I am looking for people to help maintain and operate savannah.gnu.org.
US thug suicide
5 November 2015
A US thug committed suicide, making it look like murder, because he was about to be caught stealing from charity.
Other thugs tried to use this to condemn Black Lives Matter.
Sanders
5 November 2015
Sanders has proposed a bill to close off fossil fuel extraction from US public lands.
Fracking
5 November 2015
The UK has cancelled its push to impose fracking in "Sites of Special Scientific Interest".
That's good, but fracking elsewhere can poison the water for people and farms.
Koch brother
5 November 2015
A Koch brother admits that he expects something in return for his campaign contributions. In fact, he gets plenty for them.
Iran's religion
5 November 2015
Iran admits sentencing two poets to around 10 years in prison for "insulting religion".
If you want to see a worse insult against Iran's religion, their sentence is one.
If their appeals are not successful, it may be time for an international poetry campaign to insult Iran's religion for its censorship.
Indonesia
5 November 2015
British journalists were sentenced to short prison terms for making a documentary in Indonesia that the Indonesian government didn't like. Their local employees might be jailed for years.
In the name of avoiding inconveniences, public protests in Jakarta have been limited to unusual "free speech zones" and required to keep quiet.
Shame on Indonesia for this censorship.
Renewable energy
5 November 2015
Renewable energy not only helps avoid disaster, it also helps spread the wealth .
Nauru
5 November 2015
Australia says it is unhappy about the multiple human rights violations of Nauru.
If Australia were serious about this, it could easily make Nauru change its policies. I suspect that Australia has encouraged these policies so as to cover up the treatment meted out to the refugees Australia sends to Nauru.
Ohio and marijuana
5 November 2015
Ohio voters defeated a corrupt proposal to legalize marijuana, perhaps because they didn't like the corrupt aspect.
Beer brewing
5 November 2015
Traditional beer brewing has ceased to function in Belgium because of global heating.
PM of Romania
5 November 2015
The prime minister of Romania has resigned because of protests against corruption.
Chinese coal consumption
5 November 2015
China appears to be underreporting coal consumption by as much as 17%.
Australia's government
5 November 2015
Australia's right-wing government is no longer led by a suppository, but it still plans increased dooH niboR. Now it plans a big increase in VAT (a kind of sales tax) , which will put the burden mainly on the poor.
What's really called for is an increase in income tax for high earners, or the progressive income tax on businesses that I've proposed .
University education
5 November 2015
Students protested today in London demanding a return to gratis university education.
Taliban
5 November 2015
The Taliban have an assassination program for journalists.
Encryption
5 November 2015
The UK plans to ban companies from offering encryption they can't break.
If big companies surrender to this, other countries will make the same demand.
The UK's new attack on privacy , spelled out.
Food waste
5 November 2015
Conservative food use-by dates tend to generate food waste.
I would not blame the supermarkets so much. They will face public criticism when goods don't last to their "use by" dates.
It is no use urging people to learn and remember rules about how long food lasts. The fraction of people who regularly cook is much less nowadays, and those who don't do this won't be motivated to learn them. We will inevitably depend on what the supermarket says.
US thugs
5 November 2015
When US thugs rape, the victims hardly ever report it . They believe, and I suspect they are right, that the other thugs will defend the rapists.
Monsanto
5 November 2015
The EPA concluded that glyphosate is not an endocrine disruptor, but the evidence was provided by Monsanto , which means we can't rely on it.
Lead generators
5 November 2015
People who do Google searches for "need money fast" see ads for companies called "lead generators" that put them on a list of potential suckers.
If you do a Google search in a way that doesn't hide who and where you are, including use of Tor, not specifying any account, and blocking cookies, you do seem to be a sucker.
Israeil "settler"
5 November 2015
A fanatical Israeli "settler" set fire to Palestinians' olive trees while a team from Rabbis for Human Rights was trying to protect them by serving as witnesses. Official firefighters did not arrive soon, so the president of Rabbis for Human Rights tried to put the fire out himself. The fanatic did not like this and tried to stab him.
The thugs took their time arriving, making sure the fanatic could get away, and then called the Rabbis presence a "provocation" against the fanatics.
I have to wonder if the firemen stayed away because coming to put out this fire would have been considered a "provocation".
Arabs in Jerusalem
5 November 2015
Israel has been slowly cutting off the non-central parts of Jerusalem where Arabs live, and those Arabs themselves. Recently it became clear that this is aimed at the goal of cutting them all off.
Israel
5 November 2015
East Jerusalem has one hospital, so wounded Palestinian protesters all go there. Israel has recenly been raiding the hospital and harassing the doctors, even shooting tear gas inside the hospital.
They could kill patients that way.
Qadhafi
5 November 2015
Qadhafi's forces did not massacre civilians in the Libyan rebel cities they recaptured.
When Clinton warned there would be a massacre in Benghazi, this claim had no support from intelligence.
The intervention was, it seems, intended simply to remove Qadhafi from power . Although for a time it appeared to lead towards democracy, it led to chaotic violence that spread beyond Libya.
I've decided to spell the name "Qadhafi" because that follows the standard transliteration of Arabic. "Gaddafi" is more common, but not correct.
Liberal media
5 November 2015
Right-wing US policians invented the "liberal media" claim in the 1950s. In fact, the US mass media were predominantly right-wing then, before, and since.
"Death to America"
5 November 2015
Ayatollah Khamenei says that the slogan "Death to America" refers to US policies and arrogance, not the the American nation.
This makes a big difference. If Iran declares a wish for genocide against Americans, we would have to consider Iran an enemy. But when it condemns only how the US government treats and has treated Iran (and possibly some other countries), Americans can easily recognize valid points in that criticism. This provides a basis for patriotic Americans to push for the changes in the US needed for reconciliation with Iran.
The remaining cause of friction between the US and Iran has to do with the Iranian regime's oppression of Iranians. Progressive Americans really care about these injustices. US plutocrats probably don't. If the US were to support Iran totally, that would be wrong, just as it is wrong for the US to support Saudi Arabia and Egypt today.
When Khamanei dies, there may be an opportunity for diplomats to lead both countries to correct their wrongs.
China moves to clean energy
5 November 2015
Christiana Figueres, the UN's head climate official, says that China is trying very hard to move to clean energy, while the US is dragging its feet.
In China, the state is a plutocrat. In the US, private plutocrats control the state. As a result, China is capable of making an investment for long-term good, while the US is blocked by the plutocrats.
Domestic violence
5 November 2015
The UK government is treating help for women facing domestic violence as it is treating renewable energy.
Jewish-Arab peace
4 November 2015
Calling for a Jewish-Arab peace and justice party in Israel.
Birth control education
4 November 2015
Non-extremist imams in Afghanistan teach the use of birth control.
Banned book in Ukrainian library
04 November 2015
Russia says it arrested the director of the Ukrainian library because it had a banned book. The deputy director says that the banned book in question was not theirs; that Russian thugs planted it to frame them.
We don't need to ask which one is telling the truth, because the Russian state is wrong either way. It is wrong to ban books.
Selling "smart guns" in the US
04 November 2015
Companies that try to sell "smart guns" (with access control) in the US have faced violent threats.
The access control in these guns is not DRM, because it is under the control of the gun owner.
Replacing the FISA court
04 November 2015
Chelsea Manning calls for replacing the FISA court with courts that will make it their mission to resist unreasonable searches.
Limiting access to digital dossiers is not sufficient to protect whistleblowers from being identified. We need to redesign digital systems so that they don't collect digital dossiers, except about court-designated targets.
Detroit thug prosecuted
04 November 2015
A thug from near Detroit shows how much violence a thug can get away with in the US. Finally he is being prosecuted.
UK transfers spending from poor people
04 November 2015
As UK transfers its spending from poor people to nuclear power plants, more people are homeless. In once city, volunteers have organized to give them breakfast.
That will work for a while, but as the Tories continue cutting further, many of those now giving will join the hungry or the homeless.
As Aneurin Bevan said, the Tories are lower than vermin.
Apples censored Chaos Congress app
04 November 2015
Apple censored an app to display videos presented at the Chaos Communications Congress because it did not censor presenters as Apple demands.
Apple's censorship is wrong, now as always, and designing computers as platforms for censorship should be illegal.
However, it is also wrong to make proprietary apps for the iThing. The Chaos Computer Club should do its streaming on the World Wide Web using a freedom-respecting video format.
TransCanada and Keystone XL
04 November 2015
TransCanada has tried to delay its application to build the Keystone XL pipeline, hoping to defer the decision to the next president.
Perhaps it is betting the next president will be bought. Or perhaps it's no longer profitable. Obama may still be able to veto it if he wishes.
I often referred to Keystone XL as the "planet-roaster pipeline", because it would enable the export of a decisively dangerous amount of tar sends oil.
This does not mean that avoiding the Keystone XL will make us safe. We need to leave 80% of the world's known fossil fuels in the ground, just to keep global heating to under 2C. There are many fossil fuel projects that could roast our planet, many chances to fail.
In the real World Series, humanity vs plutocrats, humanity is losing. We need to win nearly every game from here on.
"Cloud passports"
04 November 2015
Australia's latest horrible idea: passports that are only data in a server.
They call them "cloud passports", using the standard buzzword. There is no "cloud" — only other people's computers.
The passport data would be stored in some computer, but whose? And how will that computer be run?
Storing passports as data in some server will eliminate the problem that tens of thousand of passports are lost or stolen (mostly lost) individually, and introduce the problem that millions could be stolen at once digitally.
I suspect this will also involve a lot more biometric data than now.
Imprisonment for criticizing chief minister
04 November 2015
An Indian singer faces possible life imprisonment for criticizing the chief minister of Tamil Nadu state.
The chief minister, in India, is the equivalent of a governor in the US.
I don't agree with the singer's position in favor of banning alcohol. I have no idea whether the chief minister profits from sales of alcohol. It is not clear whether the singer accused the chief minister personally, or the state government, of getting profits from alcohol.
What is important is that saying such things must not be a crime.
Drink less soda
04 November 2015
Soda companies fund "health" organizations to corrupt them so that they won't take action to lead people to drink less soda. They also promote campaigns for people to exercise more, so as to deny space to campaigns to drink less soda.
Soda with sugar leads to obesity, but soda with sugar substitutes is not innocuous; they tend to confuse the brain.
Urgent: Close loophole
04 November 2015
US citizens: call for closing the carried interest loophole.
Retreat of ice in Western Antarctica
04 November 2015
Researchers say that ice in Western Antarctica is irreversibly retreating — there is no way to prevent it from raising sea level by 3 meters, though that will take centuries.
US foreign policy
04 November 2015
In many countries, the US practices a foreign policy that is wicked (and absurd too).
Inequality
04 November 2015
French Pun
03 November 2015
Urgent: Prosecution of Exxon
03 November 2015
US citizens: call for prosecution of Exxon for fraudulently denying global heating.
Urgent: Discharge petition for gun-control
03 November 2015
US citizens: call on Pelosi to file a discharge petition for a gun-control bill.
This discharge petition is a step towards reducing the number of discharges of guns.
LA thug sentenced to prison
03 November 2015
An LA thug has been sentenced to prison because he let his deputies beat up a man who came to visit his brother in jail.
The rule that visitors can't bring portable phones may be legitimate, but there is no reason to beat them up if they have one. Anyway, doesn't each prisoner have a cell phone?
Pentagon spending
03 November 2015
Pentagon Spent $43m on 'World's Most Expensive Gas Station' in Afghanistan.
The Migrant Crisis
03 November 2015
There's No Perfect Answer to the Migrant Crisis. We need to change foreign policies that have destabilized so many countries and driven millions to flee.
Replacements for chlorofluorocarbons
03 November 2015
The replacements for ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons turn out to be powerful greenhouse gases; we need to switch again.
Conviction based on secret evidence
03 November 2015
Wang Yam was convicted of murder in the UK by a secret court. Why is the evidence secret? That's a secret too.
Wang Yam is now trying to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but the government has arbitrarily vetoed this.
Discussion of sex-work trafficking in Wisconsin
03 November 2015
A discussion of sex-work trafficking in Wisconsin has been totally confused, because it is based on blindly labeling work by teenagers as "trafficking", and equating their customers to pimps.
Thus, when the article talks of "rescuing" minors from sex work, we can't tell how many have indeed been rescued from pimps, and how many saw their customers arrested and felt compelled to pretend to be grateful.
No good can come from willful blindness about this difference.
Minors that do sex work are called "trafficked" even if they do it by choice and have the option to stop at any time. No wonder that, according to the article, many of the minors that are "rescued" from "trafficking" choose freely to go back to it. Maybe they chose it freely the first time, too.
The article acknowledges that they do this because their other options are very bad. That's where they could use some help. But the state of Wisconsin won't give them that.
I wonder how much of their problems are due to Wisconsin's Governor Walker and his attacks on aid to the disadvantaged, as well as political ethics requirements and campaign finance laws.
His policies are just the thing to force poor people into some sort of underground economy.
The Antarctic ice sheet
03 November 2015
The Antarctic ice sheet is gaining thickness inland due to increased precipitation there.
This doesn't alter the observed rise in sea level, so it means the increase is coming from some other unknown source.
"Sequester" imposed as "compromise"
03 November 2015
SCROTUS and Obama imposed the "sequester" as a "compromise" to cut the US budget in all areas. Now they have a new "compromise" that expands the war budget, while threatening Social Security and Medicare.
Selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, when the low price suggests buying it instead, is sabotage of the treasury. "Buy high, sell low" is stupid, except when (as here) it is worse than stupid. Ultimately, plutocratist politicians betray the country to their paymasters.
SCROTUS stands for Sleazy Congressional Republicans Of The United States.
Buddhist extremists in Burma
03 November 2015
In Burma, Buddhist extremists attack women's rights, sex education, and any discussion about sex.
The Buddha would advise those monks to question their attachment to those prejudices.
I expect there is a word in Burmese for "vagina", but it was omitted from the dictionary because it is considered too rude.
Mandatory fun
03 November 2015
Mandatory, organized fun as part of a job is a form of manipulation.
Japanese companies pushed this to extreme lengths. Someone I know, who had no tolerance for alcohol and had to avoid it, had no choice but to work for a government lab, because all companies would require him to get drunk as part of "leisure" activities.
Renewable energy investment cut
03 November 2015
The suppository of all carbon emissions, Tony Abbott, succeeded in cutting renewable energy investment in Australia by almost 1/3.
Global heating
03 November 2015
Even 2C of global heating will do great harm. Drastic action is needed to avoid climate mayhem, and it doesn't look like leaders are prepared to do it.
It isn't certain that 2C of heating is possible. It might be that once warming goes beyond 1.5C (or 1.75, or 1.25, or some such amount), a positive feedback will kick in and push the heating up to 2.5C (or 3C, or 4C, or 5C, or some such amount). We are playing with fire, and the only certainty is that we must stop.
Ukraine's Russia-supported rebels
03 November 2015
Ukraine's Russia-supported rebels are unhappy now that Putin is dialing down that war.
Election rigging in Haiti
03 November 2015
Haitian President Martelli is using government vehicles painted with Red Cross markings to carry false ballots to rig the election.
Global heating and the Pacific Islands
03 November 2015
Pacific Islands Make Last-Ditch Plea to World Before Paris Climate Change Talks.
They will be inundated, and their people have no recognized right to go anywhere else.
Turkey's election
03 November 2015
Erdoğan's party won the election in Turkey. His war and his repression of the press have paid off, leading Turkey towards tyranny.
Monitors say that Turkey's election was unfair.
Money from Haiti's supposedly empty treasury
03 November 2015
Haiti's US-imposed president Martelli unilaterally gave each minister a golden parachute of $46,000, although the treasury is supposed to be empty.
School thug's violent attack on teenager
03 November 2015
The whole dirty story about the school thug's violent attack on the orphaned teenager because she would not give her phone to the teacher.
The teacher, the principal, and then the thug, were all defending the principle of total obedience.
Wolf-whistles and compliments
03 November 2015
The clash of two world-views about wolf-whistles and compliments.
In the posted highlights of the hours of video made by a woman walking in New York City, some men were very pushy and wouldn't take no for an answer. That's clearly harassment. Even some brief remarks were harsh in their attitude. It is unkind to treat someone that way.
However, there is no need to consider kind complements as harassment. This is not a subjective question. You can get offended when someone says "hello", but that doesn't mean we consider your offense justified.
Billionaires suppress criticism
03 November 2015
Billionaires including the Koch brothers suppress criticism by donating money to universities, museums, public TV, etc.
The Gates Foundation has done something similar in the field of US education.
For a university to do what Florida State University did, and let donors choose their professors, is a despicable surrender. It would be well for students there to picket the economics department ever year for this.
New Pun
02 November 2015
Marijuana
2 November 2015
Ohio proposes to legalize selling marijuana, only for certain specific companies that have invested in advance.
Anti-Knowledge
2 November 2015
The 'anti-Knowledge' of the elites in Washington goes unchallenged by the established press.
Racial profiling
2 November 2015
Standardized tests can have the effect of racial profiling.
The English Regent's Exam tests for a real skill, and the people who fail that test really lack that skill. Is that important? That depends on what they are going to do.
I speak French well enough to give speeches, have useful meetings with public officials, and write articles for publication (though they require editing by others). But I could not pass the French equivalent of the English Regent's Exam, because there are many French words and idiomatic expressions I don't know, and many references I would not catch.
Would my failure on that hypothetical test be significant? Is my command of French adequate or not? That depends on what activity I am going to do. For understanding le Canard enchainé, I am hopelessly incompetent; for championing free software in French, I seem reasonably capable.
Likewise, whether someone's failure on the English Regent's Exam is a real shortcoming depends on what you want that person to do. If it is to have sophisticated conversations in English the way an educated native speaker can, it is a real shortcoming and you should look for someone else. For college study in a field other than English, the failure at that exam may not matter.
SXSW
2 November 2015
SXSW cancelled panels about online harassment, giving way to online harassment. In response to criticism, it has brought them back, and added more.
Gamergate Didn't Fade Into Obscurity. We Just Stopped Noticing Its Existence.
It is cowardly to cancel an event because of threats — especially online threats, which are generally nothing but bombast.
UK's ash trees
2 November 2015
A fungus is going to kill 90% of the UK's ash trees. Should genetic modification be used to make ash trees that can survive the fungus?
It seems plausible to me. These trees won't be fed to people, and pesticide won't be used on them; that eliminates two of the main issues. Furthermore, since the wild type is being wiped out anyway, there is no need to be concerned that it will be contaminated by the inserted gene.
Female Bosses
2 November 2015
Hurrah for Female Bosses, But Let's Not Forget Their Cleaners.
I would go further. What matters about the people corporate boardrooms is not their gender, but that they have too much power and get too much money. The poorly-paid female employees, and male employees too, deserve a higher wage.
Phone call metadata
2 November 2015
The state can learn a lot about you from your phone call metadata.
Spying Systems
2 November 2015
6 Spooky Ways Local Law Enforcement Is Watching You.
I think we must prohibit several of these systems.
UN Climate Summit
2 November 2015
Upcoming UN Climate Summit Can't Overlook China's Support of Global Coal Power.
Thugs
2 November 2015
When US officials prosecute thugs, thugs organize retaliation , in the form of private and even official noncooperation, as well as frame-ups.
This is why they all deserve the name of "thugs". Anyone in Albuquerque who claims the honorable title of "police officer" should validate that claim by publicly denouncing these retaliation campaigns and affirming that thugs shouldn't get away with murder.
Wall Street banks
2 November 2015
Moving your money out of the big Wall Street banks can be 20 times as effective as it appears .
Library of Congress
2 November 2015
The Library of Congress approved several specific three-year exemptions to the DMCA's prohibition on breaking DRM (digital restrictions management).
However, since the exemptions do not allow distributing the means to actually do so, they may in some cases be impossible to take advantage of.
The campaigns for these exemptions are a harmful distraction which saps energy from what we really need: to repeal what the DMCA says about DRM. It should be a crime to make systems with DRM.
The article uses the ill-advised term "digital locks" to refer to digital restrictions mechanisms. See the explanation of why that term is a bad analogy, and please join me in not using it.
Corporations United
2 November 2015
The Corporations United (*) decision allows companies to tell their employees how to vote , and one big investor is trying to do this through all the companies he invests in.
This shows why we need a constitutional amendment that denies across the board that corporations are entitled to human rights — not just in regard to campaign spending.
* The front group used the misleading term "Citizens United"; there is no reason for us to join it in misleading people about what it represented.
Republicans
2 November 2015
Republicans in several state legislatures have passed laws to pre-empt cities from regulating areas such as minimum wage and fracking; and they remove local voter initiatives from the ballot, so that the city cannot challenge the validity of the state's pre-emption.
NSA
2 November 2015
A German investigation has determined that the NSA spied pervasively on the German government.
Intellectual Freedom in UK
2 November 2015
Intellectual freedom in in the UK is threatened by the right-wing state and by left-wing students.
Somalia
2 November 2015
Now that the Somali pirates have been suppressed, illegal foreign fishing boats have returned to the area.
Shaker Aamer
2 November 2015
Shaker Aamer suffers from PTSD and will need years of treatment.
I am looking for people to write site-specific Firefox extensions or local scripts to operate specific web sites.
Urgent: no tax break for BP
01 November 2015
US citizens: insist that BP get no tax break from its damage payments.
Urgent: the People's Climate Test
01 November 2015
US citizens: call on Obama to adopt the People's Climate Test.
Urgent: rules for labeling meat
01 November 2015
US citizens: call on the Senate to maintain the rules for labeling meat by country of origin.
Forest fires make people sick
01 November 2015
Indonesia's forest fires, a scheme for deforestation, have made half a million people sick in the region.
Publishers and writers attacked in Bangladesh.
01 November 2015
Four more secularist publishers and writers have been attacked in Bangladesh.
A limit on standardized tests
01 November 2015
Obama said he has become disenchanted with standardized tests, and proposes a limit on them — but not a real reduction.
The issue is not how many hours students spend taking the tests, but how much their studies are shaped around the tests, and how the tests are used. Bigger policy changes are needed.
Black Lives Matter protests
01 November 2015
The FBI director admits he has no objective basis for claiming that Black Lives Matter protests caused a recent increase in crime. But he will blame them anyway.
He also blames the fact that people can use videos to demonstrate the crimes that thugs commit. His argument is that anything that makes thugs hesitate to beat people up and lie about it constitutes an impediment to their work.
Forest fires threaten Orangutans
01 November 2015
Indonesia's Forest Fires Threaten a Third of World's Wild Orangutans.
"Sanctions" against the unemployed
01 November 2015
The UK refused to investigate whether "sanctions" against the unemployed are achieving any of their supposed purposes.
Throw stones and we hit you with gas
01 November 2015
Israeli troops told Palestinians: "Throw stones and we will hit you with gas until you all die — the youth, the children, the old people…You will all die. We will not leave any of you alive."
Palestinians are already being killed regularly by tear gas.
State court elections
01 November 2015
Money Flooding State Court Elections Threatens the Promise of Equal Justice.
US options in Syria
01 November 2015
How presidential candidates stand on the US options in Syria, which all have major drawbacks.
The article has one section entitled "'Safe zones' and special forces", but the section discusses only the safe zones, not special forces.
Borrowing money to get an abortion
01 November 2015
Women in Ireland and Northern Ireland have to borrow money so they can travel to England to get an abortion.
The way to end the stigma placed in Ireland on abortion is for women to talk about their abortions unapologetically. It is imperative for women in Ireland to stop acting ashamed.
Doing business with Al-Sisi
01 November 2015
Al-Sisi offers Britain the sort of tyrant that Britain is accustomed to doing business with.
"I got 643 days of torture [in Egypt]. My tormentor gets Cameron's red carpet."
Tap water not safe
01 November 2015
Parts of the US no longer have tap water that is safe to drink.
Thugs' persecution
01 November 2015
Lesbians occasionally bear, like blacks, the brunt of thugs' persecution.
Transparency and privacy
01 November 2015
Transparency for the State, Privacy for the Rest of Us.
Diets and weight loss
01 November 2015
Diets generally do not achieve much weight loss.
Low-fat diets are the least effective, but perhaps that is because low-fat food products have added sugar.
Ending the death penalty
01 November 2015
Sanders calls for ending the death penalty, legalizing marijuana, reducing incarceration, and helping ex-cons get back into society.
Repression in US public schools
01 November 2015
The thug's vicious attack on a sitting high school girl is the extreme example of a systematic repression imposed in US public schools generally. Any student can be punished or suspended for minor or even fantasy "wrongs", but black students generally face worse treatment.
Suspension from school is extremely frequent: high schools suspend, each year, almost as many students as they graduate. Smaller punishments are probably far more frequent.
This system resembles a training program for living in an occupied country, and students could understand it as such. The thugs in the schools are soldiers in the occupying army, and the school officials are the local collaborators, quislings (that's why they order quizzes).
The teachers are mostly sincere, trying to provide what education they can under the occupation which they cannot defy, but that is easier said than done.
The goal is to make trouble for the occupation without letting the soldiers figure out who did it or how.
US to assist Syrian Kurds
01 November 2015
Obama is sending a contingent of US special forces to assist the Syrian Kurds.
This seems like a good idea to me. A limited amount of help for the Kurds could make a big difference for them in fighting PISSI, while avoiding the harm that a large US intervention force would do.
If the Kurds can cut off PISSI from the Turkish border, it would crimp PISSI's funds (obtained by selling oil) and recruitment (foreign recruits come through Turkey).
Obama should ask Congress for approval of the US intervention against PISSI. I expect he would easily get approval. The point is to maintain the system of checks and balances.
Suspected of setting fire to churches
01 November 2015
A black man is suspected of setting fire to churches near Ferguson.
Netanyahu's realm of lunacy
01 November 2015
Uri Avnery says: in blaming the holocaust on a factional Palestinian leader, Netanyahu went beyond the realm of dishonesty and manipulation, into the realm of lunacy.
Pregnant refugee Abyan
01 November 2015
Australia will give pregnant refugee Abyan another chance to get an abortion.
US foreign policy lies
01 November 2015
Even Sanders goes along with official US foreign policy lies some of the time.
Chavez won elections honestly, but his successor, Maduro, represses the opposition increasingly as it grows in strength.
Sanders doesn't do everything right, but he's a lot better even on foreign policy issues than the other candidates.
Extremism is a form of patriarchy
01 November 2015
Sara Khan tries to convince British Muslim girls to reject extremism because it is a form of patriarchy.
I strongly dislike religious extremism, in any religion, even in the Church of Emacs. However, people have a right to profess those views, and it is wrong to prohibit them. The UK government has trashed so many human rights already that I expect the worst.
Neonicotinoids harm bees
01 November 2015
A scientific review finds that experiments demonstrate that neonicotinoids harm bees, but it is not yet proved that they are responsible for colony collapse.
Since bees are crucial to agriculture, and to the survival of many species of plants, we can't afford to risk it.
Recording of browsing history
01 November 2015
The UK government is about to demand ISPs record everyone's browsing history.
New St Louis stadium
01 November 2015
An NFL team wants to drain St Louis of millions for a new stadium; a movement of citizens opposes the fans.
NFL teams are businesses. It's too bad so many Americans direct their loyalty at businesses.
Indian "climate of intolerance"
01 November 2015
Major Indian historians have condemned the "climate of intolerance" that encourages violence and censorship of dissent from Hindu nationalist ideology and myths.
Market-dominated university system
01 November 2015
UK students will protest to oppose the adoption of a US-style market-dominated university system.
Shaker Aamer returned to Britain
01 November 2015
Shaker Aamer has been released from Guantanamo and has returned to Britain.
Rebellious officials in the Pentagon delayed his release for 5 years by refusing to let him go back to the UK.
He is going to sue the British government for complicity in his imprisonment and torture.
He certainly deserves compensation, but if the UK government settles the case to avoid exposure of its wrongs, that will not do justice.
"Unarmed civilian protection"
01 November 2015
"Unarmed civilian protection" persuades armed groups in South Sudan to refrain from violence, at least some of the time.
Assad fired missiles at a market
01 November 2015
Assad's forces fired missiles at a market and killed at least 40 people. I would expect most of them were civilians.
Indonesia is burning
01 November 2015
Indonesia Is Burning. So Why Is the World Looking Away?
Urgent: Replace CNN commentator
01 November 2015
Everyone: call on CNN to replace commentator Harry Houck, who never saw a violent thug he didn't like.
Criminalizing criticism
01 November 2015
Criminalizing criticism of officials threatens democracy in Malaysia.
Democracy in Malaysia was never very strong, which makes it even more vulnerable now.
Large forest fire in the Amazon
01 November 2015
A large forest fire is burning in the Amazon "rainforest", and has been burning for two months. This suggests o me that there is not as much rain as there normally used to be.
Large parts of Brazil have suffered from an unprecedented drought.
Global heating could play some role in this, but the cutting down of much of the forests are responsible for both.
Current carbon pledges
01 November 2015
The UN says that current carbon pledges will probably keep global heating to under 3C.
That is still taking too big a risk. Even the 2C target is somewhat arbitrary, since we don't know it will avoid disaster (or positive-feedback tipping points that would push warming further).
In addition, without an enforcement mechanism, we can't be confident all the countries will carry out their unilateral pledges.
Internet censorship in US universities
01 November 2015
Various organizations demand internet censorship in US universities to eliminate racist statements and insults.
I find some of those statements disgusting — others are merely foolish — but censorship is far more disgusting.
The scariest thing is that this sort of censorship has already become deeply implanted in many otherwise free countries. And in some of them, such as France and the UK, it is spreading to other kinds of censorship.
Jailed for talking to children
01 November 2015
Pennsylvania has jailed a man for telling children on the street that he was on the way to a cabin in the woods.
A paranoid US parent, who has probably heard exaggerated stories about the nearly nonexistent "stranger danger", reported this as suspicious.
Perhaps thugs regarded the man as dangerous because he is autistic and could not rebut the suspicion.
Haiti's election
01 November 2015
Haiti's "president" Martelly is trying to impose a successor by rigging the election.
The US imposed Martelly through blatant contempt for the Haitian electoral system.
Guber for piecework "journalists"
01 November 2015
Following Guber, a new service matches up PR companies with piecework "journalists" that will take pay to write their press releases into "news articles".
I call it "Guber" because it pays drivers peanuts, but there are many reasons why we should refuse ever to use Guber.
Censorship on the rise
01 November 2015
Censorship on Rise as Global Internet Freedom Continues Downward Spiral.
Gulf of Maine too warm for cod
01 November 2015
The Gulf of Maine is now too warm for cod to live there.
This area of the sea used to be a major cod fishery, though they were mostly wiped out by overfishing a few decades ago. Massachusetts must now replace the Sacred Cod with Sacred Car.