embassy.
If Swedish prosecutors really want to prosecute Assange in Sweden, they will be able to do so with little further ado provided they give the formal assurances they won't send him to the US. Their refusal to do so shows that they are not really interested in the crimes alleged against him, and only interested in an excuse to send him to the US.
Soon we will see what the Swedish prosecutors' next maneuver is.
Begging is banned in Lagos, and tens of thousands of people, most of them disabled or mentally ill, have been jailed in horrible conditions without trial.
Around the world, cities either are harsh toward beggars or try to give them help and treatment.
Raúl Castro has made some economic reforms in Cuba but has not increased human rights.
I think Cuba deserves human rights, but must be careful about how far to permit private business.
Cubans deserve democracy but have no experience in running democracy.
They could easily fall into the plutocrats' trap. Even US voters,
with much more experience have made the mistake of electing
politicians such as Clinton, Dubya and Obama that have
surrendered their countries to global business. How, then, to
lead Cuba to a democracy that won't allow multinationals to take
power?
As long as businesses are small, and have no political power, they are
safe and useful — though it is necessary to police them carefully so
that they don't think they can
get
away with stealing workers' pay and other abuses.
Perhaps the Cuban constitution should prohibit in a broad way the operation of foreign companies in the country. Buying and selling foreign goods, ok; letting a large multinational actually operate in the country, no.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Presidential Accountability Act.
Everyone: call on Egypt to free journalist Shawkan.
US citizens: call on US TV networks not to become Trump's lapdogs.
It is starting to appear that "homelessness [in Australia] is not just caused by government policy, it is government policy."
The book Burn Zone accuses individuals of campaigning to roast our planet.
It will take 15 years for the Great Barrier Reef to recover from massive coral death (caused to ocean temperature among other things).
More likely it will never recover, because even broader coral deaths will follow during that period.
Oil from the Big Spill has been found in feathers of land birds on the Gulf Coast.
Economic modelling says that a revenue-neutral carbon tax in the US would create jobs and economic growth, and increase the income of working people, as well as accelerating the reduction in CO2 emissions.
The crucial point is that the tax increases every year, and investors know that it will increase every year. This means that the pressure on investors to avoid future fossil fuel use is very strong.
The model for this study was revenue-neutral, but I don't think that a carbon tax has to be revenue-neutral. Perhaps the state should keep some of the money to spend on useful things such as infrastructure; that too puts the money back into circulation.
300 US churches have recently offered sanctuary to non-citizens without visas.
"Help the downtrodden" is the good side of Christianity. The bad side shows in Trump supporters those who wish to persecute someone.
Keep in mind that Obama has deported over 2 million unauthorized immigrants, in some cases because they committed minor crimes decades ago.
If Trump wants to adopt a harsher policy, what will he do? Deport jaywalkers?
As a new corruption scandal directly implicates coup-president Temer, nearly all the major parties in Brazil are supporting a bill to protect everyone in Congress from corruption accusations.
Will Self: "Are humans evolving beyond the need to tell stories?"
Reading the article, I think it is only speculation that this change (which affects a large fraction of young people but not all) is a pathway to any new capability. It seems more likely to me that it is a pathway to cognitive discapacity.
Tunisia is considering a new form of national ID card, which would be used for unspecified forms of tracking and surveillance.
Even nastier, a citizen would be punished for trying to decrypt the data in per own ID card.
The UN Human Rights Council continues to extend its support for privacy rights.
However, it is advocating insufficient measures — data "protection" rather than banning the accumulation of personal data.
The supporters of taking the UK out of the EU condemned a neutral agency that reports facts and estimates, because it didn't distort them to suit that side.
Their arrogance towards the truth resembles Trump's.
Schools in many southern US states still spank or beat students. It has bad effects on students, both in the short term and the long term.
The Tories are lower than vermin — Aneurin Bevan.
The EU has agreed to let companies send personal data to the US based on totally inadequate assurances.
Rules about the use of accumulated data are just a band-aid. To avoid tyranny and protect dissent and journalism, we need to forbid and prevent the accumulation of data about people.
Philip Morris, the tobacco company, set up an organization to deny scientific conclusions about the danger of second-hand smoke. To disguise itself, it sought to attack various other valid scientific conclusions, including that global heating would be dangerous. That was the beginning of organized global heating disinformation.
Exxon started funding it later.
Twelve Ideas Post-Election from Front Line Organizers.
Trump's Seven Techniques to Control the Media.
I think the etymology of "news media" given in the article is not quite correct — I think "media" refers to "medium of expression", in this case used to present news.
Millions of Americans face
constant financial stress due to their debt.
This causes them bodily, medical harm.
Elizabeth Loftus received a prize for standing by science against the
illusions of people who had been led to
invent and believe, as adults,
false memories
of child abuse that never happened.
The victims of real child abuse generally don't forget about it, and
don't need the help of a "recovered memory" practitioner to remember
that it happened to them. (They may wait many years before they
decide to talk about it — but that's not forgetting.)
On the other hand, it is not hard to convince a person to "remember"
imaginary abuse (or other imaginary events), using repeated sessions
and various techniques of manipulation. Thus, we should be skeptical
of criticizing anyone based on "recovered memories".
EU countries are
surrendering to car manufacturers
that want to continue
cheating on emissions tests.
The purpose of the state is to make companies like that bow to the
people's needs. The EU is, evidently, inadequate.
Global heating has
taken away Bolivia's water supply.
This problem is not of Bolivia's making — the US has done far more to
cause it — but to cope with it will require Bolivia to convince people
to have fewer children.
Linking Trump to the Ku Klux Klan Risks Boosting a Rump Organisation.
A small island in American Samoa has
replaced 100,000 gallons per year
of diesel fuel with solar power.
With batteries, no more fuel needs
to be burned.
American Samoa plans to end fossil fuel use by 2040.
But I think that is not soon enough, if it is to be a leader for the
rest of the world to get off fossil fuels fast enough.
Some reasons why the electoral college should refuse to vote for Trump.
Compared with 2012, Trump got more votes from nonwhites, apparently
because he talked about the
injustice of plutocratist politics
while Clinton (more honestly) did not.
This brought him within range for Republicans to
steal the rest of the way.
Trump was lying in
saying he would help,
of course.
Hedge Fund Managers Expect a Return on Their Investment in Donald Trump.
Michael Flynn has a history of making
untrue claims about facts.
The article also includes actions that
violated government security
rules more than Clinton did.
(It may not really have been harmful in Flynn's case, or in
Clinton's case. Rather, there was a risk in each case that it would
be harmful.)
With Trump, the only standard is a double standard. Nothing is
objectively right or wrong, for him, only an opportunity to praise someone (if that is his wish) or to condemn someone (if that is his
wish).
Australia says that the boat people it stores in Manus Island will be moved to Australia for medical care if their illnesses require this. Leaked documents show that bureaucrats work very hard to deny that this is necessary.
Thug departments in the UK (and, I suppose, the US) are rife with bigotry against homosexuals, but they pretend not to be.
Scholars call for a congressional investigation of possible foreign manipulation of the US election.
Progressives must pressure and replace business-subservient centrist Democrats. Just as the corporate-funded "tea party" targeted centrist Republicans and replaced them with science-denying theocrats.
Israel loves its anti-Semitic supporters in Trump's circle. "If an anti-Semite can be a Zionist then anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are not the same."
The way to determine whether US election security was cracked is to check the ballots by hand.
It's too bad that the article uses the term "hack" as a synonym for "break computer security", but that doesn't alter the validity of the point.
The article advocates insisting on voting with paper because that system is the best. I agree.
The author asks us not to call him a Luddite — but this is precisely what Luddism means. Luddites believe we can reject technological "advances" when they are harmful. We reject the assumption that these harmful "advances" are inevitable and that resistance is useless (technological defeatism).
The use of "Luddite" as an insult is an indirect way of presuming technological defeatism. If we pander to that, it will will undermine our opposition to harmful technologies. We must be proud to oppose harmful "advances" in technology, proud to call ourselves Luddites.
Fellow Luddites, stand tall with me!
Even workers at factories in China are afraid of being employed by Chinese subcontractors.
Trump's campaign focused on bullying and bigotry as much as on economic losses for working class Americans.
Republican legislators in North Carolina seem to plan to override the voters' choice of a Democratic governor. The party is now spreading FUD to make it look less bad.
The voters didn't really choose those legislators, either: their districts have been gerrymandered. In effect, they intend to rig all elections for all state offices forever.
UK ministers knew they were applying a double standard in helping NIMBYs to block wind farms but suppressing them for fracking.
Scientists identify several possible tipping points in global heating that the current rapid Arctic melting may trigger in the next few years.
Global heating has made the US naval defenses vulnerable.
Of course, this is small potatoes compared with the danger of global heating itself. But it might get through the think heads of some denialists.
Much of the "renewable" wood burned in Europe is chopped down illegally from protected forests.
Everyone: call for auditing the vote in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. This is to double-check that the computers were not rigged.
US citizens: phone the Army Corps of Engineers to ask it to stop the Dakota Access pipeline.
phone numbers:
Main: 202-761-0011, press 9
Regulatory (permits) office: 202-761-5903
Hello, my name is ________. I'm calling from {city, state, county}. It is your duty to pull the permits for the Dakota Access pipeline immediately. Police are violently attacking peaceful water protectors, putting their lives in danger by blasting them with water cannons in freezing cold weather. You must stop this pipeline now. It is dangerous in the long term, but right now, this very second it is a threat to the lives at Standing Rock.
Putinism means considering nationalist legends so important that they should not be "besmirched" by historical facts.
I expect that many soldiers in Panfilov's division fought heroically. After all, they stopped the German advance on Moscow, and that could not have been easy. Does this need to be exaggerated? Isn't that victory good enough?
Trump's foreign policy will affect his business interests. Will those conflicts of interest influence his decisions?
Mainstream media headlines hide the violence of thugs against pipeline protesters.
Israeli soldiers watched passively as fanatical Israelis attacked Palestinians stuck in their cars while stuck at the soldiers' checkpoint. The violence could easily have killed some Palestinians.
Cryin'air is heading towards air fares of zero.
It could be very convenient for those who can afford to take time off work at all — if we ignore what the CO2 from those planes will do.
Yes, the Democratic Party Did Abandon the Working Class.
A registered sex offender is dying of Alzheimer's disease in a hospice, but he has been ordered to leave because it is too close to a facility for children.
The offender's crime, 30 years ago, did not involve children.
There were protests across Canada against a proposed new pipeline.
The Canadian government isn't as delusionist as Trump, but it is trying to keep the CO2 flowing as much as it can.
Fidel Castro's Dark Legacy:
Abuses, Draconian Rule And "Ruthless Suppression".
I'm very sad to recognize that the US has gone a long way in that direction:
from
torture by the CIA
to
violence against protesters
to
imprisonment without trial.
Fake scientists on editorial boards of journals demonstrate the vulnerability of scientific publishing to being gamed in various ways.
Indian feminists object to
a law that allows a man to get a divorce
from a wife that refuses to live with the man's parents.
Should anyone ever be forbidden to get a divorce? Is this really the
right way to protect women's rights — forcing men to be married to
them? It seems to define women's rights as "right to be married".
Jill Stein's interview about the election.
Germany Planning to 'Massively' Limit Privacy Rights. This includes surveilling people secretly with few limits.
The UK government doubles down on its proposed new censorship rules,
proposing to block access to sites that show
certain kinds of
"unconventional" sex.
There is no obvious motive except bureaucratic rigidity. But perhaps this is tactical. To undermine the fight against imposing censorship
level 1, propose censorship level 2. If the opposition fights that, censorship level 1 can be the "compromise".
A BBC journalist was arrested in Turkey while reporting on a mine disaster.
Malaysia's repressive ruler had
a opposition cartoonist arrested
The leader of Bersih is
still jailed.
Assad's army has captured part of eastern Aleppo.
Assad is guilty of many atrocities, and the rebels (mostly Islamist)
are likely to repress all groups other than Sunnis if they get a
chance. It's possible that Assad is the lesser evil.
Global heating is making grass pollen more allergenic.
Combine this with a thunderstorm and it can kill people with asthma, even if they never had asthma before.
Israeli Arab-haters are accusing Palestinians of starting wildfires, and arrested a journalist based on mistranslating something he posted.
Trump's Presidential Hires And Advisors Own a Hell of a Lot of Fake News Sites.
Philippine President Duterte is trying to
negotiate peace with a leftist
armed rebellion
that has gone on for years.
The article is mistaken in saying that Duterte is the first to reject
military ties with the US. After Marcos fell, the Philippines closed
large US military bases. If I recall right, all of those bases were
closed.
In part of Mosul recaptured from PISSI, the locals are content with the Iraqi army and see no need to move to a refugee camp.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, adopted an ordinance requiring the thug department to get the city council's permission for any new surveillance technology.
Some Fake News Publishers Just Happen to Be Donald Trump's Cronies.
The UK snooper's charter means that a dispute with any company about decrypting users' data will happen entirely in private. The public will be forbidden to know whether companies are defending the public's privacy or not.
The CIA made hundreds of plans for killing Fidel Castro. Many of them were actually tried.
The US Army is forcing the pipeline protesters out of their main camp.
Look at the absurd excuse, "We're crushing your protest to
protect nonexistent bystanders when thugs attack you."
A proposed merger would give one company control of 90% of New Zealand's newspapers.
"Hunger follows displaced people around north-east Nigeria, as Boko Haram and [global heating] drive millions from their homes."
The Washington Post reports researchers identified Russian propaganda agencies' agents as originating some fake news to support Trump, and boosting circulation of other false news.
Glen Greenwald says those claims are bogus, and that the group that originated them seems to make false claims of support.
Soil loss is going so rapidly that the world has, on the average, 60
harvests left.
This cause of food scarcity will combine with other causes (drought,
flood, heat). If they destroy most of the world's agriculture well
before 2070, maybe we will not exhaust the soil.
A Trump-supporting state legislator wants to label inconvenient protests as "economic terrorism", following Putin's lead.
Drought has killed 1/3 of the trees in California.
Since global heating will mean more drought, I think many of those
trees will not be replaced.
A Canadian legislator won applause from the legislators of all parties, by reading out the misogynist abuse she had received and calling for all legislators to oppose such abuse.
Reductions in some state subsidies could reduce obesity. That would increase the cost of sugar.
Depending on GPS navigation systems to find your way could
cause the
hippocampus to atrophy.
It will take some time for experiments to test this theory, but other
short-term effects are a good enough reason to get out of that.
Huge rent increases are closing small retail stores in cities all
around the US,
while Amazon attacks them from the other side.
Please join me in never buying from Amazon.
There are so many
reasons.
Bernie Sanders Is Not Giving Up on Positive Change Because of an Election.
Burma is forcing Rohingyas to flee, through a series of atrocities.
A new analysis says that we have underestimated the likely amount of global heating &emdash; suggesting 5 to 7 degrees C is what we are heading for if we do not greatly curb emissions.
7C of heating would make large areas of the Earth's surface fatal to humans.
US citizens: urge Michael Flynn (Trump's advisor) to end US support for Salafi Arabia's bombing in Yemen.
Planet-roasters in Australia think it's bad that gas-guzzlers pay more tax than efficient vehicles. This disparity threatens to reduce sales of fuel. So they plan to replace the gasoline tax with a "road use tax" that would treat gas-guzzlers "fairly".
It occurs to me that the road use tax could offer the state a bonus: an excuse to track where cars actually go, as occurs now in London.
Whatever it takes to keep the CO2 flowing, they will do. Why didn't the editor ask the author to cover the most important effect of this proposed change?
Walmart was found guilty of making truck drivers to work without pay.
Everyone: call on Obama to dismantle the surveillance state so Trump can't get his hands on it.
"Child labor is part of most of what we buy today: what can we do?" We can start by providing birth control aid to places with a high birth rate (and lots of children). This would help protect the environment and the wild from an excessive human population, as well as putting an end to child labor.
The leader of Bersih, the Malaysian nonviolent anticorruption movement, has been imprisoned without charges under a law supposedly directed at "extremists".
Everyone: Thank the California Democratic Party for rejecting money from Big Oil.
How the idea of "social entrepreneurship" undermines efforts to make the world better.
US citizens: call on the EPA to retract the invalid report about fracking and water supplies.
Bahrain has freed Ebrahim Sharif who faced charges of "inciting hatred" for calling on people not to forget the regime's denial of human rights.
Trump's proposed Secretary of Education is a billionaire that has worked for years to undermine public schools.
The ruins of Nimrud, recently captured from PISSI, need guarding right away.
Egypt will try around 300 accused violent Islamists together.
Their goal is to impose a harsh version of Islamic law. This attacks everyone's human rights but especially women's.
In recent years the Islamists have turned to terrorism, but the Egyptian state practices terrorism too. It may kill or imprison anyone who is in the wrong place and time, and the trials are a joke. Those people might be guilty, but it is hard to see how a trial of 300 people in Egypt could be fair.
I advise people to stay away from Egypt because of the danger of state repression.
New roads in Asia threaten to divide tiger habit and wipe out the remaining tigers.
Trump has started to distance himself from his Nazi supporters.
It's better than if he did not distance himself from them.
White Nationalists? Alt-Right? If You See a Nazi, Say Nazi.
Today's governments fail to try to address the global problems that will affect all countries.
Monbiot is wrong about Sanders. He did not say he would bring good jobs back from Mexico; he said he would fund public works. But that's a small detail in the article.
The Facebook news feed, seen as an instance of the AI apocalypse.
It is important to keep in mind that Facebook is bad for many other reasons. This is one more reason to oppose it, but we had plenty already.
It is unfortunate that the article uses the term "content" to refer to published text. Just because CNN does that is no reason why we should follow its example.
The Facebook feed algorithms are firmly under the control of (certain specific) humans. Surely they are so circumscribed that they can't even raise the question of whether to obey what those humans want.
This demonstrates that danger area of AI is much broader than what we usually suppose: even if the AI is firmly under the control of some humans, that does not make it safe, not by a long shot.
The evil side of Islam shows itself in Turkey as girls who are raped (or come close to being raped) are forced into marriage.
While the rapists do the immediate wrong, the parents that fail to support their daughters against rapists are equally wrong.
"The new [global heating] story must be one of rapid transition."
It would be wise not to use the mild term "climate change" which was chosen to downplay the danger.
Trump's tax cut for the rich will be accompanied by a tax increase for the poor.
But the big screw is the cuts in the support that low-income or unemployed or disabled Americans depend on for their lives.
How to Interview Extremists — And Avoid Normalising Racism.
Will the Catholic Church Ever Earn Women's Forgiveness?
Pompeo, Trump's choice to head the CIA, advocates religious war, with the US presented as representing Christianity.
What would Jesus do in regard to waterboarding?
Facebook has developed software to allow various countries to directly control censorship of what useds in that country can see.
Pipeline protester Sophia Wilansky was gravely injured by a thug's grenade. If she doesn't lose her arm, she will not be able to use it much again.
The thugs continue to maintain absurd lies about what caused this.
Militarization of US thugs regularly kills people.
The Tohono O'odham nation will fight to stop any wall across its land, which is divided between Mexico and the US.
Opposing Belgium's shot-in-the-dark system for tracking people's travel (and lots more about each traveler).
The New York Times contributes to false news reporting.
There is a big difference between fabricating bullshit every day and supporting the false "official story" on some major issue. They both do harm, they both mislead people, but the former also attacks the very idea that we can find out the truth. So it might be useful to have a system block the former even if it doesn't block the latter.
More on the danger that thugs created by keeping burned-out vehicles chained to the road to the pipeline protest camp, and the danger of their attack with various not-usually-lethal but often dangerous weapons.
US citizens: call on Congress to resist Trump and preserve government health care.
US citizens: Call on Congress to reject Sessions.
There is evidence that vote-counting machines in some states were manipulated in favor of Trump. Will Clinton call for a recount?
US citizens:
call
on Obama to protect the Arctic and Atlantic permanently from
drilling.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Trump plans to cancel NASA's Earth science division so it can't help us understand global heating.
Thermometers now suffice to observe the advance of global heating, but NASA could help us see how far away from disaster we are.
In Central America, gangs force young women into sexual slavery by threatening to murder their families.
These families have to flee, often to another country, to escape the gangs.
To describe being a sought-after victim as "a crime" is unclear thinking — it is the first step towards blaming the victim. We must insist on distinguishing moral responsibility from practical cause.
Canada proposes a massive privatization.
The need to improve infrastructure is no reason for privatization. Canada should tax the businesses, not let them buy public assets to squeeze the public.
Trump Formally Picks Two Net Neutrality Opponents To Head FCC Transition.
Erdoğan proposes to give himself more power and allow himself to remain president/tyrant until 2029.
If that's not long enough, he could easily extend his rule as many decades as he wants.
China Emerges as Global Climate Leader in Wake of Trump's Triumph.
Since what's at stake is to avoid global disaster, I think leadership from China would much better than the incompetent leadership the US has offered so far.
"As a judge, I can see the racism embedded in the [UK legal] system."
A federal court ruled that Republicans' gerrymandering in Wisconsin is unconstitutional because it was designed to make Republicans win.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to aid Flint with its water, now.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call for overhauling the Democratic National Committee.
Big US front companies set up an organization to make Bangladeshi factories implement fire safety is not trying very hard.
This doesn't surprise me. Those companies don't really want to protect the lives of the clothing workers to whom they pay only a pittance. They just want to deflect public criticism.
In effect, the wolves' boss is responsible for safety of the henhouse.
Leaving the EU has become a reason to offer businesses tax cuts.
The only good reason for any country to leave the EU is to treat business less spinelessly than the EU requires. But if the leaders of that country are plutocratists, they will treat it as an opportunity to do the opposite.
Trump's hotel in DC has become a way for foreign diplomats to suck up to him. Maybe others, too.
Trump is not concerned about conflict of interest, because he knows he has only one interest: his own success. He isn't concerned about appearance of conflict of interest, because it's just another opportunity for him to respond with an absurd claim that it's actually good for us.
The UK's inquiry into joining in the invasion of Iraq was set up with secret restrictions on its scope, intentionally to protect individuals from being punished for this enormous crime.
Trump's cruelest immigration plan is to deport people who were brought to the US as children many years ago.
What would you do if sent to another country that you haven't seen since you were 7 years old? You might not even remember the language spoken there. If you were 14 months old at the time, you might never have learned it.
Even if you want less immigration overall, we should not kick out people who have grown up in the US and hardly recall any other country.
A Republican proposed making protests that block traffic a felony.
It is standard right-wing policy to repress protests, except those carried out by armed right-wingers.
It is dark now in the Arctic, but the temperature is going up. It is already 20C above the usual temperature for the Arctic. Ice is melting when water ought to be freezing.
We need political help 20 years ago!
Trump: publicly criticizing Pence is "harassment."
His definition of "harassment" is "any criticism of my side". That's why, when Trump calls on people to beat someone up, he does not think that is harassment.
A large fraction of Japanese adults never find a mate, never have sex, and fall in love with game characters or dating simulations.
I can understand fantasizing about love for an imaginary person, but why bother going on an expensive trip to a special hotel for such mixed-reality-level couples?
Voting for Trump was a shameful thing to do; shaming people for it is legitimate.
A miniature low power WiFi device is as small as a postage stamp.
Is anyone developing a device to find any of these devices in your home? And, optionally, to fry them?
Facebook must stop presenting users with a "news feed" which is not composed of real journalism.
Greensburg, Kansas, had to be completely rebuilt after a tornado. They rebuilt for energy efficiency and saved lots of electricity.
It seems to me that the resistance to necessary green measures is not natural for right-wing Americans. Rather, denialist money and PR has led them to consider denialism part of their faith.
US citizens: phone the White House and call on Obama to
put a stop to the Dakota Access Pipeline, and to attacks
on protesters.
The White House comments line is 202-456-1111.
Proposing the Clean Deal, a compromise between Republicans and Democrats that would benefit the US and the environment.
"Advocates of the knowledge society once promised we could have our cake
(an extreme form of capitalism) and eat it too (personal freedom). It
turned out to be a ruse. Now workers have the worst of both worlds."
When business has the whip hand, workers naturally get the worst of
everything.
Two black officials criticized Sessions for racist remarks; this denied him a judgeship. It appears Sessions arranged to prosecute them in retaliation.
The Tories keep squeezing the NHS for funds, figuring they will make it so ugly that people will forget that it was once good. The latest trick is to tell doctors to check patients' ID. Some doctors say they will refuse.
Okke Ornstein has been sentenced to prison in Panama
for the "crime"
of writing to expose corruption there.
That's more or less a Trump-style government.
Trump's "infrastructure plan" is a fraud. Instead of funding infrastructure, which could be useful, it would only give construction companies a tax cut.
"Our grandchildren will face the economic terror trickling down from the greedy top."
An example from China shows where Trump's supporters are taking society. Chinese distrust all media knowing it is controlled by the state, so they fall into trusting rumors, which are mostly run by the state too.
Guber has been found in Denmark to be an illegal taxi service. Some drivers were prosecuted first, but now Guber itself may be prosecuted there.
Trump's choice for CIA director supports torture.
The Republicans' budget bill is full of provisions to help various companies cheat or screw the public.
Thugs in North Dakota attacked hundreds of pipeline resisters with fire hoses. This was was even nastier than it would usually be, since the temperature was freezing; wetting them put their lives in danger.
Of course, the thugs lied about it afterward.
26 people were taken to a hospital afterward.
The thugs used other weapons too.
Yellow-Breasted Buntings 'Being Eaten to Extinction by China'.
The worst drought in 900 years in the lands around the Mediterranean is probably due to human activity.
Quit Social Media. Your Career May Depend on It.
For me, career success is not the most important issue.
I judge social networks based on other criteria; thus, I judge
Facebook
and
Twitter
very differently.
But it is clear that using them very frequently is going to be bad for
you.
The Republican Deficit Hawks Abandon Their Religion.
Republican politicians fought against deficit spending because it was
what the country needed. They don't actually stand for anything
except dooH niboR.
The UK officials pushing for approval of a controversial railway project planned to snoop on opponents and critics' private lives.
ACLU: help give Trump less surveillance power than Obama has.
Chris Hedges: (my summary) the Trump supporters have adopted a
nationalist
religion based on a supposed mythical savior — because they
saw no hope in reality. The left, absorbed in fussing about identity,
didn't offer them anything.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
I agree with the conclusions of this article. It's just as foolish to
choose a candidate for being female or black as to choose one for
being male or white.
I've posted many times about patterns of injustice visited
systematically on certain groups, but I reject identity politics.
Rejecting Dangerous Saviors: Can "The People" Save the US?
The UN Global Commission on Drug Policy called for
ending punishment
of possession or use of drugs.
Hooray!
There are drugs for which it makes sense to limit sale, but repressing
the drug users is pure cruelty.
Things women can do to protect their rights from Trump and trumpery.
Some of them are also useful for men.
The author encourages being used by Facebook;
like most people, she does
not see the danger in that company. I hope you do.
The NAACP, ACLU and other groups are going to court to reverse Republican election-rigging in various states, arguing that they were won by Clinton.
US Nazis cheer the victory of their mascot, Trump.
Trump's campaign encouraged them, so he can't wash his hands of them;
it's his responsibility to oppose them now. He hardly does that at
all; indeed,
through his association with Bannon,
he continues to
support them.
Hundreds of thousands of American women have tried to self-induce abortions because of existing policies of the Christian theocrats.
Santiago Sánchez Ramírez posted videos demonstrating lack of security at events in Spain. This seems to have embarrassed the authorities so much that they want to imprison him for 9 years.
Product assembly plants in Malaysia use migrant workers in forced labor.
Here's an example:
a Samsung plant.
Malaysia is not a poor country itself, but it competes with China and Bangladesh in permitting countries to mistreat workers and pay them poor country wages.
Business-supremacy treaties were designed specifically to pressure states into such competition. We must get rid of them.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Stop Mass Hacking Act.
Here is more information about the issue.
Russia is systematically bombing hospitals in east Aleppo; all have been destroyed.
Philosopher Richard Rorty predicted Trump's rise, and how it would follow from mistakes and weakness of the left.
For the US left, focusing on identity and equality seemed like the best approach because it didn't require a direct fight with powerful business. Unfortunately, if you don't defeat powerful business, you don't protect people's interests, or democracy.
A thug has received minor discipline for punching a woman in the face as she was held by two other thugs. (They were arresting her based on their mistake.)
This is not enough. Thugs who engage in completely unjustified violence, even though it does not maim or kill the victim, should face prosecution and substantial prison sentences.
It is important to prosecute this frequently precisely because it is a smaller form of violence than killing, and occurs much more often.
Zika: Let's Give Women the Contraception They So Desperately Want.
Court Says Police Need to Make Time for "This Constitutional Bullshit".
Note that one other cause of the problem is that people doing various jobs have been trained to prepare always for the worst imaginable case.
The US is stuck in a war/torture/terrorism spiral, and the only way to get out is to change its actions.
Arthur Heeler-Frood wanted freedom. In the past, leaving home at 15 was normal.
Trump's contempt for democracy and human rights is already encouraging tyranny all across the world.
The article exaggerates in a few points. For instance, substantive disagreements about how to "handle Russia" are not a problem, and the supposition that it is one seems to be support for the neocons' desire for sharp military confrontation with Russia. Russia is far less powerful both militarily and economically than China.
EU officials have recognized, privately, that some large companies have dangerous levels of economic power.
School teachers staff are being replaced with "pod people".
The article is about the UK, but similar things happen in the US.
Gold mining using mercury in the Peruvian Amazon has made fish so toxic that people don't dare eat them.
Flaky Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser would be dangerous.
The US government presented, in the Marrakesh climate meeting, a roadmap for how the US could reduce greenhouse emissions by 80% by 2050.
But it isn't a detailed plan, let alone a policy proposal (not that Obama could implement one now).
Why did Obama wait until this was ineffective? If he had announced it two years ago it might have had a political effect.
Fake news stories were more popular on Facebook, on the average, than real news stories.
Increased concentration of wealth in the US means that donations to charity are also more concentrated.
Why Democrats and Progressives should refuse to cooperate with Trump.
The idea that you can make an evil system less so by supporting it, to change it "from within", is usually self-delusion. Cases of success are very rare, and aside from that, you're doing harm.
However, I think Sanders's approach was the best: he offered to cooperate if Trump did something good for Americans in general, while condemning the bad things Trump is likely to do.
Trump Isn't Hitler. But We Should Act Like He Is.
A funny/sad filk of the Marines' Hymn.
The NSEERS program that Trump might resurrect for registering all Muslims visiting the US has one major flaw: it was totally ineffective for finding terrorists. No one covered by that program has been convicted of any terrorism-related offence.
Since the FBI is constantly trying to find people to entrap as "terrorists", either the info was never given to the FBI or none of those people could be drawn into anything criminal, not even in fantasy.
48 poor countries have promised large greenhouse gas cuts.
Now it's up to a few powerful rogue states, led by the US.
Obama cited a false legal principle as an excuse for not pardoning Snowden.
Everyone: call on the Anti-Defamation League to stop defending land-grabs in Palestine, to gain the moral high ground against anti-Semitism and other bigotry.
US citizens: call on Democrats to try to block the nomination of Sessions for Attorney General.
US citizens:
call on
Congress to scrutinize Sessions carefully.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
The head of the Anti-Defamation League, which campaigns against anti-semitism, says he will register as a Muslim if Trump requires all Muslims to register.
Two major internet retailers have dropped Trump brands in response to boycott pressure.
It's a good campaign to try. Note that I would never buy from these companies, because they offer no way to buy anonymously.
Obama has banned oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean for five years.
It's useful to do this, as Trump will bring discredit on himself by cancelling the decision.
Senator Sessions, that Trump has nominated for Attorney General, supports taking people's property ("forfeiture") without convicting them of a crime, and endorses the War on Drugs. He also wants to keep lots of people in prison.
He has also made racist statements.
After attacking Clinton for not being strict about the manner for protecting state secrets, Trump is considering nominating General Petraeus, who famously gave secrets to his lover/biographer.
As the article explains, the government already applies these laws selectively — dissidents get punished, establishment supporters don't. But Trump wants to take this even further.
California's drought has now killed a hundred million trees. Each year, tens of millions more die.
Trump decided to settle with the students that sued Trump University for fraud, apparently to avoid showing evidence that would look very bad.
If it were not bad about him, he would have let us see it, so we can rationally assume the worst about it.
"The UK now has a surveillance law that is more suited to a dictatorship than a democracy."
Activists for clean government held a large march in Malaysia. Naturally, prime minister Razak prohibited the march, but they held it anyway.
"Bersih" means "clean" in bahasa Melayu.
A two-year-old biological boy in Canada decided quite firmly and insistently to identify as female. Her mother yielded to this, and courts then took custody away from her.
Most ivory obtained from killing elephants is being stockpiled to keep prices high.
To stop it, perhaps we must stop the illegal sale of products made from ivory, whether now or in the future.
There have to be a lot of final purchasers of ivory products. It can't be too hard to pretend to be one.
Nov 30 is Remembrance Day for Lost Species: by mourning forms of life that we have wiped out, we can try to awaken people to the need to avoid wiping out more species.
Homeless families are decreasing in the US, but not homelessness of individuals.
"I'm glad cryonics is legal — we should all have rights over our bodies."
Everyone: call on US mayors to declare sanctuary cities.
Everyone:
call
on Obama to declare a Standing Rock National Monument to block the
Dakota Access Pipeline.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Kofi Annan: "State impunity is back in fashion — we need the international [criminal] court more than ever."
What tech companies must do so Trump can't use them against the public.
I am very glad to see the EFF start campaigning against collecting data about people, rather than only for regulating how the data is used.
Trump-inspired acts of hatred are occurring around the US.
A British university's student government purports to have banned certain newspapers from the campus.
I gather they are right-wing exploitative newspapers, but still, no one should be able to ban people at the university from having copies of those newspapers.
"The Tragedy of the Two Americas" — actually, two groups of Americans, both mistreated by the elites, each seeing the other as the threat.
Arthur Heeler-Frood, the British teenager who shocked his parents by leaving home to seek education on the street and left a friendly note behind, faces questioning by the thugs who claim this is an attempt to "help" him.
The media made a fuss, pretending he was in danger and needed to be "saved". I don't think they deserve thanks for "protecting" him from their imagination.
He might really be in danger if he tells the thugs anything about what he did.
If Colombia and the FARC make peace, that will create a big opportunity to extract more fossil fuels and poison the environment. Extractivists are champing at the bit to reach areas previously protected by the civil war.
Google has responded to pressure and reenabled the accounts of people who resold some mobile phones.
That's sensible of Google, but does not excuse putting "terms of use" on a product. That should be prohibited under all circumstances.
Giant mice (well, giant by mouse standards) threaten to wipe out the seabirds that nest on Gough Island. Some of them live nowhere else.
Since the mice do not seem inclined to control their population, people are thinking of killing them off. I am in favor. However, it creates a moral conundrum: those mice are a subspecies found nowhere else in the world. Perhaps even a new species, if they and normal-size mice don't breed together. (I wonder if they do.) To protect the birds, we have to decide not to protect the mice.
I agree that it is better to lose the mouse subspecies that didn't exist 150 years ago than to lose the birds.
A similar effort on Australia's Macquarie Island was a big success.
Bags of leaves, for salad, increase the risk of salmonella infestation by 2400 times.
The bacteria can grow under those conditions even in a refrigerator, and they can't be washed off the leaves.
I love spinach in salads, but I will not get those bags any more.
The Democratic Party organization is totally disconnected from Democratic voters. That needs to be changed.
Women's rights groups brace for Trump: "We are used to fighting impossible odds".
Racist night-mayor Rudy Giuliani faces opposition as a possible choice for Secretary of State.
NAFTA hurt US workers, but it did far bigger harm to Mexican farmers.
The beneficiaries were mainly the businesses — but that's what you'd expect from a business-supremacy treaty.
"Class and identity politics are not mutually exclusive. The left should use this to its benefit."
I think it is a mistake to focus politics on "class" or (group) "identity". We should focus politics on justice and injustice. When injustice systematically happens to people because they are in group X, I will campaign against it — whether I belong to group X is beside the point.
Trump-petters eagerly take satire as true and pass it on as false news.
We can rebuild the ancient buildings that PISSI has destroyed, for visitors to see.
However, nothing can recover the remaining information yet to be discovered by further study of the original material of those sites. That loss is forever. If PISSI bulldozed anything that wasn't yet thoroughly excavated, it can never be excavated now.
Trump thinks he can drive facts into the dust no matter what the proof.
A newly discovered oil deposit in Texas could make some people 900 billion dollars, but if they extract it and sell it, they will destroy civilization.
Defying weak laws and divestment, many new fossil fuel infrastructure projects are being constructed. States and people must protect the activists that try to stop them.
We have to fight to stop them, because even using all the facilities that exist is projected to make disaster inevitable.
Trump adviser and proposed official Michael Flynn is not a lobbyist. He just runs a lobbying company.
Trump is asking appointees to pledge not to lobby for 5 years after leaving office, but there are many ways they could slither out of the pledge. And if he does not clean up his own corrupt conflicts of interest, his example will spread dirt everywhere.
Slovenia has amended its constitution to declare water a "public good managed by the state" and affirm everyone's right to clean water.
PISSI's branch in Afghanistan took over one small region and has been impossible to eradicate.
Malaysian editors face charges before Malaysia's special cybercensorship court after writing about the prime minister's corruption.
They are accused of publishing something "offensive" in the internet. (I refuse to refer to publications using the deprecative term "content".) Such laws are unjust because offending people is a part of freedom of speech — and this case shows how important a part it is. I can well understand why an official would feel offended by accusations of corruption, especially if the official claims the accusations are untrue.
If the accusations present good proofs that they are really true, the official will find them even more offensive. And annoying, too. Since the publishers will be aware that the official will be annoyed, the "intent to annoy" criterion will not be hard to argue for.
Any law that prohibits truthful exposure of official corruption is clearly wrong.
EPIC has sued to stop the FBI from handing over people's biometric data to the Pentagon.
The main danger of these biometrics is not that recognition is imperfect but that recognition is possible. For non-criminal citizens to be safe from this biometric data, we need to stop the FBI from keeping it.
Russia has blocked access to LinkedIn because it doesn't store users' data in Russia.
Storing their data in Russia makes them less vulnerable to spying by the US and more vulnerable to spying by Russia. On general principles, the latter is a greater danger for Russians. While US snooping agencies often defy and twist the law, Russian spy agencies need not contend with any law or any human rights.
Emily Johnston, faced with years in prison for shutting off an oil pipeline, says that she finds the consequences of burning fossil fuels more dreadful than going to prison.
US citizens: call on Obama to ban offshore drilling now.
Of course, Trump could reverse the decision. If he does, the moral onus will be on him. If Obama refuses to make the decision, the moral onus will be on Obama and Obama will have helped to legitimize Trump.
US citizens: phone the White House and call on Obama to cancel the Dakota Access Pipeline now.
The White House comments line is 202-456-1111.
A journalist in Ecuador faces criminal charges for publishing politically scandalous leaks.
Some US Jews and Muslims are joining together to defend both groups from bigotry and protect their human rights.
The International Energy Agency says there could be an oil shortage by 2020.
What it means by "shortage" is that demand could exceed supply. That does not mean that humanity would have less oil than it needs. What it really needs is to use even less oil.
For the sake of curbing global heating, we must make sure that demand does not grow. One way is to increase taxes on petroleum products; that will keep the demand down.
The IEA also recognized that pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are far too weak.
Statements Trump made as a candidate about clean government. To be compared with what he does now and henceforth.
A British woman, who made the mistake of going to Dubai, was raped there. Now she is being prosecuted there for having sex with the unknown rapists.
Islamic law is especially cruel and unjust to women, but men are not spared. Those who believe in freedom and justice must work to abolish Islamic law.
Going to Dubai was a foolish mistake, but it does not excuse the rapists. They are still the ones culpable for the rape.
Trump recognizes the reality of global heating and its effects, when his own property is at stake. He just refuses to help save the rest of the world.
Google cuts off accounts for users that resell Pixel phones. They lose access to all of their mail and documents stored in Google servers under that account.
It should be illegal to put any "terms of service" on a physical product. It should also be illegal to close an account on a service without letting the user download whatever was stored there.
These events provide another reason why schools must never ask a student to use a service account linked to the student's name.
AirBnB seems to have resisted an attempt to study whether black users face discrimination in it.
Trump Begins Filling Environmental Posts with Clowns.
I think the term "saboteurs" fits them better. If you are under 30 years old there is a good chance that you will be killed by global heating in a few decades. Trump and other extractionists are planning the biggest act of mass murder in history, and you're the target.
Clinton would not have openly destroyed the EPA and climate defense but she showed no inclination to take the vigorous measures needed to evade disaster.
The DNC is not weak, it is corrupted by rich people's money.
Despite weak laws and divestment, many new fossil fuel infrastructure projects are being constructed. States and people must protect the activists that try to stop them.
We have to fight to stop them, because even using all the facilities that exist is projected to mean disaster.
The UK has made it risky to sue to challenge government projects that could (for instance) harm the environment, alleging for instance that the environmental permission applications were invalid.
This is basically a plan to make environmental protection laws easy to violate.
Welcome to Swamp Trump — Please Don't Feed the Gators.
How Australia And Other Developed Nations Have Put A Stop To Gun Violence.
The example I recommend to the US is that of Canada. Many Canadians still have guns, but few people in Canada are shot with them.
China reprimanded Trump for denying global heating and pointed out that Reagan and Bush I launched global climate defense negotiations.
Dubya was the first president to be so submissive to the oil companies that he worked explicitly to thwart efforts to protect the world from disaster.
Obama made small steps in the right direction while mostly continuing Dubya's practical policies and not saying much.
US senators, including theocrat Marco Rubio, have proposed personal sanctions against Chinese officials responsible for kidnaping Hong Kong booksellers.
In principle I support efforts to make China back off from crushing freedom in Hong Kong, and I would not reject an initiative just because it gets support from right-wing theocrats. But I think this response is too small to make China concede anything, and more likely to provoke a hostile response.
An ex-Russian thinks Trump will be like Putin: a gang leader who uses bigotry but only really wants to repress those who oppose him or get in his way.
This may be true — I've suspected it too — but the bigots that Trump has made socially acceptable will continue to recruit, with or without further support from him. Moreover he seems inclined to continue to give the bigots help (for instance, Bannon).
Meanwhile, Pence is a solid theocratic right-wing extremist.
The West faces a choice: to ally with most Muslims to defeat the jihadi fanatics that kill them, or to equate them to the fanatics and drive them into the fanatics' camp.
Recognizing that human grievances drive people of Muslim background to become devout and fanatical at once, we must end Israel's siege/occupation of Palestine — which is called for by justice anyway.
It's bad news for Australian wildlife and the environment as one state, perhaps 10% of Australia's land area, weakens protection for native bush. This will increase greenhouse gas emissions too.
UK: Cut After Cut Has Left a Disabled Woman with Nothing to Live On.
In the US, many people are told to go die if they can't find work, but disabled people may get support via medicaid. Paul Ryan wants to put an end to that.
There have been many close encounters between airplanes and drones.
The chances that one of these results in a collision are small but significant. (5 meters away from the plane includes an area several times the plane's own cross section.)
Many drones are small and lightweight. Does anyone know how likely it is that a collision with a plane travelling at (say) 200 miles an hour (since it's close to landing or taking off) is to damage the plane? I guess the chance of significant harm is small — this is not like colliding with another plane.
It would be good to find a solution for avoiding the danger, but we shouldn't panic about it.
One of the bad things about Clinton was her association with neocons that wanted to launch more wars. Trump didn't seem to support that, but he may be about to appoint a militaristic neocon as Secretary of State.
In order to turn the neocons into ex-cons, we first need to prosecute them. Perhaps for the crime of aggressive war.
Anna Yocca has been in jail for almost a year under various charges because she tried to give herself an abortion.
If we don't want women to get abortions after almost 6 months of pregnancy, we should make it easy for them to do so earlier.
The thug that shot and killed Philando Castile has been charged with manslaughter.
A British boy left home, saying he wanted to go off on his own. This article takes for granted that this was unthinkable and that he needed to be rescued by thugs.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject Steve Bannon as official White House bigot.
Here's what makes Bannon so bad.
Florida adopted a "stand your ground" defense for shooting someone dead in 2005. Since then, the rate of killings with guns has increased substantially.
This is not proof of causality, but it seems plausible.
Many thugs kill dogs when they raid a house without the slightest reason.
Trump wants to deport immigrants who were charged with crimes but not convicted. Trump does not understand that punishing people without a conviction is an injustice.
In general, I think it is legitimate to deport foreigners who are present without authorization in the US (or whichever country). To prioritize those who committed serious crimes is acceptable too.
However, if people were brought in to the country as children and grew to adulthood in the country, they should be given citizenship, even if they committed minor crimes.
Israel is using Trump as cover to legalize robbery of land from Palestinians, and even annexation of additional parts of the West Bank.
Margaret Thatcher's lasting legacy is that most Britons are getting poorer and social mobility is reduced.
As in other countries, the victims often support right-wing candidates that scapegoat marginal groups instead of pulling back against the elites that are responsible.
Facebook and Google have taken steps against being used to distribute false news.
However, Facebook has other harmful effects, and is actions against fake news (even if effective against that problem) may make the others worse.
The battleground states in this election were also states with a high rate of foreclosure of housing.
Fear of Trump is leading some tech companies to consider collecting less data about people.
I hope it persuades some, but I don't think it will persuade them all.
Canadian schools, when they have indigenous religious ceremonies, violate religious neutrality.
Obama, responding to Americans' rejection of his business supremacy treaties, calls for leaders to reassure people that they are "being heard", but not for any concrete change in the rejected policies.
Large temporary agencies in the UK cut their payments for workers' health care by pretending they are employed by many small dummy companies.
A proposed pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver is likely to wipe out the resident population of Orcas there.
Meanwhile, the CO2 from burning additional fossil fuels from Alberta, no matter what kind, or how they are exported, could wipe out a million other species.
Trump has promoted antisemitism and made it acceptable in the US again. It adds to the viciousness of his other forms of bigotry.
"Fellow white evangelicals: your votes for Trump shook my faith."
One neighborhood in Montreal is trying to resist gentrification by limiting the number of restaurants.
I don't think there is a human right to run a restaurant, so if this measure succeeds I will give my congratulations.
However, in the long term the ways to prevent gentrification are to reduce economic inequality, allow increased density of housing construction, and provide more opportunity for work (or at least prosperity) outside the centers of cities. Reducing population growth can help, too.
Russia has cancelled its weak support for the International Criminal Court after it criticized Putin's military takeover of Crimea.
If the ICC ultimately fails, I think that will be due to the failure of the US to support it. If the US had done so, it would be difficult for others to reject it; they would have appeared brutal.
Why Keith Ellison and not Howard Dean should be head of the Democratic National Committee.
President Hollande wants to extend the French State of Emergency for 6 more months, till May.
Will it ever be allowed to end? I doubt it. Unless the French people remember how to fight for their freedom, they will never get it back.
The UK has finally denied the Chagos Islanders the right to return to the islands from which they were forcibly removed to make a US naval base.
The UK created a nature reserve which was widely seen as an excuse to keep them from returning home. Some environmentalist groups advocated the denial as a means to keep the people out entirely.
I think it must be possible for civilization to have a part and for wildlife to have a part.
Jakarta's Christian Governor to Face Blasphemy Trial over Islam Insult Claim.
The government ceded to the demands of religious fanatics, stirred up over decades by Salafi Arabia, who are using him as an opportunity to deny equal rights to all the non-Muslims in Indonesia.
The right to criticize a religion is an essential part of human rights. It appears that Ahok did not really do that; I think he would not have won the election if he really had criticized the religion of most of the voters in his region. But someone's innocence or guilt under a manifestly unjust law is a distraction from the guilt of the law itself.
The idea that no one but a Muslim should be a leader over Muslims is in itself an example of the bigotry that often embodies Islam. We are obligated to respect people's right maintain such a view, but the view itself deserves only condemnation.
Everyone: to the US press: don't "normalize" Trump and his henchmen.
Here's what the issue is.
Germany has admitted defeat for the TTIP.
Even if everything else Trump does is vicious, we must credit Trump with this one good deed. Activists had pretty much defeated the TTIP, but there's a difference between "pretty much defeated" and "defeated conclusively". With so much political pressure to agree to an antidemocratic deal, states can often find a way to bypass democratic obstacles.
Trump has invested at least a million dollars in companies that are involved in the Dakota Access Pipeline, and one of them paid at least 100,000 to his campaign.
It seems like a corrupt conspiracy to me.
1/3 of young teenagers in the UK encounter bigotry on the internet.
Children who see insults aimed at groups they belong to may feel hurt, but those that are targets of bigotry were sure to encounter it sooner or later. If they are told lies about their own ethnic groups, they will probably find that their families correct the lies.
I am worried more about children that see hatred expressed towards other groups. I worry that they will imitate it, and that they will believe the lies because they will not know anyone who will correct the lies.
So this suggests to me that it might be good to make persuasive refutations of bigoted lies, and good examples of rejecting hate available where more kids will see them.
Canada Gives $3.3bn Subsidies to Fossil Fuel Producers Despite Climate Pledge.
A man confessed to giving Qadhafi's money to Sarkozy's presidential campaign.
Kerry says a cease-fire has been agreed in Yemen.
Jill Stein: it is fallacious to blame other parties for the fact that people didn't vote for Clinton, or to assume that they would have voted for Clinton if the other parties didn't exist. Instead, push for instant runoff voting.
She could make her point stronger if she didn't legitimize the Republicans' dishonest "victory".
Why the Corrupt Rich Will Welcome Modi's "Surgical Strike on Corruption".
Trump will increase some threats to humanity's survival.
US citizens: call on states to negate the electoral college by passing the National Popular Vote act.
US citizens: call on Democrats not to cozy up to Trump.
Bahrain continues to repress anyone that criticizes the regime's disrespect for human rights.
"Sense About Science" tries to teach people not to question research results based on who paid for the research. It was founded by someone with ties to the tobacco industry.
Trump "empowers" his daughter as a substitute for respecting the rights of women in general.
In the Age of Trump, Why Bother Teaching Students to Argue Logically?
Trump's extreme misogynist supporters are a radical movement that could become violent and dangerous.
Local organizing against injustices in Russia continues despite Putin's power.
A plan to genetically study some African crop species could be the basis to harm farmers in Africa.
In principle, genetic engineering of these species could be a good thing — if the result is seed that farmers can freely grow and breed. But if it provides an opportunity for Monsanto and Bayer, or some other seed company, to impose its power over farmers, it will be a means to extract more money out of Africa.
The article repeats the common confusion of using the term "intellectual property rights", which confuses many different laws. The two laws which are pertinent here are patent law and plant variety monopolies. Each of these gives seed companies power to restrict farmers, but the two laws give different powers.
China's rulers rejoice in having a US president that admires unjust rule.
However, US presidents since from Clinton (and maybe Bush I) have been heading in the same direction.
Many cans of soda have more sugar than an adult should consume in one day.
The US Army has put a hold on construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, saying that it requires "additional discussion and analysis".
If it had done its job carefully, it would have said this before construction started. Environmental laws requiring environmental impact statements are ineffective if agencies accept incomplete statements. It should not take months of protests, and violence against protesters, to get an agency to recognize that requirements have not been followed.
Well, better late than never.
Trump may order officials to accept bogus environmental impact statements intentionally all the time.
Today is the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, and five writers that are now in prison have been specifically honored with support.
Damage from floods, storms and droughts costs over 500 billion dollars a year.
A century ago, such disasters were essentially natural. To continue calling them "natural disasters" nowadays is an error, because global heating and deforestation have become a considerable fraction of the cause.
In a few decades the annual damage will be far more than now.
Two journalists have been arrested in Burma and charged with the crime of "defamation".
That law is so vicious that Trump would be in favor of it.
Senator Warren is campaigning to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from Wall Street flunkies led by Trump.
Trump's expected actions are likely to indirectly increase the danger of extinction of humans.
Global heating has enabled tropical fish to spread away from the equator, to places where kelp forests are found, and the tropical fish destroy the kelp.
Once the kelp is gone, many species associated with it disappear too.
Your Government Wants to Militarize Social Media to Influence Your Beliefs.
Bigots for Trump already did so.
Shame on composer Wendy Carlos for copyright aggression.
Don't pay for anything that includes her music.
Many men loathe lewd "stag parties". It seems they participate because they don't know how to say no to social pressure.
I hope they start trying to resist social pressure soon. A few uncomfortable visits to a strip club won't ruin your life, but a habit of letting people pressure you into drinking to excess can make you an alcoholic, and that can kill you.
Masculine Culture Responsible for Keeping Women out of Computer Science, Engineering.
'It Was Too Hot, Even to Leave Home': Stories from the World's Hottest Year.
In Nigeria, Alaska, Russia, India, Finland, Thailand, Australia, Malawi, Brazil, the heat affects people's lives.
It's interesting that Boko Haram, like PISSI, seems to have got its chance from global heating.
TTIP Was Defeated by Activists — before the stolen election that Trump almost won.
Trump may be responsible for stopping the TPP from being passed in the US during the coming lame duck session of Congress. If so, we benefited, but his goal was not really to end the economic harm that globalization does to working people. He wants plutocracy with a different business model.
Users Around the World Reject Europe's Upload Filtering Proposal.
It mandates censorship on behalf of companies that have far too much power already. We need to make copyright weaker, not stronger.
It is regrettable that the EFF article disparages publications and creative works by calling them "content".
Cuba must take care when liberalizing its economy not to fall for the plutocrats' trickle-down idiocy.
Better analysis shows dams emit 25% more methane than was believed.
I wonder whether something can be done to reduce that, or else to collect the methane.
"He's right, the economy is sick — and businesses like Trump's are part of the disease."
Why Wallonia fought CETA, and what it won for Europeans and Canadians by doing so.
Obama will press for "meaningful debt relief" for Greece, now that he no longer has much influence.
Why didn't Obama push for this a year ago? Two years ago? Three years ago? Clearly he already knew what was harming Greece.
Trump's mouthpiece threatened to sue Harry Reid for an accurate condemnation of Trump.
This confirms that Trump will try to intimidate all criticism.
Important stories the US news media would cover thoroughly if it were Liberal.
The idea that US news media are Liberal is a right-wing lie. They want people who see the mainstream media to imagine that the truth is even more right-wing than what they find there.
Quebec thugs snooped on Canadian public radio reporters too.
An open letter to the thugs enforcing some laws against protesters in North Dakota, to help corporations disobey other laws.
The town of Cheran in Michoacan has kicked out gangsters and set itself as an autonomous indigenous community. However, other localities have not succeeded in replicating this. It seems to require strong social cohesion that is not found elsewhere.
We could get rid of Wall Street by 2050 through global heating.
Trump could destroy environmental protection in the US by appointing hypocritical officials with orders not to do the job. Obama did just that with agencies such as the SEC that are supposed to regulate Wall Street.
Sanders will continue the campaign to redirect Americans' anger at plutocracy into a movement that will honestly oppose it.
Amazon pressures its "self-employed" delivery drivers to drive without seat belts; they aren't given time to go to the toilet so they have to piss and defecate in the car.
This is perhaps not as bad for the individual as being unemployed, which is what they will become when Amazon gets driverless delivery vans. But that does not make it acceptable.
A lockdown in prison automatically creates tension. As a method to deal with tension among prisoners, it defeats itself if it is used very much.
Snopes.com continues its fact-checking service, but our political system no longer rejects lies.
The fake story about Ted Cruz and the ban on masturbation is funny because it is believable. It goes just a little beyond the sort of thing religious conservatives would really advocate.
Audi's proprietary software used a simple method to cheat on emissions tests: to activate a special low-emission gearshifting mode until the first time the car made a turn.
This is proprietary software at work. You can't trust a proprietary program with control of anything.
It was Clinton's own plutocratic nature that brought the election within stealing range for the Republicans,
Remember when polls showed Sanders had a better chance than Clinton against Trump? Sanders might have won by too many votes for the Republicans to steal.
Forget "Why?", It's Time to Get to Work.
Whether or not they favored Trump this time, and no matter who they favor in the future, this is clearly bad.
Paul Ryan wants to eliminate Medicare.
Republicans depend on the votes of older Americans — I see some hope that this plan can be stopped. However, it will be harder to stop the plans for tax cuts for the rich.
During Obama's presidency, many Democrats protected vicious state practices such as massive surveillance, torture, targeted killings, and imprisonment without trial.
Not all Democrats accepted these practices, but enough did so that we missed the chance to make it hard for Trump to use them.
Car manufacturers ask Trump to cancel fuel economy standards.
He has two reasons to do it: to please car companies, and to please oil companies. I expect he will do what those companies want.
Just 1 degree C of global heating has already altered ecosystems around the world. Some animals have evolved to be significantly smaller in just 50 years.
If you imagine that something killed all tall humans, humans could become substantially shorter in a few generations, because shorter humans already exist. But this rapid evolution can only go as far as the existing variation permits. To evolve to be even shorter would require a long time for mutation to make more variation.
A big fuss is made about a champagne party at a university, for the wrong reasons.
That college students already have an alcohol problem, and drank themselves into unconsciousness, is very grave. However, I don't see anything wrong in having sex at a party, or in jumping in a pond, if you want to do that.
Scump's victory has encouraged violent bigots of all stripes.
Obama defended massive surveillance, so now Trump gets to use it against the world.
Climate scientists warn, "There's no plan B" if Trump sabotages the already-insufficient plans to curb global heating.
Exit polls confirmed that Clinton won some of the states that were credited to Trump — but many people's votes were not counted.
Republican rule is like a roach motel for free elections.
Campuses Confront Hostile Acts Against Minorities After Donald Trump's Election.
US citizens: Stand with ACLU against Trump's bigotry and repression.
Trump's business interests add up to a broad net of conflicts of interest. Almost any decision he makes will be a matter of his own profit and loss.
He plans to handle this pervasive potential corruption the way he handled his bullying and bigotry: by insisting that there is nothing wrong with them.
The Pentagon doubled its estimate of civilian casualties from US bombings in Syria and Iraq since 2014. But most of the casualties known to Amnesty International are still not included.
Attacking Trump's narcissistic appeal with criticism of his wrongs bounced off him because his followers admired him for dismissing all possible criticism.
I disagree with the article's claim that that was the whole way Trump got as many votes as he did. But it played a role. Without it, he would not have got close enough to steal the election.
Proposing a ban on ads for junk food as a way to curb childhood obesity.
European Union citizens: sign the campaign against CETA and TTIP.
The web site does not work without running nonfree software, but it offers ways to sign by email or fax.
Trump seems likely to drop the pretense of pushing for a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine, and effectively endorse the occupation and apartheid on a permanent basis.
I doubt that he will do all of these bad things, but I expect he is likely to make some things considerably worse.
Iraqi thugs tortured and killed villagers suspected of being supporters of PISSI.
Maybe those people did support PISSI, but that doesn't excuse killing them arbitrarily in a place that has been recaptured.
And nothing excuses torture.
Italy is providing training and support to Egyptian courts.
In addition to use of torture and the death penalty, Egypt's courts are basically irrational. They sometimes sentence hundreds of people at once hardly bothering to find out what each person did.
Since Egypt's courts will exist in any case, training judges in paying attention to details such as guilt or innocence seems like a good thing even if the other injustices continue, provided it can be done without endorsing Egypt's courts in any way,
However, providing facilities or equipment is going too far.
Brazilian politicians have proposed laws to shield themselves from prosecution.
Local Democrats warned the Clinton campaign that she was going to lose traditional working-class Democratic votes.
Right-wing extremists have many opportunities in Europe against parties that have surrendered to the banksters. I expect that, like Trump, they will adopt policies that screw the non-rich even worse if they win.
Robert Reich: It's Time to Dismantle the Democratic Party and Start Anew.
Facebook will stop allowing advertisers to discriminate by race, only in the specific areas where that is illegal in the US.
In other words, Facebook supports racism as far as the law allows.
Trump seems to be serious about bringing back torture in the CIA.
If Obama had prosecuted Dubya and other guilty parties, Trump wouldn't be able to do this.
The German government agreed to cut emissions 95% by 2050.
"Trans people are terrified of what lies ahead. We must look out for one another."
Trump will certainly approve the Dakota Access Pipeline, but the company is already disregarding Obama.
Facebook and other digital media have encouraged the spread of falsehoods — what can be done about this?
Facebook presents fake news like real news, with no attempt to check.
How Facebook provided the perfect platform for trumpery.
However, rather than begging Facebook to use its influence "better", I think we need to reduce its influence.
Some Czechs are working for reconciliation with the German families expelled from Czechoslovakia at the end of World War II.
Hitler used the presence of ethnic Germans in part of Czechoslovakia as an excuse to take over part of Czechoslovakia.
Companies Should Be Forced to Say How Much Tax They Pay And Where.
Also how much income they get and where. And many other things.
Trump wants to destroy the Dodd-Frank law so that business executives can more easily cheat their investors and clients.
"The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia."
The main responsibility for the Democrats' loss falls on the right-wing Democratic establishment, which made Clinton the candidate despite knowing she could easily lose.
Black Lives Matter refuses to be silenced by a racist president.
Another name for this movement could be Blue Lies Matter.
Trump will now inherit the official "kill list" that Obama didn't try to kill off.
Trump may be planning to privatize Social Security.
Four yeas ago, Trump called for eliminating the electoral college and letting popular vote decide the presidency. Maybe it would be a good idea, since it would have denied him victory this time.
In Salafi Arabia, thousands of foreign construction workers have been working for months without pay.
I hope that country has had to cut back its world-wide support for a malignant variety of Islam.
Brazil's substitute President Temer has been charged with taking bribes.
Four US states' citizens voted to raise the minimum wage.
One reason voters supported Trump is as a rejection of political correctness.
Objective measurements show that racism and sexism in the US are real and cause substantial injustice. For the sake of justice, we need to put an end to them.
However, the use of political correctness as a method has to be limited. We need to aim to win real support for equality, not just shame bigots.
In the UK, the state is more xenophobic than most people are.
For people who arrived as children, and are now entirely anglicized, it is absurd to send them back to their dangerous places of origin where they wouldn't speak the language and could never fit in.
The US does this, too.
Russia said that Trump's campaign was in
frequent
contact with Russian officials.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Do medical studies find a link between sugary drinks and diabetes? It depends on who funds them.
Will Trump destroy America? Here is how it might happen.
It won't necessarily happen, because Trump doesn't mean what he says.
Trump Won. Now We Organize to Block Him, Every Step of the Way.
In South Korea, abortion is a crime outside of specific circumstances. This is both wrong and dangerous.
What do you tell your children when a gross and obvious bully wins the presidency?
Naomi Klein: "It was the rise of the Davos class that sealed America's fate."
That's because dooH niboR "trickledown", and the globalization of increasing economic inequality, caused the economic decline for American workers that motivated many of them to support Trump.
Sanders pointed at the real enemy, but the establishment defeated him. (Through trickery in the Democratic National Committee, we now know.)
Meanwhile, Trump used typical right-wing scapegoating of groups with little power, to distract American whites from the real enemy.
US women: if your insurance covers an IUD, try it now before Trump can screw you.
In a Black Precinct in Georgia, Simply Finding the Polling Place Was a Challenge.
Republican election-rigging operates on many levels.
Somali-American Ilhan Omar has been elected to the Minnesota legislature.
Trump says that Somali-Americans are a "disaster". I hope she leads to a disaster for Trump.
US citizens: Call for respecting nonviolent protesters' rights at least as much as armed protesters.
Trump can make global disaster inevitable simply by promoting fossil fuel use for four years.
Since he is 70 years old, he He probably will not live long enough to reach the point where it is impossible to deny the disaster.
How much further can global heating denialists fool themselves?
There is no point trying to cooperate with Trump so we can "get to know him". We already know his trumpery too well.
The idea of "unity" with Trump is absurd. With so much self-contradiction, he can't even unify himself.
Sanders says, with justification, "I told you so."
[Elected] Democrats Once Represented the Working Class. Not Anymore.
Trump doesn't represent them either, but he incoherently pretended to.
Transgender Americans fear oppression under a Trump regime.
All depends on whether Trump sees a personal benefit in continuing to demonize them. If he does, he might hound them cruelly. On the other hand, he may feel that now that he's elected he has no need to do that.
"You're hired: how The Apprentice led to President Trump."
I never watched The Apprentice — In 1970 I decided to drop my TV habit cold-turkey and I've never had one since. But it sounds like the sort of callous bullying that we have seen from Trump this year.
Israeli colonists
attacked
Palestinians as they tried to harvest their olive trees.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Elsewhere colonists stole olives after Palestinians harvested them.
In El Araqib, Israel state agents don't just destroy houses and tents, they also steal anything movable.
Chris Christie closed lanes to punish Democrats, but Israel closes roads entirely to punish Palestinians.
Netanyahu believes that the world doesn't care enough to object to Israel's colonization of parts of Palestine. He figures he can get away with blatant gradual oppression.
US citizens: call on the FCC to investigate cell phone jamming at pipeline protests.
Valerie Tarico explains why she is pro-abortion.
India has attacked payment in cash by suddenly invalidating all bills that are worth more than around $13.
I support fighting corruption, but tracking everything everyone buys is tyranny.
After Ethiopian expats protested in Australia, Ethiopia arrested their relatives.
EU Can't Afford to Fudge Tax Haven Blacklist.
Indian soldiers have blinded hundreds of protesters in Kashmir by shooting pellets at crowds.
When India took over Kashmir, it promised the population a plebiscite to decide whether to remain part of India. That plebiscite has never been held, and I think India should hold it.
The government of Pakistan is more repressive than that if Ondia, in general, but Kashmir does not have to become part of Pakistan if it becomes independent from India. There are many possibilities.
Florida voters rejected the anti-solar amendment.
Trump seen as a "winaholic" who has to believe he never loses. He may now have so much power that he can deny all future failures and make people around him deny them too.
Some prominent US racists are very happy with Trump's victory.
Republican vote-rigging in Ohio.
We need to determine whether Trump stole this election or whether he would have won without the vote-rigging, intimidation, and voter suppression.
Here's voter-suppression from Arizona.
If you believe Trump meant what he said, here's what that might imply for the coming years.
I don't think Trump meant very much of what he said. It was mere Trumpery. The only serious part was his inclination towards bullying and intimidation. Aside from that, he might do anything whatsoever.
Trump took advantage of broad US freedom of speech even as he said he wanted to get rid of it.
Trump has showed that one can fool enough of the people, enough of the time, to become president if one is insincere and exploitative.
Sheriff Arpaio, who had contempt for laws that protected other people's rights, has been voted out of office.
How Forensics Are Aiding the Fight Against Illegal Wildlife Trade.
Trump could commit unspeakable horrors because Bush started them, and Obama either continued them or created no obstacles to stop them.
After a prestigious Israeli human rights award to Breaking the Silence was vetoed blocked for political reasons, other Israelis set up an alternative prize to give it.
In Breaking the Silence, former soldiers talk about the occupation atrocities they saw, or participated in.
US citizens: oppose the "21st century cures act" which would create longer monopolies on medicines.
Everyone: call on Sempra Energy to compensate and aid the poor residents of Eight Mile just as it did the wealthy residents of Porter Ranch.
The campaign for a UN treaty against abuses by corporations.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to sign the Grijalva-Huffman letter in support of pipeline protesters.
I don't call the protesters "water protectors" because, important as it is not to pollute rivers, not burning more oil is even more important in the long term.
Canada will ban oil tankers on the coast of British Columbia where a pipeline for tar sands oil was planned.
"This is mankind's 'great urbanisation' era. We must act now, or the planet will pay."
Bill Clinton mocked Corbyn, and no wonder.
Clinton supports the plutocratic power structure, and thinks anyone that challenges it must be mad.
A Republican "voter fraud investigation" is really an intimidation operation designed to make Hispanic citizens afraid to vote.
Impartial Journalism Is Laudable. But False Balance Is Dangerous.
1/4 of the increase in CO2 levels is absorbed by increased plant growth. The other 3/4 is causing global heating.
Iraqi men liberated from PISSI's rule celebrate being free to get rid of their beards.
I hope that women will celebrate being free to get rid of their veils, but I am not sure if they get that freedom.
A survey in Germany found that 2.4% of men admitted to viewing "child sexual abuse images". I share the article's concern, but my conclusions are very different from those in the article.
To imprison such a large fraction of society would be outrageous. In the US, that would amount to millions of people. (The US already imprisons far too many of its residents.) This shows that the current repressive approach is untenable.
The boundaries of "child sexual abuse images" are subject to a lot of stretching, and I don't know what those men had in mind when they answered, or whether they were shown a specific definition. We must not label everyone under 18 as "children", nor assume that sex for someone under 16 or 18 (take your pick) is invariably "abuse", nor treat images of fictitious children as real "abuse". But real children are sexually abused for real, and I support laws against that. Efforts against the business of making and distributing images of that are justified — but these must not be done by dangerous methods.
A law against looking at or possessing a copy of some publication, no matter how odious it is or why, is a threat to everyone. It is an excuse for fishing expeditions, when the state seeks an excuse to imprison someone. It also provides an easy way to manufacture a case against someone. How hard is it to slip copies of things into your computer?
Israel rejected France's proposed peace process in favor of an alternative that has been dead since 2014, and was only a sham before that.
The WiFi systems of portable phones make it easy to get the phone's unique number or IMSI.
I think the root of this problem is that the phone transmits a unique number that the user cannot change. When I connect to WiFi or ethernet, I change my MAC address each time I use a different network. Machines that won't let you do this are mistreating you.
How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News.
Would Wall Street Have a Place in a Clinton Administration?
Trump's Three Enablers: The GOP, the Media, and... The Establishment Democrats.
"Tax meat and dairy to cut emissions and save lives."
Africa Still in the Crosshairs as Land Grabs Intensify.
A UK prison doctor says that half the people in prison should be getting medical treatment instead.
Many laws restrict freedom of speech in Australia.
China banned the two pro-independence legislators from taking office in Hong Kong's legislature.
This confirms that the legislature is just a rubber stamp for Chinese power.
China is also repressing Hong Kong's book publishing.
Rather than looking at how to regulate these beacons, which would limit only those that don't think they can get away with breaking regulations, I think it would be wiser to modify a phone's operating system to filter out all ultrasound so nothing can use it.
Arguing that debt-based currency must be abolished because it requires countries to run unsustainable economic growth.
I am not sure this argument is conclusive. I think it would be possible to run some continued economic growth in a sustainable way, although that is not how it's being done at present.
But the idea of changing the monetary system might have other advantages such as reducing the concentration of wealth.
The fictional Net of a Million Lies has become real, and the filter bubble has made serious political discourse almost ineffective.
A protester holding a sign, "Republicans against Trump", at a Trump rally was attacked by a mob of Trump supporters.
China seems to be planning to ban the election-winning pro-democracy candidates entirely from being admitted to Hong Kong's legislature.
Pro-democracy protesters marched again in Hong Kong.
An Iranian-American who visited the old country as a child, and saw Khomeini's violent followers impose the official line on everyone there, says says that Trump's racist movement reminds him of that.
Everyone: call on Turkey not to imprison human rights lawyer and journalist Eren Keskin.
US citizens: Call on Clinton to
oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Trump Campaign and Republicans Paid $1.8m To Companies Mired in Voter Fraud Claims.
Anonymous held a "million mask march" in London.
Canada has required ISPs to forward notices making large claims for "piracy". Some foreign students fear they will be deported.
"It feels like blackmail" is an understatement. It is blackmail. Canada should get rid of its unjust copyright laws and legalize sharing.
"Why I declared my wealth and made Ukraine's elite follow suit."
I think that it is legitimate to require these declarations from public officials as an anti-corruption measure.
I hope the e-declaration web site does not require running nonfree software.
Stern, whose report ten years ago warned of the dangers of global heating, says things are worse than he expected then. He also says that the world is slowly coming around to making efforts to slow global heating.
Many children are becoming addicted to proprietary software games.
The games are designed to make users keep playing — and, in many cases, keep paying. Unlike the games of 30 years ago, you don't just buy a copy once and use it as much as you like. In many games, players are pressured to pay to advance.
The fact that the games are proprietary, not free (libre) software, is a crucial part of the problem, because that enables the designers to maximize the amount they draw out of people, and gives them an incentive to make the games addictive.
The technology-industrial complex shows a general dynamic of designing things to be increasingly addictive.
Trump lied (as always) when he said he was against the political insiders. His transition plan is the opposite.
How Donald Trump Used Fine Print To Make It Harder To Sue Wall Street For Fraud.
He made bullshit predictions about the profit his casino would make, then said "But it might not be true". When sued, he cited the latter to excuse the former.
He's used the same approach, over and over, in his campaign.
Report Collects Government Spying Cases from 10 Countries.
Sheriff Arpaio, facing imprisonment for contempt of court, is alas not in prison yet. So he is planning to try to intimidate voters on election day.
Comey said that his latest statement about Clinton's emails was a false alarm.
Of course, this "forget what I said" statement won't cancel the effect of what he said. It was a dirty trick and he ought to be punished for it. An FBI director that feels entitled to mess with people by sowing suspicion based only on lack of information is unacceptable.
If the FBI is going to disregard the rules not to discuss investigations that have not led to any significant conclusion, here are some others it should explain.
US citizens:
call
on Obama to ban tar sands tankers from US coasts.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
New extractivist government policies will destroy the remaining koala habitat in a major Australian state.
Officials of North Dakota rebuked the pipeline company for ignoring indigenous artifacts which it was required to report.
US citizens: call on Congress to press the Israeli government to disavow an anti-Muslim hate group.
The Russian bombing of Aleppo is horrible, but don't forget that the the US bombing of Iraq and the (mostly gratuitous) Israeli bombing of Gaza were roughly equally horrible. And there's the US-Salafi bombing of Yemen right now.
US citizens: call on the EPA to reschedule hearings about Roundup soon.
US citizens: call for cancellation of the F35 fighter plane.
Parents that post on Facebook about their children (especially photos) are making an imposition. It won't always do specific and direct harm to the children, but it is never right.
Michele Pred distributed Official Air Travel Replacement Knives to passengers arriving at San Francisco Airport.
Governor Dayton created an economic boom in Minnesota by raising taxes on the rich and increasing the minimum wage.
Reagan's "trickle-own" economics is nothing but an excuse for dooH niboR.
A data base of "malicious" web pages is allegedly corrupted with hash codes of pages with useful DRM-breaking software.
File-Sharing Can Be Legalized Immediately, While Complying With All Treaties.
Beware: Countering "Violent Extremism" Online Risks Human Rights.
Republicans have eliminated many voting places since 2012.
The US was totally incompetent in sending Afghans to Guantanamo. Then, as typically happens, officials went to absurd lengths to justify the incompetent decisions.
The global business agenda: "small government for helping people; big government for keeping business on top of people."
I think it should be the other way around.
The singing star Adele said she was pushed to have children by pervasive social pressure, and said that "it's the bravest thing not to have a child".
You can help women resist this pressure, by speaking up when you see others create this pressure. You can also say, "Having children is selfish. If you don't have children, you can dedicate your time to something that the world really needs."
US citizens: call on ash Carter to suspend handing military weapons to thug departments.
US citizens: call on Indiana's governor to back off an attempt to disenfranchise tens of thousands of black voters.
Everyone: call on the FBI to investigate apparent cell phone jamming at pipeline protests.
A Canadian court ordered the national snooping agency to stop "sharing and analysing" data about people that are not specifically suspects.
The stoppage is temporary, pending an analysis. It remains to be seen how much change will be made after the review is complete.
A School Administrator in Indiana Works to Protect Student Privacy. And also rejection by some students, or their parents, of digital technology.
The article doesn't mention it, but almost all the programs in question are proprietary software (hence, unjust to the user), and I expect that nearly all of them are malware (spyware, DRM, or both). You should tell your children's school not to use them on your child.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset has been sentenced to pay almost $10,000 for each of the 24 songs she downloaded.
This is a victory for those bullies, the record factories.
The legally authorized disservices for downloading or streaming music are unjust, usually in several ways at once. (I absolutely refuse to use them, and I hope you do, too.) Even sales of CDs over the internet disrespect customer's rights, because they have to identify themselves.
Aside from sales of CDs in physical stores where you can pay cash, the only form of music distribution that doesn't do you an injustice is peer-to-peer.
The US representative in the UN opposed the very idea of nuclear disarmament.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association has been fined 18 million dollars for hiding the sources of its political campaigning.
Unfortunately, it comes too late — and they already won this battle at the federal level.
One large progressive issue that Clinton really cares about is women's rights.
I support them too, but I think that fighting to restore democracy (which means ending plutocracy) is the most important issue of all. Don't forget that plutocracy is what has enabled the global heating denialists to push us more or less to the edge of the pit.
"The Purely Private-Purpose Corporation Is an Illegitimate Entity."
Obama invites the local indigenous people protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline to become NIMBYs.
In the US: call on the AARP to stop supporting Paul Ryan and harmful Social Security "reform".
US citizens: call on the EPA to strictly regulate smog-causing ozone emissions from oil and gas wells.
Vancouver is considering a long-term plan to cope with global heating: moving people out of low-lying areas by the coast.
California Politician Likes Climate Change Because "Our Enemies" Live in Hot Places.
This is stupid at so many levels. But he does it because lots of Americans have been taught to lap it up.
Algorithms that purport to estimate the chance that a DNA match is spurious could be erroneous — or biased — or snowing juries with babble.
What is certain is that courts are being invited to depend on proprietary software, and that's always wrong.
Internet memes make falsehood just as powerful as truth.
The library in Beaverton, Oregon, now requires all children to be accompanied by their parents.
America's Nuclear-Waste Plan Is a Giant Mess.
This is why I don't trust nuclear power plants.
Governor Christie's aides were convicted of closing lanes on the George Washington bridge as political punishment for a politician that wouldn't endorse Christie's campaign.
I hope it is possible to prosecute Christie, who was apparently the ringleader.
Iranian journalist Yashar Soltani has been jailed for publishing leaked documents showing that a powerful politician is corrupt.
The right-wing activist behind voter suppression in North Carolina was recorded comparing his activities to Jim Crow.
US citizens: call for effective protection of the endangered pallid sturgeon.
Global heating is destroying some archeological relics.
US citizens: call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect wolverines.
A British ex-con writes about what structures a prison, and how foolish UK prison policy encourages violence and recidivism.
I'm pretty sure US prisons use some of the same policies and get similar results. Efforts for rehabilitation were cancelled in the 1980s as the drug-ridden War on Drugs led to today's massive incarceration.
Many aspects of forensic "science" in the 20th century were just guesswork and carelessness.
Some of the guesswork is being replaced with evidence-based science, but what can we do about the carelessness?
To Reduce Prison Population, Invest in Public Mental Health, New Study Says.
It would also be a profitable change, since the decreased prison spending would exceed the medical spending by a factor of 1.26.
(The article states this in a confusing way, but someone checked the study for me.)
The Dakota Access Pipeline was approved based on a bent environmental impact statement.
That is a common method of disregarding environmental protection laws.
Oil companies will spend a billion dollars on energy efficiency and methane leak reduction.
It is a useful thing to do, but far too little.
'The FBI Is Trumpland': Anti-Clinton Atmosphere Spurred Leaks, Sources Say.
The FBI accepts false information from crackpots to attack Clinton.
Trumpets are planning a campaign to destabilize the US if Trump does not win.
Turkey has imprisoned the leaders of the HD party. They refused to testify about crimes labeled as "terrorist propaganda", which probably refers to acts of journalism about Kurds or political support for Kurds' rights.
You'd have to bend over backwards at this point to claim that Turkey is a democracy.
Women Who Quit Smoking Before 30 Cut Risk of Tobacco-Related Death by 97%.
Even if you quit later, you will still reduce it a lot.
US military personnel could be prosecuted for their role in carrying out the bombing of Yemen.
The media like to call it "Saudi-led", but it would be just as true to say that Salafi Arabia is acting as a proxy. The bombers are not US planes, but the bombing campaign could not be carried out without US support and participation.
Many Trump supporters are drawn by a message that seems like Obama: "Change!"
It was foolish to support Obama for that, and it is equally foolish to support Trump for that.
In North Carolina and Florida, is the Trump Voter Suppression Plan Working?
A hundred years ago, wearing a poppy in Britain was a call for peace. It has been converted into support for war.
There is a lot of sunshine in Greece.
US citizens: call on the US to cooperate with Russia more in Syria.
To advocate this course does not require admiring Putin or endorsing Russia's actions.
A revision of the International Labor Organization's treaty prohibits
forced labor.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Now we have to push the United States and most of the rest of the world to ratify the treaty.
It is dangerous to increase punishments for crimes because the perpetrator expressed disapproval of thugs.
The British campaign to leave the EU has associated "foreigner" with hatred, through a series of innuendos in the press.
Burma official denies citizenship to all except a specific list of authorized ethnic groups.
North Dakota thugs have accused protester Red Fawn Fallis of shooting at them. She is an avowed pacifist and would not have had a gun.
In the absence of any objective evidence, I think it is more plausible that the thugs have lied (yet again).
Florida electric companies have set up a referendum for a proposal to slow the installation of home solar power. It is deceptively written so as to appear to be in favor of solar power.
The UK military fired a doctor in a non-regulation way, apparently because he reported a suspicion of diversion of drugs.
Governments' current greenhouse gas pledges lead to 3C of global heating, assuming yet-unknown positive feedbacks don't make it worse.
The pervasive corruption of Spain's right-wing Partido Popular produced jealousy that resulted in the murder of a powerful politician that controlled lots of patronage.
They were cowards — they should have stood firm and used the campaign against their attackers.
US citizens:
call
on your senators to oppose the Russell amendment.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: call on governments to exclude planet roasters from climate negotiations.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to prosecute Wells Fargo executives.
Rich Ukrainians are being forced to declare their wealth.
I hope the declaration has a threshold that exempts most citizens (the ones who are not rich).
Deceiving Donald gatecrashed a charity event and took a seat on stage
but he
didn't
give any money.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
The Navy's Use of Depleted Uranium in Our Coastal Waters Threatens Humans, Wildlife.
The threat will grow over the millennia.
Facebook appears set to be the next US tech giant to serve as a censor for the Chinese regime.
Large protests in Morocco have been triggered by the killing of a fisherman who had been fishing illegally out of season.
There is a big difference between this death and the death of Mohammed al-Bouazizi, who committed suicide as a protest against a tyrannical regime. Fikri was stopped for carrying out an environmental crime, endangering a species. It is very important to enforce such laws. Fikri did not deserve death for that, but it's not clear whether the thugs expected anyone to be in the fish crusher.
Erdoğan has crippled Cumhuriyet, one of Turkey's principal newspapers, by arresting the editor and many of the staff.
Summarizing why coal power is not useful for lifting people out of poverty, and why in the future it will push people into poverty.
A year after PISSI was chased out of Sinjar, few inhabitants have returned and rebuilding has not started.
Syrian Rebels' Aleppo Offensive Could Amount to War Crimes, UN Envoy Warns.
90% of the world's children live in places with excess air pollution, which can cause them permanent health problems. 15% live in extreme pollution.
However, an even bigger problem is that there are over 2 billion children. People are making so many that the population is increasing.
We should aim to have only 1.5 billion children, 20 years from now.
Erdoğan continues arbitrarily closing periodicals and news agencies.
FBI Stands Guilty of an Overtly Political Act at a Crucial Moment.
The FBI started a pseudo-scandal about Clinton's email, where the only scandalous information is an absence of evidence or conclusions.
How the Oregon Militia Acquittals Reflect the Appeal of White Nationalist Agitators.
Facebook blocked Admiral insurance from analyzing clients' Facebook postings to choose their rates.
Facebook is not on your side, though. It wants to manipulate its useds to keep giving Facebook lots of information about themselves (and other people).
The fact that Admiral's program is "voluntary" does not make it legitimate. If it caught on, it would soon become effectively compulsory, except for the wealthy. This has been called "STASI capitalism."
We need to decide democratically what information insurance companies are allowed to have about drivers — which means, not by letting a few companies decide to where herd people.
Here is an example of what we should not allow.
The root of this problem i the collection of this information by companies such as Facebook and Fitbit. That is another issue we should decide democratically, not by letting a company do its damnedest to manipulate and then pressure people into giving it.
Scotland needs land reform, for people and for nature.
Some of the outer areas of Mosul have been liberated by the Iraqi army.
The reaction of the civilians justifies use of the word "liberated".
The right-wing government naturally prefers a handout for businesses to any real CO2 reductions.
Islamist bigots in Jakarta are protesting against the mayor, who is a Christian, saying he committed "blasphemy" when he criticized their citing the Koran for purposes of bigotry.
Indonesian Muslims did not think this way 50 years ago; they were taught by activities sponsored by Salafi Arabia.
Note that this is not an endorsement of Trump (or Clinton). It is a calculating analysis of which of two evils would give the better chance for subsequent improvement.
I am not sure whether I agree with the analysis. It may have been true in 2000, but the existence of Sanders and his movement will limit Clinton's power to anesthetize in the next few years.
But even supposing that analysis is still valid, I take a less Machiavellian approach to the question. I do not wish a worse president on people merely in the hope he will create unrest. I think things will be much worse in any case.
It is still possible to teach Jewish and Palestinian teenagers to cooperate better.
Russian Dissident Ildar Dadin Accuses Prison Staff of Torture. He has been imprisoned for the crime of protesting.
Copyright Office Fucks Over Thousands Of Sites With Plans To Remove Their DMCA Safe Harbors.
The DMCA takedown system is unjust in many ways — it is regularly used for censorship — and Hollywood wants to make it worse. The Copyright Office basically treats the public with contempt.
Earlier this year the Copyright Office invited public comments and stubbornly refused to let people submit them in any way other than with use of nonfree Javascript code from their site. I have a hunch they are doing the same thing now with the new DMCA contact registration system. Would someone like to check?
Arab Gulf States Are Surveiling, Imprisoning, and Silencing Activists for Social Media Posts.
Comey has been politically misusing his power as FBI director for years. (What else would you expect from a Republican?)
Did you notice how strange it was that Obama's appointment of some Republicans to important jobs was treated as wise, rather than right-wing? I suspect that we saw the resonating voice of the center-right elite, the same elite that backs Clinton now.
Thugs are cracking down hard on pipeline protesters, and the US Army (under Obama's command) is backing them.
Obama said wants to let the pipeline advance "play out" for more weeks, but since his own men are joining the attack on protesters, those words misrepresent his actions.
Meanwhile, the US government is looking at "re-routing" the pipeline. That might avoid the secondary problem of destruction of archeological sites. It might alter the danger of water pollution, but can't eliminate it — the pipeline will still have to cross the same rivers.
Re-routing certainly won't do anything to curb global heating. It won't get us off the path to defeat for civilization and the natural world. That's Obama in a nutshell.
"Why do we punish Dakota pipeline protesters but exonerate the Bundys?"
My conjecture is, because the Bundys are selfish bastards and the pipeline protesters are not.
That answer might seem flip, but it is actually a serious conjecture stated in flip words.
Two Moroccan girls face criminal charges for kissing each other.
Sometimes it's Moroccan, but right now it is less rockin'.
Diesel engines may be banned from UK cities to reduce pollution there.
The manufacturers lied to the public, including the purchasers of these cars. Will they have to compensate those victims for the costs of replacing these cars with non-diesels so they can drive into cities again?
Children need to spend lots of time playing with other children, with no adults to interfere, in order to develop personal and social strengths. Today's controlling treatment by parents denies them this opportunity.
This article made me realize something about myself. I find myself at a loss for what to say to children, because I am disinclined to speak to them in the way adults usually do. The article says that the usual discourse of adult Americans towards children is dishonest and phony. I think a vague perception of that is what makes me reluctant to do it.
The main driver of the Internet of Stings may be to help insurance companies control people.
The article has the artificially light tone which, in today's mainstream media, is the obligatory substitute for standing for people's rights. But it ends by identifying a series of technologies that contribute to oppressive surveillance: portable phones, activity trackers, "smart watches", Internet of Stings, and cars.
I don't own any of those, and I don't tolerate them in my home or my office.
Most election spending this year in the US is "outside" funds, often from hidden sources.
The US says its intervention in Yemen is because Iran is sending arms to the Houthis in Yemen. Arms were found in boats, but evidence suggests it was bound for Somalia instead.
More fundamentally, even if Iran is sending arms to the Houthis, so what? Salafi Arabia has sent plenty of arms to jihadis; that is a much bigger harm to western countries. It makes no sense for the US to support Salafi Arabia's war crimes.
They don't point out that the decrease in revenue would mean additional cruel cuts to support for the poor and disabled. What we need to do is increase tax on the rich.
President Zuma's history of corruption.
He's not as horrible as his predecessor Thabo Mbeki, who denied HIV medicine to millions because he refused to recognize that it caused AIDS. But Zuma's pretty lousy anyway.
Californians are gong back to wasteful lawns again.
I don't like the article's tone of sympathy for that.
An Israeli judge ruled that thugs tortured Faiz Mahmoud Ahmed Sherari into making a confession.
It is normal practice to do this to Palestinians, but Sherari is a UK citizen so he can't be treated that way.
"Indigenous rights are key to preserving forests."
Protesters demand resignation of South Africa's corrupt president Zuma.
The African National Congress has lost all the moral stature that it built up during years of fighting apartheid. Mandela's successors are not worthy of him.
Russia seized the Amnesty International office and changed the locks, as a surprise.
Wasteful bottled water sales in the US are based on taking water from the ground, gratis, and leaving communities scant.
Participation in this is "voluntary", but if it typically offers significant discounts, non-rich people will say they "have no choice" about posting on Facebook. This sort of system trashes people's rights in practice even though in theory they still have the rights. We therefore should prohibit it.
"Wait until insurers can see the contents of your fridge."
Don't get a refrigerator which keeps track of its contents, dummy!
The $100bn Gold Mine And the West Papuans Who Say They Are Counting the Cost.
US laws have been designed to produce "Socialism for the Rich, Free Enterprise for the Rest".
The Montreal thug department used Canada's new "anti-terrorism" powers to spy on the contacts of a reporter that writes about that department.
This is what "anti-terrorism" laws typically do. States really love having more power to crush criticism, which is why massive surveillance is more dangerous than terrorists.
I expect it will find that the Taliban carried out plenty of war crimes, but that conclusion will cause me no sense of guilt. It's different when my country is the culprit.
Reminding people of the reality of lynching, by re-enacting one of the last lynchings, in 1946, which helped launch the civil rights movement.
We need to regulate the use of license plate cameras.
Limiting where they are used is only part of what's needed. They should be built so that they only "see" license plates that are being sought under court order, or are invalid.
Under Canada's unjust copyright laws, publishers are bullying thousands of users into paying settlements of thousands of dollars.
Everyone: call on Facebook to stop offering advertisers the feature of discriminating by race.
There is no need to be afraid of poisoned candy on Halloween. It has only happened once, so you're in more danger of being hit by lightning.
Pollster Tony Fabrizio made a fool's mistake: he agreed to work for the Trump campaign and did not demand payment in advance.
Christian fanatics in the US want to use "religious freedom" laws to excuse child abuse.
Trump has repeatedly dodged lawsuits by deleting emails and other documents.
Trump's 1990s tax avoidance, which removed almost a billion dollars from his taxable income, is illegal now, and arguably was illegal then too.
Trump would say this makes him smart, but really it just makes him crooked.
US citizens: petition on Obama to kill the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Israeli politicians have threatened human rights defender Hagai El-Ad (head of B'tselem) with exile, cancellation of his citizenship, because he spoke to the UN Security Council against Israel's colonization and repression in the West Bank.
While the threat of exile is new, it occurs in a context of pervasive censorship applied to dissidents and reporters in general, including Arabs and Jews. Don't forget Anat Kam, who was jailed for talking to an Israeli newspaper about secret death squads, and Uri Blau, the leading journalist who was convicted of publishing about them.
Israel has privatized the guards at checkpoints, which makes it harder to get any accountability when they harass or kill Palestinians. Anyone trying to find out who is actually responsible gets a runaround.
Privatization has also impoverished many Israelis.
What the Israeli occupation looks like to a schoolchild in the West Bank.
Water is now available in parts of Palestine only two hours a week.
A leaked list of IP addresses that might be those of computers that the NSA has cracked.
(Please don't use the word "hacking" as if it referred principally to breaking security — that's insulting to us hackers. See /articles/on-hacking.html.)
US citizens: call the White House via 877-559-7809 and ask Obama to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, and protect the protesters from violent abuse by so-called "law enforcement".
You may have to wait on hold for quite some time, so use a speakerphone or headset.
Using jellyfish to make absorbant products.
Some species are tasty, too!
The War on Drugs is responsible for shielding HIV from medicine's awareness for many years. Junkies died from AIDS without seeing doctors, since they were scared to visit a hospital, and nobody investigated why. By the time society took note, years had been lost.
If junkies had had an alternative to sharing needles, the disease might never have affected many people.
Disabled US citizens face a struggle to vote.
Carbon emission per dollar of global production is declining significantly, but not as fast as is necessary to avoid global disaster.
Trying high tech methods to protect desert tortoises from extinction by ravens.
Since the ravens are plentiful, and attack sage grouse which need protection too, I wonder if it might be better to cull the ravens.
Turkish journalists face constant harassment from regime supporters if they do not fully parrot the regime's line.
War Is Hell — for the Natural World, Too.
A big leap forward in use of contraceptive use in Africa.
If anyone is being held back by lack of money, the developed world has the responsibility to help them.
Uber systematically discriminates against passengers that are black, and tends to cheat women.
The study does not demonstrate how the discrimination and cheating occur, but does demonstrate the statistical phenomenon.
What it has done, rather, is to enrich a few large companies that use their money to lobby our plutocratic government for unjust laws to cover up what they are doing.
The Podesta Emails Show Who Runs America - And How They Do It.
The people participating in that discussion are not the ultimate masters — the billionaires. Rather, the participants are the billionaires' fixers.
The Oakland "housing cabinet", whose goal is to enable ordinary people poor people to remain in Oakland, includes the landlord who has the record for eviction notices in the city.
He's right, though, that the real solution is to build lots of housing. With too little place to live, people will compete for them, and that competition will inevitably have losers.
When zoning laws limit the amount of housing construction, in effect those who are locally on top (and expect to hold on to their housing) mistreat those locally who are worse-paid or precarious. I have no sympathy for this practice.
In some parts of the US, women get fined, even jailed, if they won't press charges for domestic violence.
I am in favor of encouraging victims to testify, but this is not the way to do it.
Donna Brazile, the new head of the Democratic National Committee, seems to have leaked a primary debate question to the Clinton campaign, then falsely claimed she didn't.
How the US is applying today the propaganda and coverup lessons it learned in Vietnam.
After Two Wars, Standing Rock Is the First Time I Served the American People.
The American UN ambassador called for an end to the Salafi/US bombing campaign in Yemen.
This is paradoxical since the US actively supports and advises that campaign. The US could stop it immediately if it decided to.
Tories: Creating Child Poverty for a Whole New Generation.
"The Tories are lower than vermin" — Aneurin Bevan
A catalog of the violence used by thugs against nonviolent pipeline protesters.
Why were the Bundy occupiers treated with more respect? Was it because they were right-wing and thugs support the right wing? Was it because they had a lot of guns?
James Comey Has Been Abusing His Power for Years.
Everyone: call on Clinton to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Putin claims the US military is sabotaging Obama's diplomatic efforts with Russia.
Putin is not above lying, but there seems to be some truth in this claim. Many of the activities cited in the article, on both sides, are only gestures, but they reflect the current state of tension which the US could have avoided by not proposing to extend NATO to Ukraine and Georgia.
US citizens: call on AARP to stop spreading right-wing FUD about Social Security.
"Abstinence only" is as silly in regard to sexting as it is in regard to sex.
Harassing registered sex offenders on Halloween is completely gratuitous and pointless.
"Bulk collection clearly violates global rights to privacy and free speech."
Why Can't We [Americans] Rein In This Ridiculous Military Spending?
Because politicians listen to lobbyists, is the answer in a nutshell.
So what if the F-35 fighter project has created 125,000 jobs in 46 states? Instead of spending that money paying businesses to build a weapon that works badly, we could spend it on renewable energy development and create more jobs, and achieve something useful at the same time.
Gorbachev: the coldness between the US and Russia is a more dangerous problem than the disputes that provoked it.
Thugs confiscated the camera of a journalist at a pipeline protest, claiming it is "evidence of a crime". Evidently, the "crime" is journalism.
Trump, in his campaign, uses the same maneuvers as an abusive spouse.
I wonder how he has treated his wives.
As PISSI retreats, it leaves behind large numbers of booby traps, even booby-trapped toys to kill children who return.
Fossil fool state prosecutors want to put protesters and journalists in prison for decades.
Any sort of crime committed against fossil fuel facilities is covered by the necessity defense. Continuing fossil fuel use will kill hundreds of millions of people; activities to increase that use will be the biggest atrocity in history, worse even than the crime of starting World War II. To thwart even a millionth of that atrocity would save many lives.
The UK's decision to expand Heathrow airport is a decision to spend tens of billions to rush to disaster. But all that matters to the government is that fossil fools will make a profit from it for a few decades.
The UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights condemned the UN for refusing to take responsibility for bringing cholera to Haiti.
Donald Trump: Hillary Clinton's Policy for Syria Would "Lead To World War Three".
Since Trump says all sorts of contradictory things, occasionally he says something valid.
Albuquerque thugs were tried for a gratuitous killing, but the Albuquerque thug department continues its aggressive and violent practices.
The US government wants to label all sorts of services that don't join in the War on Sharing as "piracy facilitators", using its typical propaganda for the enemy.
The article quotes a statement that uses the confused term "intellectual property" when it clearly refers to copyright and only copyright. That's like saying "New England law" in an article about a law adopted only in New Hampshire or only in Vermont — a bogus and misleading generalization from one state to several that are quite different from each other. "Intellectual property" is a bogus and misleading generalization from one law to several dissimilar laws.
That term spreads confusion every time it is used, so no one should ever use it. Even when it is mentioned in a quotation or a name, we should warn people that it misrepresents reality.
The EU's absurd proposed "link tax" — actually a fee for copying small snippets from articles — would apply to anyone who posts a small quotation, even individuals.
The whole idea is foolish, because Facebook is the big threat to publishing, not aggregators such as Google and Reddit.
The article unfortunately uses propaganda terms of the copyright industry such as "protection" and "intellectual creation". See https://gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html, and please don't fall into their trap.
We're Not Helping Our Kids by Keeping the Deficit Down.
Bahrain is holding as hostages the wife and child of an exiled dissident to punish him for criticizing the cruel and violent regime.
CETA faces legal challenges in Europe and in Canada.
Why Wikipedia Is Worried About Global 'Right To Be Forgotten' Delistings.
Public opposition convinced Kuwait to drop its plan to take DNA from all residents and visitors.
Protonmail mysteriously disappeared from Google search results.
One economic reason why it is harder to get a job now than 10 years ago is that the recession pushed businesses to compete to become more selective about who they hire.
The result is to increase inequality.
The article, naturally, suggests that the remedy is to compete harder with other jobseekers. That is an effective one way to benefit yourself, but if everyone does that, it won't do much for working people.
What we need is a collective way to reverse the increase in inequality. The obvious way is through taxes. But another way might be to reduce the effectiveness pressure of competition.
UNESCO reported on Israel's interference with Muslim use of the temple mount in Jerusalem. Israel tried to distort this by calling it "anti-Israel".
Pittsburgh let the water privatizer Veolia decide how to run its water supply. Veolia's cost-cutting measure resulted in lead in the water. And other problems, too.
Today's capitalism is designed in hundreds of ways to let rentier middlemen extract money from others' economic activity. When we do work, they are the ones that profit.
We need to make them pay a lot more in taxes.
The International Maritime Organization is stalling on taking action to reduce CO2 emissions from shipping.
The UK may impose a massive censorship system requiring people to identify themselves personally to view any website that is supposedly "not for children". This would imply blocking thousands of foreign web sites.
The UK's laws about sexual images are twisted and sick.
A Trump PAC operative offered supposed Chinese donors a scheme for contributing millions to the campaign.
The operative said it is lawful to do this, and sad to say, he may be right.
One economic reason why it is harder to get a job now than 10 years ago is that the recession pushed businesses to compete to become more selective about who they hire.
The result is to increase inequality.
The article, naturally, suggests that the remedy is to compete harder with other jobseekers. That is an effective one way to benefit yourself, but if everyone does that, it won't do much for working people.
What we need is a collective way to reverse the increase in inequality. The obvious way is through taxes. But another way might be to reduce the effectiveness pressure of competition.
UNESCO reported on Israel's interference with Muslim use of the temple mount in Jerusalem. Israel tried to distort this by calling it "anti-Israel".
Pittsburgh let the water privatizer Veolia decide how to run its water supply. Veolia's cost-cutting measure resulted in lead in the water. And other problems, too.
Today's capitalism is designed in hundreds of ways to let rentier middlemen extract money from others' economic activity. When we do work, they are the ones that profit.
We need to make them pay a lot more in taxes.
The International Maritime Organization is stalling on taking action to reduce CO2 emissions from shipping.
The UK may impose a massive censorship system requiring people to identify themselves personally to view any website that is supposedly "not for children". This would imply blocking thousands of foreign web sites.
The UK's laws about sexual images are twisted and sick.
A Trump PAC operative offered supposed Chinese donors a scheme for contributing millions to the campaign.
The operative said it is lawful to do this, and sad to say, he may be right.
US citizens: call on Obama to prioritize human rights for the rest of his term.
Guber in the UK must now treat its drivers as employees, pay minimum wage, and provide benefits.
This may be a great step forward on one of the many injustices of Guber, but it will do nothing about how Guber mistreats its customers.
Violent attacks against dissidents in Zimbabwe are happening around 2 per day.
The film I, Daniel Blake is fiction, but so true to life that it might as well be a documentary about the cruel Tory welfare system.
I was thinking of calling it "heartless", but that word is not strong enough.
Homelessness Can Only Really Be Tackled If People Have Somewhere to Go.
For the medium term, we need legal and policy changes to increase the supply of housing. This means discouraging practices that keep housing space vacant, as well as zoning laws that obstruct construction. We may also have to fund housing construction publicly.
For the long term, we must reduce population growth, which puts an unbearable burden in many ways (housing development is just one).
Can art help people confront the reality of curbing global heating?
A Netherlands politician faces a trial for "inciting racial hatred" for raising the question of how many Moroccans it is desirable to have as immigrants.
This sort of question — substitute any group, it doesn't matter which — is a legitimate question to ask.
More fundamentally, laws against "insulting religion" are blatant injustice. Freedom of speech includes the right to insult anyone or anything. Even you, even me.
The UK is offering various businesses special deals and exemptions from whatever new rules will result from its separation from the EU. This assures that the whole burden will be borne by those who have no special clout.
The injustice of "free trade" is that it gives business more power over governments and society. To reduce "free trade" can be good, but only if the government has the courage to insist on decreasing that power. The Tories, who are on the side of the wealthy anyway, don't even think of trying to do that.
Adam Crapser was brought to the US at age 4 for adoption, but his parents did not arrange to make him a US citizen. Now he is to be deported to South Korea, where he does not speak the language and will be treated as an outsider.
It is wrong to deport people who came to a country as children and have remained there. Though they are not literally natural-born, the difference is of no moral significance.
PISSI has made thousands of civilians in Mosul into human shields, forcing them to move to places where fighting is expected.
It is urgent to help the people freed from PISSI's control to visit Muslims around the world, to inform young people of what PISSI is really like.
While you're at it, if you have money in any of these banks, how about moving it to a small bank that lends money to your local businesses?
US citizens: call for
better regulation and testing of GMOs.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
How the Federal Govt Is Using America's Concern with Bullying as an Excuse to Spy on Teens.
Perhaps that was justified. It seems wrong to accuse people of conspiracy for occupying some government facility.
The Bundy family places a burden on the world in two ways we can see: grazing too many cattle, and having too many babies. The latter is not illegal, but it is even more harmful that too many cattle.
Owning guns is not a human right.
An Indian charity enabled farmers to turn failing farms into profitable carbon sinks.
A noninvasive test for Down's syndrome eliminates the small risk of the old test. This might lead more women to get tested, and abort fetuses that have Down's syndrome.
According to Wikipedia, Down's syndrome is a combination of many kinds of medical misfortune. Thus, when carrying a fetus that is likely to have Down's syndrome, I think the right course of action for the woman is to terminate the pregnancy.
That choice does right by the potential children that would otherwise likely be born with grave medical problems and disabilities. As humans, they are entitled to the capacity that is normal for human beings. I don't advocate making rules about the matter, but I think that doing right by your children includes not intentionally starting them out with less than that.
When children with Down's syndrome are born, that's a different situation. They are human beings and I think they deserve the best possible care.
Homeless people in Berkeley have made a tent camp. The city government, representing the wealthy people and businesses that have no empathy for homeless people, keeps forcing the camp to move.
Republicans look beyond creating obstacles to voting and propose to legally disenfranchise most citizens.
Facebook lets advertisers direct ads at people selected by race.
Five Halloween Costumes for Digital Rights Activists.
Clinton finally made a statement about the Dakota Access Pipeline, and it was a series of platitudes designed not to take any stand.
If Obama takes action as he should, the conflict between pipeline protesters and thugs will de-escalate.
US citizens: call for an investigation of Clarence Thomas's other sexual assaults.
US citizens: phone the White House to call on Obama to protect pipeline protesters.
What happened to Koko the clown demonstrates why it is very foolish to talk with your clients through Facebook or to keep any important information in a Facebook account.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Syria live in areas under siege. Providing aid to them faces many obstacles.
A Russian who played Pokémon Go in a church as a protest could be imprisoned for years.
Laws against "insulting religion" are blatant injustice. Freedom of speech includes the right to insult anyone or anything.
Journalists in Venezuela now face violence and arrest when covering the large protests.
Israel's siege of Gaza involves frequent violence, occasionally fatal. By comparison, the rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza are rare, since Hamas is very effective at preventing them.
Everyone: Tell some large banks not to invest in fracked gas export terminals in Rio Grande valley.
Exxon's revenue is declining fast — even callous, selfish investors should get out.
Brazil's Congress has passed a law to promote coal.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject Clinton advisor Mike Morelli, and his advice that the US should start a war with Iran.
Pipeline opponents protested outside Clinton headquarters, which refused to accept a letter from them.
Her silence on the issue most likely indicates support for the pipeline and for fossil fuels in general.
If you want real action to curb global heating, vote for Jill Stein. If you want real action to curb the plutocracy, vote for Jill Stein. If you don't want the US to attack Iran, vote for Jill Stein.
The bigger the vote for Jill Stein, the louder will be our message that Clinton will pay a price in the future for disregarding our survival and our freedom.
UN Votes to Start Negotiating Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons.
The US and Russia, as well as some other nuclear powers, voted against.
CIA whistleblowers who try to report lies and corruption through official channels face repression, and that practice has continued for a long time.
Hundreds of thugs with armored vehicles arrested pipeline protesters.
The Fetishisation of Work Is Making Us Miserable. Let's Learn to Live Again.
International Whaling Commission has narrowed the loophole that Japan uses to label whale hunting as "scientific".
The EU is considering big reductions in certain fishing quotas as populations are collapsing.
Nato and Russia Playing Dangerous Game with Military Build-Up.
These reciprocal gestures are probably good for politicians on both sides.
Africa is threatened by vulture capitalists, and the UK could be their tool.
Cage Prisoners defends the principle that everyone accused deserves a fair trial and the other rights of the accused — even those accused of being terrorists. For this it faces constant state harassment and is labeled by mainstream politicians as a "terrorist sympathizer".
Meanwhile, in the US, charities to provide humanitarian aid for Muslims are shut down by a state that claims, on far-fetched grounds, that they are "supporting terrorism".
Global heating will turn southern Spain into desert by 2100, except for the cities that will be inundated.
Republicans have a history of stealing elections. Dubya stole the election of 2000 through several forms of cheating in Florida. However, Nixon and Reagan tricked voters through treacherous sabotage of US foreign policy.
This year, Republicans are trying a broad range of different methods to stop Democrats from voting, from terrifying them at the polls to denying them the right to vote.
The FCC has tightened privacy policies for ISPs, but only as regards advertisers. While that will limit profiling somewhat, it changes nothing about the more important privacy issues.
It is still wise to browse through Tor or use a popular VPN hosted in a country that wouldn't cooperate with the US government on snooping.
US citizens: call on the Pentagon to investigate and disclose civilian deaths in Syria.
Everyone: call on major social networks to
stop helping monitoring companies.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Wallonia gained some changes that weaken CETA, perhaps making it less damaging, and providing more opportunities to kill it later.
US citizens: oppose the Millennium Bulk Terminal for coal export.
Washington State voters: support the carbon tax initiative, I-732.
There is an unfortunate dispute in Washington about what to do with the revenue from a carbon tax. I think it would be best to give part of the money to the poor and spend part of the money on green projects. But this detail is secondary: having a carbon tax is really important.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter again to oppose the TPP.
US citizens: call on the US to explain its policy and history regarding using depleted uranium weapons in Syria.
US citizens: call on Obama to stop military assistance to Salafi Arabia until there is a peace agreement in Yemen.
Internal documents obtained from the US Copyright Office show that its "neutral" advice about set-top boxes slavishly supported the copyright industry.
US And Allies Prepare to Take Raqqa from [PISSI] as Battle for Mosul Continues.
I wonder where they will find significant Syrian Arab forces that are opposed to PISSI. From Assad's forces? From other jihadis such as formerly-al-Qa'ida?
The pipeline security guards that set dogs on protesters may face charges because they didn't have proper licenses.
Anyone that sets dogs on people who are not presenting a violent threat ought to face charges, but it is absurd that this depends on the lack of some sort of a license.
In the long run, the only way to keep housing affordable is to make more housing in places where people need or want to live.
However, where many units are taken out of the housing supply as investments, a way to increase the supply of units available for living in is to heavily tax those that are not used for residence.
Don't Stigmatise Disabled People as Workshy.
Yemen's future is bleak, no matter what the outcome of the current war.
Only birth control can save Yemen. Lots of birth control.
More people are rejecting the idea of showing off company logos on their bodies.
(How foolish it is to identify your pride with something you bought.)
West's Failure to Reconnect Iran to Global Banks "Risks Breaching Nuclear Deal".
Clinton's leaning towards Salafi Arabia could lead her to make things worse.
Wallonia has surrendered to plutocratist pressure and dropped its veto of CETA.
Shouldn't young adults get the same second chance even if they're not white and wealthy?
Obamacare Made It Illegal to Deny Care to the Sick. Insurance Companies Still Do It.
By 2020, wild populations of vertebrates are expected to be only 1/3 of what they were in 1970.
Even worse than global heating, so far, is that humans are straining the Earth's carrying capacity. We need more people to avoid having children.
If we declare a new geological epoch, we should not call it "anthropocene".
The Tories have invented myriad excuses to cut off welfare benefits. A study of records demonstrates that this pushes people to go to charities for food.
Get the insurance companies out of the US health care system.
Coal is not a cheap way to reduce poverty — it causes poverty.
The latest bullshit for opposing legalization of marijuana is the mythical idea that children will be given marijuana cookies on Halloween. The article explains that no one has seen this happen, and for good reasons.
Logging in certain kinds of forests makes fires burn hotter.
Snowden: self-protection is not enough to make journalists safe. They need to campaign against surveillance.
The World Medical Association calls for divestment from fossil fuels.
Everyone: state your support for the protests of the students in the Beaumont Bulls football team.
Taskrabbit should be called Taskhamster, for the way it makes people run on a wheel.
Why it is very important to vote for Jill Stein for president.
One additional point that this article could have made is that Dubya wouldn't have even come near winning Florida in 2000 if not for disenfranchizing around 50,000 blacks, as revealed by Greg Palast.
In the name of "safe space", racial segregation is spreading in US universities.
If a certain group of students want to eat together, for whatever reason, they should have the right to do so. If a certain group of students want adjoining rooms in the dorm, that too seems within their rights. However, the school should not actively promote segregation, because that interferes with the goal that students learn tolerance for other groups.
Activists locked themselves to a pipeline under construction to prevent the danger of an oil leak into Indian Point nuclear power plant.
When the West Antarctic ice sheet slides into the sea, it will raise sea level by 12 feet.
The Tories have set up a system that provides countless oppornutities for mistakes, or shoddy work, to cancel people's welfare benefits. It takes months to win them back. It seems sadistic.
It systematically labels disabled people as "fit for work". This can even push people to commit suicide so their spouses can afford to live.
If your oppressors have pushed you to the point where you are ready to give up and die, don't die quietly. Use your death to strike a blow against your oppressors.
It's Time for Answers on Yahoo's Email Scanning.
President Duterte says he wants US troops removed from the Philippines.
This is surprising, given the dispute with China about control of the sea in between. The Philippines has historic reasons to distrust US influence, but it also has future reasons to distrust Chinese influence.
Clinton's favorite think tank calls for giving more support to Salafi Arabia and more hostility to Iran.
This is stupid (supports our worst enemies) as well as wrong.
Samsung has used DMCA takedown notices to delete mocking videos.
Those videos are clearly fair use — if indeed they copy anything at all. Samsung is demonstrating the injustice of the DMCA takedown system.
Trump is moving away from the "Trump" brand because it now arouses so much hostility.
Donald J. Trump Is a Libel Bully But Also a Libel Loser.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Lawyers wrote that article for the American Bar Association to publish. The ABA removed everything even slightly critical of Trump, including the title.
Trump wants libel law changed so he could win those cases, which would undermine freedom of the press.
US citizens: Call on Republican officials to
obey court orders and
allow authorized voters to vote.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on the US to end cholera & aid elections in Haiti; protect Haitians in the US.
US citizens: Tell the Department of Justice to put a stop to strip searches of pipeline protesters.
AT&T keeps records of all phone calls since 2008, and sells search results to various thug departments, which then fabricate phony stories for prosecution so as to cover up what they are doing.
Israeli soldiers attacked Palestinians who were harvesting their olive trees.
Israelis demand release of Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, imprisoned for a poem.
Natanyahu equates criticism of Israel's occupation policy with opposing Israel.
The Israeli human rights organization B'tselem is facing repression for criticizing the occupation policy; its director has been threatened with cancellation of his Israeli citizenship.
Another US oil pipeline has leaked, demonstrating the principle that we must expect them all to leak.
Even $15 an hour isn't enough to live on in the US if you have to repay student loans.
Among many other things, the TPP would undermine safety of important seafood.
Global heating is behind the increased emission of methane, which in turn increases global heating.
A large medical study found more evidence that sodas lead to diabetes.
Trump has a big financial interest in the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Proposing that criminals up to age 25 should be treated as juveniles.
It is clear that people socially mature at an older age nowadays than 100 years ago, but I'm amazed by the idea that this is a physiological change.
Industries can be returned to cities with reductions in pollution.
Donald Trump Is No Outsider: He Mirrors Our Political Culture.
The Ethiopian government has been stealing Oromo people's land to sell it to foreign companies. The Oromo have now sensibly started attacking the facilities of those companies.
The business owners would like to say, "Don't blame us. It was the Ethiopian government that took their land, not us." But it is just as valid to say that the companies paid the Ethiopian government to do it.
The business owners are quoted as saying, "We can't change the world." Not true: they have already changed it, for the worse, by participating in the land-grab. The argument that "If we hadn't done this, someone else would have" does not excuse the ones who actually did it; rather it suggests that the system needs to be changed.
US citizens: call on the US to block the proposed ATT-Time Warner merger.
Police Viciously Attacked Peaceful Protestors at the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Lawmakers Need to Curb Face Recognition Searches by Police.
The only way these laws can achieve their purpose is if they limit the installation of cameras that allow remote viewing.
Species can now be protected in the US because they are expected to be threatened by global heating.
The Drug Policy Foundation
rates US congresscritter on drug policy issues.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Leaked emails showed something admirable: a plan to raise a lot of money to advertise against climate denialism.
However, a whole year has gone by since it was discussed. It appears that the plan failed to materialize.
Publication of data about complaints against thugs makes it easier to detect lies.
The ruling party in Poland is not a simple right-wing party. It is right-wing in regard to human rights, but socialist in regard to helping the poor. Its main opponents are austerity parties.
There should be room for a party that supports the same socialism but with human rights and strengthening democracy.
Helping former conscripted child soldiers recover from the horrible crimes they were forced to commit.
Half the 2015 increase in electric generating capacity was renewables. The other half was additional fossil fuel capacity, pushing the world along the path towards global disaster. Overall, we're doing worse than at the start of 2015.
When we see a rapid decrease in fossil fuel generating capacity, and other industries that emit greenhouse gases, then we will be able to conclude that we're on the right track.
New Zealand thugs set up a phony drunk test roadblock to identify people who attended a meeting of Exit International, a suicide advice organization. Thugs are also harassing members at home.
This seems to be political manipulation against a proposed law to legalize assisting suicide.
This shows the dishonesty of the organization's name, "Right to Life". An honest name would be, "No Right to Escape".
If you are a progressive, Gary Johnson is not a good choice for your vote. His party wants to eliminate Social Security, eliminate the minimum wage, eliminate bank regulations, eliminate public education, and eliminate environmental protection.
The purpose of democracy is to enable the many non-rich to be collectively more powerful than the rich. It is our most powerful defense against all the abuses that the rich get up to. "Libertarians" (a name we should take back from them!) basically say, that it's wrong to use this defense, that each of us should stand alone against the most powerful. We see already what happens that way, because a large part of it is happening due to plutocratic control over our elections and our government. However, as the list above shows, if we just throw up our hands and elect Libertarians, things could get a lot worse.
140 students were arrested in Ottawa for a peaceful protest against pipeline construction, in which they dragged a large blackboard with information about climate science.
Multinationals based in the US are pushing for a big tax cut which they are presenting as "reform".
How the US Armed-up Syrian Jihadists.
Massive protests in Poland respond to the new proposal for adding restrictions on abortion.
Noam Chomsky on the Perils of Market-Driven Education: it undermines the goal of an educated populace.
Proposed Miami Beach Ordinance Would Take First Step Toward Limiting Surveillance State.
Philippine Senator de Lima calls on the International Criminal Court to investigate President Duterte's murder campaign. She says that she receives death threats and is afraid she will be murdered.
Duterte said his murder campaign is aimed at drug dealers. You might think that the rights of drug dealers are unimportant; but even if you think they deserve to be prosecuted and convicted, that doesn't mean they have no rights at all.
Once a state decides that certain people have no rights at all, it isn't a big step to take the same stance about other people. If it was drug dealers last month, it can be senators this month, dissidents next month, and anyone that gets in the president's way a month after that.
Car companies convinced the European Commission to increase pollution limits. This pollution kills hundreds of thousands of people in Europe each year.
The European Commission constantly tells people to surrender freedom to reduce the very small danger of terrorism; but when it comes to the big danger of air pollution, it doesn't dare tell car companies to give up anything. That's because it respects the car companies more than it does human beings.
A study suggests that telling a lie tends to desensitize the brain so that it feels less guilty about further lies.
Imagine what repeated "testilying" does to thugs.
New Layers of Dirt on Charter Schools.
Right-wing US Catholics are so committed to their politics of global heating denial that their response to the Pope's concern about the issue is to distrust the Pope.
Now that refugees want to go to Hungary, Hungary should remember when Hungarians were fleeing as refugees.
Turkish soldiers are cooperating with, and fighting alongside, the Kurds in Northern Iraq.
I don't see anything bad about that, but it puzzles me since Turkey considers the Kurds in Syria as its enemies as it represses the Kurds in Turkey.
A school in rural Paraguay aims to help girls escape from patriarchal domination.
A municipal environmental official in Brazil was killed by gangsters, apparently for enforcing laws against deforestation.
If we said CO2 is "radicalizing" the atmosphere, would politicians take the danger seriously?
I don't think so. The planet-roaster politicians are not ignoring this because of a mental quirk. It's fossil-fuel money at work.
Tunisia is considering a law to curb violence against women. It seems to be even more frequent there than in the US.
In India today, as several times recently in the US, the mass media are pushing for war.
Australia's dumping of refugees on Nauru and Manus violates humanitarian treaties and human decency in several ways.
How Prof. Lessig responded when someone else's private message that insulted him was leaked by a cracker.
I agree with Lessig that there was nothing in those insults that made its publication important for the public. I don't know what else was in that message, or whether it contained something else significant that was important to leak. But I do call for responsible publication of leaks.
That said, the leaks have exposed big scandals and their publication was very important.
Reversing the Corporations United decision is not enough: the US election system is broken in many ways. We need public campaign financing to override the power of business to fund campaigns.
Thugs attacked protesters in North Dakota both physically and chemically, then arrested them and placed heavy charges against them.
Torture creates permanent mental scars. Two of the victims of CIA torture, unable to get any accountability from the US government, are now suing the psychologists who helped design the torture system.
America has brought guilt on itself through torturing people. As a patriotic American I feel the weight of this. For the US to recover its honor it must fully confess, and accept the appropriate punishment.
Along with the Black Lives Matter campaign, a campaign that indigenous lives matter is also needed.
Wallonia is standing firm against CETA, while European and Canadian plutocratist politicians use absurd emotional arguments to present this as a great tragedy.
The article does not even entertain the awareness of CETA's harmfulness. It is a typical example of elite-dominated journalism.
Officials of Wallonia, you're saving Europe and Canada from a disaster. Please say so!
Ethiopia has shut down internet access as part of a general offense against human rights.
US citizens: oppose bill HR 5732, which would push the US into war in Syria.
US citizens:
call
on the Department of Justice to block the Enbridge-Spectra
pipeline company merger.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
tell
Congress, don't "modernize" policy to facilitate fossil fuel
export.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
A gas pipeline is being built close to Indian Point nuclear power plant. If the pipeline leaks, it could cause havoc at the nuclear plant.
Teachers and social workers in Nauru and Manus demand to be allowed to talk about the abuse that they witness.
For Australia to gag them, or anyone, from showing public the results of its treatment of refugees is an blatant act of tyranny.
An Oakland thug faces charges of being a customer of a prostitute, and warning her about which thugs might try to arrest her.
While in general I am glad to see thugs face criminal charges, that is a bad thing when that occurs under laws that are totally unjust, as these are. It should not be a crime to pay a prostitute, or to be a prostitute.
Some UK cities have proposed to fine homeless people a hundred dollars for sleeping in public. But the public reacted with outrage each time.
A British man and woman have obtained a civil partnership (instead of a marriage) by going to the Isle of Man, the one place in Britain where that is allowed.
The UK should allow it too.
Two sugar-sweetened drinks per day greatly increases diabetes risk.
Iraq and the US have not come near providing enough supplies to house and feed the million people that might flee from Mosul.
Geofeedia looks at several social networks, including Twitter, and combines the location tracking data. This makes it even more imperative not to let Twitter get your location.
(As for Facebook and Instagram, don't let them use you at all.)
Renewable electricity in the US is expected to grow from 8% to 9% by next year.
At this rate, it will take 91 more years to reach 100%. Earth's ecosystems can't wait that long!
One father made his front yard a place where children from the neighborhood are welcome to come and play.
A job which is stressful and gives you little control tends to kill the worker.
It takes more than public humiliation of one still-rich profiteer to teach business to stop cheating workers.
Activists are still trying to convince US immigration not to ask visitors for their social media accounts.
Ivan the Terrible is being rehabilitated in Russia because it is fashionable to want a strong (authoritarian) leader.
It is no accident that Trump admires Putin, since they follow the same approach: authoritarian personality seeks authoritarian follower personalities.
Ethiopia has arrested more than a thousand Oromo protesters.
Some of them were arrested for closing their stores or proposing strikes.
Almost a million people are short of food due to drought in Madagascar.
Activists in Detroit are trying to shut down an incinerator that produces toxic pollution as well as stink.
Polling Places in Police Stations? Why Civil Rights Groups Are Still Fighting for Voting Rights.
A UN special rapporteur warns that governments word-wide are "treating words as weapons", repressing journalism and dissent through laws that pretend to be aimed at "terrorism".
An exaggerated figure for deforestation in Haiti is often repeated. (The article uses the term "lie", but the argument is that it is erroneous, not that someone is intentionally lying about this.)
A study finds that the US carries out overt war against nondemocratic states but uses covert war against democratic ones.
Memo to the DOJ: Facial Recognition's Threat to Privacy is Worse Than Anyone Thought.
The EFF's proposed measures are only a good start. We need laws to prohibit systematic collection or recognition of people's faces, except in places where there is specific authorization such as a court order.
Other organizations call for an investigation too.
Iran's President Rouhani points to the Clinton-Trump debates as showing a kind of democracy no one should want in their countries.
Spain's "Socialist" party has agreed to a coalition with the corrupt right-wing "Popular Party", assuring several years of right-wing rule.
US citizens: call for
removing obsolete dams on the lower Snake river
to help wild salmon survive there.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Many kinds of tests show that wealthy Americans tend to have less empathy than the rest, for people that are having difficulties of any kind.
I wonder whether people who lack of empathy get richer, or wealth tends to induce less empathy, or both.
Why didn't civilians leave eastern Aleppo when Russia opened corridors?
The article presents proposed reasons, but what do the civilians there say?
An interview with Albert Woodfox, who says that US racism has changed little since he was imprisoned.
"It may be too late. In which case, hey, build the [Heathrow] runway. We might as well die prosperous."
Hawkish Hillary — the danger we will face if we don't elect Jill Stein.
10% of plastic debris in the sea comes from abandoned fishing nets. A company is now recycling discarded nets to reduce this.
This is a good way to call attention to the problem, but cannot directly fix more than a tiny part of it. Perhaps there should be a refundable deposit on plastic fishing nets, just as on plastic drink bottles.
Cash means freedom — beware the "cashless society". It's bad for you for the same reasons it is good for Apple.
Californians are voting on a big and expensive loan from a commercial bank. Using a public bank could save billions, over time.
Tesla has made it clear that "purchasers" of autonomous cars won't own them, by restricting them to Tesla's own competitor to Guber rather than Guber (or Lyft).
I expect that these systems will all require passengers to identify themselves and to run nonfree software.
The UK should go beyond pardoning those convicted in the past of homosexuality; it should apologize to those still living.
Amy Goodman: North Dakota thugs have given 140 arrested protesters a strip search, apparently for no valid justification, just as a form of bullying and harassment. Thugs have repeatedly arrested journalists covering the protests.
US citizens: call on Congress to defeat the Utah Public Lands Initiative, which would take land away from Indian tribes and give it to mining companies.
AT&T wants to buy Time Warner (the media company, not the cable company).
This is one of the rare points where I agree with Trump (at least what he says; you can't expect him to mean what he says). I wish I could expect Clinton to oppose mergers.
PISSI in Mosul is proving to be a wily opponent, using tactics that opposing forces were not ready for.
Some US universities are feeding patent trolls regularly.
Egyptian thugs raided the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, which takes cases about people killed and disappeared by Egyptian thugs.
Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, promised to repeal the surveillance law, but seems to have chickened out.
Companies that offer limited licenses for digital copies and invite people to "buy" or "own" those copies are misleading consumers. In the US, that is illegal.
I think we should go further and legislate that such licenses are legally void. Also, technical measures to restrict use of copies of published works — DRM, in other words — should be a felony.
The UK "Prevent" program assumes certain Islamist political views are a precursor for terrorism. So it makes Muslims who are not inclined to violence feel persecuted.
To advocate Islamist government constitutes opposition to basic human rights, because an Islamist state systematically tramples those rights. But people have a right to advocate that kind of government, just as they have a right to advocate Republican policies.
Everyone, especially Canadian and EU citizens: thank Wallonia for blocking the unjust treaty CETA.
Leave a message at
http://magnette.wallonie.be/contact
and send an email to
courriel@parlement-wallonie.be.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Also post publicly about your support and appreciation for blocking CETA.
The government of Venezuela has cancelled a petition drive for a recall election, and postponed elections for state governors.
Syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea are increasing in the US, and theocratic Christians are partly to blame. They have cut funding for the organizations that help people avoid STDs and promote unrealistic and ineffective abstinence-only sex "education".
The Pentagon made phony al-Qa'ida videos that subtly made al-Qa'ida look bad, and that reported who looked at them. Copies were left on CDs in houses in Iraq.
The US did very bad things in Iraq, such as invading it and strewing radioactive fallout everywhere, but just because this was done by the US doesn't make it wrong. It seems legitimate to me.
Since Zuckerberg personally decides when to make exceptions to Facebook censorship rules, he is functioning as the editor of the site.
Is it fair to condemn Facebook for being inflexible about its rules, then condemn it for being flexible? That would appear inconsistent, but both criticisms are valid. How can that be? Because the real wrong is the underlying wrong: Facebook has gained for itself too much power over world-wide publishing. There is no way to wield that power without doing harm. It is the size and power of Facebook that convert its general policies, and its specific decisions, to become in effect censorship.
We must take away Facebook's power.
A defendant testified that Chris Christie personally approved the "traffic study" that was apparently designed to cause traffic jams for Fort Lee.
Google quietly combined its ad-tracking profiles with its browsing profiles.
Trump has led a large fraction of Americans to dare to show their misogyny and sexism. It will be hard work to defeat that.
Like most pro-Clinton articles, this article presumes implicitly that the only possible cause of disapproval for her is a prejudice such as misogyny.
Not in my case. I am happy to vote for a woman for president. In fact, I voted for Jill Stein this week — for the second time.
I don't vote for Hillary Clinton, for the same reasons I didn't vote for Bill Clinton in 1996: they are not progressive. They support business-supremacy treaties. Ms Clinton doesn't intend to try very hard to avoid global heating disaster, and she kowtows to the banksters just as Obama does. Basically, she would give us four more years of Obama, only more warlike.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose HR 5732, which would push the US into war in Syria and undermine the Iran nuclear deal.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
The ACLU talks about the danger thugs in schools pose for students.
The first step in solving this problem is to stop having thugs assigned to schools. However, the report shows that there is a secondary issue: when teachers should call for a thug, whether from inside or outside the school.
The UK has added some manufacturing jobs in the past few years, but they are low-pay, low-skill jobs.
A US appeals court ruled that torture is so clearly illegal that it is "beyond the power of even the president to declare such conduct lawful."
The US must prosecute all those that carried out or approved torture, especially Dubya and Cheney.
Trump supporters are using lies and trumpery to attack the women that accused him of raping or groping them. Their intention, apparently, is to scare off his other victims. No lie is too vile for them to tell.
We Never Voted for Corporate Rule. In no sense are companies entitled to the power, influence or profits that they currently get. So there is no reason we should not change laws so that they have to break up, make less money, and have less power.
How US elections really do get rigged or stolen.
The partisans of Russia and the partisans of the US present competing half-truths. Neither side deserves support.
35 US states have sued the manufacturer of suboxone, used to treat opioid addiction.
In the UK, many temporary employees are being forced to work through "umbrella companies" that take a cut of their pay. And they are forced to pay the employer's share of social security.
These "umbrella companies" are bad for workers. They serve only the ultimate employers, that can pay less for work, and the owners of the umbrella companies themselves. Therefore, they should be abolished entirely.
It is a fundamental mistake to charge any welfare benefits as a tax on employment. That creates an incentive for companies to employ fewer people. Businesses should pay for these programs through a tax that is not based on number of employees.
Everyone (but especially people in the European Union and Canada): show your solidarity with Wallonia in rejecting CETA.
Here are other ways to take action to stop CETA.
US citizens: call on the Fraternal Order of Police to rescind its endorsement of Trump.
"Inverted totalitarianism": a political analysis of modern plutocratic corporate rule.
Despite the murder of several many activists, and continued repression of protesters, the US State Department is satisfied that Honduras is improving its respect for human rights.
Well, it's not as bad as Egypt or Bahrain or Salafi Arabia. The US is "satisfied" with them, too, isn't it?
Mexicans in the US built a "wall" of taco trucks around Trump's hotel in Las Vegas, where he is trying to crush a union.
The UK gave advice to Bahraini thugs from the Special Investigations Unit about how to tell relatives of prisoners that were killed that the killers will not be prosecuted.
The Special Investigations Unit should perhaps be called the Phony Investigations Unit, since in practice its job is not to prosecute torturers.
Facebook banned a video made by the Swedish Cancer Society about breast cancer because it showed cartoon figures with circles as breasts.
It got Facebook to accept the video by putting in squares for the breasts.
The real problem here is not that Facebook draws the line at the wrong place (though it does). It is that Facebook has so much influence that organizations such cancer charities feel obliged to publish through Facebook.
If Only We Could Vote for Peace Instead of a 'Commander-in-Chief'.
Note: the president of the United States is, ex officio, the Commander in Chief of the US armed forces — not of the United States itself, or of US citizens or inhabitants in general. The point of a free country is that no one can command you.
Feds: Only Those Committed to Destroying Planet Can Bid on Fossil Fuel Leases.
Several executives of Backpage face unconstitutional prosecution in California because some of the adult ads that company publishes are, unknown to the company, for teenage prostitutes.
This case, if not dismissed, threatens our rights because it could force many platforms into intrusive censorship.
It also shows the danger of legal assumptions that twist the truth, such as "sex with someone under 18 is rape", "sex with a prostitute under 18 is enslavement", and "making a nude photo of someone under 18 is a sexual assault." In some cases, it is — but not always.
A woman who had a very late abortion, for vital medical reasons, urges people not to get the state involved in deciding for women.
Bravo! However, in having six previous children, she did something that was harmful for humanity and the natural world.
The British Empire was maintained, as late as the 1950s, through force. In Kenya, the empire crushed the brutal and violent Mau Mau movement with its own brutal violence.
What's amazing is that it was able to erase historical memory of this, even in Kenya.
500 British Muslim organizations are going to set up a program to avert terrorism by spreading the idea among Muslims that violence is the wrong way. The new program will not try to influence people on other questions or pressure them to become informers.
I am not an expert, but I think that a campaign coming from within that community and reflecting the views of most British Muslims (and most Muslims elsewhere too) will be less easily dismissed than one coming from the state.
Meanwhile, mainstream media give violent Islamists exactly the publicity they seek.
An interview with Bernie Sanders.
I never agreed 100% with Sanders, but 100% agreement with a candidate is too much to ask for. I agreed with him on the most important issues, and I saw his integrity and deep thinking; that was reason enough to support his campaign. I hope to have another chance to do so in 2020.
However, I am unpersuaded by his arguments to support Clinton now. I don't believe that Clinton will do the good things that he thinks she will do. More deeply, I reject the idea of voting for bad candidates because their principal opponent is worse. I decided in 2007 that Clinton was no progressive, not someone I could vote for. That her opponent this time is even worse does not make her acceptable.
I voted this week for Jill Stein for president.
A Perpetual Killing Field: South Sudan, where civil war never ends.
The western powers pressured Sudan's Islamist dictatorship to let the south have independence. But I have never seen an accusation that they exploited or oppressed people in South Sudan. The disaster does not seem to be caused by any western crime. However, I suspect that the civil war is fueled by oil exports.
Groups of Nuer and Dinka were perpetually raiding each other in the 1930s when Evans-Pritchard studied them. They stole cattle, and they took prisoners and sometimes killed them but not always. They used traditional weapons, not submachine guns, and neither group was united under overall leaders. It seems that things are much worse now.
Establishment politicians continue to pretend that the US debt is a serious problem. It's a great excuse for dooH niboR policies, such as cutting Social Security and Medicare.
Trump resembles his Italian precursor Berlusconi (il ducino).
Corbyn must reject the "allies" that go beyond criticism of Israeli policies to spout racism against Jews.
The European Court of Human Rights found Russia guilty of violating Garry Kasparov's rights, by fabricating charges against him long enough to stop him from travelling to a political rally.
This is part of a systematic pattern of abuses. Putin stopped Kasparov from organizing a political party by "convincing" every large auditorium in Moscow not to let them hold the meeting that is legally required for starting a political party.
Such conduct is not limited to Russia. It has occurred in the UK and in the US when a large protest in Washington DC was sabotaged by condemning its central organizing building to be unsafe, just as the protest was starting.
That was a protest against Bill Clinton for his support for business-supremacy treaties.
Ethiopia's dictatorial government, in which no opposition candidates win elections, has driven the Oromo ethnic group to the point of revolt.
The world's future hinges on supporting 10-year-old girls, says UNFPA.
A California judge is on trial for "willful misconduct" towards many defendants.
The judge says that thugs are always right, and defendants are always lying. However, it's the thugs that have lots of practice in lying on the witness stand. I would be very skeptical of testimony from a thug.
The judge admitted that the reasons for doing unfair trials was to squeeze money out of poor people, a practice that has spread around the US.
If 4 million Californians have lost their driver's licenses because they can't pay these fines, that amounts to 10% of the population of the state. Perhaps those 4 million were spread over a long period of time, but it still amounts to a crushing system of repression of the poor.
Spain's population is expected to decrease 10% by 2050. This is a good thing. The inconvenience of so many people over 65 can be dealt with: robots will do a lot to help take care of them, and elders who are still physically well can help too.
Political conditions are part of the situation and could affect the future age distribution.
For instance, many British pensioners live in Spain. If the UK goes ahead and leaves the European Union, the number of old people in Spain may be much less in the future.
Many young Spaniards have moved to other countries to find work. Policies of the right-wing Spanish government have driven down living conditions there. A progressive government might attract some of them back.
However, for the most part this is not a problem — this is a blessing. Global heating is turning Spain into a desert. It won't be easy to support so many people there; a decrease in population is a good thing, and sets an example that nearly all countries must follow in the future so as to reduce the burden that humans place on the world's natural systems.
US Citizens: call on the Bureau of Land Management to stop coal mining in Colorado.
Everyone: call on North Dakota to drop charges against journalists and protesters.
3/4 of Britons are in favor of land-based wind power generators, but the Tories have changed laws to put a stop to them.
I suspect that this is because wind power is so cheap that it isn't advantageous as a source of income to companies that lobby.
Air pollution in Africa kills 700,000 people per year.
A campaign to abolish the power of instant divorce for Muslim men in India.
Tens of thousands of women demonstrated in the rain in Buenos Aires to protest against violence against women. They were joined by thousands in other cities across Latin America.
Trump threatened not to accept the results of the election. This goes beyond his usual trumpery.
Gore and Kerry should have done more to challenge the fraudulent results of the elections in which Dubya "defeated" them. But Trump seems to be threatening to go beyond mere challenges. He is threatening armed terrorism or rebellion.
Australia has given permission to mental health workers (only!) to talk about the damage done by its offshore prisons for refugees.
Clinton voted in 2001 to make bankruptcy harder for poor Americans, and later said she did it because of lots of pressure from activists for women's and children's interests.
There was no such pressure: she did it for the banksters.
The ACLU calls on the US to release 23 secret legal opinions that are effectively secret parts of US law.
Two more Honduran activists have been murdered. The many murders of activists seem to be supported by the army, which took power with at least the approval of the US State Department under Secretary Clinton.
Melanesia depends totally on its ocean resources, but it is allowing development that destroys them.
Putting this in economic terms, as the article does, could break through the skulls of people who foolishly see all of life in economic terms. Unfortunately, it also helps train people to be foolish that way.
In parts of Georgia, the wait for early voting was 2 hours, and some people fainted from the heat while waiting.
This is one of many Republican measures for voter suppression.
Libya remains a mess, and continuing international intervention keeps stirring the pot.
The article doesn't recommend a solution, and I don't see one either.
Mountaintop-removal coal mining continues in West Virginia, and it continues to spew deadly pollution, both area where the coal is mined and where it is burned.
That's in addition to contributing to the coming megadeaths of global heating disaster.
Trump was so "smart" about bankruptcy that he screwed the employees of his casino.
He had encouraged them to invest their retirement funds in the casino itself, and they lost a lot of it.
Deia Schlosberg talks about the felony charges she and other reporters face for covering the climate protests in North Dakota.
The economic cost of medical problems due to toxic chemicals is estimated at 340 billion dollars a year in the US. And that's on top of the human suffering.
Tax the rich more — because they can't be trusted with money.
The UK is adopting a law requiring UK web sites to verify visitors' age by identifying them individually.
It won't succeed in cutting off teenagers from porn (nor should it), but it will be very bad for adults' privacy.
A lot of porn gives an unrealistic picture of what real women are like, what real sex is like, and what real sexual relationships are like. But there is no reason why most porn should be that way. Why not make other kinds of porn, to give teenagers a clearer and better picture of sex?
Leaks show that the FBI has an intentional policy of working with immigration agents to search and interrogate people from minority groups, without any individual grounds for suspicion. The initial interrogation then provides an excuse for continued harassment, designed to pressure them to become informers.
One bad policy of the Labour Party: more surveillance.
Senator Schumer, nominally a Democrat, says he will try to pass a big tax cut for corporations.
Disgusting, Yexx!!
Jewish journalists that criticize Trump have received lots of antisemitic insults.
Mobilizing to resist Trump's attempt to intimidate minority voters.
Untreated sewage is killing the wildlife in Lake Titicaca.
Jason Moyer-Lee: Why the Gig Economy Is a Threat to Us All.
The Iraqi Shi'ite militias are supposed to block communications between Mosul and Syria rather than enter the city.
Their not entering the city is wise, given that the inhabitants are Sunnis and afraid of being massacred by those militias. But the idea of blocking PISSI's fighters from fleeing Mosul seems absurd. That will encourage them to fight to the death, causing more casualties among the attackers and the civilians, as well as more destruction in Mosul itself. The intelligent strategy would be to encourage them to flee, those who will. Each one that flees will encourage others to flee.
Even if they return to fighting elsewhere, it is still an improvement to get them out of Mosul. Elsewhere, there won't be as many civilians.
Many of them would return to battle somewhere else after fleeing, but Indeed, it will probably be necessary to fight them somewhere else later,
UNESCO told Bangladesh to cancel a coal power plant that threatens to destroy the world-heritage Sundarbans, or it will declare that site threatened.
Establishment candidates who endorse business-supremacy treaties, and pretend those are good for the country, give Trump and other right-wing extremists an easy shot.
World's Mammals Being Eaten Into Extinction: over 300 species are threatened mainly by human hunters.
Large shipping companies have asked governments to impose "ambitious" emissions reduction goals on shipping.
I suppose the larger companies are better placed to implement reductions and expect to gain over their competitors. But that's a side issue: ambitious emissions reduction goals are needed urgently in every important area of greenhouse gas emissions.
Half of Americans age 18-35 said a meteor that destroyed the Earth would be better than a President Trump.
Almost 1/4 said that the meteor would be better than either President Trump or President Clinton.
I don't agree with them, perhaps because I am old. I think even a President Trump would not be as bad as the destruction of all life on Earth. Even global heating disaster, painful as it will be, will not be as bad as that. Perhaps 25% of existing species will survive, and in a million years evolution will be back to normal.
Expanding airports means global disaster, because planes can't operate on anything but fuel from petroleum.
If the UK expands an airport, it will be unable to meet even the emission reduction targets of its own laws, let alone what is really needed.
Expanding an airport is an investment intended to be recouped over a period of many decades. I expect that, by 2050, the effects of global heating will impact the global economy severely and there will be much less demand for flying.
Ecuador announced it has temporarily blocked Assange's internet access inside the Ecuadorian embassy, because he was interfering in the US election.
I agree with Correa that Clinton will do less harm to the US and the world than Trump. But she has already shown a propensity to support coups in Latin America, so the harm she does to leftist politicians there may not be limited to avoiding the Trumpish insults that strengthen their support.
Trump's campaign accepts donations from foreign lobbyists as well as large companies.
In America's "inverted totalitarianism", the two plutocratist major parties create pressure that can lead to fascism. Trump shows where that path starts.
Clinton, addressing representatives of construction unions, ridiculed climate activists.
Armored thugs surrounded five pipeline protesters who were praying by the side of a road, and "dispersed" those.
It seems petroleum attracts more than one kind of toxic dispersant.
The UK has closed the RT channel's bank accounts.
Girls that were kidnaped by Boko Haram, and refused to join, fear their families will reject them out of patriarchal bigotry if they return home.
Capturing Mosul may take months, but it will be easy compared with building peace in Iraq afterward.
On the complexities of reducing greenhouse emissions from fossil fuels.
An emissions tax. would put the market to work on this job.
Burundi will withdraw from the International Criminal Court to stop it from investigating the violence with which its president seized total control.
Too bad the US campaigns against the International Criminal Court.
Two Honduran environmental defenders survived an assassination attempt.
The coup-installed government there seems to privately support these killings. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State seems to have supported the installation of that government.
US citizens: demand candidates give their plans to end the war in Afghanistan.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to prosecute banksters.
Several women have accused Trump of grabbing and groping them. In many cases, when he first met them.
A study in New Jersey found that nearly all the minors prosecutors ask to try as adults are black or hispanic.
Wikileaks published an email showing that US intelligence reported to Clinton that Salafi Arabia and Qatar supported PISSI.
She regarded this as a problem, of course, but to stop treating those countries as friends was unthinkable.
I suppose this decision was not in her hands then. But what will she do if elected?
Basically, the policy of supporting Salafi Arabia and treating Iran as an enemy has backfired big time, as well as giving preference to the worse Islamists.
Clinton is trying to smear Wikileaks and distract us from the substance of the leaks by saying, "Russia, Russia".
Not all of these leaks were important issues, but some have been. The substance of these leaks is more important for Americans than who leaked them.
The UK imprisons people for possessing copies of drawings depicting an imaginary child in a sexual way.
The article is too timid: this law is flat-out injustice and is inexcusable. If we were to tolerate prohibitions of various kinds of art or writing because their ideas are deemed "dangerous", it is clear where that will lead.
What's more, it is an injustice to ban possession of a copy of any work or publication whatsoever. Such laws put everyone in danger.
Merely having a copy of an image that shows a crime taking place against a person should not be illegal either. Should thugs be able to ban possession of videos that show them committing crimes, on the grounds that their victim is wronged again each time the video is seen? They would be delighted to use that excuse, or any other excuse, to cover up their crimes.
Thugs in Austin, Texas, are violent more often against blacks and hispanics.
An investigation found that San Francisco's thug department was pervaded by racism.
José Bové, protester later elected to the European Parliament, was going to Canada to argue against CETA. Canada forced him to leave before the event, because of his past protests.
Bias in driving practice is part of the reason blacks in the US are more likely to be killed by car collisions than whites.
Pakistan's blasphemy laws seen as incitement to religious hatred.
People have a right to hate, for whatever reasons, and a right to say so. People have a right to hate religion, and a right to hate blasphemers like me. Neither group has a right to punish the other. All laws against blasphemy, or "offending someone's religion", are an affront to human rights and must be eliminated
Comparing the casualties of Russian and US-coalition bombing in Syria.
Trump demonstrates that feminism is still necessary.
Hardly any jobs absolutely exclude women nowadays, but that doesn't mean women, or men, can find jobs that they can live on. On the economic plane, rather than competing with other downtrodden people for a share of the diminishing pie, we must strive for victory over the plutocrats.
The "solution" that Trump pretends to offer for working-class Americans is a poor substitute for the real solution that progressives stand for. Trump can take advantage of increased poverty because most Democrats, including Clinton, are not progressive.
The Agony of Aleppo, 2012 to 2014.
A court extended Florida's voter registration deadline, against the will of the Republican governor, who hoped that the hurricane evacuation would stop some poor or old people from voting.
Can disgust with Trump enable the Democrats to overcome Republican cheating and take control of the House of Representatives?
The article mentions gerrymandering, which is one form of Republican cheating. It doesn't mention voter-suppression, the other form of Republican cheating. Their systematic attempts to stop people from voting make them enemies of the Republic itself.
Clinton advocates "no-fly Zone" in Syria, but privately she recognized that this meant a shooting war.
A No-Fly Zone for Aleppo Risks a War That Could Engulf Us All.
Appreciating Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson, who freed people who had been erroneously convicted, as well as prosecuting people against whom there was proper evidence of crime.
This was unusual since most people in the legal system would rather keep an innocent person in prison than admit that the system made a mistake.
Trump's defense of his "just grab them" statement encourages men to assault women.
Many sorts of statements have real effects. That's not an excuse for censoring them. It does mean that the statements carry a moral onus.
An athlete says that such nasty statements are not tolerated in his locker room.
US citizens: Phone the White House at 202-456-1111 and call on Obama to completely stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The main reason is that existing fossil fuel facilities are enough to produce disaster, so any investment in new facilities is going in the wrong direction at great cost.
But you can also mention other reasons, such as the substantial risk of polluting important water supplies such as the Missouri River when the pipeline leaks because the owners cut corners on maintenance and safety (they surely will), and that it destroys archaeological sites, some of which indigenous people consider sacred.
It is supposed to be illegal for campaigns to coordinate with Super PACs (created by the Corporations United decision). Leaks show that Clinton's campaign is effectively doing so.
Rumor has it that lots of candidates are doing the same, we just don't have proof yet.
Thailand is in a frenzy of attacking anyone who doesn't mourn the late king in a strong enough way.
Campaigners are suing Norway for allowing oil drilling in the Arctic.
Murderous right-wing terrorist groups thrive in some parts of the US. They are claiming that Clinton will unleash repression.
More likely she will just gradually increase the existing forms of repression, such as massive surveillance.
How warm seas powered two major hurricanes.
Absurd charges against Amy Goodman were dropped in court.
Will this be enough to make thugs ashamed to impose such absurd charges?
People remaining in Mosul want to be rid of PISSI, but are afraid of what Shi'ite militias would do if they got into the city.
A prankster posted a hoax confession saying he had destroyed absentee ballots that voted for Trump. Millions of his supporters will now believe that this really happened.
This joke played into the hands of Trump, and I think that is not funny.
China and the US have criticized Japanese politicians who visited the Yasukuni shrine to demonstrate their nationalist and pro-military orientation.
It is a bad thing for Japanese politicians to honor war criminals. The US should prosecute its own torturers, and those guilty of the crime of aggressive war, so that it is in a good moral position to rebuke other countries.
Australia's refugee policy is one of deliberate harm. And there's no claiming "We didn't know".
Assange says that Ecuador cut off his use of the internet inside the Ecuadorian embassy.
I applaud Assange for showing us information about wrongdoing of Clinton and (even more important) the Democratic National Committee, which should have been neutral but instead helped Clinton against Sanders.
What I criticize about recent Wikileaks actions is only that the data were not checked to avoid doxxing people.
A lawsuit attempts to ban the use of the name "Cleveland Indians" during a baseball game in Toronto.
There is a big difference between urging or pressuring a team to change its name because of a perceived wrong, and trying to prohibit it by law.
Security measures in schools make parents feel their children are safe, but make students feel they are in prison.
When you include thugs stationed in schools, they put students in clear and measurable danger.
A Florida court rejected voter-suppression provisions for absentee ballots.
Why did the Dominican Republic send soldiers into Haiti to "protect" food aid that is supposed to be sent a week later?
I don't know that all the accusations in that page are valid, but some of them are.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi, author of Guantánamo Diary, has been freed.
The Guantanamo prison will stain Americas honor until every prisoner has been released or given a fair trial.
Governments and even business-supremacy treaties support agribusiness plantations rather than farmers' livelihoods.
Giant profitable companies, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Facebook, make towns compete to offer them subsidies to locate data centers there.
The solution to this is to give each competing locality a veto over any local subsidy (or tax break, it is equivalent) offered to a company.
Don't let physical stores send you the receipt by email!
The US pays some companies to hire disabled workers and pay them very little. Vermont has shown that using the funds for investing in enabling disabled people to take ordinary jobs has much more effect.
CETA would require Canada and Europe to pressure other countries to increase privatization of seeds.
Ascendance of Paul Ryan and Hillary Clinton equals big win for big business.
"As long as we have Citizens United, the polluters are going to be in charge of our country."
I prefer to call that organization "Corporations United", since that's what it always really was.
The idea of "true free market capitalism" is somewhat of a confusion, because (as this article shows) we need to regulate business strictly to protect ourselves from the systematic tendency of business to cheat and even poison the rest of us.
US citizens: phone FCC commissioners to adopt the proposal to limit ISPs' use of a customer's network contacts.
If you agree with me that ISPs should not even be allowed to record a subscriber's internet contacts without a specific court order, you can say that too.
Airbnb contributes to making cities too expensive to live in.
Many cities propose to use regulations to curb this. In New Orleans, Airbnb has broadcast deceptive ads against the regulations.
The UK government did massive illegal snooping for a decade.
In 2015, the practices were revealed, and now a court has ruled that they violate European human rights law.
I wonder, does Theresa May's new "snooper's charter" give permission for these practices?
Climate [mayhem] could drive 122m more people into extreme poverty by 2030.
This is because of forecast damage to agriculture in some parts of the world.
If we are more lucky, this harm would happen to only 35 million people by 2030.
Egypt has imprisoned Aya Hijazi for two years for running a charity to help homeless Egyptian children.
To Egypt's violent and tyrannical government, she is just a useful pawn.
Women on Web sends abortion medicine to women in Ireland who then use it illegally. It did a survey of the women it had helped. 98% said they would recommend that other women do the same.
This is to counter malicious rumors spread by antiabortionists.
Even with surgical abortions, the complications are small compared with those of having a baby.
An anti-nuclear candidate won election as governor of Niigata on the platform of blocking restart of the nuclear power station there.
European farms are making record use of the most vital antibiotics, which will surely make them fail to work for us when we need them, some years from now.
Someone did an arson attack against a Republican party office in North Carolina.
The Republican Party deserves condemnation for many reasons, but using violence only aids its opposition to the democratic republic we hope to maintain.
A lawsuit against Exxon charges "climate deceit".
The US will avoid war with Russia over Syria, it seems.
(A sigh of relief is heard.)
It can occasionally be correct to go to war to free people from a tyranny and give them freedom and democracy, but first we must make sure that (1) the people in question want to be helped in that way, and (2) freedom and democracy are likely to actually result. In Syria, (1) may be true for some, but I don't see any way to achieve (2) there.
Netflix may have trouble with its business model.
That business model is based on mistreating the public in three ways: DRM, tracking users, and imposing contracts that restrict the user (EULAs).
Any one of them would make it totally unacceptable. Flick off Netflix!
If we refuse to do business with Netflix, we might wipe it out!
Some states continue to resist the "Real ID" program which tries to make US state driver's licenses act as national ID cards.
I am disappointed with those states that have gone along with this.
The US calls for an immediate cease fire in Yemen.
Better late than never.
It was the US that kept the conflict going. When the US and Salafi Arabia intervened, the Houthis were rapidly defeating the previous government. If they had not intervened, the war could have been over more than a year ago. Iran is no friend of al-Qa'ida; the Houthis might have suppressed it there. And no one would be blaming the US for intervening.
Are small nuclear reactors a good idea?
Not needing pumps, they could be inherently safer than the traditional designs. But that doesn't mean they can't have spectacular failures. It doesn't necessarily mean they can't melt down, for instance. The high-temperature liquid in a reactor tends to cause corrosion. Structure which is quite safe can alter under the influence of corrosion and become unsafe. There is no way to see where things have moved to.
In addition, making 10 little reactors instead of one big reactor increases the opportunities to build one wrong.
The motive for Depleted (or Dirty) Uranium shells was to attack armored vehicles. Most of the time when A10 fighters fired them in the conquest of Iraq, they were aimed at cars and trucks.
This meant a lot of the fallout pollution was not even military useful: nonradioactive shells would have done just as well.
Posting this does not mean I think that Dirty Uranium are shells are legitimate at all. And would you want your army to pollute your country for millions of years in defending against an invasion?
Anti-Muslim terror-militias are rising in some US states.
People who reject the business-supremacy treaties are not against "trade", they are against the tyranny of business.
Democracy works very badly in the US, partly because most voters are very bad at thinking.
Look at the Trump supporters that have taken a stand that is almost opposed to the idea of rational thought.
Germany has extended its wind farms faster than its power grid; it can't transport all the power to people who need it.
There are ways to use the electricity, which while not optimally efficient are better than shutting off the wind turbines. Germany could build cables to sell this electricity to other nearby countries including the Netherlands and England, or use it to extract CO2 from the air, or extract CO2 from the air to convert into chemical fuels.
Superintelligent AI is a potential danger.
Here's my fictional idea for one way it might be made safe.
Any unarmed American is in danger of being shot dead by thugs (though mostly they do this to blacks), and there is no reliable way to avoid it.
Billionaires have funded surveillance of everyone's movements across a large part of Baltimore.
The private funds enabled thugs to do this without even telling the city government, let alone asking.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, adopted an ordinance so that city departments must get council permission for surveillance devices.
Amazingly, there is no federal law against gun trafficking.
Neoliberalism's decades-long attack on public universities.
Australia is paying refugees to move from Nauru to Cambodia, which might perhaps compensate for how difficult it would be for them to live there.
The big political argument being used against the UK's leaving the EU seems to be that multinational business will punish the UK for it.
What we see here is an example of the unjust domination of the world by business. Whatever issues ought to decide whether it is wise for the UK to leave the EU, "business won't like it" is not one of them.
What this says to me is that we must urgently take these businesses' power away from them.
One of the many ways they got this power is that the UK set out to attract international businesses by bowing to them and giving them extra power in the UK. And the Tories will certainly try to discourage them from leaving by bowing down to them even more.
Fighting with Russia in Syria would be crazy, but protests would do some good.
Filmmaker Deia Schlosberg, who was involved in making Gasland, faces charges carrying 45 years in prison for filming a pipeline protest.
One hopes these charges will be dismissed because they are unconstitutional, but just being charged with bogus charges does a lot of harm to a person's life. Thugs and prosecutors do this and think it is fun. When the victims sue, it is the city that pays, not the people responsible. To make them stop, we need a way to punish them personally.
Britain's National Health Service, the greatest achievement of democratic socialism, is on the brink of collapse because the Tories keep cutting the funds.
Trump said that not paying tax made him "smart". Tim Cook says that ordering Apple to pay tax is "political crap."
It's basically the same idea: "You little guys pay the costs of running our country. We powerful people and companies are too important to be bothered."
The Panama Papers show that UK lawyers are behind a large part of the international tax evasion schemes, and the Tories protect them.
I wonder if part of the motive for their insistence on taking the UK out of the European Union is so that the EU can't make the UK shut this down.
Farmers in India want to roast our planet so that they can put off their own Malthusian disaster for one more generation.
The problem is that they have been having too many children. They must stop.
Wealthy countries should help them stop, with donations of birth control products and sterilizations. But we must also deny our sympathy to those responsible for the overreproduction when they complain about the consequences.
US citizens: Call on the US army to
block the Dakota Access Pipeline.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: Call on your senators to reject riders that authorize employment discrimination for religious motivations.
US citizens: Call on Congress to pull the US out of the Salafi Arabian intervention in Yemen.
A billion dollars in campaign contributions are trying to influence the US elections this November.
In general, this influence favors the rich.
In states where judges are elected, those elections give wealthy people and companies an opportunity to buy immunity from prosecution.
May Brown, in the UK, may die from leukemia because the government will not allow her sister to visit and donate stem cells to cure her.
It seems that the government is searching desperately for any excuse, no matter how cruel, by which it could reduce the number of immigrants, or even hypothetical immigrants.
The UK subsequently reversed this decision under public pressure.
The company that makes a drug to treat lead poisoning multiplied the price by almost 30 during 2014.
Thugs took a journalist's drone as he was making a video of the pipeline protest on Oct 10. They plan to prosecute him too.
Autopsy results show that thugs shot Keith Scott in the back.
Governor LePage of Maine, a right-wing extremist, said dissidents should be jailed for calling for a boost in the minimum wage.
It would be wrong to jail LePage for opposing this important measure, or even for being un-American (which he clearly is), because he has a right to freedom of speech. But people who want to continue American democracy should not vote for people like him.
A planned coal export terminal in Oregon has been blocked.
Bravo, because we need to end the use of coal, and soon.
Agriculture requires big changes in order to avoid global heating disaster.
1000 minors in the US were shot dead in gun accidents in the 912 days from 1 January 2014 to 30 June 2016.
In the US, the lack of effective regulation of guns poses a far bigger danger than terrorists.
Wikileaks reveals additional unjust requirements proposed for the TISA business-supremacy treaty.
Trump's support for a range of right-wing extremist causes has boosted neo-Nazis in the US that want to kill blacks and Jews.
The FBI infiltrated a right-wing terror group that was planning to use bombs to kill immigrants.
I am glad that the FBI is paying attention to right-wing terrorists as well as to Islamist terrorists. Reports say these people really had arms, not just pretend bombs supplied by their FBI operative, so they could really have carried out their plans.
The US has called for a cease-fire in Yemen and publicly ordered Salafi Arabia to support it.
It would have been better for the US not to help Salafi Arabia start the bombardment campaign, but this is at least an attempt to go in the right direction.
Anti-racist infiltrators reveal what KKK members say to each other.
A former Obama official that became a bankster is now offering Clinton advice on how to defeat progressive Democrats and impose a big tax cut for businesses.
The US and Salafi Arabia have acknowledged bombing a funeral in Yemen.
It is impossible to entirely avoid such accidents, though it appears that a lack of discipline enabled this one to occur, so this one might have been prevented through better control. However, there is no excuse for denying them when they happen.
Meanwhile, the whole US-Salafi bombing campaign has been an injustice since it first started.
Using Trump to explain "rape culture".
Interviews with people from Mosul: some still there, some who have fled.
A Brazilian court ordered blocking of access to Facebook from all of Brazil because Facebook refused to censor an account that published a parody of a politician.
On this one occasion, Facebook is doing the right thing. That's not enough to compensate for all that is bad about Facebook, however.
The judge, by trying to censor legitimate free speech, opposes human rights.
Pakistan has cancelled the travel ban on reporter Cyril Almeida.
The stronger Israel's strategic situation becomes, the more its leaders say it is in danger of being destroyed at any moment. They equate solidarity boats carrying peace activists to missiles.
They also equate Gazans that need treatment for cancer with terrorists.
Five activists were arrested for shutting off tar sands pipelines. People who came to make videos were arrested too.
It is true that the proposals of the politicians are all inadequate to prevent global disaster that is likely to kill hundreds of millions of people, if not billions.
Global heating is causing permafrost to thaw. This wrecks buildings in cities in northern Russia.
But that's a secondary problem. The big problem is that this melting releases methane, which exacerbates the global heating.
Clinton campaigned in Florida attacking Trump's global heating denial.
It is good that she focuses on the issue, but so far she has not shown a willingness to fight the fossil fuel interests and take the radical measures needed to avoid disaster after so much delay.
Quantitative easing has ceased even to work, as people and businesses don't want to borrow more money even at low interest rates.
In addition, it increases inequality.
"People's QE" appears to be a Keynesian version of QE: using it to boost government spending.
The US has started directly attacking Yemen.
This was a response to Houthi retaliation against US and Salafi targets for the 18-month long US-supported bombardment by Salafi Arabia.
Plutocratist state governments are undermining the Clean Power Plan.
Yahoo has presented, through a patent application, the idea of collecting data about people and cars passing by a location to choose what ads to display on a billboard.
The patent application itself is not particularly an issue (other than as an example of a practice, computational idea patents, that is bad in general). Collecting data as envisioned in the application is the issue.
The most important issue is not the use of these data for choosing ads, but collecting the data at all. We need laws to prevent that.
Japan is retaliating against UNESCO for recognizing documents about the massacre in Nanjing in World War II.
The world has agreed to phase out hydrofluorocarbons (powerful greenhouse gases) starting in 2024.
Short-sighted politicians wanted to start many years later, and India will not start until 2028. What idiocy!
Portugal plans a tax on sugary drinks. However, the tax rules might encourage companies to game the system by putting 79 grams of sugar in each liter. Why not tax per weight of sugar?
And why leave out dairy drinks and fruit juices? There is a lot of added sugar in many fruit juices.
A mining company lost its attempt to use a business-supremacy to sue El Salvador for banning a gold mine in the name of environmental standards.
More Americans are arrested for simple possession of drugs than for all kinds of violent crimes combined.
Poland's government dropped one anti-abortion bill, but is now developing another, which is likely to ban emergency contraception also.
Trump has used the psychology of group conflict to convince tens of millions of Americans to support him no matter what, even if he does things they would previously have condemned with outrage.
In the prosecution of Amy Goodman, the prosecutor argued that covering the attacks on pipeline protesters meant she was a protester rather than a journalist.
Not only is this false, but even if it were true, it would not justify criminal charges for making a video of a protest.
In the Chicago thug department, 69 thugs have received over 70 complaints each. The average thug gets 5 complaints in an entire career.
Even if some fraction of complaints are erroneous, it is clear that those thugs have a systematic pattern of wrongdoing.
Most thugs are not likely to beat people up or kill them. However, nearly all of them support the false accusations that other thugs make after beating up or killing someone,
Trump is the natural culmination of increasingly harsh Republican policies of the past few decades. Republicans who have participated in the development of this harshness cannot evade responsibility by criticizing Trump now.
Republican Senator McConnell, of West Virginia, has shafted the miners whose pensions were eliminated by coal companies that brought about bankruptcies.
If Trump Leaks Are OK and Clinton Leaks Aren't, There's a Problem.
Anas Abdalla was convicted in the UK of trying to go to Syria and fight for PISSI. It seems that UK agents put him under tremendous pressure to be an informer and harassed him when he didn't.
That doesn't excuse trying to fight for PISSI, but that harassment may have driven him to do it.
A US appeals court ruled that the president must be allowed to fire the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
This is victory for the banksters, who have too much influence on President Obama and would have too much influence on President Clinton.
Perhaps this 3-judge decision will be appealed to the whole appeals court.
A contestant on The Apprentice describes how she resisted Trump when he grabbed her.
Trump did not say that he could "grope and kiss women without their consent". What he said was that, due to his fame, all women would "let him do it". If that were really true, it would not be "sexual assault". It would be consensual sex.
However, his claim is apparently false. Lots of women are saying that they did not consent at all, and that they fought him off.
A Clinton speechwriter put a line criticizing the banks into a speech for Deutsche Bank, in case it ever got leaked.
I wouldn't call this dishonest — provided she really said that line in her private speech. However, it doesn't mean that she really will do anything against the will of the banksters.
The Tories are going to make the National Health Service collapse under the pressures they have imposed for 6 years.
In one scientific field, women PhDs get (in general) less enthusiastic recommendations for jobs than men PhDs get.
This doesn't prove that sexism is responsible, but one has to suspect that, given that sexism has been proved on so many other questions.
Two regions of Belgium have declared that they veto CETA.
Europeans must mobilize to support them against dishonest pressure from banksters.
Elizabeth Warren accused the head of the Security and Exchange Commission of being a sell-out to the businesses the SEC regulates, and said that she needs to be replaced.
Heterosexuals in the UK can now go to the Isle of Man to form a civil partnership instead of a marriage.
Coastal cities around the world are trying to figure out what to do about rising sea levels.
The real solution is what will solve lots of other problems at the same time: curb greenhouse gas emissions with dispatch. Trying to cope is not only harder, it is futile beyond this century.
"Before providing [DNA] specimens, patients are increasingly looking for compensation, commitments that useful medical information will be returned to them, or control over how their biological samples will be studied."
They are concerned about real problems, but proposing ineffective or useless solutions.
Under a well-run medical system, where advances in treatment and diagnosis are put to the service of everyone, and you don't risk commercial disadvantage or punishment due to whatever is in your sample, the chance that people will be cured because of one's contribution would be all the reason anyone needs to contribute. But instead we have a system with real problems.
One real problem is that under the US medical system, new treatments are in many cases too expensive for them. Another real problem is that insurance companies may use their DNA samples against them, and the state could accuse them of crimes based on those samples.
The "solutions" people ask for do very little to fix these problems, because they are individual "solutions" for a systemic problem. Any reasonable "compensation" for a DNA sample won't be enough to pay for an expensive treatment. Researchers could agree to provide whatever useful medical information they discover, but can't promise to discover anything useful for that particular patient. As for "how" the samples will be studied, it is hard to relate that to one's own interest.
The War on Pain Sufferers can kill.
A father was concerned that his daughter was sexting, so he asked thugs to convince her to stop. (The last thing your child needs is to have thugs involved in per life!) He copied the photos as evidence, so he was charged with possession of "child pornography" and labeled as a sex offender.
The "sex offender" list does little to protect anyone and a lot to ruin people's lives. But fundamentally it is unjust to prosecute people for having a copy of anything whatsoever.
The EU is paying the dictator of Sudan to keep immigration down.
The Houthis say they were not the ones that fired a missile at a US destroyer.
I have no basis for judging whether to credit this.
Facing public criticism, Canada decided that Jos� Bov� can stay and speak against CETA.
This demonstrates there was never any valid reason to keep him out.
How many attacks on various groups does it take to convince a Republican not to support Trump?
Russia is signaling that it would fight back against an attack in Syria by the US.
Google has warned some Russians that the Russian government is trying to crack their accounts.
Democrats are using disinformation against the documents that Wikileaks honestly releases.
Glenn Greenwald punctures the Democrats' invalid criticisms of the publication of the leaks.
I agree with Greenwald that Wikileaks should have omitted personal information that could hurt people and is politically irrelevant. However, the Democratic Party should focus on correcting its wrongs rather than on criticizing those that expose them. And it must stop arguing that people should help cover up those wrongs, because Trump.
The DEA is starting to reconsider its plan to prohibit kratom.
Maine Governor LePage said he supports Trump to provide "authoritarian power" because Obama is an "autocrat" (?!).
Australia is using the Paris climate agreement as an excuse to justify a new coal mine.
"Surely the government will make other cuts to cancel out the enormous emissions from this coal" is an absurd argument, given that in fact the Australian government is doing everything possible to keep emissions high.
The officials' strings are surely being pulled by the coal company's money, as part of a global plan to reject necessary cuts even though that is likely to kill billions. That the killing is not their goal, merely a byproduct, is no excuse for it.
The Financial Powers Behind the Dakota Access Pipeline Must Be Confronted.
The Philippine thugs' murder spree is aimed at more than drug dealers. Two disguised thugs were caught after murdering a woman described as an "anti-crime campaigner". They now face charges.
The system of trials is not entirely reliable for determining who is a criminal, but it is a lot more reliable than skipping directly to punishment.
Clinton (like Trump) refuses to take a stand regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline.
I think this means she supports it and she would rather not be criticized for that.
The fanaticism of Boko Haram has blocked polio vaccination campaigns for years in its region, so a new vaccination drive will try to vaccinate 41 million children there.
The UK's Tory government intends to put a hundred billion dollars on infrastructure projects that are pointless or harmful.
Facebook, its subsidiary Instagram, and Twitter, all gave special access to a company monitoring Black Lives Matter protesters.
"Official" US news misrepresents the situation in Syria.
A Nice-style truck attack in Reno was apparently an act of terrorism. Fortunately, this time, no one was killed.
Strange that the word "terrorism" is not being used. In the US, right-wing terrorists are as big a danger as Islamist terrorists, though neither one is large as dangers go.
18% of Muslim "violent extremists" in the US cited anger at US military interventions in Muslim countries as a reason. It was the most common single reason cited.
I expect the number of jihadis motivated by this in other countries is in the thousands or tens of thousands.
Some of these interventions initially had a justification, but it has evaporated. Some of them never had any justification. Either way, we need to stop these wars, for our self interest as well as in the name of justice.
Neoliberalism, putting everyone into harsh competition, is also making people suffer from loneliness that can kill. Meanwhile, replacing direct communication with digital communication adds to the problem.
Sumatran rhinos are likely to become extinct unless urgent action is taken.
A documentary, "Do Not Resist", shows how much US thugs have been militarized and how that spreads suffering.
Just Give Me Some Privacy — Anonymous Wikipedia Editors and Tor Users Explain Why They Don't Want You to Know Who They Are.
American Military Intervention Can't Save Syria.
The ACLU condemns New York Governor Cuomo's plans to fill the streets with face recognition cameras.
I am very glad to see the ACLU go beyond proposals to limit access to data already collected. Limiting the collection is what we need.
Clinton was on Walmart's board of directors, and when organizers asked her to try to get a raise for workers, her team consulted with Walmart about how to respond.
That shows whose side she's on.
Hungary's main opposition newspaper has abruptly closed and removed its archives from the internet. People suspect that Orban forced it to close.
US citizens: call on Bill Clinton to push to let José Álvarez rejoin his family in the US.
Álvarez lived in the US since age 12, without permission. He committed a nonviolent drug crime in 1995, served time in prison, and was released. Then he spent two decades in the US, gainfully employed.
When people who have been in the US just a few years commit serious crimes, I am favor of deporting them, provided it is done reasonably soon after the crime.
But it is an injustice to deport someone with decades of family ties in the US because of a crime decades in the past. It is an injustice to deport any adult who has lived in the US since childhood.
And most of these nonviolent drug crimes should not be crimes anyway.
Nobody should have six children, but that is a different issue and doesn't affect the conclusions on this one.
Big companies (and one union!) told the Democratic Party to cut down its (rather meager) progressiveness to get donations.
South Africa is trying to cure its long-term drought by killing invasive trees that use lots of water.
The FBI has outsourced handling of evidence for surveillance orders to a company.
Maybe this will lead to more whistleblowers.
If May wants to make the UK "work for everyone", she had better change the policies that are on the way to increase child poverty.
Some disabled people escape from denial of disability support by appealing against the denial. The UK now plans to limit appeals to sending paper documentation only, so that some obvious and absurd errors will not be corrected.
Cuban medical doctors are working in 1/3 of the world's countries, including Haiti.
A giant Australian mining company has paid no tax for a decade.
Rich bastards in San Francisco are funding a campaign to kick out homeless people.
They would be given a bus ticket to some place they probably can't remain.
Investors have told car manufacturers to reduce CO2 emissions.
Privatizing a part of the UK's NHS has already led to corrupt practices at the expense of the treasury. That's what privatizing state services tends to do.
The ACLU and Human Rights Watch call for decriminalizing possession of forbidden drugs.
The pressure to take a plea bargain even if you're innocent is so strong that only 2 accused in a thousand actually have a trial. It is impossible that so few of the accused are innocent. This is not a system of justice, it is a system of arbitrary punishment.
Republican Mega-Donors Ramp Up Efforts to Hold Congress after Trump Tape.
We need to be careful to prevent campaign finance restrictions from stopping people from publishing works through the usual publication outlets.
These outlets should not be held responsible for the content of the works they are used to distribute in the usual ways.
However, we can distinguish that from the case where a corporation pays for election publicity. If a company rents theaters to show a movie that is for or against a certain candidate, that is clearly a campaign expenditure by the company (but not by the theaters).
Republicans are horrified by the idea that women will be groped, but only if it is by male-to-female transsexuals. (They are probably not inclined to do such a thing.) But when it is done by arrogant men such as Trump, they look for an excuse.
Thugs are harassing pipeline protesters (and the general public in the vicinity of protesters) constantly, with cars, armored vehicles, and helicopters.
Women who have accused Trump of forcing himself on them.
Thug departments are switching to encrypted radio, but some have turned off the encryption, finding that concealing the information about their operations causes problems.
When the rebels took Eastern Aleppo, the inhabitants did not welcome them.
Allowing children to learn what interests them, in a nonstructured way, can give them tremendous life advantages.
Does it give good results in families that don't have a tradition of learning and curiosity, in deprived areas with no resources to stimulate minds and no libraries?
Striking US prisoners understand that the only effective action they can take is to refuse to be used as slaves.
Ethiopia is systematically crushing dissent, and kidnaped a dissident expat from another country who now faces execution in Ethiopia.
Giving Haiti the money it needs would be partial compensation for past injustice.
The US helped force Haiti to pay the ransom to France.
Congress may use the lame duck session (after the election) to make new tax breaks or subsidies for companies.
In California, for a prosecutor to alter or withhold evidence useful to the defense is now a felony.
Green Groups Warn Deal to Lower Aviation Pollution is 'Weak Shell Game'.
US citizens: tell Congress to stop the modern day Native American land grab.
The US is investigating Alabama's prison system for systematically mistreating prisoners.
Trump's tax-dodging was probably lawful. That doesn't make his actions right, or ethically legitimate, but it shows we must change the tax law.
"You know this is Thailand, it's like China. Not like Hong Kong!"
Don't visit Thailand on vacation. It is ruled by a tyrannical regime that has spit on human rights in many ways. Please don't spend your money there.
Junk food (probably mostly sugar) is causing rising obesity for children; tens of millions have diseases caused by obesity.
Various treaties either push farmers under the power of giant multinationals or protect their rights.
Florida Governor Scott won't give the people evacuating from Hurricane Matthew more time to register to vote.
Canada will allow refugees from Eritrea to sue the Canadian owner of a gold mine in Eritrea over how they were treated.
The Paris agreement could potentially be the beginning of the changes we need.
But it does not guarantee that they begin.
Former president Álvaro Uribe of Colombia procured disapproval of the peace deal with the FARC, using a campaign of false rumors. Now he is in a position to block any new agreement.
The FARC were Colombia's second-worst gang of terrorists. The worst gang, the paramilitares, had links with el Presidente Horrible. (as I called him — in Spanish, "Horrible" sounds fairly similar to "Uribe").
The government signed a peace deal with the paramilitaries, who were supposed to disband — but they didn't really do so.
Peace with the FARC might enable Colombia to put more pressure on the paramilitaries to really disband, but not if Horrible has anything to say about it.
While Horrible was president, Santos was the minister of false positives; the troops that murdered civilians for no reason except to produce corpses were under his control. I had a low opinion of him for this and because he supported the business-supremacy treaty with the US. However, I must acknowledge that he has sincerely tried to make peace with the FARC, which would be an admirable achievement.
Santos just received the Nobel Peace Prize for these negotiations. Some say that this might enable him to rescue the accord.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that thugs are not allowed to treat a black person's attempt to avoid them as a sign of awareness of guilt. It could just be a sign that person is afraid of being persecuted by bigoted thugs.
Whether the thugs in Boston actually practice racial profiling is a separate question. I don't know whether they do. However, the issue here is not what they do, but what a person has a rational reason to think they are likely to do.
Ticks are spreading geographically due to global heating. They transmit diseases to humans and pets.
Tick bites make some people allergic to mammal meat.
The Satanic Temple, a rationalist group which does not recognize the existence of gods or devils, now has an after-school program.
A possible basis for prosecuting the Wells Fargo CEO has appeared.
I doubt that the US government wants to prosecute a bankster.
The only thing that's new, with apparently Russian meddling in US elections, is that the US is the target. In the past, the US has often been the meddler.
Eduardo Cunha, one of the main organizers of Rousseff's impeachment, has been expelled from Congress for corruption and perjury.
Poland proposes a punishment of years in prison for using the phrase "Polish death camps".
I sympathize with the Polish government's wish to correct the error. Those Nazi death camps were located in Poland, but they were not Polish. However, this method won't be very effective against foreign media outlets, and meanwhile it violates human rights.
I wonder if quoting or describing this law in Poland, supposing it is adopted, would be a violation of the same law.
Joseph Stiglitz: The Problem with Europe Is the Euro.
That may be the biggest economic problem, but the European Union has another deeper problem: it is not democratic. Fixing or eliminating the euro could end austerity, but as long as the EU is not democratic it will be susceptible to doing new wrongs.
US citizens: call on Obama to end US participation in the bombardment of Yemen.
Everyone: call on NBC and MGM to release the Trump tapes.
US citizens: urge Senators Sanders and Warren to campaign against the new nuclear arms race.
A campaign in India tries to teach the idea that baby daughters are just as good as baby sons.
I agree — but in overpopulated India it would be wiser to celebrate each year without a baby of any kind.
The World Health Organization calls for a tax on all sugary drinks.
It seems like a good idea to me, but they should keep in mind that artificial sweeteners seem perhaps to contribute to obesity by confusing the brain.
Rome has cancelled its application to host the Olympic Games.
That is a wise decision. The city has more important uses for its money and should not suffer the other harms of the games.
Yahoo has blocked users from setting up mail forwarding to other mail services.
Apparently, this is a measure to stop users from switching.
It is becoming common for hurricanes to cause as much flooding as Hurricane Sandy did.
Forest fires have doubled. National parks are suffering from changing ecosystems.
In a few decades, much worse will be normal.
Ilham Tohti, Uighur imprisoned for life by China, wins major human rights prize.
On military issues, both Clinton and Trump have bad policies.
The UK and European countries are treating the question of splitting up as a matter of conflicting economic interests.
The EU cites four basic principles, all a matter of mere trade: "free movement" of goods, services, capital and labor.
I think any political entity should adopt, as its basic principles, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Health and Well-being. The European Union does not treat these as very important, so Europe must either fix the EU or get rid of it.
Nigeria has banned female genital mutilation, but the law is not well enforced and the practice is still common in some parts of the country.
The economic advisor that the world needs to follow is Keynes.
The criticisms of the 1970s were based on an evident mistake: supposing that typical consumers are foresighted. All those Americans who foolishly got second mortgages would be proof of that, if there were any doubt. Anyway, most consumers don't know enough about economics to suppose that a stimulus program will lead to a tax increase later. And those who have to choose between food and medicine each week will spend all the additional money they get.
Plans for oil drilling on Australia's southern continental shelf have been shelved.
Most Democratic candidates have granted legitimacy to funding of campaigns by the rich, and it shows in what they stand for.
Physicians for Human Rights documents the mental damage left by US torture and how physicians violated their oaths by participating.
Indonesia has passed a law against "cyberbullying" which turns out to be used to stifle dissent.
Of course, criminalizing "blasphemy" is prima facie injustice. Condemning or mocking religion is a part of human rights. But even laws against insulting people are intolerable.
The Amazon rainforest is getting less rain, and more fire, due to global heating. This speeds the heating.
A Texas company is forcing a fracked gas pipeline through the US northeast despite objections of people who may be endangered.
A message from the crew of the latest boat that tried to break the siege of Gaza.
A noted Pakistani journalist has been banned from leaving the country because of his reporting.
Clinton told Deutsche Bank that she had promoted fracking world-wide.
The refugees Australia forced into Manus Island face violence from local inhabitants.
"Aid" from wealthy countries could be redirected into loans or investment in companies in those countries.
That would be instead of building systems for health and education and vital infrastructure.
It wouldn't do as much to help non-elites in those countries, but it would be more profitable.
The US and UK are closely involved in Salafi Arabia's bombing of Yemen, and US officials have warned that this involves the US in the war crimes of the bombardment campaign.
Australia exports increasing amounts of natural gas, but collects little tax from the exporters. The tax system is designed so they can fiddle their accounts to reduce the amount they pay.
This policy encourages increases in the amount of exports, which encourages roasting our planet.
Fracking is a form of [global heating] denial.
The UK's Science Museum has rejected further sponsorship from Shell but has accepted sponsorship from Statoil.
Museums and science programs must reject the corrupting influence of fossil fuels.
The US and Russia have both helped to trash the Geneva conventions. Repeated violations have endangered the agreement that hospitals, medics and wounded people should not be targets in war. We must reestablish this.
Surprise! In Yemen, the Houthis and their allies are starting to fire missiles at Salafi Arabia and the US navy, the countries that have bombarded Yemen for no valid reason.
It was wrong from the outset for Salafi Arabia and the US to intervene in Yemen. The civil war in Yemen would have ended soon if not for that external intervention. The Houthis, who were winning, were no enemy of the US at that time.
Geopolitical rivalry with Iran was not and is not a valid justification for war.
As for human rights, Iran regularly violates them, but Salafi Arabia is far worse.
The longer this intervention continues, the more suffering it will cause in Yemen, and the more it will tend to spread. The US should end this intervention as soon as possible, to stop doing any more harm.
EFF: Yahoo Email Surveillance: the Next Front in the Fight Against Mass Surveillance.
There have been proposals for a "no-fly" zone or a "safe zone" in Syria. What would those mean, and what military means would they require?
After the explicitly rigged Wisconsin Supreme Court quashed the prosecution of illegal campaign funding, the equally-split US Supreme Court did not touch the case. Democracy in Wisconsin exists only so far as plutocrats allow.
Dissident Nepali editor Kunda Dixit has been driven into exile by the state.
Apes have the ability to deduce what another ape is thinking based on what it has and hasn't seen.
VR games used as advertising for cannons.
Americans are starting to reconsider whether the US ought to be allied with Salafi Arabia.
Thin communities, where people have hardly any contact with each other, are what global business wants.
Pakistan has closed the loophole whereby husbands and relatives that murder women for "shaming" their families could be pardoned by those same families.
Women in the US and Europe are starting to admit that they regret having had children.
Uganda has begun support grants to old people, and it turns out that small amounts of money are a big help.
Homa Hoodfar describes her interrogation and imprisonment in Iran for the crime of "dabbling in feminism".
The IMF and World Bank recognize that the world is heading for more financial trouble. They don't recognize that their own policies have contributed.
Obama should take some action to rebuke Netanyahu for his policy of colonisation and his contempt for the US.
In Chechnya under Kadyrov, no one dares point out anything that the government has handled badly.
Trump's counterattack: presenting women that accused Bill Clinton of rape, and one that accused Hillary Clinton of serving as court-appointed public defender for an accused rapist.
It is not clear what is supposed to be bad about Hillary Clinton's part in this. Accused rapists deserve legal representation, like any other defendant — even if they are guilty.
The reason I won't vote for Hillary Clinton is that she stands for right-wing positions, which right-wingers like to call "centrist".
What Happens When the Alpha Males Run Politics? Donald Trump.
Although it is stretching things to apply that term to humans.
US citizens: call on the Secretary of the Army to overrule solitary the confinement sentence for Chelsea Manning.
No, Hillary, young voters aren't naive. The system doesn't work for them.
A witness cited a close ally of Chris Christie of saying that Christie and Cuomo talked about making a false report attributing the bridge lane closure to a traffic study.
This couldn't be used as evidence in court against Christie, since it would be hearsay. But it adds to the piles of evidence to convince us that Christie did this deliberately.
Off-duty thugs providing "security" at the Kansas City Public Library in a public event spontaneously decided to arrest an attendee for trying to ask a follow-up question. When the library official in charge told them they were not supposed to remove people except at the library's request, they beat him up, injured him, and then arrested him.
Don't take the risk of having thugs at your events.
The US imposed a broad gag order on Open Whisper Systems in regard to a subpoena relating to Signal.
EFF: Tell HP: Still a long way to go to make up for breaking our printers.
The three demands here are valid, but the most important demand is omitted. HP should promise never to apply DRM to its printers. Why does the EFF so often make insufficient demands?
Nearly half all children in Sub-Saharan Africa in extreme poverty, report warns.
This is connected with the fact that the population growth rate there is so high. It is African's duty to have much fewer children, and our duty to give them what they need in order to carry out that duty.
After Hurricane Matthew, will aid predators ravage Haiti?
Florida disenfranchises 10% of the voting-age citizens because they are ex-cons.
A large fraction of those disenfranchised are black, and this is partly a direct result of racism: black are more likely to be prosecuted than whites, in similar situations.
Racism is also the motive for the policy, since it stops blacks from resisting various racist laws through political organizing.
An executive of Backpage faces criminal charges because Backpage carries ads placed by teenage prostitutes that pretend to be adults.
The laws in the US against prostitution are based on prudery and prejudice; if the goal is to help women avoid mistreatment, they make no sense.
Excerpts of Clinton's private paid speeches to banksters have been released by wikileaks.
I don't see anything shockingly bad here. We have known all along that Clinton is no progressive, and this doesn't change that significantly.
The EU is fighting the opposition to CETA with a nonbinding document that attempts to reassure sheep that it won't be used to shear them.
Canada's government seeks the power to identify internet subscribers without a search warrant, and is trying the usual excuses: first "pedophiles", now "terrorists".
This suggests that the real motivation for trying to grab this power is neither of the above.
Trying to choose foods to reduce their carbon impact is so complicated that it is hopeless.
We have a simple system for solving such problems: the market. If we apply a big enough carbon tax, the price of various foodstuffs will guide you to reduce your carbon impact.
The US has begun "reviewing" its support for Salafi Arabia's bombing of Yemen after the bombing of a large crowd at a funeral.
I hope this gives the US an opportunity to stop what it should never have started.
Thug unions support Trump, because he encourages thuggishness in everyone that has privilege and power.
Everyone: Demand an independent investigation of the killing of Tyre King.
Former Yahoo staff say that the NSA's email-scanner was actually a "buggy rootkit" that gave the US government (and potentially others) many kinds of access to Yahoo's servers.
However, supposing this surveillance was limited to the pattern-matching that was originally described, the government is claiming the power to search everyone's communications, then claim it hasn't searched your mail unless it found a match in your mail.
The ACLU poses questions about how far this surveillance power extends and who authorized it.
A Trump supporter tried to attack reporter Kurt Eichenwald by sending him a racist video that was designed to trigger an epileptic seizure.
Coca Cola has a list of dietitians that it has paid to give it supportive PR. Now they are tweeting to oppose proposed soda tax.
Wisconsin voters, now required to show state-issued photo IDs, are getting the run-around when they apply for one.
Sacramento thugs tried to run Joseph Mann over, but when he jumped over the median to protect himself, they got out of their car and shot him repeatedly until he was dead.
A union organizing effort at Wells Fargo helped uncover the pressure on employees to commit fraud.
It has uncovered a similar pattern at other big banks, too.
Where medical marijuana has been legalized, older Americans are less likely to be disabled and more likely to continue working.
The UK referendum encouraged violence against queers, not just against the ethnic minorities and immigrants that were attacked by the political campaign.
It seems that the "leave EU" campaign encouraged the spirit of hate in a general way, independent of the target.
Non-college white men in the US have decreasing incomes. Their support for Trump may be a foolish response to this real problem.
Dirty and deadly oil train projects meet defeat in California and Washington.
The US war in Afghanistan has continued 15 years. Politicians ignore it and have no rational plan to end it.
"Do something (in Syria)!" means, in effect, "Bomb something!"
But the US can't make things better by starting a war with Assad or Russia. On the contrary, a war with Russia could make things a whole lot worse.
Criticism of Trump is being used to promote prudish sexual morality.
Why shouldn't someone of age 64 make a pass at someone younger? No reason, except prudery and ageism. As for marriage and fidelity, that is natural for some people and not for others. Society pressures everyone to agree to that way of life, then criticizes them when they can't follow it.
What's bad about Trump's conduct is that he puts pressure on women when they don't want him. Because of his power, and his practice of retaliating against anyone who thwarts him (and not only in sexual matters), they may be afraid to talk about it (note how this woman said nothing about it for years), perhaps even afraid to say no to him.
What's bad about Trump's attitude is that he regards women as collectibles. He seems to have no idea of tenderness or kindness; he is all cupidity.
A Faux News reporter cited the Berlin Wall as an example of success.
15 years ago, Howard Zinn warned that attacking Afghanistan would not make things better.
The Taliban had offered to kick out al-Qa'ida to end hostility with the US, but the US was not interested.
The Taliban are oppressive rulers, especially to women. To overthrow such a state might be justified, if the people it rules want that. But RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan, did not want US intervention, and the replacement Afghan government didn't respect women's rights much either.
Iceland has convicted 9 bankers from the failed bank Kaupthing for illegal transactions that they used to expand the bank.
The expansion was risky as well as illegal, and the result was the bank's failure when the crisis came.
Big Pharma is conspiring with US ISPs and other internet companies to block Americans from using foreign pharmacy web sites to order prescription drugs.
This illustrates that ICANN is being lobbied to serve the cause of censorship.
EFF: FCC helped create the Stingray problem, now it needs to fix it.
Sen. Mike Lee: U.S. can't bomb Syrian forces without congressional approval.
It would be foolish for the US to intervene against Assad because none of the armed factions deserves our support except the Kurds — and they are distant enough from Assad's forces that the two groups are not fighting each other.
Facebook wants to supply limited "internet" access in the US after having been rebuffed by India.
Kerry calls for war crimes investigations against Russia and Syria.
I think that is valid; but so is a call for war crimes investigations against the US and Salafi Arabia in Yemen.
Bogus excuses states use to shut down the internet.
Clinton's private speeches to banksters have been leaked.
She advocated the Simpson-Bowles proposal for tax cuts for business and postponement of social security, and said she needed to have a "public position" and a "private position".
This, of course, is what we suspected.
Democrats should now recognize that Clinton said she would be the tool of the banksters. The evidence is clearly visible.
If she is elected, she will have to betray the banksters or betray the public. Where do her real loyalties lie?
Combat vs. Climate: The Military and Climate Security Budgets Compared.
The US government is giving money to charter schools, and some of them are diverting money to private profit.
The US warned Americans to stay away from public spaces in Egypt.
Egypt imprisons and kills people for no reason whatsoever. The US should warn Americans to stay away from Egypt.
Berta Caceres' case file was stolen — from the prosecutor.
Fortunately there are copies.
Either the state is trying to protect her killers, or private parties more powerful than the state are doing it.
Trump was recorded boasting that he could grab women and have sex with them.
Trump has a long history of treating women as objects, prizes, toys … anything but human beings.
Many Republicans are disgusted, but only a few have dared to withdraw their support.
USA FREEDOM Act requires government to declassify any order to Yahoo.
Is Your Big Data Project a "Weapon of Math Destruction"?
US citizens: call on the EPA to ban toxic oil dispersants.
US citizens:
call on the IRS to
investigate ALEC.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: call on Florida Governor Scott to extend the voting registration deadline to make up for the delay caused by Hurricane Matthew.
Everyone: call on Billionaire Polluters to stop supporting heating-denialist pressure groups.
A study compares the conduct of 8 large fossil fuel companies.
Indiana thugs raided and shut down a large voter registration activity, trying to blame it because a couple of people submitted invalid and perhaps fraudulent registrations through the activity.
Republicans could use this excuse to block others from voting and deny them the opportunity to register. Attacking operations that register marginalized people is a standard Republican strategy for attacking democracy.
I have to wonder whether the invalid forms were submitted by Republican operatives to create an excuse for the raid.
The UK convicted Conrad Jones of intimidating a witness because prosecutors hid the evidence proving he was somewhere else at the time.
California just made such actions by prosecutors a felony. The UK needs to take equally strong action.
The moribund Federal Election Commission has refused to take action on accusations of campaign finance violations by the Trump an Clinton campaigns.
The FCC's new version of ISP privacy requirements is weaker than the previous proposal.
I wouldn't — and I don't — trust those ISPs with my personal data. I connect through Tor. That's feasible for me, since the amount of data I transmit through them is not very much compared with most people.
Nowadays, bottled water can fetch a high price if it has some exotic inactive ingredient or comes from an exotic place.
Don't be a sucker — don't buy bottled water in the US or Europe. If you worry about lead in the water of your town, buy a filter.
Armed Ecuadorian police took over the headquarters of a union of indigenous peoples that oppose oil extraction in their territory.
We now have a very simple argument to oppose to any and all proposals to drill more oil wells: the world cannot survive an increase in fossil fuel extraction facilities, because just operating the existing facilities is enough to cause global disaster.
Thus, while I sympathize with the desire to give Ecuadorians (who are for the most part rather poor) a better standard of living, the world cannot bear it.
Prisoner Siddique Hasan faces in-prison punishment for giving an interview to National Public Radio about the US prisoners' strike.
Hey prison guards, you have no right of privacy in how you treat prisoners. They do have such a right — but when they want us to know, you have no business interfering.
Now that the inadequate Paris treaty is in effect, activists call for serious measures.
World Needs $90tn Infrastructure Overhaul to Avoid Climate Disaster, Study Finds.
Support for the death penalty is declining in Texas, among the population and its court of appeals.
The US has recognized that Israel is building a permanent apartheid state but supports it anyway.
A considerable fraction of young Americans don't want to have children.
This is great news if it means less population growth. Still, it is a shame that this is brought about by putting an unnecessary and irrational burden on mothers.
Low-emissions cars tend to be cheaper to operate, when counting maintenance costs.
Haiti has been hit by a powerful hurricane shortly before it was supposed to have presidential elections.
The storm destroyed houses, roads, and crops. The election has been cancelled.
The election would probably have been phony. The US more or less imposed President Martelly, after arranging the removal of President Aristide.
It doesn't mention that cholera was brought by a UN force whose mission (since there was no war in Haiti) was to maintain in power the elites that Dubya had put in power.
Eliminating cholera is not rocket science. It just takes money to implement systems for clean water and sewage treatment. The UN ought to accept responsibility and pay for these in Haiti, but it hasn't.
Arms sales to Salafi Arabia carry so much plutocratic weight that they distort US foreign policy.
Some of Clinton's Pledges Sound Great. Until You Remember Who's President (and how for 8 years he has hardly tried to do these things).
A UK minister set aside a local government's disapproval of fracking.
UK fracking decision is nothing short of hypocrisy.
Fossil fuel handling leaks 60% more methane than previously believed.
Global heating could cause 30-year droughts in the US, with conditions in the west resembling the 1930's dust bowl.
The US is not feeding the world's poor people. Hardly any of US agricultural produce goes to countries with many hungry people.
Instead, US food exports go mainly to wealthy countries. About half are meat or feed for producing meat.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has required digital payment systems to follow the same rules that apply to bank cards.
The Israeli navy captured the Gaza solidarity boat and forced it away from Gaza.
The only reason not to let it reach Gaza is to demonstrate Israel's power. It had no rational justification for using that power this time.
James Hanson says we need a carbon tax to make the price of fossil fuels honest.
Verizon has order its employees in Pennsylvania to replace copper wires with semi-functional links to the cell phone system. They can be fired for fixing a copper wire.
Some states are diverting welfare money to "crisis pregnancy centers" whose mission is to mislead women so they don't get abortions.
If there's anything a poor single mother does not need, it's another baby.
US citizens: Call on Congress to break up Wells Fargo and the other megabanks.
The CO2 we have already pumped into the atmosphere has made catastrophe inevitable, unless we manage to start removing large amounts of it. The question that remains is how big the catastrophe will be.
US citizens: Call on Congress not to reduce transparency for Pentagon contractors.
Bill Clinton made a statement against for-profit medical insurance.
Hillary Clinton has opposed making a public option. If she said what Bill Clinton has just said, that would be a good stand on this issue.
A college student was asked to make up a name. He combined a common given name with a common family name. The combination is the name of several people. One of them happened to be a nude model, so he was accused of sexual harassment.
Residents of Florida and those who visit Florida: call on Governor Scott to move for reexamination of the Sabal pipeline, in which he has a personal financial interest.
Urging Congress to allow some tax breaks for fossil fuels to expire instead of renewing them.
Frackers in Pennsylvania want to prosecute local officials for adopting laws to limit fracking.
73 US large multinational companies maintain 10,000 foreign companies in tax havens.
They have avoided $700 billion in US taxes by keeping money outside the US.
The world needs almost 70 million new teachers to provide universal education.
Protests made the Polish government reconsider its proposed total ban on abortions.
May this lead to reconsideration of the existing Polish near-total ban on abortions.
The Colombian government has ended the cease fire with the FARC.
Although the referendum rejected the peace agreement, I don't see why the cease fire has to end.
Thailand denied entry to a Hong Kong activist at the request of China.
If US victims of terror can sue Saudi Arabia, can victims of American terrorism sue the US?
It seems proper to me for them to be able to do so.
While there is no evidence that Salafi Arabia directly supported al-Qa'ida, it is certainly guilty of spreading fundamentalism (Salafism) across the Muslim world, and that contributed to all kinds of Islamism, both the violent part that commits terrorism and the more widespread part that merely advocates disrespect for many human rights.
Use of fitness trackers has an insignificant effect on most users' levels of exercise.
They do have a significant effect on the level of surveillance one suffers.
In Yemen, due to the bombing campaign by Salafi Arabia, children are now starving to death.
Duane Buck was sentenced to death for the specific reason that he is black.
Nobody, of any race, should be executed. The death penalty is unjust and we can easily do without it.
Honeywell has locked out a union that wouldn't agree to givebacks.
Has anyone got a plan to pressure Honeywell?
India has shut down the Kashmir Reader newspaper.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Teachers' bias against black boys begins with children of preschool age.
This prejudice directly harms the children, because children that teachers expect to do badly, do badly as a consequence of their expectation.
The German comedian who published a poem that satirized Erdoğan will not be prosecuted by the state. Erdoğan's private prosecution of him is still being considered.
Germany should repeal that law.
Nancy Doe is facing charges of "sexually exploiting" herself; the hateful DA wants to list her as a "sex offender" for years.
It sounds like the selfies she took would be acceptable in most magazines. But even if that had not been so, these charges would still be unjust.
I commend the courage of Nancy and her parents (presuming they have not pressured her) in refusing the "deal" where she has to admit guilt.
I think it would be appropriate for the boy who redistributed the photos she sent him confidentially to face some sort of punishment. Not a listing in the sex offender list. Not prosecution. Suspension from school would be too much. But the school should teach him that this sort of thing is not the way to treat other kids.
Everyone: call on Wells Fargo CEO Stumpf to resign for policies that pressured staff into fraud.
California's Proposition 61 would cut the cost of drugs bought by the state.
Erdoğan continues repression of the Kurds in Turkey.
He broke the years-long cease fire in order to get more votes.
Pakistan has expelled hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees back into the war zone which is their country.
When Gerry Williams was a homeless alcoholic in Toronto, he was fined over and over. He got sober, but USD 50,000 in fines made it impossible for him to live a normal life with work.
Pew Survey: Republicans Are Rejecting Reality on Climate Change.
The right-wing media are effective in convincing right-wing Americans to reject reality.
New Jersey, under Republican Governor Christie, plans to privatize Atlantic City's water.
In justice, Trump should pay the money that the city needs.
Suggestions for dealing with the UK's housing shortage.
I disagree with one point: taxes on the wealthy are too low already, so when anyone proposes a new tax break to encourage A over B, we should look for a way to increase the taxes on B to discourage it in favor of A.
If funds are needed to make more housing, taxing potential residences that are no one's primary residence is a good way to get that money.
In general, it is important to eliminate the laws that limit construction of housing — for instance, zoning laws that limit the amount of housing on a tract of land.
The US government ordered Yahoo to scan all incoming messages, Here's more about what happened.
Other companies say they would have resisted this demand, but it is hard to know whether to trust them.
Corbyn's platform for the Labour Party is good, but 12,000 new public housing units a year is woefully insufficient.
Two states, California and Illinois, have taken state bond sales and investments (for pension funds, I expect) away from Wells Fargo. This is good, but really all the executives responsible for the pressure that made staff cheat customers should face charges.
Wells Fargo agreed to a fine for repossessing soldiers' cars without a court order.
This is good, but what about us civilians? We deserve rights, too.
US citizens: call on Congress to debate the question of war with Syria or Russia rather than just leaving hands off.
California has blocked "civil" forfeiture (seizure of a person's property without convicting per of a crime) in nearly all cases.
An anti-refugee referendum in Hungary failed because less than 50% of the voters voted. There was an organized campaign urging people not to vote.
The dense heart of the Pacific Ocean's plastic garbage patch is almost 400,000 square miles in size. It contains millions of large plastic objects that are slowly breaking down into microparticles.
Two years ago, plastic in the oceans was believed to weigh almost 300,000 tons. Perhaps now the estimate needs to be increased.
US citizens: call on Congress to cancel the lame duck session.
US citizens: support a "public option" in health care for all Americans.
Mike Pence refuses to pardon a convict that has been proved innocent.
Pence, like the prosecutor Pence is protecting, defend the principle that The System Is Never Mistaken. When it makes a mistake, they deny the facts rather than admit the mistake.
The main debate about US foreign policy is between different excuses for pursuing global dominion.
America's main rivals are rather nasty themselves. China is a corrupt dictatorship that increasingly crushes human rights. Putin is an authoritarian ruler who does not permit serious opposition even though he is so popular he could win honestly.
It could well be true that most of the residents of the Crimea, before Russia took it over, wanted the Crimea to be part of Russia. However, the election Putin held after capturing the Crimea tells us nothing about the question, because he does not run elections honestly. If we are able to doubt the statements of Dubya, Obama, Clinton and Trump, why put more faith in Putin's? He is not trying to conquer the world, but that doesn't make him admirable. Most Russians support him, just as many Americans supported Dubya's wars — both countries were lied to.
The Earth's surface is hotter now than at any time in the past 115,000 years.
Back then, the sea was 6-9 meters higher, and it will probably rise to that level again if we don't drive the temperature down.
Is part of your city under 9 meters above sea level? Lots of Boston is.
Duterte boasts about how many drug dealers (or supposed drug dealers) he will arrange to kill, but meanwhile denies responsibility for the killings he organized before.
Should we call him President Do-dirty?
The investigation of the murder of sociological researcher Giulio Regeni has exposed the murderous nature of the Egyptian military state.
Its readiness to torture and kill people with hardly any rational reason reminds me of what I have heard about Stalin. Except that, unlike Stalin, the Egyptian regime has full support of the US.
Supposedly the Egyptian tyranny is the only bulwark against Islamist rebels. Of course, those disrespect basic human rights, those of men as well as those of women, those of Muslims as well as those of non-Muslims. That is the nature of the Islamist position. But the violent Islamist rebellion got a boost after the military coup, so I think that the military have done more harm than good.
Tenants in part of Berlin are trying to ban renovation of buildings so as to keep wealthier people from forcing them out.
The harm of housing bought as an investment and denied as a place to live is a consequence of unjust laws that regulate the housing market badly.
100,000 Polish women protested the new restrictive abortion law, which is even worse than the old restrictive abortion law.
President Correa says the US is organizing another campaign like Plan Condor, which organized assassinations of dissidents in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
A fairly recent law says that the US should collect statistics about killings by thugs, but the US proposes to collect them in an inefficient and unreliable way.
Tories propose to cancel most of the European Convention on Human Rights in regard to war crimes. As an excuse, for those inclined to accept feeble excuses, they pretend that accusations of abuse were all bogus.
Microsoft has obtained influence in the Linux Foundation, even as it uses patents to push proprietary malware programs into products with GNU/Linux or Android.
How Trump arranged to get a billion dollars from the banks, and pass the tax liability to a company, which subsequently went bankrupt.
Trump (or some advisor) was indeed clever at figuring out how to cheat the US.
As always, when someone exploits a system this way, the system is responsible for having the loophole and the exploiter is responsible for taking advantage of it. We should condemn the exploiter and fix the system's flaw. The question is, just what is the flaw?
There are other instances of cheating by creating a company that was intended to go bankrupt. For instance, Peabody Energy created a subsidiary and transferred pension liabilities to it, as a way of cheating its current workers and its retired former workers.
I think we need to make it much harder to create a company and transfer current or future liabilities to it in such a way that the company is likely to go bankrupt. The obvious way is to designate such conduct as a crime. There might be a more clever way which changes some procedures to put obstacles in the path of the operation itself.
"A Chinese government investigation has revealed that more than 80 percent of the data used in clinical trials of new pharmaceutical drugs have been 'fabricated'."
It continues, "Not only did the report find that many of the 'new' drugs awaiting approval were actually a combination of existing drugs, they also showed that many clinical trial outcomes were written before the trials had actually taken place."
The corruption has not reached that point in the US and Europe, but it does exist.
Some UK universities now employ their professors as subcontractors as a scheme of union-busting.
US universities have other methods for union-busting.
The US and Europe want to pour more money down the "nation building" drain in Afghanistan.
Spending money to help make Afghanistan stable would be justified if we could expect it to achieve the goal. In practice, when we tried it our billions of dollars mostly went into corruption and ill-conceived useless projects. Is there any reason to think it would be more effective now?
Clinton described herself to wealthy donors as "center-left to center-right".
However, what the Washington and media elite calls "center" is really right-wing compared with the views of most Americans, who support positions that are more "left". That is the real center. Thus, really Clinton is in truth center to right.
Stumpf deserves more than a slap on the wrist. He should be prosecuted.
EFF: HP Promises to Restore Printers' Functionality, But Questions Remain.
Private agreements of internet communication companies have the effect of imposing censorship on the millions of people that use those companies.
The EFF is going to court to protect security researcher Matthew Green who could be prosecuted under the DMCA for publishing his next book.
Arkansas thugs arrested two men for making a video of the thugs as they handcuffed a black driver. The thugs dropped charges against one of the men on discovering he was a state legislator, but the other, a civil rights lawyer, faces absurd charges.
Vancouver is trying various measures to limit housing speculation, and one already in effect seems to be doing some good.
I recommend a substantial monthly tax on owning a residential property that is not someone's primary residence.
Ostensibly, the builders of the UK's new nuclear power plant will have to pay to clean it up in 2083.
There are just two things wrong with that claim:
1/5 of fish for sale is fraudulently mislabeled, and this is used to disguise fishing practices that wipe out species.
Sweden is considering offering a tax break for repairing products rather than throwing them away.
I hope they legislate to give people the right to repair and require manufacturers to publish repair manuals.
Former Guantanamo prisoner Lutfi Bin Ali is now semi-imprisoned in a town in Kazakhstan where hardly anyone will or can speak with him.
Philippine president Duterte compared himself to Hitler and said he wanted to kill 3 million drug addicts.
If we can use gene therapy to prevent a genetic birth defect, we are obligated to do so, rather than produce a child with a "natural" handicap.
However, abortion is another way to avoid that unjust outcome.
Some schools in New Jersey have installed
fingerprint
scanners in the cafeteria.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on the FBI director to explain why they have not prosecuted the banks and banksters involved in causing the 2008 financial crisis.
US citizens:
call
on Obama not to ban kratom.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
various
ways to take action against banning kratom.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: Call on the UN to kick fossil fuel companies out of climate negotiations.
US citizens: call on Obama to end militarization of US thug departments.
California farmers are competing to pump increasing amounts of water out of diminishing aquifers, as the rainfall remains low.
Global heating is expected to mean even less rainfall. I wonder how long it will take before some of those farms run out of water.
How Charter Schools Bust Unions.
US blacks become discouraged from calling the thugs for help when they see thugs kill blacks rather than help.
US citizens: call on the FCC to ban unlicensed use of stingrays.
This petition says it doesn't work with Javascript disabled, but that seems to be a bug — in fact, it does work.
Paramount and CBS are still planning to crush a Star Trek fan video, despite the efforts of the movie director to prevent this.
If he cares strongly enough, he can make it unbearable for those companies to continue their rampage.
Some women chess masters want to boycott the next world championship because it will be held in Iran. And that's not to mention the danger of being arrested on bogus charges.
FIDE should have known better than to hold an event there.
The Drug Enforcement Agency infiltrates the TSA as well as many companies involved in shipping and transportation, to get information about passengers bypassing the legal requirements for search warrants.
Turkey has just closed 20 more broadcast stations arbitrarily for political reasons.
Las Vegas has thousands of abandoned homes, but instead of making them available to destitute people, it uses harsh new laws to jail the destitute for trying to live in them.
When the homes are truly abandoned, the state should seize them and sell them off. When they are held vacant by some owner, the state should impose a high tax until they have people living in them.
In US prisons, private companies do the cooking and get their profit by skimping on prisoners' meals.
The children in Jordan Downs public housing have high lead levels, probably because the land was contaminated by previous industry.
The Justice Department defends the use of unreliable forensic methods such as hair matching and bite mark matching.
Americans want to get rid of the Hyde amendment that bans Medicare funding for abortions.
To get this through the house, we will need to overcome Republican voter suppression and gerrymandering.
Senator Warren opposes allowing more charter schools.
As far as I can tell, most of them are schemes to divert public funds into wealth for a few.
Singapore Jails Teen Blogger Amos Yee for Anti-Religion Posts.
Can anyone find a transcript of what he said? I'd like to think about whether to say "right on!"
Thugs crushed a peaceful protest against the Dakota Access pipeline by menacing the protesters with shotguns.
Construction unions have great power inside the AFL-CIU and have pressured it to support fossil fuels.
For our survival, we need to disconnect the US labor movement from fossil fuels.
A study of several thug departments found that the consistent and predictable use of body cameras cut complaints about thugs' behavior by a factor of 10.
Both the thugs and the civilians seem to behave better knowing they are being monitored by an impartial witness.
Airlines are making air rage more frequent by reducing the space between seats.
Another reason why you shouldn't let web sites know who you are or what machine you are coming from: web sites are likely to move from targeted advertising to choosing what to show you in order to manipulate you to buy things.
Obama is worried that his successor will escalate world-wide drone warfare.
I agree, but he would have done well to try to limit the president's power to spread war when he had time and a better chance of success.
Canada has taken measures to curb speculation by foreigners in housing in Canada.
Canada's government has proposed a carbon emissions tax.
New York State ordered the Trump Foundation to stop fundraising in that state, as it has ignored laws about registration and auditing of charities.
It is also apparently guilty of diverting funds to Trump's private uses. He could end up in jail for this.
Greek thugs fired tear gas at a protest of a thousand retired people.
Old people are physically weak, but the thugs felt afraid because they have a moral weakness: defending an austerity government.
Black immigrants in the US are more likely to be deported after committing crimes than non-black immigrants, in similar cases.
CIA torture victims, later released, deserve compensation for the crime committed against them.
Tenants in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, fight to stop gentrification.
These struggles are worth trying, but what we really need is a lot more housing construction in our cities. To unlock this, we must eliminate the zoning requirements that limit how much housing can be built.
It is ok if the new housing is only for rich people, as long as there is plenty of it. That will drive down the price of the existing housing.
The tax on plastic bags in stores in the UK has been a great success in reducing litter. 90% of people carry bags with them all the time.
I've done that for several years now.
Colombians voted to reject the peace agreement with the FARC. The cease-fire remains in effect.
On top of rising seas, global heating will bring bigger hurricanes with bigger storm surges. There will be hurricanes in places where they don't happen now.
Apple is using forced labor in China and making people work 60 hours a week. Despite its enormous profits, it won't allow the expense of pushing workers less or attracting workers by choice.
The products being made oppress their users, too.
One reason why some working-class US whites feel Liberals don't understand them and don't care.
When it's a fact that some people feel this way, we can't argue with the facts. But I think they've drawn the wrong conclusion for who is responsible for what has happened to them. I say the ones to blame are the plutocrats that made the "waiting line" stall and move backwards. This is where distraction propaganda enters the issue: it focuses their attention on the blacks who were advanced in the line rather than on the billionaires that screwed workers in general.
Plutocratic politicians cause unemployment through macro-level policies. They promote the inadequate "solution" of job training as a distraction so people won't demand a real solution.
Plutocracy makes people sick: vaccinating chickens for salmonella in the US would prevent around 80,000 infections per year, but chicken farmers vetoed it to avoid the expense.
The system is culpable because it gives business this power, and the farmers are culpable for using this power.
Local journalists in Brazil were arrested for covering the massive eviction of slum residents whose homes had been demolished.
Trump is great at causing jobs to disappear. His casinos were "profitable" only because he used them to borrow money, then used bankruptcy to avoid paying it back.
On National Security, Trump and Clinton Found Plenty To Agree On.
In addition, they both condemn Snowden, which shows they're on the spooks' side, against journalism and democracy.
In many cases, invasive species flourish because some other competing species was wiped out by human action.
The hosting companies that run virtual servers for other companies are getting into the snooping game.
This means yet another reason why web site privacy policies are worthless: they apply only to the companies that publish them, which are the ones that use the virtual servers — not to the hosting companies that run them.
The US does not have a plan in place to meet the inadequate greenhouse gas reduction commitments it has made.
Facebook and Google enjoy so much power that it makes them dangerous.
I personally avoid being directly influenced by them because I almost never access them — but when they have influence over society as a whole, the consequences affect everyone. I can't avoid the effects of that influence, but I can and do avoid being an agent for their influence.
The Thai government stopped Amnesty International representatives from announcing a report on torture by the Thai police, by threatening to arrest them for "having the wrong kind of visa".
Despite the atrocious nature of Russia's attack on east Aleppo, it would be absurd for the US to intervene against it. Kerry wanted to do this, but Obama wisely refused.
Islamists such as formerly-al-Nusra (also formerly al-Qa'ida) are the main force on the other side, and it makes no sense to intervene in their favor.
The only force in Syria that deserves support is that of the Kurds, and it is far away from Aleppo.
The West Has to Look Beyond Aleppo's Agony.
Thugs attacked a protest in Ethiopia with tear gas, causing a stampede that killed 50 people.
They were protesting against the tyrannical nature of the government of Ethiopia.
Climate mayhem endangers puffins.
Perhaps we know why Trump doesn't want to show his tax returns: he claimed a billion-dollar loss in the 90s and may have used this to avoid paying any tax since then.
Wisconsin Republicans are defying court orders to cease voter suppression.
The Center for Political Accountability has pressured many large companies to adopt policies of reporting their political expenditures.
Student Ryan Turk is being prosecuted for "stealing" a milk carton from his school's lunch room. Although he wasn't stealing it, since he was entitled to milk with his lunch. The Authorities are unyielding; apparently they want to put someone in jail no matter how.
Parents, protect your children: insist on NO THUGS in your school!
The US government is investigating Mylan, manufacturer of the EpiPen, for misrepresentation to avoid taxes.
Quantitative easing keeps wages down, hurting workers, and keeps bank interest down, hurting the middle class.
The Justice Department found that Snowden was directly responsible for reducing the frequency of certain kinds of surveillance in the US.
Wells Fargo's pressure to sell its customers more kinds of accounts was established by 2000.
Integrating the US schools gave blacks a better education, and they came out better educated. Now resegregation has cancelled that out.
Mainstream economists keep reaching wrong conclusions based on bad theories, predicting that a plutocratist policy will have good results for people in general. When the opposite happens, they say, "What a surprise! Nobody could have predicted this!" Then the plutocrats forgive them so they can make more such predictions.
Obama (and US newspapers) think it is dangerous to let relatives of drone attack casualties sue the US, but want to allow foreign companies to sue the US.
About Syria's "White Helmet" rescue volunteers.
A deceptive ballot question in Florida surreptitiously aims at abolishing "net metering", which was set up to encourage people to invest in solar panels.
MSF asks Syria to please stop bombing hospitals.
Prison strikes continue in 40 or more US prisons.
"Prisons are the new plantations" — a scheme to convert many US blacks (and quite a few whites) into the equivalent of slave labor.
Trump harasses and intimidates non-Christians at his rallies.
The Trump Foundation operated as slush fund for Trump's personal needs, receiving money from people that had some reason to give it to Trump. But it never obtained state authorization to ask for donations, Trump may have to return all the money.
With US bombers and commandos fighting in Syria, how can they claim it is "not direct military intervention"?
The UN Human Rights Council abandoned the independent investigation of war crimes in Yemen.
Forget Paris, Scientists Say 'Radical Change' Only Way to Stay Below 2 Degrees (of global heating).
Some kinds of honey and oatmeal in the US contain significant levels of glyphosate.
Trump illegally spent money in Cuba looking for business opportunities there.
Certain types of trucks, that limit the driver's vision, are particularly dangerous to cyclists. London plans to ban them for safety.
Obama is trying to put the TTIP "back on track" to run us all over, and is still trying to impose the TPP on us.
The TPP is treacherous plutocratic poison. If they impose it, we will not surrender. We will fight until we eliminate the TPP, and we will end the political careers of the traitors that voted for it.
Canada has approved a new pipeline for natural gas export that would bust its greenhouse gas targets.
The world cannot afford to keep operating the existing fossil fuel mines and wells. Creating new ones is suicidal.
UK Government Works "Hand in Glove" with Arms Firms, Say Campaigners.
How to confront antisemitism in the UK Labour Party without defending Israel's occupation of Palestine.
Desalination of water from the Persian Gulf is making the water there saltier, so desalination gets more expensive.
The New York City thug department infiltrated a Black Lives Matter protest.
Sudan is using chemical weapons against people in Darfur.
Perhaps HP said it will retract its new printer cartridge DRM.
I can't tell for certain whether that is what HP has pledged to do. Does anyone know?
Why I do not support Gary Johnson for president.
A federal court ordered the Federal Election Commission to take action against blatant illegality.
The FEC is totally paralyzed, neutralized by Republicans that want no obstacles to their use of billionaires' money.
A civil rights museum refused Trump's requests for special treatment if he visited there.
Anyone that publicly accepts a meeting with Trump, and any institution that welcomes him, is being used by him.
An Israeli right-wing party leader suggested using the US election as an opportunity to annex Palestinian territory.
His idea is to make a monkey out of the US while candidates are falling on their faces pledging slavish loyalty to Israel.
Israel has already claimed to annex land around Jerusalem, and this claim shouldn't be respected either.
US citizens: support Obama's new rule that states can't arbitrarily block federal birth control funds.
Thugs in Maryland pulled a teenager off her bike, then pepper-sprayed her while she was handcuffed. Her "crime" was saying she didn't want help from the thugs, after her bike collided with a car.
Censorship spreads: part of Australia has made singing an "obscene" song a crime.
Alfred Olango in El Cajon was killed by thugs who didn't take the time to see that he was holding an e-cigarette rather than a gun.
The thugs said he was holding it "in firing position", but that is not the way people hold e-cigarettes, so I think they made it up.
A powerful storm knocked down part of the power grid in South Australia, and planet roasters are falsely claiming the cause of the blackout was too much use of wind power.
But even if their claim were true, their argument would be absurd. If we could save the world from global disaster at the price of an occasional blackout, what a relief that would be.
Australia proposes to make it a crime to re-identify anonymized data, but only data published by the state.
It is an interesting idea for protecting privacy. Of course, it should have limited exceptions for security testing and research in certain cases. But as long as it only applies to data that came from the state, it can't address much of the problem.
The European Parliament has approved arbitrary internet censorship, without even a trial, as an "anti-terrorist" measure.
FBI agent Parkinson reported other employees for breaking rules, and was fired. The Department of Justice is going to great lengths to screw him.
Using the FBI's plane for personal travel is defrauding the US treasury. It is valid to report that. However, when this person complains that someone uses the services of a prostitute, or watches porn, he is being a jerk. He should stop harassing other staff about their personal lives.
However, he shouldn't have been fired for that, or falsely accused.
The former intelligence head of Peru has been convicted of murdering three people in his headquarters. 15,000 others were disappeared in that period.
Congress overrode Obama's veto and passed the bill to end Salafi Arabia's immunity from lawsuits about supporting terrorist attacks in the US.
I don't know whether the Salafi state directly supported any such attacks. However, the Salafi sect, which it has spread around the Muslim world, is the basis for a lot of cruelty, and perhaps indirectly for terrorism.
Nearly all the asylum seekers that Australia dumped on Manus island are valid refugees in real danger of persecution if they return home. Australia cannot forcibly send them back.
So it is trying to coerce and bribe them into "voluntarily" going back into danger of torture or imprisonment.
Physicians for Human Rights says medical facilities in Syria have been attacked 400 times, nearly always by Assad's side.
Assad's men just bombed Eastern Aleppo's two largest hospitals — twice in one day.
Meanwhile, in Yemen it is Salafi Arabia (backed by the US) that attacks hospitals.
Russian journalist Denis Korotkov obtained from poll workers a sticker to let him vote many times. He used it, and reported on doing so. Now he is being prosecuted, but not the corrupt poll workers that gave out these stickers.
The UK's referendum about leaving the EU was preceded by an increase in attacks against Eastern European expats, and there were even more attacks after the vote.
US trade sanctions on Syria impede humanitarian aid, including medical supplies. The limits on funds transfers have encouraged an underground banking system, which PISSI finds useful.
Ukraine is considering a law to censor Russian books that criticize Ukraine.
What a horrible idea.
Wells Fargo executives will forfeit millions in pay, but they ought to be prosecuted for engineering massive fraud.
Governor Christie laughed when an official told him about the traffic jams caused by the bridge lane closures, as they were happening.
According to the World Health Organization, 90% of the world's population lives in zones with air pollution above safe levels.
The article says "92%", but I expect that is excessive precision.
Israel blocked Nadia Abu Nahla from travelling out of Gaza for a medical exam.
She needs the exam to see if her breast cancer is coming back.
Gush Shalom calls on Israel to allow the current Gaza aid boats to land.
Orly Noy explains why she, as a citizen of Israel, feels a responsibility to participate.
To save the Great Barrier Reef from short term threat requires protecting the forests of Northeast Australia.
The International Criminal Court has recognized destruction of cultural heritage as a kind of war crime.
Destruction of cultural heritage happens in many other situations, too. Salafi Arabia has destroyed much of Islam's oldest cultural heritage. The Dakota Access pipeline threatens to destroy cultural heritage, too.
What should we say about the Bush forces' carelessness which allowed the relics of the beginning of human civilization to be looted and their archaeological information scrambled?
Australia is forcing refugees it sent to Manus island to leave the former prison.
However, those who have tried to live anywhere else found themselves under attack from the local population.
A study suggests Earth could hit 9C of global heating (compared with 1900) within the next few thousand years.
If technological civilization survives, we will be able to remove the greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Perhaps with tailored bacteria. But if global heating's consequences put an end to high-tech manufacturing and science, everything we are letting loose will develop on its own.
US citizens: call for the US to block the Monsanto-Bayer merger.
The US teen pregnancy rate is falling, as more teenagers use contraception.
But the US still has a higher teen pregnancy rate than other developed countries.
The Dutch investigation concludes that flight MH-17 was shot down by a Russian Buk missile.
The launcher was spotted various times on its route to the territory of the Ukrainian rebels.
Of course it was a mistake. No one involved in that war would have fired intentionally at an airliner.
It would be wrong to prosecute the soldiers that fired the missile for this mistake. Errors are frequent in the fog of war, and they should not be criminalized.
The UK government got court approval to impose a harmful contract on most of the doctors in the National Health Service.
They planned a week-long strike, met criticism because that could have harmed patients, and their strength was defeated by this. The end result is a victory for the plutocrats.
Fussing about the fraction of high executives that are women is not just irrelevant for most women; it is a systematic distraction from the systematic factors that keep most women poor.
Now that we have found several bodies in the solar system that have liquid water, we should look for life in them.
The US drives destruction of the Amazon rain forest by importing oil extracted there.
The UK must put empty buildings to use as residences.
Residential property that has no primary residents, or too few, should be taxed very heavily. A few millionaires may still keep them, while supporting the treasury usefully. The rest will sell off their investment properties, and people will be able to live in them again.
Our atmosphere has permanently exceeded 400 parts per million of CO2, on the road to climate disaster.
Even if human industry stops, it would take millennia for the CO2 level to come back down to the safe level of 350 ppm.
The UN may call for negotiations on a new nuclear disarmament treaty.
This would be a good idea. Mutually Assured Destruction could work between the US and the Soviet Union, but it doesn't work at all against underground groups.
Thugs in El Cajon, California, say they shot and killed a black man because he pointed something at them in a "shooting stance".
He did not have a weapon, and there is no information on what it was the victim was pointing. But a witness said his hands were up when he was shot. Sounds like thugs fibbing again.
Helmeted hornbills are being wiped out by poaching and palm oil.
The bill appears to be valuable only because it is rare. In other words, a stream of fools draws other fools to follow them.
New York City, staring inundation in the face, will increase its push for renewable energy.
What it really needs to do is to force the big banks to stop financing fossil fuel projects.
As oil was extracted from the indigenous Loreto region of Peru, the money was extracted too, but the pollution and spills remain.
No Fracking, Drilling or Digging: It's the Only Way to Save Life on Earth.
In theory there is another way, but it is hardly feasible.
Neural networks have been trained to recognize blurred and pixillated faces.
This means current blurring and pixillation are no longer adequate for making a face unrecognizable.
In Syracuse [jail], A [teenager] Can Be Thrown in Solitary for Singing Whitney Houston.
The people in jail are minors but they are not children. It is important to avoid infantilizing teenagers. However, the point of the article remains valid.
Testimony suggests that Governor Christie knew about the plan to harass Fort Lee and its mayor by causing a traffic jam.
Requiring children to be driven everywhere, rather than walk, is dangerous to them and harmful to society.
Republican state attorneys general met secretly with Exxon to plan how to protect it from prosecution for its fraudulent global heating denial.
A religious nut in the UK has been convicted of the crime of telling a woman she would "burn in hell" for wearing tight pants.
While that religious doctrine is cruel, people should not be punished for stating it.
Obama has effectively blocked citizens from petitioning for endangered species protection.
The new rules are so hard that they make it effectively impossible.
Protesters keep blocking the parts of the Dakota Access pipeline construction that the government has not stopped.
Trying to have a democracy where corporations can act in politics is like driving on a highway with long heavy trucks that think they own the road.
The beginning of what we need is to amend the US Constitution to say that human rights are for real persons, not for corporations.
Don't give your (real) birthdate to an online service!
Actually, if the service wants to know who you are, you are well advised not to use it at all.
Despite a lot of opposition to CETA, it is not dead yet.
China is under pressure to stop breeding tigers for selling the parts.
I wonder why poaching continues with so much tiger farming. Surely farmed tigers are cheaper than wild tigers, so why does anyone take the risk of hunting them and smuggling them?
Airlines want to use carbon "offsets" as an excuse to continue increasing their greenhouse gas emissions, or else biofuels to reduce them. But neither method is reliable.
Growing plants specifically to make biofuel is sustainable only if they don't need fertilizer, pesticide, or much cultivation. And the "offsets" are often fictitious, such as planting trees and hoping that they grow.
A distraction campaign for fossil fools: banning fracking would cause "decline of manufacturing" in the UK.
This "decline" is by comparison with an imaginary world, in which global heating was not happening, and offshoring and automation of manufacturing had not happened.
The latest US terrorist attack was carried out by a right-wing extremist.
Overall, right-wing extremists commit a large fraction of US terrorist violence. Don't assume that Islamists are more dangerous than Christianists.
However, terrorism from all sources is a small danger in the US. Don't worry about it too much.
Washing synthetic fabrics releases lots of plastic microfibers that harm marine life.
Australia and East Timor are disputing which one will have the right to extract undersea fossil fuels and help destroy civilization.
The only safe answer to a dispute about who can exploit new fossil fuel deposits is, "Neither of you! Nobody!"
Thugs in Pakistan intentionally kill hundreds, perhaps thousands of people every year, then claim they were "resisting arrest".
They also use torture to extract confessions. These confessions may easily be false.
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund defends US artists from censorship.
I endorse its firm stand on freedom of expression: there must be no legal limits of "obscenity" or "blasphemy" on what people can draw, write or say.
Wells Fargo workers who were fired or punished for resisting pressure to commit fraud are now suing the bank.
Wells Fargo has been using quotas to pressure staff into fraud for years, in various different areas.
Tony B'liar thinks it is a terrible shame that British soldiers face investigation and possible prosecution for possible war crimes.
What's worse, current ministers think the same.
However, one minister wants Russian officials investigated for war crimes.
I think both sides should be investigated.
The UK confiscated a Syrian journalist's passport because Assad's men said it was "stolen".
Section 702 of FISA supposedly authorizes massive surveillance of non-Americans' communications, but in fact it collects lots of Americans' communications too.
Unprecedented and Unlawful: The NSA's "Upstream" Surveillance.
While we talk about unjust massive surveillance of the internet, keep in mind that unjust massive surveillance is not limited to internet use.
A small but dangerous loophole in the Consumer Review Freedom Act needs to be fixed before it is adopted.
Switzerland's people voted to permit massive government surveillance.
That article doesn't state how the law allows too much surveillance.
John Kiriakou calls for Americans to push for peace, and reminds us that CIA torture was directly approved by Dubya.
A former UK soldier says that he planted listening devices in the homes of suspected IRA terrorists, and those devices are probably still operating.
And he says he was sent on a mission to shoot two of them dead, because they were believed to be about to go shoot soldiers.
It is legitimate for a court to order surveillance of specific criminal suspects, but I don't think the army bothered to make it legitimate in that way.
It is legitimate to take action to stop a killing, but outside of war, "kill them first" is the wrong action to take.
US citizens: call for the US government to pressure North Carolina to repeal its law restricting release of videos made by thugs.
The new law prohibits release of thug videos without a court order.
The ACLU explains why the thug videos showing the killing of Keith Scott ought to be published.
Trump promised fossil fuel executives he would give them everything they want. Even more than Clinton would give them.
Since Trump makes a habit of lying, he might have lied to them. But we cannot take that for granted.
Did Trump lie in a debate with Jeb Bush, or did he lie in court?
There is one other possibility: he could have lied both times.
Donald Trump's Police State … he wants to abolish the constitutional rights of blacks and Hispanics.
Bad laws lure US money into finance instead of useful industry, and the result is a large reduction of investment in real activity.
DuPont and Monsanto regularly violate health standards in their treatment of migrant workers.
The UK regularly deports people before they can appeal, and has made out-of-country appeal so expensive and difficult that hardly any of them can try it.
Some have been deported back to persecution.
The UK is starting to collect nationality data about children in school, which seems to be designed to catch children in school to deport them.
A little bit of progressive policy has boosted US wages for a significant fraction of workers.
Germany has ordered Facebook to delete the data that came from WhatsApp.
ICC Sentences Islamic Militant to Nine Years over Timbuktu Destruction.
A study estimates that China's air pollution kills a million people per year.
That would be 5% to 10% of all deaths in China
For those that want to boycott Nestle because of its water grabs, here is a list of brands that Nestle owns.
The Russian "bunker-buster" bombs used on Aleppo are so powerful that buildings collapse just from the shock waves of the explosions. Their inhabitants die.
The EFF takes a strong stance against HP's printer DRM.
The one thing I would add is, "We must change the law to make DRM a felony."
Thousands of Saudis Sign Petition to End Male Guardianship of Women.
Facebook closed the accounts of some Palestinian journalists, but reenabled them after public criticism.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter at 202-224-3121 in support of the bill to allow Americans to sue Saudi Arabia for terrorist acts, just as they can sue some other countries.
US citizens: call for closing the carried interest tax loophole.
US citizens: call on the Senate to vote on the Presidential Tax Transparency Act.
Everyone: call on Obama to pardon Snowden now.
Lenovo gratuitously made some new laptops incompatible with Linux, so the GNU/Linux system cannot run.
The Netherlands will end use of coal by 2030.
I fear this is still not fast enough.
Governments timidly approach the idea of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes:
"Please, sirs, could we have some less?"
The murder of editor Lasantha Wickrematunge is being investigated; an official is suspected of carrying it out.
65 Spanish banksters are on trial, accused of stealing from their banks. One of them was also a minister for the right-wing party that used to form the government.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to investigate the
thugs that have harassed and framed people for recording the thugs'
wrongdoing.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
Immigrants Don't Steal Jobs or Wages. Billionaires Do.
One way all of us can can fight to curb fossil fuel investments such as the Dakota Access pipeline is to protest the banks that finance them.
The big banks hurt society in many ways, so let's take our money out!
The Clean Energy Future plan shows how the US can reduce greenhouse gases greatly while creating lots of jobs.
Alas, poor bankers, it won't give them the fossil fuel subsidies that they are getting now from enormous investments such as pipelines.
China has intimidated cinemas in Hong Kong so that they refuse to show a documentary about the protests there two years ago.
US citizens:
call
on Obama to fully stop the Dakota Access pipeline.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
call
for stronger regulations on on mountaintop removal mining and
requirements for local cleanup.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
What we really need is to ban it entirely, because continuing to burn coal means global disaster.
A Christian in Jordan was on trial for "insulting Islam". Even worse, he was assassinated before the end of the trial.
The Jordanian government, by prosecuting people like him, encourages violence.
Almost everyone in Nazi Germany took drugs, including the leaders, the soldiers, the workers, and the housewives. It was state policy.
Meth made blitzkrieg possible, but the long-term drug use surely ground everyone down. Defeat was almost inevitable, given enemies that didn't use amphetamines.
The latest effort to impose the Treacherous Plutocratic Poison is to present it as a form of global rivalry between the US and China.
To make us panic, they trace a chain of what-ifs leading to a possible conquest of Taiwan by China.
So, plutocrats — if there is something about the TPP that is so important, why don't you remove the unjust parts? Then no one would fight against it.
A new German law will crimp the sale of looted artifacts.
A hotel where Trump was going to hold an event arrested a journalist who was asking whether he would be allowed into the event.
The right-wing bigotry party in France is excluding some journalists from its rallies, too.
The Charlotte thug department released some videos of the killing of Keith Scott, which show he was not threatening anyone.
Most of the UK's brothels are connected to criminal gangs that are involved in other illegal activities.
This is the natural result of prohibiting brothels. When selling alcohol was a crime in the US, the underground alcohol trade was mostly controlled by mafiosi. Now it is mostly controlled by a few large companies, but they are not quite as bad as the mafia. (And our governments could and should have stopped the companies from merging.)
We should legalize them, and regulate them to protect their workers.
Senator McConnell and others are risking shutting down the US government merely to protect publicly traded corporations from being required to disclose their political spending. So not to this.
The UK is blocking a UN investigation of war crimes committed by Salafi Arabia in bombarding Yemen.
African gray parrots are endangered in the wild because of capturing them for use as pets.
The experience of being captured and caged is terribly traumatic for a wild parrot. Never buy a pet parrot without verifying it was raised by human breeders.
Assad's forces and Russia have reimposed the siege of Aleppo, and are bombarding civilians and rescue workers. They bombed the water supply station for the besieged half of the city.
Modern politically oriented crackers try to crack everyone's email in the hope of finding some dirt on some target.
The ideology of neoliberal globalization is losing out in politics to something even worse, exemplified by Putin, Trump, Erdogan and other authoritarians.
Watch out for a pitfall. The neoliberal elite (not to be confused with US Liberals, of whom I am an example) may be weakening politically, but the plutocrats who set it up and profited from it keep getting more and more power along with a bigger share of the world's wealth.
Clinton says she can destroy PISSI by killing its leader. That will be about as effective as killing bin Laden was for destroying al Qa'ida — not very.
Meanwhile, she proposes to "balance" privacy with surveillance, but I think the respect for privacy will be effectively only for show. The only real way to respect people's privacy is to redesign systems not to collect data about people.
Anthony Novak posted a parody of the local thug department's Facebook page. They charged him with a felony for this, and actually took it to trial. Now he is suing them.
Some US cities are taking action to limit how their thug departments use surveillance.
Ultimately the US sentenced Chelsea Manning to 7 days of solitary. That's not a lot, compared with what she endured in the past.
Solitary confinement as a punishment for a suicide attempt is an absurd idea, since solitary confinement tends to encourage suicide.
Perhaps the army wanted to drive Chelsea Manning to suicide, and then mostly backed down due to public criticism, but kept a token 7 days to save face.
Tawon Boyd called 911, and when the thugs came, one choked him to death.
Lobsters may be eradicated from US waters by global heating. Perhaps they will survive in the Arctic.
Corbyn won the Labour leadership campaign — with a higher percentage than last year. Labour's large right-wing fringe in Parliament must start acting constructively.
Egyptian thugs killed five people and accused them of killing Giulio Regeni, but now admit that they didn't do it and probably had nothing to do with it.
Britain is a tax haven and its foreign dependencies are even worse. Some Tory politicians already use them to dodge taxes.
Criticizing the idea of "parenting".
The UK government defines "non-violent extremism" as a threat, essentially a policy of punishing dissidents for being dissidents, and its example gives other countries an excuse to punish other kinds of dissidents.
A video shows Charlotte thugs were lying when they said that a gun fell at Keith Scott's feet when he was shot.
Apparently the thugs planted the gun there.
Protesters marched through the town demanding that the thugs release their videos.
SCROTUS rejected trying to limit campaign donations from foreign-owned companies.
Tar sands mining causes intense toxic local air pollution, as well as disastrous global CO2 pollution.
A Wells Fargo employee tried to report the widespread fraud, and was fired on a pretext.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Preventing Tragedies Between Police and Communities Act, to train thugs in de-escalation methods.
The Department of Justice says it will ignore the conclusion that some forensic methods, used in trials to convict people, are bogus.
The ACLU protects students when schools try to punish them for not giving positive endorsement to the national anthem or the pledge of allegiance.
Continuing to operate the existing fossil fuel mines and wells until they are exhausted would be enough to exceed 2C of global heating. To avoid disaster, we have to shut them down "prematurely".
Since exceeding 2C of heating would kill millions of people, I think that someone who destroys fossil fuel infrastructure should be able to claim the necessity defense (preventing a much, much bigger crime).
With each apparent act of terrorism, it takes less and less to excuse another attack on Americans' freedom.
Trump is the attacker now, but Clinton is not much of a defender of our liberty.
Under 8 years of Obama, the American people have forgotten the anti-war movement.
Brazil's acting president Temer admitted that the motive for President Rousseff's impeachment was her economic policies, not any wrongdoing on her part.
To end an injustice, you must campaign clearly against it. Resist the temptation to try to market yourself to the people who don't support the goal.
"Imagine if … Rosa Parks had said that … 'we understand the public's legitimate concerns' on desegregation."
Arguing that the only way to end poaching of elephants is to legalize raising elephants for their ivory.
I am not sure what will work.
Prisoners tortured by the CIA under the Bush regime describe the torture.
Germany's surveillance agency did massive illegal data collection and shared the results with the NSA.
"Free trade" cuts poor people's wages but not their cost of living. It tends to reduce the price of manufactured goods, but it doesn't reduce the price of food, and it can make housing more expensive. Poor people spend most of their money on food and housing.
The billionaire founder of Oculus is funding a project to spread irrational insults about Clinton, to support Trump.
I disapprove of Clinton's right-wing views, so I won't vote for her. But this tactic discredits those who do it, demonstrating that Trump is the candidate of the rich bastards without scruples.
Some US schools are firing teachers to pay for expensive high-tech "security" devices to "protect" against dangers so rare it is better to ignore them.
Belgium proposes to legalize massive surveillance with few restraints.
This is more dangerous to a free society than a few underground terrorists. By the way, now that Belgium is making a real effort to find terrorists, I think there will be few further attacks. The existing police powers are sufficient.
Trump defends the thugs that kill blacks.
He appeals to, and endorses (deniably, of course), every kind of bigotry or cruelty in the US that is widespread enough to get him substantial support. He should run on the Hate Party ticket.
Clinton, by contrast, is a more conventional Republican.
How global heating denialists can believe many contradictory "arguments" at once.
It is now clear that bicycle helmets cut the danger of a head injury in half, and the reduces the danger of a serious or fatal head injury even more.
Molly Crabapple comments about Trump, the sex fetish of the angry ignorant.
Professors and students in Ghana University want the statue of Gandhi removed, saying he was bigoted against Africans and endorsed the caste system (which he did).
I suggest they replace it with a statue of Dr Ambedkar.
Hydrofluorocarbons, used in refrigerators, are an important greenhouse gas.
"Paris climate goal will be 'difficult if not impossible to hit'." Especially since few if any countries are really even trying.
Thugs in Connecticut were recorded discussing what false charges to make against an inconvenient protester, after they illegally took away his recording device.
Poor countries borrowed lots of money, under the influence I suppose of banksters from rich countries that worked with corrupt governments or dictators. Now they won't be able to pay it back, and a financial crisis is feared.
This looks like an instance of what Naomi Klein calls the Shock Doctrine.
Now that the cease-fire is completely out of the way, Assad is attacking Aleppo.
Renters Unite to Demand Affordable Housing.
Trump's Ohio campaign manager claimed there was "no racism" before Obama was elected president. What, I wonder, was the NAACP fighting about 60 years ago?
US citizens: call on the Bureau of Land Management to stop selling leases to extract oil and natural gas.
Soil cannot absorb as much carbon as scientists had thought. That means the situation is worse than we thought.
EFF: A Digital Rumor (such as an IP address) Should Never Lead to a Police Raid.
The killer of Terence Crutcher has been charged.
The "gig economy" means goodbye to the 8-hour work day, pensions, medical benefits, unemployment insurance, and coverage for accidents at work. And goodbye even to the minimum wage.
We can call it the universal sweatshop, with a large fraction of the income going to the parasites that own the platforms.
Some of the systems that helped full-time workers need to be redesigned to fit independent workers. However, beside that, we should use our democracy to make all the platforms treat workers decently.
Brazil's corrupt Congress tried to sneakily pass a bill to give the members of congress amnesty for the corruption charges against them.
Crackers broke the security in a Tesla car and took remote control of its brakes.
This is possible because the design of the car's systems does not make security a priority. If the car's computers were properly compartmentalized, the car's web browser would not be able to do anything to the brakes.
The US economy has not yet recovered from the recession of 2008. The real unemployment rate is a lot more than the official 5 percent.
The UK is almost finished adopting Theresa May's snooper's charter, which is vague in calculated ways. There is no way to tell whether the surveillance will be total or merely orwellian.
It won't prevent the occasional terrorist attack, or course, but it will be devastating to democracy and freedom in the UK.
Recognizing a Palestinian state in the whole of the West Bank doesn't require expelling the Israeli colonists or compensating them. Just invite them to stay — as expats.
Malik al-Qadi, imprisoned without charges or trial in Israel, has been on hunger strike for 100 days. He has decided to choose death rather that accept arbitrary imprisonment.
Israel has just put 36 more Palestinians in prison without trial.
The word "detained" refers to what happens to me frequently when someone in the street recognizes me and wants to talk. To use such a word to describe putting someone in prison is a ridiculous understatement, so I never use the word for that.
Facebook has censored a number of French anti-racist campaigners.
False-balance journalism has convinced half of all Americans that individual voter fraud is a significant problem.
Actually, the only voter fraud that is a significant problem is fraudulently stopping blacks and hispanics from voting.
The proper response to "But you need a government ID to buy medicine" is, "That's an injustice, too." The abuse of opioids does harm, but we can reduce that harm by legalizing marijuana and by eliminating the very high doses that are supposed to last a whole day.
US citizens: call for an investigation of the pharma company Gilead for tax dodging.
US citizens:
Oppose voter
suppression measures.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call for adding a public insurance plan option to Obama's medical care system.
When parents are grief-stricken because their child died in a freak accident, they are likely to advocate very bad "safety measures". Let's not get our safety advice from people in that state.
Many thugs regard any large black man as threatening. Therefore they would shoot him dead given half an excuse.
Syrian aid workers say that the air attack on their aid convoy lasted a whole hour.
Russia is the chief suspect for the attack because it was done accurately at night — something Assad's air force generally cannot do.
Fitbit is not very good for helping people lose weight.
Meanwhile, it gives the manufacturer personal information (which it then offers to sell back to the user).
Thugs shot and killed Keith Scott, apparently because he tried to pull a book on them (though they claimed it was a gun).
I hope someone throws the book at them now.
The FBI inserted malware into thousands of computers based on an invalid, inadequate court order. The Supreme Court has already declared such orders valid for the future, which is dangerous to everyone.
8 suggestions for the next president to avoid climate mayhem.
Wells Fargo bank is set up to systematically encourage cheating customers, and this has resulted it cheating for years.
In Finland, children don't start school classes until age 7. Before that, they play — sometimes freely, sometimes led by a teacher.
After that, there is no need to struggle to get your children into a good school, because all the schools are good.
Another key to Finland's great educational system is a very good welfare system that ensures that hardly any children live in poverty. That saves them from stress that could contort their minds later in life.
To a large extent, the cause of bad educational outcomes is (1) insufficient funds for the school and (2) poverty in children's lives. Thus, when the US and the UK construct excuses to put the blame on the teachers, the teachers are being used as scapegoats.
Frackers dump toxic waste straight into the Gulf of Mexico.
In Arizona, bathing a baby or changing a diaper is now sexual assault. This is the natural development of the general US paranoia about anything that involves an adult and a child.
Officials surely won't prosecute every adult that touches a baby's behind — only those that officials dislike for some reason.
Curiously, I read that in the past it was common for Hopi mothers to rub male babies' penises to calm them down.
Some big US banks sponsored "climate week" to publicly endorse curbing global heating, but privately they still fund fossil fuels.
The banks are Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and BNP Paribas. Bank of America is funding the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Whenever a large company that is heavily involved with fossil fuels talks about reducing emissions from its own operations, it always strikes me as a distraction campaign.
Romanian gymnasts were brutally beaten by their trainers when they did not perform well.
The public option is not the same as a single payer system, and would not bring us the same advantages.
Thugs shot Terence Crutcher dead while he had his hands in the air. Various thugs have told lies to try to make the killing appear justified.
That's thugs for you.
Once Sanders conceded the Democratic nomination to Clinton, she cut down her mention of global heating by 50%.
Aside from a few schools which are especially violent, students are safer if there is not a thug in the school.
The Clinton Foundation is a real charity with some associated abuses. By contrast, the Trump Foundation is a pile of abuse with some occasional associated charity.
Trump used money from his "charity" to pay legal judgments against him.
Trump avoids losing support when these wrongs (perhaps crimes) are exposed by refusing to recognize that they are shameful.
Turkey plans to conquer a certain area of northern Syria, currently divided among rebels, PISSI and the Kurds, and settle Syrian refugees there.
The Israeli military does a lousy job of investigating itself for possible war crimes.
375 members of the National Academy of Sciences warn Trump that nature would punish his planet-roasting plans grievously.
The past year's global coral bleaching event might be an annual event 10 years from now, as the heating accelerates.
Bayer and Syngenta did research which determined that their neonicotinoid pesticides harm honeybee colonies, then covered it up.
Campaigning to encourage vasectomy world-wide can reduce population growth.
The US Senate failed to block the arms sale to Salafi Arabia.
China has imprisoned Ai Weiwei's lawyer
This is part of a general campaign to make it easy to ignore laws when persecuting dissidents.
Archaeologists and historians condemn the Dakota Access pipeline for destroying historical artifacts.
The SEC is investigating Exxon's climate deception as possible fraud against stockholders.
Kyler Davies, on the first day of school, found a knife in his backpack which had been purchased used. He turned it in, and was suspended from school.
Kyler and his classmates got a valid lesson about the injustice of applying "zero tolerance" in a school. But we do wrong to make students learn such things the hard way.
A coral reef used for lots of movies has 30% of the coral dead and more dying.
It is part of the Great Barrier Reef.
The countries in the UN have agreed to prioritize preventing antibiotic resistance.
To carry out this pledge requires changing laws.
Samsung, LG and Vizio TV sets are designed to be energy-efficient in government tests, but not in real use.
A radio device can detect people's heartbeat and determine their emotions from that.
It should be illegal to operate such a device in such a way that it could detect people outside your own residence without a court order limited to a specific place and time period.
Low-level programmers in San Francisco work 15-hour days and can rent a closet for $1500 a month.
Give it up and become an activist for Sanders — you have a better chance of a decent life that way.
Wage Gap Between White And Black Americans Is Worse Today Than in 1979.
The US still plans to punish Chelsea Manning with solitary confinement for her suicide attempt.
You have to be vicious to punish a person for despairing of life.
The US and China have released lists of their subsidies for fossil fuels.
I wonder when the planet roasters will propose a special subsidy for amphibious cars as the way to cope with the increasing floods caused by global heating.
Activist Andy Hall was convicted by the Thai military regime for investigating and reporting on enslavement of workers in Thailand.
We should suspect every company in Thailand of using enslaved workers, since the state will not allow people to distinguish which of them do and which of them don't.
Today's society is so isolating that people are starting to pay for dining companions and walks.
I don't see anything wrong with offering these services, or using them, but the need for them is a symptom of a deep problem which is very important.
I suspect the cause is so much use of digital communications.
The leaked text of the Trade In Services Agreement shows that negotiators are planning to directly oppose efforts to save Earth from global heating disaster.
The draft text calls for "energy neutrality" between renewable and fossil fuels, and a ban on subsidies for renewable energy.
Would it require an end to fossil fuel subsidies? I doubt it. The planet roasters will have set up some sort of loophole for themselves.
Italy's Supreme Court ruled that newspapers must delete articles after two years, if someone objects to them.
Haiti has cut down its forests; the Dominican Republic has preserved them. This makes a big difference.
However, don't think that Haitians chose the wrong path because of some absurd fault of theirs. The heavy burden of reparations, imposed by France in exchange for recognizing Haiti's independence, probably helped direct Haiti into a trajectory of permanent poverty, which the US has helped perpetuate ever since.
Facebook threatens to subsume newspapers and magazines, gaining unprecedented power.
When a company has dangerous power, it is irrelevant whether it got that "fairly" in a "in a competitive open market". We should not let that irrelevance distract us from what matters: protecting ourselves from their power.
Either Russia or Syria bombed UN food aid trucks, in a gross war crime.
Putin will surely try to equate this to the accidental US bombing of Syrian soldiers in a town besieged by PISSI. That's a typical Putinesque background lie.
A mother explains why she has stopped buying toys for her children, since they cause several kinds of harm.
Too bad the author doesn't apply the same ability to analyze and judge to the question of how she plays music. She would see that the modern "replacements" for CDs have problems comparable to those of Toys R Us.
UC Berkeley has reinstated the class on the occupation of Palestine after determining that it did not impose a specific point of view.
Matt Taibbi: Today's false-balance news stories exist because the public has encouraged that approach to journalism, and other bad approaches.
When people do things that cause harm, the first obvious idea is to call it "human error". They are clearly making bad choices. But we can look more deeply and ask, did the system encourage these errors?
When lots of people make a foolish choice, there is generally a systemic explanation. People don't choose clickbait because they like to be disappointed by the story they finally see. Rather the functioning of journalism is a system, and the system has a flaw that leads to results we find flawed.
People don't prefer clickbait because they like to be disappointed by the story they finally see. And news sites don't deliver clickbait, or horse-race journalism, because that's what readers people sincerely and deeply want. Rather, they are operating in a system which leads publishers and readers to go down that path.
Can we find a way to change the system of publication so that it gives different results?
Perhaps surveillance-based advertising is part of why the system works this way. We need to get rid of that anyway, for privacy's sake. Would that have the byproduct of encouraging better journalism?
Italy is considering a law that would fine web site operators for publishing anything that someone takes offense at.
The UK plans competition among water companies.
I hope it produces better results than competition among train lines.
The AFL-CIO takes a narrow view of oil extraction and pipelines: anything that makes jobs today is good.
The thugs that killed 13-year-old Tyre King probably lied when they claimed he pulled his BB-gun on them, because "more likely than not" he was running away when they killed him.
The [UK] Austerity Agenda Isn't Over. More People Will Sink Further Into Poverty.
Reich: Every Aspect of Trump's Trickle-Down Economic Plan Benefits Him.
Experiments on animals are essential, in some cases, for progress in medicine.
I am in favor of these experiments.
A soak-the-poor law in Chickasaw, Alabama, that made it a crime not to pay a water bill, has been repealed.
A soak-the-poor legal system in Ferguson led to systematic repression of the black inhabitants there.
The Syrian cease-fire has problems, but the US and Russia have not given up hope.
The other problem is that the US and allies bombed Syrian troops on one occasion, in a town besieged by PISSI. The US says that this was a mistake and that PISSI was the intended target.
Many car companies sell diesel cars that grossly violate NO2 emissions standards.
It's not just Volkswagen.
This pollution causes lots of deaths, but the EU does not seem to be taking the issue very seriously.
Peter Van Buren apologizes to his daughter for an America contorted and sickened by irrational fear of terrorism.
A statistical model suggests that air pollution from the forest fires in Indonesia last year killed around 100,000 people.
Those fires were set in order to destroy rainforest and create plantations.
Turkey is blocking Syrian refugees from accepting resettlement offers from the US simply because they have university degrees.
The motive may be a valid one.
US citizens: call on the DOJ to hold Wells Fargo executives accountable for the recently admitted massive fraud against large numbers of customers.
Experiments show that more CO2 than now won't help plants, but future higher temperatures will hurt plants.
Don't Just Pardon Edward Snowden; Give the Man a Medal.
Global heating is spreading plant plagues that are wiping out many species of trees and other plants in forests around the world.
"When Alexa is listening, what do you tell houseguests?"
I think you should unplug the device for the sake of your guests' privacy. You'd be a fool to believe it listens only at the times they claim it does.
When I stayed in a home with an Alexa device in the room where I often worked, I unplugged it.
Airport-style security theater has been applied to the Smithsonian museums and even Arlington National Cemetary. It does no good and lots of harm.
I might have wanted to visit some Smithsonian museums if I were ever in DC again, but not if there's a 30-minute wait to get in.
The author's conclusion is not strong enough: we are already far beyond the point where security measures compromises our principles. These searches are just a big annoyance, but it is no disaster to stay away from those places. Other "security" measures, such as massive surveillance, put democracy in danger.
I hope someone starts a campaign to withdraw these security measures.
U.S. Taxpayers Have Been Forced to Pay Over $3.2 Billion on Sports Stadiums.
Dams in tropical areas cause mega methane emissions.
David Smith was unable to get a job because a data base recorded a criminal named David Smith.
I agree that these data base checks should be more careful, but in addition, if we don't want to force all real ex-cons to pursue a life of crime, we need to make sure that lawful jobs are available to them.
A school thug handcuffed a 10-year-old kid for crying. Literally.
The Washington Post calls for prosecution of its own news source (Snowden, that is).
An Indian army base in Kashmir was attacked by suicide bombers apparently based in Pakistan.
Pakistan has a long history of supporting terrorism/guerrilla in Kashmir. However, not everyone in Kashmir that criticizes Indian rule is a supporter of terrorism. India's repressive laws in Kashmir are not that different from terrorism.
Around 1950, India promised Kashmiris a referendum about whether Kashmir would be part of India or not. India should hold the referendum and allow Kashmiris to decide the question in a peaceful way.
US citizens: Call on Democrats to push for a public option for medical coverage.
This was part of Obama's original proposal, but lobbying from private insurance companies pressure Congress to remove it. Now we see the results they were lobbying for.
Private insurance is the wrong model for medical care, since everyone needs that and we must make sure no one is left out.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to investigate harassment of people that document thugs' violence, and train thugs to respect their rights.
In the Canadian Arctic, it is now sometimes warm enough to swim.
A gasoline pipe broke in Alabama and spilled a million gallons.
Through a great stroke of luck, this spill avoided polluting rivers and flowing down to the Gulf of Mexico. Next time, we might not be so lucky. Clearly the laws about pipeline maintenance have to be enforced strictly. If ever there was a place for zero tolerance, this is it. "Fail to check your pipeline every month, go to prison."
The FBI decided to allow agents to pretend to be journalists.
While that has a clear short-term advantage, in the long run it threatens journalism.
Photographer Edward Burtynsky says his photos show that: 'We've reached peak everything', as we overuse every major resource.
Our leaders go to war without real need, and without paying attention to the harm that it may cause a few steps down the road.
Uri Avnery says that peace can happen even between old enemies. He believes that a true Palestinian state can make peace possible in Israel/Palestine.
A large US project will direct more water into the Florida everglades.
To try to reestablish lost wetlands could be useful in the long term but only if we curb global heating. The whole of the Everglades are under 4 meters above sea level. If global heating continues, a large part of the Everglades will be inundated in this century, and the rest afterwards.
Trump announced a "press conference" in Washington DC which was really just publicity for his new hotel.
The US press are so obsessed with "balance" that they are putty in the hands of a bullshitter such as Trump.
Republicans in the Federal Election Commission killed a proposed rule designed to block foreigners from donating to US election campaigns.
Norway intends to kill 47 wolves out of a total of 68 living in the country.
It is always possible for a species to multiply out of control, but 22 wolves in a country the size of Norway can hardly be too many.
US citizens: call on Senate Republican leaders to vote on new federal judges.
Six former New York prison thugs have been sentenced to years in prison for beating up a prisoner.
Trump has returned to suggesting the idea of assassinating Clinton. Apparently he thinks his supporters are more murderous than hers.
Professor Plante teaches a course called Sociology of Sexualities, but she had to omit coverage of sexual violence because too many students said it triggered their trauma memories.
When New Jersey thugs take people's cash without charging them with a crime, they go through legal shenanigans to push up the filing fee to challenge the seizure. Victims have to pay more money to object than was actually taken from them.
My view is that "civil forfeiture", i.e. punishing people on mere suspicion, is unjust and unconstitutional. The law claims that it isn't a punishment, but the law is lying.
1/3 of Salafi Arabia's air attacks in Yemen have hit civilian sites.
When poor Americans get out of jail, typically broke, they are told they have to pay a fine right away.
UC Berkeley's administrators cancelled a class that was dedicated to studying and criticizing Israel's occupation of Palestine.
It is an error to equate criticism of Israeli policy with antisemitism, but it seems valid that an academic course should not endorse a specific political position.
US citizens: call for an investigation of the Crosscheck scheme for disfranchising minority voters.
US citizens: call on Obama to make the EPA take quick action to protect pollinators.
Indonesia has made a deal with the EU to indicate the source of all timber. This is an attempt to end illegal logging.
European countries are sending Africa diesel fuel that produces extra high levels of toxic air pollution.
The US is increasing its annual donation to Israel to 38 billion dollars. The donation consists of US military equipment plus support for extension of Israeli colonies in the West Bank.
A company that makes internet-controlled vibrators is being sued for collecting lots of personal information about how people use them.
The company's statement that it anonymizes the data may be true, but it doesn't really matter. If it sells the data to a data broker, the data broker can figure out who the user is.
The Tories have made the NHS "junior doctors" back down from their planned strikes.
The term "junior doctor" sounds like a sort of apprentice, but that is not what it means. Those people are not trainees. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a clear, simple description of just who the term does include. These news articles never give even a hint.
The result of this is that the NHS will increasingly struggle to find doctors. It will have to use people that are less qualified, and run them ragged so they make lots of mistakes.
The Tories surely know this; surely they are banking on it as an excuse to say that the NHS is a failure. Then they can replace it with a US-style system that provides real health care only to the wealthiest Britons.
Specific everyday words are correlated, in the world's languages, with specific sounds.
Colombia has legalized medical marijuana.
US planes bombed some of Assad's troops. The US says this was a mistake; Russia says it was intentional, but that claim is absurd.
The claim is absurd because hitting Assad's troops in that one place doesn't serve any US interests. Putin is pushing another nutty conspiracy theory, hoping to be believed by people who will believe any accusation as long as it's against the US.
A dog or cat in a wealthy country uses a lot of resources.
Of course, having a pet is less long-term ecological burden than making another human being. But why not have a parakeet or cockatiel? They are delightful and sweet, eat only plants, and not a large quantity of those.
A refugee imprisoned on Nauru by Australia has severe heat disease and needs medical care he cannot get in Nauru. Australia decided to make him stay on Nauru.
We should not let the squabble for resources under the Arctic Ocean distract us from the magnitude of the global heating disaster that makes the squabble possible.
It is more important than ever to prevent oil extraction in the Arctic. To the risks of drilling for it and pumping it have now been added the certain disaster of burning it.
If someone can find a way to collect and ship the methane that will increasingly bubble out of the sea bottom, that would be a good fuel to use. It would cause less global heating (for the first several decades) burned as CO2 than in the air as methane.
Everyone: call for dropping charges against Amy Goodman.
Eritrea Is a Prison State — No Wonder So Many Are Desperate to Escape.
The description reminds me of the Soviet Union under Stalin, but even more so.
Does anyone know whether the US loves and supports the dictator of Eritrea?
The neighboring countries, Egypt and Ethiopia, are US-supported dictatorships. Ethiopia remains hostile to Eritrea. I wonder if it is possible for Eritrean activists to get Ethiopian sponsorship to organize to overthrow the dictator.
The Tories say the announced, pending cuts in welfare payments will be the last ones.
They have not promised to stop the policies that reduce public housing and drive up rents, or to stop sabotaging the NHS to convert it into a US-style system that will let non-wealthy Britons die like non-wealthy Americans.
Israel has created a secret agency to try to fight the Palestinian
boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign,
which
it calls "terrorism". It uses public propaganda, a network of
foreign supporters, and secret operations, and aims to set up laws
blocking participation in that campaign.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
The propaganda includes widely spread disinformation. For instance, the boycott does not apply to Israelis (human beings) at all, only to Israeli institutions and corporations under certain conditions.
I do not support that campaign overall, but I support the efforts to block Israel from crushing it with prohibitions. It is wrong to label this nonviolent campaign as "terrorism" or to equate it with antisemitism (a form of bigotry which which I condemn).
Israel has already adopted a law that punishes individuals and organizations that advocate the limited boycott of West Bank colonies and factories therein. Gush Shalom was forced to drop that boycott, lest it be destroyed through this law. I, as a supporter in spirit of Gush Shalom, continue to advocate this boycott, since I am safe outside Israel.
Some US colleges now nearly force students to rent textbooks from Amazon.
If you are a student at such a college, please refuse to buy from Amazon. Everyone should refuse to buy from Amazon.
An ACLU staffer suggests a way to respond if thugs ask for your DNA to see if you are a suspect.
Global heating could make people more inclined to violence.
California is trying to lead the way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The EU Court of Justice ruled that operating an open WiFi network does not make one liable for damages to the copyright industry.
However, the court suggested that the enemies of sharing might get an order to put a password on the WiFi network. That may do just as much harm as was threatened.
I urge people in Europe to systematically operate open WiFi networks so that there are too many for our enemies to get rid of.
The Guardian published long articles about how the Senate investigators struggled with the CIA to get the truth about CIA torture. US media ignore the story completely.
Everyone:
sign
this petition opposing the merger of Bayer and Monsanto.
When Trump accepted that Obama was born in the US, he took the
opportunity to spread
additional
bullshit lies.
Everything he says about what he would do if elected is bullshit;
if you believe any of it, you're asking to be taken.
Bluetooth devices
frequently
announce their identities, even when on standby, making it easy to
track people by whatever bluetooth stuff they are carrying.
The Sioux word
"wetiko"
denotes a sort of hubris in which people think they can dominate
nature.
A plan for
bringing
an end to plastic pollution, particularly in the ocean.
Legalizing medical marijuana leads to a
decrease
in opioid use.
EU citizens:
sign the Change
Copyright petition.
I post this while holding my nose about some points in the formulation
of the petition. For instance, its mention of Facebook and Instagram
without condemnation grants them undeserved legitimacy. Also, it
describes publications as "content".
These are definitely not all the changes needed in copyright in the
EU, but they are needed and they are not bad.
The page malfunctions with LibreJS, but it does work when Javascript
is entirely disabled.
An Indian court recognized the true purpose of copyright law:
to
serve
the public.
Here's
my
explanation of that issue.
Wells Fargo executives claim, in effect, that the company is too big
to be managed. Thus, Public Citizen proposes the company
should
split up.
Drug factories release their wastes, including antibiotics, into local
waters —
promoting
drug resistance.
The simplest way to end this is to impose a rising tax on antibiotics
made in factories that have not certified acceptable waste handling.
The tax would start small, but it would be twice as much in the second
year, three times as much in the third year, and so on. Manufacturers
would make sure to correct their problem within a few years.
US citizens:
call
on Obama to revoke the permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The drug baclofen
seems
to cure a lot of patients from alcoholism. Some are permanently
cured.
Experiments find that MDMA
can
be very good for treating PTSD.
What makes a good leader? Perhaps having the
courage
to take unpopular stands that are vindicated by subsequent
history.
India blocked Kashmiri activist Khurram Parvez from traveling to
Geneva to
submit
a report about Kashmir to the UN Human Rights Council. He was
then jailed arbitrarily for no stated reason.
Tens of thousands of prisoners in the US are probably on strike,
but it is
hard
for them to get news out.
Senator Warren called on the FBI to release its internal
investigations of banksters so we can see
how
they decided not to accuse them of crimes.
The thugs who killed Tyre King
claim
that he pulled out his airgun and pointed it at them.
Not a very plausible story.
Dakota thugs have
charged
nonviolent pipeline protesters with felonies. This is repression
getting serious.
Trump can't release his tax returns because
people
would find a lot to criticize.
Trump's energy policy is to
burn
everything in sight, fill the air with toxic pollution, and melt the
ice caps.
He doesn't say, but I guess he figures his family will buy its way out
of the resulting disaster.
Italian anti-fascist activists say that an undercover thug infiltrator
tried
to convince them to commit arson. They were not inclined towards
violence.
Chinese thugs beat up and arrested Hong Kong journalists who were
trying
to visit a town where people are protesting.
The Federal Trade Commission held a consultation about privacy with
researchers …
funded
by Google.
I fear that the questions considered will be minor details of a
fundamentally unacceptable system that collects massive data about
everyone.
The bird population of North America has
dropped
by 1.5 billion since the 1970s, due to human activities of course.
Full details on Scott Walker's ties to the "independent" political
action group,
Wisconsin
Club for Growth.
Culture exists to be
remixed
— reject any attempt to forbid remix.
Universities must be safe spaces for
free
speech.
The US government
underestimates
the number of poor people by setting the "poverty level" too low.
The UK is considering setting up a
national
internet filter to block malware sites. This is supposed to be ok
because the UK imposes filtering on the internet. However, that just
shows the injustice of the UK.
Here are
more
arguments against the plan.
For the second time, thugs in Ohio
shot
a tweenager for carrying an air gun.
It appears that they were so quick to shoot that they didn't bother to
check the situation. 911 was informed that the gun was "probably
fake". Did the 911 operators ignore this or did the thugs ignore
this?
The International Criminal Court will henceforth consider cases of
environmental
destruction or taking people's land.
ITT Tech charged students lots of money for degrees which did not
enable them to get the promised jobs. It has shut down, but its
former students are stuck with big debts for the loans to pay for the
worthless degrees. They have started a
debt
strike.
Thugs often legitimize the violence of Trump supporters against protesters,
and the major media
don't
mention it much any more.
US Marine Corps drill instructors go in for
frequent
brutality and hazing, sometimes causing serious injury, and drove
one cadet to death.
More on
why
the Monsanto-Bayer merger would be harmful.
Would the combined company be called "Monyer"?
If Trump becomes president, his business will turn into a pile of
conflicts
of interest involving foreign entities.
The Syrian government is
blocking
UN humanitarian aid in Syria.
I wonder how much the cease fire is holding, aside from that.
US citizens: phone your senators at (202) 224-3121 to support
SJ
Res 39, which is the resolution to disapprove the proposed giant
arms sale to Salafi Arabia.
This arms sale is meant to continue the
US-Salafi
bombardment of Yemen.
The population of the Marshall Islands are
fleeing,
a few at a time, to the US. It is clear the islands are doomed by
sea-level rise. They would all be wise to by the end of the agreement
in 2023, except for those who are likely to die anyway before the
islands are uninhabitable, which will take just a few decades.
The UK decided to build the
absurdly
expensive Hinkley Point nuclear power plant, which will produce
the most expensive electricity available and dangerous nuclear wastes
besides.
The tremendous expense will hold back investment in renewable
generation and power storage.
Everyone:
call
on debate moderator Lester Holt to focus on making democracy
represent everyone.
Junior Sterling, who needs a wheelchair, is housed in London in an
infested apartment with moldy walls. The shower is turned off, and
the kitchen can't be used. It is
not
easy for him to get down stairs to go anywhere.
A Philippine militia member testified that Duterte
ordered
him and his colleagues to carry out murder. They killed a
thousand people.
In the past 8 years,
just
9 prisoners released from Guantanamo have joined groups that fight
the US.
How many others joined those same groups because they were angry about
Guantanamo? Surely more than 9000.
We should release all the prisoners in Guantanamo, or in a few cases
give them a fair trial.
The staff at one Finnish company set up a sensor and computer system
to indicate vacant toilet stalls and to
see
where in the office their friends are working.
When the staff decide to do this, it is a good hack; but you know
it won't take long for employers or insurance companies to impose
total surveillance.
Doñana national park in Spain has
lost
most of its water supply to human activities, and the wildlife
there are in danger.
India hasn't enough water for all the human activity, and
riots
are breaking out about a decision of how to divide it up.
In Spain, the problem is due to business, but the amount of
agriculture in the world today is a problem because of human
population. With only one billion people, we would have no problem.
In India, the problem is directly related to overpopulation. India
must curb its population growth to have a chance of lifting its people
out of poverty.
Climate models now permit scientists to quickly determine
how
much global heating contributed to any particular weather event,
including unnatural disasters.
Everyone:
Call
on several large companies to remove deforestation from their beef.
US citizens:
urge
your congresscritter to reject anti-science riders in the budget
bill.
Feyisa Lilesa, Ethiopian Olympic runner,
made
a gesture of support for the Oromo people when he raced. Now he
has asylum in the US, as he would be persecuted if he returned there.
Many Americans respond to Colin Kaepernick's protest by trying to make
the US more like Ethiopia.
The Oromo are running into the combination of ethnic hostility and
state-supported
corporate landgrab.
US citizens:
call on
Congress to pass a robust tax on financial transactions.
While Trump makes rash threats of nuclear war, Clinton
avoids
the issue of how to deal with nuclear weapons.
I disagree with the idea that nuclear weapons are the number one
threat to security. The number one threat is
global
heating. Nuclear weapons may be number 2.
Greater Good Versus Lesser Evil: don't make the mistake of
voting
for an evil candidate.
In the two year period 2011-2012, thugs in schools made
64000
arrests.
From 2013 through 2015,
59
people were shot in schools and 124 were injured by shooting in
schools.
Even though they are not the same periods, it is clear that having a
thug in your child's school is hundreds of times as likely to ruin the
child's life as to protect it.
Chelsea Manning
gained
her demands for gender-change treatment and ended her hunger
strike.
Trump and the Republican Party Are
Doing
Big Oil's Bidding.
Why it is
difficult
and takes time to determine whether e-cigarettes are helpful or
harmful.
"Extinction is the
bycatch
of consumerism."
If you refuse to have children, you will do some good.
Household dust contains
many
chemicals known to be toxic to humans.
If it is in our products, it will get into the dust.
The Pentagon has decided to consider future global heating effects
in
every aspect of its operations.
Why don't the rest of us?
A study predicts computers will replace
6%
of existing US jobs in just 5 years. Even if it overestimates by
2, losing just 3% of jobs would be a disaster already.
The US has no plan for how to help the millions of newly unemployed.
As increasing numbers of people compete for fewer jobs,
plutocratist politicians will surely blame those who lose
for not being superior enough to win. Some will try to
organize whites to gang up to deny blacks a chance in these contests;
but that tactic, besides being unjust, won't suffice for long.
By 2030 there won't be enough jobs even for the whites.
Here's an idea: tax the use of automated drivers, customer service,
and other things, and use that money to give the unemployed a decent
life.
The UN Human Rights Council is sponsoring negotiations for an
international
treaty to restrain the power of international corporations.
Young Americans continue their lawsuit to require the US government to
protect them (and everyone else)
from
the disasters that global heating will increasingly cause.
Join Demonstrations
against DRM
in W3C standards.
Scott Walker's fundraiser directed campaign donations from
embarrassing sources to an "independent" PAC. This seems to
be illegal.
California has given farm workers the right to overtime pay.
Ex-president Lula faces corruption charges. The judge seems to be honest and nonpartisan.
US citizens: call on Congress to protect the CFPB and Dodd-Frank law from the Republican attack.
Our extermination of large marine animals will disrupt ecosystems for millions of years.
Wisconsin Supreme Court judge Prosser voted to kill a state investigation
into suspected illegalities in his own re-election campaign's fund raising.
Some of the money came from Trump. That may not have been illegal,
but it should show Americans where Trump stands on democracy.
(He's against it.)
Maybe the DEA wants to ban kratom so as to have something to do
when marijuana is legalized.
Some cities give medals to cops (perhaps they qualify as police
officers) that de-escalate confrontations to a peaceful end, but one
thug department in West Virginia fired an employee for not killing a
man who was carrying an unloaded weapon.
Housing and Urban Development took a step to get rid of the local laws that evict people for calling 911.
Obama's medical insurance law reduced the number of Americans without
medical coverage by 40%, but that still leaves almost 30 million
people without coverage. Meanwhile, many who do have medical insurance
have to pay unaffordable amounts from their own pockets.
We need a national health service, like what Canada has. Nearly all
advanced countries have one.
Donald Trump's Not Anti-War, He Just Wants the U.S. Military to Focus
on Stealing Oil.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose the TPP.
Monsanto wants to merge with Bayer, but this concentration in the seed
and pesticide business must not be allowed, and it would violate US
antitrust law.
US-based companies that leave cash parked outside the US should lose
all the legal advantages of being "US companies".
I disagree with Reich when he legitimizes contributions from corporations to
political campaigns. Even the companies that don't dodge taxes should
not be allowed to get in the way of democracy.
15 years of fear-mongering have made Americans so frightened that they
assumed the man giving away teddy bears must have a vicious intention.
But all he had was a pile of teddy bears his father no longer
wanted
to keep.
US aid funds, distributed in Afghanistan without much accounting,
boosted corruption there. Corruption was their tradition already, but the US gave them a lot more money to be corrupt with.
More about how sugar companies distorted medicine in the 1960s and continue trying to distort it now.
Governments now regularly crack anyone's computers to spy on them,
and they are rapidly discarding all effective legal restraint.
Please don't call security-breaking "hacking"; that is an insult to us
hackers. Please call it "cracking".
Five Deadly Sins of Big Pharma.
Donald Trump, After Blasting Iraq War,
Picks Top Iraq Hawk as Security Adviser.
Here's what it suggests to me: Trump wants to say one thing out loud
to the public and another thing quietly to the military-industrial complex.
Facebook is consulting with Israel about censorship of Palestinians.
The lines are drawn in different places for Israelis and Arabs.
Here is a summary of charges against Oakland thugs from their involvement
with non-adult prostitute Celeste Guap.
The first two — sex with a minor and engaging in prostitution
— should not be crimes at all. "Lewd act in public" should at
most be a minor crime. The others should be crimes.
Long Island University planned in advance to lock out all the
professors.
Administrators
have been ordered to teach as scabs in fields they are not
qualified to teach.
The students support the professors against the administration.
The Students for Justice in Palestine at City College, New York,
campaigns to end Israel's occupation of Palestine. As typically
happens, it was accused of supporting anti-semitism. An investigation
found that this accusation was
nearly
totally false.
The City College campus is not entirely free of anti-semitism, but
that and the SJP are separate.
1/3
of Gazans that ask for permission to travel for medical treatment
do not get permission. Most of those don't even get an answer.
Israel demonstrates its double standard when it legalizes houses built
without permission by Jews, and
demolishes
houses built without permission by Palestinians.
Libya has become a failed state in which there are
many
factions that don't trust each other at all. They also distrust
foreign support, for good reason. There is no obvious path out of
that.
A meta-analysis found proof that fluoridation
does
not cause cancer and does not reduce children's IQ. There is no
sign it does any harm.
If Americans could sue Salafi Arabia for the September 2001 attacks,
who
could sue the US?
Chile privatized its version of social security 35 years ago.
Now it turns out that the resulting pensions are barely enough to live on.
The private fund managers paid themselves big management fees and took
all the capital gains away from the retirees.
Trump spreads bullshit in regard to science, just as on other topics.
Clinton believes that the Federal Reserve is sacrosanct and that presidents
should not even express an opinion about its decisions.
Well, we already knew that she was inclined to obey the banksters.
The US government is recruiting teachers and therapists to report on
Muslims who meet vague and unsupported guesswork criteria suggesting they
might later be radicalized.
Some mental health professionals explain why they will refuse to do this.
US thugs intimidate people into "voluntarily" providing DNA samples for permanent inclusion in a massive data base.
Don't Punish Chelsea Manning — Release Her
Sony was sued by users after its firmware downgrade for the Playstation 3
took away the capability to run GNU/Linux on it. Now it will offer them
money as a settlement.
This is not enough to stop companies from making such changes in the future.
We should either make it a crime, or make sure it is impossible.
CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling was imprisoned for giving information to the New York Times. Prison treats him harshly because he is black.
Shame on you, Obama, for your war on journalists' sources. We need
to make digital systems safe for democracy.
The Tories want to reshape the UK's election districts to give themselves
an advantage in future elections.
Snowden presents arguments why Obama should pardon him.
Jill Stein supports the call.
Democratic socialism
is gaining support in the US.
The price for US "homeland security" is paid in freedom and in money.
If we consider only the money, it is a ridiculously inefficient way
to save lives, costing over a hundred million dollars per life saved.
We could save a lot more lives by spending the money on medical care.
Los Angeles and other cities give medals to police officers who
de-escalate a confrontation and avoid violence.
As for thugs, their representatives object to the very idea of honoring
or teaching such techniques. Thugs are supposed to solve every problem
by immediate killing.
This August was the hottest August ever recorded. It followed the hottest July ever recorded, which followed the hottest June ever recorded, and so on for almost a year.
The climate mayhem this process will cause has already started.
Republican state governments are still fighting hard to block minority and poor voters in November.
Citizens of California:
call
on Governor Brown to sign AB 2298, the bill to reform the Calgang
database.
Indigenous Environmental Network has
united
tribes around the US to oppose environmentally dangerous projects,
with support from other ethnic groups too.
If the Dakota Access pipeline is built, it would produce
100
million tons of CO2 emissions per year.
The very efficiency of the pipeline would make ending the oil
extraction very difficult, as the owners would do just about anything
to recover their investment. Our government lacks the courage to tell
a company, "We are going to shut you down to stop your pollution."
Blatant wrongs such as Facebook's censorship of photo of the burned,
naked Vietnamese girl are just the tip of the iceberg of
algorithm-based
injustice, and there is no way to measure what it adds up to.
When one town fires a thug for misconduct,
some
other town nearby will surely hire him.
Perhaps we need a "registered thug offender list" to prevent this.
The Trump Foundation
raises
money from others, not from Trump, but he lets people think that
the money it hands out is from him.
Jim Wright forcefully condemned the pressure put on Americans to
endorse all the bellicose or dangerous "responses" to the September 11
attacks. Facebook
censored
it, apparently for political reasons.
This shows the danger of depending on facebook.
Lionel Shriver
tears
the opposition to "cultural appropriation" to shreds. If
presenting the viewpoint of someone different from you were rejected,
storytelling would be impossible. But even the opposition that some
now demand would impoverish culture for everyone.
Here's a real example: Sikhs in the UK tried to stop a
Sikh-style
wedding between a Sikh and a non-Sikh. They made the claim that
the Sikh religious ceremony is the property of Sikhs, so no one else
has the right to hold such a ceremony. This possessiveness violates
the religious freedom of others. No matter what your religious
practices may be, you have no right to stop others from following
similar practices.
This applies to other cultural practices, too. Before my foot injury,
I enjoyed doing Croatian dances and Serbian dances, although my
enjoyment of them was shadowed in the 90s when those two countries
were at war. I am proud to cook Italian dishes and Chinese dishes,
even though I probably don't do them quite like a good Italian or
Chinese cook. I read that Iraqis in the 1960s used to cook the
Persian dish fesenjan, knowing full well that it was Persian. Bravo
for them — fesenjan is delicious. They are entitled to do this,
and so am I, and so are you. Culture is for imitating, and obstacles
to such imitation are an injustice.
There are fatuous ways to imitate. When a Mexican restaurant hands
out sombreros and customers wear them, the customers are being
childish, and I could criticize the restaurant for is leading them to
be childish. Do they enjoy that food, or are they only using it as an
excuse for a fantasy? And why should they need an excuse? If you
want to fantasize about being in Mexico, go ahead, but do you really
need a sombrero, or a restaurant?
It is possible to imitate a cultural practice in an embarrassingly
ignorant way, or even an insulting way. But there are lots of ways to
be embarrassingly ignorant, or to insult someone. That is no reason
to condemn imitation.
Why We Should Have Fewer Children: to
Save
the Planet.
Many churches block women from access to contraception and abortion,
effectively
forcing
them to have too many children.
There are
plenty of other
reasons why it is advisable not to have children under current
circumstances.
Canada has suffered greatly from NAFTA, and companies are
suing
because they have been blocked from fracking or mining to protect
water supplies and endangered species.
NAFTA
has
harmed Mexico even more, and
the
US as well.
The reason a treaty between three countries has harmed all three is
that it's a
business-supremacy
treaty. Its effects are to harm the environment and the non-rich
in all countries that sign.
The US would do well to stop obsessing with the September 2001
terrorist attacks. Pledging to dwell on them
perpetuates
the fear-driven errors and injustices of those years.
Where I was on September 11, 2001 is not important. What I did that
day would have been important, if it had succeeded. I started writing
an article about the next attack, which I foresaw would be
directed at
Americans' freedom by American officials in the name of
"security".
Oil drilling off the coast of South Australia risks
long-term
local damage at each step.
That's a high price for a certainty of adding to
global
damage.
Facebook
blocked
the account of activist Shaun King after he posted a racist email
that was sent to him.
Canadians are
banned
from visiting the US simply because they admit they used marijuana in
Canada — which is an absurd policy even if their usage of
pot was illegal in Canada.
The US has done much nastier things to Canadian visitors, such as
the
beating given to science fiction writer Peter Watts.
Every road in Canada that leads to the US should have a sign,
"Warning, Unprovoked Beatings Ahead."
The endangered species protection conditions that Australia imposed on
a new coal mine are
full
of loopholes.
Worse, the idea of "offsets for destroyed habitat" is
inherently
absurd.
But that's nothing compared to the inherent idiocy of allowing a new
coal mine. We
need
to shut down coal mining as quickly as we can.
The idea that corporations should put the owners' wealth above all
else repeatedly
leads
to great harm.
Contrary to the way it appears, that idea was not always accepted.
In the US, its adoption
dates
from the 1980s.
Many US teenagers are coerced into prostitution by their need for
food. In poor communities, there is
no
other work for them. Those not sexually attractive enough to
succeed that way have to resort to even more desperate measures, such
as stealing food or salable items, or selling drugs.
Stealing food should not be a crime when you need it to live.
Italy's court
made
a wise decision on that. But we are wrong to put people in a
position where they need to do this just to live.
It is clear who is to blame for this state of affairs: the plutocrats
that are taking an ever-larger share of our wealth and squeezing
everyone else.
Amy Goodman faces charges for covering the
private
thugs' attack on pipeline protesters.
More
information about that attack.
Nigeria is facing famine, especially in the northern area where
Boko Haram is a threat.
Is it possible for a party to replace a candidate in September?
I hope so. To be confident of winning the election, the Democratic
party should replace Clinton with Bernie Sanders.
Stingray devices that track all the cell phones in the nearby area are
extremely easy to use, and have almost no controls to restrain state
suppression forces from breaking laws at the spur of the moment.
A Salafi/US bombing attack in Yemen killed workers drilling a well,
then came back a few minutes later to kill the people who were
giving first aid.
This "double-tap" tactic is used by many terrorist groups.
The 10 biggest corporations have more income than 180 countries.
Influential research that downplayed the role of sugar in causing
heart disease was funded by the sugar industry, which also meddled in
the publication.
Insys Therapeutics gave half a million dollars to oppose legalization
of marijuana in Arizona because it has a pharmaceutical product that
contains a chemical found also in marijuana. It therefore may be a coincidence that the company also sells an opioid painkiller.
Which one do you think is more expensive, the marijuana-like artificial drug
or natural marijuana?
Trump supports school vouchers as a way to partly subsidize private schools
for families that can almost afford them. The money would
be taken away from public schools.
Protesters in North Dakota heard that they had lost their court case;
then, the same day, that various US government departments had
reconsidered the pipeline's permit.
Pittsburgh water has been contaminated with poisonous metals for years, and Veolia is being sued for mismanaging the system.
Don't agree to let anything authenticate you by your EEG, since the
system will also find out a lot about you.
The only way you can trust an EEG authentication system
is if you own it and it runs solely free software.
Paramount, the movie company, issued a DMCA takedown notice for a torrent containing Ubuntu GNU/Linux, claiming that it infringes the
copyright on a movie.
If I were sharing a Transformers movie, I'd be ashamed of myself, but
not as ashamed as Paramount should be for making it. But the War on
Sharing is much worse.
When Britons go to Syria to join the Kurds in fighting PISSI,
the UK government absurdly investigates them for "terrorism".
The BBC continues to treat global heating denial the respect it
doesn't deserve.
Farmers that ignored Monsanto's request not to spray dicamba on a GMO crop
have caused lots of damage to neighboring farms.
Ahmet and Mehmet Altan, novelist and professor, have been arrested in Turkey
on absurd charges.
They are accused of announcing the military coup with "subliminal messages", which is comparable to accusing the weather of making a cloud which reminded someone of a human face.
Brazilian thugs arrested students before protests.
Truck brakes and tires release dangerous particulate air pollution,
and the amounts have been increasing over the years.
Trump is winning support from former Democrats in deindustrialized
communities hit badly by
business-dominated
globalization and business-supremacy treaties.
The charity World Vision has
cancelled
all its activities in Gaza, apparently responding to accusations
that the funds were diverted to Hamas military groups.
US citizens:
call
on the DEA not to ban kratom.
US citizens:
call on
Obama to keep fossil fuels on public lands in the ground.
The UK's chartered deportation flight to Jamaica was
cruel
and unjust on every dimension.
Their families in the UK may never again see their dear, deported
relatives. Some face a likelihood of death as a result of being sent
to a country where they don't know anyone and can't get the medicine
they need.
I am always sad when I see that a petition I would like to support is
hosted on change.org. That site requires visitors to run nonfree
Javascript code in order to sign any petition. I won't publish a
suggestion that people do this. I wish the site maintainers would fix
that.
Alternatively, would someone who knows Javascript like to figure out
how the site works and write a free script or Web-extensions front end
for signing petitions on that site?
I wish I could sign the petition, but it is on a site that requires
nonfree Javascript code, so I will neither sign it nor suggest that
anyone else do so.
Trump
repeatedly
lies saying he gave money to charity which the charity did not
receive.
An East German skater describes how she was
given
doping drugs without her knowledge, which later caused her to develop
psychosis.
Trump praised the Chinese government's
bloody
suppression of the protest for democracy in Tian An Men Square,
and now associates closely with leading white supremacists in the US.
I think Trump was honest in what he said about China. He doesn't
support democracy, or freedom and justice for all; on the contrary, he
thinks the strongest should control everyone else.
The US and Russia have made a deal to
fight
PISSI and former al-Nusra, and push the other Syrian sides into a
cease fire.
Prisoners across the US
went
on strike on Friday against dangerous working conditions and
against wages as low as a few cents an hour.
I think it is legitimate to require prisoners to work to keep the
prison going, as long as the working conditions are not oppressive.
However, when they compete with free workers they should get a union
wage.
Otherwise, they are being used by plutocrats to drive everyone's wages
down.
The rate of serious or fatal injuries inflicted by US thugs has
increased
50% since 2001.
The kratom plant provides a mild high, and can help heroin addicts
stop taking heroin. Absurdly, the US government
proposes
to ban it, and ban research on it too.
Facebook
made
an exception to its censorship rules to permit distribution of the
photo of the Vietnamese girl burnt by US napalm.
This does not make it acceptable for Facebook to be in a position to
decide what news sites can publish.
As Trump keeps praising Putin,
RT
presses Trump harder than the feckless US media.
Maybe Putin doesn't love Trump. For me, Trump's admiration of Putin
is despicable regardless of what Putin thinks of Trump.
Trump has admitted he
expects
to get something in return for his investments in politicians'
campaigns.
Iran has sentenced Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to
5
years in prison. Maybe now it will announce charges against her.
This reminds me of the Fannish Inquisition, where the first thing is
the verdict (always "guilty"), followed by the charges. Except that
the sentence came at the end (Eric Raymond was sentenced to fuck
himself to death with a computer, but given 50 years to do it).
Alas, in Iran it is no joke.
A Mississippi thug has been indicted for
killing
a black driver during a traffic stop. The thug said that the
driver pulled a gun, but since he had not turned on his body camera,
he has not been believed. Especially since it seems the gun was
planted by other thugs.
Israel is
trying
to instigate a Palestinian civil war.
I consulted with someone from the Israeli peace movement, who said
that the article is basically accurate but it is not clear whether
Lieberman can convince the army leadership to do what he wants.
Institute for Development Studies and Oxfam say that increased prices
for healthful foods
from
2008 to 2012 pushed millions of parents around the world to work
long hours for cash, and buy fattening fast food for their children.
Should we sell arms to Saudi Arabia
just
to keep arms manufacturing jobs going? Some numbskulls think so.
Violence in South Sudan
Orchestrated
by Government, UN Report Reveals.
US citizens: call for an investigation of Trump for bribery.
Everyone: call on Burger King to reject GMO apples.
The EU has already met its 2020 target for reduced fossil fuel use.
This shows that conservation efforts can be a success. However, the
EU targets are not really ambitious — even though they are better
than most of the rest of the world.
Rep. Barbara Lee warned 15 years ago that the Authorization to Use
Military Force was a "blank check to the president to attack anyone
involved in the Sept. 11 events — anywhere, in any country, without
regard to our nation's long-term foreign policy, economic and national
security interests, and without time limit."
Her only error was to make the statement too narrow. The words
"involved in the Sept. 11 events" need to be deleted.
Large fractions of Trump supporters agree with various racist views,
in some cases almost 50%.
The campaign to take the UK out of the European Union stirred up racist hostility towards people from Eastern Europe, and similar
forms of racism are increasing all across Europe.
Human Rights Watch calls on Brazil to respect protesters' rights
and investigate the attacks by thugs on protesters.
US elections are extremely vulnerable to rigging, through voting computers
and through dishonest (and illegal) practices.
Violence against women is a pervasive problem that is constantly met with distraction responses.
North Korea demands recognition as a "legitimate" nuclear power.
How the CIA attacked the Senate's report on CIA torture
and tried to justify torture.
Global heating has increased the prevalence of clean air turbulence
which can strike an airplane without warning and cause injuries.
The US regulation for automobile safety forced car manufacturers to
make changes that have prevented 3.5 million deaths and many millions
of injuries.
It was possible in the 1960s to adopt such a regulation because the US still
had a functioning democracy. Under today's plutocracy, business does not
allow this.
Use of DNA data from patients needs to be better regulated.
Recently published papers, formerly secret, show that UK thugs conspired to
attack a group of miners and frame them, with support from ministers including Prime Minister Thatcher.
Al-Jazeera broadcast the documentary about corruption in the Maldives,
and the tyrant responded by raiding a newspaper office.
The editor
has fled abroad.
A company that sells the opioid fentanyl is donating money to oppose legalization of marijuana in Arizona. Apparently the company's executives believe that they will sell
more addictive opioids if they can deny people a safer option.
Humanity is depleting soil at a rapid rate: 1/3 of all arable land has
been ruined in 40 years.
It is hard to believe we can avoid mass starvation in another 40 years.
Remember this if you ever think of having a child.
Perhaps regenerative farming can repair this damage.
Samia Shahid's father and her ex-husband conspired to kill her;
the ex-husband did the deed, expecting the father to "pardon" him
on her behalf.
Trump admires Putin because Trump admires all authoritarian rulers.
Trump admires them for squashing whoever gets in their way,
and never mind things like human rights.
In other words, Trump is un-American and hates everything the US
stands for.
Chelsea Manning has started a hunger strike to demand to be treated
as female, and an end to harassment measures.
Sanctions failed to stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons,
but a world-wide rejection of nuclear weapons might be worth trying.
Everyone:
call on the American
Geophysical Union to reject sponsorship by Exxon.
On the correct pronunciation of
"Exxon".
Everyone:
call
on McDonalds and Walmart to pay employees a decent wage.
US citizens:
Thank
Kaepernick for his protest.
21 countries
stand
a good chance of eliminating malaria by 2020.
To get the rest of the world would mainly take a sufficient lump sum
of money.
"Texas is
violating
a court order intended to prevent it from suppressing the vote,
according to the U.S. Department of Justice."
UN Human Rights Chief Urges Action
Against
Western 'Demagogues'.
Between voter suppression and the possible rigging of voting machines,
and the design of the Democratic primaries to favor establishment
candidates such as Clinton, the mechanics of democracy are
under
attack.
Facebook's Instagram division
demands
that the activist campaign LitterGram change its name.
I hope LitterGram stands firm long enough for public pressure to come
to its support.
US TV network news has mentioned the pipeline protests just once:
less
than a minute, at 4am, and biased against the protesters.
I don't have a TV set, but I sometimes go to places where people are
watching them. I actively avoid watching mainstream TV news programs,
figuring that their purpose is only to poison our minds.
Clinton is
making
it very clear that there is nothing progressive about her.
Some of us never expected anything different of her. We should learn
to reject right-wing Democrats the way we reject Republicans. You
can't build democracy and give people in general a good life if your
main goal contradicts that.
North Dakota thugs want to arrest Jill Stein for spraying graffiti on
a bulldozer as part of a
protest
against the new pipeline.
No sign that they want to arrest the private security guards that
used dogs and pepper spray to attack protesters. These "laws"
are just instruments for plutocracy. Nothing here about democracy.
The reason toilets in many BART stations are closed is
paranoia
about terrorism.
It may be true, to some small degree, that the toilets are a security
risk. But there must be thousands of such small risks, and it is
folly to pay any real price to eliminate one of them. Thus, while I
am glad BART has found a way to convince itself that it has made the
toilets "safe", it made a mistake shutting them at all.
Catholic Herald published an article about "god's love" and declined
to mention that the author was a high official
responsible
for sending Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his wife to Libya for Qadhafi's men
to torture.
Then it refused to publish an article by Belhaj that asks for the
author to understand and apologize.
There is only one global civilization nowadays, and differences
between groups fall in the gaps between the many areas of
near
universal agreement.
"Increasingly the tech business is all about
making
good products artificially redundant and mediocre ones seem
relevant."
Facebook's power over journalism has morphed into
censorship
of the news.
The Prime Minister of Norway posted to criticize the censorship.
Facebook
deleted
his post.
It is dangerous for Facebook to have this much power. Instead of
trying to compromise, we should take it away.
Instead of the proposed "link tax" that would serve no valid public
purpose, I suggest passing a law that would stop Facebook from
distributing journalistic works published elsewhere. Perhaps this
could apply to companies that have over total of over 1 million user
accounts, or generally to all companies that run social networks.
These sites should be allowed only to make links to independent
original publication sites.
Another idea is to tax publication of each such article, with the tax
rate determined by the number of users the company has. To republish
a few articles each day would not cost them much; to publish thousands
would be prohibitively expensive.
Air pollution
causes
1/10 of all human deaths. The economic cost in lost work due to
illness is tremendous too.
The harm falls disproportionately on
poor
people and mistreated minorities.
The University of California is outsourcing IT support to India and
wants the employees that will be fired to
train
their own replacements.
If they have courage they will quit before doing that.
Germany
to
Pour Cash into Mass Surveillance.
Elizabeth Warren:
Apple's
Tax-Shirking Schemes Show Congress Must Reform US Code.
How
Apple Sells its Controlling Ways as Futurism.
Should we trust Apple? No way! I will not join the oppressive future
that Apple has in mind for us.
Ferguson protest leader Darren Seals was murdered, and the thugs were
visibly
careless about investigating the killing.
I have a feeling that thugs had something to do with his death.
Humans Have Destroyed
a
Tenth of Earth's Wilderness in 25 Years.
Don't assume it will take another 225 years to destroy the rest.
It will tend to accelerate, as people get increasingly desperate.
The crews of fishing boats operating around Hawaii are
forbidden
to leave the boats, as they have no US visas, so they are
effectively used as slaves.
Trump praised Putin as a
"leader".
Putin is indeed a leader — an authoritarian leader who spits on
the rights of Russians that don't want to follow him.
Trump plans to
reduce
taxes on rich people and businesses in five ways.
Makes it pretty clear whose side he is on.
Global heating made the record-breaking Louisiana floods
between
40% and 100% more probable.
Most teenage girls with smartphones habitually retouch their photos,
presenting
a fictional beauty.
The next step would be to avoid physically meeting anyone.
The Tories are cutting the
funds
that enable disabled people to live.
The TPP
would
make it essentially impossible to curb global heating as called
for in the Paris agreement.
Rory
Fanning is one of many veterans who sit, not stand, with Colin
Kaepernick.
Greece has been
showing
signs of resistance to the harsh conditions of the "bail-out" of
its creditors.
Google is trying a method of discouraging support for PISSI by leading
people who seem interested in its propaganda to
videos
made by witnesses to its oppression.
Another article, paywalled alas, suggests that the program is
effective at attracting people's attention.
The UK's new snooper's charter is being considered in the House of
Lords, and
nearly
all that was oppressive in it is still there.
It
might
take giant class-action lawsuits to defeat pervasive snooping by
the Internet of Stings.
The Tories have cut funds for tax audits, which enables rich people
and businesses to get away with more cheating. They even
allow
businesses to write laws to tax them less. Can treason be clearer
than this?
Not All Men Commit Abuse against Women. But
All
Must Condemn It.
The US presidential debates are
designed
by the two major parties to protect them and avoid serious
confrontation of ideas. Therefore they make sure not to admit
other candidates — but most Americans think they should admit
others.
The League of Women Voters used to run these debates, but after it
allowed a third-party candidate to participate, the two major parties
took the debates away from the League so that this could not happen
again.
Some leading US advisors are
advising
against a new cold war with Russia.
The reason we still see propaganda for making more US arms is, I
suspect, the power of the large companies that make the arms and that
want our money to go to them, rather than to more constructive
purposes (medical care, infrastructure, schools, public transit,
welfare, etc.).
A US court sustained Uber's practice of
barring
its drivers from class-action suits.
This law gives businesses more rights than people. It must be
reversed.
Republican state attorneys general
sold
their time to planet roasters for whom they are now attacking the
clean power plan.
Amitav Ghosh warns that global heating will lead to the
"politics
of the armed lifeboat", with rich countries fighting to keep
millions from fleeing places where they can no longer live.
Meanwhile, the rich countries have their own vulnerability: they
depend on lots of technical systems to keep functioning, such as
electric power supply, and don't know how to function when those fail.
I've pointed out the vulnerability of globalized manufacturing: a war
or disaster in one area can disrupt the whole world's production of
some part that is needed for various products. Climate mayhem is
already provoking wars, and disasters of the sort that used to be
called "natural", and this will tend to increase as the decades pass.
People in Oakland demand that some Oakland thugs be prosecuted for two
phony
"crimes" after they had sex with a teenage prostitute.
I am against giving thugs any special privileges, but I oppose
prosecuting them (or anyone) based on lies.
It used to be that one dishonest law defined sex with someone under a
certain (varying) age as "rape", which it clearly isn't. It is now
joined by another dishonest law that defines sex with a prostitute
under that age as "human trafficking", which it clearly isn't. These
laws establish a state policy of proclaiming a falsehood as truth, and
punishing people based on the falsehood. The lie is essential for
misleading the public into supporting these punishments.
When the law sets out to lie, it is worse than an ass. It is a
man-eating tiger.
Rain from a typhoon
melted
part of the "ice wall" that is supposed to keep ground water out
of the ruined Fukushima reactors.
With somewhat more rain, the contaminated water would have come out to
the surface and run along the ground. It appears that nothing can be
done to completely prevent water from flowing through the site and
becoming contaminated.
US citizens:
call
on the FCC to finish regulating cable companies' use of data about
what customers watch.
The FCC won't go far enough, but it is still a step forward.
US citizens:
call
on North Dakota to stop private violence against pipeline
protesters and investigate possible illegalities on the attackers'
part.
US citizens:
call
on the Department of Justice to investigate Trump's voter
intimidation campaign and other Republican voter suppression.
A
recent
trend among plutocrats is the attempt to eliminate cash.
The rich can make large bank transfers anonymous by routing them
through shadow companies in tax havens.
Moral
idiocy — the tendency to think that morality does not apply
to one's own actions — is found in many of those who have pushed
the US into war.
Two
big US pipeline companies want to merge.
It should never be permitted for two companies that are among the
largest 10 in any industry to merge.
The UK is rushing to deport people to Jamaica even though all their
families are in the UK,
before
their appeals are even heard.
The real purpose of constantly testing children in school may be to
provide an
excuse
to call teachers failures and privatize public schools.
Texas proposes a text to teach about Texas's Mexican heritage. People
of Mexican background say it is
full
of insulting stereotypes.
The Maldives tyrant has
attacked
opposition leaders and a newspaper using the expected al-Jazeera
documentary as a pretext.
As predicted, Apple's latest iPhone has
no
headphone jack.
This is directly nasty, since it means users need to get special,
expensive headphones. It is also a preparation for possible future
DRM plans.
One reason you shouldn't buy this iThing is that Apple
dodges
US taxes by diverting its profits offshore.
Of course, you'd be a fool to buy or use a product that runs only
nonfree software, and has
malicious
functionalities such as censorship.
Trump now claims he
wants
to greatly increase US military spending and send the US Army to fight
PISSI.
Clinton is hawkish too, but this is even more hawkish.
Large companies, including Google, have signed
"climate
pledges" but give money to campaigns of global heating denialists.
We need to be concerned about protecting endangered species
even
if they are not cute or closely related to humans.
The most vital actions for wildlife conservation are (1) to cap global
heating and (2) to avoid increasing the human population. Global
heating will wipe out most species that live only in a limited range,
because that range will no longer be suitable for them.
Resistance to the last resort antibiotic,
colistin,
is developing in farms already.
Young supporters of the African National Congress marched on its
headquarters
demanding
that the whole leadership resign.
The ANC after Mandela has been totally disappointing.
Public defenders in the US are stretched so thin that many non-rich
Americans charged with crimes get
no
advice except "plead guilty".
Methane is
bubbling
out of the ground from melting permafrost in Belyy island.
It is unprecedented, but the danger is that it will become commonplace.
This is just part of how burning fossil fuels is
causing
disaster.
Air pollution from combustion
may
be contributing to Alzheimer's disease.
Protesters
carrying rifles appeared outside the home of Brock Turner in Ohio.
I find armed protests to be frightening. This group says it wasn't
threatening to kill Turner, but it is a step towards return to
lynching.
The idea of shooting a rapist in the act is absurd, since that would
never be necessary. For instance, anyone who was present at the scene
and determined to intervene could have made Turner stop without any
weapons. Just to confront an angry person, he would have found it
necessary to stand up.
Turner's punishment will continue for years, or perhaps the rest of
his life, since he has been put on the sex offender list.
That's another political issue.
After an organized gang of Irish teenagers beat up a gay man, the
Irish thugs
tried
to put the blame on him.
Most humpback whale populations
will
be taken off the endangered species list, as they have grown
considerably since the ban on whaling 50 years ago.
In this case, it may be safe to delist them, since whaling remains banned.
However, when wolves were delisted because their numbers in the US had grown,
that was the signal for several states to
encourage
hunters to kill them. This is likely to drive wolf numbers down
to the point that they will need protection again.
To prevent that, there needs to be an intermediate level of partial
protection.
The tyrant of the Maldives
threatened
to punish those who contributed to an al-Jazeera documentary about
corruption there, and thus intimidated the channel into not
showing the documentary.
The tyrant took power through a
coup
which ousted the elected president, who vocally championed acting with
dispatch to curb global heating. I therefore suspect that the coup
was organized by planet-roasters.
For a state to require a
special
visa for journalists is an injustice in itself. The US should set
an example by dropping that requirement.
Brazilian thugs
attacked
a large peaceful protest against the political impeachment of
Dilma Rousseff.
In 1970, a roomful of US soldiers who didn't know each other all
decided individually to refuse to stand for the national anthem, as a
protest
about how they had been used for injustice in Vietnam. The
article is written by one of them, an antiwar veteran.
The US has blocked Craig Murray, UK citizen, from visiting the US for
the awarding of the
Sam
Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence.
The US gave him no explanation, but it is hard to imagine any possible
reason other than his own inconvenient integrity.
Under
what circumstances is a famous person's sex scandal actually
significant?
Local Governments Are
Letting
Silicon Valley Skirt Public Disclosure Laws.
Protection efforts have
brought
several endangered species back from the brink.
That doesn't mean they can survive global heating, or a collapse
of civilization that could end organized protection efforts.
Germany is
proposing
to legalize massive surveillance even as an internal investigation
finds that its massive surveillance is currently illegal.
An estimated 750,000 asthma attacks each summer are
attributed
to burning oil and gas in the US.
Clapper says he is
investigating
the possibility that Russia seeks to cause chaos in the US
election in November by attacking computer systems.
That would be a very hostile act, but US and state governments have
been extremely irresponsible in adopting networked computers for
election purposes.
Turkey plans to subsidize
80
new coal-burning power plants.
This is almost an act of war against the rest of the world.
People in Indonesia connected with palm oil farming hired
100
nonofficial thugs to kidnap smog inspectors, who were taking note
of fires that were burning down forest to make more palm oil
plantation.
Australia
has
acted on 100 apparent tax law violators revealed in the Panama
Papers.
Thugs often
take
private jobs to work, in thug uniform, for some private employer.
Who are they supposed to "serve and protect" at such times?
13 million people in the UK are poor, and this is due to government
policies, which are
increasing
the number that live in poverty. But the British state could end
poverty by 2030 if it wanted to.
The Sydney city council has
voted
to divest from fossil fuels, and to pull hundreds of millions of
dollars out of banks that invest in fossil fuels.
Bravo! Other cities threatened by global heating should do something
similar.
The gender pay gap is not due to lack of assertiveness on the part of
female employees,
a
survey in Australia shows. Women there ask for raises as often as
men do.
Global heating in the oceans is already causing painful
disruptions
of sea life, in a foretaste of disaster that will develop over the
next few decades.
Asian typhoons are
50%
stronger nowadays than 40 years ago, due to global heating.
China forced 1/3 of the population of Hangzhou to go away as a way of
creating
a city with no one to interview other than the omnipresent
"security" as a bland and empty backdrop.
Connected cars
may
record personal information from the driver's mobile phone.
The article does not mention that it may have its own cell phone, which
means
the
phone company would track its movements.
Private thugs attacked the protesters blocking the Dakota Access Pipeline
by
throwing attack dogs at them, and with pepper spray.
The
"labor
question", how to assure workers get paid for the value of their
work, is connected with many of America's worst problems. Especially
since the plutocrats have been attacking the old solutions for decades.
The prevalence of bad employers that force workers to be independent
contractors complicates the labor question. Probably massive
technological unemployment threatens to complicate it even more. We
need other measures in addition to "help more workers unionize", but
we surely still need that.
Americans: Remember That Martin Luther King's Last Campaign Was
for
Workers' Rights.
Public criticism has
convinced
the AARP to stop supporting ALEC.
The French tradition of republican secularism is
being
distorted into a system of discrimination.
The loss of a satellite on the launch pad has not stopped Facebook's
attempt
to control internet access for users in poor countries.
Anti-radicalization campaigns in various countries fail, partly
because they are
based
on a false picture of who is likely to become an Islamist terrorist
and how.
It may be that a previous generalization of European Islamists
(typically not violent) developed out of more mainstream Islam.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are
quite
common in supermarket chicken and pork in the UK.
This comes from feeding antibiotics to masses of pigs and chickens,
and shows the urgency of prohibiting that practice.
Human population growth is already
starting
to overload the world's food capacity and fresh water capacity.
It is a very good thing to
have no
children, but we need to go beyond that and help reduce the
reproduction rate of other people.
The Italian state has
new
policies to urge Italians to have more children. What lunacy!
I sympathize with the criticisms given in the article, but they are
focused on secondary issues and avoid the crucial one. Italy's
birthrate, rather than being "too low", would be a big improvement if
the whole world adopted it. Decreasing population can cause to some
short-term dislocations, but it is easier to cope with those than with
the long-term effects of increasing populations.
Italy should present itself as an example for its low
birth rate.
Happy Labor Day!
There
Has Never Been a [large] Middle Class Without Strong Unions.
"It's time to reclaim Labor Day's
radical
spirit."
The article mentions the workers dangling from portable phones who
have little time they can count on not having to work. However, lots
of low-wage service workers have a similar problem: they can be called
to work a shift on short notice at almost any time.
To protect them, we should pass laws requiring overtime pay for any
shift that wasn't planned a week in advance. Also, these workers
should be entitled to declare time off in advance, whether for a day
or occasionally for a week, without worrying they might be punished
for not being available then.
I work every day … but that's ok since most of my work is
volunteer work anyway.
New,
forceful opposition politicians have gained seats in Hong Kong's
legislative assembly.
The elections to the assembly are
overtly
rigged, even worse than in the
US
House of Representatives, so there is no prospect that the
opposition can form a majority no matter how much popular support it
has.
Dalits and other castes despised by conservative Hindus have
held
a march to protest floggings, and plan a ceremony of conversion to
Buddhism.
One practical reason for the ceremony is that India registers people's
religions and conversion
requires
submitting a government form. Dalits have faced repression when
trying to do this, whether individually or in groups.
Korindo palm oil has been caught apparently
burning
forest in order to make more palm oil plantation.
Even when genetically modified crops are good in themselves, we must
not ignore the damage done by companies such as Monsanto that
permanently
subjugate farmers.
The efficiency of bt-cotton does not benefit all the Indian farmers
that grow it. A farmer always takes a risk that bad weather will wipe
out the crop. When farmers get loans to buy the bt-cotton seed, the
damage of loss of a year's crop gets worse. That
pushed
thousands of Indian farmers to commit suicide a few years ago.
Eastern Gorilla Now Critically Endangered Due to
Illegal
Hunting.
Australia's Climate Change Authority
weakened
its recommendations for the sake of "political feasibility" (i.e.,
bowing down to resistance from planet roasters in the governing
parties). Two members of the commission refused to sign the
recommendations, calling them inadequate.
When a real solution to a problem has no support in the legislature,
what should we do? The obvious approach is to advocate a change so
small that you might win it in a few years. The problem with this is
that it fails to show people why they should advocate anything bigger.
For a chance of a bigger victory in the long term, we must advocate
the larger change that we really want. (Or, in the case of global
heating, what we really desperately need.)
Fracking wastewater has caused many small quakes in Oklahoma. Now
the US Geological Survey is
investigating
whether it played any role in causing the recent strong and damaging
earthquake.
New Tory cuts
could
close most refuges for battered women.
Upend
the Tax Havens to Fund Clean Energy Revolution, says Friend of the
Earth.
Both of these steps are necessary.
Guber has organized in NYC something reminiscent of a company union
for its drivers, except it
isn't
even a union.
As insurance companies pull out of providing insurance plans in line
with Obama's medical care system, the system is
in
danger of failing.
The insurance companies are exploiting a systemic weakness that they
imposed on the system. Obama's original proposal included a "public
option" to compete with the insurance companies, but they lobbied
against it and
Obama
caved in. If the public option existed, the same insurance
companies could pull out but that would not cause such a problem.
The UN, in delivering humanitarian aid in Syria, is compelled to obey
strict limits set by Assad. This includes
routing
the aid funds through his cronies.
I don't blame the UN for this: I think its officials estimate that
they don't have the clout to make Assad back down from these demands.
Perhaps the US and Russia could agree that Assad has to change them.
Experts Raise Alarms as
US
War Hawks Push for Deeper Syria Intervention.
What makes this push especially dangerous is that it is supported by
Clinton.
Long before the US intervened directly, it
allowed
allies such as Salafi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to support Islamist
rebels
The quotation of Clinton's statement in the meeting in Riadh is from
this
State Department publication.
Washington DC has many private "special" thug forces that are
much
less accountable than the municipal thug department.
Contestant Sheena Monnin
reported
seeing proof that the Miss USA contest winners were hand-picked in
advance by contest owner Donald Trump. He sued her for ten
million dollars.
Family of Alan Turing to
Demand
Government Pardon 49,000 Other Men.
Russia tries to confuse Western political debates with
many
parallel currents of disinformation.
I've seen forms of this from time to time — for instance, articles
that claim Russia didn't take over the Crimea by force of arms, that
the Crimeans rebelled spontaneously and Russia just happened to
protect them.
This does not mean Sweden should join NATO. That is another question.
It also doesn't mean that the US is on the side of right. That is yet
another question.
Trump has
hired
for his campaign one of the architects of Corporations United,
which champions the cause to give corporations human rights.
The brother of Clinton's campaign manager (John Podesta) is
officially
representing Salafi Arabia.
This is not an isolated fact. It is part of a relationship that has
gone on for a long time. Salafi Arabia clearly expects to get things
from Clinton.
The FBI is
going
to try again to persuade the US to ban secure encryption. We are
supposed to let our guard down towards the biggest danger from fear of
secondary threats.
"State
spying helps to create extremists. My father was one of them."
With all other roads barred because he had supported fascism, his
father saw no path to anything except more extreme and focused support
for fascism.
For the board in charge of treating Puerto Rico like Detroit and
Flint, including cutting pension funds and medical care, Obama chose
four Republicans and three Democrats.
One of the Republicans has
campaigned
for privatizing Social Security. We can imagine what he will do
to Puerto Rico's pensions.
Obama showed his true party affiliation by gratuitously choosing more
Republicans than Democrats. And at least one of the Democrats is a
plutocratist.
Selecting employees through secret algorithms imposes
mysterious
prejudices as well as the predictable social biases.
No one verifies scientifically that the algorithms choose good
employees or that they reject bad ones. But they certainly reduce the
pool of choices, and for many employers, that's better than nothing.
A lawsuit in Germany aims to
block
the European Commission from imposing CETA on Germany without
waiting for Germany's ratification.
The US has
banned
some common antibacterial chemicals in soap.
Triclosan is dangerous because it is an
endocrine
disruptor.
Antibacterials in household products are also suspected of preventing
children's immune systems from developing properly, by denying them
experience with a range of bacteria. To avoid this, it won't help to
replace one antibacterial with another. Soaps and other such products
would need to be free of antibacterials.
More
countries must ratify the Paris climate agreement for it to take
official force.
I think that the US can't possibly ratify it this year, because that
requires the consent of the senate, and the Republican planet-roasters
won't give it.
However, what is worse is that the deal doesn't commit countries to
any minimum plan of action — only
whatever
each country decides to do. They
don't
plan to reduce carbon emissions enough to avoid disaster.
American blacks know better than to believe Trump would try to do
anything good for them, but they recognize he has a point when he says
that
the
existing power structure doesn't care about them.
I wish they had recognized that in January and voted for the one
major-party candidate who would have sincerely tried to fight racism
and inequality.
How to be at War Forever —
constantly
making "progress" but never winning.
To be fair, there have been some real victories against PISSI, such as
the recapture of cities. PISSI is first of all a state, and only
secondarily an underground terrorist movement; states can be defeated
militarily.
However, PISSI is the exception. Underground terrorist movements
are not defeated by killing their leaders.
People have been jailed in Russia for the "unauthorized protest" of
wearing
shirts
that criticized Putin's handling of the hostage-taking in Beslan.
I don't have an opinion about the events in Beslan, but it is an
injustice to punish people for expressing their opinions. Putin's
repression of dissent is not as harsh as that of the Egyptian regime,
but it is repression and wrong nonetheless.
Convicted sex offenders, as a class, are especially unlikely to repeat
their crimes, so the registration laws that
contort
their lives for many years afterwards are gratuitous harm.
By cutting those people off from society, their families, and work,
the registration system may increase the fraction that commit another
sex crime.
American
white supremacists love Trump's immigration speech.
The citizens of Oakland
blocked
a system for massive combined surveillance. They were aware of
how dangerous it is for the state to know everything.
Citizens everywhere need to realize that a state with such
surveillance power is more dangerous than any criminals or terrorists.
Some republicans in North Carolina
admit
that their voter ID law was for voter suppression. Amazingly,
they think that is legitimate; they say any party would do this, for
political advantage.
In effect, they have declared themselves to be unprincipled enemies of
the United States.
US citizens:
Call
for rejection of GMO Fuji Apples.
This petition has trouble when Javascript is disabled, but here is a
workaround for it.
After signing the form, you will need to replace the [URL] in the
provided page, including the square brackets, with the default domain
name, which is http://salsa3.salsalabs.com in this case. Copy this
edited URL into the address bar and visit it; that will make the
signature go through.
Note that 'URL' does not stand for some other URL. It literally
means the characters U, R and L.
US citizens:
call
on Obama to block the Dakota Access Pipeline.
US citizens:
Support
Colin Kaepernick's right to refuse to stand up for the US national
anthem.
Several
large Australian universities have divested from fossil fuels.
Milwaukee thugs blocked off a usual protest area, then
violently
arrested people merely for watching the events. Oops, one was a
state legislator.
The thugs must feel a little embarrassed, but they are brazen. Mere
embarrassment won't restrain them from abusing their power again.
Being jailed themselves might do the trick.
Amazon and Starbucks "pay
less
tax than a sausage stand".
Tax havens are estimated to deny governments
600
billion dollars a year in tax revenue, which is a large fraction
of what it would take to convert the world to renewable energy.
The Tories are
starving
the state school system. Many teachers are giving up because pay
is becoming too low. The remaining teachers have to work extra.
15% of Earth's land area is protected for wildlife conservation,
but
many
important ecosystems are not represented.
The deeper problem with wildlife conservation is that global heating
is going to mess up ecosystems around the world. Many species will no
longer be able to survive in the places where they are now protected.
Nauru told the Danish embassy that it
barred
some Danish MPs because they had criticized of Nauru's treatment of
refugees.
The question of who is morally responsible for what happens to
prisoners in Nauru is very simple. Australia pays Nauru to hold them
and subject them to rape, torture, injury and sometimes death.
Australia and Nauru are jointly responsible.
A Pakistani thug has been
arrested
for suppressing evidence and protecting the perpetrators of a
patriarchal murder.
Australians discussed the bloody elimination of aboriginals in
Queensland: a special thug department
murdered
tens of thousands of them.
I recommend The Other Side of the Frontier, by Henry Reynolds, for
an explanation of how this proceeded across Australia.
Clinton's Embrace of Republicans
Will
Harm Her Own Party's Future.
America's True Role in Syria … is
kept
secret from Americans.
Under Thatcher, a Tory, the well-off in Britain got a lot more income,
and
the
poor got nothing.
By contrast, under B'liar, the poor got more income, but the top 5%
got a bigger increase.
This confirms the point that New Labour worked mainly for the wealthy.
An
explanation
of populists: they say, "We represent the people, the real people
— because the real people are those who support us. All else,
shut up!"
The "revolving door"
tempts
idealless politicians in Europe just as in the US.
Vast marine "protected areas" may do little for conservation, since
most of area is far from shore, which means it
isn't
where most damage occurs, and will be hard to police.
They may be some help for species that live in the remote seas,
but they don't fill the big need.
Some 300 refugee minors now in France are authorized to live in the
UK, but the UK government
goes
to great lengths to keep them out anyway.
A
careful
explanation of the major injustices of TISA, a proposed
business-supremacy treaty that would yoke 49 countries to irreversible
privatization.
It could also indirectly permit foreign companies to sue governments
for any laws or decisions that limit the companies' income to less
than their wildest dreams.
A former ministers says that the Tories cut welfare for the poorest,
including public housing, because they
figured
this would weaken the Labour party.
Shame on the Catholic Church for
naming
parasite Mother Teresa a saint.
"I'm a journalist on the run from Erdoğan —
I
have no idea what I've done."
Clinton proposes a measure that
could
reduce the worst kinds of drug price gouging.
The US should permanently and universally legalize imports of
US-approved drugs from countries whose drug approval regimes are
reliable.
If the organization Our Revolution is to deserve and win broad
support, it needs to stand for clear and concrete goals, as Sanders
did as a candidate, and it
needs
to heed its base.
The dictator of Uzbekistan died, and the government
tried
to keep it secret for several days since his powerful cronies were
not sure what to do next.
Obama had already
resumed
military support to Uzbekistan. He continues the US tradition of
supporting dictators except when they get in the way of plutocratic
hegemony.
Anti-pipeline protesters
lock
themselves to machinery, expecting to be arrested.
The last US manufacturer of cluster bombs has stopped, but there are
still
plenty
of cluster bombs, doing plenty of damage in Yemen.
US Arms Makers
Invest
in a New Cold War. You can bet that their lobbying convinces
politicians and think tanks to say that a new cold war with Russia is
necessary.
Just because Putin does not respect
human
rights or
democracy
is no reason for a military confrontation.
Apple's scam: keeping cash outside the US, while
borrowing
money at interest in the US for its needs.
My
progressive
tax on corporations would put an end to that.
Brazil's new right-wing rulers have already started
attacking
public health and the environment.
Responding to apparent corruption by fossil fuel money, 35 candidates
for the Massachusetts legislature have
pledged
to reject campaign funds from certain fossil fuel interests.
I hope those companies don't negate the pledge by giving indirectly.
In Prison in Egypt, It's
Normal
to be Stripped, Beaten, Witness Torture.
A clinic tested 173 samples of street heroin and found that
90%
contained some fentanyl. Because fentanyl is much more powerful
than heroin, it often causes overdoses.
Overdoses are unusual when using heroin that is reliably made and
pure. That is why allowing addicts to get heroin from a clinic
greatly reduces the danger.
The people who die from heroin overdoses are casualties of the War on
Drugs. We should help that war get off drugs, so it will stop ending
and ruining lives.
Honduras's coup-derived government
continues
to permit murder of environmental defenders.
The army is
also
suspected of organizing the murders.
Tens of millions of workers in India have gone
on
strike for higher wages.
A sizeable fraction of India's population have comfortable incomes,
but the majority live in poverty just like decades ago.
The necessary long-term solution is to have fewer babies, but
redistributing some wealth is necessary in the short term and will
help encourage contraception.
A Malaysian minister acknowledged that the head suspect in a
giant
corruption case in the US is Prime Minister Najib.
Peruvian soldiers that massacred civilians have been
convicted
and sentenced to prison.
The Tories are flagrantly
selling
meetings with ministers. Aren't they obliged to resign for this?
In other human cultures, children learn to do a broad range of challenging
jobs by 5 years old,
without
being taught. It seems we are being overprotective.
New smartphones have a light sensor, separate from the camera. Web
sites can access that data to
identify
users and map their homes.
Browser developers should design them not to give sites access to this
data, or the battery charge, or many other things that help violate
privacy.
Get off WhatsApp now! Or you will be
pushing
other people to be used by Facebook.
Want Apple to Pay Its [US] Taxes?
Strengthen
US Tax Laws.
A woman in Illinois urgently needed her IUD removed, but
couldn't
get that done because her medical insurance was limited to
Catholic hospitals that refused to do it.
Hospitals should not be allowed to opt out of an area of medicine for
religious reasons. We should tell the owners of these hospitals to
change their rules or sell to other owners that will.
Business-imposed "wellness programs"
do
very little for employees' health. Their real purposes is an
excuse for businesses to cut the staff's medical care benefits by up
to 30%.
Nearly all models of car give less fuel efficiency than
reported by the tests. For some models, it is only half
the reported level.
1/3
less is a typical figure.
"Predictive policing" functions as a sort of
prejudice
laundering: a proprietary program tells the thugs to concentrate
in the places where minority groups congregate, but the prejudice is
hidden in the program so no one can be held accountable.
This, combined with thugs' tendency to jump to the conclusion that
blacks are guilty of something, leads systematically to injustice.
Angela Corey, "America's cruelest prosecutor",
lost
her bid for reelection.
11-year-old Brennan Hawkins was lost in the woods for 3 days. He
saw
people searching for him, and avoided them because he had been
taught to fear the mythical "stranger danger".
Teen pregnancy in the US dropped almost 1/4 from 2007 to 2012, and it
was
due
to using contraception more.
"Abstinence only" sex education is a
failure
in its own terms.
But even if it were a success, it would still be a gratuitously
harmful way to achieve the goal. It is cruel to teach people that
pleasure is bad.
The US intervention in Yemen (operated by Salafi Arabia) has
imposed
famine.
Although New Mexico has a law to prohibit theft by thugs,
Albuquerque's
thugs are still doing it.
The Albuquerque thug department is famous for
killing
people without justification, so the thugs must be shocked at the
idea they can't even steal cars.
Many US states put children in jail
when
their parents can't pay court fees or fines.
This seems to be part of the modern US practice of squeezing money out
of the poor, while letting the rich out of paying their fair share of
taxes.
Residents of Manhattan Beach, California, and nearby areas:
oppose
the plan for surveillance cameras to track all cars entering and
leaving Manhattan Beach.
"Georgetown University, which in 1838 profited from the sale of 272
slaves, will begin to award the descendants of those slaves
admission
advantages typically reserved for families of the Catholic
school's alumni."
Said descendants
insist
on being included in planning how this will be done. "Nothing
about us without us."
Apple says it will bring some of its billions of European cash to the
US, but this may be just a way of
pressuring
for a special "tax holiday" so they won't have to pay tax on it.
Politicians have been pushing that crazy idea for months. We need to
make companies pay more tax, not less. As always, they claim that
less tax and regulation will enable these "wealth creators" to "create
more wealth", hoping we will believe that they will let the rest of us
have some of it. What baloney!
Whatever companies offer us in exchange for reducing tax, it's sure to
be a bad deal for us if it is a good deal for them.
Panicky aerial spraying with pesticide naled killed
millions
of honeybees in one area of South Carolina. The authorities were
in such a foolish rush that they forgot to warn the beekeepers. The
beekeepers will sue, I presume.
This carelessness suggests that the decision to spray was not very
careful either.
Every shocking multiple shooting is
great
advertising for gun companies.
US military veterans are
posting
statements to defend Colin Kaepernick, who refused to stand for
the national anthem, against right-wing "patriotism".
There is nothing more patriotic in the US than to campaign for equal
rights and the well-being of all.
The FBI claims that every time someone looks at a photo of sexual
abuse of a minor, the minor suffers fresh harm. So
how
can it excuse distributing those images for months as a sting?
Wasn't this a bigger crime than the crime it was trying to catch?
If all we know is that a photo is prohibited, we should not assert it
is "child pornography". That may or may not be true.
We should not assume that the people appearing in those photos were
children. I suppose many of them really were children, but not all.
Surely some were minors (under 18) but sexually mature, thus not
children. Surely some were adults who looked like minors, or else the
photos were retouched to make them appear to be minors.
The US should close the
tax
loophole for bonuses for CEOs.
California, already short of water, gives extraction companies
permission to pollute certain aquifers, and it's
planning
to give more of these exceptions soon.
A killer thug has been
charged
with murder in Georgia. The state has repealed some of the
privileges that helped thugs get away with murder.
Although Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence was quashed, authorities
hope to kill him by
leaving
his hepatitis C untreated.
Publishers
Must Let Online Readers Pay for News Anonymously.
The impeachment of President Rousseff
leaves
the corrupt conservatives in control of Brazil.
US citizens:
demand an
end to laws that evict people for calling 911 for help.
Nude Selfies: What If They Are Just an
Ordinary
Part of Teenage Life?
In the UK,
2000
minors have been reported for "crimes" involving nude photos. We
must suppose that most of them either made the photos of themselves,
or received them from minors that photographed themselves.
(The article calls them all "children", but most of them are surely
teenagers, too old to be considered "children".)
I hope society relaxes and stops making a twisted fuss about nude
photos. As a plus, we wouldn't need to prohibit "revenge porn" if the
"victims" didn't care.
An
increasing
fraction of US parents believe vaccinations are "unnecessary" for
their children.
For diseases that infect only humans, it might be perfectly safe to go
unvaccinated if everyone you come near is vaccinated. Of course, that
is not what these parents really choose. What they choose is to
increase the population of unvaccinated children ready for an
outbreak.
Indonesia
faces
a challenge from violent Islamism.
It stirred up by years of
preachers
funded by Salafi Arabia.
Clinton intentionally supported the coup in Honduras, after the fact,
by
opposing
the reinstatement of President Zelaya.
This does not mention the argument that the US military must have
connived
at the coup in advance. Although the Secretary of State does not
control the military, the policy would surely have been coordinated
between the two departments.
The US military gave strong support to the Honduran military
in
the years following the coup.
Giving teenage girls a robot baby to take care of for a weekend did not
discourage them from getting pregnant. On the contrary, it
seems
to have encouraged that.
I suspect that a weekend isn't long enough to show them what a burden
it is to take care of a child. It could seem like fun, for just 3
days. If they did it for 6 months, day and night, while also trying
to do their schoolwork, perhaps it would teach a more realistic
lesson.
Liberia will allow a company to run some public schools, putting
teachers under
regimentation
redolent of the Amazon warehouse.
Teachers will be tracked by thumbprints, and their "every move" will
be monitored. No wonder they are talking about a strike.
Meanwhile, there has to be a catch. Who will these companies squeeze
money out of? They wouldn't participate unless they can squeeze it
out of someone.
Turkey's refugee deal with the EU has
fallen
apart; it depended on a subsequent visa deal that was never agreed
to.
"Pre-search" is a general
scheme
for circumventing the fourth amendment that prohibits unreasonable
searches and seizures.
The decline in level of union membership in the US means
lower
wages for employees in general, even those in jobs that were
non-union before.
The Trade in Services Agreement
threatens
to make every privatization permanent. The US would never be
allowed to set up a National Health Service, since it does not already
have one.
Aetna insurance is tremendously profitable, and would remain so if it
continued to participate in Obama's medical insurance system. It
doesn't have to pull out, but it
chooses
to.
Aetna's misleading PR doesn't end there — the article presents
more levels.
Lesson: don't let private insurance companies select the healthiest
patients. Set up a single payer system that will take the sickest
along with the healthiest, and which doesn't aim for profit.
US
states can now decide to keep the Common Core or repeal it.
Common Core
squeezes
literature to a narrow point of view: "What did the author mean"
is the one and only permitted question.
Calling on the Justice Department to
make
all US thug departments provide accurate and timely data about
their killings.
London thugs
intentionally
came down heavy on the Notting Hill Carnival.
Thugs searched some blacks because they came to look at the black man
who was kept in handcuffs after the thug said he wasn't accused of
anything. They searched others for no reason at all, except perhaps
trying to find some more-or-less harmless drugs.
African elephants are
heading
rapidly for extinction, because they don't reproduce fast enough
to make up for the rate of killing them.
Mylan has undone part of its price hikes for the EpiPen,
for
some patients only.
The EU has made its network neutrality rules more strict,
eliminating
a number of loopholes.
However, the new rules still allow ISPs to
interfere
with Bittorrent.
US citizens:
call for
ending use of privatized prisons for holding people that may be
deported.
Everyone:
call on
Google to stop running ads for phony abortion clinics.
We must stop manufacturers from limiting repairs to
"authorized
service providers".
The
Mbuti can protect their forests better than a Congolese state
human exclusion zone.
However, in a few decades, global heating combined with population
growth of the surrounding people is likely to overwhelm the Mbuti and
destroy them and the forest. When there are suddenly millions of
starving people desperate for some land, little can resist them in the
short term. It is essential to make sure those millions are not born.
Russian
crackers
are attacking US state election systems and have succeeded in
at
least two states.
These crackers didn't alter any data, this time. However, Republicans
are
systematically
challenging the voting rights of many individual Democrats.
The system pretends to check for people that are registered to vote in
two places. But its comparison is so sloppy that it often identifies
two different people as the same one. Nothing stops states from being
as sloppy as their Republican officials wish. Thousands of Jose
Garcias are likely to be purged, in those states where Republicans
want to purge Hispanic voters.
Old-fashioned
voter-ID
laws are still in use, too.
Australia's right-wing head of the environment committee
wants
to cut subsidies for solar power, and instead fund some sort of
long-range research.
More research can't be bad, but that's just an excuse to avoid
reductions in the fossil fuel sales. You can tell that that is the
goal because the man calls himself a "skeptic" (i.e., denialist). He
denies everything that real climate scientists know.
Microsoft is "embracing" various parts of GNU/Linux in a
bear-hug
of patents. Just which patents they are threatening companies
with is a secret.
Meanwhile, Microsoft
buys
itself keynote speeches in "Linux" and "open source" events, as
shallow propaganda.
The open source non-movement doesn't teach people why they should
regard this as dangerous. It does not say that there are principles
at stake, only
convenience. So they don't push back as they ought to.
When Microsoft releases free programs that do something useful in the
free world, they are legitimate contributions to the free software
community. But they do not compensate for Microsoft's aggression
against our community.
The campaign for abortion rights in Ireland is
gathering
strength.
Don't believe claims about
"superfoods"
— they are actually superstitionfoods.
The cleanup of Fukushima has cost
628
billion dollars, although it is still in the initial stages.
In 50 years civilization may collapse due to global heating's effects.
If the cleanup is unfinished, it may never be finished, and over the
subsequent thousand years some larger amount of radioisotopes may get
out and spread around a larger area.
Good jobs in the US are disappearing, and wages are going down in
absolute terms even as per capita production increases. We need an
automatic income for everyone.
Fortunately, evidence shows that
an
automatic income works well: people use it to improve their lives,
not to waste it on doping themselves.
I wonder, however, if we should tie it to use of birth control, to
bring about a decrease in population.
Torture victim Abu Zubaydah
pled
to be released from Guantanamo.
The officials who conspired to torture him are
the
ones who belong in prison.
67 Organizations Urge Justice Dept. to Improve
Data
Collection Mandate on Deaths in Police Custody.
Various Pentagon officials allowed staff or contractors to charge
lavish
personal entertainment expenses as government expenses, even after
they were warned to stop this.
It's wrong to charge personal pleasures to the taxpayers, never mind
what they are. Let's not make the mistake of thinking that a strip
club is worse than a symphonic concert or that a game in a casino is
worse than a game of golf or tennis.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-31 because the old link was broken.]
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