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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
My intention is to make links only to publicly accessible, stable URLs. If you find a link to a page that requires subscription, please report that as you would report any other broken link.
The new, more infectious variety of Covid-19 is probably already spreading in the US. That means that the precautions which were sufficient in the past to prevent an increase in cases will be insufficient from now on.
We will need stronger precautions, more firmly enforced.
China has jailed Hong Kong dissidents who tried to flee by boat, after a hasty purported trial.
What's so bad about Neera Tanden.
New cars collect a lot of data about the people inside the car, even aside from their use of the navigation system and phones. For instance, with the accelerometer it may be possible to reconstruct the car's trajectory, even if you disable the GPS.
The data can be used for solving nonpolitical crimes. They can also be used for repression. Laws about how the data can be used are ineffective for resisting repression. Drivers must have the option to disable these systems in their cars.
Argentina has legalized abortion.
I showed my support for this cause during my last visit to Argentina.
*Uganda opposition candidate Bobi Wine says he and team under arrest.*
Israel is vaccinating its citizens at the rate of 2% per day. At that rate, everyone can get both doses in under 4 months.
However, Israel has no plan to vaccinate the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, even though as occupying power it is responsible for protecting them.
Many union members voted for the wrecker, because he said he would oppose offshoring of work, provide funds for jobs, and so on. Now that he has proved that was bogus, maybe progressives can win their support.
Why the Democratic Party has become the US Conservative Party.
Progressives are a small but growing faction within it. Our choices are to vote for progressive Democrats, or the Green Party.
Biden could declare a deportation moratorium as an opportunity to straighten out the horrible things about the US immigration system.
I have a feeling that to change the sadistic culture of ICE it will be necessary to abolish ICE and set up a new agency with different personnel.
The Schengen zone has been very efficient at preventing Africans from getting in and staying there. The result is that they can only go by sea, and many die there.
I agree that the correct solution for this problem is for the powerful countries to stop messing up Africa to enrich the rich. However, Africans must play their part by reducing their population growth and stabilizing their population. (Every part of Earth must stabilize its population, then reduce it to a sustainable level by the one humane method — fewer births.)
A survey with Covid-19 antibody tests found that 5% of the people in Wuhan caught Covid-19. That is 500,000 people, ten times the number of acknowledged cases.
US citizens: call on senators to support Sanders in filibustering the military spending bill to demand passage of $2,000 stimulus payments to Americans.
*Why Senators Must Reject Avril Haines for [Director of National Intelligence].*
The Massachusetts legislature overrode Governor Baker's veto of a bill to reduce obstacles to abortion.
Those obstacles are in laws whose enforcement has been suspended due to the Roe v Wade decision. The bill has been considered now because of the danger that the right-wing extremist majority on the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v Wade and make those laws spring back into enforcement.
Massachusetts abortion law continues to have a major flaw, though it will bite much less often than before. It protects pregnant girls under 16 from the trauma that an abortion sometimes causes, by imposing on them the unending life difficulties that having a baby at that age almost always causes. What in the world are those legislators thinking?
The younger a girl is, the more important it is that nothing hamper her access to an abortion.
Governor Baker is a "moderate" Republican. He does not champion outrageous changes for the worse. Rather, he tries to retard and reduce every change for the better that Massachusetts tries to make. I hope we get a better governor in 2022.
* The Biden Administration must take executive action to promote universal access to safe water for every person.*
Varoufakis: 2020 showed that capitalism — in the sense of a competitive market in which investors are compelled to try to outdo each other, and this makes more wealth — is dead. They no longer need to compete.
The article also presents several other crucial lessons.
In the 1890s, the US suffered from similar concentration of industry, but we had enough democracy to decide to eliminate it. The problem now is that the rich choose the officials, too.
*Calling Covid-19 Crisis a 'Wake-Up Call,' WHO Experts Warn Next Pandemic Could Be Even Worse.*
If it is worse, we won't have trouble convincing people to take precautions. Rather, the problem will be the danger to essential workers. That could cause collapse.
Georgia Republicans have closed some polling places (for early voting) in black neighborhoods but kept them all open in white neighborhoods.
It is impossible to convince a nonbiased person that this is not discriminatory. Republicans must be planning to argue that they can lawfully practice racist voter-suppression and no one can stop them.
There is no basis for federal prosecution of the thugs that killed Tamir Rice as he was holding an air rifle.
One article argues that there is enough proof that they lied and they could be prosecuted for that. I don't know whether that is so, but if it is, they definitely should be prosecuted for lying.
Another article says nothing about that point, but explains why the federal government could not prosecute them for the killing.
This is an instance of a repeating pattern in which white thugs shoot blacks after making erroneous snap judgments that they are a threat. Snap judgments are often erroneous, thus many of these blacks are killed for no legitimate reason. This amounts to an aspect of systemic racism — but it is hard to come up with a step in of making a snap judgment that could be defined as a crime. The whole process takes place inside a person's mind.
Defining some action that the thug is required carry out before shooting someone could slow down the snap judgment, thus providing an opportunity to think, and to decide not to shoot. It might also provide a basis for prosecuting a thug who fails to take that action. "Turn on your body camera and study the person and the scene until it clicks, which it does after three seconds" might be a suitable action to require.
The killing of Tamir Rice is an example of another recurrent pattern: losing a piece of crucial information in the dispatch process. I have an idea for how to make that dangerous problem less frequent.
Currently those pieces of crucial information are treated as miscellaneous details. When such a thing is dropped, it does not leave a gap — there is nothing to tell the thugs that they are missing something they needed to know.
Suppose any information suggesting "Person in question is probably not threatening or hurting anyone" were represented by use of a different dispatch code. This distinction could not be lost, because it is impossible to drop the dispatch code, and changing it would go against all habit.
This would not eliminate the tendency to misjudge based on unconscious racism, but could make it happen less often.
The UK can no longer block the EU from moving towards a federal democracy.
Nonetheless, it will be a big struggle to avoid enshrining the power of the Euro-zone banks to convert national disasters into perpetual national debt peonage.
The US could have arranged to make and distribute Covid-19 vaccine much faster, for an acceptable extra cost.
*Dr. James Phillips worked at Walter Reed hospital and condemned the spreader-in-chief for doing a publicity drive-by outside the hospital, because it endangered the other people with him in the vehicle. Immediately afterward he was fired, but since his job was subcontracted, it is not clear who fired him.*
As usual, subcontracting work causes a lack of accountability. We need laws to make subcontracting so expensive that businesses will only rarely use it.
The US has around 1600 highly polluted sites in the Superfund's National Priority List. Almost 1000 of them are vulnerable to leaking pollution into the environment in the case of extreme weather, making it urgent to clean them up.
The US should impose a tax on sale of any fossil fuel, to pay for faster cleanup
There is now a campaign to encourage the sharing of seeds in freedom.
As in the software field, the amoral term "open source" predominates, but the London Freedom Seed Bank talks about sharing "freedom seeds".
China has decided to split up Alibaba.
It seems to be easier for China to make such a decision than the US. That is a sign of too much deregulation of business in the US.
* By focusing more on battling inequality, new research shows, the United States could significantly improve American life expectancy.*
*Covid-19 Exposed the Urgency for a Right to Housing.*
Protesters continue demanding the that Marshall County, Alabama, remove a monument to the Confederacy (and the Confederate flag) from its court house.
The excuse a counterprotester offered for keeping the monument is not valid. US monuments to the Confederacy were put up long after the Civil War, as a political statement. This one says, "Marshall County supports racism and Jim Crow." If the county means that, it deserves reproach. If the county does not mean that, it should take down the monument (and flag) to stop saying that.
I think it is a mistake to bring John Marshall into the matter. He had nothing to do with putting up the monument.
What should we say about John Marshall?
Marshall established judicial review by the Supreme Court as a legal principle of the US government, ending previous dispute about the question. He also owned slaves.
The former was a great contribution to justice for the United States, indeed for the whole world. The latter was an instance of a widespread unjust practice. Slavery overall was a great evil, but Marshall's part in it was not of special importance.
When an evil practice is the usual way of life, to reject it is to be a hero, but failure to be a hero does not make one a monster. Those who particularly championed slavery deserve particular condemnation even today, but there is no reason to focus on slavery when judging Marshall.
That is also my view regarding other moral issues, including the issue of software freedom. Developing and promoting nonfree software is a widespread continuing injustice. I condemn those who have championed it. Because it is not a thing of the past, I press people to recognize that it is wrong, and I urge them to stop developing and stop using nonfree software. But because it is a widespread practice, I do not revile people or refuse to be friends with them just because they use nonfree software, or even because they are employed to develop nonfree software. I'd be going too far if I did that.
Meanwhile, to the extent that people resist nonfree software, I express appreciation for their resistance, even if it is just a little. Because that is a start.
Australia is set to increase its coal extraction in the coming decade.
The mine owners defend mining with willful blindness, such as, "This mine is a tiny fraction of the whole world's greenhouse gas emissions, so it is not a problem." By applying that argument to every mine, we would conclude that we should calm down and let fossil fuels cause a mass extinction and destroy civilization — which proves the argument is fallacious.
The article presents that argument without refuting it, but that is to be expected from a centrist medium such as CNN.
The border thugs' union acted as a political supporter of the bully.
*Koch Industries Is Top Corporate Donor to [Republican Congresscritters] Who Will Try to Overturn Democracy.*
Biden's nominee to manage federal spending, Neera Tanden, runs a "centrist" think tank that aims to please the corporations that fund it. His nominee to manage foreign policy, Antony Blinken, moves weapons through the revolving door.
An article about how Covid-19 spread so much in California tries to hold Governor Newsom responsible for everything — including the ill will of people who were angry about inconvenience, and the sabotage carried out by lunatic Republicans radicalized by the wrecker.
Those are not his fault.
The article tries to have it both ways by bemoaning the unpleasantness of measures to reduce the spread of Covid-19 even as it criticizes Newsom for not establishing enough of them.
I think that the state should have cracked down hard on officials and businesses that worked against sanitary measures. For instance, the state could have passed a law to allow removal and replacement of defiant sheriffs, and then immediately replaced every one of them.
* International convention to stop richer countries exporting contaminated material for recycling could mean a cleaner ocean in five years.*
*Fractures to [giant] Antarctic iceberg reduce risk to South Georgia wildlife.*
I continue to believe we should develop a way to break up a large icebergs so as to avoid that danger — unless it is inevitable that such a berg would fracture naturally.
Tony Chung, of Hong Kong, has been sentenced to 4 months in prison for throwing China's flag on the ground.
After that he will probably be sentenced to a much longer prison term for calling for Hong Kong's independence.
Authoritarians in the US used to punish people for burning the American flag, until the Supreme Court ruled that burning the flag is protected political speech and may not be criminalized.
A Hong Kong expat, who visited there, reports that people continue to find low-profile ways to resist.
I wonder whether these will amount to more than a pretend opposition.
Heavy rains into arms of the sea can reduce salinity; past a certain point, that makes dolphins' skin badly sick. This can lead to fatal infections.
Can we develop an ultrasound transmitter that will tell dolphins to flee to the open sea?
*Spain to keep registry of people who refuse Covid vaccine.*
That seems like a plan for harsh, secret retribution. It is one thing to check people, in certain situations, for proof that they have been vaccinated. It is another to check specifically for refusal.
Refusing vaccination is one thing, and misinforming patients is another.
*Shield some and let others carry on? This Covid theory is dangerous, and foolish.*
It also amounts to telling the more vulnerable people that they are effectively prisoners in solitary confinement until the pandemic is over.
*Judge orders Georgia counties to halt voter purge ahead of Senate runoff.*
Republicans grasp for every excuse to stop poor people from voting.
*Ro Khanna Applauds 19 House Democrats Who Joined Him in Voting No on Military Budget.*
I applaud them all too.
The drama queen signed the relief bill.
In the short term, this will help millions of Americans who are on the brink. In the long term, the copyright repression provisions will enable the copyright industry to ruin thousands of Americans every year and bully millions.
Whether this bill is good or bad, overall, I am unable to say.
By the way, I am aware that this drama queen is male. But it would be sexist to limit the term to females. I think that we should recognize drama queens regardless of their gender.
The seed business is highly concentrated, and its success with plant variety monopolies has eliminated most of the varieties farmers used to plant.
Funded efforts to produce new varieties are useful, but governments can fund that without restricting use of the results.
It's a shame that the campaigners have fixed their attention on the amoral term "open source" rather than on the free software movement.
*Biden accuses [the wrecker's] administration of obstructing his national security team.*
Sabotage Я Us, says the wrecker.
*Indian police charge army officer with killing three Kashmir civilians.*
There must have been hundreds of Kashmiris killed or maimed by Indian soldiers without justification. What puzzles me is that this killer went to so much effort to pretend.
England (not the whole UK) will prohibit supermarkets from putting fattening products at checkout isles to tempt undisciplined shoppers into buying them.
I am in favor of this. It won't stop you from buying those products if you really want to, but if your preference is not to buy them, this will help you stick to that.
Awards for the worst customer "service" nastiness in the UK.
Has anyone done this for the US?
There is a small but growing Covid-19 outbreak near Sydney. In its spread, unidentified people, probably with no symptoms, have played a significant role.
Could a contact-tracing app identify the unidentified intermediaries? It could, if it worked reliably. I've seen arguments the apps, knowing nothing but bluetooth-measured proximity, could not distinguish real transmission opportunities from large numbers of other pseudo-opportunities.
The worst 10 weather disasters of this year cost $150bn in insured damage. The total damage is much more. 400 billion? One can only guess.
This is just the beginning. By 2030 it may be several trillion a year. By 2050, the sum will be much larger, except that money will no longer be a meaningful measure of it, as the disasters will ruin people's lives.
Measuring damages in money is useful when society can repair them and the cost of said repair is small compared with overall economic activity. When the damage is enormous and irreparable, money ceases to measure it. If a farm's crops are lost one year, their value can be estimated. When the farm (along with thousands of others) must be abandoned because agriculture in that area is no longer viable, is it not so easy to estimate the cost to society of the resulting scarcity. If the shortfall of food can be filled by buying it on the world market, the cost of that can be determined. If it is impossible to purchase that food, what then is the cost of the resulting hunger? It has to be measured in lives.
The wrecker has made a rule that products made in Israeli colonies in Palestine's territory should be labeled as "made in Israel". This is clearly a step towards accepting Israel's annexation of the West Bank.
Will Biden have the courage to undo the unjust concessions that the wrecker made to Israel? I think he will find that too controversial.
Chinese are objecting to face recognition, and suing companies for imposing it.
Erdoğan is trying to crush out the strong-spirited opposition party HDP by arresting thousands of its members.
Some of the patients of the first Covid-19 wave are still suffering symptoms that make them unable to work, almost unable to get through daily activities.
When they can get a doctor's attention, no one knows what treatments to try.
The private US medical system can't cope with the chronic illnesses that Covid-19 will leave behind in many of the people who catch it.
It is also lousy at trying to prevent the chronic diseases that make people vulnerable to a bad case of Covid-19.
An oil-sheikh from Abu Dhabi bought a Jerusalem football team, sending right-wing extremist Israeli fans into fits, while reinvigorating the Israeli fans who oppose their bigotry.
How the wrecker prevented photos showing what US hospitals look like when they are overfull.
Facebook will move to the US a large amount of profit that it has kept in Ireland(and paid hardly any tax on).
It will pay insufficient tax on these profits in the US, too, but more than in Ireland.
The article uses the bogus term "intellectual property", which is always confusing and vague. The concrete referent in this case is not very concrete. It refers to artificial excuses that Facebook has created to make various parts of Facebook pay royalties to the part in Iceland. This is how Facebook moves its profits to Iceland where they are not taxed much if at all.
*Throughout history Britain’s ruling class has created crisis after crisis – just like now.*
*The Guardian view on Britain out of the EU: a treasure island for rentiers.*
Rep. Clyburn says his investigation has found evidence of a pressure campaign to undermine the CDC's public information about Covid-19.
This would have been part of the wrecker's effort to spread the sickness as much as possible.
Brian Murphy, official in charge of intelligence at the Department of Harshness and Sadism, testified he was told to lie and blame "Far Left groups" more than they deserved, and blame white supremacists less than they deserved, regarding violence in protests last summer.
He also said that Kirstjen Nielsen, who was the head of that department, falsified this in her testimony to Congress.
*New study links psychopathic tendencies to racial prejudice and right-wing authoritarianism.*
There is previous evidence for this relationship.
(satire) *5,000-Foot Ball Of Discarded Packaging Material Barrels Across Nation Consuming Everything In Path.*
*After Dismembering [Jamal Khashoggi], [Salafi] Arabia Goes on a PR Spree.*
US politics analyzed as a clash of two fantasies, disconnected from reality.
I think the article's statement that the conman only pretended to set up an authoritarian system is too strong. His systematic efforts to destroy all checks on his power and corrupt agencies to do his will did succeed to the point of overturning the election (not yet, at least), but when he fired inspectors general and suffered no punishment, and fired heads of departments until he got one that would do his dirty work, he made himself above the law.
Detroit is suing BLM protesters saying that protest is a "conspiracy".
Hundreds of thousands of migrating birds, coming from the north, died over the US southwest because they were undernourished for a long time.
Bolsonaro plans to build a road through a national park in Amazonia.
This will inevitably speed deforestation — and there is only a small way to go before the entire Amazon forest dies and becomes grasslands.
A Columbus thug shot Andre Hill, who was wielding a phone at the time. Hill died later that day. Hill was black, so racism may have played a role in the thug's haste to shoot.
The killer did not activate his body camera, but it saved a video anyway. The chief of the department excoriated the killer for wildly disregarding rules, and fired him.
What can be done to prevent other thugs from killing other (usually black) men? Prosecuting the killer is called for, if his action included a crime. But that doesn't seem to teach thugs much of a lesson.
Is it possible to use empathy teach the other cops not to be thugs? They could meet with Hill's relatives, to listen to them and empathize with their loss. Then the department could show them how the killer's unacceptable handling of the situation was to blame for that loss.
Does anyone know whether this approach is effective?
To carry out an autogolpe, officials would have to take steps which, legally, they don't have grounds to do. That won't necessarily stop them.
In November we saw Republican state officials almost unanimously refuses to throw the election. They willingly make elections unfair, but drew the line at disregarding the actual votes.
In January the matter will depend on Republican federal officials, many of them chosen specifically by the wrecker himself. Have they got enough loyalty to constitutional government to disobey him?
One of them will be the new acting attorney general.
With only 25 days to go, he may be able to avoid helping by stalling.
The Green Valley-Sahuarita Samaritans report that the US deportation thugs had a warrant to raid their aid supplies on Christmas Eve.
*Digital Watchdog Says Facebook Behind 'Intentional Decrease' in Traffic to Pro-Palestinian Pages.*
Republicans don't deserve to be "met in the middle."
They will deserve forgiveness when they apologize, if they demonstrate that is sincere.
Things Biden can do by executive order to reduce the oppression of the US justice system.
A black MD had a bad case of Covid-19 and had to fight to get proper treatment, even to get examined to see what Covid-19 her problems were. She posted, saying that black patients are often experience this.
Subsequently she was hospitalized for a couple of weeks, then died from Covid-19. The obvious question is whether she would have survived if given proper treatment in the earlier period. I have no way of guessing the answer, but it is obvious that when blacks systematically get worse treatment, some of them will die as a result.
*The IHRA censors Palestinians by design, not by accident.*
Some pro-occupation activists push the legal adoption of the IHRA's definition of antisemitism with the specific intention of shutting down Palestinians BDS campaign. They claim that even using the expression "Israeli apartheid" is "antisemitism".
That definition, which was designed for data analysis, is not suitable
as a criterion for judging
a statement as antisemitic or not.
Biden hesitates to believe he has the authority to cancel student debt
without Congress.
I am not a lawyer; I am not the one to judge whether the president has
the authority to do this. But lawyers argue for that, and if it is
plausible, he should try it.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, will post very general reminders on fuel pumps
that burning fossil fuels is dangerous.
Asking individuals to conserve is inadequate to address the problem;
it takes the government to mobilize a country for changes such as are
needed. It takes a lot more than the feeble efforts made under Obama,
which have now been reversed by the wrecker.
However, these frequent reminders of the danger we live under may help
bring about the necessary action.
Two years ago, there was an upsurge in use of less gentle-sounding terms
such as "global heating", but media seem to have backed down. Not me!
Since 1990, US companies have found it easy to crush unions, so it is
useful to teach Americans about the decades of struggle that led the
labor movement to victory under the New Deal.
Will the US prosecute the conman when Biden becomes president?
I agree that failure to do so will confirm that presidents are above
the law, and encourage a rerun.
However, in an era when Republicans will let a Republican president
get away with any sort of corruption and undermining, being able to
prosecute per afterward if there is an afterward is not enough
protection for democracy.
DNA barcoding has revealed that what we thought was one species can be
ten or more visually indistinguishable species. This means a lot more
species that we're in the process of driving to extinction.
Covid-19 tests the solidarity and organization of a society.
Those that have organized well to protect the health of all
have done well. Those like the US and UK, where those who dominate
do not care about the rest, have suffered terrible infestations.
Prime Minister Ardern has moved the Labour Party of New Zealand to the right.
She has done a good job of dealing with crises, but she is denying
the party's purpose by not pushing to help the poor.
It's not as bad there as in the US. At least New Zealand has a national
medical system.
Calling on Miguel Cardona, if he becomes Secretary of Education,
to block facial recognition surveillance.
The conman pardoned someone who had taken in a billion dollars from
Medicare fraud.
Perhaps seeing another conman punished tugs at his heartstrings.
Here is a good proposed first step towards protecting student privacy
by preventing some sorts of software snooping.
What is missing?
Congress is considering a law to establish blanket copyright repression
over the internet, and mandate copyright filters that will err on the side
of censorship.
Many poor Americans live in "pharmacy deserts"; there is no pharmacy
in walking distance. Being poor, they often don't have cars.
Many of them have grave medical conditions — in the US medical
system, that could be why you are poor.
Someday soon, when there's a Covid-19 vaccine available for the, they
will have trouble getting vaccinated.
The wrecker could still try to mount an autogolpe to prevent the handover
of power to a new president. He is setting up personnel to do it.
However, he is also making arrangements that assume he will be replaced
on Jan 20. Maybe he has given up, or will give up, on the autogolpe.
Georgia is shutting early voting sites in some places where many
blacks and hispanics live. It looks like voter suppression.
Germany has decided to consider the question further rather than
attach missiles to its drones.
*The two parties don't even try anymore to forge a public consensus on
what we need to spend on and what we should tax. Neither party
seemingly assesses long-term spending needs, nor proposes a tax
structure to align with those needs.*
The wrecker is still talking about starting a war against Iran during
the remaining time he has the power to do so.
Varoufakis presents his diagnosis of the global economy
and his suggestions for a better one.
Alas, he can't see a way it could be done. I can't either.
The US should base its thoughts about war on the self-inflicted
disasters of Vietnam and Iraq, not on victory over Hitler.
*The Covid crisis has shown how privatisation corrodes democracy.*
*Not only has outsourcing failed citizens during the pandemic — it makes
states less responsive and less accountable.*
Bogus Johnson got serious in the last three weeks and negotiated a trade
deal with the EU in the nick of time.
This surprised me. His refusal to confront the disagreements led me
to think he wanted the UK to exit with no deal. It is now clear that
he did not really want that.
So why did he keep proposing impossible solutions and disregarding the
importance of the problem? I don't know, but my guess is that until
earlier this month he thought he could make the problem go away by
refusing to acknowledge it. And he thought the EU negotiators were
bluffers like him.
Here's what the Guardian says about this.
The SolarWinds crack gained access to companies that service
infrastructure such as turbines. The crackers may be able to wreck
machinery,
much as the US did to Iran's uranium centrifuges some years ago.
No one in the US knows whether they are in a position to shut off, or
wreck, critical infrastructure.
I've said for many years that we should not connect such thing to the internet.
*Democratic senators call on Biden to adopt measures to forbid some
practices that nourish corruption.*
New York State has temporarily banned biometric surveillance of students in
schools.
Biometric surveillance should be forbidden except for specific circumstances,
and those exceptions should be strictly regulated.
Biden has named Bruce Reed, who wants to cut Social Security, to a
White House position, deputy chief of staff.
I don't know whether that position will give Reed much of an opportunity
to attack Social Security and other programs to help non-rich Americans,
but that Biden would even consider such a person is bad.
Biden praised the stimulus bill as a "model" despite not doing enough
to help non-rich Americans.
Maybe that's what Biden means by "bipartisanship" — praise the right wing
for not being as bad as one could imagine.
As usual, Sanders shows what our model should be.
*Number of Journalists Murdered in Retaliation for Their Work More Than
Doubled in 2020.*
Videos show Boston thugs attacking BLM protesters and spewing hatred
at them.
The hatred is important because it tends to preclude acting like a
police office rather than a thug.
I wonder whether the people who started the "violent protests" were
real protesters, or right-wing provocateurs. We know that right-wing
provocateurs did this in Minneapolis.
The provocateurs succeeded in leading real protesters to go berserk,
and that may have poisoned the public's perception of the protests.
I have no specific information, but we know that right-wing extremists
communicate around the country and even internationally. If it was
effective in Minneapolis, they would surely have tried it in other
cities.
*Biden’s Drug Czar Must Be Someone Willing to Diverge From Our Country’s
Failed Drug War.*
I think we should treat any addictive recreational drug as dangerous.
For instance, taking enough alcohol to make you tipsy is risking that
the habit will develop, gradually over years, into alcoholism. (This
does not happen to everyone, but you don't know how it will affect
you.) And don't touch an opioid at all unless it is for physical pain
you can't bear.
Drugs cause real problems, but prohibition doesn't fix them; rather,
it swaps them for worse problems. Prohibition of alcohol only built
the Mafia, and prohibition of opioids makes them more dangerous.
We should to treat drug use problems as medical problems and give the
people afflicted treatment, not imprisonment.
Restoring the soul of the Democratic Party — will it stand for anything?
The wrecker's last-minute rule will enable restaurants to cut the pay
of their low-paid workers.
An off-duty Boston thug drove an official thug vehicle through a red
light, into Anne-Marie Castor's car, totaling it and injuring her.
The city has refused to pay for it, so she replaced it herself, but the
result is that she can't afford food.
Will someone get these marauders off our streets?
*EU Ramps Up Fight Against Pollution With Ban on Plastic Waste Exports to
Poorer Countries.*
Keeping the plastic waste in the EU does not directly reduce the harm
the plastic does, but it will pressure the EU to adopt policies to
generate less plastic waste.
Israel's "Nation State" law, which legislates discrimination against
non-Jewish citizens (which includes most Arabs), is also being used
to discriminate against non-orthodox Jews.
Right-wing extremist senators are pushing the wrecker to submit the
Paris agreement and the non-nuclear deal with Iran to the Senate as
treaties, the idea being that the Senate will reject them and then
Biden would somehow be unable to reenter the US in them.
I am skeptical that this would deal a mortal blow to US participation
in those agreements — simply because officially approving them is not
crucial to making them effective.
What Iran wants is for the US to drop sanctions. If the president
drops sanction against Iran, Iran will comply with its side of the
deal. Whether the US continues in that policy is a political
question, as the wrecker has already shown. So Biden can drop the
sanctions, and Iran can limit its uranium enrichment, even if the
deal is not official.
As for the Paris agreement, all it does is require the US to make a
weak pledge to reduce emissions. Biden can do that even if the US
can't officially rejoin the Paris agreement.
However, survival requires the US to do a lot more than that. So
let's focus on getting a policy that meets the physical world
criterion.
Children in India suffer from lead poisoning because of lead compounds
used as coloring in the spices Indians use in everyday cooking.
Rep. Maloney, chair of the House Oversight Committee, is concerned
that the conman is destroying White House records without the
consultations that the law requires.
Thugs in South Carolina were searching for some teenage vandals at 4am
and saw Jethro DeVane peek out the door of his house to see what the
commotion was. A thug pointed a gun at his head and forced him to
stand outside naked.
DeVane must be incredibly youthful for his 71 years, if the thug
thought he was a teenager. Or maybe the darkness of his skin obscured
the signs of age.
The UK tested 1/4 of the population of Liverpool with a cheap, quick,
inaccurate Covid-19 test that misses a substantial fraction of the cases,
That test is not useful for demonstrating that someone is not infected
— though the best tests do not guarantee that — but it is useful for finding
many people who are infected. If the state takes appropriate action,
such as quarantining them and paying their salaries for that period,
it could greatly cut the spread of the disease.
US citizens: call your congresscritter and your senators to tell them
to
remove
the copyright and trademark changes from the Covid-19 relief bill.
The wrecker's veto, while surely intended for manipulation,
offers the chance to fix this. Let's seize the opportunity.
Why
the copyright repression of the CASE Act is so bad.
Increasing the relief payments would also be a good thing, but if the
wrecker were sincere about wanting that, he could have said so two
weeks ago and got it with much less fuss.
Russia will block US social media companies that mark Russian
government claims as dubious.
There is no way to prevent this. The only thing an honest company can
do is stop doing business with Russia. A dishonest company will cede
to Russia's pressure.
Of course, a similar situation exists in the US with regard to the
bullshitter's bullshitter.
Prominent Turkish editor Can Dündar, driven into exile by absurd
accusations of terrorism, has now been sentenced to a long prison term.
Fortunately Erdoğan is unable to imprison Dündar, but the prognosis for freedom
in Turkey is not very good.
Puerto Rico's creditors for its unpayable debt are about to impose
crushing, impossible taxes to pay the debt. This would leave almost
everyone there in penury.
*The [Tories] are pitting the white working class against black people.*
That's the standard distraction of the plutocratist right wing.
*Pollution killed nearly 1.7m people in India in 2019 – study.*
That is on the order of 1/10 of the total annual deaths in India.
*With Covid mutating, it's clearer than ever why we must eliminate this virus.*
The idea of letting Covid-19 run rampant until it produced herd
immunity was always nonsense — the US is demonstrating that it
implies lots of deaths along the way. But now we see that it won't
necessarily ever stop, if mutations produce strains that old immunity
doesn't protect against.
This also shows that we can't protect the population of one country
without protecting all countries. If one large population continues to
have Sar-Cov-2 circulating in it, it will generate mutant varieties
that will then spread world-wide.
Thus, we must make plans to vaccinate all populations and thus
eradicate the virus everywhere.
*Delayed Covid vaccines for poor countries 'will leave Europe
vulnerable for years'.*
US thugs get tremendous amounts of location surveillance data from
phone companies, and now have special analysis software to understand
the activities of many individuals.
A Pakistani human rights activist, living in exile in Canada, was found dead
while taking a walk. It seems likely she was murdered.
Balochistan has a strange situation. Balochis are a distinct ethnic
group and face persecution by the majority because they adhere to a
different sect of Islam. Some of them started a violent independence
movement, and the Pakistani state responds by violence against
Balochis based on suspicion.
The murderer in chief pardoned Blackwater mercenaries for the massacre
they committed in Iraq in 2007.
Congress has put copyright repression measures into the Covid relief
bill.
I greatly regret that I did not hear about Fight for the Future's
campaign until now. If I had, I would have supported it. Not that I
expect that would have given us victory, but at least I would have
done my part.
Copyright law is based on a balance, but not the one people usually
cite (between interests of readers and interests of writers). That is
a fundamental misunderstanding of the intended purpose of copyright.
The right balance is between the public's interest in promoting the
making of new works, and the public's interest in using existing
works.
Current copyright law is nowhere near giving the public the best
results, because it is designed to maximize the income and power
of the big companies that get most of the benefit of copyright.
It is an unjust law that deserves to be spat on, and those companies
deserve to be wiped out entirely.
The catch-all relief bill eliminates one repressive policy: denying aid to students based on criminal convictions.
Policies like that one compel anyone convicted once to endure a life
of poverty or crime or both. If we want people to get out of crime,
we must remove the artificial barriers that prevent it.
* The European court of human rights has ordered the immediate release of
the prominent Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş from prison in
Turkey.*
Calling on senators to vote against Biden's torture team, Avril Haines
and Mike Morell.
*Does Biden Really Understand That Trickle-Down Economics Is a Cruel Hoax?*
The US needs more public investment. That is what makes a country great.
We can get the money by taxing the rich, or by expanding the money supply
as far as the economy can use it.
Democratic primary voters, are you thinking of voting for a "moderate"
center-right Democrat because the progressive that stands for Medicare
for All is "not electable"? Yes they are.
On the contrary, if corporate Democrats set an uninspiring agenda,
that could give Republicans a big victory. It happened to Carter and
Obama.
Laura Poitras tells the US that by prosecuting journalists like
Assange under the Espionage Act, it threatens to prosecute other
journalists, including her.
As the article shows, that law is fundamentally unjust. We must
change it to protect whistleblowers, and the journalists like Poitras
that report their revelations.
(satire) *Russian [Crackers] Disappointed to Find U.S. Government Already
Disabled.*
*House Democrats Subpoena HHS and CDC Chiefs Over Alleged Political
Interference in Covid-19 Response.*
Progressive praise for some of Biden's economic advisor team.
(satire) *Humane Trap-And-Removal Program Sedates Tenants So They
Unconscious During Eviction.*
US Government Architecture Should Not Aim to be Fine Art
The stimulus package that Congress just passed is too small to keep
the economy going, too small to enable states to do their jobs.
Putin has given himself lifetime immunity from prosecution
no matter what crimes he might commit. And his children, too.
Boy, wouldn't the conman love this!
*It's vital we act now to suppress the new coronavirus variant* — but
is that still possible?
We know that this virus is not held back by borders. Since it is now
found in Italy and Denmark — and a similar strain in South Africa —
cutting off travel to Britain won't do the job. The UK and the EU and
South Africa would need to cut off all travel to any other parts of the
world, except under tightly controlled conditions. And that may not be
enough either.
The crucial question is whether the current vaccines work against
these mutant varieties. If they do, we can continue with vaccination
plans and eventually wipe out all varieties of the virus.
But if the current vaccines are inadequate against this strain, then
it is desperately important to limit its spread.
*When Is It Legal for My Kid To Walk Outside Without Me?*
It depends on the state; some states impose a reign of terror
on parents without a helicopter.
Rio de Janeiro's mayor, an ally of Bolsonaro, has been arrested for corruption.
Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, but the copyright on his writing
is still screwing people today, 90 years later.
This demonstrates the absurdity of the unjustified restrictions
imposed by copyright as it exists today.
I say we should shorten copyright to 10 years from the work's date of
publication. See https://gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-vs-community.html
for a long explanation of why.
*The brazen killing of a mother and her son at close range by an
off-duty officer has caused outrage in the Philippines and
reignited calls for reform of the country’s [thug] force.*
This implicates president Do-dirty because he encourages and
legitimizes wanton violence by thugs.
*How a string of failures by the British government helped Covid-19 to
mutate.*
A string of successes by the saboteur in chief may be enabling it to mutate even more in the US even as you read this.
The Eritrean army, invading Tigray, seized and conscripted Eritrean
refugees who had fled there.
Eritrea's conscription is basically condemnation to a life of servitude,
which is why so many people have fled from there.
Video of the death of Muhammad Muhaymin Jr in 2017 shows that thugs killed him
pretty much the way they killed George Floyd this year.
*Global food industry on course to drive rapid habitat loss.*
AOC: *"One major difference between GOP and Dems is that [Republicans]
leverage their right flank to gain policy concessions and generate
enthusiasm, while Dems lock their left flank in the basement [because]
they think that will make Republicans be nicer to them."*
In addition, we see that the Democratic leadership adopted a fool's
strategy to respond to Sen. Toomey's demand for a last-minute
concession: namely, to insist on the deal already made. This led,
unsurprisingly, to a "compromise" which was to give (in some rough
sense) half the concession that was demanded. Democrats have done
this foolish thing before.
If they were seriously ready to fight, they would have come back
demanding a concession of equal importance in the other direction.
Then the natural compromises would have been "both concessions" or
"neither concession."
Biden should reject the dogma of trickle-down, now packaged as "to make life easier for everyone, make the rich richer first", and start investing their money
in making our country better for everyone.
The more income you have, the more satisfied you tend to be with
economic inequality.
The article makes the error of equating "your income" with "how much
you earn." That is an error because, as we know, the rich mostly
don't "earn" all their income — but they try to claim they do.
Navalny says he tricked one of the agents involved in poisoning him
into explaining how it was done.
Here's a transcript of the call.
This is not necessarily the truth. For one thing, the agent could
have been lying.
A cash benefits pilot program in Indonesia was observed to reduce
deforestation in the areas where it was tried.
Academics that investigate connections between past slavery and existing UK
institutions and fortunes are experiencing politicized attacks.
This is part and parcel of right-wing disinformation.
The pandemic has hastened the elimination of jobs and their
replacement with low-paid precarious gig work which surveils and
oppresses workers and customers alike. This report is about Australia but I expect it is similar
in the US.
The real solution to this is a guaranteed income. However, we can help
make work activity less precarious by rejecting the gig platforms.
The food delivery companies parasitize restaurants so much that it can
drag them under. In Cambridge, Mass, I've seen signs on the street
that urge people to pick up the take-out food they order, rather than
asking using a gig platform to deliver it. The restaurant gets more
money from the former than from the latter, even though the customer
probably pays less. And if you pick up the order yourself, you can
pay cash and avoid even more surveillance.
In a store, you can reject the self-checkout machines, as I do. In
some stores, the self-checkout machines won't accept cash, which is
another reason to refuse to use them. But even where the machines do
accept cash, I refuse to use them because they should hire more humans
instead.
If we use the self-checkout machines, they will reduce staffing. If
we don't use the self-checkout machines, they will increase staffing.
So I decided to be the first to refuse. You can be the second!
Mark Flessner, Chicago's head lawyer, resigned, and it seems to be
related to the thugs' mistaken raid on Anjanette Young's house, in
which they handcuffed her naked and wouldn't let her cover herself.
(And wrecked the door of her house.)
The article does not specify why he resigned, but it looks like the
city's lawyers were trying to prevent her at all costs from
demonstrating what had happened to her, trying to thwart justice.
Even if the head lawyer did not specifically tell the other lawyers
what to do about this case, it was his job to teach them what values
and goals should guide their work for the city.
Maybe the feeling of responsibility for what the other lawyers did
impelled him to resign. If so, that is very honorable by US
standards.
Some things that Biden could do to make US elections more fair
even if Republicans still hold the Senate.
Sweden's initial success in keeping Covid-19 down without banning
activities has turned to failure,
disappointing many US and British advocates of pursuing herd immunity.
However, Sweden never pursued herd immunity. Sweden tried to keep the
spread slow without strict measures. To pursue herd immunity means
trying to spread the disease faster (which is what the spreader cult
does), and Sweden never did that.
Everyone: call on AT&T, Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike, Procter &
Gamble, and Uber to stop funding right-wing politicians, especially those
opposed to abortion rights.
*Hospital CEOs Have Gotten Rich Cutting Staff and Supplies. Now They’re Not Ready for the Next Wave.*
Should the UK state that Iran is using Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
as a hostage?
Taking hostages is a great crime, and it is a mistake to pay a ransom
to free them. However, the money Iran demands would not be a ransom.
The money is rightfully Iran's and was all along. So the UK should
pay it. With luck Iran will then free the hostages.
The Environmental Protection Agency regulated phosphogypsum strictly
because of its radioactive atoms, and prohibited using it to make
roads. Now the Environmental Poisoning Agency wants to permit making
radioactive roads.
Pfizer participated in the campaign to make the WTO impose patents
worldwide, including patents on drugs. Now it cites that plutocatist
coup as a "principle" that it would be unthinkable to reject.
My view is that we should eliminate patents entirely, and most
especially eliminate them from medicine, agriculture and software.
The article has a confusion because it uses the term "intellectual
property".
That is a catch-all term for several unrelated laws
(patent law being one), so sometimes the article is talking about patents
and sometimes it is implicitly talking about other things as well.
The CIA has been directing and managing Afghan murder teams.
The teams carry out various sorts of violence, including kidnapping,
mutilation and murder. Sometimes they attack schools and kill the
children.
For a Chinese "security" executive at Zoom, "security" meant the security of
the Chinese regime.
He reported on users to China, and snooped on meetings. If they
discussed the Tien An Men Square massacre, he terminated the meetings
and the participants' accounts, on the orders of China.
Zoom management responded to the scandal by promising that in the
future Zoom would only cancel an account on China's command this way
if the user is in China.
Other companies that help the Chinese government impose repression
include Apple
and Google.
Can we expect a big company to have the scruples to decline the
invitation to gain access to the "Chinese market" by becoming part of
the system of oppression?
No, we can't expect it.
But we must demand it.
This was the work of a rogue employee, but what made it possible
is that Zoom's design lets staff snoop on every conversation as it
passes through the server without getting a search warrant.
Some Cuban dissidents get US backing and even support the wrecker.
What they believe would be bad for Cuba just as it is bad for the US.
However, that doesn't excuse Cuba's imprisonment of them for saying
what they think.
Not all Cuban dissidents support right-wing extremism.
Oswaldo Payá did not.
The Cuban government had him killed.
The IMF proposes using people's digital dossiers to calculate their
credit scores —
which would in effect convert them into social credit scores.
The corrupter has totally undermined the Hatch Act,
which is supposed to prohibit most federal employees from taking
partisan actions. Its enforcement depends on backing from the
president.
*A homeless man sentenced to life in prison for a $20 marijuana sale is freed
after 12 years.*
The war on drugs must have taken some very bad drugs 12 years ago.
The Tories have been squeezing the poor for a decade. No surprise
that they want poor whites to blame their bad treatment on the poor blacks
instead of the rich.
We've seen similar tactics in the US.
It is the standard right-wing form of divide and rule.
Australia has a plan for additional subsidy for gas extraction.
It is dangerous to allow Visa and Mastercard to decide what you can pay for.
Recall that they blocked donations to Wikileaks. They were forced to back down because European law regulates them
strictly, since that field has so little competition.
The EFF article explains why sex web sites — especially exploitative
ones like Pornhub — offer a perfect opportunity to establish new
systems of repression, which afterward will endanger the rights of
anyone and everyone.
A hundred years ago, having your face photo circulated as a suspect
could direct persecution at you — for instance, making it impossible to get a job.
Now it can cause you to be arrested randomly for walking down the street.
If stores use face recognition inside the store, they should not be
allowed to use photos for matching against people in the store
except for photos they have taken in that store, and photos
of people convicted of theft and fraud.
1/5 of the people in prison in the US are infected with Covid-19.
The prison staff catch it and spread it in their communities.
The Mediterranean shore is expected to get too hot for holidays in the summer.
Republicans' plan for future elections: suppress voters harder.
People who mix marijuana with tobacco are risking becoming tobacco addicts.
It appears that Boeing and the FAA arranged to rig the tests to recertify the 737 MAX so as to assure get a positive outcome.
Is the US so corrupt that it can't honestly regulate product safety
even in the most crucial and visible cases?
Florida governor DeSantis did everything possible to encourage spread of Covid-19, including distracting people from the danger, delaying
reporting deaths, and making sure no one could be fined for not
wearing a mask.
That last is something that Massachusetts's Republican governor is
also doing. He is putting people in danger here.
*British government says UNICEF should be "ashamed" for feeding hungry
children [in the UK].*
The Tories want those children to go hungry!
There remain more loopholes that Republican senators, with Pence, could use
to sabotage the election if they are desperate enough.
We could end up on Jan 20 with a dispute about who is president.
"Civil forfeiture" is a system of punishment without trial that allows thug departments in the US to confiscate billions of dollars a year,
in cash and goods.
The thugs claim we should tolerate this injustice on the grounds that it
"reduces crime." We can reply that forfeiture might as well be crime.
However, now we can also reply that it simply isn't true.
That article presents evidence refuting the thugs' claim.
With hard work you can reduce the harm done by the products you buy as
gifts, on the commercial purchasing holidays where people are told
they must give lots of gifts.
But it isn't very hard to opt out of giving and receiving gifts, when you have
no wish to do so other than nostalgia inculcated by millions of dollars
of advertising, with the pretense that participating in the spending
is going to make you happy.
A Guantanamo defense attorney calls on Biden to hold torturers
accountable — including the bully himself.
States have filed yet another lawsuit against Google, about using the
market power of Google Search to skew markets for other things.
These lawsuits may make Google change in ways that save people money.
But only through luck could they reduce the great wrongs that Google
commits:
This is no accident. Since the lawsuits are based on antitrust law,
they can only target monopolistic behavior. The wrong of snooping on people
is not inherently a matter of the size of the company; if a small company
accumulates data about people, that is wrong too.
A UK court ruled that the government must give a foreigner who had
been trafficked into the UK the right to work there.
Previously they could ask for permission to work, but would have to wait years
for their cases to be considered. The government does not give the department
that considers those applications enough funds to do the job faster; those
who hate foreigners are pleased with the suffering that results.
The Rockefeller Foundation has pledged to divest its endowment from
fossil fuels.
A special unit of thugs in the UK was investigated officially with a
listening device. The thugs were found to be emitting racist, sexist
and other kinds of hate in their private discussions, and it looks
like they will be punished for this.
Planting a microphone is a legitimate way to investigate suspected
official misconduct, when the recording authorized legally. What
those thugs did is grave misconduct because the attitudes they taught
each other that way will bias them in doing their job.
*Apple Suppressing Human Rights Critics* for China.
An Australian music festival is asking musicians to sign a contract not to
do anything that would criticize the fossil fuel company that sponsors it.
It would be better to cancel it than to turn it into an instrument of
ecocide and genocide.
The International Labor Organization has ordered countries to respect the treaties that give sailors the right to leave a ship to get
medical care or to go home.
Volunteers find and stop fishing in the Po river delta, which is
forbidden since the water is full of industrial pollution so the fish
are not safe to eat.
*Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancee urges Joe Biden to release CIA report*
on Khashoggi's assassination.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/18/jamal-khashoggis-fiancee-urges-joe-biden-to-release-cia-report
Scientists say wood-burning stoves cause a lot of indoor pollution
and should carry health warnings.
* Medicare and Medicaid are not independent sources of compassionate
care, but rather parts of a larger system that condemns the sick and
disabled to a life of devastating health and wealth disparities.*
Small improvements in that system won't enable people who are
destitute to cope.
The Securities and Exchange Commission just voted to weaken an anti-corruption
rule for oil companies.
Biden will have a chance to replace one of the commissioners in June
and perhaps put back the old rule or an even stricter rule. But that
depends on whether Republicans in the Senate have the power to block
the appointment. Wikipedia does not tell me whether these
appointments require Senate approval.
Calling on all news publishers to declare a climate emergency.
In the long term, it is a far bigger threat than Covid-19.
Study of the consequences of 50 years of tax cuts for the rich, in
many countries, shows that they had exactly the effect you would
naively expect: making the rich richer, while tramping down the poor
by reducing the government aid they depend on.
In other words, it's dooH niboR at work.
And the Republicans have been making it worse for 4 years.
*Amazon's apparent embrace of plastic packaging is hindering its
commitment to help the fight against [climate disaster].*
Reports say that Biden will nominate two climate champions for
important posts.
However, Food and Water Watch warns that Gina McCarthy encouraged
fracking when she was administrator of the EPA.
Will she do that now as climate advisor?
*New York bans display of Confederate flag and other hate symbols on state
grounds.*
It is a small step in the right direction.
*"Israel has the legal, moral, and humanitarian responsibility to
vaccinate the Palestinian population, which lives in distress under
its control."*
But Israel's right-wing government is not going to try any time soon.
Calling on Biden to reorient the Department of Labor to protect
workers and increase their power.
Lloyd's of London will cease insuring new coal, tar sands, and Arctic
oil investments.
However it will take 10 years to phase out coverage for existing
facilities — and it won't cover all fossil fuels. It is a step
forward, but not grounds for a celebration.
*Most Profitable US Companies Fired Workers, Enriched Shareholders
During Pandemic.*
Rivest et al show that, while all online voting is deeply untrustworthy,
adding a blockchain makes it even worse.
Alibaba has software designed to recognize from a person's face
whether perse is a Uighur.
This will be used for various sorts of repression in China.
*Survey Shows Americans—Regardless of Partisan Affiliation—Don't Want Biden to Appoint a Corporate Cabinet.*
So if he does appoint one, we will know it is not in response
to popular demand.
Rosamund Kissi-Debrah calls for a new law in the UK to reduce toxic
air pollution, as a memorial to her daughter who was killed by that.
Why did it take seven years to investigate the cause of her death? I
have a hunch it delayed by the lobbying of car and gas companies,
which have great political influence on the Tories.
The measures that need to be taken are basically the same ones needed
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport. Basically, the UK
now knows it has two reasons to carry out those measures. The question
is whether the Tories will bow to those reasons and stop resisting.
I expect the US has the same problem. Would someone like to send
me a reference?
*Atlantic City to auction off chance to blow up [the conman's] former casino, for charity.
AOC on the challenge of replacing Speaker Pelosi and the need to reduce
the power of the leadership of the Democratic Party.
Awareness of how traumatic experiences can cause changes in bodily
systems has created a pitfall: people can be held back in dealing with
painful experiences by the belief that it is no use trying because
trauma has damaged their brains in ways they can't overcome.
It turns out that making an adequate income without overwork enables a lot
of people to recover from trauma.
*Ocasio-Cortez Warns Biden That War and Wall Street Appointees Are a 'Huge Reason We Got Trump'.*
The companies that supplied cladding for apartment buildings in the
UK, and whose staff said it would burn, pretended after the fire to be
shocked by the fatal fire.
*Study of 50 Years of Tax Cuts For Rich Confirms 'Trickle Down' Theory Is an
Absolute Sham.*
Congress and a court ordered the USPS to hand over DeJoy's meeting schedule,
but when it did, nearly every word in it had been redacted.
Buttigieg has little experience in the field of transportation, but he has the experience is most harmful in government today: experience in
having transportation special interests fund his campaign.
Nine recommended simple progressive demands to help non-rich Americans.
I have to reject the last item, promoting "access" to "online learning".
What today's "online learning" teaches is how to be a sucker.
Glyphosate is wiping out monarch butterflies by wiping out the milkweed that monarch caterpillars must eat.
However, the queue for endangered species protection is long, so
monarchs must wait for protection. 47 species have gone extinct while
waiting for protection.
In nearly every Arab country, people say that the poor have got poorer
in the last decade since the Arab Spring.
This does not imply that the Arab Spring is crucially responsible for
that change.
The NLRB concluded that Amazon illegally fired Gerald Bryson for
protesting working conditions.
Amazon said it fired him for violating its "vulgar language" policy.
Fuck you, Amazon!
I would start a boycott over this policy, but alas I can't — I'm
boycotting Amazon for other reasons already.
*Pentagon Training Equates Whistleblower Chelsea Manning With Terrorists.*
Paul Alexander, appointed by the wrecker to work with the Department
of Health, told officials of that department, "We want [Americans] infected."
(for herd immunity, that was).
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to stop the line 3
pipeline.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588. If you call, please spread the word!
An inquest in the UK ruled that a girl was killed by a high level of
air pollution.
This may spur efforts to reduce pollution.
Repeated flooding is driving Bangladeshis out of their rural homes,
to become urban poor.
Mexico has passed a new "security" law that would undermine
cooperation between Mexican government agencies and the US Drug
Enforcement Agency agents that operate in Mexico.
Those agents would have to give all their information to Mexican agencies
that would probably leak the information to the gangs.
If you think of the issue as how to fight the "War on Drugs", this
change is foolish and self-defeating. But that war is itself foolish
and self-defeating. Maybe Amlo is trying looking for an excuse to
pull back from it.
If the US legalizes and strictly regulates sale of drugs, the Mexican
drug gangs would lose a major source of their income. That could be
more effective than the DEA will ever be.
Credit rating scores now control who can rent an apartment or get
hired for a job, as well as who can get a loan. Other mysterious
algorithms decide who gets welfare or medical treatment.
The root cause of many of these problems is the general US approach of
being stingy towards the poor and suffering. The basic motivation for
that is that the rich keep demanding a bigger share of everything.
Transparent and valid ways of evaluating people would be an
improvement, but we can do better than that. For many of these
purposes, we shouldn't evaluate people at all. We should help
everyone who needs help.
With Medicare for All, everyone would get medical care, eliminating
any need to judge people. If we had a policy of giving poor people
housing, we wouldn't need to evaluate people for that either. With a
guaranteed basic income, whether you can get a job would be less
important.
And credit ratings should be used only for loans.
Why did Chicago thugs break the door of Ms Young's house, find her
there naked, then handcuff her naked and refuse to give her a blanket
to cover herself with?
The third step, handcuffing Ms Young without letting her put on any
clothing, was an act of callous contempt, very likely reflecting
ingrained racism. But the wrongs did not start there.
The first step, seeking to enter that house, reflected incompetence:
they didn't bother to check that the person they were looking for
lived next door. Disdain, perhaps racist, is surely part of why they
did not bother.
The second step, breaking down that door, was due to excessive
willingness to do harm violent. Even if they had chosen the right
house, they shouldn't have done this. Owning an illegal gun doesn't
mean a person is inclined to shoot if thugs use a megaphone to say
"Police, open up!" Disdain, perhaps racist, may be part of why they
did not bother.
Perhaps Chicago should do what Camden, New Jersey did: disband its
hopelessly corrupt, violent and racist thug department
and start a new
one.
The Houthis have agreed to let the United Nations inspect an abandoned
tanker filled with oil in 2021, but experts warn the ship may start leaking
massive quantities of oil any day.
That leak would kill the marine life in the Red Sea.
The UK proposes to move the Museum of Military Medicine to Cardiff, in
Wales, and has received a surprising variety of objections.
Some of the objectors are using the issue for Welsh nationalism.
I don't sympathize with Welsh nationalism so I am not impressed.
Some want to preserve the existing park with its full size.
Would building it on a city block be better?
The expense might be prohibitive, though.
*Why we need nonviolent citizen action — not street fighting with the
Proud Boys — to protect the election results and democracy.*
*Rouhani to Biden: If US Comes Back to Nuclear Deal, So Will Iran.*
*Report Details 'Staggering' Number of Attacks on US Journalists, Press
Freedoms in 2020.*
*How the Biden Administration Can Help Rejuvenate Journalism After Four Years
of Carnage.*
A scientific team will study the giant Antarctic iceberg as it drifts
towards South Georgia Island.
Given the sort of harm it may do if it grounds there, I wonder if
there is a way to gently push the iceberg so as to direct it away from
the island. Perhaps with large sails?
We have worked out how to do this with asteroids.
Republicans have cemented their gerrymandering power for another decade
and maybe longer, by dominating state legislatures again.
The only way I can see to overcome this is to reform the Supreme Court.
A single mutation, called delta 69/70, has appeared in several strains
of Covid-19, and makes each of them spread more easily.
Perhaps this is part of the reason that Covid-19 is now
increasing so fast in the US and Europe.
Each time a person gets infected, that is an opportunity for Covid-19
to mutate. If the world had cracked down on Covid-19 effectively, the
way China, Taiwan, South Korea (initially), Australia and New Zealand
did, the pandemic would already be over, the deaths would be few, the
economic losses would be much less, and this mutation would never have
occurred.
Facebook says that France and Russia targeted the voters of the
Central African Republic with opposing disinformation campaigns.
The new stimulus bill has a subtle but large tax deduction for businesses
that received PPP loans.
Perhaps it should be limited to 100k dollars per organization.
That would save small businesses a big surprise tax bill
but not give much to big businesses.
Bellingcat present's evidence that the FSB (successor of the KGB)
poisoned Navalny after following him around since 2017.
Putin had to have approved these plans. Anyone who did such things in
Russia without his approval would be fired immediately.
South Korea is very wise to impose restrictions to slow the increase
of Covid-19 while the number of people infected is still small.
To delay, and allow the numbers to increase before acting, would not
help anything.
UK medical journals say the UK must cancel plans to allow households
to mix during Christmas. Those plans would overload the hospitals.
Half a million slaves are forced to pick cotton in Xinjiang, China.
Keep in mind that Uzbekistan also forces slaves to pick
cotton, perhaps even more of them.
What Uzbekistan does is not an excuse for China, and what China does
is not an excuse for Uzbekistan. Countries should refuse to buy cotton from
those countries until they stop using forced labor.
*Restore UK woodland by letting trees plant themselves, says report.*
I have wondered for years why it is necessary to plant trees.
Trees produce lots of seeds and have mechanisms to disperse them.
Why isn't that enough?
This is a serious question. Since I am not an expert, I will not try
to claim that there is no need to plant forests, but I think it is an important
question why we do need that.
EFF: Youtube's automatic copyright filter has punished fair use to the
point where people have learned not to even try it. In effect, it has
taken that right away.
To fix this, we need to eliminate the relevant parts of the DMCA.
I wish they would not refer to works of art and communication as "content".
That term disparages all such works.
*Facebook Gets Rich Off Of Ads That Rip Off Its Users.*
I must disagree with the first example, though: it is prudish to
consider an ad harmful on account of showing adolescents dancing. Was
there is something else bad about those ads that the article fails to
explain?
Scientific research increasingly shows that fracking harms the health
of people living nearby, especially children.
This is in addition to contributing greatly to short-term global heating
due to leaks of methane.
Fracking is taking humanity to frack and fruin, so we need to stop it
completely.
New York medics are paid less than a living wage, so Lauren Kwei
models nude to make up the difference. Some old fashioned prudes
found this scandalous and tried to ruin her life. AOC defends her,
saying, "The Actual Scandalous Headline Is Medics Need Two Jobs to
Survive."
Sad to say, the site on which she sells her photos practices an
injustice on the customers: it requires nonfree Javascript to access
it. I have not tried that site, but I know that it takes special
effort to accept credit card payments over the net without sending
nonfree JS, and I think only the Free Software Foundation does this.
Perhaps in a few years that site will accept Taler payments,
and be accessible from the Free World.
The US has let business control its laws and institutions, and
business could not profit by saving the people from Covid-19, so the
US did not really try.
The result has been a disproportionate rate of fatalities per population,
now reaching 300,000 people killed by Covid-19.
There may soon be a bipartisan relief bill that does not
shield businesses from liability.
That is good news, because it means the bill will not do long-term
legal harm. The only remaining question is how much good it does for
the rich, and how much to the non-rich.
The bill does not provide aid to states, which need aid desperately
to cover what some states have spent protecting the public from Covid-19.
States cannot even afford to operate vaccination.
But they can hold out till Jan 20 for that aid, and if the
Georgia runoff elections go well, we can give states the aid then without
shielding business from liability.
Regarding liability, businesses should be liable for failing to do
what was possible. In April, when masks were in short supply, it
would have been unfair to punish a business for not finding masks.
Now that masks are available, businesses have no excuse for not
providing masks, and likewise other PPE, enhanced air ventilation, and
every other thing that ought to be done for worker's safety.
One thing that stores must do, for the safety of workers and
customers alike, is make anyone leave immediately who has entered
without a mask.
Big companies pay significant sums to "offset" their CO2 emissions
by protecting trees from being cut down. Except that those trees
were not going to be cut down. The fees are for greenwashing.
By contrast, projects that directly extract CO2 from the air are valid.
But "offsets" meant to provide benefit in the future are chickens
that might hatch some day.
Such "offsets" are used as a substitute for real cuts in emissions,
and we should not trust them. Likewise, we should distrust commitments
stated in terms of "net" emissions. We should demand commitments to
reduce emissions.
*'Grossly Insufficient': ExxonMobil Lambasted Over Emissions Reduction Plan
That Pledges No Reduction in Absolute Emissions.*
I think Exxon is counting the emissions from its own use of energy,
and not the emissions that will result when the fossil fuels it
extracts get burned by customers. If so, it is sidestepping the issue.
The Republican officials that stood up against democracy may not be
scared only of losing the next election at the hands of conman's
lunatic followers. It could be that their rich backers are trying to
eliminate democracy, as they did when FDR was elected.
US cinema production is concentrated in the hands of a few companies controlled
by billionaires whose main interests are other things.
Nothing can be made which harms those other interests.
(satire) *Amazon Worker Emerges From Holiday Overtime Shift To Find
3,000 Years Have Passed In Outside World.*
*If Democrats Want to Succeed, They Will Have to Implement Policies That
Primarily Benefit the Working Class.*
Australia's prime minister is outraged that China has decided to
buy coal from other nearby countries rather than from Australia.
The real outrage is that China continues to burn so much coal
and is not working hard to cut down.
*Tiny Pacific nation of Palau detains 'illegal' Chinese fishing vessel.*
I see no reason to doubt Palau's accusation; fishing boats don't go anywhere so
far from home except to fish there.
China is one of several countries that send large fishing fleets to
denude the world's oceans of sea life. We need a world-wide fishing
treaty that would prevent this.
Attorney General Barr has been, in effect, fired — apparently for
refusing to endorse false accusations of massive fraudulent voting.
The fraud that really occurred was Republicans; massive fraudulent denial of the right to vote.
It is, interesting that a substantial fraction of Republicans that
frequently practice by-hook-or-by-crook morality do still have limits
of conscience.
* Plastic bags and flexible packaging are the deadliest plastic items in
the ocean, killing wildlife including whales, dolphins, turtles and
seabirds around the globe.*
The US has removed Sudan from the sponsors-of-terror list.
The UK government is planning new permanent restrictions on protests.
They have not yet what those restrictions will be, but democracy in
the UK is undermined already and this will make things worse. The
Tories are already trying out voter-ID to suppress the votes of poor
people who are unlikely to vote Tory, and working on giving more power
to thugs.
A new variant of Covid-19 seems to spread faster. That means stronger
measures will be required to stop it from spreading.
The existence of that mutant variant is the result of letting Covid-19
spread to so many people. If we had taken adequate measures to stop
the spread quickly at the outset, the mutation would not have occurred.
*Australian professor and son detained in Qatar for five months without charge.*
It's not impossible a priori that they committed a crime, but if Qatar
can't say what it was, it must release them.
Individuals and companies are starting to break off dealings with
Xinjiang and companies there.
That is a good start, but China's existing totalitarian oppression of
Uygurs is likely to be followed by China's future totalitarian
oppression in Taiwan, if we don't stop it. We had better take action
now to stop that, so that it doesn't come to a shooting war.
Australia frequently deports asylum-seekers to countries where they are
in danger, and many have been attacked afterward.
Australia has proposed a revision to its terrifying computer
surveillance law.
I think the various kinds of warrants described in this article are
acceptable in principle. That some do not require a judge's
authorization is very dangerous.
The secrecy requirement — imprisonment for disclosing any information
about a warrant — is a shield for the abuses which every system like this
tends to generate.
The "assistance order" is extremely dangerous unless it has firm and
clear limits about who can the ordered to assist, and what kinds of
assistance can be demanded. Otherwise, what is to stop an agency from
ordering you to put a back door into a program?
Statements about the usual "intended" usage scenarios of that power
are meaningless if nothing stops the government from using it
in other ways.
The officials that regulate mining in Australia's Northern Territory
say they were pressured to skimp on environmental review so as to
let mining proceed.
I have no proof, but I would expect that the mining companies
knew that they were paying officials to cheat in their behalf.
A not-entirely-serious proposal to divide the US into two countries,
the one where Republicans dominate and the one where Democrats dominate.
It could not be implemented in practice, for a host of reasons.
It looks like neither the House nor the Senate will support reversing
the election and pretending that the wrecker won it.
(To do that would require both houses of Congress to decide to.)
That is a good thing — but would it be good if Republicans tried and
failed? It would make the hostility between the parties so visible
that no one could deny that "bipartisanship" is a fantasy and
"compromise" means surrender. If the Democrats win the Georgia Senate
run-offs, that awareness might be what is needed to convince them
to eliminate the filibuster and pass laws that Republicans don't like.
Proposals for modifying US agricultural policy to defend the climate.
I agree with the article in its criticism of "carbon markets" — which
means, trading credits for emissions — but a tax on greenhouse gas
emissions is a different story. Such a tax, with the tax rate
scheduled by law to increase annually, will be totally predictable.
One thing not mentioned in the article is the need to discourage
eating so much meat.
We should allow prisoners to vote.
In some parts of the US, systemic racism includes systematically
imprisoning blacks. That, combined with barring prisoners from
voting, has the effect of systematically suppressing blacks' votes.
A teacher says: *Low grades are not a sign of lazy students. Low grades are not a sign
of unintelligent students. In my experience, low grades mean something
is wrong.*
Republicans are pressing the wrecker to pardon Edward Snowden.
Meanwhile, Snowden asked him to pardon Julian Assange.
If he does either of them, I will rejoice at that. However, that
won't outweigh in my judgement my condemnation of his attempt to
set up a tyrannical state.
(satire) *Trump Orders Space Force to Discover Other Planets with Courts.*
Biden will probably resume transferring prisoners out of Guantanamo
prison.
However, politicians have difficulty coming up with what to do
about the 10 or so prisoners who are accused of specific terrorist
crimes. They have difficulty because they don't follow the reasoning
to its conclusion.
The conclusion is simple: release them. Those prisoners have been in
prison for well over a decade, and they have been tortured. The
torture of those prisoners was a grave crime committed by the United
States. Holding them in prison without trial is another crime, which
the US still continues. The US must stop committing this crime.
As for the claim that some of the prisoners are "too dangerous" to
release, that is balderdash. There cannot be anything special that
they could contribute to violent Islamist movements today. Some had
important terrorist contacts, but those contacts are dead. Anything
specific they knew 15 years ago is obsolete; anything general must be
known to many other terrorists who are still at large.
At most, the freed prisoners would constitute a few terrorist recruits
on top of the other thousands. That would have no significant effect
on the security of the US or anyone else.
The president should commute the prisoners' potential sentences to
time served. Those who can find a place to go, should be allowed to
go there. The US will have to house the rest, but not as prisoners.
It is normal practice now for companies to lie and cheat, even if it
kills people.
We need not wonder why. It is because governments have ceased trying
much to prevent this. Governments do less and less to check what
businesses do, and less and less to punish the businesses and the
personnel for cheating.
A proposal for laws to firm up the norms that guided the functioning of the US government, which the wrecker has broken.
I doubt Republicans will willingly allow this to be done, as long as
the wrecker tells them not to. As with so many other things, it depends
on defeating the wrecker conclusively.
*Classifying Houthis as terrorists will worsen famine in Yemen, Trump is
warned.*
*Low-wage warehouse workers, many of whom are temporary, are demanding
access to the vaccine.*
Here's an idea: require companies to pay for the vaccine for every
worker. Maybe companies will decide it is better to give each worker
more hours — something they generally want.
The thug that killed Casey Goodson Jr claims that Goodson pulled a gun on him. There is no evidence to support that claim, and I am skeptical of it.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez lists what she has achieved in two years in
Congress. It is a substantial list.
Rep. Pascrell argues that the Republicans who supported the Texas
lawsuit (to disregard the voters) made themselves ineligible to serve
in Congress. "The text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids
members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United
States."
(satire) *‘The Onion’ Salutes The Courageous Legislators Determined To
Overturn The Will Of Voters.*
*Question: How Should the Left Judge Biden's Success? Answer From a Leftist:
'How Many People Stop Going Hungry' Is One Good Way.*
Here's a letter I sent to the Boston Globe on Dec 6.
Dear Editor,
It wasn't Albert Einstein who said that insanity is "doing the same
thing over and over and expecting a different result," but it's a
valid point. So when will Governor Baker change his ineffective
response to the increase of Covid-19 in Massachusetts?
In early September, when it was around 200 cases a day and rising, he
urged residents to take the same precautions we were taking. By early
October we had 500 cases per day, so he did that again. By Election
Day it had doubled, so he did the same thing plus one real change
(ordering mask use outdoors). Now, with almost 5000 cases per day,
he's back to the same old same old. By Christmas it could be 10,000 a
day, then 20,000 after holiday spreading parties. It won't stop
there.
Governor, whatever you're going to do then, would you please start it
now? It may be unpleasant, but the sooner we start, the fewer weeks
it must continue.
Sincerely,
*Israeli court rules that Nation State law calls for discrimination against
Palestinian citizens [of Israel].*
Everyone: call on Pasco County to erase the database that is supposed to
predict which students will be criminals.
Making predictions about young people tends to bring about the
predicted outcome.
US citizens: call on Congress to block mining in the
Chí’chil Biłdagoteel Historic District of Arizona.
US citizens: call on Congress to discard the "pay-as-you-go" rule,
whose only purpose was to make sure suffering inflicted on the
poor could not be reversed.
Massachusetts residents: call on your Mass legislators to pass the
full original limits on policing and on face recognition.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the Marijuana Opportunity
Reinvestment and Expungement Act (MORE Act).
Republican fanatics are still plotting a coup. Some are asking swing states'
legislators to set aside the actual votes and substitute Republican electors;
others are trying to convince those congressional delegations to do likewise.
Republicans control those states' legislatures and congressional
delegations via gerrymandering (cheating).
* Historians could mark 2020 as the moment when Republicans applied
the same zeal they have used to attack democracy in advance of
elections, through voter suppression and gerrymandering, to attacking
democracy on the back end, by trying to deny and overturn the results.*
*UN secretary general urges all countries to declare climate emergencies.*
*EU leaders reach deal to cut emissions by at least 55% by end of decade.*
That comes in range of the sort of change, and speed, that we need.
A rich and influential Tory politician inherited the family riches
which it got via slavery starting in the 1600s.
This is more than the statue of a slaveholder: the slaveholders'
money, greatly increased over time, is working even today to promote
inequality and suffering for poor blacks and poor whites in Britain.
Iran executed Ruhollah Zam for publishing criticism of officials,
including the statements of protesters.
Farming macadamia nut trees in Australia endangers the wild macadamia
nut trees and their genetic diversity.
The wild species is now designated as vulnerable.
One of Assad's torturers faces prosecution in Germany.
*Children will die due to UK overseas aid cuts, pediatricians say.*
I am sure it is true. As children in the UK are dying due to years of
Tory cuts in welfare benefits, with more to come. But the Tories have
no choice — the plutocrats' demands cannot go unsatisfied.
Corbyn would have done something about this.
*The Biden team will be 'diverse'. That doesn't mean it will help struggling
people.*
People who have experienced coping with racism, poverty, and other
handicap will have an advantage in understanding how to help others
cope with them — if they want to try. The problem with making
identity (that is, a person's background) the main criterion is that
it's easy to find plutocratists who have the desired background, but
the wrong values and goals.
The wrecker is shifting his supporters, appointed by him to
official positions, into "career" positions that the president is not
supposed to be able to dismiss arbitrarily.
However, last month, the wrecker made an order authorizing agency heads
to designate thousands of jobs as "fire (them) at will". If he can do that,
Can Biden do the same to the wrecker's formerly political appointees?
The Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit in which 19 other states asked
it to set aside the votes of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin.
Australia has freed five refugees from immigration prison, just before
a court was going to make a decision that might rule Australia's
policies illegal.
These five were able to sue because Australia transferred them from
Manus or Nauru because they were ill. The rest of the prisoners that
Australia put into prison on Manus or Nauru have no chance to start a
court case.
Fanatical anti-maskers, by intimidating the families of members of the
Boise health board, succeeded in canceling a meeting of the health
board as it was considering a local mask requirement.
The local thug department asked the board members to interrupt their
meeting in the name of "public safety". This is ironic because the
mask requirement is the first step towards public safety.
The board, and the government behind it, must show it is strong enough
that fanatics cannot force it to do the wrong thing. But I expect they
will do the exact opposite.
A Turk who has seen several coup attempts in her country warns Americans
that the wrecker's coup attempt was a serious threat. With Republican imposed minority rule as a permanent base, the next one may succeed.
*Biden will have White House disinfected after [the disease-spreader] leaves.*
It would not shock me if the disease-spreader were to smear infectious
material in the White House specifically to make Biden and his team sick.
The Congressional Budget Office studied the costs of Medicare for All and
determined that it could cover everyone and cost $650 billion less annually
than the existing US medical system.
The National Family Farm Coalition describes good and bad things that Vilsack
did to family farms. It does not see him as a monster, but says he had better
commit to protecting farmers against agribusiness.
Why not choose someone who will hustle to resist agribusines?
Vilsack tried to pass useful reforms in 2010, but dawdled till after
the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives.
The Sunrise Movement rebuked Biden for choosing Vilsack
rather than the progressive Rep. Marcia Fudge who has focused
on agriculture policy in her career.
*White House chief of staff told FDA chief [that] vaccine must be
authorized Friday or he needs to resign.*
The corrupter ordered the head of the FDA to do something the latter
might have been about to do anyway. Indeed, he did approve the
vaccine on Friday,
but now we have to wonder whether he approved it based on his best
judgment, or set that judgment aside to obey the order. Whatever he
says, the doubt will remain, and with it doubt about whether the
vaccine was indeed ready to approve.
I think that is something the corrupter wants. The corrupter will now
be able to simultaneously claim credit for the vaccine and sow
distrust for it. His own followers probably won't take the vaccine
anyway, since they believe Covid-19 is a fantasy.
The corrupter played a vicious trick on commissioner Hahn with that
threat, since he will appear to have made a cowardly surrender whether
he actually did so or not. But there is a way he can demonstrate that
his approval of the vaccine was not influenced by the threat: to
resign right away! This would win him the admiration of sane
Americans.
*'We Need to Get Off the Current Road to Hell,' Say Former UN Climate Leaders.*
Australia's PM took a step towards real greenhouse emissions reduction
by agreeing not to present Kyoto treaty credits as "reductions".
This is still nowhere near enough to do Australia's share of what is
needed to avoid global heating disaster.
The corrupter's string of executions is galvanizing opposition to the death penalty,
which has not been very visible in the US for a decade or so.
China has arrested a Chinese journalist that works for Bloomberg News,
supposedly for "endangering national security". That is a
far-fetched claim, so I conclude the accusation has a political purpose.
*Canadian officer found guilty of assault for slamming black woman to floor.*
1000 prisoners have died in Egypt since the coup replaced Morsi with
a military dictatorship.
They are not precisely comparable to Giulio Regeni's case, since he
was not in prison when suppression agents killed him. But that is
just a detail — the article's point is valid.
The article also covers other crimes of the Egyptian regime.
Australia's cruelty to refugees carries over to their children, who may
be made stateless.
Republicans are determined to cease paying for sick leave for Americans,
as the pandemic races on.
Compelling workers that deal with the public to work even when sick
tends to spread the disease.
In a town in South Dakota where everyone believes in the Republican
denial cult, the death of esteemed citizens of the town has convinced
some to call for a mask requirement. But in order to pass a weak
version of the ordinance, the town council had to endure a meeting in which anti-maskers coughed at them.
Wearing an ordinary mask will not prevent the masked councilors from
catching Covid-19 from a maskless infected person. I hope the law
they passed will enable them to keep unmasked people out of their
meetings in the future.
The covidiots of that town have been swindled by a callous liar; they
are victims, and deserve our pity. At the same time, they endanger
anyone they come near. We must stop them from spreading their disease
to those who don't want to catch it, and since the disease can cause
lasting damage or death, force is justified for stopping them.
Some of them will die from their lunacy. May those deaths awaken the
rest to the nature of the lies they have swallowed.
*How oil majors shift billions in profits to island tax havens.*
(satire) *Aspiring Lobbyist Gets Foot In Door As State Senator.*
Biden is considering appointing (or has appointed) several people with
close ties to Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple.
*Receiving Nobel Prize, World Food Programme Chief Warns 'We Are
Losing Battle Against Hunger'.*
Calling on the West to recognize Israel's slow, calculated ethnic
cleansing of Palestinians from occupied Palestine.
One current target for expulsion is a neighborhood, Bab Hutta, near
the center of old Jerusalem.
US citizens: call on Biden to renew the non-nuclear deal with Iran.
Israel's road construction in Palestinian territory is designed as a step
towards annexation.
*Tired and afraid, Palestinian [teens and preteens] report brutal IDF
arrests.*
*EU calls for probe into Palestinian teen's killing by Israel.*
Israel killed another Palestinian teenager a week ago.
Labeling the wrecker's main points as falsehoods, on Facebook and
Twitter, has failed to prevent them from influencing his followers.
As often happens, the most harmful lies are in the presupposed
premises, and refuting those requires pulling them out in the open so
people can see what they are. A simple label that "this is not true"
doesn't try to do that.
Biden named a planet-roaster congresscritter as "liaison" to
environmentalists, but protests and lawsuits are persuading
US banks to give up on some fossil fuel projects.
However, world-wide, planet-roaster projects are mostly not held back
by this. Newly funded fossil fuel development plans would use up 3/4
of the carbon budget.
In Africa, China is offering lots of investment in planet-roaster projects.
China is regulating the practice ofprofiling users and charging some users more.
By contrast, the US and most other countries don't even think of
preventing this abusive treatment.
I say, let's stop companies from collecting enough data about us that
they could even think about trying to profile people.
Cory Doctorow updates the issue of the danger of letting companies
control your computers.
In 2002 I rejected the propaganda term "trusted computing".
Based on what it does, we should call it "treacherous computing".
A thug shot Casey Goodson, Jr., in the back as he was opening the door
of his house. The family called 911 and when other thugs arrived, they
treated the whole family as criminals.
It is surely not a coincidence that Goodson was black.
Without a witness or a video, we cannot prove anything about what the
killer thug did. Those who believe thugs by default will believe
whatever that thug says.
It could be that the thug mistook Goodson for someone else and fired
immediately without verifying that snap judgment. I think that would
be a crime if you or I did it. It should be a crime if a thug does
it, but I don't know whether it is.
I waited before posting about this, hoping to get a clearer picture of
what happened. I think this is as clear as it's going to get in the
near term, so I am posting now.
The Supreme Court has ruled that Muslims that the FBI tried to bully
into spying, by putting them on the no-fly list, can sue for damages.
I am elated by this rebuke to government bullying.
Banning someone from flying is a form of punishment by the government,
and under the US constitution it should not be allowed except under
"due process of law", which ought to mean a criminal trial.
(satire) *Facebook Announces Plan To Break Up U.S. Government Before It Becomes Too Powerful.*
Iran is willing to resume the nuclear deal if the US drops its sanctions and commits not to pulling out again.
Presuming that "all sanctions" means "all sanctions related to nuclear
activities", that seems like a fair deal to me.
As for the expiration of the deal in 2025. I am sure the two countries
can negotiate a deal to extend it.
Meanwhile, the European countries should recover their
sovereignty over economic dealings with other countries, so that the US
can no longer forcibly stop them.
Zhang Zhan, imprisoned for reporting on the Covid-19 situation in Wuhan,
started a hunger strike and has been force fed —
not Guantanamo-style, through the nose, but with a tube surgically inserted into her stomach.
The Sunrise Movement supports Deb Haaland for Secretary of the Interior.
Since they do, I do too.
Italy has charged officials of Egyptian repression forces with
murdering Giulio Regeni.
China took two Canadian visitors hostage after Canada arrested Mang Wanzhou,
executive of Huawei, at the request of the US.
It is clear now that China's charges against those two Canadians were
just excuses. The same might be true of the charges against Mang, or
might not; I have no way of knowing.
Right-wing extremists are harassing and threatening officials, even election workers, claiming that their master won the election.
The EU's budget has been approved, including conditioning payments on
a country's respect for the independence of the judiciary
(which is a part of "rule of law").
Venezuela held legislative elections. Observers said they were free.
Guaidó's opposition faction boycotted the election, and the turnout
was low, but not much lower than the US. It is partly because many
Venezuelans have moved to other countries.
*Minneapolis switches $8m from police budget to violence prevention* and
mental health teams.
That is under 5% of the entire thug department budget, but increasing
the funding of those other programs may be helpful.
Bangladeshis have gone from exploitative work to no work, as the
wasteful and unsustainable overproduction of clothing has collapsed
(at least for the time being), and their ex-employers have stolen
their wages.
Getting them their stolen wages would help only temporarily. Resuming
the unsustainable production would not solve the problem for many
years; as the population Bangladesh increases, increasing amounts of
wasteful production would be required, and that increase could not
continue.
Bangladesh needs to stabilize and reduce its population, by limiting
births, so that the babies who do get born can survive, and climb out
of poverty.
US citizens: call on Congress to make coronavirus vaccination gratis for
all Americans.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to appoint a climate-oriented cabinet.
Azerbaijan tortured, even beheaded Armenian prisoners, including civilians.
Armenia has done some of this, too.
Portland activists are blocking the eviction a family from its home of
65 years.
It is surely no coincidence that the family is black.
But all the other residents have already been pushed out.
*Sustainable Farming Advocates Warn Biden That Vilsack 'A Very Bad Pick' for
[Agriculture] Secretary.*
Progressives call him "Mr Monsanto" for his assistance to that company's
GMOs.
In addition to their biological effects, Bayer/Monsanto seeds spread
patent pollution.
Aside from that Vilsack eliminated many safety regulations that we
should bring back.
Rebekah Jones says that the seizure of her phone will enable
Republican officials to find out which employees have been giving her Covid-19
statistics that the Republican governor wants to suppress.
*New EPA rule could [and was probably intended to] make it more
difficult to limit air pollution.*
*A Criminal Justice To-Do List for the New Administration.*
If you are thinking of buying a holiday present from Amazon, look at the
crushing treatment of workers that you'd be supporting.
Biden's choice to head the US "defense" department, Lloyd Austin, has
only three flaws: he is a recently retired general for a post where a
civilian ought to be, he is in the revolving door, and under Obama he
tended to be pro-war.
He's not as bad as Flournoy, but that's not enough to qualify as good.
Georgia Republicans are trying to suppress minority voters by reducing
the number of early voting sites in a county where many of them live.
The US and most US states have sued Facebook with the aim of making it
separate off Instagram and WhatsApp.
This would somewhat increase competition and somewhat reduce
Facebook's lobbying power, but it would not make the Facebook
dis-service safe for democracy. Its business model of targeted
advertising makes it dangerous and promotes snooping.
We should prohibit targeted advertising, but most of all we should
prohibit systems that systematically collect data on people.
*Offshore Tax Havens 'Deep Wells of Profit' For Oil Giants, Report Shows.*
The New York State pension fund says it will end investment in fossil
fuels.
Alas, it set itself a deadline of 2040, which is too far away.
It will do some divestment sooner, but it's not clear how much.
*'Severe Blow to Iraqi Torture Survivors': Despite Evidence of UK War Crimes, ICC Drops War Crimes Probe.*
The reason given was that the UK appears able to prosecute soldiers itself.
Is it really going to do so?
Hamid Reza Shakib was imprisoned in Iran for campaigning for human
rights. He escaped and went to Australia, which used Papua New Guinea
to imprison him for asking for asylum.
After years of cruel
imprisonment, he now has received asylum in France.
Greta Thunberg: *'We are speeding in the wrong direction' on climate crisis.*
*Our global fire crisis is the sign of a dying biosphere. But we can take
action.*
If we can push away the dying hand of the businesses that profit from
roasting our planet.
*Covid used as pretext to curtail civil rights around the world, finds report.*
One increase in surveillance that they may not mention is when
countries encourage (or even order) people to stop paying cash.
One way to defend your freedom is to insist on paying cash when you
buy things — I always do.
Countries whose freedom ratings were reduced this year include
the US, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Iraq, the Philippines and Slovenia.
Every market has rules, and society chooses the rules. When people
advocate a "free market", what they mean is one with rules that favor
the most powerful. In our times, that choice is a one for most
people, and we don't have an obligation to accept it.
*Under Boris Johnson, corruption is taking hold in Britain.*
Corruption is not just starting to take hold. It was well established
in 2013 in the choice of cladding for the apartment building that
subsequently had a fatal fire.
That was due to insufficient efforts by the state to verify the
honesty of construction, which was due to a government that didn't
consider this very important.
What is happening now is that corruption is practiced visibly and
shamelessly by ministers.
*Human-made materials now outweigh Earth's entire biomass.*
We should not foolishly suppose that it is "sinful",
but it is a sign that we have the ability to mess things up in
yet another way.
In Xinjiang, reasons to put someone in prison include (1) being under 40
and (2) talking with relatives living outside China.
Switzerland allowed Chinese agents to enter secretly and interview
Chinese citizens that Switzerland was considering deporting to China.
This can't help but work to the harm of Chinese dissidents who ask for
asylum. No country should be interested in the Chinese government's
opinion on such questions.
The US deportation thugs hardly tried to protect prisoners from
Covid-19, and thus created hotspots in the prisons and the communities
around the prisons.
In general, prisons have tended to spread Covid-19 to nearby
communities. The guards get sick along with the prisoners, then take
the virus home to their families.
The Supreme Court's right-wing majority declined an opportunity to
throw the election to the bullshitter.
It looks like they have decided to respect the vote.
Cambridge University rejected a proposal to require people to respect
all views of others. It decided that tolerating other people's views
is enough — that is, to respect people's right to hold their views.
This is the correct policy. I could not possibly respect the views of
Osama bin Laden, or a Republican today, or a pious religious believer,
or a "centrist" Democrat, or a Communist, or a flat-earther, without
being brainwashed. Likewise, you should not be required to respect my
views.
Introduced Argentine tegu lizards are becoming a threat to other wildlife
in Florida and Georgia.
There is a simple solution: catch them for skins and meat. People do that
in Argentina.
After convincing people to protect each other by wearing masks proved
to be so difficult, have we got any chance to make the changes needed
to avoid deadly climate disaster 30 years from now?
Pompeo has tried to arbitrarily declare support for any sort of
boycott against Israel to be "antisemitic."
That is bullshit, of course.
I support the boycott started by Gush Shalom, the Israeli campaign for
peace between Israel and Palestine. This boycott targets products of Israel's
colonies in Palestinian territory, whose existence violates UN treaties
Israel has signed.
According to Pompeo, I am supposedly antisemitic, and so was
Uri Avnery, the great Israeli supporter of peace, who founded Gush Shalom
and started that boycott.
Israel passed a law exposing anyone who advocated the boycott to
lawsuits for unlimited damages,
so people in Israel had to stop advocating the
boycott. I in the US am safe from that law, so I continue.
*In 'Huge Victory for Polar Bears and Our Climate,' Court Rejects Trump
Approval of Offshore Drilling Project in Arctic.*
I think he will find it difficult to get the policy to take effect before
Biden cancels it.
The wrecker has built up bombing in Afghanistan. In 2019 there were
over 700 civilian casualties.
The bully has started reorienting the US military away from the
self-defeating "war on terror" and towards a possible war with China
and/or Russia.
Ending the "war on terror" is a good thing, because terrorism is a tactic,
not an enemy, and war is not an effective way to put an end to it.
But what about the military's new orientation?
I think the US can easily avoid war with Russia, because Putin doesn't
aim to rule the world. He has started local wars in battling over
regional influence, and he stirs the pot further away, but he is
willing to keep peace when the US is. The US foolishly and
provocatively tried to extend NATO into the former Soviet Union right
up to the borders of Russia;
it should have been content to have a buffer zone. Buffer
zones between powers make for peace between the powers.
I think it is not too late for the US and Russia to use that approach.
It is true that Putin has corrupted and destroyed democracy in Russia
and runs a corrupt and repressive regime, but war is not the way to
deal with that.
It should be possible once again to agree with Russia on limiting
nuclear weapons; Russia was amenable before.
But it may be necessary now to include China in that system.
The confrontation with China is a more difficult problem. China is
rapidly expanding its military and is set on capturing Taiwan, but
unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan can't be captured except by war. I doubt
China would stop after that — successful conquest tends to inspire
more conquest.
We must not allow that, but what should we do to stop it? We want to
avoid having to fight that war, but one aspect of avoiding a war is,
as always, preparing to win it if it starts.
But that's not the only way to avoid a war, and increasing the size of
the armed forces is not the principal way to make a nation strong.
Nor is shooting the only form of war.
China has moved from preparations for economic warfare to overt
economic aggression. The US needs to stop China from agrandizing itself
this way.
That will be difficult, because China has been strengthening itself as
an economic power for decades, even as the US has perverted its
economy to weaken itself.
Poor, hungry, sick working people in debt for their education
do not make a country strong — or great, for that matter.
Private equity predators
and outsourcing
do not make productive industry. They are designed to make the rich richer.
It is paradoxical that in China, the state owns big business, whereas
in the US, big business owns the state — amusing because they sound
equivalent. They do have some things in common. Both lead to
making people suffer and denying them political power, for example.
But there is also a difference.
In China, the state reasserts control when necessary so that Chinese
businesses make the country stronger. By contrast, the US submits
when businesses impose policies that weaken the country. US
capitalists strip-mine the ground they and we stand on. China does
not allow its capitalists to do that.
The job we need Biden's economic team to do is more than just getting
out of a downturn. It includes curing structural inequality.
The wrecker is trying to take away Social Security disability payments
from hundreds of thousands of disabled Americans.
Right-wingers believe people who can't get enough money should suffer,
even die. They would like to eliminate all social security benefits.
But sometimes it is easier to reduce them step by step until nobody
considers them important any more.
*On Way Out the Door, Trump EPA Rejects Tightening Deadly Soot Pollution
Standards.*
Here's how they are working already to sell a world of total surveillance: every move you make will be controlled by the AI that runs
your "smart neighborhood".
Biden rejected Michèle Flournoy to head the Pentagon and instead named
a retired general, Lloyd Austin, who now works for the
military-industrial complex.
Australia is increasing the practice of punishing people without convicting them.
Confiscation without trial is frequent in the US. Vague suspicion
(usually related to drugs) is enough. For years we have campaigned
to eliminate this practice.
Punishment without trial is unjust regardless of what the alleged
crime might be. What's the hurry? Why can't they wait for a trial to
decide whether that man is guilty?
Aside from that, this is one of a number of reasons why criminalizing
the possession of some published work is a terrible threat to liberty.
Various countries have criminalized works on various criteria, but it
is dangerous regardless of the criteria. It provides an excuse to
search people's computers at any time. What's more, it is easy to
make someone guilty of this crime without per knowledge. It is common
for your computer to contain image files that you did not ask for and
never looked at. You may have a copy of a message even though you
deleted it unread.
Biden has taken different positions on climate defense. We need to
keep working to convince him to do more rather than less.
50 proposals for what he should do — many of which are clever and
surprised me.
*As World Teeters on Brink [of unstoppable climate disaster], Over 250
Scientists and Scholars Warn of Full-Fledged 'Societal Collapse'.*
Electric cars need lithium batteries, and mining lithium causes
environmental damage.
But it won't be as bad as global heating.
I wonder if hydrogen fuel, instead of batteries, would avoid this problem.
Texas thugs raided the home of an old black couple and trashed their
things.
They did it by mistake.
The man died a few weeks later, perhaps from the stress.
Why so cruel? Racism, perhaps.
HSBC is freezing the bank accounts of Hong Kong people and institutions
that gave support to the democracy movement.
Freezing people's accounts under the tyrannical laws of China is
serving tyranny. HSBC should reimburse those depositors with funds in
some other country.
HSBC can afford that cost, and should understand it as its punishment
for obeying China.
Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, bullied many residents into selling their
houses cheap for the nonexistent Foxconn factory.
Apparently the deal was constructed so that the town had to borrow a
lot of money to build new roads, and now that Foxconn isn't doing
anything, those roads are a stranded asset and the town won't get funds
to repay.
Deals for governments to pay a company "to create jobs" are swindles.
They should be entirely illegal.
Young organizers of the Labour Party, who supported Corbyn and are
very concerned about global heating, say that Labour under Starmer is
pulling back on its climate defense plans
(which were comparable to the Green New Deal).
This is a reflection of Starmer's rejection of Corbyn, who is the only
reason those voters ever supported Labour.
Anti-racist groups call on various product-rating organizations to stop
mentioning the Amazon Ring surveillance camera because it imposes
surveillance on the movements of people that may be persecuted for being
in neighborhoods where racists think they should not go.
I agree, but I insist that surveilling middle-class white males
is equally intolerable. And surveillance of dissidents, regardless
of their demographics, threatens the free society.
The Yes Men announced, on behalf of the Bank of England, that it would
refuse to buy bonds from fossil fuel companies.
Too bad it isn't really so.
Bravo to the Yes Men. Remember when they sent a participant to a
meeting of plutocratists to present a proposal to increase business
efficiency by converting workers into property of their employers?
Nobody was shocked by the idea.
"Centrists" are criticizing the wrecker for not putting the US ahead
of other countries in the queue for a second batch of doses of
Covid-19 vaccine.
Meanwhile, the wealthy countries generally are buying up the vaccine
production for next year, leaving the poor countries to wait till
2022.
Instead of letting the Pharma companies (and their servants, the
patent offices) set us against each other to squabble about which
country will get vaccines first, let's turn our criticism on the
system of monopolies that is limiting production and helping some
companies to gouge.
Why there should not be patents on drugs or anything in medicine.
*Biden Should Revive the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.*
The new district attorney of Los Angeles County will no longer seek
the death penalty, no longer try children as adults, no longer ask the court
to make a sentence longer.
In addition, the new DA will not ask for cash bail, except for violent or serious felonies. To this, the thug union had a completely
bullshit response.
The response presents us with a fantasy world in which (1) everyone
who gets bail was charged with shooting a gun and (2) making people
facing such charges pay bail is going to make them less dangerous.
It is bullshit because those are serious, violent felonies, so the DA's
no-bail policy does not apply to them at all.
*Citing 'Historic Abuse' of Judicial Process, Over 1,500 Attorneys Call for
Sanction of Trump Campaign's Legal Team* by state bar associations.
ALEC is lobbying Pennsylvania officials to disregard the voters and
give the state's electoral votes to the wrecker.
A Republican official in Texas is directly asking the Supreme Court to
make an arbitrary decision to give the election to the wrecker.
*The Great Reset is an attempt to create a plausible impression that
the huge winners in this system are on the verge of voluntarily
setting greed aside to get serious about solving the raging crises
that are radically destabilizing our world.*
I looked at the Great Reset web page and saw a long list of disparate
ideas, but I did not see anything clear to say what it was for.
I read one article that had been recommended and it didn't seem
to have a clear point.
So I spent no more time on it.
Indian farmers are on strike, demanding repeal of new farm laws that
are said to help corporations dominate farmers.
Kejriwal, the highest local official of Delhi was prevented by
national thugs from joining the protest.
I don't know any specifics about these laws, but his support suggests to me
that the farmers have good reason.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter ASAP to oppose the CASE Act,
which would set up a new court for quick and easy copyright repression against anyone who shares a copy of anything.
Please do NOT use their web service to make the call. Instead, call
202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 or 888-335-3588 and ask for your
representative.
Eritrean troops are fighting in Tigray against the TPLF and alongside
the Ethiopian army.
Eritrean is famous for forcing all most men into slave labor; as a result,
many Eritrean men flee into exile.
*Greenhouse gas emissions transforming the Arctic into 'an entirely different climate'.*
One common PFA chemical is associated with more severe cases of Covid-19.
Blacks tend to have more severe cases of Covid-19, on the average.
Blacks also tend to have greater exposure to many toxic pollutants.
It could be that blacks are more likely to have high levels of
PFBA and that this explains the greater severity they experience
on the average.
US citizens: call on Congress to include immediate payments for
individuals in the stimulus bill.
US citizens: call on the District of Columbia bar association's Office of
Disciplinary Counsel to investigate a Republican lawyer's call for violence.
Someone shot two children dead in a favela in Brazil.
Witnesses say the killer was a uniformed thug.
It is not surprising that the murdered children are black. 2/3 of
favela inhabitants are black. People live in favelas because they are
poor.
When Florida started covering up Covid-19 data, Rebekah Jones refused
to manipulate data and was fired. Since then she has been posting
honest data. Now state thugs have raided her home, pointing guns, and
seized her computers.
She says she will not give up.
Reference to past events.
Australia's proposals to increase surveillance powers are dangerous on
many points.
The spy agency argues against a clear, simple rule, "To spy on an
Australian in Australia, get a specific authorization," by citing edge
cases and asking to be able to spy in those cases without asking for
specific permission. The agency would stretch those edge cases wide;
we know they cannot be trusted not to.
I wonder how often those edge cases really occur. Ten times a year?
It would be no burden to ask for specific permission ten more times a
year. But if the agency gets an exception in can interpret on its own,
it could stretch that to cover thousands of cases a year.
Deregulation government spy agencies is as dangerous as deregulation in
business.
A journalist investigated the complex web of companies through which
data about his movements was collected via his phone and redistributed,
ultimately reaching the US deportation thugs.
He concludes that the GDPR are not, in practice, doing much to prevent
this sort of spying. Also that anonymization of the location dossier
does hardly any good.
He warns that this sort of data can be dangerous "in the wrong hands".
It is crucial to realize that there are no "right" hands. We must design
systems so that they can't be used to snoop on people.
If this makes targeted advertising impossible, great!
Congress may soon abolish the tax-dodge of anonymously owned companies.
Criticism of Gina Raimondo's center-right record as governor of Rhode
Island led her to decline a cabinet post as head of the Department of
Health and Human Services.
*Argentina Passes "Millionaire's Tax" to Fund Covid-19 Recovery.*
Iran says the US is using its money transfer sanctions to stop Iran
from buying Covid-19 vaccine sold under the auspices of WTO.
(satire) *Man Catches Himself Scrolling Social Media While He Supposed To Be
Masturbating.*
*Iran Sends Oil, Gas Flotilla to Venezuela. Will Trump Attack It to Sabotage
Biden?*
Senator Purdue failed to show up at his debate, perhaps afraid of
incriminating himself for insider stock trading.
For some years we had a law, the STOCK Act, that members of Congress
could not trade stocks based on information they got as part of their
duties.
Then they voted to repeal it.
Each one who voted to repeal it manifested an intention to be corrupt.
Xavier Becerra supports Medicare for All in principle, but has promised he
won't push for it if he becomes secretary of HHS.
Google fired AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru, who studies the
effects of AI systems, after she refused to retract a paper when
ordered to by management.
The paper draws negative conclusions about Google's textual
machine learning.
Google claims there are flaws in her paper, but criticizing a
scientist's research paper is a job for other scientists (mostly not
from the same company), not for per managers.
I support the three demands made in the letter that defends her.
It may well be that Google's working environment manifests
racism and sexism, which I disapprove of. But I don't think that
is what this wrong is about. I don't think that Google made this
demand because of her gender or her skin color.
Rather, it seems that Google is attempting to suppress the truth.
Iran has a penchant for accusing dual-nationals of spying, even the
unlikeliest of them.
*Racism literally ages Black Americans faster, according to our 25-year study.*
*Twitter accused of censoring Salil Tripathi, Indian critic of Hindu
nationalism.*
*A coalition of … civil rights, consumer advocacy, and labor
organizations is demanding that Congress [not give] corporations
immunity from coronavirus-related [liability lawsuits].*
Giuliani, who has tested positive for Covid-19, recklessly exposed Republican officials to Covid-19 in several states.
If some of them get sick, will it teach them to support wearing masks?
Water is now a Wall Street traded commodity. This is a sign of the extent
to which water supplies have been privatized.
I don't see that the commodity trading will directly hurt people, but
the privatization could mean that some people can't afford water to
drink.
*Slovakia's mass Covid testing cut infection rate by 60%, researchers say.*
People who tested positive were ordered to quarantine and their wages
were paid.
Let's do this in the US!
Nearly all Republicans in Congress claim that the wrecker won the
presidential election.
The wrecker made noises about about trying to find out who the few
exceptions are, as if he intended to punish them. Whether this was
a serious intention, or just trolling, will be seen.
*Georgia runoff debate: senator Kelly Loeffler refuses three times to accept
Biden victory.*
European countries have much better social aid systems than the US, but they
don't cover everyone and all kinds of work.
Because most of the US criminalizes sex work, sex workers have
suffered especially harshly from the pandemic. Recent increases in
repression have made it harder for them to find customers. We should
legalize sex work to help put an end to enslavement and trafficking of
sex workers.
The foreign policy advisers that Biden have chosen have a history
(under Obama) of trying to organize war against North Korea,
presuming an alliance with South Korea and Japan.
The idea of that alliance is absurd — and so is attacking a nuclear power.
The tyranny of the Kim dynasty is a great injustice, but we cannot eliminate
it militarily.
An official proposes to give UK community panels the power to monitor
possibly dangerous interactions of cops with citizens, through their
videos and documents.
This could be a great step forward in protecting people from thuggish
actions. It is good that looking at the videos will be limited to
certain situations where people could be hurt — not all the time
as thugs walk around.
However, we still need to stop the state from looking at the videos
made all the time.
Advertising companies churn out a series of neologisms. Their latest
ones are ridiculous.
But don't laugh too long — if they get you to use their terminology,
they are warping your own thoughts. And if the other people you know
start using those terms, they will pressure you to use them too.
That's why I've made lists of terms I urge people to reject:
Microsoft has made outlook.com block all emails from the site disroot.org
and refuses to give a reason.
I know nothing else about disroot.org. If there are any valid
complaints about it, I don't know what they are — but they are
irrelevant. Even valid complaints cannot justify "We block you and
won't say why."
I think that this is part of a tendency which results from the
disappearance of the university and corporate mail servers that many
people formerly used. This decrease in options has made the big email
companies powerful, and thus arrogant.
We should either regulate those companies strictly or break them up.
*UK students plan the largest rent strike in 40 years.*
Space business is growing rapidly — and polluting low Earth orbit
with unnecessary space junk that could ruin everything permanently.
We need governments to apply anti-pollution laws before they
ruin everything.
Inside the White House, the wrecker's officials humored him, pretending
that he had won the election.
Those who couldn't fake it kept away — while still refusing to
admit the truth.
*What the Green New Deal Can Learn from the New Deal,*
especially in regard to what individual US states can do.
* "In a society fully committed to democracy, Congress would use this
lame-duck period to impeach, convict, and disqualify Donald Trump from
pursuing public office in the future, as the Constitution allows."*
That is clearly true, but our society comes nowhere near that. To
remove the wrecker from office would would require the votes of
Republicans. Today's Republicans value the wrecker more than their
country; their commitment to truth is not enough to get them to
recognize the outcome of the election.
*'You Alone Can Save His Life': Edward Snowden Urges Trump to Pardon Julian Assange.*
The conman does not hate Assange the way most politicians do (or
pretend to do). He acts from interest or from whim, so he might do
this. One may as well ask.
* Fears over [Cuban] state curbs on live shows lead to hunger strike, arrests and
street standoff with government.*
Some progressive leaders state satisfaction with some of Biden's choices for
high officials.
Robert Reich: *Joe Biden's economic team beats Trump's goon squad —
but it faces a steep challenge.*
A proposal: allow members of the public to review thugs' body camera videos randomly.
I can see how this would do a lot of good, but it would also violate
the privacy of everyone that cops momentarily look at. We need to limit
what footage gets uploaded and saved, to make sure it includes violent
encounters, and does not include most other things.
The US claims that directed pulsed radio waves injured diplomats' brains
in Cuba and China.
It should not be hard to equip embassies, and diplomats' homes, with
detectors.
Interviews with Kashmiris that were arrested for tweets.
Some report torture.
When athletes on the playing field make a political statement, the
fans have a right to respond with their own opinions. That means they
have the right to cheer, or the right to boo.
If players stated their admiration of a right-wing extremist, would
you boo them? I would. Therefore I defend the right to boo. We must
defend the right of fans to express whatever views they wish to
express, within the limits of what is possible in the situation.
Here are some ideas about how to build understanding and support for
eliminating racism.
A crazed bar owner in Staten Island (the right-wing borough of New
York City) continued serving customers indoors although that was
forbidden. Cops arrested him for repeated violations, so he allegedly
drove his car into a sheriff's deputy, injuring per.
We can't be sure that a report from cops is true, but I expect that videos
will show for certain what he did.
*Poetry, the soul of Uighur culture, on verge of extinction in Xinjiang.*
Because China is extinguishing the poets.
The bully is eager to execute Lisa Montgomery before Biden gets a
chance to perhaps commute her sentence to imprisonment; but what
larger conclusions should we draw?
First of all, this reminds us that US trials are generally sloppy and
often unfair, for the whole range of crimes. Defendants who are
innocent usually plead guilty, because they have no hope of paying for
a proper defense.
Second, we see that the US system of public health is horribly
inadequate.
*Greta Thunberg Says Denmark's 30-Year Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Not Fast Enough.*
She's right, of course. We know from scientific modeling that we need
to get rid of most greenhouse emissions by 2030. Denmark's decision
to stop all exploration now is good; the rest of its plans are an
improvement but still not good enough.
*Because She Was Wrong About Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Libya,
Daniel Ellsberg Joins Campaign Against Flournoy.*
Massachusetts residents: call on Governor Baker to sign the thug department reform bill.
US citizens: call on your senators to pass a resolution to block the arms sale to the UAE.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588. If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to cancel all federal student debt.
(satire) *CDC Introduces New Expedited Quarantine Period Of 3-5
Business Days For $29.99.* Act quickly, limited quantities only!
One good thing about the military spending bill that Congress is
working on is that it would prohibit federal forces from
patrolling American cities without identifying themselves.
Another good thing, which is why the wrecker threatens to veto it, is that
it would require renaming of the US military bases named after traitors
who fought for the Confederacy and to prolong slavery.
What the bill fails to do is cut military spending and redirect
American productivity towards strengthening the American people
(providing food, shelter, education and medical care), and making US
industry less concentrated and thus more resilient.
Military strength is not the most crucial part of making a country
that is great and strong.
Even the downtrodden can fall into narrow-minded localism. This article
describes efforts by indigenous tribes in Minnesota to block a tar
sands pipeline whose only use would be to increase oil extraction and
hasten global climate disaster. But the article does not mention that
danger — only the possibility of polluting the local rivers.
Polluting additional rivers is bad, but civilization could survive
that. Civilization may not survive global heating disaster, and there
is no room in the world's climate budget for more oil extraction
anywhere in the world.
Whatever their motivation, I hope those tribes win their battle to
block the pipeline, but presenting this as a purely local problem will
fail to build awareness about the larger, global issue that threatens
every one of us.
Sanders opposes the bipartisan Covid-19 relief plan because it fails
to provide any immediate relief for Americans that need it.
Proposing a constitutional amendment to abolish forcing prisoners to
work for little or no pay.
This practice continues in some US states, and it is still an
incentive to put more people in prison. When you read about forced
labor in Xinjiang, China, keep in mind that the evil exists here too.
Consolidation of US hospitals and medicine into fewer, bigger
companies is causing big harm to US medical care, and Covid-19 makes
the effects plain.
Food-delivery platforms learn what customers order from restaurants,
then set up "ghost kitchens", phony "restaurants" that do only
delivery, to put restaurants out of business. Now the grocery chain
Kroger's is doing it too.
This could replace millions of not-very-good jobs with gig work for some
and unemployment for the rest.
Bangladesh is taking Rohingya refugees to a low-lying island where
they will drown sooner or later.
This is indeed inhumane, but calling it "short-sighted" presumes that
Bangladesh's government of the fate it is condemning them to. That is
impossible — flooding from storms and sea-level rise is a big concern
in Bangladesh, and hardly anyone can be unaware of it.
A little-known government department finally provided some useful data
about the children that the US separated from parents that can't be
found.
Searching for those refugee children's parents is a good thing to do,
but when the ACLU does this, it is mission creep. It should leave the
job of aiding refugee children to charities whose mission is to aid
children or aid refugees, and focus on its own mission: defending
human rights in the US. If the ACLU ceases to focus on its mission,
its mission will suffer, and that must not be!
Gina Raimondo did a lousy job of dealing with Covid-19 as governor of
Rhode Island: she cut spending instead of helping people get well or
not get sick. She should not be put in charge of the Department of
Health and Human Services.
Opposing Mary Nichols as head of the EPA, because in California she
was too ready to let businesses continue polluting the air where
poor people live.
(satire) *William Barr Celebrates Holidays By Giving Lethal Injections
To Those Less Fortunate.*
Adam Smith called for the owners of businesses to obey the moral rules
of their religions. Today governments must impose moral rules on
businesses.
*Corporations Paying Lawmakers to Outlaw Protest Is a Crime Against Democracy.*
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid that bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
an exception for articles which give important information, in this
case about an attack that threatens the human rights of all members of
my race — the human race — as part of a greater danger that
threatens the lives of all the young members of the human race.
Online stores manipulate people very effectively into spending and
regretting. Some people, with psychological problems, find it very
hard to resist this.
Setting up a national state marketplace site which does not get funded
by a share of what people pay would make it easy to fix this problem,
as well as many others. It could allow people to specify spending
limits for themselves, which the site would then enforce, even limits
on various categories of products.
It could have clear rules set by law and official regulation. It
could completely refuse to allow use of personal data for profiling.
Even better, the site could offer anonymous payment through Taler and
anonymous product pickup at post offices and elsewhere.
This system would eliminate the tax-dodging of Amazon and the lobbying
power of Amazon.
*DACA program must reopen for new applications, judge rules.*
It has taken years to finish stopping what the bully tried to do to these immigrants.
[pol note about when he started to damage DACA]
US courts have been systematically resistant to the conman's bogus claims
of voter fraud.
The fraud that does occur in US elections is voter suppression.
The Covid-19 "stimulus" package gives companies immunity from
liability if their workers die from Covid-19 in unsafe workplaces.
Shame on the plutocratist Democrats in the House who let this through.
Since the bill contains no immediate stimulus for working-class
Americans, maybe it would be better to do nothing for now, and see
what happens in the Georgia Senate runoffs on January 5. I wonder
whether plutocratist Democratic senators will push for his immunity
too.
A loophole in ethics rules for business consultants who are appointed
to government offices allows them to conceal which clients paid them.
The danger of the revolving door is that officials will pre-sell
corrupt decisions, so this loophole is exactly what corruption needs
to hide.
Prisoners in deportation prison say they were punished for requesting Covid-19 tests.
I believe them — it is in character for the sadists of the US
deportation thugs.
*Trump orders US to pull troops from Somalia.*
Even a megalomaniac liar occasionally does something good, even if his
reasons are not good one. This is one of those exceptions.
*Urging Tens of Billions in Emergency Aid, Top UN Officials Warn 2021 Set to
Be 'Catastrophic' for World's Poorest.*
*The Megamachine and the Roots of the Planetary Crisis.*
Millions of Indian farmers are protesting Modi's plutocratist farm policies.
*Sydney Mardi Gras members vote against banning police from 2021 parade.*
People in certain groups, some racial, some political, have real
reason to fear patrolling thugs. But cops walking in a parade are not
likely to attack anyone. Their floats are not tanks. The polarizing
move that was demanded would not have helped to stop the violence of
thugs; it would have vented hostility in a useless way.
It is much better to put that energy into campaigning to stop thugs'
violence.
Scientists have concluded that an antioxidant used in vehicle tires is
washing into the ocean and killing coho salmon.
Thugs in India often use torture to make accused people confess. Sometimes they kill people in jail. If the victim is a Dalit or in a
low cast, there is hardly any fuss.
*Denmark to end new oil and gas exploration in North Sea.*
This is an example of what the whole world must do. When a company
has found new reserves, it has made an investment towards extracting
them, and will fight to do so. Extracting them means death, so we
must fight to prevent that, and blocking the search is the easiest
chance to do so.
(satire) *Concerns About Nuclear Iran Grow After Periodic Table Poster Spotted In Tehran High School.*
Sri Lanka has ordered cremation of corpses of people that die from
Covid-19. Muslims and some Christians are outraged because their
religions forbid cremation.
The main question here is whether there is an objective medical need
to cremate those corpses. WHO says there isn't. If there is no need
for the requirement, Sri Lanka should drop it. Governments should let
people do as they wish when there is no need to interfere.
In general, when a requirement is medically important to protect the
living, religion is no excuse for disobeying it.
Classifying athletes by sex is causing boundary line problems again.
They should give each athlete an individual handicap and eliminate the
need for classifications.
AOC's "tax the rich" sweatshirt costs more because it is made by union workers
in the US.
*Congress Stalls on Stimulus Checks for Families While Corporations Continue
to Reap Millions from CARES Act.*
It is morphing into the SCARE Act.
After years of delay, the US is acting to protect endangered coral
species in US waters.
Local measures will not succeed unless the US curbs ocean acidification.
The US has blocked imports of cotton from Xinjiang on the grounds that
China is using forced labor to produce cotton there.
I support this decision, but it raises many ironies. I doubt that the
conman objects to forced labor; surely he has seized an excuse to hurt
China. I doubt the US will do much to punish Kazakhstan for forcing
children to pick cotton.
The reason I support this is that weakening China is very important.
We have seen that US world domination generates injustice.
Chinese world domination would lead to total subjugation.
(satire) *White House Dishwasher Not Sure Why Trump Keeps Offering Him Pardon.*
Climate activists propose cabinet officials who will defend the climate.
Proposing a path for Biden to work for peace between Palestine and Israel.
The Jewish Forward reproaches the plan to appoint an advocate of
ethnic cleansing to head Yad Vashem, Israel's holocaust memorial.
*Two-Thirds of Americans Favor Raising Taxes on Incomes Over $400K.*
*Google Illegally Surveilled, Interrogated, and Fired Workers Who Tried to
Organize, NLRB Says.*
Google used to have the slogan, "Don't be evil," but that was long ago.
The company has since reconciled with evil.
*New Data Shows Income of Top 0.1% [increased by factor of 4.4] While
That of Bottom 90% Stagnated, Over Past 40 Years.*
People have discovered that the Labour Party includes people who are
bigoted against Muslims.
(Note: the term "Islamophobia" is incorrect because it is a form of
bigotry, which is quite different from a phobia.)
Since prejudice against Muslims is widespread, it would be surprising
indeed not to find it in the Labour Party. It has also been observed
in the Tory Party. So why is the concern focused solely on the former?
Almost 200,000 voters in Georgia are suing to get back on the voter
list after being unjustly purged, supposedly for moving house (but
they had not in fact moved).
*The federal government owns 92 percent of all student debt owed in this
country. Canceling it could provide a huge stimulus.*
It is a mistake to see this primary as an issue concerning race. Like
many aspects of the US economy that make the poor struggle to live,
student debt weighs on the average more on blacks than on whites,
because racism tends to make blacks poorer on the average. But that
is a side issue. The burden of unpayable student debt should be lifted from Americans regardless of their demographic classification.
*Biden Is the Perfect Figurehead for the Post-Trump National Security
Establishment.*
The UN warns about the need for action to protect soils.
A restaurant now serves chicken burgers grown in a culture vat in its
kitchen.
*Republicans are standing up to Trump. Unfortunately, it's too little, too
late.*
We can admire them for turning and facing him when he attacks them,
rather than cringing and obeying, but don't let this erase memory of
all their previous wrongs.
Bats have other coronaviruses that can infect humans.
*Florida investigation finds governor misled public on Covid as cases rose.*
He promoted anti-mask fanaticism while covering up the number of cases.
Residents of Massachusetts: call on Governor Baker to sign the bill
relaxing some obstacles to abortion in Massachusetts.
UN human rights experts judge that France's new repression law, giving
thugs more power as well as immunity from criticism of their crimes,
is incompatible with human rights treaties.
The UK government demands that universities adopt the IHRA
"definition" of antisemitism or face punishment. *[It] is confusing
and divisive. Forcing its adoption will not help protect Jewish
students and staff.*
It turns out that this definition was not even meant to be a set of
rules. It was designed for classifying data for analysis.
I am sure the UK ministers are aware of the political side effect —
to forbid activism against the occupation of Palestine. I suspect
that this is the principal intent of the order, disguised conveniently
as a plan to fight bigotry.
The Democratic Party's blacklist on campaign operatives that worked for
progressive primary challenges seems to have backfired in an ironic way:
with losses in the November election.
Ellen Brown: The Federal Reserve has failed to boost the economy. It
lends to private banks, but they can't find very many businesses or
individuals who want loans and could pay them back. Public banks can
get away with a bigger risk level on each loan and still win through.
It seems to me that this is even more strongly an argument that we
need more direct stimulus payment to individuals.
Arab academics and writers condemn antisemitism, then point out the
distortion in the IRHA's definition for antisemitism and why that definition
must be rejected.
*San Francisco to ban tobacco smoking in apartments.*
Even if you live alone, you will be required to go out to the street
to smoke, to protect you from second-hand smoke. Even if you have mobility
problems and can't actually do it.
Tobacco is very dangerous, and it is important to encourage people to quit.
But this rule is extreme.
Hundreds more products that contain PFAs have been identified.
(satire) *Trump Reduced To Filing Lawsuit To Overturn Single Ballot In
Placerville, Idaho.*
American children are asking Santa Claus for things like beds and
wheelchairs.
Sad thing is, instead of a Santa Claus, there are only Republicans.
Australian banks are shutting the accounts of remittance companies
that send workers' money to countries that are considered
terrorism-connected, such as Somalia. And they do this even when the
government says the company is innocent of money laundering.
*ACLU Sues to Find Out How and Why Federal Agencies Are Accessing Americans'
Cell Phone Location Data.*
The US Secretary of Agriculture has a lot of power, but since decades
these officials have served the giant agribusinesses.
The US Senate is considering a new subsidy for nuclear power.
Only an enormous subsidy could make nuclear power viable, but a
smaller subsidy could be enough keep reactors operating and suck funds
from necessary development of renewable generation.
The government of New South Wales (Australia) held a consultation
about managing water in the biggest river basin. Officials planned in
advance how to prejudice the decision in favor of more irrigation and
against preserving ecosystems.
The UK's policy of giving no extra welfare payments for more than two
children is having a significant effect on how many children women have.
The article gives no information for determining how many births were
avoided this way.
It is very important for people to have fewer children.
However, this welfare policy is unjust, since it punishes
children. It can can stunt their physical and mental growth.
India has hundreds millions of paupers who can hardly get jobs they
can live on, and it is working very hard to make more of them, by
using robots to eliminate better jobs.
*Afghan government and Taliban agree on rules for peace talks.*
The author voices concern that the Taliban intend to take all of
Afghanistan after the US pulls out. I expect that. And I expect it
to impose a cruel, repressive theocracy. But that is less bad than
continuing the war for decade after decade.
*'A Kind of Terrorism': Israeli Human Rights Groups Offer Harrowing Look at
IDF Night Raids on Palestinian Homes.*
*Canada Is Now Paying the Price for Privatizing Its Vaccine Research and
Production Lab.*
The Georgia senate races are like Biden vs Trump: center-right
"moderate" Democrats on one side, vs extremist trumpery on the other.
I urge Georgia voters to vote for the Democrats, then publicly protest against
them for not being progressive.
* Only 1% of the 3,000 supposedly protected areas in the Mediterranean
ban fishing.*
*Goldman Sachs Log Exposes [Senator] David Perdue Stock Trading Claim as a Lie.*
*Insurance Companies Pressured To Not Support Oil Drilling in Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge.*
Now that the big US banks have said they will not finance it,
insurance companies are the next step.
Reporting on a pilot program to end rampant deforestation in a part of
Borneo by involving and benefiting the inhabitants.
The pilot program covers an area around 1/4 that of Rhode Island —
not large in absolute terms, but enough to prove something.
(satire) *Jeff Bezos announced the launch of new
e-commerce site Bezylon Tuesday to undercut Amazon.*
Residents of the UK: tell the Competition and Markets Authority that
it can make drivers more comfortable with electric cars by protecting
their privacy.
Please tell the agency that you want to be assured that (1) the
recharge station will collect absolutely no data from the car being
recharged — especially not which car it is — and (2) that drivers
will be able to pay with cash, anonymously.
You can say that electric cars must not bring with them an increase in
surveillance of the public, because the UK already has to much of
that.
Please spread the word to your friends, and post about the issue in
whatever social media or forums it fits in.
Hong Kong protest organizers have been sentenced to prison for the crime
of organizing protests.
*Photography campaign shows the grim aftermath of logging in Canada's
fragile forests.*
One of Biden's advisers, Cynthia Hogan, *worked as a lead lobbyist for
Apple as it helped push through President Donald Trump’s corporate tax
cut.*
If Democrats ever control Congress, we must press them to reverse that
tax cut, and some previous tax cuts. What use is a Democrat who chooses
to get advice from someone who wants to do the opposite?
G20 countries are giving lots of "coronavirus recovery" funding to
fossil fuel development.
$230 billion worth. All of it is worse than wasted.
Right-wing Hungarian politicians had a "gay orgy" after enacting laws
to deny rights to gays. They are now being attacked for hypocrisy
because of this conflict between their personal actions and their
politics.
They are indeed hypocritical, but it is a mistake to focus on that
contradiction, because it is a side issue and distracts from the
substantive issue. Would those laws be any less bad if these
politicians practiced what they preach? Not at all.
Their laws are the wrong, so let's focus on that.
*UN secretary general: humanity faces climate 'suicide' without US rejoining
Paris agreement.*
That statement is surely true. Avoiding suicide requires a lot
more than the Paris agreement, but can serve a sign of intent.
*Dozens test positive for Covid after [250-person] swingers convention
in New Orleans.*
To have a swinging meeting and avoid propagating Covid-19 must be
very difficult — best to postpone the meeting until it is safe.
Why Canada responded to atrocities by its "special forces" by
disbanding the unit.
Maybe they called that unit "special" as a euphemism for "bad behavioral
problems."
*Female trafficking survivors in UK forced into unsafe housing.*
*Barack Obama criticizes 'Defund the Police' slogan.
The key is deciding, do you want to actually get
something done, or do you want to feel good among the people you
already agree with?*
Ilhan Omar of
Minnesota said, *"defund the police" was not about mere words
but a "demand for equitable investments and budgets for communities
across the country."
Why see a conflict there? I think they are both right.
I support the substance of the campaign, articulated by Ilhan Omar. But
I agree with Obama that that particular slogan is a bad way to
campaign for it.
How about, "Replace the police"?
Piers Corbyn, the climate denialist and Covid-denialist brother of
Jeremy Corbyn, has been convicted for protesting in London.
People have a right to protest if they follow the precautions so as
not to transmit Covid-19. I cannot tell, from this article, whether
Piers Corbyn followed them or not.
As a denialist, he might well have disregarded those precautions, in
which case he deserves this conviction. But that raises the question,
what would they have done if he had followed the precautions?
Does the UK recognize the right to protest, subject to sanitary
precautions? Or does it prohibit all protest, in the name of sanitary
precautions?
The wrecker is now stirring up his cultists to commit violence against
Republican election officials that won't cheat for him.
*US justice department investigates alleged 'bribery for pardon' scheme.*
When states started to permit evictions, a big increase (a factor of
2) in Covid-19 infections followed.
*To End Impunity for 'Deliberate Destruction' of Planet, International Lawyers
Drafting Plan to Criminalize Ecocide.*
*GOP silence on Trump's false election claims recalls McCarthy era.*
US human rights defenders have sought help in their goal from the UN's
periodic human rights review.
With countries such as China in the UN Human Rights Council, I hope they won't
do to these reviews what the wrecker did to human rights and justice in the US.
14 countries, some of them important in fishing, have signed a treaty to
eliminate subsidies for fishing, and take other steps to use the ocean
sustainably.
Many important fishing countries, including China, Iceland, the UK and
the US, have not signed.
(satire) *Police Warn Onlookers Not To Enter Active Crime Scene Cover-Up.*
*Going "Back to Normal" Is Too Dangerous to Even Contemplate.*
The conman's latest con: raising funds to "combat election fraud"
which will instead go to other purposes.
Ohio is passing a law to let the state government promote construction
of "small" nuclear reactors.
These reactors are "small" only by comparison with the ones
constructed so far, but they will be an absurd waste of money now that
solar and wind power are so cheap. Furthermore, they will produce
radioactive waste just like all other kinds. And if global heating
leads to a much poorer civilization, no one will ever finish
decontaminating them; sooner or later, the waste will simply leak.
*Enablers now extol potential Cabinet picks who've
combined pushing for continuous war and hugely expensive new weapons
systems with getting rich as dealmakers for the military-industrial
complex.*
However, Biden's domestic policy choices are generally less completely
plutocratist than Obama's were.
US citizens: call on Congress to support diplomacy with Iran.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588. If you call, please spread the word!
*Break up UK's big high street banks, say cross-party MPs.*
I agree. Big banks, like other big companies, have too much power,
which they can use to exploit, or to lobby.
A leaked document indicates that China's reports on Covid-19 in the
first few months were understatements, but perhaps more the result of
bureaucratic rigidity than any plot to deceive.
*How restoring flood plains can help protect the climate.*
Queensland has made an ecocidal bet on increased coal and gas royalty
revenue, and it is losing the bet.
*'Catastrophic' bushfire on Queensland's Fraser Island threatens ecological
disaster.*
Australia needs support to stand against China's aggressive economic warfare.
The conflict started when Australia rejected Chinese mobile phone
base equipment with nonfree software inside, as a security threat.
In fact, all such equipment is a security threat. If Australia had
taken that position, it would be confronting the whole threat and
without singling out China.
*Trump’s border wall construction threatens survival of jaguars in the US.*
Climate mayhem will bring flooding. Affordable housing in New York,
Massachusetts, New Jersey and California will be especially vulnerable
to flooding.
An Australian senate committee is trying to investigate government cheating,
but can't get answers from the officials involved.
The Arecibo radio telescope collapsed completely.
China built a 500-meter fixed dish radio telescope in the past decade.
Meanwhile, the US can't keep one operating. It makes a sad contrast.
The causes are not practical. Rather, in the US all the money goes
to the plutocrats and the military.
And it's not just radio telescopes that the US lacks the money to do.
There are other things, even more important, which the US fails to do
— for instance, giving poor people a decent life.
Well, at least the US has saved some of the cost of demolition :-{.
Bogus Johnson plans to take another step in the long slow process of
transferring all political power in the UK to the hands of the prime minister.
The article gives the details of this step, but the overall process
is more important than the details of one step or another.
*Transport Unions Say Rahm Emanuel Leading DOT Would Be a "Betrayal".*
Will Biden reinstate Obama's reported decision not to prosecute
Assange for espionage?
Another question I wonder about: if indeed the US had no intention to
prosecute Assange for espionage during those years, did the US intend
to prosecute him in some other way? If so, what was it?
There were indications that the US did plan to prosecute him,
and that Sweden and the UK were fabricating excuses to get their hands
on him,
while Obama was president.
A bipartisan proposal might unlock Covid-19 relief funds in the Senate.
For the most part, this compromise has to be better than nothing.
However, one provision is potentially extremely harmful: shielding
businesses from liability for making workers work in conditions that
expose them to Covid-19.
This could enable businesses to get away with gratuitously increasing
the workers' risk.
*Wildflower meadows to line England's new roads in boost for biodiversity.*
Nice try, but it is far better to avoid building new roads
than to build them and put meadows alongside them.
Italy plans to charge five Egyptian government agents with the murder
of graduate student Giulio Regeni in Cairo.
Unsurprisingly, Egypt's repressive government says it has no idea who
was responsible for the murder.
Regeni's studies involved interviewing people that were on bad terms
with the state.
[pol note about this point]
Biden nominated Neera Tanden for head of the Office of Management and
Budget. She is the head of the "Center for American Progress", a
plutocratist think-tank.
We must expect plutocratist action from her.
*Monopolies have made America's Covid response worse.*
Lisbon has made use of the temporary end of tourism to convert many
temporary rentals into long-term low-price residences.
Australian soldiers' crime against an inanimate object arouses
incredible outrage — more so, it seems, than their crimes that hurt
human victims, including torture and murder.
That bespeaks a taboo-based morality, according to which taboos are
more important than people, so violating taboos is worse than killing
people.
I hereby affirm that, when I am dead, I will not mind at all if
someone takes some valueless part of my property and uses it as a cup.
Or even my bones. After all, I won't need them any more.
However, I have willed my body to science, so do let the lab have
first dibs.
Amnesty accuses Facebook and Youtube of helping Vietnam's political
censorship.
Some of the prostitutes in the UK are enslaved. How to put a stop to that?
This article avoids the frequent prudish assumptions. It notes the
existence of enslavement in the field of sex work but does not jump
irrationally to the conclusion that all prostitution must be stamped
out. So it confronts us with the challenge that really exists: to
put an end to enslavement of sex workers.
The general long-term solution, I believe, is to make sure nobody is
desperate enough to need to take a job offer that is too good to be
true. But that is an enormous global challenge.
Treating this like kidnaping or wage theft in any other field,
assuring women who might become prostitutes that they won't be
penalized for that but that registering could enable them to be
rescued, might help. Legalizing brothels provided they have
registered the owners and managers, and frequently inspecting the
operations of each one, might make it easier to find them, if the
penalty for running an unregistered brothel is years in prison.
*Amazon deforestation surges to 12-year high under Bolsonaro.*
Facebook agreed to a scheme to pay newspapers for using some of their articles
in a featured way.
While it is probably a good thing in a general sense for Facebook to
pay some money to newspapers, this will enable Facebook to gain
increased political influence while choosing which newspapers to
support and which to ignore. I suspect that it is a change for the
worse, overall.
One good thing about Biden: he advocates abolishing the death penalty
in the US.
He also wants to legalize marijuana and eliminate privatized prisons and
mandatory minimum sentences. I haven't checked every item in this
long list, but the ones I have looked at seem good.
The European court of human rights decided to hear a lawsuit by
young activists about the threat to their health and even their
lives from allowing so much fossil fuel combustion. 33 European
states must defend themselves from the claims.
Young people are the plaintiffs because they face the worst harm, if they
live out their present-day natural life spans.
A pilot project in the UK will switch homes over to burning renewably produced hydrogen rather than natural gas (mainly methane).
Four French thugs who cruelly attacked and injured a Parisian man
have been charged already, in less than one week.
On this score, France is miles above the US.
If you play Minecraft on an Xbox, can you tell me the
answer to these questions?
* Which version are you using?
* Does it force you to save your own worlds only on Microsoft
servers? Does it default to saving them on Microsoft servers?
* Can you play without without having anything to do with Microsoft
servers?
* Can you export your data from Microsoft servers and take them to
some other server?
* Can you play Minecraft solitaire without identifying yourself?
* Can you play Minecraft solitaire saving your data and worlds on a
server hosted by you?
* Can you play Minecraft solitaire without using any a server?
Regardless of the answers, Minecraft is nonfree software. I urge you
to switch to the free program Minetest and reclaim your freedom.
*Three-quarters of Australians back target of net zero by 2030, Guardian
Essential poll shows.*
This gives me hope that the planet-roasters that have ruled Australia
for many years
may start losing elections.
*Austin Fusion Center Spied on Nonpolitical Cultural Events.*
I think their spying on political events is already outrageous.
But there is no limit to the gatherings at which two would-be terrorists
might get to know each other, so they think they need to spy on everything.
*The Economy Isn’t Working. That's Exactly the Plan.*
*Protecting Indigenous Languages Is Protecting Biodiversity.*
Craig Murray is facing pressure to censor Alexa by stopping it from
quoting his criticism of Israel's occupation of Palestine. Supposedly
it represents antisemitism.
I do not support separating Scotland from the UK. The problems that
Scotland faces come from the plutocratist government of the UK, and
the right thing to do is fix that for the whole UK, not separate one
piece from it. Besides, what Murray says about the SNP shows that an
independent Scotland will tend to yield to plutocratist "normality".
There are also bad business-supremacy treaties that the UK has agreed
to, but an independent Scotland would surely yield to pressure to sign
the same treaties, so independence would do no good.
Dissident Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee has fled to Taiwan and
operates a book store there. He warns that we must do more to defend
Taiwan.
I think the US should recognize Taiwan and tell China, "We hope to
maintain diplomatic relations with China also."
Switzerland considered a law to hold Swiss companies responsible for
human rights and environmental crimes in other countries, but it
failed to win in a majority of the cantons.
One real benefit from the UK's departure from the EU: ending the
landowner subsidy.
100,000 people in Turkey are in jail facing charges of participating
in the coup attempt several years ago.
The coup attempt was real and violent, and it is legitimate to try the
people who participated in that. But it is impossible to have a
secret plan with 100,000 participants. Most of the people accused
must be innocent, one way or another.
The cost of decommissioning old nuclear power plants in the UK is
ballooning, and it is going much more slowly that expected.
This is partly because private companies are hired to do it and
their executives are too busy padding their expense accounts to focus
on doing the job.
Is the US handling this any better?
Planning to take 80 years, or even 40 years, to clean up a deactivated
nuclear power plant is totally unrealistic if we do not stop global
heating much sooner than that. After 40 years of unchecked global
heating, neither the money nor the expertise will be available, as
climate disaster will cause enormous problems (such as hunger) that
will have to take priority. By 2080 I expect the technology needed
will no longer be available, and warlords/kingpins may be fighting.
Eventually the ocean will take many of the sites.
In a million years, the radioactive atoms will have mostly decayed and
the results will be much less dangerous than they are now. The same
may not be true for persistent chemicals such as neonicotinoids and PFAs.
What the UK needs to do is cancel the construction of Hinkley Point C,
never mind the sunk costs, and give highest priority to cutting
greenhouse gas levels.
China is working very hard to convince people that Sars-CoV-2 did not
originate in China.
It is foolish to politicize the place of origin of the virus.
This campaign by China is foolish, just as the bullshitter's castigation
of China because the virus originated there is foolish.
What China did wrong was to deny for a time that it had detected
Sars-CoV-2. But that did not last very long. Many other countries
have done much worse things in dealing with Covid-91, including the
US.
The UK covers up and disguises sales of arms to repressive states.
Ethiopia's army captured the capital of Tigray with hardly any
resistance.
I think that means Tigray's forces are switching to guerrilla
tactics. This involves melting away when attacked by a large force,
then making small concentrations to attack even smaller units.
Biden's team will find wreckage in many federal agencies.
They should report what they find.
When the Tories reorganized welfare benefits, they put in an arbitrary
maximum limit which is independent of how much a family needs. Now
some families need more money to cope with the consequences of
Covid-19, and they are supposed to be offered more — but they don't
actually receive it because the limit kicks in.
Does protecting endangered ecosystems require a park that excludes humans?
Or can indigenous humans help protect them?
I suspect that it depends on the economic pressures on the humans and
whether their lifeways and population are stable. In other words, it
may be possible for the humans to coexist with the endangered
ecosystems, but that doesn't mean it will happen automatically
regardless. We may have to help.
Around the world, for around a hundred years, fascist rulers and
would-be rulers have been paying close attention to each others'
techniques.
Tory politicians can break promises, lie, commit crimes, even engage
in systematic corruption, and no one can do anything about it. Much
like the conman, they can use their power to crush whoever might try.
London thugs arrested people arriving in London by train with equipment for
protesting.
It is legitimate to prohibit people from meeting in public and
transmitting Covid-19. It is not legitimate to prohibit protests.
Can you see how to reconcile these two principles? Of course you can;
why can't the British government?
* The bad news [from Biden] for progressives is that there has not yet been a single
person announced for an official post that the left can be enthusiastic
about.*
France is passing laws that criminalize protests and prohibit posting
images of thugs if one can see who they are. This prohibits, in
particular, live-streaming of their violent actions.
None of this has is a cure for the disease of Islamist terrorism,
but even if it were a cure, it would be worse than the disease.
Thousands protested against the restrictions on press freedom.
Prohibiting home-schooling is repressive, too.
A virtual book club in Taiwan invites people to participate using
encryption via Jitsi, so Hong Kongers can join.
The WHO thinks that Covid-19 may have undone 20 years of progress
in eliminating tuberculosis and malaria.
21 months in prison for throwing eggs at a Hong Kong thug building, on
the grounds that it manifested an unfriendly attitude towards the
state.
NPR insultingly equated Stacey Abrams's truthful complaint of election
rigging with the bullshitter's lie.
It is true that both candidates had the right to demand a recount.
But the two are not morally comparable.
(satire) *Satan Offering Black Friday Deal To Trade Only 50% Of Soul
For Lifetime Of Riches.*
(satire) *South Dakota Unveils New ‘Come Die Here’ Tourism Campaign.*
Leaked 2019 documents detail how Amazon spies on environmentalists and
workers' organizing.
This includes using predictive policing to infiltrate possible union
hot-spots and smear or harass employees who are liable to speak up
about those issues.
Advertising pumps up many forms of consumption that endanger
civilization's survival, both specifically and in a deeper general
way by convincing people to value purchases more than spending
time with people.
Since in general advertising is manipulative, misleading and annoying,
there is no reason to hesitate to reduce the amount of it.
US businesses are moving rapidly to replace human restaurant and hotel
workers with robots.
This means that today's massive unemployment will not go away when
Covid-19 does. Only socialist measures to support the unemployable can
avoid making them homeless and hungry.
One way we can fight back is by refusing to use self-checkout sales
machines. You can shout out, as I do, "Millions of Americans are out
of work. Let's not let them replace humans with robots!"
Bruce Reed, who encouraged and helped Bill Clinton to inflict more suffering
on the poor, is now being considered by Biden for a White House position
where he would have plenty of influence to do more of the same.
Biden proudly announced that he considers the number of
progressives he has chosen for his administration significant.
That is an exaggeration, but more important is the concentration of
center-right plutocratist or militarist Democrats he has already chosen
or is considering.
Some San Francisco thugs celebrated when a former thug murdered Mayor
Moscone and Harvey Milk.
A substantial number of people in the US are avoiding having children
so as not to condemn them to climate mayhem. Some regret having had
children.
The survey did not seek a representative sample, so no conclusions can be
drawn about how many people feel this way, but this is an important change.
Once you've avoided having children, your income will allow you to good
for the world without getting paid for it. Make sure not to waste this.
The new leaders of Labour have chosen an authoritarian approach to the
millions of Labour Party members who still support Corbyn: they are
forbidden to talk about the subject.
It is not unusual to suppress discussion by stretching the definition
of antisemitism, but this is the biggest stretch I have ever seen.
We cannot act effectively against real antisemitism if we mislabel
everything we dislike as "antisemitism".
*Analysis: shooting of [Iranian nuclear scientist] Mohsen Fakhrizadeh
will do more harm to diplomacy than it does to Iran’s nuclear
programme.*
The theory that Israel carried out the attack, and the wrecker approved it,
seems valid to me. If Biden does not punish Israel for trying to push
the US and Iran into war, he will show himself to be a weakling.
The wrecker is asking the Supreme Court, which he has stacked,
to change the Pennsylvania election results
on the fictitious grounds of fraud that did not happen.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the MORE act, which would
legalize using marijuana.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
Israeli draft refuser Hallel Rabin thanks people for messages of support.
Selling carbon offsets for carbon storage in farmland is a scam:
it is not practical to measure how much carbon is really stored,
and it could all be released at any moment.
The saboteur in chief made an executive order to allow agencies to
remove civil service protection from employment positions at will.
They could fire, or threaten to fire, anyone who won't lie when
ordered to.
Scotland is keeping its schools' windows open for ventilation, which
makes them so cold that students have to wear coats and warm clothes
all day. Unfortunately, many families can't afford to buy those
clothes.
Israel's almost trumpish treatment of asylum seekers.
Gush Shalom: Israel should allow heroic whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu
to go to Norway to live.
What Biden must do to have a chance of moving towards peace between
Israel and Palestine.
The wrecker has removed many experienced advisors from the Defense
Policy Board.
Why bother to do this, when Biden could reappoint them in two months?
I fear it is so that he will not have to hear them try to be polite
while explaining to him that bombing Iran would lead to disaster.
The Supreme Court ruled that local laws for curbing the spread of
Covid-19 cannot restrict religious organizations more strictly than
other, secular organizations. Based on that, it ruled New York State's
restrictions on religious meetings unconstitutional.
The general policy seems legitimate to me. Although I don't respect
the idea of faith, I believe in respecting people's right to practice
their religions. This general decision is not the disaster some are
painting it as.
However, the right-wing Supreme Court justices strained the facts
badly to reach the conclusion that New York State's restrictions
restrict churches more than secular establishments. The secular
establishments that would have large numbers of people attend in a
long session are closed entirely; churches are allowed to open.
I think New York State could redraft the restrictions so that they
explicitly apply the same criteria to various kinds of establishments
and result, in practice, in rules equivalent to the present ones.
Maybe then the court would have to accept it — or else reveal that it
is trifling with its duty.
Arguing that giant quasi-monopolies are systematically capable of
crushing unions, at least under current US labor law.
Textbook companies in the US are using various dirty tricks to stop
college students from buying used textbooks and saving money. This
includes corrupting professors with bribes that carry big labels
saying "This is not a bribe."
But it also includes other trickery, such as making textbooks change
in trivial ways from year to year or from school to school. And, of course,
making students subscribe to access to an unjust ebook, which typically has
all the injustices of other commercial ebooks.
When people talk about "open educational resources," or "open"
textbooks that are "free to download," we cannot tell right away
whether they are free/libre or not. That's because the definition of
that term accepts some nonfree licenses.
But I think these "open" textbooks are in fact free/libre. The law
that funds their development requires a license like CC-BY, and they
are developed by an organization called LibreTexts which seems to
recommend only free software tools.
However, cannot verify this. I was unable to find anything on
libretexts.org which spoke about the licensing of their textbooks.
The front page talks about the practical benefits, the things naive
people would appreciate, but says nothing about freedom.
Perhaps there is information present which I could not find. Some of
the home page's navigation does not work without running some nonfree
JS code. I will ask them.
Some WiFi hubs have back doors which can control not only the router
but devices connected to it.
From the details in the article, I think the back door is in the
router's administrative web server, so it would have nothing to do
with the specific physical platform or where that was made.
The people who found the back door present arguments that it was
made intentionally.
There are hubs that run free software. That gives the community a way
to try to check for, and get rid of, malicious functionality like this.
The Tories are setting up a fund for investment in reducing greenhouse
gas emissions, just three years after they eliminated the old one.
I think that was when Cameron was prime minister. Under his
government, the Tories had an ideological policy of gradually
eliminating investment in reducing global heating, even as as they
pushed fracking.
Apparently, they considered maximizing fossil fuel a priority
comparable to reducing the income of poor people.
Virus-denialists in Arizona are delighted to hold an interstate soccer
tournament with reportedly 500 teams, which would imply thousands of
players.
Some of these benighted fools are so stubbornly loyal to the wrecker's
lies that they adamantly deny the reality of Covid until their last
words as they are dying of it. Why not bring together thousands of
people for a kilospreader event?
The matches will be played outdoors, I expect, which reduces the danger
of them. But unless those teams practice firm discipline, players
will catch Covid-19 from teammates and locals. It would be a small
number compared with the almost 200,000 persons per day that are
getting infected in the US, but every little bit hurts.
Sicily asked Cuba to send doctors.
This year is a La Niña year, which makes Australia cooler, but global
heating is stronger and could damage the Great Barrier Reef
nonetheless.
Republicans are trying to continue the civil war, from the Confederate
side.
*More than 3 billion people affected by water shortages, data shows.*
That is almost half current the human population. I wonder how much
of human population growth is in areas with water shortages.
I suspect it is more than half.
Thugs in Paris attacked a man who was walking to his office without a
mask, and beat him bloody. Then they made false accusations against
him.
Did they do this because he did not wear a mask? Or did they do this
because he was black? I suppose it was the latter, since they called
him racist insults too.
It was right for them to take quick action on seeing a person outside
without a mask on. But the proper action was to give him a mask to
put on immediately, and fine him. Perhaps arrest him if it was a
repeat offense. Not to invade his studio and attack him and others.
I am glad to see that the authorities are not delaying the pursuit of
these thugs. In the US it typically takes mass protests, over time,
to get that far.
Article 24, which puts people in jeopardy if they expose thugs for
their crimes, is very dangerous for human rights in France.
*EU to ban use of lead shot by wetland bird hunters.*
Lead is toxic to animals, just as to humans. It is good to stop
putting lead into the environment.
*Climate crisis making autumn leaves fall earlier, study finds.*
Scientists had predicted that, with a longer growing season, trees
would store more carbon Instead, they drop their leaves
once they have stored enough energy to be ready for winter.
This means that predictions for how much carbon forests will store
must be adjusted down, and predictions for disaster must be adjusted up.
The corrupter has pardoned his former agent, Michael Flynn, who was convicted for lying to the FBI about what he did for the corrupter.
This is a corrupt practice. I think we need to limit the president's
power to pardon so that presidents cannot do this in the future.
Noam Chomsky: *Trump Has Revealed the Extreme Fragility of American Democracy.*
A call to break up the three principal US fund managers: BlackRock,
Vanguard and State Street.
Us citizens: call on the New Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: tell Biden not to put anyone in the OMB that prioritizes
reducing the deficit.
A depression requires deficit spending.
Retail workers, called "heroes" by stingy employers, demand a raise
in proportion to their employers' rising profits.
Immigrant rights defenders welcome Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden's choice
to head the Department of Harshness and Sadism.
If we are really fortunate, we will have to call the department some
other name.
Egyptian freedom activist Alaa Abd El Fattah was imprisoned again
a year ago because of protests that he did not participate in.
He is now on hunger strike.
Copyright on recorded music nominally exists to benefit musicians, but
streaming dis-services are redefining that benefit towards zero.
Meanwhile, the enforcement of copyright is getting nastier as the
web is filled with W3C-endorsed DRM that we can't break.
Exxon's plans, from leaked internal documents, include increasing the
extraction of fossil fuel.
In other words, the company is planning gigadeaths.
(satire) * President-elect Joe Biden confirmed Wednesday that he had received his
first box of wadded-up napkins and greasy receipts comprising President
Trump’s intelligence briefing.*
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected the proposed Pebble Mine.
This is a victory for wildlife and human life, but it isn't
necessarily final. Moneyed interests can sue and appeal over and
over.
The EPA reports that that 1,676 endangered species are
likely to be harmed by glyphosate.
Senator Wyden told Biden not to nominate Mike Morell to head the CIA.
Much like the wrecker's appointed head, Gina Haspel, Morell is associated with
defending CIA torture.
Seattle has cut its thug department's budget by 18%.
It is important for the 9-1-1 response team to be outside the thug
department, so that it will not have a default tendency to send a team
of thugs when it gets a call saying that someone is in crisis and
needs help. The presence of guns and gunmen can lead to shootings.
The wrecker followed a pattern set by Dubya: blatant disregard for
thoughtful consideration of major dangers and decisions.
*[UK] immigration officials have been accused of using coercive tactics to
gain access to people’s homes and businesses without search warrants.*
Mnuchin's final act of sabotage: lock away 450 billion in Covid-19 aid
so that Biden would need congressional permission to spend it.
The obvious response for a president who really wants to aid Americans
is to use this, and the general issue of aid, to make Republicans
scream, and to campaign for the Jan 5 Georgia Senate run-offs.
I predict that Biden will do this at most half-heartedly.
*Economists Call for $3 Trillion Covid Relief Package
to Stop Nation's Descent Into Ruin.*
I wonder if the platinum-coin hack
might make enable Biden to bypass
the senate's objections to helping Americans. But I have a feeling
he would rather moan about being blocked, than overcome the blockage.
George Monbiot contends that taking the UK out of the EU is a scheme
for the "warlord" capitalists (who despise regulation and democracy
both) to rip up the "housetrained" capitalists who have prospered
together with those.
The warlords like to say that "freedom" means that they can use their
wealth to do whatever they like, even decree penury or death for
millions of people; that nothing stands in their way. Their
supporters, the antisocialists, call themselves "libertarians", but
they do not deserve that name.
There is no need to worry about catching Covid-19 from paper money.
It is theoretically possible, but many factors combine to make it an
insignificant risk. You don't need to surrender your anonymity out of
fear.
In the US, poverty brings spreading hunger.
Berlin has instituted strict rent control as rents were soaring.
The usual way to avoid discouraging new construction is to exempt
it from rent control. The article seems to expect Berlin instead
to construct lots of public housing.
The UK has seen an enormous increase in domestic violence, and it started
before the pandemic.
*Iranian president upbeat about relations with Biden-led US.*
I am optimistic too. The US has done many unjust things to Iran,
including engineering a coup against Mossadegh's elected government in
1954, and supporting the Shah's torture regime for decades after.
Then there was supporting Iraq in invading Iran in the 1980s,
and grueling sanctions in this century.
Iran has done some nasty things to the US, such as taking hostages in
1980 supporting the Lebanese hostage takers later that decade. But
all in all Iran has suffered more in this exchange than the US.
(Iran's government has often behaved repressively in Iran, but that
doesn't come into this comparison.)
If Iran can forgive, the US should be able to forgive.
The cruel UK "hostile environment" policy of making unauthorized
immigrants (and even those suing to claim they are authorized) into
paupers has been ruled a violation of immigration law.
*Victoria's electric vehicle tax could reduce clean car use by 25% [in
2050], researcher says.*
The idea that petroleum-burning cars will still be sold in 2050
shows the total inadequacy of Australia's climate plans, and the absurd
idea of this tax reflects the fundamental unwillingness to do what is
needed.
French thugs broke up a refugees camp in an important square in Paris,
and in the process attacked people with violence that outraged
the minister in charge of police.
Bertelsmann, which includes one of the major recorded music empires,
is buying publishing companies and will soon control 1/3 of the US
book market.
In addition to the usual dangers of too few competitors with too much
power and lobbying strength, concentration in book publishing
facilitates censorship by bullying. Here's an example.
I don't need to agree with Peterson's book, or know what views it
advocates, to consider it dangerous to a free society for bullies to
be able to prevent the publication of a book because they don't like
it.
No company should be allowed to have even 10% of the book publishing
market. Or the book sales market (down with Amazon!). Perhaps 5% is
the bigger than we should tolerate.
US citizens: call on the FCC not to bend rules for Faux News and the
Murdoch family.
Loujain al-Hathloul, who campaigned in Salafi Arabia for women's right
to drive and has been jailed almost three years, now faces some sort of
charges of terrorism.
It turns out to be difficult to avoid buying soybeans grown on
deforested land.
I think the demand for soybeans is so high that any beans that are
grown will be bought by someone.
The demand for soybeans is high because people are eating so much
meat. Indeed, a large fraction of Americans eat so much meat that it
is dangerous for their health. It also fuels global heating, through
cattle-generated methane as well as through deforestation. Perhaps the real
solution is to tax meat so much that people won't eat so much meat.
The conman's "infrastructure program" was meant as a give-away to business,
but the US really does need to build and maintain its infrastructure.
It should do so in a way that protects the environment and reduces global heating.
How Taiwan deals with the danger of misinformation and disinformation.
Ethiopia claims that informally organized gangs of Tigrayans massacred
hundreds of local residents belonging to other Ethiopian ethnic groups.
It also says that other local Tigrayans protected their neighbors
from the massacre.
*[Boston's official thugs] whom the department found had stolen,
committed fraud, attacked co-workers, or drew guns on their colleagues
were allowed to quietly resign or retire without facing charges.
[Thugs] who attacked family members, threatened civilians, and
drunkenly crashed their cars remain on the force today.* In addition,
[thugs] that were prosecuted for theft, and for lying to officials, got
off easy.
If you think that, because you are a cop, you should not be punished
for crimes, that means you are a thug, and a would-be police
department needs you gone.
*Following Outcry, US Government Halts Deportations of Women Who
Allege Medical Abuse in [deportation prison] — At Least for Now.*
Republicans may be setting up a permanent big-lie campaign that will
claim that Biden stole the election.
As far as I know, the wrecker is not obsessed with eliminating any
particular demographic group. This year he adopted a plan that would
bring about the death of many blacks and Hispanics, but only
instrumentally. However, aside from that, he is as evil as a Nazi.
*Defenders of US Public Schools Call on Biden to Ditch Trump's Disastrous
Education Policies — and Obama's Too.*
I agree with those goals, including the goal of diversity among
students in public schools. Diversity in class contributes to
education in a specific way: it can help students get used to knowing
and relating to people of different backgrounds.
Alas, I don't see much hope Biden will choose to do anything better
than Obama did it.
(satire) *Staff Slowly Introducing Biden To Oval-Shaped Rooms For
Smoother Transition To White House.*
It has been proved that the London apartment building fire was caused
by companies that knowingly disregarded building standards to made the
building a firetrap. What follows from that?
I am sure people can think of more effective regulatory systems.
The reason they are not in place in the UK is that the government
has catered too much to business. Corbyn would have fixed that.
But I have two other recommendations that may shock the people
who expect that business will always be above human beings.
Bernie Sanders: *How do we avoid future authoritarians? Winning back
the working class is key.*
Sanders asks the Democrats, "Which side are you on?" We must all ask
each Democrat that question.
Sanders for President in 2024!
Qatar's thugs strip-searched passengers searching for the mother of an
abandoned baby. It appears that the mother had flown out already, and
that she was compelled to abandon the baby and flee, lest she be
punished severely for sex outside of marriage.
But they seem to have found her and will now charge her with attempted
murder.
You do not want to be in Qatar.
Lawyers that make false claims of electoral fraud in court are violating
the standards of the court and should be punished.
*Australia's entire SAS regiment must be disbanded after Brereton report,
expert says.*
This is the report about their murder of prisoners.
Singapore's strict repression is showing, as Jolovan Wham is facing
criminal charges for a one-person "assembly".
The "assembly" lasted a few seconds during which he took a photo.
If one person can be an "assembly", then I must be assembling every minute
even when I am home by myself. And you, too.
Administering the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is a difficult logistical challenge in the US, especially because of inadequate funding for
public health.
Two "security" guards in Brazil beat a black man to death.
One of them punched him while the other held him in place.
DeJoy, before becoming head of the USPS, had a business, and made a
practice of laundering campaign contributions through the employees.
That is illegal. Will DeJoy be prosecuted?
The UK invites volunteers to help take care of asylum seekers
imprisoned in a privatized old military base, and threatens to
imprison the volunteers if they describe the resistance of the asylum seekers.
This is said to include hunger strikes and suicide attempts.
*The pernicious and lucrative aspects of military madness are personified in the favorite to be Biden’s Defense Secretary,* Michele Flournoy.
*The militarization of American society and the
"thank-you-for-your-service" fetishization of American soldiers will
continue to thrive.*
Americans who join the US military typically wish to serve their
country. There are scenarios in which they might be called upon to do
that. But what they are more often ordered to do is wreak suffering
on some other country.
Rather than passing the buck to an imaginary deity to "protect our
troops," the president ought to make sure not to endanger them for bad
reasons.
The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Biden to do better than Obama did in respecting freedom of the press.
Georgia's Republican officials propose to block new voters from
registering before the Jan 5 runoff elections unless they have
registered a car in Georgia.
(satire) *Coronavirus Optimistic New Mutation Will Be Widely Available
To Public By Early Spring.*
The US should stop supporting Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara.
Biden has chosen a secretary of state who helped convince him to support
the conquest of Iraq.
*Peace Groups Blast Biden's [head of US intelligence services] Pick
[Avril Haines] Over Links to Drones, Torture, and Mass Surveillance.*
Warlike "centrist" Democrats think she's great. No wonder she
supported the nomination of fellow torture-advocate Haspel to head the
CIA. According to Wikipedia, she decided not to punish the CIA agents
who had been caught cracking Senate computers to spy on senators.
Some of them seem to think she is a good choice because of her gender
or reported hispanic ethnicity. Her Wikipedia page gives no sign of
hispanic roots; perhaps they are distant. Surely those Democrats
don't think that she would refrain from engineering coups in Latin
America on their account. Or do they think they will encourage her to
do so?
*High Drug Prices Could Result in Premature Deaths of More Than 1.1 Million
Seniors [in the US] in Next Decade.*
*Fossil fuel companies received $110 billion in
direct and indirect financial assistance during the coronavirus
pandemic* — so far.
*Myanmar's genocide against Rohingya not over, says rights group.*
Food delivery bike-riders in Australia are not only stuck with
precarious work and low pay. They are also getting killed in
collisions with bigger vehicles.
I wonder if their low pay compels them to work when they are too tired
to avoid the trucks.
*New York swingers club shut down for breaking coronavirus restrictions.*
I'm in favor of sex clubs, but only so long as they take care not to
spread disease. If that is not feasible, they must close for now.
*UK government to subsidise onshore renewable energy projects.*
The UK did this 10 years ago. Then the previous Tory leaders created
excuses to obstruct land-based wind power projects. It authorized the
slightest bit of local opposition to block a wind farm, while making
it impossible for local people to block fracking.
To stop blocking land-based wind power projects is a step forward.
The GSA recognized Biden as "apparent" president elect and will start
transition planning.
However, the wrecker will not stop trying to corrupt Republican
legislators, despite having been thwarted in Michigan.
Salafi Arabia tortured Mohammed Al Faraj into confessing to several
political crimes, and plans to execute him for those. Two injustices
right there! But the world is focusing on the detail of whether he
was 9 years old or 10 years old at the time of the first supposed
crime.
* Drop in emissions this year is a ‘tiny blip’ in buildup of greenhouse
gases, UN agency says.*
It is worrisome that Biden might consider appointing Ernest Moniz to
any job that relates to energy or pollution. He lobbied for gas
companies even as he was Obama's energy secretary.
US citizens: call on the next Attorney General to investigate voter
suppression, vote tampering and intimidation.
Netanyahu the corrupt met secretly with Pompeo
the fanatic
and Crown Prince Bone Saw.
I would suppose they were planning to attack Iran — than is the desire they
have in common.
*Extinction Rebellion [UK] launches campaign of financial disobedience.*
This includes debt and tax strikes.
*The left is accused of authoritarianism — but it's the right that
gets away with it.*
A survey of major investment funds finds they are planning to invest
heavily in renewable energy but continue investing (infesting?) too much
in fossil fuels.
A covidiot has been charged with assault for breathing on protesters
with the idea that he might infect them with Covid-19.
I believe it is well-established that intentionally transmitting a
dangerous disease to others is a crime. It certainly deserves to be.
The UK wrongly confiscated Ken Morgan's passport in 1994 after an
intended brief visit to Jamaica, which forced him to stay in Jamaica
until 2018. In that year he applied for UK citizenship, but it was
denied because he had been away from the UK for so many years.
The fact that officials could make this decision shows the wrong premises
with which they approach such decision in general.
By the way, this is an example of a mistake that Joseph Heller has
pointed out: people apply the term "Catch 22" incorrectly to other
situations. What officials did to Morgan was unjust, but does not
have the unique special structure of Catch 22.
Over a period of decades, Norway has designed its economic rules to
consider human beings important.
Many Americans are unable even to make a dent in their college loan
debts. Of those who borrowed in 2009, over a quarter owe more now
than they did at the start.
Eventually the lender concludes the loan is uncollectible and forgives
it, but this counts as taxable income, which is taxed at a substantial
rate and the poor victim can't possibly pay it.
The tax debt must be smaller than the school debt. It might also be
easier to eliminate via bankruptcy, though I don't know.
The lender could reduce the resulting tax debt greatly by forgiving
the debt a little every year — as if it were being repaid — because
that way it would not put the borrower into a high tax bracket.
But I wouldn't assume they care enough to do that.
In the past decade, several government reports have described what
must be done to reduce the effects of systemic racism in the UK, but
the recommendations have not been implemented and the problem keeps
getting worse.
California state senator Wiener will campaign to decriminalize
psychedelics in that state.
We saw in Vietnam how much harm is caused by fighting a war on drugs.
Let's not have one in the US.
Churches in England are holding large meetings secretly.
This is very dangerous. Large religious gatherings have has caused
important Covid-19 outbreaks in South Korea and elsewhere.
People interviewed claim that worship is "essential". That is clearly
not so in general; many of us do without it. But if you feel a need
to worship, you don't need to do it in a large gathering. You can
worship individually with no risk of spreading disease.
Indeed, many pious hermits worshiped in solitude for years at a time.
In El Paso, so many people are dying from Covid-19 that the morgues
are overflowing and the regular personnel can't cope.
They have to limit the CPR for each sick patient because the ICU staff
can't cope either.
These are the predictable consequences of the spreader's policies
and he is directly responsible for these deaths.
If he had not adopted intentional spreading of the disease,
most of them would never have caught Covid-19.
The United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, and
Australia oppose the push for the WTO to waive patent restrictions and
allow all countries to make and use Covid-19 vaccines without paying
for the privilege.
It is worth reminding people that the WTO is the reason why most
countries allow medicines to be patented. That was a scheme to enrich
big pharma companies at the expense of people who can't afford
monopolistic prices for drugs. This system represents a decision to
kill millions of people, and is one of the reasons why we ought to
abolish the WTO.
Covid-19 vaccine developers are keeping the techniques of making them
secret and have the gall to criticize people for trying to get those
secrets.
This information should be made available to every would-be vaccine
manufacturer.
Both of these articles used the misleading term "intellectual property."
The first uses it to mean patents. The second uses it to mean trade
secrets. Patents and trade secrets are totally different and have
nothing whatsoever in common.
The term lumps together patents with copyrights with trade secrets
with trademarks, and some other things as well. These laws are
totally different, so the term is sophisticated-sounding confusion.
When someone uses the term "intellectual property", understand it to
mean, "I don't know what I am talking about."
*Sen. Perdue of Georgia Profited From Defense
Contractor's Stock While Overseeing Naval Spending.*
Congress passed a law, the STOCK Act, criminalizing that kind of
corruption, but then repealed it.
Government ministers in the UK used to have a strict code of
responsibility. Whoever presided over a serious wrong or mistake was
obliged to resign. Nowadays, they are too powerful to be held responsible for anything.
There have been targeted killings in Afghanistan, and — for
a change — they are not being done with drones.
*Biden's Silence on Ending the Drone Wars.*
Millions of Americans are expected to spread Covid-19 to their families this week. Don't be one of them!
New car-tracking vision systems don't just recognize license plate
numbers. They also learn to recognize individual cars.
Housing associations are imposing this on the "owners" of houses.
(I wouldn't buy a house in such a place myself.)
Surveillance like this should be absolutely forbidden.
I am also shocked by the idea of forbidding the "owners" to receive
overnight visitors.
Biden should speak up to counter the wrecker's disinformation campaign
which aims to develop his followers into a sabotage front.
We should honor the officials that have refused to lie for the corrupter.
With his fanatics, he can make that refusal a real trial of the official's
integrity.
Nowadays every moment in a comedian's career carries a risk of being
cancelled over who-knows-what.
The UK government has come to be totally callous about harm to "the
little people" (those who are not wealthy enough to really matter).
Former French president Sarkozy is being prosecuted for corruption.
Vaccines made from messenger RNA are not likely to alter the genome of
humans who take it, unlike DNA vaccines.
Oil companies know that their oil reserves are likely to become
worthless, but they are racing to invest in additional extraction
facilities, which will contribute to global heating before eventually
becoming likewise worthless.
*Hailed as 'Heroes' During Pandemic, Retail Workers Stripped of Hazard Pay
While Companies Rake in Massive Profits.*
*Democrats Must Commit Themselves to the Needs of Non-College Educated
Workers.*
Supposing it is true that "the jobs are gone and are never coming
back", who is responsible for that? Plutocratist politicians are.
And who benefits from that? Mostly owners of stock. So the government
has a responsibility to compensate the would-have-been workers from
the wealth that the owners have gained.
Taxing them to pay for the work that the country needs would be admirable.
*At G20, Only India Is On Track to Meet Goals for Keeping Global Heating to
3.6° F.*
Note, however, that India has built a lot of coal-fired power plants
in recent years ‐ which means it has a lot of new power plants to
replace.
The UK stock market lobbies against proper taxation by pretending that
a large fraction of shares are owned by working people's pensions.
This is not true.
Guatemala's congress adopted a budget which cut education and medical
care, which triggered protests that set parts of the congress building
on fire.
On the Firing of Jeffrey Toobin, by Richard Stallman.
A feminist columnist recognizes that there are more important things
about a proposed cabinet secretary than per gender.
For instance, per political inclinations.
I've never been impressed by "firsts" in high-level positions. Having
for the first time a woman as the secretary of this-or-that is not
going to help the lives of very many women. What the official does
may help them, or hurt them.
An increase in the minimum wage would help millions of American women
who have hard lives today, along with millions of American men. A
national medical system would also do that, especially if it covers
abortions and reliable contraception.
The thug department of Pasco, Florida, secretly profiles all children based on
personal data collected by their schools and other government agencies.
It uses the profiles to estimate whether they are likely to end up as
criminals. Such predictions tend to be self-fulfilling.
Victoria (a state in Australia) does something similar.
If we had a reliable and helpful form of intervention to help children
avoid that fate, these profiles could be used to good effect. But we
don't know of any way, so they tend to be used to do harm.
Progressive programs such as a higher minimum wage, a better welfare
system, and a national medical system, could help a lot of children
avoid becoming criminals, and it wouldn't be necessary to try to
predict which children were personally in the most danger.
The good news is, Libya's cease-fire has lasted for a few weeks.
The bad news is, more oil is being extracted there.
In the long term, fossil fuels will kill far, far more people than
fighting in Libya. How many more will be killed due to extracting oil
in Libya is imponderable.
It's not just official thugs that kill blacks. Private insecurity
guards can do it too.
US nurses are burned out and some are suffering from PTSD.
Some are going on strike.
Hospitals are raking in money — they can afford to pay their staff
better.
*A Biden Administration Can Raise Wages and Give Workers More Power —
If It Wants To.*
*From rewilding to forest schools, our attitude [in the UK] to nature
is changing for the better.*
Will rewilding include eradicating intrusive plants such as
rhododendrons and the poisonous giant hogweed?
Biden's transition team, advisors, and planned cabinet are full of
people with connections to big, malicious tech companies and gig
economy exploiters,
including Amazon, Airbnb, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Lyft, and Microsoft.
Someone from a computer-selling company such as Dell as head of the EPA
does not bode well either. Manufacture and disposal of computers make
pollution and we need the EPA to regulate this carefully.
This is disappointing but not surprising. Biden's willingness to
serve business was what supposedly made him "electable."
*On the Current Status of Trump's Coup Attempt — and Its Future.*
Many prisons in the US restrict what books prisoners can read.
In some cases, they can only get books from one seller, which systematically
gouges them and limits them to a small fraction of the books that exist.
The wrecker proposes a rule to forbid banks from refusing to lend to
some field of industry for reasons other than profit.
If it is true that banks now recognize that fossil fuel development
is an unprofitable investment, that is the occasion for a sigh of relief.
However, we have been pushing for years for institutions to stop financing
some destructive kinds of "industry" and we must not have the government
forbid this.
Mwazulu Diyabanza goes into European museums, picks up African
objects, and gives talks alleging that Europeans stole the objects.
Perse has been charged with theft for doing this.
Perse describes per actions as "theft" but I am skeptical of that. It
is clear that Mwazulu Diyabanza is not really stealing the objects,
rather making theater about the idea of stealing them. Perse carries
them around inside the museum, and discourses about them, but never
tries to remove them. This violates the museum's rules, and maybe it
violate some law as well, but it is not theft.
As for whether those objects were stolen in Africa, I have no opinion
about that. It depends on details I don't know, and then there would
be questions about which moral standard to apply. I don't know
whether Mwazulu Diyabanza has thought deeply about these questions or
jumped to a conclusion.
I'd like to see per comments and reasoning about the specific objects.
If it is deep, there may be much in it to learn from.
The Tax Justice Network estimates that countries use $427bn a year
in tax revenue due to moving money to tax havens.
The most important tax havens identified were the Cayman Islands
(16.5%, $70bn); the UK (10%, $42bn); the Netherlands (8.5%, $36bn);
Luxembourg (6.5%, $27bn) and the US (5.5%, $23bn).
Although according to modern monetary theory, the US, having a
sovereign currency, can create money to stimulate the economy by
spending it on whatever is needed, up to a point where the economy
overheats. The US is nowhere near that now, since it is suffering a
recession and unemployment.
*Half of Republicans say Biden won because of a 'rigged' election.*
Ivanka Trump had to move her children out of a private school because
she and her husband would not follow the Covid-19 safety rules
to avoid bringing the virus to the children and then into the school.
The wrecker has proposed a rule to require banks to lend impartially
to all fields of business. This is intended to force them to lend
to oil drilling in the Arctic.
The Sierra Club says that banks won't lend to that because they
consider it too risky.
If awareness of coming climate disaster has made it clear that
investing in new fossil fuel projects is unprofitable, that is reason
for a sigh of relief. But this comes after years of trying to
persuade investors and lenders to refuse to fund fossil fuel business
even when it appeared profitable, for the sake of avoiding disaster.
We must continue to do that.
The wrecker is trying to pressure state legislators to disregard the actual
votes in their states and certify the wrecker as victor.
The majority of the these states' voters are Democrats, but
Republicans hold control of the their legislatures through
gerrymandering. That means that they are "reelected" each time by
defying the voters. We can hope that they will stick at explicitly
setting aside an election with zero real grounds, but it is a bad
situation when our democracy depends on Republicans to have that much
integrity.
South Australia was ultimately responsible for the need for the brief
unnecessary lockdown, through its decision to guard a quarantine hotel
using precarious subcontracted workers whose low pay compels them to
take additional jobs.
The UK is investigating past thug infiltration of nonviolent campaigns
for political causes, at the same time as it authorizes a lot more in
the future.
Don't be angry at the officials of South Australia for acting rationally
to curb Covid-19 based on the information they had.
It's not their fault that it came from a patient who was lying.
*Better ventilation and universal mask-wearing are key to keeping the
virus at bay [in schools], so children’s education can continue.*
12 million Americans stand to lose unemployment benefits early in 2021.
Automated monitoring of accessibility of many web sites from places
around the world provides a way to measure censorship in many
countries, daily. It shows that censorship is increasing in most of
the world.
I suggest that part of the root cause of the increase in censorship is
the misguided acceptance of the idea that sharing copies is "piracy"
and the tendency of governments to facilitate DRM rather than making
it a felony.
Censorship by governments makes some web sites inaccessible to people
in some countries. At the same time, nonfree JavaScript code on
some websites makes them inaccessible to the Free World. The former
denies freedom directly to people in those countries. The latter invites
everyone to sacrifice freedom to read them.
The conspirators that planned to murder Governor Whitmer are accused
of planning another scheme: to seize the state capitol building and
murder officials there.
Climate scientists say old global heating forecasts were too
conservative; 1.5C of heating may be under a decade away, and the
target of "net zero" greenhouse emissions by 2050 is insufficient.
I predicted this would happen, but not by trying to do climate
modeling. I have no knowledge of how to do that, so I don't try.
That is a job for climate scientists.
However, I know that scientists have not figured out all the pertinent
relationships that ought to be in climate models, and that global
heating is sure to have effects as yet unpredicted. It follows that,
as things move further away from the old normal, changes are likely to
cause more changes. When scientists don't know how change in A will
affect B, they tend to try a linear relationship as a first
approximation, and that works for small changes, but as they get
bigger the linearity can break down.
So if we want to save civilization, we must plan for worse than
the models predict. We must do more, and sooner, than the models
say is needed.
I've explained before why "net zero" opens a pitfall: putting faith in
risky offset schemes. Systems that remove CO2 from the air as they
run are real contributions to reducing net emissions (but their cost
must be compared with direct reductions in emissions); however,
systems that one hopes will remove CO2 many years down the road (such
as tree planting) are not reliable. We need to plant a lot of trees,
to keep forests going, but we should not count their absorbed CO2
until they have absorbed it.
When scientists warn that 4C of warming is incompatible with an
organized global community, it means that farming won't work very well
and the remaining people will be fighting over what food and fresh
water are available. We need to make sure things don't get that bad.
Alexander Hamilton was deeply involved in slavery.
Thai protesters used large inflatable rubber ducks as shields against water
with a tinge of dissolved tear gas.
*Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota led to a Covid-19 outbreak in
Minnesota, new report says.*
State governors may want to block roads for a time when a spreader event
is going on in an adjoining state.
* We are witnessing a criminal tragedy as wealthy billionaires,
sequestered in protective bubbles and private jets, are dispatching
essential workers into the line of infection fire with inadequate
shields and protections.*
A confused article speaks of grapes that carry end-user license agreements.
The confusion is to conflate patents with shrink-wrap licenses.
Plants can be covered by patents. If so, propagating them is patent
infringement. But that has nothing to do with putting a label on a
bag purporting to impose restrictions on the purchaser. From what I
recall, that is not legally valid in the US, except for software.
Australian soldiers in Afghanistan stand accused of premeditated
murder of civilians and prisoners in cold blood, and covering it up
afterward.
Also competing for who could kill more civilians as they ran away.
And torture for the fun of it. All based on evidence.
The fatal apartment building fire in London was caused by fraud and
deceit, facilitated by deregulation, and promoted by plutocratist
disdain for the lives of people who are not rich.
The first reaction of the organizations that owned other buildings
with similar fire hazards was to dump the cost of retrofitting on the
occupants of the flats, who couldn't possibly have paid it. I hope
that these revelations (which surely apply to other buildings that use
the same firetrap material) will put the burden onto organizations
that are actually responsible.
*The 'market' won't save us from climate disaster. We must rethink our
system.*
This is a well-known reason why markets give bad results in some
cases. The costs that the product imposes on people other than the
one who buys it are called "externalities."
Erin Brockovich: Biden has chosen for his EPA transition board someone who
helped DuPont campaign for continued pollution with one of the toxic PFAs.
I write the "s" of "PFAs" in lower case because it is not an initial:
it indicates the plural of "PFA."
What Labour proposes for curbing global heating is not much better than
what the Tories say they will do.
*UK to support plans for new global treaty to 'turn tide' on plastic
pollution.*
If it is easy for a pathogen to spread to other hosts,
it tends to evolve to be more deadly to those its hosts.
Thus, covidiots are helping to make Covid-19 more likely to kill
those who catch it.
* If Britain had a functioning democracy, Jeremy Corbyn would be leading
a socialist party and Keir Starmer a centre-left one.*
The UK should investigate its soldiers' possible war crimes in Afghanistan,
as Australia did.
So should the US, of course.
US citizens: call on Facebook and Twitter: No more election lies!
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to support Joaquin Castro
for chair of the foreign affairs committee.
US citizens: call on Biden to push to put an end to racism, including
systemic racism.
Bogus Johnson given the favored people who work under him, such as
his ministers, exemptions from legal and ethical requirements.
*Call for tougher penalties in UK for possession of chemsex drugs.*
I think the world would be a better place if these drugs did not exist,
but higher penalties will not achieve that.
*Chinese flower has evolved to be less visible to pickers.*
People find it difficult to spot the plants now.
Alas, because the demand is for "medicine", the plants
loss of attractiveness will not protect them.
A political consultant reports that most of his focus group supports
the idea behind "Defund the Police", they oppose the slogan itself.
Biden is considering a budget-cutter for a crucial administrative
position.
At a time like this we need lots of deficit spending. By choosing him,
Biden would be choosing not to rescue tens of millions of Americans.
Utah is considering a law that would help drivers that run down protesters
construct a false excuse to get away with it.
*Jewish-Led Groups Condemn Pompeo for Declaring
Boycott-Divestment Movement Anti-Semitic.*
Here is what I think about the issue.
Medea Benjamin recommends ten foreign policy actions for Biden to take
to reduce war and tensions.
I don't know the details of US sanctions against North Korea and Syria,
or what they are meant to do. I would want to know more before making any
recommendation for what to do in those cases. I agree with the rest of
her recommendations.
*Tyson Food Managers Accused of Betting on How Many of
Their Workers Would Get Covid-19.*
In a narrow logical sense, such betting does not affect the employees.
But it bespeaks a callousness towards the risk to the lives of the
workers, who were in fact getting sick at the time.
Flea killer for pets, when put in the trash, reaches rivers and
poisons water insects.
A good choice of treasury secretary could effectively defund the
fossil fuel industry.
*Climate activists ramp up pressure on Biden with protest outside Democratic
headquarters.*
A retired undercover UK thug reports snooping in the 1970s on a
campaign for equal pay for women, gratis contraception and better
child care.
It was not a total waste of time, as she supported the campaign to
some extent.
(satire) *Light Therapy Lamp Opts To Burn Down House Rather Than Face
Depressed Man Yet Again.*
(satire) *Biden Insists Lack Of Cooperation From Trump Administration
Won’t Interfere With 4 Years Of Total Political Inaction.*
*Taxpayers Subsidize Poverty Wages at Walmart, McDonald's, Other Large
Corporations, GAO Finds.*
This would be perhaps acceptable if these corporations paid plenty of
income tax (not payroll tax), enough to cover the costs of the
shortfall in worker's wages plus what they ought to be paying otherwise.
But since that is not the case, we should raise the minimum wage
and charge those companies more taxes.
We should stop using payroll taxes: companies' must not be able to
reduce their tax bills by replacing human workers with robots or
paying them less.
GitHub restored the youtube-dl repo after the EFF explained why
youtube-dl does not infringe copyright or violate the Digital
Monstrosity Copyright Act.
This was a good action, but it does not undo or cancel out the
enormous harm that GitHub has done to the free software community by
spreading bad licensing practices, nor alter the fact that some
operations on its web site require running nonfree Javascript
software.
Self-storage companies in New York City, which are unregulated, are
pushing up the rents for people who lost their jobs and their
apartments and put their possessions into storage. Unable to pay the
hundreds, or thousands, of dollars demanded, they face the loss of
irreplaceable keepsakes — of no value to anyone else.
The global Red Cross warns that climate mayhem will be much worse than
Covid-19.
Covid-19 is unlikely to kill more than 100 million people around the
world even if we do nothing to interfere — and we can, and will, save
many of them. Climate disaster will be far worse, and it will keep on
getting worse.
How to help defeat Republicans in the Jan 5 Georgia runoffs for its two
senate seats.
Starmer has refused to readmit Corbyn as an MP of the Labour Party. His
refusal declares a fight between his centrist wing (taking after
B'liar, perhaps a little to the left of Bill Clinton) and Corbyn's wing
of the party.
I expect Corbyn's supporters would rather make peace than fight. But
I must suppose, from this action, that Starmer prefers a fight. I
don't think that Corbyn's numerous supporters will give in.
More than Corbyn's own career is at stake. So I expect Corbyn to
prepared to run again in his district, with or without Labour backing.
*Megaprojects risk pushing forests past tipping point.*
*Australian special forces involved in murder of 39 Afghan civilians, war
crimes report alleges.*
Many people, not understanding why it is wrong, have responded to Covid-19
by buying more from Amazon.
We need laws to stop any company from mistreating workers and
customers as Amazon does, but until we get them — as long as Amazon
continues to do these things — we should not buy anything from Amazon.
When a friend want to get something for me, I say, "Please do not get
it from Amazon!"
On climate issues, Australia is the worst of the G20.
This does not surprise me; Australia's government has been run by
outright planet-roasters for many years, and the official opposition
is not much better. Most Australians have allowed themselves to be
bamboozled by the short-term issues of "jobs" and "the economy", and
ignored their long-term survival.
The cause seems to be the power of a planet-roaster media baron,
Murdoch.
I wonder if the great fires of last summer taught Australians anything.
Poland and Hungary vetoed the EU's Covid aid program to block a plan
to require them to accept an independent judiciary.
Spain is giving legal protection to a lagoon, the Mar Menor, and
allowing people to sue polluters on its behalf.
This seems to be a very good plan, but the article persistently says
that the lagoon is now a "person."
I don't think that is what the law says. When the article describes
the matter carefully, no such "person" is involved. That's good,
because a lagoon is not a person.
The idea that to have any legal existence requires being a "person"
is not only absurd, it has done terribly harm. Consider, for instance,
the Corporations United decision
in the United States, in which the Supreme Court ruled that
corporations are entitled to human rights. For humanity's survival
and freedom we must take away the rights of fictitious "persons" —
but the Mar Menor should remain protected.
*Covid has exposed the damage caused to families by a decade of austerity.*
This is about the UK, but the US has faced somewhat similar increasing hardship
for the non-affluent, and there may be a lot of similarity.
98% of the coral in Florida's reefs is dead.
Global heating and ocean acidification are largely responsible.
A certain level of CO2 in the air will make the oceans so acidic that
coral will simply die. Nothing can save them in those circumstances.
Many other organisms with shells will die, too.
Starmer has decided to reject Corbyn as a Labour MP, although he has
been approved as a citizen member of the Labour Party.
In effect, Starmer has chosen a continuing fight with Corbyn and his
supporters.
A wide variety of Republican accusations of voter fraud have been checked
and found false.
Republicans do not check these accusations before publishing them because they
figure that a false accusation is almost as effective as a true one.
Some US hospitals charge patients 18 times the cost of treatment. The
average cost of hospital treatment for Covid-19 is $42,000, which
most Americans cannot ever pay.
900 employees of the Mayo Clinic have caught Covid-19, most of them
not while at work.
New Zealand's birth rate has fallen due to economic insecurity.
That is a good reason to postpone having children, if you are planning
to have them. But should New Zealanders have them at all?
The population density of New Zealand is around 50 per square mile (5%
that of Massachusetts). A large part of New Zealand's area is wild.
Perhaps its population is already sustainable, or at least in the
right order of magnitude. If so, New Zealand is a fortunate exception,
since the global human population is far beyond sustainable.
*[Natural] gas won't fuel Australia's recovery or reduce emissions.
The truth is gas is both too expensive and too dirty. We’ve known this
for nearly a decade.*
*US Military Buys Location Data Harvested From Apps,
Including One for Muslim Prayers.*
If the data is collected, it will be misused. We need laws to prevent
systems from collecting such data.
It looks like Google biased its search engine to try to defeat a
California ballot initiative that restricts companies' use of people's
data.
This does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Google cheated.
But on the preponderance of the evidence, I am convinced.
(satire) *Governors Call On [Michigan Governor] Gretchen Whitmer To
Shut Down Their States So Residents Won’t Get Mad At Them.*
Several sheriffs in New York State say they will refuse to enforce the
governor's order limiting the size of private gatherings.,
They say that it is unconstitutional to restrict who can enter,
invited, into a home. I hope that is true in normal times, but I'd
expect that there is an exception for emergency situations — and this
is certainly an emergency.
Biden has named a Louisiana congresscritter who's in the fossil fuel
business's pocket to a White House post.
I don't know what power or influence he would have in that post. It
does not sound like he would be in charge of any environment-related
decisions or actions. Perhaps this is less important than it looks.
But I don't know that.
Contending that Biden could institute a national medical system by executive
order due to the national emergency constituted by Covid-19.
We sorely need it. Some US hospitals charge patients 18 times the
cost of treatment. The average cost of hospital treatment for
Covid-19 is $42,000, which most Americans cannot ever pay.
Biden wants to let the wrecker get away with his crimes.
Since the wrecker commits crimes by choice, he certainly will make use
of this undeserved immunity to cause further trouble, including
perhaps winning in 2024, if Biden has done nothing about the problems
caused by plutocracy.
If Biden thinks that being kind and gentle to the wrecker will win him
any support from the wrecker's followers, he is fooling himself. The
wrecker will tell his followers that this proves how powerful he is.
The wrecker's debts make him a threat to national security in the
usual, narrow sense.
If we interpret "national security" in a broad sense, he has already
mostly wrecked the "national security" of the United States.
Global heating is one of the main threats to most countries' security,
including that of the US, and he has done everything to make it worse.
Plutocracy and the poverty it causes makes the US less secure, and he
has worked to make it worse. The hatred he has stirred up has also
made the US less secure.
Convicting the wrecker, so as to put him in prison, would be a vital
precaution to make him useless as a agent for the highest bidder among
America's enemies, foreign or domestic.
The wrecker wants to sell oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge before Biden is inaugurated.
Biden has said he will not allow drilling there, and he might be able
to cancel any leases that are sold. But seismic testing could start
in January and could kill some polar bears.
I point out with sadness that killing some polar bears this winter may
not change anything in the long term, given that we are pushing them
to extinction (or pretty close to it) by eliminating the Arctic sea
ice.
The wrecker asked officials about bombing Iran as a last-minute way
of inflicting another war on Biden (and the United States).
The war would cause more difficulties for Iran, too, but the wrecker
probably cares less about that.
Bombing Iran uranium refining facility would release a toxic fluorine
compound which could kill thousands of civilians, perhaps tens of thousands.
It could also pollute the source of 1/3 of Iran's water
for farming and household use.
There is no way to compensate for such enormous damage.
In the US: boycott Amazon
on Nov 27 and 30.
Buy from local businesses instead.
Even better, do as I do when I buy: pay cash, and don't give your name.
And you're not limited to those two days.
*White men swung to Biden. [The bullshitter] made gains with black and
Latino voters. Why?*
The article does not try to answer that question, but it is very
important.
*The [Republican] party is challenging the outcome of the election without any proof
of fraud. Their degradation of democracy will reverberate for years to
come.*
*The US right is skilled in voter suppression. And the Tories are learning
fast.*
*Philadelphia city council apologizes for deadly 1985 Move bombing.*
Nauroze Anees, an foreign student in Australia, failed to comply with
visa requirements because he had to care for his mate, then was
refused a visa to care for his mate based on bureaucratic rigidity,
and since then has been imprisoned for 4 years. He has now been
freed, by a court decision.
A call to divest from 1,000 fossil fuel companies that impudently persist in
building new fossil fuel infrastructure
and reject the idea of making a "transition" to another way of doing business.
Glenn Greenwald has decided to resign from The Intercept because it
has adopted a hard partisan line, and refused to let him publish
anything which goes against that line.
It censored his work in despite of a contract agreeing not to do so.
India is imposing censorship on internet publication and communication.
One thing we can be sure will not be censored is right-wing extremism.
PFAs in household items (and therefore in our bodies) may reduce the
effectiveness of some Covid-19 vaccines
in addition to causing liver damage and cancer.
The RNA vaccines which are not affected by PFAs pose an imponderable
risk of possible genetic harm.
The Canadian government's national thug agency systematically
understates how much it can spy on anyone in Canada.
It is especially interested in spying on protesters, who have
experienced its brutality as well.
*Trump Demands Afghan Withdrawal and Washington Panics. But It’s Time
To Leave, Now.*
It has been time to pull out of Afghanistan for many years.
The wrecker is firing officials for refusing to lie for him.
The danger is that other officials will lie, or support lies by not
refuting them, rather than be fired, and that this will enable him to
seize power or commit sabotage.
Protecting the sea bottom from destructive trawlers by putting large statues
on the sea bottom in close proximity.
It's clever, and apparently effective, but it does not scale to the
whole of the Mediterranean, let alone the oceans. I think states will
have to start confiscating boats that carry trawling equipment.
The Department of Harshness and Sadism wants to collect iris scans,
voice prints, and even DNA samples, from anyone that applies for
residency or citizenship, and per sponsors as well.
Planet roasters are deeply involved in supporting the wrecker's efforts
to seize power and set aside the election.
Extinction Rebellion held a rally in London at a remembrance event for
the people killed in World War I — to remind us that global heating
may kill more than 200 times as many. The mainstream media condemned
it.
Starmer called it "bad taste." I suppose "good taste" means taking
care not to do justice to the gravity of situation.
The Labour Party has unsuspended Corbyn.
Talia Lavin pioneers fighting back against right-wing racist extremists
with some of their own medicine.
*As a minority, American Jews understand the dangers of authoritarians and
nationalists. As a ruling group, Israeli Jews see them as logical allies.*
The US government has constructed an edifice of lies to negate the
fourth amendment requirement for specific searches to be authorized by
courts, an edifice that permits broad snooping on almost everyone.
*50 Years After the Start of the War on Drugs, Americans Have a Chance to Fix
the Harm It Created.*
*The Federal Government Owns 92% of Student Debt. Will Biden Wipe It Out?*
If Democrats don't push to fix the injustices of the United States,
the conmen, or another right-wing conman, could crush them in 2024.
The Republicans will use valid arguments combined with dishonest
arguments, but both kinds will resonate unless the Democrats have a
powerful appeal to many voters. Something more than "I'm not Trump."
*You Can't Eat Civility.* Or a bipartisan decision to put you out on
the street.
Why the US has the electoral college, and what blocks getting rid of it.
Republicans have been rigging elections for over a century with various
schemes to stop blacks (and sometimes hispanics) from voting.
When people investigate the reason Democrats did not take more Senate
seats, they should consider the impact of voter suppression in those
states.
*Georgia’s secretary of state says Lindsey Graham suggested he throw out legal
ballots.*
Various Catholic, Jewish and Protestant organizations have now announced
divestment from fossil fuels.
(satire) *Experts Confirm Virus Stockpile Large Enough To Prevent Any
Covid Shortages This Winter.*
If you have any way of contacting The Onion, please ask them to make
the images and audio recordings in their postings accessible without
the user's running any nonfree JavaScript code.
You can use https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html to explain
the issue, along with fsf.org/tedx (14 minute video).
The myth that US major media are "liberal" is believed in other
countries as well as the US.
The major US media tend to to be center-right "centrists", but
right-wing activists describe them as "liberal" so as to mislead
people about where the center of public opinion is.
Speculations about how Alexei Navalny was poisoned, by precisely whom,
and whether the intention was to kill him.
This article demonstrates the folly of measuring construction of
renewable electric generation in proportion to what already exists.
Percentage is a useful way to measure a small fraction but misleading
when used to describe a fraction close to or above 1. A ratio such
as "250%" sounds impressive, but 250% of a small number is only a
little larger.
Aside from that, I can't see how it fits the other figures.
What here is 250% of what?
Furthermore, "gigawatts per year" is not is measure of energy, nor of
"energy generating capacity". The amount of energy generated or work
done per unit time is called "power" and it is measured in watts. I
speculate that 23 gigawatts is the total maximum power output of
Europe's existing offshore wind generators.
What can be said of the strategy in the leaked paper? It is
inadequate. It proposes to add around 340 GW of wind and ocean
generation by 2050, which could be a substantial amount, but 300GW
would be built in the second and third decades. That is delaying too
long!
US citizens: tell Biden: Don't Let Mitch McConnell Dictate Your
Cabinet Choices.
US citizens: call on your state senator to pass the ROE Act's provisions.
*US and UK yet to show support for global treaty to tackle plastic pollution.*
Burning trash to generate energy increases greenhouse gas emissions
when the trash includes plastics.
*[The cult leader]'s refusal to concede is no joke — it's a dangerous
precedent.*
*The lesson [journalists] are constantly unlearning is that with Trump,
things seem unthinkable until they are inevitable. And by then, it’s
too late.*
*How war threatens Ethiopia's struggle against worst locust swarm in
25 years.*
*Only 17% Of Consumers Believe Personalized Ads Are Ethical, Survey Says.*
If you are not one of them, push back — stop being a used of Facebook!
Don't be a zucker!
Bogus Johnson plans to spend 100 billion UKP on a Covid-19 testing scheme
that scientists believe will fail to do any good.
*Texas televangelist who falsely linked pandemic to premarital sex dies of
Covid-19.*
Hmm, maybe he was trying to atone for a life-long guilt about losing
his virginity.
Eliminating Covid-19 calls for a reliable way for everyone to get
highly effective face masks.
The guidance I have seen is difficult to apply. It is formulated in terms
of determinations I do not know how to make.
Plutocratists are campaigning to let the conman and his corrupt officials
go unpunished.
This is in the name of an unstated principle of plutocracy: laws are
for you and me, not for the aristocrats.
The Green New Deal is crucial for the Democratic Party to stand for something
that can inspire voters.
Republican state legislators have rejected the electoral college coup scheme.
I think that act of honesty seals the wrecker's defeat. However, he
can still do various kinds of harm between now and Jan 20. In
particular, by sabotaging the transition, he can cause a wide range of
problems that could last a few months. He seems to hate the United
States so much that he thinks that inflicting any little bit of damage
is better than none.
*People plan to fly and drive more post-Covid [than they flew and drove
before], climate poll shows.*
Renewable electric generation is growing ever faster.
But not fast enough. If people are going to drive more, we need to
make sure they are driving electric cars and that the electricity is
not made from fossil fuels.
Undercover infiltrators in the opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline.
US citizens: call for abolition of ICE, the US deportation thug agency.
US citizens: call on Biden to cancel the Line 3 oil pipeline.
The new version of MacOS — and therefore the new generation of Macs
— informs Apple of every time the machine launches a program.
The Guardian press seems blissfully unaware of this spying. It even
repeats Apple's claims to help users protect their privacy — but only
some aspects of their privacy.
Just as software developers have redefined "security" to mean
"security against everyone but us", Apple is redefining "privacy"
to mean "privacy from everyone but us."
People might want to post comments there (be civil about it!) or
send letters to the editor. I am sure there are dozens of publications
which could use the same sort of response.
Protesters take photos of thugs to identify those who commit violence
against protesters using face recognition.
It is important for this to be lawful. That's why my proposal is to
prohibit systematic collection of photos of people's faces, except
under limited circumstances. Taking a photo occasionally must be
permitted.
Biden hopes we will overlook the fact that two proposed cabinet
ministers are plutocratists, because they are female.
Hillary Clinton is female, too, and she endorsed the coup in Honduras.
Buttigieg, Brainard and Jones are center-right "moderates" too. As
for Sally Yates, I don't know enough about her to have an opinion.
A US court has ruled that Chad Wolf is not lawfully head of the
Department of Hatred and Sadism, so his order to suspend DACA
protection was not valid.
Robert Reich: *Trump's refusal to concede is just the latest gambit to
please Republican donors.*
I think it is intended to serve multiple tactical purposes.
*World poverty rising as rich nations call in debt amid Covid.*
The strength and intensity of this year's hurricanes, and amount of
rainfall, is a symptom of global heating.
Hurricanes also gain intensity faster than before.
The hurricane flooding has destroyed crops, and this has driven
250,000 people to flee Honduras for the US. Except they usually can't
get in.
This will get a lot worse in the next few decades.
Belarussian thugs arrested a beloved teacher while he was
protesting. Next thing, he died of a brain injury.
He was attacked before his arrest, too, by people who may or may not
have been official thugs.
Bogus Johnson is behaving like the king of the United Kingdom,
and has just dismissed his favorite (Cummings),
after previously overriding laws to protect him.
Naturally the king does not disclose why he has
sent a favorite away.
Glenn Greenwald describes the mainstream media effort to suppress and
even condemn journalism about the Hunter Biden laptop leaks.
The laptop leaks story itself is not of high importance, in my view.
Even if it proved corruption on president-elect Biden's part — which
it does not — that corruption would be nothing compared with the
corruption Trump displays daily. If I had intended to vote for Biden
before reading this, this would not have changed my mind. He would
still be the lesser evil. So I have ignored that story.
However, it is peculiar that so many news sites have ignored it.
George Monbiot: *If Americans are not polarised against plutocrats,
they will be polarised against each other.… Obama’s attempt to
reconcile irreconcilable forces, to paper over the chasms, arguably
gave Donald Trump his opening.*
Billionaire donors' money doesn't reliably bring mainstream Democrats
victory but does reliably keep them useless.
The measures Governor Baker is taking in Massachusetts to curb the
spread of Covid-19 do not seem sufficient to achieve that.
10 days ago, around 2000 new cases per day were detected in
Massachusetts. Now it is up to 2500 per day. At the end of August it
was around 200 per day. By December 5 it could be 5000 per day,
after a boost from Thanksgiving.
How about expressing your feelings for your relatives by not having a
gathering where any one can make everyone sick?
We have seen many countries follow the timid path of inadequate steps
and constantly increasing infection rates, ending in a very strict
lockdown. Why can't Massachusetts learn from others' mistakes?
Taking somewhat strict measures sooner would avoid the need for very
strict measures later.
Vermont has only half the case rate per capita of Massachusetts
and is taking stronger measures.
Governor Whitmer of Michigan has cancelled permission to operate the
Line 5 planet-roaster oil pipeline.
That is a good thing for Planet Earth. Unfortunately, the action was
based only on preventing the (important) danger of an oil spill into
Lake Michigan and not on the (far more important) certainty that
burning the oil pushes us closer to global disaster.
(satire) *What [the wrecker] Hopes To Accomplish Before Leaving The White House.*
"Several dozen" Secret Service officers are infected with Covid-19 and
a total of 130 are now isolating because of contact with infected
officers. This is because they had to guard the disease spreader.
Bilal Abdul Kareem, an American journalist, is trying to get a US court
to tell him whether the US government has marked him for assassination.
A plan for revitalizing rural America starts with eliminating the power
of giant companies that, as quasi-monopolies (or quasi-monopsonies), force
farms to treat with them and thus drive the farmers into poverty.
*Just [as] after Watergate, post-Trump era requires reforms to hold
presidents accountable.*
Due to global heating, and deforestation in Brazil, the giant Pantanal
wetland in Argentina is drying out and burning.
*'We packed long underwear and never wore it': Arctic scientists shocked at
warming.*
They brought a ship with ice-breaking capability, and didn't need to
use that either.
The UK has been sending undercover infiltrators to get under the covers
with protesters since the 1960s.
When Biden talks about "bipartisanship" and "cooperation", it means he is
deciding not to rock the boat for the plutocrats.
*Biden Will Fail to Bring Back 'Normal' Politics. What’s Needed Now Is a
Populism of the Left.*
Global Justice Now: *G20 Plan Is 'Thin Gruel for Debt Prisoners'.*
(satire) *N.Y. Jets Sued For Millions After Using Unlicensed Cheering
Sounds From Other Teams.*
Lukashenko's latest cruelty: seizing the funds privately given to compensate
protesters for injury or fines inflicted on them for protesting.
It is too late to avoid global disaster by ceasing to increase the
level of greenhouse gases. Even with reducing emissions to net zero
immediately, the temperature would continue to increase and tipping
points would be reached.
This disaster could include 9 feet of sea level rise in this century
(and further rise subsequently).
We need to go beyond net zero so as to draw down the CO2 level.
Past estimates of the amount of CO2 various natural systems can take
out of the air and sea may not be valid in the future, and perhaps not
even today; damage to these systems has and will reduce what they can
do.
When migrants cross the English Channel to England, the government
moves them immediately into crowded (thus dangerous) jails without
dealing with their serious injuries.
The UK's deportation of asylum seekers could be stopped because it violates
the stated policy.
*Brazil: congresswoman and friend of slain politician Marielle Franco flees
following death threats.*
US citizens: call on Congress to block a proposed arms sale to the UAE.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
One of the Democratic Senate candidates in Georgia, Raphael Warnock,
is being hit with false accusations of antisemitism.
It's because he has criticized Israel's occupation policies,
particularly in the Palestinian town of Hebron, where a commercial
neighborhood has been shut down so that a few fanatical "settlers" can
live in it.
*Democratic Officials Lied About Role in Alex Morse Smear.*
The smear turned out to be nothing but hot air, dressed up to look bad,
but it was enough to destroy Morse's chances.
Amana plans to make a tiny microwave oven for cooking one mushroom.
It will be called the Amanita.
The wrecker's changes have spiked the possibility of negotiating a
two-state peace between Israel and Palestine, and Biden is unlikely to
go to the great effort that would be required to reverse the changes.
In the 1970s, a serial killer killed 13 women in northern England.
The cops couldn't find him because they didn't respect information
from women — including the survivors who had seen and heard him.
The thugs were so steeped in sexist prejudice that they displayed it
at every turn.
Australian renewable energy megaprojects now planned will provide enormous amounts of usable energy. 14GW will go into making ammonia for export,
which on arrival will be converted into clean liquid hydrogen fuel.
Burning liquid hydrogen produces only one chemical, water.
The conman's supporters are pressuring at every level to interfere
with states' certification of Biden's state-level victories.
Here are arguments that even if Republican state legislatures are
dishonest won't be able to succeed at overturning the results.
I won't be surprised if the wrecker's supporters resort eventually to guns,
assuming (or even having received assurances) that the US government
will do nothing to stop them.
*New Documents Reveal ICE and Private Prison Contractor Exacerbates a COVID
Outbreak at Immigration Detention Center.*
Viet Nam has imprisoned journalist Pham Doan Trang, who often reports
on wrongdoing by the "authorities" and has been violently attacked for it.
(satire) *Pfizer Announces First Batch Of Coronavirus Vaccine Will Be
Collector’s Edition Limited To 2,000 Doses.*
Florida's Republican governor proposes laws to allow killing protesters
on various pretexts.
UK companies are asking for subsidy to develop and build rather large
"mini" nuclear power plants, which would perhaps be cheaper than the
insanely expensive large nuclear power plants, and would create a few
thousand jobs.
The article ignores the question of how these "mini" nuclear power
plants would compare, in cost and jobs, with renewable energy.
Since renewable energy has become so cheap lately, I would expect them
to be superior even without figuring in the problem of dealing with
the nuclear waste.
I wonder why the Guardian was blind on this point.
UK thugs spied on antiwar activist Tariq Ali, when he opposed the
Vietnam war and when he opposed the conquest of Iraq, and maybe some
of the time between.
The surveillance was extreme.
*At one point, police reported to MI5 that Ali had collaborated on a
book about the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky with a cartoonist.
The confidential report noted the name of the cartoonist’s girlfriend,
along with her occupation, her address and friends.*
*The sixth mass extinction is happening faster than expected. Scientists say
it's our fault.*
Australia has started making welfare payments, in some localities, via
a debit card that limits what they can buy, and tracks them too. This
was supposed to reduce their spending on drugs and gambling — but
investigation shows it failed to do that.
The money spent by US governments on unemployment payments circulates
and keeps millions of jobs going. But the unemployment payments will expire
in December.
Lies like the bullshitter's lies, told in Germany after World War I,
paved the way for Hitler to seize power. The US is not immune.
If Democrats don't want this to happen, they had better ameliorate the life
of American masses.
MiniFree is once again selling Libreboot laptops; see
retrofreedom.com.
(satire) *Supreme Court Strikes Down Obama’s Personal Health Insurance
Policy.*
*Scorching Tucson bucks US trend to put climate justice at centre of plans.*
"Investing in long-neglected urban communities" sounds gentrification
to me. That won't reduce urban sprawl, it will only shuffle poorer
people further out. To reduce sprawl means increasing population
density. Can they build denser housing in those neighborhoods
and run more buses to them?
Prisoner Bounchan Keola went from fighting a wildfire, to a hospital,
to deportation prison in two weeks.
People who were brought to the US as children and raised here should
have US citizenship, and exile should not be used as a punishment
no matter what the crime.
After curator Gary Garrels said he would not refuse to consider art
made by white men, some employees of the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art condemned his "white supremacist language" and
bullied
him into resigning.
Garrels made a big effort to collect work by people other than white
males. (I think that was a good thing to do; the museum aims to
represent the world of modern art, not focus on white men.) So he is
not a white supremacist at all. But he used a term "reverse
discrimination", that white supremacists have used when arguing
against affirmative action. For those bullies, using a term they
disapprove of is equivalent to actually being a white supremacist.
Contrast this with what I say when someone describes me as
"the
father of open source" or refers to the GNU operating system as
"Linux". I do
not demand that
perse change per way
of speaking, let alone demand that perse be fired. Instead, I calmly
explain why it is an error and ask per to correct it.
Their petition (on a site that I never link to because it requires
nonfree software) accused Garrels of using "violent language". They
do not explain that they have given "violence" a nonstandard
definition, namely "not supporting their ideas of how to end racism."
That makes the accusation disingenuous. People who don't know exactly
what Garrels said, and don't know about this nonstandard definition,
may suppose he was nasty and belligerent, and be misled into
misjudging him.
Kwame Anthony Appiah
Demolishes the Concept of "Cultural Appropriation".
The wrecker is proceeding with trying to seize power.
The Democrats do not seem to be trying to fight the coup that
Republican-dominated state legislators are already trying to launch.
The approach of spreading the idea that Biden has won and cannot be
stopped is worth trying. It may create a viscosity that the
Republican fanatics would find difficult to push through. But if they
are fanatical enough not to let that daunt them, it can't actually
stop them.
In the UK, the National Trust owns and preserves many historic
mansions. Now it is pointing out how slavery or profits from slavery
figured in their history. Right-wingers don't like this.
Adding Australia to the list of countries that believe their soldiers
would never commit a war crime, but are not right about that.
Black cops in Columbus, Ohio, face racism including death
threats from some white cops.
*How the GOP keeps cheating its way into power—and may get away with it again
in 2020.*
Internal FBI documents show that agents have been allowed to praise or condemn
presidents and candidates, with one exception: agents have been punished
for criticizing the wrecker.
*Dalai Lama calls for urgent climate action.*
One of Biden's transition team was a corporate lobbyist who worked for
DuPont to lobby the EPA that the chemical, PFOA, was not toxic enough
to consider regulating.
The deportation thugs deported six women who accused a deportation prison
of performing unnecessary operations on women.
Some of the operations were hysterectomies; I don't know
whether all of them were hysterectomies.
New high-tech surveillance and biometric tracking are being tried on
immigrants and refugees.
The Democratic Party this year went for white middle-class supporters and
left behind the working class. What does it mean when raising the minimum wage wins and Democrats lose?
Signs of fakery in the supposed Hunter Biden - China dossier.
There is no evidence of voter fraud in the US election, but plenty of
fraudulent claims that there was.
*From Police Violence at Home to Killing Civilians in Unending Wars Abroad, US
Faces Human Rights Reckoning at UN.*
*Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says.*
Undercover thugs infiltrating various political movements operated by
pretending to love women participants, and won their love by pretending to
be devoted and caring — until the day they suddenly disappeared.
*Suspend Patents on Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine, Say Campaigners.*
That should apply to any Covid-19 treatment, indeed, any medicine.
Patents tend to kill patients.
What about this particular vaccine? Although things look positive, it
is not yet certain that this vaccine is safe. That question is not
just a matter of recording what side effects it has in the short term.
It would be the first RNA vaccine ever deployed, and there is a
fundamental doubt about what effects it might have.
*Will the Biden Team Be Warmongers or Peacemakers?*
Jonathan Cook: The Equalities Commission's report on the Labour Party
under Corbyn rejected the accusations that the party had systemic
antisemitism. The media, and Starmer, are misrepresenting it.
Naomi Klein: *It’s fair to say that Biden was not safe at all, as we
always knew. Not safe for the planet, not safe for the people on
the front lines of police violence, not safe for the millions upon
millions of people who are seeking asylum, but also not even safe
as a candidate.*
*Digital Rights Advocates Warn [the wrecker's] FCC Nominee — Who
Backs Plan to Censor the Internet — Is 'Even Worse Than Ajit Pai'.*
*Destroying Palestinian Jerusalem, One Institution at a Time.*
*Two documentaries reveal how the U.S.'s pro-Israel coalition swung to the far
right — endangering American Jews in the process.*
(satire) *Brian Kemp Unveils Specially Trained Hogs That Can Root Out
Voter Fraud.*
Maher al-Akhras has ended his hunger strike and Israel has agreed to
release him at the end of his current term of imprisonment without
charges or trial.
(satire) *Scrambling Vatican Quickly Establishes Child Molestation As
New Sacrament.*
Canada is lobbying Biden intensely in favor of the Keystone XL
planet-roaster pipeline.
*The outgoing president has two ‘election defense funds’ –- but the small
print shows donations will go towards paying off [campaign] debt.*
Once again, The Guardian reports pressure to increase taxes on
low-pollution vehicles to "make up for" the decrease in revenue due to
decreased use of fossil fuels.
In the past, I pointed out that this would address a small problem by
perpetuating a bigger one. This time, for the first time, the
Guardian says so too.
Biden said, a week before election day, that he would announce before
election day where he stood regarding expanding the Supreme Court.
As far as I can tell, he never made any such announcement.
The issue will be moot if the Democrats do not win the Georgia runoffs
in January. But that would mean a bigger disaster, as Senate
Republicans will block all the laws necessary to help the non-rich in
America.
It will also block efforts to prevent global climate disaster.
*There's a massive risk that Biden becomes a failed president unable
to appoint any judges or enact any progressive policies.*
Biden was not enthusiastic about many progressive policies anyway, but
we might have been able to pressure him to pass the needed laws. But
not if it is blocked by obstacles beyond his control.
This means that much of the damage Republicans have done -- or might
do before Jan 20 -- will be impossible to reverse. Regulatory changes
could be reversed, one decision at a time. But even that will be
impeded if Republicans block appointments of heads of agencies, and
why wouldn't they do that?
Americans have a foolish tendency to judge a president's achevements
on an absolute scale. A president who is thwarted by an opposition
which holds a majority of the Senate is described as "failed", as if
that were per own fault.
"Ethical investment" funds often provide good returns, but there is a
catch.
"Ethical" companies are typically judged based on mainstream ideas of
what is, and what isn't, ethical. Around 20 years ago I invstigated
an ethical investment fund and found that its principal stock holding
was Microsoft. And that made sense. Microsoft treated its employees
well, and did not produce physical pollution. Microsoft must have
seemed quite ethical, if one disregarded the injustice of nonfree
software, and the issue of having a near-monopoly.
Farming large numbers mink, or civets, or other animals that can catch human
respiratory diseases, risks making pandemics more deadly.
We must take precautions.
If Biden fails to push to give non-rich Americans a better life,
the Democratic Party will become even weaker.
The next right-wing authoritarian might be more competent at ruling,
and more vicious, than the bullshitter has been.
Amazon faces prosecution in Europe for keeping track of other companies'
sales through Amazon's platform and using that to compete with them.
Fines won't be enough to make Amazon stop this unless the fines are
billions of dollars.
Trumpets in the US government are digging foxholes to do damage during
the transition or to make it hard for Biden to replace them.
*In 2019, at least 760,739 people in America were spied upon pursuant
to judicial orders allegedly based upon probable cause of crime and
were neither charged nor informed of the spying.*
The bullshitter's election lawsuits: why they are bullshit.
Since Biden won the election, he has forgotten many of the progressive
secondary points of his Covid-19 plan: paying for treatment, paying
people to stay home and quarantine, and support for gig workers,
renters and small businesses.
*And the severe downgrading of his Covid plan shows Biden embracing the
Obama playbook: meet the Republicans 75% of the way when you start
negotiating, with the expectation that the final deal will move even
more in their direction.*
The people of Bolivia had to use a campaign of protests to assure
they would have an election this year, and that it would be fair.
Denmark has decided not to kill all the minks after all. There may be
no more need.
Barr has asked federal prosecutors
to
create evidence for accusations of a conflagration of Democratic
election rigging by blowing a lot of smoke.
The real problems of election rigging were various forms
of
voter suppression carried out by Republicans.
Faux News and other Murdoch outlets have made a blatant switch
from supporting the conman to supporting the kinder, gentler
plutocratist.
For me, this highlights the amount of power that these organs of
plutocracy exercise, and the harm that that power has done.
It is not fortuitous that they have a plutocratist president-elect
to cooperate with, instead of Sanders who might have acted to
reduce their power.
Republican plutocratists are giving advice to "mainstream" Democratic
plutocratists about allying to reject progressives.
This is just one superficial aspect of the plutocratic system
in which the "mainstream" Democrats have participated since Bill Clinton's day.
Releasing preliminary data on the safety or effectiveness of a new
drug is a bad idea; it replaces careful testing with manipulation.
The manifesto, Privacy And Digital Rights For All,
is pretty good. It would make a significant step forward, because
it specifically calls for limiting the collection and transfer of
data, not solely its use.
One weakness is that it calls for a "data protection" agency. The
term "data protection" presumes that data gets collected and the goal
is to prevent others — "the wrong people" — from getting access to
it. That idea is inadequate because the business or agency which
collected the data is probably also "the wrong people", which is
why the goal needs to be preventing collection of the data.
Another weakness is that it does not mention the idea of requiring
systems to permit anonymity — for instance, to require services
(including ride-for-hire and recharging electric cars) and
digitally-controlled appliances to allow anonymous use.
The companies that manufactured and sold aluminum-covered polyethylene insulation for buildings knew it was a fire hazard and covered it up.
I hope the exposure of this giant, deadly fraud changes the decisions
to impose the cost of replacing that insulation on the people who
bought the condos — because it rendered their homes unsalable as well
as unsafe, and the cost of the repair will bankrupt them.
The article does not go into detail about the involvement regulators
in the affair, but it is clear that (at least) they were not
sufficiently firm. I have a hunch that the Tories cut the budget and
regulation of building seemed like a spending item that the state
could do without.
(satire) *Media Glad It Can Finally End Half-Assed Charade Of Trying
To Understand American Populace.*
*'Many Workers Will Suffer': Days After Election, Trump Quietly Freezes Wages
of [legal temporary immigrant] Farm Laborers.*
James Clyburn: *‘defund the police’ slogan may have hurt Democrats at polls.*
I know he was right about the slogan "Burn, baby, burn!" I was
repelled by that, and naturally so, because I could only interpret it
as a call for wanton destruction. If it was intended to mean
something else, I can't see it.
"Defund the police" (which I support) does not appear violent.
However, it does lend itself to misinterpretation and Clyburn may be
right that that was harmful.
Perhaps "Replace the police" would be a better slogan. I think
it more clearly expresses the goal which is actually sought.
*As long as the Democrats shy away from the redistributive action
needed to tackle glaring inequalities in a country where the gap
between richest and poorest has more than doubled in the past two
decades, there will be an opening for the Trumpist right to present
itself as the solution to a broken system – the alternative to Biden
and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.*
There are two paths that appear to lead out of the centrist pit: the
honest path (someone like Sanders) and the lying path (someone like
the wrecker).
Careless Republicans — perhaps intentionally careless — seized on
various errors and confusions to claim 14,000 dead people voted in
Michigan. However, investigating 50 of those cases found that each of
them either was still alive, or did not vote.
It is not feasible to investigate so many cases carefully, so
Republicans didn't try.
Republican state officials overlook the same sorts of issues
when "purging" people from voting lists.
Countries are trying to make their economies "recover" from Covid-19
by "investing" in fossil fuel use.
Those "investments" are really giveaways, since it would be disaster
to keep using them for their expected span of usage.
A proposed French law would criminalize publishing photos of thugs
under conditions that would threaten anyone who documents their
violence.
If you are French, please contact your député !
Foreign students in Australia, with no work and with universities
shut, were desperate for an income, and were pushed into farm work
under illegal conditions including taking their passports.
*World is running out of time on climate, experts warn.*
Paramilitary gangs in Colombia force young teenagers to join them,
and even children.
Why use the euphemism "recruitment" to describe conscription?
It seems absurd.
The Tories are directing the UK into the worst possible trade outcome
come January, gaining none of the possible benefits and suffering all
of the possible damage.
Since the Tories cannot help but understand the effects of the planned
"race to the bottom", I conclude that their intention is to eliminate
the UK's safety standards without even a quid-pro-quo.
They cannot help but understand that they are headed for exiting the EU
with no trade agreement, This is the extremely painful outcome
that Bogus Johnson promised to avoid.
Could it be that the Tories are in fact working for multinational
companies against the UK?
The US is deporting political refugees to Cameroon. Some of the
people deported a month ago seem to have disappeared, but that will
not deter the US from sending more.
Legally, political refugees should not be deported, but deportation
thugs torture them until they waive their rights.
Rebecca Solnit: *Victory is only the prelude. What happens now is up to us.*
It won't be easy to make Biden do anything that displeases the plutocrats.
Their power now is much stronger than it was in 1992.
If the Democrats don't win the two Georgia senate runoffs, Biden will
find it difficult to pass any laws to improve matters even if he
tries. Thus, trying to help win those two elections is a crucial prelude
to trying to get Biden to reject ruinous compromises.
Arguing that few if any other Republicans could succeed at
bullshitting the way the wrecker did.
* Biden and Democrats in Congress now have an opportunity to win a
generation’s long-term loyalty, but only if they deliver the big
changes young Americans demand.*
Looking at the question from the other side: how a somewhat different
repressive populist could win by catering economically to
working-class Americans, if the Democrats fail to do so.
Unfortunately, that's exactly what plutocrats don't want Biden to do.
And their pundits are already saying that Biden must compromise with
Senator McConnell, since the Republicans may still control the Senate
A compromise between the center-right and the extreme right will not
deliver any of the country's needs, neither short-term needs nor
long-term needs.
Keir Starmer says he wants to be the UK's Biden, not aiming to
make the major changes to turn off plutocracy.
You would never guess from his talk that millions of Americans voted
for Biden while holding their noses.
"Centrists" always talk about seeking to "unify the country", which
progressives hear as "shut up and watch as I keep plutocracy in place."
*Republicans back [bullshitters'] challenge to Biden election victory.*
There is hardly any argument one could make against requesting a
recount. To challenge irregularities in court is legitimate, but
doing so in a system of courts that Republicans have packed with
partisan judges has the potential to become a coup.
The danger he will stir up violence to influence the electoral system
still exists.
A description of political events in Ethiopia, which may be leading to
a civil war. I can't summarize them simply.
Indeed, heavy fighting has broken out,
and Ethiopia has cut off communication between Tigray and the rest
of the world.
*EU bank supports projects linked to human rights violations, NGOs claim.*
*Australia's government agencies increasingly refusing environment-related FOIs, audit finds.*
The people of small Wagina Island in the Solomons have defeated a plan
to build a mine that would have taken up half the island and made
life very difficult on the rest.
*Covid set to cause 400,000 surge in TB deaths as medics diverted.*
Kamala Harris's victory speech focuses on identity politics.
I agree it is good that the US can elect a black woman to a post that
may lead to becoming president. But I see no sign of an intention to do
anything to make things better than they were in 2016, and maybe not even
merely no worse.
Biden's victory speech does say a little about important long term
goals beyond dealing with Covid-19, including defending the climate.
But all it offers to poor people is "a fair shot", a chance at a
good life.
As Europe falls into a fight about censorship of "blasphemy", neither
the Islamists nor Macron nor other governments are consistently on
the side of freedom of speech.
Yanis Varoufakis: *Hoping for a return to normal after Trump? That's
the last thing we need.*
Varoufakis lays it out completely clearly, how the wrecker took
advantage of non-rich Americans' justified anger at being shafted by
plutocracy. If by 2024 the "centrist" politicians won't give them
a fair share, and block Sanders, they could chose another bullshitter.
Not Trump, though — he will probably be in state prison.
Everyone: call on NYC District Attorney Cy Vance to drop charges
against arrested protesters.
Lukashenko has orchestrated a propaganda campaign drawing on the heroism
of the underground that fought German occupation. The opposition has
turned it around.
It seems that Lukashenko fits the role of fascist very well.
A war remembrance event experienced as "an exercise in collective
amnesia."
*Loyal [bullshitter] outlets cry betrayal after [not Faux enough] News calls
election for Biden.*
(satire) *Donald Trump Jr. Refuses To Step Down From Post Of President’s Oldest Son.*
(satire) *‘You Have Disappointed Me,’ Trump Tells Room Full Of Supporters While
Strapping On Gas Mask.*
FAIR reports on how the media are disregarding the wrecker's efforts
to steal the election by getting courts to discard the postal ballots
which changed the outcomes in several states.
On the other hand, it could be that denying him attention is creating
a public mindset in which court decisions for him would outrage the
public. This could inhibit the Supreme Court from doing that.
A study found that psilocybin was helpful to many people suffering
from depression —
more effective than approved antidepressants.
Even if the wrecker does not seize power, he could lawfully wreck a
lot more things before January 20.
Not to mention the exponential spread of Covid-19, almost unhindered
while the wrecker has its back.
Ocasio-Cortez Notes: Every Democrat [in Congress] Who Backed Medicare
for All Won Reelection in 2020.
However, some of those who didn't support it were defeated.
She also points out that support for Biden from Republicans
seems to have done little good for him.
To anyone who was unhappy with the Republican dooH niboR policies before
the wrecker came along, their support for Biden only suggests he's as
bad as we thought.
Ralph Nader: The Democratic Party is not interested in learning from
its overall disappointing outcome this year, because the lesson it would
have to learn is to start standing for non-rich Americans.
Naomi Klein: *We were told Joe Biden was the 'safe choice'. Why did he
barely scrape through?*
(satire) *Jubilant Reaction To Trump Defeat Quickly Soured By News Of
Biden Win.*
(satire) *Following Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential
election, a crying Eric Trump reportedly asked his father Friday if
they were poor now.*
Environmental activists say that Bolsonaro arranged a phony Potemkin tour
showing selected healthy parts of the Amazon forest.
*Why Democrats lost Latino voters along Texas border.* It starts with
taking them mostly for granted, but it isn't just that.
The attitudes reported are so disparate that I can't see any specific
concrete lesson to be learned from this, except perhaps to nominate a
candidate that excites people rather than a lesser-evil.
Republicans exploit flaws in the US electoral system every time to
"win" Congress and the presidency, or at least come close. We need to
fix those flaws for good and all.
*U.S. Military Responsible for Widespread PFAS Pollution in Japan.*
Four more states have legalized marijuana for adult use.
I wonder why right-wing politicians put so much effort into continuing
prohibition. Is it that they need marijuana as a monster to "protect"
people from? Is it associated with sex, and therefore crying out
for repression?
*Millions of Americans have risen up and said: democracy won't die on our
watch.*
However, survival of civilization, and of millions of poor Americans,
depends on not merely having Democracy, but on stopping the plutocrats
from outmaneuvering us, so we can use it to do what is needed.
This year, we lost that battle.
Biden has won enough electoral votes to be elected president.
That means he will be elected unless the wrecker can sabotage the system.
Which means that the wrecker will soon do all he can to encourage violence.
Faux News and other Murdoch publications are calling on the wrecker
to concede defeat rather than sabotage the system.
I don't think they will convince him to do so willingly, but their
influence may thwart him by persuading Republican state legislators
to refuse to participate.
A Finnish zoo gave monkeys control buttons to request various kinds of
recorded sound tracks.
Their preference was traffic noise.
Adani mining accidentally renamed its Australian subsidiary to a word
meaning "crooked, villainous, depraved."
The company denied that the renaming was because the name "Adani" had
recently developed negative associations, saying that the negative
associations had existed for a long time.
Someone found a video of a photographer from WXYZ transporting
equipment in a box on a wagon, and claimed (based on no evidence) that
he was transporting fake ballots.
A news faker can generate dozens of fake instances of "fraud" every
day, creating a miasma of dishonesty even if there isn't any real
dishonesty. People who are convinced this way, when they see a
refutation of one accusation, may respond, "One of those instances was
debunked, but there are plenty more," without remembering the
specifics, so there is no effective way to refute the rootless
accusation.
Camden, New Jersey, disbanded its violent and ineffective thug department
and founded a new one with a different attitude.
This eliminated the old union contracts that gave thugs impunity for
doing bad work, and even crimes.
The EPA reports that the pesticide atrazine is likely to harm over 1000
endangered species.
This conclusion was reached under guidelines that required the EPA to
disregard some scenarios of possible harm. So the number is likely to
be an underestimate.
(satire) *Trump Files Lawsuit In Pennsylvania Alleging Election
Officials Totally Disregarding His Feelings.*
(satire) *Panicked Trump Agrees To Zoom Debate.*
If food production follows its current trajectory of development,
that alone will bust the carbon budget.
A high-ranking New York City thug is accused of publishing a wide variety
of bigotry under a pseudonym.
It's not a crime to make prejudiced statements, but if a cop does so,
it implies perse can't do per job in an unbiased way.
* Scotland Yard has apologized after journalists and photographers
covering an anti-lockdown protest were told to leave and threatened
with arrest.*
Almost 3/4 of Americans want government-run medical care. The
challenge is to replace the "centrist" Democrats with people closer to
the real political center.
* It’s not enough to be anti-Trump. Socialists are showing you can win
elections by standing for something.*
Centrist Democrats are already attacking the progressives in Congress whose unceasing campaigning helped Biden win.
Progressives' help will be needed to win the crucial Georgia senate
runoff elections in January.
*Nonwhite Voters Are Not Immune to the Appeal of Right-Wing Populism.*
There will be rallies again on Nov 7 to resist the wrecker's attempts
to set aside the election. Alas, once again the information
necessary to participate is hidden behind nonfree software.
A progressive candidate defeated the incumbent district attorney of
Los Angeles, who had protected killer thugs.
Two supporters of QAnonsense were arrested in Philadelphia near a
vote-counting center for carrying illegal firearms, including a rifle
without a serial number.
The bullshitter's campaign is filing many lawsuits against
vote-counting procedures. Experts say they are frivolous and
he has little chance of winning them.
So why do do this?
I have two hypotheses:
An analysis of Macron's attempt to integrate Muslim French people into
France's insistence on secularity above any religion.
*UN urges resumption of mass measles and polio vaccinations.*
*"One of the reasons to try and
keep the number of cases down as low as possible [in humans and
animals], is to reduce the genetic diversity of the virus."*
In other words, letting the virus run rampant, as the wrecker decided to do,
is making potential vaccines less effective.
*When [the bullshitter] is peddling outrageous lies, where is the line
between reporting and enabling?*
My answer, for around four years, is: cover what he does, and don't be
distracted by what he says. There is no reason to quote his lies, and
in most cases no reason to talk about them except occasionally to show
what sort of attack on truth he is launching.
The writer seems to argue that the existence of millions of Americans
who believe his lies makes them somehow more worthy of press coverage.
I disagree. The writer also think it makes a difference that a
typical lie says something his followers already believe, rather than
"inventing" it. That's because it was invented by previous lies, not
by the latest one. Same difference.
The existence of his supporters is an important fact, and covering
that fact is valid, but does not require quoting him.
A Toronto thug was sentenced to prison for beating a black man with a pipe
and bursting one of his eyes.
Some prominent Republicans privately disapprove of the wrecker's campaign
to shed distrust on the counting of votes, but they don't have the courage
to oppose it publicly.
A few did speak up.
The part of the process where massive cheating occurs is
before a person's ballot gets into the ballot box.
That's when Republican voter suppression occurs.
As Kushner discourages eviction protection with one hand, he prepares
evictions with the other.
Thugs in Minneapolis besieged and arrested a thousand or more
nonviolent protesters. Whereas New York City thugs beat up protesters
while other thugs looked on and laughed.
Biden will have no chance of returning the US to "normal", even aside
from Covid-19.
But then, the "normal" state of affairs for the past few decades has
been getting worse and worse. Since the late 90s, the US government
has been dominated by big companies and rich people, plus the special
interests in any given area.
This has been getting worse ever since and I don't think Biden
would try to fix it anyway.
Thus, one crucial political battle will be between the plutocratists
that want that old "normal" back, the progressives who want something
better, and the death cult Republicans want to go berserk.
The UK is taking its greenhouse gas commitments seriously, and is planning
to increase measures to achieve them.
Moving to electric cars is a good thing to do, though burning hydrogen
made sustainably would also be good. However, if there is a plan
to move to cars that take a new kind of fuel, it is imperative to
make it possible to buy that fuel anonymously.
*NHS England has far fewer hospital beds than it used to and is short of
around 100,000 staff.*
Tory cuts started out as purported efficiency measures and morphed
into "Let's squeeze the non-rich Britons some more." However, a
service that runs without spare capacity in normal times, even if it
does a good job then, will be overloaded as soon as there is an
emergency.
In Hong Kong, the Chinese tyranny invites people to inform on each
other anonymously.
The US did invite informers in Afghanistan, and people fabricated
crimes to obtain private revenge.
Some of the victims spent many years in
Guantanamo.
An icebreaker left a time capsule in the ice at the North Pole in 2018.
This year it floated out and was found in Ireland.
In recent years the Arctic ice cap has been getting much thinner.
This is probably a consequence of that.
The election outcome has refuted the arguments that Biden has a better chance of winning than Sanders.
In Florida, the referendum to increase the minimum wage won as Biden lost.
Biden was not too progressive, he was insufficiently progressive.
The EU has just gained the power to punish an authoritarian national
government without unanimous approval from all the rest.
This means the EU will be able to bring pressure on Poland and Hungary
to restore the independence and authority of the national courts.
However, I am not sure such pressure will be sufficient to achieve
that goal. Once people are caught up in a spell of hatred, they tend
to react defensively to criticism of that spell.
San Francisco has voted for additional taxes on tech companies and CEOs.
Israeli forces demolished a Palestinian village, making 73 residents homeless.
Israel uses many excuses for ethnic cleansing. Declaring land a "closed
military zone" is one of the standard excuses.
The wrecker called on the Supreme Court to end the counting of
ballots, giving no reason why it should.
I linked
to
an inaccurate report claiming that a large number of postal
ballots went undelivered on election day. The USPS says
they were delivered specially to election commissions,
skipping the usual delivery scan step.
The University of London has yielded to a campaign and will end the
practice of outsourcing cleaning to a contractor.
It should be illegal for large organizations (for which cleaning
requires many full-time employees) to use a contractor as
intermediary. And likewise for other occupations
*FBI Investigates Robocalls Aimed at Suppressing [Democrats'] Turnout
as State Officials Pledge Vigilance Against Attacks on Voting Rights.*
*Teens who spend more time in extracurricular activities and less time in
front of screens have better mental health, study finds.*
If Biden is allowed to become president, he can easily bring the US back into
the Paris climate agreement.
Republicans in the Senate, however, will go to the mat to make
sure th US not carry out its pledge to reduce emissions.
The US has a long history of rigging elections.
(satire) *Passed California Ballot Measure Allows Uber, Lyft To
Categorize Workers As Car Parts.*
The wives of UK undercover thugs who used phony romantic relationships
to infiltrate various leftist political movements are now complaining
that those relationships constituted "infidelity" towards them.
I cannot understand their feeling of loss because it is based on an
idea of possessiveness that seems totally wrong to me.
If a woman who loves me starts to love someone else, I worry that she
might lose interest in me. But once I know she still loves me, I wish
her happiness from her other relationship, and I can be happy for her
happiness, along with her love for me.
But even if she stops loving me, I still wish her happiness even
though I am bereft.
The Democratic Party's attempt to win votes from Republicans
has mostly failed.
This effort started with nominating a largely right-wing "centrist",
Biden, and continued with inviting Republicans to speak at the
Democratic convention about how close Biden was to a Republican.
This tended to discourage the people who need something better
than a Republican.
As for the Lincoln Project, there was no harm in trying that,
and it may have done some little good. But not very much.
*Let’s face it: The democracy that Donald Trump dropped on the floor
suffered a great deal from the experience. It’s going to take more than
an election to put it right.*
* Turns out, the so-called shining city on a hill is, instead, a black
hole where hope, optimism, reason and the future go to die.*
Research finds correlation between activity levels of brain regions
and general political attitudes.
The UK's criminalization of "hate speech" — simple expression of views — has an exception for discussions taking place in someone's home. But now Parliament is considering a plan to eliminate that
exception.
They mean well, but this is getting dangerously like China, or
Belarus. If protesters don't start out hating someone, they can be
led to do so.
This change was buried where people might not notice it, and that
displays ill will. Furthermore, the proponents ask people to take it
on trust that this extended prohibition won't be exercised to the full
extent. Why trust them? Should you trust Bogus Johnson and his crew
to have a power and not use it?
Talking about "decarbonisation" creates a pitfall: an opportunity for
nuclear power companies to replace the carbon pollution with
radioactive heavy element pollution.
All the arguments for nuclear power that couldn't be crushingly
refuted a few years ago have been crushingly refuted today. The world
should cancel all nuclear power plant projects immediately and spend
the money on efficient methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions
— methods that don't have a risk of suddenly turning into a very
expensive mess that people don't entirely know how to clean up.
Research suggests that 15% of all Covid-19 deaths were co-caused by
air pollution (combined with Covid-19).
This could be one of the reasons why blacks are more likely to die
when infected by Covid-19: because the neighborhoods they live in,
and have grown up in, have had more air pollution all along.
*Four-week cancer treatment delay raises death risk by 10% –- study.*
Now that hospitals are overwhelmed by Covid-19 cases because of
disease-spreading policies, people with cancer will start dying
avoidable deaths, and the wrecker and his death cult will be
responsible.
*International observers say US elections 'tarnished' by Trump and
uncertainty.*
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have agreed to work together to stop
Chinese overfishing in their waters.
The wrecker is suing to prematurely stop the counting of ballots in
some states.
I don't think this is merely an attempt to influence public opinion,
because that alone could not change defeat into victory, and the
wrecker knows this. I suspect he is trying to give Barrett and
company an opportunity to make an insane, non-sequitur ruling to throw
the election.
Everyone: call on officials in various states to count every vote.
Republicans are trying to stop the count in Detroit by menacing the people
doing the work.
Many kinds of things can cause a mailed ballot to get lost or thrown
away. And hundreds of thousands are lost or thrown away each time.
*Prosecutors in Brazil file embezzlement charges against Jair Bolsonaro's son.*
I'm not surprised that people who smear at honesty turn out to
have been dishonest.
*Terrawatch: dust is speeding up melting of Himalayan snow.*
And human activities make more dust.
UK thugs infiltrated protests against the Vietnam War,
and many other political causes.
* Barr said that mainly leftwing groups were infiltrated "as well as
groups campaigning for social, environmental or other change" such as
anti-nuclear causes. He also said trade unionists and groups opposing
racism were spied on. Far-right groups were also infiltrated.*
*"The information reported by these undercover police officers was
extensive. It covered the activities of the groups in question, and
their members. It also extended to the groups and individuals with whom
they came into contact, including elected representatives.
Reporting covered not only the political or campaigning activities of
those concerned but other aspects of their personal lives."*
(satire) *Woman Hopes She Did Enough Worrying To Help Biden Campaign.*
Leaving some of your data under the cloudy control of a company puts you
in danger of losing it at any time for cloudy reasons.
How Facebook's measure of popularity of a posting tends to promote
thoughtless extremism.
A law passed in some states to conceal the names of victims of crimes
is being used to cover up the identity of violent thugs.
*Don't be fooled: the delays in the US election result mean our system is
working.*
Well, the vote-counting part is working.
Oregonians voted to stop trying and punishing people for possession of
small amounts of any drugs.
It is not quite accurate to describe this as "decriminalizing" drugs,
but in practice it should work out that way.
Most of the people who break Covid-19 distancing rules need help to
comply with them, not rebukes and punishments.
[Organizations of] UK health professions call for climate tax on meat.
Democrats, it is no use nominating "moderate" (right-wing) candidates and
hoping to get many Republicans' votes.
Democrats that don't support progressive views will encounter the
downside of progressive views (being attacked for them) anyway, but
they won't get the upside.
Californians voted to allow Uber and Lyft to continue exploiting their
drivers. The companies threatened to stop operating in the state
unless they were allowed to do that.
Those who voted for Prop 22 were voting to get cheap rides by
exploiting their drivers. That attitude towards low-paid workers
results in a country that is cruel and full of hardship.
Civil war is about to break out in Tigray, a part of Ethiopia.
If secessionist sentiment in Tigray is that strong, maybe that state
should have a referendum over possible independence.
Is there any moral reason why it should be part of Ethiopia?
*Stop blowing up bombs on sea floor, say whale campaigners.*
Hong Kong reported Choy Yuk-ling has been arrested under the 2020
"security" law for a 2019 report on violence by Hong Kong thugs a year
ago.
In the 1700s, the UK used to pass laws that criminalized past actions.
They were known as "ex post facto laws", and in condemnation of that
practice, the US constitution explicitly prohibits them.
People with long-term Covid-19 disability need to rest in order to
recover. But the Tory hostile environment for working class people
who are sick does not allow them rest.
*Covid has exposed the decade-long lie that benefits are a lifestyle choice.*
In the UK and the US, both run by cruel right-wing regimes, welfare benefits
are so meager that it is a struggle to survive on them. And if anything goes
seriously wrong, you're destitute.
*Ugandan singer Bobi Wine arrested after confirmation as election candidate.*
The UK plans to prohibit protests in the name of Covid-19.
People should be allowed to protest if they wear masks and keep their
distance.
That applies to Australia, too. Thugs in Melbourne arrested 400 protesters
because anything more than a small protest is prohibited.
The article fails to clarify whether they were arrested for refusing
to take sanitation precautions, or for protesting. Morally, that
makes all the difference.
Based on the signs that the protesters are reported to have carried, I
get the impression that they were covidiots. Very likely they refused
to wear masks and refused to keep distance from each other. That
means spreading disease. Arresting people for that — whether
protesting or not — would be legitimate. Arresting people for
protesting would be tyranny.
Poland's right-wing government has backed off on plans to tighten
restrictions on abortion.
*Italian doctors urge tougher restrictions fearing 'tsunami' on hospitals.*
Spotify will invite musicians to compete for publicity by cutting
their tiny share of the company's income.
Let's spit out Spotify! We need a system where people can easily
and anonymously donate to musicians; GNU Taler
can be the base for that.
And we should share copies of music, regardless of what anyone says.
In order to share a copy, you need to have a copy. That is another
reason to refuse to listen via Spotify, or any other streaming
dis-service.
The Tories' ideology of privatizing government activities is replacing
skilled public health professionals with untrained 18-year-olds. The
UK allows paying them a lower wage, but have no idea how to do their
jobs.
With this approach, failure is built into every plan.
At 100,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day, the US will
have 36 million new cases per year. That is about 1/9 of
the population. If herd immunity requires 70% of the
population to catch the disease, that will take 6 years.
If the rate of infection increases to half a million per day, we might
reach herd immunity by the end of 2021. However, at that rate, most
people that get a bad case are likely to die, because most of them
won't be able to get hospital treatment (the hospitals will be
overloaded).
The way to regain a normal life soon is the way that Taiwan, New
Zealand and parts of Australia have used:
jump on the virus hard and
drive the numbers down, then use old-fashioned contact tracing
followed by isolating those who may be infected to mop up the rest.
This method is known to work,
and it can work in just a few months.
It is true that the US is not an island, but that makes less
difference than people think. The number of people that enter the US
without permission is minuscule by Covid-19 standards, and most of
them surrender promptly to federal agents, which makes it possible to
test them and quarantine them.
On finding and trying the people who organized the Rwandan genocide.
A US court ordered the USPS to carry out specific special measures to deliver
all the ballots on time.
I wonder whether DeJoy found some last-minute form of sabotage to
carry out, so as to negate that order. Republicans love defying
courts that try to stop their sabotage.
The wrecker thinks of Covid-19 as an opportunity to get rid of around
two million Americans, whom he will subsequently define as "losers"
because they died.
A US appeals court allowed a lawsuit by a thug who was injured by a
thrown rock to sue the organizer of the protest, although the protest
was not supposed to be violent. The Supreme Court reversed that decision.
The idea of punishing protest organizers for something at the protest
that they didn't do reminds me of the Haymarket martyrs, who were
executed for having organized a rally at which some unidentified
person set off a bomb.
Up to 30 million Americans will soon be evicted
unless governments protect them.
100 years ago, whites in Occee, Florida, massacred 30 to 50 blacks
because some of them dared try to vote.
Don't trust temporary discounts offered by online stores. If they delay
delivery, and the discount ends in the mean time, they will charge you
the undiscounted price.
The article is about the UK. I don't know for a fact that this
practice is common in other countries, but I expect it to occur
in the US because its consumer protection tends to be weak.
Many Indians work in the US tech industry, but Dalits are a small minority
and the other Indians discriminate against them constantly.
*Greta Thunberg Hears Your Excuses. She Is Not Impressed.*
The movement to protect the voters' decision must insist on nonviolence.
Any violence by the protesters will give the wrecker's armed and
violent supporters an opportunity.
Any apparent violence by protesters might very likely to be a
false-flag attack by provocateurs. We've seen several of those year
at Black Lives Matter protests. Establishing a disciplined practice
of nonviolence, following the 1960s and 1970s example, will make it
easier to expose the false-flag attacks, and that will help resist
them and help deter them.
Democracy is threatened in the US and globally, and will still be
threatened next year regardless of the election outcome. But the
cause is not lost.
The conman's multiple conflicting disinformation campaigns are
designed to confuse politics and truth so much that people can't see
how to unite in opposition.
(satire) *… anti-jacket demonstrators reportedly held a rally
at Burlington Coat Factory Monday to protest what they called the
*liberal cold weather conspiracy."*
*Treat artificial light like others forms of pollution, say scientists.*
They harm a wide variety of species and this damages ecosystems.
*Kentucky state [thug] training quoted Hitler to create ‘ruthless’
warriors.*
If we want police officers rather than thugs, we should not teach them
to think of themselves as "warriors". That was the basic mistake in
this training; no matter who they quoted, it would be wrong.
The US deportation thugs are planning to deport a crucial witness about their
practice of forced sterilization.
Even worse, since they have never seriously considered whether she is
a US citizen. Which it appears she is.
Republicans are still working on voter suppression, hoping the partisan
judges they appointed will invalidate mail-in ballots because of postal delays
that they engineered.
They have filed over 40 state cases that aim to interfere with voting.
One was an attempt to invalidate Texas drive-through voting. It
failed.
The judges that Republicans appointed in the last 4 years have in general
acted to impede voting.
I don't know what you call this. I call it a conspiracy to attack the
election, and future elections as well. A government that is not
democratic makes itself illegitimate.
Covidiots in many European countries are protesting against measures
to put an end to Covid-19, in two fundamentally different ways.
This article describes demands for aid and demands to spread disease.
It does distinguish the two goals, but still treats them as part of
one larger issue. That is a mistake. Those two reactions to the
same situation are totally different in moral terms.
When people have lost their income and demand aid, their cause is
just, and the government should provide it. However, to do this the
government may need to pull out of the Euro, or it fall into the sort
of disaster that crushed Greece for most of the past decade.
However, the people that demand to disregard precautions are demanding
to infect other people, some of whom will be killed or permanently
disabled. They are disease spreaders, and they belong in prison. It
would be most appropriate to put them, together, in a prison which the
guards do not enter. That way they can spread coronavirus to each
other without endangering anyone else.
*It's not just Trump — to much of the world, the US is a bully whoever is in
charge.*
Biden won't change this much, but Sanders would have.
*The [Bully's] War on Dissent Is Using Trumped-Up Federal Charges.*
Powerful people are blocking journalism by threatening libel lawsuits
in England against journalists investigating them.
*Tanzanian opposition figures arrested after disputed election.*
The residents of Brixton (near London) have fought a series of
projects to gentrify their neighborhood. The latest project which
they oppose is a 20-story skyscraper.
I conjecture that this project was planned before 2020, in a world in
which there appeared to be great need for additional housing space in
London, even if only to buy as an investment and leave empty.
Covid-19 has eliminate that appearance; an enormous amount of office
space will be vacant. Surely some of that can be converted to
housing, especially with some flexibility in building codes. Then
there would be a sufficiency of residential space and of business
space, and building additional tall buildings would make no sense at
all.
*Even if [the wrecker] loses the election, the US isn't going to heal
any time soon.*
We will have a substantial minority of right-wing extremists and
potential terrorists. I think we will have to defeat them, not ignore
them.
At the same time, we will need progressive policies to give non-rich
Americans a much better life. But people wrapped in insanity may not
even notice.
Young Americans, and even not so young, are thoroughly aware of the
climate crisis and confront the older generations of their families.
More about Slovakia's mass testing for Covid-19.
* Lockdowns affecting entire populations is a price countries pay for
failing to ensure people with coronavirus and their contacts
self-isolate, according to an expert from the World Health
Organization.*
Some suggestions for avoiding redistributing misinformation.
The article refers to postings as "content". Please join me in
refusing to do that.
Bogus Johnson delayed rather than take strong measures to stop
Covid-19 transmission in the UK, and as a result the country needs to
take those strong measures for a longer period.
Putting this off is like putting off a visit to the dentist: foolish
and self-defeating. Except that when you postpone your dental
treatment, you're the only one who it hurts. When you postpone
antitransmission measures, it hurts the whole country.
One cause of the UK's failure to fend off Covid-19 was that Tories had
underfunded the NHS for years,
worse each year than the previous.
Taiwan and New Zealand took very strong measures for a sufficient time,
and now they don't have the disease at all.
*Scholars warn of collapse of democracy as Trump v Biden election looms.*
The thugs who shot Walter Wallace Jr did not have an urgent reason to
shoot. They could have waited to see if they could handle the
situation without shooting. They could even have stopped after one
shot.
And why in the world, when the city got a call about having a
mental crisis, did it send thugs without tasers?
With "Defund the Police", the city would have been able to send people
trained and equipped to handle such a crisis without hurting anyone.
That is why I support that campaign.
Three jailed Thai protest leaders were released on a court order, then thugs attacked them and seem to have caused them substantial injury.
Presenting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Now that many Americans are unable to pay their debts, or even their
rent, the Consumer Financial Punishment Bureau authorized additional
harassment by debt collectors.
Don't interpret "the new normal" as "the new acceptable."
Members of the wrecker's death cult are not organizing solely to
intimidate voters. They attacked Biden's campaign bus.
In response, Biden's campaign cancelled campaign events.
I don't think it is wise to cancel an event for bullies, because that
gives the bullies a victory. They will boast of every success in
cancelling something or someone, to recruit more bullies. (Later:
indeed, that's what they are doing.)
It is a grave mistake to let arrogant fascist bullies get a victory to
boast of.
In part of India, the roots of living trees are shaped into durable
bridges.
The story of Sun Yi, the Chinese political prisoner who hid tiny notes
in the products he was forced to manufacture.
*How Internet-connected voter check-in devices can create election chaos.*
The bully has systematically used the US deportation thugs to retaliate
for political activism on behalf of immigrants.
North Carolina thugs sprayed pepper spray at a get-out-the-vote march,
supposedly because the protesters blocked a street, but they seem to have
been rather quick to escalate.
* Our country is breaking down, we have no effective leadership, and
we’re lagging behind other rich countries. The left needs to provide an
answer.*
Melting ice around the world offers a windfall for archaeologists,
although it is a harbinger of disaster.
Investigating the origin of funded voter intimidation in Minnesota.
*'Red mirage': the 'insidious' scenario if Trump declares an early victory.*
A British functionary in charge of trying to make homeless people fit
the strictly narrow categories of aid for the homeless says that this
system is fundamentally broken.
The NYU's investigation of Facebook ads has its participants use a
browser add-on that incidentally reports other people's personal data
when it appears on the participant's screen. Arguably, Facebook is
legally bound to try to stop its use.
Facebook may not have the legal power to stop it, and we must hope it
does not get that power, because this research is vitally important.
Unless, that is, new laws compel Facebook to hand over its preference
algorithm (in every version) for investigation.
The experimenters are morally bound to inform participants that the
browser add-on will show the experimenters other Facebook useds'
personal information they Facebook shows them. That raises another
legal/moral question: is it legal, and is it moral, for a participant
X to knowingly hand over per Facebook "friends"' data to the
experimenters?
IANAL, but I think it is legal, because X has no obligation of secrecy
to per Facebook friends. I think it is moral, provided X informs
all per Facebook friends that perse will do this, and gives them a
chance to avoid showing their data to X.
However, if they are wise, they will be more hesitant to show their
data to Facebook than to show it to X and the experimenters. Which
means they should stop being zuckers — stop being used by
Facebook.
Bogus Johnson wanted to reopen businesses and help them make money,
never mind that they would spread Covid-19. Now, as a result, the UK
is experiencing a catastrophic spread, like the spring only perhaps
worse, and a strict lockdown is following.
The UK should have done that in September, and it would be over now.
Senators tore into Facebook and Google for making themselves the main
distributors for the work of US local newspapers, and taking all the
revenue for themselves.
The article is weakened by the use of confused concepts such as
"intellectual property"
and "consuming" news.
It is correct in criticizing those companies, but it doesn't
seem to consider that their data collection ought to be banned outright.
Americans: start wearing masks now or face sharp lockdowns soon.
*… without a "seismic shift" in how world governments
approach the treatment of wildlife, land conservation, and public
health, the planet could be entering an "era of pandemics.*
A Philadelphia woman drove into the wrong street, wrong because thugs
were kettling protesters at the end of the block. One thug told her
to turn around, but as she did so, other thugs broke her car windows,
grabbed her very young son, beat her up, then posted a photo of her son
to claim they were protecting him.
I suppose it is not a coincidence that she is black.
We must demand prosecution of the thugs that did these mad things.
It's not enough to prosecute them solely for murder.
**How Decades of Corporate-Friendly Farm Policies Wrecked Rural America — And
Paved the Way for [the conman].*
This story described how it killed first the author's stepfather, then
her mother, as the bully told Americans that Covid-19 can't hurt anyone
except a few losers.
The mother caught it from the stepfather, who caught it from people
who were treating him for an injury, and they probably caught it
indirectly from people who spread it because they believed what the
bully told them.
*Under Trump, Households Making $30 Million Nine Times Less Likely to Face IRS
Audit Than Working Poor Making Less Than $25,000.*
*Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez Unveil Bill to Foster
Creation of Public Banks Across US.*
I think it may take a lot of public pressure to make the "centrist"
right-wing Democrats support this.
*New Analysis Shows [global heating] Is Making It Harder to Vote.*
These events happen occasionally, not every day, but they can affect
many voters each time.
Urging New Mexico to make gas wells reduce their methane leaks.
*Unions Representing Hundreds of Thousands of Workers Prepare for General
Strike If Trump Subverts Election Results.*
(satire) *More Souls Deferring Entrance To Heaven For A Year To Backpack
Through Spirit Realm.*
(satire) A closer look at the nation’s 50 worst states.
An NGO has recommended that Europe cancel the planned gas pipeline
from the Aegean Sea.
I've recommended for a year that the way to settle the dispute between
Cyprus and Turkey about which one will get the chance to profit from
destroying civilization through the extraction of this gas is to
insist on leaving it in the ground.
Likewise for other similar disputes.
*millions of American diabetics struggle to afford
insulin.*
Colorado's high forests, which never got hot enough to burn, are burning
very hot. One fire has been burning since August.
The average western fire season has extended more than two months
since the 1970s. Global heating has gone 1C already and it will
probably go at least another 1C; how long will the fire season be
then?
Qatar says that strip-searching women passengers to see if one had just
given birth was illegal.
I am surprised to learn that the baby was and is alive. I got the
impression from the first article that it was dead.
However, I don't think this justifies desperately trying to find the
mother. I expect that being a single mother in Qatar leads to
persecution, such as no longer occurs in western countries. Is there
any safe place in Qatar for a mother to anonymously leave a baby that
she cannot keep or acknowledge?
*Federal Prosecutors Engaged in Unprecedented Push to Jail Protesters Before
Trial.*
Protests designed to bring down a tyrant have often failed in recent decades.
One additional example, not mentioned in the article, was in Nicaragua.
There are, however, cases where they have succeeded.
And other examples where protests have thwarted a coup that tried
to overthrow an elected government.
Black Lives Matter protests have already influenced laws in parts of
the US, and their enforcement (by election of progressive
prosecutors). So far this change covers only small areas, but with
time they will achieve more. Also, this is one area where they may be
successful at the federal level if Democrats win control of the US government.
In 1953, the UK overthrew the recently elected government of Guyana,
supposedly a self-governing colony at the time, and imposed a state of
repression comparable to Kashmir today.
The idea of extracting Guyana's oil may excite dangerous rivalries,
but the most dangerous thing would be to burn that oil. The universal
answer to all questions about what to do with untapped oil reserves
is, "Leave them in the ground."
Glenn Greenwald quit The Intercept after it would not publish an
article that criticized Biden.
The editor denies the accusation, but I believe Greenwald. There is
plenty to criticize about Biden, and Greenwald is surely accustomed
to editing of his work; he can tell the difference between changes to
make the piece better and changes to suppress his ideas.
Greenwald knows that Biden looks good only in contrast to the wrecker.
I hope Biden replaces the wrecker, but if he does, we will find him
even more "moderate" (i.e., generally unsympathetic to necessary
reforms) than Obama was.
I hope that Greenwald will find a new visible place to publish.
US citizens: call on Facebook to shut down disinformation and
calls for violence.
US citizens: call on House and Senate committees to block a big
sale of US combat jets to the UAE.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
Massachusetts Governor Baker has nominated one more former prosecutor
to be the new chief justice of Massachusetts' supreme court.
The nominee is black and female. So is Kamala Harris, another former
prosecutor, and her harshness towards defendants and convicts is one
of the things I don't support about her. (She is also, like Biden,
not progressive.) I hope this new judge in Massachusetts is not like
Harris.
Unless you're a campaign manager, stop reading polls! And stop worrying
about things that might affect campaign strategy!
Reading those things wastes your time and makes you worry uselessly,
because you have no decisions to make which depend on them.
What is worth thinking about in regard to the US election?
It may be useful to think about those topics because they may help you
take action. Anything else election-related is just a distraction —
so you may as well do some other useful thing instead.
In the past, you could usually tell who won any race
at some point in the evening. I used to stay up waiting for this, like most
Americans. Then I realized that I had no need to rush to find out the
answer. The result, whether good or (more often) bad,
would be the same in the morning, Finding out earlier
would not enable me to do any more good.
So I decided to ignore the results on election day and
read about them later.
Slovakia plans to test all citizens over age 10 for Covid-19.
It seems foolish to omit non-citizens and children.
They could propagate Covid-19 past the effort
and thus negate it.
Introduced peacocks, no longer checked by introduced mammalian predators,
are becoming a big problem in New Zealand.
Hong Kong thugs arrested Tony Chung as he tried to ask the US consulate
to shelter him, and charged him with political opposition.
The reason Chung could not simply leave Hong Kong is that the
government had taken his passport and accused him of advocating
independence for Hong Kong.
A number of others also facing political charges tried to leave
Hong Kong in a boat, but China caught the boat.
Preston Kulkarni, running for Congress in Houston, has stated support
for the RSS, a violent anti-non-Hindu hate group in India.
People should pressure Kulkarni and the Democratic Party hard about
this, but despite his connection to a hate group, he is clearly the
lesser evil this year. After all, his opponent is a member of a
violent domestic hate group called the Republican Party.
Missouri voters passed a ballot initiative against gerrymandering.
Now Republicans are pushing another ballot initiative which would
reverse that one, and reduce the voting power of some minorities.
They hoped they could mislead the voters into passing it.
In the US, recessions typically start when there is a Republican president.
Poland is seeing large protests for abortion rights every day.
The last protest had 100,000 people.
Poland's latest attack on abortion rights affects women whose fetuses
are dead or so damaged that they cannot be born alive. For Polish
Catholics, granting the fetus one more day of non-consciousness is
worth any amount of human grief caused.
Right-wing nasties organized for violent attacks against protesters,
which they consider legitimate because the protesters are not fetuses.
;-{.
Adani, which wants to build more coal mines in Australia, used private
investigators to study the private life of an anti-mine activist, and
his wife, and his preteen daughter.
I suppose they were looking for some irrelevant scandal to distract
public attention from the death that comes out of every coal mine
every day.
The president of the US has been given enormous decree powers to
use in an "emergency." Various officials have warned that this could
be dangerous some day.
"Some day" could very well be in December or January, if the wrecker
wants to prevent Biden's inauguration.
CIA sources say that the mysterious brain damage which has struct many
US agents and officials could be caused by a microwave beam weapon.
If that is the case, wearing a simple grid of wires around the head
could block the waves, and attaching a recording thermometer might
provide as way to detect the attack. Purpose-built detectors might
give more information about the waves.
In San Francisco, over 11 million square feet of office space is now
vacant.
We need to convert that space into small residence for poor people to
live in. They could have a microwave and a fridge each, rather than a
real kitchen. This would enable all the homeless people of San
Francisco to have a safe place to live and practice physical
distancing. The rest of the space could be made into studio apartments
and offered for rent at amounts working people can actually afford.
It shouldn't take much payment to the building owners to get them
to accept, since otherwise they are likely to get nothing.
Also, unused space should pay a higher real estate tax.
Delta Airlines has put 460 people on a list it won't sell tickets to
because they have refused to wear masks while on board,
Refusal to wear masks spreads coronavirus, and the continued refusal
of many Americans to wear masks will probably kill hundreds of
thousands more. It is good that some organizations take firm steps
to make sure people wear masks. Now stores and buses should start
protecting their staff and customers.
It took just two days for right-wing Texas provocateur Ivan Hunter to
bring his rifle to Minneapolis and start a false-flag attack on the
thugs.
When Republicans found out that Americans dying from Covid-19, if they
were not old, were likely to be black, they quickly made it their
priority to "reopen the economy".
*Documents Reveal WH Officials Tried to Use $250 Million in Taxpayer
Money on Covid Ad Campaign to Boost [wrecker's] Reelection.*
This sort of corruption is so frequent that it is hardly even news.
What is significant is that our government has no ability to do
anything to punish or prevent such corruption. What was supposed to
restrain it was an expectation that the voters would punish corruption
when they found it. The wrecker has destroyed that expectation,
first for small corrupt acts, then for bigger and bigger ones.
The US claims its regime-change interventions are meant to promote
democracy, but they tend to have the opposite result. Bolivia shows
that the challenge for democracy is to overcome these US operations.
(satire)
*The Onion’s State-By-State Election Guide.
Two members of the grand jury that considered indicting the thugs that
killed Breonna Taylor say that the case was presented in a strange way,
so that it was only at the end that they found out they were not going
to be asked to vote on charging the thugs with killing Ms Taylor.
The jurors were shocked by that.
Usually, they report, cases are presented to the grand jury by first
stating what charges are to be considered. This case and only this
case was handled differently.
I do get the impression that the prosecutor wanted to shield the thugs
and pretend not to have done so.
Republicans have expanded the supreme courts of Arizona and Georgia
in recent years. In Iowa they politicized the selection of judges.
*Overturning the Affordable Care Act Could Result in 68,000 Deaths.*
Racism of the London cops: two brothers, who are black, are suing because
they have been searched on the street 25 times.
China had an outbreak of Covid-19 in a factory which uses Uighurs in
forced labor.
I would not consider 180 people a "large" outbreak, though. Not by US
standards. But there is every likelihood that more people are infected
in the region now.
*Nearly 1,000 instances of police brutality [and other injustices by
thugs] recorded in US anti-racism protests.*
Belarusian dictator Lukachenko had several important political prisoners
brought to one room, then went there and talked to them for hours.
He also occasionally listened.
*The greatest tragedy of England's second wave is that it wasn't inevitable.*
Bogus Johnson made the decisions, and he made them badly.
A very large bank that operates in Australia and New Zealand has
announced a policy on coal mining and burning coal for heat or power.
Existing debtors with heavy involvement in coal will have to make
plans to change.
The extreme planet roaster party is calling for a boycott of that bank.
*Despite Court Ruling and Drift Concerns, EPA Approves Use of Dicamba
Products on Soybeans and Cotton for Five Years.*
The London thug department was investigated in regard to stopping people
to search them with no specific evidence of a crime, and told to change
its practices to do that less.
Ralph Nader proposes an informal 14-day waiting period after election
day, during which candidates should neither claim victory nor concede
defeat.
I am not sure it is a good idea.
To fully defeat fascist trumpery, we need to punish of the crimes of
today's fascists. "Going easy" on the leaders of criminal movements
doesn't help defeat them.
The Principles for Student Data Privacy and Equity are good,
as far as they go.
However, they are not strict in standing up to a pressure to let
companies get their paws on students' classroom or medical data when
the pressure is because "This is the modern way, and all the other
schools are doing this."
If the principles say you can't use Zoom or Microsoft Teams or anything
comparable, they will be adequately strong.
(satire) *… new parents Lindsey Conway and Michael Rhodes
reportedly freaked out Tuesday upon learning that babies can often
live up to 100 years.
…Why don’t they tell you
all this before you bring them home?*
*Polling Shows 82% of [US] Voters Believe 100% Clean Power
Should Be Primary US Energy Goal.*
Over 70% support switching to 100% renewable electric generation by
2035. That's starting to approach the kind of intensity that may
avoid global disaster.
The wrecker's maskless virus-spreading rallies are substantially
effective: half of them have been followed by local increases in
Covid-19 infection.
Poor people in the US often don't vote.
They may be demoralized and
cynical about the political system, or think that not voting is a protest.
There is a lot to be cynical about in the US political system, but the
only way to make it better is through the system itself.
(satire) *Lines Come To Standstill Outside Wisconsin Polls After
State’s Official Voting Pen Rolls Under Vending Machine.*
*From simple location-tracking apps to buttons that measure biometrics,
college campuses have amped up surveillance in response to Covid-19.*
The article lacks a sharp conception for judging whether these
systems are just or unjust and necessary or unnecessary, and for
separating those characteristics from painfulness.
The conditions Vassar students had to sign up to must be very painful,
and I might have taken a year off rather than accept them. But they
are not unjust and may well be necessary to open the campus safely.
The PathCheck app's actions, assuming that the article describes them
fully and accurately, seem to be legitimate provided the college makes
proper commitments not to let any company or other organization handle
any of the data nor to save it nor use it for anything else. But the
fact that it is a nonfree app running in a mobile phone makes it
unacceptable.
I'd apply the same criteria to reporting one's symptoms daily. That
is ok, provided one doesn't have to do it via a portable phone or a
nonfree program, and the school won't let any other organization
handle the data, or save it for long.
(satire) *Following over two decades of incarceration, Louisiana
Penitentiary inmate Reggie Clark, a man falsely imprisoned for 24
years, was finally granted permission Wednesday to serve out the
remainder of his sentence in the prison’s new Wrongly Accused Wing.*
*Doing Nothing About Climate Emergency Could
Cost More Than All the Wealth in the World.*
That indicates the calculation is meaningless. Because if we're
talking about the total destruction of humanity and a lot more, it is
impossible and unnecessary to measure that in economic terms.
Which supports the point that the article is making: it is idiotic
to say that avoiding total disaster is "too expensive". And foolish to ask,
"If we save the world, will I still have a job?"
The bully's hatchet man in charge of Voice of America has officially eliminated
its editorial independence, making it the Voice of the US President.
Studying the challenge of a global Green New Deal: how to structure
it, how to fund it, and what won't help (nationalization and
GDP-reduction).
One flaw of the study is that it adopts the targets of the Paris Treaty,
which are too little and too late. But I expect that the overall conclusions
will be the same with stronger targets.
*South Korea vows to go carbon neutral by 2050 to fight climate emergency.*
This has the two usual flaws: a pledge about 2050 makes it easy to postpone
action until 2030, and "carbon-neutral" invites reliance on offsets that
amount to self-deception.
*The world's banks [which are heavily funding extinction] must start
to value nature and stop paying for its destruction.*
Two Philadelphia cops shot and killed a black man, Walter Wallace Jr.
But it does not seem that they rushed to kill.
He walked towards two cops while carrying a knife. They did not shoot
immediately; they shouted at him to drop the knife. This is not a
fabricated excuse; the article says it was visible on video.
The article does not say how far he was from them when they shot.
Perhaps they didn't need to shoot. Perhaps they could have used a
taser instead of a gun. Perhaps they could have tackled him and
grabbed the knife, or talked him down. Perhaps medical personnel
could have talked him down.
I think the death was probably avoidable, but that doesn't mean those
cops had no grounds to shoot.
St Augustine, Florida, floods frequently and can expect almost a meter
of sea-level rise by 2060.
I think it would be wiser to move the city's landmarks to high ground,
even though that may be in Georgia.
Right-wing cult leaders deal with weakness by scapegoating someone in
the name of some religious cult. In Poland, the targets are women
that are carrying dead fetuses.
*100 out of [the total of] 229 [UK local government] councils have
used or are using automated decision-making programmes, many
without consulting at all with the public on their use.*
*Eight people have been charged with conspiring to work on behalf of
China’s government in a plot to coerce a Chinese family in the US to
return to their home country to face charges.*
If the charges were real corruption, supported by real evidence, and
if China gave accused people fair trials, I hope the US government
would extradite the suspects when asked. But it seems that the case
is political.
Repressive Islamic rulers are revealing their agenda of world-wide censorship.
The sad thing is that they have inflamed the fanaticism of their
followers to the point that these ravings win them more support at
home. (The wrecker in the US is similar to them.) But it is totally
wrong to appease them with any significant concession.
Rather, we need to teach people to recognize that Islamic rule
tramples the human rights of everyone, Muslim or not.
The Supreme Court ordered Wisconsin to stop counting postal votes at
the end of Tuesday, so Democrats are wisely calling on voters to drop
them off rather than mail them.
Amazon has a special store for selling "eco-friendly products".
This is sadly ironic, because buying them via Amazon is not eco-friendly.
And that's in addition to all the way Amazon harms society.
US citizens: call on the National Marine Fisheries Service to avoid
endangering the southern resident orcas.
Counting recent burials shows Yemen has a massive outbreak of Covid-19.
If the US had stopped intervening, and let the Houthis win the civil
war, Yemen would have no trouble now getting ventilators, medicines
and medical-quality masks for doctors.
Qatar thugs took all the women off a plane waiting to fly to Sydney
and strip-searched them, trying to determine if any of them was the mother
of a newborn found dead in the airport.
More women were taken off other flights, to other countries.
Why was Qatar trying so hard to find the mother?
I speculate that the purpose was to punish her;
right-wing religious extremists often like to punish women.
An experiment captured juvenile ambon damselfish and fed microplastics
to some of them and not to others. Then it released them in various areas
of the Great Barrier Reef.
The ones that ate microplastics took more risks, and those released in degraded
parts of the reef were all eaten within 72 hours.
One of the scientists says that this is because after the fish eat
what feels like enough, part of what they ate was microplastics, and
the part that was food was not sufficient. This kind of problem
results from having large quantities of microplastics.
A few years from now, we can expect the whole reef to be degraded,
and fish species that microplastics make careless could go extinct.
Their extinction will be due to a combination of human actions:
those that cause global heating, together with the making of plastic
that we can't recycle.
US citizens: call on the Defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff to
refuse any order by the wrecker to interfere with the election.
*A Well-Armed and Unpatriotic Far Right.*
Studying the factors that will aid or hamper the US in resisting a Republican
effort to steal the election.
I implore Protect the Results to set up and advertise a way for people
to receive instructions after November e without having to run any
nonfree software (including nonfree JavaScript code on web sites). One way
is to use Telegram. The organization most likely does not read this site,
so if you have any way to communicate with it, please pass along and support
this request. You might also offer to do the work of setting it up,
if you know how.
The US should require everyone to wear as mask while in public places.
There are people who, for medical reasons, cannot wear masks. The law
must permit them to do what their health requires. However, it should
require people with a non-obvious disability that precludes their
wearing masks to carry and show a doctor's note to demonstrate that,
in order not to be fined.
Poll watchers in the US must follow strict rules. You can't just show up
and say, "I want to watch, so let me in."
*College students make a last-ditch effort to make Election Day an academic
holiday.*
I am in favor of this.
*UK mobile phone firms to be banned from selling locked handsets.*
This doesn't alter the basic injustices of mobile phones — that the phone network tracks them and they can be converted into listening devices — so it
would not convince me to carry one. But it does eliminate one common secondary
nastiness.
*Despite CDC Moratorium—and With Help From White House—Corporate Landlords
Have Gone on Eviction Spree.*
I think we should have a law putting a real-estate tax on corporations
owning more than a few rental houses, or more than a few apartment
buildings, and likewise on the corporations that own them, etc.
Iran's UN ambassador: *"The eight violent wars that the United States
initiated or joined since 2001, under the rubric of war on terror,
have resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of innocent
lives, countless broken societies and families… and unprecedented
extremism."*
I would guess that these include Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Iran has also intervened to some extent in those countries during this
period. In Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran intervened much less violently
than the US. In Syria, Iran intervened more strongly and violently
than the US. In Yemen, Iran intervened by proxy, which the US ls also
doing, but the US carried out direct bombings before that.
If Democrats win the election, and if the Republicans that have seized
the Supreme Court don't impose a Republican victory, the Democrats
must legislate to undo the dirty court tricks.
Increasing the size of the court would do the job, but decreasing it might be even better. Imagine reducing the court to six judges, based on seniority:
all three of the wrecker's appointees would be pushed off.
The constitution says that they remain federal judges for life.
But they can be judges in lower courts.
The same method could be used to remove many of the wrecker-appointed judges
from federal appeals courts.
Most jails in the US use one of five companies to provide medical
"care" to prisoners, and those companies do a measurably bad job.
These companies are successful because they charge less, and they
reduce costs by cutting corners — for instance, by being slow to
approve permitting a prisoner to be seen by a professional. This is
the standard problem with privatizing all or part of a public
activity.
Therefore, I suggest that contracting a public function to a private
activity should be forbidden by law if the activity involves doing
things specifically for, or to, individual members of the public.
The fraction of people in the UK displaying antibodies to Covid-19
has declined by 25% in three months.
This could mean that those people have lost their immunity, but that
is not certain. The article explains the details.
*I was Corbyn's chief of staff. We acted decisively to remove Labour
antisemites.*
I believe her, because Corbyn is the one person in UK politics that I
know is honest and committed to justice. We know that plutocratists
in the Labour Party fought tooth and nail to prevent him from winning
an election with a progressive program. We know that Jewish
supporters of Corbyn rejected the claim that he tolerated
antisemitism, while many of those that claimed he did had opposed him
before, for other reasons.
History suggests that we Americans can thwart a coup, if we are
prepared to declare it a coup and oppose it before it can dig in.
The wrecker's chief of staff said, "We're not going to control the
pandemic."
You might interpret this as a frank statement of a hands-off policy of
letting the virus spread however it may. But that would be a mistake.
The wrecker's actual policy is to spread Covid-19 as much as possible,
and the statement was therefore a lie.
*More than 70 science journalists [31]have signed an open letter warning
that Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett's [32]close ties to the
fossil fuel industry and [33]refusal to publicly acknowledge the
established science behind human-caused [global heating] make her an
enabler of "the ecological crisis of our times."*
The Republicans, bent on sabotaging the election, rushed her onto the
Supreme Court on Monday. Their haste to do this before election day
demonstrates that their intention is for the Supreme Court to throw
the election.
A progressive woman writes to a neighbor that voted for the conman in
2016, but with whom she has some values in common, looking for a
meeting of the minds.
Carbon capture and storage at significant scale may actually be
practical now.
It is not guaranteed that scaling it up to this extent will work
without a hitch. If it does, it will help avoid global disaster.
However, if these two projects succeed in burying 27 million tons of
CO2 per year, that will be a small fraction of the total annual UK
emissions, which amount to around 450 million tons per year.
Consolidation in the meat industry enabled giant, Chinese-owned
Smithfield to use its market power to whipsaw its smaller giant
competitor, Maxwell Foods, into bankruptcy.
Each bankruptcy is likely to lead to an acquisition which will
increase the consolidation and make the situation worse.
We need to make the big companies spit up into many smaller companies,
in this field and all fields.
Sea-level rise is eliminating beaches that used to be economic hubs
for tourism.
It will get worse and worse unless we stop our greenhouse emissions
quickly. But don't attach substantive importance to the Paris treaty,
which the wrecker is symbolically withdrawing the US from; it was
never more than symbolic itself, since it was undermined in advance by
planet roasters.
The Tory Party is fighting desperately against public demand
to give lunch gratis to children whose families are poor.
One minister said that this refusal is a matter of principle. Which
principle, I wonder? [Irony] Perhaps the principle of stinginess? Or
maybe it is, "Each family must sink or swim on its own — no helping
others!" Or maybe, "Never help the poor! If the government helps a
poor person once. people will expect the government to give the poor
help every time they need it."[/irony]
*'Sleeping giant' Arctic methane deposits starting to release, scientists find.*
This could be a disastrous tipping point.
(satire) *Armenia, Azerbaijan Announce They Will Only Agree To
Ceasefire That Allows Them To Still Shoot Missiles At Each Other.*
An NYU research project asks useds of Facebook to volunteer to run a
special browser extension so they can report data about the ads
Facebook shows them. Facebook has demanded NYU stop this research
on the grounds that it constitutes forbidden "bulk data collection".
*The researchers discovered that numerous political advertisers were
violating Facebook's disclosure rules, yet the company has been
letting it happen.* People speculate that that's why Facebook wants to
shut down this research.
Scientists at GM and Ford knew in the 1970s that their cars and trucks
were contributing to dangerous global heating. Despite this knowledge,
they campaigned against efforts to shift the Earth off that path.
(satire) *Veterans Affairs Secretary Struggling To Profit Off Of
Underfunded Department.*
Utah will run out of intensive care capacity in a week or two.
At that point, hospitals will have to choose which patients to treat
and which to give up on.
People who glibly talk about herd immunity as a "solution" are opting
for this. When the wrecker decided to spread Covid-19, he decided to
make this happen.
(satire) *This is obviously a bittersweet moment since we've had such
a wonderful longstanding relationship with the moon, but we’re all
just really excited to see what it gets up to with a powerhouse
planet like Jupiter in its corner.*
Verkada makes face-recognition camera surveillance systems. The
employees at work are subject to this surveillance themselves. A few
male employees used the system to watch attractive women and chat to each
other about them.
Verkada reacted firmly to make sure nothing like that will happen
again in that company, at least not for a few years. But the company
will continue its efforts to convert society into a place where you
are always being watched, and you don't even know by whom.
*The Republican party has become dramatically more illiberal in the past
two decades and now more closely resembles ruling parties in autocratic
societies than its former centre-right equivalents in Europe, according
to a new international study.*
Chileans have voted to replace Pinochet's constitution.
The process of drafting a new constitution will be contentious.
Throwing rechargeable batteries into ordinary trash can start fires.
*How Covid-19 laws are being used to silence garment workers in Burma.*
Australia is also gratuitously repressing protests with Covid-19 as the excuse, and so is the UK.
Population declines for insectivorous birds in the Amazon hint at
a big drop in the insect population, even far from civilization.
This could be very dangerous.
Islamist bullying's veiled threat to France: refusing to yield to
censorship demands is "unwise".
People have a right to practice their religions, or other cultural
practices, but that does not convey the right to gag criticism, satire
or mockery of those practices.
It can be painful to stand up against bullies, but what is truly
unwise is to yield to them. Vive la France ! A bas la répression
Islamiste !
A British librarian swells with pride at the increased provision of
freedom-corroding ebooks to readers.
Isn't it a pity that they are not aware that they are helping to
subjugate people. That is true for most librarians in the US, too.
You can help educate them by bringing up this issue when offered an
ebook "loan" — and then say, "Rather than accept the injustice of a
commercial ebook, I'll wait till I can borrow a physical copy."
Bravo to France for standing firm against bullying from some Muslim
governments that demand France censor using criteria they would impose.
The murdered teacher was not, as it happens, endorsing the
controversial cartoons' mocking of Mohammed; he said explicitly that
they were examples for a discussion of freedom of speech. To murder
people for mockery would be an outrage, but he was murdered for
disobedience to would-be tyranny. He deserves the medal he was
posthumously given.
France is not entirely consistent in its defense of freedom of speech.
It prohibits stating certain opinions on some historical questions,
such as whether Turkey carried out a genocide of the Armenians. Since
I am not in France, I can freely say that I believe it did. But
people in France, whatever their views on the question, cannot speak
freely about it.
Even though the view permitted by France agrees with the view I freely
hold, I follow the late Hrant Dink
in rebuking France for prohibiting views
that disagree with his view (which is also mine). France ought to
repeal that law.
France's censorship also includes criminalizing insults against
officials (even mild ones). That too is wrong.
These flaws do not detract from the exemplary importance of France's
resistance to the decades-long global Islamist censorship bullying
campaign. You don't need to be perfect to be a hero for a good cause.
You also don't have to try to threaten or bully others
to be a good Muslim, or at least so say millions of Muslims.
If you dislike statements that criticize or mock certain views, you
don't have to make them, or look at them. But anyone that tries to
impose censorship on people, or countries, is fighting against
everyone's freedom.
In the end, the tyranny of "you may not offend us" is hardly different
from any other tyranny.
Amartya Sen reports on India's practice of arbitrarily labeling people
as "terrorists" and putting them in prison without trial.
Ironically, people who are committed to Gandhian nonviolent
resistance are especially likely to be called "terrorists".
Sen eplains that authoritarian governments tend to equate
"anti-government" with "anti-national".
Pope Francis is setting a bad example on one issue, by holding
maskless meetings.
I agree that he should set a good example by insisting that everyone
wear masks.
*European support for [right-wing "populist"] beliefs falls, YouGov
survey suggests.*
Let's not forget that the original populists campaigned to increase
people's democratic control over government, which had important
achievements.
Let's reclaim that word for its original meaning.
*Colorado Voters Could Be First to Pass Paid Family Leave by Ballot Measure.*
The state will pay the worker on leave, so people who have been compelled
to be "independent contractors" won't be left out.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to cosponsor AOC's bill to ban
use of tear gas in peacetime.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588. If you call, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on Nestle to give some US water sources back to the
public.
US citizens: join a "protect the results" rally
on Nov 4, the day after election day. The aim is to
demonstrate that the American people will not tolerate
discarding the results of the election.
The official protest organizing site doesn't let visitors find the
places and times of rallies without running nonfree Javascript code. But
this page
presents all the necessary information without any Javascript.
It is in alphabetical order by two-letter state code;
within each state, events are listed in numeric order by zip code.
The page initially contained some "virtual events."
There is no way to participate in those in the Free World,
so I hope they will be deleted.
To understand why this issue is important, watch this 14-minute video
about the injustice of nonfree software, then read this article about how
that issue applies to Javascript code sent by web sites.
I would like to ask the protest organizers to fix their site so as not
to require Javascript, which can be done simply by making a link to
the page that I have linked to, but I know of no way to contact them.
If you can contact them, please ask them to take a look at this
and to make their site freedom-accessible — next time, at least.
The Drug Policy Alliance presents its framework for decriminalization
of possession of drugs.
*[The US] Postal Service Quietly Awards $5 Million Contract
to DeJoy's Former Company.*
*The corporate criminal element has infused NPR
with millions of dollars of donations.* And it shows.
I got fed up with NPR in the 1990s when I repeatedly heard one of All
Things Considered's main commentators attack Bill Clinton from the
right.
(satire) *local undecided
voter Jeff McNealy reportedly crouched inside a concrete drain pipe
Thursday and remained completely silent as he waited for a convoy of
political analysts and reporters to pass by on the road above.*
Proposing a salary cap for executives.
This is more complicated than it seems, because executives get paid
through bonuses and stock options, and through jacking up the stock
price on the shares they own. A serious scheme needs to deal with all
of those.
Is a salary cap better than a 90% tax bracket?
There is still a tendency in major US newspapers to hide from recognizing
the ouster of President Morales, a year ago, as a coup.
That may relate to support for the coup from powerful elements in the
US — whoever got the OAS to make a hasty and flawed claim of election
fraud. This was done so well that at first I didn't realize it was
false.
Then I saw an article which explained the election system and results
and showed there was no fraud.
*Big tech accused of avoiding $2.8bn in tax to poorest countries.*
That is in addition to the far larger amount of tax cheating that they
do to countries full of billionaire wealth, such as the US.
All of these countries suffer from a lack of funds for governments
to use for important purposes.
The laws that stop Americans from escaping unpayable student debts
don't cover the 9% or so which are uninsured predatory high-interest
private loans, and these are especially likely to wreck Americans'
lives.
The conman's deal with Foxconn to "create jobs" in Wisconsin
was a con from the beginning.
Nigerians are protesting to demand justice against a special thug squad
that has "turned into banditry."
*Sanctions punished the Sudanese people, not their rulers. The US
extracting compensation is one more hypocritical act.*
It reminds me of the indemnity that Haiti had to pay to France
for its independence.
Placing sanctions on a country is not the same thing as a claim to
rule a country as a colony, but the resemblance is there nonetheless.
Protesters in Belarus are not giving up, and say that their next step
is a national strike.
Amnesty International criticizes governments for blocking a proposal
in the World Trade Organization to waive patents on treatment for
Covid-19.
The governments which opposed it are evidently under the power of
plutocracy.
Approving that proposal would have been a step forward, but the WTO's
patent rules are unjust all the time — for poor countries especially, but
ultimately for all countries.
The parts of the TRIPES agreement (Trade-Restricting Impediments to
Production, Education and Science) concerning copyrights and patents
ought to be abolished.
The wrecker's latest slogan:
The Tories want to take away people's right to challenge bureaucrats'
decisions by going to court.
That way, a bureaucrat could shaft you illegally and you'd be screwed.
If Democrats win, they should quickly rebalance the Senate by splitting
the populous states.
Dare I suggest merging some of the states of low population?
50 countries have signed the UN treaty to ban nuclear weapons,
making the treaty officially valid.
Portland antiracist/antifascist protesters have asked a court to
declare the city in contempt for disregarding a court order not to use
various sometimes-maiming weapons against the protesters.
*Documents: Powerful Pro-Pesticide Groups Shaped U.S. Push to Weaken
International Oversight of Medically Important Antibiotics.*
Use of antibiotics in agriculture breeds resistance to
antibiotics, which has the potential to kill millions of people.
Resistant bacteria may kill you or me.
But what do pesticide companies care? There will still be plenty
of people who want food to eat.
*Universal Mask-Wearing [in the US] Would Save Nearly 130,000 Lives by
Spring 2021, Study Finds.*
It appears that trans women do not ever harass anyone in women's
bathrooms, but there are several cases where trans women (and cis
women erroneously taken for trans) have been harassed or even attacked
by people who object to their presence in women's bathrooms.
Thugs equipped with dogs are especially dangerous to people they
encounter, especially people who are black and male. Once a dog
attacks, it can easily maim.
*Armed men outside St. Petersburg polling place said [the wrecker's]
campaign hired them.*
The official campaign organization claims not to have hired them. It
might be lying, as usual. Or perhaps that is true in a narrow sense,
if they were hired by one of his unofficial campaign organizations.
US schools and companies setting up totalitarian tracking systems already.
Students are already organizing to fight them. Fight hard — this will
make the difference between freedoms and tyranny.
Faux News and the New York Post are owned by the same plutocratist
supporters of extremists, and they work together.
*New York Post Insiders Slag ‘Very Flimsy’ Hunter Biden Stories.*
Ira Glasser, former head of the ACLU, warns that the ACLU today has
retreated from its defense of free speech for all views. This leaves
a gap in the defense of freedom, just as plutocratists are even more
powerful and ready to exploit that gap.
The US should provide good medical care to everyone, including the
poor. I advocate a universal national medical system, recently often
called "Medicare for all." I don't praise Obama's weak system much,
but it is better than nothing, so I am glad that lawyers work to
defend it. But it should not be the ACLU that does that legal work;
some other organization that focuses on the rights of poor people to
government aid should do that.
The ACLU's defense of Obama's medical insurance program is an instance
of what I call "unionality" — where an organization that was set up
to focus on one particular cause starts to support various other
causes because the same people tend to support them. If you judge by
the short term, it may seem great to have additional organizations
supporting all the causes you favor. In the long term, it risks
alienating the supporters of one cause who disagree with the other
causes.
The article contains a powerful presentation of why anyone who
wishes to change an unjust system needs freedom of speech, and would
be a fool not to defend it to the utmost.
(satire) *Trump Threatens To Leak Debate Video Online If Moderator Keeps Asking Unfair
Questions.*
(satire) *Miffed Biden Warns Trump’s Undignified Behavior Could Cost Him Cabinet Post.*
*Constitutional Law Experts Endorse Democrats' Bill to Create 18-Year Term
Limits for Supreme Court Justices.*
In the long term, this might be an improvement, but I like better the
ideas for making appointments non-partisan.
*Only a Reckoning With the Disastrous Legacy of the So-called 'War on Terror'
Can Heal the United States.*
The domestic political dysfunction mentioned in the article is, I
contend, plutocracy
and its consequences — and the imperialist
militarism of the past 20 years is one of those consequences.
An international meeting intended to reduce greenhouse emissions from
ships is considering
rules
so weak that they would do harm (by pretending that the issue was
being addressed).
On the
factors
that cause blacks in Chicago to be more likely to catch Covid-19 than
whites, and more likely to die from it once they get it.
Sri Lanka's president is changing the constitution to give the
president
power
over all activities of the government.
*Half
a million Americans could die of Covid by end of February, study
forecasts.*
If Biden wins the presidency, I suppose he will try to curb the spread
of Covid-19, but it would take till the end of February for this to
have much effect.
*Trump
to Seniors: Drop Dead.*
Young Thais demand freedom of speech, even
the
freedom to criticize the monarch. In their protests, they defy
extreme repressive threats such as life in prison for some kinds of
nonviolent protests.
*10
Years After Iraq War Logs, It's Impunity for War Criminals, War on
Whistleblowers.*
*Trump Sets Up Pharma Billionaires for
Coronavirus
Payday.*
Fikile Ntshangase, an activist
campaigning
against extension of a coal mine in South Africa, was assassinated
by a team of four killers.
The company Dataminr tries to scan all posted tweets to find anything
suggestive of possible violent intent, and
report
it to the thugs.
Contrary to its name, the company doesn't seem to do this by data
mining. Instead it hires a lot of people to make off-the-cuff
judgments, which naturally reflect racist presuppositions and generate
biased results. (I call this phenomenon
BIBO, for "Bias
In, Bias Out.")
Identifying "gang members" by questionable criteria has a
long
and horrible history in California prisons.
Poland has almost completely banned abortions.
Right-wing extremists have basically taken over the country.
*Thousands join Poland protests against strict abortion laws.*
Better antitrust enforcement creates an economic stimulus.
Big banks siphon billions out of US states and cities by underwriting
their bonds. The Federal Reserve could eliminate this drain by
lending to the states and cities directly.
Proctorio is using a lawsuit to silence someone who criticized its
software. The company claims that its training videos are
"confidential information".
This dispute doesn't even the deepest issue here: that the software is nonfree, which is itself an injustice, and that it snoops on the student who runs it. It is sad to see
people treat that as normal and surrender to it.
*How Workers Can Help Defeat a Trump Coup.*
The RIAA, which represents the unjust power of the three big record
companies, has made Github delete the source of youtube-dl.
They won't be able to wipe it out, though.
I think this takedown notice was invalid, because youtube-dl is not
mainly used to do forbidden copying. It downloads things that are
publicly available on youtube, and the benefit it provides is to do
that without running the unjust nonfree software that youtube tries to
send to the user's browser.
Thousands of conspiracy cultists marched in London, trying to make
each other sick and endangering passersby as well by not wearing masks.
I would sympathize to some extent with their objections to rigid
lockdown rules, but they made it clear that we cannot trust them to
exercise good judgment to avoid spreading disease.
Here's an example of the absurd rigidity with which the UK handles the
matter of avoiding transmission.
*‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority ‐ UK study.*
*Why the Republican Party Wants to Destroy Labor Unions.*
*We spent $2 trillion to keep Americans afloat in the pandemic. Putting
a similar amount toward the climate crisis could be even more
pragmatic.*
*Biden is Finally Talking About Fossil Fuels — That's a Good Thing.*
The bully's latest act of sabotage: claiming the power to arbitrarily
fire many federal employees — in effect forcing them to participate
in any sort of injustice or else quit.
*New York's Strand bookstore appeals for help.*
I visit the Strand every time I go to New York City. But it may be a
long time before I got here again. Wherever you live, please do not
buy from Amazon. If you want to order a book, go to a local physical
bookstore to do it.
A local physical bookstore may even allow you to pay cash in advance
anonymously and take away a receipt to claim it later. I did this in August
in the Boston area.
*Small increases in air pollution linked to rise in depression, finds study.*
Half a million Sunnis in Iraq are still forced to live in refugee camps.
*Countries who kept their response to the pandemic in-house have fared
much better.*
*What Bolivia Can Teach the United States About Democracy.*
I wonder if Bolivia can prosecute Elon Musk and other people in the US
for backing the coup. Even if we expect that Bolivia will never be able
to bring him to justice, this could teach the world a useful lesson.
*Media Outlets Owned by Billionaires Very Quick to Tell Readers Taxing the
Rich Is Bad Idea.*
Taxing the rich better must include changes in how transfer of
ownership, trusts, etc., affects the taxes to be paid.
Oregon voters: support Measure 110, which will decriminalize
all drugs.
Biden said he would "transition from the oil industry", then later
said he didn't mean it.
Since Massachusetts is not a swing state, I voted for Howie Hawkins
of the Green Party.
2/3 of the terrorist attacks and plots this year were by right-wing
extremists.
A right-wing extremist has just been charged with travelling to Minneapolis
to carry out a false-flag attack,
burning a thug department building.
He is not the first right-wing provocateur to be charged over violence
at Black Lives Matter protests this summer. I wonder if we will find
that provocateurs were chiefly responsible for the violence. They
fooled a lot of people, including me.
(satire) *Trump Campaign Reminds Supporters To Make Voting Intimidation Plan.*
*'Stop Financing Climate-Wrecking Companies': Campaigners Light Earth on Fire
Outside European Central Bank HQ.*
RSF: Thugs have arrested TV reporters and fired rubber-coated steel
bullets at them, showing not the slightest bit of shame over these
crimes.
Suing the bully and other officials for illegal voter intimidation.
The bully is considering budget cuts for medical programs in cities,
because people there don't support him.
A bill to protect US ocean areas from many causes of damage,
and rebuild damaged ecosystems.
Boston thugs felt annoyed by the antifascist woman who squeezed a
little rubber piggy towards them. They tried to get her fired, by
suggesting people boycott her employer because of her.
They pusillanimously asserted that they were not calling for a
boycott, merely suggesting the possibility of not buying from there
because of her. The difference is too subtle for me.
Then the thugs found out she had not worked there for years. Oops.
*Here's How Meatpacking Corporations Could Protect Workers From COVID-19—and
What They're Doing Instead.*
We should not allow so much concentration in that industry, or any
other industry.
(satire) *… local psychic Rosemary Shanley confirmed Thursday she
was already sick of James Randi’s specter haunting her place of
business and ragging on her from the afterlife.*
(satire) *… local farmer’s child Owen Morrison, 10, was reportedly
forced Thursday to slaughter a pumpkin he had spent all season
caring for.*
The Supreme Court decided for voter suppression when it blocked
polling places in Alabama from collecting ballots from people
waiting near the door in their cars.
This voter-suppression measure originated from state officials who
ordered that no county in Alabama could do this. A lower court
blocked the order; the Supreme Court reinstated it.
This will affect white voters as well as black voters. However, the
Republican Party is now a mad cult, so Republican voters may refuse
to believe that there is any danger.
Taiwan's civic platform, g0v, is effective at helping the people
make important policy decisions. It helps people come to agreement.
The software it runs on is free/libre.
(satire) *Dr. Ron Craig informed patient Tom Stossel Wednesday that the
weird lump that appeared on his neck in July was in fact nothing he can
afford to worry about.*
The DEA proposes to eliminate the crime caused by prohibition of drugs
by more vigorous enforcement of the prohibition of drugs.
Some drugs degrade and damage whoever uses them, and should not
exist, but trying to wipe them out by repression causes more harm than
the drugs themselves.
This, by the way, is the reason I do not advocate simple blanket
prohibition of nonfree software. It is corrupting, harmful and
subjugating, and should not exist — but trying to enforce prohibition
of attractive things which are harmful tends to amount to repression.
The Australian state of Victoria will investigate employers with a view to punishing those that if they fail to help employees avoid
catching Covid-19.
If the state really does this, it will be an admirable contrast
with all the governments that allow employers to pressure their workers
to spread disease.
*California must cut San Quentin prison population amid pandemic, court rules.*
The first organized anti-fascists fought in Spain.
Indigenous workers in Western Australia worked for wages, but Western
Australia kept their wages, so it was effectively slavery.
Americans could save up to $321bn in energy costs by switching to
renewable energy, including for cars and heating buildings. Plus trillions from all the unnatural disasters that this will avoid.
However, it is not the case that we can do with a smaller electrical
grid just by installing rooftop solar on all buildings. Houses will
still need the grid for times when the region is dark or cloudy.
The numskull is considering labeling Amnesty, Oxfam and Human Rights
Watch as "antisemitic" because they have criticized Israel's
occupation of Palestine. If the numskull does this, it will be so absurd that only his
hard-core supporters will believe it.
Please, numskull, do it!
These bogus accusations, which have typically been made against
individuals and weak, obscure organizations, will cease to be
plausible and will become risible instead.
Please, everyone, don't campaign to stop this. Let him fall into his
own trap first, and then criticize.
And let's limit accusations of antisemitism to people and organizations
that spread hatred of Jews.
US deportation thugs *'used torture to make Africans sign own
deportation orders'.*
*Glitter is an environmental abomination. It's time to stop using it.*
We should do this with a comprehensive law designed to cut down
the production of plastic objects that cannot be feasibly recycled
or broken down.
It's almost November and the Arctic Ocean has not started to freeze!
* Campaigners are seeking to use the UK’s Magnitsky-style human rights
sanctions against Turkish prosecutors and officials responsible for
arresting and imprisoning thousands of lawyers.*
A House bill proposes a step in defunding the police: federal funding
for "mental health first responder units."
They would handle some 9-1-1 calls so that people who are upset, but
not dangerous, don't have to face armed thugs who might get triggered
and pull the trigger.
*Press Worries About a Fracking Ban’s 'Risk' to Democrats—Not Fracking's
Threat to Planet.*
*The US Spends More Than $80 Billion a Year Incarcerating 2.3 Million People.*
Most of them could simply be released.
Many of them are in jail awaiting trial, and they entitled to vote, but
the system won't give them a way to vote.
Congress can, and should, pass a law cancelling all federal government
acts and appointments made under the conman, with a specific list of exceptions of course.
This would get rid of all the extremist judges that the conman
appointed, without the need to impeach each one on specific grounds.
*[The conman] had us thinking mainstream Republicans were moderate. How naive.*
*Pope Francis Signals 'Historic' Shift for Catholic Church, Publicly
Supporting Civil Unions for Same-Sex Couples.*
If only he would endorse abortion and birth control, I would have
little quarrel with the Catholic Church. (Though that would not
constitute evidence for the existence of a supernatural entity.)
Google will provide AI to the US border thugs for total surveillance,
tracking and identification around the US border with Mexico.
I have a hunch that this total tracking won't remain limited to areas close
to the border. The US government, together with companies such as Anduril,
must be itching to apply it to the whole US territory.
*Pakistani Shias live in terror* — they may be lynched or executed by
the majority Sunnis.
*Even if Biden wins US election, time is running out to save Iran
nuclear deal.*
*Trump’s false ‘Russian spy’ claims put me in danger, says Steele dossier
source.*
He claims that the bully's falsehoods wiped out his career and put his
life in danger.
*Croatian police accused of 'sickening' assaults on migrants on
Balkans trail.*
George Monbiot: *Bypassing the NHS and handing crucial services to
corporate executives has led to the catastrophic failure of test and
trace [in the UK].*
A Republican official in Florida sent voters a confusing letter
designed to discourage them from voting.
Analyzing the reasons for the Bolivian Socialist Party's victory,
and the challenges it must face now.
*Anglo American sued over alleged mass lead poisoning of children in Zambia.*
Three years ago, obeying the orders of the bully, the US rushed to
deport parents of 1030 children, without bothering to ask how to find
them again. The children remained in the US. Since then, the ACLU
has been trying to find their parents, but it has found parents of
only 465 of the children.
That's the Department of Hatred and Sadism for you.
Some of those parents may have been killed — after all, they were
fleeing from the danger of violence. Perhaps, as they died, they were
glad that they had sent their children to a place of safety.
But is it really a place of safety? Will the US let them stay and
become citizens? Or will it deport them when they get older to a
country they don't remember?
Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, has sued the acting king of
Salafi Arabia and 28 henchmen in US court.
The goal is to "compel US agencies and officials to disclose new
information about what happened to Khashoggi."
The European Parliament continued its system of payments to farm owners
with only weak requirements to make farms clean up their treatment of the
environment.
The fatal fire in a large London public housing building was caused by
bad design choices, secretly and illegally made by the Tory-run local
council, which was aiming to save money at all costs.
The council was trying so hard to save money because of
squash-the-poor Tory policies.
Austerity kills in many ways, but usually it kills people one by one
and there is no inquiry into the specific causes.
The owners of a Venezuelan oil tanker have kept it near the coast
since Feb 2019 waiting for the US to let them pump the oil out.
If it leaks, it could kill a large part of the Caribbean Sea.
Facebook bent over backwards for right-wing sites, relaxing its rules
against misinformation and thus implementing right-wing bias.
Right-wing extremists have learned to lie without a qualm.
That includes telling the lie that media are biased against them,
as a cynical means of pressuring media to shift to bias for them.
The EU will operate drones in the Mediterranean searching for refugees
in boats.
When the drone spots a boat full of people, it won't have guns to
shoot them with, but what will European countries do to them?
(satire) *New Stimulus Bill Would Require All Americans To Mail Government $1,200 Check.*
252 million years ago, *the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
set off a chain of events that successively extinguished almost all
life in the seas.*
That rise of CO2, caused by a supervolcano in Siberia, was not
terribly fast. We are now increasing the CO2 level 14 times as fast.
The article does not state an estimate for the peak atmospheric CO2
level in the end-Permian. Can anyone find an estimate for that?
It would be interesting to compare that with where we are heading.
(satire) *Jason Momoa, star of the forthcoming Aquaman 2, told reporters
Monday he and the film’s producers had brought in a scene double to
help execute a particularly challenging facial expression required of
his character.*
The wrecker simultaneously acted to spread Covid-19 and cover up how
it was spreading.
During the Assange hearing, Craig Murray and Wikileaks found that
Twitter and Facebook blocked their posts from reaching most of their
followers.
Those sites did not inform Murray or Wikileaks, nor the people who
posted about them, nor their followers, that their messages were
reaching hardly any of those followers.
As regards Hunter Biden and Ukraine, there may be something fishy
there, but if so it is minor compared with the plutocratist acts Biden
is likely to commit overtly (and lawfully) if he wins, which in turn
are less dangerous than the wrecker's practice of seizing every
opportunity to corrupt and ruin.
Move to Amend (movetoamend.org) says that Facebook searches for "Move
to Amend" gets a warning that the search is associated with
QAnonsense. Move to Amend advocates a constitutional amendment to
reverse the "Citizens United" decision.
A QAnonsense spreader smeared some museums in Berlin, and then someone
smeared oil on antiquities and art in the museums.
I encourage you to visit the Pergamon Museum if you ever have the chance.
Environmentalists are suing the Department of Hatred and Sadism for
harming human health and polluting the environment with tear gas.
One of the Breonna Taylor grand jurors has accused the attorney general
of lying about what he said to the grand jury.
He did not offer them the chance to indict for her killing.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid that bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
an exception for articles which give important information about
racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the
exceptions.
Vietnam appears to have prevented a second wave of Covid-19
while protecting the economy too.
*How [the wrecker] Gutted OSHA and Workplace Safety Rules.*
How Google used its quasi-monopoly power against Yelp.
It is ironic that Yelp itself is using its market power to help
GrubHub cheat restaurants.
We should not try to understand this in terms of "good companies" and
"bad companies". Rather, we need to prevent any companies from using
their market power to get bigger. More generally, we need to make
large companies split up so as to greatly increase the number of
competitors in every field.
Prisoners in the UK are suffering greatly from not seeing their
families or their counselors.
Bad though it is, having Covid-19 spread through the prison
and into the surrounding community
would be worse.
The US indictment of crackers working for the Russian spy agency GRU
shows that the US is deeply monitoring their activities.
It also shows that the group's attacks have caused people to suffer
and perhaps even die, in Ukraine and maybe Pennsylvania.
A wildly foolish overreaction: the New Yorker has "suspended" writer
Jeffrey Toobin and is "investigating" him for masturbating while
thinking his camera was turned off.
Hey, New Yorker, instead of "investigating" this mistake as if it were
a crime, you should have your meetings with Mumble (freedom-respecting
software which does only audio) rather than with proprietary Zoom.
A new initiative in the UK demands legalization of cocaine and ecstasy
with controlled sale in pharmacies.
This would eliminate the dangers that result from black market sale:
unexpected overdoses, and mixture with unknown other drugs.
It would reduce drug-fueled gangsterism by taking away its most
regular customers.
I am surprised and cheered to see that the former president of
Colombia, Santos, is campaigning for legalization of cocaine.
Prohibition of cocaine has been devastating for Colombia.
Russia has built a literal cathedral of militaristic nationalism.
A special thug unit in the UK is being formally investigated for
engaging in gross collective racism and sexism in its office.
To make such talk a crime would be repressive, but we cannot let such
attitudes fester among cops; they will certainly translate it into
their exercise of their power.
How the US turned in 1940 to a foreign policy of trying to
dominate the world, how Biden will probably ramp it up, and why
the US continues it despite ever worse results.
Finally, insight about what romantic-sexual desire is like for many men.
*One of the therapists she quotes in her book,
Daring Greatly, asserts, “I guess the secret is that sex is terrifying
for most men.”*
(satire) *Man Hasn’t Heard Or Read Single True Thing In 6 Years.*
*At 47, I discovered I am autistic — suddenly so many things made sense.*
The EPA has adopted the airline industry's proposal for how to make
air travel emit less CO2. Which means, hardly any pressure.
Instead it should make requirements for reduced emissions,
and convert the whole airline fleet to electric power by 2045.
*Ending Corporate Impunity Is at the Heart of a Sustainable Post-Pandemic
Global Recovery.*
The largest dairy company in France is accused of dumping waste into rivers,
thus killing fish and harming other species.
*US removes Sudan from terrorism blacklist in return for $335m.*
If Sudan was involved in the terrorist attack in 1998, it ought to be
penalized. However, Sudan is desperately poor and needs aid. For
that country to pay so much money to the US will be a great burden.
So I think a different penalty would be morally superior.
For instance, leaving some of its oil in the ground.
If the conman does not hold on to the presidency, he faces lots of legal trouble.
This article does not include possible criminal charges for crimes
while in office, including obstruction of justice (which Mueller found
the evidence for).
I expect he will have Air Force One drop him off on Jan 18 or so
in a country he expects to will him from US justice.
US citizens: tell your congresscritter to push to repeal the authorization
for use of military force.
It won't hurt to say this by phone, too.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
*David Hume was a complex man. Erasing his name is too simplistic a gesture.*
Australia is moving to give its spy agency the power to interrogate
journalists and activists under very loose conditions. Journalists could
be ordered to disclose confidential sources. Activists could be interrogated
if they cooperate with any foreign allies.
Experience shows that such repression will be used mainly against those
who report on or oppose the actions of the powerful.
The UK announced that Russia carried out digital sabotage of the 2018
Olympic Games and its sponsors, and was planning sabotage of the 2020
games (which did not take place, since they were postponed).
Please do not use the word "hackers" to mean "people who attack
computer security." That gives people an erroneous negative
impression of us hackers.
*How the oil industry made us doubt climate change.*
Ironically, the term "climate change" was encouraged so the public
would not recognize that it refers to something dangerous.
Chinese diplomats in Fiji attacked a Taiwanese official, causing a
head injury.
I theorize that this is a probe to see how much aggression the world
will let China get away with. Fiji will probably let China get away
with this, as China has bought its submission.
I think it is important for powerful countries to recognize Taiwan as
an independent country — but not as the legitimate government of
China — and tell China that it can either have diplomatic relations
noneless, or do without.
*Revealed: chaining, beatings and torture inside Sudan's Islamic schools.*
There is a history of policies of such cruelty in Christian schools in
Europe and North America.
*Covid-19 has exposed the catastrophic impact of privatising vital services.*
US citizens: call on Congress to impeach Attorney General Barr.
The idea is that even though we know the Senate will not remove Barr
from office, the impeachment will hamper the Senate from confirming
Judge Barrett for the Supreme Court.
After signing, you can follow up by phoning your congresscritter.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
The Socialist Party won a landslide in Bolivia's election.
*Bottle-fed babies swallow millions of microplastics a day, study finds.*
We don't know whether microplastics hurt humans, and it may take
years to gather the data to determine this. But it is unlikely they
do any good, and it would be wise to avoid them.
*Lung cancer cases could be mistaken for Covid.* Some have been,
and people can die from the delay in diagnosing the cancer.
France is investigating 50 Islamist organizations on the suspicion that they
promote hatred and violence.
People who were prisoners in North Korea describe violent torture
including rape, used to force confessions.
One of the reasons the US must eradicate its own torture
is so that it
can speak with moral authority when condemning torture by North Korea
and other countries.
The US has not taken steps adequate to ensure that the CIA doesn't
torture prisoners in the future. On the contrary, appointing Gina
Haspel to head it was an indirect but clear endorsement of torture.
*With Zuck's Blessing, Facebook Quietly Stymied Traffic to Left-Leaning News
Outlets.*
The sites that suffered were not very leftist. One example cited was
Mother Jones.
*Wichita man arrested for threatening to kidnap, kill mayor over mask
mandate.*
Some of the kooks who would murder because of hatred for masks are
also nuts enough to say so. But we cannot expect that to protect us
from all of them. We need to stop officials from inciting violence.
The company that makes James Bond films gets millions in subsidies
from the UK and pays no tax in the UK, since the profit from the
films is all assigned to other companies in other countries.
If the UK wants to pay, in normal times, for people to do work, why
not pay them to do work that the public needs, such as medical care
for the NHS and home assistance for people who are sick or handicapped?
Under my global progressive tax scheme,
those companies would be treated as one
entity for computing its tax rate, and the UK part would pay that rate
on its gross income.
When people return products to Amazon, in many cases Amazon doesn't
bother to unpack them and put them on the shelf. It puts them in the
trash.
Wikimedia calls on museums to digitize their collections and to allow
the digital works, when not restricted by private copyrights, to be
freely shared.
Those that are restricted by private copyrights should be shared too,
because forbidden sharing is better than no sharing.
*To Stop an Electoral Coup, Study What Went Wrong in the 2000 Florida Recount.*
Keep in mind that the only reason this recount was necessary is
because the Republicans had cheated massively through voter
suppression, as revealed by Greg Palast.
Covid-19 has provided an opportunity and excuse for many countries
to attack traditional human rights on the Internet.
This is in addition to the subjugating effect of pushing people
to use nonfree software.
Various crimes the conman could be prosecuted for, if he can't retain
his grip on the presidency.
People are working hard to protect coral reefs from the danger of the
current level of global heating.
Will this help the long-term survival of coral? It can, if we curb
global heating before it goes much further. However, breeding
heat-tolerance into corals would have to be done to every species
and variety if it is to protect them all.
If we keep increasing the CO2 level, that will eventually kill all
corals due to ocean acidification.
The failure of the UK's handling of Covid-19 is due to its disregard
for poor people, who live many to a house and cannot self-isolate nor
stay home from work.
*Alarming new data shows the UK was the 'sick man' of Europe even
before Covid.*
This is caused by greater economic inequality.
India has accused an old man of terrorism for helping poor people
organize nonviolent resistance against mining companies.
It happens that the man is a Catholic priest, so Catholics are
protesting his arrest.
Jailing opposition leaders has become standard practice for India's
repressive right-wing government.
John Pilger: *The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange. Whose Side Are You On?*
I note that he published this on his own site. Apparently there is no
newspaper which would touch it.
*In the age of Covid, sanctions against ‘rogue states’ just spread the misery.*
*Hong Kong protester 'Grandma Wong’: I was held in mainland China for 14
months.*
*The freedom to offend is a priceless commodity.*
No group should have the right to silence those who disagree with it,
criticize it. or oppose it.
*[In Alaska], mountains are collapsing as the permafrost that
holds them together melts, threatening tsunamis if they fall into the sea.*
There would be no time to evacuate the town of Whittier if a nearby
slope slides into the ocean.
* Tax authorities find it easier to audit earned income tax credit, which disproportionately affects poor communities of color, than to target
billionaires.*
The question is, what's the purpose of income tax audits?
Is it to treat poor people almost like criminals, or is it
to recover millions from rich cheaters?
*How the idea of overthrowing the [US] government became mainstream
[among the right-wing].*
They see guns as giving them power over everyone else, and it led them
into a power trip.
EFF: *Orders from the Top: The EU’s Timetable for Dismantling End-to-End Encryption.*
The plan could include prohibiting the use of free software to encrypt,
or prohibiting computers that can run solely free software.
A fanatical French Muslim murdered a teacher who had presented in
class a cartoon mocking Muhammad, as an example in a discussion
of freedom of speech.
In response, teachers vow to teach "difficult subjects" and encourage
students' "critical spirit".
Imagine if that were in the US: the student would claim that showing
him the cartoon was "violence" and demand firing the teacher.
A strict lock-down has nearly finished eliminating Covid-19 in
Victoria (a state of Australia), and Melbourne is starting to relax
its isolation rules.
Australia is in a position to eradicate Covid-19 and keep it out,
if it proceeds carefully and continues a high rate of testing.
Arguing that Victoria could have eliminated Covid-19 in 6 weeks
with a more strict lockdown.
That conclusion is from modeling, and we don't have enough real experience
with Covid-19 to be sure of the conclusions. But if they are valid,
I think that strict restrictions for 6 weeks would be better than
4 weeks of dithering followed by 10 weeks of increasing strictness.
However, we shouldn't criticize Victoria's officials too much.
Perhaps they could have done better, but they did get the job done
while so many countries are messing it up.
*With the president’s re-election in doubt, cabinet departments are
scrambling to finish dozens of new rules.*
Wisconsin has a high level of Covid-19, but the wrecker plans to
increase it with an anti-mask campaign rally.
Salafi Arabia is escalating its war in Yemen at the same time that food aid
for that country is decreasing.
*Dianne Feinstein Was Harder on Preteen Climate Activists Than She Was on Amy
Coney Barrett.*
This shows the convergence between Democratic plutocratists and
Republican plutocratists. I hope we get Feinstein out of the Senate
soon.
Many major US store chains lobby to imprison shoplifters and keep them in prison for longer.
The UK is investigating charges that banks are committing
"industrial-scale forgery" for fraudulent foreclosures.
Why wouldn't they? Billionaire banks got away with it in the US 10
years ago because Obama protected them from charges.
Why wouldn't British banks try it too?
I hope that the UK shows more courage than Obama did. I hope it
convicts individual banksters and puts them in prison for this.
In the US, blacks were more likely to have their homes stolen in this
way than whites. That was due to the injustice of racism, one effect
of which is to make blacks poorer in general than whites.
I condemn racism, for that aspect as well as others. But this matter
is not about racism. The criminal banksters didn't know the victims,
or what race they were. The victims were just names on a list to
them. Their employers had nothing to do with making the loans to
those homeowners, years before — they had bought the loans en masse.
I do not condemn the banks' giant fraud because many victims were
black. I condemn it because it was an enormous crime against millions
of innocent poor people. Many of them, whether black or white or
other, couldn't replace what was taken from them.
The banks got away with the crime through corruption at the highest
level, and that is why I keep referring to it, even 10 years later.
A UN report accuses President Maduro of Venezuela of knowingly
presiding over murder and torture.
I would not put it past him.
The new prosecutor of Portland, Oregon, said he will ignore the minor
charges such as "interference with a police officer" that thugs like
to make to harass protesters.
In revenge, the thugs are making even more such accusations.
Releasing species from another region into the wild is ecological sabotage.
*Nigeria's anti-police brutality protests bring Lagos to standstill.*
Since the white supremacist attack in Charleston, around 100 public
symbols of the Confederacy have been taken down. Over 1700 remain in
place.
Calling on Senate Democrats to replace Feinstein as the leader of their
contingent in the Judiciary. She pals around with the Republicans and
acts to support them.
The commander of an Indonesian military unit whose mission was
repression and atrocities is now the minister of the military. He has
been banned from the US for 20 years, but the sadist has invited him
to visit.
Biden's choice for Secretary of the Treasury is a plutocratist. We
cannot expect him to do the most important things we need, such as
helping to reduce fossil fuel use.
The USPS, responding to a lawsuit, agreed to reverse DeJoy's sabotage
of mail delivery.
I wonder whether they will get it all fixed in the 18 days before the
election. This job includes installing sorting machines where sorting
machines were removed — but they destroyed the old sorting machines.
The USPS could easily fail to acquire replacements, especially if
DeJoy gives orders designed to cause failure.
The US has sentenced protesters against nuclear weapons to years in prison
for the symbolic "damage" that they did on a missile base.
I wonder what could possibly justify keeping them jailed for years
awaiting trial. There was no chance they would fail to show up for
the trial, if physically capable of doing so. It would have been
right and proper to release them in their own recognizance.
Plutcratist economists call unemployment "creative destruction."
In the 80s and 90s, plutcratist politicians said the solution for
unemployment in the US was to teach Americans to be "more
entrepreneurial". Kudlow is saying the same thing in different words.
What they disregard is that starting a business typically requires an
investment of capital, that investment is a gamble, and you shouldn't
gamble what you can't afford to lose. Most people in the US can't
even scrape together 400 dollars for an emergency; they can't afford
to invest in the risk of starting a business.
Starting a business with a good chance of success also requires
knowing all aspects of that business. Most people don't have suitable
knowledge. And success for the business requires superiority or unmet
demand.
The same Kudlow told the public in February that the novel coronavirus
was no problem, while telling rich Republicans that no one knew
how dangerous it was.
*As Big Oil Ups Donations to Dems, Biden Says
Banning Fossil Fuels Within Next Decade 'Not Possible'.*
The FCC proposes to regulate what social (or antisocial) communication
platforms can publish.
The FCC is obeying the orders of the wrecker. Some of those platforms
do great harm, but the wrecker benefits from that harm, so I expect
the FCC under his domination to try to aggravate the problems.
However, I would not trust Biden on this issue either — nor any
politician, except one with a very strong commitment to freedom of
speech.
Twitter has retreated from a rule blocking people from pointing at
published material that was obtained by cracking computer systems.
Please do not refer to that practice as "hacking."
That insults us hackers. Please call it "cracking."
The policy Twitter has dropped was very dangerous. Even though the
material about Hunter Biden in that NY Post article was neither new
nor significant, in other cases the information may be very important.
*China ambassador makes veiled threat to Hong Kong-based Canadians.*
This confirms that China is intentionally using visitors as hostages.
The CDC ordered a ban on evictions until Dec 31, but the wrecker
is reinterpreting it so as to help landlords chase people out sooner.
This is not necessarily motivated by a desire to kick people when they
are down. Its motive might instead be to increase the spread of Covid-19; we know he wants to do that.
Russia, increasing its level of sexual repression, is trying to arrest
single men who used surrogate mothers to have children, based on presuming
that they are homosexual.
The government claims it is illegal for homosexual men
to use surrogate mothers, although there is no such law.
*Thirty-year failure to tackle preventable disease fueling global
Covid pandemic.* Said disease includes *high blood pressure, cholesterol,
blood sugar and obesity, all risk factors for Covid-19.*
How to fix the problem of homelessness; how to have a universal basic
income without wasting a large part on people who are well-off.
Trying to teach homeless people to use their money more wisely does
not usually enable them to find and keep housing, but giving them
homes often enables them to use their money more wisely.
With a well-designed progressive income tax, rich people will return
as taxes a large part of their universal basic income.
The Democratic Party in many cities and neighborhoods is led by local
bosses that are "crass, thin-skinned, and nepotistic," but promise to
take care of their supporters' needs.
With this standard of comparison, their supporters did not find
the bullshitter outrageous.
Governments are not doing enough to avoid a rebound in greenhouse gas emissions if and when we eliminate Covid-19.
(satire) *Liberal Man Worried Biden Victory Would Immediately Reignite
Discussions About Having Kids.*
He doesn't need to worry. Even if we did our utmost to reduce the
coming climate disaster, it would not be a kindness to give birth to
someone these days.
Ideally the human population should be considerably smaller, so that
we can protect nature without having to live in poverty. So if you
are thinking of having no children, please go ahead!
*Sen. Warren Slams Disney for 28,000 Fired Workers Amid Stock Buyback Spree.*
The IMF urges wealthy countries to borrow to support people hurt or
unemployed by Covid-19, but it imposes crushing conditions on other
countries that also need to support people.
The Taliban are besieging some Afghan government forces in Lashkar
Gah, and they have mined the road out of the city. Tens of thousands
of civilians are trapped there.
Several suggestions for how to make appointments to the US supreme court
less partisan and less contentious.
Mexico's top military official during 2012-2018 has been arrested in the US
and charged with corruption with a drug syndicate during that time.
Prohibition of drugs tend to have this result.
A meeting of Republican heavyweights to discuss voter suppression was
recorded. Someone said, "Be not afraid of the accusations that you’re
a voter suppressor."
US journalists are doing little to cover the idea of the Green New Deal. Most Americans only see that Republicans say it is bad, and
Biden seems to agree, so Republicans attack him for not rejecting it
hard enough.
*Biden has recently stated that under his leadership he would end U.S. support for Saudi military intervention in Yemen, a move supported by
Congress, and reassess the current close U.S.-Saudi relationship.*
That would be a real change for the better.
US citizens: call on secretaries of state of all states not to allow
private "security" heavies at polling places.
California voters: reject Proposition 22, the bow-down-to-Guber exception.
If we win on this, and eventually Uber accepts the requirement to pay
its workers better, that will not make Uber (or Lyft) acceptable
— it won't change their injustice to their customers. Nor the food
delivery gig companies.
*Pro-democracy advocates are organizing more than 170 events [on Nov
4] in anticipation of President Donald Trump illegitimately declaring
victory in the Nov. 3 election.*
That's a good idea, but they have messed up the web site where they
publish the details: it depends on nonfree Javascript code, and it is
totally inaccessible in the Free World. I can't see even one word of
the contents of their site, only a message saying "Enable Javascript."
No way!
It is a shame that I can't (without sacrificing my freedom and
principles) find an event near me, and neither can you, nor can I in
good conscience post an urgent note asking everyone to look at the
site and find an event to join.
This time, we have considerable notice — 18 days to go before Nov 4.
Maybe this is enough time to correct the deficiency, rather than
merely bemoan it.
If you are a skilled web developer, and you have a web site where you
can make a page without Javascript, and run an hourly cron job on the
net, please try it. See if you can scrape the data from their site
and make a simple HTML file listing all the events, sorted in some
natural way. Put that that page on your site, with a brief
introduction saying what these events are for.
Then please email me about it, and I will post a reference to your
curved mirror.
Senator Lindsey Graham
asked
for campaign donations in an interview while in the judiciary
committee's meeting room. It is illegal to do that.
An experiment found that "eco" glitter, after ending up in a river,
harms
plants just like ordinary glitter.
We need to regulate plastic in a way that will eliminate most
microplastics. Probably anything like glitter should be prohibited
entirely.
Comparing the two
simultaneous
interviews of Biden and the wrecker.
NBC did wrong to hold the wrecker's interview at the same time that
Biden's town hall had already been announced for. We can see that the
wrecker's goal was to prevent his supporters from hearing Biden.
The article puts this backward, suggesting (though not actually
asserting) that the wrecker's program was scheduled first and Biden's
was then run alongside it.
However, it appears that the wrecker's interviewer pressed him hard
for answers, and and
didn't
accept his usual wandering evasions.
So he came off looking very bad.
I did not watch either of them, because I did not need to. I know
enough about the two candidates and I've made up my mind about how to
vote, so reading these articles was enough information for me.
My recommendation is: in a swing state, vote for Biden; otherwise,
vote for Howie Hawkins of the Green Party.
*Eyewitnesses have said that [thugs]
did
not identify themselves before opening fire on Michael Reinoehl while
he was in his car.* It appears that they shot as soon as they had
identified him.
In other words, they were supposed to arrest him, but it looks like
they murdered him instead.
Reinoehl acknowledged he had shot and killed a right-wing protester,
but claimed that he did so in self-defense. He was entitled have
trial to present his case.
More
info about the killing.
The wrecker
boasted
about this killing.
*'Look for Power in the Shadows': Watch Sheldon Whitehouse Shine Light on
'Dark
Money Operation' Behind GOP Supreme Court Takeover.*
Various lasting debilities affect around
2%
of the people who get Covid-19.
It follows that if we let the virus run rampant through the US and
infect around 70% of the population, so that herd immunity stops it,
we will have about 5 million newly disabled Americans. That's in
addition to the 2 million or so who would die.
That's
what
the wrecker is now in favor of.
It could be more than 5 million.
Given the possibility of being infected twice, once with each of the
two principal strains of the virus, it's conceivable that each one
would spread until 70% of Americans have had it. So we might end up
with a 10 million newly disabled Americans.
In the identified cases of reinfection, the second infection was more
grave. Perhaps that is a real phenomenon. Or perhaps it is an
artifact of the way this is studied: I suspect the analysis to detect
reinfection is done only on patients that need to be hospitalized.
The push to let the virus run rampant is a
fake
scientific controversy bankrolled by rich people.
Thus it is comparable to the planet roaster's campaign to generate
fake
controversy about human-caused global heating, and
fake
doubt about whether tobacco kills.
Demand for efficiency has
"crushed
the humanity" out of the activity and profession of taking care of
someone else.
I have a feeling that the use of "to care" to mean an action rather
than an attitude is part of that change.
The district attorney of Los Angeles faces a challenge from a candidate
who has learned to push for less imprisonment of minor criminals,
and more prosecution of thugs.
The incumbent seems like another Kamala Harris, pushing for being
harsher on criminals rather than on rebuilding peace in society.
Governor Cuomo is trying hard to wipe out New York State's Working
Families Party.
The EU has placed personal sanctions on some of Putin's cronies
for poisoning Alexei Navalny.
Australia's electoral and political system could use some changes.
Ohio is doing voter suppression by having too few polling places in
cities. Cities are where people are likely to vote Democratic.
When buildings have been shut for a long time, deadly legionella
bacteria can multiply in the water pipes.
YouTube will ban contradicting WHO's recommendations about vaccination.
Anti-vax fantasies, when presented as fact, threaten people's lives.
It is useful to do something to weaken the conspiracies that make and
spread them. However, censorship is dangerous too.
It would be better to avoid promoting such material when people don't
explicitly ask for it. For instance, to label each one with "anti-vax",
and not recommend anything with that label, nor find it in searches unless
"anti-vax" is one of the search terms.
Sicilian Giuseppe Piraino responded to a mafia demand for money by
showing the mafioso photos of murdered judges — then showing the
recording to the state, and getting 20 mafiosi arrested and charged.
*Ugandan security forces raid campaign office of opposition leader Bobi Wine.*
Massive rewilding and land restoration would absorb a lot of the CO2
that we are adding to the atmosphere, in a natural way.
Perhaps this could be done a more effective method of offsetting
emissions.
*Greener play areas boost children’s immune systems, research finds.*
The effect is visible after just a month.
The thugs that searched the apartment where Breonna Taylor lay dying
did not try to save her.
The article does not say whether they were the same ones that killed
her. Either way, it shows the callous disregard of thugs for human
life.
European countries are trying to deal with an increase in Covid-19
by putting off increasing their distancing measures.
The idea of "apply firm measures if the fraction of people newly
infected rises above a certain amount" is a mistake. The time to
apply firm measures is whenever the fraction of people newly infected
is rising. That is the time to apply measures that are sure to
drive R down below 1, and drive the number of people infected down to
a low level. Delaying the firm measures will require firmer measures,
for a longer period.
After that, it is possible to return to the status quo ante provided
contact tracing and isolation are stronger than before.
New Zealand is having a referendum to approve a very limited right to
help in dying. I urge people to vote yes.
However, the limitations don't make sense. People undergoing
unbearable suffering which is sure to end within 6 months will be
allowed this right, but those whose suffering might continue for
decades will be required to keep suffering.
The Thai government has prohibited protests, arrested leaders, and increased
censorship.
Barrett's testimony implies that she thinks all people can simply
choose their sexual orientation.
I don't investigate all the associations and attitudes of an
organization before I give a talk for it. I don't have time.
(Indeed, I expect, when I give a talk for a university, that it is
doing some harmful things that I publicly condemn, such as developing
nonfree software, obtaining software patents, and teaching that it is
wrong to share copies of published works.)
So I think it is possible that Barrett did not know about those
specific positions of the ADF when she gave talks for its fellowship
program.
But it is also possible that she knew them and agreed with them, and
is now covering it up.
*Barrett's Confirmation to the Supreme Court "Would Be a Catastrophe
for the Climate."*
Los Angeles County thugs attacked then arrested reporter Josie Huang
as she was reporting outside a hospital. Then they gave a reason
which was an obvious lie and brought charges against her.
I've heard that the charges against Ms Huang have been dropped, but
there is no sign of an investigation of the attack on her.
Individual rewilders release locally lost species to try to preserve them,
and occasionally it works. But usually it does not.
It seems that the conclusion is that what we really need is government support
for restoring damaged nature.
*Human rights defenders sue German parliament over anti-BDS resolution.*
The resolution equates boycotting Israeli companies with boycotting
Jews — in effect equating criticism of Israel's occupation practices
with antisemitism.
The Israeli government pushes to establish that those two are the same,
as a weapon against those who criticize the crimes of the occupation.
Meanwhile, its leaders are friends with people who really are antisemitic.
I support the existence of Israel, and I condemn antisemitism.
However, Palestinians have rights too, like everyone else, and Israel
must respect their rights.
The first head of the Black Police Association of London said that
governments made the London thug department less racist, but this
stopped in 2016 and racism is coming back.
(satire) *NASA officials announced Tuesday
that the Hubble Space Telescope had recently given scientists the rare opportunity to observe a pair of galaxies mating.*
A giant international monopoly of privatized water is being formed.
Privatization of water for residential use should not be allowed.
*Calls grow for radical reform of Chile's national police force.
The Carabineros face 8,500 allegations of human rights abuses in the
past year.*
Canada's last ice shelf broke up and disappeared.
*Great Barrier Reef corals have more than halved in past 25 years,
study shows.*
*University of Sydney law professor arrested while watching student protest.*
He sent his students to watch, because they were studying law and
protest. It appears that the thugs went semi-berserk, thinking
"Wheee, lots of people we can beat up!"
"Smart" meters in Australia will enable the company to report when users turn certain appliances on or off by noticing momentary increases
or decreases in total current used.
For "smart", read "snoop".
The worst thing is that people will have no choice about having their homes
connected to these meters.
Snooping meters should be restricted by law about how fine grained
their reports can be. I contend that informing the customer of per
moment-by-moment current use, plus telling the electric utility the
moment-by-moment current use of a block or neighborhood, is enough
data.
The Supreme Court, now with right-wing bias, has allowed the wrecker to undermine the census count by stopping it early.
Galveston thugs tied a leash to a homeless man and pulled him from horseback.
This is not only humiliating, it is dangerous. It can be hard to keep
up with horses, so the person being pulled can easily fall and be
dragged. That can cause all sorts of injuries.
The Rio Tinto mining company signed contracts with Australian
indigenous groups, paying them money but demanding they remain silent
about possible destruction of their ancient sites by mining. When
some found out that a site was likely to be destroyed, they dared not
complain to the government for fear of losing that income.
This confirms my view that these sites should have absolute protected status.
No one should have the power to allow their destruction.
Twitter suspended apparently fake accounts which claimed to belong
to people that were black and planned to vote for the wrecker.
Israeli combat drones that were battle-tested by bombing Gaza may be
bought by the UK and used to track (and kill?) asylum seekers in the
channel.
A French museum had to defer plans for an exhibit about Mongol emperor
Genghis Khan because China demanded that the exhibit not use the words
"Mongol", "Empire" or "Genghis Khan".
Now that China has started a long-term plan to assimilate Mongols that
live in China, it apparently would like to make the rest of the world
forget that Mongols are ethnically different from Han Chinese. That
will be difficult to entirely accomplish, since the rest of the world
is well aware of the Mongol empire. Russia and the Middle East were
conquered by it and they remember.
Right-wing sites pressure Facebook into bending its rules against hate
and disinformation for them. An employee who collected a list of instances
was fired for this.
Five things Facebook should do to avoid encouraging election violence.
Queensland (part of Australia) could convert completely to renewable generation
in 15 years, generating around 10,000 permanent jobs.
Gideon Spiro writes of the looking of Arabs' houses
and the looting of Jews' houses.
Israel has imprisoned Maher al-Akhras without charges, and his response
is a hunger strike.
Imprisoning people without charges is a fundamental injustice, so
Israel should free him immediately, or else state the charges against
him so he can have a trial.
Naomi Klein: *I fear Trump will exploit his COVID infection to further
destabilize the election.*
Prominent academics warn that the IHRA "definition" of antisemitism
lends itself to repression and censorship of defense of Palestinians'
rights.
Even the author of that criterion warns it should not be used this way.
Proposing to confront Covid-19 with a form of partial shutdown of
society, with firm enforcement of the rules.
The cameras proposed here threaten oppression, but if the purpose of the system
is simply and only to measure how many people are in a place and in general
what they are doing, it could be designed not to identify people. Then it
would be safe.
Virginia's voter registration site crashed shortly before the deadline
because a cable was cut.
The same thing happened in 2016. Do you think this was an accident?
Once may have been; twice is not likely. It looks like sabotage to me.
(satire) *"For just $3 per shipment, Amazon users who are
outwardly critical of our company can have their packages delivered in
a blank cardboard box without any logos or branding so they’ll never
get called out for being hypocritical."*
After Republicans stacked the appeals court, it approved the Texas
voter-suppression measure of allowing only one ballot drop-off per
county.
I am curious to see their rationale, but I suspect it is based on
taking at face value the pretense that this is a measure to prevent
fraud, and disregarding the question of what effect it will really
have.
That gives officials a free hand to oppress people: just fabricate a
motive that would have been legitimate, no matter how absurd.
*Social Security's Cost of Living Adjustment Is Inadequate. Democrats Have a
Plan to Fix That.*
*New Analysis Finds Barrett Sides Against Consumers, Immigrants, Workers, and
More.*
Barrett is willing to consider letting the wrecker unilaterally delay
the election.
That would be quite a stretch to the US Constitution, and shows that
she is prepared to go to great lengths to help the wrecker seize
unconstitutional power.
*IMF warns emissions policies 'grossly insufficient' and urges green recovery.*
It is noteworthy that an organization which in general serves
plutocracy says this. It seems that the planet roasters have lost out
to other interests in one important contest.
*USDA and Meatpacking Industry Collaborated to Undermine Covid-19 Response,
Documents Show.*
I don't know whether that was illegal, but it is corruption.
US border thugs deport large numbers of people to the small
Mexican border town of Sasabe, perhaps because they know it cannot
process so many immigrants that fast and has no place for them to stay.
This sadism is typical of the US border thugs.
*Ending world hunger by 2030 would cost $330bn, study finds.*
That is much less than one would expect. Just $33 billion a year would
be peanuts for the US government.
*Cyprus scraps 'golden passport' scheme after politicians caught in undercover
sting.*
A Thai student leads a protest movement demanding reduction of the power
of the king.
Fracking releases radioactive polonium into the air.
A proposed law in Germany is causing consternation because it uses
feminine word endings throughout instead of the usual masculine endings.
Any doubts about the meaning and legitimacy of this draft text could
be resolved easily by adding a note saying that "In this law, words
with feminine endings that refer to human beings include all humans,
whether female or not."
Has the Labour Party still got a conscience? Will it vote against a
bill to permit infiltrating undercover thugs to commit crimes without
limit, even murder?
*Facebook greatest source of Covid-19 disinformation, journalists say.*
*Koch-Funded Legal Group Pushes to Allow Mass Evictions During Pandemic.*
The greatest danger of putting Barrett on the Supreme Court is that it
could adopt that philosophy — that "civil liberties" means there
cannot be any limit on the power to evict tenants.
*Extinction Rebellion is showing Britain what real democracy could look like.*
Big business gets to demand change in government policies at any
moment, whereas the people get to do so only at intervals of years.
One of the reasons for Extinction Rebellion effectiveness is that it
is absolutely, totally nonviolent (though its protests are sometimes
disruptive).
*China still allowing use of pangolin scales in traditional medicine.*
China is not egregious in failing to adequately protect endangered
species. Many countries, perhaps most, fall short on that dimension.
State infiltrators are bad when they infiltrate peaceful dissident
groups. However, infiltrating real terrorist groups is legitimate
and can be very effective for stopping terrorism. Here is an example.
JCB, which sells construction equipment, is under legal pressure
for selling tractors to an Israeli company and not taking steps
to prevent their use in forcible demolition of Palestinian homes.
The US increased the size of the Supreme Court before, and for good
reasons.
* Biden must call on federal workers to ignore illegal orders and faithfully serve the Constitution.*
Announcing a new political article, "The Broken Trust Model of Policing Police"
The bully still has a few weeks to provoke Iran into war.
The provocations are already killing Iranian civilians.
Academics call for universities to join to protect their students from
persecution by China over criticism of China in their classes and
academic work.
Students are afraid of being imprisoned if and when they go to China,
even over what is said by others in the same class.
To get the US to imprison you for what you publish, you have to do something
heroic, such as exposing secret crimes.
China, by contrast, will imprison people merely for criticizing China,
or even for nothing at all if they are useful as hostages.
(satire) *several reports indicated
Monday that the idea of the total collapse of democracy was so
horrifying that America decided it hadn’t happened yet.*
(satire) *Judge Amy Coney Barrett
promised Monday that her Catholic faith’s tenets of generosity and
humanity would not interfere with her duty on the court to crush the
nation’s poorest and most downtrodden citizens.*
*Trump desperately needs to avoid another withering exposure that
another debate would cement. That is why, true to the coward that he
is, he’s hiding from it.*
An additional advantage of public banks is that governments could directly
make them stop investing in fossil fuels.
For the other reasons public entities should put their money in public
banks, see here.
General Atomics has developed spy drones that can track everyone in a
substantial area — such as a big city — at once. The initial
application for them was for war, but now it is making thinly veiled attempts
to fly them over American cities.
Jesse Jackson: *Myths and Lies About Poverty.*
I take issue with Jackson on one point: most Americans do support the
laws that would eliminate most poverty. But plutocats have used (and
created)
flaws in our democracy to keep control of our government and
defeat candidates such as Sanders that stand for the policies most
Americans support.
CEPR: The US Census Bureau underestimates poverty in the US because it uses
too low a value for the poverty line, one that doesn't relate to today's life.
Here's how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounced a Republican
congresscritter that first insulted her on the capital steps, then
tried to claim that we shouldn't blame him for that because he has
daughters.
I was so moved by her strength and dignity that I found a recording to
listen to via invidious. Her speech is even more impressive as spoken
word.
* To make experimental antibodies [for Covid-19] affordable will cost billions. If they
are shown to work, it will be money well spent.*
Rafał Gaweł, who was prosecuted in Poland for journalism, has won
asylum in Norway.
*WHO chief says herd immunity approach to pandemic 'unethical'.*
The reasons he cites are the simple, evident reasons that we can all
see if we look.
*California investigates unauthorized ballot boxes installed by Republicans.*
Setting up an unauthorized ballot drop-off box is electoral fraud
and I hope those Republicans get punished.
Scientific advisers warned the UK government three weeks ago that
it was time to take strong measures to avoid a "large epidemic".
Either the ministers are timid and weak, or they are playing a game of
trumpery.
China has cut off its importation of Australian coal.
It will presumably burn Chinese coal instead.
This could teach Australia to invest in something less damaging than
coal mining. But I fear that the Australian government will be so
desperate for China to resume buying coal that it will break and bow
down to China. That would be very bad for freedom in the world.
The Australian government has a few oppressive policies — towards
immigrants,
towards software developers.
Towards whistleblowers that
reveal its dishonesty and crimes.
However, in general it is much
better than China.
In regard to global heating, to the first order this makes no
difference. Australian coal and Chinese coal are both very damaging.
*People in Gaza sifting through rubbish for food, UN head says.*
Senate Democrats have failed us by not going to the mat to block
confirmation of Barrett as a Supreme Court Justice.
The hearings are useless. Democrats could show she shot someone on
Fifth Avenue and the Republicans would still confirm her, just as they
confirmed Kavanaugh.
With her, the court will find it easy to use some excuse to set aside
the election and make the wrecker president again.
*Judges' politics absolutely sway how they decide cases. I crunched the
numbers.*
President Xi is showing the people who served as his puppet government
in Hong Kong just how unimportant they are to him.
China is luring Chinese people to adopt the official state payment
app, which is even more Big Brotherish than the private payment apps
they mostly use now.
Protect your country from going down that path — insist on paying
for products and transportation with cash, anonymously.
*This is my message to the western world — your civilisation is killing life
on Earth.*
It is a justified rebuke to civilization, but limiting it to "western"
is not fair. Civilization is global; civilization in Asia is involved
too.
*[One] fifth of nations at risk of ecosystem collapse, analysis finds.*
The UAE punishes foreign workers that get pregnant, and their children,
with homelessness and starvation, and the children with denial of education.
This punishment lasts for an indefinite term; it could be years.
Many religions support injustice to women.
*Covid coughing link 'may be stopping people with lung cancer coming forward'.*
The delay in detecting and treating lung cancer can be fatal.
The UK's National Health Service has also caused delays in testing for
and treating cancer, by being slow. People are dying from that.
Covid-19 made this a lot worse, but it was starting before.
The NHS did a pretty good job, given the inadequate funding that
governments gave it. However, plutocratist governments have cut its
funds step by step over many years.
Under those conditions, it will become less and less effective — but
don't blame the NHS for that.
A right-wing protester in Denver attacked a journalist's bodyguard,
first with a punch, then with pepper spray. The bodyguard shot him
dead.
I am concerned by the fact that the bodyguard was arrested for
defending himself.
The anti-distancing activist who attacked a journalist in Brooklyn
faces criminal charges for doing that.
* Rainforests face unprecedented fires, yet BlackRock, State Street and
Vanguard have consistently voted in favor of deforestation.*
*New Zealand Becomes First Country in the World To Require Financial Sector To
Report on Climate Risks.*
*Anthony Fauci criticises Donald Trump for using his words out of context.*
The bullshitter's campaign made it appear that Fauci was endorsing
some bullshit.
The wrecker may try to seize power after the US election. How can
Americans stop him? Here are methods that succeeded for blocking
coups in several other countries.
(satire) *… members of a local white nationalist militia stated
Friday they were stretched to the limit trying to attack everyone the
president wants them to.*
Georgia kicked over 310,000 voters off the registration list on the
grounds that they had moved. Supposedly it did this based on data
from the USPS. Greg Palast's team checked properly with the USPS and
found out that 197,000 of them should not have been deleted.
This is an example of voter suppression. The current governor of
Georgia stole the election in 2018 by voter suppression like this.
*Amazon bullies partners and vendors, says antitrust subcommittee.*
*Facebook is a social network monopoly that buys, copies or kills competitors, antitrust committee finds.*
*Costa Rica Holds Anti-IMF Protests for Tenth Day in a Row.*
There is a campaign for the UK to block China from having a seat in the
UN Human Rights Council.
The very idea of China's presence in that group illustrates the fact
that it has been taken over by the enemies of human rights.
*New Documents Reveal How the Animal Agriculture Industry Surveils and
Punishes Critics.*
*Federal judge blocks Texas governor's order to shut down ballot drop-off sites.*
I suppose this will go through two appeals and reach the Supreme Court.
I wonder what it will say.
*Federal Agents Used Toxic Chemical Smoke Grenades in Portland.*
Some protesters were sick for a long time after being attacked in this way.
Farming salmon on a large scale, as today, causes a number of ecological dangers, and can also incubate diseases as well as
parasites.
*How Charles Koch Is Buying Credibility With Academic Investments.*
Pasco, Florida, tries to prevent crime by persistently harassing people thought to be possible future criminals until they move out of
town.
The US response to Covid-19 has been driven by various wrong intuitions so that it has been purely planned.
The article does not mention that the wrecker and Republicans
intentionally undermined the effort so he could use the disease for
his reelection. (I think we did not yet have proof of that when it
was written.) However, I don't think that invalidates the article.
The Republicans took advantage of these erroneous tendencies, and they
are still doing so.
1/5 of the high-ranking officers of the New York Thug Department have
substantiated patterns of injustice to the public. Substantiated to the department's satisfaction, that is.
The department works hard to cover them up.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid that bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
an exception for articles which give important information about
racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the
exceptions.
The CDC wanted to order people to use masks in public transportation, but the wrecker's political officials blocked it.
If our state and local officials were on our side and getting good
advice, all trying to do the best thing to protect people from
Covid-19 and bring it to an end, it might be better for these
decisions to be made locally. Alas, led by the wrecker, many of them
are on the virus's side, and this decision helped them spread it.
UK thugs display a pattern of violence and bodily harm against
anti-fracking and anti-HS2 protesters.
The head of the Somerville, Massachusetts, thug union now faces
criminal charges for pepper-spraying a person who was handcuffed.
It appears that the most thuggish of thugs feel drawn to becoming
officials of the unions that protect thuggishness.
The saboteur is sabotaging science by forbidding research using fetal
cells culture.
Dubya did the same thing. In the 2000s, a friend of mine hoped that
research would find a way to prevent his developing blindness. Due to
Dubya's policy, that research was not done. Now he is completely
blind.
A fetus is not a baby, and a culture of human cells is not a human
being. There is absolutely nothing wrong (barring unusual
circumstances) with an abortion, and absolutely nothing wrong with
using fetal cells (or their cultures) for research (medical or
otherwise). When anyone acts less than proud of using the results of
such research, we should speak up and say, "Be proud!"
*Despite Trump's 'Jobs, Jobs, Jobs' Bluster, the Rust Belt Is Still Reeling from Plant Closures.*
Covid-19 transmission has been rising in the Czech Republic since August,
and has reached the point where it will overload the medical system.
This demonstrates yet again that trying to trim the settings in the rules
is a mistake. Once transmission starts accelerating, you must take
firm action without delay. You're only safe if the number of new
cases is decreasing.
Even a weak target for greenhouse emissions reduction can create
many jobs and a booming economy.
It could slow down disaster, and pave the way for stronger steps.
See which candidates have pledged to amend the Constitution to reject
the idea that corporations are entitled to human rights.
I was disappointed to see that not one candidate in my state
has endorsed it.
A sunken British slave ship, of great archaeological interest, is being
destroyed by unrestricted trawling.
A few dissident scientists purport to be arguing for letting Covid-19
spread to produce herd immunity. Superficial news coverage makes it
look like a serious scientific dispute, but their position is not
clear enough to make sense. And its supposedly scientific supporters
are not all real scientists.
In other fields, such "skepticism" has been funded by businesses with
something to gain by creating a false impression of uncertainty.
There is no shortage of businesses that might want to create the
appearance of doubt about whether we should try to wipe out Covid-19.
And there are rich supporters of the conman who might do this.
I wonder if someone who knows how to investigate could check for such
connections.
The British practice of raising large numbers of birds to release them
for wealthy people to shoot is causing ecological damage; stricter laws are needed.
Political officials alter the CDC's weekly reports for political
purposes. They are pushing the head of the CDC to modify old reports too.
Dr. Rick Bright resigned from the National Institute of Health after
he was sidelined for insisting on doing what was scientifically and
medically called for.
*'Catastrophic Failure to Tackle Inequality' Left World Unprepared for
Pandemic.*
New political article: An Extinction Rebellion activist comments about the London police
by Clark Killick
US citizens: call on the Department of Agriculture to keep the Roadless Rule
for the Tongass National forest.
US citizens: call on Congress to have no vote on any nomination to
fill Justice Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat until the winner of this
election is inaugurated.
Everyone: Donate now to save Europe from Software Patents, says FFII.
If you are German, contact your representative in the Bundestag
to oppose the "unitary patent".
*Facebook Profited From Climate [Dis]information Even After Vowing to
Fight It, Report Shows.*
These ads were not mere errors, they were intentional deception.
Thus I call them "disinformation".
(satire) *… millions of Americans worried that they weren’t appealing enough to
land any potential commander in chief who didn’t constantly lie, steal,
and cheat on them by having secret relations with numerous other
countries."
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: the US should not allow any one person
to have the power to launch a nuclear attack unilaterally.
Interesting article: *Binary Oppositions and the Hard Hard Problem of
Solidarity.*
Republicans are sending armed white supremacists to "monitor" polling
places and try to intimidate blacks other marginalized people from
voting.
Their supposed excuse for the intimidation is to discourage fraud in
voting, but even if there were fraud, they would be unable to stop it.
(satire) Wisconsin Reports Zero Evidence Of Voter Fraud In Ballots
They’ve Thrown Out So Far.
Bianca Williams rebukes the investigation of the incident where she
was stopped by thugs, because it will consider only whether they treated
her courteously, not whether they fabricated a disguise of a reason.
How people in New York City stopped a pipeline for fracked gas.
*Warning Fundamental Rights and American Lives at Stake, 5,000+ Lawyers Urge
Senate to Reject Barrett.*
They wrote, "Rushing to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett will cause
irreparable damage to the public's faith in the Supreme Court, the
rule of law, and our democracy."
(satire) *… the South Carolina Election Commission announced
Friday that urban polling places would feature large plexiglass
barriers around the entire building.*
(satire) *Frisky Housewife Lets Revealing Robe Slip After Opening Door
To Amazon Delivery Drone.*
Guidelines and examples for resisting coups carried out
by heads of government that refused to leave after losing an election.
It is clear that the would-be tyrant intentionally incited violence
including the planned plot to kidnap or assassinate Governor Whitmer
of Michigan.
What I don't know is whether there is any way to hold him legally
responsible — with criminal charges. I don't know where the line
is for incitement of violence or other crimes this might possibly be.
The cult leader is almost certainly still infected with coronavirus,
but he is holding rallies at which he will surely not wear a mask.
From a rational perspective, this may seem crazy, but I think it makes
sense psychologically, He inviting cult members to demonstrate their
loyalty and faith in him by letting him expose them to coronavirus.
Next year there will be interviews with adults in the prime of their
lives who suffer persistent medical problems stemming from this
display of faith.
Senator Lee, a Republican, declared his opposition to democracy.
He refuses to clarify who he thinks should rule, but I think the
answer would be "billionaires and Republicans."
Pence, in the debate, repeated the wrecker's veiled threat to seize
power if they cannot pretend to have won.
I say "pretend" because their voter-suppression efforts will be
included in the count.
*India's tea workers strike as government fails to deliver wage increase.*
The plot to kidnap or kill Michigan Governor Whitmer has been planned
since June.
Barrett, as a judge, has been happy to seize on technicalities to send
asylum seekers back to danger.
A plan to require houses to be built with electric sockets to aid in
replacing gas stoves with electric stoves in the future, and for
recharging cars in the garage, is facing a big fight from gas companies.
Some people who have "recovered" from Covid-19 experience crippling
"brain fog".
Amnesty International reports that over 220 activists for human,
environmental, and land rights have been murdered in Colombia this
year.
The government is right-wing, thus allied to the paramilitaries, who
are surely responsible for most of the murdering.
*Portland: [thugs] targeted medics [at Black Lives Matter protests]
with teargas and projectiles, report finds.*
Thugs also kept ambulances away from the injured people at the
protest. This is what Israeli soldiers do to injured Palestinians,
and on a number of occasions has resulted in their death.
The city thugs were bad, and the federal thugs were even worse.
They should all be prosecuted.
Julian Assange's extradition hearing demonstrated that the US and UK
governments will break any rule and tell any lie to get Assange.
The article recounts how his supporters' computers were stolen,
as well as how his basic rights as a person accused were violated.
This follows a legal campaign in which procedures and laws were
trashed again and again, and which demonstrated that the Swedish state was only using the
original charges against Assange as an excuse, and had no interest
in seriously investigating them.
If Assange is thinking of suicide, I do not think that represents any
sort of mental derangement on his part. Under Assange's
circumstances, suicide would be a rational act, an act of courage,
avoiding a fate worse than death.
A few days ago I said that no one ever really deserves to die. If you
are facing a fate worse than death, what you really deserve is to
avoid it and live. But if that is impossible, I still hope that you
avoid it.
Covid-19 has unmasked what the Republican Party stands for.
This statement in the article includes an erroneous presupposition.
The latter is what the Republican Party has really stood for since
decades ago, but it tried to disguise that stand until recently.
A letter supposedly signed by scientists that urged the UK to let
Covid-19 spread and aim for herd immunity seems to be at least
partly a hoax.
That "solution" would mean lots of people die or develop lasting organ
damage.
The UK is (reluctantly) using government spending to preserve most
jobs and the workers who have them, even if there is currently no work
for them to do.
*Covid drug given to Trump developed using cells derived from aborted fetus.*
There is nothing wrong with that — fetuses are not human beings. But
the bullshitter will need to excuse himself to the Christian extremists
that support him.
I suppose he will plead hypocrisy again: "Never mind that I
never live by your principles; you know I have no conscience."
Describing some of the crimes the conman could be prosecuted for,
if he can't hold on to the presidency.
The US proposes a deal to support the subjection of Palestinians in exchange
for the subjection of Western Sahara.
Two injustices at once — no wonder the bully loves it.
A Texas thug has been charged with murder for killing Jonathan Price
as the latter was trying to break up a fight between other people.
Even the head of the Federal Reserve acknowledges that the US economy
needs stimulus.
Only Republicans deny it.
Hasidic Jews in New York City held a violent anti-mask protest
and attacked a journalist who was doing nothing but making a video.
One of them recognized him and knew he might criticize them later in
his writing.
To those who shouted "Jewish Lives Matter," I agree — they do.
So protect other Jewish lives (and non-Jewish lives) by wearing masks!
The bully plans to impose sanctions on the rest of Iran's banks and
money transfer systems with the aim of preventing Iran from buying
medicine and other products for humanitarian needs.
*The bulk of the chaos [of the wrecker's antigovernance] is simply
America the Terrible emerging from the shadows: our real history
suddenly visible.*
(satire) *… local terrorist group benefactor Ahmad al-Yasin was
reportedly disappointed to learn Thursday that most of his
donations go to covering administrative costs. "… these
funds should go toward suicide vests and stocking up on AK-47s …."*
A House subcommittee calls for new laws to reduce the market power
of the big tech companies.
Feral pigs are overrunning the US and causing a lot of damage.
The problem is difficult because letting individuals hunt them makes them
more wary.
*[The bully's] Directives Restricting Discussion of Race,
Discrimination Are Censorship.*
They are very broad, and could
restrict teaching in public schools, even universities that receive
federal funds.
(satire) *Vice President Mike Pence appeared to
instinctively address his responses to Sen. Kamala Harris’ husband
during Wednesday night’s vice-presidential debate.*
Meanwhile, Harris demonstrated yet again her weakness on confronting the
danger of global heating.
A lawyer warns that parents who accept distance learning from a public
school may be construed by courts as giving the school officials
permission to look through the computer's camera at any time during
school hours, and report whatever they see.
Unlike many other injustices of distance learning, this possible
injustice does not depend on having malware in the computer.
But malware can potentiate it.
* Human Rights Watch report accuses [Bolivia's] administration … of overseeing legal offensive against people linked to
Morales*, the president expelled by the coup in 2019.
To construe launching a nonviolent protest as "terrorism" is tyranny,
and reveals the nature of the coup-installed government.
Evo Morales Tells Jacobin: We’re Still Fighting the Multinationals Who
Drove the Coup.
Last month was the hottest September ever recorded,
as California found out, to its peril.
I've read that 2020 is likely to be the hottest year ever recorded.
But this record will not last many years.
*‘Successful’ People Are Misery Super-Spreaders.*
*'On the Level of Guantánamo': Oklahoma Jail Guards Accused of Torturing
Inmates With 'Baby Shark' Song.*
The idea of torture by repeatedly playing a childish song seems like a
joke. Indeed, it was a joke, in the movie One, Two, Three (1961).
But that headline is misleading. Shackling prisoners to a wall for
hours is real torture, music or no music.
*[UK] Data watchdog finds [education] ministry broke GDPR by
mishandling national database for [all pupils in] England.*
It is interesting to see that in some cases the GDPR can prohibit
construction of a database. Now we will see whether it can in practice
get rid of the prohibited database.
Perhaps in January the GDPR will cease to have any force in the UK,
as its commitment to follow EU directives will cease then.
*Activists Sue San Francisco for Wide-Ranging Surveillance of Black-Led
Protests Against Police Violence.*
Michael Mann reports that the last ten years of climate research
give us a basis for hope: it takes only five years for a reduction
in CO2 emissions to result in a reduction in global heating.
So we still have a chance to avoid global heating disaster, if we
start promptly and work hard.
*EU parliament votes for 60% greenhouse gas emissions cut by 2030.*
This is starting to be in the range of what is really necessary.
*Chase Climate Pledge 'Shows the Power of Relentless Environmental Activism'
But 'Not Aggressive Enough'.*
*As climate catastrophes worsen the insecurity of the white
so-called middle class will only intensify as well, and for good
reason. As it does an even greater number of white folks will choose
from a fascist movement that speaks to their loss of power and invites
them to reclaim it (from the wrong people) by force, or a Black Lives
Matter movement that literally ignores their existence. Which will they
choose?*
I'm going to oppose fascism (a form of illiberal plutocracy) no matter
what, just as I am going to oppose racism no matter what. The violence
of thugs against blacks is vicious, so I will oppose that no matter
what. This is because of my adherence in a universal standard of
justice, one that has nothing to do with identity.
I hope that those who campaign against those forms of evil will
recognize the need for a universal standard of justice. Without that,
their campaigns will undermine their own moral foundation as well as
their chances to win general support.
The inspector general of the Department of Justice reports that
Attorney General Sessions and his deputy were directly behind the
decisions to prosecute every unauthorized immigrant and separate
families. They pressured subordinate officials to do this.
(satire) *White House Staff Heartbroken By Sight Of Weak Trump Struggling To Yell
Racial Slurs At TV.*
*Thousands of people given emergency shelter [in the UK] at start of
pandemic are now being evicted.*
Ironically, this is happening just as Covid-19 is spreading again
and it is cold outside — like the situation that motivated giving them
housing earlier this year.
(satire) *…a
division of confused U.S. Army Corps of Engineers members were
reportedly trying Wednesday to figure out what the big blue cable
connected to the country does.*
*Climate denial ads on Facebook seen by millions, report finds.*
Golden Dawn organized a quasimilitary militia and carried out
crimes of violence for 20 years before it was prosecuted.
Why did the Greek state take so long to prosecute it?
*Fed Lending Saved Corporate America. It Could Do the Same for Cities and
States.*
The Dutch Rijksmuseum is thinking about returning objects that were
collected over a century ago from territory that is now Indonesia.
What does it mean to "return" those objects?
Consider the diamond mentioned in the article, which the Dutch took
from the Sultan of Banjarmasin. If the Netherlands ought to return
that, to whom should it be returned? Today's Republic of Indonesia
has nothing to do with that diamond's history; it succeeded the
Netherlands as the sovereign power for most of Borneo but not directly
from the Sultan's government. It makes no sense to "return" the
diamond to the republic. The sultan of Banjarmasin would hardly have
demanded the return of his diamond to a polity based on Java unless
it was ruled by his descendants.
The diamond could be returned to the sultan's last heir (who might
that be?), but is there really a moral obligation to do that?
The diamond may be worth a lot of money, but I'd expect it has less
non-monitary value than other objects in the museum. Each one raises
the questions, "Was this stolen?" and "If so, from whom?" and "Who is
the heir today of that person or entity?"
The FBI shut down a real right-wing terrorist plot to kidnap the
governor of Michigan.
I hope that after January we can prosecute the extremist that encouraged
this plot.
Everyone: call on Attorney General Becerra to hold Amazon
accountable for its abuses of its workers in California.
Relatives of people who died from Covid-19 feel intensley offended
by the bully's contempt for the deceased.
The New England Journal of Medicine called for voting out the bully,
for the "recklessly squandered lives" of people who died from Covid-19
due to his crazy policies.
US citizens: call on the US Forest Service to reject proposed new regulations
to facilitate extracting fossil fuels from public lands.
General Milley and other top US generals are in quarantine in case the
spreader in chief transmitted coronavirus to them.
Facebook is banning most sorts of presentations of QAnonsense.
The Boston thug department protects its thugs, even from the district
attorney. It drags its feet on handing over information about thugs
that have been accused of violence.
She is threatening (though not with an aggressive tone) to use a
subpoena to get the information.
*[The corrupter]’s Barrett Nomination Another Step Toward Christian Fascism.*
The "prosperity gospel" is a perversion of Christianity. (Don't the
gospels quote Jesus as saying, "Sell all thou hast and give to the
poor"?) Just as the middle ages twisted Christianity into the divine
right of kings, plutocracy has twisted it into the divine right of
billionaires.
Israel's thug chief: Protesting is now illegal so we will continue
breaking up protests, even violently.
Morally, the situation is clear. People have a right to protest, so
they should be allowed to protest as long as they wear masks and keep
well apart. But Israel does not have a written constitution that
could be used to argue legally that the law must not violate people's
constitutional rights.
Deputy Chief Tingirides has set up very successful community policing
in Watts, in Los Angeles.
All thug departments should do what Tingirides is doing in Watts, but
that does not conflict with the goal of defunding. What that means is
to transfer funds to an agency set up to respond to many kinds of
9-1-1 calls by sending people trained for counseling rather than
confronting criminals.
Don't make the mistake of choosing politicians for their physical strength
or the mistake of imagining that recovering from an infection is a test
of physical strength.
The leaders of the Greek right-wing hatred party Golden Dawn have been
convicted of participating in a criminal gang.
Bogus Johnson is trying to take the effective legislative power away
from Parliament and give it to people under the Prime Minister's
command.
The US deportation thugs admit that they acted illegally by deporting
Cesar Marroquín while he was waiting for an immigration hearing.
But that may not enable him to get back.
Intensification of agriculture is pushing global heating.
Thinning some forests in Australia led to worse fires.
It is possible that this was due to other effects of the machines used
to do the thinning.
* The Chinese-backed gold, silver and copper mine [in Papua New
Guinea] risks catastrophic environmental destruction, [UN] special
rapporteurs argue.*
Exxon plans to increase its greenhouse gas emissions by 17%, as of 2025.
That is a plan for mass murder.
Two British PISSI recruits tortured captives using techniques borrowed
from US torture, including waterboarding and "stress positions".
We warned that US torture would inspire revenge torture.
*William Hanage, professor of epidemiology at Harvard, likens the [herd
immunity] strategy to protecting antiques in a house fire by putting
them all in one room, standing guard with a fire extinguisher, but
simultaneously fanning the flames [in the rest of the house].*
Richard Stallman
We're glad to see @RepMarciaFudge in the cabinet, but she
lobbied to be the Ag. secretary
It's insulting that, instead of a progressive black woman,
@JoeBiden & @Transition46 chose Vilsack, who covered up
racial discrimination last time he had the
job.
(I quote that tweet without linking to it, because Twitter is shutting
down the ability to view tweets without running nonfree JS code.
I copied that tweet from an article that I decline to reference
on account of its bigotry in writing "Black" and "white", but the tweet
I've quoted states its main point.)
A closer look at the nation’s 50 worst states.*
Make America a Grave Again.
Similarly, Trumpism adapts the traditional Republican attachment to
individual freedom and mutates it into a darker, Darwinian belief that
the strong individual can and should do whatever they like, and to hell
with the "suckers and losers" who might suffer as a result.