Urgent: US Citizens
4 February 2012

US citizens call on the House of Representatives to pass the STOCK act, which bans insider trading by members of Congress.

The Senate just passed it.

Urgent Note: Federal Election Commission
4 February 2012

US citizens: call on Obama to revive the Federal Election Commission.

This is all the more important with Republicans' passing so many voter-suppression laws.

Bill C-11
4 February 2012

The copyright industry wants to add SOPA-style outrages to the Canadian copyright bill C-11.

Even worse, Canada's government is desperate to undermine democracy by signing the TPP free exploitation treaty. Absurdly, it is so desperate that the copyright industry is using this as a lever to impose nastier copyright laws.

Canadians should tell their government, don't sign the TPP.

The article would be clearer if it did not use the confusing term "intellectual property" which lumps together unrelated laws.

Breast Cancer Organization
4 February 2012

One of the board members of Susan G Koman is connected with "crisis pregnancy centers" that lure in women and give them false information in order to discourage abortion.

In particular, they make the false claim that abortion causes breast cancer.

South Korean
4 February 2012

A South Korean faces imprisonment for repeating North Korea's Twitter postings.

That he probably intended to mock those posts adds a level of self-defeating stupidity to the accusations, but even if he had meant them seriously, to censor an opinion is tyranny. It is tyranny to censors support for North Korea (as South Korea does). It is tyranny to censor Nazism (as France and Germany do).

Respect for freedom of speech means respecting the freedom to state even views you detest.

Privacy
4 February 2012

The FBI to Internet cafes: when customers try to protect their privacy, consider them terrorist suspects.

When customers don't try to protect their privacy, consider them sitting ducks.

Phone Application
4 February 2012

A phone application sends photo and location information about a crime to the police.

Don't believe it is anonymous; the phone company can tell the police who sent it. If the criminal is one of them, they could come after you.

Tax Sugar
4 February 2012

A proposal to regulate and tax sugar like tobacco and alcohol.

As a sugar addict, I don't relish the thought of being asked to show ID when I buy candy. However, I agree it would be good to do something to discourage sugar consumption. I think that a plausible tax would not be enough to decrease the amount of sugar used in restaurant food.

Lands
4 February 2012

Report: Global Land Grab Efforts Will Lead to "Widespread Civil Unrest".

Oscars
4 February 2012

Digital voting for the Oscars will open the door to indetectable election rigging, just as in public elections.

No-fly List
4 February 2012

The US no-fly list has doubled in size in the past year. The US also uses this as a way of exiling citizens, without trial and without admitting it.

The US admits that some are on the list solely to hamper their travel and not because of any expectation that they would try to endanger a flight.

There is no excuse for the no-fly list.

Haiti
4 February 2012

Haiti's US-imposed president is trying to welcome the former dictator Duvalier. This probably why a judge dismissed the torture and murder case against him on secret reasons that can't be valid.

Rap Group
4 February 2012

When rap group After the Smoke posted its own performance on YouTube, Universal Music took it down with a false copyright claim.

These bullies enjoy impunity when they falsely use the power they have. They should not be given any additional power. When they ask us what we propose instead of SOPA to "solve their problems", the answer is, "Nothing — you have too much already." We must reduce existing copyright power."

Drug Tests
4 February 2012

US politicians love bashing Americans with drug tests, unless they have to get tested too.

Welfare in the US is only available to single parents, and only for a limited time. There is no rational reason for drug testing welfare applicants, especially not for recreational drugs that don't cost much and have no effect on their ability to handle their responsibilities. However, it is great as a distraction so people won't focus on how corporations are robbing them.

The Pirate Bay
4 February 2012

The founders of the Pirate Bay will have to go to prison, as Swedish courts accepted the argument that posting links to copyright infringement is a crime.

Public Hearing
4 February 2012

Republicans had Josh Fox and film crew arrested as they tried to film a public hearing in Congress.

Planned Parenthood
4 February 2012

How right-wing anti-abortion fanatics infiltrated the Susan G. Komen Foundation and constructed a phony excuse to condemn Planned Parenthood.

Wars
4 February 2012

Obama's weak restraint on Israel: if Israel attacks Iran, the US won't join in.

Previous US presidents told Israel not to start wars. They were able to do this because Israel depends on US support.

Romney
4 February 2012

Romney is using the old right-win trick of offering a big tax cut to the rich plus an insignificant tax cut for everyone else.

The main effect on everyone else would come from the consequent tremendous budget cuts.

Mobile Phone
4 February 2012

A bill in Congress would make a small improvement in privacy for US mobile phone users. Phones would not be allowed to send information to anyone except the phone company.

This would not affect Big Brother's ability to find out your present and past whereabouts, so it won't alter my decision not to carry one of these.

Craig Murray
3 February 2012

Craig Murray continues pushing for information about the secret unofficial foreign policy of Gould and Werritty, while the UK government does its best not to find out.

Here's previous info.

Nicaragua
3 February 2012

ABC is using misleading and false claims to make Americans think that Iran is a threat to the US. Reagan tried to pretend that Nicaragua's Sandinista government was a threat to the US, but it turned out only Nicaraguan women were in danger.

Twitter Censorship
3 February 2012

Twitter says per-country censorship is better than global censorship, but tries to duck the third option: continue to have no censorship. I already explained how per-country censorship will tend to encourage censorship in the future.

Urgent: FDA Food Safety
3 February 2012

US citizens: call on Obama to dump FDA Food Safety head Michael Taylor, who is a former Monsanto lobbyist and is failing to enforce regulations against agribusiness.

US Imprisonment
2 February 2012

A US appeals court ruled that Americansn have no legal resource if they are arrested in the US, handed over to the army without a trial, and tortured in prison.

This is especially dangerous given the law, passed by Congress and signed by Obama, allowing imprisonment without trial.

It not only "can happen here", it is already happening.

Democracy
2 February 2012

London's new bylaws for Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square, imposed in honor of the Olympic Games, ban carrying signs and making speeches.

This continues a decades-long trend to ban protests and convert democracy into a sham. An earlier step was the creation of the crime of "aggravated trespass" which basically means "protesting which wasn't illegal for any other reason."

US Healthcare
2 February 2012

Why do Americans pay 3 or 4 times as much for medical treatment as other advanced countries? Follow the bills.

US Poverty
2 February 2012

Taxing the rich is not enough — the US needs to redirect spending towards helping the poor instead of arms and war.

UK Infiltrators
2 February 2012

A UK report proposes to continue sending police to infiltrate protest groups, only with a little more supervision. Perhaps they won't be allowed to have children with real activists.

Google Censorship
2 February 2012

Google has set up a system for per-country censorship on Blogger by redirecting access to a country-specific host name.

This can be dangerous for the same reason Twitter's per-country censorship is dangerous.

There is a feature to disable the redirection.

I am not sure whether this is enough to prevent the danger. Will people notice and complain if it ceases to work in certain countries?

London Stock Exchange
2 February 2012

A group of Britons plead guilty to plans to set off bombs, including some in the London Stock Exchange.

The UK needs to crush the London Stock Exchange, which is the main obstacle to restored democracy there, but a bomb in its building would not do the job.

UK Human Right
2 February 2012

The UK has abolished protection against self-incrimination if it happens to cover "commercial" information or "intellectual property". That means only scraps of that human right remain.

Since the concept of "intellectual property" is incoherent, any argument, policy, law or treaty which is formulated in terms of that is almost certainly bad.

Urgent: Internet
2 February 2012

US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose plans for massive US surveillance of the Internet.

Also sign this petition.

Urgent: Breast Cancer
2 February 2012

In the US: rebuke the foundation, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, for bowing to right-wing pressure and cutting funds for Planned Parenthood to do breast-cancer screening.

Here is more information about the situation.

Since those right-wing groups are against women's rights in general, women's death from breast cancer doesn't bother them. Especially when they are poor women.

Foreclosure Fraud
1 February 2012

Why so much foreclosure fraud? One explanation is that banks began using mortgages as tokens for short-term trading, and in order to do so, they had to violate legal requirements for assigning mortgages.

Limits To Growth
1 February 2012

The conclusions of The Limits to Growth, that economic growth cannot continue indefinitely, are being ignored by the world.

In the short term, economic growth can end the fiscal crisis. But in the long term we need to adapt to a world without growth. I think that stabilizing and then decreasing the population is the way to do it without poverty.

Medical Research Access
1 February 2012

Multinational publisher Elsevier paid New York congresscrony Carolyn Maloney to introduce a bill to hamper public access to medical research.

Taliban Prisoners
1 February 2012

NATO's Taliban prisoners think that the Taliban will oust Karzai after NATO troops leave. I share their expectations.

The Taliban are tyrants, and not only towards women, but Karzai's corrupt regime cannot hold on to anything, and there is no use propping it up forever by perpetual war.

US Drones Pakistan
1 February 2012

Amnesty International says the US must disclose its policies about drone attacks in Pakistan.

Obama admitted that these are being used to attack in Pakistan, won't allow any discussion about the details, and expects us to take his word that the US is not killing lots of bystanders.

Occupy Retrospection
1 February 2012

A comparison between Occupy in 2011 and ACT UP in the 80s shows the US is systematically squeezing the right to protest, and aiming a military response at dissent.

Naomi Wolf calls it the beginning of a civil war.

Pipeline Safety
1 February 2012

Intentional safety flaws in inspection equipment lead predictably to avoidable leaks in oil pipelines, and this will apply to Keystone XL too.

Bahrain
1 February 2012

Obama wants to sell military equipment to Bahrain, which has used military equipment against protesters during the past year.

Obama's big miitary sale to Bahrain was blocked by Congress, so he has split it into many small sales in order to bypass Congress.

Obama Prepares To War
1 February 2012

Obama seems to be preparing for war with Iran. His intelligence director openly accused Iran of plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US, which seemed implausible from the outset. I don't think the Iranian regime would scruple to kill someone, but this assassination would onlyt have done it harm.

Obama Skulks
1 February 2012

Obama ducked responsibility for the attempt to extradite and prosecute Richard O'Dwyer for running a search engine in the UK. He says he played no role in choosing that particular target.

That may well be true, but why did the Department of Justice decide to pursue someone like O'Dwyer? Is it because Obama appointed several lawyers from the music and movie companies to important jobs in that department? If so, he is directly responsible for the wrong, even if he did not choose the victim.

His use of the propaganda term "intellectual property" instead of "copyright" is further propaganda for their side.

Indian Thug
1 February 2012

An Indian border thug beat up a smuggler, and got a medal for it.

Video proof means the government cannot pretend ignorance.

Iran Democracy
1 February 2012

Iran's phony democracy is imprisoning union organizers.

Ultimately there is not much difference between the Islamic Republic and fascism (which Mussolini said could have been called "corporatism").

Human Rights Watch
1 February 2012

Human Rights Watch: Israel's supreme court has abandoned the defense of human rights. This is because the right wing planned to put an extremist "settler" onto the court.

Tasered Protester
1 February 2012

DC thugs tasered a protester who shouted at them. They told him to walk away, which he did, and they followed him and attacked him.

Thug Department
1 February 2012

New Yorkers in the South Bronx rallied against the New York Thug Department's practice of searching people on the street without specific cause.

Note how the thugs create excuses to arrest people that they are beating up.

Destroy America
1 February 2012

A UK resident citizen who joked he would "destroy America" (UK slang for have a party) and "dig up Marilyn Monroe") in LA was treated as a real terrorist and blocked from entering the US.

They even searched his girlfriend's baggage for shovels.

When US border agents tell us how much they do to keep us "safe", I am sure they will count him as one of the people they protected us from.

This reminds me of when the Australian TV producer tried to go to LA to "shoot a pilot", and the border numbskulls thought he meant he would kill someone.

China US Politics
1 February 2012

China bashing is cheap talk for US politicians, but it is really the US government that's responsible for the policies that enabled sweatshop workers (some in China) to replace well-paid jobs (often in the US).

Urgent: STOCK Act
1 February 2012

US citizens: support the STOCK act, which would make it illegal for congresscritters and senators to do stock trading based on their knowledge of upcoming legislative action.

Egypt Employees
31 January 2012

Employees in Egypt of the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute have taken refuge in the US embassy.

I would not describe the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute as working for democracy and human rights. At least, not always. Sometimes they are instruments of US policy.

For instance, they were willing to monitor the election in Honduras, where the violence of the coup-installed government made a fair election impossible even if votes were counted correctly, even as all other international organizations refused to grant the election that legimacy. This clearly reflected US support for the coup.

However, if there is anyone in Egypt that the US would support, it is the generals that closed these organizations. Given their past and present relations with the US, I suspect this is a political ploy.

Euro-zone
31 January 2012

The Euro-zone has agreed to tie its hands, so that its only response to recession will be austerity and more recession.

Fadhila Mubarak
31 January 2012

Amnesty International calls Fadhila Mubarak a prisoner of conscience. She was sentenced to prison in Bahrain for the crime of protesting.

FDA Spies
31 January 2012

The FDA spied on the email of whistleblowers who told Congress about wrongdoing inside the agency.

It is legitimate, in general, for the FDA monitor what is done with FDA computers. But it must not harass or fire whistleblowers no matter how it finds out about them.

Movie Pirates
31 January 2012

Today's movie pirates are the 6 major companies that dominate Hollywood.

The page segues into a series of rants, but the first part is interesting. One flaw is that it uses the term "intellectual property", which promotes the spin of the companies that it criticizes.

US Troops
31 January 2012

Military Secretary Panetta had trouble listing all the countries in which US troops are now fighting. And Congress has never authorized most of these conflicts.

US Drones Iraq
31 January 2012

Iraqis, in government and on the street, are outraged over unauthorized US drone flights.

The Pentagon invites students to develop better drones.

If any of these ideas is applicable to civilian life, they won't do us much good since the Pentagon will own them.

It would be good for people to protest this program to the schools involved.

Pesticides
31 January 2012

The pesticide imidacloprid is suspected of causing the collapse of honey bee hives. In an experiment, it tripled the probability that bees got infected by a fungus.

Gaddafi
31 January 2012

Libyan opponents of Gaddafi will sue a senior UK spy official over the UK's role in kidnapping them and delivering them to Gaddafi.

Urgent: Indians
31 January 2012

Indians: write to your state's chief minister to oppose the BRAI bill that would end states' power to block GMOs.

Human Rigths Watch
31 January 2012

Human Rigths Watch: Indonesia should drop charges against Papuan activists, and stop punishing political activity as "treason".

Some were accused of reading a declaration of independence for West Papua, which was made from 1961. Can anyone tell me what country West Papua declared independence from? Was it Indonesia, or the Netherlands?

The declaration of independence they read was for indepenendence from the Netherlands.