Urgent: Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act
8 July 2021
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to support the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act of 2021.
This is a substantial step forward, but not sufficient. We must ban face recognition by private parties too, outside of narrow exceptions.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Urgent: Abolish the filibuster
8 July 2021
US citizens: phone your senators on July 12 to insist on abolishing the filibuster.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Charged with 150 murders
8 July 2021
10 Colombian soldiers have been charged with almost 150 murders, as part of the "falsos positivos" murder campaign which involved murdering over 6,000 people around 15 years ago.
The motive for the murders was to inflate body counts and claim bounties meant for killing rebels.
Repression of political opposition
8 July 2021
Nicaragua's dictator Ortega is aiming for completeness in the repression of political opposition.
Privatize medical treatment for the NHS
8 July 2021
Tories want to privatize actual medical treatment for the NHS, and issue contracts in an informal way that facilitates corruption and fails to assure competence.
Right-wing threat against El Jueves
8 July 2021
The right-wing extremist party Vox made a hardly-veiled threat of violence against the editor of El Jueves.
¡Viva El Jueves! I often need help to understand it, but once explained, I enjoy some of it.
Great Salt Lake is shrinking
8 July 2021
The Great Salt Lake is rapidly shrinking, leaving a dry lake bed full of arsenic-laden sand that will blow away and poison people.
Trial of Carlos DeLuna
8 July 2021
The trial that sentenced Carlos DeLuna to death was an example of complete contempt for justice and the rights of the accused. A proper investigation would have supported his claim of innocence, but nobody bothered to investigate.
This sort of thing (which is not unusual) is one of the reasons to abolish the death penalty, but not only that. To convict anyone of anything with such a shoddy trial, regardless of the severity of the crime, invites wrong verdicts. We should change the system so this does not happen any more.
UK deportations
8 July 2021
The UK will bully countries into cooperating with deportation of their nationals, by denying visas to other people from those countries.
It feels like hostage-taking to me.
Prisoners in their own homes
8 July 2021
The UK's foolhardy decision to eliminate all Covid-19 distancing rules will make a many people prisoners in their homes for a long time.
Wearing a mask is a small sacrifice.
Elimination of planning rules
8 July 2021
The reason Britain builds too few houses is that investors who own houses and building sites prefer to hold on to them for later. The Tories don't want to change this. Instead they plan to deregulate — to eliminate planning rules.
This will create a big windfall for those investors, and a thousand local forms of pollution and trouble, but won't do much to reduce housing prices.
The US case against Assange
8 July 2021
The US case against Assange has now lost any way to pretend to be valid. The US must drop the case.
The case has been based on contempt for law and human rights all along.
WiFi 802.11bf
8 July 2021
A proposed new WiFi standard, 802.11bf, would allow WiFi devices to sense the position of people and how they are moving. Even from someone else's apartment. Perhaps even sensing how your fingers are moving over the keyboard and what keys they are pressing.
This seems to me like a disaster. I expect that Amazon and other companies will sell "connected" products containing such WiFi interfaces, and set them up to watch everyone in range and report.
Art works looted by King Leopold
8 July 2021
Belgium plans to return the art works looted by King Leopold from the Congo, but instead of physically shipping them there, Belgium will rent them so as to continue displaying them where they are.
One can think of this as reparations for the thefts. It could benefit the Congolese more than physical possession of the art works would.
Regulation in Israel
8 July 2021
Bennett wants to eliminate lots of regulation in Israel to "boost the economy."
Rich people are always glad to give you the benefit of a little more of the mythical trickle-down that's going to resykt from giving them more leeway and power.
Abortion as a recruiting issue
8 July 2021
For organized Christian fanatics, abortion is just a recruiting issue. They explicitly advocate theocracy and killing whoever disagrees with them. Their attitude towards truth resembles the one that other Christians long ago ascribed to Pontius Pilate.
Spouses from Palestine
8 July 2021
A victory against apartheid in Israel: Arab citizens will be allowed to bring spouses from Palestine to live with them and become citizens.
Denial of the Capitol attack
8 July 2021
*Republicans’ effort to deny the Capitol attack is working — and it’s dangerous.*
Why Covid-19 is worse than flu
8 July 2021
The reasons why Covid-19 is much worse than seasonal flu.
Rushed deportation
8 July 2021
The UK government rushed to deport an asylum seeker to Darfur without waiting for per legally required hearings. A court ordered the government to bring per back to Britain, if at all possible, so as to finish respecting per legal rights.
Experts urge delay of reopening
8 July 2021
*Global experts urge [Bogus] Johnson to delay ‘dangerous’ Covid reopening.*
The idea of "living with the virus" is advocated by plutocratists who callously disregard the suffering, death or disability this causes, mainly to the non-rich.
I suggest relaxing regulations on a city-by-city basis according to what fraction of people in the city have been vaccinated. That would lead people to get vaccinated.
In order for that to be fair, the government must make sure that people all across the UK have equal access to vaccination. It would be wrong to impede vaccination based on (say) race or class, and then use that as an excuse to punish people for what is not their fault.
Global heating and the heatwave
8 July 2021
*Scientists said [global heating] had made such a heat wave in the [US northwest] 150 times more likely.*
With current trends, *an event so extreme could start occurring every five to 10 years by the 2040s, they warned.*
8 Years in prison
8 July 2021
*As Big Oil Execs Roam Free, Climate Activist Gets 8 Years in Prison.*
Kidnapped in Moscow
8 July 2021
Belarus oppositionists were kidnapped in Moscow and brought immediately to Belarus without even an extradition hearing, and accused of plotting to assassinate Lukashenko.
Since then, they have been held incommunicado.
Trout addicted to methamphetamine
8 July 2021
Trout in some rivers are addicted to the methamphetamine that flows into them after humans use some.
Hounding poor people
8 July 2021
Republicans have redirected the Social Security Administration to hound poor people to whom it has given extra money by mistake. It can demand the impossible, such as to return within a month thousands of dollars that the agency overpaid them over periods of many years.
Poverty has become so widespread in the US that most Americans can't come up with $500 in an emergency. The poor people that Social Security helps can't pay these debts.
And they should not have to. The first step to correct this is to make the agency, not the benefits receiver, responsible for the agency's mistakes.
Build economies
8 July 2021
*We Need to Build Economies — Not Walls — to Stop Migration.*
Face recognition in schools
8 July 2021
The Santa Fe (Texas) school district ran nonfree face recognition software and handed copies of 5,000 photos of students to the developer. That alone should be illegal — schools must never hand student personal data to any company, except grade transcripts when students request that.
But the schools did worse than that — they operated cameras and identified students by their faces. "Overall, we had over 164,000 detections the last 7 days running the pilot. We were able to detect students on multiple cameras and even detected one student 1100 times!" said a salesman.
Maybe it is acceptable, under strict limits, for stores to try to detect thieves already known to them. But it is not acceptable for a store to distribute such photos to any other person or entity, because blacklist networks are too dangerous to society.
It should be illegal to operate a camera viewing a place the public is admitted to, that systematically collects or transmits identifiable face images of some or all of the people it sees. Because doing that much would enable someone else to run face recognition on them.
Four day work week
8 July 2021
Iceland is turning to a four-day work week, with the help of pressure from unions.
I personally don't think I could endure anything less than a seven-day work week, but that's because my work is the heart of my life.
(satire) Making an actual product
8 July 2021
(satire) *Struggling Tech Company Almost Desperate Enough To Start Making Actual Product.*
(satire) Truly being seen
8 July 2021
(satire) *Study: "Truly Being Seen" Still Ranks Among Worst Possible Experiences In Human Existence.*
Florida structurally unsound
8 July 2021
(satire) *21 Million Floridians Evacuated After State Deemed Structurally Unsound.*
Undercounting of civilian casualties
8 July 2021
Progressives in Congress called on the Pentagon to investigate apparent undercounting of the civilian casualties of US military combat.
Damaging Seneca lake
8 July 2021
Waste heat from a power plant that powers a bitcoin mine is damaging Seneca Lake in New York State.
Summer Covid cases
8 July 2021
*Data predicts 2m UK summer Covid cases with 10m isolating.*
That is an enormous rate of infection — almost one in 30 people.
Abolition of nuclear weapons
8 July 2021
*Twenty-five years ago, the International Court of Justice stated the obligation to negotiate the abolition of nuclear weapons.* No progress has been made, except for the non-nuclear deal with Iran — which Biden seems to be missing the chance to restore.
Making countries subservient
8 July 2021
The US has concluded that China's diplomatic differences with Australia reflect a strategy of making countries subservient to China via divide and conquer. (That is what I have thought.)
It is useless to treat this as a minor dispute and hope to resolve it through diplomacy. China doesn't want a reasonable solution, it wants surrender so as to increase its power.
Divine right of corporations' profit
8 July 2021
We must overturn the divine right of corporations' profit so that they can't drive us into poverty.
Breaking vaccine patents
8 July 2021
*Brazil's lower house approves text of bill to allow breaking of vaccine patents.*
Bolsonaro opposes the bill, as part of his general policy of letting Covid-19 win.
Arrest of dual citizen
8 July 2021
Turkish agents in Kyrgyzstan arrested a dual citizen and took him to Turkey for prosecution, accused of being an ally of Fethullah Gulen.
Erdoğan envisions Gulen as the leader of a giant conspiracy and accuses all those he considers enemies of conspiring with Gulen. I find those claims extremely unlikely.
Quoting Goebbels
8 July 2021
The bullshitter recently quoted Goebbels, Hitler's head of propaganda.
The bullshitter: "If you say it enough and keep saying it, they'll start to believe you."
Joseph Goebbels: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."
Tomorrow the bullshitter might say the opposite, or anything else whatsoever, but he will continue to be culpable for his big-lie tactics.
Solutions for some
8 July 2021
The Tories don't care much the Britons who are stuck with firetrap apartments. They keep adopting solutions for some that omit the rest.
Graft scheme
8 July 2021
*Brazil's Bolsonaro implicated in alleged graft scheme as lawmaker.*
Politicians who don't think corruption is wrong, in countries where corruption is widespread, will generally have participated.
Abandonment
8 July 2021
*The Tories’ abandonment of responsibility to protect us from Covid is unmasked.*
Ordering assassination
8 July 2021
A former CEO has been convicted of ordering the assassination of Berta Cáceres. Her activism was in the way of the dam that his company wanted to build. The murder followed years of surveilling her.
Before being the CEO of that company, he was in the Honduran military and got training from the US. I wonder: was that in the School of the Americas, aka WHINSEC and various other names?
Admitting new countries
8 July 2021
Should the EU admit the remaining Balkan countries?
They do not have a long or strong tradition of democracy, so it seems likely that they will go the way of Poland and Hungary. Before admitting them, the EU needs to strengthen its ability to stop countries from going down that path.
As if Covid did not exist anymore
8 July 2021
Spain is suffering from a surge in Covid-19 as people there act as if Covid-19 did not exist any more.
I am in Spain now, and I take care to remind the people I meet to take precautions — and to set an example by doing so myself.
Torturing prisoners
8 July 2021
Mexico has arrested a former high official of thugs on charges of torturing prisoners.
No lesson learned
8 July 2021
*The real tragedy of the 2003 U.S. invasion is that virtually none of its lessons have been learned. It's easy to understand why. None of its perpetrators have ever suffered any consequences for the damage they inflicted on the country and the world.*
I think that the death of a million or so Iraqis, and the rise of PISSI, are additional tragic consequences of Dubya's invasion.
Urgent: Tell House and Senate not to meet with Exxon's representatives
7 July 2021
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to refuse to meet with Exxon's representatives.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Urged not to restrict protests
7 July 2021
The Council of Europe's human rights representative urged the UK not to restrict protests.
Mental health problems
7 July 2021
Isolating people for long times causes mental problems. So does working in an overloaded hospital, getting badly sick, and having friends and relatives die. It is a mistake to assume it is better to let people spread Covid-19 ad libitum.
Investment fund in Norway
7 July 2021
A large pension fund in Norway has refused investment in 16 companies because of their connections to Israel's colonies in Palestinian territory.
Fired by a robot
7 July 2021
What's even worse than working under robot supervision in an Amazon warehouse? Being fired by a robot in an Amazon warehouse.
You can help put an end to this: don't order anything from Amazon.
You could even recover some of your freedom by joining me in not ordering things online. Saying no even once is helping.
Altering people's dreams
7 July 2021
Companies are studying what they can achieve with advertising designed to alter people's dreams.
The clean and simple solution to this problem, which would solve many other problems, would be not to have computerized speakers in your home controlled by nonfree software. That gives companies the power to do many nasty things to you. But most people consider that such a radical change that it can't even be proposed.
Pelosi's select committee
7 July 2021
*Capitol attack: what Pelosi’s select committee is likely to investigate.*
South Korea mRNA vaccine
7 July 2021
*South Korea in talks with mRNA vaccine makers to make up to 1 billion doses.*
This has the potential to be of great help in eliminating the danger of Covid-19. To vaccinate the world faster, we need faster production of vaccines.
Public warning of global heating
7 July 2021
Global heating was having effects in the 1960s that can be recognized in hindsight. There was even some government concern about the issue. But it was the 1970s when the public started to receive warnings.
UK ends distancing measures
7 July 2021
The UK has decided to end anti-Covid distancing measures and invite spreading of the disease.
Federal executions
7 July 2021
*US halts all federal executions amid review of capital punishment.*
This may be the effect of Biden's disapproval of the death penalty. It could lead to ending the death penalty for federal crimes.
Making elections less fair
7 July 2021
The Supreme Court is eagerly seeking opportunities to allow states to make elections less fair. First, by accepting voting rules that interfere with poor voters; second, by ensuring the rich can use their money to do more than vote.
Nina Turner
7 July 2021
Nina Turner is running in an Ohio Democratic primary for Congress. She has worked for Sanders and eagerly supports Medicare for All. Her plutocratist opponent gets campaign support from Big Pharma, and gets endorsements from politicians funded by Big Pharma.
Personal data about students
7 July 2021
Bill Gates is funding an effort to make it easier to collect and analyze personal data about students. Easier for schools. Easier for companies.
They talk about protecting students' privacy. What they mean is, protecting it from third parties who were not officially supposed to get the data. As for protecting the students' privacy from the companies that have dealt themselves in, they exclude that from the definition of "privacy".
If the school gives a student's real name to any company, or any other identifying data, that already violates the student's privacy.
Russian gas
7 July 2021
Russia demonstrates the power it gets from Europe's dependence on Russian gas by pressuring European countries to invest in continuing, long-lasting dependence on Russian gas.
This should remind Europe that the whole world needs to quickly cut down its use of natural gas, Russian or not. If Nord Stream 2 is still in use 10 years from now, that will mean the world has failed to protect itself from global heating.
If Nord Stream 2 is not still in use 10 years from now, building it will have been a waste of money. Europe should not spend another eurocent on that bad investment.
Cutting it off now will punish Putin where it really hurts.
Unsubstantiated claim
7 July 2021
The level of belief in the unsubstantiated claim that SARS-Cov-2 leaked from a lab demonstrates the powerful effect of a loud chorus repeating the same claim.
This gives the wrecker his power.
Undermining of the NHS
7 July 2021
Britons are protesting against the Tories' undermining of the NHS and their plan to privatize it step by step.
Biden's foreign policy
7 July 2021
*Why Is Biden's Foreign Policy So... Conventional?*
Climate crisis is a workers' rights issue
7 July 2021
*The Heat Wave Shows [the climate crisis] Is a Workers' Rights Issue.* Particularly for the low-paid workers that can't work in air conditioning.
Oil pipeline in Tennessee
7 July 2021
Public pressure has cancelled plans for a new oil pipeline in Tennessee.
US sued for blocking Keystone XL
7 July 2021
A pipeline company is using a business-supremacy treaty to sue the US for blocking the Keystone XL pipeline. It demands 15 billion dollars.
It does not deserve to get any of that money. The approval of that pipeline was the result of lobbying and lies by many fossil fuel companies, starting in the 1970s, which warped the US government (and others) to act in the interest of planet roasters rather than the public interest. If this influence has come to an end, and it blocks planet roasters from doing some harm, that means it is acting properly. The planet roasters will owe damages for the damage they succeeded in carrying out.
Assaulting Journalists
7 July 2021
*FBI Begins Arresting People Accused of Assaulting Journalists at Capitol on January 6.*
Urgent: reject Journalism Competition and Preservation Act
7 July 2021
US citizens: call on Congress to reject the "Journalism Competition and Preservation Act". It threatens fair use, and would give big media added advantages over small competitors.
Rescue ship seized
7 July 2021
Death of political prisoner
7 July 2021
*Fury in India over death of 84-year-old political prisoner Stan Swamy.*
He and other activists for human rights and against caste prejudice were charged with "terrorism", based on files found on one of their computers — files which analysis suggests were planted by crackers.
Modi's officials may not have been interested in reasons to doubt the conclusion they wanted to believe.
Variant factories
7 July 2021
*UK scientists caution that lifting of Covid rules is like building "variant factories".*
This is true — but meanwhile there are enormous "variant factories" in the unvaccinated countries. We need to get almost everyone vaccinated for Covid-19, so we can eradicate it.
Taliban on the move
7 July 2021
The Taliban are rapidly taking over large parts of Afghanistan. Government soldiers either run away or surrender happily.
It is interesting that the areas which fought the Taliban bitterly 20 years ago show no interest in fighting it now. Perhaps the opposition back then was due to loyalty to the individual warlords that lead them.
It is clear that those soldiers don't feel a strong commitment to the current government's cause. That, I think, is why the Taliban are winning. The Taliban inspire loyalty. How sad it is to see people invest their loyalty in a fanatical religion.
I am also sad about the religious repression that Afghan women will face under the Taliban. But I can't consider forever war better.
What can these women do? Some years ago, they could perhaps have formed militia units determined to defeat the Taliban. With real commitment to the cause, just what the Afghan army lacks, they might perhaps have won. But it seems too late to start now.
At this point, I think their only hope of avoiding some of the Taliban's oppression is to seek asylum in other countries.
DNA-sequencing of babies
7 July 2021
An article about the possibility of DNA-sequencing every baby born in the UK does not mention that this would be a giant collection of biometric identification data.
Vanity plates
7 July 2021
Freedom of speech as applied to vanity plates.
Making of show of climate defense
7 July 2021
Greta Thunberg rebukes politicians for only making a show of defending Earth's climate. Even if this fools many people, it won't fool the air.
Thugs using copyright
7 July 2021
A thug tried to use copyright law to block publication of recordings of how he was treating the protesters at Black Lives Matter event. It wasn't the first time.
A human US judge could rule that the right to publish news of events overrides copyright law. The thugs expect that automatic copyright censorship filters will not be able to make such a judgment.
I support Black Lives Matter, but I would equally condemn thugs for doing this to people supporting any other cause, even a cause I oppose. (However, thugs tend to be friendly and helpful to supporters of right-wing causes.)
It would be ironic if the thug gets sued for public performance of the song. That too is copyright infringement. But I do not hope that this happens, because it too would increase the unjust power of copyright.
Importance of democracy
7 July 2021
(satire) *Congressional Democrats Put On Elaborate 4th Of July Pageant To Teach Republicans Importance Of Democracy.*
Enjoy economy
7 July 2021
(satire) *Labor Department Announces Plans To Stop Counting Jobs And Just Enjoy Economy.*
Not really said
7 July 2021
Exxon's CEO is trying to tell people that the admissions about its planet-roasting lobbying were not really said, so we should forget them.
Glyphosate
7 July 2021
Europe decided to authorize glyphosate based on experiments carried out by companies, then described in secret reports written and submitted by companies. These reports have become public and show important flaws; they don't prove that glyphosate is safe.
No wonder the companies kept them secret.
Clearly these regulatory decisions should not accept secret studies carried out by companies with an interest in the outcome.
For medicines, I've argued that tests of their effectiveness and safety should be independent of the companies involved with producing and selling them. Perhaps that should apply to pesticides, too.
It is pertinent that one report says that glyphosate caused cancer specifically when mixed with other chemicals, as occurs in Roundup. That one study may not be proof enough, but shows the need to test Roundup as well as pure glyphosate.
What was the point
7 July 2021
*'What was the point?' Afghans rue decades of war as U.S. quits Bagram.*
If the US had achieved its war aims, the war could have been worth its human and financial cost, which would have been small. But once it became clear that that was no longer possible, there was no point in continuing the war any longer.
(satire) *"Someone's Gotta Occupy Afghanistan," Grumbles Dick Cheney, Shoving Firearms Into Suitcase.*
Heat wave
7 July 2021
The northwest US heat wave was the most extreme heat wave ever recorded.
Forecasting some of the extreme weather disasters we will experience at 1.5 C, 2C, 3C and 4C of global heating. Meanwhile, the world may reach 1.5C by 2025, showing the trying to avoid that by actions with targets in 2050.
Urgent: Climate-focused infrastructure bill
6 July 2021
US citizens: call on Biden and Senate Democrats to Use reconciliation to pass a robust climate-focused infrastructure bill.
Damaged concrete
6 July 2021
The condo board of the collapsed Florida apartment building disputed for a long time what to do about the damaged concrete.
I can understand the disagreement in the board. The owners of the building were the residents; some of them might have been bankrupted by a $100,000 expense. If they had realized that the alternative was likely to include collapse of the building, I suppose they would have closed the pool and said "Fix the damage right away," or moved out immediately if the collapse was likely to happen soon. But the engineers did not tell them (and I suppose did not know) that collapse was likely.
What a dilemma.
Urgent: reject Journalism Competition and Preservation Act
6 July 2021
US citizens: call on Congress to reject the "Journalism Competition and Preservation Act". It threatens fair use, and would give big media additional advantages over smaller competitors.
Urgent: leniency for Daniel Hale
6 July 2021
Everyone: call for leniency for whistleblower Daniel Hale.
Denouncing pipeline
6 July 2021
Minneapolis denounced the Line 3 pipeline and called for its cancellation.
Genetic disease cured
6 July 2021
A genetic disease has been cured in several patients by injecting a CRISPR-Cas9 gene editor into their bloodstream.
Bill Cosby
6 July 2021
Bill Cosby's rape conviction was thrown out because it was based on using his own testimony (for a civil suit), which he gave in return for a promise not to prosecute him.
I have no reason to doubt the trial's conclusion that Cosby was guilty of rape. Punishing rapists is important.
But it's even more important not to let governments cheat and trick people by making a promise not to prosecute and then breaking it. The right to refuse self-incrimination is an endangered fundamental liberty, and we must protect it — even though sometimes it protects real criminals who committed real crimes that call for real punishment.
Child slavery
6 July 2021
*On Ghana's Lake Volta, child slavery is in plain sight.*
Decriminalizing drug possession
6 July 2021
A bill to decriminalize drug possession has been introduced in Congress.
Firing striking nurses
6 July 2021
Multinational hospital chain owner Tenet Healthcare plans to fire the striking nurses in one US hospital. They are on strike demanding safe levels of staffing. Tenet's aim is to be able to maintain insufficient levels in the US and perhaps in other countries.
I think we should put an end to for-profit hospitals, I know that the managemment of nonprofit hospitals often engages in some of the same harmful actions, but I suspect that the for-profit competition encourages this.
Global minimum tax deal
6 July 2021
Oxfam denounced the global minimum tax deal because of its designed-in loopholes.
Deep sea animals
6 July 2021
As people learn more about animals of the deep sea, we might start overfishing them without understanding that we are doing so.
Online tickets
6 July 2021
Some events sell tickets only online, and allow only the person that purchased the ticket to use it.
Aside from excluding people who can't personally purchase a ticket that way, this system does something even worse: it violates the privacy of everyone that attends.
Since you're not going to be compelled to attend, refuse!
Surprise medical bills
6 July 2021
New US regulations attempt to check the practice of surprise enormous medical bills.
False testimony against Assange
6 July 2021
Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, a former Wikileaks volunteer, has admitted he had given the FBI false testimony making false accusations against Julian Assange.
The article shows how the US indictment against Assange repeats some of Thordarson's accusations.
He initially offered his fabrications to the FBI to try to get out of possible charges for embezzling money from Wikileaks. In 2019,the FBI gave him immunity from prosecution on other charges in exchange for this testimony against Assange.
The article reconciles the US assertion that the push to indict Assange started only under the bully, with the evidence that the efforts to indict Assange started while Obama was president.
Alcohol addiction
5 July 2021
* Alcohol addiction has long been romanticised in films, TV shows, books and adverts. Let’s stop glossing over the destructive drudgery and sheer sorrow of the disease.*
Defending monuments to the Confederacy
5 July 2021
Suggested tactics for defending monuments to the Confederacy include avoiding the topics of race and slavery.
The whitewashing of the Confederacy has always been based on pretending that the Civil War was not about whether to end slavery.
Making nomad life impossible
5 July 2021
One aspect of the Tories' proposed broad repression law would be to make nomadic life almost impossible, as they would be effectively forbidden to stop almost anywhere.
People who live in vehicles because they can no longer afford anywhere else would also be targeted.
Fashion brands and slavery
5 July 2021
*France investigates fashion brands over forced Uyghur labour claims.*
Colonies
5 July 2021
The deal that removed Israeli fanatics from their illegally constructed colony in Palestine seems to be designed to create an excuse to permit them to return soon.
Coastguards and migrants
5 July 2021
*Libyan coastguards "fired on and tried to ram migrant boat".*
European countries support the Libyan Coast Guard, so one has to wonder whether this support amounts to recruiting Libyan help to kill migrants.
Longer extreme weather
5 July 2021
Climate models show that global heating causes more instances of extreme weather, but there is a secondary effect, not included in the models, that causes extreme weather to get stuck for longer in one place. This makes the effect even more extreme.
John McAfee
5 July 2021
A report from the prison says that John McAfee tried to commit suicide at the end of February.
Dealing with FARC splinter groups
5 July 2021
Venezuela jailed Javier Tarazona after he claimed that the government had dealings with Colombian FARC splinter groups.
Worsening famine
5 July 2021
*UN warns of worsening famine in Ethiopia's Tigray.* The famine is at least partly caused by the civil war.
Donald Rumsfeld
5 July 2021
(satire) *Rumsfeld Family Immediately Squabbling Over Who Will Inherit Mounted Heads Of Iraqi Civilians.*
(satire) *Donald Rumsfeld Survived By 1 Million Fewer Iraqis.*
Large events requirements
5 July 2021
Large events in the UK require participants to (1) run nonfree software to get a ticket and (2) identify themselves.
There is no justification for requiring nonfree software — they could do the job with free software. Rather than run the nonfree software, I would choose not to go. It isn't the end of the world to stay away.
Identification is a more complex issue. I can't argue with the importance of contact tracing for beating Covid-19, if the country makes a serious attempt to do that. Some countries try to do that carefully, but I don't think the Tories have tried. They give the contracts to incompetent companies for political reasons. For the same reason, I feel safer staying away from those events. I wouldn't even think of going if I were not fully vaccinated. But even vaccinated people have a small but significant chance of catching the Delta variant.
Jellyfish ocean
5 July 2021
As we pollute the sea and overcatch fish, we are driving the seas towards mainly jellyfish.
Guantanamo prisoners
5 July 2021
23 Guantanamo prisoners have been "released" to the UAE, which said they would be free after some months, but every one has been kept in prison ever since. One may be sent to Russia for more torture and imprisonment.
Urgent: Appoint an FCC commissioner
5 July 2021
US citizens: call on Biden to appoint an FCC commissioner to fill the vacant seat.
Urgent: Strong climate bill
5 July 2021
US citizens: call on Biden to introduce a strong climate bill.
Scientific American
5 July 2021
Scientific American published an article whose title explicitly stated a controversial political stand. It said that the authors "stand in solidarity with Palestine." Later the magazine took it down.
The article should never have been published there, because Scientific American's purpose is science education. It should not politicize that education, except perhaps to defend science from anti-science.
Depending on how far the stated solidarity extends, I might agree with the authors' position. (I support the existence of Israel as well as the existence of Palestine.) I might possibly have stated agreement with the article.
However, the issue as I see it is not about which stance the article took. If the proclaimed solidarity were with "Rojava", "Hong Kong", "Taiwan", "the United States", or "Israel", the issue would be the same. The article belongs in a place where political stands belong, and Scientific American should not be that place.
Conspiracy theories
5 July 2021
Edward Snowden: *Why do conspiracy theories flourish? Because the truth is too hard to handle.*
The article explains that the most dangerous conspiracies are not secret, and that imaginary conspiracies serve as a distraction from them.
Changes to conservatorship laws
5 July 2021
*After Britney Spears testimony, lawmakers push changes to conservatorship laws.*
Future wildfire damage
5 July 2021
California Governor Newsom overstated work that the state had done on preventing future wildfire damage.
I don't know how effective it is to remove some potential fuel from a forest. On that I will defer to experts. This method can't get out of control and become dangerous (a controlled burn has that danger), but it must be a lot more labor-intensive.
Effective action to reduce fire danger requires a tremendous amount of work and money, because it has to be done over the whole region affected by drought. And it has to be done over and over, forever.
Switching to renewable energy and curbing the emissions that cause the drought will be far more efficient in the long term.
Home care budgets
5 July 2021
Several US states are using algorithms to apportion home care budgets for the disabled. This has given more help to some, and less to others. Some patients can't get out of bed without the help they no longer get; some have died.
In theory, an algorithm can do the job better than humans. The salesmen will lead you to imagine that the algorithm performs as well as you could imagine. In practice, it can easily do a bad job. In this case, some factors were explicitly not considered. Very likely there are other important factors that that human decision-makers used to recognize on their own.
If the state doesn't have the source code of the program, it should not use the program. But the problems described in the article can happen with a free program, because they result from the absence of any non-problematical solution.
The underlying problem is that the algorithm has to divide up funds that are insufficient to start with. The algorithm tries to spread the insufficiency equally. Is that the best thing to do?
Which is worse: to permanently give each disabled person half the help perse needs, or to permanently abandon a randomly-chosen half of them? The answer is not obvious to me.
Water privatization
5 July 2021
Progressives tell Biden not to put water privatization into the infrastructure deal.
Privatizing any service is harmful unless it results in a competitive market with many competitors.
Murder of Muhammad Waqas
5 July 2021
A Pakistani thug has been charged with the brutal murder of Muhammad Waqas, who had been charged with blasphemy and then acquitted.
In Pakistan, it is not unusual for fanatics to murder people who have been charged with blasphemy, or their lawyers, or anyone who stands in the way of executing them.
Bullied into giving DNA samples
5 July 2021
Prosecutors in Orange County, California, bully everyone accused of the smallest offenses into into giving a DNA sample, by threatening false felony charges.
It is easy to manipulate the public with fear into tossing aside civil liberties for "stronger law enforcement" which will supposedly make everyone "safe". The danger is that it promotes repression too.