Crumbling 'alt-right'
23 March 2018

Antifascist activists seem to be making the neo-Nazi "alt-right" crumble.

Antifascist activism is much broader than the violent group Antifa. Violence is what played into the Nazi's hands in Berlin.

I can't rejoice in the success of censorship measures against neo-Nazis because I think censorship is wrong. Furthermore, the next opinion group to be banned from giant internet platforms could be progressives, free-software activists, or whatever.

Killing newborns
23 March 2018

Ramona Hernandez-Canete, in France, killed five of her own newborn babies. Her husband was not aware she was pregnant.

I wonder what inhibited her from getting abortions. That is lawful in France, unlike what she actually did. I have a feeling that the answer might be a clue to something on which dissuades other women from getting abortions.

Air pollution activists
23 March 2018

London Air Pollution Activists "Prepared to Go to Prison" to Force Action.

Saudi Prince's whitewash tour
23 March 2018

With Saudi Prince on Whitewash Tour, Critics Warn Against Further US Complicity With 'War Crimes' in Yemen.

Global heating migration
23 March 2018

Global heating is expected to force 140 million people to try to migrate in the next 30 years.

De-facto king
23 March 2018

Ten hard questions for the de-facto king of Salafi Arabia.

Automatic censorship in EU
23 March 2018

The planned EU requirement for automatic censorship of all uploads was inserted by an MEP but written by a functionary that is loyal to the copyright industry.

Nuclear power in Salafi Arabia
23 March 2018

If Iran builds nuclear weapons, Salafi Arabia will too.

Salafi Arabia is a great place for solar power. It has no rational reason to take on the dangers of nuclear power, other than as a stepping stone to nuclear weapons. Therefore, other countries should not sell it nuclear power.

It would be a good thing if Salafi Arabia an Iran signed a treaty foreswearing nuclear weapons.

Corbyn on Russia
23 March 2018

Corbyn is resisting the pressure for a pseudo-war with Russia.

Labour is of course no supporter of the Putin regime, its conservative authoritarianism, abuse of human rights or political and economic corruption.
However, that does not mean we should resign ourselves to a 'new cold war' of escalating arms spending, proxy conflicts across the globe and a McCarthyite intolerance of dissent.

Here is his statement.

It seems not to be so hard to make the nerve gas that was used to poison the Skripals.

Meanwhile, Corbyn knows that Russia is a small threat to people living in the UK, as threats go. By contrast, the Tories have oppressed millions of Britons with poverty, which surely kills thousands every year. I think Corbyn is wise to focus on the bigger danger.

DeVos-imposed 'agreement'
23 March 2018

DeVos is trying to destroy the Department of Education's workers' union by imposing a damaging "agreement" that the union did not agree to.

Just following orders
23 March 2018

CIA torturers are using the "just following orders" defense that Nazi war criminals used.

Privatizing rivers
23 March 2018

New Mexico is hastily privatizing rivers that people were free to use their boats on.

Second Amazon HQ
23 March 2018

Americans in some cities are organizing in some cities against paying Amazon to put its second HQ there.

I hope that the blatant nature of this instance teaches people to recognize the general wrong of letting states or cities compete in offering concessions to any business.

Precarious low-wage employment
23 March 2018

Precarious low-wage employment results from a government that doesn't care about poor people.

Indonesian genocide
23 March 2018

Documents show that the massacre of half a million Indonesians in 1965-66 was organized by the army.

The bully's mounting lies
23 March 2018

The bully says that McCabe's meeting memos are all false.

his strategy is to defend every lie with another lie. He is betting that no one will ever be able to make him pay for any of the lies. If SCROTUS continue to support him no matter what, and he can fire everyone else who tries, he might get away with it — in the process turning the US government into total corruption.

Postal banking
23 March 2018

"The U.S. Postal Service, under attack from a manufactured crisis designed to force its privatization, needs a new source of funding to survive. Postal banking could fill that need."

Deported to almost certain death
23 March 2018

David Chavez-Macias is being deported to Mexico, where he is almost sure to die because the medicine he needs for his life-threatening disease is not available.

If I were in that situation I would think about committing suicide in a way that would shame the deportation thugs.

Kim Jong-un's commitment
23 March 2018

Kim Jong-un Has Committed to Denuclearisation, Says South Korea.

Dying near the border
23 March 2018

Around 150 people die each year in the US desert near the border with Mexico. About 2/3 can be identified.

This is up from around 12 a year in the 1990s. In most cases it is not clear why an individual died, but it seems likely that stepped-up border enforcement is the overall reason.

Volunteer

I am looking for people to help web sites put free licenses on their Javascript code.

Very urgent: CLOUD Act
21 March 2018

US citizens: phone your senators and congresscritter to oppose the "CLOUD Act". The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.

Any reference to "cloud computing" is clouding something.

Infiltrating Greenpeace
21 March 2018

The UK keeps the thugs that infiltrated Greenpeace secret, supposedly to protect them from Greenpeace. Another undercover thug, that infiltrated real criminal gangs, says that's absurd.

Kushner's company's false papers
21 March 2018

Jared Kushner's company filed false papers in order to evict the tenants of some buildings it bought in New York City.

Facebook whistleblower
21 March 2018

Whistleblower Christopher Wylie exposed how Cambridge Analytica misused the data Facebook gave it, so Facebook shut down his account.

Countries in debt
21 March 2018

126 countries (out of the 200-odd that exist) spend more than 10% of their income paying interest on debts.

Many of these countries will never be able to pay down those debts, so the governments have been converted, in effect, into tribute extractors.

Ranked choice voting
21 March 2018

Minnesota Republicans plan to prohibit cities such as Minneapolis from using ranked choice voting.

If something is better for democracy, it's bad for plutocrats, so plutocrats are against it.

Fitbits for kids
21 March 2018

"Fitbits for kids? Better yet, encourage them to hopscotch — and tell them they are loved."

Resist, revolt, rewild
21 March 2018

Proposing to upgrade "reduce, reuse, recycle" to "resist, revolt, rewild."

The free software movement is one way of resisting. Rejecting the giant surveillance dis-services is another way.

Providing for huge cities
21 March 2018

It is not clear how we can provide food, water and sanitation to cities with a population of 100,000,000 people.

We should take steps now to reduce the future size of those cities by reducing the number of babies that will be born between now and then.

Some people think it is racist to focus efforts to reduce the number of births on Africa and some parts of Asia.

But this is not a matter of race, it is simply practical. The only way to avoid hundreds of millions of births is to concentrate on the places with high birth rates.

It is also important to end population growth in the US because Americans use resources in such a wasteful, profligate way. Since the birth rate is already not very high, the way to do that is to accept fewer immigrants. This is nothing personal about particular immigrants; I'd welcome nearly any of them — but it is better to reduce the number of immigrants until we succeed in making the American way of life less wasteful.

Of course, avoiding births in the US is desirable too.

Estimating enslaved workers
21 March 2018

Satellites are being used to estimate the number of enslaved workers in India and neighboring countries.

Water shortages
21 March 2018

Water Shortages Could Affect 5bn People by 2050, UN Report Warns.

To a large extent this will be due to global heating, but we're already using fresh water from aquifers faster than it gets replenished, so many of them will be empty.

We need to do things which short-sighted people fight against, such as (1) stop growing water-thirsty fruit in California, (2) make a lot fewer babies, and (3) curb global heating.

Veterans against Vietnam War
21 March 2018

Celebrating the US military veterans who became the leaders of the movement to end the Vietnam War.

Confidentiality agreement
21 March 2018

A confidentiality agreement can't put the cat back into the bag.

Sanders on plutocracy and militarism
21 March 2018

Sanders in a speech tied plutocracy to militarism and increasing arms spending. He also reminded Americans of the government lies that were used to bring about intervention in Vietnam, then later in Iraq. Then how the plutocracy leads to despair which leads to support for "populist" demagogues.

He ended by talking about the tremendous danger of global heating and the need to confront it firmly and soon.

Fixing Facebook
21 March 2018

Lauren Weinstein: Fixing Facebook May Be Impossible.

If so, we must make it go away.

The troll's campaign meeting
21 March 2018

Other participants in the meeting where Sessions considered contacting Russians for the troll's campaign have testified he did not oppose the idea — meaning that he was lying about it.

CEO and worker pay ratio
21 March 2018

A new regulation requires many US corporations to publish the ratio between their CEO's pay and the pay of their workers. Some cities and states are considering imposing higher taxes or limitations on corporations which have too high a ratio.

Advent of immigration thugs
21 March 2018

The US didn't have immigration thugs until 16 years ago. The agency was set up to twist people's thinking to confuse deportation with national security. Let's abolish the agency!

Georgia-Pacific
21 March 2018

Since the Koch brothers bought Georgia-Pacific, it has a record of skimping on workers' safety.

$340,000 is a substantial fine, but perhaps not enough to influence people as rich as they are. Perhaps industrial fines should be increased based on the company's total income, the way some places increase traffic fines based on the driver's income.

Winning with a progressive agenda
21 March 2018

Democrats can win in most of America with a fairly progressive agenda.

I have not seen anything about where Conor Lamb stands regarding bank deregulation or the War on Drugs. Since he was a prosecutor, I fear the worst on the latter.

EPA plan
21 March 2018

The EPA plans to prohibit use of research results based on studying private personal data.

It's a plausible-sounding excuse for future non-science-based policies, such as "pay no mind who or what you're poisoning."

Urgent: Right to protest
20 March 2018

US citizens: call on state governors to protect the right to protest.

Urgent: Starbucks recycling
20 March 2018

Everyone: Call on Starbucks to increase its commitment to plastic recycling.

Assassination squads
20 March 2018

Leaks say that the bully and Pompeo have resumed using CIA assassination squads, as in Vietnam in the 1960s.

Contact with Taiwan officials
20 March 2018

The US Congress has adopted a law to openly encourage contact with officials of ally Taiwan. China thinks the US has no right to do this.

In the 1970s, China was a valuable ally against the Soviet Union. Now that China is powerful, it tries to bully other countries about this, while beginning military expansion in the South China Sea. At the same time, it is becoming ever more oppressive. I think it is good to show tyrant Xi that there are limits to how much he can get other countries to kowtow.

Whites can pay extra
20 March 2018

A New Orleans restaurant invites white customers to pay extra, optionally, to illustrate the income disparity between white inhabitants and black inhabitants.

I might give some money on the strength of this disparity, to a campaign for equality. However, I don't think I would donate to a business. So I would suggest that the restaurant offer to give the extra $18 to a worthy anti-racist campaign.

Oil pipeline protest
20 March 2018

10,000 people protested in Canada against expanding an oil pipeline. Now indigenous people have held a sit-in. This campaign will not give up.

Aluminum factory
20 March 2018

Pollution, Illness, Threats And Murder — perhaps related by an aluminum factory in Brazil.

Defending the Kurds
20 March 2018

Somehow, we must defend the Kurds of Afrin and Syria against the Islamist tyranny of Erdoğan, but how?

Predictive policing
20 March 2018

New Orleans Program Offers Lessons In Pitfalls Of Predictive Policing.

Crises of liberal democracy
20 March 2018

The Three Crises of Liberal Democracy.

Fighting neo-Nazi organizers
20 March 2018

Arguing that physically fighting neo-Nazi organizers is an effective tactic in the US.

I can't say that is absolutely impossible, but I don't think Spencer's decision proves it is effective. The example of German Nazis teaches a lesson that wasn't invented for political reasons.

There is also the moral question: is violence against neo-Nazi rallies justified? I don't think it is justified when they don't engage in violence.

Geotagging social media photos
20 March 2018

US Spy Lab Hopes to Geotag Every Outdoor Photo on Social Media.

I think I had better start asking people who take photos of me not to post them on social media.

US political satire
20 March 2018

US political satire focuses on individuals and their excesses. Thus, the system which selects those people goes uncriticized.

Trying to shut down Mueller
20 March 2018

The bully is trying to shut down Mueller's investigation.

US war crimes in Vietnam
20 March 2018

US war crimes in Vietnam were not limited to aberrations of soldiers having nervous breakdowns. Some of them were built into the orders issued by the high command.

It's not too late to put them on trial for these crimes.

Global heating projects
20 March 2018

Expensive geoengineering projects are proposed to keep polar ice sheets cool and save coastal lands from inundation.

If we're going to geoengineering specifically to counter heating, we might as well use the atmospheric methods.

But even if we cancel out global heating, that won't protect the oceans from mass extinction. CO2 doesn't just heat up the ecosphere; it also dissolves in the water making it more acidic. In a few decades, all coral will simply dissolve in the acid, and the thousands of species that depend on coral reefs will have nowhere to go.

Some fish have been observed to engage in dangerous behaviors, likely to get them eaten, in elevated levels of CO2. And it appears that rising CO2 levels are causing grain yields to fall, globally.

So even with a way to get rid of the heat, we still urgently need to stop burning so much fossil fuel. And as a way to reduce future heating, it's probably also cheaper.

Withdrawal from ICC
20 March 2018

President Do-dirty of the Philippines says he will withdraw that country from the International Criminal Court. He cited various pretexts, but it is clear that they are trumpery. His real reason is that he knows he is guilty of mass murder and wants to ensure that no court can try him.

Formally, the withdrawal will not affect criminal investigations that start within the coming year, but we can guess what Do-dirty will do about those. Perhaps imprison any UN personnel that are in the Philippines, or perhaps simply not allow them to enter.

The Philippines will join the list of criminal countries headed by Russia and the United States.

Indonesian province researches capital punishment
20 March 2018

Aceh, the province of Indonesia dominated by Islamists, wants to start beheading people.

The reason for this, I think, is to stir up Islamist forces in the rest of Indonesia.

Indonesia would be better off if it had expelled Aceh as a separate country 20 years ago. Perhaps it is not too late.

Netherlands euthanasia legalization
20 March 2018

Legalized euthanasia in the Netherlands is working out well, raising moral issues only for a few edge cases.

I think Ms. Brouwers deserved the right to die. Safeguards are needed for people who aren't sure, who might plausibly in the foreseeable future be glad to be alive, if they were not allowed euthanasia. But that was not at all likely in her case.

The Onion, Clinton deploys vowels
20 March 2018

The Onion, from the 1990s: Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia.

Britain speech censorship
20 March 2018

Even odious racist views must not be censored by the state.

DeAndre Harris
20 March 2018

The absurd charges against DeAndre Harris explained: it appears that one of the right-wingers saw Harris hit a flagpole which another right-winger was using as a weapon, and claimed Harris he was trying to attack that person.

Even if Harris had been trying to hit that right winger, while the latter was attacking people with a pole, it would have been justified to protect them.

Trump abstinence-only sex education
20 March 2018

The saboteur is bringing back abstinence-only "sex education", which turns out to be a pile of lies.

Campus free speech
20 March 2018

Some US politicians defend free speech for right-wingers but not for those who criticize Israel's occupation of Palestine.

Forest species loss projections
20 March 2018

With the global heating projected if we don't act, the Earth's principal forests are projected to lose half their species.

Uber in London
19 March 2018

Uber seeks to convince London it is worth of operating there by giving the state more data.

Treason or corruption?
19 March 2018

Trump Organization "Negotiated with Sanctioned Russian Bank in 2016".

Is this treason or mere corruption? Mueller is trying to find out the facts, but if we knew all the facts, we might still have trouble telling which.

Uber driver rape
19 March 2018

Uber imposes arbitration on customers for all complaints, including rape by drivers, and this covers up the prevalence of the problem.

No company should be allowed to require its customers or its workers (whether labeled "employee" or "independent contractors") to use arbitration instead of going to court.

Cheap renewable electricity
19 March 2018

Renewable electricity in Australia has become so cheap and reliable that the planet-roaster government is having trouble convincing electric utilities not to jump for it.

Urgent: Pass the Secure Elections Act
19 March 2018

US citizens: Call on Congress to pass the Secure Elections Act.

Urgent: Reject Pompeo and Haspel.
19 March 2018

US citizens: Call on your senators to reject Pompeo and Haspel.

To sign this without running nonfree Javascript code you will need to use the Salsalabs workaround.

Shotguns for the homeless
19 March 2018

A US senate candidate proposes to give every homeless person a shotgun for self-defense.

It's probably not a wise solution but it does respond to a real problem, since homeless people often face violence and theft.

The candidate is running in the Antisocialist party, whose main goal is a laissez-faire economy which would let businesses and rich people trample the rest however they like. As a side issue they support human rights as well.

Escaping from Eastern Ghouta
19 March 2018

Civilians are escaping from eastern Ghouta into Assad's territory. For some, it means peace at last. For some, it could mean prison, torture, or execution.

Iraq war death toll estimate
19 March 2018

How many civilians were killed in Iraq by the fighting that Dubya started? One statistical estimate is 2.4 million, plus or minus a million.

Dubya is criminally responsible for all of these deaths, since they all result from his crime of aggressive war.

The US executed German and Japanese leaders for the crime of aggressive war. However, the death penalty is an injustice, so Dubya should be sentenced to 2.4 million consecutive terms of life imprisonment.

Russian murdered in London
19 March 2018

Another Russian was just apparently murdered in London, exiled oligarch Nikolai Glushkov. It took place on the day he had an important court hearing, and was set up to look like a suicide.

A Russian oligarch probably used dirty tricks to get his wealth, but murder is not a solution to that.

Senator Schumer
19 March 2018

Senator Schumer sets an example of weakness by not opposing Flunky Pompeo or Torture Haspel.

He supported the bank deregulation act too.

Germany bans snooping phones
19 March 2018

Germany has banned the sale of phones that have a feature to allow someone else (typically a parent) to listen through them.

Bravo! However, this is just the beginning of the requirements we need.

Putin's busy schedule
19 March 2018

The Onion: Putin had to advance his election victory a few days to fit his busy schedule.

Protests against Hun Sen
19 March 2018

Hun Sen, who has suppressed human rights in Cambodia, faced protests on visiting Australia.

The Oxfam scandal
19 March 2018

The Oxfam Scandal Has Taught Us That There Is No Reward for Honest Charities.

I have never seen a clear explanation of why an Oxfam manager's hiring prostitutes would have affected the work of Oxfam, and therefore why it should be a scandal at all.

University education
19 March 2018

As competition pressures more and more young adults to study in universities, we have to wonder to what extent this is worth the expense for society.

One good thing college courses can give people is the ability to think critically about political questions and arguments. I think that is a very important contribution -- look at all the people who believe in homeopathy, or in demonizing the poor.

There is pressure on colleges to turn into professional schools, which means they do less to teach critical thinking. On the other hand, to the extent that colleges do professional training, at least we know what jobs they enable people to do.

It is possible that the competitive pressure results because there is not enough work that society will pay people to do to keep everyone busy from age 18, and this generates pressure to keep many people busy as students until age 20 or 22.

Thug impunity guide
19 March 2018

The Onion explains, step by step, how thugs get away with killing people.

The bank deregulation act
19 March 2018

The bank deregulation act will allow the biggest banks to do dangerous things and get bailed out when that causes them to lose money.

The only way for a bank to get bailed out should be through nationalization.

Google and Facebook employees
19 March 2018

Google and Facebook repress employees that talk to the public about working conditions -- which is illegal.

Mediapart
19 March 2018

The French investigative journalism organization Mediapart dares to investigate anyone for corruption. With no sponsors and no advertisements, it is funded only by readers.

1840s Irish famine
19 March 2018

History textbooks in the US today do not explain that the Irish famine of the 1840s was caused by exporting food rather than allowing poor Irish people to eat it.

Stubbornness of legal systems
19 March 2018

The stubbornness of some countries' legal systems verges on insanity. Romania has decided that Constantin Reliu is dead, and refuses to recognize he is alive.

The My Lai massacre
19 March 2018

In 1968, three US soldiers ended the My Lai massacre. They were ready to shoot the murderous soldiers if necessary, to protect the Vietnamese civilians that were still alive.

My father was disgusted when he learned of the My Lai massacre. It reminded him of Nazi behavior. So he printed stickers (he owned a printing company) with a list of the locations of a few well-known German massacres in World War II, with My Lai added at the end. This was what first led me to think about the issue of war crimes.

The US suffered a moral injury from committing the My Lai massacre and then protecting the guilty.

Censorship creep
19 March 2018

Censorship Creep Is Setting In As Social Media Companies Try To Stay Ahead Of European Lawmakers.

Berkeley spy tech law
20 March 2018

Berkeley, California, has passed a law requiring city departments to get explicit permission before installing any surveillance technology.

Teachers with guns
20 March 2018

Students and teachers in Texas see danger, not safety, in the idea of teachers with guns.

"School resource officers" is a bland disguise for thugs in the school that will arrest students and ruin their lives. If you want the students to be safe, don't have any thiugs in the school.

Fukishima exclusion area
20 March 2018

Japan is likely to store lots of nuclear waste in the Fukishima exclusion area.

It seems like a good idea to me. Those wastes exist, and it would be better to store them in a safer way.

The death of retirement
20 March 2018

The Death of Retirement Is Looming -– And the Fallout Will Be Disastrous.

The article is about the UK, but the US has the same problem even though the details are different. The only reason for these changes was to enrich the rich.

I don't intend ever to retire unless illness compels me to, but that's because I have a mission rather than a job. Most people don't have such good fortune.

Neo-Nazis in Tennessee
20 March 2018

Tennessee Republicans would not allow even a discussion of a resolution to condemn the ideology of neo-Nazis. It cuts too close to home.

Democrats and the Klan
20 March 2018

In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was influential in the Democratic and Republican Parties. Modern manipulators exaggerate the former and cover up the latter.

Exhausted Mueller
20 March 2018

The Onion: Exhausted Mueller Trying To Find Trump Organization Russia Documents Amid Thousands Of Harassment Lawsuits.

Urgent: Demand DeVos' resignation
20 March 2018

US citizens: Call on Saboteur of Education DeVos to resign.

Painting of Nusaybin
20 March 2018

Turkish artist Zehra Doğan is in prison for painting the way the city of Nusaybin was damaged by Erdoğan's civil war.

Disclosing CIA torture
20 March 2018

I Went to Prison for Disclosing CIA Torture. Gina Haspel Helped Cover It Up.

DeAndre Harris cleared
20 March 2018

The absurd charges against DeAndre Harris have been dropped.

Now we need to find out why absurd charges were given so much credence that they were allowed to hang over him for 8 months.

Marielle Franco assassinated
20 March 2018

Brazilian human rights defender Marielle Franco, leader of Brazil's Black Lives Matter movement, was apparently assassinated by Brazilian federal thugs. They kill thousands of people each year.

Russian trolls
20 March 2018

Don't get hysterical about Russian trolls.

Russia's interference with the US election was a form of attack, but the real problem is in our own social and technical system, including weak education, fanaticism, and the social networks that magnify right-wing fake news whether its authors are Americans or not.

Post-Harvey reconstruction
20 March 2018

Amid Rampant Wage Theft in Post-Harvey Reconstruction, Immigrant Workers Take on Disaster Recovery Giant -— and Win.

Afrin besieged
20 March 2018

Turkey is besieging the Afrin enclave.

I don't expect Erdoğan to be any less cruel towards "enemy" civilians than Assad. And for Erdoğan, every Kurd is an enemy by definition.

Suu Kyi could be prosecuted
20 March 2018

Aung San Suu Kyi could be prosecuted in Australia for crimes against humanity; specifically, against the Rohingya.

Urgent: Denying medical care
19 March 2018

US citizens: oppose Republican plans to let doctors and hospitals deny medical care for religious reasons.

If you don't want to do abortions or prescribe birth control, become a gerontologist or a pediatrician.

Urgent: Pompeo and Haspel
19 March 2018

US citizens: call on the Senate to reject Pompeo and Haspel.

Think tanks and media on Iran
19 March 2018

US think tanks and mainstream media work to discourage Americans from understanding the reasons why Iran fears a surprise attack by the US.

Regarding one side point: I am unwilling to grant Assad's tyranny more legitimacy than the Syrian Kurdish state, in drawing any moral conclusions.

Cambridge Analytica
19 March 2018

Cambridge Analytica collected data about 50 million useds of Facebook and used them in violation of Facebook's rules, and perhaps in violation of British data protection law.

Rules are frequently broken; therefore, any organization that collects personal data which then are misused cannot excuse itself by saying "That was against our rules".

Anti-deportation protesters
19 March 2018

UK anti-deportation protesters blocked a flight which was going to deport some people before their appeals had been heard. They are now faced with possible life imprisonment for daring to protect people's legal rights from a lawless state.

NRA and Russian funds
19 March 2018

SCROTUS blocked investigation of whether the NRA transferred Russian funds to the bully's campaign.

Rallies and violent crime
19 March 2018

Cities where the bully held campaign rallies experienced a temporary increase in violent crime.

Punished for protest
19 March 2018

3 students at a school in right-wing Arkansas joined the student protest for gun control, and were punished with a spanking.

I admire their courage, but I believe that if they had thought it through they would have refused to choose between the two punishments they were "offered". Also, I think they made a mistake when they forgave the school officials on the ground that they were only following orders, because that's no excuse.

Study on scientific papers
19 March 2018

A scientific study about published scientific papers found that the edited, paywalled version of a paper had no significant improvement over the libre preprint version in arxiv.org.

It's too bad that this article uses the philosophically weak term "open" rather "free (libre)".

Handouts for internet/cable companies
19 March 2018

The internet/cable companies get handouts of billions of dollars a year through state laws written to favor them.

'curing' homosexuality
19 March 2018

Melvyn Iscove, psychiatrist, said he could "cure" homosexuality. He did this by having sex with the patients.

Jaywalking
19 March 2018

There is no reason for jaywalking to be illegal, and the prohibition provides an excuse for attacking blacks.

Phosphorus fertilizer
19 March 2018

If we keep using phosphorus fertilizer wastefully, we will run out, perhaps in a few decades. Then we will face a food shortage.

Reprisals against McCabe
19 March 2018

Andrew McCabe describes the political reasons for the bully's reprisals against him.

Election observers in Russia
19 March 2018

Putin is cracking down on election observers.

Since he has made himself very popular through control of the media, he would win even an honest election. So why do this?

I think he dislikes the idea that there is anything in Russia he does not control.

2nd Amendment and gun control
19 March 2018

Why the US Second Amendment permits gun control.

Firing Andrew McCabe
19 March 2018

In a vindictive and nasty measure, the bully had FBI official Andrew McCabe fired one day before he was going to retire.

The nastiness is that this denies him a pension. The vindictiveness is that there couldn't be any valid reason to do anything to remove him one day earlier.

I will not assume that an FBI official is a hero, or even that he isn't a criminal. There might be a valid reason why an honest president might want him out. But there can't be a valid reason to fire him a day before his retirement.

Oxfam employee
19 March 2018

More artificial "scandal" about Oxfam.

An employee, Mutiku, was accused of sexual harassment, but was not fired. Assuming the allegations were true, whether they required firing him would depend on the details, which are not stated. In some situations it would be enough if he promised not to repeat whatever it was. In other situations, that would not be enough. We have no basis to try to judge the question.

The article then said that he was later fired for hiring prostitutes. Why should anyone be fired from any job for that? The article simply takes for granted that it is a horrible wrong.

Then the article connects the two by saying that the decision not to fire Mutiku was taken by a manager who was later fired for hiring prostitutes.

If we had reason to think the decision was wrong, we might suspect that that manager was inclined to go easy on sexual harassment. We might then wonder whether that was somehow related to his practice of hiring prostitutes.

But since we don't know what the alleged harassment consisted of, we don't know enough to begin to consider whether the decision was right or wrong, and we don't have anything to try to link to anything else.

Ultimately, the article is just an attempt to throw random dirt at people for hiring sex workers.

Israel and Iran
19 March 2018

Uri Avnery: There is no reason for Israel and Iran to be enemies, except for the occupation of Palestine.

Who owns America
19 March 2018

Sanders: "We need to ask the hard questions that the corporate media fails to ask: who owns America, and who has the political power? Why, in the richest country in the history of the world are so many Americans living in poverty?"

No app store for Iranians
19 March 2018

Apple cut off access to the app store for Iranian users of iMonsters.

The underlying wrong here is that Apple gave itself censorship power over everyone that uses those computers — power that we should not allow anyone to have.

20 years ago, if you bought a computer, you could install whatever software you chose to install. You didn't have to tell the manufacturer what software you installed. You didn't have to say what country you were in. You didn't have to make an account on the manufacturer's server. Indeed, you did not need to communicate with the manufacturer at all, ever.

That changed when Apple convinced millions of otherwise-sensible people to accept computers that gave Apple censorship power over installation of software in them. Somehow they thought it was more important for a computer to have an elegant "cool" appearance than to respect their freedom and treat them decently. This was a terrible setback for freedom in use of computers.

Apple mostly uses its censorship power for its own motives, but occasionally does it for various governments. Apple censors applications for users in China at the command of the repressive Chinese government, and censors applications for users in Iran at the command of the belligerent US government. Both of these governments are abusing their power, but what gives them that power? Apple does. So does Microsoft, which followed the path Apple had pioneered.

Censorship is just one of the malicious functionalities you are likely to find in software that's not free. For hundreds of documented examples, see https://gnu.org/malware/.

The way to have freedom in your computing is with freedom-respecting free software. A nonfree program puts anyone that uses it under the power of its owner. To have freedom, you need to escape from this. See https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html.

We in the free software movement have been working since 1984 to build the place for you to escape to. Please help us do it! See https://gnu.org/help.