Talk in France
6 October 2021
Richard Stallman will be giving a talk in Claret, France, on October 10.
Urgent: Another Assange rally
6 October 2021
Boston area: come to the rally for Julian Assange on Oct 11 from 4pm to 5:30pm in Boston Common, at the top of the main entrance to Park Street Station.
Pandora papers
6 October 2021
The leaked "Pandora papers" show how many rich people have set up international structures of shell companies to disguise what property they own.
For instance, the leaks show that King Abdullah of Jordan has disguised his owning properties, in various countries, worth 100 million dollars.
These article make a moral assumption which we should reject:
Has everyone named in the Pandora papers done something wrong? No. Moving money offshore is not in or of itself illegal,
The invalid assumption is to equate legality with moral legitimacy. That equation abdicates all moral judgment to the legislature of whichever country has jurisdiction.
This is what plutocrats want us to assume. If we accept it, then when they have set up tax laws to assess them little tax, we will conclude it is right for them to pay little tax. This balderdash helps plutocrats maintain their dominion, at the expense of everyone else.
King Abdullah is a slightly unusual case because, in Jordan, he is a monarch, more powerful than a plutocrat. Internationally, though, he is a plutocrat like any other. So this applies to him too.
In the US, the tax on a building is charged by local government. Disguising the owner's identity won't avoid that tax. But if selling the building brings in a profit, the owner may avoid paying taxes on that capital gain by not reporting it.
Disguising the "beneficial owner" of a business can enable the owner to dodge taxes on the income of the business.
Abortion restriction effects
6 October 2021
What the Texas abortion-restriction law does to women in Texas that need an abortion.
Searching for food in carcasses
6 October 2021
Brazilians living in penury search for food in a heap of animal carcasses. This reflects the deep poverty that has struck Brazil.
This was partly caused by Covid-19, and the government could not have prevented that. But I expect that the Workers' Party would have done a better job of protecting the poor from hunger.
Putting climate defense protesters in prison
6 October 2021
The Tories want to put climate defense protesters in prison for 6 months for blocking highways.
This is, apparently, higher priority than insulating millions of houses, which is the highly efficient way of reducing greenhouse emissions that the protesters demand.
When floods block highways, will the Tories put the flood waters in prison? If a flood continues for a week, they could sentence the water to 4 years.
Live of slaves on plantations
6 October 2021
The Whitney Plantation in Louisiana is a museum of what life was like for the slaves on plantations.
Apologizing for racism against Chinese-Americans
6 October 2021
San Jose, California, has apologized for acts of racism against Chinese-Americans, which included burning down the whole of Chinatown where they lived.
Decertifying thugs
6 October 2021
California has passed a law to decertify thugs convicted of serious crimes, so that they can't jump over to another thug department elsewhere in the state.
Hiring bias
6 October 2021
A scientific experiment demonstrates hiring bias against minority racial groups in the UK. All the applicants sent the same résumé, so there was no reason to treat them differently except bias.
The amount of bias has not decreased since the 1960s.
Sexism against female cops
6 October 2021
Female cops in London say the male cops hit them with persistent sexism, and support each other in doing so.
Religious mobs
6 October 2021
Mobs of Hinduismists in the state of Chhattisgarh, India, are accusing Christians of forcing Hindus to convert to Christianity, and using that as an excuse for violent repression of Christians.
There have been times and places where Christians forced people to convert. This happened in Spain in 1492 and after: the Spanish monarchy forced all Jews and Muslims to become Christians. But it is absurd to imagine that Indian Christians would try to do this today, since they are a minority surrounded by millions of Hindus. This is typical right-wing false accusation.
The real threat to religious freedom in Chhattisgarh is from the state law that requires state approval for changing your religion. I expect that this was passed for repression against Dalits that want to become Buddhist, following Dr. Ambedkar.
Torture sites
6 October 2021
Abu Zubaydah, prisoner in Guantanamo, is suing to demand testimony of agents that tortured him, to prove that the US had a torture site in Poland.
Police departments
6 October 2021
Arguing that the police departments of today are fundamentally bad and harmful.
I find that plausible, but that doesn't necessarily mean that "no police" would be better. More likely, a gang would take over the role of "keeping order", whatever order it prefers.
To replace today's thug departments with something better, we need to have a clear idea to make a replacement that is indeed better.
Rigging system to stay in power
6 October 2021
*In plain sight, Boris Johnson is rigging the system to stay in power.*
Urgent: National Security Reforms and Accountability Act
5 October 2021
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the National Security Reforms and Accountability Act.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Replacing flammable cladding
5 October 2021
The Tories continue to dump the costs of replacing flammable cladding — and fire prevention in the meantime — on many apartment buildings on the residents, who can never pay it.
They rescued the residents of tall buildings but stubbornly refuse to rescue shorter buildings. I guess they feel a need to avoid giving people the expectation that the government will help them in adversity.
Classrooms too hot
5 October 2021
Global heating effects will hasten the decay of America's dilapidated schools, and make classrooms too hot for children to study in.
Many schools already dismiss class when it gets to hot. By 2025, 26,000 schools will need to install or upgrade air conditioning. Republicans will surely oppose funding for this.
Twitter's structural tendency
5 October 2021
Research into use of Twitter, and mathematical modeling, show that its structural tendency is to encourage polarization and formation of camps that are hostile to each other.
Coffee bean price spike
5 October 2021
*Coffee bean price spike just a taste of what’s to come with [climate mayhem].*
Council for National Policy
5 October 2021
The "Council for National Policy" secretly brings together Republican officials with rich right-wing donors and leaders of hate groups.
Reducing incoming sunlight
5 October 2021
Studying the possible side effects of geoengineering designed to reduce incoming sunlight.
Cameras in Uyghurs homes
5 October 2021
Uyghurs report on the cameras in their homes and prison cells. These cameras now do face recognition and more general ethnic group recognition.
Any system that tracks people's movements is prepositioned repression equipment, waiting only for a government to dare to turn it on.
China conceals loans
5 October 2021
China lends millions of dollars to non-state entities in many non-rich countries, to conceal the loans from the World Bank. 42 countries now owe more than 10% of GDP to China in this hidden way.
In jail without trial
5 October 2021
Israel has kept Mohammad El Halabi in jail for five years without trial.
Israel accuses him of giving aid money to Hamas, but it should either give him a fair trial or let him go.
Arrests over social media posts
5 October 2021
*Belarusian [repression] forces [arrest] 50 people over social media posts on Minsk shooting: rights group.* The shooting killed a repression officer and someone they say "resisted" repression officers.
Mayor of Riace
5 October 2021
The mayor of Riace was admired for his efforts to integrate immigrants and keep the town from fading away; but now they have been construed as aiding illegal immigration and he has been sentenced to prison.
Republican's phony "audit"
5 October 2021
Republican's phony "audit" of Arizona votes failed in its ostensible goal, but it achieved two things: it spread distrust for official election results, and it will undermine real audits and recounts in the future.
Sooner or later they will hold another "audit" and lie about what they find.
Texas demographics
5 October 2021
As Texas demographics swing Democratic, Republicans are redrawing the districts to retain control with a minority of votes.
Lobbying against the Build Back Better act
5 October 2021
Apple, Amazon, Disney, Google and Microsoft give support to right-wing organizations that lobby against the Build Back Better act. Some want to make the poor poorer; some aim to continue global heating at full speed.
Other companies that support these groups include medical companies AstraZeneca, Bayer, Johnson&Johnson, plus Deloitte, Dow, Exxon, FedEx, Goodyear, Intuit, United Airlines, and Verizon.
Supply-chain problems
5 October 2021
Mergers, deregulation and "free trade" made the economy vulnerable to today's supply-chain problems and shortages.
Urgent: eliminate debt ceiling
5 October 2021
US citizens: call on Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling. All it does is give Republicans a hostage once in a while.
Urgent: stop donating to insurrectionists
5 October 2021
US citizens: call on various big US companies to stop donating to insurrectionists in Congress.
Urgent: Dial down investments in fossil fuels
5 October 2021
US citizens: sign this letter calling on Treasury Secretary Yellen to dial down investments in fossil fuels.
Urgent: stop funding climate disaster
5 October 2021
US citizens: call on big US banks to stop funding climate disaster.
Talk in Montpellier
5 October 2021
Richard Stallman will be giving a talk in Montpellier, France, on October 22.
Most-favored-market
5 October 2021
YouTube blocked two RT TV channels for posting anti-vax propaganda. In return, Russia threatened to block YouTube entirely, and then threatened to block German TV channels unrelated to Google unless YouTube relents.
The first threat can be thought of as "retaliation in kind." The second threat is nothing like that — it is more like hostage-taking.
Putin has concluded that giant tech companies will surrender to any demand whatsoever rather than lose a big market. That seems to be true if the market is China. Can Putin get this most-favored-market status too?
Expansion Pack
5 October 2021
(satire) *Scientists Unlock 47 New Editable Genes After Purchasing CRISPR Expansion Pack.*
Can't be fired for organizing
5 October 2021
*Settlement forces Amazon to tell workers they can't be fired for organizing.*
Debt and climate crisis
5 October 2021
*Poor countries must not be forced to take on debt to tackle climate crisis.*
It all comes down to whether we can overcome the power of the plutocrats who seek to own the world regardless of the harm this does to the rest of the world.
Yanis Varoufakis on Angela Merkel
5 October 2021
*Yanis Varoufakis: Angela Merkel Was Bad for Europe and the World.*
I don't think she was solely responsible for the Euro zone decisions that drove Greece into suffering, but she surely helped.
Vaccination in care home
5 October 2021
The Tories insist that everyone working in a care home (US: nursing home) be vaccinated by November 11, while critics say it will be hard for those workers to get vaccinated that soon.
Right-wingers do not seem to appreciate how hard it is for low-paid workers to make arrangements for medical appointments around their work schedules, which often they cannot control or even know in advance.
There seems to be an obvious win-win solution — to bring vaccination teams to these institutions and vaccinate the workers there. Why don't Tories do this?
Is it a basic preference to punish the non-rich rather than help them?
Drier heat waves
5 October 2021
*Drier heat waves threaten crops in Iowa.*
Global heating threatens agriculture in many parts of the US, in different ways. We hear about some of the local threats occasionally, but the overall danger is more than what we hear.
Robots rather than raises
5 October 2021
As workers in advanced countries reject low-paid grueling work, businesses seek to replace them with robots rather than give them a raise.
We still face the question of how to give the people who can't earn more than a pittance a way to live a decent life, instead of starving on the street. Meanwhile, climate mayhem threatens crop failures and empty seas — and thus much higher food prices. Other forms of resource depletion and pollution threaten too.
Long list of evils
5 October 2021
Ralph Nader presents a long list of evils which get bipartisan support from the Democratic and Republican parties.
We should acknowledge and applaud the progressive Democrats that challenge many of these policies.
National security law for everyone
5 October 2021
The UK government warned Britons who have called for sanctions against Hong Kong's government that Hong Kong might accuse them of violating the new "national security law" and have them extradited from various other countries they might visit.
Several countries have suspended or cancelled extradition agreements with Hong Kong.
Wikipedia lists the countries that have such agreements with Hong Kong.
Normally, extradition treaties are conditioned on "dual criminality": country C won't extradite anyone for an act unless that act is a crime according to the laws of country C. What the Hong Kong "national security law" prohibits, disloyalty to Hong Kong, is surely not a crime according to the laws of countries such as Portugal, nor surely India or Indonesia. Does that mean this danger is not real?
Governments that regularly trash human rights, such as Malaysia and Singapore, might not respect the human rights stated in their laws and treaties. But India and Indonesia are getting involved in anti-China alliances, and if they have a political decision to make about critics of China's oppression, will surely seek opportunities to frustrate China.
Can anyone find out more about this issue?
Calling for Bolsonaro's impeachment
4 October 2021
*Mass protests in Brazil call for Bolsonaro's impeachment.*
AI and embarrassing questions
4 October 2021
AI language models often respond to embarrassing questions with falsehoods.
Build Back Better sabotage
4 October 2021
Right-wing Democrats in Congress tried to sabotage the House plan to insist on passing the Build Back Better welfare bill before considering the badly compromised infrastructure bill. But progressive Democrats stood firm and blocked this.
Those right-wing Democrats could kill the bill straight out — but they would draw lots of ire, and it would harm their chances of reelection. We have to hope they decide not to do that.
Reporting rich people income
4 October 2021
Biden proposes a system to make rich people report all the income that they receive through bank accounts.
This would not fix the problem of tax evasion by rich people that get the income in other countries and hide it, nor that of tax dodging by corporations that shift the profit to countries which charge no tax on it.
Toxic positivity
4 October 2021
"Toxic positivity" says that if anything goes wrong for you, it was because you did not have a positive enough mindset. So have faith in a good future, or whatever bad things happen to you will be your own fault.
This is reportedly one of the ingredients of Covid-19 denialism, too.
Undercover thugs
4 October 2021
A UK court investigation has ruled that the use of undercover thugs to infiltrate protest groups by forming sexual relationships with the sincere participants violated their rights in many ways, and was planned to do so.
Best of all, it concluded there was no justification for investigating those nonviolent campaigns at all.
Urgent: fire Louis Dejoy
4 October 2021
US citizens: call on Biden to remake the Postal Governing Board and fire Louis Dejoy.
Obeying thugs commands
4 October 2021
Two Colorado thugs attacked a man for not obeying their commands. They knocked him down, tased him, and put him in jail for 4 months, while he only asking "Why this happen?" He is deaf.
This illustrates the pattern that thugs are willing to get violent very quickly, not checking for misunderstandings.
Stealing of student personal identification data
4 October 2021
Crackers attack school computer systems to steal students' personal identification data, so as to use it for financial fraud.
How about if schools were not allowed to ask for such data from students? Indeed, why do they collect it nowadays? What do they use it for? Do they use it to give it to companies that should not get it either?
Flood insurance
4 October 2021
The US government will raise the price of flood insurance to match increased flood risk.
Subsidizing flood insurance encourages people to live in houses that are likely to flood. After each flood, people will repair them and continue living there. For society, having houses in those places is repeated wasteful expense.
Once flooding becomes likely, it would be better for society to rescue the homeowners by buying the flooded houses for what they would have been worth in the absence of flood danger, and hold that land to ensure no house is built there again.
Keeping misogynists out thugs department
4 October 2021
The London thug department has hardly bothered to keep violent misogynists out.
Two other thugs that joined the murdered, Couzens, in racist and misogynist conversations are being investigated but continue working.
We should not imprison people for their opinions, but if cops are racist or misogynist, they are unfit for their jobs.
The London thug department has warned women to distrust any single non-uniformed individual that claims to be arresting them.
For the reasons described in the article, it will be difficult to follow this advice. People will be afraid of prosecution for "resisting arrest." Would you have confidence that citing this announcement would get you cleared instantly of such charges? I would not.
Moreover, cops can't do their legitimate job if people distrust them. They have to win trust — and not just from women, but also from blacks that expect to be harassed frequently by thugs that are not insane, merely racist.
Campaign funding violations
4 October 2021
Former right-wing French president Sarkozy has been convicted of campaign funding violations.
He was famous for launching prosecutions against people who spoke sharply about him, including someone who said, "Sarkozy, I see you!" to criticize a state action that resulted from Sarkozy's decision, and someone who repeated to Sarkozy an insulting phrase that he had said to a member of the public.
Antisemitism
4 October 2021
Bristol University fired Professor David Miller for what it calls "antisemitism". He says that it was criticism of Zionism and its propaganda.
I can't judge from the limited quotes in the article whether his statements include anti-semitism or are limited to politics.
Wars
4 October 2021
London thug
3 October 2021
A London thug arrested a female stranger for no reason other than so he could rape her and kill her. This shocking incident has threads running to other, more frequent forms of injustice to women.
Lots of thugs engage in violence towards women.
Calling for a thorough investigation of this.
Roman Dobrokhotov
3 October 2021
Putin is seeking to imprison editor and investigator Roman Dobrokhotov, who works with Bellingcat.
Official thugs
3 October 2021
*More than half of killings [by official thugs] are mislabelled or not reported, study finds.* Killings of blacks and hispanics are more likely not to be properly reported.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing 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 exceptions for some articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the exceptions.
Oath Keepers
3 October 2021
The Oath Keepers' association with attacking the Capitol was an effective recruiting tool.
We saw this a year ago as the corrupter's supporters became increasingly violent in their attacks on Democrats. The more violent they got, the more they excited people who wanted violence.
Plutocratist spending
3 October 2021
How to make the infrastructure and aid bill combo better by getting rid of plutocratist spending.
(Satire) Nothing sounded good
3 October 2021
(satire) *‘Bon Appétit’ Publishes Blank Issue After Nothing Sounded Good.* *The U.S. needs to make its asylum policy clear. It needs to define who it will allow to seek asylum and apply that standard without discrimination.*
If we do this, we should not expect the same results for Haiti and Afghanistan, because there objective differences between the two situations.
Afghanistan has been taken over by a government that seems to be trying to kill people for having worked with the US. That gives many Afghans a claim for asylum under international treaties. Although many Haitians have suffered greatly, and part of the cause is due to US wrongdoing, they are not facing murder or torture if they remain in Haiti.
The US should do something to help the destitute people of Haiti, but giving some of them asylum is not the only way, or necessarily the best way. Perhaps aid to poor people in Haiti would do a better job.
Urgent: $25 billion to big oil
3 October 2021
US citizens: call on Democratic leadership to strip the $25 billion taxpayer giveaway to Big Oil from the infrastructure bill.
Chevron
3 October 2021
Ecuadorians' lawyer against Chevron, Steven Donziger, has been sentenced to 6 months in prison for refusing to give Chevron all his confidential communication with his clients.
This is part of Chevron's long scheme to avoid paying its fine of ten billion dollars for poisoning part of Ecuador.
Regent Honeyeater
3 October 2021
Australia has driven the regent honeyeater almost to extinction, and it is pushing hard to finish the job.
Sinema
3 October 2021
Arizona Democrats are very angry with Senator Sinema and are threatening to vote her out.
EPA corruption
3 October 2021
*EPA Officials Exposed Whistleblowers Three Minutes After Receiving Confidential Complaint.*
The corruption seems to be very deep.
Penneast
3 October 2021
Local opposition has defeated construction of the Penneast fracked-gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
Urgent: Facebook ad loophole
3 October 2021
Everyone: call on Facebook to treat a person's political campaign ads as if they came from that person.
HB580
3 October 2021
*Section 51, part 6 of the Tennessee law makes lesson plans illegal if students "feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish."*
Children have no reason to feel personally guilty about events that happened before they were born. But they might well feel discomfort and even anguish when they read about American slavery, Jim Crow, the Vietnam War, the conquest and occupaton of Iraq, the Holocaust, the Great Depression, or the Chinese cultural revolution. Indeed, if the lesson is clear, and students grasp what anguish people suffered during those events, they will surely feel some anguish in sympathy.
The law, if applied generally, would be absurd. But I don't think it is meant to be applied generally. I suspect it is meant to be applied selectively in a racist way.
Civil war
3 October 2021
Where is the outrage over the civil war in Ethiopia? In my case, it is stymied by my lack of understanding of what's happening.
The information I've seen in the press is fragmentary. I don't understand what's occurring, nor why, nor the actions and motivations of the belligerents. Is Ethiopia intentionally starving Tigray? Is Eritrea doing so? Are world powers doing so?
Did Ethiopia really more or less occupy Tigray, or was that Ethiopia's lie? If it was true, how did Tigray bounce back from near total defeat and start attacking other regions? If Tigray is now militarily successful, how come its army cannot open a channel for food aid to flow?
In the past, we would have seen reports from foreign correspondents covering the events. Are there any now? If so, where can we see their reporting?
Now Ethiopia has expelled UN aid officials. The article does not clearly state the motive for expelling them. Is this because there is no known reason? Or does the article refrain from stating it?
Eastern European troll farms
3 October 2021
19 of the top 20 Facebook pages for American Christians are run by Eastern European troll farms, according to a Facebook internal investigation.
What this amounts to is that the troll farms have developed channels of mass influence in the US -- for elections, for instance. Most of the time, they will imitate what their target Christians would say. On occasions, they say what some powerful entity tells them to say.
Corporate lobbyists
3 October 2021
*Corporate Lobbyists Are Going to War Against the Build Back Better Plan.*
Special tax deductions
3 October 2021
Rep Ro Khanna: Congress should end the special tax deductions for fossil fuels.
Some propose to use a carbon tax instead to raise tax revenue. I am in favor of a carbon tax, but not as a way to raise tax revenue. The way to raise revenue is to end the special tax deductions. The income from the carbon tax should be redistributed to people with low incomes so that the carbon tax does not ruin them.
(satire) Significant setback
3 October 2021
(satire) *WASHINGTON—In a maneuver that experts suggest could represent a significant setback for the legislative ambitions of Democrats, the GOP reportedly stalled an upcoming government funding bill Tuesday by detonating fifty tons of C-4 explosives inside the Capitol building.*
Financial scams
3 October 2021
The UK accuses the biggest social media of advertising financial scams.
Means-testing
3 October 2021
*Progressives Warn Democrats Against Means-Testing Reconciliation Bill [Build Back Better] to Death.*
Women's rights
3 October 2021
The US talked about the rights of Afghan women when that was useful as a justification for war, but has paid little attention to what Afghan women said about the issue. Here's a group that is trying to work with Afghan women in defending their rights.
Crimea
3 October 2021
Ukraine is taking an interesting approach to Putin's seizure of the Crimea: treating residents of Crimea as Ukrainian citizens and giving them various sorts of aid.
Journalists arrested
3 October 2021
The Taliban arrested journalists who covered women's protests in Afghanistan. One of them has not been heard from for a month.
Chinese abortion rights
3 October 2021
Chinese women are very worried that China will restrict abortions to force them to have babies.
In China, as in many other parts of the world, life for people born now is going to get very hard in a few decades. People in North China will have to deal with fatal weather.
Much of South China, a large region around the Yangtze River, will face sea level rise. Coping with the inconvenience of a falling population will be easy by comparison.
Cultural appropriation
3 October 2021
Culture is for appropriating. But we still see people condeming the failure to maintain the racial purity of cultural practices.
Kwame Anthony Appiah demolished the condemnation of "cultural appropriation", and said it better than I could say it. He also explains the correct understanding of certain situations where people perceive offense and conceptualize the issue as "cultural appropriation."
I did not appropriate this position from him -- I'm proud to have thought of it independently. But if I had learned it from him, I'd be grateful.