Tue, 17 Sep 2019 12:24
this?1 August 2019 (Johnson and Trump risk disaster for planet)Johnson And Trump's Close Ties Risk Disaster for Planet, Says Corbyn.
1 August 2019 (California requires all candidates to release tax returns)California has passed a law requiring all presidential candidates torelease their tax returns in order to get on the ballot.
There is surely something in his tax returns that might have cost himvotes in 2016. But would it have that effect on today's Republicans,who have become inured to lies, hatred and racism? It might seem likesmall potatoes compared with the vicious things that Republicans arealready inured to.
I can imagine that the conman might abandon California (since he haslittle chance of winning there) to defy this law. But if a swingstate does this, he might have to yield.
1 August 2019 (Gilroy murderer advocated white supremacists)The Gilroy murderer advocated white supremacists, which suggests thathis shooting was an act of white supremacist terrorism.
1 August 2019 (Father forgot his children in a car)A father forgot his children in a car all day, and they died. Does itmake sense to prosecute him?
Does it make sense to make a law against leavingchildren in a car for a few minutes?
1 August 2019 (DEA has been stalling for years over research)The Drug Enforcement Agency has been stalling for three years over anapplication for a permit to grow marijuana for research.
1 August 2019 (Hong Kong protesters trying to identify thugs)Hong Kong protesters are trying to identify thugs by their faces,now that the thugs have stopped wearing identification badges.
The thugs generally have an advantage in this kind of conflict.
1 August 2019 (NSA says it deleted a database)When the NSA says it deleted a database, it sometimes finds anothercopy later.
1 August 2019 (New head of Bureau of Land Management)The new head of the Bureau of Land Management wants to privatize allpublic land by selling it to rich people.
I suspect the rich buyers will get it at a very low price.
1 August 2019 (Tech executives apologies)Tech executives are making a show of apologizing for the damage theircompanies have done '... without having to fix it or even halt it.
31 July 2019 (The Democratic debate)The Democratic debate was "Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren v the'No We Can't' Democrats."
31 July 2019 (Stop arguing with Bogus Johnson)Stop arguing with Bogus Johnson '-- it only feeds the troll.What is needed is action, not disputation.
31 July 2019 (Jos(C) Ramos-Horta calls on Australia to drop charges of whistleblower)Jos(C) Ramos-Horta, former president of East Timor, calls on Australiato drop charges against the whistleblower that revealed how Australiawas spying on the negotiations between those two countries.
I agree completely. I also agree that it was wrong of Australia tosteal oil located in what was to become East Timor's waters. But thebiggest wrong was that Australia allowed that oil to be burned,contributing to global heating.
If East Timor had extracted this oil and allowed it to be burned, thatwould have been almost as bad. For a just outcome, just to humanityand nature, we need to leave that oil in the ground.
31 July 2019 ($70 million fine for preventing making of generic drugs)Pharma companies will be fined 70 million dollars for conspiring to preventthe making of generic drugs.
31 July 2019 (Criminal charges for throwing a ball)A student from a town near Detroit faces criminal charges for throwinga ball that injured another student, in a game similar to dodge ball.
I was unable to play volleyball because I was afraid to be hit by theball. If you are afraid of being hit by a ball '-- whether foremotional reasons like me, or valid medical reasons like the student thatwas injured, you really should decline to play.
31 July 2019 (Border separations since last year)US border thugs have separated over 900 minors from their parentssince a year ago. Almost 200 of them are children under 5 years old.
There are valid reasons why a compassionate state might do this insome cases, but when a state and its officials have explicitlydeclared hatred for migrants, we must expect it to distort thosereasons into excuses to do harm.
31 July 2019 (Remaining Vaquita Porpoisess)The number of remaining vaquita porpoises is between 6 and 19.
The species might survive if Mexico cracks down on use of gillnets.It is too late to be sure of that '-- if there are just 6, and none isa female capable of reproducing, it's too late '-- but we should try.
31 July 2019 (India is almost done abolishing biased divorce law)India has almost finished abolishing the one-sided law for divorcesamong Muslims. Men alone had the right to declare a divorceunilaterally.
People should have equal rights in divorce, but I hope this doesn'tresult in making divorce too difficult for everyone.
31 July 2019 (Nigeria's 'economic boom')Nigeria shows how extreme inequality of income can spread poverty inan "economic boom".
31 July 2019 (European websites responsible for like tracking)The European Court of Justice ruled that a web site with a Like buttonis responsible for the tracking it does.
This ruling won't make a big difference if the site can make the issuego away by adding one more clause to its terms of service. But itmight make a small difference, if sites can no longer show a Likebutton to a visitor who has not yet explicitly accepted the terms ofservice.
31 July 2019 (Kamala Harris's Medicare for All)Kamala Harris claims to support Medicare for All, but her version is ersatz.
31 July 2019 (Earth overshoot day)This year, Earth Overshoot Day is calculated to occur on August 1.After just 7 months, humans have used what the Earth can regenerate ina whole year.
31 July 2019 (Population of wild boar is exploading)The population of wild boar is exploding in Europe, and many havemoved into cities where they injure humans.
Fortunately, they taste great. If you are in Europe, try some.
31 July 2019 (Venture capitalists see Buttigieg as an investment)In Pete Buttigieg, Venture Capitalists See a Campaign to Invest in.
That shows he's on the plutocrats' side, not ours.
31 July 2019 (Arguments aginst the death penalty)Reminder of some arguments against the death penalty.
31 July 2019 (Tanzania has arrested a famous investigative journalist)Tanzania has arrested a famous investigative journalist, ErickKabendera.
One must suppose he investigated something the government didn't wantthe public to know about.
31 July 2019 (Killings of 500 Activists Since Peace Accords)Mass Protests in Colombia and Abroad Decry Killings of 500 Activists Since Peace Accords.
31 July 2019 (Israel never gives Palestinians the compensation)Under Geneva conventions, every occupying power has an obligation tocompensate any damages it does members of the occupied population,whether to their bodies or their property. Israel has changed itslaws so that it almost never gives Palestinians the compensation theyare owed.
31 July 2019 (Hindu extremist party)A local leader of India's ruling Hindu extremist party called for gang-raping Muslim women.
She was expelled from the party, but men who said similar things havegenerally been tolerated.
31 July 2019 (Chinese border guards)When foreigners enter Xinjiang (China) from Kyrgyzstan, Chinese borderguards have taken their phones away to put malware on them.
The malware searches files in the phones for various things that Chinaconsiders hateful. It might do other things as well.
I have to point out that people suspect the US of doing similar thingsto people entering the US, and in other circumstances as well.
31 July 2019 (Enforcement of food and drug safety)Enforcement of food and drug safety regulations has fallen by 33%under the corruptor.
31 July 2019 (Mistreating the prisoners)Ocasio-Cortez pushed past border thugs so she could speak toimprisoned immigrants. This enabled her to find out how they weremistreating the prisoners.
The thugs had gone to extreme lengths to block visiting congresscrittersfrom observing or finding out the prison conditions, and the visitorsfelt menaced by them. Sounds like a visit to North Korea.
31 July 2019 (US insurance company)A major US insurance company has announced it will stop insuring coal companies (or investing in them).
31 July 2019 (Influence over the department's decisions)Saboteur of the Interior Bernhardt gave his former client influence overthe department's decisions.
The department has adopted new secrecy rules, too.
31 July 2019 (Systems for supporting musicians)When you buy a record, or pay for music streaming (even via ads), themoney usually goes to some company, not to the musicians.
I've proposed systems for supporting musicians without depending on record companies, and in a way that encourages sharing.
30 July 2019 (Al Franken)Al Franken nowregretsresigning from the Senate. Some senators that pushed him toresignnowregret that too.
The first (main) article does not state clearly whether Frankentouched Tweeden in the process of making the photo, but it seems hedid not. If that is correct, it was not a sexual act at all. It wasself-mocking humor. The photograph depicted a fictional sexual actwithout her fictional consent, but making the photo wasn't a sexualact.
If it is true that he persistently pressured her to kiss him, on stageand off, if he stuck his tongue into her mouth despite her objections,that could well be sexual harassment. He should have accepted no foran answer the first time she said it. However, calling a kiss "sexualassault" is an exaggeration, an attempt to equate it to much graveracts, that are crimes.
The term"sexualassault" encourages that injustice, and I believe it has beenpopularized specifically with that intention. That is why I rejectthat term.
Meanwhile, Franken says he did not do those things, and the otheractors he previously did the same USO skit with said it was notharassment, just acting. Tweeden's store is clearly false in manydetails.
Should we assume Tweeden was honest? With so many demonstratedfalsehoods in her accusations, and given that she planned them withother right-wing activists, and that all of them follow a leader wholies as a tactic every day, I have to suspect that she decided tofalsify accusations through exaggeration so as to kick a strongDemocrat out of the Senate.
I have no proof of that suspicion. It is possible that she made theaccusations honestly. Also, in a hypothetical world, someone mightreally have done them. Supposing for the moment that thoseaccusations were true, should Franken have resigned over them?
I don't think so. They are misjudgments, not crimes. Frankendeserved the chance to learn from the criticism that surprised him.Zero tolerance is a very bad way to judge people.
However, the most important point is to reject the position that if Bfeels hurt by what A said or did, then automatically A is wrong.People judged Franken that way, and he judged himself that way. Butthat way degrades the concept of "wrong" into a mere expression ofsubjective disapproval. What can legitimately be assertedsubjectively can legitimately be ignored subjectively too. To judge Athat way is to set B up as a tyrant.
If B's feelings were hurt, that's unfortunate -- but is that A'sfault? If so, was it culpable, or just a mistake? That is what wehave to judge, and if we want others to think our judgments worthfollowing, they must be based on objective facts and objectivestandards, including objective standards for what words and gesturesobjectively mean.
Traister is wrestling with a solvable problem. She says, "When youchange rules, you end up penalizing people who were caught behavingaccording to the old rules." Maybe people do, but that is a sign ofcarelessness. It isn't really hard to change the rules and then judgeold actions by the old rules. We just have to remember to do so.
30 July 2019 (Danger of surveillance)One big danger of surveillance is thatpeoplecome to believe that breaking a rule is impossible, and then itbecomes unthinkable.
30 July 2019 (Unfollow the bullshitter)If you use Twitter,unfollowthe bullshitter. Posting your outrage does not hurt him '--it's what he wants.
30 July 2019 (Your Family Is None of Their Business)Your Family IsNoneof Their Business.
You, too, are none of their business, but that point is more radical.
30 July 2019 (Tories make it easy to mistreat workers)The Tories have made it easy to get away with mistreating workers inthe UK. They havecutthe funding to employment tribunals to the point where it takes 8months for a case to be heard.
30 July 2019 (Privatization of government services)The UKprivatizedapplications for student visa renewals. Naturally the companygouges the students, using a dark pattern in which there are supposedto be gratis appointments but in practice they are not available.
This particular work has a peak season in September. In a governmentoffice, the staff would focus on this during the peak season, thenmost would shift to other tasks for the rest or the year. A privatebusiness may not have an opportunity to do that. Its staff is lessstable than civil servants, and its other contracts come and go.
This adds to theotherreasons that government services should never be privatized.Occasionally some government service can simply be eliminated.
30 July 2019 (Being green)Can You Afford To BeGreenWhen You're Not Rich? I Kept a Diary to Find Out.
The article shows that many forms of conservation are made far moredifficult by the fact that society's current pushes people in theother direction.
The most important choice, to reduce your contribution to theecological footprint of humanity, is not mentioned in the article.It is to choosenot to have a child. Thewriter apparently does not recognize that that was a choice.
30 July 2019 (Plastic waste from fishing)Isolated, uninhabited Henderson Island receivestonsof plastic deposited by the Pacific Ocean. Scientists visited fortwo weeks and collected 6 tons to study it.
60% comes from fishing. This accords with reports that most plasticwaste in the ocean is from fishing. That should be much easier toeliminate than waste from a billion consumers.
If the fishing was done near Henderson, it was illegal. But thistrash could have floated for thousands of miles.
30 July 2019 (How Stonewall reversed justifying police surveillance)How Stonewall Reversed a Long History of Justifying PoliceSurveillance (and entrapment and jailing) of gays.
30 July 2019 (Deforestation of Amazon driven by meat)Revealed: Rampant Deforestation of Amazon Driven by Global Greed for Meat.
The new business-supremacy treaty between the EU and Mercosur trade blockscould speed up the deforestation.
30 July 2019 (Mangrove trees methane) After mangrove trees die, they emit lots more methane.
30 July 2019 (God orders swallowing of cyanide)(satire) God ordered His followers to swallow cyanide capsules Mondayin preparation for their voyage to Alpha Centauri.
30 July 2019 (ICANN eliminated limit on fees for org domain)ICANN has eliminated the limit on fees for having a .org domain name.
It disregarded almost complete opposition to the move in the public commentsit received.
The .org domain overseer would make the same amount of moneyby collecting $10k for each of 1000 domains as it would by collecting$10 for each of a million domains. And the former would be a lotless hassle. I fear that is what we will see.
30 July 2019 (The refugees that fled form Hitler)Americans, remember the refugees that tried to flee from Hitler.All countries turned them away, and they were killed by Nazis.
30 July 2019 (Rafael Acosta tortured)Venezuelan navy captain Rafael Acosta was arrested on June 21 and accusedof plotting a coup. Since then he has died, showing signs of torture.
Maduro calls for investigation of the accused torture rather than tryingto deny it.
30 July 2019 (Wife of Dubai's emir fled)The wife of Dubai's emir has fled and wants a divorce. The emirthinks of her as property and wants the UK to forcibly send her backto him.
He got his daughter back by sending commandos to grab her.
30 July 2019 (Eli Lilly puts profits over lives)An employee of Eli Lilly, a Pharma company, reports on when the goal ofmaximizing profit replaced that of saving lives.
30 July 2019 (3 Billionaires)Bernie Sanders Is Right: 3 Billionaires Really Do Have More WealthThan Half of America.
30 July 2019 (Ethiopia is trying plant 4 billion trees)Ethiopia is trying plant 4 billion trees this year. Each citizen is supposedto plant 40 at least trees.
If they are planting the right kinds of trees, in places where forestscan grow, these trees might do good, if they don't die.Due to global heating, trees may not survive the next 20 yearsin places where they used to grow. However, it is better to trythan not try.
30 July 2019 (Poisoning from lead pellets)We should ban use of lead shot for hunting. The lead pellets remainlying around, birds eat them, and die of lead poisoning.
Eating the poisoned birds, including the birds shot with lead, poisonspeople.
30 July 2019 (Geneva convention to protect wildlife and nature)Scientists suggest making a Geneva convention to give wildlife andnature reserves protected status in conflicts.
What about museums with unique objects, and libraries of rare books?
I think they should have similar protected status.
Even accidental destruction of these special places should be considereda crime '-- the crime of negligence.
30 July 2019 (Encryption Backdoors)Barr Says Police Need Encryption Backdoors, Doesn't Mention [Cracking]Tools They Use All the Time.
30 July 2019 (Children started early on being tracked)China is getting children started early on being tracked all the time.
30 July 2019 (Communications Decency Act)Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects web siteoperators from liability for what their users post, is being attackedin Congress. This puts all sorts of Internet commenting in danger.
30 July 2019 (Indian teenager accused a politician of rape)An Indian teenager accused a politician of raping her. A truck collidedwith the car she was in, killing two of her relatives and injuring herand her lawyer.
There is suspicion that thugs beat her father to death.
30 July 2019 (Forcing women into sex work)The UK is forcing women into sex work to get a place to live.
30 July 2019 (Thugs beating up prisoners)Thugs in Harrisburg have a predilection of beating up prisonersand causing them serious injuries, then not taking care of them.
30 July 2019 (Measles attacks the immune cells)Measles attacks the immune cells that guard the memory of resistingpast infections. It takes 4 or 5 years for those immune cells toregrow and provide immunity again to those past infections.
Thus, if you get measles, you become vulnerable again, for severalyears, to infections you were previously immune to. And they can killyou.
30 July 2019 (China sentences 'cyber-dissident')China's First 'Cyber-Dissident' Jailedfor 12 Years.
30 July 2019 (Disastrous deregulation)If the UK needs to make a new trade agreement with the US, the US willimpose disastrouspermanent deregulation.
The bullshitter's billionaire backers want this, and Bogus Johnsonwill surely rush to obey. But it would not have been much betterunder Obama, or any previous US president since the 1970s.
30 July 2019 (Global heating)Global heating is makingwhole families flee Guatemala. The seasons have changed, there isless rain, and crops fail.
30 July 2019 (Urgent: Ask candidates about net neutrality)US citizens: callon CNN to ask the candidates about net neutrality.
If you sign, please spread the word!
30 July 2019 (Urgent: Stop giving Nazis a platform)US citizens: call on CNN,and its head, Zucker, to stop giving Nazis a platform.
If you sign, please spread the word!
30 July 2019 (Urgent: Fossil fuel divestment)Everyone: callon the European Investment Bank, and the governments that own it,to adopt the fossil fuel divestment proposal and fully implement it.
If you sign, please spread the word!
30 July 2019 (Chief aide of UK's new prime minister)Bogus Johnson, the new prime minister of the UK, has appointed as hischief aide a man that has been censured by Parliament for refusingto testify about fake news activities.
30 July 2019 (Unionization)A study reports: Countries with higher levels of unionization havelowerper-capita carbon footprints.
29 July 2019 (Supreme Court allowed Pentagon funds to go towards wall)The Supreme Court allowed the cheater to use $2.5bn in Pentagon fundsto build a border wall.
29 July 2019 (British honours named after empire)British "honours" (non-military medals) named after theno-longer-extant British Empire cause a moral quandary to somerecipients, whose ethnic background includes a group that was colonizedby said empire.
29 July 2019 (Mueller's testimony basis for impeachment)Rep. Shiff, head of the House Judiciary Committee, said that Mueller'stestimony provided the basis to consider impeaching the conman.
It seems to me that we had plenty of basis already.
29 July 2019 (Moscow protesters not daunted)Moscow thugs have arrested 1300 pro-democracy protesters, but theprotesters are not daunted.
All they demand is that the candidates they nominated be allowed to run.
29 July 2019 (Miners attack village)Gold miners in the Brazilian Amazon have attacked and captured anindigenous village and killed the tribe's leader.
29 July 2019 (Ban on glass skyscrapers)Experts Call for Ban on Glass Skyscrapers to Save Energy.
They need extra cooling to make up for the greenhouse effect of the glass.
29 July 2019 (Hong Kong thugs)Hong Kong thugs indiscriminately attacked subway passengers who weresimply trying to ride the train.
Some of the passengers had previously been in a protest.
29 July 2019 (UK rape victims)UK women have become more willing to report rape, but only 2% of thecases are actually pursued. This discourages the victims, who say"forget about it."
29 July 2019 (Analysis of Hong Kong's Politics)An analysis of the Hong Kong political situation.
Let's look at the argument that Hong Kongers should surrender theirrights to assuage the hurt feelings of a billion Chinese. Are their feelings really hurt? That could be a fiction fabricated by Chinese state.
But let's suppose that 30 million really do have hurt feelings. Itcould be so. If so, why are their feelings hurt? Why do they evenpay attention to Hong Kong? It's because they are more or lessXi-ple; the state media tells them to feel hurt, and they do not doubtwhat they are told.
Any number of people who demand your surrender because they herded to do soamount to no reason for you to do that.
29 July 2019 (Extreme weather has damaged Australasia's marine life)Extreme Weather Has Damaged Nearly Half Australia's Marine Ecosystems Since2011.Some were damaged irreversibly.
The crucial points are that (1) this is surely not limited toAustralia and (2) it will get a lot worse unless we stop it soon.
29 July 2019 (MSNBC altered Sanders data)MSNBC alters arithmetic to make Sanders look bad.
29 July 2019 (Right wing PAC turns out to be less effective)A big right-wing PAC turned out to be much less effective thanit might have been, because the organizers directed much of the moneyto themselves.
29 July 2019 (DOJ approved T'--mobile and Sprint)The Department of Justice approved the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint.
The political power of large companies is such a threat to democracythat we should make sure they do not merge with or acquire othercompanies.
29 July 2019 (EU requires online payments with phone)In the EU, online credit card payments will require two-factor identificationusing a mobile phone.
Many people are up in arms about the inconvenience of this, but thatis only the superficial level. A mobile phone tracks you, and buyingon the internet tracks you. The wise thing to do is to go to aphysical store and pay cash.
29 July 2019 (Guatemala called safe)The US made Guatemala agree that the US should call it "safe"so that refugees that cross Guatemala (from Honduras, El Salvadorand Nicaragua) have to apply for asylum in Guatemala.
That policy is ridiculous and unjust because it is based on a falsehood.
29 July 2019 (Pressure to curb global heating)Australia's ruling planet-roasters arefacingpressure from Papua New Guinea to help curb global heating.
Bullshit won't be enough to quell this.
29 July 2019 (Reducing severe storms in Europe)Plantinga lot of forests in Europe could reduce severe storms there.
29 July 2019 (Israeli snipers)In a human advance, Israeli snipers are nowbeingtold to shoot (unarmed) Gaza protesters in the lower leg.
This reinforces the point that when they shoot someone in the head, itisno accident.
29 July 2019 (Talking points on US major media)US major mediacontinuallyprint interviews with supporters of the bullshitter showing that theyhave not changed their stance.
This promotes their talking points, but it isn't news any more.
29 July 2019 (Urgent: Call on Harvard to divest fossil fuels)US citizens: call on Harvard to divest from fossil fuels.
If you call, please spread the word!
29 July 2019 (Urgent: Pass domestic workers bill of rights)US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
If you call, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboardnumbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
29 July 2019 (Urgent: Stop pushing death penalty)US citizens: call on Los Angeles DA Lacey to stop pushing for the death penalty.
If you call, please spread the word!
29 July 2019 (Urgent: Pass MORE Act)US citizens: call on Congress to pass the MORE Act to legalize marijuanain a thorough way.
If you call, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboardnumbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
29 July 2019 (Urgent: Allow shorts)Everyone: call on Walmart to let staff wear shorts.
If you call, please spread the word!
29 July 2019 (Urgent: US citizens: call on Alabama Governor Ivey to give clemency to Rocky Myers.)US citizens: Call on Alabama Governor Ivey to give clemency to Rocky Myers.
The reason he could not present these arguments in an appealis the law past under President Clinton to sharply limit appealsagainst death sentences.
If you call, please spread the word!
28 July 2019 (Replacing human workers)Why are companies rushing to replace human workers with robots basedon machine learning? Because that is a wayto makethe rich richer, and the poor poorer as a byproduct.
Additional robots are greatly reducing the number of jobs inmanufacturing, and are likelyto continue doing so.
The fact that one particular factory in the UK has more staff now thanin 2007 is neither here nor there. Evidently a bigger fraction of thecountry's manufacturing has been concentrated there.
The increase in productivity is a benefit to whoever owns the factory,and the small fraction of people employed there. But it is not goodfor society overall unless those benefits are shared with societyoverall.
It is a mistake to see the issue in nationalistic terms as acompetition with other countries. It does no good to country C tohave robot factories there rather than in D, E and F, if the benefitsgo in each case only to the few owners. What matters to country C ismaking sure the people there who don't own plenty of stock in robotfactories can nonetheless enjoy the products of these factories, andeverything else one needs for a good life.
28 July 2019 (Antifascist counterprotesters)Portland thugs harassed and attacked antifascist counterprotesters,basedon accusations that may be phony.
However, it seems they really did attack the right-wing journalist,Andy Ngo. We should not do that.
28 July 2019 (Prisoners' phone calls)A sheriff's office and a special gouge-'em prison phone companyconspired (in effect)to recordprisoners' privileged phone calls with lawyers.
28 July 2019 (Obrador's policies)The substantive policies of Mexican President L"pezObrador putbusiness and the US first.
If this is a "win for Mexico's left", then Clinton was a progressive.
28 July 2019 (Privatized probation officers)Privatized UK probation officerssay biggercaseloads and unrealistic targets prevent them from followingtheir professional standards.
This is the standard result of privatizing a government service.We should renationalize all privatized government services.
28 July 2019 (Mao 2.0)China is now ruled by a networkedtotalitarianism, "Mao2.0".
When the article says what "we" believed, the author should speak forhimself. I never believed that capitalism would by nature bringdemocracy. Democracy is how the non-rich organize the state toprotect them from the power of the rich.
Back when capitalists needed lots of factory workers, that gave theworkers one advantage in their fight for democracy. But it did notguarantee victory. And now that advantage is gone.
28 July 2019 (Husband's guns)Courtney Irby took her husband's guns to the thug department becausehe had been trying to kill her. Thethugs chargedher with burglary and jailed her.
28 July 2019 (Transmountain tar sands pipeline)Trudeau gaveCanada's approval to the Transmountain tar sands pipeline. Thismakes a mockery of the climate emergency declaration Trudeau made thisweek.
28 July 2019 (The new NAFTA)The new NAFTA improves many specific points, but its fundamentaleffect is still to give businesses more power and democracy lesspower, and thus to transferincome fromworkers to business owners.
28 July 2019 (NYC mesh network)A mesh networkis providingtrue internet service to large parts of New York City.
I used to think that community mesh networks could not be more thantoys, but it's a great surprise to see this is not so.
28 July 2019 (Bills to improve security of US elections)Senate Republicans blockedbills to improve the security of US elections.
28 July 2019 (Cruel "tough on crime" approach)Progressive US district attorneys are making inroads into the cruel"toughon crime" approach to street crime.
Toughness for toughness' sake causes a lot of collateral damageand can backfire by increasing crime.
The case where toughness is exactly what we need is for businesscrime, whether against workers or against customers. For instance,stealingworkers' pay and foreclosingon millions of Americans' homes using fraudulent papers. Theperpetrators do this for profit, and if it ceases to be profitable,they will stop doing it.
28 July 2019 (Plutocracy)If we have recourse to a billionaire to defeat the impositions ofother billionaires, the result will be to ensconceplutocracy more deeply.
A society where a small number of the powerful compete for power couldturninto an empire.
28 July 2019 (Deregulation of business)Mulvaney is pushing deregulationof business in many areas of the US government.
By contrast, the bully wants more regulation of activitiesthat help poor people,refugees,andwomen.
28 July 2019 (Urgent: End federal attacks on abortion rights)US citizens: call on presidential candidates to commit to ending federal attacks on abortion rights.
If you sign, please spread the word!
28 July 2019 (Urgent: Shut down Google's location tracker)Everyone: call on Google to shut down its location tracker Sensorvault.
Sensorvault stores the locations tracked in great detail by Androidapps, which do this even when location tracking is "turned off".
This is what you have to expect from nonfree software.
If you sign, please spread the word!
28 July 2019 (Urgent: Reject disinformation tactics)US citizens: call on Democratic and Republican parties to denounce and reject disinformation tactics.
If you sign, please spread the word!
28 July 2019 (Urgent: Investigate illegalities in use of soldiers)US citizens: call on the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate illegalities in use of soldiers to patrol the border.
If you sign, please spread the word!
28 July 2019 (Urgent: Pass the ROE Act)Citizens of Massachusetts: call on your Mass legislator to pass the ROE Act.
If you sign, please spread the word!
28 July 2019 (Unusual sexuality)Hatred of unusual sexuality still causes gratuitous sufferingaround the world.
28 July 2019 (Pentagon's bloated funding deal)Even some "progressive" Congresscritters voted the Pentagon's bloated funding deal.
28 July 2019 (Jewish religious leaders)Jewish religious leaders reminded Congress that rejection and cruelty torefugees can hurt anyone.
28 July 2019 (Russian hacking the 2020 election)(satire) '... Russian operativePavel Artemyev reportedly expressed disappointment Friday thatgerrymandering has taken all the fun out of hacking the 2020 election.
28 July 2019 (Comparing foreign policy)Comparing Warren with Sanders on foreign policy.
I disagree with the author on some points. Russia and China dothreaten the security of Americans, though not as much as thebullshitter does. I think the US should keep troops in Rojava (theKurdish part of Syria) for as long as Rojava wants them.
If we care about democracy in the Middle East, we should defend itwhen it is threatened.
28 July 2019 (Thugs' video surveillance)Detroit is playing games to expand the thugs' video surveillance and obfuscateits relationship with face recognition.
28 July 2019 (Remaining refugees on Manus)The remaining refugees imprisoned on Manus Island have been invited tomove to New Zealand, but Australia's right wing hate regime won't letthem.
It is good that the bully did not stop the US from accepting manyrefugees from Manus. As for the ones that have moved to Port Moresby,the capital of Papua New Guinea, I wonder what their lives are likethere.
Australia is still ashamed of its actions there. An oppositionAustralian senator went to Manus Island and asked to visit the prison.Not only was he denied permission, Papua New Guinea immediatelydeported him.
It is clear that Papua New Guinea's government is acting as a puppet forthe Australian minister in charge, Dutton.
By the way, Dutton is the same minister that could have you imprisonedif you disobey secret orders to sabotage your clients or your freesoftware. Don't go to Australia.
28 July 2019 (UK extends abortion and same sex marriage in Northern Ireland)The UK parliament voted to authorize abortion and same-sex marriage inNorthern Ireland. These were blocked because the parliament ofNorthern Ireland ceased to function some years ago.
28 July 2019 (Advice about militarism)Important advice about militarism that President Roosevelt received in 1940,but the US is forgetting.
28 July 2019 (Woman's soul in purgatory)(satire) A woman's soul complains of gender bias in purgatory.
There is surely gender bias in CIA torture, too.
28 July 2019 (Biden championed Dubya's war with Iraq)Biden didn't just vote for Dubya's war with Iraq. He championed it.
28 July 2019 (Israelis' houses on Palestinians')Israel has decided to legitimize Israelis' houses on Palestinians'land, if the Israelis dealt "in good faith" with the Israeligovernment.
Israelis are not required to show "good faith" to Palestinians themselves.
Contrast this with how Israel grabs for excuses to make Palestiniansdemolish their own homes.
28 July 2019 (Evidence supports Iran's claim)The weight of the evidence supports Iran's claim that the US spy dronethat Iran shot down was over Iran's waters.
Making war plans and running war games do not strike me as matters ofspecial concern. Those kinds of preparations are, in most cases, notfollowed by an actual war. Thus, if the bully does attack Iran, Iwon't consider that planning to be the cause.
The US has cancelled and violated the nonnuclear accord with Iran but stillcriticizes Iran for not obeying it.
28 July 2019 (Alexa recordings)Amazon keeps Alexa recordings and transcripts indefinitely.
28 July 2019 (Arctic wildfires)"Unprecedented": More Than 100 Arctic Wildfires Burn in Worst Ever Season.
In some places the peat is burning and could burn for months.
The relation between this and global heating is direct in bothdirections. The Arctic has heated much more than anywhere else onEarth, and that temperature makes for fire. And the fire spews CO2which will increase global heating.
28 July 2019 (Mobile phone personality)A person's pattern of using a mobile phone allows deducing a lot aboutper personality.
Phone companies around the world could use this to help profile people.
28 July 2019 (The right trees in the right place)In order for planting trees to be environmentally beneficial, theyneed to be the right trees, in a suitable place.
I conjecture that a good rule would be to plant trees in places thatused to be forests a few centuries ago, and plant the trees that usedto live there.
28 July 2019 (EPA plans to allow polluters to appeal)The EPA plans to allow polluters to appeal rulings but not allowpollution victims to do so.
Plutocratists have directed that agency to do the opposite of its job.That is why I now call it the Environmental Poisoning Agency.
28 July 2019 (Moscow police arrest 200 protesters)Moscow Police Arrest up to 200 Ahead of Election Protest.
Putin openly visits contempt on democracy as an act of intimidation,like what the bully does in the US.
28 July 2019 (Woman forced to wax testicles)In the Guardianwe read,
Surely a woman shouldn't be forced to wax testicles if that makes themfeel uncomfortable?Who or what does "them" refer to? The testicles? The woman?
Notwithstanding my delectation in occasional wildly funny ambiguitiessuch as that one, I continue to advocate systematically avoiding themby using singular gender-neutral pronounswhen referring to just one person.In this particular case, since the person is specified as a woman,"her" would also have fit.
28 July 2019 (Siri records)Siri Records Fights, Doctor's Appointments, And Sex (and contractors hear it).
28 July 2019 (Israeli who had to prove his guilt)The Israeli Who Had to Prove He's Guilty of Beating a Palestinian, and thePalestinian Who Had to Prove He's Innocent of Raping a Jewish Girl.
28 July 2019 (Australian mines cut corners)The workers in Australian mines now have precarious jobs (and,apparently, no unions to defend them). So they are afraid they willbe fired if they report how the mine cuts corners and endangerspeople's lives and health.
The underlying cause of this is right-wing government that lets minesget away with precarious employment. Give miners more power and theirunion will attend to the safety.
28 July 2019 (Machine learning patents)Machine learning / automated classification is going to be loaded downwith patents, like other fields of computing.
(The article uses the misleading over-generalization, "IP". Itcovers a bunch of disparate laws, which in itself is spreads confusionby leading people to think those laws have something significant incommon.)
We need laws that directly exclude software and use of software fromthe domain of patents.
28 July 2019 (Jewish activists protest deportation thugs)Jewish activists protest the deportation thugs, saying "Never AgainMeans Close the Camps!"
Jews have two different interpretations of "Never again!" One isnarrow: "Never again to us!" The other interpretation is broad:"Never again to anybody!" I admire that side of Judaism (although itwon't convince me to believe in supernatural entities).
28 July 2019 (Amazon strike) A strike planned in an Amazon warehouse is meant to drawa contrast between the carefully cultivated image Amazon presents toconsumers and the reality for the company's workers.
By contrast, in the Free Software Movement we aim to draw a contrastbetween that same image and the reality for those who make themistake of accepting the company's services.
28 July 2019 (Ocean tipping point)Evidence suggests that excess CO2 in the ocean can reach a tippingpoint after which the ocean would rapidly become much more acidic.
28 July 2019 (Legalizing recreation marijuana)Legalizing recreational marijuana correlates with decreased useby high school students.
28 July 2019 (Instagram AI)Instagram is testing AI-implemented kind communication guidelines.In the GNU Project we ask people to learn and consciously practice ourkind communication guidelines.
28 July 2019 (Defense attorneys vow)(satire) Defense Attorneys Vow To Present Irrefutable Evidence Proving JeffreyEpstein Billionaire.
28 July 2019 (Employee's fingerprints)The staff of a Chicago medical organization are suing because it identifiedthem with fingerprints for each shift.
I think it is bad that the employer has their fingerprints at all.Is it possible to authenticate people with a biometric that isnormally hidden?
28 July 2019 (US schools monitoring social media)US schools are monitoring social media postings of everyone livingnear by, using Artificial Stupidity to detect "threats". Nearly everyalarm is a false alarm.
One thing that the article doesn't mention is that the contracts forusing the school's computers and their nonfree software, and theonline dis-services that the school wants to let spy on students,are fundamentally unjust.
28 July 2019 (Christchurch Mayor)Christchurch Mayor On Mass Shooter: 'I've no idea what his name is'.
I didn't pay attention to that name either.
28 July 2019 (Face recognition and body cameras)Real-Time Facial Recognition Should Never Be Coupled with Body-Worn Cameras.
I agree, but that is not enough. We must also them from being used to makeand store videos without limits. My proposed automatic system to decidewhen to save the recording could take care of this job.
28 July 2019 (Mining drivers licenses)The FBI frequently identifies people by running their photosthrough many states' data bases of drivers license photos.
The deportation thugs do it too, which means that the states whichpermit this expose their residents gratuitously to deportation.
28 July 2019 (Tsipras and Syriza)Tsipras and Syriza lost the first battle to the global plutocracy.Then, instead of fighting for every inch, they capitulated eagerly.
Then most Greeks did the foolish thing that a defeated people oftendo: they decided to support a different set of right-wingplutocratists instead. This was pitiful and stupid. Despair candrive a people to do self-mutilation, just as it can drive anindividual to it, but don't help your enemies subjugate your people.
28 July 2019 (Global heating in Somalia)Global heating is causing havoc in Somalia, through repeated drought.
As the number of people who can't feed themselves any more increases,it is clear that other countries will eventually let them die.But in the mean time, climate strikers and Extinction Rebellioncan present their example of a foretaste of what is comingif we don't decarbonize.
28 July 2019 (Redirecting pipeline profits)"[Trudeau's] promise to direct pipeline profits to clean energy islike allowing cigarettes to be sold to kids as long as tobaccocompanies make generous donations to cancer research."
There is no room in the carbon budget for strip-miningAlberta's tar sands.
28 July 2019 (Disasters caused by global heating)Local disasters due to global heating are happening at a rate ofroughly once per week.
Mizutori's stance is misguided. We must give priority to long-termreduction of the harm that global heating will do. We must do all wecan in that direction. Defending cities from floods and fires of the2020s must take second place to reducing the floods and fires of the2030s, 2040s, 2050s and beyond.
It is good to defend cities better in the short term, provided this isnot at the expense of measures to reduce the long-term threat.
28 July 2019 (Refusal to cover up murals)Scholars implore San Francisco not to cover up the murals that depictmisdeeds of George Washington.
It is true that we can't tell the school's students (or anyone else)how to feel. That doesn't mean we must cater to misguided demandsthat are motivated by those feelings.
28 July 2019 (US concentration camp cruelty)In US concentration camps for immigrants, the officers let thugs ventcruelty at the prisoners.
"The conditions in the border cells are shocking '-- but theright[-wing] will usepublicoutrage [as an excuse to] to build more jails."
27 July 2019 (Bully's act of terror)For the bully, threatening massive deportation raids then not carryingthem out added up to a successful act of terror. He used cruelty tosend a message.
I did not post about this, because it is a mistake to talk aboutwhatever the conman says. Next time he tries to terrify peoplewith a threat, let's please not talk about it. The thingshas actually does cause enough harm on their own; we need notadd to them by quoting his threats.
27 July 2019 (25 year wealth gap)Wealthy white males in the US today are about as healthy (on theaverage) as were the wealthy white males of 25 years ago, but allother demographic groups in the US have got less healthy since then.
The study doesn't show the reason for this, but the increasing expenseof medical care in the US is surely part of the reason. Theincreasing stress of living in the US under plutocracy may beanother.
The hospital that became famous for suing poor people for medical chargesthey can't pay has dropped some of the lawsuits. It is going to reconsiderthat policy.
Maybe after this public outrage the hospital will cease all such lawsuits.Or maybe it won't. If it does stop, it might start again in a year or twoand hope nobody notices.
No word on whether it will rename itself as "Le Malheur".
27 July 2019 (Boris Johnson, evil clown)Boris Johnson, an evil clown, may now become prime minister of the UKby burying a real scandal under an assertion so unbelievable that thepress got distracted by how unbelievable it was.
The assertion was also apparently calculated to disguise one of hispast failures in search engines.
I didn't post any notes about the unbelievable statement, because itwas not important. Additional reasons to distrust someone's word arehardly needed when that someone is a Tory.
27 July 2019 (Border thugs discussion group)US border thugs tried to cover up their secret discussion groupfor posting their hatred of immigrants, but the Intercept saved itand has posted about it.
The quotation, "Fuck the whole country of Honduras," is ironicbecause that's exactly what the US has done.
27 July 2019 (Urgent: Block Facebook's planned currency)US citizens: call on Congressto block Facebook's planned currency.
If you sign, please spread the word!
27 July 2019 (Outspoken progressives)(satire) '... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed concernsThursday that outspoken progressivescoulddo permanent damage to Democrats' reputation as ineffectualcowards.
27 July 2019 (Deportation thugs)'I Was Ready to Sign' Deportation Papers, Says US Citizen After ThreeWeeks in HorrificImmigrant Detention Center.
The conditions included denial of medical care.
The deportation thugs released him after negative publicity,but there is no reason to think that they will make the conditions forthe other prisoners any less nasty.
27 July 2019 (Australia's new coal projects)All insurance companies in Australia nowrefuse to insure any new coal projects. This may put an end tomost of them, but really large companies might self-insure.
Now what about oil and gas?
27 July 2019 (Natural gas disinformation campaign)A natural gas company in California setup an unnatural astroturf disinformation campaign to keep themethane leaking.
The term "balance" has a powerful irrational appeal. We've seen thisin the copyrightfield for ages, and now in energy as well.
27 July 2019 (The British bullshitter)About Boris Johnson, the British bullshitter that is alliedwith the US bullshitter.
27 July 2019 (Deadly heat in tropical regions)If we don't curb global heating, many tropical regions will experiencedeadly heat every year. Often this will follow stormsthat cut the electric supply to the air conditioning that would benecessary to save people's lives.
27 July 2019 (Mueller's testimony)Mueller's testimony did not deal a political blow to the bullshitter,because he gavelittle if any new explanation.
I think the bullshitter deserves to be impeached and removed fromoffice, for treating the US political system with contempt, as well asmultiple crimes and acts of cruelty and dishonesty. But it isimpossible to do that, and without that possibility, whether toimpeach is simply a matter of political tactics.
27 July 2019 (RT TV disinformation)How RT TV designsits disinformation to serve Russia's interest.
27 July 2019 (Opioids executive convicted of bribery)An opioids executive was convicted of bribingdoctors to prescribe the opioid "subsys."
27 July 2019 (Extinction rebellion)Extinction Rebellion:"FashionWeek Should Be a Declaration of Emergency."
It is bizarre to think that clothing makes a big contribution toglobal heating, but it is true: "fast fashion", the practice ofwearing clothes just a little and discarding them, has turned clothinginto something to consume rather than a durable good.
27 July 2019 (Right to repair for farm equipment)Sanders and Warren advocate right to repair for farm equipment.
27 July 2019 (Barcelona will try to prevent airport expansion)Barcelona will try to prevent expansion of its airport.
Bravo! The world cannot sustain the increase of air travel.
27 July 2019 (The UK is trying to corrupt charities)The UK is trying '-- again '-- to corrupt charities that help homelesspeople by getting them to participate in a scheme to identifyforeigners and deport them.
In doublespeak, this scheme is called "support" for homeless people.
27 July 2019 (India is shipping water by train)India is shipping water by train from Kerala to Chennai. But sincethe lack of water is due to global heating, the shortfall willincrease over time.
If Delhi runs out of water next year, I doubt that shipping water from Keralawill be a solution.
In the long term, IUDs can help prevent the need for water fromincreasing, and solar-powered desalinators can compensate (a little)for the decrease in supply. But farms need water, too. I fear Indiais headed for massive starvation.
27 July 2019 (Microsoft's anti-Right-to-Repair)Debunking Microsoft's anti-Right-to-Repair FUD.
Bravo for the article, but one quotation falls into a widespreadconfusion: that spread by the term "intellectual property".
and "If you hire a managed service provider to do your network securitythey could, instead,... steal your intellectual property."In general, that statement is false. It could not steal yourcopyrights, or your patents, or your trademarks, or your plant varietymonopolies, or your IC mask monopolies, or your publicity rights '--those are legal privileges, so they can't be "stolen". I think theonly things it could possibly steal that way are trade secrets.
Please don't eversay "intellectual property" if what you mean is "trade secrets" orif what you mean is "copyrights", or if what you mean is anyother specific thing, because that is a big generalization. It islikely to convert a narrow true statement into a broad false one.
If you think that what you mean is all of them, then please study theissue more carefully '-- a statement so general is usually false,and probably most of them are not even relevant to the issue at hand.
If you want to quote a statement where someone else used the term"intellectual property", please check whether the statement was falsedue to this confusion. Any statement that used that term probablywas confused.
27 July 2019 (Law to publish the tax returns of corporations)To make Amazon pay its fair share of taxes, and Apple, Google,Facebook and others too, we need to see their tax returns. Let's changetax law to publish the tax returns of corporations.
We could extend this to every company that files a separate taxreturn, or to every company that isn't a sole proprietorship.
With that exception, it would respect personal privacy adequately,
27 July 2019 (Face tracking)Private use of face tracking is widespread and dangerous,but the proposed regulations only aim at use by public agencies. Not enough!
Government surveillance cameras watching the street are a great disguisefor private surveillance cameras put up by nobody-knows-who.
Surveillance cameras '-- cameras transmitting video somewhere else '--should be illegal except when authorized by a court for a specificplace and period of time.
27 July 2019 (Unfair trials)Pressuring Bahrain to cancel executions of people whose trials werethoroughly unfair.
27 July 2019 (Tobacco Epidemic)Battle Against Tobacco Epidemic Is Far from Won.
27 July 2019 (European Investment Bank)The European Investment Bank will stop funding fossil duel projects.
This could make a real difference if other investors follow this example.
27 July 2019 (An interview with Manual Zelaya)An interview with Manual Zelaya, who was president of Honduras untilthe coup that appears to have been approved by Hilary Clinton.
27 July 2019 (Contrasting codes of conduct)Contrasting codes of conduct and accusationswith trying to be kind to other people.
27 July 2019 (California require bots to identify themselves)California now has a law requiring bots to identify themselves as suchwhen used for advertising or electioneering.
I think this is a good idea, but I wonder whether enforcing the lawwill prove difficult.
27 July 2019 (Brazil frozen chicken infested with salmonella)Brazil is a big exporter of frozen chicken, and 1/5 of it is infestedwith salmonella.
The EU should blacklist Brazil until its infestation rate gets down tothe achievable level? I doubt it will do so, but why not? Is it onlylack of moral commitment, or is there some legal obstacle?
I wonder if some business-supremacy treaties forbid this.
Can anyone suggest who to ask?
27 July 2019 (Plants exchange signals)Plants exchange signals and respond to some stimuli. Don't leapto the conclusion that this means they can feel or think.
27 July 2019 (Trustworthy AI)An independent expert group sponsored by the European Union haspublished a plan for promoting "trustworthy AI".
It does not seem to propose how to develop an AI to be trustworthy,how to determine whether a given AI program is infact trustworthy, orhow any AI program can be trustworthy. As far as I know, these aretotally unsolved problems, but the report takes for granted somesolution is used.
27 July 2019 (Captured an Iranian oil tanker)The British navy captured an Iranian oil tanker said to be taking oil to Syria.
This was clearly an act of war, and justifies military action Iran's part.
The capture took place in disputed waters near Gibraltar, and Spainhas objected to it.
I can't see what relevance EU sanctions have. If the are sanctions,they prohibit certain dealings between EU entities and Syria. I don'tsee how an Iranian ship would come under EU sanctions, unless it is ownedby a European company.
Only a blockade would purport go that far, and a blockade, if therewere one, would be an act of war in itself. (Remember when Egyptblockaded Elat? Israel responded to that, legitimately, by capturingthe Sinai.)
I don't think the EU has announced a blockade of Syria. Indeed, it isunable to do such a thing; the whole field of war is outside the EU'sscope.
So there is some bullshit here. I hope someone sorts out the facts.
27 July 2019 (China taking thousands children)China is taking thousands of Uighur children away from their parentsand putting them into boarding schools designed to assimilate them.
This resembles what the US and Canada did to indigenous peoplesduring much of the 20th century. Public opinion made the US andCanada stop this, but in China public opinion is not allowed to exist.
Even fairly mild reproach of China for putting a million Uighurs inbrainwash camps has discomfited China. Firm pressure mightaccomplish a great deal.
Perhaps Hong Kong should be the main target of the pressure, for now.
27 July 2019 (Plutocratist party)An explicitly plutocratist party is expected to win the elections inGreece.
I think Syriza's surrender discredited the idea of resistance.Perhaps Greeks have thrown in the towel, and are now tellingthemselves that surrender will get them some trickle-down.However, we've seen that that's bullshit. The plutocratswill be nice to you until you have swallowed the hook, but then theysqueeze ever harder.
Getting a little more privileges in the labor camp, through assiduousobedience, will never get you freedom.
27 July 2019 (We'll pay for your personal data)ACLU: beware dis-services that say, "We'll pay for your personal data"'-- that would only legitimize the basis of their power, not weaken it.
Shushana Zuboff's take on why "owning the data about you" would beineffective as protection from surveillance capitalism.
27 July 2019 (Keep information on who paid for each political ad)Canada required social media companies to keep information on who paidfor each ad political. Google responded by not running any politicalads.
The author seems to think that Google somehow defeated Canada. I sayit's just the opposite: Canada achieved a bigger success than it aimedfor!
This suggests it may be possible for one country to succeed indefeating a system that spreads fake news, if it can identify thecrucial nexus at which to operate. Different networks functiondifferently.
27 July 2019 (Shell's Sleazy Censorship)Shell's Sleazy Censorship: arranging a joint event with climatedefenders, then cancelling the participation of the researcher whowas going to show how Shell is still working to hamper climate defense.
27 July 2019 (Restricting diesel fuel)Less well-off areas have least to lose from restricting diesel fuel,and most to gain from clean-air zones, study finds.
27 July 2019 (Australian aboriginals)The University of New South Wales has told teachers not to talkabout the fact that the Australian aboriginals reached and colonizedAustralia around 40,000 years ago. Science is to be suppressed so as torespect their nonscientific traditional views.
I think that lying to children is likely to backfire on them. I resentwhen parents demand I support their lies about Santa Claus, because Ithink I'd be doing wrong.
Lying to adults about their group's origin could be even worse.
27 July 2019 (OPEC climate defense campaigns)OPEC acknowledged that climate defense campaigns including the schoolstrike for climate threaten fossil fuel extraction industry's future profits.
Greta Thunberg called this "our biggest compliment yet".
OPEC calls criticism "unscientific", but that can only mean that thelikely fragments of the coming disaster have not been specificallyproved. It would be irrational to wait for such detailed proofbefore protecting ourselves.
Striking students can influence officials even in right-wing parts ofthe US. They can mobilize their parents, too.
27 July 2019 (Damage caused by global heating)A study covers 1300 lawsuits against governments and businessesover damage caused by global heating.
27 July 2019 (High stress cause fetuses to miscarry)Situations of high stress cause fetuses to miscarry. The effectis stronger for male fetuses.
I wonder whether in Alabama anyone that imposes stress on a pregnantwoman who subsequently has a miscarriage could be prosecuted forhomicide.
27 July 2019 (US farmers)US farmers are growing a lot of food but making little money.At the same time, they are exhausting and losing the soil andspreading toxins. Here are ideas for how to fix both.
Another cause of the failure of farms is being compelled to sell to afew large middleman companies. Many farms have gone broke recently.The pressure means farmers cannot invest in regenerative agriculture.
Sanders proposes how to restructure agriculture in the USfor the sake of farmers.
27 July 2019 (Venezuela's suppression forces)A UN human rights report says that Venezuela's suppression forces havekilled almost 7000 people since Jan 2018 for "resisting arrest". Thisis the government's own figure, so it is clear they were all killed inraids, but it is inconceivable that they all died in that way.
More information about torture discovered by the UN visit.
27 July 2019 (Corrupt judge Sergio Moro)Brazil has thoroughly condemned corrupt judge Sergio Moro.
In the past, this sort of exposure would compel an official to resign.Nowadays, corrupt officials have discovered that trying to tough it outmay succeed. What will it take to kick Moro out of office?
26 July 2019 (Racist stop-and-frisk)US Judge Shira Scheindlin pronounces on racist stop-and-frisk inIsrael based on her decisions aboutraciststop-and-frisk in New York City.
26 July 2019 (Military occupation of Palestine)Israeli right-wing extremists, from Netanyahu on down, have decided todeny the fact that Palestineis under Israeli military occupation.
When anyone points out this fact, they call it "anti-semitism". Theydo so, while maintaining an alliance with realanti-semites in the US.
26 July 2019 ("Influencers")"Influencers" tryto extort gratis food from restaurants, even ice cream trucks.
The best way to deal with them is to stay away from Instagram.It's a branch of Facebook and participating in it is for zuckers.
26 July 2019 (Military bill forbids fighting with Iran)House Democrats put an amendment into a military bill that wouldstrictlyforbid fighting with Iran, other than defending against attacks.
26 July 2019 (iBad tracking in schools)If your school provides you with an iBad, it's not merely imposinguser-subjugating software and online dis-services. It may also betrackingyour movements in the school.
26 July 2019 (Tree planting)Tree planting couldbe a big part of preventing climate disaster.
However, I have to raise two questions:
Will the trees we plant live to grow large?Global heating could kill them.Migrating parasites and infections could kill them.Humans desperate for firewood could kill them.Will we be able to plant trees faster than deforesters cut them down?26 July 2019 (Migrants imprisoned next to military base)One of Libya's governments imprisoned migrants next to a military base.Haftar's army attacked the base and bombed the prison too. Thiscausedover 100 casualties.
26 July 2019 (Release of Captain Rackete from arrest)An Italian judge rebuked Salvini and releasingCaptain Rackete from arrest. It is not clear whether any of thecharges have been dropped.
26 July 2019 (Hong Kong legislature)A hundred or so protesters took overthe building of the Hong Kong legislature, after bashingdown its door. Then they destroyed computers and otherfacilities.
That legislature is elected through a biased system; it is notdemocratic. It does not deserve much respect; I won't say thatdamaging its property is inherently wrong, But this violent action,and the subsequent vandalism, play into China's hands.
26 July 2019 (Demand anyone's New York state tax returns)New York State has authorized the head of a congressional committee todemand anyone's New York state tax returns. That congresscritter should nowdemand the conman's tax returns.
This won't have immediate results '-- I suppose the conman will sue, hopingto get the Supreme Court to overturn that law.
26 July 2019 (Bee-Killing Pesticide)USDA Indefinitely Suspends Honey Bee Tracking Survey as [eleven]States Get [special emergency] Approval to Use Bee-Killing Pesticide.
I wish this were satire.
26 July 2019 (Many compostable plastics remain inert)Many "biodegradable" and even "compostable" plastics remain inertand undamaged in home composting, or in the ocean.
26 July 2019 (UK ambassador to the US)The UK ambassador to the US has been sending his government an honestappraisal of the conman.
If ministers continue fawning on the conman, it's not due toignorance.
26 July 2019 (Business-supremacy treaties)Business-supremacy treaties are a big screw. If the UK pulls out ofone (the EU), another one (the WTO) will clobber it.
26 July 2019 (Right-wing policies)Right-wing policies make people homeless, and right-wing politiciansmake an excuse not to care: they regard the homeless people as adisgusting nuisance, to dehumanize them.
26 July 2019 (The Green New Deal)The Green New Deal can do more than avoid disaster. It can be an opportunityto make the world better in other ways.
26 July 2019 (Company with phony information)The UK makes it easy to set up a company with phony information about theowners. It doesn't even bother to check whatever information it is given.
26 July 2019 (Risk of fraud in games)1/3 of gamers reportedly refuse to pay for anything in gamessimply because of the risk of fraud.
However, there is a deeper reason to refuse to pay for anything in agame: because that enables the game company to track you. And thedeepest reason is that the game is a proprietary program.
Playing against someone who buys better skill or better equipment isequivalent to playing against someone who cheats.
26 July 2019 (Britain's Obsession with "anti-Semitism")Let's Be Honest about Britain's Obsession with "anti-Semitism".
26 July 2019 (Fix Food System)We [Americans] Have the Money to Fix Our Food System.
26 July 2019 (Sued for giving patient data to Google)The Chicago Medical Center is being sued for giving patient data toGoogle, in a form that can be reidentified easily.I think that clinics and schools should be required to keep their personaldata on their own computers, located in their own facilities, not in serversrun by companies that operate them in a cloudy way. A contract in whichthe company says how it can use the data is not enough to trust that itwill remain private.
26 July 2019 (Norway prison system)Norway focused its prison system on rehabilitation, and recidivismdeclined from 60-70% to 20-25%.
Rehabilitation costs more per prisoner but results in having muchfewer prisons.
I suspect that lowering recidivism that much depends on having asociety that offers ex-cons a way to get by, other than through crime.My impression is that in the US it is so hard to get a job with anincome you can live on, if you have a criminal record, that manyex-cons that want to go straight are unable to make a go of it. Ifthe goal is to reduce the harm done by crime, this is self-defeating.
But then, the US also puts a terrible burden on poor people, and onvarious disprivileged demographics, even if they don't have a criminalrecord. It is a general pattern of dehumanization, rather than aconstructive attempt to address a problem.
26 July 2019 (Posting the nude photos)For years I've recommended that the way to defeat extortion throughnude photos is by posting the nude photos. Now the idea is catchingon.
If defeating extortion nudes (and revenge porn, which differs by itsmotive) were the only benefit, perhaps it would not be crucial.However, it will also help decrease the general nudity taboo, and thatis very important.
Please don't refer to the people who carry out extortion via nudes as&mdath;hackers'--. There is no reason to think that they are hackers; in anycase, routine extortion is not hacking.
26 July 2019 (Starbucks worker)A Starbucks worker asked a few thugs (who were there as customers) tomove because someone felt threatened by them. Starbucks apologized.
If the representative of the thug association really can't imagine whysome customers felt threatened, he is mentally deficient, but I thinkit more likely he is covering up that side of the truth. I know, fromreading the news and talking with acquaintances, why blacks may feelendangered by the presence of thugs. Other people, with less grounds,may feel endangered by the presence of blacks.
A store should not ask customers to leave, or to move, because"someone feels threatened by you" '-- not blacks, and not thugs '--because people should not be judged based on how someone else feelsabout them.
26 July 2019 (Letting children play freely)FAQ for evidence-based defense of letting children play freely.
26 July 2019 (National Health Service)Persistent Tory cuts to the National Health Service has pushed somedoctors to refuse overtime.
Under new pension rules, they will have to pay to work overtime.
Meanwhile, non-medical staff are going on strike against privatization.
I think it is the Tories' intention to destroy the NHS by cutting its fundsto the point it cannot possibly function. Then they will claim, asright-wingers like to do, that government programs can't work right.
26 July 2019 (Korea's smart city)Korea's made-from-zero "smart city" replicates The Village, completewith audio announcements that people can't shut off.
I mear The Village from the TV show, The Prisoner.
26 July 2019 (A survey of sales sites)A survey of sales sites, checking for use of dark patterns, found themin 1200 out of the 10000 sites tested.
I think these practices should be regulated, just like other practicesof retail stores.
I think that my decision not to buy anything on linehas saved me more practical annoyance than it has caused me.
That is in addition to protecting my freedom.
26 July 2019 (The Veterans Administration)The Veterans Administration has its own thug department, and thesethugs occasionally turn on veterans seeking medical care '-- causinggrave injuries and even death.
Naturally these thugs lie to protect each other. The article recountsthat one of them tried to act like a police officer rather than a thug and was attacked by the thugs.
The VA officials protect them, too.
26 July 2019 (Gaza pollution crisis)Israel has forced Gaza into a pollution crisis which is now spreading to Israel.
26 July 2019 (Israel seizing public archives)Israel is systematically seizing and hiding public archives toeliminate evidence of threatening Palestinians in 1948 to make them flee.
Here's more about the important vanished document about atrocitiesagainst Palestinians.
26 July 2019 (Automated face recognition)There is now a campaign to prohibit government use of automated facerecognition in the US.
This would be an important step forward, but not enough to protecthuman rights. We need to prohibit systematic use of automated facerecognition by business, also.
26 July 2019 (New options for disposal of corpses)New options for disposal of corpses are less polluting than cremationand ordinary burial.
26 July 2019 (Climate defense measures)Attenborough: climate defense measures "cannot be radical enough".
I think he meant "cannot be too radical".
26 July 2019 (Amnesty International)Amnesty International denounced the Taliban's "chilling disregard forhuman life."
The US makes some effort to avoid killing Afghan civilians, but itdoes not consistently try hard.
And when it does kill civilians, it tends to try to cover that up.
26 July 2019 (UK prime minister)Boris Johnson, whose contempt for truth matches that of his US buddy,looks to be the next prime minister of the UK. By refusing to defendAmbassador Darroch for commenting honestly and privately on thatbuddy, he effectively forced Darroch to resign.
Darroch's resignation may have been necessary anyway. An ambassadorthat is detested by the head of the receiving state cannot be veryeffective. However, Johnson has demonstrated he wants to be primeminister of a puppet government.
26 July 2019 (School uniforms)If there have to be school uniforms, at least the rules should not be gender-biased.
I never wore a school uniform. Public schools in New York in the1950s did not have uniforms, nor did the private secondary schools Iwent to. Some schools had them; but in the 70s, counterculture youthrebelled against uniforms and more or less did away with them. I wasrepulsed when I heard, a decade ago, that the practice was spreadingin the US.
26 July 2019 (Stop covering homeopathic treatment)France's medical system will stop covering homeopathic "treatment".
It is no more than a placebo, based only on irrational pseudoscience.
26 July 2019 (Promoting competition in the field)The EU has a goofy idea: promoting competition in the field ofsurveillance capitalism by requiring big companies to make theirdata bases available to other companies.
If done right, this could reduce the special political influence ofthe biggest companies. But it will do privacy no good at all.
26 July 2019 (War between India and China)As India dries out, one of the bad consequences could be war between India and China.
26 July 2019 (Conflict of interest)Congress's ethics rules allow lots of conflict of interest.
A congresscritter can even trade stock in companies knowing that peractions as congresscritter will drive the stock price up or down.
26 July 2019 (Law to censor the press)Congress is considering a law to censor the press to protect the CIA'-- including its torturers.
26 July 2019 (Detaining Real Baby)(satire) ICE Sends Agents Home With Sacks Of Flour To Practice What It LikeDetaining Real Baby.
26 July 2019 (High-pitched sound)Some parks play a constant high-pitched sound intended to drive awaypeople under 25 years of age.
They should play classical music instead.
26 July 2019 (Extreme weather events)As extreme weather events become common, being hit bytwo at once is no longer ridiculously unlikely.
26 July 2019 (The Climate Movement)Bill McKibben: The Climate Movement: What's Next?
26 July 2019 (Pigs factory farms)Burning some of the methane produced by pigs in factory farmsis being offered as an excuse to make more factory farms.
26 July 2019 (List of billionaires)Sanders has proudly published a list of billionaires who call him anenemy.
If you don't earn their hatred, you're not worth voting for.
26 July 2019 (US government lobbies)The US government lobbies internationally for increasingpharma companies' power to use patents to overcharge.
It has been doing this for decades.
I must criticize, however, the basic confusion spread by use ofthe term "intellectual property", which misrepresents the factsabout various disparate laws by leading people to think ofthem as one single thing.
Patent law is different from copyright law on nearly every point.Neither of them has any similarity to trade secrecy, and they havehardly any relationship with trademark law. If you have a category of"intellectual property" in your thinking, it will always mislead you.
Please join me in shunning that term. Seehttps://gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.
As for the World Trade Organization, it is a business-supremacy treaty,designed to give business more power over society.
We must either change it so it ceases to have that effect,or get rid of it entirely.
26 July 2019 (Bullshitter praises Boris Johnson)[The bullshitter] Praises Boris Johnson, Who Once Called Him "Unfit toHold the Office of President of the United States."
The bullshitter looks for submission, not for sincerity. He does notcare what Johnson said 4 years ago, as long as Johnson obeys today.Likewise, praise from the bullshitter means, simply, "You're obeyingnow; keep it up and I will keep praising you."
26 July 2019 (Global Heating)By the end of this century, if we don't curb global heating, humanswon't be able to work safely outside in the southern US for half theyear.
I wonder if people will still be able to do agriculture in tropicalregions.
26 July 2019 (Poor People's Campaign)The Poor People's Campaign endorses challenging the lobbying powerof the military-industrial-oligopoly complex.
26 July 2019 (Company behind coal mine)The company behind a big planned coal mine in Australiademanded to know the names of the scientists participatingin environmental evaluation.
This was, we must suppose, for the sake of trying to intimidate themor gag them.
26 July 2019 (Bully training followers in racism)The bully has started training his followers in undisguised racism.
26 July 2019 (Indonesian domestic violence)No matter how "modestly" an Indonesian woman dresses, she can still beraped at home.
I can't begin to understand why men want to demand sex with someone whoisn't thrilled by it.
26 July 2019 (Do ditty's murder Campaign)Francisco Santiago Jr. is one of the few victims of the Do-dirty'smurder campaigns who by luck survived his arrest and torture, and wasnot shot.
His case shows that thugs pick people more or less arbitrarily, shoot themwhile they are prisoners, then decide what to accuse them of. In the US.thugs typically do this to black males, but but the Philippines thugsare not bigots -- any Filipino can be the victim.
26 July 2019 (Donations from the rich)"Charitable" donations from the rich are not really donations: theyare attempts to buy public admiration. And often they get enough byjust announcing the donation '-- they see no need to actually give themoney.
26 July 2019 (Sudan protesters and military signed agreement)Sudan's protesters and military have signed an agreement aboutgoverning the country.
26 July 2019 (The Bully's devastating blow to Planned Parenthood)The bully has done a devastating blow to Planned Parenthood.It will not be able to accept federal funding for any services unlessit complies with requirements that would be a surrender of its mission.
26 July 2019 (Textbook DRM)US students will be pressured to rent textbooks on subscription,which require proprietary malware with DRM to read them.
26 July 2019 (Trump warns public)(satire) Trump Claims He Tried To Warn Public About Epstein ByPraising Him As A Terrific Guy.
26 July 2019 (Amazon workers)(satire) Amazon Workers Attempting Walkout Enter 7th Hour Wandering InEver-Expanding, Labyrinth Warehouse.
26 July 2019 (Ecuador surrendered to IMF)Ecuador has surrendered to the IMF, and the non-rich will suffergreatly as a result.
26 July 2019 (Whole Foods workers)Whole Foods Workers Say Conditions Deteriorated after Amazon Takeover.
For instance, they have been told to pressure customers to make dealswith Amazon. This would subject them to Amazon's many abusivepractices.
26 July 2019 (Biden's health plan)Biden's health plan is estimated to fall short of Medicare for Allby 125,000 avoidable deaths.
Sanders Accuses Biden of Parroting Pharma and Insurance Industry Script WithAttacks on Medicare for All.
26 July 2019 (Domestic workers should have same rights as employees)We should give domestic workers the same rights that other employees have.
26 July 2019 (Israel school propaganda)Israel requires students traveling on school-sponsored foreign tripsto pass a class in exaggerated political propaganda which insultsPalestinians. Even Arab students are required to learn how to givethese answers.
26 July 2019 (Israel locking foreign academics) Israel is blocking foreign academics from working at (or visiting)Palestinian universities.
By contrast, the Palestinian boycott asks people not to work atIsraeli universities, and does not try to stop any individualfrom doing anything.
26 July 2019 (McDonalds exploits schools)McDonalds exploits public school teachers to market junk food to theirstudents.
26 July 2019 (Nepal babies malnutrition)In Nepal, babies under 2 years old are eating junk food, and it leads tomalnutrition which stunts their growth.
26 July 2019 (Direct neural interface)A direct neural interface for controlling a computer could be a verygood thing, provided that you the user are the only one who controlsthe interface.
In order for that to be reliably true, the software must be free.
I think testing this on animals is legitimate. It can't be developedwithout testing, and testing on animals is better than testing onhumans.
26 July 2019 (Head of border patrol finds Facebook group abhorrent)The head of the border patrol was a member of the private Facebookgroup for venting hatred at immigrants. Then she told us she found itabhorrent.
One thing that the US does to some immigrants is demand passwords totheir Facebook accounts. This is supposedly done for our "safety".Perhaps the people this should be done to are officials.
26 July 2019 (Multilevel marketing)"Multilevel marketing" is not identical to a pyramid scheme, but inpractice it often works out that way. This article shows how theylure people with promises of profits that few participants get. Manylose a lot of money instead.
26 July 2019 (Detainment center conditions)(satire) "It's Not So Bad," Mike Pence Reports On Conditions OfDetainment Center While Hazmat Suit Disinfected.
26 July 2019 (Apple nonrepairability)Reevaluating Apple's reputation for good design: design fornonrepairability is not good design.
26 July 2019 (Recording devices)Journalists obtained 1000 leaked audio recordings and showed some ofthem to the people who were speaking.
150 of the recordings were made when the device was not supposed to berecording.
If you're in a place with Google a listening device (or Apple, orAmazon), disconnect it! Note that every portable phone is a potentiallistening device.
26 July 2019 (Wildlife defenders recognize need to limit human population)Finally, wildlife defenders recognize the crucial need to limit thehuman population, in order to leave some land wild.
Investment by plutocracy also plays a role in eliminating wilderness,but the two work hand in hand (in deforestation in Brazil, for instance),so reducing births will help.
26 July 2019 (Israeli right wingers attack Jonathan Pollak)Israeli right-wing extremists set upon anti-occupation activistJonathan Pollak on the street and beat him up, then stabbed him.
As for the charges made by the right-wing extremists, they are the friendsand allies of US right-wing extremists. I do not believe their accusations.
26 July 2019 (Stalin praise)As Putin imprisons historians that study Stalin's terror, Stalin receivespublic praise promoted by the state.
26 July 2019 (Jeffrey Epstein rape career)Jeffrey Epstein intimidated the whole US press into silence about hisrape career, starting in 2003.
26 July 2019 (New Zealand gun buybacks)New Zealand is buying the now-illegal semiautomatic riflesthat people already own.
26 July 2019 (Thug dossier)Any thug in parts of the US can immediately get a large dossierabout most Americans from just a name or other identifier.
What bothers me is not that they can get it quickly, but that so muchinformation has been collected about millions of people who arenot suspects and about which no search has been authorized.
If we don't ban commercial use of face recognition to track people,this commercial data base will be extended to include people'smovements as recorded by billions of surveillance cameras spreadacross US cities and roads.
26 July 2019 (Relieve worries about vaccination)How to relieve the worries some parents have about vaccination.
A bigger and deeper question: how can we fix the systems that make itso easy to stir up conspiracy theories about anything whatsoever,especially if it relates to children, or adolescents being called"children"?
People with damaged immune systems can die from measles even ifthey were vaccinated against it. They depend on the rest of societyto get vaccinated.
26 July 2019 (Whistleblower site for tech companies)There is now a whistleblower site for tech company staff to reporttheir employer's egregious attacks on human rights.
Unfortunately this will do nothing to push back on those kinds ofattacks on human rights that have become standard practice -- forinstance, proprietary malwareand internet dis-services that spy, manipulate, restrict, swindleand addict people.
26 July 2019 (Disabled people in the UK are now crippled)Disabled people in the UK are now crippled '-- by the stinginess of Tories.
26 July 2019 (Advantages of trees in pastures)Planting trees in a pasture can make it stay usable through 9 monthswithout rain, and produce other crops too.
26 July 2019 (German school privacy)Microsoft Office 365: Banned in [some] German Schools over Privacy Fears.
It is a bit silly that the legal objection is limited to sending datato servers in the US. Snooping software should be eliminated, insideand outside of schools, no matter who it spies on people for.
26 July 2019 (Thugs crash into passerby)Thugs crashed their vehicle into that of a passerby,then pulled him out and handcuffed him.
It is vitally important to punish thugs for everything they do wrongin nonfatal attacks like this. We can't convert thugs into policeofficers by punishing them only on the rare occasions when they murdersomeone, not even if the punishment is severe. Most of them willnever murder someone, and never know another thug who murderedsomeone, so they will not feel any pressure to change their ways. Toachieve that, we must punish the many small incidents.
26 July 2019 (Trump honors brave heroes)(satire) Trump Honors Brave Heroes Who Slept With Wives Of Deployed Soldiers.
26 July 2019 (Systemic thug department flaws)The UK held an inquiry into the killing of Anthony Grainger (shot deadby a thug) and determined that systemic flaws in the thug departmentwere to blame.
Whether to blame individual thugs remains to be decided.
In general the UK seems to do a better job of holding killer thugsaccountable than the US usually does.
26 July 2019 (Predatory game)Resourceful grandchildren figured out how to max out theirgrandfather's credit card buying special players for a predatoryfantasy soccer game.The random element of loot boxes strengthens their activeness,
but the fact that players must keep spending in order to win isenough reason to classify it as predatory. Any game of competitivespending makes each player pressure the other players to spend more.
The fact that the game is proprietary software is enough reason torefuse to run it, and not to get a copy of it for yourself or anyoneelse. The only good reason to have such a game is to study it forfree software development.
26 July 2019 (Selling medical records)The ACLU warns of a legislative campaign to legitimize selling people'smedical records by giving the patient a cut of the revenue.
That money won't come anywhere near compensating for the advantagethat companies will take of you given that knowledge about you.
26 July 2019 (Japan's music licensing)Japan's music licensing gang is demanding royalties from musicschools, calling music lessons "public performance".
26 July 2019 (Extinction Rebellion protesters)Extinction Rebellion protesters glued themselves to doorsin the US capitol building, blocking legislators from getting tothe chamber to vote.
The person who decided perse "can't bring a child into this world" hasunderstood the situation thoroughly. But I wonder what "I broke downmy car" means. "I disassembled it"? That is the proper grammaticalinterpretation but seems implausible. If the article garbled thewords a little, it could mean "I caused it to malfunction" or "Istarted crying at the wheel".
More information.
26 July 2019 (Ban secure communication)The US government is going to try again to ban secure communication for users.
They think they can get Americans so frightened of the terrorists (whodo exist, but are not a big danger as dangers go) that we willsurrender our privacy to a state which can be far more dangerous.
26 July 2019 (Amazon Alexa)Amazon servers save transcripts of some Alexa conversations indefinitely.
It would be absurd to delete a reminder before reminding you, but aprivacy-respecting reminder system would keep that reminder only onyour own computers, so it would protect your privacy both before andafter.
You probably want to save a record of your purchases, but aprivacy-respecting system would keep that record private by keeping itonly on your own computers. With a proper anonymous payment system,such as GNU Taler, no one but you would ever know who made the purchase.
26 July 2019 (Electronic Monitoring)How Electronic Monitoring Drives Defendants Into Debt (and then backinto jail).
26 July 2019 (Pfizer's new regulatory capture)Pfizer's new experiment with regulatory capture: putting the formerSaboteur of the FDA on its board.
26 July 2019 (Peace and Climate Justice)Why Peace and Climate Justice Are the Same Project.
26 July 2019 (War with Iran)Cory Booker supports war with Iran.
26 July 2019 (Facebook's currency)Stiglitz: "Only a fool would trust Facebook with his or her financialwell being. But maybe that's the point: with so much personal data onsome 2.4bn monthly active users, who knows better than Facebook justhow many suckers are born every minute?"
26 July 2019 (Border thugs)The border thugs are supposed to transfer prisoners to immigration agencieswithin 72 hours, but the bully's orders have made this difficult to do '-- so prisoners accumulate in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.
26 July 2019 (Mismanaged a major regional river system)Australia has mismanaged a major regional river system to the pointwhere fish regularly die in large numbers.
The cause, of course, is putting the short-term demands of profit overthe long-term needs. This is what leads to dangerous mining, deforestation, and fertilizer runoff that harms the Great Barrier Reef.
26 July 2019 (Help poor people reduce their debt)Senator Warren proposes measures to steer the US away from risk of another financial crisis '-- notably to limit leveraged loans to businesses, as well as to help poor people reduce their debt.
26 July 2019 (Snoopphone read sensors on your body)An advance in how a snoopphone (if you carry one) can read sensors onor in your body.
It may be that this method would actually protect you from thosesensors as long as you don't carry a snoopphone. What is not clear ishow far away from other people's snoopphones you would need to stay.
26 July 2019 (Smart city technology)A shopping mall that serves as a testbed for "smart" city technologydoesn't collect personal data except through an app.
If a real "smart" city does that, it might be acceptable '-- unlessit puts pressure on everyone to use the app so as to get convenience.
26 July 2019 (Right to Spy on Media)UK Hosts Press Freedom Summit While Fighting for Right to Spy on Media.
If the UK wins that case, the outcome will affect all of Europe.
26 July 2019 (Cubans trying to move to the US)Cubans trying to move to the US now get treated like people from other countries in Latin America.
This despite the fact that at home they face the effects of US sanctions.
26 July 2019 (Fear climate change)(satire) '... the average American must have[per] life destroyed by a natural [sic] disaster every six minutes in orderto finally fear climate change.
Meanwhile, back in reality, New York City got two within two days.
26 July 2019 (Revolving Door Between Government and Industry)Iowa, North Dakota and Maryland Lead the Way on Curbing the Revolving DoorBetween Government and Industry.
26 July 2019 (Bully's expedited deportations)More about the danger of the bully's "expedited deportations" plan.
Border thugs could deport US citizens fast, rather than giving them time to establish their citizenship.
26 July 2019 (Men with sticks attacked people)When men with sticks attacked people in Hong Kong's remote Yuen Longtrain station, the victims were not protesters, just passersby.
Why they attacked people there is not clear, unless China just wantedto make people in Hong Kong afraid.
26 July 2019 (Kick out European citizens)The Tories are so determined to kick out European citizens that they haveplanned to keep the data on which they base the decisions secret.
In other words, they are planning to make lots of mistakes and don't wantthem to be corrected.
26 July 2019 (Palestinian medic killed)A Palestinian medic, Muhammad al-Judaili, was shot in the head by anIsraeli sniper, and he eventually died from this.
Rubber-coated bullets are said to be "non-lethal", but we know andsnipers know that they can kill if they hit someone's head. Snipersdon't hit someone's head by accident.
26 July 2019 (Israeli soldiers demolished apartments)Israeli soldiers demolished 16 Palestinian apartment buildings on the pretextthat they were too close to the annexation wall.
There must be hundreds of apartments buildings that the wall wasbuilt close to. Now they may all be demolished.
26 July 2019 (The Guardian cartoonist censorship)The Guardian censored its regular cartoonist for satirizing the crusade to cleanse the Labour Party of what is accused of being anti-semitism.
26 July 2019 (Drug-Resistant Superbug)As fungi adapt to living outside in temperatures close to human bodytemperature, some of them may become able to colonize the human body.
This may be the reason that a new fungal disease with no known treatment isspreading on several continents.
26 July 2019 (Crash test dummies)A woman in a car crash is more likely to be injured than a man in asimilar crash. Could that be because crash test dummies have mainlybeen designed to simulate men?
26 July 2019 (LinkedIn surveillance)LinkedIn has staged a surveillance coup against librariesthrough an education service set up specifically for libraries.
For instance, it demands that users make individual LinkedIn accountsso that it can profile them.
That page represents libraries' pushback; some have dropped the serviceand others surely will if LinkedIn does not retreat.
I have no other details about that service, but simply based onknowing the usual practices I expect it is a disservice in other ways.
26 July 2019 (Stop abuse by private equity)Moe about Senator Warren's plans to stop abuse by "private equity"takeovers.
26 July 2019 (solar system's real estate agents)(satire) the solar system's real estate agents have begun trying toattract home buyers to the neglected, run-down planet of Earth byrenaming it "West Saturn."
26 July 2019 (Big climate defense rallies)Big climate defense rallies are planned world-wide for Sep 20-27.
26 July 2019 (Progressive trade policy)Suggestions for what progressive trade policy should look like:putting human beings and nature first.
What it says about "intellectual property" tries to go in the rightdirection, but it is flawed by taking the bogus concept of"intellectual property" as a basis.
26 July 2019 (Facebook's personal data abuse)After the FTC's slap on Facebook's wrist, we can expect it to abusepersonal data over and over.
However, even a bigger fine could at best have limited how Facebook abusespersonal data. The real problem is that Facebook collects personal data.
So don't be a zucker '-- don't give Facebook any data. And use abrowser such as IceCat that blocks Like buttons, so Facebook can't getdata about you in any other way.
26 July 2019 (Puerto Rico's governor agreed to resign)Puerto Rico's governor has finally agreed to resign,after many protests including 1/3 of the island's population, plus plans to impeach him.
The sad thing about Puerto Rico is that the US has saddled it with somuch debt, and imposed so much privatization, that good politicians wouldn't have much chance to do a good job.
26 July 2019 (Hide climate crisis)"I'm a scientist. Under [the saboteur] I lost my job for refusing tohide climate crisis facts."
26 July 2019 (Intellectual debt)Use of AI techniques whose functioning nobody understands puts societyin a state of "intellectual debt". That is not necessarily bad, butit can easily lead to bad consequences when competition and conflict get into the matter.
By contrast, the fact that we did not understand how aspirin reducedheadaches did offer anyone an opportunity to cause mysteriousheadaches that aspirin would make worse.
26 July 2019 (Megadroughts Coming to the U.S.)Megadroughts Are Likely Coming to the U.S. Southwest Within Decades,Scientists Say.
Long droughts wiped out the small cities that existed in parts of thesouthwest. The big cities that need a lot more water would have moretrouble surviving. Unless perhaps solar-powered condensers can savethe day.
26 July 2019 (Violent porn)Violent porn has made the idea of strangling a woman and calling it "sex" appear normal, so women go along with it. If that's notdisgusting enough, men that murder their lovers or wives can nowpretend that "it was just a sex game".
26 July 2019 (Random drug tests)A school in Texas says that it will require all students inextracurricular activities to submit to random drug tests.
I hope many students will refuse.
26 July 2019 (Destruction of the Amazon forest)Bolsonaro has succeeded at accelerated destruction of the Amazon forest.
Scientists warn that this may kill the trees that remain.
26 July 2019 (Schools uniforms)UK public schools require specific uniforms, which can be so expensivethat poor families cut back on food. Or else find another schoolwhich isn't trying to keep poor people out.
This is one of the symptoms of the policy of making schools competeto avoid being forcibly privatized as "academies".
I consider the very idea of requiring a uniform outrageous.
26 July 2019 (Marshall Plan for Central America)The US Needs a Marshall Plan for Central America.
(Instead of the current martial plan that drives people to flee.)
26 July 2019 (Phoenix law)(satire) '... Phoenix lawenforcement officials confirmed Tuesday local man Rod Cleighborn hadbeen hired as a cop for posting a racist rant on social media.
26 July 2019 (Drop a group of children in the woods)It's a custom in the Netherlands to drop a group of children in the woodsand challenge them to find their way back to civilization.
They succeed, and in the process learn self-confidence.
"Stijn is 11," she said. "The time window in which we can teach himis closing. He is going into adolescence, and then he will makedecisions for himself."26 July 2019 (Backfire against progressive president)Pelosi made a deal with the Republicans that will backfire against any progressive president in 2021.
Sanders will have to cut harmful spending, such as nuclear weaponsdevelopment and secret foreign wars, if he can't get a debt increaseor a tax increase through the Senate.
26 July 2019 (Increasing industrial agriculture)Increasing industrial agriculture is not the way to feed more poor people.
In the US, it doesn't seriously try.
Growing corn or soybeans to make fuel is especially foolish since ituses petroleum-based fertilizer. When that's subsidized, it is ahandout for agribusiness. Biofuel is efficient only when it's madefrom byproducts of growing something else that's worth growing in itsown right.
26 July 2019 (Sociology of gun violence)US citizens: call on the Senate to vote to support research into thesociology of gun violence.
26 July 2019 (Confirmation bias)Confirmation bias, group think and pressure to find the perpetrator quicklyare major factors in convicting innocent people.
26 July 2019 (Smart diapers)"Smart" diapers spy on the baby and maybe the rest of the family.
If the manufacturers wanted to, they could make this info availabledirectly and solely to the parents.
26 July 2019 (Global Heating)Today's global heating, affecting the whole globe, has no parallel inhistorical temperature changes.
25 July 2019 (Urgent: Oppose oil drilling)US citizens: call onthe Bureau of Land Management not to allow oil drilling in ChacoCanyon.
If you sign, please spread the word!
25 July 2019 (Crime of being "disgusting" in UK)In the UK itis a crime to do something in public that people in the vicinity find"disgusting".
I too would find it disgusting, but so what?
25 July 2019 (Bully's plan to take away food stamps)The bully has a newplan to take food stamps away from some poor Americans.
25 July 2019 (UK nuclear power plants)The UK is so desperate to build new nuclear power plants that it willpay in advance from the treasury.
This is a decision of the same Tory government that has pretty muchput an end to land-based wind power and cut subsidies for solar power.
There is a report that the reason is a disguisedsubsidy for the UK's planned new nuclear missile submarines.
25 July 2019 (Effects of increasing minimum wage)Economists studied the effects of increasing the minimum wage in manylow-wage US counties and found nosign that this causes loss of work.
25 July 2019 (Planned natural gas projects)The world's planned natural gas projects won'tfit in the carbon budget.
Indeed, the world cannot afford any new fossil fuelinfrastructure, because once new infrastructure is built there will betremendouspressure to use it and roast Earth's ecosphere.
The idea of natural gas as a "bridge fuel" is an excuse, whichappeared plausible only because we did not know the amount of methaneleaks.
25 July 2019 (Audio recordings of people in public)ACLU: Bogus''Aggression Detectors'' Are Audio-Recording People In Public.
If we had proper laws, anyone trying to sell a system for aggressiondetection would be required to make it send nothing except reportsabout aggressions '-- not recordings of ordinary conversations.
The audio recordings on buses in San Francisco (and maybe elsewhere)should be illegal too.
25 July 2019 (Seizing people's money without a trial)Congress and the bully have passed a law to stop the IRS from seizingpeople's money without a trial on mere suspicion that they wereevading the requirement to report depositing more than $10,000 bydepositing smaller amounts.
Yes, it was as absurd as it looks.
25 July 2019 (Urgent: BOOST Act)UScitizens: callon Congress to pass the BOOST Act, which would give a sum of moneyto each poor person or family in the US.
If you sign, please spread the word!
25 July 2019 (Murals in San Francisco)San Franciscowill coverup murals that were painted to show how some of the US foundingfathers participated in owning slaves and in conquest of indigenouspeoples.
People who can't bear to see a depiction of an injustice are uselessfor fighting it. Schools should lead people to face moral issues, notcower helplessly from them.
25 July 2019 (Richard Zimler)Author Richard Zimler reports that some of his talks in Britain havebeen cancelled because thehosts fearprotests or violence because he is Jewish. They seem to fear theywill meet with protests if they invite a Jew to speak.
I am not convinced that his friends are correct in blaming Palestinianactivists for this. That claim is not based on direct evidence.
25 July 2019 (Refugees in Australia)When Australia brings its refugees from Nauru or Manus because it canno longer deny they need medical treatment,it guardsthem like dangerous criminals.
They are not allowed to see their families.
Australia even exposes them to bedbugs, which it could easily avoid.
25 July 2019 (Thugs shooting blacks)Why do thugs often gratuitously shoot and threaten blacks? It seemsthat some thugsliterally thinkof blacks as subhuman.
25 July 2019 (Solar Foods)Solar Foods makes a protein supplementfrom electricity,water and air.
25 July 2019 (Extinction Rebellion)ExtinctionRebellion blockeda bridge in Paris to call attention to the implications of thehottest day ever recorded there.
25 July 2019 (Fearful of the Census)'TheDamage Has Been Done': Despite Court Ruling, Experts Say TrumpSucceeded in Making Immigrant Communities Fearful of Census.
25 July 2019 (Piecework sweatshops)10% of the workers in Britain have been captured bythe pieceworksweatshop dis-services.
We must extend all the rights and benefits of employees to cover theseforms of work.
25 July 2019 (Evidence of product defects)Thousands of Americans '-- perhaps hundreds of thousands '--have been killed because judges sealed evidence of deadly defects inproducts and kept the defects secret for years as more people died.The dangerous flaws of OxyContin, which spread opioid addiction, wereconcealedfor 12 years.
Trade secrecy is always bad for the public. Occasionally itis deadly, but usually merely harmful. We should change the law sothat no significant problem can be concealed in this way.
Businesses should not be allowed to enforce an NDAto conceal mistreatment of workers, customers, or the public.
Agreeing to nondisclosure of generally useful technicalinformation, such as software, is betrayal of society as a whole.I refuse on principle to do this.
25 July 2019 (Getting shot while pregnant)A woman in Alabama hasbeen chargedwith manslaughter for getting shot while pregnant. The statetreats the fetus as a person.
Moreinformation.
This is the natural conclusion of the twisted premises of those whotreat fetuses as sacred.
But the problem may be broader than that. Suppose she had been shotwhile carrying a three-year-old child in her arms? Suppose someoneelse had shot at her and killed the child.
I don't think people should be prosecuted for the effects of beingshot at.
24 July 2019 (Conman's appointees)The conman's appointees on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission wantto inspect nuclear power plants less often.
The owners won't need to fix problems if they can avoid finding outabout them. The only way we will know about them is if they leadto an accident.
A nuclear power plan accident typically results from a combinationof factors, each one of which might have seemed not to be a bigdeal by itself. Just the sort of the things that the owners wouldsuggest could be ignored.
24 July 2019 (Right to operate a union)An appeals court decidedit had no authority over whether the conman could effectivelyeliminate federal workers right to operate a union.
I wonder how many of the judges involved were appointed recently byRepublicans.
24 July 2019 ("Prominent politicians" on Twitter)Twitter will give "prominent politicians" an exceptionfrom its rules against posting hatred.
I think this is a combination of circumstances in which there issimply no choice that Twitter can make which isn't bad.
24 July 2019 (Democratic politicians)Americans are ready to stop trying to dominate the world.Most Democratic politicians haveyet to catch up.
24 July 2019 (British state arrested dissident for China)China pressured the British state to arrestan exiled Chinese dissident preemptively for Xi's visit in 2015.
24 July 2019 (The bullshitter and North Korea)The bullshitter is making progress with North Korea '-- progresstowards adeal that would accept its possession of nuclear weapons.
This is the only possible avenue towards any sort of deal, sinceDictator Kim will not give up those nuclear weapons. Thus, in a waythis is a wise policy. But the bullshitter can't acknowledge it, asit would highlight the absurdityof his policy towards Iran.
24 July 2019 (Katharine Gun)A two-part interview with British whistleblower Katharine Gun, whorevealed how the UK was helping Dubya try to bully UN security councilmembers into approving his attack on Iraq.