China will require all candidates for office in Hong Kong to swear they are Xi-ple.
*Arctic ice loss forces polar bears [and some other predators] touse four times as much energy to survive.*
Two Pakistani Christians, Shagufta Kausar and Shafqat Emmanuel, face execution for "blasphemy" on account of text messages they may not even have sent.
The two are married but imprisoned separately in solitary confinement for 7 years so far.
Any law against "blasphemy" expresses contempt for freedom of expression. I was invited once to Pakistan, but I decided it is not safe there — not for me, nor for anyone.
Accusing North Korea of forcing prisoners to mine coal for export.
Where does the exported coal go? China, I suppose. Few other countries would buy it.
There is no way to stop North Korea from exporting coal to China, and no way to pressure China from ceasing to buy it. But this becomes part of a bigger issue: China must stop burning coal! We can, and already do, put pressure on China to cut down and eventually cease its use of coal.
I don't know from the article whether the exported coal is thermal coal (burned for the heat alone) or coking coal (used to mix carbon into iron). That makes a difference, since the world needs to eliminate use of thermal coal, but it will not cease the much smaller use of coking coal.
Another man killed because a thug kept a knee on his neck for 5 minutes.
The thugs had come, supposedly, to help him because he was freaking out. If Antioch, California, had defunded the "police", 9-1-1 would have sent paratherapists instead of thugs, and they would have talked him down with no loss of life.
Is Alexei Navalny a prisoner of conscience?
Plainly he is: he has been jailed for nonviolent defense of democracy. Therefore Amnesty demands his release. However, it has got itself in a pickle by stating criteria for designating someone as a "prisoner of conscience" which include other requirements besides being a prisoner of conscience.
The other pertinent requirement is "who has not advocated violence". Does comparing immigrants to "rotten teeth" constitute advocating violence against them? It could be interpreted that way. But it is not relevant to his imprisonment today; Russia has not accused him of "hostility towards immigrants." (Not that an opinion could justify imprisoning someone.) So Amnesty should not consider his past or present views on immigrants relevant to determining whether he is a prisoner of conscience.
If Amnesty wants a designation limited to people who have been exemplary in all aspects of their political lives, it would do better to call that something different — perhaps "exemplary prisoner of conscience." Then it could recognize Navalny as a prisoner of conscience who has not been exemplary.
Canadian milk and butter appear to contain increasing amounts of palm oil.
Philadelphia elected a new district attorney, who supports criminal justice reform. Philadelphia thugs want to bring back the old district attorney, for whom a thug could do no wrong. So they blame all crime on the new district attorney.
Protests have put an end to the plan to build a giant gas power plant in England.
The UK should build batteries or other energy storage units instead.
*Who will clean up the 'billion-dollar mess' of abandoned US oil wells?*
Collapse, by Jared Diamond, explains how the same thing happens with mines: when the mine becomes unprofitable to operate, there is no money left in the company that owns it to clean it up.
Often the actual ownership of wells is left in small companies that can be allowed to go bankrupt, while the profits are in the megacorporations that buy from those small companies. Those will never go bankrupt.
A carbon tax could solve the problem. Part of the tax money could pay for closing wells. Of course, the tax should be a lot bigger than that, because its purpose is also to encourage switching to renewable energy.
*Covid and the climate crisis show why we need a new social contract between old and young.*
Let's resist supposing that the question is whether to blame the baby boomers in general or generation z in general, because maybe it's neither. Plutocrats often play divide and rule. Setting the old and the young against each other is just their sort of thing.
The argument that we need to retire later, and thus keep working longer, makes perfect sense, but how can that be reconciled with the fact that lots of people in their 50s are already terminally out of work?
Meanwhile, the lifestyles of Americans are terribly inefficient. Surely we can do something to move to greater efficiency in our consumption.
* Decline in system underpinning Gulf Stream could lead to more extreme weather in Europe and higher sea levels on US east coast.*
The Environmental Poisoning Agency engaged in the most blatant stupidity to overlook evidence that Telone is carcinogenic.
Frequent forest fires reduce the forest's carbon capture.
This is another positive feedback that will push us towards disaster.
*Australian scientists warn urgent action needed to save 19 'collapsing' ecosystems.*
Now that all the official interfaces to Twitter require nonfree Javascript code, the Free Software Foundation uses unofficial free software to post on Twitter.
*Germany convicts former Assad regime agent in historic Syria torture verdict.*
Due to global heating, bats in some places are dying from heat.
*Woman awarded $7,700 for five years of housework in China divorce ruling.*
It is a long-standing feminist complaint about social practices that women tend to do the chores, and their work is undervalued because it is unpaid. It seems that China takes this argument seriously.
Many Yazidis cannot go home to Shinjar, and continue to live in dismal refugee camps. With Covid-19 on top of that, some young people are committing suicide.
If the wrecker had continued the campaign to eradicate PISSI, perhaps more of the Yazidis could go home.
I am surprised by the statement that some Yazidis remain prisoners of PISSI. PISSI no longer controls territory; where can it hold its prisoners. The statement is so brief and sketchy that it is hard to make sense of. The reference given does not seem to say anything about this.
*Israeli checkpoint killing of Palestinian was an execution, report claims.*
*Corporate Lawyers Line Up for Justice Department Top Slots.*
Greece is pushing to require people to use phones to present proof of vaccination, and the UK is looking at the idea too.
Even if the government does not require digital surveillance for this, companies might do it too.
*Sri Lanka at 'tipping point’ with risk of return to past atrocities, activists warn.*
The Cherokee tribe asked Jeep to stop using its name as the name of a line of products.
I think businesses should have to get explicit permission to use the name of any person, ethnic group or community in commercial publicity.
Neera Tanden's confirmation by the Senate is in jeopardy, for the wrong reasons: for condemning Republicans, not for working with plutocratists.
I wonder why progressive senators plan to vote for her. If they have a reason to think having her as head of the OMB would be good, I would like to know it.
For $25 billion, the US could easily give everyone Covid-19 vaccine.
Given what Russia and China are doing, providing vaccine to everyone else would cost considerably less. Wouldn't it be great to put an end to Covid-19 sooner? And the US would win gratitude for this generosity, just as Russia and China are winning it now
But the US should not spend the money on windfall profits by paying high prices. First it should allow other manufacturers, to reduce what vaccines cost.
The article refers to patents as "intellectual property". That term causes confusion which benefits patent holders as they try to restrict others. It's a shame that representatives of organizations that seek to serve the public good speak in ways that build up the obstructive power of patents.
Texas thugs arrested a man for walking while black during a snowstorm. Fortunately, nothing worse resulted.
The Department of Transportation agreed to an alliance between American Airlines and Jet Blue. But now it will reconsider the decision, because such alliances are anticompetitive.
How private equity funds exaggerate the profitability of investing in them. Don't trust what they claim they can do.
Google is paying powerful News Corp (the Wall Street Journal, etc) for presenting its articles in Australia, but don't forget about smaller publishers.
I think it is good to make large, profitable online services pay to make use of publications, but we must be on guard against any attempt to turn that into a part of copyright power and impose the same requirement on nonprofit web sites.
However, it might be good to direct some of this money to the authors. Why not?
Nearly all US states make it too easy to subject a person to total, permanent control by a "guardian". This is often done without properly notifying the target of the court hearing which will decide about per fate.
Zuckerberg personally ordered Facebook not to ban Alex Jones when the company's policy said to ban him.
The Senate confirmed thoroughly plutocratist Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture.
He is expected to favor the big middleman companies over people that eat food or grow food.
Biden has brought the issue of Americans accused of crimes in Iran into the negotiations on resuming the non-nuclear deal.
I think that is a mistake. Keeping Iran non-nuclear is far more important than freeing a few people who may be unjustly accused, and sanctions that interfere with medical treatment for millions can't be justified by those few either.
*How Seville is turning leftover oranges into electricity.*
I have occasionally wondered why the city does not replace the trees gradually with other orange trees that will produce fruit people will like to eat.
Many companies are using Covid-19 as an excuse to terminate (for all practical purposes) telephone support.
Inaccessible sites are a problem for more than just blind people. I am not blind, but many websites are inaccessible for me because they demand visitors run nonfree JavaScript code.
I avoid many of these problems by not dealing with those companies. I never purchase anything over the internet. But there are sites that do really important jobs, such as scheduling Covid-19 vaccinations, which are inaccessible in the Free World. Fortunately I found a vaccination site that would make an appointment by phone.
Australia's renewable energy generation is growing so fast that the market will compel shutting several fossil fuel plants by 2025.
This does not mean Australia is on track towards doing its share of what civilization needs to survive.
US senators have introduced a bill to put sanctions on the president of Honduras and on the Honduran military.
NATO was set up to defend Western Europe from possible invasion by the Soviet Union. Now it makes plans for attacking Russia.
I can't see how attacking Russia could be justified in a world like this one, nor why we should maintain an alliance for that purpose.
I disagree with some of the article's other points. I think the almost bloodless displacement of the Taliban from Afghanistan might have lead to a better Afghanistan if we had not dropped it from our attention to prioritize the unjustified attack on Iraq. Of course, there is no way to make sure.
China's campaign for world hegemony calls for countries to unite in opposition, but that opposition will need to be economic and diplomatic, not military (except for a few countries that prepare to deter or repel China's announced plan to attack Taiwan). It does not require NATO.
US citizens: call on Congress to resist Nestlé's plan to sell some water sources to private equity.
The thugs that killed Daniel Prude in Rochester will not be prosecuted because the grand jury voted not to indict.
I am sure that Letitia James tried her best to get an indictment. The refusal is therefore quite unusual. It might perhaps represent racism, or an insistence to "support your local police."
One way or another, we need to stop thugs from holding people down with their knees.
*Republicans 'Fear' Green New Deal, Argues Naomi Klein, Because It's a Viable Alternative to Free-Market Failure.*
Thinking nonpolitically about when and how to reopen schools.
I agree that remote education is necessary while Covid-19 rages. But using nonfree software is not necessary, and morally not acceptable.
*Half of America In or Near Poverty.*
(satire) *Trump Worried Biden Will Take Credit For 500,000 Covid Deaths [Trump] Made Possible.*
(satire) *Joe Manchin Reverses Stance On Abolishing Filibuster After Son Diagnosed With Filibuster Disease.*
The corrupter had over 1.6 billion dollars in outside income while he was president. This was due to various sorts of corruption.
The Supreme Court's decision to allow release of the wrecker's tax returns was not about release to the public. It was about private release to prosecutors for use in a grand jury to try to indict him.
I think that's the most important thing to do with them.
Uber cheats drivers by underestimating the distance they must travel.
The Capitol Police faced extreme violence from the attackers on Jan 6, using all sorts of weapons short of guns. And their leaders seemed to have disappeared.
*Iran reaches deal with global nuclear watchdog for inspections over the next 3 months.*
However, the deal is somewhat limited.
Ayanna Pressley proposes a federal program to provide work doing jobs that benefit the public.
I support the plan, but in political terms I wonder how this resolution, which is not a bill and thus can't actually create the program, will help establish it.
A new AI program uses video to recognize people's emotions. Reportedly it helps teachers figure out what a student needs. But who gets that information? Since the program is, apparently, nonfree, nobody should trust it.
It is even less trustworthy given that it is developed in Hong Kong. China will surely find a way to make it serve to catch potential or actual dissidents, and not only among students and teachers.
Australia reached a compromise with Facebook about the requirement to pay news publishers.
The situation is too complex for me to have any idea what the results will be. I can't tell whether this deal will permit Facebook to get away with paying news publishers little or nothing. I wish someone would tell me which side won in the confrontation.
What I am sure of is that it isn't enough to make Facebook safe for society, whether in Australia, the US, or anywhere else.
*Populations of migratory freshwater fish have plummeted by 76% since 1970, and large fish — those weighing more than 30kg — have been all but wiped out in most rivers.*
Too many young and healthy migrant workers die in Qatar, and the government has ignored calls to investigate why.
*Cronyism in Britain is rampant and goes unpunished.* This is because Bogus Johnson is its biggest sponsor.
Some Tories want to end UK's Covid-19 precautions by the end of April. Scientific modeling predicts this would lead to another wave of Covid-19, and tens of thousands more deaths.
Part of the problem is that children are not being vaccinated. They could spread the disease to those adults who remain vulnerable (including the fraction for whom the vaccine is not effective). Eradicating the disease without strong social precautions requires vaccination of children.
The FBI, to investigate the attack on the Capitol, has seized call records and "actual communications" from portable phones of everyone there.
I think that is legitimate in response to a crime, especially a heinous crime like that one. The majority of the people there were engaged in insurrection.
What we must fight against is the establishment of systems that collect data about people in general when there is no reason to think they are engaged in a serious crime. That is fuel for tyranny.
San Francisco plans to rename many schools, including the ones named after George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
I think that would be a mistake.
We designate people as heroes because we admire their actions. However, as our moral standards change, over time we come to perceive some of their actions as wrongs, flaws. When we talk about them, we should criticize their flaws.
In some cases, the flaws we discover may be so large that we conclude they were not heroes at all, merely evildoers. I think Columbus is a candidate for that.
However, it is a mistake to demand that past heroes be flawless. If we designate them as evildoers at the sight of the first serious flaw-by-our-standards, by and by we will have no heroes left. Therefore I think we should continue to admire a hero if per great deeds greatly outweigh per flaws.
*Connecticut Lawmakers Want to Try Again to Make Prison Phone Calls [gratis].*
The US has a history of white supremacists staging violent overthrow of properly elected state governments, then imposing racist rule with rigged elections. Jan 6 was not the first time. The article describes an instance in 1876.
That article is pervaded by symbolic bigotry, expressed by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid such bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.)
I object to bigotry, and normally I refuse to link to articles which instantiate it. I made an exception for this article because it teaches something very important about the history of racist violence, and I didn't see much chance of finding another article on the topic without the bigotry.
Nonetheless, I rebuke the article's bigotry. Spitting at all whites is wrong, and far from helping to eliminate racism, it is more likely to do the opposite.
Claiming falsely that a blackout was caused by renewable generation is a standard tactic of planet roasters.
Israel's entire coastline has been polluted by an oil spill.
By luck, Gaza escaped the pollution. Could Israelis, yearning to bathe in the sea, make peace with Gaza so that this will be possible? Probably not, but it is a nice idea to think about.
Virginia has abolished the death penalty.
Almost half the states in the US have done this. I hope Biden will encourage progress.
Nathan J. Robinson, former columnist for The Guardian, explains how the paper's US editor terminated dealings with him after he was absurdly accused of antisemitism.
In the article, he explains both the paper's good aspects which are why I refer principally to its stories, and its bad aspects, such as helping to give Corbyn the shaft.
Secretary General Guterres: *The world faces a pandemic of human rights abuses in the wake of Covid-19.*
Oxfam says that the UK's arms sales to Salafi Arabia are helping it continue fighting in Yemen.
The US must continue using masks, keeping distance, and avoiding/prohibiting activities that tend to spread Covid-19.
Otherwise the newer, more infectious strains are likely to spread and cause another surge in cases.
The Republican governor of Texas says Republicans will somehow spare Texans from paying the thousands of dollars that they have been charged for electricity during the storm.
That's a step in the right direction, but it would have been better for Texans to have voted for Democrats and avoided both the gouging and the unreliability of the power grid.
Iran's women's skiing team has gone to the world championship without its coach — her husband vetoed her travel.
US citizens: call on Congress to vote to bar Trump from running for office, using the 14th amendment, on the grounds that he participated in insurrection.
Citizens of Massachusetts: call on the Massachusetts legislature to pass a bill to regulate face recognition, and a bill to end the practice of suspending drivers' licenses because of debts.
Many people are too poor to pay their debts, and losing their drivers' licenses means they lose their jobs and get even further in debt. The fact that now half of all Americans are in poverty or close to it means that this harmful feedback loop does even more harm.
Starmer says that *Labour must work with business to create fairer society.*
"Working with business" sounds good to people who dislike conflict, like "working with Republicans", but both are programmed to fail. Working for more fairness together with the main source of unfairness is not likely to get very far.
Even worse, announcing that that's your intended approach gives the source of unfairness veto power. "Working with" thus turns into "begging the indulgence of."
Frederick Douglass reminds us that "Power concedes nothing without a demand." Starmer would like Britons to forget to make the demand.
A thousand students at Columbia University are on strike, refusing to pay their tuition fees, demanding a reduction in those fees but also other changes in the name of justice, such as fossil fuel divestment.
Rihanna wore a pendant with an image of Ganesha, and is being criticized for it using the misguided concept of "cultural appropriation."
Setting aside that confusion, is there something to criticize about Rihanna's pendant? I am not sure. Was it disrespectful to the worshipers of Ganesha? Perhaps a little -- in that it acts to disconnect the appearance of Ganesha from its context and meaning.
I disagree with every religion, more or less, and I might use one's symbolic images as well as its words to make a point about it, perhaps to criticize it, much as Nina Paley did (better than I ever could) in Sita Sings the Blues.
But I would not disconnect them from their context. I may criticize a religion but I do not want to undermine knowledge or awareness about it.
Progress in filtering or breaking down microplastics, though not yet at commercial scale.
Republicans' spreading of Covid-19 was the culmination of a decades-long trend: plutocratist policies of deregulation and marketization have made the US more unequal in life expectancy as well as in income.
The "new idea" of letting pork processing plants do their own inspections was tried experimentally under Obama. In 2014-2017, the plants which did this had twice as many violations as other plants.
Does this surprise you? It does not surprise me. In general, the reason businesses lobby to run their own inspection is so that they can do a quick and sloppy job of it, and sell things they should have discarded. The result can spread disease.
In general, the reason why government agencies accept these proposals from business is that they are trying to serve business rather than serve the public. A good government would teach its officials to laugh those lobbyists out of the office.
The US should simply cancel this bad policy.
A UK minister's proposal to legally enforce freedom of speech in universities conflicts with his plan to label criticism of Israel's occupation of Palestine as "antisemitism".
The US must stop condemning parents for "neglecting" their children when they are doing the best possible given their poverty.
A study found that 30% of patients with mild cases of Covid-19 had serious symptoms for months after their "recovery".
The wrecker decided to expose tens of millions of Americans to Covid-19 when he could have chosen not to. That will mean millions of people partially or wholly disabled months from now.
Republicans propose to give Americans better internet bandwidth by prohibiting cities from helping out with municipal broadband.
Plutocratist politicians will propose dooH niboR as the solution to any problem whatsoever.
The US has increased production of N95 masks, but has not yet ordered hospitals to buy N95 masks for their staff.
Nevada is considering a bill to allow companies to set up their own local governments.
They will surely find ways to harass whistleblowers in those companies.
US citizens: call on Congress to stop providing military weapons to US thug departments.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
Bogus Johnson gave the UK the next worst thing to a no-deal exit from the EU.
I warned that the only way to get good results from leaving the EU was to put Corbyn in charge.
Studies have linked phthalates in the mother's blood with the frequencies of various subsequent brain disorders in children.
Students are suing Northwestern University for collecting students' biometric information through exam software.
Bravo! The law in use is limited to that one state, but if one university shows it can do without these vicious pieces of proprietary malware, other universities will obviously also be able to do so.
US citizens: call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore the protections of the Migratory Bird Protection Act.
A lesson on how domestic violence and controlling relationships really unfold.
*Texas freeze led to release of tons of air pollutants as refineries shut.* These emissions can be equivalent to many years of normal operation.
Ideologically imposed Republican deregulation is the cause of Texas's power failure and the cause of the bankruptcies caused by gouging on natural gas.
Some Texans have been bankrupted by the thousands of dollars that the gas companies charged while their electricity was out. Republicans now aim to use them as hostages to protect the windfall profits for the future. They want the federal government to ransom the hostages by paying what pay the utility gouging.
It is good to rescue the hostages, but what will happen next time there is a global heating disaster or a natural disaster in Texas? Should the utilities be able to gouge again, and the federal government ransom their hostages again? We must not throw our money down the toilet from which utilities feed.
The deal to ransom the hostages this time must include regulating utility prices in Texas so that,next time, the utilities can't gouge again.
Paying ransom for hostages to the enemies of the American people was Reagan's policy. It must not be ours today.
*Malcolm X family says letter shows NYPD and FBI conspired in his murder.*
I would not be very surprised if they did.
Privatized deportation prison thugs use the current freezing cold to torture prisoners. When they complain of the cold in their unheated cells, the thugs turn on fans to make it worse.
That is but the most shocking of many forms of cruelty and neglect, just as one must expect from any privatized government function.
Secretary General Guterres warned that humanity needs to end its "war with nature."
I am concerned, however, that use of the term "natural capital" will backfire, leading people to accept the practice of selling off natural systems as long as the price is high enough. The capitalist will sell the ladder he is standing on, and won't even climb down before it is taken away.
A non-Uighur teacher in Xinjiang was ordered to teach shackled Uighurs and saw them get weaker and sicker as time went by.
What Medicare pays for some important drugs is much higher than other US government programs.
If they were unified into a single buying bloc, they would get even lower prices. And with most of the country's population as members, they could push it down even more. This is what most advanced countries do, and it works for them.
A court ruled that New York City can publish the records of misconduct of its official thugs. Thug unions sued to block publication, and lost.
Florida's governor, DeSantis, took the initiative to offer special "pop-up" vaccination for two zipcodes whose residents happen to be particularly wealthy.
DeSantis was previously known for covering up statistics about deaths from Covid-19, and prosecuting the whistleblower who arranged to leak the true numbers.
Florida's governor, DeSantis, took the initiative to offer special "pop-up" vaccination for two zip-codes whose residents happen to be particularly wealthy.
DeSantis was previously known for covering up statistics about deaths from Covid-19, and prosecuting the whistleblower who arranged to leak the true numbers.
The UK government goes to great lengths to investigate welfare fraud, even demanding information from the NHS.
Investigating benefits fraud would be legitimate if the support one could get by being honest were adequate to live on. As in the US, what motivates the overemphasis on poor people's frauds rather than rich people's frauds as well as the push to reduce welfare for the poor in order to increase welfare for the rich is the cruel attitude of despising poor people and blaming them for their poverty.
The Supreme Court is blocking a grand jury request to see the corrupter's tax returns.
Maryland has enacted a tax on digital advertising. Proxies for Big Tech are suing to overturn it.
Facebook is being sued based on claims that it cheated advertisers by exaggerating the effectiveness of ads.
*House Dems Demand Probe Into US Military Purchases of Location Data From Muslim-Focused Apps.*
I see the motive for this, but they're trying to cure a symptom rather than the real problem. Why protect only Muslims and not other Americans?
Congress ought to investigate what allows those apps, and thousands of other apps, to collect location data about their users. Then they should legislate to put a stop to this.
(satire) *Facebook Takes Down All Posts Spreading Misinformation About Fictional Nation Of "Australia."*
(satire) *Maine Residents Placed Under Boil Lobster Advisory.*
The Stop CHEATERS Act would invest $100 billion in IRS systems and audits, which is expected to increase tax revenue by a trillion dollars.
(satire) *Studio Ghibli Theme Park Opening Delayed After Construction Site Overrun With Curious Forest Sprites.*
Vandana Shiva argues for treating "everything we need" as a commons.
I think that goes too far -- it is, in effect, Communism, and we have not seen that come out well.
In societies where each family can do its own gathering, or its own gardening, there is no need to make food part of an economy. But we are far away from that now. It is not feasible for everyone to grow food, not in India and even less so in the US. No one farm will grow all the foodstuffs that people eat nowadays, not even in India. There must be a system to handle growing food, processing food (do you want bread, flour, or just whole grains of wheat) and providing it to those who don't grow it. If it doesn't work by rationing, it needs to be a market.
A market is based on rules, and there are many choices for society to make in those rules. The big economic issues, the causes of hunger and penury, have to do with the rules of the market for food. Through the 1970s the US used to have many family farms, and governments made sure its policies enabled them to stay in business. Reagan suckered farmers into accepting loans they could not pay back, and this caused a big leap in consolidation. His deregulation and his weakening of anti-monopoly laws allowed mega-businesses to dominate and eventually buy most of the remaining family farms, while mistreating the eating public too.
Likewise for water. In a city, you can't get water from your own well. There needs to be a system to handle it. What should the system's rules be? How should it charge for water -- and how do we make sure poor people water to drink and to wash? Those are crucial political questions today, with poor families' water being disconnected just as they are told they need to wash their hands frequently. But "dig your own well" is not a solution.
An aquifer should be a common -- but successful commons need rules about who gets to take how much.
Oracle provided the software for the Chinese state to make effective repressive use of the massive data it collects about everyone in China.
The crucial evil is in the collection of the data, but that is no excuse for helping in any other stage of repression.
Around 15% of prisoners in the US are sentenced to 50 or more years in prison.
There is rarely a rational basis for such a long sentence.
Calling on India to release political prisoner Professor G N Saibaba.
*Nursing Home Industry Avoids Scrutiny for Covid-19 Deaths as Powerful Lobby Goes to Work.*
Civilian government workers in Burma are striking against the military takeover.
Large numbers of people in the UK going to the beach last summer seems to have had no Covid-spreading effect.
The UK Supreme Court ruled that Uber drivers are employees.
This should result in giving them many forms of employment rights.
Meanwhile, in California, the initiative that decided drivers are not employees has enabled Uber to cut the drivers' pay.
The Colombian army killed at least 6400 noncombatants and disguised them as FARC guerrillas killed in combat.
The soldiers were rewarded based on body count.
The imprisonment of two Dubai princesses illustrates how Dubai legally makes women second-class citizens.
European countries did this in the 1800s, and even into the 1900s; it went much further than just denying women the vote.
The Tories are more or less undoing their previous harmful reorganization which introduced competition and privatization into the workings of the NHS, which they did based on plutocratist ideology.
*Call to tax international flights to raise climate funds for poor countries.*
I am in favor.
Elsevier is corrupting "open science" in Europe by worming its way into operating the systems to monitor scientific publication.
That is in addition to publishing pay-walled journals, which should not exist at all.
*To Avoid Backlash, Facebook Reportedly Relaxed Fact-Checking Standards on Conservative Pages.*
A librarian has been fired for taking books by Ann Counter and Donald Trump off the shelves and burning them.
Although I think those books are contemptible, destroying books in the library's collection is not acceptable. Burning books is especially bad.
SpaceX donated over $100k to members of Congress that tried to overturn the election.
The Earth's magnetic field flipped direction 42,000 years ago. It now appears this may have caused problems including an increase in UV radiation hitting the Earth, and might have caused extinctions including the full-blooded Neanderthals.
The Neanderthals did have descendants of course -- us.
UK ministers are becoming habituated to deciding laws without letting Parliament vote.
This is not a democracy.
*Belarus jails two journalists who covered Lukashenko protest.*
When Britons claim welfare payments after losing their jobs, 1/6 of them can't afford food.
*Iran [non-]nuclear deal: US agrees to join talks brokered by EU.*
It looks like Biden decided he wants to make progress towards a deal, rather than put Iran in the wrong.
Facebook's rejection of Australian news sources makes visible the injustice of internet connections that privilege Facebook over other sites.
Such schemes ought to be prohibited in the name of market competition, among other reasons.
*Facebook is gambling Australia can't live without it.* More precisely, without finding news articles in it. *Imagine if we prove them wrong.*
Biden opposes defunding local police, apparently even partially.
Fortunately, localities can do this without federal approval.
Britain, Canada and Norway pretend to be leaders in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while exporting lots of fossil fuel.
Cavities in Siberia, filled with methane, are producing large craters when they explosively release the methane into the atmosphere.
Texas's gas-fired power plants failed due to cold.
Republican deregulation enabled and encourage Texas's electric utilities to save money by not preparing for winter storms.
The power grid should be run by the state so it will be accountable.
Texas cities kept the electricity on in downtown areas because of the critical facilities there. This had the side effect of keeping power on for business that wasted power on lights for publicity.
Maybe there needs to be a law that the city can order a building to turn off all external lights and all light in rooms that no one is in. This will make more power available to keep the current on in other neighborhoods.
(satire) *Doctor Assures Limbaugh Family It [is] Normal For Body To Continue Ranting About Welfare Queens Hours After Death.*
The Georgia state senate is secretly considering bills for voter suppression.
To disprove the impunity the wrecker still claims to have, we must prosecute him for inciting the attack on the Capitol.
Failure to prosecute him would encourage him and others to sabotage our system of government.
Are we so desperate to rebuild our house that we can't afford to remove the termites' nest?
Biden proposes to give/sell $200 million in ship-to-air missiles for the Egyptian military government.
At least they can't be used to repress dissidents.
*Senior UK fraud prosecutor unfairly sacked after US sabotage, tribunal finds.*
The article is concerned with how UK officials acted, but I'm most concerned with the possible dishonesty of the US officials.
Reasons not to use funding sites.
The imprisonment of climate activist Disha Ravi epitomizes the Indian government's readiness to outrage the world in order to crush dissent.
Now that England has reopened many schools, Covid-19 is spreading fast among school children there.
Planet-roasters keep trying desperately to ship abrasive tar sands oil from Alberta to some coastline. Biden should cancel the Line 3 pipeline to protect the world from that oil.
*The GOP Is a Dangerous Cult That Democrats Should Not Negotiate With.*
The question is, how to twist the arms of senators Manchin and Sinema, Democratic in affiliation but with politics like pre-tea-party Republicans.
(satire) *"You Go Back Where You Came From," Says Texan Pointing Gun At Snowman Trespassing On Property.*
(satire) *Historians Reveal Terra-Cotta Army Result Of Perfectionist Sculptor Screwing Up Soldier Statue Thousands Of Times.*
*Reversing Myanmar's Coup Isn't Enough. Here’s How to Build a Better Burma.*
Facebook responded by the requirement to pay for carrying news articles by blocking all news sites and lots of other sites as well.
With luck, people will adapt by finding other ways to see news articles and stop letting Facebook use them.
*California bill would decriminalize psychedelics, paving the way for medical treatment.*
In Chicago, black and Hispanic cops are substantially less thuggish than white cops, on the average.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid that bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make an exception for articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the exceptions.
The War on Drugs is so drugged-out that its damage shows up in many aspects of life.
I would say to bring the drug war's soldiers home, but the problem is that that's where they are; their war is against Americans. Let's demobilize them.
When considering issues about aid to the poor, we should keep in mind the human right not to live in poverty.
Nepal is considering a law to make females under 40 years old get permission to leave the country.
This is supposed to be a measure to prevent them from being trafficked and enslaved. However, the result is patriarchal. Meanwhile, trafficking and enslavement is not limited to females, and the forced labor they do is not limited to sex. Perhaps a law should strongly encourage every Nepali who plans to leave to take a course of study about how enslavers actually work and the lures they use.
The NAACP is suing the wrecker for organizing the attack on the Capitol. That is good, but is it adequate as a response to his deeds? Normally, civil lawsuits cannot result in a judgment that puts someone in prison. Is this lawsuit an exception? If not, I think it is not enough.
The Poor Peoples Campaign in West Virginia is pressuring the plutocratist senator Manchin to support increasing the minimum wage.
*The Guardian view on two-party politics: a binary choice is bad for democracy.*
The article focuses on the UK — where proportional representation, as in most European parliaments, would give Corbyn's supporters a chance to succeed with another party — but the US has the same problem.
Biden is using a clever method to pressure Salafi Arabia to reduce the power of the acting king, Prince Bone Saw, and deal instead with King Salman.
This rebukes the prince, but not the country.
*California bill would ban fracking in state by 2027.*
Hooray!
*Taiwan suggests China to blame after deal for 5m Covid vaccine doses is put on hold.*
Geographical allocation of distribution of a product should never group Taiwan with China. Instead, group Taiwan with countries that are rivals with China.
Taiwan's humorous response to disinformation is effective.
Light pollution and delectable floating plastic are killing baby sea turtles in Australia.
BLM UK will contribute to a "people's tribunal" to investigate the death of people in jail, prison, and locked wards.
Princess Latifa's description of her prison, which is effectively long-term solitary confinement.
Abiy, ruler of Ethiopia, has arrested some Oromo protest leaders, making accusations that are fishy, and they have been on hunger strike to the point of organ damage.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled that Jamaica must repeal its laws prohibiting homosexual sex.
New York State has sued Amazon for failing to protect its warehouse workers from Covid-19, and for firing a worker who tried to organize to demand protection.
The Republican mayor of a town called Colorado City told the residents to "Sink or swim" on their own — that they should not expect any help from the city or anyone else.
That's what passes for morality among Republicans today.
If you would like governments to organize efforts to help and take care of people that need help, vote for progressive Democrats and Greens.
Progress in designing public housing to be low-carbon and good to live in.
*Crew of oil tanker beached off UAE to go home after four years stranded at sea.*
They could have left before, but they would have forfeited their back pay for years on the ship.
Their ordeal is over, but what we really need is a treaty to assure that stranded crew do not face that unjust choice in the future. Perhaps the nearest country should be allowed to seize the ship, pay off the crew, sell it for auction, take enough to cover what was paid to the crew plus something for its trouble, and send the rest to the previous owner.
*Heating Arctic may be to blame for snowstorms in Texas, scientists argue.*
Global heating is not uniform — it does not mean that every part of the Earth gets steadily hotter. It is possible for a region to get quite cold for a few weeks a year, while its average temperature rises.
It is even possible for a region to get colder on the average even as the Earth's surface overall gets hotter on the average.
Right-wing anti-truthers blame renewable generators for power outages in Texas, which in fact are the result of problems in fossil-fuel generators.
The UK government is considering a bill to oppose de-platforming in universities, giving the universities and student unions a responsibility not to censor staff, students, and visiting speakers.
The University and College Union replies that the UK government itself is a big threat to freedom of speech on campus. That accusation seems plausible to me, and I would like to see examples. Does criticism of Israel's occupation of Palestine faces repression there through labeling it "antisemitism"?
However, if freedom of speech is in danger from two sides, the two dangers to not balance each other out. Rather, they add.
Secret recordings made by Princess Latifa as a prisoner in Dubai say that she was captured in 2018 by Indian soldiers who handed her over to Dubai's forces.
They also give reason to think that her friends released the videos because she is either dead or being imprisoned in a worse situation.
The PKK, and underground Kurdish guerrilla group, killed 13 Turkish soldiers and cops that they had captured.
Killing prisoners is wrong no matter who they are, but remember that Erdoğan is guilty of far worse. He ordered atrocities which dwarf this one. He started a civil war a few years ago so he could rerun an election and get a better outcome.
US officials helped convince Mexico to continue the use of glyphosate.
(satire) *Police Union Honors Law Enforcement Officers Injured Carrying Out Capitol Attack.*
Biden could have started his term with a diplomatic triumph by immediately resuming the non-nuclear deal with Iran. Instead he risks failure by demanding Iran comply first.
*UN Envoy Warns Global Food Crisis Getting Worse.*
Many well-known US companies use subsubsubcontracted gig workers to do customer service. Each worker has to pay for training and services to be able to do the job at all, which leaves very little income for the worker.
The companies that use Arise to exploit customer service agents include Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Barnes & Noble, Comcast, Disney, eBay, Instacart, Intuit, Home Depot, Staples, Princess Cruises, Peloton, Signet Jewelers, Virgin Atlantic and Walgreens.
This is what plutocracy looks like — laws written to let companies shit on people.
Right-wing extremist legislators in Tennessee propose to allow the father of a fetus to prohibit aborting it.
A woman is not an incubator; no one should have the power to force her to give birth to the fetus.
"True the Vote" raised 250 million dollars, supposedly to sue to overturn the fictitious fraudulent election, but all those lawsuits went nowhere and the money will actually go to serve the wrecker in other ways. One donor is suing to demand 2 million dollars back.
*Risk of global food shortages due to Covid has increased, says UN envoy.*
One secondary injustice of cancelling people's citizenship for crimes is to dump them on other countries they are citizens of.
*LAPD Sought Ring Home Security Video Related to Black Lives Matter Protests.*
A German MP from the Green Party proposes to ban construction of new single-family homes in cities.
I support this plan, which Hamburg has already carried out.
116 species of plants in Australia may have been wiped out by the fires a year ago, because all known populations of them were burned. Some of these species may regrow from seeds or roots.
Hundreds more species have been pushed a long way towards extinction.
Vaccination with any effective Covid-19 vaccine is much better than none.
The Tories have understaffed the NHS to the point where doctors in their first years of work have trouble finding time to go to the toilet, let alone get vaccinated for Covid-19.
Perhaps bringing vaccination to their workplaces so they can be vaccinated while on duty would help.
Various groups of workers in the US will strike on Tuesday demanding a $15/hour minimum wage.
Proposing cease-fires in wars around the world to allow for vaccination.
*Since the coup, people in Yangon have been patrolling the streets to protect neighbors from overnight military raids and criminals.*
*How the Covid pandemic could end — and what will make it happen faster.*
US citizens: call on Congress to urge Biden to declare a climate emergency.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Most Republicans still support the corrupter, and want to run him for president in 2024.
*Israel blocked Covid vaccines from entering Gaza, say Palestinians.*
US citizens: call on Biden to fill the USPS governing board so they can fire DeJoy.
Russia jailed Ivan Safronov on charges of spying. Perhaps a journalist he wrote a report for is a spy, but unless there were secrets in it, so what?
*Animals traded for pet industry, bushmeat, traditional medicine, ivory and lab use declined locally by up to 99.9%.*
Bolsonaro has made it easier to buy guns in Brazil. I can't help worrying whether he is setting up a civil war between his supporters and his opponents.
Leaders of the Hong Kong democracy movement are now being tried for advocating democracy.
Of course, the repressive government has other names for it, which are designed to disguise repression.
Historians state their conclusions about President Lincoln.
A massive Chinese espionage system used chips inserted secretly in computers made in China for US companies.
A commission should investigate the terrorist attack on the Capitol, much as a commission investigated the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Impeachment was a failure politically; the commission could convert it into the beginning of a victory.
Congress is considering it now.
UK thugs now frequently watch protests with drones. This includes Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, animal rights protests, and lockdown protests.
I suggest that one crucial issue to regulate is whether drones are allowed to take footage that can be used to recognize individuals. Perhaps it should be illegal to use drones capable of doing that in any place unless violence is occurring there or a warrant has been issued for there.
US citizens: call on Congress not to expand the power to arbitrarily repress activities called "domestic terrorism".
Punishment of groups, and their members, must operate by way of a trial. Surveillance must be controlled via warrants.
Extremist groups are potentially dangerous. So are states. So we need to walk a fine line, making the state strong enough to suppress the danger of extremist groups while keeping it from being itself a danger.
Whatever additional power we give the state, a violent extremist group known as "Republicans" may someday wield.
The "pros and cons of Covid vaccine passports" does not mention the two issues about them that most concern me.
I have no objection to requiring a traveler to present a certificate of vaccination along with per passport when crossing a border. But if the system requires the traveler to have a portable phone, that makes it unjust. Portable phones are tracking and listening devices, which is why I refuse to carry one.
If restaurants and other businesses check these certificates, that could require people to have portable phones to enter them. But even if they accept paper certificates, the system could still result in identifying every vaccinated person who visits them. Tracking people's movements creates a database for repression, whenever a government chooses to use it.
The bully's power over Republican legislators, even after he sent people to kill them, reflects their dependence on donations from billionaires.
*This Is Biden's Chance to End ICE's Abuses—For Good.*
Greta Thunberg published advice on how to support the Indian farmers' nonviolent (most of the time) protests with nonviolent action. India's freedom-trashing government calls this an "attack on India" and has arrested an activist, Disha Ravi, calling her a "conspirator" in writing the advice.
According to the Indian state, to "spread disaffection" against it is a criminal act. In other words, criticizing the state's actions is repressed.
US taxes on the wealthiest, measured against their total wealth, are 1/6 the fraction that they were in 1953.
*Federal Court Strikes Down Arkansas Attempt to Punish Proponents of Boycotting Israel Over Its Treatment of Palestinians.*
It's true that we will need to organize pressure on Biden to make larger positive changes — but false that Biden wants us to do this.
The Proud Boys is fragmenting, and cops have stopped treating the group as an ally.
I hope that will help defeat the plans to restrict basic freedoms so as to defeat right-wing violence. That would be a disaster, exchanging a possible defeat for actual defeat.
Walmart, Costco and Kroger are selling beef from JBS, known as a seller of deforestation production.
The saboteur-in-chief's officials corrupted the federal plan for managing California's water.
Bogus Johnson is undermining accountability in the British government with a pervasive system of secrecy about information that might embarrass present or past officials.
Larry Flynt fought in court over and over for freedom of the press and other human rights.
The head of a vaccine manufacturer in India says that the limitation on quantity of vaccine available is the challenge of scaling up production.
Maybe that is so, but nonetheless it seems like we are producing vaccine too slowly. To stretch it out over 18 months is more efficient, for sure, but producing twice as fast could save millions from dying from Covid-19 during the extra 9 months.
Reviewing the evidence that the wrecker encouraged the attack on the Capitol even as it was happening.
He wanted the attackers to seize and harm Pence, Pelosi and other officials that were not doing his will.
A deadly avalanche of ice and rock, in the foothills of the Himalayas, was made possible by global heating.
Like most disasters, this one had several underlying causes, including deforestation, as well as its precipitating cause.
* The January 6 assault on our democracy should lead to greater accountability for future political leaders—and their wealthy financial backers.*
Burning wood to get energy sounds like a renewable system, but in practice it isn't.
*Biden Should Stop Payment on U.S. Funds To Sisi's Egypt.*
Interesting moral issues raised by the question of strategy for dealing with Covid-19.
Covid-19 is far more deadly than flu.
*The “For the People Act” of 2021 Would Make the U.S. a Democracy*, or at least closer to it.
We to have a real democracy we would also need to restrict the political power of the rich, both power over elections and power of corruption.
*We Must Fight the System, Not Each Other.*
I agree with Ms Farmand's criticism of capitalism as it is practiced by powerful companies in the US today — plutocracy, extractivism and dooH niboR — but I don't believe in eliminating all capitalism (all private business). Rather, I advocate eliminating the political power of business, and restoring democracy.
China denied some raw data to the WHO team investigating the origin of Covid-19, and did not allow them to arrange meetings freely.
*Having first indulged and then endorsed Trump’s trampling of constitutional norms and abuse of the presidency, when would Republican lawmakers say, "No more"?*
*Republicans have betrayed American democracy — and boosted the world's dictators.*
Most Republican senators have demonstrated they are the wrecker's flunkies. No crime is so bad they would condemn him for it.
The wrecker told the organizers of the Jan 6 rally there would be no march — then he surprised them by calling for a march on the Capitol.
And why did the Capitol Police let the criminals leave without noting down who they were?
He also provided at least 3.5 million to those organizers through hidden channels.
Christian extremists have taught some of Brazil's indigenous people's to refuse to be vaccinated for Covid-19.
I wonder if they will refuse vaccination for measles too. If that gets loose among them, large numbers could die.
The thugs who knocked down protester Martin Gugino will face no charges because the grand jury voted not to indict them.
It is always a surprise when a grand jury votes not to indict, because that hardly ever happens. Prosecutors dominate grand juries so effectively that they almost always get the results they want. Thus, I have to wonder whether the prosecutor intended to fail. Prosecutors want good cooperation with thugs and often have right-wing views, so it is plausible that a prosecutor might choose to fail to prosecute thugs for attacking a protester.
Whether that happened in this case is only speculation, but we know it does happen. Members of a grand jury accused the attorney general of Kentucky of concealing options so as to prevent indictment of thugs, then lying to the public about what he had done.
The Burmese army is arresting organizers of protests.
DeJoy has another plan to slow down some first class mail.
China plans to arbitrarily block Hong Kongers from leaving Hong Kong. Presumably it would do this to stop people from emigrating.
The Soviet Union used to require citizens to get exit visas to be allowed to leave that country. The assumption was that most people, if they could ever get out, would not return. Does China do this nowadays?
Another tactic used by the Soviet Union was to use relatives of hostages: you would not be allowed to leave unless some of your family stayed home. I expect to see this in Hong Kong too.
*Facebook might censor criticism of Zionists. That’s dangerous.*
Proctorio is such a proktos that, when students analyze its nastyware, it forbids them to run its software. Which software is nominally required to pass courses at many benighted schools.
I urge students to organize to demand a way to take the exam without using their own computers.
Biden has allowed asylum seekers to wait in the US, those that the bully forced to wait for a decision in Mexico instead.
*Minneapolis poised to ban facial recognition for police use.*
That's just the first step! Systematic face recognition should be banned for all use aside from a few limited exceptions.
Calling on Biden to override Moderna's patent and thus allow low-cost production of vaccine.
Forget squabbling over which country gets how many doses: this is what we really need.
If the Senate does not convict the wrecker, Republicans will have declared that they endorse overturning elections by force.
Governor Cuomo of New York State is responsible for covering up the number of deaths from Covid-19 in nursing homes.
His aide said that the reason for covering it up was to stop the wrecker from launching a politically motivated investigation. I sympathize, but I don't think that justifies the course of action.
*Mars, Nestlé and Hershey [and other large companies that sell chocolate] to face child slavery lawsuit in US.*
This is because the farms they buy from use forced labor of children, and the companies can't help knowing it.
Reporting progress in stopping the looting of ancient artifacts from Cambodia.
In the case of the statue that was stolen from Koh Kher, it sounds like people know exactly where it came from. Therefore scholars can learn from the fact of its prese at that spot. That is unusual — looters do not normally record where exactly they found each object, nor the non-valuable things that they disturbed. and the result is the loss of precious information about the past, information that could eventually help us understand ancient peoples' way of life.
Facebook has blocked the Burmese military government for spreading misinformation.
A panel chartered by The Lancet concluded that Medicare for All is the only way to make the US a society of healthy people.
60 Israeli high school seniors this year refused to be drafted into the army, for political reasons.
The US policy of inflicting extreme sanctions, effectively economic warfare, should be rethought. They inflict great suffering, and now even perpetuating Covid-19. Meanwhile, they do not convince governments to do as the US demands.
*At Confirmation Hearing, Bernie Sanders Calls Out Neera Tanden's History of 'Vicious Attacks' on Progressives.*
*Fossil Fuel and Other Polluters Gave Tens of Millions in Campaign Cash to GOP Lawmakers Opposing Biden's Leasing Freeze.*
Rep. Clyburn proposed to designate Lift Every Voice and Sing as something like a second national anthem for the US.
The song is a beautiful and moving expression of striving for freedom, aside from a few annoying hints at excessive religious sentiment, until the disaster at the end: it becomes an explicit prayer! I will never sing that! I am sure many other Atheists will likewise refuse.
They could correct this problem by deleting the last stanza.
*Study Warns Emissions Cuts Must Be 80% More Ambitious to Meet Even the Dangerously Inadequate 2°C Target.*
*Israel has been exporting arms to the world’s most repressive governments. A new project aims to hold it accountable by tracking these confidential sales.*
The FAIR Act is a bill that would eliminate forcing arbitration on workers and customers.
(satire) *Tim Cook Unveils Rows Of Artificial Wombs After Announcing Apple Will Begin Manufacturing Own Employees In House.*
The US continues secretive sporadic drone attacks in Yemen.
The new White House Press Secretary doesn't show contempt for the idea of truth, but that doesn't mean she always tells the truth.
We are back to the pre-2017 approach of crafting a consistent picture which may have falsehoods embedded in a matrix of mostly truth.
*Republicans Are Now the Party of Lawlessness and Disorder.*
The computer forensics firm Arsenal Consulting says that someone used malware to plant incriminating phony letters on prisoners' rights activist Rona Wilson's laptop. Thugs seized his laptop, "discovered" these letters, and used them to imprison Wilson and other activists.
*Global green recovery plans fail to match 2008 stimulus, report shows.*
The UK has set limits on pollution from farms, but never bothers to enforce them.
In Honduras, Keyla Martínez was murdered in jail, strangled inside her cell.
Burma's military is imitating the Republican Party, making bogus accusations of election fraud.
Except that it can arrest the officials in charge and brutalize them into confessing.
*US fast food workers hold Black History Month strikes to demand $15 an hour.*
*America 'Should Be Ashamed': Texas Teen Forced to Use College Savings to Prevent Mom's Eviction.*
(satire) *Botched Autopsy Brings Murder Victim Back To Life.*
*We Can Push Biden for Fundamental Change at the USDA and Beyond.* We need to push together, with organization.
*Meaty meals and play stop cats killing wildlife, study finds.*
Brightly colored collars seem to protect birds but not mice. Putting a bell on the cat was observed to have no effect. I think the cats learned to avoid jingling the bells. There goes the fable of Belling the Cat.
Salafi Arabia has released political prisoner Loujain al-Hathloul from prison but has imposed restrictive probation conditions.
*I quit food delivery apps – the absurd convenience was not worth the cost.*
The author considers the cost to society and the cost to her tranquility, as well as the price of food ordered that way.
New Zealand's parliament has dropped the requirement for neckties after one rebellious MP of Maori origin refused to wear one.
Hooray! I have compared ties to nooses since I was a teenager.
Nowadays, they do more than hurt your feelings (if they do that).
If the US had handled Covid-19 as well as other developed countries, it would have had 40% fewer deaths from the disease.
The US could have averted even more of those deaths if it had set up a true national medical system earlier, rather than leaving Americans to be the prey of greedy drain-em-dry pharma and clinic companies, plus a proper safety net so they would have places to self-isolate and could afford to stay home from work when sick.
The scale of salmon farming is causing global environmental problems.
If the human population were just one billion, we could help wild salmon recover and sustainably catch enough of them to satisfy our wish for salmon.
Despite the latest information and recommendations, Australia's extractivist government proposes a weak way to prevent further environmental damage.
Environmental racism makes people of disprivileged groups life in sickness and die earlier.
The right way to correct this is not by spreading the polluting facilities through the areas where more privileged people live. The right way is to fix them not to pollute.
*President Sisi has destroyed Egyptians' hopes after they ended Mubarak's hellish reign* (10 years ago).
California's long-term drought is getting worse this year. With little rain in winter, the fires of summer, fall and next winter could be very bad again.
US citizens: support Deb Haaland for secretary of the interior.
US citizens: call on Congress to pull the US out of the war in Afghanistan.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
President Higgins of Ireland criticizes the tendency to whitewash imperialism (and specifically the British rule over Ireland). At the same time, he warns against narrowminded nationalism, including condemning all British over the current policies of the UK.
On Burma's tradition of underground resistance to military rule.
The EU trained Burmese thugs in "crowd control", which in this case means repressing protests to restore democracy.
Scientists say it is possible to move to 100% renewable energy system by 2035, with coordinated global action.
This would go a long way preventing global heating disaster, and eliminate much of the pollution that kills millions of people every year.
But not all of it. For instance, vehicle tires produce an important part of particulate pollution; changing the source of the energy that moves the vehicle will not affect that pollution.
(satire) *GOP Senators Argue It’s Unconstitutional To Be Forced To Work On A Tuesday.*
*Corporate Concentration in the US Food System Makes Food More Expensive and Less Accessible*.
At the other end of the food system are the farmers. The same powerful middlemen squeeze them too.
Massachusetts is considering bills to prohibit super-PACs in elections in Massachusetts.
It's time to negotiate a treaty banning weapons in outer space.
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a large federally-owned electric company. It must plan to decarbonize.
* Hedge funds and private equity firms make profits off our misery and threaten any future health care reform.*
In Pakistan, 1000 Hindu and Christian women a year are forced into marriage by Muslim men, who in many cases kidnap them first.
The Labor Party of Australia has proposed to give contractors many of the same rights that employees have, including minimum wage, sick leave, pension, and right to unionize.
It's not the "Alternative Liberal Party" anymore.
US subway stations suffer from extremely high levels of particulate pollution.
What amazes me most is that it varies greatly from one station to another. This implies that much of the problem is due to very local causes, that could be corrected quickly and easily.
The British Army fought hard to suppress publication of a book that revealed its incompetence, both personal and structural.
We should not, however, blame the British Army in 2003 for having few in its ranks who had fought in combat. It was a good thing that the UK went 20 years without fighting a war.
California is considering a bill to prevent companies from using NDAs to gag workers about any sort of discrimination in the company.
I support this. And why not include other things that businesses should not be allowed to conceal, such as practices that endanger the public? Consider the examples of tobacco companies and oil companies.
China's birth rate fell 15% in 2020. This is being considered a problem.
China is overusing its natural systems, like many other countries. Now that most Chinese are not horribly poor — a very good thing, in itself — they have pushed agriculture to the point of causing problems for the land. China imports large number of pigs, too. If China's population drops to half a billion, it will reach a better balance.
Perhaps the decreased birth rate can enable China to cancel some of then new coal-fired power plants it is planning to build in coming years.
As for the predicted economic problems of an aging population, adjustment in policies can handle them, for the few decades that they last.
US citizens: call on Congress to end fossil fuel subsidies.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
*Climate action could save 'millions of lives' through clean air, diet and exercise.*
The UK government has agreed to pay some part of the costs of replacing flammable cladding on the outside of apartment buildings.
This is a classic instance of a job that the government ought to handle. The Tories' years of refusal reflect the ideology of privatization, of business over people.
*GameStop Fiasco Proves We Need a Financial Transaction Tax.*
The original reason for proposing that tax was to reduce volatility of stocks and commodities. Collecting revenue from rich people is a secondary benefit.
Governments that fail to support working people so that they can stay away from work are putting everyone in danger. Firstly, this spreads Covid-19, making more people sick. Secondly, it makes more chance for the virus to mutate and perhaps become more dangerous.
Some sobering facts about global heating.
178 million hectares (of lost forests) are about 700,000 square miles.
Twitter says it has banned the bullshitter for life.
That is important. There are other Republicans who can invent a new lie every day, but they probably can't do it with same effect as he.
Georgia prosecutors are investigating the wrecker over his phone call to the Georgia secretary of state, in which the wrecker demanded that he "find more votes" so that the wrecker would win that state.
I wonder whether they can do something to prevent the wrecker from leaving the US. I expect that at some point he will try fleeing to some country from which the US cannot extradite him.
*Giuliani pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden family.*
I am curious whether this leads to legal jeopardy for Giuliani or the wrecker. I don't see immediately that it does.
Humans are degrading the natural systems that our lives and civilization depend on. We wiped out 40% (estimated) from 1992 to 2014, and unless we slow down, by 2040 we may have trouble staying alive.
The problem is broader than greenhouse gas emissions and global heating. Waters, soils, forests, we are damaging them all.
We need to mobilize society and business to work together to protect our future.
*Amazon Hired Koch-Backed Anti-Union Consultant to Fight Alabama Warehouse Organizing.*
Ralph Nader criticizes the Democrats in Congress for not bringing up all the arguments for impeaching the wrecker.
I am not sure he is right. There are other urgent things for the Senate to do, which could change people's lives for the better.
There was a moment when it looked like Republicans might vote to convict him, but now it is clear they won't dare do that. Democrats may figure that showing them extra reasons to convict would be wasting their breath.
At long last, Covid-19 infection rates are going down. We must not stop the precautions against transmitting it.
Apple's total control over installing apps in iMonsters gives Apple dangerous power over computing and other companies.
Even though Apple occasionally uses this power to stop other companies from exploiting users, it is not a trustworthy defender of the public's safety or rights. The right way to do that is through democracy and freedom.
The article is written based on premises that accept nonfree software as legitimate, so I disagree with a lot of what it says.
Dictator Lukashenko has defeated the protest movement in Belarus, using force and repression.
China has imprisoned a publisher for publishing censored books. She pled guilty, but the article leaves it clear whether she really published them.
Burmese protesters are continuing their nonviolence. The thugs are using the usual forms of violence.
Global heating is pushing great white sharks northwards, and now they are eating sea otters and salmon.
Alberta panicked about loss of exports of tar sands, so it decided to open up protected lands for coal mining.
How crazy can you get?
*Hedge Funds Tried to Kill Gamestop. Now They’re Coming for Our Health Care System Too.*
*Inuit hunters blockade iron mine in freezing temperatures [to block its] expansion.*
Fossil fuel pollution shortens human life expectancy by one year or more. This is aside from the harm that global heating will do.
The article says that this pollution caused 8.7 million deaths in 2018, and also that this is 1/5 of all deaths, but something is wrong since there were around 63 million deaths that year and 1/5 of that is 12.6 million. However, that error hardly alters any conclusions.
*State-owned fossil fuel firms planning $1.9tn investments.* This is enough to sink civilization.
Exploding old bombs from World War II underwater (because they were found on the sea bottom) is damaging the hearing of whales. The whales then die.
US citizens: call on Amazon not to make its delivery vehicles snoop on everyone they pass by.
A Canadian thug beat up a helpless person, including cruelly giving per orders while holding per down so that perse could not carry them out, and beating per for not complying.
Denver set up a pilot program to send medical professionals instead of cops for some emergency calls. It has been a great success.
Jails in the US often serve rotten food to the prisoners.
*New Campaign Targets Wall Street Funding to Stop Line 3 Tar Sands Pipeline.*
Human rights organizations have called on Biden to drop charges against Assange.
Congress can, and should, vote to deny the wrecker the government support normally provided to former presidents.
Freedom of speech is limited in shocking ways in countries other than the US. This example shocked me.
I hardly know anything about Captain Moore, and I have no wish to criticize him. The criticism cited seems crude and harsh. But criminalizing it seems wrong.
I wonder whether what I said about Steve Jobs — that his death put a stop to his attacks on our freedom — would be a crime if I were in the UK.
Economists dispute whether raising the minimum wage to $15/hr would increase the national debt or decrease it, but either way it qualifies to be included in budget reconciliation.
Even a rather unfriendly analysis found lots of benefit.
In terms of the public good, increasing the deficit by $5 billion/yr is hardly significant when compared with the benefits of increasing the minimum wage. However, if the minimum wage does not apply to gig workers, it is not doing its job.
20% of patients in UK who were hospitalized for Covid-19 have PTSD afterward.
A few percent of he hospitalized patients have continuing "long Covid" disabilities.
Thus, even if you don't die, Covid-19 can do you substantial harm.
*Myanmar protesters vow to continue despite ban on gatherings.*
The UK's official policy of hostility towards unauthorized immigrants is likely to scare many of them off Covid-19 vaccination, despite the decision to make an exception for vaccination.
This undermines the effort to stop the spread of Covid-19 and thus harms everyone.
Biden's termination of support for Salafi Arabia's offensive in Yemen now includes selling arms for that use.
That is an important step. At least one of the US's forever wars may be brought to an end. Of course, the UK ought to do likewise.
Finally it emerges that the Tory party has antisemites — real antisemites, in this case, not critics of Israel's occupation policy smeared as "antisemites."
During the campaign to force out Corbyn, Tory antisemites were downplayed so as to focus the unjust condemnation on Corbyn.
Supporters of Taiwan must plan how they will respond if China launches economic warfare against Taiwan.
Either a financial trades tax or a wealth tax could be used to reduce inequality in the US.
Why not use both?
*Pollen season grows 20 days in 30 years as climate crisis hits hay fever sufferers.*
A cracker got into the computer that controls the water treatment system of Oldsmar, Florida, and started pouring large amounts of lye into the water supply.
This is one of the things that should not be connected to any networks.
The US has been imposing "elected" governments on Haiti for more than a decade.
Although we have no evidence that voting machines were used for election fraud in 2020, we know some are vulnerable to such use.
People should vote on paper, marking ballots with a pen. Then a computerized machine can be used to count them. That machine should not be able to alter them.
Amazon is requiring warehouse workers to work a shift that starts after 1am and lasts 10.5 hours.
Aside from being exhausting and physically dangerous, the workers, who often do not have cars, have no easy way to get to work at that hour.
It is ironic that they ask for Lyft rides, since Lyft is an exploitative gig company which keeps track of people, like Amazon.
Here are specifics of Senator Klobuchar's plan to strengthen US antitrust law long several dimensions.
I think these changes would be very good, but my proposed tax scheme to pressure companies to split themselves up, or not merge in the first place, would be complementary to it.
In parts of California there are many farmers of Punjabi origin. They have been protesting in support of India's farmers against Modi's dooH niboR farm law.
US citizens: call on the Osceola sheriff to fire the thug that knocked a teenager unconscious in school
I support not having thugs normally present in schools. It is too dangerous.
US citizens: call on Congress to tax Wall Street trades.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
As increasing numbers of Americans are forced into precarious work, such as an Amazon warehouse, unionization becomes increasingly important for them.
They also need many changes in US law, which won't be possible unless Manchin supports them.
On the best way to impose regulation to prevent digital sites from boosting the internet of political delusion.
I don't see any way that changing CDA section 230 could help achieve this goal.
As for the issue that 80 countries could regulate internet discussions in 80 different ways, I suggest that the solution is to make it easy for a web site not to do business in any given country, and then it would not have to follow that country's regulations. This should not involve refusing to let people in that country post comments, but they could not purchase any services from the site.
Amazon is installing cameras in the vans that deliver for it. The stated purpose is to monitor the driver all the time, but they also look at and recognize the people and cars nearby.
Republican donors are suing to get their money back, claiming to have been cheated by use of false claims of voter fraud to raise "campaign" money.
*If India can charge journalists with ‘sedition’ for doing their jobs, it has no free press.*
The harsh foot of dooH niboR is driving many poor Americans to despair and opioids. Life expectancy started decreasing after 2015.
Covid-19 is causing a poverty hit, and that is likely to mean more opioid deaths. A country with functioning democracy would do something about the cause of the poverty.
An FBI agent asked for and got a meeting with Cory Doctorow. Then the FBI officially said it had no records about him, which has to be a lie.
Republican Representative Cheney proposed prosecuting the wrecker for inciting violence on Jan 6.
Around the world, authoritarian government is gaining and democracy is losing.
Vice President Pence served the corrupter with total loyalty until the day he was asked to flagrantly betray the republic. Now the corrupter's followers loathe Pence for that refusal.
How can we bring millions of Americans back to respecting truth.
People can disagree about what the facts are while still agreeing that facts count. That latter is what's at stake here.
There are large protests against the military coup in Burma.
Looking at the broadcasting "fairness doctrine" of the US from the 1930s to the 1980s.
(satire) *Americans Scrambling For Covid Vaccine After CDC Director Announces Thousands Of Doses Buried Somewhere In California.*
(satire) *Biologists Discover Modern-Day Corn Dog Descended From Ancient Aquatic Sausage.*
New York State lets companies offer workers the "choice" of a 24-hour shift; then they effectively compel workers to "choose" them.
A proposal to reform section 230 of the CDA would have sweeping disastrous consequences.
New Jersey prison thugs face criminal charges for punching prisoners. One of the prisoners was handcuffed when they punched him.
*Forget Zuckerberg and Cook's hypocrisy — it's their companies that are the real problem.*
I agree with that point, but the writer is partially mistaken when projecting Milton Friedman's ideas beyond the past few decades. In the 1970s it was generally accepted that a corporation had obligations to the community in which it operated -- not solely to stockholders.
Reagan's surrender-to-business revolution established Friedman's ideal of greed as the norm of society, but we don't have to leave it that way.
By letting Putin absurdly put him in prison, Navalny has made Putin look petty and absurd.
*London’s first commissioner for victims has revealed how misogynists are attempting to silence her attempts to tackle domestic violence.*
The FBI is investigating hundreds of people who participated in attacking the Capitol. Some are already facing charges of preparing to overthrow the government (sedition). Others will face such charges if the FBI finds evidence to charge them.
Florida's stingy and reluctant unemployment compensation system reflects the spirit of the Republican Party.
Burma's army has shut down some internet connectivity, aiming to crush protests.
*[Deportation thugs] Threatened to Expose Asylum-Seekers to Covid-19 if They Did Not Accept Deportation.*
*Britons should not face extradition to the US for alleged crimes on UK soil.*
Five US regulated utility companies' executives were prosecuted in the US in 2020.
I speculate that the spirit of cheating which pervades the US has spread from banks, cable companies, prison companies, pharma companies, hospital companies and airplane manufacturers to utilities.
*UK quietly expelled Chinese spies who posed as journalists.*
Amazon warehouse workers will soon vote on unionizing.
(satire) They are called werehouse workers because for each shift Amazon transforms them from human workers into building components comparable to robots. Reportedly the experience is unpleasant. Perhaps by forming a union they will be able to put a stop to it.
Some Texas Republican politicians now advocate secession.
After so much waving of Confederate flags, it does not surprise me that the white-supremacist lunatic wing of the Republican party now advocates imitating it.
Part of me hopes that Texas declares secession, because that would be grounds to prosecute those officials and imprison them for many years.
Part of me hopes we allow them to separate a part of Texas, containing the non-urban mainly-white areas of Texas, and secede with it. Perhaps some of the small, rural US states will follow them. Good riddance to their electoral college votes and their seats in the US Senate!
*UN-sponsored talks produce interim government for Libya.*
*ICC rules it can investigate alleged war crimes in Palestine despite Israeli objections.*
The ICC might prosecute Israeli officials and/or HAMAS officials.
(satire) *Pundits Warn Removing Marjorie Taylor Greene From Committee Assignments Could Leave Her With Free Time.*
(satire) *Republicans Accuse Ocasio-Cortez Of Not Being Anywhere Near Place They Told Capitol Mob She Would Be.*
Major US baby-food companies knowingly used ingredients with possibly dangerous high levels of several metals that can cause brain damage.
I can't tell from the article whether it is clear that the resulting food was harmful. If it was, the argument that they no longer use these ingredients does not wipe away the culpability, since they used the ingredients knowingly in the past.
Biden will remove the "terrorist" designation from the Houthis.
It looks like he is serious about trying to take the US out of Yemen's civil war.
The UK plans to continue social mixing restrictions until new cases fall to a level which contact tracing can drive down.
That is valid in theory, but the government needs to get contact tracing working properly and establish what rate of spread the contact tracing system can cope with.
*Cacophony of human noise is hurting all marine life, scientists warn.*
*Mexico: ex-governor arrested for allegedly ordering torture of journalist.*
The deportation thugs have cancelled a deportation flight so that the people to be deported can testify in court hearings.
In other words, their legal rights are significant once again.
Biden said he would end American support for "offensive operations" in Yemen by Salafi Arabia.
The US will continue selling arms for this.
Australia has rejected expansion of a coal mine, to avoid local toxicity.
This coal is a special kind, for making steel — not just to get heat. It will still be needed after civilization decarbonizes. It will have to be part of the emissions that nature absorbs.
Nonetheless, it looks like Big Coal is losing its power over Australia. If so, that is good for civilization's survival.
Australia's Northern Territory will ban mining on the sea bottom.
What makes the practice harmful is the way it is done. I think there will be a safe way to mind the sea bottom in the future when robots can identify valuable nodules and pick them up individually without touching anything else.
Australia is making a big investment in large batteries that will facilitate using solar-generated electricity at night.
(satire) *Activists Call On Sitcom Producers To Reckon With Genre’s Ugly History Of Sarcasm*.
It's called a "sit-com" because some people can't stand it.
US citizens: call on Congress to censure the four main leaders in Congress of support for the attack on the Capitol.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to take two steps to improve access to abortion pills.
US citizens: call on Congress to cut the military budget 10%.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Ten suggestions for how Biden can become a peace-time president.
I agree with these points, except for a few parts.
It is useful to distinguish between terrorism and war; the fact that movements which are not fighting wars can commit terrorism is part of the difference.
A long-term confrontation between the US and China is almost inevitable if China stays on its current course. We could hope to make agreements to keep that non-nuclear, perhaps even non-military, if China is willing — but I don't expect China to commit not to conquer Taiwan.
However, military affairs will be only a small part of that confrontation. Ultimately, the military strength of a nation comes from its economic strength.
The US will wear itself out if it continues spending so much on its military and not healing its people and its broken economy. So most of the measures proposed in the article are needed either way.
Every important law that Democrats seek to pass will require firm pressure on Senator Manchin, the plutocratist who supports dooH niboR.
Most of them will also require eliminating the filibuster, which will also require Manchin's support.
One way to put pressure on Manchin is to threaten not to fund programs that are important for West Virginia.
*So-Called "Moderates" Always Say Helping the Poor Costs Too Much.*
The thing that "costs too much" is the thing that's not your priority.
Biden wants to expand the Child Tax Credit so that it helps children in poor families as much as those in wealthy families.
Success stories for protected ocean habitats that enabled populations of sea life to recover from damage.
*More Partisanship, Not Less: Democrats Shouldn’t Compromise Their Solutions to Pander to a GOP That Is Part of the Problem.*
Canada should stop supporting the US-imposed corrupt president of Haiti.
Background information about him.
Staff now working at home, in the US and several other countries, are working two more hours per day on the average.
Strangely, even I am spending more hours per day working than I was before — and I'm my own boss!
An active Iranian diplomat has been convicted of providing a bomb to set off at a rally in France.
That was undeniably state sponsorship of terrorism. The government of Iran must commit to preventing any repetition.
The world must keep this matter separate from the non-nuclear deal, because that is a more important issue. Sanctions that block medicine, such as the US is applying, must not be used to punish Iranian terrorism, because the sanctions are worse than a bomb.
What other way is there to apply pressure? Perhaps seizing an Iranian oil tanker?
*US 'deeply disturbed' by reports of systematic rape in China's Xinjiang camps.*
I agree fully, but it would be nice if the US government were equally disturbed by what thugs do to women in US deportation prisons. The US government can't directly stop China from its massive injustice to Uighurs, but it ought to be able to put a stop to injustices in US government activities.
The first step could be to make sure all guards are US government employees by eliminating privatized deportation prisons.
*Democrats Actually Learned From the Failures of 2009.*
Prohibiting privatized federal prisons should include immigration prisons.
Turkish students are protesting against Erdoğan.
A congressional panel recommended keeping all the US troops in Afghanistan to pressure the Taliban to make concessions in negotiations.
If you suppose that this is a real negotiation, and that concessions would lead to a preferable outcome, that conclusion would make sense. But I don't think this is a real negotiation about a real outcome. Either it is a process for the US to convince itself to stop keeping the war going, and let the Taliban win, or it is a sham.
Some Chinese expats in Australia were too scared to testify about Chinese threats and intimidation of Chinese expats in Australia.
If Google Search shuts down in Australia, it would be little loss as far as news is concerned, a study finds.
Now a yet higher estimate of sea-level rise by 2100. Now around 4 feet.
I expect these estimates to keep increasing.
*The Oligarchy Knows Class Warfare Is the Real Fight—Why Don't Liberals?*
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid that bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make an exception occasionally for an article which makes an important point. That article is one of the exceptions.
Noise from traffic interferes with behavior of some animals.
Russians protested the sentencing of Alexey Navalny.
*Robinhood Highlights Dangers of Biden Administration Appointing Fintech-Tied Regulators.*
The article shows questions that anyone considered for an important government position ought to be asked.
Mexican thugs have been charged with murdering a group of 19 people near the US border.
*Decades of progress on extreme poverty now in reverse due to Covid.*
Humor: Hammer into Anvil
*Amazon intensifies 'severe' effort to discourage first-ever US warehouse union.*
The Polish government is funding a libel case that is meant to prevent the study of Poles' involvement in the murder of Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland.
The Holocaust was carried out by Germany, not by Poland, but there was plenty of antisemitism in Poland and Poles showed it frequently.
French environmental groups won a lawsuit against the French state for failing to carry out its commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Starmer is making Labour the party of "patriotism" rather than the party of giving everyone a decent life.
I feel patriotism, and my patriotism manifests itself as wanting the US to give American a decent life, and treat the rest of the world with respect. But I would not support a party that stands for patriotism. I will support a party that stands for what I stand for.
*Lawmaker who faced anti-vax attack: 'The movement is growing more violent'.*
Those fanatics have gone far beyond opposing vaccination. They want to cause death. Some say, outright, that they want to make everyone catch Covid-19; they say the people that die, die because they were weak-willed, so they deserve it.
As for the apparently healthy people that die from Covid-19, and the people who suffer lasting disability from it, I don't know if they even recognize that this happens.
The Isle of Man held a fairly short complete lockdown, eliminated transmission of the disease, and has opened up again.
The US was supposedly doing something vaguely like this, starting in March, but did not implement it completely nor continue long enough. Republicans imposed "reopening" while the disease was still present and spreading, with the deadly results that we have seen.
The Biden administration has cancelled the wrecker's last attempt to undermine inspection of poultry, and is listening to the workers in regard to safety.
Biden must not compromise with Republicans — their general goal is to sabotage him (and the US).
Compromise is for working with people who disagree with you but are not your enemies. There may occasionally be a special issues on which some Republicans are not enemies. It will be useful to find those opportunities to take action with their support, and that can involve a compromise.
But there is no real compromise with those who are dedicated to falsehood and destruction.
Here's my advice on >rejecting ruinous compromises.
(satire) *Paranoid Janet Yellen Hides Entire U.S. Money Supply In Treasury Department Drop Ceiling.* https://politics.theonion.com/paranoid-janet-yellen-hides-entire-u-s-money-supply-in-1846146074
*Judging Biden by Standards Set by [the wrecker] Would Be an Unforgivable Catastrophe.*
Especially since it seems the wrecker may have been the the conscious enemy of the US all along.
Millions in the UK have purchased apartments that they now cannot sell because the buildings were constructed with unsafe materials. Some of them have been bankrupted by bills to deal with the problem.
Taking care of such problems is the job of the state. A state with effective democracy would do the job.
*EU-UK Vaccine Dispute Will Be 'First of Many' Unless Patents Suspended, Say Campaigners.*
The UK prosecuted nonviolent protesters, who blocked the departure of a deportation flight, as "terrorists", and convicted them.
An appeal has annulled the convictions.
St Petersburg, Florida, has effectively reformed its thug department to reduce its tendency towards thuggery.
Don't expect to find any "good guys" among fintech businesses. They all participate in the plutocratic system. Even "Robinhood" is part of dooH niboR.
Israel has extended its legal repression of Palestinian dissent to cover the Israeli organization B'tselem.
*Australia's proposed gas pipelines would generate emissions equivalent to 33 coal-fired power plants.*
The article says that the US is even worse. Will Biden cancel the Line 3 pipeline? Domestic pipelines must be cancelled too.
The New York Times condemned China for (1) covering up the Covid-19 situation in January 2020 and (2) donating vaccines to countries such as Brazil.
Overall, China has done an effective job of controlling Covid-19, and the US has not. To criticize its coverup in January 2020 is nonetheless valid, because China's tendency is to cover up problems.
We should not, however, fail to condemn the US government for covering up the problems of Covid-19 through the end of 2020, nor the way Florida has covered it up starting in September.
I agree it is unfortunate that China gains world influence by donating vaccines. The US should counter that by donating more vaccines. Why doesn't the US do so? Because the plutocrats that control the US won't allow it.
A committee of tech insiders say AI-controlled weapons will avoid harming civilians.
I can imagine that an AI-controlled weapon would do a better job of following its rules of engagement. Thus, whether it would harm civilians less, or harm civilians more, depends on what those rules of engagement say.
Would an AI-controlled weapon be better at saying, "We shouldn't be fighting a war here"? Would it be even occasionally capable of asking that? Would it be capable of asking, "Sergeant, do you think we're the redcoats?"
I seem to recall reading that the helicopter crew that stars in the collateral murder video killed in accord with the letter of the rules of engagement; that they took advantage of loopholes in it to justify some of their killings.
Some AI programs are capable of such reasoning. Would these weapons do that?
The Department of Agriculture, when run by Vilsack before, suppressed research that could (or did) cast a negative light on businesses.
(satire) *Pete Buttigieg Learning About Problems Facing Rail Infrastructure By Spending Week Living As Train.*
The UK has ordered slot machine operators to eliminate some features that make them addictive.
The same is needed for many nonfree programs and digital dis-services, but there is no way to require this change. However, if they were free programs, the user community could fix such things in them.
US citizens: call on the Secretary of State to ban weapons sales to Salafi Arabia and the UAE.
Each of the various artificial antibodies designed based on the original Covid-19 virus fails against some of the mutant strains now spreading.
If doctors can determine which strain a patient is infected with, they could choose one of the antibodies that does work against it. Or they could give a combination of all of them.
Planting hedges can be as good as planting trees.
AOC described how she hid and fled from rioters inside the Capitol, fearing for her life.
She also pointed out a resemblance between the way trumpets evade recognizing the wrong of their actions and the way domestic abusers do so.
All this was in service of demanding due punishment for those who participated in or supported the attack on the Capitol, including some Republicans in Congress.
AOC referred to a past experience by saying that she was a "survivor of sexual assault."
AOC would not exaggerate. The attack that she refers to must have been a grave and traumatizing one, one that justifies the term "survivor."
I suggest therefore that "sexual assault" is not a good term to describe it, because that term covers a spectrum of actions that stretch from the most grave, such as rape, to minor things like a stolen kiss on the forehead, along with all the territory in between. Between the ends of that spectrum there is a great gulf: it would be ridiculous to call someone a "survivor of a stolen kiss." We should not equate a kisser to a rapist.
Therefore, when we talk about grave and traumatizing attacks, let's use a term which is limited to grave and traumatizing attacks.
The Indian government told Twitter to turn off the accounts of dissidents and news sites, and Twitter did it, for a while.
Thugs in Rochester, New York, handcuffed a nine-year-old girl, then pepper-sprayed her.
I am sure that one full-grown adult cop can restrain a nine-year-old. What did they do before pepper spray was invented?
It was incidents like this that inspired the campaign to "defund the police", which concretely means to train mental health responders and send them instead. They would have known a better way to respond to that call.
A investigation found that human activities (even recreation and hunting) tend globally to disturb animals' patterns of movement, which can harm them in various ways.
*UK North Sea oil rigs release as much CO2 as coal-fired power station.*
India and China must reduce their use of coal, instead of increasing it.
Other countries are not doing enough either, such as Australia, but China and India are the big emitters. The combustion of coal releases toxins and radioactive fallout, and both harm people's health.
*To protect [Burma's] democratic values, the international community will have to work with [Aung San Suu Kyi]'s elected party.*
The military never really gave up the substance of power.
*Uganda opposition leader Bobi Wine calls on court to nullify election result.* Unlike the bullshitter, whose accusations of election fraud were bullshit, Bobi Wine has real facts to cite.
We achieve justice by judging cases by form alone; we need a grounding in facts to do that, as well as values.
Shoshana Zuboff endorses laws to stop collection of personal data!
This is a big step away from the fundamentally inadequate "data protection" approach. From there to what I have advocated for many years — requiring systems to be designed such that they can't collect personal data — is a much smaller step than the one she has taken.
I get a feeling that she is still thinking about prohibiting collection of some personal data rather than requiring complete nonsurveillance in many activities.
From thinking about prohibiting data collection (at either level) to enacting laws to do so is a much bigger step, but I am glad to see the idea enter public discourse.
Surveillance companies will do their utmost to lead the public away from that idea.
Honduras has imposed an almost impossible barrier in its constitution against legalizing abortion, and it explicitly forbids ever altering that barrier.
Under a democratic government, a valid response to a call for revolution is, "If most citizens agree with you, you will be able to enact the changes you want peacefully — otherwise, you should not be able to impose them."
Measures in a country's constitution to make peaceful democratic change impossible have the effect of invalidating that response, because they eliminate democracy. In my view, the government of Honduras no longer has a moral argument to make against using revolution to undo this change in the constitution.
This is not the only reason to consider the government of Honduras illegitimate. It was set up by a coup and has not been very democratic since.
Practically speaking, if some neighboring country legalizes abortion it will be feasible for Honduran women to go there for an abortion.
Toxic chemicals made by humans are killing sea lions. Sea lions are pretty high on the food chain, so they accumulate many toxins that animals don't have ways to metabolize or excrete.
An artificial blowhole will soon generate electricity from ocean waves.
A dismal forecast that the US will fall into permanent Republican minority rule, cemented with undemocratic means that will be impossible to overcome.
Current and former US military personnel are disproportionally represented in the people facing charges for attacking the Capitol.
This reflects the fact that the US military is a dangerous hotbed for right-wing fanaticism.
On Jan 4, the acting secretary of defense placed very narrow limits on what the National Guard could do to help defend the Capitol from the expected rioters.
One must suspect that the wrecker told him to do something like this.
(satire) *Trump to Defend Self After Receiving Law Degree from Trump University.*
One unjust advantage that the bullshitter would enjoy is that he is sure in advance not to be convicted, no matter how bad a job he does.
US citizens: call on Biden to save the USPS.
In Rome (and in many non-tropical places), Covid-19 has increased homelessness and homeless people can't find safe shelter. That can be fatal.
The underlying cause of this problem is a society that prioritizes riches for the rich and allows destitution to threaten the rest.
Countries whose culture promotes obedience to rules have been more effective in dealing with Covid-19 than countries whose culture encourages ignoring rules.
It doesn't have to be that way, however. Australians and New Zealanders are no more obedient by culture than Americans or British. But they had leaders who faced up to the danger and led the country to make Covid-19 precautions effective — including, when necessary, by enforcing the rules. The tightening was temporary because it was tight enough to beat the disease down.
Britain and the US have had leaders that chose not to lead their countries in the right direction. With a good leader, or at least a sincere leader, they could have come through much better.
The practice of adjusting rules based on variations in the infection rate, which is common in the US and the UK, is fundamentally harmful. People will support the effort to stamp out the disease if they understand that the goal is to eliminate it and we must all work hard for that. (They also need support so that they are not rendered destitute in the process.) A lackadaisical national reaction will inspire people to game it.
US citizens: call on Congress to make Washington DC a state.
Burma's army has arrested the civilian government officials and is apparently doing away with civilian government.
The coup has been condemned by the US and the UN, while China sees nothing particularly bad in military rule.
*India blocks mobile internet at sites of farmers’ protest.*
Modi is a repressive plutocratist ruler. What is amazing is that he has launched repression against half of India.
Biden calls for bold climate defense action as a way to create jobs.
Philosophically, I disagree with the idea that creating jobs should be the reason we protect our future. Reducing the coming disaster is absolutely necessary if we want civilization to survive. That the process create jobs is not absolutely necessary — after all, the state has many ways to make jobs, it just has to hire people.
However, politically I think it is an intelligent strategy. It is hard for plutocratists to attack the plan in the name of economic growth.
Meanwhile, he is not downplaying the vital reason: the "existential threat” to civilization", as he put it.
Overall, I am pleased. The nutcases will have to work mighty hard to defeat this.
When the bullshitter announced that Hydroxychloroquine was a treatment for Covid-19, the Republicans that rule Oklahoma bought 100,000 doses for 2 million dollars. Now they are trying to get their money back.
Fanatics opposed to rational understanding of Covid-19 shut down a vaccination center in Los Angeles by massing outside.
They will point to that as a victory. It is important to make sure their next action does not stop any aspect of medical care from functioning.
Nazis in Europe are holding similar protests.
Even Nazis have the right to protest, but not while going without masks or coming dangerously close to anyone.
Robert Reich: *Why Republicans won’t agree to Biden’s big plans and why he should ignore them.*
The only problem is that two Democrats in the Senate are, in their political views, more or less 2015 Republicans.
Avi Loeb calls on scientists to seriously investigate the possibility that 'Oumuamua is an alien artifact.
The UK arrested a press photographer for having earlier taken photos at a protest. The thugs held him for seven hours and filed charges against him.
The protest was at a sort of immigration prison where there is a Covid-19 outbreak. The protesters condemned the government for operating the prison.
The next day, there was a fire at that prison, apparently set by someone. It was a very bad thing to set a fire, and could conceivably have injured or even killed people.
I would not assume that the people who set the fire shared the views of the people who protested.
*Forget the furore over Trump — Facebook is interested only in maintaining its monopoly.*
There were large protests in France against plans to repress publication of photos of thugs, including when the thugs are committing crimes.
I am disappointed that they also condemned the public health precautions against Covid-19. We can live with that, temporarily. What is crucial is to make sure they all go away once Covid-19 is not much of a threat.
The Tories want to put Britain into the TPP (Treacherous Plutocratic Poison), a business-supremacy treaty with an ISDS clause.
An ISDS clause makes it almost impossible to impose any new regulation on an activity that foreign companies (from signatory countries) have invested in. The effect is to subordinates the state to foreign companies.
The mass manipulation of Gamestop mainly shows how absurd Wall Street is.
The manipulation caused big losses to a private equity fund, but has given big gains to shareholders in Gamestop. I wonder if some of them had something to do with manipulating the people who did the mass manipulation.
Sanders responds to the poor little rich investor who was outraged about possible tax increases on rich people.
Biden has resumed US funding for the United Nations Population Fund. However, far more funds are needed.
The organization goes by the acronym "UNFPA" which came from its original name.
An FBI lawyer was convicted of falsifying information in a request for a surveillance warrant on Carter Page.
False justifications are a substantial part of the US system of surveillance, and if they do it to associates of the president, there is nobody they wouldn't do it to.
Biden seems to be turning away from calling out right-wing terrorism, perhaps to focus on only certain sectors of it and not the main body.
Books that refute a pleasing picture of the British Empire.
Haredi Jews in London are holding large weddings where they spread Covid-19 to each other.
One response would be to permanently shut and seal the venues where they hold these weddings. Another would be to say that if they are all determined to get Covid-19 there's no need to try to stop them. They mostly keep to themselves, so they may not be a big danger to anyone else.
Israel has convicted Issa Amro for peaceful political campaigning against Israel's colonization of Palestine, and in particular against seizing land and settling Israelis on it.
His "crimes" include "insulting a soldier", which in a free country is not a crime.
*Facebook is banning leftwing users like me — and it's going largely unnoticed.*
It seems to be yet another case of false balance. When right-wing fanatics are attacking the Capitol, false balance takes the worst thing progressives are doing, and arbitrarily treat that as equivalent to attacking the Capitol.
*Court rules Shell Nigeria must pay for oil damage.*
Extraction companies are in many cases profitable only because they dodge paying the cost of cleaning up their mines or wells.
Indian thugs attempted to force tens of thousands of protesting farmers to leave their protest camp near Delhi. In a second camp, Hinduist fascists allied with the ruling party led the attack and were supported by thugs.
The US and Russia have agreed to renew their principal nuclear weapons limitation treaty. The wrecker was going to let it expire.
Poland banned abortion of abnormal fetuses. Women have protested across the country for three nights.
Senator McConnell dropped his demand for a commitment to preserve the filibuster when center-right Democrats Manchin and Sinema promised to vote to preserve it.
Either way, it will be hard to pass any laws to reduce the harm that Republicans have done, unless in 2022 we elect more Democrats to the Senate (unless Sanders can achieve this with the reconciliation tactic).
In 2022, Republicans will claim, absurdly, that the Democrats "failed to achieve anything". They do this every time.
Marjorie Greene's advocacy of murdering members of Congress disqualifies her for being in Congress. Most Republicans toleration for that advocacy disqualifies them.
*German neo-Nazi jailed for murder of pro-immigration politician.*
Present-day Nazis from around the world are in touch with each other; that murderer and Rep. Greene run in the same circles.
*$1.1 Trillion Billionaire Wealth Gain During Pandemic Could Fully Fund Biden Relief Plan for Working Class.*
*The Real Money Behind the Politicians Who Voted to Overturn the Election.*
*Alpine plants face extinction as melting glaciers force them higher, warns study.*
*70+ Civil Rights and Progressive Organizations Warn Against Repealing or Making Overbroad Changes to Section 230 in Wake of Capitol Attack.*
(satire) *Increasingly Bold Israel Begins Building Settlements In Downtown Albuquerque.*
Marjorie Greene is a creature of the lie; she claims that various school massacres did not occur. And the Republican Party in Congress endorses this disrespect for truth.
Greene personally harassed David Hogg, a survivor of one of the massacres she denies. Hogg said that if Greene or someone else like her murders him, people should politicize his death.
*Corporate America is ready to put the past behind them and hire former staffers [of the corrupter].*
Here is a list of where specific fairly high officials have gone.
The list starts with 10 people whose current employment is unknown, but after that, plenty of people are listed with new employers.
*New government report details how [the wrecker] failed Covid-19 response 'across the board'.*
*How the National Security State Has Come to Dominate a "Civilian" Government.*
Israeli "settlers" destroyed Palestinians' crops, so Israeli soldiers join in and destroyed more.
Calling on the US to cancel sanctions against the International Criminal Court.
B'tselem's accusation that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid puts pressure on the US to cease to approve of it.
B'tselem reports that "settlers" increased their harassing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, and gets the state's support (as has been the case for decades).
Six US policies that favor Israel against Palestine, which the US should not have, and which Biden could reverse.
Fossil fuel companies paid a lot of money to the campaigns of Republican coup-supporters.
Fossil fuel companies are in the business of destroying civilization slowly. To keep that business going, why not spend money on keeping us helpless to shut them down?
A right-wing disinformationist faces federal charges for organizing a campaign to tell voters that they could vote by sending texts.
I am very glad that such sabotage can be counteracted.
An expert says that for a country to move away from political violence it needs to do three things — and in the first two, it seems the US is stymied by Republicans' power.
*All countries should pursue a Covid-19 elimination strategy.* The article gives powerful reasons.
Elimination requires short periods of strict discipline, but it tremendously reduces the number that get sick, and adds up to much less pain even for those who would not have got sick.
The US government warns of continuing danger of terrorism by right-wing fanatics.
Biden is moving slowly on restoring the non-nuclear deal with Iran.
Since it was the US that cancelled the deal, the US ought in fairness to take the lead in restoring the deal. Dropping part of the sanctions now would show Iran that it can expect full restoration of the deal and should aim for that outcome. That might even encourage Iranians to elect officials who will do so.
Meanwhile, Israel is threatening to attack Iran in an attempt to sabotage restoring the deal.
Biden shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, but that and reversing the wrecker's acts of sabotage does not add up to fast enough action to avoid global heating disaster.
*Merrick Garland Wants Former Facebook Lawyer to Top Antitrust Division.*
This would put her in charge of the antitrust lawsuit against Facebook.
*Republicans considering more than 100 (state) bills to restrict voting rights.*
Covid-19 cases in India are decreasing; the country may have come close to herd immunity.
The large fraction of young people, due to a dangerously high birth rate, may have reduced the fraction of people that died from Covid-19. But it is surely a large number in absolute terms, and I would guess that the official count of deaths is vastly under-counted.
*Biden urged not to give top FDA job to official over her role in opioid crisis.*
Hawks, supporters of hostilities and perhaps war with Iran, are trying to intimidate Biden out of choosing an envoy who is inclined to establish peace.
The UN ruled that the Chagos Islands belong to Mauritius, not to the UK.
This will be uncomfortable for the UK, and for the US, which has made the largest of those islands into naval and air base.
It might eventually allow the Chagos Islanders to return home.
(satire) *YouTube Removes Thousands Of Under-performing Covid Misinformation Videos.*
(satire) *Biden Authorizes U.S. Military To Shoot Down Any Harmful Greenhouse Gases That Enter Nation’s Airspace.*
Jewish Voice for Peace is pressuring Facebook not to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
Curiously, some sects of orthodox Jews profess that the existence of Israel goes against their religion. Many of their adherents live in Israel and hold that Israel, as a state, should not exist.
Whatever one might think about them, they are not antisemitic, but they are anti-Zionist.
Non-government organizations can impose very powerful censorship.
Examining statistics shows that a moratorium on evictions, and a moratorium on disconnection of utilities, substantially reduce death from Covid-19.
(satire) *National Guard Returns To Endless Sleep Under Mount Rushmore Until Nation Calls Upon Them Again.*
Jesse Jackson: *The US System Is Rigged So the Minority Can Rule Over the Majority.*
"Innovative" businesses are selling privatized automated education to US public schools.
Implemented with unjust nonfree software, of course. I expect that the system collects data which sooner or later helps profile the subjects.
(satire) *Late-Arriving Protester Has No Idea What He’s Chanting.*
I think the chant that he could not make out was, "The gostak distims the doshes!" See the story, "The Gostak and the Doshes," by Miles Breuer.
California is relaxing Covid control measures in response to a fractional decrease in the Covid-19 case rate.
The hospitals are no longer full, so everyone that gets badly sick can at least get treated. But allowing the case rate to remain so high will mean that many do get sick and die — and more infectious strains will take over. I share the view of the experts quoted that this is foolish.
US citizens: call on senators to vote against Tom Vilsack.
To sign without running nonfree Javascript code, use this workaround.
US citizens: call on Congress to expel members of Congress that incited or planned the storming of the Capitol.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to fully end family separations at the border.
US citizens: call on Biden to stop construction of Line 3 pipeline.
US citizens: call on your Senators to reject Samantha Power.
To sign without running nonfree JS code, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on North Carolina Attorney General to do a full investigation of the violent arrest of Christopher Lynch
US citizens: call on the Senate to eliminate the filibuster.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress not to increase surveillance.
Facebook said it will make some kinds of data about its political ads from Aug 3 to Nov 3 available to researchers.
It is a step in the direction of permitting society to find out what Facebook actually does and how that affects public thought, but there is a long way to go.
*Schumer Says Biden Should Declare a Climate Emergency.*
Biden ordered the Department of Justice not to sign contracts for privatized prisons. That means that privatized prisons will gradually disappear from the Department of Justice's activity.
However, this order did not apply to immigration prisons.
Republican senators delayed the wrecker's second impeachment trial. Then almost all of them voted that it is too late to hold the trial.
Today's Republicans don't notice that there is a conflict in principle between the two actions, so Republican senators don't need to recognize it.
*Coalition Calls for Urgent Action On Livestock Antibiotic Overuse.*
We've known for decades that this will kill people. Now it is killing people. But keeping herds producing without indiscriminate use of antibiotics would apparently cost more.
How many thousands of deaths will it take to overcome the lobbying power of Big Ag?
Dr Irene Butter, survivor of Nazi persecution and now a US citizen, speaks about seeing American Nazis try to seize the US Capitol.
*Democrats stunned by briefing on Capitol's security before insurrection: 'It was only by pure dumb luck' more weren't killed.* The officials in charge of security for the Capitol saw every hint of an attack coming and thought it would look bad if they reinforced security to stop it.
The CEO of Goya has gone down the rabbit hole into fanatical support of the wrecker. The board of directors told him to shut up.
I never made an explicit decision to boycott Goya, but ever since he praised the wrecker last July, and received a corrupt commercial endorsement from the White House in return, I have not felt like buying any Goya products.
The corporate media forgot about "deficit" during the corrupter's handouts to big business, but now that Democrats are ready to help non-rich Americans, those media have remembered their old friend.
Europe is moving rapidly to renewable electric generation, which this year exceeded fossil fuel electric generation there. The US must do the same.
The UK government spent 700 million dollars to rapidly build hospital buildings, but they are not operating because the UK does not have staff to run them. Why not? Because the government has bad policies towards staff.
The Tories think of working people's pay as a diversion of money that was meant for a plutocrat. They want to pay them less, impose harsh rules, and employ fewer of them. They have found it difficult to approach workers who treat sick people in a different spirit.
Opponents of the HS2 high-speed train line secretly built a tunnel next to Euston Station to block construction, using techniques from prison escape tunnels.
What astounds me even more is that they consider blocking an electric train line to be part of climate defense. The usual reason for high-speed trains is to substitute for air travel and thus reduce global heating.
It does seem like bad design to run that line out of Euston rather than from St Pancras, where the high-speed trains arrive from France. It is only 10 minutes' walk from St Pancras to Euston, but the need to change trains will make a much bigger delay.
*Climate crisis: world now at its hottest for 12,000 years.*
*Global shark and ray population crashed more than 70% in past 50 years.*
Fanatical lunatics are barging into hospitals in the UK and claiming that patients badly ill from Covid-19 are not really sick — and that the hospitals are killing them.
Despite the danger of that lunatic movement, I see danger also in censoring them. Consider another movement which is much more rational, the animal rights movement. One of its methods was to enter farms and make videos of how they treated animals. Some US states have repressed this with special laws, the "Ag Gag" laws. Although I do not support animal rights, I condemn those laws for their offense against the activists' human rights. It will be difficult to oppose the Ag Gag laws while endorsing laws against doing the same thing in a hospital.
However, if the intruders don't wear masks, it is legitimate to prosecute them for that.
*ALEC's Numerous Ties to the Capitol Insurrection and "Big Lie".*
Prior exposure to PFAS can make vaccination less effective.
It is one of various harmful effects they have.
*The Democrats' priority in power must be to stop minority rule.*
Global heating is wiping out the humpback whales' food.
*Australia needs to cut emissions by at least 50% by 2030 to meet Paris goals, experts say.*
It would have been easy to achieve this, if the planet-roasters had not taken control of Australia and prevented it from starting these reductions years ago.
Google's news-blocking search "experiment" in Australia kept some stories entirely out of search results, for the users targeted.
What this tells me is that Google has too much influence.
Lyft makes drivers compete for rides by accepting lower pay.
The bullshitter's big lie depended on all the little lies.
A judge blocked Biden's order to suspend deportations for 100 days.
*Biden signs more executive orders in effort to advance US racial equity.*
(satire) *Tearful Justin Trudeau Chains Self To Keystone Pipeline To Stop Biden Administration From Destroying Oil Industry Heritage Site.*
*'Pleasure ripped out': the people suffering long-term loss of taste after Covid.*
The fraction of patients that suffer from lasting loss of smell would seem to be roughly 20%. This worries me more than the danger of death.
The mayor of Portland, Oregon, used pepper spray against a hostile stranger who masklessly started breathing in his face.
It was kind of him to give the assailant a bottle of water afterward.
I suggest giving pulling out the pepper spray before the spreader arrives at six feet away. With luck the spreader will back off then.
Of the 16 most potentially dangerous infectious diseases, there are no drug projects for 10 of them.
Where there are treatments, the wealthy countries do little to get these drugs to people in poor countries. As we have seen, allowing a disease to run rampant through any part of the world encourages mutations that can make it worse. We need to recognize that public health is a global issue and protect public health globally, and proactively.
It's not enough for China to strengthen its laws to keep animal diseases away from humans. It needs to start enforcing those laws.
The Supreme Court dismissed lawsuits against the corrupter for violating the "emoluments" prohibition in the US Constitution, simply because he is no longer president.
In order for that to be honest, the courts should speed up these cases to hear them before it is too late.
In some parts of Indonesia, hospitals are full and some people sick with Covid-19 cannot be properly treated.
*US companies using pandemic as a tool to break unions, workers claim.*
*Ireland is repeating its mother and baby home scandal with its asylum system.*
*Facebook is bombarding rightwing users with ads for combat gear.*
Masses of Indian farmers protesting a devastating new law entered Delhi and captured ... the Red Fort???
The Red Fort was a real fortress in 1700, but now it is a historical relic.
I support the farmers' cause, but I think it would be better to hold protests elsewhere to keep historical relics safe.
*Helping poorest tackle climate crisis will boost global growth, says IMF head.*
A few doughty defenders of rationality are battling Covid-19-disinforming bullshitters.
A Wuhan doctor says that in January 2020 he and his colleagues were forbidden to warn the public that Covid-19 was being transmitted from person to person. They were forbidden to wear masks because people would figure out what that meant.
38 of the Capitol Police tested positive for Covid-19 after the riot in which many rioters ostentatiously refused to wear masks.
I have to wonder whether in some of those cases the person was infected due to refusing to wear as mask.
*Are You Raising Kids in Captivity, then Expecting Them to Survive in the Wild?*
(satire) *Sarah Huckabee Sanders Vows To Protect Good People Of Arkansas From Any Questions.*
The EU's ministers agreed to a commitment to end European investment in fossil fuel projects outside the EU.
It is not clear from the article how close this is to a binding decision, nor whether it would cover private funds.
Canadians blocked the transport of Canada-made tanks to the port where they would be shipped to Salafi Arabia.
(satire) *a disguised Amazon drone reportedly snuck into a worker meeting Monday to disrupt union talks.*
Proposals for how the Biden administration can protect workers from digital exploitation.
Proposal 4 includes a small step in the direction of free software, though it doesn't get all the way there.
Urging Biden to fire the current USPS commissioners for cause, because they praised DeJoy or stayed silent while he was sabotaging the USPS.
New York City's pension funds have begun gradually selling their fossil fuel investments.
*New Research Shows Stopping Water, Utility Shutoffs Would Have Prevented Thousands of COVID Deaths* in the US.
The basic principle, that you can't wash your hands if you have bad access to water, will apply anywhere, but the specifics will vary.
Biden promised to renegotiate trade treaties to make "buy American" rules more powerful.
We are told to think about "buy-American" rules (and "buy-European" rules in the EU, "buy-Chinese" rules in China, etc.) in terms of competition with other countries. If it were only that, I would be against those rules. The one good aspect of trade agreements is that they reject this sort of economic hostility.
The reason I support "buy-from-our-country" rules is that in each country that will help workers organize and demand higher wages. In other words, it will work against the business-supremacy-treaty aspect of them.
An indigenous woman in jail in Australia accuses the guards of stripping her in front of male prisoners.
The racism in Australia is directed mainly at ine indigenous people and manifests very strongly, even more than US racism against blacks. Americans are prejudiced to some extent against indigenous, but not like this.
President AMLO told Mexico that the end of Covid-19 was at hand, then caught it himself.
I have an impression that AMLO is like the square root of Trump. Nowhere near as bad, but with some of the same bad tendencies.
The world's big ice sheets are melting faster and faster. The melting is following the IPCC worst-case scenario. Will humanity ignore this fire alarm?
*Ugandan court rules Bobi Wine house arrest illegal.*
The UK government using Covid-19 as an excuse to ban demonstrations outside the trial of people accused of toppling the statue of slave-trafficker Edward Colston.
Of course, people must take precautions against transmitting Covid-19 whenever they come near strangers, and that includes when protesting. They must wear masks all the time while there, and stay two meters apart. As long as they do so, they must be allowed to protest.
Protesting is more than a human right, it is a crucial aspect of democracy.
Although forest fires in Oregon are increasing due to global heating, managing forests for the long term can help the forests keep growing notwithstanding the occasional fire.
Police shut down an illegal nightclub in Lawrence, Mass, for spreading Covid-19.
A nightclub is not a horrible thing in ordinary times, but nowadays that sort of thing keeps Covid-19 spreading and evolving.
Singapore's contact tracing app, supposedly intended to detect possible transmission of dangerous virus, will also be used to detect possible transmission of dangerous dissident ideas.
I would be glad to let a contact-tracing device track when I come close to another contact-tracing device, provided they don't record my whereabouts the rest of the time and it releases information about me only when I tell it to.
Three of the members of the grand jury that was manipulated into placing no charges for shooting Breonna Taylor are among the signatories of a petition to impeach the attorney general of Kentucky, who did the manipulating.
He falsely told them that there was no legal basis for any charges against that thug.
Boeing plans to make planes that can fly exclusively on biofuel. That won't do the ecosphere much good if the biofuel is made by growing crops using the same resources, and causing the same pollution, used for growing food.
Perhaps boeing should look at using hydrogen that will be made using solar-generated electricity, and will produce only water.
*Portland: leftwing protesters damage Oregon Democrats’ headquarters.*
I share their disapproval of Biden for failing to support crucial programs such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. However, this vandalism is self-defeating: it will turn the public away.
Given the composition of the Senate, with a few center-ring Democrats and 50 Republicans, it won't be easy to get it to vote even for Biden's reforms.
*Talking can spread Covid as much as coughing, says research.*
*Jewish leaders use Holocaust Day to decry persecution of Uighurs.*
*Toxic Chemicals Threaten Humanity’s Ability to Reproduce.* And other animals too.
Humanity is reproducing to dangerous excess; a certain amount of decrease in humans' reproductive capacity would reduce the coming disaster and could increase the number of humans who reach the end of this century. (I expect that each additional human birth in coming decades will result in more than one additional human death in the disaster.)
But too much decrease in human reproductive capacity could wipe out our species.
Facebook has experienced powerful pushback in response to its announced coming change in use of the personal data it collects.
Although this change would have increased the use of the collected data for profiling, the underlying wrong — the collection of the data is happening already. Collecting personal data is the primary wrong in WhatsApp. Even if Facebook decides to cancel the change, this reason to reject WhatsApp will still exist, as it has existed for years.
There are other reasons to reject WhatsApp, starting with the fact that it requires users to run nonfree client software on their own computers.
*Indian comedian held over ‘indecent’ jokes at show where he did not perform.* He did not perform because a gang of bigots prevented him. (They are bigots in the name of Hinduism.) Then the gang had him arrested and jailed for a "crime" of criticizing Hindu gods and a government official. Criminalizing criticism is oppression in its own right.
For some hilarious criticism of some Hindu gods, watch Sita Sings the Blues, by Nina Paley, available on archive.org.
For big business to defend democracy requires more than silencing one of democracy's enemies, namely Trump. Big business corrupted our democracy in the 1990s and is fighting to keep control.
Will the Department of Labor please become less of a pushover when dealing with companies that classify their employees as contractors?
New York City thugs keep on regularly killing people with chokeholds and not being punished, even though the thug department formally prohibited choke holds 28 years ago. The system that judges accusations against thugs is structured so as not to punish them.
While sheltering in her office on Jan 6, Rep. Ayanna Pressley and her staff discovered that all the alarm buttons in her office had been removed at some earlier time.
This looks suspiciously like insider participation in a plan for violence against her.
I've voted for Pressley twice, and I want to do so many more times.
*Beware Corporate ‘Democracy Washing’: Twitter, Trump, and the Danger of Privatizing the Fight Against Fascism.*
If a publicly owned system operated with Facebook's incentives, it would act like Facebook and tend to do the same harm that Facebook does. I've proposed a system which would serve Facebook's original purpose — giving people a way to enable others to find them by name — and do nothing else.
As an experiment, there is one: plumebio.com.
China's government is so powerful that even the biggest businesses and the richest billionaires can't push the country around. Alas, China has the opposite problem: the government can crush anyone.
We are left with the challenge of making a government that is powerful enough to stand up to businesses day after day, but that respects human rights.
Ralph Nader calls for reinvigorating the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, so it can once again protect Americans from injury in traffic collisions, and other problems that vehicles cause.
I wish he recognized that cars with computers remotely controlled by the manufacturer pose threats that are not limited to being taken over by some third party.
The "essential workers" at New York City's wholesale fruit and vegetable market demonstrated how essential they are by going on strike demanding one additional dollar per hour.
John Dean: *Insurrectionist Senators are Co-Conspirators and Should Not Sit in Judgment of Trump.*
One of them threatens that Republicans will impeach past Democratic presidents even if they didn't launch a mob to attack the Capitol, if and when Republicans ever take control of Congress.
This is a silly distraction. If Republicans have a majority in the house and 2/3 of the Senate, retroactive impeachment of past presidents (supposing the Constitution permits it — recall that the wrecker's second impeachment occurred while he was still president) would be the least of our worries.
However, it is not just any old distraction. The purpose of maneuvers like these is to suck all ideas of right and wrong, of rights and duties, out of life. With them gone, evil and good look the same, and the only distinction that can be seen is that between the powerful and the weak. They want this because they serve the powerful and they want nothing to impede them from trampling the weak.
Asking the International Criminal Court to investigate Bolsonaro for damaging the Amazon forest.
Republican congresscritters who threatened the lives of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives now defy the Capitol Police and the rules of the House by bringing guns into the chamber.
In 2020, right-wing extremists adopted the tactic of breaking safety rules to menace people, and made themselves look powerful by showing no one could stop them. In effect, their message is, "Join our mob and intimidate people with us!" Backing off to avoid an immediate conflict is a bad option when they point to this as proof of their power. Congress needs to impose on them rules they can't get away with breaking.
The jailing of Navalny inspired massive protests against Putin.
It looks like Navalny' judgment was correct: returning to Russia and facing jail struck a blow against Putin.
Australia is considering requiring Google and Facebook to pay for showing links to news articles.
To restrict linking in general would destroy the Web, but making big surveillance capitalism companies pay would do no harm. If it pushes one of those companies out of Australia, good for Australia!
However, the plan should not be discriminatory. It should apply to any large company which does a suitable sort of business, regardless of what country it comes from.
Please stop referring to works of journalism as "content", because that term disparages whatever works you apply it to. Their importance to society comes from not being a commodity.
Refuting Covid-19 disinformation — and some bad news about mutants.
The US should realize that North Korea will not agree to nuclear disarmament no matter what the US might offer.
* The oil, gas, and coal industries support and fund white supremacy and far-right politics.*
Government by executive order is not the way things ought to work. It happens in the US because Congress is unable to function.
This does not mean that Biden's executive orders are bad. I have not read about each and every one of them, but the ones I have read about are vitally necessary.
To get a functioning Congress we need to have fair elections, not rigged by voter suppression and gerrymandering. Then Congress would pass the crucial legislation that most Americans want, such as a national medical system (aka Medicare for All), the Green New Deal, increased rights for workers, and abortion rights.
The corrupter pressured the high officials of the Department of Justice to attack Georgia's election results, but they refused.
The corrupter also bullied the US attorney in Atlanta into resigning, hoping his temporary replacement would help bully Georgia officials.
The corrupter reveled in showing contempt for ethics rules. These rules were meant to impose accountability on officials who would be embarrassed to have found to have violated them. When the president spits on them, there is no way to enforce them short of impeachment. We need a way.
If the US resumes the non-nuclear deal with Iran, it ought to be able to reach a peace deal with the Houthis in Yemen.
I see no reason why the US should insist on a unified Yemen. A few decades ago, North Yemen and South Yemen were separate countries (though West and East Yemen would have described them more accurately.) If the Yemenis disagree too much to accept one single government, the rest of the world need not make them fight until they do.
*Ilhan Omar Calls on Biden to Back Recurring Direct Payments.*
This would amount to a basic income for all American households except those earning over a certain comfortable level.
A distributed campaign to defeat the planet roasters' PR machine.
*As Economic Suffering Grips Regular Americans, Wall Street Behemoths Ready Feast of Stock Buybacks.*
Neonicotinoid insecticides in small quantities interfere with the sleep cycles of bees and fruit flies.
The reason they tested this on fruit flies is that those are the principal insect species for scientific study, studied more and understood better than any other species of insect. Easy to raise, too. Then they tested a species of bee as well because we are very concerned about bees.
Biden has reverted the wrecker's order to give the president the power to fire civil service employees and replace them with his own loyal flunkies.
That's good as far as it goes, but we need a law to prevent future presidents from trying the same trick again. Meanwhile, what about the flunkies that the wrecker opt in? Has Biden pushed them out? Can he push them out?
It looks like the election-stealer senators will not be expelled. So there is a campaign to deny them committee assignments.
Would that punishment achieve anything but to give them a chance to demonstrate defiance?
I do not know the rules that govern Senate committee assignments or how easily they can be set aside by 50 senators plus the vice president. Would denying those senators committee assignments imply giving extra committee assignments to other Republicans? Or would it mean Republicans get less than half the committee assignments? How can the senate move forward without an organizing resolution?
The US Army is planning to start another bogus Guantanamo trial. The suspects are accused of specific crimes of terrorism, and they may actually be guilty. It would be good to try them, provided the trials are fair. However, Guantanamo does not hold real trials; its kangaroo courts are inherently unfair.
Have the suspects been tortured? A trial based on so-called evidence obtained by torture cannot be valid, since torture extracts false confessions.
They have been in prison for 17 years. To make people wait that long for trial is an injustice in itself. A terrorists who was convicted and sentenced years ago in Indonesia for one of these bombings is now being released. I suggest giving these suspects clemency, saying that 17 years is enough.
Another solution might be to extradite them to Indonesia. If there is no extradition treaty, they might choose to go to Indonesia for trial, so they can serve their sentences and be released, rather than stay in Guantanamo forever.
One of the perpetrators of the attack on the Capitol was also the head of an organization that could be called Doctors for Delusion.
1/3 of the rivers in the US have visibly changed color in the past 40 years.
The direct causes may vary, but the underlying causes is almost certainly human activity in nearly every case.
The staff of The New Yorker went on strike for 24 hours to demand higher pay.
I applaud this, but the union should also defend employees such as Toobin who have been fired for vaguely stated grounds.
Israeli terrorism keeps increasing in Palestine, as the ideological Israeli "settlers" who build and occupy housing in Palestine increase their attacks on Palestinian property.
Israel just announced plans to build 2,500 more units of housing in Palestinian land.
Housing any Israelis in occupied Palestine violates the laws of occupation.
The number of species of bees reported from 2006 to 2015 is 3/4 the number reported before 1990.
The other 25% have become too scarce to be observed very often.
The EU is removing tax haven status from various British territories.
*California opens civil rights inquiry into LA county sheriff's department.*
Putin has arrested some of Navalny's supporters and accused them of planning protests.
The Democracy for All Amendment would reverse the "Citizens" United decision in a narrow way; it would authorize laws to limit campaign spending by non-human entities.
This would be a change for the better. However, the Supreme Court's ruling that human rights in general apply to corporations has caused harm in other ways — for example, through the idea that a corporation is entitled to religious freedom including refusing to pay for abortion coverage for employees.
Therefore, I think we should pass the We The People Amendment, which would reject in general the idea that human rights apply to corporations.
Reports say that Windows laptops provided to UK students contained malware. Alas, they did not recognize that Windows is itself malware.
The President of the European Investment Bank said that "gas is over".
I hope that the EIB translates this into a policy that will stop all investment in facilities for extracting or using natural gas. It would naturally follow, but you can't count on such organizations to make their actions conform to their stated goals.
*A Good Way to Unite the Country Would Be to Convict and Prosecute Donald Trump.*
This is a counter intuitive claim. How could that unite the country when his supporters will surely not like it? The answer is that it will make some of his supporters reconsider their support for him, and that will take a step towards unifying the United States.
One might fantasize about some simple, magical way to unify America all at once, but this way is the only way I see.
Senate Democrats are keeping open the option of eliminating the filibuster.
Since even "moderate" Republican Senators oppose more Covid-19 relief any time soon, the only way Democrats can pass it is to eliminate the filibuster.
What will happen in the Senate if there is no organizing resolution?
*Biden Administration Must Go Further in Financial Disclosures to Reveal Possible Conflicts of Interest in Foreign Policy Making.*
(satire) *Inaugural Address Spills Over Into Second Day As Biden Continues To List Greatest Issues Facing Nation.*
The temporary halt to fossil fuel drilling on public lands is a good first step, but it should be permanent.
If it is limited to public lands, will it be sufficient to prevent increase in fossil fuel capacity? Wells on private property increase emissions just as much.
A court ruled that Section 230 of the CDA gives Amazon the right to evict Parler from its hosting service.
What enabled right-wing lunatic extremism to become so powerful, and thus so dangerous, was that Facebook promoted its posts because they generated "engagement". This gave lunacy access to recruit millions of zuckers. I hold Facebook's promotion algorithm responsible and I believe it should be regulated.
While I understand the wish to eliminate Parler, because I wish there were no right-wing lunatic extremism, I think it is dangerous to shut discussion sites for hosting discussions of that or any other political tendency. Which one will be shut next?
Why you should always wear a mask when you go near others outside your household.
Adequate ventilation is very important for avoiding Covid-19 transmission when you're inside a building or a car.
(hack) If an anti-masker approaches you to try to infect you with Covid-19, fire your mask gun at per face.
(satire) *U.S. Enters Constitutional Crisis After Forgetting Whether Transfer Of Presidential Power Happens At 12 A.M. Or 12 P.M.*
On Jan 20 after noon I told people that Trump claimed he was still president in California until 3pm Eastern time. They believed it, so I acknowledged I was only kidding.
Bernie Sanders describes what he aims to achieve by using the budget reconciliation process to bypass the Republicans' use of the filibuster.
*Even After an Insurrection, Corporate Media Can't Let Go of False Balance.* The article points out some exceptions.
Reporting with false balance gives an advantage to whichever side does the more extreme things.
More things Biden can fix without passing laws. If he does them all he will make the US considerably better than it was in 2016.
*To achieve a real legacy, Biden will have to be more radical — and ready to fight.*
(satire) *Stray Doberman Accidentally Sworn In As President After Putting Paw On Inaugural Bible.*
Rashida tlaib campaigns against the danger of new "domestic terrorism" laws.
The history of the first organized slave revolt in the Americas.
Biden has or will reverse many acts of climate-related sabotage carried out by the wrecker. This will resume the climate defense policies that were already in force in 2016 — but they were woefully insufficient to succeed in avoiding disaster.
World leaders must change the plans to boost the economy by subsidizing fossil fuels.
I disagree vehemently with the demand to prioritize adaptation to the current painful foretaste of coming disaster. That is foolish short-term thinking.
We must respond to global heating in the way that does the most to reduce the ultimate global disaster and ensure the survival of civilization. That is to put priority on cutting emissions (treating the disease).
To invest in coping with extreme weather is treating the symptoms. If our funds for doing that do not come from the funds we could use to reduce the ultimate disaster, then let's do it. But it is not equal in priority; it is clearly secondary.
Today it looks easy to get more money for both long-term prevention and short-term gecko. That is because what we are spending on long-term prevention is far too little.
The harm caused today by the foretaste seems like a lot, because we judge it against the recent past. When we judge it against the likely future we will see it is secondary.
*Arizona Prosecutors Pretend "ACAB" Is Gang Lingo To Hit Protesters With Felony Gang Charges.*
"ACAB" is an acronym that stands for "All Cops Are Bastards". It has nothing to do with gangs. The prosecutors can't help knowing this, but — like the thugs they are trying to support — they don't object to lying to help thugs.
I do not agree with that slogan. Some cops are honest and will not lie to repress protests. They are a small minority, but maybe in the future there will be more of them.
Aside for that, I do not use the word "bastard" as a derogatory term because being the child of two people who were not married to each other is not a moral flaw. Indeed, the child has no choice about it.
When Senator Manchin opposed stimulus payments to Americans, it wasn't because his constituents in West Virginia would disapprove if he supported them. Progressives played an ad on the radio in West Virginia criticizing his stance, and he changed it on the double.
I think this shows that his motive for opposing them was not a matter of appealing to voters, but rather one of satisfying rich donors.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russian forces tortured and murdered Georgian civilians and burned their houses, in the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
Bizarrely, it was Georgia which started that war by attacking Russia, perhaps hoping to get NATO support when Russia counterattacked. But NATO declined to be drawn in.
I can't criticize Russia for counterattacking when attacked, but that doesn't excuse war crimes.
*Former head of Vatican bank sentenced to jail for embezzlement.*
Slavery today is a personal injustice with a macroeconomic cause.
France has legally protected the sounds and smells of the countryside against lawsuits from annoyed neighbors.
John Kerry, the US "climate envoy", publicly recognizes the need for much faster action to curb fossil fuels.
The article does not say whether he mentioned reduction of emissions from agriculture as crucial.
A document from years ago reports that a witness testified that Mexican soldiers took the 43 disappeared students to an army base and questioned them, then handed them over to a drug gang which presumably killed them.
*Biden Should End Espionage Act Prosecutions of Whistleblowers and Journalists.*
Don't be distracted by "food" poverty, "fuel" poverty, "period" poverty, "digital" poverty, or even "child" poverty. The problem is that people, even families, live in poverty, and that it casts a pervasive pall over their lives.
The solution to the problem of poverty is simple in principle: give poor people an income that is sufficient for the necessities of life. There are many ways to do that, but a government headed by dooH niboR will fail to see any of them.
There is a specific problem with the term "digital poverty", because it calls for helping poor people to be mistreated by nonfree software and on-line dis-services in the same foolish way that most wealthier people are.
Biden is continuing US sanctions against Venezuela and support for coup-instigator Guaidó.
President Maduro is responsible for political injustice and economic problems, but Guaidó seeks only to convert his country into an unofficial colony of the US.
The believers in QAnonsense are in an uproar after their central prophecy failed to occur.
Some are piling lunacy on lunacy by professing that the bullshitter is the real president and is pulling Biden's strings.
Biden's economic proposals would make improvements in many areas. They would, for instance, substantially increase taxes on rich people and companies.
Substack may be targeted by campaigns to demand that it censor writers for their views.
If I understand rightly, Substack is a publishing site, not a social media site — it doesn't provide a forum for readers in general to post their views. That means readers cannot have much influence via Substack.
I think that the main danger of antisocial media is that they allow disinformation snowballs to grow. In these snowballs, people invent and circulate new wrinkles of disinformation which others can then pick up in repeat. I think that can only happen on a special media site; thus, not on Substack.
That may help convince people to stop bullying Substack to censor.
PCBs leaking out of landfills and into the sea are damaging the fertility of male harbor porpoises. And probably other species of dolphins, such as killer whales.
This is in addition to other threats they face.
Arguing that we can't expect communication systems to filter out disinformation while important officials and candidates are promoting it.
Global heating is making it hard for reindeer to find food. Sweden will build bridges so they can cross highways and train tracks.
Those bridges will postpone disaster, but to prevent it requires stabilizing global temperatures.
The inauguration went as planned, with no violence.
This should not have required comment, but I expected fanatics to try again. That they did not is somewhat reassuring.
A new product consists of gorgonzola cheese
with marijuana mixed in. One look and you're stoned.
*Incoming Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders Lays Out Visionary First
100 Days for Biden.*
*Arizona GOP Chair Urged Violence at the Capitol.
The Mercers Spent $1.5 Million Supporting Her.*
Biden has brought the US back into the Paris climate agreement, but let's not forget that that is inadequate.
Glenn Greenwald: *The New Domestic War on Terror is Coming.*
Domestic terrorism is real; if we did not know this already, Jan 6
proved it. But a "war on terror" is an absurd response; it would
crush dissent of all stripes.
We can't solve the problem of 70 million voters that have lost touch
with reality by trying to imprison them.
A forest on the Alabama coast was inundated 60,000 years ago.
Now it is a unique wonder of the world, and needs to be protected.
Sanders: *Joe Biden must put an end to business as usual. Here's where
to start.*
If we want Biden to address the big problems, we will have to pressure him.
That's what Sanders is trying to lead us to do.
*'Kleptocrats' will try to block Libya elections, says UN envoy.*
Meanwhile, foreign powers that support the various sides may refuse
to remove the mercenaries that both sides agreed should leave.
Biden will try to offer us a feeling of hope as a substitute for
progressive policies.
If Biden tries to move to the fictitious "center" — the average of
plutocratist Democrats and lunatic Republicans — he will achieve
nothing there. He must at least try to do what the country needs.
(satire) *Trump was reportedly panicking Tuesday
after realizing his fingerprints were all over the White House.*
This article says that Navalny has caused significant trouble for
Putin and has got under his skin.
So that, even in prison, Navalny is seen by
Putin as a threat.
If that is true, I think Navalny will not live long. There are lots of
ways to kill someone in prison.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to join the
Military Spending Reduction Caucus.
To sign this without running nonfree Javascript code, use the
Salsalabs workaround.
Changes Biden needs to bring about so as to stop making life in
Central America unbearable.
(satire) *Up-And-Coming White Supremacist Added To FBI’s Terrorists To
Watch List.*
*Report Shows Corporate Landlords Received
Public Funding Yet Still Kicked Out Tenants.*
Since large companies as landlords are nastier to tenants, we should
take steps to discourage being a large company landlord. Higher taxes
for them, for instance. Or, increase taxes for landlords that
frequently make a tenant leave.
Vladimir Fardin, a 9-year-old Haitian, arrived in the US with a valid
visa, in the company of his older brother who also had a valid visa.
The immigration thugs jailed them for two days incommunicado, then
separated them and deported the older brother to Mexico for no reason.
However, the deportation of Paul Pierrilus
was cancelled.
Several center-right Democratic senators seem to want to maintain the
filibuster rule, thus enable Republicans to block progressive laws.
Can Biden "carry them along" to eliminate it? If not, what can he do?
When society pressures people to bet all their wealth on a path to
future success, it's inevitable that many of them will lose that bet.
It is unfair to blame the individuals who lose for that loss.
Society could do more to help people make a new start after such a bet
goes wrong.
Contending that the quality a good citizen needs today is being
hyper-responsible about adoption of beliefs.
The king the people did not like.
US government agencies are trying to co-opt the antiracist part of
Martin Luther King jr's message, while disregarding the rest.
Ten million people in the UK still depend on paying cash.
The way to defend the right to pay cash is to insist on depending on it.
So join me in doing so! Tell stores, "No cash, no sale!"
Pelosi removed progressive Democrat Katie Porter from the Financial
Services Committee because banks and big businesses thought she was
doing too good a job.
Facebook proposes to eliminate online radicalism by establishing
regulations that would eliminate its competitors and allow
only Facebook.
Lobbyists will repeat absurd arguments like this with a straight face,
while bought members of Congress accept them as valid.
Remember what happened when one of the Yes Men went to a meeting of a
campaign for privatization and advocated slavery?
Nobody denounced the
idea. If you think of everything as property for what businesses own,
you will try to treat workers that way.
The wrecker's last-minute pardons reportedly do not include people
accused of storming the Capitol, his family, or himself.
I worried that he would pardon them.
*Syria's White Helmets awarded £1.17m to make PPE.*
*California households owe $1bn in water bills as affordability crisis
worsens.*
A moratorium on shutoffs, evictions and foreclosures is not enough,
because it only defers the day of disaster. The government must
rescue people whom Covid-19 has pushed into debt.
A Thai has been sentenced to 43 years in prison for forwarding audio
clips that criticized the monarchy.
In Pakistan it is now a crime to criticize the army, which is very
politically powerful.
The world is full of threats to freedom of sane speech.
The cheater's effort to get the 2020 Census to omit unauthorized
immigrants has failed.
He also tried intimidate them (by threatening to deport them)
so that they would not respond to the census.
I don't know to what extent that may have succeeded.
*Vaccine Site Uses Credit History to Verify Patients’ Identities.*
This gives information about the vaccination to the credit reporter.
It is wrong to spread people's personal data that way.
China's economy grew in 2020, while most other countries' declined.
It's clear this is because China took the necessary actions to quash
Covid-19.
I wonder what happened economically to Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan,
which also quashed Covid-19 effectively. It is possible that they had
economic declines because of loss of tourism or trade with other countries
that did not respond effectively.
As Museveni was stealing the presidential election in Uganda, he was
shutting down the internet so that the citizens could not report what
they were seeing.
Senator Warren highly approves Biden's choice to run the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau.
What would Martin Luther King jr say about Israel's occupation of
Palestine? In 1967, shortly after Israel conquered Palestine, he
had a feeling it was going to become oppressive.
(satire) *God Blindsided After Illegitimate Son From Andromeda Galaxy
Tracks Him Down In Heaven.*
The sadist has rushed to deport Paul Pierrilus, who came to the US
with his parents at age 5.
They became US citizens, but seem not to have that for their son.
Bernice King: *We still have a choice today — nonviolent coexistence
or violent co-annihilation.*
She advocates sticking to nonviolence in protests, which I endorse.
When the thugs start the violence, we can win by making it clear
that violence comes from them and is their fault.
An investigation shows that the Massachusetts Democratic Party was more
deeply involved in sabotaging Alex Morse's candidacy
than we previously knew.
Guatemala has sent its army to attack a group of thousands of Hondurans trying
to cross Guatemala (and then Mexico) to reach the US.
The US is surely behind Guatemala's military response to these refugees.
The US is also behind their flight from Honduras. It sponsored a coup
in Honduras in 2009.
If the US allowed Hondurans to have a better government
they might not need to search for a place to move to.
Bernie Sanders as head of the Senate Budget Committee will have
substantial power to help poor Americans instead of rich Americans.
He will face the challenge of preventing only-nominally-Democratic
Senator Manchin from blocking these efforts.
US citizens: call on Congress to prohibit naming any federal property
after the wrecker.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
*Big Tech Critics Alarmed at Direction of Biden Antitrust Personnel.*
The EU is failing to effectively protect seas from being over-fished
and destroyed.
*Uighur campaigners to target 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics sponsors.*
*US defense officials fear insider attack on Biden inauguration.*
This fear is justified by the participation of military personnel in the
coup attempt.
*The Capitol riot wasn't a fringe 'uprising'. It was enabled by very deep
pockets.*
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/18/the-capitol-riot-wasnt-a-fringe-uprising-it-was-enabled-by-very-deep-pockets
I can't rule out that billionaires would welcome the chaos of the assassination
of the new president and vice president. But even if they don't, what they
started may be beyond their control.
The US and its allies confront Russia and its tantalizing supply of
natural gas.
I think I see what ought to be done: instead of building the new
pipeline, start a Marshall Carbon Plan to decarbonize Germany on the
double, and help it get past the period of shortage before that is
finished.
The outcome will be a loss for Russia, but a victory for civilization.
*Phil Spector defined the toxic music svengali — a figure that
persists today.*
I have to believe the accounts women give of how the men they loved
imprison them. They sound like horrible pain. But I see nothing like
this in my life experience. Are many of the women I meet being
treated secretly like that, and forced to hide it?
*Britain has plenty of cash to bail out big business, yet nothing for the
poorest.*
Tories work for the rich; naturally they do this.
Germany is moving to the use of N95 masks for everyone. There may
be transient problems in this, but it might do some good.
I've read that the main cause of spreading is indoor gatherings
where people may take off their masks.
People in England who went home after hospitalization for Covid-19
were not out of the woods. 1/3 of them were back in the hospital
within 5 months. 1/8 of them died within that time.
Psychiatrists tried to warn about what the wrecker would do, even that
he would try a coup before giving up. However, the American Psychiatric Association made a rule that they
were forbidden to publish such predictions.
*Denial of American Fascism Has Cost Us Dearly.*
Includes interesting proposals for how to help today's fascists start to see
reality and how to check their armed threat.
*UK trained military of 15 countries with poor human rights records.*
Israel as occupying power has a treaty obligation to provide medical
care to the occupied population as to its own. Instead, Israel is
denying Covid-19 vaccine to Palestinians.
Palestine will hold legislative elections in May, or try to. It will
not be easy to do, under occupation and with Gaza held by HAMAS and
under siege.
28 prominent US Jews, including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt,
signed this letter condemning as fascist and murderous the first political
party started by Menachem Begin. He later founded the Likud Party, which
now heads the government of Israel.
Assange, Corbyn and leftist filmmaker Ken Loach have been targeted for
the modern method of character assassination, which works by accusing them
of things their supporters would consider very bad.
Yannis Varoufakis also has been. He describes it 48 minutes into
this video.
Dead seagrass leaves collect and sequester plastic particles.
Illinois is about to eliminate bail, and establish more freedom
of movement for accused people subject to location tracking.
There is a need, however, for a way to keep someone in jail
who is accused of trying to overthrow the government for the wrecker.
*Should we celebrate Trump’s Twitter ban? Five free speech experts weigh in.*
US citizens: call on Congress to expel the members of Congress that
deny there was a coup attempt.
Alexei Navalny returned to Russia, where he was immediately arrested
and faces years in prison for absurdly unfair charges.
*Poison squad stalked Alexei Navalny on 40 flights, says Bellingcat
investigator.*
An interesting abstract economic understanding of the politics of the
US these days.
However, as for continuing that 50-year cycle, there are many things
which are getting worse and will keep getting worse for more than 50
years, due to underlying physical and biological factors: global
heating, resource exhaustion, and pollution of various kinds.
There is a debate between those who argue that carbon capture and
storage (CCS) is a necessary system for reducing emissions and those
who argue that it is ineffective and an expensive distraction.
I readily agree that CCS is an acceptable method in principle. If you
can make it work, please go ahead. But when it comes to public
investment, it has to compete with the other methods for reducing
emissions. If we spend X on reducing emissions, which way of spending
it would achieve the biggest reduction?
The article mentions that debate, and gives me the impression that
the opponents of CCS are right, at least while while other cheaper
methods are waiting to be used.
Or maybe we should treble our spending on emissions reduction and
try all the methods at once.
*Mahatma Gandhi's killer venerated as Hindu nationalism resurges in India.*
"Hindu nationalism" despises non-Hindus (especially Muslims, but
Christians too, and maybe Buddhists) and seeks to oppress them within
India or expel them. That's why Modi's supporters adopted two
citizenship laws which, together, make an excuse to deny the
citizenship of non-Hindus and expel them.
Paradoxically they also want India to control areas inhabited mainly
by Muslims, such as Kashmir, whether they want to be part of India or
not. (India promised Kashmiris a referendum about independence, but
never carried it out.)
Those who condemn Gandhi for supporting partition between India and
Pakistan apparently wish that Pakistan and Bangladesh were part of
India today, so that they could oppress or expel Muslims there too.
This looks like the return of the sort of territorial expansionism
that mostly disappeared after World War II, together with religious
hatred.
President Museveni of Uganda says he won reelection, but his opponent,
Bobi Wine, says the election was rigged.
Some forms of rigging are undeniable — for instance, shutting down
the internet, and repeatedly arresting Wine. That makes it plausible
Museveni has done other things to rig this election.
Prosecutors have recognized that the taser is a lethal weapon.
The taser is meant to be a nonlethal weapon, though "less lethal" is a
more accurate term for it. Yet these weapons can kill; and many of
them can maim.
It is a good thing that cops carry these weapons; it stands to reason
that the availability of that alternative to shooting a gun has
avoided many killings. At the same time, the wild use of less-lethal
weapons by thugs has caused many avoidable injuries. We need to consider
their misuse as a serious matter even when they cause damage less than fatal.
And even when they don't cause any lasting damage that time, it is a
serious matter because it is crucial that cops don't have bad habits
of using them.
US politics today is a battle between evil yoked to identity politics
and some kinds of justice yoked to identity politics — and the
identity politics will make the two camps fight on and on.
I have to point out, however, that Republicans stole the 2016
presidential election, with voter-suppression.
They try this every time. Sometimes the Democrats win by a
sufficient amount to overcome the Republican election-rigging, and
sometimes they don't.
Wales is using Covid-19 as an excuse to completely ban protests, for instance
about the death of a black prisoner in jail.
People must always have the right to protest, as long as they follow safety
rules such as masks and distancing.
It is no surprise that thugs with badges participated in a crime
intended to overthrow the US government.
Thugs have had a tendency towards violent right-wing views for a long
time. What has changed is that the wrecker convinced many of them to
believe in a fantasy world in which the US government was guilty of
imaginary wrongs.
The thugs who actually participated will be prosecuted. However,
thugs who support white supremacism or Nazism are, and were, unfit to
work as police, and would be unfit even if they did not support
a coup attempt. How can we expel them?
The US has almost 18,000 thug departments, some very large and many
quite small. Any thug who is dismissed from one department because of
basic hostility to some aspect of justice can almost certainly get
hired by another.
To clean any one form of that hostility — such as, right-wing
extremism — out of these departments requires some sort of system to
block that tendency. I can think of two ideas. There could be a
system of blacklisting (thought that would call for safeguards against
wrongful blacklisting). There could be a system of rebooting thug
departments as was done Camden, New Jersey.
I wonder if it is possible to deny those ex-thugs the right to carry
guns.
*By elevating the role of the Presidential Science Advisor to the
Cabinet level, scientists will be at the table and in the room when
key issues are discussed and decisions are made.*
*If Trump looks like a fascist and acts like a fascist, then maybe he is one.*
One difference between the Republican death cult and 20th century
fascism is that the former is a lot more lunatic. It discards
grounding in reality as well sa grounding in morality.
*21 Reasons We Need Population Stabilization in 2021.*
The Pentagon is working on purging soldiers that are so disloyal that
they might support a right-wing overthrow of the government.
The problem of right-wing extremism and racism among military
personnel has been known for decades. The Air Force Academy was more
or less taken over by Christian extremists who bullied cadets to join
their cult.
The wrecker encouraged them to increase their extremism to the point
of lunacy and disloyalty, and that made the problem much more grave.
*If Lawmakers Really Care About "Unity" They Should Support Policies Voters
Actually Want.*
Racism and explicit racist bullying are rife in the Capitol Police.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid that bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
an exception for articles which give important information about
racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the
exceptions.
*How the Biden-Harris Administration Can Fight Climate Change and
Structural Racism.*
The corrupter's officials hastily approved a giant copper mine, rushing
the environmental impact statement.
I hope that this haste offers opportunity to challenge the decision
and that Biden will be able to quash it.
(satire) *officials from the U.S. Mint announced Friday a new
seven-cent coin to bolster citizens’ math skills.*
(satire) Cancel culture in the Middle Ages.
The link will bring you to a page listing links to the same video on
many invidious proxies. Follow any one of those links to see the
video.
The wrecker designated the Houthis in Yemen as a "terrorist organization",
which will impede humanitarian aid to that starving region.
The article does not explain why Biden could not cancel this on Jan 21.
I would like to know.
Calling for federal action against food monopolies.
I support this, of course, but we need not look at the issue of
monopolies on an industry-by-industry basis. Concentration is harmful
in any industry, so we should take general steps to reduce it
drastically across the board.
And how about an import tariff that is based on the size of the company
doing the exporting?
*To Protect Democracy, Lawmakers Must Fix [antisocial media's] Socially
Destructive Business Model.*
Not all the big tech companies use that business model.
Apple does other evils,
not that one. Likewise Microsoft,
Amazon,
and Uber.
US thugs are three times as likely to use force against peaceful
leftwing protests than against peaceful rightwing protests.
When violent protests are included, the ratio is almost as large.
Amazon has made it painfully difficult to terminate membership in
Amazon Prime.
The inspector general of the Department of Justice said that Sessions
imposed the policy of separating families because he wanted to punish
unauthorized immigrants more.
Victoria Nuland, whom Biden proposed as an official in the State Department, has a history of promoting war.
Some voting machines used in some US states, specifically the Dominion
Voting Systems ICE and the ESS ExpressVote machines, are vulnerable to
cracking. Crackers could install software that would alter the vote
printed it on the ballot before the machine deposits it in the ballot box.
Voters must vote directly on paper.
There is little practical difference between censorship by
an oligopoly of businesses and censorship by the state.
And even less differences when the state defines the framework for
censorship by these businesses.
I object to those businesses for other reasons, so I don't use any of them;
I never did use them to communicate with people. I think we should bring the internet back to the stage when it let users connect with each other.
*It's now clear this government wants UK workers to have as little power as
possible.*
Not just workers — campaigners' freedom is threatened too.
For instance, "Don't you dare embarrass us by talking about past
profits from slavery! And make a contract not to criticize government
policy!"
Qatar imprisoned and tortured professor Lukman Thalib for 5 months
and never tried to give any reason for it.
*US military sonar linked to whale beachings in Pacific, say
scientists.*
*Capitol rioters planned to capture and kill politicians, say prosecutors.*
The loss of Sci-Hub would be a disaster for science around the world.
The loss of Elsevier, Wilie and the American Chemical Society would be
a plus. There are already libre scientific journals, and once the
non-libre journals are gone, the libre ones would enjoy complete
success.
Air pollution will make millions of people refugees.
There will not be places for millions (or billions) of people to
migrate to. The only practical solution is to reduce the pollution,
in all countries.
Not just this sort of pollution, of course. We have to make it safe
for people to live in their own countries.
2020 was the year that India imposed unrestrained repression.
*By June 2020, the Modi regime began its gradual "unlocking"
process. Yet, as restrictions were slowly eased, the damage was
already done. The anti- CAA/NRC protests had been squashed, internal
migrants were impoverished or lay dead, the general populace had
endured the unhinged brutality of the police as they enforced the
lockdown, the jailing of dissidents had expanded, and the already
ascendant RSS had entrenched itself far deeper into society than ever
before.*
Global heating, degradation of ecosystems, increasing general human
hunger and sickness, increasing general extinction for other species
— looking at the ghastly future facing us if we don't pull humanity
away from it.
A lawsuit accuses Amazon plus the four giant book publishers of fixing
prices on e-books distributed anywhere but on Amazon.
I doubt that whatever damages they have to pay for this will make them
really stop doing this. I expect instead that they will find a
different way to dress it up. But this use of their market power is
only a symptom: the disease is that they control so much of the
market.
We need laws that effectively prevent so much concentration of any
industry, regardless of how that concentration was or is achieved.
Antimonopoly law, or better said antioligopoly and antioligopsony law,
should discard the question of whether excess concentration was
achieved by "unfair" means or not, and focus on protecting society
from the unjust power that concentration generally tends to create.
Achieving a fair, competitive price for the not-really-sale of e-books
would not make them cease to be unjust. The principal injustices of
commercial e-books today are in the other aspects of their distribution:
imposing DRM and its concomitant nonfree reader software,
carrying an antisocializing contract instead of actual purchase,
and requiring the not-really-buyers to identify themselves.
I would rather do without the e-book than submit to those wrongs.
Nigeria is starting a New Deal that will fund work for 750,000 young
workers to reduce the economic damage of Covid-19.
US citizens: call on Biden to end US participation in the war in
Yemen.
US citizens: call on the Senate to convict the wrecker and disqualify
him from all offices.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass HR 1 to make US elections more
democratic.
US citizens: call on big tech and media companies to stop donating to
legislators that tried to overturn the election and/or encouraged the
coup.
*Google's 'experiment' hiding Australian news just shows its inordinate power.*
*New York attorney general sues NYPD over response to BLM protests.*
*We found a pattern of deeply concerning and unlawful practices that
the NYPD utilized in response to these largely peaceful protests.*
Suing the department may be a good way to take action, but I am
convinced that changing the behavior of thugs requires some sort of
sanction on individual thugs.
(satire) *North Korea Holds Quiet, Low-Key Nuclear Test Just For Self.*
(satire) Senator Hawley: *Yesterday, I was shocked and disappointed to see a
destructive mob break through the Capitol building’s security and
overshadow my own planned grandstanding.*
As Rep. Bustos flew home from Washington after the fright of the
insurrection in the Capitol, other passengers who were anti-truthers
not up and began bullying other passengers.
They took off their masks to intimidate people.
That's reckless endangerment again.
Venice identifies all tourists by their mobile phones and tracks
their movements.
The article is propaganda in favor of massive surveillance, presenting
it as an exciting advance in technology. Since the city tracks boats and
tides, it implies, of course it should track you and me also.
But they won't track me, not that way, because I don't carry a
personal tracking and listening device. This tracking is one of
the two reasons I don't.
Fridays for Future will resume global climate strike actions on March 19.
If I can, I will report on no-Javascript ways to participate.
*The US is now the focus of global instability.*
And it is likely to remain such until such time as right-wing
terrorism diminishes.
There are indications that some Republicans in Congress aided the
insurrection, including helping participants plan in advance how to
attack the Capitol.
(satire) *Citigroup Begrudgingly Keeps Funding Marco Rubio After
Learning Senator Voted For Election Certification.*
Glenn Greenwald notes that when three Big Tech quasimonopolies shut
down Parler, they demonstrated that they have considerable censorship
power over society.
He also says that, counter to widespread impressions, Parler did not
intentionally promote any particular political current, did not permit
advocacy of violence, and was not the main way insurrectionists
communicated to prepare for insurrection.
*If these firms are so powerful that they can be the primary
gatekeepers between a president and the public, then they have outgrown
democratic control.*
Is DNA engineering anything like programming? Can we reach
any ethical conclusions about its "source code"?
Look at the workings of a Covid-19 RNA vaccine.
That RNA is not compiled from "source code"; there is no such
technology. I don't think it is much like programming, either; this
looks to me like a field of physical engineering. So I don't think we
should try to understand it based on software. We should think about
it independently, based on our general principles; some of the principles
we apply to software may be pertinent here, but they won't lead to
the same conclusions.
Big Tech companies decided to crack down on right-wing mobs set on
overthrowing the US government (or worse) just after they learned
that Democrats would control the Senate. It could be a scheme to
convince them not to break up those Big Tech companies.
I would guess that Big Tech is also working on acquiring a few
Democratic senators to block anything that might reduce their power.
ALEC, the right-wing state law lobbying group is working on a campaign
with a group that promotes voter fraud lies and helped organize the
preparations for the insurrection.
Some state legislators that are members of ALEC participated in the rally
that was the staging ground for the insurrection.
Reporters Without Borders warns that anti-truth right-wing extremists
will threaten journalists, in the days leading up to the inauguration.
I see no reason to assume they will stop then.
US citizens: support the COUP Act, which will establish a commission
to investigate the weaknesses (and perhaps worse) of the Capitol Police.
US citizens: call on Congress remove members that won't denounce
the insurrection.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!!!
Senator Schumer wants to put alleged insurrectionists on the TSA's
no-fly list.
The no-fly list is punishment without trial. It should never have been
set up, and we should get rid of it in the name of freedom.
10 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump.
The rest of them continued to defend him even after he had launched an
attack on the House of Representatives.
Hong Kong's puppet leader equates protests in Hong Kong for democracy
and against repression with insurrection against democracy in the US.
She condemns them both alike.
The wrecker equates them too. He supports them both alike.
BlackRock pledged to divest from coal, but all it did was move its
coal investments into companies which do other things as well.
*Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate
disruption.*
They warn we will face *climate-induced mass migrations, more
pandemics and conflicts over resources* unless we hasten to curb
global heating, and take power away from businesses that demand
perpetual economic growth.
Wole Soyinka: *Global outrage at the storming of the US Capitol risks
diverting attention from repression by Uganda’s president.*
*Climate crisis: record ocean heat in 2020 supercharged extreme weather.*
Istanbul is 45 days away from running out of water. Turkey's other
major cities, and farmers, are in trouble too.
Population increase and the concomitant development is part of the
problem, but the other jaw is global heating.
US states are failing to provide unemployment compensation to all the
unemployed workers that are trying to apply for it.
*A Post-Election Strategy for (long term) National Unity: Focus on
Future Generations.*
*America doesn't need new security laws to prosecute insurrection.*
And those laws are likely to be used to crush even nonviolent dissent.
The article recommends that we instead reorganize all "security" agencies
with personnel that are not right-wing extremists.
I hope we can find enough such personnel to staff them.
Many important US politicians grossly misrepresent section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act. That section is crucial to protect
freedom of speech, and most of the "problems" it is criticized for are
fictitious.
Colorado's reports of its contribution to world greenhouse gas
emissions are bogus; they gravely underestimate its own operations and
don't even try to count the emissions from burning the fossil fuels
extracted there.
This sort of underestimation must be very common around the world.
Here are some of the corporations that gave lots of money to some
senators that tried to overturn the election.
Hundreds of pipeline protesters interrupted construction of the Line 3
planet-roaster pipeline by dancing in the construction site.
(satire) *Nation Settles On Being Home To Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame As
New Foundation For American Exceptionalism.*
(satire) *Child Weirded Out After Bumping Into Teacher Outside Laptop.*
The US is caught between two threats: the lunatic anti-truth movement,
and the plutocratist elites who would be glad to "protect" us by
exacerbating the social deprivation that led millions to join the
lunatic anti-truth movement.
The wrecker has tried to sabotage US relations with Cuba by falsely
claiming it promotes terrorism.
The Cuban government does not recognize freedom of speech, and does not
obey its own constitution.
It has even killed dissidents.
However, injustices like that in a country do not compel the US to engage
in economic warfare with it.
Salafi Arabia is far, far worse, and has started wars in its region,
as well as killing dissidents.
Despite that, the US is quite friendly with Salafi Arabia.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed a
criminal complaint against the wrecker for sedition on Jan 6.
This means that officials need to decide whether to charge him, and
if they don't, the public can call on them to justify their decision.
*'If Wall Street Really Believed in Defending Our Democracy,' Says Sanders, It
Would End Political Donations... Forever*
*These 63 Billionaires Who Bankrolled Trump All the Way to Insurrection Have 'No Right to Feel Shocked'.*
1000 Extinction Rebellion activists in the UK face prosecution for
blocking roads in protests against Shell.
Compared to what Shell is doing to all of us, blocking roads is nothing.
The Capitol insurrection makes visible the loss of political stability
that plutocracy in the US has brought about.
*The Solution to the Coronavirus Recession Is a Global Green New Deal.*
An economist argues for something similar.
UK supermarkets are now enforcing mask requirements.
We should do the same in the US. People's lives are at stake,
and a preference to go without a mask must yield to the duty
to protect other people's lives.
*Indian court suspends new agriculture laws after mass protests.*
Artificial obstacles to producing Covid-19 vaccine will make billions
of people wait years to be vaccinated.
The article focuses on a side issue: given that production is
insufficient, who will get it first?
That is a distraction. There is no need for production to be so slow.
It is slow because of the artificial scarcity created by giving
businesses the power to limit production. To squabble over which
country gets vaccine this year, since there isn't enough, is to
legitimize the artificial scarcity.
Let's resist being distracted. As James Love says, let's make them
produce enough vaccine so that we can all get it first!
The NYC thug in charge of investigating harassment was secretly posting
bigoted hate messages on a bulletin board for thugs.
It is hard for me to understand the thoughts of a person who becomes
obsessed with hate.
Washing polyester clothing is filling the Arctic Ocean with
microfibers that endanger sea life.
The US deportation thugs didn't even give prisoners soap to wash their
hands with. No wonder many caught Covid-19.
Republican congresscritters infected two Democrats while they were
sheltering together during the insurrection, by refusing to protect
them with masks.
Fining Republicans for doing that won't dissuade them — Republican
billionaires would gladly pay their fines. They should be charged with
reckless endangerment.
California is considering a law to limit the use of license plate cameras by thug departments.
It is a step forward but not strict enough. And it should apply to
all parties, not just certain government agencies.
One way to get the wrecker off our backs would be to extradite him to Iraq,
where he faces murder charges.
I don't think it is an ethical option, though. I doubt that Iraqi courts
follow proper legal standards.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass legislation to stop the
president from unilaterally starting a nuclear war.
US citizens: call on the DoJ to prosecute insurrectionists to the
fullest extent of the law.
Dozens or hundreds of the pawns who stormed the Capitol will probably
be prosecuted. What will we do to preserve democracy from the
competing threats?
Ireland's unmarried mothers, and their babies, were in many cases
compelled to live in "mother and baby homes" which vented on them the
Catholic Church's hatred of women who had sex outside marriage.
They didn't even give the children adequate food.
Governor Snyder faces charges for poisoning the people of Flint, Michigan.
It always seemed implausible to me that he did not know what his
lieutenants were doing.
Ron Paul, former congresscritter, has been blocked from his Facebook
page and given no explanation.
Ron Paul is an Antisocialist (he says, "Libertarian"): he advocates
civil liberties for individuals and deregulation for business. I
support the former and oppose the latter, but that's not the point here.
The crucial point is that he has not supported the anti-truth
right-wing disinformation, let alone the insurrection, and yet he is
being silenced in its wake.
Evidently we can't count on Facebook to silence only coup plotting.
We can't in general expect Facebook to do the right thing,
since it has done so much wrong.
"Have the tech companies silence the disinformationists" sounds like
a solution, but it gives those companies unchecked power. Their
obvious next step would be to censor people who
Two officers of the Capitol Police have been suspended for showing sympathy
towards the insurrectionists during the insurrection.
People in general have the right to express that opinion, but anyone
who feels that way is not fit to hold a job protecting against
insurrections.
Twitter is clamping down on QAnonsense, blaming it for stirring up
the insurrection.
Facebook is putting a limit (easy to work around) on one PR phrase
used in election disinformation.
If anything deserves to be censored, it the fascist movement, because
that is dangerous to Americans and our freedom. But it was the power
of these giant companies that enabled the wrecker to build the fascist
movement, and that power is dangerous in itself, aside from the danger
of the fascist movement.
We need to reduce their power, not reassure ourselves that "They are
protecting us now."
The right wing's Orwellian shift:
from praising media dominated by big
business as "freedom" to condemning this as tyrannical censorship.
China has permitted the WHO team studying the origin of Covid-19 to
enter China.
The topic under investigation is scientific, not an attempt to blame China
or establish conspiracy theories.
A vast network of Republicans colluded with the wrecker to organize
the Republican autogolpe effort on Jan 6.
The preparations included orders to prevent the National Guard from
protecting the Capitol. I am not sure that obeying orders is properly
called "collusion" — I think the word implies actions taken
by choice. However, the giving of those orders was culpable.
The Spanish word "autogolpe" is used to describe seizure of power by
the current head of the government — not an attempt to install a new
government, but rather to keep it in power in defiance of the
country's constitution. That is what the wrecker was trying to do.
Everyone: call on John Kerry and the US Congress to include military
greenhouse gas emissions in agreements to reduce emissions.
(satire) Lobbyists are disappointed that congresscritters are so easy
to influence. It hardly even takes a bribe any more.
New "domestic terrorism" legislation would be very effective
for crushing Black Lives Matter and other progressive causes.
Some Republican-controlled state legislatures have started planning
new laws to repress protest, supposedly to be used against domestic
terrorists but actually to be used against protesters against
pollution and abusive businesses.
There is a push to increase the PAT RIOT Act surveillance powers.
No special surveillance facility was needed to see that fanatics were
talking about attacking the Capitol. What was missing was the
willingness to take their threat seriously.
Does anyone know what ultimately happened to the felony charges,
mentioned in one of those articles, against the "J20" activists for
being near where property damage was committed?
China lured Gulbahar Haitiwaji to return from France to sign some
retirement papers in Xinjiang. This was pretext to imprison her in a
're-education' camp for Uighurs. She describes the torture and
brainwashing carried out there.
The leader of B'tselem denounces Israel's system of slightly veiled
apartheid.
British scientists: Britain needs to plan to deal with Covid-19 into
2022, or even later.
The virus could reappear after every human has been vaccinated if it
can survive in nonhuman hosts. We might be able to eradicate it from
those hosts — we could at least try.
The Taliban, in peace negotiations demand the release of two prisoners
in Guantanamo.
The US should release all the prisoners in Guantanamo, because they
have been imprisoned without trial and many have been tortured as
well.
*As 'Dark Stain' of Guantánamo Begins 20th Year, Groups Demand Biden Close
Offshore Prison.*
The main practical obstacle is finding a place each one can go
— but these two Afghans do have a place to go.
In New Zealand, and many other countries, most people who own houses
want them to appreciate in price. So they insist on limiting construction, and that makes it hard for everyone to have a place to
live.
The House of Representatives is impeaching the wrecker again, but there is not enough support in the Senate to convict him.
I don't see the point of this exercise.
This article argues that the impeachment will have more bad influence
than good on the wrecker's followers. "The wiser move would be to let Trump
drift into exile, not stoke the sense of grievance among his base," it
says. I don't know whether that is true. But I think it is crucial
to take measures that will deal them real setbacks. Expressing
hostility to them is something they eat up.
I wonder if there is be a way to enforce the 14th amendment in court
to block the wrecker from running for office in the US in the future.
That would not require a vote in the Senate.
I think it would be wise to move the inauguration to a secure
location, perhaps indoors. I would not be surprised if Republicans in
the army stole a drone to try to assassinate Biden and everyone else
there.
On the debate about whether market-dominating tech companies should
ban the wrecker, or should have banned him long ago.
Merkel said that laws should set the criteria for banning someone from
communicating on internet sites, but in the US that would directly
violate the first amendment.
Human activity is damaging insect populations in many parts of the world.
Perhaps everywhere, but there is no data from many places.
Fewer insects means many other animals will die for lack of food.
Measuring how far the US Senate is from democratic.
According to the figures in the spreadsheet in that article:
Population the 50 Republican senators represent: 142,991,983 (44%)
A gorilla war is taking place in Virunga national park in the Congo.
*A Mob Attacked the Capitol for Trump. Now What?*
Over and over they take one more step along the path towards rebellion
and mass murder. Some of them envision massive terrorism as the
outcome.
One of the roots in antitruth right-wing extremism was the violent
defiance of environmental limits on grazing cattle.
Indeed, people should be free to do as they wish, unless they are
doing harm. Those people's actions do harm.
The problem with their actions is like that of the anti-maskers: their
individual activities add up to predictable and big harm to the world.
One rancher who insists on grazing cattle in an area with wildlife can
safely do so; the cattle and the wildlife can coexist. But there are
thousands of ranchers in the US and they aim to increase their herds.
Without something to limit the herds they put on protected lands, they
will predictably wipe out wildlife.
If only one man refused to wear a mask, he might at some point catch
Covid-19 and then infect some others. But they, with their masks.
would not re-transmit the infection very far. Indeed, if others take
the proper precautions, our one man will probably never catch Covid-19
and his lack of mask won't hurt anyone.
However, to extend this to millions of people is covidiotic. It was
entirely predictable that they would overload the hospitals and cause
hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Everyone: call on companies to stop funding
extremist US candidates.
The insurrection was more violent than appeared in the immediate coverage.
The wrecker forced out the US attorney for Georgia and put in a
replacement loyal to him. This was evidently meant as part of his
efforts to steal the election there.
To defend against a future fascist president, we need to make it more
difficult for the president to arbitrarily fire US attorneys, and the
attorney general. But whose approval should be required for firings?
A majority of the senate? The courts? I don't see an obvious good
answer.
After a US court ordered Georgia to reverse a fraudulent voter purge,
Raffensperger used a series of tricks and maneuvers to avoid letting
those almost 200,000 voters vote in the Jan 5 runoffs.
Beware when rich people and corporations seek to rehabilitate the
reputations of those who tried to seize power on Jan 6.
They did that to the survivors of the slave-owners, and gave us a
century of Jim Crow.
A factory that "recycles" neonicotinoid-treated seeds into ethanol
emits pollution that harms the health of people that live nearby.
Since neonicotinoids do not naturally degrade, they will accumulate
dangerously in the environment near that factory, just as they do near
the farms where those seeds are used.
The deer population in Britain is exploding because restaurants are no longer
buying venison. This threatens other wildlife.
If this were a permanent change, the long-term solution might be to
have more wolves. However, it is likely to be short-term, so the
government will have to pay hunters to keep the deer down until
restaurants start paying them again.
Two of Biden's cabinet nominees are associated with a secretive
investment company.
This is not proof of a crime, or even evidence to suspect a crime,
but it exemplifies their participation in plutocract which we should
not have in cabinet secretaries.
Proposing to offer pot gratis to prisoners that are addicted to other drugs.
Focusing on your level of happiness (present, or future) interferes
paradoxically with feeling happy.
Each day more of the Jan 6 insurrectionists are being arrested and
charged.
I hope that the Capitol cop who did a fist bump with one of the
insurrectionists has been fired.
More information on some of the charges insurrectionists could face.
I think that the "felony murder" law as it sometimes interpreted is
too broad. A should only be guilty of B's killing if the killing is a
natural possible outgrowth of what they joined in doing.
If A and B decide to do an armed robbery with a gun and B kills
someone, A should be liable because killing is a natural possible
outgrowth of pointing a gun at someone. It isn't the usual
consequence in a robbery, but it is hardly surprising. However, if A
and B decide to steal something without using weapons, and B pulls a
gun and shoots someone dead, that isn't a natural outgrowth of an
unarmed robbery, so A should not be guilty of the killing.
*Woman charged after falsely accusing Black teenager of stealing her phone*
and then grabbing him.
In 2017, Manchester (England) set out to get homeless people into
housing. Almost 300 of them still have housing.
We could do this anywhere, with some priority and some money.
The billionaires don't need quite so much.
In 2020, as a precaution against spread of Covid-19, the UK moved to
get all homeless people off the street. But didn't continue paying
for this.
If we gave more priority to the well-being of poor people, fewer of
them would develop the sort of problems that make it hard for them to
rent housing. Building more housing (public, and private) would also
help.
Reducing population growth, which we need to do anyway, would help
with this also. Rents would come down and thus so would the cost of
living.
The debate about a proposed law to define some crimes as "domestic
terrorism".
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid that bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
an exception for articles which give important information about
racism or the fight to eliminate racism.
The proposed law would not directly attack freedom of speech, but
there's a danger it would be applied with a racist bias, thus
exacerbating the bias that we see in comparing DC thugs' harshness
towards Black Lives Matter protests with their laxity towards
insurrectionists.
In addition, it is an injustice to designate an organization as
"terrorist" except by convicting it as a crime.
*A British judge said US prisons are dangerously inhumane. Sadly, she's right.*
US prisons were, most of them, much more humane before the ideological
increase in imprisonment started by Reagan for ideological reasons.
Back then, US prisons tried to rehabilitate prisoners.
It is hard to treat prisoners decently or try to help them
rehabilitate when too many people are in prison.
If we end the war on drugs, we could could improve this.
But it would still be wrong to prosecute Assange.
Internet random error amplification is
convincing
teenagers of the misinformation that Helen Keller was not deaf and
blind.
When I was young, children read about her story, but left out the part
where she became a Socialist and joined the IWW.
*Among
Republican
voters, 45% approve of the storming of Capitol, 30% think the
perpetrators are 'patriots', 52% think Biden is at least partly to
blame for it, and 85% think it would be inappropriate to remove Trump
from office after this.*
*Biden and Congress
Must
Repeal Law Authorizing Endless Wars.*
Governor Raimondo
would
be a bad choice for Secretary of Commerce, for much of the same
reasons she would have been a bad choice for Secretary of Health and
Human Services.
I wonder why Biden is trying so hard to give her an important post.
(satire) *"This Apology Is Bullshit And I Am Lying To You," Says GOP
Senator To
Widespread
Media Praise.*
A retired official accuses the Capitol Police of
not
even trying to be ready to keep rioters out.
He accuses the officials in charge of Capitol security of being either
incompetent or disloyal. Indeed,
three
are resigning.
As for why the National Guard were not available to help, I read
somewhere that the wrecker blocked the attempt to activate them.
*After Right-Wing Coup Effort in DC, Venezuela Offers Sympathy for US
Suffering
What 'It Has Generated' Elsewhere.*
Impeaching the wrecker
provides
a way to disqualify him from ever holding any sort of government
office, and this requires only a majority of the Senate.
However, it is not clear to me whether the Senate can do that without
first convicting him, and that requires 2/3 of the Senate, which is
probably out of reach.
Some politicians say we need to remove the wrecker from office right
away to
stop
him from wreaking more havoc as president.
That danger may be real. On the other hand, it would still be a shame
if this allows Pence to pardon him.
One of the insurrectionists
was
killed trying to break down a door in the Capitol.
Normally, cops should not shoot someone just for breaking down a door.
They should first try to restrain per, and will normally succeed. But
in that situation there may have been no easy option. She was part of
an armed mob bent on violence, and allowing her to break down a door
might have enabled the mob to attack people.
Some of the insurrectionists had guns, and bombs were found too.
The legislators that supported the inside arm of the wrecker's coup
are
culpable
for the coup, even if they did not commit a crime. They are a
threat to the republic.
Those helped the wrecker create the movement that was the base for his
coup attempt are morally culpable for that, even if they turned aside
before Wednesday's last step. They could see, just as we all could,
where the wrecker was aiming that movement. But their culpability is
less than that of the first group.
I support the
plan
for the House to expel the first group.
The districts will hold new elections to replace them.
Some of the wrecker's supporters are having conniptions watching
the talk where he condemned them for the violence he urged them to commit.
I can understand that they feel whipsawed by the contradiction between
the two things he said. What is interesting is that they cling to his
earlier persistent incitement to violence and reject his later
denunciation of it.
Long ago I read a book, When Propechy Fails by Festinger et al, which
described the events in a small prophetic cult in the US (1950s) whose
central prophecy specified a date. Naturally it failed to occur.
Some of the participants rejected the cult after that, but others
redefined the prophecy so it could happen later, so that they could
cling to the cult.
I expect that some of Trump's cultists will redefine the cult to shift
it away from him, rather than reject it.
Two laptops were stolen from the Capitol during the insurrection.
Women who don't want children and ask for operations to prevent it
face persistent resistance from doctors that presume everyone will
ultimately regret not having children.
In 1983, after I had made the announcement of the plan to develop GNU,
the announcement which started the free software movement, a woman I
loved asked me to support her and the children we would have in a
middle-class lifestyle. I said no, because I did not want that life,
and because it would have meant abandoning GNU. That no implied great
loneliness, but now I am proud of what I have achieved with my
child-free life.
If I had said yes, I doubt I'd have achieved anything important, and I
would have regretted every day the decision to give up trying.
I am sure some fraction of women who get sterilized later regret it,
just as some women have children later regret it. That is true for
every choice people make: always, some fraction regret their choice.
But it's impossible to postpone all choices forever.
The Capitol Police went way beyond being gentle with Wednesday's rioters.
Some of them actively aided the insurrectionists to enter.
The rioters at the Capitol menaced and sometimes attacked reporters.
They said they hated all reporters.
Sometimes they stole reporters' equipment and destroyed it.
Right-wing extremists stormed Oregon's state Capitol on December 21
after a Republican state legislator opened a locked door and let them
in.
The legislature is investigating him; I hope that the experience in Washington
convinces them that this is grave enough to expel him.
Laying out the criminal charges that could be brought against the wrecker
for promoting insurrection —
supposing he does not get a valid pardon.
A study predicts that due to global heating and deforestation the
Amazon rain forest will pass a tipping point before 2064 that will
convert it into a dry plain with shrubs.
The forest would become too little to cause enough rain for it to survive.
That would be a global disaster, since it would release a lot of
greenhouse gases and the transformed land would no longer store carbon.
*Civil Society Groups Warn Against Anti-Protest Legislation Following
Siege of US Capital.*
I agree. The right to protest is nothing if we don't respect it for
those we oppose.
But when protest gives way to intimidation, we need to keep it in check
so that it doesn't grow into domination.
Nonfree software establishes "manorial computing" — a local
aristocrat (nowadays a corporation, not a person) offers to take care
of you and protect you in your computing, and you in return submit
helplessly to its dominion.
Doctorow's "Ulysses Pact" refers to a point I've made in many speeches
condemning Apple's eagerness to spy for China. It is applicable to
you as well. If you erase Windows, MacOS, or Android, and get rid of
an iMonster, people will understand it is futile to ask you to use it.
Making people serfs on a manor is as evil now as it was a thousand
years ago. Medieval Europe experienced many revolts of the people
against aristocrats; one of them created a free country that still
exists: Switzerland. The Swiss revolt spread from valley by valley
over a period of hundreds of years. I've cited this inspiring example
in my speeches in Switzerland.
So pick up your digital pitchforks and chase those aristos out of your
computer!
Alas, the story of William Tell appears to be a myth, though the context
it is set in is real.
Right-wing manipulators have bullied Facebook by accusing it of bias
against them, even as its real bias was in favor of them.
Making Facebook adjust its bias would be an improvement, but would
continue to be an arbitrary choice by a business. I have proposed
imposing public control over Facebook's algorithm for showing things
to its useds. However, I think we need to make Facebook less powerful
by making it smaller.
* Far-right attempts to storm parliaments and government offices have
happened in Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands in recent years.*
The mainstream right-wing politicians think they can use the fanatics
to boost their strength, but once that happens, they find that the fanatics
have become their masters.
*Guatemala mine's ex-security chief convicted of Indigenous leader's murder.*
It is gratifying to see one extractionist tool get punished. However,
the world does nickel. What should we do to get it?
If mines operate with the best safety precautions, and handsomely
compensate all harm that the mines do, local inhabitants will probably
not object to them. Of course, nickel will cost more — but that's fair.
A timeline of the final stages of the wrecker's incitement of the storming
of the Capitol.
His arousal of violence started years ago.
I have an idea for a device that would make it safe for people to eat
while in a room with other people.
The idea is to make a sanitizable negative-pressure hood which seals
around the head and torso and hands, with a flat torso-mounted table
inside in the front. Elastic could hold the seal closed around the
body; I think that would be good enough. It could pump air in through
a filter and out through a filter.
If you know of something like this, or have a suggestion, or see a
flaw, please email me.
Anti-reality extremists were calling for violence in DC on Jan 6 for
weeks before that date.
*Extremists intensify calls for violence ahead of Inauguration Day.*
A mob of maskless anti-truth extremists in LA ganged up on a black
woman, hitting her and pulling her hair.
A mob attack like that can easily develop into dangerous violence.
Sanders supports impeaching the wrecker.
Senator Manchin, a Democrat whose views are similar to Republicans of
2015, will try to block giving Americans in general more immediate
aid.
He's not alone. *Billionaire-Owned Media Look Out for Neediest by
Demanding They Get No More Money.*
Manchin is probably right that some of that money will go to Americnas
who did not lose income during 2020. But that is quibbling. Nearly
all will go to Americans who are poor and need aid — wealthy people
will not get any of this.
For most of Americans who receive the whole $2000, it won't be enough.
Manchin puts more weight on small chance of giving some low-income
Americans a little more than was supposedly intended for them right
now, than on the certainty of giving millions too little. These are
cruel priorities.
*As Pro-Trump Mob Boasts About Roles in Deadly Capitol Invasion, Indigenous
Water Protectors Charged for Peaceful Keystone XL Protests.*
This double standard has been shown over and over.
I continue to feel that the term "water protectors" understates in a
distracting way the importance of the fight against building new
fossil fuel infrastructure. They are protecting global civilization,
not merely the water supply in a region of the US.
(satire) *Betsy DeVos Apologizes For Ever Being Complicit With
Something As Toxic As Public Education.*
*One Year After Declaring Climate Emergency, Scientists Say 'Massive-Scale Mobilization' Necessary.*
The US military have been pouring surplus gear into thug departments
and many of them don't even say they have a use for it.
This is not to mention the equipment they use in SWAT teams that they may
claim to need, but which we may consider harmful.
Rowan Atkinson denounces the cancel culture.
Pompeo has ended limits that the US has put on contacts with Taiwanese
officials to placate China.
I don't have an easy way of checking, but I expect that these limits
were put in place decades ago, when China was not a world power and
the US wanted China's support. Back then, it was arguably a wise
concession to make. It isn't now.
2020 was tied for the hottest year ever since records began.
The Tories foolishly allowed Covid-19 to get out of control in the UK,
by "reopening the economy" and running incompetent privatized contact
tracing. Now the NHS is overwhelmed by far more patients than it can
handle, and the numbers keep increasing.
It takes mental firmness to hate a buffoon who laughs off all his
deadly wrong decisions, but Britons must summon that firmness.
With a margin of 51 to 50 in the Senate, it will be a challenge to get
all the Democrats to agree.
The first law they pass should be statehood for Washington, DC.
That would mean two more senators, certainly Democrats.
I used to feel that making basic decisions like that for partisan
reasons went counter to civic spirit. However, this year, seeing how
Republicans have done counter to civic spirit to an enormous degree, I
concluded that this small amount against them is excusable.
Facebook will compel all WhatsApp users to "agree" to hand over their personal data to Facebook (or else be kicked off).
One lesson from this is, always be prepared to stop using any digital
"service" at very short notice.
This announcement reveals what data WhatsApp collects about each user.
To collect all that data is the first level of injustice.
Pooling the data between the company's dis-services is a significant
issue because Facebook is so powerful already and this would give it
more power. For a smaller company, I think we should focus entirely
on the wrong of collecting the information at all.
The Fascist movement in the US is too strong for mere civility to make
it wither away. That will require defeats, such as the one it experienced
on Wednesday.
We can't expect overconfidence and naive exuberance to give it more
defeats. The government must take steps to ensure they happen.
Passing and enforcing laws requiring everyone to wear a mask (or show
a doctor's excuse) in most public places could help. Arrogantly
threatening people's lives by refusing to wear masks is one of their
ways of looking strong and attracting support from people who want to
follow someone strong; when they have to back down, they won't attract as much support.
Many of the wrecker's rich and powerful backers have abandoned him.
That does not imply they have abandoned Fascism. They will surely be
waiting for a more skillful enemy of our Constitution to come along.
To preserve our democratic structures, we need to restore the
substance of democracy by taking away the political power of the rich
and powerful (plutocracy).
Daniel Ellsberg believes the wrecker is planning to start a war
against Iran in the 11 days remaining to him as president.
I would not put it past him. If he tries, I hope that the US military
will consider it an illegal order.
Ellsberg asks people in the Pentagon to leak the plans for provoking
a war with Iran.
Everyone: call on the US to drop charges against Julian Assange.
Reporting on the insurrectionist mob at the Capitol.
Some of the insurrectionists attacked journalists.
Biden called the Capitol insurrectionists "domestic terrorists"
and condemned the wrecker as the enemy of the Constitution.
This suggests he has dropped the idea of letting the wrecker off the
hook. I am very glad.
Democratic politicians and progressive groups are calling for Pence
and the cabinet to declare the wrecker unfit and remove him from
office, which they have the power to do. I would support this call,
except for one thing: Pence would become president and might pardon
the wrecker straightaway.
If Pence were committed not to pardon him, then I would support it.
Impeaching the wrecker now would run into similar problems.
Appropriate though it would be in principle, prosecuting him later is
more important than whatever we do to him for the next 12 days.
(satire) *Why I Am Resigning After Stabbing 97 People for Donald Trump.*
*Global heating could stabilize if net zero emissions achieved,
scientists say.*
Mobs of Republicans assembled around various state Capitols,
often with guns, and threatened the state officials.
(satire) *New Mental Health Initiative To Add 10,000 Beds To Nation’s Prisons.*
*Why Progressives Should Care About Biden's Pick for Commerce Secretary.*
*If Democrats Control the Senate They Have No Excuse: Restore Net Neutrality,
Ban Facial Recognition, Protect Section 230, End Big Tech Data Harvesting,
and Defend Online Human Rights.*
(satire) *Ted Cruz Makes Last Effort To Block Election Result By
Unleashing Wave Of Locusts From Mouth To Black Out Sun.*
* The press must measure the Biden administration’s actions [on
climate defense] against what the science demands.*
"Not getting worse quite as fast as before" is not sufficient.
A detailed summary of events in the Jan 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
*The far-right German provocateur who faked being a Syrian refugee.*
He has been charged with planning false-flag assassinations to give
real refugees a bad name.
Christian fanatics in Ohio have found a new way to harass women who
get abortions: to make them pay for the burial or cremation of the
aborted fetus.
The world's oil and gas companies are still making a profit and still
planning to increase their extraction to make more profit.
When they talk about "going green", it is part distraction (look at
the wind farms we are building and ignore all the CO2 our oil
generates, look at our reduction in emissions from our own operations
and ignore the emissions when customers burn our product), and part
co-optation (when Shell buys a solar energy company that doesn't
necessarily increase solar energy investment). All designed to let
them keep increasing the problem.
They want us to give them subsidies for green energy systems even
bigger than the the subsidies they get for extracting oil and gas.
Then they would make the transition, but slowly.
They would be quite capable of putting earnest efforts into a
transition to green energy, if we eliminate the subsidies for
gas and oil and replace them with a carbon tax.
Republicans dominate the Pennsylvania state senate, but they decided
to increase their majority by arbitrarily refusing to seat one
Democratic state senator.
Democrats criticized this action, but I wonder, can they do anything to
stop it?
Pennsylvania has a Democratic majority, but Republicans have imposed
minority rule in the state senate via gerrymandering.
People have noticed that the Capitol police were very gentle with the
insurrectionists, and contrasted this with the violence of thugs in
many cities towards peaceful protesters for Black Lives Matter and
other progressive causes.
That the Capitol police restrained their violence was a good thing,
and I think that helped some Republican leaders to withdraw their
support from the wrecker. What was not good is that thugs did not
extend the same respect and decency towards progressive protesters.
Why this difference? I think the Capitol police have been trained in
how to deal with protesters with restraint and respecting their
rights. They expect protests and expect journalists to be watching.
By contrast, the thug departments of cities vary. Some of them have
a culture of violence toward progressives and especially blacks.
As has been pointed out,
most thugs are right-wing and have cheered on right-wing
counterprotesters even when those are killing Black Lives Matter
protesters.
I saw a rumor that some even took selfies with the insurrectionists
at the Capitol.
Records show that nonwhites in the US tend to get worse punishments
than whites for violations of Covid-19 emergency regulations.
This demonstrates racist injustice at work.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid that bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
an exception for articles which give important information about
racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the
exceptions.
The Communications Workers of America is trying to organize unions
in tech companies.
I support this, even though many of those companies distribute unjust
nonfree software or operate online dis-services.
Those companies should not exist in their current form — but as long
as the company does exist, it's good to make it workers better.
*[Sabotage] auction of oil leases in Arctic refuge attracts barely any
bidders.*
In the end, the State of Alaska ended up leasing most of the tracts.
This makes sense as sabotage — to prevent protection of ANWR. But
the federal government should have legitimate ways of convincing
Alaska to accept cancellation of those leases.
Since the violent insurrection at the Capitol was overcome, a number
of Republican officials have denounced the wrecker and his coup
attempt. Some have, it seems, dropped their support for their part in
it.
Ilhan Omar is preparing to impeach the wrecker again. I share her
disgust for him, but would this do any good?
The first impeachment was ineffective because the Republicans in the
Senate protected him. Is it worth trying again? Perhaps now enough
Republican senators are ready to remove him from office. If not, some
Republican support for impeachment — if there is any — might educate
Republicans.
However, bad results are also possible. Firstly, it would not affect
any of the sabotage that Republicans will continue doing until Jan 20.
Pence would continue those efforts.
Secondly, if Pence becomes president he might pardon the wrecker.
Indeed, I've seen speculation that the wrecker might resign so that
Pence can pardon him. But I don't know if he could bear the
humiliation of leaving office early.
The wrecker spoke to crowd of his supporters in DC and sent them to
attack the Capitol. They broke in by force and interrupted Congress,
and tried to take over the building.
Violence against the US under a Confederate flags declares treason as
well as racism.
Rebecca Solnit: * I call it a coup attempt because, though I assume that it will not
prevent the Biden presidency, it certainly intended to.*
I agree.
Using rioters in the streets alongside action by insiders is common
practice in coup attempts. That worked, temporarily, in Bolivia in
2018. I think it was employed in Czechoslovakia in 1948. I am sure
there are other examples that don't come to my mind now.
I criticize Solnit on one point. She repeatedly describes the actions
of the coup supporters as "white male rage." That is an unjust
racist/sexist generalization: it falsely imputes that attitude to all
white males. Bernie Sanders is a white male; so are various other progressive leaders. So is Biden. They do not participate in that
"white male rage". I am not of Sanders's stature, but I too have
rejected that attitude all my life.
This stereotype is just as wrong as the hostile stereotypes about
blacks and about women, which I am sure Solnit would call out.
The heat of the eastern Mediterranean is quickly wiping out the
molluscs that live there.
As global heating proceeds, the extinction of molluscs will spread to
more areas of the sea.
The state of Wisconsin said there is no chance of convicting the cop
that shot and paralyzed Jacob Blake. The events as he reported them
would justify his plea to have fired in self defense.
whether or not he was actually in immediate danger.
We can't take for granted that the state reached the correct
conclusion. The officials may not have tried hard enough.
* More than 50 pro-democracy politicians and campaigners have been
arrested in Hong Kong under the [so-called] national security law.*
*Assange Wins. The Cost: The Crushing of Press Freedom.*
Instead of the freedom Assange deserves, he may get a form of
clemency on the grounds that cruelty has left him mentally ill.
(satire) *Rueful Trump Wishes He Knew Republicans This Willing To
Overthrow Democracy Earlier In Term.*
California hospitals are full, so ambulance crews have been directed
not to bring in patients who are on the edge of death.
This is what happens when you choose to let a communicable disease run
rampant.
Feral cats are pushing many Australian species to extinction.
The bully's "remain in Mexico" policy "needlessly and foreseeably
exposed [asylum seekers] to considerable risk of serious harm",
ranging from armed robbery to rape to kidnapping, according to Human
Rights Watch.
Some of these crimes were committed by Mexican government thugs.
Uber propagandized Californians to pass Proposition 22, which allowed
companies to treat drivers as precarious contractors. Now Albertsons,
which owns several chains of supermarkets (Vons and Safeway, as well
as Albertsons) is firing unionized delivery employees and switching to
contractors.
I won't have a supermarket deliver, not even with union workers,
because I can't do that anonymously.
(satire) *Scientists Attempt To Convince Public To Take Covid More Seriously By
Explaining Concept Of Death.*
*More than a million Americans are reportedly still waiting on their
first unemployment check thanks in large part to a fragmented U.S.
benefit system that has been marred by years of inadequate funding,
outdated technology, and right-wing attacks.*
Iran has asked Interpol to arrest the bully on charges of
assassination.
They have a good reason to do this, but the bully should be tried in
the US for trying to overthrow the government and installing a
nondemocratic regime.
*Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: The Road There and the Road
Ahead.*
Advocating a carbon tax, combined with and giving the tax revenue to
poor people so that it is revenue-neutral.
A study of thousands of people who had Covid-19 for over a month
found that 85% of them suffered from cognitive and memory problems
six months later.
Almost one quarter of them are now unable to work.
There is, as yet, no way of knowing whether they will ever recover.
The study did not use a rigorous sample, so it could be subject to
various biases. But if it turns out that even 50% have a mental
disability, it is still a tremendous risk. The flu might kill you
(though the chances are much less than with Covid-19), but it won't
mentally handicap you.
It is very important to help other people avoid Covid-19.
China is punishing lawyers who worked for some recently persecuted
dissidents.
It's one of the ways that the Chinese state ensures that people it wishes
to crush do not really have any legal rights, notwithstanding laws which
say that they do.
Argentina has launched a government-run online store,
CorreoCompras, to compete with the near-monopoly private store,
MercadoLibre, which is the local equivalent of Amazon.
Although it may avoid many of the evils of Amazon,
this is not guaranteed. It is run by a state-owned company, but a
company nonetheless. It will be subject to the pressure to increase
sales and that will translate into pressure to do the things Amazon
does to increase sales — except whichever things the state orders
it not to do.
However, the fundamental direct evils of Amazon are identifying people
when they pay, and making them run non-free JavaScript code.
On these issues, CorreoCompras is no better.
The corrupter's call to pressure Raffensperger to carry out election
fraud was, it appears, a federal crime and a state crime under the
laws of Georgie. Democrats in Congress are rightly demanding to
prosecute him.
This may convince Biden not to let him off the hook. I hope so.
It is likely that the corrupter tried pressuring officials in other states,
because corrupting Georgia alone would not have brought him victory.
Some call for Congress to impeach him again, but if there are not
enough Republicans in the Senate willing to convict him, that would be
futile. Anyway, what's the use of removing him from office a few days
earlier?
Then we will face the challenge of keeping him in the US to face trial
— stopping him from fleeing the previous day to a country which will
not extradite him. The flight he has arranged goes to Scotland, but I
suspect that would only be a temporary stop on the way to his ultimate
destination.
New York City has prohibited fast-food chain restaurants from firing
workers, or cutting their work hours, without just cause.
This should enable workers to be less intimidated by the manager.
Criminal abuses such as theft of wages are rife in those restaurants,
and this
protection may enable workers to exercise their legal rights by
reporting the abuses.
I won't presume that the two bills just passed go far enough — I
don't know enough to have an opinion on that.
200 Google workers have formed a union.
They are determined to include contractors, so they have decided
not to apply for formal recognition. We need to change US law so that
contract workers, even subcontracted workers, can unionize.
A clock running backwards is right four times a day, and occasionally
the conman does something good. One of them was to require hospitals
to publish their prices for a long list of medical procedures.
In addition to giving patients the opportunity to say, "I will go
elsewhere" — those who are well enough to do so — it is also likely
to result in pressure to lower the prices. That will help all
patients without insurance. However, it is likely to pressure on
insurance companies to pay hospitals more, and thus charge more.
Overall it will be an improvement, but the US medical system will
still be lousy overall.
The US needs a national medical system, also known as Medicare for
All.
*Mexico's Lopez Obrador Wants to Give Asylum to Julian Assange.*
A privately designed treaty uses the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
as a model to end the spread of fossil fuel extraction.
A question to ponder: if you are using one of those teledildos with
bad security,
and a cracker takes control of it, what could the
cracker do to you with it?
If it were Durand Durand's sex machine, which he uses to try to kill
Barbarella, that crack could be deadly (unless you're as innocent in
your sexuality as Barbarella). But if it's only a vibrator, you could
resist its effects until you take it off.
The one thing the toy could really do for the cracker is snoop on you
for per. That would be in addition to snooping on you for the
manufacturer — which is exactly what the manufacturer designed it to
do.
So if you don't want to be snooped on, don't use that thing at all.
Nearly all products in the Internet of Things are designed to snoop
on the "owner", and worse.
Demand a teledildo run by free software so that you can control who,
if anyone, can communicate with it.
*In 2021, the Best Way to Fight Neofascist Republicans Is to Fight Neoliberal
Democrats.*
"Neoliberal" is a valid name for the right-wing ideology that
"moderate" Democrats support, but I'd rather call it by a name
that says what is wrong with it: "plutocratism" or
"dooH niboR".
More about the extradition case against Assange.
Milan is taking advantage of the hiatus in office work and tourism
to move decisively to reduce greenhouse emissions.
The one bad thing about the electric cars is that they have done nothing
to reduce the tracking they implement.
*China blocks entry to WHO team studying Covid's origins.*
Their plan was to visit Wuhan to investigate how Covid-19 transferred
to human hosts. I'm curious about what they would do to investigate
this.
The US deportation thugs cover up the cruelty of the privatized
deportation prisons by sending a privatized inspection team to visit
and report that everything is entirely according to specs.
US citizens: call on your senators to vote no on Neera Tanden.
This petition has trouble when Javascript is disabled, but here is a
workaround for the trouble.
When you sign the petition with Javascript disabled,
it will display a page containing a URL. That URL will start
with the text "[URL]" — literally "[", "U", "R", "L" and "]".
That text needs to be replaced with the proper hostname.
The address bar of the browser will contain the proper hostname.
Thus, what you should do is to erase all the text in the address bar
except the host name. Then copy the text from the page contents,
except for "[URL]", into the address bar after the host name.
If you made the mistake of including two slashes, or no slashes,
after the host name, fix that manually.
Then visit that page, fill in the form, and finish signing.
US citizens: state your support for the Green New Deal.
Reagan was a forerunner for the wrecker's denial of reality,
practicing some of the same forms of denial of reality
and cruelty.
The head of the right-wing intimidation group, the Proud Boys,
has been arrested for threatening actions in a rally.
There are signs the conman may be planning to flee the US before Jan 20.
If his first stop is Scotland, that doesn't mean he will stay there.
It would be natural for him to flee to a country that would protect
him, such as Russia.
Assad's regime makes prisoners' families pay heavily to get the
prisoners released, or even to visit them.
US prisons make the relatives pay heavily even for phone calls with
the prisoners — and since those relatives are often very poor, this
may be as hard for them as thousand-dollar bribes are for Syrians.
The judge in Assange's extradition case, who had appeared persistently
prejudiced against him, ruled against extradition.
This would be an occasion to celebrate, but the decision is not final.
The UK government will appeal it.
Additionally, the judge cited as reasons only the cruelty of the US
prison system. This means there will be no protection in the UK
from US efforts to criminalize journalism.
Iranian forces seized a South Korean oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.
Both Biden and Iran's leaders have said they want to reestablish the
non-nuclear deal as soon as possible. So why seize a tanker? That won't
help Iran get what it wants.
When the wrecker engages in violent acts toward Iran, we understand
this as trying to thwart renewal of the agreement.
When someone in Iran engages in violent acts toward the US, we must
speculate that it is someone who has some power and is trying to
thwart renewal of the agreement.
Converting used bamboo chopsticks by the million into furniture and art.
Georgia's lawyers lied to a Federal court to justify their arbitrary
and unjustified disenfranchisement of almost 200,000 black voters.
Palast's team may win in the end, but it will be too late for
them to vote in the crucial Jan 5 senate runoff.
In charge of this is same Brad Raffensperger who continues to resist
the conman's pressure to declare the Georgia presidential election
(which he was in charge of) to be fraudulent and overturn it.
Doing the right thing once when it is difficult does not make up for
doing wrong on several other occasions. However, it makes me wonder
why Raffensperger stubbornly defends democracy on one occasion while
trashing it eagerly on others.
The most important of the techniques used by Facebook (and other
antisocial media) to addict and manipulate victims.
Even Facebook staff are starting to doubt whether Facebook's existence
is a good thing.
US citizens:
call
on your senators to vote against Tom Vilsack for Secretary of
Agriculture.
This petition has trouble when Javascript is disabled, but here is a
workaround for the trouble.
When you sign the petition with Javascript disabled, it will display a
page containing a URL. That URL will start with the text "[URL]" --
literally "[", "U", "R", "L" and "]". That text needs to be replaced
with the proper hostname.
The address bar of the browser will contain the proper hostname.
Thus, what you should do is to erase all the text in the address bar
except the host name. Then copy the text from the page contents,
except for "[URL]", into the address bar after the host name.
If you made the mistake of including two slashes, or no slashes,
after the host name, fix that manually.
Then visit that page, fill in the form, and finish signing.
If you sign, please spread the word!
*Jeremy Corbyn:
Why
Is There Always Money for War but Not Public Services?*
Facebook says it works very hard to catch terrorist pages, but it's
amazing
how much it does not find.
Many governments and political factions, in many countries, are
making
massive use of Facebook for disinformation.
The employee in charge of dealing this was fired, and posted
internally a report on the magnitude of the problem. It seems that in
most of these cases the staff mean well but they have no idea how to
cope.
*‘Global Britain’ is willing to trade away everything.
Including
scruples.*
I
told
you so, Britons.
For leaving the EU to be an opportunity to do anything good, you
needed Labour and Corbyn to be in charge.
Geofencing and GPS
can
replace fences on farms. They can also direct cows to visit
certain spots to eat wild plants there while protecting other spots.
*South African game reserves
forced
to cull animals as Covid halts tourism.*
This shows how precarious laborious protection of endangered species
becomes when human society hits a bump.
*Squatters
issue
death threats to archaeologist who discovered oldest city in the
Americas.*
Vicious looters of our past deserve severe punishment.
Ireland's public broadcasting group broadcast a parody news report
which said that
God
had been convicted of forcibly impregnating Mary but was given a
suspended sentence.
Speaking fictionally, do we know for a fact that Mary was unwilling?
I wish I could have downloaded this, but the satire site seems
to have deleted it. Can anyone find a copy?
In the UK, during the summer and fall, an influential right-wing
pressure group pushed for "open up and ignore the virus", much as
happened in the US. They cited Sweden as an example of success to
imitate. They got
funding
associated with the Koch brothers.
They got what they wanted, and
now
the UK has a Covid-19 crisis and hospitals are overwhelmed.
The details were different in the US, but it is the same right-wing
death march. I wonder if it is funded by the same killers in both
countries.
I do wonder why Sweden avoided having a major first wave when other
countries had one. Even though it wasn't a lasting solution, it is an
interesting phenomenon that might be useful.
Seven
crucial lessons 2020 taught to reality-oriented Americans.
House Democrats "demoted" the poverty ratchet rule, "Paygo", by
adopting
exceptions
for laws that address the consequences of the climate crisis or
Covid-19.
I call it the "poverty ratchet rule" because it said that change would
give the poor more support had to be counteracted by a change to cut
other support for the poor. The result was that any change that cut
support for the poor without any accompanying increment, that
reduction was effectively permanent.
Adopting a rule like Paygo represents prioritizing the interests of
the rich over the interests of giving he poor a decent life. In other
words, the rule is a triumph of neoliberalism and dooH niboR.
Israeli soldiers were trying to take a generator away from a
Palestinian house; some Palestinians were holding on to the generator,
so the soldier shot Haroun Abu Aram in the back of the neck and
paralyzed
him permanently.
Israel was demolishing the house, having declared it "illegal", surely
based on one of the
usual
unjust pretexts.
Comparing Facebook to a doomsday machine: its power over the world is
too great, so we must
get
rid of it before it wrecks things.
I am proud that I never had a Facebook account. But if you did have
one, it is not too late to delete it.
Iran has intensified its continuing persecution of Baha'is,
raiding
the homes of 50 of them and seizing their computers.
Biden should
start
a new Civilian Conservation Corps, to repeat its achievements
while correcting some mistakes.
HSBC bank closed the bank accounts of
exiled
Hong Kong legislator Ted Hui and his family. It relented later
after public outrage, but merely trying this is unacceptable. Maybe
that company should have to choose between doing business in Hong Kong
and doing business in Europe.
*For psychologists, the pandemic has shown
people’s
capacity for cooperation.*
When people don't cooperate with Covid-19 protection rules, look for
an explanation in terms of practical needs.
The US is a special case: the wrecker has trained millions of
ideological covidiots. But that's not normal behavior for humans.
*People started breaking Covid rules
when
they saw those with privilege ignore them.*
India is holding vaccination drills to prepare to
vaccinate
300 million people within six months.
I hope that it will continue by vaccinating everyone else in the
country and that no one will be denied vaccination.
Foreign corporations are using I-Sue-Democratic-States clauses in
business-supremacy treaties
to
sue the US and other countries for losses they suffered due to
measures to suppress Covid-19.
Maybe now we can get rid of those
business-supremacy
treaties, or at least those clauses. The business-supremacy
treaties are harmful as a whole because they are instruments of dooH
niboR. They may cause an increase in overall economic growth, but
poor people don't share in the benefit.
The US occupation of Iraq
destroyed
the structure of the country, and brought on a series of
calamities which Iraq has never been able to address.
The US occupation did not cause Covid-19, but its consequences hamper
dealing with it.
A million Iraqis live in refugee camps, including children whom the
state treats as unpersons. Meanwhile, most of Mosul was wrecked by
PISSI and the war to kick out PISSI, and most of the wrecked buildings
just sit there with the bones of the people who died in them. Nobody
dares clean up the wreckage because of the booby traps.
The urban heat island effect is more accurately described as a
minority
and poor people's neighborhoods heat island effect. As heat waves
cause a fair number of deaths, this contributes to the gap in life
expectancy between poor and non-poor and between disprivileged
demographics and others.
Low-tech changes in building and street designs can reduce the heat
island; some of them also reduce global heating by reflecting light
back at the sky.
*Big Pharma to Raise Prices of 300 Medications on Jan. 1.*
To prevent this requires at least a national medical system.
More radical changes in the system for developing and selling drugs could be an improvement too.
Pakistan is
charging
women with "criminal defamation" for accusing a famous star of
groping them.
It is an
injustice
to make defamation a crime. Doing so
invites
repression. Also, we should refuse to pay heed to vague
criticisms such as "inappropriate" whatever. If an action is wrong,
you should describe it in a concrete way which shows what sort of
wrong it is.
*Let’s Pass Some More Free-Range Parenting Laws in 2021!*
Stop giving a media platform to the professor of delusion who keeps
predicting that Covid-19 will fade away to almost nothing, any month
now.
It is possible to get rich by systematically betting against the latest ideas of QAnonsense.
Very small particles of pollution, produced by jet engines, reduce people's
heart and lung function when they are downwind of an airport.
Bangladeshi thugs arrested and tortured a Rohinga man, Abul Karam, for
taking photographs of the forced transfer of other Rohinga to a dangerous
island which is likely to be flooded.
The rapid-spreading variant of Covid-19 may have been in the US since October.
I wonder whether the recent increase is due to that variant.
*Critics Warn Repeal of Section 230 'Would Be Devastating for Human Rights,
Social Movements, and Marginalized People'.*
In other words, don't sell our freedom permanently for a fixed
sum of money, even if it is money for millions of poor hostages.'
A private equity fund is buying up the remaining US local newspapers.
*"Settler" hate crimes escalating beyond already high "routine",
army helps erect settler outposts, destroys Palestinian homes and farm
buildings.*
Israel is reported to be planning to approve a lot of new construction
of colonies in Palestine before Biden takes office.
The assumption is that he won't have the gumption to denounce anything
that was previously approved by the wrecker. Maybe he will do that,
but he shouldn't.
The EPA has regulated greenhouse gas emissions, but grandfathered all
existing models of planes, so that the regulation is a no-op.
Iran has sentenced a British author to 8 years in prison, apparently
for writing about the state of things in Iran.
Pakistan's repression forces have disappeared thousands of people and
tortured them.
In most cases the victim is never seen again, so the
thugs have probably killed them. A fraction are released alive.
A fraction are dumped on the street, dead.
Human rights defenders that oppose disappearances and torture are a
specially preferred target.
*The pandemic has taken surveillance of workers to the next level.*
The extreme of this is represented by the Amazon warehouse,
where a worker's every move is controlled by the computer system.
This is one of many reasons to refuse to buy from Amazon.
Unfortunately, surveillance of workers is not limited to Amazon. I
think states should pass laws to limit surveillance of workers. It
should cover independent contractors as well as employees.
The law should completely forbid demanding that workers run any
specific software on their own computers (keep in mind that portable
phones are computers); the employer who wants that must furnish
the computer at no charge.
Covidiots in the UK are rapidly spreading Covid-19 by
disregarding
even the most basic precautions to avoid it.
Stores should be padlocked if the staff fail to call the cops when
anyone enters without a mask.
*Land subsidence
'will
affect almost fifth of global population'.*
Don't fall for McConnell's trolling. There is no significant
difference between attaching outrageous riders to an aid bill and
simply refusing to pass it.
If you let him get your goat, he gets to look good to his backers.
Indonesia captured a Chinese drone submarine in Indonesian waters.
Greenpeace UK: *Amid 2020’s gloom, there are reasons to be hopeful
about the climate in 2021.*
The danger of Covid-19 to unauthorized immigrants in California is so great
that many feel safer in Mexico.
This partly because they are scared that if they get tested for Covid-19
the deportation thugs will grab them at the clinic.
Decades after the more-or-less ban on whaling, whales are again
threatened — by the noise of ships,
and other things people do.
Desmond Tutu: *Joe Biden should end the US pretense over Israel’s
‘secret’ nuclear weapons.*
The Secret Service will shift some agents out of the detail that protects
the president, because their loyalty may be to the conman rather than
to their job.
*[Michigan] Judges Are Locking Up Children for Noncriminal Offenses
Like Repeatedly Disobeying Their Parents and Skipping School.*
The directors of the California Public Utilities Commission fired its
executive director, accusing her of various offenses including a false
accusation that 200 million dollars had gone missing. But she was not
lying. It really had gone missing.
And many other CPUC affairs were in a disorderly or improper state.
Fanatical Muslims in Pakistan demolished a Hindu temple as an act of
hatred.
This is comparable to what fanatical Hindus in India did to a historic
mosque, the Babri Masjid.
These two acts of hatred are reflections of each other, but that
doesn't mean they cancel each other out. They do cancel on one dimension,
the Hindu-Muslim dimension. However, on the dimension of kindness-hate,
they both contribute to hate, and they are both wrong.
With 2/3 of Americans supporting abortion rights, it is possible to use
that political backing to defend those rights.
Cleaning up Fukushima reactors 2 and 3 may be impossible to begin,
since the radiation level at the shield plugs is so high that workers
cannot survive removing them.
If it is possible to find terminally ill workers who are physically
fit enough to do the work but would like to die soon, maybe they could
do this.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has adopted a more disciplined structure
which should strengthen its efforts against plutocratist representatives,
both the Democrats and the Republicans.
Lebanon's prime minister says he started an investigation into the
ammonium nitrate that was stored in Beirut — and it exploded just
afterward.
He says that the timing raises suspicion that the chemical was
detonated intentionally, and I agree. I also wonder why he did not
tell us this point right after the explosion.
A newly elected Republican congresscritter died of Covid-19 a few
days before taking office.
He probably brought it on himself by refusing to take precautions.
And he probably joined in causing hundreds of thousands of avoidable
deaths.
That doesn't mean he deserved to die. No one ever deserves to die.
Any person's death is an inexcusable harm, whatever wrong perse may
have done.
However, his absence from the world is no loss to the world.
Will this help wake Republicans from their cult-induced stupor?
The new, more infectious variety of Covid-19 is probably
already
spreading in the US. That means that the precautions which were
sufficient in the past to prevent an increase in cases will be
insufficient from now on.
We will need stronger precautions, more firmly enforced.
China has
jailed
Hong Kong dissidents who tried to flee by boat, after a hasty
purported trial.
What's
so bad about Neera Tanden.
New cars
collect
a lot of data about the people inside the car, even aside from
their use of the navigation system and phones. For instance, with the
accelerometer it may be possible to reconstruct the car's trajectory,
even if you disable the GPS.
The data can be used for solving nonpolitical crimes. They can also
be used for repression. Laws about how the data can be used are
ineffective for resisting repression. Drivers must have the option to
disable these systems in their cars.
Argentina has
legalized
abortion.
I showed my support for this cause during my last visit to Argentina.
*Uganda opposition candidate Bobi Wine says he and team under arrest.*
Israel is vaccinating its citizens at the rate of 2% per day.
At that rate, everyone can get both doses in under 4 months.
However, Israel has no plan to vaccinate the Palestinians living under
Israeli occupation, even though as occupying power it is
responsible for protecting them.
Many union members voted for the wrecker, because he said he would
oppose offshoring of work, provide funds for jobs, and so on. Now
that he has proved that was bogus, maybe progressives can win their
support.
Why the Democratic Party has become the US Conservative Party.
Progressives are a small but growing faction within it. Our choices
are to vote for progressive Democrats, or the Green Party.
Biden could declare a deportation moratorium as an opportunity to
straighten out the horrible things about the US immigration system.
I have a feeling that to change the sadistic culture of ICE it will be
necessary to abolish ICE and set up a new agency with different personnel.
The Schengen zone has been very efficient at preventing Africans from
getting in and staying there. The result is that they can only go by
sea, and many die there.
I agree that the correct solution for this problem is for the powerful
countries to stop messing up Africa to enrich the rich. However,
Africans must play their part by reducing their population growth and
stabilizing their population. (Every part of Earth must stabilize its
population, then reduce it to a sustainable level by the one humane
method — fewer births.)
A survey with Covid-19 antibody tests found that 5% of the people in
Wuhan caught Covid-19. That is 500,000 people, ten times the number
of acknowledged cases.
US citizens: call on senators to support Sanders in filibustering the
military spending bill to demand passage of $2,000 stimulus payments
to Americans.
*Why Senators Must Reject Avril Haines for [Director of National
Intelligence].*
The Massachusetts legislature overrode Governor Baker's veto of a bill
to reduce obstacles to abortion.
Those obstacles are in laws whose enforcement has been suspended due
to the Roe v Wade decision. The bill has been considered now because
of the danger that the right-wing extremist majority on the Supreme
Court will overturn Roe v Wade and make those laws spring back into
enforcement.
Massachusetts abortion law continues to have a major flaw, though it
will bite much less often than before. It protects pregnant girls
under 16 from the trauma that an abortion sometimes causes, by
imposing on them the unending life difficulties that having a baby at
that age almost always causes. What in the world are those
legislators thinking?
The younger a girl is, the more important it is that nothing hamper
her access to an abortion.
Governor Baker is a "moderate" Republican. He does not champion
outrageous changes for the worse. Rather, he tries to retard and
reduce every change for the better that Massachusetts tries to make.
I hope we get a better governor in 2022.
* The Biden Administration must take executive action to promote
universal access to safe water for every person.*
Varoufakis: 2020 showed that capitalism — in the sense of a
competitive market in which investors are compelled to try to outdo
each other, and this makes more wealth — is dead. They no longer
need to compete.
The article also presents several other crucial lessons.
In the 1890s, the US suffered from similar concentration of industry,
but we had enough democracy to decide to eliminate it. The problem now
is that the rich choose the officials, too.
*Calling Covid-19 Crisis a 'Wake-Up Call,' WHO Experts Warn Next Pandemic
Could Be Even Worse.*
If it is worse, we won't have trouble convincing people to take precautions.
Rather, the problem will be the danger to essential workers. That could
cause collapse.
Georgia Republicans have closed some polling places (for early voting)
in black neighborhoods but kept them all open in white neighborhoods.
It is impossible to convince a nonbiased person that this is not
discriminatory. Republicans must be planning to argue that they can
lawfully practice racist voter-suppression and no one can stop them.
There is no basis for federal prosecution of the thugs that killed
Tamir Rice as he was holding an air rifle.
One article argues that there is enough proof that they lied
and they could be prosecuted for that. I don't know whether that is so,
but if it is, they definitely should be prosecuted for lying.
Another article says nothing about that point, but explains why the federal government could not prosecute them for the killing.
This is an instance of a repeating pattern in which white thugs shoot
blacks after making erroneous snap judgments that they are a threat.
Snap judgments are often erroneous, thus many of these blacks are
killed for no legitimate reason. This amounts to an aspect of
systemic racism — but it is hard to come up with a step in of making
a snap judgment that could be defined as a crime. The whole process
takes place inside a person's mind.
Defining some action that the thug is required carry out before
shooting someone could slow down the snap judgment, thus providing an
opportunity to think, and to decide not to shoot. It might also
provide a basis for prosecuting a thug who fails to take that action.
"Turn on your body camera and study the person and the scene until it
clicks, which it does after three seconds" might be a suitable action
to require.
The killing of Tamir Rice is an example of another recurrent pattern:
losing a piece of crucial information in the dispatch process. I have
an idea for how to make that dangerous problem less frequent.
Currently those pieces of crucial information are treated as
miscellaneous details. When such a thing is dropped, it does not
leave a gap — there is nothing to tell the thugs that they are
missing something they needed to know.
Suppose any information suggesting "Person in question is probably not
threatening or hurting anyone" were represented by use of a different
dispatch code. This distinction could not be lost, because it is
impossible to drop the dispatch code, and changing it would go against
all habit.
This would not eliminate the tendency to misjudge based on unconscious
racism, but could make it happen less often.
The UK
can
no longer block the EU from moving towards a federal democracy.
Nonetheless, it will be a big struggle to avoid enshrining the power
of the Euro-zone banks to convert national disasters into
perpetual
national debt peonage.
The US could have arranged to make and distribute Covid-19 vaccine
much faster, for an
acceptable
extra cost.
*Dr. James Phillips worked at Walter Reed hospital and condemned the
spreader-in-chief for doing a publicity drive-by outside the hospital,
because it endangered the other people with him in the vehicle.
Immediately
afterward he was fired, but since his job was subcontracted, it is
not clear who fired him.*
As usual, subcontracting work causes a lack of accountability.
We need laws to make subcontracting so expensive that businesses
will only rarely use it.
The US has around 1600 highly polluted sites in the Superfund's
National Priority List. Almost 1000 of them are
vulnerable
to leaking pollution into the environment in the case of extreme
weather, making it urgent to clean them up.
The US should impose a tax on sale of any fossil fuel, to pay for
faster cleanup
There is now
a
campaign to encourage the sharing of seeds in freedom.
As in the software field, the amoral term "open source" predominates,
but the London Freedom Seed Bank talks about sharing "freedom seeds".
China has
decided
to split up Alibaba.
It seems to be easier for China to make such a decision than the US.
That is a sign of too much deregulation of business in the US.
* By focusing more on battling inequality, new research shows, the
United States could significantly improve
American
life expectancy.*
*Covid-19
Exposed
the Urgency for a Right to Housing.*
Protesters continue demanding the that Marshall County, Alabama,
remove a monument to the Confederacy (and the Confederate flag) from
its
court house.
The excuse a counterprotester offered for keeping the monument is not
valid. US monuments to the Confederacy were put up long after the
Civil War, as a political statement. This one says, "Marshall County
supports racism and Jim Crow." If the county means that, it deserves
reproach. If the county does not mean that, it should take down the
monument (and flag) to stop saying that.
I think it is a mistake to bring John Marshall into the matter.
He had nothing to do with putting up the monument.
What should we say about John Marshall?
Marshall established judicial review by the Supreme Court as a legal
principle of the US government, ending previous dispute about the
question. He also owned slaves.
The former was a great contribution to justice for the United States,
indeed for the whole world. The latter was an instance of a
widespread unjust practice. Slavery overall was a great evil, but
Marshall's part in it was not of special importance.
When an evil practice is the usual way of life, to reject it is to be
a hero, but failure to be a hero does not make one a monster. Those
who particularly championed slavery deserve particular condemnation
even today, but there is no reason to focus on slavery when judging
Marshall.
That is also my view regarding other moral issues, including the issue
of software freedom. Developing and promoting nonfree software is a
widespread continuing injustice. I condemn those who have championed
it. Because it is not a thing of the past, I press people to
recognize that it is wrong, and I urge them to stop developing and
stop using nonfree software. But because it is a widespread practice,
I do not revile people or refuse to be friends with them just because
they use nonfree software, or even because they are employed to
develop nonfree software. I'd be going too far if I did that.
Meanwhile, to the extent that people resist nonfree software, I
express appreciation for their resistance,
even if
it is just a little. Because that is a start.
Australia is set to
increase
its coal extraction in the coming decade.
The mine owners defend mining with willful blindness, such as, "This
mine is a tiny fraction of the whole world's greenhouse gas emissions,
so it is not a problem." By applying that argument to every mine, we
would conclude that we should calm down and let fossil fuels cause a
mass extinction and destroy civilization — which proves the
argument is fallacious.
The article presents that argument without refuting it, but that is to
be expected from a centrist medium such as CNN.
The border thugs' union acted as a
political
supporter of the bully.
*Koch Industries Is Top Corporate Donor to [Republican
Congresscritters] Who Will Try to Overturn Democracy.*
Biden's nominee to manage federal spending, Neera Tanden, runs a
"centrist" think tank that aims to please the corporations that fund
it. His nominee to manage foreign policy, Antony Blinken, moves
weapons through the revolving door.
An article about how Covid-19 spread so much in California tries to
hold Governor Newsom responsible for everything — including the ill
will of people who were angry about inconvenience, and the sabotage
carried out by lunatic Republicans radicalized by the wrecker.
Those are not his fault.
The article tries to have it both ways by bemoaning the unpleasantness
of measures to reduce the spread of Covid-19 even as it criticizes
Newsom for not establishing enough of them.
I think that the state should have cracked down hard on officials and
businesses that worked against sanitary measures. For instance, the
state could have passed a law to allow removal and replacement of
defiant sheriffs, and then immediately replaced every one of them.
* International convention to stop richer countries exporting
contaminated material for recycling could mean a cleaner ocean in five
years.*
*Fractures to [giant] Antarctic iceberg reduce risk to South Georgia wildlife.*
I continue to believe we should develop a way to break up a large
icebergs so as to avoid that danger — unless it is inevitable that
such a berg would fracture naturally.
Tony Chung, of Hong Kong, has been sentenced to 4 months in prison for
throwing China's flag on the ground.
After that he will probably be sentenced to a much longer prison term
for calling for Hong Kong's independence.
Authoritarians in the US used to punish people for burning the
American flag, until the Supreme Court ruled that burning the flag
is protected political speech and may not be criminalized.
A Hong Kong expat, who visited there, reports that people continue to
find low-profile ways to resist.
I wonder whether these will amount to more than a pretend opposition.
Heavy rains into arms of the sea can reduce salinity; past a certain
point, that makes dolphins' skin badly sick. This can lead to fatal
infections.
Can we develop an ultrasound transmitter that will tell dolphins to flee
to the open sea?
*Spain to keep registry of people who refuse Covid vaccine.*
That seems like a plan for harsh, secret retribution.
It is one thing to check people, in certain situations,
for proof that they have been vaccinated. It is another
to check specifically for refusal.
Refusing vaccination is one thing, and misinforming patients is
another.
*Shield some and let others carry on? This Covid theory is dangerous, and
foolish.*
It also amounts to telling the more vulnerable people that they are
effectively prisoners in solitary confinement until the pandemic is
over.
*Judge orders Georgia counties to halt voter purge ahead of Senate runoff.*
Republicans grasp for every excuse to stop poor people from voting.
*Ro Khanna Applauds 19 House Democrats Who Joined Him in Voting No on
Military Budget.*
I applaud them all too.
The drama queen signed the relief bill.
In the short term, this will help millions of Americans who are on the
brink. In the long term, the copyright repression provisions
will enable the copyright industry to ruin thousands of Americans
every year and bully millions.
Whether this bill is good or bad, overall, I am unable to say.
By the way, I am aware that this drama queen is male. But it would be
sexist to limit the term to females. I think that we should recognize
drama queens regardless of their gender.
The seed business is highly concentrated, and its success with plant
variety monopolies has eliminated most of the varieties farmers used
to plant.
Funded efforts to produce new varieties are useful, but governments can
fund that without restricting use of the results.
It's a shame that the campaigners have fixed their attention on the
amoral term "open source" rather than on the free software movement.
*Biden accuses [the wrecker's] administration of obstructing his
national security team.*
Sabotage Я Us, says the wrecker.
*Indian police charge army officer with killing three Kashmir civilians.*
There must have been hundreds of Kashmiris killed or maimed by Indian
soldiers without justification. What puzzles me is that this killer
went to so much effort to pretend.
England (not the whole UK) will prohibit supermarkets from putting fattening
products at checkout isles to tempt undisciplined shoppers into buying them.
I am in favor of this. It won't stop you from buying those products if you
really want to, but if your preference is not to buy them, this will help
you stick to that.
Awards for the worst customer "service" nastiness in the UK.
Has anyone done this for the US?
There is a small but growing Covid-19 outbreak near Sydney. In its
spread, unidentified people, probably with no symptoms, have played a
significant role.
Could a contact-tracing app identify the unidentified intermediaries?
It could, if it worked reliably. I've seen arguments the apps,
knowing nothing but bluetooth-measured proximity, could not
distinguish real transmission opportunities from large numbers of
other pseudo-opportunities.
The worst 10 weather disasters of this year cost $150bn in insured
damage. The total damage is much more. 400 billion? One can only guess.
This is just the beginning. By 2030 it may be several trillion a
year. By 2050, the sum will be much larger, except that money will no
longer be a meaningful measure of it, as the disasters will ruin
people's lives.
Measuring damages in money is useful when society can repair them and
the cost of said repair is small compared with overall economic
activity. When the damage is enormous and irreparable, money ceases
to measure it. If a farm's crops are lost one year, their value can
be estimated. When the farm (along with thousands of others) must be
abandoned because agriculture in that area is no longer viable, is it
not so easy to estimate the cost to society of the resulting scarcity.
If the shortfall of food can be filled by buying it on the world
market, the cost of that can be determined. If it is impossible to
purchase that food, what then is the cost of the resulting hunger?
It has to be measured in lives.
The wrecker has made a rule that products made in Israeli colonies in
Palestine's territory should be labeled as "made in Israel".
This is clearly a step towards accepting Israel's annexation
of the West Bank.
Will Biden have the courage to undo the unjust concessions that the
wrecker made to Israel? I think he will find that too controversial.
Chinese are objecting to face recognition, and suing companies for imposing it.
Erdoğan is trying to crush out the strong-spirited opposition party HDP
by arresting thousands of its members.
Some of the patients of the first Covid-19 wave are still suffering symptoms that make them unable to work, almost unable to get through
daily activities.
When they can get a doctor's attention, no one knows what treatments
to try.
The private US medical system can't cope with the chronic illnesses
that Covid-19 will leave behind in many of the people who catch it.
It is also lousy at trying to prevent the chronic diseases that make
people vulnerable to a bad case of Covid-19.
An oil-sheikh from Abu Dhabi bought a Jerusalem football team, sending
right-wing extremist Israeli fans into fits, while reinvigorating the
Israeli fans who oppose their bigotry.
How the wrecker prevented photos showing what US hospitals look like
when they are overfull.
Facebook will move to the US a large amount of profit that it has kept
in Ireland(and paid hardly any tax on).
It will pay insufficient tax on these profits in the US, too, but more than
in Ireland.
The article uses the bogus term "intellectual property", which is
always confusing and vague. The concrete referent in this case is not
very concrete. It refers to artificial excuses that Facebook has created
to make various parts of Facebook pay royalties to the part in Iceland.
This is how Facebook moves its profits to Iceland where they are not taxed
much if at all.
*Throughout history Britain’s ruling class has created crisis after crisis –
just like now.*
*The Guardian view on Britain out of the EU: a treasure island for rentiers.*
Rep. Clyburn says his investigation has found evidence of a pressure campaign to undermine the CDC's public information about Covid-19.
This would have been part of the wrecker's effort to spread the sickness
as much as possible.
Brian Murphy, official in charge of intelligence at the Department of
Harshness and Sadism, testified he was told to lie and blame "Far Left
groups" more than they deserved, and blame white supremacists less
than they deserved, regarding violence in protests last summer.
He also said that Kirstjen Nielsen, who was the head of that
department, falsified this in her testimony to Congress.
*New study links psychopathic tendencies to racial prejudice and right-wing
authoritarianism.*
There is previous evidence for this relationship.
(satire) *5,000-Foot Ball Of Discarded Packaging Material Barrels Across Nation
Consuming Everything In Path.*
*After Dismembering [Jamal Khashoggi], [Salafi] Arabia Goes on a PR
Spree.*
US politics analyzed as a clash of two fantasies, disconnected
from reality.
I think the article's statement that the conman only pretended to set
up an authoritarian system is too strong. His systematic efforts to
destroy all checks on his power and corrupt agencies to do his will
did succeed to the point of overturning the election (not yet, at
least), but when he fired inspectors general
and suffered no punishment, and fired heads of departments until
he got one that would do his dirty work,
he made himself above the law.
Detroit is suing BLM protesters saying that protest is a "conspiracy".
Hundreds of thousands of migrating birds, coming from the north, died over the US southwest because they were undernourished for a long time.
Bolsonaro plans to build a road through a national park in Amazonia.
This will inevitably speed deforestation — and there is only a small way to go
before the entire Amazon forest dies and becomes grasslands.
A Columbus thug shot Andre Hill, who was wielding a phone at the
time. Hill died later that day. Hill was black, so racism may have
played a role in the thug's haste to shoot.
The killer did not activate his body camera, but it saved a video
anyway. The chief of the department excoriated the killer for wildly
disregarding rules, and fired him.
What can be done to prevent other thugs from killing other (usually
black) men? Prosecuting the killer is called for, if his action
included a crime. But that doesn't seem to teach thugs much of a
lesson.
Is it possible to use empathy teach the other cops not to be thugs?
They could meet with Hill's relatives, to listen to them and empathize
with their loss. Then the department could show them how the killer's
unacceptable handling of the situation was to blame for that loss.
Does anyone know whether this approach is effective?
To carry out an autogolpe, officials would have to take steps
which, legally, they don't have grounds to do. That won't
necessarily stop them.
In November we saw Republican state officials almost unanimously
refuses to throw the election.
They willingly make elections unfair,
but
drew the line at disregarding the actual votes.
In January the matter will depend on Republican federal officials,
many of them chosen specifically by the wrecker himself. Have they
got enough loyalty to constitutional government to disobey him?
One of them will be the new acting attorney general.
With only 25 days to go, he may be able to avoid helping by stalling.
The Green Valley-Sahuarita Samaritans report that the US deportation
thugs had a warrant to raid their aid supplies on Christmas Eve.
*Digital Watchdog Says Facebook Behind 'Intentional Decrease' in Traffic to
Pro-Palestinian Pages.*
Republicans don't deserve to be "met in the middle."
They will deserve forgiveness when they apologize, if they demonstrate
that is sincere.
Things Biden can do by executive order to reduce the oppression of the
US justice system.
A black MD had a bad case of Covid-19 and had to fight to get proper
treatment, even to get examined to see what Covid-19 her problems were.
She posted, saying that black patients are often experience this.
Subsequently she was hospitalized for a couple of weeks, then died
from Covid-19. The obvious question is whether she would have
survived if given proper treatment in the earlier period. I have no
way of guessing the answer, but it is obvious that when blacks
systematically get worse treatment, some of them will die as a result.
*The IHRA censors Palestinians by design, not by accident.*
Some pro-occupation activists push the legal adoption of the IHRA's
definition of antisemitism with the specific intention of shutting
down Palestinians BDS campaign. They claim that even using the
expression "Israeli apartheid" is "antisemitism".
That definition, which was designed for data analysis, is not suitable
as a criterion for judging
a statement as antisemitic or not.
Biden hesitates to believe he has the authority to cancel student debt
without Congress.
I am not a lawyer; I am not the one to judge whether the president has
the authority to do this. But lawyers argue for that, and if it is
plausible, he should try it.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, will post very general reminders on fuel pumps
that burning fossil fuels is dangerous.
Asking individuals to conserve is inadequate to address the problem;
it takes the government to mobilize a country for changes such as are
needed. It takes a lot more than the feeble efforts made under Obama,
which have now been reversed by the wrecker.
However, these frequent reminders of the danger we live under may help
bring about the necessary action.
Two years ago, there was an upsurge in use of less gentle-sounding terms
such as "global heating", but media seem to have backed down. Not me!
Since 1990, US companies have found it easy to crush unions, so it is
useful to teach Americans about the decades of struggle that led the
labor movement to victory under the New Deal.
Will the US prosecute the conman when Biden becomes president?
I agree that failure to do so will confirm that presidents are above
the law, and encourage a rerun.
However, in an era when Republicans will let a Republican president
get away with any sort of corruption and undermining, being able to
prosecute per afterward if there is an afterward is not enough
protection for democracy.
DNA barcoding has revealed that what we thought was one species can be
ten or more visually indistinguishable species. This means a lot more
species that we're in the process of driving to extinction.
Covid-19 tests the solidarity and organization of a society.
Those that have organized well to protect the health of all
have done well. Those like the US and UK, where those who dominate
do not care about the rest, have suffered terrible infestations.
Prime Minister Ardern has moved the Labour Party of New Zealand to the right.
She has done a good job of dealing with crises, but she is denying
the party's purpose by not pushing to help the poor.
It's not as bad there as in the US. At least New Zealand has a national
medical system.
Calling on Miguel Cardona, if he becomes Secretary of Education,
to block facial recognition surveillance.
The conman pardoned someone who had taken in a billion dollars from
Medicare fraud.
Perhaps seeing another conman punished tugs at his heartstrings.
Here is a good proposed first step towards protecting student privacy
by preventing some sorts of software snooping.
What is missing?
Congress is considering a law to establish blanket copyright repression
over the internet, and mandate copyright filters that will err on the side
of censorship.
Many poor Americans live in "pharmacy deserts"; there is no pharmacy
in walking distance. Being poor, they often don't have cars.
Many of them have grave medical conditions — in the US medical
system, that could be why you are poor.
Someday soon, when there's a Covid-19 vaccine available for the, they
will have trouble getting vaccinated.
The wrecker could still try to mount an autogolpe to prevent the handover
of power to a new president. He is setting up personnel to do it.
However, he is also making arrangements that assume he will be replaced
on Jan 20. Maybe he has given up, or will give up, on the autogolpe.
Georgia is shutting early voting sites in some places where many
blacks and hispanics live. It looks like voter suppression.
Germany has decided to consider the question further rather than
attach missiles to its drones.
*The two parties don't even try anymore to forge a public consensus on
what we need to spend on and what we should tax. Neither party
seemingly assesses long-term spending needs, nor proposes a tax
structure to align with those needs.*
The wrecker is still talking about starting a war against Iran during
the remaining time he has the power to do so.
Varoufakis presents his diagnosis of the global economy
and his suggestions for a better one.
Alas, he can't see a way it could be done. I can't either.
The US should base its thoughts about war on the self-inflicted
disasters of Vietnam and Iraq, not on victory over Hitler.
*The Covid crisis has shown how privatisation corrodes democracy.*
*Not only has outsourcing failed citizens during the pandemic — it makes
states less responsive and less accountable.*
Bogus Johnson got serious in the last three weeks and negotiated a trade
deal with the EU in the nick of time.
This surprised me. His refusal to confront the disagreements led me
to think he wanted the UK to exit with no deal. It is now clear that
he did not really want that.
So why did he keep proposing impossible solutions and disregarding the
importance of the problem? I don't know, but my guess is that until
earlier this month he thought he could make the problem go away by
refusing to acknowledge it. And he thought the EU negotiators were
bluffers like him.
Here's what the Guardian says about this.
The SolarWinds crack gained access to companies that service
infrastructure such as turbines. The crackers may be able to wreck
machinery,
much as the US did to Iran's uranium centrifuges some years ago.
No one in the US knows whether they are in a position to shut off, or
wreck, critical infrastructure.
I've said for many years that we should not connect such thing to the internet.
*Democratic senators call on Biden to adopt measures to forbid some
practices that nourish corruption.*
New York State has temporarily banned biometric surveillance of students in
schools.
Biometric surveillance should be forbidden except for specific circumstances,
and those exceptions should be strictly regulated.
Biden has named Bruce Reed, who wants to cut Social Security, to a
White House position, deputy chief of staff.
I don't know whether that position will give Reed much of an opportunity
to attack Social Security and other programs to help non-rich Americans,
but that Biden would even consider such a person is bad.
Biden praised the stimulus bill as a "model" despite not doing enough
to help non-rich Americans.
Maybe that's what Biden means by "bipartisanship" — praise the right wing
for not being as bad as one could imagine.
As usual, Sanders shows what our model should be.
*Number of Journalists Murdered in Retaliation for Their Work More Than
Doubled in 2020.*
Videos show Boston thugs attacking BLM protesters and spewing hatred
at them.
The hatred is important because it tends to preclude acting like a
police office rather than a thug.
I wonder whether the people who started the "violent protests" were
real protesters, or right-wing provocateurs. We know that right-wing
provocateurs did this in Minneapolis.
The provocateurs succeeded in leading real protesters to go berserk,
and that may have poisoned the public's perception of the protests.
I have no specific information, but we know that right-wing extremists
communicate around the country and even internationally. If it was
effective in Minneapolis, they would surely have tried it in other
cities.
*Biden’s Drug Czar Must Be Someone Willing to Diverge From Our Country’s
Failed Drug War.*
I think we should treat any addictive recreational drug as dangerous.
For instance, taking enough alcohol to make you tipsy is risking that
the habit will develop, gradually over years, into alcoholism. (This
does not happen to everyone, but you don't know how it will affect
you.) And don't touch an opioid at all unless it is for physical pain
you can't bear.
Drugs cause real problems, but prohibition doesn't fix them; rather,
it swaps them for worse problems. Prohibition of alcohol only built
the Mafia, and prohibition of opioids makes them more dangerous.
We should to treat drug use problems as medical problems and give the
people afflicted treatment, not imprisonment.
Restoring the soul of the Democratic Party — will it stand for anything?
The wrecker's last-minute rule will enable restaurants to cut the pay
of their low-paid workers.
An off-duty Boston thug drove an official thug vehicle through a red
light, into Anne-Marie Castor's car, totaling it and injuring her.
The city has refused to pay for it, so she replaced it herself, but the
result is that she can't afford food.
Will someone get these marauders off our streets?
*EU Ramps Up Fight Against Pollution With Ban on Plastic Waste Exports to
Poorer Countries.*
Keeping the plastic waste in the EU does not directly reduce the harm
the plastic does, but it will pressure the EU to adopt policies to
generate less plastic waste.
Israel's "Nation State" law, which legislates discrimination against
non-Jewish citizens (which includes most Arabs), is also being used
to discriminate against non-orthodox Jews.
Right-wing extremist senators are pushing the wrecker to submit the
Paris agreement and the non-nuclear deal with Iran to the Senate as
treaties, the idea being that the Senate will reject them and then
Biden would somehow be unable to reenter the US in them.
I am skeptical that this would deal a mortal blow to US participation
in those agreements — simply because officially approving them is not
crucial to making them effective.
What Iran wants is for the US to drop sanctions. If the president
drops sanction against Iran, Iran will comply with its side of the
deal. Whether the US continues in that policy is a political
question, as the wrecker has already shown. So Biden can drop the
sanctions, and Iran can limit its uranium enrichment, even if the
deal is not official.
As for the Paris agreement, all it does is require the US to make a
weak pledge to reduce emissions. Biden can do that even if the US
can't officially rejoin the Paris agreement.
However, survival requires the US to do a lot more than that. So
let's focus on getting a policy that meets the physical world
criterion.
Children in India suffer from lead poisoning because of lead compounds
used as coloring in the spices Indians use in everyday cooking.
Rep. Maloney, chair of the House Oversight Committee, is concerned
that the conman is destroying White House records without the
consultations that the law requires.
Thugs in South Carolina were searching for some teenage vandals at 4am
and saw Jethro DeVane peek out the door of his house to see what the
commotion was. A thug pointed a gun at his head and forced him to
stand outside naked.
DeVane must be incredibly youthful for his 71 years, if the thug
thought he was a teenager. Or maybe the darkness of his skin obscured
the signs of age.
The UK tested 1/4 of the population of Liverpool with a cheap, quick,
inaccurate Covid-19 test that misses a substantial fraction of the cases,
That test is not useful for demonstrating that someone is not infected
— though the best tests do not guarantee that — but it is useful for finding
many people who are infected. If the state takes appropriate action,
such as quarantining them and paying their salaries for that period,
it could greatly cut the spread of the disease.
US citizens: call your congresscritter and your senators to tell them
to
remove
the copyright and trademark changes from the Covid-19 relief bill.
The wrecker's veto, while surely intended for manipulation,
offers the chance to fix this. Let's seize the opportunity.
Why
the copyright repression of the CASE Act is so bad.
Increasing the relief payments would also be a good thing, but if the
wrecker were sincere about wanting that, he could have said so two
weeks ago and got it with much less fuss.
Russia will block US social media companies that mark Russian
government claims as dubious.
There is no way to prevent this. The only thing an honest company can
do is stop doing business with Russia. A dishonest company will cede
to Russia's pressure.
Of course, a similar situation exists in the US with regard to the
bullshitter's bullshitter.
Prominent Turkish editor Can Dündar, driven into exile by absurd
accusations of terrorism, has now been sentenced to a long prison term.
Fortunately Erdoğan is unable to imprison Dündar, but the prognosis for freedom
in Turkey is not very good.
Puerto Rico's creditors for its unpayable debt are about to impose
crushing, impossible taxes to pay the debt. This would leave almost
everyone there in penury.
*The [Tories] are pitting the white working class against black people.*
That's the standard distraction of the plutocratist right wing.
*Pollution killed nearly 1.7m people in India in 2019 – study.*
That is on the order of 1/10 of the total annual deaths in India.
*With Covid mutating, it's clearer than ever why we must eliminate this virus.*
The idea of letting Covid-19 run rampant until it produced herd
immunity was always nonsense — the US is demonstrating that it
implies lots of deaths along the way. But now we see that it won't
necessarily ever stop, if mutations produce strains that old immunity
doesn't protect against.
This also shows that we can't protect the population of one country
without protecting all countries. If one large population continues to
have Sar-Cov-2 circulating in it, it will generate mutant varieties
that will then spread world-wide.
Thus, we must make plans to vaccinate all populations and thus
eradicate the virus everywhere.
*Delayed Covid vaccines for poor countries 'will leave Europe
vulnerable for years'.*
US thugs get tremendous amounts of location surveillance data from
phone companies, and now have special analysis software to understand
the activities of many individuals.
A Pakistani human rights activist, living in exile in Canada, was found dead
while taking a walk. It seems likely she was murdered.
Balochistan has a strange situation. Balochis are a distinct ethnic
group and face persecution by the majority because they adhere to a
different sect of Islam. Some of them started a violent independence
movement, and the Pakistani state responds by violence against
Balochis based on suspicion.
The murderer in chief pardoned Blackwater mercenaries for the massacre
they committed in Iraq in 2007.
Congress has put copyright repression measures into the Covid relief
bill.
I greatly regret that I did not hear about Fight for the Future's
campaign until now. If I had, I would have supported it. Not that I
expect that would have given us victory, but at least I would have
done my part.
Copyright law is based on a balance, but not the one people usually
cite (between interests of readers and interests of writers). That is
a fundamental misunderstanding of the intended purpose of copyright.
The right balance is between the public's interest in promoting the
making of new works, and the public's interest in using existing
works.
Current copyright law is nowhere near giving the public the best
results, because it is designed to maximize the income and power
of the big companies that get most of the benefit of copyright.
It is an unjust law that deserves to be spat on, and those companies
deserve to be wiped out entirely.
The catch-all relief bill eliminates one repressive policy: denying aid to students based on criminal convictions.
Policies like that one compel anyone convicted once to endure a life
of poverty or crime or both. If we want people to get out of crime,
we must remove the artificial barriers that prevent it.
* The European court of human rights has ordered the immediate release of
the prominent Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş from prison in
Turkey.*
Calling on senators to vote against Biden's torture team, Avril Haines
and Mike Morell.
*Does Biden Really Understand That Trickle-Down Economics Is a Cruel Hoax?*
The US needs more public investment. That is what makes a country great.
We can get the money by taxing the rich, or by expanding the money supply
as far as the economy can use it.
Democratic primary voters, are you thinking of voting for a "moderate"
center-right Democrat because the progressive that stands for Medicare
for All is "not electable"? Yes they are.
On the contrary, if corporate Democrats set an uninspiring agenda,
that could give Republicans a big victory. It happened to Carter and
Obama.
Laura Poitras tells the US that by prosecuting journalists like
Assange under the Espionage Act, it threatens to prosecute other
journalists, including her.
As the article shows, that law is fundamentally unjust. We must
change it to protect whistleblowers, and the journalists like Poitras
that report their revelations.
(satire) *Russian [Crackers] Disappointed to Find U.S. Government Already
Disabled.*
*House Democrats Subpoena HHS and CDC Chiefs Over Alleged Political
Interference in Covid-19 Response.*
Progressive praise for some of Biden's economic advisor team.
(satire) *Humane Trap-And-Removal Program Sedates Tenants So They
Unconscious During Eviction.*
US Government Architecture Should Not Aim to be Fine Art
The stimulus package that Congress just passed is too small to keep
the economy going, too small to enable states to do their jobs.
Putin has given himself lifetime immunity from prosecution
no matter what crimes he might commit. And his children, too.
Boy, wouldn't the conman love this!
*It's vital we act now to suppress the new coronavirus variant* — but
is that still possible?
We know that this virus is not held back by borders. Since it is now
found in Italy and Denmark — and a similar strain in South Africa —
cutting off travel to Britain won't do the job. The UK and the EU and
South Africa would need to cut off all travel to any other parts of the
world, except under tightly controlled conditions. And that may not be
enough either.
The crucial question is whether the current vaccines work against
these mutant varieties. If they do, we can continue with vaccination
plans and eventually wipe out all varieties of the virus.
But if the current vaccines are inadequate against this strain, then
it is desperately important to limit its spread.
*When Is It Legal for My Kid To Walk Outside Without Me?*
It depends on the state; some states impose a reign of terror
on parents without a helicopter.
Rio de Janeiro's mayor, an ally of Bolsonaro, has been arrested for corruption.
Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, but the copyright on his writing
is still screwing people today, 90 years later.
This demonstrates the absurdity of the unjustified restrictions
imposed by copyright as it exists today.
I say we should shorten copyright to 10 years from the work's date of
publication. See https://gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-vs-community.html
for a long explanation of why.
*The brazen killing of a mother and her son at close range by an
off-duty officer has caused outrage in the Philippines and
reignited calls for reform of the country’s [thug] force.*
This implicates president Do-dirty because he encourages and
legitimizes wanton violence by thugs.
*How a string of failures by the British government helped Covid-19 to
mutate.*
A string of successes by the saboteur in chief may be enabling it to mutate even more in the US even as you read this.
The Eritrean army, invading Tigray, seized and conscripted Eritrean
refugees who had fled there.
Eritrea's conscription is basically condemnation to a life of servitude,
which is why so many people have fled from there.
Video of the death of Muhammad Muhaymin Jr in 2017 shows that thugs killed him
pretty much the way they killed George Floyd this year.
*Global food industry on course to drive rapid habitat loss.*
AOC: *"One major difference between GOP and Dems is that [Republicans]
leverage their right flank to gain policy concessions and generate
enthusiasm, while Dems lock their left flank in the basement [because]
they think that will make Republicans be nicer to them."*
In addition, we see that the Democratic leadership adopted a fool's
strategy to respond to Sen. Toomey's demand for a last-minute
concession: namely, to insist on the deal already made. This led,
unsurprisingly, to a "compromise" which was to give (in some rough
sense) half the concession that was demanded. Democrats have done
this foolish thing before.
If they were seriously ready to fight, they would have come back
demanding a concession of equal importance in the other direction.
Then the natural compromises would have been "both concessions" or
"neither concession."
Biden should reject the dogma of trickle-down, now packaged as "to make life easier for everyone, make the rich richer first", and start investing their money
in making our country better for everyone.
The more income you have, the more satisfied you tend to be with
economic inequality.
The article makes the error of equating "your income" with "how much
you earn." That is an error because, as we know, the rich mostly
don't "earn" all their income — but they try to claim they do.
Navalny says he tricked one of the agents involved in poisoning him
into explaining how it was done.
Here's a transcript of the call.
This is not necessarily the truth. For one thing, the agent could
have been lying.
A cash benefits pilot program in Indonesia was observed to reduce
deforestation in the areas where it was tried.
Academics that investigate connections between past slavery and existing UK
institutions and fortunes are experiencing politicized attacks.
This is part and parcel of right-wing disinformation.
The pandemic has hastened the elimination of jobs and their
replacement with low-paid precarious gig work which surveils and
oppresses workers and customers alike. This report is about Australia but I expect it is similar
in the US.
The real solution to this is a guaranteed income. However, we can help
make work activity less precarious by rejecting the gig platforms.
The food delivery companies parasitize restaurants so much that it can
drag them under. In Cambridge, Mass, I've seen signs on the street
that urge people to pick up the take-out food they order, rather than
asking using a gig platform to deliver it. The restaurant gets more
money from the former than from the latter, even though the customer
probably pays less. And if you pick up the order yourself, you can
pay cash and avoid even more surveillance.
In a store, you can reject the self-checkout machines, as I do. In
some stores, the self-checkout machines won't accept cash, which is
another reason to refuse to use them. But even where the machines do
accept cash, I refuse to use them because they should hire more humans
instead.
If we use the self-checkout machines, they will reduce staffing. If
we don't use the self-checkout machines, they will increase staffing.
So I decided to be the first to refuse. You can be the second!
Mark Flessner, Chicago's head lawyer, resigned, and it seems to be
related to the thugs' mistaken raid on Anjanette Young's house, in
which they handcuffed her naked and wouldn't let her cover herself.
(And wrecked the door of her house.)
The article does not specify why he resigned, but it looks like the
city's lawyers were trying to prevent her at all costs from
demonstrating what had happened to her, trying to thwart justice.
Even if the head lawyer did not specifically tell the other lawyers
what to do about this case, it was his job to teach them what values
and goals should guide their work for the city.
Maybe the feeling of responsibility for what the other lawyers did
impelled him to resign. If so, that is very honorable by US
standards.
Some things that Biden could do to make US elections more fair
even if Republicans still hold the Senate.
Sweden's initial success in keeping Covid-19 down without banning
activities has turned to failure,
disappointing many US and British advocates of pursuing herd immunity.
However, Sweden never pursued herd immunity. Sweden tried to keep the
spread slow without strict measures. To pursue herd immunity means
trying to spread the disease faster (which is what the spreader cult
does), and Sweden never did that.
Everyone: call on AT&T, Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike, Procter &
Gamble, and Uber to stop funding right-wing politicians, especially those
opposed to abortion rights.
*Hospital CEOs Have Gotten Rich Cutting Staff and Supplies. Now They’re Not Ready for the Next Wave.*
Should the UK state that Iran is using Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
as a hostage?
Taking hostages is a great crime, and it is a mistake to pay a ransom
to free them. However, the money Iran demands would not be a ransom.
The money is rightfully Iran's and was all along. So the UK should
pay it. With luck Iran will then free the hostages.
The Environmental Protection Agency regulated phosphogypsum strictly
because of its radioactive atoms, and prohibited using it to make
roads. Now the Environmental Poisoning Agency wants to permit making
radioactive roads.
Pfizer participated in the campaign to make the WTO impose patents
worldwide, including patents on drugs. Now it cites that plutocatist
coup as a "principle" that it would be unthinkable to reject.
My view is that we should eliminate patents entirely, and most
especially eliminate them from medicine, agriculture and software.
The article has a confusion because it uses the term "intellectual
property".
That is a catch-all term for several unrelated laws
(patent law being one), so sometimes the article is talking about patents
and sometimes it is implicitly talking about other things as well.
The CIA has been directing and managing Afghan murder teams.
The teams carry out various sorts of violence, including kidnapping,
mutilation and murder. Sometimes they attack schools and kill the
children.
For a Chinese "security" executive at Zoom, "security" meant the security of
the Chinese regime.
He reported on users to China, and snooped on meetings. If they
discussed the Tien An Men Square massacre, he terminated the meetings
and the participants' accounts, on the orders of China.
Zoom management responded to the scandal by promising that in the
future Zoom would only cancel an account on China's command this way
if the user is in China.
Other companies that help the Chinese government impose repression
include Apple
and Google.
Can we expect a big company to have the scruples to decline the
invitation to gain access to the "Chinese market" by becoming part of
the system of oppression?
No, we can't expect it.
But we must demand it.
This was the work of a rogue employee, but what made it possible
is that Zoom's design lets staff snoop on every conversation as it
passes through the server without getting a search warrant.
Some Cuban dissidents get US backing and even support the wrecker.
What they believe would be bad for Cuba just as it is bad for the US.
However, that doesn't excuse Cuba's imprisonment of them for saying
what they think.
Not all Cuban dissidents support right-wing extremism.
Oswaldo Payá did not.
The Cuban government had him killed.
The IMF proposes using people's digital dossiers to calculate their
credit scores —
which would in effect convert them into social credit scores.
The corrupter has totally undermined the Hatch Act,
which is supposed to prohibit most federal employees from taking
partisan actions. Its enforcement depends on backing from the
president.
*A homeless man sentenced to life in prison for a $20 marijuana sale is freed
after 12 years.*
The war on drugs must have taken some very bad drugs 12 years ago.
The Tories have been squeezing the poor for a decade. No surprise
that they want poor whites to blame their bad treatment on the poor blacks
instead of the rich.
We've seen similar tactics in the US.
It is the standard right-wing form of divide and rule.
Australia has a plan for additional subsidy for gas extraction.
It is dangerous to allow Visa and Mastercard to decide what you can pay for.
Recall that they blocked donations to Wikileaks. They were forced to back down because European law regulates them
strictly, since that field has so little competition.
The EFF article explains why sex web sites — especially exploitative
ones like Pornhub — offer a perfect opportunity to establish new
systems of repression, which afterward will endanger the rights of
anyone and everyone.
A hundred years ago, having your face photo circulated as a suspect
could direct persecution at you — for instance, making it impossible to get a job.
Now it can cause you to be arrested randomly for walking down the street.
If stores use face recognition inside the store, they should not be
allowed to use photos for matching against people in the store
except for photos they have taken in that store, and photos
of people convicted of theft and fraud.
1/5 of the people in prison in the US are infected with Covid-19.
The prison staff catch it and spread it in their communities.
The Mediterranean shore is expected to get too hot for holidays in the summer.
Republicans' plan for future elections: suppress voters harder.
People who mix marijuana with tobacco are risking becoming tobacco addicts.
It appears that Boeing and the FAA arranged to rig the tests to recertify the 737 MAX so as to assure get a positive outcome.
Is the US so corrupt that it can't honestly regulate product safety
even in the most crucial and visible cases?
Florida governor DeSantis did everything possible to encourage spread of Covid-19, including distracting people from the danger, delaying
reporting deaths, and making sure no one could be fined for not
wearing a mask.
That last is something that Massachusetts's Republican governor is
also doing. He is putting people in danger here.
*British government says UNICEF should be "ashamed" for feeding hungry
children [in the UK].*
The Tories want those children to go hungry!
There remain more loopholes that Republican senators, with Pence, could use
to sabotage the election if they are desperate enough.
We could end up on Jan 20 with a dispute about who is president.
"Civil forfeiture" is a system of punishment without trial that allows thug departments in the US to confiscate billions of dollars a year,
in cash and goods.
The thugs claim we should tolerate this injustice on the grounds that it
"reduces crime." We can reply that forfeiture might as well be crime.
However, now we can also reply that it simply isn't true.
That article presents evidence refuting the thugs' claim.
With hard work you can reduce the harm done by the products you buy as
gifts, on the commercial purchasing holidays where people are told
they must give lots of gifts.
But it isn't very hard to opt out of giving and receiving gifts, when you have
no wish to do so other than nostalgia inculcated by millions of dollars
of advertising, with the pretense that participating in the spending
is going to make you happy.
A Guantanamo defense attorney calls on Biden to hold torturers
accountable — including the bully himself.
States have filed yet another lawsuit against Google, about using the
market power of Google Search to skew markets for other things.
These lawsuits may make Google change in ways that save people money.
But only through luck could they reduce the great wrongs that Google
commits:
This is no accident. Since the lawsuits are based on antitrust law,
they can only target monopolistic behavior. The wrong of snooping on people
is not inherently a matter of the size of the company; if a small company
accumulates data about people, that is wrong too.
A UK court ruled that the government must give a foreigner who had
been trafficked into the UK the right to work there.
Previously they could ask for permission to work, but would have to wait years
for their cases to be considered. The government does not give the department
that considers those applications enough funds to do the job faster; those
who hate foreigners are pleased with the suffering that results.
The Rockefeller Foundation has pledged to divest its endowment from
fossil fuels.
A special unit of thugs in the UK was investigated officially with a
listening device. The thugs were found to be emitting racist, sexist
and other kinds of hate in their private discussions, and it looks
like they will be punished for this.
Planting a microphone is a legitimate way to investigate suspected
official misconduct, when the recording authorized legally. What
those thugs did is grave misconduct because the attitudes they taught
each other that way will bias them in doing their job.
*Apple Suppressing Human Rights Critics* for China.
An Australian music festival is asking musicians to sign a contract not to
do anything that would criticize the fossil fuel company that sponsors it.
It would be better to cancel it than to turn it into an instrument of
ecocide and genocide.
The International Labor Organization has ordered countries to respect the treaties that give sailors the right to leave a ship to get
medical care or to go home.
Volunteers find and stop fishing in the Po river delta, which is
forbidden since the water is full of industrial pollution so the fish
are not safe to eat.
*Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancee urges Joe Biden to release CIA report*
on Khashoggi's assassination.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/18/jamal-khashoggis-fiancee-urges-joe-biden-to-release-cia-report
Scientists say wood-burning stoves cause a lot of indoor pollution
and should carry health warnings.
* Medicare and Medicaid are not independent sources of compassionate
care, but rather parts of a larger system that condemns the sick and
disabled to a life of devastating health and wealth disparities.*
Small improvements in that system won't enable people who are
destitute to cope.
The Securities and Exchange Commission just voted to weaken an anti-corruption
rule for oil companies.
Biden will have a chance to replace one of the commissioners in June
and perhaps put back the old rule or an even stricter rule. But that
depends on whether Republicans in the Senate have the power to block
the appointment. Wikipedia does not tell me whether these
appointments require Senate approval.
Calling on all news publishers to declare a climate emergency.
In the long term, it is a far bigger threat than Covid-19.
Study of the consequences of 50 years of tax cuts for the rich, in
many countries, shows that they had exactly the effect you would
naively expect: making the rich richer, while tramping down the poor
by reducing the government aid they depend on.
In other words, it's dooH niboR at work.
And the Republicans have been making it worse for 4 years.
*Amazon's apparent embrace of plastic packaging is hindering its
commitment to help the fight against [climate disaster].*
Reports say that Biden will nominate two climate champions for
important posts.
However, Food and Water Watch warns that Gina McCarthy encouraged
fracking when she was administrator of the EPA.
Will she do that now as climate advisor?
*New York bans display of Confederate flag and other hate symbols on state
grounds.*
It is a small step in the right direction.
*"Israel has the legal, moral, and humanitarian responsibility to
vaccinate the Palestinian population, which lives in distress under
its control."*
But Israel's right-wing government is not going to try any time soon.
Calling on Biden to reorient the Department of Labor to protect
workers and increase their power.
Lloyd's of London will cease insuring new coal, tar sands, and Arctic
oil investments.
However it will take 10 years to phase out coverage for existing
facilities — and it won't cover all fossil fuels. It is a step
forward, but not grounds for a celebration.
*Most Profitable US Companies Fired Workers, Enriched Shareholders
During Pandemic.*
Rivest et al show that, while all online voting is deeply untrustworthy,
adding a blockchain makes it even worse.
Alibaba has software designed to recognize from a person's face
whether perse is a Uighur.
This will be used for various sorts of repression in China.
*Survey Shows Americans—Regardless of Partisan Affiliation—Don't Want Biden to Appoint a Corporate Cabinet.*
So if he does appoint one, we will know it is not in response
to popular demand.
Rosamund Kissi-Debrah calls for a new law in the UK to reduce toxic
air pollution, as a memorial to her daughter who was killed by that.
Why did it take seven years to investigate the cause of her death? I
have a hunch it delayed by the lobbying of car and gas companies,
which have great political influence on the Tories.
The measures that need to be taken are basically the same ones needed
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport. Basically, the UK
now knows it has two reasons to carry out those measures. The question
is whether the Tories will bow to those reasons and stop resisting.
I expect the US has the same problem. Would someone like to send
me a reference?
*Atlantic City to auction off chance to blow up [the conman's] former casino, for charity.
AOC on the challenge of replacing Speaker Pelosi and the need to reduce
the power of the leadership of the Democratic Party.
Awareness of how traumatic experiences can cause changes in bodily
systems has created a pitfall: people can be held back in dealing with
painful experiences by the belief that it is no use trying because
trauma has damaged their brains in ways they can't overcome.
It turns out that making an adequate income without overwork enables a lot
of people to recover from trauma.
*Ocasio-Cortez Warns Biden That War and Wall Street Appointees Are a 'Huge Reason We Got Trump'.*
The companies that supplied cladding for apartment buildings in the
UK, and whose staff said it would burn, pretended after the fire to be
shocked by the fatal fire.
*Study of 50 Years of Tax Cuts For Rich Confirms 'Trickle Down' Theory Is an
Absolute Sham.*
Congress and a court ordered the USPS to hand over DeJoy's meeting schedule,
but when it did, nearly every word in it had been redacted.
Buttigieg has little experience in the field of transportation, but he has the experience is most harmful in government today: experience in
having transportation special interests fund his campaign.
Nine recommended simple progressive demands to help non-rich Americans.
I have to reject the last item, promoting "access" to "online learning".
What today's "online learning" teaches is how to be a sucker.
Glyphosate is wiping out monarch butterflies by wiping out the milkweed that monarch caterpillars must eat.
However, the queue for endangered species protection is long, so
monarchs must wait for protection. 47 species have gone extinct while
waiting for protection.
In nearly every Arab country, people say that the poor have got poorer
in the last decade since the Arab Spring.
This does not imply that the Arab Spring is crucially responsible for
that change.
The NLRB concluded that Amazon illegally fired Gerald Bryson for
protesting working conditions.
Amazon said it fired him for violating its "vulgar language" policy.
Fuck you, Amazon!
I would start a boycott over this policy, but alas I can't — I'm
boycotting Amazon for other reasons already.
*Pentagon Training Equates Whistleblower Chelsea Manning With Terrorists.*
Paul Alexander, appointed by the wrecker to work with the Department
of Health, told officials of that department, "We want [Americans] infected."
(for herd immunity, that was).
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to stop the line 3
pipeline.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588. If you call, please spread the word!
An inquest in the UK ruled that a girl was killed by a high level of
air pollution.
This may spur efforts to reduce pollution.
Repeated flooding is driving Bangladeshis out of their rural homes,
to become urban poor.
Mexico has passed a new "security" law that would undermine
cooperation between Mexican government agencies and the US Drug
Enforcement Agency agents that operate in Mexico.
Those agents would have to give all their information to Mexican agencies
that would probably leak the information to the gangs.
If you think of the issue as how to fight the "War on Drugs", this
change is foolish and self-defeating. But that war is itself foolish
and self-defeating. Maybe Amlo is trying looking for an excuse to
pull back from it.
If the US legalizes and strictly regulates sale of drugs, the Mexican
drug gangs would lose a major source of their income. That could be
more effective than the DEA will ever be.
Credit rating scores now control who can rent an apartment or get
hired for a job, as well as who can get a loan. Other mysterious
algorithms decide who gets welfare or medical treatment.
The root cause of many of these problems is the general US approach of
being stingy towards the poor and suffering. The basic motivation for
that is that the rich keep demanding a bigger share of everything.
Transparent and valid ways of evaluating people would be an
improvement, but we can do better than that. For many of these
purposes, we shouldn't evaluate people at all. We should help
everyone who needs help.
With Medicare for All, everyone would get medical care, eliminating
any need to judge people. If we had a policy of giving poor people
housing, we wouldn't need to evaluate people for that either. With a
guaranteed basic income, whether you can get a job would be less
important.
And credit ratings should be used only for loans.
Why did Chicago thugs break the door of Ms Young's house, find her
there naked, then handcuff her naked and refuse to give her a blanket
to cover herself with?
The third step, handcuffing Ms Young without letting her put on any
clothing, was an act of callous contempt, very likely reflecting
ingrained racism. But the wrongs did not start there.
The first step, seeking to enter that house, reflected incompetence:
they didn't bother to check that the person they were looking for
lived next door. Disdain, perhaps racist, is surely part of why they
did not bother.
The second step, breaking down that door, was due to excessive
willingness to do harm violent. Even if they had chosen the right
house, they shouldn't have done this. Owning an illegal gun doesn't
mean a person is inclined to shoot if thugs use a megaphone to say
"Police, open up!" Disdain, perhaps racist, may be part of why they
did not bother.
Perhaps Chicago should do what Camden, New Jersey did: disband its
hopelessly corrupt, violent and racist thug department
and start a new
one.
The Houthis have agreed to let the United Nations inspect an abandoned
tanker filled with oil in 2021, but experts warn the ship may start leaking
massive quantities of oil any day.
That leak would kill the marine life in the Red Sea.
The UK proposes to move the Museum of Military Medicine to Cardiff, in
Wales, and has received a surprising variety of objections.
Some of the objectors are using the issue for Welsh nationalism.
I don't sympathize with Welsh nationalism so I am not impressed.
Some want to preserve the existing park with its full size.
Would building it on a city block be better?
The expense might be prohibitive, though.
*Why we need nonviolent citizen action — not street fighting with the
Proud Boys — to protect the election results and democracy.*
*Rouhani to Biden: If US Comes Back to Nuclear Deal, So Will Iran.*
*Report Details 'Staggering' Number of Attacks on US Journalists, Press
Freedoms in 2020.*
*How the Biden Administration Can Help Rejuvenate Journalism After Four Years
of Carnage.*
A scientific team will study the giant Antarctic iceberg as it drifts
towards South Georgia Island.
Given the sort of harm it may do if it grounds there, I wonder if
there is a way to gently push the iceberg so as to direct it away from
the island. Perhaps with large sails?
We have worked out how to do this with asteroids.
Republicans have cemented their gerrymandering power for another decade
and maybe longer, by dominating state legislatures again.
The only way I can see to overcome this is to reform the Supreme Court.
A single mutation, called delta 69/70, has appeared in several strains
of Covid-19, and makes each of them spread more easily.
Perhaps this is part of the reason that Covid-19 is now
increasing so fast in the US and Europe.
Each time a person gets infected, that is an opportunity for Covid-19
to mutate. If the world had cracked down on Covid-19 effectively, the
way China, Taiwan, South Korea (initially), Australia and New Zealand
did, the pandemic would already be over, the deaths would be few, the
economic losses would be much less, and this mutation would never have
occurred.
Facebook says that France and Russia targeted the voters of the
Central African Republic with opposing disinformation campaigns.
The new stimulus bill has a subtle but large tax deduction for businesses
that received PPP loans.
Perhaps it should be limited to 100k dollars per organization.
That would save small businesses a big surprise tax bill
but not give much to big businesses.
Bellingcat present's evidence that the FSB (successor of the KGB)
poisoned Navalny after following him around since 2017.
Putin had to have approved these plans. Anyone who did such things in
Russia without his approval would be fired immediately.
South Korea is very wise to impose restrictions to slow the increase
of Covid-19 while the number of people infected is still small.
To delay, and allow the numbers to increase before acting, would not
help anything.
UK medical journals say the UK must cancel plans to allow households
to mix during Christmas. Those plans would overload the hospitals.
Half a million slaves are forced to pick cotton in Xinjiang, China.
Keep in mind that Uzbekistan also forces slaves to pick
cotton, perhaps even more of them.
What Uzbekistan does is not an excuse for China, and what China does
is not an excuse for Uzbekistan. Countries should refuse to buy cotton from
those countries until they stop using forced labor.
*Restore UK woodland by letting trees plant themselves, says report.*
I have wondered for years why it is necessary to plant trees.
Trees produce lots of seeds and have mechanisms to disperse them.
Why isn't that enough?
This is a serious question. Since I am not an expert, I will not try
to claim that there is no need to plant forests, but I think it is an important
question why we do need that.
EFF: Youtube's automatic copyright filter has punished fair use to the
point where people have learned not to even try it. In effect, it has
taken that right away.
To fix this, we need to eliminate the relevant parts of the DMCA.
I wish they would not refer to works of art and communication as "content".
That term disparages all such works.
*Facebook Gets Rich Off Of Ads That Rip Off Its Users.*
I must disagree with the first example, though: it is prudish to
consider an ad harmful on account of showing adolescents dancing. Was
there is something else bad about those ads that the article fails to
explain?
Scientific research increasingly shows that fracking harms the health
of people living nearby, especially children.
This is in addition to contributing greatly to short-term global heating
due to leaks of methane.
Fracking is taking humanity to frack and fruin, so we need to stop it
completely.
New York medics are paid less than a living wage, so Lauren Kwei
models nude to make up the difference. Some old fashioned prudes
found this scandalous and tried to ruin her life. AOC defends her,
saying, "The Actual Scandalous Headline Is Medics Need Two Jobs to
Survive."
Sad to say, the site on which she sells her photos practices an
injustice on the customers: it requires nonfree Javascript to access
it. I have not tried that site, but I know that it takes special
effort to accept credit card payments over the net without sending
nonfree JS, and I think only the Free Software Foundation does this.
Perhaps in a few years that site will accept Taler payments,
and be accessible from the Free World.
The US has let business control its laws and institutions, and
business could not profit by saving the people from Covid-19, so the
US did not really try.
The result has been a disproportionate rate of fatalities per population,
now reaching 300,000 people killed by Covid-19.
There may soon be a bipartisan relief bill that does not
shield businesses from liability.
That is good news, because it means the bill will not do long-term
legal harm. The only remaining question is how much good it does for
the rich, and how much to the non-rich.
The bill does not provide aid to states, which need aid desperately
to cover what some states have spent protecting the public from Covid-19.
States cannot even afford to operate vaccination.
But they can hold out till Jan 20 for that aid, and if the
Georgia runoff elections go well, we can give states the aid then without
shielding business from liability.
Regarding liability, businesses should be liable for failing to do
what was possible. In April, when masks were in short supply, it
would have been unfair to punish a business for not finding masks.
Now that masks are available, businesses have no excuse for not
providing masks, and likewise other PPE, enhanced air ventilation, and
every other thing that ought to be done for worker's safety.
One thing that stores must do, for the safety of workers and
customers alike, is make anyone leave immediately who has entered
without a mask.
Big companies pay significant sums to "offset" their CO2 emissions
by protecting trees from being cut down. Except that those trees
were not going to be cut down. The fees are for greenwashing.
By contrast, projects that directly extract CO2 from the air are valid.
But "offsets" meant to provide benefit in the future are chickens
that might hatch some day.
Such "offsets" are used as a substitute for real cuts in emissions,
and we should not trust them. Likewise, we should distrust commitments
stated in terms of "net" emissions. We should demand commitments to
reduce emissions.
*'Grossly Insufficient': ExxonMobil Lambasted Over Emissions Reduction Plan
That Pledges No Reduction in Absolute Emissions.*
I think Exxon is counting the emissions from its own use of energy,
and not the emissions that will result when the fossil fuels it
extracts get burned by customers. If so, it is sidestepping the issue.
The Republican officials that stood up against democracy may not be
scared only of losing the next election at the hands of conman's
lunatic followers. It could be that their rich backers are trying to
eliminate democracy, as they did when FDR was elected.
US cinema production is concentrated in the hands of a few companies controlled
by billionaires whose main interests are other things.
Nothing can be made which harms those other interests.
(satire) *Amazon Worker Emerges From Holiday Overtime Shift To Find
3,000 Years Have Passed In Outside World.*
*If Democrats Want to Succeed, They Will Have to Implement Policies That
Primarily Benefit the Working Class.*
Australia's prime minister is outraged that China has decided to
buy coal from other nearby countries rather than from Australia.
The real outrage is that China continues to burn so much coal
and is not working hard to cut down.
*Tiny Pacific nation of Palau detains 'illegal' Chinese fishing vessel.*
I see no reason to doubt Palau's accusation; fishing boats don't go anywhere so
far from home except to fish there.
China is one of several countries that send large fishing fleets to
denude the world's oceans of sea life. We need a world-wide fishing
treaty that would prevent this.
Attorney General Barr has been, in effect, fired — apparently for
refusing to endorse false accusations of massive fraudulent voting.
The fraud that really occurred was Republicans; massive fraudulent denial of the right to vote.
It is, interesting that a substantial fraction of Republicans that
frequently practice by-hook-or-by-crook morality do still have limits
of conscience.
* Plastic bags and flexible packaging are the deadliest plastic items in
the ocean, killing wildlife including whales, dolphins, turtles and
seabirds around the globe.*
The US has removed Sudan from the sponsors-of-terror list.
The UK government is planning new permanent restrictions on protests.
They have not yet what those restrictions will be, but democracy in
the UK is undermined already and this will make things worse. The
Tories are already trying out voter-ID to suppress the votes of poor
people who are unlikely to vote Tory, and working on giving more power
to thugs.
A new variant of Covid-19 seems to spread faster. That means stronger
measures will be required to stop it from spreading.
The existence of that mutant variant is the result of letting Covid-19
spread to so many people. If we had taken adequate measures to stop
the spread quickly at the outset, the mutation would not have occurred.
*Australian professor and son detained in Qatar for five months without charge.*
It's not impossible a priori that they committed a crime, but if Qatar
can't say what it was, it must release them.
Individuals and companies are starting to break off dealings with
Xinjiang and companies there.
That is a good start, but China's existing totalitarian oppression of
Uygurs is likely to be followed by China's future totalitarian
oppression in Taiwan, if we don't stop it. We had better take action
now to stop that, so that it doesn't come to a shooting war.
Australia frequently deports asylum-seekers to countries where they are
in danger, and many have been attacked afterward.
Australia has proposed a revision to its terrifying computer
surveillance law.
I think the various kinds of warrants described in this article are
acceptable in principle. That some do not require a judge's
authorization is very dangerous.
The secrecy requirement — imprisonment for disclosing any information
about a warrant — is a shield for the abuses which every system like this
tends to generate.
The "assistance order" is extremely dangerous unless it has firm and
clear limits about who can the ordered to assist, and what kinds of
assistance can be demanded. Otherwise, what is to stop an agency from
ordering you to put a back door into a program?
Statements about the usual "intended" usage scenarios of that power
are meaningless if nothing stops the government from using it
in other ways.
The officials that regulate mining in Australia's Northern Territory
say they were pressured to skimp on environmental review so as to
let mining proceed.
I have no proof, but I would expect that the mining companies
knew that they were paying officials to cheat in their behalf.
A not-entirely-serious proposal to divide the US into two countries,
the one where Republicans dominate and the one where Democrats dominate.
It could not be implemented in practice, for a host of reasons.
It looks like neither the House nor the Senate will support reversing
the election and pretending that the wrecker won it.
(To do that would require both houses of Congress to decide to.)
That is a good thing — but would it be good if Republicans tried and
failed? It would make the hostility between the parties so visible
that no one could deny that "bipartisanship" is a fantasy and
"compromise" means surrender. If the Democrats win the Georgia Senate
run-offs, that awareness might be what is needed to convince them
to eliminate the filibuster and pass laws that Republicans don't like.
Proposals for modifying US agricultural policy to defend the climate.
I agree with the article in its criticism of "carbon markets" — which
means, trading credits for emissions — but a tax on greenhouse gas
emissions is a different story. Such a tax, with the tax rate
scheduled by law to increase annually, will be totally predictable.
One thing not mentioned in the article is the need to discourage
eating so much meat.
We should allow prisoners to vote.
In some parts of the US, systemic racism includes systematically
imprisoning blacks. That, combined with barring prisoners from
voting, has the effect of systematically suppressing blacks' votes.
A teacher says: *Low grades are not a sign of lazy students. Low grades are not a sign
of unintelligent students. In my experience, low grades mean something
is wrong.*
Republicans are pressing the wrecker to pardon Edward Snowden.
Meanwhile, Snowden asked him to pardon Julian Assange.
If he does either of them, I will rejoice at that. However, that
won't outweigh in my judgement my condemnation of his attempt to
set up a tyrannical state.
(satire) *Trump Orders Space Force to Discover Other Planets with Courts.*
Biden will probably resume transferring prisoners out of Guantanamo
prison.
However, politicians have difficulty coming up with what to do
about the 10 or so prisoners who are accused of specific terrorist
crimes. They have difficulty because they don't follow the reasoning
to its conclusion.
The conclusion is simple: release them. Those prisoners have been in
prison for well over a decade, and they have been tortured. The
torture of those prisoners was a grave crime committed by the United
States. Holding them in prison without trial is another crime, which
the US still continues. The US must stop committing this crime.
As for the claim that some of the prisoners are "too dangerous" to
release, that is balderdash. There cannot be anything special that
they could contribute to violent Islamist movements today. Some had
important terrorist contacts, but those contacts are dead. Anything
specific they knew 15 years ago is obsolete; anything general must be
known to many other terrorists who are still at large.
At most, the freed prisoners would constitute a few terrorist recruits
on top of the other thousands. That would have no significant effect
on the security of the US or anyone else.
The president should commute the prisoners' potential sentences to
time served. Those who can find a place to go, should be allowed to
go there. The US will have to house the rest, but not as prisoners.
It is normal practice now for companies to lie and cheat, even if it
kills people.
We need not wonder why. It is because governments have ceased trying
much to prevent this. Governments do less and less to check what
businesses do, and less and less to punish the businesses and the
personnel for cheating.
A proposal for laws to firm up the norms that guided the functioning of the US government, which the wrecker has broken.
I doubt Republicans will willingly allow this to be done, as long as
the wrecker tells them not to. As with so many other things, it depends
on defeating the wrecker conclusively.
*Classifying Houthis as terrorists will worsen famine in Yemen, Trump is
warned.*
*Low-wage warehouse workers, many of whom are temporary, are demanding
access to the vaccine.*
Here's an idea: require companies to pay for the vaccine for every
worker. Maybe companies will decide it is better to give each worker
more hours — something they generally want.
The thug that killed Casey Goodson Jr claims that Goodson pulled a gun on him. There is no evidence to support that claim, and I am skeptical of it.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez lists what she has achieved in two years in
Congress. It is a substantial list.
Rep. Pascrell argues that the Republicans who supported the Texas
lawsuit (to disregard the voters) made themselves ineligible to serve
in Congress. "The text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids
members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United
States."
(satire) *‘The Onion’ Salutes The Courageous Legislators Determined To
Overturn The Will Of Voters.*
*Question: How Should the Left Judge Biden's Success? Answer From a Leftist:
'How Many People Stop Going Hungry' Is One Good Way.*
Here's a letter I sent to the Boston Globe on Dec 6.
Dear Editor,
It wasn't Albert Einstein who said that insanity is "doing the same
thing over and over and expecting a different result," but it's a
valid point. So when will Governor Baker change his ineffective
response to the increase of Covid-19 in Massachusetts?
In early September, when it was around 200 cases a day and rising, he
urged residents to take the same precautions we were taking. By early
October we had 500 cases per day, so he did that again. By Election
Day it had doubled, so he did the same thing plus one real change
(ordering mask use outdoors). Now, with almost 5000 cases per day,
he's back to the same old same old. By Christmas it could be 10,000 a
day, then 20,000 after holiday spreading parties. It won't stop
there.
Governor, whatever you're going to do then, would you please start it
now? It may be unpleasant, but the sooner we start, the fewer weeks
it must continue.
Sincerely,
*Israeli court rules that Nation State law calls for discrimination against
Palestinian citizens [of Israel].*
Everyone: call on Pasco County to erase the database that is supposed to
predict which students will be criminals.
Making predictions about young people tends to bring about the
predicted outcome.
US citizens: call on Congress to block mining in the
Chí’chil Biłdagoteel Historic District of Arizona.
US citizens: call on Congress to discard the "pay-as-you-go" rule,
whose only purpose was to make sure suffering inflicted on the
poor could not be reversed.
Massachusetts residents: call on your Mass legislators to pass the
full original limits on policing and on face recognition.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the Marijuana Opportunity
Reinvestment and Expungement Act (MORE Act).
Republican fanatics are still plotting a coup. Some are asking swing states'
legislators to set aside the actual votes and substitute Republican electors;
others are trying to convince those congressional delegations to do likewise.
Republicans control those states' legislatures and congressional
delegations via gerrymandering (cheating).
* Historians could mark 2020 as the moment when Republicans applied
the same zeal they have used to attack democracy in advance of
elections, through voter suppression and gerrymandering, to attacking
democracy on the back end, by trying to deny and overturn the results.*
*UN secretary general urges all countries to declare climate emergencies.*
*EU leaders reach deal to cut emissions by at least 55% by end of decade.*
That comes in range of the sort of change, and speed, that we need.
A rich and influential Tory politician inherited the family riches
which it got via slavery starting in the 1600s.
This is more than the statue of a slaveholder: the slaveholders'
money, greatly increased over time, is working even today to promote
inequality and suffering for poor blacks and poor whites in Britain.
Iran executed Ruhollah Zam for publishing criticism of officials,
including the statements of protesters.
Farming macadamia nut trees in Australia endangers the wild macadamia
nut trees and their genetic diversity.
The wild species is now designated as vulnerable.
One of Assad's torturers faces prosecution in Germany.
*Children will die due to UK overseas aid cuts, pediatricians say.*
I am sure it is true. As children in the UK are dying due to years of
Tory cuts in welfare benefits, with more to come. But the Tories have
no choice — the plutocrats' demands cannot go unsatisfied.
Corbyn would have done something about this.
*The Biden team will be 'diverse'. That doesn't mean it will help struggling
people.*
People who have experienced coping with racism, poverty, and other
handicap will have an advantage in understanding how to help others
cope with them — if they want to try. The problem with making
identity (that is, a person's background) the main criterion is that
it's easy to find plutocratists who have the desired background, but
the wrong values and goals.
The wrecker is shifting his supporters, appointed by him to
official positions, into "career" positions that the president is not
supposed to be able to dismiss arbitrarily.
However, last month, the wrecker made an order authorizing agency heads
to designate thousands of jobs as "fire (them) at will". If he can do that,
Can Biden do the same to the wrecker's formerly political appointees?
The Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit in which 19 other states asked
it to set aside the votes of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin.
Australia has freed five refugees from immigration prison, just before
a court was going to make a decision that might rule Australia's
policies illegal.
These five were able to sue because Australia transferred them from
Manus or Nauru because they were ill. The rest of the prisoners that
Australia put into prison on Manus or Nauru have no chance to start a
court case.
Fanatical anti-maskers, by intimidating the families of members of the
Boise health board, succeeded in canceling a meeting of the health
board as it was considering a local mask requirement.
The local thug department asked the board members to interrupt their
meeting in the name of "public safety". This is ironic because the
mask requirement is the first step towards public safety.
The board, and the government behind it, must show it is strong enough
that fanatics cannot force it to do the wrong thing. But I expect they
will do the exact opposite.
A Turk who has seen several coup attempts in her country warns Americans
that the wrecker's coup attempt was a serious threat. With Republican imposed minority rule as a permanent base, the next one may succeed.
*Biden will have White House disinfected after [the disease-spreader] leaves.*
It would not shock me if the disease-spreader were to smear infectious
material in the White House specifically to make Biden and his team sick.
The Congressional Budget Office studied the costs of Medicare for All and
determined that it could cover everyone and cost $650 billion less annually
than the existing US medical system.
The National Family Farm Coalition describes good and bad things that Vilsack
did to family farms. It does not see him as a monster, but says he had better
commit to protecting farmers against agribusiness.
Why not choose someone who will hustle to resist agribusines?
Vilsack tried to pass useful reforms in 2010, but dawdled till after
the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives.
The Sunrise Movement rebuked Biden for choosing Vilsack
rather than the progressive Rep. Marcia Fudge who has focused
on agriculture policy in her career.
*White House chief of staff told FDA chief [that] vaccine must be
authorized Friday or he needs to resign.*
The corrupter ordered the head of the FDA to do something the latter
might have been about to do anyway. Indeed, he did approve the
vaccine on Friday,
but now we have to wonder whether he approved it based on his best
judgment, or set that judgment aside to obey the order. Whatever he
says, the doubt will remain, and with it doubt about whether the
vaccine was indeed ready to approve.
I think that is something the corrupter wants. The corrupter will now
be able to simultaneously claim credit for the vaccine and sow
distrust for it. His own followers probably won't take the vaccine
anyway, since they believe Covid-19 is a fantasy.
The corrupter played a vicious trick on commissioner Hahn with that
threat, since he will appear to have made a cowardly surrender whether
he actually did so or not. But there is a way he can demonstrate that
his approval of the vaccine was not influenced by the threat: to
resign right away! This would win him the admiration of sane
Americans.
*'We Need to Get Off the Current Road to Hell,' Say Former UN Climate Leaders.*
Australia's PM took a step towards real greenhouse emissions reduction
by agreeing not to present Kyoto treaty credits as "reductions".
This is still nowhere near enough to do Australia's share of what is
needed to avoid global heating disaster.
The corrupter's string of executions is galvanizing opposition to the death penalty,
which has not been very visible in the US for a decade or so.
China has arrested a Chinese journalist that works for Bloomberg News,
supposedly for "endangering national security". That is a
far-fetched claim, so I conclude the accusation has a political purpose.
*Canadian officer found guilty of assault for slamming black woman to floor.*
1000 prisoners have died in Egypt since the coup replaced Morsi with
a military dictatorship.
They are not precisely comparable to Giulio Regeni's case, since he
was not in prison when suppression agents killed him. But that is
just a detail — the article's point is valid.
The article also covers other crimes of the Egyptian regime.
Australia's cruelty to refugees carries over to their children, who may
be made stateless.
Republicans are determined to cease paying for sick leave for Americans,
as the pandemic races on.
Compelling workers that deal with the public to work even when sick
tends to spread the disease.
In a town in South Dakota where everyone believes in the Republican
denial cult, the death of esteemed citizens of the town has convinced
some to call for a mask requirement. But in order to pass a weak
version of the ordinance, the town council had to endure a meeting in which anti-maskers coughed at them.
Wearing an ordinary mask will not prevent the masked councilors from
catching Covid-19 from a maskless infected person. I hope the law
they passed will enable them to keep unmasked people out of their
meetings in the future.
The covidiots of that town have been swindled by a callous liar; they
are victims, and deserve our pity. At the same time, they endanger
anyone they come near. We must stop them from spreading their disease
to those who don't want to catch it, and since the disease can cause
lasting damage or death, force is justified for stopping them.
Some of them will die from their lunacy. May those deaths awaken the
rest to the nature of the lies they have swallowed.
*How oil majors shift billions in profits to island tax havens.*
(satire) *Aspiring Lobbyist Gets Foot In Door As State Senator.*
Biden is considering appointing (or has appointed) several people with
close ties to Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple.
*Receiving Nobel Prize, World Food Programme Chief Warns 'We Are
Losing Battle Against Hunger'.*
Calling on the West to recognize Israel's slow, calculated ethnic
cleansing of Palestinians from occupied Palestine.
One current target for expulsion is a neighborhood, Bab Hutta, near
the center of old Jerusalem.
US citizens: call on Biden to renew the non-nuclear deal with Iran.
Israel's road construction in Palestinian territory is designed as a step
towards annexation.
*Tired and afraid, Palestinian [teens and preteens] report brutal IDF
arrests.*
*EU calls for probe into Palestinian teen's killing by Israel.*
Israel killed another Palestinian teenager a week ago.
Labeling the wrecker's main points as falsehoods, on Facebook and
Twitter, has failed to prevent them from influencing his followers.
As often happens, the most harmful lies are in the presupposed
premises, and refuting those requires pulling them out in the open so
people can see what they are. A simple label that "this is not true"
doesn't try to do that.
Biden named a planet-roaster congresscritter as "liaison" to
environmentalists, but protests and lawsuits are persuading
US banks to give up on some fossil fuel projects.
However, world-wide, planet-roaster projects are mostly not held back
by this. Newly funded fossil fuel development plans would use up 3/4
of the carbon budget.
In Africa, China is offering lots of investment in planet-roaster projects.
China is regulating the practice ofprofiling users and charging some users more.
By contrast, the US and most other countries don't even think of
preventing this abusive treatment.
I say, let's stop companies from collecting enough data about us that
they could even think about trying to profile people.
Cory Doctorow updates the issue of the danger of letting companies
control your computers.
In 2002 I rejected the propaganda term "trusted computing".
Based on what it does, we should call it "treacherous computing".
A thug shot Casey Goodson, Jr., in the back as he was opening the door
of his house. The family called 911 and when other thugs arrived, they
treated the whole family as criminals.
It is surely not a coincidence that Goodson was black.
Without a witness or a video, we cannot prove anything about what the
killer thug did. Those who believe thugs by default will believe
whatever that thug says.
It could be that the thug mistook Goodson for someone else and fired
immediately without verifying that snap judgment. I think that would
be a crime if you or I did it. It should be a crime if a thug does
it, but I don't know whether it is.
I waited before posting about this, hoping to get a clearer picture of
what happened. I think this is as clear as it's going to get in the
near term, so I am posting now.
The Supreme Court has ruled that Muslims that the FBI tried to bully
into spying, by putting them on the no-fly list, can sue for damages.
I am elated by this rebuke to government bullying.
Banning someone from flying is a form of punishment by the government,
and under the US constitution it should not be allowed except under
"due process of law", which ought to mean a criminal trial.
(satire) *Facebook Announces Plan To Break Up U.S. Government Before It Becomes Too Powerful.*
Iran is willing to resume the nuclear deal if the US drops its sanctions and commits not to pulling out again.
Presuming that "all sanctions" means "all sanctions related to nuclear
activities", that seems like a fair deal to me.
As for the expiration of the deal in 2025. I am sure the two countries
can negotiate a deal to extend it.
Meanwhile, the European countries should recover their
sovereignty over economic dealings with other countries, so that the US
can no longer forcibly stop them.
Zhang Zhan, imprisoned for reporting on the Covid-19 situation in Wuhan,
started a hunger strike and has been force fed —
not Guantanamo-style, through the nose, but with a tube surgically inserted into her stomach.
The Sunrise Movement supports Deb Haaland for Secretary of the Interior.
Since they do, I do too.
Italy has charged officials of Egyptian repression forces with
murdering Giulio Regeni.
China took two Canadian visitors hostage after Canada arrested Mang Wanzhou,
executive of Huawei, at the request of the US.
It is clear now that China's charges against those two Canadians were
just excuses. The same might be true of the charges against Mang, or
might not; I have no way of knowing.
Right-wing extremists are harassing and threatening officials, even election workers, claiming that their master won the election.
The EU's budget has been approved, including conditioning payments on
a country's respect for the independence of the judiciary
(which is a part of "rule of law").
Venezuela held legislative elections. Observers said they were free.
Guaidó's opposition faction boycotted the election, and the turnout
was low, but not much lower than the US. It is partly because many
Venezuelans have moved to other countries.
*Minneapolis switches $8m from police budget to violence prevention* and
mental health teams.
That is under 5% of the entire thug department budget, but increasing
the funding of those other programs may be helpful.
Bangladeshis have gone from exploitative work to no work, as the
wasteful and unsustainable overproduction of clothing has collapsed
(at least for the time being), and their ex-employers have stolen
their wages.
Getting them their stolen wages would help only temporarily. Resuming
the unsustainable production would not solve the problem for many
years; as the population Bangladesh increases, increasing amounts of
wasteful production would be required, and that increase could not
continue.
Bangladesh needs to stabilize and reduce its population, by limiting
births, so that the babies who do get born can survive, and climb out
of poverty.
US citizens: call on Congress to make coronavirus vaccination gratis for
all Americans.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to appoint a climate-oriented cabinet.
Azerbaijan tortured, even beheaded Armenian prisoners, including civilians.
Armenia has done some of this, too.
Portland activists are blocking the eviction a family from its home of
65 years.
It is surely no coincidence that the family is black.
But all the other residents have already been pushed out.
*Sustainable Farming Advocates Warn Biden That Vilsack 'A Very Bad Pick' for
[Agriculture] Secretary.*
Progressives call him "Mr Monsanto" for his assistance to that company's
GMOs.
In addition to their biological effects, Bayer/Monsanto seeds spread
patent pollution.
Aside from that Vilsack eliminated many safety regulations that we
should bring back.
Rebekah Jones says that the seizure of her phone will enable
Republican officials to find out which employees have been giving her Covid-19
statistics that the Republican governor wants to suppress.
*New EPA rule could [and was probably intended to] make it more
difficult to limit air pollution.*
*A Criminal Justice To-Do List for the New Administration.*
If you are thinking of buying a holiday present from Amazon, look at the
crushing treatment of workers that you'd be supporting.
Biden's choice to head the US "defense" department, Lloyd Austin, has
only three flaws: he is a recently retired general for a post where a
civilian ought to be, he is in the revolving door, and under Obama he
tended to be pro-war.
He's not as bad as Flournoy, but that's not enough to qualify as good.
Georgia Republicans are trying to suppress minority voters by reducing
the number of early voting sites in a county where many of them live.
The US and most US states have sued Facebook with the aim of making it
separate off Instagram and WhatsApp.
This would somewhat increase competition and somewhat reduce
Facebook's lobbying power, but it would not make the Facebook
dis-service safe for democracy. Its business model of targeted
advertising makes it dangerous and promotes snooping.
We should prohibit targeted advertising, but most of all we should
prohibit systems that systematically collect data on people.
*Offshore Tax Havens 'Deep Wells of Profit' For Oil Giants, Report Shows.*
The New York State pension fund says it will end investment in fossil
fuels.
Alas, it set itself a deadline of 2040, which is too far away.
It will do some divestment sooner, but it's not clear how much.
*'Severe Blow to Iraqi Torture Survivors': Despite Evidence of UK War Crimes, ICC Drops War Crimes Probe.*
The reason given was that the UK appears able to prosecute soldiers itself.
Is it really going to do so?
Hamid Reza Shakib was imprisoned in Iran for campaigning for human
rights. He escaped and went to Australia, which used Papua New Guinea
to imprison him for asking for asylum.
After years of cruel
imprisonment, he now has received asylum in France.
Greta Thunberg: *'We are speeding in the wrong direction' on climate crisis.*
*Our global fire crisis is the sign of a dying biosphere. But we can take
action.*
If we can push away the dying hand of the businesses that profit from
roasting our planet.
*Covid used as pretext to curtail civil rights around the world, finds report.*
One increase in surveillance that they may not mention is when
countries encourage (or even order) people to stop paying cash.
One way to defend your freedom is to insist on paying cash when you
buy things — I always do.
Countries whose freedom ratings were reduced this year include
the US, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Iraq, the Philippines and Slovenia.
Every market has rules, and society chooses the rules. When people
advocate a "free market", what they mean is one with rules that favor
the most powerful. In our times, that choice is a one for most
people, and we don't have an obligation to accept it.
*Under Boris Johnson, corruption is taking hold in Britain.*
Corruption is not just starting to take hold. It was well established
in 2013 in the choice of cladding for the apartment building that
subsequently had a fatal fire.
That was due to insufficient efforts by the state to verify the
honesty of construction, which was due to a government that didn't
consider this very important.
What is happening now is that corruption is practiced visibly and
shamelessly by ministers.
*Human-made materials now outweigh Earth's entire biomass.*
We should not foolishly suppose that it is "sinful",
but it is a sign that we have the ability to mess things up in
yet another way.
In Xinjiang, reasons to put someone in prison include (1) being under 40
and (2) talking with relatives living outside China.
Switzerland allowed Chinese agents to enter secretly and interview
Chinese citizens that Switzerland was considering deporting to China.
This can't help but work to the harm of Chinese dissidents who ask for
asylum. No country should be interested in the Chinese government's
opinion on such questions.
The US deportation thugs hardly tried to protect prisoners from
Covid-19, and thus created hotspots in the prisons and the communities
around the prisons.
In general, prisons have tended to spread Covid-19 to nearby
communities. The guards get sick along with the prisoners, then take
the virus home to their families.
The Supreme Court's right-wing majority declined an opportunity to
throw the election to the bullshitter.
It looks like they have decided to respect the vote.
Cambridge University rejected a proposal to require people to respect
all views of others. It decided that tolerating other people's views
is enough — that is, to respect people's right to hold their views.
This is the correct policy. I could not possibly respect the views of
Osama bin Laden, or a Republican today, or a pious religious believer,
or a "centrist" Democrat, or a Communist, or a flat-earther, without
being brainwashed. Likewise, you should not be required to respect my
views.
Introduced Argentine tegu lizards are becoming a threat to other wildlife
in Florida and Georgia.
There is a simple solution: catch them for skins and meat. People do that
in Argentina.
After convincing people to protect each other by wearing masks proved
to be so difficult, have we got any chance to make the changes needed
to avoid deadly climate disaster 30 years from now?
Pompeo has tried to arbitrarily declare support for any sort of
boycott against Israel to be "antisemitic."
That is bullshit, of course.
I support the boycott started by Gush Shalom, the Israeli campaign for
peace between Israel and Palestine. This boycott targets products of Israel's
colonies in Palestinian territory, whose existence violates UN treaties
Israel has signed.
According to Pompeo, I am supposedly antisemitic, and so was
Uri Avnery, the great Israeli supporter of peace, who founded Gush Shalom
and started that boycott.
Israel passed a law exposing anyone who advocated the boycott to
lawsuits for unlimited damages,
so people in Israel had to stop advocating the
boycott. I in the US am safe from that law, so I continue.
*In 'Huge Victory for Polar Bears and Our Climate,' Court Rejects Trump
Approval of Offshore Drilling Project in Arctic.*
I think he will find it difficult to get the policy to take effect before
Biden cancels it.
The wrecker has built up bombing in Afghanistan. In 2019 there were
over 700 civilian casualties.
The bully has started reorienting the US military away from the
self-defeating "war on terror" and towards a possible war with China
and/or Russia.
Ending the "war on terror" is a good thing, because terrorism is a tactic,
not an enemy, and war is not an effective way to put an end to it.
But what about the military's new orientation?
I think the US can easily avoid war with Russia, because Putin doesn't
aim to rule the world. He has started local wars in battling over
regional influence, and he stirs the pot further away, but he is
willing to keep peace when the US is. The US foolishly and
provocatively tried to extend NATO into the former Soviet Union right
up to the borders of Russia;
it should have been content to have a buffer zone. Buffer
zones between powers make for peace between the powers.
I think it is not too late for the US and Russia to use that approach.
It is true that Putin has corrupted and destroyed democracy in Russia
and runs a corrupt and repressive regime, but war is not the way to
deal with that.
It should be possible once again to agree with Russia on limiting
nuclear weapons; Russia was amenable before.
But it may be necessary now to include China in that system.
The confrontation with China is a more difficult problem. China is
rapidly expanding its military and is set on capturing Taiwan, but
unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan can't be captured except by war. I doubt
China would stop after that — successful conquest tends to inspire
more conquest.
We must not allow that, but what should we do to stop it? We want to
avoid having to fight that war, but one aspect of avoiding a war is,
as always, preparing to win it if it starts.
But that's not the only way to avoid a war, and increasing the size of
the armed forces is not the principal way to make a nation strong.
Nor is shooting the only form of war.
China has moved from preparations for economic warfare to overt
economic aggression. The US needs to stop China from agrandizing itself
this way.
That will be difficult, because China has been strengthening itself as
an economic power for decades, even as the US has perverted its
economy to weaken itself.
Poor, hungry, sick working people in debt for their education
do not make a country strong — or great, for that matter.
Private equity predators
and outsourcing
do not make productive industry. They are designed to make the rich richer.
It is paradoxical that in China, the state owns big business, whereas
in the US, big business owns the state — amusing because they sound
equivalent. They do have some things in common. Both lead to
making people suffer and denying them political power, for example.
But there is also a difference.
In China, the state reasserts control when necessary so that Chinese
businesses make the country stronger. By contrast, the US submits
when businesses impose policies that weaken the country. US
capitalists strip-mine the ground they and we stand on. China does
not allow its capitalists to do that.
The job we need Biden's economic team to do is more than just getting
out of a downturn. It includes curing structural inequality.
The wrecker is trying to take away Social Security disability payments
from hundreds of thousands of disabled Americans.
Right-wingers believe people who can't get enough money should suffer,
even die. They would like to eliminate all social security benefits.
But sometimes it is easier to reduce them step by step until nobody
considers them important any more.
*On Way Out the Door, Trump EPA Rejects Tightening Deadly Soot Pollution
Standards.*
Here's how they are working already to sell a world of total surveillance: every move you make will be controlled by the AI that runs
your "smart neighborhood".
Biden rejected Michèle Flournoy to head the Pentagon and instead named
a retired general, Lloyd Austin, who now works for the
military-industrial complex.
Australia is increasing the practice of punishing people without convicting them.
Confiscation without trial is frequent in the US. Vague suspicion
(usually related to drugs) is enough. For years we have campaigned
to eliminate this practice.
Punishment without trial is unjust regardless of what the alleged
crime might be. What's the hurry? Why can't they wait for a trial to
decide whether that man is guilty?
Aside from that, this is one of a number of reasons why criminalizing
the possession of some published work is a terrible threat to liberty.
Various countries have criminalized works on various criteria, but it
is dangerous regardless of the criteria. It provides an excuse to
search people's computers at any time. What's more, it is easy to
make someone guilty of this crime without per knowledge. It is common
for your computer to contain image files that you did not ask for and
never looked at. You may have a copy of a message even though you
deleted it unread.
Biden has taken different positions on climate defense. We need to
keep working to convince him to do more rather than less.
50 proposals for what he should do — many of which are clever and
surprised me.
*As World Teeters on Brink [of unstoppable climate disaster], Over 250
Scientists and Scholars Warn of Full-Fledged 'Societal Collapse'.*
Electric cars need lithium batteries, and mining lithium causes
environmental damage.
But it won't be as bad as global heating.
I wonder if hydrogen fuel, instead of batteries, would avoid this problem.
Texas thugs raided the home of an old black couple and trashed their
things.
They did it by mistake.
The man died a few weeks later, perhaps from the stress.
Why so cruel? Racism, perhaps.
HSBC is freezing the bank accounts of Hong Kong people and institutions
that gave support to the democracy movement.
Freezing people's accounts under the tyrannical laws of China is
serving tyranny. HSBC should reimburse those depositors with funds in
some other country.
HSBC can afford that cost, and should understand it as its punishment
for obeying China.
Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, bullied many residents into selling their
houses cheap for the nonexistent Foxconn factory.
Apparently the deal was constructed so that the town had to borrow a
lot of money to build new roads, and now that Foxconn isn't doing
anything, those roads are a stranded asset and the town won't get funds
to repay.
Deals for governments to pay a company "to create jobs" are swindles.
They should be entirely illegal.
Young organizers of the Labour Party, who supported Corbyn and are
very concerned about global heating, say that Labour under Starmer is
pulling back on its climate defense plans
(which were comparable to the Green New Deal).
This is a reflection of Starmer's rejection of Corbyn, who is the only
reason those voters ever supported Labour.
Anti-racist groups call on various product-rating organizations to stop
mentioning the Amazon Ring surveillance camera because it imposes
surveillance on the movements of people that may be persecuted for being
in neighborhoods where racists think they should not go.
I agree, but I insist that surveilling middle-class white males
is equally intolerable. And surveillance of dissidents, regardless
of their demographics, threatens the free society.
The Yes Men announced, on behalf of the Bank of England, that it would
refuse to buy bonds from fossil fuel companies.
Too bad it isn't really so.
Bravo to the Yes Men. Remember when they sent a participant to a
meeting of plutocratists to present a proposal to increase business
efficiency by converting workers into property of their employers?
Nobody was shocked by the idea.
"Centrists" are criticizing the wrecker for not putting the US ahead
of other countries in the queue for a second batch of doses of
Covid-19 vaccine.
Meanwhile, the wealthy countries generally are buying up the vaccine
production for next year, leaving the poor countries to wait till
2022.
Instead of letting the Pharma companies (and their servants, the
patent offices) set us against each other to squabble about which
country will get vaccines first, let's turn our criticism on the
system of monopolies that is limiting production and helping some
companies to gouge.
Why there should not be patents on drugs or anything in medicine.
*Biden Should Revive the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.*
The new district attorney of Los Angeles County will no longer seek
the death penalty, no longer try children as adults, no longer ask the court
to make a sentence longer.
In addition, the new DA will not ask for cash bail, except for violent or serious felonies. To this, the thug union had a completely
bullshit response.
The response presents us with a fantasy world in which (1) everyone
who gets bail was charged with shooting a gun and (2) making people
facing such charges pay bail is going to make them less dangerous.
It is bullshit because those are serious, violent felonies, so the DA's
no-bail policy does not apply to them at all.
*Citing 'Historic Abuse' of Judicial Process, Over 1,500 Attorneys Call for
Sanction of Trump Campaign's Legal Team* by state bar associations.
ALEC is lobbying Pennsylvania officials to disregard the voters and
give the state's electoral votes to the wrecker.
A Republican official in Texas is directly asking the Supreme Court to
make an arbitrary decision to give the election to the wrecker.
*The Great Reset is an attempt to create a plausible impression that
the huge winners in this system are on the verge of voluntarily
setting greed aside to get serious about solving the raging crises
that are radically destabilizing our world.*
I looked at the Great Reset web page and saw a long list of disparate
ideas, but I did not see anything clear to say what it was for.
I read one article that had been recommended and it didn't seem
to have a clear point.
So I spent no more time on it.
Indian farmers are on strike, demanding repeal of new farm laws that
are said to help corporations dominate farmers.
Kejriwal, the highest local official of Delhi was prevented by
national thugs from joining the protest.
I don't know any specifics about these laws, but his support suggests to me
that the farmers have good reason.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter ASAP to oppose the CASE Act,
which would set up a new court for quick and easy copyright repression against anyone who shares a copy of anything.
Please do NOT use their web service to make the call. Instead, call
202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 or 888-335-3588 and ask for your
representative.
Eritrean troops are fighting in Tigray against the TPLF and alongside
the Ethiopian army.
Eritrean is famous for forcing all most men into slave labor; as a result,
many Eritrean men flee into exile.
*Greenhouse gas emissions transforming the Arctic into 'an entirely different climate'.*
One common PFA chemical is associated with more severe cases of Covid-19.
Blacks tend to have more severe cases of Covid-19, on the average.
Blacks also tend to have greater exposure to many toxic pollutants.
It could be that blacks are more likely to have high levels of
PFBA and that this explains the greater severity they experience
on the average.
US citizens: call on Congress to include immediate payments for
individuals in the stimulus bill.
US citizens: call on the District of Columbia bar association's Office of
Disciplinary Counsel to investigate a Republican lawyer's call for violence.
Someone shot two children dead in a favela in Brazil.
Witnesses say the killer was a uniformed thug.
It is not surprising that the murdered children are black. 2/3 of
favela inhabitants are black. People live in favelas because they are
poor.
When Florida started covering up Covid-19 data, Rebekah Jones refused
to manipulate data and was fired. Since then she has been posting
honest data. Now state thugs have raided her home, pointing guns, and
seized her computers.
She says she will not give up.
Reference to past events.
Australia's proposals to increase surveillance powers are dangerous on
many points.
The spy agency argues against a clear, simple rule, "To spy on an
Australian in Australia, get a specific authorization," by citing edge
cases and asking to be able to spy in those cases without asking for
specific permission. The agency would stretch those edge cases wide;
we know they cannot be trusted not to.
I wonder how often those edge cases really occur. Ten times a year?
It would be no burden to ask for specific permission ten more times a
year. But if the agency gets an exception in can interpret on its own,
it could stretch that to cover thousands of cases a year.
Deregulation government spy agencies is as dangerous as deregulation in
business.
A journalist investigated the complex web of companies through which
data about his movements was collected via his phone and redistributed,
ultimately reaching the US deportation thugs.
He concludes that the GDPR are not, in practice, doing much to prevent
this sort of spying. Also that anonymization of the location dossier
does hardly any good.
He warns that this sort of data can be dangerous "in the wrong hands".
It is crucial to realize that there are no "right" hands. We must design
systems so that they can't be used to snoop on people.
If this makes targeted advertising impossible, great!
Congress may soon abolish the tax-dodge of anonymously owned companies.
Criticism of Gina Raimondo's center-right record as governor of Rhode
Island led her to decline a cabinet post as head of the Department of
Health and Human Services.
*Argentina Passes "Millionaire's Tax" to Fund Covid-19 Recovery.*
Iran says the US is using its money transfer sanctions to stop Iran
from buying Covid-19 vaccine sold under the auspices of WTO.
(satire) *Man Catches Himself Scrolling Social Media While He Supposed To Be
Masturbating.*
*Iran Sends Oil, Gas Flotilla to Venezuela. Will Trump Attack It to Sabotage
Biden?*
Senator Purdue failed to show up at his debate, perhaps afraid of
incriminating himself for insider stock trading.
For some years we had a law, the STOCK Act, that members of Congress
could not trade stocks based on information they got as part of their
duties.
Then they voted to repeal it.
Each one who voted to repeal it manifested an intention to be corrupt.
Xavier Becerra supports Medicare for All in principle, but has promised he
won't push for it if he becomes secretary of HHS.
Google fired AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru, who studies the
effects of AI systems, after she refused to retract a paper when
ordered to by management.
The paper draws negative conclusions about Google's textual
machine learning.
Google claims there are flaws in her paper, but criticizing a
scientist's research paper is a job for other scientists (mostly not
from the same company), not for per managers.
I support the three demands made in the letter that defends her.
It may well be that Google's working environment manifests
racism and sexism, which I disapprove of. But I don't think that
is what this wrong is about. I don't think that Google made this
demand because of her gender or her skin color.
Rather, it seems that Google is attempting to suppress the truth.
Iran has a penchant for accusing dual-nationals of spying, even the
unlikeliest of them.
*Racism literally ages Black Americans faster, according to our 25-year study.*
*Twitter accused of censoring Salil Tripathi, Indian critic of Hindu
nationalism.*
*A coalition of … civil rights, consumer advocacy, and labor
organizations is demanding that Congress [not give] corporations
immunity from coronavirus-related [liability lawsuits].*
Giuliani, who has tested positive for Covid-19, recklessly exposed Republican officials to Covid-19 in several states.
If some of them get sick, will it teach them to support wearing masks?
Water is now a Wall Street traded commodity. This is a sign of the extent
to which water supplies have been privatized.
I don't see that the commodity trading will directly hurt people, but
the privatization could mean that some people can't afford water to
drink.
*Slovakia's mass Covid testing cut infection rate by 60%, researchers say.*
People who tested positive were ordered to quarantine and their wages
were paid.
Let's do this in the US!
Nearly all Republicans in Congress claim that the wrecker won the
presidential election.
The wrecker made noises about about trying to find out who the few
exceptions are, as if he intended to punish them. Whether this was
a serious intention, or just trolling, will be seen.
*Georgia runoff debate: senator Kelly Loeffler refuses three times to accept
Biden victory.*
European countries have much better social aid systems than the US, but they
don't cover everyone and all kinds of work.
Because most of the US criminalizes sex work, sex workers have
suffered especially harshly from the pandemic. Recent increases in
repression have made it harder for them to find customers. We should
legalize sex work to help put an end to enslavement and trafficking of
sex workers.
The foreign policy advisers that Biden have chosen have a history
(under Obama) of trying to organize war against North Korea,
presuming an alliance with South Korea and Japan.
The idea of that alliance is absurd — and so is attacking a nuclear power.
The tyranny of the Kim dynasty is a great injustice, but we cannot eliminate
it militarily.
An official proposes to give UK community panels the power to monitor
possibly dangerous interactions of cops with citizens, through their
videos and documents.
This could be a great step forward in protecting people from thuggish
actions. It is good that looking at the videos will be limited to
certain situations where people could be hurt — not all the time
as thugs walk around.
However, we still need to stop the state from looking at the videos
made all the time.
Advertising companies churn out a series of neologisms. Their latest
ones are ridiculous.
But don't laugh too long — if they get you to use their terminology,
they are warping your own thoughts. And if the other people you know
start using those terms, they will pressure you to use them too.
That's why I've made lists of terms I urge people to reject:
Microsoft has made outlook.com block all emails from the site disroot.org
and refuses to give a reason.
I know nothing else about disroot.org. If there are any valid
complaints about it, I don't know what they are — but they are
irrelevant. Even valid complaints cannot justify "We block you and
won't say why."
I think that this is part of a tendency which results from the
disappearance of the university and corporate mail servers that many
people formerly used. This decrease in options has made the big email
companies powerful, and thus arrogant.
We should either regulate those companies strictly or break them up.
*UK students plan the largest rent strike in 40 years.*
Space business is growing rapidly — and polluting low Earth orbit
with unnecessary space junk that could ruin everything permanently.
We need governments to apply anti-pollution laws before they
ruin everything.
Inside the White House, the wrecker's officials humored him, pretending
that he had won the election.
Those who couldn't fake it kept away — while still refusing to
admit the truth.
*What the Green New Deal Can Learn from the New Deal,*
especially in regard to what individual US states can do.
* "In a society fully committed to democracy, Congress would use this
lame-duck period to impeach, convict, and disqualify Donald Trump from
pursuing public office in the future, as the Constitution allows."*
That is clearly true, but our society comes nowhere near that. To
remove the wrecker from office would would require the votes of
Republicans. Today's Republicans value the wrecker more than their
country; their commitment to truth is not enough to get them to
recognize the outcome of the election.
*'You Alone Can Save His Life': Edward Snowden Urges Trump to Pardon Julian Assange.*
The conman does not hate Assange the way most politicians do (or
pretend to do). He acts from interest or from whim, so he might do
this. One may as well ask.
* Fears over [Cuban] state curbs on live shows lead to hunger strike, arrests and
street standoff with government.*
Some progressive leaders state satisfaction with some of Biden's choices for
high officials.
Robert Reich: *Joe Biden's economic team beats Trump's goon squad —
but it faces a steep challenge.*
A proposal: allow members of the public to review thugs' body camera videos randomly.
I can see how this would do a lot of good, but it would also violate
the privacy of everyone that cops momentarily look at. We need to limit
what footage gets uploaded and saved, to make sure it includes violent
encounters, and does not include most other things.
The US claims that directed pulsed radio waves injured diplomats' brains
in Cuba and China.
It should not be hard to equip embassies, and diplomats' homes, with
detectors.
Interviews with Kashmiris that were arrested for tweets.
Some report torture.
When athletes on the playing field make a political statement, the
fans have a right to respond with their own opinions. That means they
have the right to cheer, or the right to boo.
If players stated their admiration of a right-wing extremist, would
you boo them? I would. Therefore I defend the right to boo. We must
defend the right of fans to express whatever views they wish to
express, within the limits of what is possible in the situation.
Here are some ideas about how to build understanding and support for
eliminating racism.
A crazed bar owner in Staten Island (the right-wing borough of New
York City) continued serving customers indoors although that was
forbidden. Cops arrested him for repeated violations, so he allegedly
drove his car into a sheriff's deputy, injuring per.
We can't be sure that a report from cops is true, but I expect that videos
will show for certain what he did.
*Poetry, the soul of Uighur culture, on verge of extinction in Xinjiang.*
Because China is extinguishing the poets.
The bully is eager to execute Lisa Montgomery before Biden gets a
chance to perhaps commute her sentence to imprisonment; but what
larger conclusions should we draw?
First of all, this reminds us that US trials are generally sloppy and
often unfair, for the whole range of crimes. Defendants who are
innocent usually plead guilty, because they have no hope of paying for
a proper defense.
Second, we see that the US system of public health is horribly
inadequate.
*Greta Thunberg Says Denmark's 30-Year Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Not Fast Enough.*
She's right, of course. We know from scientific modeling that we need
to get rid of most greenhouse emissions by 2030. Denmark's decision
to stop all exploration now is good; the rest of its plans are an
improvement but still not good enough.
*Because She Was Wrong About Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Libya,
Daniel Ellsberg Joins Campaign Against Flournoy.*
Massachusetts residents: call on Governor Baker to sign the thug department reform bill.
US citizens: call on your senators to pass a resolution to block the arms sale to the UAE.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588. If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to cancel all federal student debt.
(satire) *CDC Introduces New Expedited Quarantine Period Of 3-5
Business Days For $29.99.* Act quickly, limited quantities only!
One good thing about the military spending bill that Congress is
working on is that it would prohibit federal forces from
patrolling American cities without identifying themselves.
Another good thing, which is why the wrecker threatens to veto it, is that
it would require renaming of the US military bases named after traitors
who fought for the Confederacy and to prolong slavery.
What the bill fails to do is cut military spending and redirect
American productivity towards strengthening the American people
(providing food, shelter, education and medical care), and making US
industry less concentrated and thus more resilient.
Military strength is not the most crucial part of making a country
that is great and strong.
Even the downtrodden can fall into narrow-minded localism. This article
describes efforts by indigenous tribes in Minnesota to block a tar
sands pipeline whose only use would be to increase oil extraction and
hasten global climate disaster. But the article does not mention that
danger — only the possibility of polluting the local rivers.
Polluting additional rivers is bad, but civilization could survive
that. Civilization may not survive global heating disaster, and there
is no room in the world's climate budget for more oil extraction
anywhere in the world.
Whatever their motivation, I hope those tribes win their battle to
block the pipeline, but presenting this as a purely local problem will
fail to build awareness about the larger, global issue that threatens
every one of us.
Sanders opposes the bipartisan Covid-19 relief plan because it fails
to provide any immediate relief for Americans that need it.
Proposing a constitutional amendment to abolish forcing prisoners to
work for little or no pay.
This practice continues in some US states, and it is still an
incentive to put more people in prison. When you read about forced
labor in Xinjiang, China, keep in mind that the evil exists here too.
Consolidation of US hospitals and medicine into fewer, bigger
companies is causing big harm to US medical care, and Covid-19 makes
the effects plain.
Food-delivery platforms learn what customers order from restaurants,
then set up "ghost kitchens", phony "restaurants" that do only
delivery, to put restaurants out of business. Now the grocery chain
Kroger's is doing it too.
This could replace millions of not-very-good jobs with gig work for some
and unemployment for the rest.
Bangladesh is taking Rohingya refugees to a low-lying island where
they will drown sooner or later.
This is indeed inhumane, but calling it "short-sighted" presumes that
Bangladesh's government of the fate it is condemning them to. That is
impossible — flooding from storms and sea-level rise is a big concern
in Bangladesh, and hardly anyone can be unaware of it.
A little-known government department finally provided some useful data
about the children that the US separated from parents that can't be
found.
Searching for those refugee children's parents is a good thing to do,
but when the ACLU does this, it is mission creep. It should leave the
job of aiding refugee children to charities whose mission is to aid
children or aid refugees, and focus on its own mission: defending
human rights in the US. If the ACLU ceases to focus on its mission,
its mission will suffer, and that must not be!
Gina Raimondo did a lousy job of dealing with Covid-19 as governor of
Rhode Island: she cut spending instead of helping people get well or
not get sick. She should not be put in charge of the Department of
Health and Human Services.
Opposing Mary Nichols as head of the EPA, because in California she
was too ready to let businesses continue polluting the air where
poor people live.
(satire) *William Barr Celebrates Holidays By Giving Lethal Injections
To Those Less Fortunate.*
Adam Smith called for the owners of businesses to obey the moral rules
of their religions. Today governments must impose moral rules on
businesses.
*Corporations Paying Lawmakers to Outlaw Protest Is a Crime Against Democracy.*
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid that bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
an exception for articles which give important information, in this
case about an attack that threatens the human rights of all members of
my race — the human race — as part of a greater danger that
threatens the lives of all the young members of the human race.
Online stores manipulate people very effectively into spending and
regretting. Some people, with psychological problems, find it very
hard to resist this.
Setting up a national state marketplace site which does not get funded
by a share of what people pay would make it easy to fix this problem,
as well as many others. It could allow people to specify spending
limits for themselves, which the site would then enforce, even limits
on various categories of products.
It could have clear rules set by law and official regulation. It
could completely refuse to allow use of personal data for profiling.
Even better, the site could offer anonymous payment through Taler and
anonymous product pickup at post offices and elsewhere.
This system would eliminate the tax-dodging of Amazon and the lobbying
power of Amazon.
*DACA program must reopen for new applications, judge rules.*
It has taken years to finish stopping what the bully tried to do to these immigrants.
[pol note about when he started to damage DACA]
US courts have been systematically resistant to the conman's bogus claims
of voter fraud.
The fraud that does occur in US elections is voter suppression.
The Covid-19 "stimulus" package gives companies immunity from
liability if their workers die from Covid-19 in unsafe workplaces.
Shame on the plutocratist Democrats in the House who let this through.
Since the bill contains no immediate stimulus for working-class
Americans, maybe it would be better to do nothing for now, and see
what happens in the Georgia Senate runoffs on January 5. I wonder
whether plutocratist Democratic senators will push for his immunity
too.
A loophole in ethics rules for business consultants who are appointed
to government offices allows them to conceal which clients paid them.
The danger of the revolving door is that officials will pre-sell
corrupt decisions, so this loophole is exactly what corruption needs
to hide.
Prisoners in deportation prison say they were punished for requesting Covid-19 tests.
I believe them — it is in character for the sadists of the US
deportation thugs.
*Trump orders US to pull troops from Somalia.*
Even a megalomaniac liar occasionally does something good, even if his
reasons are not good one. This is one of those exceptions.
*Urging Tens of Billions in Emergency Aid, Top UN Officials Warn 2021 Set to
Be 'Catastrophic' for World's Poorest.*
*The Megamachine and the Roots of the Planetary Crisis.*
Millions of Indian farmers are protesting Modi's plutocratist farm policies.
*Sydney Mardi Gras members vote against banning police from 2021 parade.*
People in certain groups, some racial, some political, have real
reason to fear patrolling thugs. But cops walking in a parade are not
likely to attack anyone. Their floats are not tanks. The polarizing
move that was demanded would not have helped to stop the violence of
thugs; it would have vented hostility in a useless way.
It is much better to put that energy into campaigning to stop thugs'
violence.
Scientists have concluded that an antioxidant used in vehicle tires is
washing into the ocean and killing coho salmon.
Thugs in India often use torture to make accused people confess. Sometimes they kill people in jail. If the victim is a Dalit or in a
low cast, there is hardly any fuss.
*Denmark to end new oil and gas exploration in North Sea.*
This is an example of what the whole world must do. When a company
has found new reserves, it has made an investment towards extracting
them, and will fight to do so. Extracting them means death, so we
must fight to prevent that, and blocking the search is the easiest
chance to do so.
(satire) *Concerns About Nuclear Iran Grow After Periodic Table Poster Spotted In Tehran High School.*
Sri Lanka has ordered cremation of corpses of people that die from
Covid-19. Muslims and some Christians are outraged because their
religions forbid cremation.
The main question here is whether there is an objective medical need
to cremate those corpses. WHO says there isn't. If there is no need
for the requirement, Sri Lanka should drop it. Governments should let
people do as they wish when there is no need to interfere.
In general, when a requirement is medically important to protect the
living, religion is no excuse for disobeying it.
Classifying athletes by sex is causing boundary line problems again.
They should give each athlete an individual handicap and eliminate the
need for classifications.
AOC's "tax the rich" sweatshirt costs more because it is made by union workers
in the US.
*Congress Stalls on Stimulus Checks for Families While Corporations Continue
to Reap Millions from CARES Act.*
It is morphing into the SCARE Act.
After years of delay, the US is acting to protect endangered coral
species in US waters.
Local measures will not succeed unless the US curbs ocean acidification.
The US has blocked imports of cotton from Xinjiang on the grounds that
China is using forced labor to produce cotton there.
I support this decision, but it raises many ironies. I doubt that the
conman objects to forced labor; surely he has seized an excuse to hurt
China. I doubt the US will do much to punish Kazakhstan for forcing
children to pick cotton.
The reason I support this is that weakening China is very important.
We have seen that US world domination generates injustice.
Chinese world domination would lead to total subjugation.
(satire) *White House Dishwasher Not Sure Why Trump Keeps Offering Him Pardon.*
Climate activists propose cabinet officials who will defend the climate.
Proposing a path for Biden to work for peace between Palestine and Israel.
The Jewish Forward reproaches the plan to appoint an advocate of
ethnic cleansing to head Yad Vashem, Israel's holocaust memorial.
*Two-Thirds of Americans Favor Raising Taxes on Incomes Over $400K.*
*Google Illegally Surveilled, Interrogated, and Fired Workers Who Tried to
Organize, NLRB Says.*
Google used to have the slogan, "Don't be evil," but that was long ago.
The company has since reconciled with evil.
*New Data Shows Income of Top 0.1% [increased by factor of 4.4] While
That of Bottom 90% Stagnated, Over Past 40 Years.*
People have discovered that the Labour Party includes people who are
bigoted against Muslims.
(Note: the term "Islamophobia" is incorrect because it is a form of
bigotry, which is quite different from a phobia.)
Since prejudice against Muslims is widespread, it would be surprising
indeed not to find it in the Labour Party. It has also been observed
in the Tory Party. So why is the concern focused solely on the former?
Almost 200,000 voters in Georgia are suing to get back on the voter
list after being unjustly purged, supposedly for moving house (but
they had not in fact moved).
*The federal government owns 92 percent of all student debt owed in this
country. Canceling it could provide a huge stimulus.*
It is a mistake to see this primary as an issue concerning race. Like
many aspects of the US economy that make the poor struggle to live,
student debt weighs on the average more on blacks than on whites,
because racism tends to make blacks poorer on the average. But that
is a side issue. The burden of unpayable student debt should be lifted from Americans regardless of their demographic classification.
*Biden Is the Perfect Figurehead for the Post-Trump National Security
Establishment.*
The UN warns about the need for action to protect soils.
A restaurant now serves chicken burgers grown in a culture vat in its
kitchen.
*Republicans are standing up to Trump. Unfortunately, it's too little, too
late.*
We can admire them for turning and facing him when he attacks them,
rather than cringing and obeying, but don't let this erase memory of
all their previous wrongs.
Bats have other coronaviruses that can infect humans.
*Florida investigation finds governor misled public on Covid as cases rose.*
He promoted anti-mask fanaticism while covering up the number of cases.
Residents of Massachusetts: call on Governor Baker to sign the bill
relaxing some obstacles to abortion in Massachusetts.
UN human rights experts judge that France's new repression law, giving
thugs more power as well as immunity from criticism of their crimes,
is incompatible with human rights treaties.
The UK government demands that universities adopt the IHRA
"definition" of antisemitism or face punishment. *[It] is confusing
and divisive. Forcing its adoption will not help protect Jewish
students and staff.*
It turns out that this definition was not even meant to be a set of
rules. It was designed for classifying data for analysis.
I am sure the UK ministers are aware of the political side effect —
to forbid activism against the occupation of Palestine. I suspect
that this is the principal intent of the order, disguised conveniently
as a plan to fight bigotry.
The Democratic Party's blacklist on campaign operatives that worked for
progressive primary challenges seems to have backfired in an ironic way:
with losses in the November election.
Ellen Brown: The Federal Reserve has failed to boost the economy. It
lends to private banks, but they can't find very many businesses or
individuals who want loans and could pay them back. Public banks can
get away with a bigger risk level on each loan and still win through.
It seems to me that this is even more strongly an argument that we
need more direct stimulus payment to individuals.
Arab academics and writers condemn antisemitism, then point out the
distortion in the IRHA's definition for antisemitism and why that definition
must be rejected.
*San Francisco to ban tobacco smoking in apartments.*
Even if you live alone, you will be required to go out to the street
to smoke, to protect you from second-hand smoke. Even if you have mobility
problems and can't actually do it.
Tobacco is very dangerous, and it is important to encourage people to quit.
But this rule is extreme.
Hundreds more products that contain PFAs have been identified.
(satire) *Trump Reduced To Filing Lawsuit To Overturn Single Ballot In
Placerville, Idaho.*
American children are asking Santa Claus for things like beds and
wheelchairs.
Sad thing is, instead of a Santa Claus, there are only Republicans.
Australian banks are shutting the accounts of remittance companies
that send workers' money to countries that are considered
terrorism-connected, such as Somalia. And they do this even when the
government says the company is innocent of money laundering.
*ACLU Sues to Find Out How and Why Federal Agencies Are Accessing Americans'
Cell Phone Location Data.*
The US Secretary of Agriculture has a lot of power, but since decades
these officials have served the giant agribusinesses.
The US Senate is considering a new subsidy for nuclear power.
Only an enormous subsidy could make nuclear power viable, but a
smaller subsidy could be enough keep reactors operating and suck funds
from necessary development of renewable generation.
The government of New South Wales (Australia) held a consultation
about managing water in the biggest river basin. Officials planned in
advance how to prejudice the decision in favor of more irrigation and
against preserving ecosystems.
The UK's policy of giving no extra welfare payments for more than two
children is having a significant effect on how many children women have.
The article gives no information for determining how many births were
avoided this way.
It is very important for people to have fewer children.
However, this welfare policy is unjust, since it punishes
children. It can can stunt their physical and mental growth.
India has hundreds millions of paupers who can hardly get jobs they
can live on, and it is working very hard to make more of them, by
using robots to eliminate better jobs.
*Afghan government and Taliban agree on rules for peace talks.*
The author voices concern that the Taliban intend to take all of
Afghanistan after the US pulls out. I expect that. And I expect it
to impose a cruel, repressive theocracy. But that is less bad than
continuing the war for decade after decade.
*'A Kind of Terrorism': Israeli Human Rights Groups Offer Harrowing Look at
IDF Night Raids on Palestinian Homes.*
*Canada Is Now Paying the Price for Privatizing Its Vaccine Research and
Production Lab.*
The Georgia senate races are like Biden vs Trump: center-right
"moderate" Democrats on one side, vs extremist trumpery on the other.
I urge Georgia voters to vote for the Democrats, then publicly protest against
them for not being progressive.
* Only 1% of the 3,000 supposedly protected areas in the Mediterranean
ban fishing.*
*Goldman Sachs Log Exposes [Senator] David Perdue Stock Trading Claim as a Lie.*
*Insurance Companies Pressured To Not Support Oil Drilling in Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge.*
Now that the big US banks have said they will not finance it,
insurance companies are the next step.
Reporting on a pilot program to end rampant deforestation in a part of
Borneo by involving and benefiting the inhabitants.
The pilot program covers an area around 1/4 that of Rhode Island —
not large in absolute terms, but enough to prove something.
(satire) *Jeff Bezos announced the launch of new
e-commerce site Bezylon Tuesday to undercut Amazon.*
Residents of the UK: tell the Competition and Markets Authority that
it can make drivers more comfortable with electric cars by protecting
their privacy.
Please tell the agency that you want to be assured that (1) the
recharge station will collect absolutely no data from the car being
recharged — especially not which car it is — and (2) that drivers
will be able to pay with cash, anonymously.
You can say that electric cars must not bring with them an increase in
surveillance of the public, because the UK already has to much of
that.
Please spread the word to your friends, and post about the issue in
whatever social media or forums it fits in.
Hong Kong protest organizers have been sentenced to prison for the crime
of organizing protests.
*Photography campaign shows the grim aftermath of logging in Canada's
fragile forests.*
One of Biden's advisers, Cynthia Hogan, *worked as a lead lobbyist for
Apple as it helped push through President Donald Trump’s corporate tax
cut.*
If Democrats ever control Congress, we must press them to reverse that
tax cut, and some previous tax cuts. What use is a Democrat who chooses
to get advice from someone who wants to do the opposite?
G20 countries are giving lots of "coronavirus recovery" funding to
fossil fuel development.
$230 billion worth. All of it is worse than wasted.
Right-wing Hungarian politicians had a "gay orgy" after enacting laws
to deny rights to gays. They are now being attacked for hypocrisy
because of this conflict between their personal actions and their
politics.
They are indeed hypocritical, but it is a mistake to focus on that
contradiction, because it is a side issue and distracts from the
substantive issue. Would those laws be any less bad if these
politicians practiced what they preach? Not at all.
Their laws are the wrong, so let's focus on that.
*UN secretary general: humanity faces climate 'suicide' without US rejoining
Paris agreement.*
That statement is surely true. Avoiding suicide requires a lot
more than the Paris agreement, but can serve a sign of intent.
*Dozens test positive for Covid after [250-person] swingers convention
in New Orleans.*
To have a swinging meeting and avoid propagating Covid-19 must be
very difficult — best to postpone the meeting until it is safe.
Why Canada responded to atrocities by its "special forces" by
disbanding the unit.
Maybe they called that unit "special" as a euphemism for "bad behavioral
problems."
*Female trafficking survivors in UK forced into unsafe housing.*
*Barack Obama criticizes 'Defund the Police' slogan.
The key is deciding, do you want to actually get
something done, or do you want to feel good among the people you
already agree with?*
Ilhan Omar of
Minnesota said, *"defund the police" was not about mere words
but a "demand for equitable investments and budgets for communities
across the country."
Why see a conflict there? I think they are both right.
I support the substance of the campaign, articulated by Ilhan Omar. But
I agree with Obama that that particular slogan is a bad way to
campaign for it.
How about, "Replace the police"?
Piers Corbyn, the climate denialist and Covid-denialist brother of
Jeremy Corbyn, has been convicted for protesting in London.
People have a right to protest if they follow the precautions so as
not to transmit Covid-19. I cannot tell, from this article, whether
Piers Corbyn followed them or not.
As a denialist, he might well have disregarded those precautions, in
which case he deserves this conviction. But that raises the question,
what would they have done if he had followed the precautions?
Does the UK recognize the right to protest, subject to sanitary
precautions? Or does it prohibit all protest, in the name of sanitary
precautions?
The wrecker is now stirring up his cultists to commit violence against
Republican election officials that won't cheat for him.
*US justice department investigates alleged 'bribery for pardon' scheme.*
When states started to permit evictions, a big increase (a factor of
2) in Covid-19 infections followed.
*To End Impunity for 'Deliberate Destruction' of Planet, International Lawyers
Drafting Plan to Criminalize Ecocide.*
*GOP silence on Trump's false election claims recalls McCarthy era.*
US human rights defenders have sought help in their goal from the UN's
periodic human rights review.
With countries such as China in the UN Human Rights Council, I hope they won't
do to these reviews what the wrecker did to human rights and justice in the US.
14 countries, some of them important in fishing, have signed a treaty to
eliminate subsidies for fishing, and take other steps to use the ocean
sustainably.
Many important fishing countries, including China, Iceland, the UK and
the US, have not signed.
(satire) *Police Warn Onlookers Not To Enter Active Crime Scene Cover-Up.*
*Going "Back to Normal" Is Too Dangerous to Even Contemplate.*
The conman's latest con: raising funds to "combat election fraud"
which will instead go to other purposes.
Ohio is passing a law to let the state government promote construction
of "small" nuclear reactors.
These reactors are "small" only by comparison with the ones
constructed so far, but they will be an absurd waste of money now that
solar and wind power are so cheap. Furthermore, they will produce
radioactive waste just like all other kinds. And if global heating
leads to a much poorer civilization, no one will ever finish
decontaminating them; sooner or later, the waste will simply leak.
*Enablers now extol potential Cabinet picks who've
combined pushing for continuous war and hugely expensive new weapons
systems with getting rich as dealmakers for the military-industrial
complex.*
However, Biden's domestic policy choices are generally less completely
plutocratist than Obama's were.
US citizens: call on Congress to support diplomacy with Iran.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588. If you call, please spread the word!
*Break up UK's big high street banks, say cross-party MPs.*
I agree. Big banks, like other big companies, have too much power,
which they can use to exploit, or to lobby.
A leaked document indicates that China's reports on Covid-19 in the
first few months were understatements, but perhaps more the result of
bureaucratic rigidity than any plot to deceive.
*How restoring flood plains can help protect the climate.*
Queensland has made an ecocidal bet on increased coal and gas royalty
revenue, and it is losing the bet.
*'Catastrophic' bushfire on Queensland's Fraser Island threatens ecological
disaster.*
Australia needs support to stand against China's aggressive economic warfare.
The conflict started when Australia rejected Chinese mobile phone
base equipment with nonfree software inside, as a security threat.
In fact, all such equipment is a security threat. If Australia had
taken that position, it would be confronting the whole threat and
without singling out China.
*Trump’s border wall construction threatens survival of jaguars in the US.*
Climate mayhem will bring flooding. Affordable housing in New York,
Massachusetts, New Jersey and California will be especially vulnerable
to flooding.
An Australian senate committee is trying to investigate government cheating,
but can't get answers from the officials involved.
The Arecibo radio telescope collapsed completely.
China built a 500-meter fixed dish radio telescope in the past decade.
Meanwhile, the US can't keep one operating. It makes a sad contrast.
The causes are not practical. Rather, in the US all the money goes
to the plutocrats and the military.
And it's not just radio telescopes that the US lacks the money to do.
There are other things, even more important, which the US fails to do
— for instance, giving poor people a decent life.
Well, at least the US has saved some of the cost of demolition :-{.
Bogus Johnson plans to take another step in the long slow process of
transferring all political power in the UK to the hands of the prime minister.
The article gives the details of this step, but the overall process
is more important than the details of one step or another.
*Transport Unions Say Rahm Emanuel Leading DOT Would Be a "Betrayal".*
Will Biden reinstate Obama's reported decision not to prosecute
Assange for espionage?
Another question I wonder about: if indeed the US had no intention to
prosecute Assange for espionage during those years, did the US intend
to prosecute him in some other way? If so, what was it?
There were indications that the US did plan to prosecute him,
and that Sweden and the UK were fabricating excuses to get their hands
on him,
while Obama was president.
A bipartisan proposal might unlock Covid-19 relief funds in the Senate.
For the most part, this compromise has to be better than nothing.
However, one provision is potentially extremely harmful: shielding
businesses from liability for making workers work in conditions that
expose them to Covid-19.
This could enable businesses to get away with gratuitously increasing
the workers' risk.
*Wildflower meadows to line England's new roads in boost for biodiversity.*
Nice try, but it is far better to avoid building new roads
than to build them and put meadows alongside them.
Italy plans to charge five Egyptian government agents with the murder
of graduate student Giulio Regeni in Cairo.
Unsurprisingly, Egypt's repressive government says it has no idea who
was responsible for the murder.
Regeni's studies involved interviewing people that were on bad terms
with the state.
[pol note about this point]
Biden nominated Neera Tanden for head of the Office of Management and
Budget. She is the head of the "Center for American Progress", a
plutocratist think-tank.
We must expect plutocratist action from her.
*Monopolies have made America's Covid response worse.*
Lisbon has made use of the temporary end of tourism to convert many
temporary rentals into long-term low-price residences.
Australian soldiers' crime against an inanimate object arouses
incredible outrage — more so, it seems, than their crimes that hurt
human victims, including torture and murder.
That bespeaks a taboo-based morality, according to which taboos are
more important than people, so violating taboos is worse than killing
people.
I hereby affirm that, when I am dead, I will not mind at all if
someone takes some valueless part of my property and uses it as a cup.
Or even my bones. After all, I won't need them any more.
However, I have willed my body to science, so do let the lab have
first dibs.
Amnesty accuses Facebook and Youtube of helping Vietnam's political
censorship.
Some of the prostitutes in the UK are enslaved. How to put a stop to that?
This article avoids the frequent prudish assumptions. It notes the
existence of enslavement in the field of sex work but does not jump
irrationally to the conclusion that all prostitution must be stamped
out. So it confronts us with the challenge that really exists: to
put an end to enslavement of sex workers.
The general long-term solution, I believe, is to make sure nobody is
desperate enough to need to take a job offer that is too good to be
true. But that is an enormous global challenge.
Treating this like kidnaping or wage theft in any other field,
assuring women who might become prostitutes that they won't be
penalized for that but that registering could enable them to be
rescued, might help. Legalizing brothels provided they have
registered the owners and managers, and frequently inspecting the
operations of each one, might make it easier to find them, if the
penalty for running an unregistered brothel is years in prison.
*Amazon deforestation surges to 12-year high under Bolsonaro.*
Facebook agreed to a scheme to pay newspapers for using some of their articles
in a featured way.
While it is probably a good thing in a general sense for Facebook to
pay some money to newspapers, this will enable Facebook to gain
increased political influence while choosing which newspapers to
support and which to ignore. I suspect that it is a change for the
worse, overall.
One good thing about Biden: he advocates abolishing the death penalty
in the US.
He also wants to legalize marijuana and eliminate privatized prisons and
mandatory minimum sentences. I haven't checked every item in this
long list, but the ones I have looked at seem good.
The European court of human rights decided to hear a lawsuit by
young activists about the threat to their health and even their
lives from allowing so much fossil fuel combustion. 33 European
states must defend themselves from the claims.
Young people are the plaintiffs because they face the worst harm, if they
live out their present-day natural life spans.
A pilot project in the UK will switch homes over to burning renewably produced hydrogen rather than natural gas (mainly methane).
Four French thugs who cruelly attacked and injured a Parisian man
have been charged already, in less than one week.
On this score, France is miles above the US.
If you play Minecraft on an Xbox, can you tell me the
answer to these questions?
* Which version are you using?
* Does it force you to save your own worlds only on Microsoft
servers? Does it default to saving them on Microsoft servers?
* Can you play without without having anything to do with Microsoft
servers?
* Can you export your data from Microsoft servers and take them to
some other server?
* Can you play Minecraft solitaire without identifying yourself?
* Can you play Minecraft solitaire saving your data and worlds on a
server hosted by you?
* Can you play Minecraft solitaire without using any a server?
Regardless of the answers, Minecraft is nonfree software. I urge you
to switch to the free program Minetest and reclaim your freedom.
*Three-quarters of Australians back target of net zero by 2030, Guardian
Essential poll shows.*
This gives me hope that the planet-roasters that have ruled Australia
for many years
may start losing elections.
*Austin Fusion Center Spied on Nonpolitical Cultural Events.*
I think their spying on political events is already outrageous.
But there is no limit to the gatherings at which two would-be terrorists
might get to know each other, so they think they need to spy on everything.
*The Economy Isn’t Working. That's Exactly the Plan.*
*Protecting Indigenous Languages Is Protecting Biodiversity.*
Craig Murray is facing pressure to censor Alexa by stopping it from
quoting his criticism of Israel's occupation of Palestine. Supposedly
it represents antisemitism.
I do not support separating Scotland from the UK. The problems that
Scotland faces come from the plutocratist government of the UK, and
the right thing to do is fix that for the whole UK, not separate one
piece from it. Besides, what Murray says about the SNP shows that an
independent Scotland will tend to yield to plutocratist "normality".
There are also bad business-supremacy treaties that the UK has agreed
to, but an independent Scotland would surely yield to pressure to sign
the same treaties, so independence would do no good.
Dissident Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee has fled to Taiwan and
operates a book store there. He warns that we must do more to defend
Taiwan.
I think the US should recognize Taiwan and tell China, "We hope to
maintain diplomatic relations with China also."
Switzerland considered a law to hold Swiss companies responsible for
human rights and environmental crimes in other countries, but it
failed to win in a majority of the cantons.
One real benefit from the UK's departure from the EU: ending the
landowner subsidy.
100,000 people in Turkey are in jail facing charges of participating
in the coup attempt several years ago.
The coup attempt was real and violent, and it is legitimate to try the
people who participated in that. But it is impossible to have a
secret plan with 100,000 participants. Most of the people accused
must be innocent, one way or another.
The cost of decommissioning old nuclear power plants in the UK is
ballooning, and it is going much more slowly that expected.
This is partly because private companies are hired to do it and
their executives are too busy padding their expense accounts to focus
on doing the job.
Is the US handling this any better?
Planning to take 80 years, or even 40 years, to clean up a deactivated
nuclear power plant is totally unrealistic if we do not stop global
heating much sooner than that. After 40 years of unchecked global
heating, neither the money nor the expertise will be available, as
climate disaster will cause enormous problems (such as hunger) that
will have to take priority. By 2080 I expect the technology needed
will no longer be available, and warlords/kingpins may be fighting.
Eventually the ocean will take many of the sites.
In a million years, the radioactive atoms will have mostly decayed and
the results will be much less dangerous than they are now. The same
may not be true for persistent chemicals such as neonicotinoids and PFAs.
What the UK needs to do is cancel the construction of Hinkley Point C,
never mind the sunk costs, and give highest priority to cutting
greenhouse gas levels.
China is working very hard to convince people that Sars-CoV-2 did not
originate in China.
It is foolish to politicize the place of origin of the virus.
This campaign by China is foolish, just as the bullshitter's castigation
of China because the virus originated there is foolish.
What China did wrong was to deny for a time that it had detected
Sars-CoV-2. But that did not last very long. Many other countries
have done much worse things in dealing with Covid-91, including the
US.
The UK covers up and disguises sales of arms to repressive states.
Ethiopia's army captured the capital of Tigray with hardly any
resistance.
I think that means Tigray's forces are switching to guerrilla
tactics. This involves melting away when attacked by a large force,
then making small concentrations to attack even smaller units.
Biden's team will find wreckage in many federal agencies.
They should report what they find.
When the Tories reorganized welfare benefits, they put in an arbitrary
maximum limit which is independent of how much a family needs. Now
some families need more money to cope with the consequences of
Covid-19, and they are supposed to be offered more — but they don't
actually receive it because the limit kicks in.
Does protecting endangered ecosystems require a park that excludes humans?
Or can indigenous humans help protect them?
I suspect that it depends on the economic pressures on the humans and
whether their lifeways and population are stable. In other words, it
may be possible for the humans to coexist with the endangered
ecosystems, but that doesn't mean it will happen automatically
regardless. We may have to help.
Around the world, for around a hundred years, fascist rulers and
would-be rulers have been paying close attention to each others'
techniques.
Tory politicians can break promises, lie, commit crimes, even engage
in systematic corruption, and no one can do anything about it. Much
like the conman, they can use their power to crush whoever might try.
London thugs arrested people arriving in London by train with equipment for
protesting.
It is legitimate to prohibit people from meeting in public and
transmitting Covid-19. It is not legitimate to prohibit protests.
Can you see how to reconcile these two principles? Of course you can;
why can't the British government?
* The bad news [from Biden] for progressives is that there has not yet been a single
person announced for an official post that the left can be enthusiastic
about.*
France is passing laws that criminalize protests and prohibit posting
images of thugs if one can see who they are. This prohibits, in
particular, live-streaming of their violent actions.
None of this has is a cure for the disease of Islamist terrorism,
but even if it were a cure, it would be worse than the disease.
Thousands protested against the restrictions on press freedom.
Prohibiting home-schooling is repressive, too.
A virtual book club in Taiwan invites people to participate using
encryption via Jitsi, so Hong Kongers can join.
The WHO thinks that Covid-19 may have undone 20 years of progress
in eliminating tuberculosis and malaria.
21 months in prison for throwing eggs at a Hong Kong thug building, on
the grounds that it manifested an unfriendly attitude towards the
state.
NPR insultingly equated Stacey Abrams's truthful complaint of election
rigging with the bullshitter's lie.
It is true that both candidates had the right to demand a recount.
But the two are not morally comparable.
(satire) *Satan Offering Black Friday Deal To Trade Only 50% Of Soul
For Lifetime Of Riches.*
(satire) *South Dakota Unveils New ‘Come Die Here’ Tourism Campaign.*
Leaked 2019 documents detail how Amazon spies on environmentalists and
workers' organizing.
This includes using predictive policing to infiltrate possible union
hot-spots and smear or harass employees who are liable to speak up
about those issues.
Advertising pumps up many forms of consumption that endanger
civilization's survival, both specifically and in a deeper general
way by convincing people to value purchases more than spending
time with people.
Since in general advertising is manipulative, misleading and annoying,
there is no reason to hesitate to reduce the amount of it.
US businesses are moving rapidly to replace human restaurant and hotel
workers with robots.
This means that today's massive unemployment will not go away when
Covid-19 does. Only socialist measures to support the unemployable can
avoid making them homeless and hungry.
One way we can fight back is by refusing to use self-checkout sales
machines. You can shout out, as I do, "Millions of Americans are out
of work. Let's not let them replace humans with robots!"
Bruce Reed, who encouraged and helped Bill Clinton to inflict more suffering
on the poor, is now being considered by Biden for a White House position
where he would have plenty of influence to do more of the same.
Biden proudly announced that he considers the number of
progressives he has chosen for his administration significant.
That is an exaggeration, but more important is the concentration of
center-right plutocratist or militarist Democrats he has already chosen
or is considering.
Some San Francisco thugs celebrated when a former thug murdered Mayor
Moscone and Harvey Milk.
A substantial number of people in the US are avoiding having children
so as not to condemn them to climate mayhem. Some regret having had
children.
The survey did not seek a representative sample, so no conclusions can be
drawn about how many people feel this way, but this is an important change.
Once you've avoided having children, your income will allow you to good
for the world without getting paid for it. Make sure not to waste this.
The new leaders of Labour have chosen an authoritarian approach to the
millions of Labour Party members who still support Corbyn: they are
forbidden to talk about the subject.
It is not unusual to suppress discussion by stretching the definition
of antisemitism, but this is the biggest stretch I have ever seen.
We cannot act effectively against real antisemitism if we mislabel
everything we dislike as "antisemitism".
*Analysis: shooting of [Iranian nuclear scientist] Mohsen Fakhrizadeh
will do more harm to diplomacy than it does to Iran’s nuclear
programme.*
The theory that Israel carried out the attack, and the wrecker approved it,
seems valid to me. If Biden does not punish Israel for trying to push
the US and Iran into war, he will show himself to be a weakling.
The wrecker is asking the Supreme Court, which he has stacked,
to change the Pennsylvania election results
on the fictitious grounds of fraud that did not happen.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the MORE act, which would
legalize using marijuana.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
Israeli draft refuser Hallel Rabin thanks people for messages of support.
Selling carbon offsets for carbon storage in farmland is a scam:
it is not practical to measure how much carbon is really stored,
and it could all be released at any moment.
The saboteur in chief made an executive order to allow agencies to
remove civil service protection from employment positions at will.
They could fire, or threaten to fire, anyone who won't lie when
ordered to.
Scotland is keeping its schools' windows open for ventilation, which
makes them so cold that students have to wear coats and warm clothes
all day. Unfortunately, many families can't afford to buy those
clothes.
Israel's almost trumpish treatment of asylum seekers.
Gush Shalom: Israel should allow heroic whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu
to go to Norway to live.
What Biden must do to have a chance of moving towards peace between
Israel and Palestine.
The wrecker has removed many experienced advisors from the Defense
Policy Board.
Why bother to do this, when Biden could reappoint them in two months?
I fear it is so that he will not have to hear them try to be polite
while explaining to him that bombing Iran would lead to disaster.
The Supreme Court ruled that local laws for curbing the spread of
Covid-19 cannot restrict religious organizations more strictly than
other, secular organizations. Based on that, it ruled New York State's
restrictions on religious meetings unconstitutional.
The general policy seems legitimate to me. Although I don't respect
the idea of faith, I believe in respecting people's right to practice
their religions. This general decision is not the disaster some are
painting it as.
However, the right-wing Supreme Court justices strained the facts
badly to reach the conclusion that New York State's restrictions
restrict churches more than secular establishments. The secular
establishments that would have large numbers of people attend in a
long session are closed entirely; churches are allowed to open.
I think New York State could redraft the restrictions so that they
explicitly apply the same criteria to various kinds of establishments
and result, in practice, in rules equivalent to the present ones.
Maybe then the court would have to accept it — or else reveal that it
is trifling with its duty.
Arguing that giant quasi-monopolies are systematically capable of
crushing unions, at least under current US labor law.
Textbook companies in the US are using various dirty tricks to stop
college students from buying used textbooks and saving money. This
includes corrupting professors with bribes that carry big labels
saying "This is not a bribe."
But it also includes other trickery, such as making textbooks change
in trivial ways from year to year or from school to school. And, of course,
making students subscribe to access to an unjust ebook, which typically has
all the injustices of other commercial ebooks.
When people talk about "open educational resources," or "open"
textbooks that are "free to download," we cannot tell right away
whether they are free/libre or not. That's because the definition of
that term accepts some nonfree licenses.
But I think these "open" textbooks are in fact free/libre. The law
that funds their development requires a license like CC-BY, and they
are developed by an organization called LibreTexts which seems to
recommend only free software tools.
However, cannot verify this. I was unable to find anything on
libretexts.org which spoke about the licensing of their textbooks.
The front page talks about the practical benefits, the things naive
people would appreciate, but says nothing about freedom.
Perhaps there is information present which I could not find. Some of
the home page's navigation does not work without running some nonfree
JS code. I will ask them.
Some WiFi hubs have back doors which can control not only the router
but devices connected to it.
From the details in the article, I think the back door is in the
router's administrative web server, so it would have nothing to do
with the specific physical platform or where that was made.
The people who found the back door present arguments that it was
made intentionally.
There are hubs that run free software. That gives the community a way
to try to check for, and get rid of, malicious functionality like this.
The Tories are setting up a fund for investment in reducing greenhouse
gas emissions, just three years after they eliminated the old one.
I think that was when Cameron was prime minister. Under his
government, the Tories had an ideological policy of gradually
eliminating investment in reducing global heating, even as as they
pushed fracking.
Apparently, they considered maximizing fossil fuel a priority
comparable to reducing the income of poor people.
Virus-denialists in Arizona are delighted to hold an interstate soccer
tournament with reportedly 500 teams, which would imply thousands of
players.
Some of these benighted fools are so stubbornly loyal to the wrecker's
lies that they adamantly deny the reality of Covid until their last
words as they are dying of it. Why not bring together thousands of
people for a kilospreader event?
The matches will be played outdoors, I expect, which reduces the danger
of them. But unless those teams practice firm discipline, players
will catch Covid-19 from teammates and locals. It would be a small
number compared with the almost 200,000 persons per day that are
getting infected in the US, but every little bit hurts.
Sicily asked Cuba to send doctors.
This year is a La Niña year, which makes Australia cooler, but global
heating is stronger and could damage the Great Barrier Reef
nonetheless.
Republicans are trying to continue the civil war, from the Confederate
side.
*More than 3 billion people affected by water shortages, data shows.*
That is almost half current the human population. I wonder how much
of human population growth is in areas with water shortages.
I suspect it is more than half.
Thugs in Paris attacked a man who was walking to his office without a
mask, and beat him bloody. Then they made false accusations against
him.
Did they do this because he did not wear a mask? Or did they do this
because he was black? I suppose it was the latter, since they called
him racist insults too.
It was right for them to take quick action on seeing a person outside
without a mask on. But the proper action was to give him a mask to
put on immediately, and fine him. Perhaps arrest him if it was a
repeat offense. Not to invade his studio and attack him and others.
I am glad to see that the authorities are not delaying the pursuit of
these thugs. In the US it typically takes mass protests, over time,
to get that far.
Article 24, which puts people in jeopardy if they expose thugs for
their crimes, is very dangerous for human rights in France.
*EU to ban use of lead shot by wetland bird hunters.*
Lead is toxic to animals, just as to humans. It is good to stop
putting lead into the environment.
*Climate crisis making autumn leaves fall earlier, study finds.*
Scientists had predicted that, with a longer growing season, trees
would store more carbon Instead, they drop their leaves
once they have stored enough energy to be ready for winter.
This means that predictions for how much carbon forests will store
must be adjusted down, and predictions for disaster must be adjusted up.
The corrupter has pardoned his former agent, Michael Flynn, who was convicted for lying to the FBI about what he did for the corrupter.
This is a corrupt practice. I think we need to limit the president's
power to pardon so that presidents cannot do this in the future.
Noam Chomsky: *Trump Has Revealed the Extreme Fragility of American Democracy.*
A call to break up the three principal US fund managers: BlackRock,
Vanguard and State Street.
Us citizens: call on the New Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: tell Biden not to put anyone in the OMB that prioritizes
reducing the deficit.
A depression requires deficit spending.
Retail workers, called "heroes" by stingy employers, demand a raise
in proportion to their employers' rising profits.
Immigrant rights defenders welcome Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden's choice
to head the Department of Harshness and Sadism.
If we are really fortunate, we will have to call the department some
other name.
Egyptian freedom activist Alaa Abd El Fattah was imprisoned again
a year ago because of protests that he did not participate in.
He is now on hunger strike.
Copyright on recorded music nominally exists to benefit musicians, but
streaming dis-services are redefining that benefit towards zero.
Meanwhile, the enforcement of copyright is getting nastier as the
web is filled with W3C-endorsed DRM that we can't break.
Exxon's plans, from leaked internal documents, include increasing the
extraction of fossil fuel.
In other words, the company is planning gigadeaths.
(satire) * President-elect Joe Biden confirmed Wednesday that he had received his
first box of wadded-up napkins and greasy receipts comprising President
Trump’s intelligence briefing.*
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected the proposed Pebble Mine.
This is a victory for wildlife and human life, but it isn't
necessarily final. Moneyed interests can sue and appeal over and
over.
The EPA reports that that 1,676 endangered species are
likely to be harmed by glyphosate.
Senator Wyden told Biden not to nominate Mike Morell to head the CIA.
Much like the wrecker's appointed head, Gina Haspel, Morell is associated with
defending CIA torture.
Seattle has cut its thug department's budget by 18%.
It is important for the 9-1-1 response team to be outside the thug
department, so that it will not have a default tendency to send a team
of thugs when it gets a call saying that someone is in crisis and
needs help. The presence of guns and gunmen can lead to shootings.
The wrecker followed a pattern set by Dubya: blatant disregard for
thoughtful consideration of major dangers and decisions.
*[UK] immigration officials have been accused of using coercive tactics to
gain access to people’s homes and businesses without search warrants.*
Mnuchin's final act of sabotage: lock away 450 billion in Covid-19 aid
so that Biden would need congressional permission to spend it.
The obvious response for a president who really wants to aid Americans
is to use this, and the general issue of aid, to make Republicans
scream, and to campaign for the Jan 5 Georgia Senate run-offs.
I predict that Biden will do this at most half-heartedly.
*Economists Call for $3 Trillion Covid Relief Package
to Stop Nation's Descent Into Ruin.*
I wonder if the platinum-coin hack
might make enable Biden to bypass
the senate's objections to helping Americans. But I have a feeling
he would rather moan about being blocked, than overcome the blockage.
George Monbiot contends that taking the UK out of the EU is a scheme
for the "warlord" capitalists (who despise regulation and democracy
both) to rip up the "housetrained" capitalists who have prospered
together with those.
The warlords like to say that "freedom" means that they can use their
wealth to do whatever they like, even decree penury or death for
millions of people; that nothing stands in their way. Their
supporters, the antisocialists, call themselves "libertarians", but
they do not deserve that name.
There is no need to worry about catching Covid-19 from paper money.
It is theoretically possible, but many factors combine to make it an
insignificant risk. You don't need to surrender your anonymity out of
fear.
In the US, poverty brings spreading hunger.
Berlin has instituted strict rent control as rents were soaring.
The usual way to avoid discouraging new construction is to exempt
it from rent control. The article seems to expect Berlin instead
to construct lots of public housing.
The UK has seen an enormous increase in domestic violence, and it started
before the pandemic.
*Iranian president upbeat about relations with Biden-led US.*
I am optimistic too. The US has done many unjust things to Iran,
including engineering a coup against Mossadegh's elected government in
1954, and supporting the Shah's torture regime for decades after.
Then there was supporting Iraq in invading Iran in the 1980s,
and grueling sanctions in this century.
Iran has done some nasty things to the US, such as taking hostages in
1980 supporting the Lebanese hostage takers later that decade. But
all in all Iran has suffered more in this exchange than the US.
(Iran's government has often behaved repressively in Iran, but that
doesn't come into this comparison.)
If Iran can forgive, the US should be able to forgive.
The cruel UK "hostile environment" policy of making unauthorized
immigrants (and even those suing to claim they are authorized) into
paupers has been ruled a violation of immigration law.
*Victoria's electric vehicle tax could reduce clean car use by 25% [in
2050], researcher says.*
The idea that petroleum-burning cars will still be sold in 2050
shows the total inadequacy of Australia's climate plans, and the absurd
idea of this tax reflects the fundamental unwillingness to do what is
needed.
French thugs broke up a refugees camp in an important square in Paris,
and in the process attacked people with violence that outraged
the minister in charge of police.
Bertelsmann, which includes one of the major recorded music empires,
is buying publishing companies and will soon control 1/3 of the US
book market.
In addition to the usual dangers of too few competitors with too much
power and lobbying strength, concentration in book publishing
facilitates censorship by bullying. Here's an example.
I don't need to agree with Peterson's book, or know what views it
advocates, to consider it dangerous to a free society for bullies to
be able to prevent the publication of a book because they don't like
it.
No company should be allowed to have even 10% of the book publishing
market. Or the book sales market (down with Amazon!). Perhaps 5% is
the bigger than we should tolerate.
US citizens: call on the FCC not to bend rules for Faux News and the
Murdoch family.
Loujain al-Hathloul, who campaigned in Salafi Arabia for women's right
to drive and has been jailed almost three years, now faces some sort of
charges of terrorism.
It turns out to be difficult to avoid buying soybeans grown on
deforested land.
I think the demand for soybeans is so high that any beans that are
grown will be bought by someone.
The demand for soybeans is high because people are eating so much
meat. Indeed, a large fraction of Americans eat so much meat that it
is dangerous for their health. It also fuels global heating, through
cattle-generated methane as well as through deforestation. Perhaps the real
solution is to tax meat so much that people won't eat so much meat.
The conman's "infrastructure program" was meant as a give-away to business,
but the US really does need to build and maintain its infrastructure.
It should do so in a way that protects the environment and reduces global heating.
How Taiwan deals with the danger of misinformation and disinformation.
Ethiopia claims that informally organized gangs of Tigrayans massacred
hundreds of local residents belonging to other Ethiopian ethnic groups.
It also says that other local Tigrayans protected their neighbors
from the massacre.
*[Boston's official thugs] whom the department found had stolen,
committed fraud, attacked co-workers, or drew guns on their colleagues
were allowed to quietly resign or retire without facing charges.
[Thugs] who attacked family members, threatened civilians, and
drunkenly crashed their cars remain on the force today.* In addition,
[thugs] that were prosecuted for theft, and for lying to officials, got
off easy.
If you think that, because you are a cop, you should not be punished
for crimes, that means you are a thug, and a would-be police
department needs you gone.
*Following Outcry, US Government Halts Deportations of Women Who
Allege Medical Abuse in [deportation prison] — At Least for Now.*
Republicans may be setting up a permanent big-lie campaign that will
claim that Biden stole the election.
As far as I know, the wrecker is not obsessed with eliminating any
particular demographic group. This year he adopted a plan that would
bring about the death of many blacks and Hispanics, but only
instrumentally. However, aside from that, he is as evil as a Nazi.
*Defenders of US Public Schools Call on Biden to Ditch Trump's Disastrous
Education Policies — and Obama's Too.*
I agree with those goals, including the goal of diversity among
students in public schools. Diversity in class contributes to
education in a specific way: it can help students get used to knowing
and relating to people of different backgrounds.
Alas, I don't see much hope Biden will choose to do anything better
than Obama did it.
(satire) *Staff Slowly Introducing Biden To Oval-Shaped Rooms For
Smoother Transition To White House.*
It has been proved that the London apartment building fire was caused
by companies that knowingly disregarded building standards to made the
building a firetrap. What follows from that?
I am sure people can think of more effective regulatory systems.
The reason they are not in place in the UK is that the government
has catered too much to business. Corbyn would have fixed that.
But I have two other recommendations that may shock the people
who expect that business will always be above human beings.
Bernie Sanders: *How do we avoid future authoritarians? Winning back
the working class is key.*
Sanders asks the Democrats, "Which side are you on?" We must all ask
each Democrat that question.
Sanders for President in 2024!
Qatar's thugs strip-searched passengers searching for the mother of an
abandoned baby. It appears that the mother had flown out already, and
that she was compelled to abandon the baby and flee, lest she be
punished severely for sex outside of marriage.
But they seem to have found her and will now charge her with attempted
murder.
You do not want to be in Qatar.
Lawyers that make false claims of electoral fraud in court are violating
the standards of the court and should be punished.
*Australia's entire SAS regiment must be disbanded after Brereton report,
expert says.*
This is the report about their murder of prisoners.
Singapore's strict repression is showing, as Jolovan Wham is facing
criminal charges for a one-person "assembly".
The "assembly" lasted a few seconds during which he took a photo.
If one person can be an "assembly", then I must be assembling every minute
even when I am home by myself. And you, too.
Administering the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is a difficult logistical challenge in the US, especially because of inadequate funding for
public health.
Two "security" guards in Brazil beat a black man to death.
One of them punched him while the other held him in place.
DeJoy, before becoming head of the USPS, had a business, and made a
practice of laundering campaign contributions through the employees.
That is illegal. Will DeJoy be prosecuted?
The UK invites volunteers to help take care of asylum seekers
imprisoned in a privatized old military base, and threatens to
imprison the volunteers if they describe the resistance of the asylum seekers.
This is said to include hunger strikes and suicide attempts.
*The pernicious and lucrative aspects of military madness are personified in the favorite to be Biden’s Defense Secretary,* Michele Flournoy.
*The militarization of American society and the
"thank-you-for-your-service" fetishization of American soldiers will
continue to thrive.*
Americans who join the US military typically wish to serve their
country. There are scenarios in which they might be called upon to do
that. But what they are more often ordered to do is wreak suffering
on some other country.
Rather than passing the buck to an imaginary deity to "protect our
troops," the president ought to make sure not to endanger them for bad
reasons.
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Biden to do better than Obama did in respecting freedom of the press.
Georgia's Republican officials propose to block new voters from
registering before the Jan 5 runoff elections unless they have
registered a car in Georgia.
(satire) *Coronavirus Optimistic New Mutation Will Be Widely Available
To Public By Early Spring.*
The US should stop supporting Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara.
Biden has chosen a secretary of state who helped convince him to support
the conquest of Iraq.
*Peace Groups Blast Biden's [head of US intelligence services] Pick
[Avril Haines] Over Links to Drones, Torture, and Mass Surveillance.*
Warlike "centrist" Democrats think she's great. No wonder she
supported the nomination of fellow torture-advocate Haspel to head the
CIA. According to Wikipedia, she decided not to punish the CIA agents
who had been caught cracking Senate computers to spy on senators.
Some of them seem to think she is a good choice because of her gender
or reported hispanic ethnicity. Her Wikipedia page gives no sign of
hispanic roots; perhaps they are distant. Surely those Democrats
don't think that she would refrain from engineering coups in Latin
America on their account. Or do they think they will encourage her to
do so?
*High Drug Prices Could Result in Premature Deaths of More Than 1.1 Million
Seniors [in the US] in Next Decade.*
*Fossil fuel companies received $110 billion in
direct and indirect financial assistance during the coronavirus
pandemic* — so far.
*Myanmar's genocide against Rohingya not over, says rights group.*
Food delivery bike-riders in Australia are not only stuck with
precarious work and low pay. They are also getting killed in
collisions with bigger vehicles.
I wonder if their low pay compels them to work when they are too tired
to avoid the trucks.
*New York swingers club shut down for breaking coronavirus restrictions.*
I'm in favor of sex clubs, but only so long as they take care not to
spread disease. If that is not feasible, they must close for now.
*UK government to subsidise onshore renewable energy projects.*
The UK did this 10 years ago. Then the previous Tory leaders created
excuses to obstruct land-based wind power projects. It authorized the
slightest bit of local opposition to block a wind farm, while making
it impossible for local people to block fracking.
To stop blocking land-based wind power projects is a step forward.
The GSA recognized Biden as "apparent" president elect and will start
transition planning.
However, the wrecker will not stop trying to corrupt Republican
legislators, despite having been thwarted in Michigan.
Salafi Arabia tortured Mohammed Al Faraj into confessing to several
political crimes, and plans to execute him for those. Two injustices
right there! But the world is focusing on the detail of whether he
was 9 years old or 10 years old at the time of the first supposed
crime.
* Drop in emissions this year is a ‘tiny blip’ in buildup of greenhouse
gases, UN agency says.*
It is worrisome that Biden might consider appointing Ernest Moniz to
any job that relates to energy or pollution. He lobbied for gas
companies even as he was Obama's energy secretary.
US citizens: call on the next Attorney General to investigate voter
suppression, vote tampering and intimidation.
Netanyahu the corrupt met secretly with Pompeo
the fanatic
and Crown Prince Bone Saw.
I would suppose they were planning to attack Iran — than is the desire they
have in common.
*Extinction Rebellion [UK] launches campaign of financial disobedience.*
This includes debt and tax strikes.
*The left is accused of authoritarianism — but it's the right that
gets away with it.*
A survey of major investment funds finds they are planning to invest
heavily in renewable energy but continue investing (infesting?) too much
in fossil fuels.
A covidiot has been charged with assault for breathing on protesters
with the idea that he might infect them with Covid-19.
I believe it is well-established that intentionally transmitting a
dangerous disease to others is a crime. It certainly deserves to be.
The UK wrongly confiscated Ken Morgan's passport in 1994 after an
intended brief visit to Jamaica, which forced him to stay in Jamaica
until 2018. In that year he applied for UK citizenship, but it was
denied because he had been away from the UK for so many years.
The fact that officials could make this decision shows the wrong premises
with which they approach such decision in general.
By the way, this is an example of a mistake that Joseph Heller has
pointed out: people apply the term "Catch 22" incorrectly to other
situations. What officials did to Morgan was unjust, but does not
have the unique special structure of Catch 22.
Over a period of decades, Norway has designed its economic rules to
consider human beings important.
Many Americans are unable even to make a dent in their college loan
debts. Of those who borrowed in 2009, over a quarter owe more now
than they did at the start.
Eventually the lender concludes the loan is uncollectible and forgives
it, but this counts as taxable income, which is taxed at a substantial
rate and the poor victim can't possibly pay it.
The tax debt must be smaller than the school debt. It might also be
easier to eliminate via bankruptcy, though I don't know.
The lender could reduce the resulting tax debt greatly by forgiving
the debt a little every year — as if it were being repaid — because
that way it would not put the borrower into a high tax bracket.
But I wouldn't assume they care enough to do that.
In the past decade, several government reports have described what
must be done to reduce the effects of systemic racism in the UK, but
the recommendations have not been implemented and the problem keeps
getting worse.
California state senator Wiener will campaign to decriminalize
psychedelics in that state.
We saw in Vietnam how much harm is caused by fighting a war on drugs.
Let's not have one in the US.
Churches in England are holding large meetings secretly.
This is very dangerous. Large religious gatherings have has caused
important Covid-19 outbreaks in South Korea and elsewhere.
People interviewed claim that worship is "essential". That is clearly
not so in general; many of us do without it. But if you feel a need
to worship, you don't need to do it in a large gathering. You can
worship individually with no risk of spreading disease.
Indeed, many pious hermits worshiped in solitude for years at a time.
In El Paso, so many people are dying from Covid-19 that the morgues
are overflowing and the regular personnel can't cope.
They have to limit the CPR for each sick patient because the ICU staff
can't cope either.
These are the predictable consequences of the spreader's policies
and he is directly responsible for these deaths.
If he had not adopted intentional spreading of the disease,
most of them would never have caught Covid-19.
The United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, and
Australia oppose the push for the WTO to waive patent restrictions and
allow all countries to make and use Covid-19 vaccines without paying
for the privilege.
It is worth reminding people that the WTO is the reason why most
countries allow medicines to be patented. That was a scheme to enrich
big pharma companies at the expense of people who can't afford
monopolistic prices for drugs. This system represents a decision to
kill millions of people, and is one of the reasons why we ought to
abolish the WTO.
Covid-19 vaccine developers are keeping the techniques of making them
secret and have the gall to criticize people for trying to get those
secrets.
This information should be made available to every would-be vaccine
manufacturer.
Both of these articles used the misleading term "intellectual property."
The first uses it to mean patents. The second uses it to mean trade
secrets. Patents and trade secrets are totally different and have
nothing whatsoever in common.
The term lumps together patents with copyrights with trade secrets
with trademarks, and some other things as well. These laws are
totally different, so the term is sophisticated-sounding confusion.
When someone uses the term "intellectual property", understand it to
mean, "I don't know what I am talking about."
*Sen. Perdue of Georgia Profited From Defense
Contractor's Stock While Overseeing Naval Spending.*
Congress passed a law, the STOCK Act, criminalizing that kind of
corruption, but then repealed it.
Government ministers in the UK used to have a strict code of
responsibility. Whoever presided over a serious wrong or mistake was
obliged to resign. Nowadays, they are too powerful to be held responsible for anything.
There have been targeted killings in Afghanistan, and — for
a change — they are not being done with drones.
*Biden's Silence on Ending the Drone Wars.*
Millions of Americans are expected to spread Covid-19 to their families this week. Don't be one of them!
New car-tracking vision systems don't just recognize license plate
numbers. They also learn to recognize individual cars.
Housing associations are imposing this on the "owners" of houses.
(I wouldn't buy a house in such a place myself.)
Surveillance like this should be absolutely forbidden.
I am also shocked by the idea of forbidding the "owners" to receive
overnight visitors.
Biden should speak up to counter the wrecker's disinformation campaign
which aims to develop his followers into a sabotage front.
We should honor the officials that have refused to lie for the corrupter.
With his fanatics, he can make that refusal a real trial of the official's
integrity.
Nowadays every moment in a comedian's career carries a risk of being
cancelled over who-knows-what.
The UK government has come to be totally callous about harm to "the
little people" (those who are not wealthy enough to really matter).
Former French president Sarkozy is being prosecuted for corruption.
Vaccines made from messenger RNA are not likely to alter the genome of
humans who take it, unlike DNA vaccines.
Oil companies know that their oil reserves are likely to become
worthless, but they are racing to invest in additional extraction
facilities, which will contribute to global heating before eventually
becoming likewise worthless.
*Hailed as 'Heroes' During Pandemic, Retail Workers Stripped of Hazard Pay
While Companies Rake in Massive Profits.*
*Democrats Must Commit Themselves to the Needs of Non-College Educated
Workers.*
Supposing it is true that "the jobs are gone and are never coming
back", who is responsible for that? Plutocratist politicians are.
And who benefits from that? Mostly owners of stock. So the government
has a responsibility to compensate the would-have-been workers from
the wealth that the owners have gained.
Taxing them to pay for the work that the country needs would be admirable.
*At G20, Only India Is On Track to Meet Goals for Keeping Global Heating to
3.6° F.*
Note, however, that India has built a lot of coal-fired power plants
in recent years ‐ which means it has a lot of new power plants to
replace.
The UK stock market lobbies against proper taxation by pretending that
a large fraction of shares are owned by working people's pensions.
This is not true.
Guatemala's congress adopted a budget which cut education and medical
care, which triggered protests that set parts of the congress building
on fire.
On the Firing of Jeffrey Toobin, by Richard Stallman.
A feminist columnist recognizes that there are more important things
about a proposed cabinet secretary than per gender.
For instance, per political inclinations.
I've never been impressed by "firsts" in high-level positions. Having
for the first time a woman as the secretary of this-or-that is not
going to help the lives of very many women. What the official does
may help them, or hurt them.
An increase in the minimum wage would help millions of American women
who have hard lives today, along with millions of American men. A
national medical system would also do that, especially if it covers
abortions and reliable contraception.
The thug department of Pasco, Florida, secretly profiles all children based on
personal data collected by their schools and other government agencies.
It uses the profiles to estimate whether they are likely to end up as
criminals. Such predictions tend to be self-fulfilling.
Victoria (a state in Australia) does something similar.
If we had a reliable and helpful form of intervention to help children
avoid that fate, these profiles could be used to good effect. But we
don't know of any way, so they tend to be used to do harm.
Progressive programs such as a higher minimum wage, a better welfare
system, and a national medical system, could help a lot of children
avoid becoming criminals, and it wouldn't be necessary to try to
predict which children were personally in the most danger.
The good news is, Libya's cease-fire has lasted for a few weeks.
The bad news is, more oil is being extracted there.
In the long term, fossil fuels will kill far, far more people than
fighting in Libya. How many more will be killed due to extracting oil
in Libya is imponderable.
It's not just official thugs that kill blacks. Private insecurity
guards can do it too.
US nurses are burned out and some are suffering from PTSD.
Some are going on strike.
Hospitals are raking in money — they can afford to pay their staff
better.
*A Biden Administration Can Raise Wages and Give Workers More Power —
If It Wants To.*
*From rewilding to forest schools, our attitude [in the UK] to nature
is changing for the better.*
Will rewilding include eradicating intrusive plants such as
rhododendrons and the poisonous giant hogweed?
Biden's transition team, advisors, and planned cabinet are full of
people with connections to big, malicious tech companies and gig
economy exploiters,
including Amazon, Airbnb, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Lyft, and Microsoft.
Someone from a computer-selling company such as Dell as head of the EPA
does not bode well either. Manufacture and disposal of computers make
pollution and we need the EPA to regulate this carefully.
This is disappointing but not surprising. Biden's willingness to
serve business was what supposedly made him "electable."
*On the Current Status of Trump's Coup Attempt — and Its Future.*
Many prisons in the US restrict what books prisoners can read.
In some cases, they can only get books from one seller, which systematically
gouges them and limits them to a small fraction of the books that exist.
The wrecker proposes a rule to forbid banks from refusing to lend to
some field of industry for reasons other than profit.
If it is true that banks now recognize that fossil fuel development
is an unprofitable investment, that is the occasion for a sigh of relief.
However, we have been pushing for years for institutions to stop financing
some destructive kinds of "industry" and we must not have the government
forbid this.
Mwazulu Diyabanza goes into European museums, picks up African
objects, and gives talks alleging that Europeans stole the objects.
Perse has been charged with theft for doing this.
Perse describes per actions as "theft" but I am skeptical of that. It
is clear that Mwazulu Diyabanza is not really stealing the objects,
rather making theater about the idea of stealing them. Perse carries
them around inside the museum, and discourses about them, but never
tries to remove them. This violates the museum's rules, and maybe it
violate some law as well, but it is not theft.
As for whether those objects were stolen in Africa, I have no opinion
about that. It depends on details I don't know, and then there would
be questions about which moral standard to apply. I don't know
whether Mwazulu Diyabanza has thought deeply about these questions or
jumped to a conclusion.
I'd like to see per comments and reasoning about the specific objects.
If it is deep, there may be much in it to learn from.
The Tax Justice Network estimates that countries use $427bn a year
in tax revenue due to moving money to tax havens.
The most important tax havens identified were the Cayman Islands
(16.5%, $70bn); the UK (10%, $42bn); the Netherlands (8.5%, $36bn);
Luxembourg (6.5%, $27bn) and the US (5.5%, $23bn).
Although according to modern monetary theory, the US, having a
sovereign currency, can create money to stimulate the economy by
spending it on whatever is needed, up to a point where the economy
overheats. The US is nowhere near that now, since it is suffering a
recession and unemployment.
*Half of Republicans say Biden won because of a 'rigged' election.*
Ivanka Trump had to move her children out of a private school because
she and her husband would not follow the Covid-19 safety rules
to avoid bringing the virus to the children and then into the school.
The wrecker has proposed a rule to require banks to lend impartially
to all fields of business. This is intended to force them to lend
to oil drilling in the Arctic.
The Sierra Club says that banks won't lend to that because they
consider it too risky.
If awareness of coming climate disaster has made it clear that
investing in new fossil fuel projects is unprofitable, that is reason
for a sigh of relief. But this comes after years of trying to
persuade investors and lenders to refuse to fund fossil fuel business
even when it appeared profitable, for the sake of avoiding disaster.
We must continue to do that.
The wrecker is trying to pressure state legislators to disregard the actual
votes in their states and certify the wrecker as victor.
The majority of the these states' voters are Democrats, but
Republicans hold control of the their legislatures through
gerrymandering. That means that they are "reelected" each time by
defying the voters. We can hope that they will stick at explicitly
setting aside an election with zero real grounds, but it is a bad
situation when our democracy depends on Republicans to have that much
integrity.
South Australia was ultimately responsible for the need for the brief
unnecessary lockdown, through its decision to guard a quarantine hotel
using precarious subcontracted workers whose low pay compels them to
take additional jobs.
The UK is investigating past thug infiltration of nonviolent campaigns
for political causes, at the same time as it authorizes a lot more in
the future.
Don't be angry at the officials of South Australia for acting rationally
to curb Covid-19 based on the information they had.
It's not their fault that it came from a patient who was lying.
*Better ventilation and universal mask-wearing are key to keeping the
virus at bay [in schools], so children’s education can continue.*
12 million Americans stand to lose unemployment benefits early in 2021.
Automated monitoring of accessibility of many web sites from places
around the world provides a way to measure censorship in many
countries, daily. It shows that censorship is increasing in most of
the world.
I suggest that part of the root cause of the increase in censorship is
the misguided acceptance of the idea that sharing copies is "piracy"
and the tendency of governments to facilitate DRM rather than making
it a felony.
Censorship by governments makes some web sites inaccessible to people
in some countries. At the same time, nonfree JavaScript code on
some websites makes them inaccessible to the Free World. The former
denies freedom directly to people in those countries. The latter invites
everyone to sacrifice freedom to read them.
The conspirators that planned to murder Governor Whitmer are accused
of planning another scheme: to seize the state capitol building and
murder officials there.
Climate scientists say old global heating forecasts were too
conservative; 1.5C of heating may be under a decade away, and the
target of "net zero" greenhouse emissions by 2050 is insufficient.
I predicted this would happen, but not by trying to do climate
modeling. I have no knowledge of how to do that, so I don't try.
That is a job for climate scientists.
However, I know that scientists have not figured out all the pertinent
relationships that ought to be in climate models, and that global
heating is sure to have effects as yet unpredicted. It follows that,
as things move further away from the old normal, changes are likely to
cause more changes. When scientists don't know how change in A will
affect B, they tend to try a linear relationship as a first
approximation, and that works for small changes, but as they get
bigger the linearity can break down.
So if we want to save civilization, we must plan for worse than
the models predict. We must do more, and sooner, than the models
say is needed.
I've explained before why "net zero" opens a pitfall: putting faith in
risky offset schemes. Systems that remove CO2 from the air as they
run are real contributions to reducing net emissions (but their cost
must be compared with direct reductions in emissions); however,
systems that one hopes will remove CO2 many years down the road (such
as tree planting) are not reliable. We need to plant a lot of trees,
to keep forests going, but we should not count their absorbed CO2
until they have absorbed it.
When scientists warn that 4C of warming is incompatible with an
organized global community, it means that farming won't work very well
and the remaining people will be fighting over what food and fresh
water are available. We need to make sure things don't get that bad.
Alexander Hamilton was deeply involved in slavery.
Thai protesters used large inflatable rubber ducks as shields against water
with a tinge of dissolved tear gas.
*Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota led to a Covid-19 outbreak in
Minnesota, new report says.*
State governors may want to block roads for a time when a spreader event
is going on in an adjoining state.
* We are witnessing a criminal tragedy as wealthy billionaires,
sequestered in protective bubbles and private jets, are dispatching
essential workers into the line of infection fire with inadequate
shields and protections.*
A confused article speaks of grapes that carry end-user license agreements.
The confusion is to conflate patents with shrink-wrap licenses.
Plants can be covered by patents. If so, propagating them is patent
infringement. But that has nothing to do with putting a label on a
bag purporting to impose restrictions on the purchaser. From what I
recall, that is not legally valid in the US, except for software.
Australian soldiers in Afghanistan stand accused of premeditated
murder of civilians and prisoners in cold blood, and covering it up
afterward.
Also competing for who could kill more civilians as they ran away.
And torture for the fun of it. All based on evidence.
The fatal apartment building fire in London was caused by fraud and
deceit, facilitated by deregulation, and promoted by plutocratist
disdain for the lives of people who are not rich.
The first reaction of the organizations that owned other buildings
with similar fire hazards was to dump the cost of retrofitting on the
occupants of the flats, who couldn't possibly have paid it. I hope
that these revelations (which surely apply to other buildings that use
the same firetrap material) will put the burden onto organizations
that are actually responsible.
*The 'market' won't save us from climate disaster. We must rethink our
system.*
This is a well-known reason why markets give bad results in some
cases. The costs that the product imposes on people other than the
one who buys it are called "externalities."
Erin Brockovich: Biden has chosen for his EPA transition board someone who
helped DuPont campaign for continued pollution with one of the toxic PFAs.
I write the "s" of "PFAs" in lower case because it is not an initial:
it indicates the plural of "PFA."
What Labour proposes for curbing global heating is not much better than
what the Tories say they will do.
*UK to support plans for new global treaty to 'turn tide' on plastic
pollution.*
If it is easy for a pathogen to spread to other hosts,
it tends to evolve to be more deadly to those its hosts.
Thus, covidiots are helping to make Covid-19 more likely to kill
those who catch it.
* If Britain had a functioning democracy, Jeremy Corbyn would be leading
a socialist party and Keir Starmer a centre-left one.*
The UK should investigate its soldiers' possible war crimes in Afghanistan,
as Australia did.
So should the US, of course.
US citizens: call on Facebook and Twitter: No more election lies!
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to support Joaquin Castro
for chair of the foreign affairs committee.
US citizens: call on Biden to push to put an end to racism, including
systemic racism.
Bogus Johnson given the favored people who work under him, such as
his ministers, exemptions from legal and ethical requirements.
*Call for tougher penalties in UK for possession of chemsex drugs.*
I think the world would be a better place if these drugs did not exist,
but higher penalties will not achieve that.
*Chinese flower has evolved to be less visible to pickers.*
People find it difficult to spot the plants now.
Alas, because the demand is for "medicine", the plants
loss of attractiveness will not protect them.
A political consultant reports that most of his focus group supports
the idea behind "Defund the Police", they oppose the slogan itself.
Biden is considering a budget-cutter for a crucial administrative
position.
At a time like this we need lots of deficit spending. By choosing him,
Biden would be choosing not to rescue tens of millions of Americans.
Utah is considering a law that would help drivers that run down protesters
construct a false excuse to get away with it.
*Jewish-Led Groups Condemn Pompeo for Declaring
Boycott-Divestment Movement Anti-Semitic.*
Here is what I think about the issue.
Medea Benjamin recommends ten foreign policy actions for Biden to take
to reduce war and tensions.
I don't know the details of US sanctions against North Korea and Syria,
or what they are meant to do. I would want to know more before making any
recommendation for what to do in those cases. I agree with the rest of
her recommendations.
*Tyson Food Managers Accused of Betting on How Many of
Their Workers Would Get Covid-19.*
In a narrow logical sense, such betting does not affect the employees.
But it bespeaks a callousness towards the risk to the lives of the
workers, who were in fact getting sick at the time.
Flea killer for pets, when put in the trash, reaches rivers and
poisons water insects.
A good choice of treasury secretary could effectively defund the
fossil fuel industry.
*Climate activists ramp up pressure on Biden with protest outside Democratic
headquarters.*
A retired undercover UK thug reports snooping in the 1970s on a
campaign for equal pay for women, gratis contraception and better
child care.
It was not a total waste of time, as she supported the campaign to
some extent.
(satire) *Light Therapy Lamp Opts To Burn Down House Rather Than Face
Depressed Man Yet Again.*
(satire) *Biden Insists Lack Of Cooperation From Trump Administration
Won’t Interfere With 4 Years Of Total Political Inaction.*
*Taxpayers Subsidize Poverty Wages at Walmart, McDonald's, Other Large
Corporations, GAO Finds.*
This would be perhaps acceptable if these corporations paid plenty of
income tax (not payroll tax), enough to cover the costs of the
shortfall in worker's wages plus what they ought to be paying otherwise.
But since that is not the case, we should raise the minimum wage
and charge those companies more taxes.
We should stop using payroll taxes: companies' must not be able to
reduce their tax bills by replacing human workers with robots or
paying them less.
GitHub restored the youtube-dl repo after the EFF explained why
youtube-dl does not infringe copyright or violate the Digital
Monstrosity Copyright Act.
This was a good action, but it does not undo or cancel out the
enormous harm that GitHub has done to the free software community by
spreading bad licensing practices, nor alter the fact that some
operations on its web site require running nonfree Javascript
software.
Self-storage companies in New York City, which are unregulated, are
pushing up the rents for people who lost their jobs and their
apartments and put their possessions into storage. Unable to pay the
hundreds, or thousands, of dollars demanded, they face the loss of
irreplaceable keepsakes — of no value to anyone else.
The global Red Cross warns that climate mayhem will be much worse than
Covid-19.
Covid-19 is unlikely to kill more than 100 million people around the
world even if we do nothing to interfere — and we can, and will, save
many of them. Climate disaster will be far worse, and it will keep on
getting worse.
How to help defeat Republicans in the Jan 5 Georgia runoffs for its two
senate seats.
Starmer has refused to readmit Corbyn as an MP of the Labour Party. His
refusal declares a fight between his centrist wing (taking after
B'liar, perhaps a little to the left of Bill Clinton) and Corbyn's wing
of the party.
I expect Corbyn's supporters would rather make peace than fight. But
I must suppose, from this action, that Starmer prefers a fight. I
don't think that Corbyn's numerous supporters will give in.
More than Corbyn's own career is at stake. So I expect Corbyn to
prepared to run again in his district, with or without Labour backing.
*Megaprojects risk pushing forests past tipping point.*
*Australian special forces involved in murder of 39 Afghan civilians, war
crimes report alleges.*
Many people, not understanding why it is wrong, have responded to Covid-19
by buying more from Amazon.
We need laws to stop any company from mistreating workers and
customers as Amazon does, but until we get them — as long as Amazon
continues to do these things — we should not buy anything from Amazon.
When a friend want to get something for me, I say, "Please do not get
it from Amazon!"
On climate issues, Australia is the worst of the G20.
This does not surprise me; Australia's government has been run by
outright planet-roasters for many years, and the official opposition
is not much better. Most Australians have allowed themselves to be
bamboozled by the short-term issues of "jobs" and "the economy", and
ignored their long-term survival.
The cause seems to be the power of a planet-roaster media baron,
Murdoch.
I wonder if the great fires of last summer taught Australians anything.
Poland and Hungary vetoed the EU's Covid aid program to block a plan
to require them to accept an independent judiciary.
Spain is giving legal protection to a lagoon, the Mar Menor, and
allowing people to sue polluters on its behalf.
This seems to be a very good plan, but the article persistently says
that the lagoon is now a "person."
I don't think that is what the law says. When the article describes
the matter carefully, no such "person" is involved. That's good,
because a lagoon is not a person.
The idea that to have any legal existence requires being a "person"
is not only absurd, it has done terribly harm. Consider, for instance,
the Corporations United decision
in the United States, in which the Supreme Court ruled that
corporations are entitled to human rights. For humanity's survival
and freedom we must take away the rights of fictitious "persons" —
but the Mar Menor should remain protected.
*Covid has exposed the damage caused to families by a decade of austerity.*
This is about the UK, but the US has faced somewhat similar increasing hardship
for the non-affluent, and there may be a lot of similarity.
98% of the coral in Florida's reefs is dead.
Global heating and ocean acidification are largely responsible.
A certain level of CO2 in the air will make the oceans so acidic that
coral will simply die. Nothing can save them in those circumstances.
Many other organisms with shells will die, too.
Starmer has decided to reject Corbyn as a Labour MP, although he has
been approved as a citizen member of the Labour Party.
In effect, Starmer has chosen a continuing fight with Corbyn and his
supporters.
A wide variety of Republican accusations of voter fraud have been checked
and found false.
Republicans do not check these accusations before publishing them because they
figure that a false accusation is almost as effective as a true one.
Some US hospitals charge patients 18 times the cost of treatment. The
average cost of hospital treatment for Covid-19 is $42,000, which
most Americans cannot ever pay.
900 employees of the Mayo Clinic have caught Covid-19, most of them
not while at work.
New Zealand's birth rate has fallen due to economic insecurity.
That is a good reason to postpone having children, if you are planning
to have them. But should New Zealanders have them at all?
The population density of New Zealand is around 50 per square mile (5%
that of Massachusetts). A large part of New Zealand's area is wild.
Perhaps its population is already sustainable, or at least in the
right order of magnitude. If so, New Zealand is a fortunate exception,
since the global human population is far beyond sustainable.
*[Natural] gas won't fuel Australia's recovery or reduce emissions.
The truth is gas is both too expensive and too dirty. We’ve known this
for nearly a decade.*
*US Military Buys Location Data Harvested From Apps,
Including One for Muslim Prayers.*
If the data is collected, it will be misused. We need laws to prevent
systems from collecting such data.
It looks like Google biased its search engine to try to defeat a
California ballot initiative that restricts companies' use of people's
data.
This does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Google cheated.
But on the preponderance of the evidence, I am convinced.
(satire) *Governors Call On [Michigan Governor] Gretchen Whitmer To
Shut Down Their States So Residents Won’t Get Mad At Them.*
Several sheriffs in New York State say they will refuse to enforce the
governor's order limiting the size of private gatherings.,
They say that it is unconstitutional to restrict who can enter,
invited, into a home. I hope that is true in normal times, but I'd
expect that there is an exception for emergency situations — and this
is certainly an emergency.
Biden has named a Louisiana congresscritter who's in the fossil fuel
business's pocket to a White House post.
I don't know what power or influence he would have in that post. It
does not sound like he would be in charge of any environment-related
decisions or actions. Perhaps this is less important than it looks.
But I don't know that.
Contending that Biden could institute a national medical system by executive
order due to the national emergency constituted by Covid-19.
We sorely need it. Some US hospitals charge patients 18 times the
cost of treatment. The average cost of hospital treatment for
Covid-19 is $42,000, which most Americans cannot ever pay.
Biden wants to let the wrecker get away with his crimes.
Since the wrecker commits crimes by choice, he certainly will make use
of this undeserved immunity to cause further trouble, including
perhaps winning in 2024, if Biden has done nothing about the problems
caused by plutocracy.
If Biden thinks that being kind and gentle to the wrecker will win him
any support from the wrecker's followers, he is fooling himself. The
wrecker will tell his followers that this proves how powerful he is.
The wrecker's debts make him a threat to national security in the
usual, narrow sense.
If we interpret "national security" in a broad sense, he has already
mostly wrecked the national security" of the United States.
Global heating is one of the main threats to most countries' security,
including that of the US, and he has done everything to make it worse.
Plutocracy and the poverty it causes makes the US less secure, and he
has worked to make it worse. The hatred he has stirred up has also
made the US less secure.
Convicting the wrecker, so as to put him in prison, would be a vital
precaution to make him useless as a agent for the highest bidder among
America's enemies, foreign or domestic.
The wrecker wants to sell oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge before Biden is inaugurated.
Biden has said he will not allow drilling there, and he might be able
to cancel any leases that are sold. But seismic testing could start
in January and could kill some polar bears.
I point out with sadness that killing some polar bears this winter may
not change anything in the long term, given that we are pushing them
to extinction (or pretty close to it) by eliminating the Arctic sea
ice.
The wrecker asked officials about bombing Iran as a last-minute way
of inflicting another war on Biden (and the United States).
The war would cause more difficulties for Iran, too, but the wrecker
probably cares less about that.
Bombing Iran uranium refining facility would release a toxic fluorine
compound which could kill thousands of civilians, perhaps tens of thousands.
It could also pollute the source of 1/3 of Iran's water
for farming and household use.
There is no way to compensate for such enormous damage.
In the US: boycott Amazon
on Nov 27 and 30.
Buy from local businesses instead.
Even better, do as I do when I buy: pay cash, and don't give your name.
And you're not limited to those two days.
*White men swung to Biden. [The bullshitter] made gains with black and
Latino voters. Why?*
The article does not try to answer that question, but it is very
important.
*The [Republican] party is challenging the outcome of the election without any proof
of fraud. Their degradation of democracy will reverberate for years to
come.*
*The US right is skilled in voter suppression. And the Tories are learning
fast.*
*Philadelphia city council apologizes for deadly 1985 Move bombing.*
Nauroze Anees, an foreign student in Australia, failed to comply with
visa requirements because he had to care for his mate, then was
refused a visa to care for his mate based on bureaucratic rigidity,
and since then has been imprisoned for 4 years. He has now been
freed, by a court decision.
A call to divest from 1,000 fossil fuel companies that impudently persist in
building new fossil fuel infrastructure
and reject the idea of making a "transition" to another way of doing business.
Glenn Greenwald has decided to resign from The Intercept because it
has adopted a hard partisan line, and refused to let him publish
anything which goes against that line.
It censored his work in despite of a contract agreeing not to do so.
India is imposing censorship on internet publication and communication.
One thing we can be sure will not be censored is right-wing extremism.
PFAs in household items (and therefore in our bodies) may reduce the
effectiveness of some Covid-19 vaccines
in addition to causing liver damage and cancer.
The RNA vaccines which are not affected by PFAs pose an imponderable
risk of possible genetic harm.
The Canadian government's national thug agency systematically
understates how much it can spy on anyone in Canada.
It is especially interested in spying on protesters, who have
experienced its brutality as well.
*Trump Demands Afghan Withdrawal and Washington Panics. But It’s Time
To Leave, Now.*
It has been time to pull out of Afghanistan for many years.
The wrecker is firing officials for refusing to lie for him.
The danger is that other officials will lie, or support lies by not
refuting them, rather than be fired, and that this will enable him to
seize power or commit sabotage.
Protecting the sea bottom from destructive trawlers by putting large statues
on the sea bottom in close proximity.
It's clever, and apparently effective, but it does not scale to the
whole of the Mediterranean, let alone the oceans. I think states will
have to start confiscating boats that carry trawling equipment.
The Department of Harshness and Sadism wants to collect iris scans,
voice prints, and even DNA samples, from anyone that applies for
residency or citizenship, and per sponsors as well.
Planet roasters are deeply involved in supporting the wrecker's efforts
to seize power and set aside the election.
Extinction Rebellion held a rally in London at a remembrance event for
the people killed in World War I — to remind us that global heating
may kill more than 200 times as many. The mainstream media condemned
it.
Starmer called it "bad taste." I suppose "good taste" means taking
care not to do justice to the gravity of situation.
The Labour Party has unsuspended Corbyn.
Talia Lavin pioneers fighting back against right-wing racist extremists
with some of their own medicine.
*As a minority, American Jews understand the dangers of authoritarians and
nationalists. As a ruling group, Israeli Jews see them as logical allies.*
The US government has constructed an edifice of lies to negate the
fourth amendment requirement for specific searches to be authorized by
courts, an edifice that permits broad snooping on almost everyone.
*50 Years After the Start of the War on Drugs, Americans Have a Chance to Fix
the Harm It Created.*
*The Federal Government Owns 92% of Student Debt. Will Biden Wipe It Out?*
If Democrats don't push to fix the injustices of the United States,
the conmen, or another right-wing conman, could crush them in 2024.
The Republicans will use valid arguments combined with dishonest
arguments, but both kinds will resonate unless the Democrats have a
powerful appeal to many voters. Something more than "I'm not Trump."
*You Can't Eat Civility.* Or a bipartisan decision to put you out on
the street.
Why the US has the electoral college, and what blocks getting rid of it.
Republicans have been rigging elections for over a century with various
schemes to stop blacks (and sometimes hispanics) from voting.
When people investigate the reason Democrats did not take more Senate
seats, they should consider the impact of voter suppression in those
states.
*Georgia’s secretary of state says Lindsey Graham suggested he throw out legal
ballots.*
Various Catholic, Jewish and Protestant organizations have now announced
divestment from fossil fuels.
(satire) *Experts Confirm Virus Stockpile Large Enough To Prevent Any
Covid Shortages This Winter.*
If you have any way of contacting The Onion, please ask them to make
the images and audio recordings in their postings accessible without
the user's running any nonfree JavaScript code.
You can use https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html to explain
the issue, along with fsf.org/tedx (14 minute video).
The myth that US major media are "liberal" is believed in other
countries as well as the US.
The major US media tend to to be center-right "centrists", but
right-wing activists describe them as "liberal" so as to mislead
people about where the center of public opinion is.
Speculations about how Alexei Navalny was poisoned, by precisely whom,
and whether the intention was to kill him.
This article demonstrates the folly of measuring construction of
renewable electric generation in proportion to what already exists.
Percentage is a useful way to measure a small fraction but misleading
when used to describe a fraction close to or above 1. A ratio such
as "250%" sounds impressive, but 250% of a small number is only a
little larger.
Aside from that, I can't see how it fits the other figures.
What here is 250% of what?
Furthermore, "gigawatts per year" is not is measure of energy, nor of
"energy generating capacity". The amount of energy generated or work
done per unit time is called "power" and it is measured in watts. I
speculate that 23 gigawatts is the total maximum power output of
Europe's existing offshore wind generators.
What can be said of the strategy in the leaked paper? It is
inadequate. It proposes to add around 340 GW of wind and ocean
generation by 2050, which could be a substantial amount, but 300GW
would be built in the second and third decades. That is delaying too
long!
US citizens: tell Biden: Don't Let Mitch McConnell Dictate Your
Cabinet Choices.
US citizens: call on your state senator to pass the ROE Act's provisions.
*US and UK yet to show support for global treaty to tackle plastic pollution.*
Burning trash to generate energy increases greenhouse gas emissions
when the trash includes plastics.
*[The cult leader]'s refusal to concede is no joke — it's a dangerous
precedent.*
*The lesson [journalists] are constantly unlearning is that with Trump,
things seem unthinkable until they are inevitable. And by then, it’s
too late.*
*How war threatens Ethiopia's struggle against worst locust swarm in
25 years.*
*Only 17% Of Consumers Believe Personalized Ads Are Ethical, Survey Says.*
If you are not one of them, push back — stop being a used of Facebook!
Don't be a zucker!
Bogus Johnson plans to spend 100 billion UKP on a Covid-19 testing scheme
that scientists believe will fail to do any good.
*Texas televangelist who falsely linked pandemic to premarital sex dies of
Covid-19.*
Hmm, maybe he was trying to atone for a life-long guilt about losing
his virginity.
Eliminating Covid-19 calls for a reliable way for everyone to get
highly effective face masks.
The guidance I have seen is difficult to apply. It is formulated in terms
of determinations I do not know how to make.
Plutocratists are campaigning to let the conman and his corrupt officials
go unpunished.
This is in the name of an unstated principle of plutocracy: laws are
for you and me, not for the aristocrats.
The Green New Deal is crucial for the Democratic Party to stand for something
that can inspire voters.
Republican state legislators have rejected the electoral college coup scheme.
I think that act of honesty seals the wrecker's defeat. However, he
can still do various kinds of harm between now and Jan 20. In
particular, by sabotaging the transition, he can cause a wide range of
problems that could last a few months. He seems to hate the United
States so much that he thinks that inflicting any little bit of damage
is better than none.
*People plan to fly and drive more post-Covid [than they flew and drove
before], climate poll shows.*
Renewable electric generation is growing ever faster.
But not fast enough. If people are going to drive more, we need to
make sure they are driving electric cars and that the electricity is
not made from fossil fuels.
Undercover infiltrators in the opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline.
US citizens: call for abolition of ICE, the US deportation thug agency.
US citizens: call on Biden to cancel the Line 3 oil pipeline.
The new version of MacOS — and therefore the new generation of Macs
— informs Apple of every time the machine launches a program.
The Guardian press seems blissfully unaware of this spying. It even
repeats Apple's claims to help users protect their privacy — but only
some aspects of their privacy.
Just as software developers have redefined "security" to mean
"security against everyone but us", Apple is redefining "privacy"
to mean "privacy from everyone but us."
People might want to post comments there (be civil about it!) or
send letters to the editor. I am sure there are dozens of publications
which could use the same sort of response.
Protesters take photos of thugs to identify those who commit violence
against protesters using face recognition.
It is important for this to be lawful. That's why my proposal is to
prohibit systematic collection of photos of people's faces, except
under limited circumstances. Taking a photo occasionally must be
permitted.
Biden hopes we will overlook the fact that two proposed cabinet
ministers are plutocratists, because they are female.
Hillary Clinton is female, too, and she endorsed the coup in Honduras.
Buttigieg, Brainard and Jones are center-right "moderates" too. As
for Sally Yates, I don't know enough about her to have an opinion.
A US court has ruled that Chad Wolf is not lawfully head of the
Department of Hatred and Sadism, so his order to suspend DACA
protection was not valid.
Robert Reich: *Trump's refusal to concede is just the latest gambit to
please Republican donors.*
I think it is intended to serve multiple tactical purposes.
*World poverty rising as rich nations call in debt amid Covid.*
The strength and intensity of this year's hurricanes, and amount of
rainfall, is a symptom of global heating.
Hurricanes also gain intensity faster than before.
The hurricane flooding has destroyed crops, and this has driven
250,000 people to flee Honduras for the US. Except they usually can't
get in.
This will get a lot worse in the next few decades.
Belarussian thugs arrested a beloved teacher while he was
protesting. Next thing, he died of a brain injury.
He was attacked before his arrest, too, by people who may or may not
have been official thugs.
Bogus Johnson is behaving like the king of the United Kingdom,
and has just dismissed his favorite (Cummings),
after previously overriding laws to protect him.
Naturally the king does not disclose why he has
sent a favorite away.
Glenn Greenwald describes the mainstream media effort to suppress and
even condemn journalism about the Hunter Biden laptop leaks.
The laptop leaks story itself is not of high importance, in my view.
Even if it proved corruption on president-elect Biden's part — which
it does not — that corruption would be nothing compared with the
corruption Trump displays daily. If I had intended to vote for Biden
before reading this, this would not have changed my mind. He would
still be the lesser evil. So I have ignored that story.
However, it is peculiar that so many news sites have ignored it.
George Monbiot: *If Americans are not polarised against plutocrats,
they will be polarised against each other.… Obama’s attempt to
reconcile irreconcilable forces, to paper over the chasms, arguably
gave Donald Trump his opening.*
Billionaire donors' money doesn't reliably bring mainstream Democrats
victory but does reliably keep them useless.
The measures Governor Baker is taking in Massachusetts to curb the
spread of Covid-19 do not seem sufficient to achieve that.
10 days ago, around 2000 new cases per day were detected in
Massachusetts. Now it is up to 2500 per day. At the end of August it
was around 200 per day. By December 5 it could be 5000 per day,
after a boost from Thanksgiving.
How about expressing your feelings for your relatives by not having a
gathering where any one can make everyone sick?
We have seen many countries follow the timid path of inadequate steps
and constantly increasing infection rates, ending in a very strict
lockdown. Why can't Massachusetts learn from others' mistakes?
Taking somewhat strict measures sooner would avoid the need for very
strict measures later.
Vermont has only half the case rate per capita of Massachusetts
and is taking stronger measures.
Governor Whitmer of Michigan has cancelled permission to operate the
Line 5 planet-roaster oil pipeline.
That is a good thing for Planet Earth. Unfortunately, the action was
based only on preventing the (important) danger of an oil spill into
Lake Michigan and not on the (far more important) certainty that
burning the oil pushes us closer to global disaster.
(satire) *What [the wrecker] Hopes To Accomplish Before Leaving The White House.*
"Several dozen" Secret Service officers are infected with Covid-19 and
a total of 130 are now isolating because of contact with infected
officers. This is because they had to guard the disease spreader.
Bilal Abdul Kareem, an American journalist, is trying to get a US court
to tell him whether the US government has marked him for assassination.
A plan for revitalizing rural America starts with eliminating the power
of giant companies that, as quasi-monopolies (or quasi-monopsonies), force
farms to treat with them and thus drive the farmers into poverty.
*Just [as] after Watergate, post-Trump era requires reforms to hold
presidents accountable.*
Due to global heating, and deforestation in Brazil, the giant Pantanal
wetland in Argentina is drying out and burning.
*'We packed long underwear and never wore it': Arctic scientists shocked at
warming.*
They brought a ship with ice-breaking capability, and didn't need to
use that either.
The UK has been sending undercover infiltrators to get under the covers
with protesters since the 1960s.
When Biden talks about "bipartisanship" and "cooperation", it means he is
deciding not to rock the boat for the plutocrats.
*Biden Will Fail to Bring Back 'Normal' Politics. What’s Needed Now Is a
Populism of the Left.*
Global Justice Now: *G20 Plan Is 'Thin Gruel for Debt Prisoners'.*
(satire) *N.Y. Jets Sued For Millions After Using Unlicensed Cheering
Sounds From Other Teams.*
Lukashenko's latest cruelty: seizing the funds privately given to compensate
protesters for injury or fines inflicted on them for protesting.
It is too late to avoid global disaster by ceasing to increase the
level of greenhouse gases. Even with reducing emissions to net zero
immediately, the temperature would continue to increase and tipping
points would be reached.
This disaster could include 9 feet of sea level rise in this century
(and further rise subsequently).
We need to go beyond net zero so as to draw down the CO2 level.
Past estimates of the amount of CO2 various natural systems can take
out of the air and sea may not be valid in the future, and perhaps not
even today; damage to these systems has and will reduce what they can
do.
When migrants cross the English Channel to England, the government
moves them immediately into crowded (thus dangerous) jails without
dealing with their serious injuries.
The UK's deportation of asylum seekers could be stopped because it violates
the stated policy.
*Brazil: congresswoman and friend of slain politician Marielle Franco flees
following death threats.*
US citizens: call on Congress to block a proposed arms sale to the UAE.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
One of the Democratic Senate candidates in Georgia, Raphael Warnock,
is being hit with false accusations of antisemitism.
It's because he has criticized Israel's occupation policies,
particularly in the Palestinian town of Hebron, where a commercial
neighborhood has been shut down so that a few fanatical "settlers" can
live in it.
*Democratic Officials Lied About Role in Alex Morse Smear.*
The smear turned out to be nothing but hot air, dressed up to look bad,
but it was enough to destroy Morse's chances.
Amana plans to make a tiny microwave oven for cooking one mushroom.
It will be called the Amanita.
The wrecker's changes have spiked the possibility of negotiating a
two-state peace between Israel and Palestine, and Biden is unlikely to
go to the great effort that would be required to reverse the changes.
In the 1970s, a serial killer killed 13 women in northern England.
The cops couldn't find him because they didn't respect information
from women — including the survivors who had seen and heard him.
The thugs were so steeped in sexist prejudice that they displayed it
at every turn.
Australian renewable energy megaprojects now planned will provide enormous amounts of usable energy. 14GW will go into making ammonia for export,
which on arrival will be converted into clean liquid hydrogen fuel.
Burning liquid hydrogen produces only one chemical, water.
The conman's supporters are pressuring at every level to interfere
with states' certification of Biden's state-level victories.
Here are arguments that even if Republican state legislatures are
dishonest won't be able to succeed at overturning the results.
I won't be surprised if the wrecker's supporters resort eventually to guns,
assuming (or even having received assurances) that the US government
will do nothing to stop them.
*New Documents Reveal ICE and Private Prison Contractor Exacerbates a COVID
Outbreak at Immigration Detention Center.*
Viet Nam has imprisoned journalist Pham Doan Trang, who often reports
on wrongdoing by the "authorities" and has been violently attacked for it.
(satire) *Pfizer Announces First Batch Of Coronavirus Vaccine Will Be
Collector’s Edition Limited To 2,000 Doses.*
Florida's Republican governor proposes laws to allow killing protesters
on various pretexts.
UK companies are asking for subsidy to develop and build rather large
"mini" nuclear power plants, which would perhaps be cheaper than the
insanely expensive large nuclear power plants, and would create a few
thousand jobs.
The article ignores the question of how these "mini" nuclear power
plants would compare, in cost and jobs, with renewable energy.
Since renewable energy has become so cheap lately, I would expect them
to be superior even without figuring in the problem of dealing with
the nuclear waste.
I wonder why the Guardian was blind on this point.
UK thugs spied on antiwar activist Tariq Ali, when he opposed the
Vietnam war and when he opposed the conquest of Iraq, and maybe some
of the time between.
The surveillance was extreme.
*At one point, police reported to MI5 that Ali had collaborated on a
book about the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky with a cartoonist.
The confidential report noted the name of the cartoonist’s girlfriend,
along with her occupation, her address and friends.*
*The sixth mass extinction is happening faster than expected. Scientists say
it's our fault.*
Australia has started making welfare payments, in some localities, via
a debit card that limits what they can buy, and tracks them too. This
was supposed to reduce their spending on drugs and gambling — but
investigation shows it failed to do that.
The money spent by US governments on unemployment payments circulates
and keeps millions of jobs going. But the unemployment payments will expire
in December.
Lies like the bullshitter's lies, told in Germany after World War I,
paved the way for Hitler to seize power. The US is not immune.
If Democrats don't want this to happen, they had better ameliorate the life
of American masses.
MiniFree is once again selling Libreboot laptops; see
retrofreedom.com.
(satire) *Supreme Court Strikes Down Obama’s Personal Health Insurance
Policy.*
*Scorching Tucson bucks US trend to put climate justice at centre of plans.*
"Investing in long-neglected urban communities" sounds gentrification
to me. That won't reduce urban sprawl, it will only shuffle poorer
people further out. To reduce sprawl means increasing population
density. Can they build denser housing in those neighborhoods
and run more buses to them?
Prisoner Bounchan Keola went from fighting a wildfire, to a hospital,
to deportation prison in two weeks.
People who were brought to the US as children and raised here should
have US citizenship, and exile should not be used as a punishment
no matter what the crime.
After curator Gary Garrels said he would not refuse to consider art
made by white men, some employees of the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art condemned his "white supremacist language" and
bullied
him into resigning.
Garrels made a big effort to collect work by people other than white
males. (I think that was a good thing to do; the museum aims to
represent the world of modern art, not focus on white men.) So he is
not a white supremacist at all. But he used a term "reverse
discrimination", that white supremacists have used when arguing
against affirmative action. For those bullies, using a term they
disapprove of is equivalent to actually being a white supremacist.
Contrast this with what I say when someone describes me as
"the
father of open source" or refers to the GNU operating system as
"Linux". I do
not demand that
perse change per way
of speaking, let alone demand that perse be fired. Instead, I calmly
explain why it is an error and ask per to correct it.
Their petition (on a site that I never link to because it requires
nonfree software) accused Garrels of using "violent language". They
do not explain that they have given "violence" a nonstandard
definition, namely "not supporting their ideas of how to end racism."
That makes the accusation disingenuous. People who don't know exactly
what Garrels said, and don't know about this nonstandard definition,
may suppose he was nasty and belligerent, and be misled into
misjudging him.
Kwame Anthony Appiah
Demolishes the Concept of "Cultural Appropriation".
The wrecker is proceeding with trying to seize power.
The Democrats do not seem to be trying to fight the coup that
Republican-dominated state legislators are already trying to launch.
The approach of spreading the idea that Biden has won and cannot be
stopped is worth trying. It may create a viscosity that the
Republican fanatics would find difficult to push through. But if they
are fanatical enough not to let that daunt them, it can't actually
stop them.
In the UK, the National Trust owns and preserves many historic
mansions. Now it is pointing out how slavery or profits from slavery
figured in their history. Right-wingers don't like this.
Adding Australia to the list of countries that believe their soldiers
would never commit a war crime, but are not right about that.
Black cops in Columbus, Ohio, face racism including death
threats from some white cops.
*How the GOP keeps cheating its way into power—and may get away with it again
in 2020.*
Internal FBI documents show that agents have been allowed to praise or condemn
presidents and candidates, with one exception: agents have been punished
for criticizing the wrecker.
*Dalai Lama calls for urgent climate action.*
One of Biden's transition team was a corporate lobbyist who worked for
DuPont to lobby the EPA that the chemical, PFOA, was not toxic enough
to consider regulating.
The deportation thugs deported six women who accused a deportation prison
of performing unnecessary operations on women.
Some of the operations were hysterectomies; I don't know
whether all of them were hysterectomies.
New high-tech surveillance and biometric tracking are being tried on
immigrants and refugees.
The Democratic Party this year went for white middle-class supporters and
left behind the working class. What does it mean when raising the minimum wage wins and Democrats lose?
Signs of fakery in the supposed Hunter Biden - China dossier.
There is no evidence of voter fraud in the US election, but plenty of
fraudulent claims that there was.
*From Police Violence at Home to Killing Civilians in Unending Wars Abroad, US
Faces Human Rights Reckoning at UN.*
*Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says.*
Undercover thugs infiltrating various political movements operated by
pretending to love women participants, and won their love by pretending to
be devoted and caring — until the day they suddenly disappeared.
*Suspend Patents on Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine, Say Campaigners.*
That should apply to any Covid-19 treatment, indeed, any medicine.
Patents tend to kill patients.
What about this particular vaccine? Although things look positive, it
is not yet certain that this vaccine is safe. That question is not
just a matter of recording what side effects it has in the short term.
It would be the first RNA vaccine ever deployed, and there is a
fundamental doubt about what effects it might have.
*Will the Biden Team Be Warmongers or Peacemakers?*
Jonathan Cook: The Equalities Commission's report on the Labour Party
under Corbyn rejected the accusations that the party had systemic
antisemitism. The media, and Starmer, are misrepresenting it.
Naomi Klein: *It’s fair to say that Biden was not safe at all, as we
always knew. Not safe for the planet, not safe for the people on
the front lines of police violence, not safe for the millions upon
millions of people who are seeking asylum, but also not even safe
as a candidate.*
*Digital Rights Advocates Warn [the wrecker's] FCC Nominee — Who
Backs Plan to Censor the Internet — Is 'Even Worse Than Ajit Pai'.*
*Destroying Palestinian Jerusalem, One Institution at a Time.*
*Two documentaries reveal how the U.S.'s pro-Israel coalition swung to the far
right — endangering American Jews in the process.*
(satire) *Brian Kemp Unveils Specially Trained Hogs That Can Root Out
Voter Fraud.*
Maher al-Akhras has ended his hunger strike and Israel has agreed to
release him at the end of his current term of imprisonment without
charges or trial.
(satire) *Scrambling Vatican Quickly Establishes Child Molestation As
New Sacrament.*
Canada is lobbying Biden intensely in favor of the Keystone XL
planet-roaster pipeline.
*The outgoing president has two ‘election defense funds’ –- but the small
print shows donations will go towards paying off [campaign] debt.*
Once again, The Guardian reports pressure to increase taxes on
low-pollution vehicles to "make up for" the decrease in revenue due to
decreased use of fossil fuels.
In the past, I pointed out that this would address a small problem by
perpetuating a bigger one. This time, for the first time, the
Guardian says so too.
Biden said, a week before election day, that he would announce before
election day where he stood regarding expanding the Supreme Court.
As far as I can tell, he never made any such announcement.
The issue will be moot if the Democrats do not win the Georgia runoffs
in January. But that would mean a bigger disaster, as Senate
Republicans will block all the laws necessary to help the non-rich in
America.
It will also block efforts to prevent global climate disaster.
*There's a massive risk that Biden becomes a failed president unable
to appoint any judges or enact any progressive policies.*
Biden was not enthusiastic about many progressive policies anyway, but
we might have been able to pressure him to pass the needed laws. But
not if it is blocked by obstacles beyond his control.
This means that much of the damage Republicans have done -- or might
do before Jan 20 -- will be impossible to reverse. Regulatory changes
could be reversed, one decision at a time. But even that will be
impeded if Republicans block appointments of heads of agencies, and
why wouldn't they do that?
Americans have a foolish tendency to judge a president's achevements
on an absolute scale. A president who is thwarted by an opposition
which holds a majority of the Senate is described as "failed", as if
that were per own fault.
"Ethical investment" funds often provide good returns, but there is a
catch.
"Ethical" companies are typically judged based on mainstream ideas of
what is, and what isn't, ethical. Around 20 years ago I invstigated
an ethical investment fund and found that its principal stock holding
was Microsoft. And that made sense. Microsoft treated its employees
well, and did not produce physical pollution. Microsoft must have
seemed quite ethical, if one disregarded the injustice of nonfree
software, and the issue of having a near-monopoly.
Farming large numbers mink, or civets, or other animals that can catch human
respiratory diseases, risks making pandemics more deadly.
We must take precautions.
If Biden fails to push to give non-rich Americans a better life,
the Democratic Party will become even weaker.
The next right-wing authoritarian might be more competent at ruling,
and more vicious, than the bullshitter has been.
Amazon faces prosecution in Europe for keeping track of other companies'
sales through Amazon's platform and using that to compete with them.
Fines won't be enough to make Amazon stop this unless the fines are
billions of dollars.
Trumpets in the US government are digging foxholes to do damage during
the transition or to make it hard for Biden to replace them.
*In 2019, at least 760,739 people in America were spied upon pursuant
to judicial orders allegedly based upon probable cause of crime and
were neither charged nor informed of the spying.*
The bullshitter's election lawsuits: why they are bullshit.
Since Biden won the election, he has forgotten many of the progressive
secondary points of his Covid-19 plan: paying for treatment, paying
people to stay home and quarantine, and support for gig workers,
renters and small businesses.
*And the severe downgrading of his Covid plan shows Biden embracing the
Obama playbook: meet the Republicans 75% of the way when you start
negotiating, with the expectation that the final deal will move even
more in their direction.*
The people of Bolivia had to use a campaign of protests to assure
they would have an election this year, and that it would be fair.
Denmark has decided not to kill all the minks after all. There may be
no more need.
Barr has asked federal prosecutors
to
create evidence for accusations of a conflagration of Democratic
election rigging by blowing a lot of smoke.
The real problems of election rigging were various forms
of
voter suppression carried out by Republicans.
Faux News and other Murdoch outlets have made a blatant switch
from supporting the conman to supporting the kinder, gentler
plutocratist.
For me, this highlights the amount of power that these organs of
plutocracy exercise, and the harm that that power has done.
It is not fortuitous that they have a plutocratist president-elect
to cooperate with, instead of Sanders who might have acted to
reduce their power.
Republican plutocratists are giving advice to "mainstream" Democratic
plutocratists about allying to reject progressives.
This is just one superficial aspect of the plutocratic system
in which the "mainstream" Democrats have participated since Bill Clinton's day.
Releasing preliminary data on the safety or effectiveness of a new
drug is a bad idea; it replaces careful testing with manipulation.
The manifesto, Privacy And Digital Rights For All,
is pretty good. It would make a significant step forward, because
it specifically calls for limiting the collection and transfer of
data, not solely its use.
One weakness is that it calls for a "data protection" agency. The
term "data protection" presumes that data gets collected and the goal
is to prevent others — "the wrong people" — from getting access to
it. That idea is inadequate because the business or agency which
collected the data is probably also "the wrong people", which is
why the goal needs to be preventing collection of the data.
Another weakness is that it does not mention the idea of requiring
systems to permit anonymity — for instance, to require services
(including ride-for-hire and recharging electric cars) and
digitally-controlled appliances to allow anonymous use.
The companies that manufactured and sold aluminum-covered polyethylene insulation for buildings knew it was a fire hazard and covered it up.
I hope the exposure of this giant, deadly fraud changes the decisions
to impose the cost of replacing that insulation on the people who
bought the condos — because it rendered their homes unsalable as well
as unsafe, and the cost of the repair will bankrupt them.
The article does not go into detail about the involvement regulators
in the affair, but it is clear that (at least) they were not
sufficiently firm. I have a hunch that the Tories cut the budget and
regulation of building seemed like a spending item that the state
could do without.
(satire) *Media Glad It Can Finally End Half-Assed Charade Of Trying
To Understand American Populace.*
*'Many Workers Will Suffer': Days After Election, Trump Quietly Freezes Wages
of [legal temporary immigrant] Farm Laborers.*
James Clyburn: *‘defund the police’ slogan may have hurt Democrats at polls.*
I know he was right about the slogan "Burn, baby, burn!" I was
repelled by that, and naturally so, because I could only interpret it
as a call for wanton destruction. If it was intended to mean
something else, I can't see it.
"Defund the police" (which I support) does not appear violent.
However, it does lend itself to misinterpretation and Clyburn may be
right that that was harmful.
Perhaps "Replace the police" would be a better slogan. I think
it more clearly expresses the goal which is actually sought.
*As long as the Democrats shy away from the redistributive action
needed to tackle glaring inequalities in a country where the gap
between richest and poorest has more than doubled in the past two
decades, there will be an opening for the Trumpist right to present
itself as the solution to a broken system – the alternative to Biden
and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.*
There are two paths that appear to lead out of the centrist pit: the
honest path (someone like Sanders) and the lying path (someone like
the wrecker).
Careless Republicans — perhaps intentionally careless — seized on
various errors and confusions to claim 14,000 dead people voted in
Michigan. However, investigating 50 of those cases found that each of
them either was still alive, or did not vote.
It is not feasible to investigate so many cases carefully, so
Republicans didn't try.
Republican state officials overlook the same sorts of issues
when "purging" people from voting lists.
Countries are trying to make their economies "recover" from Covid-19
by "investing" in fossil fuel use.
Those "investments" are really giveaways, since it would be disaster
to keep using them for their expected span of usage.
A proposed French law would criminalize publishing photos of thugs
under conditions that would threaten anyone who documents their
violence.
If you are French, please contact your député !
Foreign students in Australia, with no work and with universities
shut, were desperate for an income, and were pushed into farm work
under illegal conditions including taking their passports.
*World is running out of time on climate, experts warn.*
Paramilitary gangs in Colombia force young teenagers to join them,
and even children.
Why use the euphemism "recruitment" to describe conscription?
It seems absurd.
The Tories are directing the UK into the worst possible trade outcome
come January, gaining none of the possible benefits and suffering all
of the possible damage.
Since the Tories cannot help but understand the effects of the planned
"race to the bottom", I conclude that their intention is to eliminate
the UK's safety standards without even a quid-pro-quo.
They cannot help but understand that they are headed for exiting the EU
with no trade agreement, This is the extremely painful outcome
that Bogus Johnson promised to avoid.
Could it be that the Tories are in fact working for multinational
companies against the UK?
The US is deporting political refugees to Cameroon. Some of the
people deported a month ago seem to have disappeared, but that will
not deter the US from sending more.
Legally, political refugees should not be deported, but deportation
thugs torture them until they waive their rights.
Rebecca Solnit: *Victory is only the prelude. What happens now is up to us.*
It won't be easy to make Biden do anything that displeases the plutocrats.
Their power now is much stronger than it was in 1992.
If the Democrats don't win the two Georgia senate runoffs, Biden will
find it difficult to pass any laws to improve matters even if he
tries. Thus, trying to help win those two elections is a crucial prelude
to trying to get Biden to reject ruinous compromises.
Arguing that few if any other Republicans could succeed at
bullshitting the way the wrecker did.
* Biden and Democrats in Congress now have an opportunity to win a
generation’s long-term loyalty, but only if they deliver the big
changes young Americans demand.*
Looking at the question from the other side: how a somewhat different
repressive populist could win by catering economically to
working-class Americans, if the Democrats fail to do so.
Unfortunately, that's exactly what plutocrats don't want Biden to do.
And their pundits are already saying that Biden must compromise with
Senator McConnell, since the Republicans may still control the Senate
A compromise between the center-right and the extreme right will not
deliver any of the country's needs, neither short-term needs nor
long-term needs.
Keir Starmer says he wants to be the UK's Biden, not aiming to
make the major changes to turn off plutocracy.
You would never guess from his talk that millions of Americans voted
for Biden while holding their noses.
"Centrists" always talk about seeking to "unify the country", which
progressives hear as "shut up and watch as I keep plutocracy in place."
*Republicans back [bullshitters'] challenge to Biden election victory.*
There is hardly any argument one could make against requesting a
recount. To challenge irregularities in court is legitimate, but
doing so in a system of courts that Republicans have packed with
partisan judges has the potential to become a coup.
The danger he will stir up violence to influence the electoral system
still exists.
A description of political events in Ethiopia, which may be leading to
a civil war. I can't summarize them simply.
Indeed, heavy fighting has broken out,
and Ethiopia has cut off communication between Tigray and the rest
of the world.
*EU bank supports projects linked to human rights violations, NGOs claim.*
*Australia's government agencies increasingly refusing environment-related FOIs, audit finds.*
The people of small Wagina Island in the Solomons have defeated a plan
to build a mine that would have taken up half the island and made
life very difficult on the rest.
*Covid set to cause 400,000 surge in TB deaths as medics diverted.*
Kamala Harris's victory speech focuses on identity politics.
I agree it is good that the US can elect a black woman to a post that
may lead to becoming president. But I see no sign of an intention to do
anything to make things better than they were in 2016, and maybe not even
merely no worse.
Biden's victory speech does say a little about important long term
goals beyond dealing with Covid-19, including defending the climate.
But all it offers to poor people is "a fair shot", a chance at a
good life.
As Europe falls into a fight about censorship of "blasphemy", neither
the Islamists nor Macron nor other governments are consistently on
the side of freedom of speech.
Yanis Varoufakis: *Hoping for a return to normal after Trump? That's
the last thing we need.*
Varoufakis lays it out completely clearly, how the wrecker took
advantage of non-rich Americans' justified anger at being shafted by
plutocracy. If by 2024 the "centrist" politicians won't give them
a fair share, and block Sanders, they could chose another bullshitter.
Not Trump, though — he will probably be in state prison.
Everyone: call on NYC District Attorney Cy Vance to drop charges
against arrested protesters.
Lukashenko has orchestrated a propaganda campaign drawing on the heroism
of the underground that fought German occupation. The opposition has
turned it around.
It seems that Lukashenko fits the role of fascist very well.
A war remembrance event experienced as "an exercise in collective
amnesia."
*Loyal [bullshitter] outlets cry betrayal after [not Faux enough] News calls
election for Biden.*
(satire) *Donald Trump Jr. Refuses To Step Down From Post Of President’s Oldest Son.*
(satire) *‘You Have Disappointed Me,’ Trump Tells Room Full Of Supporters While
Strapping On Gas Mask.*
FAIR reports on how the media are disregarding the wrecker's efforts
to steal the election by getting courts to discard the postal ballots
which changed the outcomes in several states.
On the other hand, it could be that denying him attention is creating
a public mindset in which court decisions for him would outrage the
public. This could inhibit the Supreme Court from doing that.
A study found that psilocybin was helpful to many people suffering
from depression —
more effective than approved antidepressants.
Even if the wrecker does not seize power, he could lawfully wreck a
lot more things before January 20.
Not to mention the exponential spread of Covid-19, almost unhindered
while the wrecker has its back.
Ocasio-Cortez Notes: Every Democrat [in Congress] Who Backed Medicare
for All Won Reelection in 2020.
However, some of those who didn't support it were defeated.
She also points out that support for Biden from Republicans
seems to have done little good for him.
To anyone who was unhappy with the Republican dooH niboR policies before
the wrecker came along, their support for Biden only suggests he's as
bad as we thought.
Ralph Nader: The Democratic Party is not interested in learning from
its overall disappointing outcome this year, because the lesson it would
have to learn is to start standing for non-rich Americans.
Naomi Klein: *We were told Joe Biden was the 'safe choice'. Why did he
barely scrape through?*
(satire) *Jubilant Reaction To Trump Defeat Quickly Soured By News Of
Biden Win.*
(satire) *Following Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential
election, a crying Eric Trump reportedly asked his father Friday if
they were poor now.*
Environmental activists say that Bolsonaro arranged a phony Potemkin tour
showing selected healthy parts of the Amazon forest.
*Why Democrats lost Latino voters along Texas border.* It starts with
taking them mostly for granted, but it isn't just that.
The attitudes reported are so disparate that I can't see any specific
concrete lesson to be learned from this, except perhaps to nominate a
candidate that excites people rather than a lesser-evil.
Republicans exploit flaws in the US electoral system every time to
"win" Congress and the presidency, or at least come close. We need to
fix those flaws for good and all.
*U.S. Military Responsible for Widespread PFAS Pollution in Japan.*
Four more states have legalized marijuana for adult use.
I wonder why right-wing politicians put so much effort into continuing
prohibition. Is it that they need marijuana as a monster to "protect"
people from? Is it associated with sex, and therefore crying out
for repression?
*Millions of Americans have risen up and said: democracy won't die on our
watch.*
However, survival of civilization, and of millions of poor Americans,
depends on not merely having Democracy, but on stopping the plutocrats
from outmaneuvering us, so we can use it to do what is needed.
This year, we lost that battle.
Biden has won enough electoral votes to be elected president.
That means he will be elected unless the wrecker can sabotage the system.
Which means that the wrecker will soon do all he can to encourage violence.
Faux News and other Murdoch publications are calling on the wrecker
to concede defeat rather than sabotage the system.
I don't think they will convince him to do so willingly, but their
influence may thwart him by persuading Republican state legislators
to refuse to participate.
A Finnish zoo gave monkeys control buttons to request various kinds of
recorded sound tracks.
Their preference was traffic noise.
Adani mining accidentally renamed its Australian subsidiary to a word
meaning "crooked, villainous, depraved."
The company denied that the renaming was because the name "Adani" had
recently developed negative associations, saying that the negative
associations had existed for a long time.
Someone found a video of a photographer from WXYZ transporting
equipment in a box on a wagon, and claimed (based on no evidence) that
he was transporting fake ballots.
A news faker can generate dozens of fake instances of "fraud" every
day, creating a miasma of dishonesty even if there isn't any real
dishonesty. People who are convinced this way, when they see a
refutation of one accusation, may respond, "One of those instances was
debunked, but there are plenty more," without remembering the
specifics, so there is no effective way to refute the rootless
accusation.
Camden, New Jersey, disbanded its violent and ineffective thug department
and founded a new one with a different attitude.
This eliminated the old union contracts that gave thugs impunity for
doing bad work, and even crimes.
The EPA reports that the pesticide atrazine is likely to harm over 1000
endangered species.
This conclusion was reached under guidelines that required the EPA to
disregard some scenarios of possible harm. So the number is likely to
be an underestimate.
(satire) *Trump Files Lawsuit In Pennsylvania Alleging Election
Officials Totally Disregarding His Feelings.*
(satire) *Panicked Trump Agrees To Zoom Debate.*
If food production follows its current trajectory of development,
that alone will bust the carbon budget.
A high-ranking New York City thug is accused of publishing a wide variety
of bigotry under a pseudonym.
It's not a crime to make prejudiced statements, but if a cop does so,
it implies perse can't do per job in an unbiased way.
* Scotland Yard has apologized after journalists and photographers
covering an anti-lockdown protest were told to leave and threatened
with arrest.*
Almost 3/4 of Americans want government-run medical care. The
challenge is to replace the "centrist" Democrats with people closer to
the real political center.
* It’s not enough to be anti-Trump. Socialists are showing you can win
elections by standing for something.*
Centrist Democrats are already attacking the progressives in Congress whose unceasing campaigning helped Biden win.
Progressives' help will be needed to win the crucial Georgia senate
runoff elections in January.
*Nonwhite Voters Are Not Immune to the Appeal of Right-Wing Populism.*
There will be rallies again on Nov 7 to resist the wrecker's attempts
to set aside the election. Alas, once again the information
necessary to participate is hidden behind nonfree software.
A progressive candidate defeated the incumbent district attorney of
Los Angeles, who had protected killer thugs.
Two supporters of QAnonsense were arrested in Philadelphia near a
vote-counting center for carrying illegal firearms, including a rifle
without a serial number.
The bullshitter's campaign is filing many lawsuits against
vote-counting procedures. Experts say they are frivolous and
he has little chance of winning them.
So why do do this?
I have two hypotheses:
An analysis of Macron's attempt to integrate Muslim French people into
France's insistence on secularity above any religion.
*UN urges resumption of mass measles and polio vaccinations.*
*"One of the reasons to try and
keep the number of cases down as low as possible [in humans and
animals], is to reduce the genetic diversity of the virus."*
In other words, letting the virus run rampant, as the wrecker decided to do,
is making potential vaccines less effective.
*When [the bullshitter] is peddling outrageous lies, where is the line
between reporting and enabling?*
My answer, for around four years, is: cover what he does, and don't be
distracted by what he says. There is no reason to quote his lies, and
in most cases no reason to talk about them except occasionally to show
what sort of attack on truth he is launching.
The writer seems to argue that the existence of millions of Americans
who believe his lies makes them somehow more worthy of press coverage.
I disagree. The writer also think it makes a difference that a
typical lie says something his followers already believe, rather than
"inventing" it. That's because it was invented by previous lies, not
by the latest one. Same difference.
The existence of his supporters is an important fact, and covering
that fact is valid, but does not require quoting him.
A Toronto thug was sentenced to prison for beating a black man with a pipe
and bursting one of his eyes.
Some prominent Republicans privately disapprove of the wrecker's campaign
to shed distrust on the counting of votes, but they don't have the courage
to oppose it publicly.
A few did speak up.
The part of the process where massive cheating occurs is
before a person's ballot gets into the ballot box.
That's when Republican voter suppression occurs.
As Kushner discourages eviction protection with one hand, he prepares
evictions with the other.
Thugs in Minneapolis besieged and arrested a thousand or more
nonviolent protesters. Whereas New York City thugs beat up protesters
while other thugs looked on and laughed.
Biden will have no chance of returning the US to "normal", even aside
from Covid-19.
But then, the "normal" state of affairs for the past few decades has
been getting worse and worse. Since the late 90s, the US government
has been dominated by big companies and rich people, plus the special
interests in any given area.
This has been getting worse ever since and I don't think Biden
would try to fix it anyway.
Thus, one crucial political battle will be between the plutocratists
that want that old "normal" back, the progressives who want something
better, and the death cult Republicans want to go berserk.
The UK is taking its greenhouse gas commitments seriously, and is planning
to increase measures to achieve them.
Moving to electric cars is a good thing to do, though burning hydrogen
made sustainably would also be good. However, if there is a plan
to move to cars that take a new kind of fuel, it is imperative to
make it possible to buy that fuel anonymously.
*NHS England has far fewer hospital beds than it used to and is short of
around 100,000 staff.*
Tory cuts started out as purported efficiency measures and morphed
into "Let's squeeze the non-rich Britons some more." However, a
service that runs without spare capacity in normal times, even if it
does a good job then, will be overloaded as soon as there is an
emergency.
In Hong Kong, the Chinese tyranny invites people to inform on each
other anonymously.
The US did invite informers in Afghanistan, and people fabricated
crimes to obtain private revenge.
Some of the victims spent many years in
Guantanamo.
An icebreaker left a time capsule in the ice at the North Pole in 2018.
This year it floated out and was found in Ireland.
In recent years the Arctic ice cap has been getting much thinner.
This is probably a consequence of that.
The election outcome has refuted the arguments that Biden has a better chance of winning than Sanders.
In Florida, the referendum to increase the minimum wage won as Biden lost.
Biden was not too progressive, he was insufficiently progressive.
The EU has just gained the power to punish an authoritarian national
government without unanimous approval from all the rest.
This means the EU will be able to bring pressure on Poland and Hungary
to restore the independence and authority of the national courts.
However, I am not sure such pressure will be sufficient to achieve
that goal. Once people are caught up in a spell of hatred, they tend
to react defensively to criticism of that spell.
San Francisco has voted for additional taxes on tech companies and CEOs.
Israeli forces demolished a Palestinian village, making 73 residents homeless.
Israel uses many excuses for ethnic cleansing. Declaring land a "closed
military zone" is one of the standard excuses.
The wrecker called on the Supreme Court to end the counting of
ballots, giving no reason why it should.
I linked
to
an inaccurate report claiming that a large number of postal
ballots went undelivered on election day. The USPS says
they were delivered specially to election commissions,
skipping the usual delivery scan step.
The University of London has yielded to a campaign and will end the
practice of outsourcing cleaning to a contractor.
It should be illegal for large organizations (for which cleaning
requires many full-time employees) to use a contractor as
intermediary. And likewise for other occupations
*FBI Investigates Robocalls Aimed at Suppressing [Democrats'] Turnout
as State Officials Pledge Vigilance Against Attacks on Voting Rights.*
*Teens who spend more time in extracurricular activities and less time in
front of screens have better mental health, study finds.*
If Biden is allowed to become president, he can easily bring the US back into
the Paris climate agreement.
Republicans in the Senate, however, will go to the mat to make
sure th US not carry out its pledge to reduce emissions.
The US has a long history of rigging elections.
(satire) *Passed California Ballot Measure Allows Uber, Lyft To
Categorize Workers As Car Parts.*
The wives of UK undercover thugs who used phony romantic relationships
to infiltrate various leftist political movements are now complaining
that those relationships constituted "infidelity" towards them.
I cannot understand their feeling of loss because it is based on an
idea of possessiveness that seems totally wrong to me.
If a woman who loves me starts to love someone else, I worry that she
might lose interest in me. But once I know she still loves me, I wish
her happiness from her other relationship, and I can be happy for her
happiness, along with her love for me.
But even if she stops loving me, I still wish her happiness even
though I am bereft.
The Democratic Party's attempt to win votes from Republicans
has mostly failed.
This effort started with nominating a largely right-wing "centrist",
Biden, and continued with inviting Republicans to speak at the
Democratic convention about how close Biden was to a Republican.
This tended to discourage the people who need something better
than a Republican.
As for the Lincoln Project, there was no harm in trying that,
and it may have done some little good. But not very much.
*Let’s face it: The democracy that Donald Trump dropped on the floor
suffered a great deal from the experience. It’s going to take more than
an election to put it right.*
* Turns out, the so-called shining city on a hill is, instead, a black
hole where hope, optimism, reason and the future go to die.*
Research finds correlation between activity levels of brain regions
and general political attitudes.
The UK's criminalization of "hate speech" — simple expression of views — has an exception for discussions taking place in someone's home. But now Parliament is considering a plan to eliminate that
exception.
They mean well, but this is getting dangerously like China, or
Belarus. If protesters don't start out hating someone, they can be
led to do so.
This change was buried where people might not notice it, and that
displays ill will. Furthermore, the proponents ask people to take it
on trust that this extended prohibition won't be exercised to the full
extent. Why trust them? Should you trust Bogus Johnson and his crew
to have a power and not use it?
Talking about "decarbonisation" creates a pitfall: an opportunity for
nuclear power companies to replace the carbon pollution with
radioactive heavy element pollution.
All the arguments for nuclear power that couldn't be crushingly
refuted a few years ago have been crushingly refuted today. The world
should cancel all nuclear power plant projects immediately and spend
the money on efficient methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions
— methods that don't have a risk of suddenly turning into a very
expensive mess that people don't entirely know how to clean up.
Research suggests that 15% of all Covid-19 deaths were co-caused by
air pollution (combined with Covid-19).
This could be one of the reasons why blacks are more likely to die
when infected by Covid-19: because the neighborhoods they live in,
and have grown up in, have had more air pollution all along.
*Four-week cancer treatment delay raises death risk by 10% –- study.*
Now that hospitals are overwhelmed by Covid-19 cases because of
disease-spreading policies, people with cancer will start dying
avoidable deaths, and the wrecker and his death cult will be
responsible.
*International observers say US elections 'tarnished' by Trump and
uncertainty.*
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have agreed to work together to stop
Chinese overfishing in their waters.
The wrecker is suing to prematurely stop the counting of ballots in
some states.
I don't think this is merely an attempt to influence public opinion,
because that alone could not change defeat into victory, and the
wrecker knows this. I suspect he is trying to give Barrett and
company an opportunity to make an insane, non-sequitur ruling to throw
the election.
Everyone: call on officials in various states to count every vote.
Republicans are trying to stop the count in Detroit by menacing the people
doing the work.
Many kinds of things can cause a mailed ballot to get lost or thrown
away. And hundreds of thousands are lost or thrown away each time.
*Prosecutors in Brazil file embezzlement charges against Jair Bolsonaro's son.*
I'm not surprised that people who smear at honesty turn out to
have been dishonest.
*Terrawatch: dust is speeding up melting of Himalayan snow.*
And human activities make more dust.
UK thugs infiltrated protests against the Vietnam War,
and many other political causes.
* Barr said that mainly leftwing groups were infiltrated "as well as
groups campaigning for social, environmental or other change" such as
anti-nuclear causes. He also said trade unionists and groups opposing
racism were spied on. Far-right groups were also infiltrated.*
*"The information reported by these undercover police officers was
extensive. It covered the activities of the groups in question, and
their members. It also extended to the groups and individuals with whom
they came into contact, including elected representatives.
Reporting covered not only the political or campaigning activities of
those concerned but other aspects of their personal lives."*
(satire) *Woman Hopes She Did Enough Worrying To Help Biden Campaign.*
Leaving some of your data under the cloudy control of a company puts you
in danger of losing it at any time for cloudy reasons.
How Facebook's measure of popularity of a posting tends to promote
thoughtless extremism.
A law passed in some states to conceal the names of victims of crimes
is being used to cover up the identity of violent thugs.
*Don't be fooled: the delays in the US election result mean our system is
working.*
Well, the vote-counting part is working.
Oregonians voted to stop trying and punishing people for possession of
small amounts of any drugs.
It is not quite accurate to describe this as "decriminalizing" drugs,
but in practice it should work out that way.
Most of the people who break Covid-19 distancing rules need help to
comply with them, not rebukes and punishments.
[Organizations of] UK health professions call for climate tax on meat.
Democrats, it is no use nominating "moderate" (right-wing) candidates and
hoping to get many Republicans' votes.
Democrats that don't support progressive views will encounter the
downside of progressive views (being attacked for them) anyway, but
they won't get the upside.
Californians voted to allow Uber and Lyft to continue exploiting their
drivers. The companies threatened to stop operating in the state
unless they were allowed to do that.
Those who voted for Prop 22 were voting to get cheap rides by
exploiting their drivers. That attitude towards low-paid workers
results in a country that is cruel and full of hardship.
Civil war is about to break out in Tigray, a part of Ethiopia.
If secessionist sentiment in Tigray is that strong, maybe that state
should have a referendum over possible independence.
Is there any moral reason why it should be part of Ethiopia?
*Stop blowing up bombs on sea floor, say whale campaigners.*
Hong Kong reported Choy Yuk-ling has been arrested under the 2020
"security" law for a 2019 report on violence by Hong Kong thugs a year
ago.
In the 1700s, the UK used to pass laws that criminalized past actions.
They were known as "ex post facto laws", and in condemnation of that
practice, the US constitution explicitly prohibits them.
People with long-term Covid-19 disability need to rest in order to
recover. But the Tory hostile environment for working class people
who are sick does not allow them rest.
*Covid has exposed the decade-long lie that benefits are a lifestyle choice.*
In the UK and the US, both run by cruel right-wing regimes, welfare benefits
are so meager that it is a struggle to survive on them. And if anything goes
seriously wrong, you're destitute.
*Ugandan singer Bobi Wine arrested after confirmation as election candidate.*
The UK plans to prohibit protests in the name of Covid-19.
People should be allowed to protest if they wear masks and keep their
distance.
That applies to Australia, too. Thugs in Melbourne arrested 400 protesters
because anything more than a small protest is prohibited.
The article fails to clarify whether they were arrested for refusing
to take sanitation precautions, or for protesting. Morally, that
makes all the difference.
Based on the signs that the protesters are reported to have carried, I
get the impression that they were covidiots. Very likely they refused
to wear masks and refused to keep distance from each other. That
means spreading disease. Arresting people for that — whether
protesting or not — would be legitimate. Arresting people for
protesting would be tyranny.
Poland's right-wing government has backed off on plans to tighten
restrictions on abortion.
*Italian doctors urge tougher restrictions fearing 'tsunami' on hospitals.*
Spotify will invite musicians to compete for publicity by cutting
their tiny share of the company's income.
Let's spit out Spotify! We need a system where people can easily
and anonymously donate to musicians; GNU Taler
can be the base for that.
And we should share copies of music, regardless of what anyone says.
In order to share a copy, you need to have a copy. That is another
reason to refuse to listen via Spotify, or any other streaming
dis-service.
The Tories' ideology of privatizing government activities is replacing
skilled public health professionals with untrained 18-year-olds. The
UK allows paying them a lower wage, but have no idea how to do their
jobs.
With this approach, failure is built into every plan.
At 100,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day, the US will
have 36 million new cases per year. That is about 1/9 of
the population. If herd immunity requires 70% of the
population to catch the disease, that will take 6 years.
If the rate of infection increases to half a million per day, we might
reach herd immunity by the end of 2021. However, at that rate, most
people that get a bad case are likely to die, because most of them
won't be able to get hospital treatment (the hospitals will be
overloaded).
The way to regain a normal life soon is the way that Taiwan, New
Zealand and parts of Australia have used:
jump on the virus hard and
drive the numbers down, then use old-fashioned contact tracing
followed by isolating those who may be infected to mop up the rest.
This method is known to work,
and it can work in just a few months.
It is true that the US is not an island, but that makes less
difference than people think. The number of people that enter the US
without permission is minuscule by Covid-19 standards, and most of
them surrender promptly to federal agents, which makes it possible to
test them and quarantine them.
On finding and trying the people who organized the Rwandan genocide.
A US court ordered the USPS to carry out specific special measures to deliver
all the ballots on time.
I wonder whether DeJoy found some last-minute form of sabotage to
carry out, so as to negate that order. Republicans love defying
courts that try to stop their sabotage.
The wrecker thinks of Covid-19 as an opportunity to get rid of around
two million Americans, whom he will subsequently define as "losers"
because they died.
A US appeals court allowed a lawsuit by a thug who was injured by a
thrown rock to sue the organizer of the protest, although the protest
was not supposed to be violent. The Supreme Court reversed that decision.
The idea of punishing protest organizers for something at the protest
that they didn't do reminds me of the Haymarket martyrs, who were
executed for having organized a rally at which some unidentified
person set off a bomb.
Up to 30 million Americans will soon be evicted
unless governments protect them.
100 years ago, whites in Occee, Florida, massacred 30 to 50 blacks
because some of them dared try to vote.
Don't trust temporary discounts offered by online stores. If they delay
delivery, and the discount ends in the mean time, they will charge you
the undiscounted price.
The article is about the UK. I don't know for a fact that this
practice is common in other countries, but I expect it to occur
in the US because its consumer protection tends to be weak.
Many Indians work in the US tech industry, but Dalits are a small minority
and the other Indians discriminate against them constantly.
*Greta Thunberg Hears Your Excuses. She Is Not Impressed.*
The movement to protect the voters' decision must insist on nonviolence.
Any violence by the protesters will give the wrecker's armed and
violent supporters an opportunity.
Any apparent violence by protesters might very likely to be a
false-flag attack by provocateurs. We've seen several of those year
at Black Lives Matter protests. Establishing a disciplined practice
of nonviolence, following the 1960s and 1970s example, will make it
easier to expose the false-flag attacks, and that will help resist
them and help deter them.
Democracy is threatened in the US and globally, and will still be
threatened next year regardless of the election outcome. But the
cause is not lost.
The conman's multiple conflicting disinformation campaigns are
designed to confuse politics and truth so much that people can't see
how to unite in opposition.
(satire) *… anti-jacket demonstrators reportedly held a rally
at Burlington Coat Factory Monday to protest what they called the
*liberal cold weather conspiracy."*
*Treat artificial light like others forms of pollution, say scientists.*
They harm a wide variety of species and this damages ecosystems.
*Kentucky state [thug] training quoted Hitler to create ‘ruthless’
warriors.*
If we want police officers rather than thugs, we should not teach them
to think of themselves as "warriors". That was the basic mistake in
this training; no matter who they quoted, it would be wrong.
The US deportation thugs are planning to deport a crucial witness about their
practice of forced sterilization.
Even worse, since they have never seriously considered whether she is
a US citizen. Which it appears she is.
Republicans are still working on voter suppression, hoping the partisan
judges they appointed will invalidate mail-in ballots because of postal delays
that they engineered.
They have filed over 40 state cases that aim to interfere with voting.
One was an attempt to invalidate Texas drive-through voting. It
failed.
The judges that Republicans appointed in the last 4 years have in general
acted to impede voting.
I don't know what you call this. I call it a conspiracy to attack the
election, and future elections as well. A government that is not
democratic makes itself illegitimate.
Covidiots in many European countries are protesting against measures
to put an end to Covid-19, in two fundamentally different ways.
This article describes demands for aid and demands to spread disease.
It does distinguish the two goals, but still treats them as part of
one larger issue. That is a mistake. Those two reactions to the
same situation are totally different in moral terms.
When people have lost their income and demand aid, their cause is
just, and the government should provide it. However, to do this the
government may need to pull out of the Euro, or it fall into the sort
of disaster that crushed Greece for most of the past decade.
However, the people that demand to disregard precautions are demanding
to infect other people, some of whom will be killed or permanently
disabled. They are disease spreaders, and they belong in prison. It
would be most appropriate to put them, together, in a prison which the
guards do not enter. That way they can spread coronavirus to each
other without endangering anyone else.
*It's not just Trump — to much of the world, the US is a bully whoever is in
charge.*
Biden won't change this much, but Sanders would have.
*The [Bully's] War on Dissent Is Using Trumped-Up Federal Charges.*
Powerful people are blocking journalism by threatening libel lawsuits
in England against journalists investigating them.
*Tanzanian opposition figures arrested after disputed election.*
The residents of Brixton (near London) have fought a series of
projects to gentrify their neighborhood. The latest project which
they oppose is a 20-story skyscraper.
I conjecture that this project was planned before 2020, in a world in
which there appeared to be great need for additional housing space in
London, even if only to buy as an investment and leave empty.
Covid-19 has eliminate that appearance; an enormous amount of office
space will be vacant. Surely some of that can be converted to
housing, especially with some flexibility in building codes. Then
there would be a sufficiency of residential space and of business
space, and building additional tall buildings would make no sense at
all.
*Even if [the wrecker] loses the election, the US isn't going to heal
any time soon.*
We will have a substantial minority of right-wing extremists and
potential terrorists. I think we will have to defeat them, not ignore
them.
At the same time, we will need progressive policies to give non-rich
Americans a much better life. But people wrapped in insanity may not
even notice.
Young Americans, and even not so young, are thoroughly aware of the
climate crisis and confront the older generations of their families.
More about Slovakia's mass testing for Covid-19.
* Lockdowns affecting entire populations is a price countries pay for
failing to ensure people with coronavirus and their contacts
self-isolate, according to an expert from the World Health
Organization.*
Some suggestions for avoiding redistributing misinformation.
The article refers to postings as "content". Please join me in
refusing to do that.
Bogus Johnson delayed rather than take strong measures to stop
Covid-19 transmission in the UK, and as a result the country needs to
take those strong measures for a longer period.
Putting this off is like putting off a visit to the dentist: foolish
and self-defeating. Except that when you postpone your dental
treatment, you're the only one who it hurts. When you postpone
antitransmission measures, it hurts the whole country.
One cause of the UK's failure to fend off Covid-19 was that Tories had
underfunded the NHS for years,
worse each year than the previous.
Taiwan and New Zealand took very strong measures for a sufficient time,
and now they don't have the disease at all.
*Scholars warn of collapse of democracy as Trump v Biden election looms.*
The thugs who shot Walter Wallace Jr did not have an urgent reason to
shoot. They could have waited to see if they could handle the
situation without shooting. They could even have stopped after one
shot.
And why in the world, when the city got a call about having a
mental crisis, did it send thugs without tasers?
With "Defund the Police", the city would have been able to send people
trained and equipped to handle such a crisis without hurting anyone.
That is why I support that campaign.
Three jailed Thai protest leaders were released on a court order, then thugs attacked them and seem to have caused them substantial injury.
Presenting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Now that many Americans are unable to pay their debts, or even their
rent, the Consumer Financial Punishment Bureau authorized additional
harassment by debt collectors.
Don't interpret "the new normal" as "the new acceptable."
Members of the wrecker's death cult are not organizing solely to
intimidate voters. They attacked Biden's campaign bus.
In response, Biden's campaign cancelled campaign events.
I don't think it is wise to cancel an event for bullies, because that
gives the bullies a victory. They will boast of every success in
cancelling something or someone, to recruit more bullies. (Later:
indeed, that's what they are doing.)
It is a grave mistake to let arrogant fascist bullies get a victory to
boast of.
In part of India, the roots of living trees are shaped into durable
bridges.
The story of Sun Yi, the Chinese political prisoner who hid tiny notes
in the products he was forced to manufacture.
*How Internet-connected voter check-in devices can create election chaos.*
The bully has systematically used the US deportation thugs to retaliate
for political activism on behalf of immigrants.
North Carolina thugs sprayed pepper spray at a get-out-the-vote march,
supposedly because the protesters blocked a street, but they seem to have
been rather quick to escalate.
* Our country is breaking down, we have no effective leadership, and
we’re lagging behind other rich countries. The left needs to provide an
answer.*
Melting ice around the world offers a windfall for archaeologists,
although it is a harbinger of disaster.
Investigating the origin of funded voter intimidation in Minnesota.
*'Red mirage': the 'insidious' scenario if Trump declares an early victory.*
A British functionary in charge of trying to make homeless people fit
the strictly narrow categories of aid for the homeless says that this
system is fundamentally broken.
The NYU's investigation of Facebook ads has its participants use a
browser add-on that incidentally reports other people's personal data
when it appears on the participant's screen. Arguably, Facebook is
legally bound to try to stop its use.
Facebook may not have the legal power to stop it, and we must hope it
does not get that power, because this research is vitally important.
Unless, that is, new laws compel Facebook to hand over its preference
algorithm (in every version) for investigation.
The experimenters are morally bound to inform participants that the
browser add-on will show the experimenters other Facebook useds'
personal information they Facebook shows them. That raises another
legal/moral question: is it legal, and is it moral, for a participant
X to knowingly hand over per Facebook "friends"' data to the
experimenters?
IANAL, but I think it is legal, because X has no obligation of secrecy
to per Facebook friends. I think it is moral, provided X informs
all per Facebook friends that perse will do this, and gives them a
chance to avoid showing their data to X.
However, if they are wise, they will be more hesitant to show their
data to Facebook than to show it to X and the experimenters. Which
means they should stop being zuckers — stop being used by
Facebook.
Bogus Johnson wanted to reopen businesses and help them make money,
never mind that they would spread Covid-19. Now, as a result, the UK
is experiencing a catastrophic spread, like the spring only perhaps
worse, and a strict lockdown is following.
The UK should have done that in September, and it would be over now.
Senators tore into Facebook and Google for making themselves the main
distributors for the work of US local newspapers, and taking all the
revenue for themselves.
The article is weakened by the use of confused concepts such as
"intellectual property"
and "consuming" news.
It is correct in criticizing those companies, but it doesn't
seem to consider that their data collection ought to be banned outright.
Americans: start wearing masks now or face sharp lockdowns soon.
*… without a "seismic shift" in how world governments
approach the treatment of wildlife, land conservation, and public
health, the planet could be entering an "era of pandemics.*
A Philadelphia woman drove into the wrong street, wrong because thugs
were kettling protesters at the end of the block. One thug told her
to turn around, but as she did so, other thugs broke her car windows,
grabbed her very young son, beat her up, then posted a photo of her son
to claim they were protecting him.
I suppose it is not a coincidence that she is black.
We must demand prosecution of the thugs that did these mad things.
It's not enough to prosecute them solely for murder.
**How Decades of Corporate-Friendly Farm Policies Wrecked Rural America — And
Paved the Way for [the conman].*
This story described how it killed first the author's stepfather, then
her mother, as the bully told Americans that Covid-19 can't hurt anyone
except a few losers.
The mother caught it from the stepfather, who caught it from people
who were treating him for an injury, and they probably caught it
indirectly from people who spread it because they believed what the
bully told them.
*Under Trump, Households Making $30 Million Nine Times Less Likely to Face IRS
Audit Than Working Poor Making Less Than $25,000.*
*Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez Unveil Bill to Foster
Creation of Public Banks Across US.*
I think it may take a lot of public pressure to make the "centrist"
right-wing Democrats support this.
*New Analysis Shows [global heating] Is Making It Harder to Vote.*
These events happen occasionally, not every day, but they can affect
many voters each time.
Urging New Mexico to make gas wells reduce their methane leaks.
*Unions Representing Hundreds of Thousands of Workers Prepare for General
Strike If Trump Subverts Election Results.*
(satire) *More Souls Deferring Entrance To Heaven For A Year To Backpack
Through Spirit Realm.*
(satire) A closer look at the nation’s 50 worst states.
An NGO has recommended that Europe cancel the planned gas pipeline
from the Aegean Sea.
I've recommended for a year that the way to settle the dispute between
Cyprus and Turkey about which one will get the chance to profit from
destroying civilization through the extraction of this gas is to
insist on leaving it in the ground.
Likewise for other similar disputes.
*millions of American diabetics struggle to afford
insulin.*
Colorado's high forests, which never got hot enough to burn, are burning
very hot. One fire has been burning since August.
The average western fire season has extended more than two months
since the 1970s. Global heating has gone 1C already and it will
probably go at least another 1C; how long will the fire season be
then?
Qatar says that strip-searching women passengers to see if one had just
given birth was illegal.
I am surprised to learn that the baby was and is alive. I got the
impression from the first article that it was dead.
However, I don't think this justifies desperately trying to find the
mother. I expect that being a single mother in Qatar leads to
persecution, such as no longer occurs in western countries. Is there
any safe place in Qatar for a mother to anonymously leave a baby that
she cannot keep or acknowledge?
*Federal Prosecutors Engaged in Unprecedented Push to Jail Protesters Before
Trial.*
Protests designed to bring down a tyrant have often failed in recent decades.
One additional example, not mentioned in the article, was in Nicaragua.
There are, however, cases where they have succeeded.
And other examples where protests have thwarted a coup that tried
to overthrow an elected government.
Black Lives Matter protests have already influenced laws in parts of
the US, and their enforcement (by election of progressive
prosecutors). So far this change covers only small areas, but with
time they will achieve more. Also, this is one area where they may be
successful at the federal level if Democrats win control of the US government.
In 1953, the UK overthrew the recently elected government of Guyana,
supposedly a self-governing colony at the time, and imposed a state of
repression comparable to Kashmir today.
The idea of extracting Guyana's oil may excite dangerous rivalries,
but the most dangerous thing would be to burn that oil. The universal
answer to all questions about what to do with untapped oil reserves
is, "Leave them in the ground."
Glenn Greenwald quit The Intercept after it would not publish an
article that criticized Biden.
The editor denies the accusation, but I believe Greenwald. There is
plenty to criticize about Biden, and Greenwald is surely accustomed
to editing of his work; he can tell the difference between changes to
make the piece better and changes to suppress his ideas.
Greenwald knows that Biden looks good only in contrast to the wrecker.
I hope Biden replaces the wrecker, but if he does, we will find him
even more "moderate" (i.e., generally unsympathetic to necessary
reforms) than Obama was.
I hope that Greenwald will find a new visible place to publish.
US citizens: call on Facebook to shut down disinformation and
calls for violence.
US citizens: call on House and Senate committees to block a big
sale of US combat jets to the UAE.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
Massachusetts Governor Baker has nominated one more former prosecutor
to be the new chief justice of Massachusetts' supreme court.
The nominee is black and female. So is Kamala Harris, another former
prosecutor, and her harshness towards defendants and convicts is one
of the things I don't support about her. (She is also, like Biden,
not progressive.) I hope this new judge in Massachusetts is not like
Harris.
Unless you're a campaign manager, stop reading polls! And stop worrying
about things that might affect campaign strategy!
Reading those things wastes your time and makes you worry uselessly,
because you have no decisions to make which depend on them.
What is worth thinking about in regard to the US election?
It may be useful to think about those topics because they may help you
take action. Anything else election-related is just a distraction —
so you may as well do some other useful thing instead.
In the past, you could usually tell who won any race
at some point in the evening. I used to stay up waiting for this, like most
Americans. Then I realized that I had no need to rush to find out the
answer. The result, whether good or (more often) bad,
would be the same in the morning, Finding out earlier
would not enable me to do any more good.
So I decided to ignore the results on election day and
read about them later.
Slovakia plans to test all citizens over age 10 for Covid-19.
It seems foolish to omit non-citizens and children.
They could propagate Covid-19 past the effort
and thus negate it.
Introduced peacocks, no longer checked by introduced mammalian predators,
are becoming a big problem in New Zealand.
Hong Kong thugs arrested Tony Chung as he tried to ask the US consulate
to shelter him, and charged him with political opposition.
The reason Chung could not simply leave Hong Kong is that the
government had taken his passport and accused him of advocating
independence for Hong Kong.
A number of others also facing political charges tried to leave
Hong Kong in a boat, but China caught the boat.
Preston Kulkarni, running for Congress in Houston, has stated support
for the RSS, a violent anti-non-Hindu hate group in India.
People should pressure Kulkarni and the Democratic Party hard about
this, but despite his connection to a hate group, he is clearly the
lesser evil this year. After all, his opponent is a member of a
violent domestic hate group called the Republican Party.
Missouri voters passed a ballot initiative against gerrymandering.
Now Republicans are pushing another ballot initiative which would
reverse that one, and reduce the voting power of some minorities.
They hoped they could mislead the voters into passing it.
In the US, recessions typically start when there is a Republican president.
Poland is seeing large protests for abortion rights every day.
The last protest had 100,000 people.
Poland's latest attack on abortion rights affects women whose fetuses
are dead or so damaged that they cannot be born alive. For Polish
Catholics, granting the fetus one more day of non-consciousness is
worth any amount of human grief caused.
Right-wing nasties organized for violent attacks against protesters,
which they consider legitimate because the protesters are not fetuses.
;-{.
Adani, which wants to build more coal mines in Australia, used private
investigators to study the private life of an anti-mine activist, and
his wife, and his preteen daughter.
I suppose they were looking for some irrelevant scandal to distract
public attention from the death that comes out of every coal mine
every day.
The president of the US has been given enormous decree powers to
use in an "emergency." Various officials have warned that this could
be dangerous some day.
"Some day" could very well be in December or January, if the wrecker
wants to prevent Biden's inauguration.
CIA sources say that the mysterious brain damage which has struct many
US agents and officials could be caused by a microwave beam weapon.
If that is the case, wearing a simple grid of wires around the head
could block the waves, and attaching a recording thermometer might
provide as way to detect the attack. Purpose-built detectors might
give more information about the waves.
In San Francisco, over 11 million square feet of office space is now
vacant.
We need to convert that space into small residence for poor people to
live in. They could have a microwave and a fridge each, rather than a
real kitchen. This would enable all the homeless people of San
Francisco to have a safe place to live and practice physical
distancing. The rest of the space could be made into studio apartments
and offered for rent at amounts working people can actually afford.
It shouldn't take much payment to the building owners to get them
to accept, since otherwise they are likely to get nothing.
Also, unused space should pay a higher real estate tax.
Delta Airlines has put 460 people on a list it won't sell tickets to
because they have refused to wear masks while on board,
Refusal to wear masks spreads coronavirus, and the continued refusal
of many Americans to wear masks will probably kill hundreds of
thousands more. It is good that some organizations take firm steps
to make sure people wear masks. Now stores and buses should start
protecting their staff and customers.
It took just two days for right-wing Texas provocateur Ivan Hunter to
bring his rifle to Minneapolis and start a false-flag attack on the
thugs.
When Republicans found out that Americans dying from Covid-19, if they
were not old, were likely to be black, they quickly made it their
priority to "reopen the economy".
*Documents Reveal WH Officials Tried to Use $250 Million in Taxpayer
Money on Covid Ad Campaign to Boost [wrecker's] Reelection.*
This sort of corruption is so frequent that it is hardly even news.
What is significant is that our government has no ability to do
anything to punish or prevent such corruption. What was supposed to
restrain it was an expectation that the voters would punish corruption
when they found it. The wrecker has destroyed that expectation,
first for small corrupt acts, then for bigger and bigger ones.
The US claims its regime-change interventions are meant to promote
democracy, but they tend to have the opposite result. Bolivia shows
that the challenge for democracy is to overcome these US operations.
(satire)
*The Onion’s State-By-State Election Guide.
Two members of the grand jury that considered indicting the thugs that
killed Breonna Taylor say that the case was presented in a strange way,
so that it was only at the end that they found out they were not going
to be asked to vote on charging the thugs with killing Ms Taylor.
The jurors were shocked by that.
Usually, they report, cases are presented to the grand jury by first
stating what charges are to be considered. This case and only this
case was handled differently.
I do get the impression that the prosecutor wanted to shield the thugs
and pretend not to have done so.
Republicans have expanded the supreme courts of Arizona and Georgia
in recent years. In Iowa they politicized the selection of judges.
*Overturning the Affordable Care Act Could Result in 68,000 Deaths.*
Population the 50 Democratic senators represent: 184,541,791 (56%)
Richard Stallman
We're glad to see @RepMarciaFudge in the cabinet, but she
lobbied to be the Ag. secretary
It's insulting that, instead of a progressive black woman,
@JoeBiden & @Transition46 chose Vilsack, who covered up
racial discrimination last time he had the
job.
(I quote that tweet without linking to it, because Twitter is shutting
down the ability to view tweets without running nonfree JS code.
I copied that tweet from an article that I decline to reference
on account of its bigotry in writing "Black" and "white", but the tweet
I've quoted states its main point.)
A closer look at the nation’s 50 worst states.*