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.
Everyone: call on Israel to lift its ban on foreign journalists in Gaza immediately.
US citizens: call on Bondi to stop the corrupter's DOJ payoff scheme.
Robert Reich: How Zohran Mamdani is an example for Democratic politicians at all levels.
Robert Reich why agreeing to a supposed deal with the cheater is always a delusion: because he will ignore the deal when he feels like it.
A fast heavy rain (half a meter) hit the outskirts of Beijing and forced evacuation of 80,000 people.
I wonder if this will make the government realize that global heating means global disaster, and that there is no time to lose in curbing global greenhouse gas emissions.
More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and [Jailed] for Days.
*Suicides linked to domestic abuse should be investigated as potential homicides, say UK families.*
That makes sense to me.
*Gas flaring created 389m tonnes of [greenhouse gas emissions] last year, report finds. Rules to prevent "enormous waste" of fuel are seen as weak and poorly enforced and firms have little incentive to stop.*
*US wetlands "restored" using treated sewage tainted with forever chemicals.* At last it's not as bad a putting that on farmland as "fertilizer".
Most organisms in wetlands don't live for decades, so they may never accumulate enough of PFAS to do them much harm. But that is no more than a slightly educated guess — I don't know it for a fact.
The shoot-on-sight border line drawn by the Israeli army through Gaza could become a line of annexation.
Scientists are fascinated by the new forest and ponds that exist where the giant reservoir of the Nova Kakhovka dam used to be.
The dam produced renewable electric power for Ukraine, and the reservoir provided water for a significant part of global grain cultivation. The disaster of their destruction contributes to global heating and makes food globally scarce — both kill people.
It is crucial to rebuild the dam.
*Saudi Arabia accused of banning [already punished and gagged] women's rights activists from leaving the country.*
The US repression agencies seek to extend the pervasive surveillance of the Mexican border to cover many more US cities — perhaps all.
*Analysis found that sites previously ranked first can lose up to 79% of traffic if results are displayed below a [so-called] AI Overview.*
The federal government had compelled various US cities to agree to policies to restrain and punish violence by local thugs. The bully has cancelled all the consent decrees, so that the thugs can once again brutalize people as their hearts desire.
*[DOPE] reportedly using [heuristic automated] tool to create "delete list" of federal regulations* — aiming to abolish 50% of all regulations selected (apparently) without investigating their consequences.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate the deportation thugs' illegal arrests of US citizens.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate the bully's ballroom and its funding.
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121 If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose the magat plan to alter the RICO law so it can prosecute political opposition groups.
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121 If you phone, please spread the word!
US residents, and anyone who has recently used a US airport: Thank US airports for rejecting magat propaganda.
If you sign, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to Stop the war-lover from going to war with Venezuela, by supporting bipartisan War Powers Resolution.
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121 If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to put a stop to violent raids by the deportation thugs.
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121 If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: Condemn Vance's hypocrisy about the Young Republicans leaked hate-venting.
For more info about what they said, see this pol note.
By 2060, global heating will make it unsafe for children in most of Japan to play outdoor sports in the summer.
There are countries hotter than Japan, where that may happen some decades sooner. And global heating causes worse problems, such as crop failures and mass hunger.
*[Over 40 million] Americans brace for food stamps to run out.*
*Palestinian factions say they agree to let independent technocrat committee run Gaza.*
This is a concession to Israel, but it does not imply an evil to Palestinians (unlike starvation and bombing). We will see whether this leads Israel to stop those evils.
* Turning to "sycophantic" [bullshit-generator] chatbots for personal advice poses "insidious risks", according to a study showing the technology consistently affirms a user's actions and opinions even when harmful.*
The International Court of Justice has condemned Israel for many violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza.
Is there anything that the UN can do to make Israel heed international humanitarian law?
*[German] Court Rejects [Gaza] Journalist's Case Because He Couldn't Submit an Original Signature from Gaza.*
Several Senate Republicans have joined in rejecting a magat with Nazi leanings for a federal office.
This is positive change, and it suggests that further public pressure could make it easier to defeat them.
The Pentagon's new press corps is filled with conspiracy ideaionists and far-right extremists: the sort of "reporters" who will believe the official bullshit and then go beyond it.
I fear they will make good use of these reporter-allies to pass lies for truth and start wars (perhaps first with Venezuela).
*Wood burners linked to 2,500 deaths a year in the UK, analysis finds.*
Using a wood-burning stove is not a wise idea.
*The EU was complicit in the war in Gaza. [The bully]'s plan can’t be an excuse to dodge responsibility now.*
Humans and their works are cutting elephant migration routes in Africa, leading to death of elephants and humans.
The No Political Enemies Act aims to restrain rogue presidents from persecuting political opposition.
The US is pressuring the UK to use more fossil fuel. And the UK government is eager to do that.
Poland is worried about the low birth rate and population decrease.
Nonviolent population decrease is what the world needs now, but it is a byproduct of painful social problems that cause loneliness and suffering for millions.
Campaigners to strengthen protections for nature in the UK are on the edge of the conceptual mistake of designating parts of nature as "persons".
To protect nature legally from damage by people is very important, but we should reject the idea of "rights" for an entity (such a river, or "nature") that is unable to make decisions.
Every valid right is the right to do something if you want to. To apply the term "rights" to things that society forces on you whether you like it or not is a perversion of the idea of rights.
Io avoid getting caught in that perversion, we should stop calling for "nature" to have "rights". "Rights" with its valid meaning makes sense only for persons, and in limited circumstances for animals for things they are able to decide.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject giving medals to soldiers that massacred Lakotas at Wounded Knee.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*[so-called] AI chatbots give "unreliable and biased" advice to voters, says Dutch watchdog.*
If this were a special problem unique to the Netherlands, it would not be globally significant. But it is a consequence of the nature of bullshit generators.
We can help reduce the impact of this problem by firmly refusing to call them any sort of "intelligence". Please join in!
Robert Reich: The No Kings rallies on October 18 were a great success, with 7 or 8 million participants. What should patriotic Americans do now?
By voting for progressive candidates and spreading the word, we can support freedom, democracy, well-being, and justice for all.
*Ex-police commissioner sues New York City and Eric Adams over alleged NYPD corruption.*
He says that he informed Night-Mayor Adams privately and was then pushed out of the post. *Donlon claims that his efforts to establish internal NYPD oversight were "sabotaged". He gives examples including that his meetings were cancelled, his communications were spied on, he was excluded from decision making, and alleges that his official police commissioner’s stamp was used to forge internal documents.*
*Detection firm finds 82% of herbal remedy books on Amazon ‘likely written’ by [a so-called "AI"].*
One book among those 82%, a bestseller, is labeled with praise from a nonexistent publisher of a nonexistent magazine. How much credence should one give to that book? In that "field", even books written by humans will be full of imaginary facts.
*Pregnant women report medical neglect in [US deportation prisons], rights groups say.*
Interviews with leaders of the organizations behind the No Kings movement.
The corrupter has appointed a new chief regulator for driverless cars, who has a glaring conflict of interest: he was working for Apple, and owns stock in Apple.
I do not call them "self-driving" because many of them sometimes depend on communicating with cloudy servers, so that what becomes of the data it collects about passengers is cloudy too.
The Australian Christian Lobby representative said that if Australia adopts laws against coercive behavior by cults, "legitimate" churches might be found to violate them.
If that happens, what should we make of it?
*EU criticised for pausing sanctions on Israel in response to Trump Gaza efforts.*
In fact, Israel is continuing to bomb Gaza and continuing to restrict food imports. Sanctions on Israel should continue until Israel fully stops its war crimes and some time goes by without any.
460 prominent Jewish figures, including former Israeli officials, Oscar winners, authors and intellectuals have signed an open letter demanding accountability over Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
"We bow our heads in immeasurable sorrow as the evidence accumulates that Israel's actions will be judged to have met the legal definition of genocide," the letter reads.
The wrecker's order designating the nonexistent "Antifa" organization as "terrorist" are meant as a tool to criminalize organizers of nonviolent protests. In particular, this can be done at someone commits violence at a nonviolent protest.
Here is how that order can do practical harm.
Here are details of the actual prosecution.
The US has a long history of using that excuse to frame the organizers of nonviolent protests for left-wing causes. In 1886, persons unknown set off a bomb at a nonviolent labor protest at Chicago's Haymarket. Organizers of the protest were convicted of planting the bomb despite the absence of evidence connecting them to it. Several were executed, and were known in the labor movement as the "Haymarket martyrs".
The bully appointed a revenge operative as US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James. She has challenged in court whether appointment was lawful.
It appears that deportation thugs attacking Chicago change the license plates on their cars every day. The state of Illinois has reminded them that it is a crime to do this.
I wonder whether the hotline for reporting suspected instances of such crime can possibly do any good.
Larry Bushart has been jailed for a month so far, and charged with "Threatening Mass Violence at a School," for posting mockery of Charles Kirk.
A French court ordered TotalEnergies to stop pretending to be aiming to reduce fossil fuel use.
In a French airport jetway this month I saw a series of posters from TotalEnergies which illustrated many kinds of non-fossil-fuel energy sources, as if to distract people from the company's fossil fuel generation by harping on other things the company also does.
*Global use of coal hit record high in 2024.*
Robert Reich on the second age of robber barons.
*NSW prisoners could face harsh penalty for trivial offenses such as "looking untidy" after Labor ignores legal advice.* Even worse, according to the article they could be "convicted" of these "crimes" through a joke of a trial.
In effect, prisons will be converted into bootcamps to condition people into obedient slaves.
China is using Interpol to catch exiled dissidents. Many governments won't bother to check that someone is a dissident rather than a criminal, or may not even care, when under China's economic pressure.
The most horrible thing about the persecutor is that he is making the US take after China.
*Top House Democrats accuse [the corrupter] of illegal scheme to pilfer $230m in taxpayer money. Lawmakers say [the corrupter] as president would decide whether [the corrupter] as claimant be paid for investigations into [the corrupter] as defendant.
Cloudflare is leading a campaign for websites to tell Google they do not permit using their pages to train a bullshit generator. This is to pressure Google Search (and other search engines) to stop displaying bullshit summaries instead of search results about those sites.
I agree that bullshit summaries (as they are now) are a bad thing, partly because they are made by programs which are not intelligent, so they are often confused and misrepresent what the site really says.
In other words, I don't think that training an LLM with the page is doing wrong to anyone. What does wrong to the people who have the web site is showing the public the LLM output instead of search matches in the site.
I have little sympathy for the desire to "monetize" a site, because (1) that word is a sleazy disguised way to talk about charging a fee for access, and (2) paying on the web identifies the user and requires running nonfree software, and I reject both on principle.
I might occasionally be willing to pay for access to a web page if I could do so anonymously without running nonfree software. This could be implemented using GNU Taler. However, this would only be just if it does not include signing agreement to a freedom-trampling set of terms and conditions.
The Department of Homeland Subjugation posted a video clip with blatantly antisemitic lyrics, in August. Extremist supporters of the wrecker began publicizing it with admiration, and recently the DHS deleted it, then absurdly denied that it was antisemitic.
The wrecker's henchmen criticize with false accusations of antisemitism while turning a blind eye to their supporters' real antisemitism. It is clear that their supposed campaign against of antisemitism is a lie.
US citizens: call on your representative and senators to stop the magats' effort to weaponize the IRS — to persecute their political opponents by spurious investigations and accusations.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your representative and senators and call on them to be on guard against any attempt to extend the wireless wiretapping authorization, section 702 of the PAT RIOT Act, and block it.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on senators to protect safe access to mifepristone — don’t let politics override science to impose religious extremism.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code—not trivial, but not hard.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*Palestinian bodies returned by Israel show signs of torture and execution, say doctors.*
Signs that Israel tortures and brainwashes Palestinian prisoners were reported years ago.
Australia accuses chatbot bullshit generators of sending children text that has the effect of bullying them.
To say that X "bullies" Y is a statement about X's intentions. A bullshit generator doesn't understand the text it outputs, and has no intentions, so strictly speaking it can't bully anyone. But it can send someone text that expresses bullying, and if so that can hurt. Perse may even believe that the bullshit generator is judging per. The practical result is the same, but our analysis of the situation should not make that mistake.
*Three UK neo-Nazis jailed for between eight and 11 years over terror plots.*
Summarizimng almost 4000 years of the history of Gaza.
Much of its store of potential archeological knowledge has been churned by bombs falling on the ground.
*Gaza aid still critically scarce, say agencies, as Israel delays convoys.*
HAMAS has mostly carried out the terms it agreed to — failing only to hand over corpses it is unable to find and dig up — but Israel is holding back on both cease fire and aid.
*Revealed: how a Russian fight club expanded into the US with the help of American neo-Nazis.*
*[Actor] Olivia Williams says actors need "nudity rider"-type controls for … body scans [that enable deepfakes].
[She] says performers are regularly pressed to have bodies scanned on set with few rights over how data is used.* Other actors say the pressure to do this is hard to resist.
Global heating seems to be damaging the oceans' photosynthesis, which would mean that the Earth's capacity to deal with CO2 generation would decrease.
In other words, the reduction in CO2 production we would require to curb global heating would be even greater.
Some baby pacifiers (referred to here as "dummies") made in Europe exceed the European legal limit on BPA concentration, although labeled as having no BPA.
*Wealth redistribution is good for growth.*
But even if that were not so, it would be a moral imperative. When you look at the amount economic activity that goes to further enrich the rich, it is clear that we could make do with less GNP if the non-rich are better off as a result.
Amazon Ring cameras will systematically allow many US thug departments to access images of passersby.
This Orwellian system will help find thieves and the (increasingly rare) murderers, but also the increasingly frequent persecuted dissidents.
Global Heating is starting to spiral out of control. Slowly but surely it will grow to the point of disaster unless we eliminate the greenhouse emissions that are forcing the process.
Tipping points are being crossed.
Israel has repeatedly violated the cease-fire, and the violations are increasing.
Firing cannon at a car full of civilians just because it crossed a line on a map is a blatant violation of the rules of war.
Colombian president Alvaro Uribe's conviction was overturned on appeal.
I generally refer to him a "el presidente Horrible" because of his association with the murderous paramilitaries gangs.
*[The corrupted] EPA seeks to weaken scrutiny for some of US’s most toxic chemicals.*
This is a potentially fatal example of plutocracy.
*Welfare cuts have felled rise of far right and [right-wing] populism, top UN expert says.*
*Mosquitoes found in Iceland for first time as climate crisis warms country.*
Some of those mosquito's are likely to spread deadly diseases also formerly unknown in Iceland.
*Can we keep antibiotics working? Yes, but the world needs to follow the EU and the UK.*
Here is a wayback captured link to hud.gov that shows the message currently being displayed on their site due to shutdown.
California has passed a law banning the use of artificial so-called "intelligence" to indirectly coordinate prices between supposedly competing rental companies.
A British city will henceforth charge more for parking an SUV than parking an ordinary car.
I suppose the charge for parking is all that the city government controls. Countries should charge a lot more simply to register or drive an SUV, as an environmental measure and a road safety measure.
Jeep forced a software change into certain cars.
In addition to being unjust, this one was dangerous too.
*Portugal’s parliament has approved a bill banning face veils worn for "gender or religious" reasons in public, in a move seen as targeting Muslim women who wear face coverings.*
This law would be unjust, being an offense against religious freedom, but at least it wouldn't stop people from resisting facial recognition.
(satire) *Zohran Mamdani Refuses To Share Plan For Making Rich Richer.*
The bully pressured world negotiations to cancel the plan to tax shipping for its greenhouse gas emissions.
He seems to be doing everything possible to ensure the worst possible climate disaster, but why? Does he hate the whole world? Is he trying to ensure that the muskrat rules all the survivors? Is he working for Venusians to help them venusform Earth? Or is this simply a matter of "Après moi, le déluge"?
*UN rapporteur: Tech firms and corporations profiting from Israeli "economy of genocide".*
Some authors submitting papers to peer-reviewed journals insert "invisible" text to try to manipulate bullshit generators they suspect (or is it hope?) will be used by reviewers to write the reviews.
Adding such invisible text is dishonest and such authors should be treated as cheaters. For a reviewer to use a bullshit generator to review a paper, instead of thinking about the contents perself, is a little less dishonest, but it is dishonest nonetheless because they don't do the work they say they did. There should be no toleration for this behavior.
How to push for your employer to stop demanding you run nonfree programs.
(satire) *Majority Of Billionaires Consider Selves Middle Class.*
*Israel has violated ceasefire 47 times and killed 38 Palestinians, says Gaza media office, since the weak cease-fire was agreed to.
*These violations have included crimes of direct gunfire against civilians, deliberate shelling and targeting, and the arrest of a number of civilians, reflecting the occupation’s continued policy of aggression despite the declared end of the war.*
Israel says it won't open the Rafah crossing either.
We all know about regulatory capture, but magats are going one step further by explicitly putting representatives of the businesses to be regulated in charge of regulatory agencies.
These heads of agencies have not studied the issues that make the regulation necessary. They only ever learned what will increase the industry's profit.
Iran has declared the non-nuclear agreement terminated, after the US (i.e., the wrecker) blocked the UN from putting it back into effect.
This is a loss for the world, but I can't say it was Iran's fault. It was the wrecker who broke it, and the wrecker who finally ended it.
*Families are going back to Gaza City and surrounds to find their neighborhoods obliterated, with many forced to camp in the ruins.*
*For decades, the military treated [coming climate disaster] as a threat. Now it's backing away from plans to protect people and bases from extreme weather.*
The wrecker is working for the enemy — the fossil fuel companies and their billionaire owners — so he wants the Pentagon and the whole US to surrender to them.
George Monbiot: *Wage war on nature to build new homes: that’s Labour's offer, but it's a con trick.*
England can vastly increase the available housing for non-rich people by taxing mansions that are rarely or never occupied enough to convince rich people it is not desirable to own them. Increasing taxes on mansions that people do live in could help too.
Studies have found that plug-in hybrid cars hardly reduce pollution at all, because they are driven most of the time with fossil fuel.
The French Socialist Party will press for a wealth tax.
Non-Americans who point out the evil things that Charles Kirk did in life are being accused (often falsely) by the US government of "celebrating his death", and their visas are being canceled.
This parallels the repression of people who criticize Kirk's life by their employers.
HAMAS finds it difficult to find and dig up the corpses of hostages who were killed, because they are often covered with rubble. It has recovered and returned 9 of them, as well as one corpse which Israel said wasn't a former hostage. It says the remaining 19 would require special equipment to dig up.
Does any country want to offer that equipment to Gaza? Israel has not offered. This suggests it seeks to cite these difficulties as an excuse for killing more Palestinians.
Forest destruction and CO2 emission from wildfires increased substantially in 2024.
This is part of the predictable road to climate disaster.
MIT and Brown University have rejected the bully's corrupting "compact" whereby they would have given the US government direct control over what can be taught there, and other policies.
Hitler took inspiration from the US system of segregation and racist laws, and sent officials to visit the US and study it. Then he designed antisemitic laws for Germany based on what they learned, with some changes.
The bullshitter claimed personal credit for decades of falling crime rates.
Scientific studies show that laws that banned lead from car fuel and removed it from children's environment were responsible for the decrease in crime in the US since 1990, just as the presence of lead in various places increased crime starting in the 1960s.
Yet another way that the corrupter and his congressional cheaters have undermined the US government: making partisan statements from their official positions.
* Palestine's most popular leader, Marwan Barghouti, was beaten unconscious by [a mob of] Israeli prison guards and his family fears for his life.*
*"Damning" review of anti-black racism within [the UK's Metropolitan Police] "buried" by [that very organization].*
*Nobel Peace Prize winner supports Israel's genocide [and the US push for a right-wing government in] Venezuela.*
Maduro does not respect democracy and I don't support him, but it would be bad to replace him with something worse.
US citizens: tell the self-styled Secretary of War that reporting the news isn't committing a crime, nor attacking the US.
US citizens: call on Congress to oppose the subservience pledges that the bully demands from universities.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*I chaired the US Federal Election Commission. Now there’s no cop on the beat.*
Israel and HAMAS agreed to a cease fire and release of hostages. (I haven't yet seen an email about that.)
HAMAS released the live hostages, but not all the corpses — it seems many corpses have been buried and finding them will take work.
Israel is making that an excuse to punish all the people in Gaza. Cutting off a lot of the promised food and medical aid over old corpses will result in a lot of new Palestinian corpses.
The UK plutocratist parties, Tory and Labour, have cancelled talks by Professor Matthew Agarwala because he is expected to criticize planned expansion of fossil fuel.
*Private equity takeover of hospitals led to rise in Medicare emergency patient deaths, says study
Study found seven more deaths per 10,000 patients in private equity hospitals’ versus non-private equity hospitals.*
The right solution to "private equity" investment companies is by legislation to extend some of the regulations on publicly traded investment companies to cover them too.
A teenage girl asked Charles Kirk, in one of his right-wing events, for advice for her for college for political journalism. He advised her to use college to find a husband.
I've seen this described as "misogyny", but I think that is not exactly the right term. What he expressed on that occasion was not so much hatred of women as contempt and disrespect towards women.
Millions of homes in Britain are in danger of flooding. Some towns may have to be abandoned, but the biggest danger is in large cities.
*Exiled Hong Kong dissidents say they fear UK government plans to restart some extraditions with the city could put them in greater danger, saying Hong Kong authorities will use any pretext to pursue them.*
I am sure they will do that. If the UK wants to extradite murderers and thieves to Hong Kong, it must be very careful to distinguish real murderers and thieves from framed so-called murderers and thieves.
Chosen advisors warn that Britain must insist on building new buildings to new codes so as to cope with 2°C of global heating.
China has recently silenced many feminist political voices.
Magat officials' latest assault on freedom of speech is to deny visiting foreigners the freedom to say that Charles Kirk's death was a good thing.
The First Amendment gives everyone in the US the right to say that someone's death was a good thing. What they do not have is the right to incite violence (fatal or not) against someone.
On today's resistance to bullshit generators and true AI.
Often the crucial issue is to regulate how a business treats customers and workers, and what data it can collect or distribute, rather than the computing it does with them.
It is unfortunate that the article uses "AI" in the usual confused overbroad meaning.
The corrupter converted his donation to Milei's government into an offer of a bribe, by saying that he will reduce it if Milei's party does not win the coming midterm election.
¡Argentinos patriotas, muestren su ofensa a este soborno a ustedes!
Various US news organizations have refused to sign the Pentagon's new restrictions on reporters.
Every country's military planning needs to recognize global heating as a crucial aspect of national security.
How the Republicans are trying to rig the 2026 election by voter suppression.
Magats persuaded Facebook to delete a group that was used for reporting observed attacks by deportation thugs in public.
It is a shame that anyone allows perself to be used by Facebook, but that doesn't excuse political censorship of what people say there, Posting information about what the state is doing to people is part of freedom of speech, and the state has no right to corrupt companies to censor it.
*Judge orders [deportation thugs] in Chicago area to wear body cameras.*
*Indigenous and environmental leaders in [Ecuador] say they are facing a wave of state intimidation ahead of a national referendum next month on whether to rewrite the world’s only constitution that recognizes the rights of nature.*
Queer prisoners in a deportation prison report forced hard labor, sexual abuse and denial of medical treatment.
*While the eyes of the world are on Gaza, Israeli settlers in the West Bank still [attack] with impunity. As the harvest season begins, attacks on Palestinian farmers and their land are spiralling.*
Declaring that people must pretend that a nonviolent protest is terrorism is a major step on the path to full authoritarian repression.
*The right to protest has come under sustained attack in the west, according to a report highlighting the growing criminalisation of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.*
First they came for the Palestinians' supporters, and some people said nothing because they were not Palestinians. And so on. You know how the story continues.
*History shows the crimes of empire were later mirrored on European soil. Dehumanisation and militarised terror both seem normalised now.*It’s clear what Israel’s western-facilitated genocide has done to Gaza. But what has it done to us? Palestinians are the "canaries in a coalmine", the Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada tells me. "We’re screaming of a major warning of what’s about to come your way. When you have a media-political class that’s relishing, delighting in the murder of our children, do you think they’re going to care about yours?"*
A chat log of leaders of Young Republican clubs is full of violent racist and sexist insults, as if they were competing for who could express the most contempt for their "inferiors".
In response, the state Republican Party suspended the club's charter.
It is a pleasant surprise that some Republicans still have the decency to oppose blatant hatred. But I wonder whether the wrecker will drum them out of the party for this.
US citizens: call on Congress to pay furloughed workers — no exceptions, no delays.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to urge per to fight against the repressor's NSPM-7 decree that calls for treating his political opposition and critics as "anti-American" or "terrorists".
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: tell Kristi Noem to stop sending troops and deportation agents to invade American cities.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on Tell Congress: Rein in the Insurrection Act and End Mr UnAmerican's War on American Cities.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on Congress to stop the Paramount-Warner Bros Merger. Don't allow CBS, HBO and CNN to be owned by one giant company that kisses the corrupter's ass.
US citizens: Denounce Republican Attacks on Social Security.
Republicans in the house seem to have concluded that they can't stonewall Democratic demands to restore funds for medical funds for American poor. So they dangled a supposed compromise which is strictly for suckers: vote for the Republicans' cuts now, and they will discuss later whether to restore those funds.
The Democrats were not tempted by this.
This says to me that the Republicans are under pressure to compromise and the Democrats can win.
Richard Stallman will give a talk in Munich, Germany, Tuesday, Oct 21, Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society. The talk is in English, from 18:00 to 20:00, in the Technical University of Munich.
The giant corporation Sysco dominates the food distribution business in the US, and is using this to mistreat truckers and restaurants.
Its success has driven many US restaurants to buy food of lower quality.
I don't see a reason to distinguish between "organic growth" and mergers as paths to over-concentration. Paying attention to that is based on trying to judge over-concentration as "fair" or "unfair", but that judgment is a distraction from the crucial point: over-concentration is very harmful.
We should prevent and eliminate over-concentration in business regardless of how it is or might be created, with the exception of natural monopolies, and those we should restrain by strict regulation.
*High youth death rates [from Alcohol, suicide and injuries] are an "emerging crisis", global health study warns.*
People are learning not to trust the output of bullshit generators. But they need to organize to pressure or require companies to stop pushing bullshit generators on them. Companies including Google and United Airlines have done this.
Starmer Labour is showing off how it abandons environmental protection to smooth the way for all sorts of construction projects.
Musicians are starting to organize boycott of Spotify, mainly about how it doesn't pay most musicians. But they don't seem to recognize the injustice Spotify does to every listener: such as making them identify themselves (by payment systems) and imposing DRM.
I won't submit to those injustices, so I have never used Spotify and never will.
Out, Out Damned Spotify!
The persecutor has a plan to make sure some US student loans can never be forgiven.
Israel demanded that captive Australians who tried to bring desperately needed aid to Gaza sign a sort of confession or they might be imprisoned forever.
This is not as bad as what Israel does to the people of Gaza, but it is despicable. And no one should assign any significance to these confessions when prisoners do sign them.
Prisoners in Alabama, when interviewed for a documentary, supported the official story while they were being filmed. But when not on camera, they told of horrible cruelty.
*Scientists warn US will lose a generation of talent because of [the saboteur in chief's budget] cuts.*
Scientists usually have, within some ranger of issues, a commitment to truth and integrity. The saboteur in chief would rather not inculcate that into young people.
Biologists are advancing fairly fast towards being able to make egg or sperm cells from anyone's tissue. Any two people, of whatever sex and age, could make a fertilized ovum that could potentially develop into a baby.
If one of the parents is female and has a functioning womb, perse could carry the baby. (However, most of those couples would not need this technology to have a baby.) Otherwise, the conceptus would need a surrogate mother if it is to develop.
Those who imagine that these techniques could "reverse population decline" are perhaps not thinking about where so many surrogate mothers would come from. I don't think millions of women would volunteer for this; most who want to bear a baby will prefer to be its genetic mother too. So i fear they would be pressured or coerced into it — for instance, "We will give you permanent residence here if you act as a surrogate mother for the baby of two citizens." Or perhaps people will sentenced to do this. Would right-wing extremist hesitate?
But the idea that we should increase the birth rate is the result of foolish short-termist thinking. A larger population at the time when climate disaster really takes off will probably lead to a more abrupt and deeper disaster, which would leave fewer survivors later, therefore probably with less technology and less remnants of civilization.
Holloman lake in New Mexico has the highest known concentration of PFAS. People hunt ducks there, but they are not safe to eat.
On the mysterious fatal accidents of Tesla cars, which the company releases little data about.
A project to plant over 800,000 trees along a new road in England failed drastically. It is not clear why, but it is clear that the project was done carelessly.
I have to wonder whether the contractor responsible was made to pay damages for this failure. I suspect the answer is no, and that is enough to explain why the project failed, though not in detail.
*"Cruelest forms of torture": freed Palestinians describe horrors of Israeli jail.*
Federal thugs violently arrested TV reporter Debbie Brockman as she was walking to a bus stop, and accused her of throwing things at them.
Apparently she had not actually done that, because they filed no charges.
The greedy privatized UK water companies want the state to charge the public to build unnatural walled reservoirs and give them as a gift to those water companies.
The UK should nationalize those companies, not build assets to inflate their valuation. If indeed those reservoirs need building, the state should own them, and drown the water companies in them.
The wrecker said that Illinois Governor Pritzker should be jailed for "not protecting" deportation thugs.
They are masked and armed, and hardly in danger. The people who need protection are their victims.
That's an instance of the wrecker's usual absurd extreme double-standard premise. He goes beyond denying the truth, by proclaiming an extreme opposite of it. This will fool the people who try to find the truth by looking for the two extremes and taking the average.
The deportation thugs are not merely failing to protect the people who encounter them (including unauthorized immigrants, authorized immigrants, and US citizens), some of them are cruelly attacking innocent people.
*Sierra Club Blasts Report of "Concierge, White Glove Service” for Fossil Fuel Companies.*
That fits with everything the saboteur in chief is saying and doing for them.
A new scheme to borrow money to pay medical bills will make it easy for poor Americans the transition from Medicaid (which Republicans have cut) to unpayable medical debt whose interest will drain them constantly.
Concert tickets have exploded in price for the last few decades. It is a disaster for music.
CBS has appointed a right-wing extremist as head of its news department. This is a declaration of submission to the bully. I expect this to result in blatant bias that shows contempt for the idea of truth, but that is not inevitable. They could make the right-wing bias more subtle instead, to make the bias look "centrist".
Either way, we should not trust it.
*CBS News staffers react to Barri Weiss being named editor-in-chief: "It's utterly depressing."*
Starmer says he is investigating how to punish protests that express hatred of Jews.
He singled out a chant that calls for some analysis: "globalize the intifada". It has a problem but Starmer seems to have misidentified what the problem is. I don't see any antisemitism in that phrase, but it is a dog whistle that hints at support for terrorism.
The word "intifada" means "uprising"; it does not specifically imply terrorism, or violence at all. But we all know that the Palestinian second intifada often used suicide attacks on victims who were not fighting, and that was terrorism. That is what makes the slogan a dog whistle.
To make dog-whistling a crime is dangerous; it could enable all sorts of censorship. But we ought to reject that slogan and its hazy implications.
The vindictiveness of deportation thugs: Kapil Raghu was released from deportation prison after they determined that the bottle labeled "opium" contained perfume, not a drug, but 30 days in prison was not enough persecution to satisfy them.
Kansas has charged a thug with murder for pressing his knee into a handcuffed man's back for 93 seconds.
Kansas is known for right-wing attitudes including cruelty to the weak or outcast, but his shows at least some decrease in its influence.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that practice it. But I make exceptions for some articles because I consider them important — and I present this comment about them.
*[Magat] officials cut nearly $8bn in clean energy projects in Democratic states.*
The fact that they are selecting victims based on political manipulation rather than any sort of national interest demonstrates their corrupt spirit.
*Judge Finds Rubio and Noem Intentionally Targeted Pro-Palestine Activists to Chill Speech.*
He called the wrecker's spade a spade, based on the constitutional principle that freedom of speech applies to non-citizens just as to citizens.
*Gaza flotilla members allege beatings and insults in Israeli [prison]. Some of those held say guns were pointed at them, they were threatened with dogs and deprived of sleep.*
*The producer of a film about medics in Gaza that was dropped by the BBC has accused the corporation of attempting to gag him and others over its decision not to show the documentary..*
Various countries support the bully's peace plan for Gaza but only in the sense that they are willing to start negotiations from there. It has some fundamental problems.
*It starts with Palestine protests. But where will the crackdown on Britain's democratic freedoms end?*
*[Department of Injustice] sues pro-Palestinian activists under law often used to protect abortion clinics.*
In general, to hold a protest at a synagogue against something done by Israel is an instance of trying to hold all Jews responsible for Israel's actions. That is a kind of antisemitism. However, this protest was against an event at that synagogue, and the event participated in expropriation of Palestinian land. It is legitimate to protest that kind of event no matter where it is held.
The rightwing extremists have followed that up with one of their frequent tactics: to start violence and then blame the victims for starting it. Not a new thing, since right-wing extremists generally consider lying legitimate, but now the US government is broadcasting the lie.
Richard Stallman will give a two hour talk in Rome, Italy tomorrow, Monday, Oct 13, starting at 4PM: Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
It will be at:
Sapienza University of Rome
Aula Magna of the Rectorate
Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5
Registration: https://www.di.uniroma1.it/it/distinguished-lectures
*She Sent Money to Family in Gaza. ICE Claimed It’s Evidence She Supports Hamas.*
A senior British journalist who has repeatedly asked leaders of Labour hard questions has been banned from the Labour Party Conference and told he was considered a threat to safety.
Does Starmer-Labour now equate the asking of probing questions to a threat of violence?
The US Energy department has meticulously regulated what its staff may say, so that it cannot even hint at global heating and its effects.
Meanwhile, various shutdown government offices are set with outgoing messages that make a partisan statement blaming Democrats for the shutdown.
On this one and the same issue, magats have applied the Hatch Act to two different situations and drawn opposing conclusions. Why the chasm? I suggest it is based on the partisan design to get advantage for the magats in each case.
The UK has a project to collect lots of information about criminals and crime victims in order to predict who is likely to commit murder.
It will be hard to find a legitimate way to use the results. They are sure to identify a list of "likely" future murderers far larger than the list of real future murders would be if it could be known.
What could the state legitimately do to or with the people on that list? There might be kinds of attention that would help direct them away from committing murders, but identifying them would be easier said than done.
The temptation would be to pre-restrict or pre-punish them, which would be unjust and likely to drive them towards violence.
Every time someone commits murder who is known to the justice system, people say, "Why didn't you stop him?" The reason is, of course, that there are lots of such people, and it is not easy to identify those few who will go that far.
Paul Krugman: US tech billionaires turned to support Republicans in 2024 because they saw that Americans had learned to distrust the uses of computing.
The Americans in question are not aware that these uses of computing deserve distrust because crucial software that deals with users is not under the control of the users. This is because either (1) it is nonfree software or (2) it runs in a server, not in the users computer.
To resist (1), I refuse to run nonfree software (see https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html). To resist (2), I reject SaaSS (see https://gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html).
The deportation thugs are targeting people whose parents were US citizens on military deployment, and some US veterans too.
Naturalized citizens should not be deprived of citizenship except for heinous crimes.
The deportation thugs arrested a US citizen, not saying why, and held him for three days incommunicado without allowing him to talk with a lawyer.
As he put it:
"It doesn't matter if you're an immigrant, it doesn't matter the color of your skin…No one deserves to be treated this way," Retes said, adding, "I hope this never happens to anyone ever again."
*The real goal of "Make America Healthy Again"? >Woo-woo treatments for the rich, shrinking healthcare for the poor.
A new coterie of advisers around RFK Jr is shaping the US’s already exclusionary health system for the worse.*
The slogan could more honestly be, "Make America Hell Again."
*Analysis of 25 years of evidence shows most [carbon offset] schemes are poor quality and fail to lower emissions.*
It has been clear for years that the system encourages "offset" schemes that fail to reliably reduce the total emissions. The system is designed, rather, to facilitate systematic greenwashing.
The scientists who report the study say the world must stop expecting this solution to work.
*Six former US surgeons general warn RFK Jr is "endangering nation’s health"* with his decisions based on medical disinformation.
*Sticks are bad, but sometimes corruption through carrots is worse.* The "compact" that the corrupter in chief is offering to universities would surrender their academic freedom and leave little chance for a court case to restore it.
The Facsist leader is preparing the public for the day he pretends that civil opposition constitutes an "insurrection" and sends troops to crush civil government in some unfortunate city.
The wrecker's activities are likely to be causing various economic problems to increase, but the wrecker is interfering with the systems that in the past used to measure such changes and track them.
The UK government is planning new laws to repress nonviolent protest campaigns with heavier punishment. It stands to reason that thugs will increase the level of unofficial cruelty against nonviolent protesters, too.
More than 40 officials nominated by the planet-roaster in chief have direct connections to fossil fuel business,
US citizens: oppose the "Show-Your-Papers" voter suppression rule.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on your senators to compel FCC Chair Carr to testify now about using the FCC's regulatory power for partisan censorship.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*How the White House used studies with "weak" evidence to tie Tylenol to autism.*
It seems the magats want to replace woke ideas with weak ideas. I think a certain amount of wokeness is valid, but weak ideas, never.
Thugs in Morocco killed protesters who were demanding better education and medical care for the public, instead of spending money on things that don't help the general public.
The history of Gaza aid flotillas since 2008.
*The shutdown fight has finally given Democrats leverage. They should use it.*
The fascist leader did something unusual (for him): he promised the US military would help defend Qatar. This can only be meant to deter Israel from attacking Qatar again.
To deny Israel a free hand in threatening Qatar is a step in the right direction. However, this positive step is small compared with all the harm that he does in the area of foreign policy.
Evidence from a study of many patients suggests that eating ultraprocessed foods correlates with early-onset colon cancer.
*American democracy might not survive another year — is Europe ready for that?*
Al-Shabaab has captured large parts of Somalia.
To understand what that means, imagine if Charles Kirk were leading an army that tries to capture parts of the USA and impose Christian Nationalism.
The bully is trying to put California's national guard on the streets of Portland, Oregon. Governor Newsom of California is suing to block this.
*How a neo-Nazi cell infiltrated a martial arts school in Tennessee.*
*If Europe keeps placating its own far right, how can it possibly stand up to [the far-right bully in the United States]?
The persecutor is firing experienced immigration judges who stick to the legal responsibilities of their job, and recruiting military judges who never learned those responsibilities and bring with them a military idea of "justice."
*The would-be autocrat threatens to cut funds for specific universities unless they sign away freedom of speech and academic freedom.*
US citizens: call on local officials to build clean energy now.
US citizens: call on Big Tech, including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, to cancel all contracts with Israel's government now.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code—not trivial, but not hard.
Scans of the brains of 10,000 children in various US localities found that greater inequality goes with certain differences in their brains.
I would be very surprised if there were only one possible explanation that fits the recorded facts. This experiment may be a key to an important phenomenon, but I expect it will take many more experiments to determine what that phenomenon is.
Meanwhile, we don't need brain scans to observe the harmful effects of inequality on society.
Various local groups are taking power away from HAMAS in parts of Gaza.
HAMAS is a terrorist organization, so ousting it from the position of government of Gaza could be a good thing. But not necessarily.
It is not clear whether they care what happens to the people who live in Gaza, or solely seek to subjugate them in a less ideological way while enriching themselves. If they were offered a deal whereby they would gt rich and move to Qatar, while the rest of the people of Gaza got expelled or slaughtered, would they accept it?
(satire) *Indiana Offers Tax Breaks To Attract Religious Doomsday Cults.*
About Lee Lawrence, who campaigns and teaches cops to avoid making racist mistakes like the one where they shot and paralyzed his mother.
He reports that British thugs are still not held responsible for he damage they do to innocent people after a series of "mistakes".
An Australian billionaire started a Singaporean company with his money to do business in Australia, so that he can use business-supremacy treaties with ISDS clauses to get rights over his business that Australian law does not grant to Australians.
All of these treaties should be wiped out, because they were never anything but a tool for extortion.
The wrecker's peace plan for Gaza is a big step up from what Netanyahu has been trying to impose. Many of the current injustices would end.
But I distrust any activity that is under the control of a lying bully such as the saboteur in chief, and the inclusion of Tony B'liar does not inspire trust either.
*Illinois governor JB Pritzker and others condemn the [fascist leader] for suggesting cities be used as military training grounds.*
He suggested that troops in cities was something worse than training — that it was war against the Americans in those cities.
The bullshitter was compelled to withdraw his untrustworthy nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I expect he will nominate someone who is willing to lie for him but hasn't got a record that screams that perse would lie.
Democrats in Congress refused to cave in to the threat to shut down the government, so Republicans went ahead and shut down the government (aside from the essential agencies that stay open in such situations).
You don't defeat bullies by caving in to their threats. The harm they achieve when you give in is worse than what the threats actually do.
The nastier the bully's threats, the more important it is to resist. Democrats should continue to stand firm.
The bully's henchmen are trying to excuse extrajudicial killings with hand waving about supposed "narco-terrorism". There is no legal validity to that argument.
In Australia, *"nominee companies" – paid to be listed as shareholders on behalf of unnamed investors – could be reducing accountability over financial support of [fossil fuel] industry.*
There is a simple solution: legislate a requirement to identify their shareholders.
Richard Stallman will give a talk in Göteborg on Oct 10, starting at 15:00: Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World.
The address is Batterigatan #2, Göteborg.
Admission is gratis. To register, send email to bahnhofbunker@bahnhof.net or visit bahnhofbunker.se/rsvp.html. The hosts say that the list will not be given to the state.
Right-wingers drooled over President Milei's brutal contempt for the Argentines that were not part of his preferred people. Now that he has collapsed the economy, they are not talking about him much.
The corrupter in chief sent Argentina 20 billion US dollars to slow the collapse. Did Congress approve that?
*Israel's Gaza flotilla interception triggers protests, diplomatic expulsions and calls for strikes.*
The bully arbitrary suspended payment for federally-funded programs in Democratic-controlled states.
The bully is systematically attacking all the rules that was supposed to follow so as to prevent favoritism.
*Report from Scholars at Risk counts some 40 attacks against academic freedom in the US in the first half of 2025.*
For fascists, any institution that is a base for presenting disagreement with fascists is "the enemy within".
New pun. Was removing Britain from the European Union a form of EU-thanasia?
US citizens: call on companies to stop feeding data to Shadowdragon's massive surveillance.
US citizens: call on Congress to stop the persecutor from attacking Americans' freedom of speech and freedom to protest.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject any government funding bill that doesn't address our medical funding crisis or hold the wrecker's officials accountable.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on local officials to build clean energy now.
The Anti-Defamation League used to publish information on a range of forms of potentially dangerous extremism. Right-wing extremism objected to its listing of Charles Kirk's brand of extremism, as well as Christian Nationalism (another Christian hate movement).
The ADL responded by deleting the whole catalog.
The muskrat repeated the usual double standard of right-wing extremists: if you criticize Charles Kirk, they say you're a hate group and advocating murder. If you dehumanize disprivileged minority groups and hint at killing them, they see no wrong in that.
The ADL has been moving closer to right-wing extremism itself, for instance in demonizing people who criticize Israel's massive killing in Gaza as "antisemites". Perhaps its leadership took this as an opportunity to cut itself off from its past.
In Australia, *"nominee companies" — paid to be listed as shareholders on behalf of unnamed investors — could be reducing accountability over financial support of [fossil fuel] industry.*
There is a simple solution: legislate a requirement to identify their shareholders.
A general strike in Italy shut down ports to demand Italy stop cooperating with Israel's assault on Gaza.
*The [bully's henchmen] evidently seek to transform the US military into a partisan tool of the president's regime.* There is no legal validity to that argument.
*Israeli naval forces board pro-Palestinian flotilla 75 miles from Gaza.*
That sounds like international waters.
*A security [(or should we say "murder"?)] contractor serving the Gaza "Humanitarian" Foundation has hired a lobbying firm tied to [the corrupter].*
This sort of corrupt dealing with him has become standard practice ever since he first invited contributions to his inaugural fund, which were, in effect, bribes. Sometimes they are done by settling frivolous lawsuits with a large payment to him.
There are various other methods of labeling so as not to call it "bribe", but they do not really attempt to disguise it.
As Britons considered Starmer's plan for mandatory digital ID cards, they have mostly turned against it.
Hooray!
Now they only need to make sure he can't impose that law against public opposition.
The persecutor's proposed increase in employers' fees to get a visa to hire a foreign worker would make hospitals shut down.
It might be a good idea to ramp up US medical education and teach more Americans to do medical jobs. But such training takes years — it can't happen between now and next year.
To make a success of this, the US would need to increase training capacity and spend years training hundreds of thousands of medical professionals. Then it could reduce the number of work visas granted for foreign medical workers without causing a problem.
One important side point in the bully's proposed peace deal for Gaza is that if HAMAS doesn't agree to it, the plan would encourage support Israel's massive killing practices.
Extending the term "autism" to cover such a range of different syndromes seems to be an overgeneralization.
Australia's offshore immigration prison on Nauru does not give prisoners enough money to buy food. And they face violent persecution by the locals.
*Today, Public Citizen filed against the Small Business Administration (SBA) for a message on its homepage blaming "Senate Democrats" for causing a government shutdown. The complaint alleges this is a violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of taxpayer money for partisan political purposes.*
Global heating is drying up the region of Tehran, and the president of Iran says it must move the capital (which has 10 million inhabitants) to another region.
The article fails to mention global heating and population growth as causes of this problem.
*Scientists say they have shown unambiguously that the numbers of "societally disastrous" wildfires — the ones that hit economies hard and take lives — have increased around the world as global heating bites.*
*Jane Fonda relaunches free speech group backed by her father during the McCarthy era*: The Committee for the First Amendment.
*Veterans react to Hegseth's "insulting" address to generals and admirals.*
The word "insulting" is an understatement. It calls on them to disregard their oath to "defend the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic." In effect, it is a call to treason — a call for US soldiers to redirect their loyalty towards the fascist usurpers.
When I hear the word "chairman" I imagine a lion tamer.
Richard Stallman will give a talk in Helsinki on Oct 9: Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World
It will run 14:00 to 16:00 in Haaga-Helia University in Pasila. Specifically, Ratapihantie 13 Helsinki, in the auditorium on the ground floor.
Admission is gratis and there is no need to register, but you may wish to register to reserve a seat. You can do that through reservations.
The bully-in-chief ordered the Justice Department to prosecute James Comey, former head of the FBI, for investigating the bully's suspected crimes.
Comey said the trial will find him innocent.
*Civilian [nonfatal] injuries in Gaza similar to those of soldiers in war zones, study finds.* Or perhaps they tend to be even worse that injuries of soldiers in other wars.
This could be because Israeli soldiers sometimes specifically aim to cause grave wounds.
The US government has proposed a plan to give Gaza autonomy over a span of five years
I trust Tony B'liar almost as little as I trust the saboteur in chief. A plan with a trustworthy administrator would be much better. At the same time, I think that this plan might lead to a just result if it is properly carried out.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the cheater would carry out this plan honestly. But the same would be true with any conceivable plan. He might sabotage anything he agrees to.
Former French president Sarkozi has been convicted for a corrupt scheme to get campaign funds from then-dictator Ghaddafi of Libya.
How delightfully appropriate. However, the worst thing about Sarkozi, in my view, is not his corruption but his repression of criticism.
Microsoft says it has somehow limited Israel's ability to do mass surveillance storing the data in Microsoft's servers.
If this actually limits Israel's massive surveillance of all Palestinians, that would be a good thing, but I am skeptical that it could really achieves that result. (Can't Israel bypass the limitation?)
And we can hardly rely on powerful companies to restrain the wrongdoing of even more powerful governments. The only way I can think of to restrain this is by designing the systems people use so that they don't lend themselves to massive surveillance.
*US is violating human rights laws by backing fossil fuels, say young activists in new petition [to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights].*
Following the example of Orbán in Hungary, the persecutor has ordered systematic efforts to persecute Soros's Open Society Foundation.
There is no reason to suppose the accusations vaguely stated here have any truth to them, but with so many investigators they will surely find something they can stretch into an excuse to prosecute someone. (It has been said that the average American commits three felonies per day, and if they can't find any real ones, they can invent some.)
UN sanctions against Iran have been reactivated after nuclear negotiations aiming at resolving the dispute failed.
I don't know enough about the cause of the breakdown to assign blame for the failure.
The bully, speaking to the UN, rejected all its positive goals to support rule of the world by raw power, especially that of the rich.
There is no organization in the US that calls itself "Antifa", so the bully's designation of the supposed organization as "terrorist" is an absurd lie.
But there is an informal movement that opposes fascism, and this lie may help the fascist leader use those willing to adopt his lies to put those anti-fascist activists in jail. There is no organization in the US that calls itself "Antifa", but in Austria there was (and maybe still is) the organization Rosa Antifa Wien. It did delightfully funny things to embarrass Austrian fascists. I wonder if it still exists.
Prisoners in a very new privatized deportation prison in California City report a host of forms of mistreatment, some of which could make them sick and occasionally kill them.
As long as the prison guards won't let reporters in to check for themselves, we have every reason to trust the prisoners. On general principles, it is likely that those companies mistreat prisoners because they can increase their profits that way.
*The corrupter is brazenly flaunting his corruption – and getting away with it.*
Part of why he gets away with it is that he is doing other things that damage democracy even more, so we have to give priority to fighting them.
*More than 1.6m sign petition opposing Starmer’s plan for digital ID cards.*
Bravo for Britons, resisting government ID cards. But the petition won't change the plan by itself. They need to organize to pressure MPs to vote it down.
People are supposed to use snoop phones to prove they have ID. What happens to people who don't have one? Aside from people like me who reject them on principle, many Britons are so poor they could hardly afford one.
*Israel's ecocide in Gaza sends this message: even if we stopped dropping bombs, you couldn't live here.*
Putin has cut the external power supply to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The reactors need electric power to remain safe. If the on-site emergency generators break down, that could cause a nuclear disaster.
This seems to be an instance of Putin's insane escalation.
An "AI" tool that supposedly detects sins that students discussing dangerous topics in their high school chat systems is reporting annoying false positives and violating students' privacy.
It may be a type of system that generally qualifies as artificial intelligence, since it seems to learn patterns to recognize, rather than an LLM. But it doesn't really understand the meaning of text in context, so inevitably in makes the mistakes outsiders tend to make.
I suggest that students not use a network run by the school to discuss anything relating to their feelings or heir private lives.
The use of automated pattern matchers to refuse to pay for medical treatments (including surgery) is being extended from private US medical insurance to basic Medicare.
If such systems are trained based on whether the treatment succeeds, so as to approve treatments when they are likely to help and reject them when unlikely, all to optimize the results for the patients, they might be a good thing. But [private medical insurance tends to be profiteering, and that means its main goal is to increase the insurance companies' profits.
Is it wrong to move some old buried bones to build a golf course?
The writer presumes that Europeans would have a taboo against moving the bones of Europeans, but that is not so. In the late 1800s, Paris was running out of space for building because of a plethora of cemeteries. The government collected the bones (mostly anonymous) and assembled them into ossuaries in tunnels under the streets. These are now a tourist attraction. As far as I can see, this did no harm to anyone.
People really matter, but the bones of former people do not.
In my view, humanity loses nothing whatsoever when anonymous remains are moved. But if some are relevant to forensic or archaeological investigation, it is important to label them and record their provenance.
When bones are labeled by gravestones, the value of leaving them in place may be somewhat more important for human knowledge. At least the markers should be recorded for scientific use.
I think the conclusion depends on how important the proposed project is. A golf course is rather unimportant, as projects go.
*[A former lawyer for the president] says president using Comey indictment to conceal being ‘criminal’.*
Eric Adams has dropped out of the New York City mayoral race.
If Sliwa also drops out, this could give Andrew Cuomo (a plutocratist expelled for harassment) the victory. The bully already paid off Adams with a pardon for a crime.
Everyone: call on the Washington Post to rehire the columnist who criticized Kirk.
US citizens: call on Democrats to stand firm against the Republican demands to agree to permanent budget cuts in what should be a "continuing resolution."
Michigan Republicans have proposed to criminalize pornography and the internet publication of pornography. They claim the state has the power to prosecute sites outside of Michigan if people in Michigan use them.
This would imply eliminating the First Amendment freedom of the press, but Republicans are starting to declare war on the First Amendment.
An Oklahoma women's prison is harsh and inflexible to prisoners who are menstruating.
*VA doctors warn cuts, privatization threaten veterans’ [medical treatment].*
Different cuts threaten medical treatment for millions of other Americans.
Opposition leader Ekrem Imamoğlu pleads for help for Turkish democracy.
Scientists warn that ocean acidification is starting to have real effects.
If it goes far enough, it can cause a massive extinction, including corals (and the thousands of species that depend on corals), most mollusks, crustaceans, and more.
*[The US] housing department rolls back work to combat residential segregation, whistleblowers allege.*
Australia's investment in renewable generation avoided a likely 50% increase in the total cost of electricity.
Starmer keeps making the same kind of mistake: sucking up to the powerful and justifying it based on presumed future trickle-down.
First when he stubbornly refused to raise taxes on the wealthiest Britons, and in his deal with US megacorporations, with the corrupter in chief. It's always a delusion, and always folly. Any deal that makes a powerful exploiter more powerful is a step towards subjection.
I regret that the author accepts the term "AI" as a valid description of what those companies plan to do with their data centers. Real AI does exist, for specific narrow areas, but if you lump the bullshit generators in with real AI, you're boosting their marketing campaigns.
Israel is using tunnel archeology to shape the world's picture of the history of Jerusalem.
I worry that the people who run these excavations are intentionally destroying history by discarding evidence that doesn't fit the intended conclusions.
The bully is trying to establish the principle that he can order the imprisonment or killing of anyone anywhere, with no need for any sort of approval or trial.
The US deportation thugs put lots of prisoners in solitary confinement. The average time span of solitary confinement is 38 days.
Solitary Confinement is inhumane, a form of brainwashing. It should never be used at all.
*New age-gating laws aimed at making the internet safer actually threaten free speech.*
The article is a little timid about stating the danger of making non-minors identify themselves. It is not only that age verification sites might fail to keep users' identification data secure; it is that they may be compelled to help a repressive state identify dissidents.
Kimberley Terrell resigned from Tulane University for trying to gag her from publishing research results into the hiring practices of chemical plants in "cancer alley".
The governor of Louisiana thanked the university administration for going against the call of duty to defend those businesses from any consequences that might follow from exposure of their practices.
An Australian thug has been charged for violently injuring nonviolent protester Hannah Thomas.
*Rodrigo Duterte, former Philippines president, charged with crimes against humanity at ICC.*
I called him "President Do-dirty" because of his murderous "war on drugs".
The corrupter in chief arranged an audience of soldiers selected for supporting him politically, for a talk about his politics.
In fact, some soldiers are unhappy with his betrayal of what they agreed to defend.
The UK government has approved expansion of a major London airport: in effect, "We must have growth even if it kills us."
Decisions like this are the inevitable consequence of rejecting to make the rich pay their share of the costs of providing everyone the chance of a good life.
*[The fascist] is waging culture war on Europe by promoting rightwing allies, report finds.*
*Intelligence agencies should report on foreign interests in [environmentalist] "activist groups", Australian coal lobby group argues.*
The truly dangerous international conspiracy, which threatens Australia along with the rest of he world, is that of the planet roasters. That same coal lobby group is part of it. Here it is trying to cover that up by pretending that the defenders of civilization are a threat (or the threat?).
Chimps observed to consume enough alcohol (in fermenting fruits) to make them tipsy every day.
A chimpanzee's weight is around half that of an adult human, so the alcohol in one bottle of beer would, in proportion to body weight, be comparable to two bottles for an adult male human.
I wonder if naturalists have observed any sober chimp societies.
*Brother of Briton jailed in India asks why UK border police are stopping him.*
It looks like the UK is helping to protect Modi. If that is true, the UK should apologize and stop. If not, it he better come clean about the real reason, and stop.
Will the UK impose identification requirements on all users of VPNs, as China does, in the name of controlling minors?
Britons state a range of objections to BeLabour's proposal to introduce a digital ID card. The most powerful reason is the deepest one: that more control of people makes for more state power of repression.
The last attempt to impose a national ID card in Britain was defeated by an organized campaign. Britain needs another campaign now.
*Petra's Bedouin resist [Jordan's] moves to evict them from ancient cave homes. Plans to improve the world heritage site for tourists put its living culture at risk, say locals and campaigners.*
The new party that Jeremy Corbyn and some other leftist members of Parliament want to start is running into a personality conflict.
I find this very disappointing.
Tens of thousands in Brazil demonstrated to oppose a right-wing push to give Bolsonaro amnesty.
Bolsonaro's power-grab was a manifestation of hostility to the ideas of democracy, fairness and human rights. He and his supporters would be eager to try again, if given a chance. Punishing them for those crimes is part of the principle that justice must be visibly done.
The bully's FCC head threatened to prosecute journalists and presenters that criticize him, using the RICO law.
When that law was first adopted, it struck me that the definition of "organized crime" focused more on the "organized" aspect than on the "crime" aspect. So the law created a threat of prosecution of groups of people who work together to do something that isn't a crime in itself. Its safety depended on the integrity of prosecutors and judges. Alas, the would-be king demands loyalty to him, rather than to justice.
*For comedians around the world, the laughs often end as democracy fades.*
*The one thing [the bully] can't take is a joke, especially one at his expense.*
*Robert Reich: lessons from recent events about confronting tyranny.*
A former Republican stalwart says that the party she supported has ceased to exist, replaced by one like the Fascist party her Italian parents fled from.
Companies that aim to make driverless cars also aim to stop sharing the streets with pedestrians.
I have to remark that human drivers in London, including bus drivers, seem to be unwilling to let pedestrians share the streets.
Australia, Britain and Canada have recognized Palestine as a state.
This additional diplomatic pressure is a step in the right direction, but we know that it is not enough to make Netanyahu stop the atrocities and ethnic cleansing, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank.
I suggest that these countries, and others, start by adopting the Gush Shalom boycott of Israel's colonies in the West Bank. This would include requiring exporters label them specifically as "product of Israeli colonies in Palestine", not call them "product of Israel".
*Seven US states and [New York City] have formed the Northeast Public Health Collaborative.* They will do, together, for each other what the federal government used to do for the whole country.
The states are Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
I wonder why Vermont is not included.
Studying the sociological factors that discourage people in England from having children. Some are complex long-term interactions and chains of repercussions.
I am convinced it is a good thing that people have fewer children now, because a smaller population in 20 or 40 years will make the climate crisis at that time less acute. (It is bizarre to see society worry about a shortage of births and a coming shortage of employment at the same time.)
I just wish that the lower birth rate were realized without massive poverty and the suffering it causes.
US citizens: Phone your congresscritter and urge per to support Rep. Ilhan Omar's resolution invoking the War Powers Act to halt the wrecker's undeclared war against Venezuela.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on your state governor to pass a millionaires’ surtax law.
See here for the simple editing steps needed to make this campaign function properly without running nonfree JavaScript. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
You can find your state governor phone number at USA.gov. If you phone, please spread the word!
China has announced a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and says it is already implementing the plan.
This will put the US to shame, just as the US is racing to become as unjust as China in the areas of justice and human rights.
China's announced future greenhouse emissions cuts are not enough to avoid global heating disaster.
However, with world pressure, China might do more cutting. Pressure might make the US join in, too.
Male right-wing high school students have developed a social dynamic to make progressive female students hush up about politics, using hostile jokes.
This is very dangerous because it could effectively impose hateful right-wing ideas on everyone in school, if not countered by progressives.
It might to be useful to suggest that the boys bullying girls this way now might treat you with violent contempt if you get involved with one.
*Image [showing the meaning of] Slavery Ordered Removed from National Parks.* The order was from the bully, who demands that wrongs done by the US, even in the past, be covered up and forgotten.
*Career experts warn of decades of progress lost as [saboteur in chief] fires staff, slashes budgets and buries data.*
US citizens: call on Sinclair to air Jimmy Kimmel Live! on your ABC affiliates.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without javascript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
US citizens: call on your state governor to keep mifepristone legal in your state.
*How the US rightwing is taking over news media and choking press freedom.*
FEMA received calls from people in Texas, shortly after the big flood, that it was unable to answer because of cancellation of call center contracts.
The immediate cause seems to be incompetent management, but a deeper part of the case seems to be the magats' hatred of FEMA and of people who get help from the government and are not rich enough that the government serves them.
Drug companies are planning to stop investing in UK for research (and manufacturing?) because the UK won't pay them as much for drugs as before.
How, I wonder, does the amount of expected decrease in investment compare with the savings in drug spending? I would estimate that the medical savings must be much larger, in order to bring about this decision. If that is so, the government should pay for the research on its own, rather than let drug companies bully them,
So I suspect that the drug companies have brought in an academic to uphold the assumption that drug companies' profits is a more important use of government money than all the other unsatisfied needs.
British lawyer Fahad Ansari says the British government seems to be harassing him on account of the clients he has represented, including trying to breach lawyer-client confidentiality by copying conversations from his phone.
*[Justice] Sotomayor says Americans may not know difference between presidents and kings. … poor quality of civics education may lead to lack of understanding.*
*Actions taken by Robert F Kennedy Jr … have greatly diminished the ability of the US to respond to outbreaks and infectious disease threats, according to recently ousted officials with the [CDC].*
More details.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is slow in releasing an annual data report.
We don't know whether this is because of the crucial staff who have been fired, or because it has orders that override doing its job.
Peter Prinsley is a British MP, a doctor, and a Jew. He tried to visit Israel as part of a parliamentary delegation, and was not admitted.
*Citizen Lab says it found, [in journalists' snoop-phones,] "digital fingerprints" of military-grade spyware [from Paragon Solutions] that Italy has admitted using against activists*
The US border thugs sometimes collect DNA samples of US citizens without legal grounds to do so.
These DNA sequences go into a permanent database.
*ABC ordered to pay Antoinette Lattouf another $150,000 for unlawful termination over Gaza Instagram post.* This is the operation of a system intended to preserve freedom of the press. Under ordinary circumstances, a media outlet would hesitate to fire someone for invalid reasons knowing that it would probably face such a penalty.
But a company faced with enormous threats wielded by fascist officials who demand that certain views be suppressed will treat such penalties as the normal cost of sucking up.
*Dubai presents the hard-right vision of utopia: a place stripped of workers’ protections or the right to protest, a place of pure environmental dereliction, a place where everyone drives everywhere, a place where the queer and the gender-fluid are told from birth that they simply do not exist, a place where citizenship is defined along narrow ethnic lines and everyone else is there on sufferance, where the super-rich and well-connected can simply do and consume as they please. A place where the poor are simply cleared out of sight.*But of course, the poor do exist in Dubai. They live in often squalid camps on the baking peripheries of the city, working long hours for low wages with no protections, indentured if not always by law then by circumstance. Migrant workers form almost 90% of the UAE population, most from south Asia or the Philippines. And unlike the small and gilded class of native Emiratis who enjoy free healthcare and a generous welfare state, they must toil unquestioningly in a system engineered to embed their subservience.*
The persecutor's agents are using an improperly issued subpoena to try to identify the person who published the identity of agents of the secret police, who were marauding near Los Angeles.
Netanyahu is planning for a future in which Israel is economically isolated.
I think that is lunacy — that it will push Israeli business into opposition and that he will lose power. But we can't be certain.
A US government investigation determined that domestic right-wing extremists had committed, since 1990, over 200 violent attacks and killed over 520 people, since 1990. In the same period, left-wing extremists had committed 42 attacks and killed 78 people.
This disagreed with the persecutor's official propaganda line, so the Department of "Justice" deleted it. But it is available on the Internet Archive so you can see the facts that the bully wishes to suppress.
Unofficial political violence seems to be decreasing this year. Maybe the unofficial right-wing thugs have decided that the official masked right-wing thugs are doing enough persecution.
The UK just agreed to a "trade deal" in which computing megacorporations made a "commitment" to invest large sums in the UK, including the construction of hypothetical future small nuclear reactors a decade or two from now.
In effect, the deal gives the UK a promise to implement lots of malicious technology (bullshit generators and computer chips whose instruction sets are secret) along with the risks and wastes of a new type of nuclear reactor (instead of renewable generators).
It is possible that these "commitments" to impose problems will not be carried out.
When a big company makes a "commitment" for future investment, it can break that commitment later after receiving the benefit it already received "in exchange". Corporations have no consciences and are happy to swindle states and their workers if they can't be punished. This is why I proposed that the 50 states should form a union so as to replace their negotiations over tax breaks for "investors" with collective bargaining.
It is not clear to me what benefit the companies are getting in exchange for this "commitment". If it is nothing other than the profit they might later get from these investments, why call it a "deal"?
I suspect that the benefit they got is a change in policies, this year — that the UK government dropped some important objections to some of what the companies plan to do there. If so, they have already received their side of the deal, and if they later invest less than they "promised", it will be impossible to take back what they were given.
*European Commission calls for freezing of free trade with Israel over Gaza.*
It seems there is no guarantee that a majority of EU countries will vote in favor of this.
The Israeli army is attacking Gaza City, apparently trying to force out the million civilians living there.
The army says that HAMAS is using apartment buildings for "surveillance", and has bombed some of those buildings to destroy them. Based on this logic, the army might bomb every tall building in Gaza City with the large bombs that the US is providing.
(satire) *New Uber Feature Allows Women To Request Nonthreatening Eunuch Driver.*
(satire) To make this work, Uber contracted to Google the development of an app to recognize automatically whether a driver is a eunuch. Reports say that it got confused when first used by women drivers, because it had not encountered any in its training.
(serious) Why not to do business with Uber.
The UK has arrested people for projecting large images of the bully and Epstein. This is outrageous censorship.
MSNBC is applying a ridiculously strict standard to staff that post criticizing Charles Kirk for his politics.
I have a suspicion that MSNBC is not applying the same strictness to statements that support the bully. But I don't watch MSNBC (I don't have a cable hookup since they use DRM and track people), so I don't really know.
Does anyone know first hand if this is true?
Psychotherapists are invited to give recordings of therapy sessions to a bullshit generator service to summarize them. They must agree to give the company a "non-exclusive, transferable, assignable, perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide license" to patients’ anonymized therapy sessions.
With so much data to work with, I expect that these recordings will often be deanonymized.
The deportation thugs often find people by subpoenas for data from dis-services that the targets are dependent on. This included graduate students with visas, who were accused of the non-crime of speaking up for Palestinians' lives and rights.
In the early years of the century I learned about the listening and tracking capabilities of portable phones, and concluded people should refuse to carry these surveillance devices. So that's what I have done.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel has published convincing evidence to show that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, and its leaders did that intentionally.
This article goes through the case, describing the kinds of evidence and how they relate to the genocide treaty.
The bully has filed a frivolous lawsuit against the New York Times demanding 16 billion dollars damages for publishing things he did not like.
I say "frivolous" because lawyers say he has no valid grounds and can't win in a fair trial. The point, however, is to ensure it can't be fair.
Do you go to a clinic which urges you to sign up for Mychart? If so, it is already mistreating you by making you run nonfree software. But the developer, Epic, wants to do worse: lead users to sign away their right to sue if Epic misuses or leaks their personal medical data.
The old terms and conditions were already unacceptable in my view, and so was running nonfree software, so I never did sign up. But if you did in the past, this should be the point at which you won't stand for any more.
*Jury finds LA protester not guilty of assaulting border patrol agent.* It seems the jury did not trust the testimony against the protester.
Democrats in Congress have introduced a bill to prohibit giant medical corporations from buying independent clinics.
It ought to prevent mergers too, perhaps by setting a maximum total turnover for any one medical organization.
*Judges rule against Trump administration on deporting Guatemalan [minors] and Venezuelans.*
Using the word "children" to describe the Guatemalans protected by this decision fails to express its full scope. It protects Guatemalan minors who are adolescents as well as Guatemalan minors who are children.
*The American economic system is no longer failing by accident; it is succeeding at its new design: concentrating wealth and power for the few while dismantling the foundations of a dignified life for the many.*
*More than a quarter of a million people displaced from Gaza City in past month, UN figures show.*
This is, in itself, an enormous atrocity.
Here's an example of the messed-up English prose that results when people use plural pronouns for individuals:
They said if they had the opportunity to use their correct pronouns, it would “feel like the first time” they could “properly breathe out” since they had started working at the school.How many individuals or groups are being referred to in that sentence?
I willingly use gender-neutral pronouns to refer to a person of non-binary gender, but I do it with singular gender-neutral pronouns when the referent is one person. They are person (perse for short), per, and pers.
*Rabble-rousing of far-right demagogues is a reminder that the battle for a fair and habitable planet cannot be fought alone.*
An unidentified drone flying near Copenhagen airport compelled it to shut down.
One can suspect it was done by the Putin forces, but that is not certain.
It is legitimate to knock down a drone which is doing that, regardless of who is controlling it. The question is whether there is a safe enough method to use. Could it be possible to develop a net of metal cables to catch a drone in and pull it away? This could be deployed by a heaver and more powerful drone, or drones, that would not have far to travel.
Explaining why evidence argues that acetaminophen (tylenol) does not cause asperger's syndrome, but that rather genes that make women more likely to need a painkiller during pregnancy also make asperger's syndrome a little bit more likely — whether they use acetaminophen or not.
In any case, the effect is so small mdash; 0.2% of the babies they have — that one shouldn't worry about it.
Americans had a moral panic about how the Chinese government could snoop on their private lives through TikTok.
Surveillance of what you watch is a real danger, but if you live in the United States, the biggest surveillance threat is from repressive US politicians. I expect that this deal will enable to get at records of who uses TikTok and what each user watched.
It is as foolish to trust the bullshitter when he talks about medicines as it is when he talks about government policies.
*The consensus is clear: it’s genocide. Now will international law die in Gaza too?* I am sure that is what right-wing dictators hope for. Some don't care particularly about Gaza or Israel, but they want to get rid of anything that might restrain their own violence, regardless of what purpose they do it for.
Republicans are trying to use the killing of Charles Kirk to spread fear of informants. This article compares that with what the Assad dynasty did in Syria.
Robert Reich: A massive boycott of Disney (owner of ABC) and its subsidiary HULU made Disney decide to put Jimmy Kimmel back on TV.
US citizens: call on federal and state officials to shut down the Everglades torture immigration prison.
US citizens: call on Congress to make Israel end the Gaza famine now, by stopping US military aid to Israel.
US citizens: phone your senators and call on them to reject the misnamed "CLARITY Act" and any other bill that would deregulate cryptocurrency businesses.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call on per to oppose the so-called "Modern Worker Empowerment Act", which would "empower" delivery companies workers to be blocked from unionizing.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Universities in various countries are boycotting relations with Israeli academic institutions.
Erdoğan is arresting elected mayors from the CHP opposition party, the one that seriously opposed Erdoğan's authoritarianism. It seems he intends to destroy it.
Erdoğan once started a civil war to discard disappointing election results.
The "victory" gave him a chance to get more votes.
Disinformation with false claims about problems caused by contraceptive pills, and they cause some women to feel these problems. That discourages some women off using them.
I've read that some women do experience unpleasant side effects from contraceptive pills. What to do about that is for them to judge. This is a different issue.
Robert Reich: *Phase 2 of Trump's efforts to eradicate political opposition.*
*For decades, Gulf states have believed that a close relationship with US will guarantee their safety. That is no longer the case.*
This is likely to cost the US dearly in the future, as they will cooperate with the US much less.
I can't omit to mention that those Gulf states do very nasty things — including the persistent, sometimes fatal, exploitation of immigrant workers, some of whom become trapped there. In addition, see /stay-away-countries.html
They are also major contributors to global heating and the developing climate disaster (though the US now contributes more).
*Melbourne’s Royal Children’s hospital (RCH) suddenly cancelled a planned panel discussion on the effects of war on children’s health, just days after its chief executive received a letter alleging the event would pose a risk to Jewish staff and patients.*
I presume that the panel would have mentioned medical effects of war in Gaza as well as other wars, and that the direction accepted the claim that Jews might feel guilt over the attacks of the Israeli army which killed and wounded children.
Should a chance of feeling guilty, perhaps justifiably so, be considered a "risk" in contexts like this? Does the medical community have an obligation to hush up issues which might lead someone to feel guilty?
The events of the war in Gaza do not give anyone a reason to feel guilty simply for being Jewish. Only those who are partly responsible for Israel's bombardment and siege have a reason.
As an Australian judge said, claiming that all Jews are responsible for what Israel does is antisemitism.
If so, the decision represents a moral confusion: the assumption that one must not talk about medicine and war, lest someone feel responsible for the war.
What I said about "cloud computing" in 2008: "Somebody is saying this is inevitable — and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true."
Have you heard businesses claiming recently that some controversial technology is "inevitable"? Hmm.
New York Governor Hochul has endorsed Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City.
This is exciting because Hochul is not in general a progressive champion among Democrats. I did not expert her to support that progressive champion, but I am glad she did.
*Rising Nato military spending to cause huge spike in emissions, report warns.*
This is surely true. The invasion of Ukraine by the Putin forces is also causing a big spike. If Europe reacts strongly enough to make Putin abandon his war of conquest, the emissions can drop again. If the response is too weak to achieve that, the high emissions will continue.
*Elizabeth Warren introduces bill to ban employers from running credit reports in hiring.*
Gaza journalist Anas Zayed Fteiha is suing BILD magazine for libel for claiming that his photos were rigged and that he was working for HAMAS.
Iowa county official Jon Green refused to fly flags at half staff as ordered by the right-wing governor of that state saying *Republican governor failed to issue similar order after other prominent cases of gun violence.*
"I condemn Kirk’s killing, regardless of who pulled the trigger or why," Green, who is a Democrat, wrote. "But I will not grant Johnson county honors to a man who made it his life's mission to denigrate so many of the constituents I have sworn an oath to protect – and who did so much to harm not only the marginalized – but also to degrade the fabric of our body politic."
Utah recently adopted a demand of the right-wing gun nuts: a law to authorize people with a permit to visibly carry guns on college campuses.
Since the permits are rarely actually checked, this means almost anyone can get away with doing it. This clearly aided Kirk's killer.
US citizens: call on the forest Service to defend the roadless rule that protects some forests from logging and mining. What's at stake is not just their ecosystems, but the potentially devastating masses of carbon that they keep out of the atmosphere.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
US citizens: Tell the Supreme Court Racial Profiling is Unconstitutional.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and urge per to stand against the efforts of the repressors to attack freedom of speech.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Israel killed 31 journalists and employees in attacks on newspaper offices in Yemen last week.
*Killing journalists or media workers, even those who have an affiliation to armed groups, is against international humanitarian law unless they directly take part in hostilities.*
US citizens: tell your congresscritter to support the Equal Tax Act, which would block the use of certain tax breaks by the very rich. (The name of the bill can give the wrong idea, but the actual substance is good.)
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious)
US citizens: call on DoorDash to stop lobbying to abolish gig-workers union rights.
I urge people to reject all the food delivery companies, for several reasons.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
Jimmy Kimmel, a TV personality, criticized the bully, so the bully overtly ordered ABC to take his program off the air. ABC quickly obeyed, showing the sort of subservience that makes it useless for the country.
The bully threatened ABC with having the FCC arbitrarily shut it off.
People now call for a boycott of ABC, and Disney which owns it. I am in favor.
I suggest vowing not to watch or listen to any authorized transmissions or authorized copies of anything they originated.
There are broader and deeper reasons to reject them anyway. Authorized copies surely have DRM, which is an injustice.
Authorized platforms mostly identify and track their users, and many impose DRM also.
US citizens: call on Local and state officials to build clean energy.
US citizens: call on Democrats to rally behind Zohran Mamdani for Mayor of NYC.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate, expose and stop the deportation thugs' human trafficking and indefinite jailing of immigrants in foreign prisons now.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Utah's Governor Cox, a Republican, urges Americans to turn away from political violence, and have discussions about the issues of disagreement.
I agree with that stance, but the bully explicitly rejects the idea. He said he *"couldn't care less" about uniting US after Charlie Kirk killing.*
So he will continue his dog whistles to stir up violent right-wing fanaticism. Cox may counteract a fraction of that bad influence, but his own influence is unlikely to overcome it.
Whereas political leaders used to calm the public after assassinations, nowadays antisocial media will magnify the rage.
Around 1950, professors and others were persecuted for alleged Communism. Today's wave of persecution is aimed at supposed antisemitism. UC Berkeley is has given the persecutor's men a list of names of faculty and students that were "investigated".
The gun-promoting policies that Republicans have imposed on the US lead to a lot of death. Ironically, the states with the highest rates of gun killings are Republican.
I don't know what causes what. Perhaps Republican officials fail to discourage gun crime the way Massachusetts Democrats do. Perhaps the same factors that lead to more gun crime also lead to Republican rule.
Perhaps the Republicans talk about "law and order" but their policies produce flaw and disorder. Perhaps their crush-the-poor legislation drives desperate people to turn to gun crime.
It would be useful to know the answers. However, Republicans have blocked the US government from funding research into the how gun crime happens for decades.
*Proton disabled email accounts belonging to journalists reporting on security breaches of various South Korean government computer systems following a complaint by an unspecified cybersecurity agency. After a public outcry, and multiple weeks, the journalists’ accounts were eventually reinstated — but the reporters and editors involved still want answers on how and why Proton decided to shut down the accounts in the first place.*
The Environmental Pollution Agency (EPA) plans to stop reporting current greenhouse gas emissions. What we don't know right away will still hurt us in a few decades.
Part of Australia has imposed very rigid enforcement of seatbelt laws using cameras to watch everyone in every car. This is dangerous — even if the cameras do not recognize people now, they surely could be made to do so at any time.
The software that looks at the cameras is not a bullshit generator. It sounds like true but limited artificial intelligence. It seems they are very accurate at recognizing the distinction they are supposed to determine
I criticize the system for being too rigid.
When I am in a car, normally I firmly insist on wearing my seatbelt. Not because of a law, but because that is normally safer.However, when I traveled long distances sharing a car to science fiction conventions, sharing the driving, I needed to sleep some of the time. I left my seatbelt off, then, so that I could sleep. I think that was safer than going without sleep.
Brian Gavidia, arrested by racial profiling by the deportation thugs in LA. is suing for the racial profiling and the injuries inflicted.
What hospital were you born in? I don't know. Do you?
Bernie Sanders calls for RFK jr to resign after the latter denies that infectious diseases are caused by germs.
Research in detecting submarines, even the stealthiest, threatens to make nuclear submarines (including nuclear missile submarines) useless in a major war. This could make the submarine missile deterrent cease to be stable, and thus increase the temptation for someone to try a nuclear first strike.
That attack would be crazy, since would is likely to cause a nuclear winter that would be catastrophic for all countries. But can we count on future tyrants to recognize this?
Mamdani said that as mayor he would arrest Netanyahu and deliver him to the International Criminal Court, if Netanyahu were to show up in New York City.
Netanyahu deserves to be arrested and sent to the ICC for trial, but given the US's refusal to recognize the ICC, I don't think any mayor of a US city has the authority to arrest people for that cause — especially someone who has, as Netanyahu would have, diplomatic immunity.
Georgia cops' attempt to stretch the law to persecute Cop City protest activists was thrown out by the judge.
The persecutor is trying to take control of the Federal Reserve board through a criminal accusation against a member he wishes he could fire. However, documentary evidence refutes the case he fabricated.
People who express seeing justice in Charles Kirk's death, or just condemn what he did during his life, are facing a wave of repression across the US.
That punishment seems hypocritical to me, given the much worse hatred that Kirk built up and directed at groups the bully declares to be enemies. We see that fascism dictates the groups Americans are welcome to despise, and groups (right-wing extremists) that people are commanded to treat with careful respect.
Various former officials reproach the US government for choosing killing the people in a boat in the Caribbean, in disregard of US law, rather than arresting them and perhaps charging them with crimes (supposing there was evidence they were committing any crimes).
The bully's tariffs caused inflation to rise in August.
I am not a supporter of the free-trade ideology, that gives capital the power to bully and dominate countries that don't bow down and obey. Tariffs can help a country build up its domestic industry, provided they are used in a well-designed plan.
Of course, that is not what the bully did. His goal was to make other countries' governments submit to him.
A suggestion to make it a crime to publish output from an LLM without explicitly labeling it as such.
This could be a good idea, provided it avoids the marketing campaign of calling LLMs "intelligence" and referring to the output as "content" as if that were a sort of commodity.
*Some US senators said that the US is complicit in Israel's ethnic cleansing of Gaza.*
This is clearly true. Ethnic cleansing is the clearest term I know of to describe what Israel is doing to Gaza.
(satire) *Witnesses Assumed Charlie Kirk Shooter Was Just Ordinary Gunman On School Campus.*
Robert Reich: *If it's to have a future, the Democratic Party must not only condemn Trumpism but explain why so many Americans are struggling and provide a credible way for most people to share in the nation's prosperity.*
There is a wave of antisemitism accusations against professors who criticize Israel's injustice toward Palestinians.
The same rules against atrocities that apply to other countries apply to Israel as well, and talking about those atrocities is not antisemitic at all.
Twixt the river and the sea,
Palestine nigh Israel be.
Both in peace, let both be free;
Be lands of democracy.
Arguing that Britain's situation allows it to resist being bullied into surrender to rich lenders.
The article also argues that the Euro and its rules are responsible for France's current mass poverty.
The bully's war on Harvard was proposed decades earlier by a right-wing congresscritter.
The bullshitter hates wind turbines, and promotes a wide range of imaginary reasons to get rid of them. This article checks the facts of them. Some are based on partial truth, but it isn't enough truth to justify rejecting wind power.
He might have some rational reason — rational for him, that is: his fossil-fool backers will make more money if we fail to make and use enough wind power.
The article leaves me wondering whether Britain is painting its wind farm blades black to protect birds, and also whether it is upgrading its electrical grid and battery storage so that it can utilize all the electric energy that its wind farms can generate.
*IDF soldiers deliberately wounding children in Gaza "like a game", says British doctor.* The doctor reached this conclusion in Gaza based on treating many wounded children and noting the day-to-day variation in what kind of wounds were being made that day.
He also reported that many of the patients he operated on later died because they did not get enough food to recover properly.
Would-be Republican candidates demonstrate perverse cruelty to win Republican votes in primary elections.
*Payment platforms [in Australia] [including credit card companies] demand services remove NSFW [games] after open letter from Australian anti-porn group Collective Shout, triggering accusations of censorship
This censorship is one added injustice in an aspect of life that is unjust through and through.
The platforms that were forced to remove some games make users identify themselves and run nonfree software to get games, and track what each person does. They are unjust.
Likewise for the payment platforms — using them to pay online requires running nonfree software, except on a few sites such as fsf.org where we avoid that for moral reasons.
The games themselves are also unjust nonfree software. That applies to all the games there, those that were removed, and those that have not been removed.
They have DRM, too, to prevent forbidden sharing; DRM is unjust.
change.org partakes of the same injustice — one needs to run nonfree software to sign any of its petitions. I've seen petitions there that I agreed with, but I won't sign them that way.
I do not tolerate any of these injustices — I "just say no." As a result, I will never have any of the games from those platforms on my computer.
But even though this new censorship will never affect me directly. I am concerned about it. When censorship is accepted in any area of life, it tends to spread. Some day it may spread to activities which are not inherently unjust. And it illustrates the danger of the design of digital payment system, and of nonfree software that users can't just share with each other.
By the way, where in Australia is NSFW? Has it anything to do with NSW? ;-}.
*Ex-FBI officials sue Kash Patel over claims they were fired for investigating Trump.*
*A new survey of nearly 70,000 college students across the United States has found that a majority oppose allowing speakers with controversial viewpoints, whether liberal or conservative, to speak on their campuses.*
*Anti-Islamic biker gang members hired to run security at controversial Gaza aid sites
More than 10 Infidels MC members deployed to sites run by US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.*
Israel makes no effort to disguise the massacres that are part of the plan for these "humanitarian" activities. It only repeats, in the teeth of the evidence, the claim that they are not. Why would it not hire these gang members?
Various political activists are joined by one Republican senator in condemning the deadly US drone attack on a boat allegedly carrying addictive drugs, calling it "an extrajudicial execution."
This shows what the trance demands — the power to kill at will.
Estimating that Canada's 2023 wildfires killed [around] 82,000 people around the world, including 22,000 in Europe.
It is not easy to determine who was probably killed in by the smoke from those fires. The identification of them is not as direct as determining whether a person was killed by a gunshot. The estimate could easily be off by some percent. Perhaps a more correct statement would be 80,000 plus or minus 5,000. or even plus or minus 10,000.
That wouldn't alter the implications of the result.
Each of the 14 biggest fossil fuel companies has generated enough emissions that it by itself would have caused some fatal heat waves.
This may make it possible so win lawsuits against them for the various forms of damage done by those heat waves — including wrongful death
2/3 of US voters want Congress to put an end to gerrymandering.
Alas, Congress did this once already, in the 1960s, with the Voting Rights Act. The right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court overrode that law, and put the US into the vulnerable state where it is now.
Russia is brainwashing Ukrainians with pre-military "education" which is likely to lead to conscription to fight for Putin.
(Reportedly suicide missions are the usual method of attack against Ukraine; I doubt these conscripted prisoners would be treated better than Russian conscripts.)
Labour promised not to raise taxes on workers and not to raise taxes on the wealthy. An organization of businesses calls for raising taxes on workers.
There's nothing surprising about that — what else would an organization of plutocrats want? What disappoints me is that Labour's leaders don't laugh in their faces.
*Venezuela says none of 11 killed in US boat strike were Tren de Aragua members.*
I would not take those Venezuelan officials' word that they were not criminals, any more than I would take the wrecker's word and his henchmen's word that the were criminals. When we can be sure of is that it was wrong to kill them summarily.
If the US government had evidence that they were smuggling dangerous, addictive drugs, it should have arrested them and given them a fair trial — something it could surely have done.
*Archaeologists scramble to evacuate Gaza artifacts threatened by Israeli [attack].*
RFK Jr's restrictions have created several new obstacles that block many Americans from getting a Covid-19 vaccine shot.
His idea that the vaccine is dangerous is based on imaginary dangers.
Israeli sniper Daniel Raab admitted that he shot and killed Palestinian Salem Doghmosh for no legitimate military justification.
Doghmosh was not fighting and did not seem to have a weapon. He was a noncombatant. The sniper aimed specifically at him and shot to kill. As I understand it, that is a war crime, and it is murder. Morally, no more needs to be said.
There is a peculiar wrinkle. Doghmosh was desperately trying to retrieve his brother's corpse. He and various relatives tried to do this, and were shot one by one because they had crossed a notional line. The line was, in effect, an excuse to kill.
Israel's latest way of hindering negotiations with HAMAS is by terrorist attack against HAMAS officials in Qatar where the negotiations take place.
(satire) *[DOPE] Employees Dig Up Arlington National Cemetery* to collect fees from all those freeloading corpses.
*Fossil-fuel firms receive US subsidies worth $31bn each year, study finds.*
WHO is accepting donations from businesses, some of which are anonymous. This will give businesses corrupt influence over world-wide medical policies.
Israel has ordered all the million Palestinians in Gaza City to leave or be killed.
For many, this will be a death march, an enormous atrocity.
Freedom of speech in the UK is rather limited, in ways that an American (or someone getting accustomed to US standards) can find shocking.
I've noticed the same thing, and not only about the UK. In many other European countries, the idea of freedom of speech is narrow. You can state a range of political opinions, but insulting a person can be a crime. President Sarkozi (recently convicted of corruption) had several people prosecuted for insulting him.
*The president of the European Commission called for sanctions and a partial trade suspension against Israel.
Today's US college students are trapped in a system which automatically forces each student to pay a heavy fee for renting digital textbooks.
These can only be read with nonfree software, which makes them fundamentally unjust. And the rental expires in a year.
I would resent being compelled to pay so much, but the big injustice would lie in running those nonfree programs. A student could perhaps avoid that injustice by photographing all the pages of someone else's copy off a screen.
*Gaza aid flotilla carrying Greta Thunberg reports second drone attack in 24 hours.* This time, the drone attacked with an incendiary bomb that started a fire on the deck on one of the boats trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Reuters has un-published several important news stories in response to pressure from governments. Just recently it deleted a video of a conversation in which Putin and Xi discussed the idea of living 150 years by repeated transplants of various organs.
If your genes are compatible with your country's dictator, better get out before they are wanted.
*Israel's top court says government is not giving Palestinian prisoners enough food.*
If the court sticks to this demand, and protection of other human rights of prisoners, it can reduce the injustice in those prisons. But the most basic an crucial right in connection with prisons is the right to a fair trial, and Israel has explicitly denied that fundamental right.
857 more protesters were arrested in the UK and charged with "supporting Palestine Action".
One supposes that this repressive government will eventually be daunted by the prospect of trying, and then perhaps imprisoning, so many people for a calm, nonviolent protest that most Britons consider normal civic discourse.
Israel's attacks against Iran this year killed 1000 people, but had the beneficial effect of weakening religious repression and replacing religious fervor with a more secular kind of patriotism.
That seems like a change for the better in Iran.
A few months ago, the state was taking out its resentment on the Iranian relatives of staff of the BBC Persian Service. Is it still doing that?
Many right-wing US Christians want to make all students recite the prayers of their version of Christianity, but interfere with any other religion's prayers.
Any system to permit "prayers" in school would be unfair to Secular Humanists and other kinds of Atheists.
The bully ordered removal of a vigil for peace and disarmament that has been kept going since 1981 near the White House.
What would you expect from someone who just announced he would "go to war" against an American city?
Michael Mann and Peter Hotez: *Science is under siege from weaponised disinformation – posing a threat to human civilization.*
*Scotland bans arms companies that supply IDF from receiving financial aid.*
This is a small start, but it is a real start: putting practical pressure on some arms companies not to sell to Israel. It may inspire various countries to take bigger steps.
Comparing LLMs to lead poisoning.
How Slovenia makes child poverty quite rare.
The wasteful practice of "fast fashion" may be fading away. It can't happen too soon! The world needs to pull in its wasteline and avoid the easily avoided consumption.
Ralph Nader: the saboteur in chief persistently acts to harm working Americans. He attacks their wages, their safety on the job, their cost of living, their costs of medical treatment, and their union rights.
*Environment watchdog [of New South Wales] buried report on lead in children's blood to placate mining companies, emails show.*
In this case, the lead did not come from fossil fuels, but rather from a lead mine.
Trumppets in the White House are talking about a plan to expel the Palestinians from Gaza and convert it into a UR colony.
The term "trusteeship" refers to a practice of the United Nations that was supposedly intended to prepare people for independence some day. When the corrupter is the "trustee", it is self-delusion to expect him to carry out promises for the future; he has a history of not paying his debts.
*Israeli military database indicates only a quarter of Gaza [prisoners] are fighters.* *Those jailed include children and elderly people, sick, and disabled people, as well as medical workers, teachers, civil servants, media workers and writers.*
Often they are subject to torture and spirit-crushing deprivation, and if they get out of jail, they are shadows of their former selves.
* The US military's killing of 11 alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers traveling by boat in international waters in the Caribbean is an illegal use of war powers to address what should have been a situation of law enforcement. Unless this dangerous precedent is condemned and curtailed, it will enable US authorities to summarily shoot anyone they choose by simply declaring a "war" against them.*
Night-Mayor Adams has pulled out of the NYC mayoral race, but denies that the corrupter offered him a job in return. Maybe his deal to get a pardon included a lifetime of obedience.
The Kennedy Center, taken over by the corrupter, is having shockingly low attendance figures this fall.
I envision his response in future seasons: scheduling fascist-leaning presentations, selling "big beautiful" tickets with a surcharge of $10 that goes to him personally, and offering some symbolic reward for those who present five used tickets per year.
(satire) *Trump Boys Beg Father To Let Them Keep Homeless Man As Pet.*
California, Oregon and Washington ally on vaccines in rebuke to [sabotaged] CDC.
With a name like "Health Alliance", it ought go beyond access to vaccines. It should undertake to provide useful medical advice for the public — something which used to be the CDC's job.
Bolsonaro's supporters display their disloyalty to their country and its democracy by calling on the would-be dictator of the US to bully Brazil into letting Bolsonaro go unpunished for his attempted coup.
Analysis of fascism: The Complex Relationship Between Fascism and (so-called) "Generative AI".
Please don't feed the "AI" marketing hype campaign by calling those systems "AI". Call them "bullshit generators".
US citizens: call for stopping the persecutor's illegal deportations and renditions to foreign prisons, and freeing Kilmar Abrego from deportation prison.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
This campaign is an unusual kind of letter campaign, in that you can't edit the letter text. I agreed with the short text that was supplied, so I signed. It was addressed to my representative, Ayanna. Pressley, and the two Massachusetts senators.
Bolsonaro and seven of his highest officials have been convicted of trying to launch a coup.
The plan included assassinating the just-reelected former president Lula, and others too. It failed because the army and air force commanders refused to join it.
Bolsonaro's followers are pleasing for the government to pardon him in the name of "peace", but the right-wing supporters of racist nationalism and absolutism never make peace — they never stop scheming and lying to take power.
Since the wrecker became president, he has made a big increase in US greenhouse gas emissions.
This will cost all of civilization dearly.
The deportation thugs raided a Hyundai factory, arrested a Korean worker with a valid work visa, and jailed him. Without ever claiming any violation of its conditions, they ordered him to accept "voluntary" deportation. He accepted it, terrorized into despair.
Based on the corrupter's ways, I speculate that this raid occurred because Hyundai had rejected some demand for a large bribe.
*UN inspectors can resume work at Iran nuclear sites after breakthrough deal.*
Hooray! The persecutor did all he could to destroy the non-nuclear deal with Iran, but he has failed.
(satire) *U.S. Citizenship Test To Include 4-Year Imprisonment Section.*
*South Korean woman who bit off attacker's tongue acquitted after 61 years.*
The intensity of sexism today can be shocking. The intensity of sexism in the past can seem incredible. But it is clear that some right-wing fanatics want to establish comparable sexism now.
Putin attacked Poland with drones launched from Belarus.
*Russia is brazenly provoking the west. Putin must be left in no doubt of the consequences.*
I can't see what Putin hopes to achieve by that. The natural result would be that Polish and NATO forces prepare for war, and that will not be convenient for whatever Putin wants to do. NATO troops might go to Poland to help.
Nothing requires them to be limited to air defense forces. Since Belarus has attacked Poland, it would be legitimate to respond by counterattacking Belarus. Is that a good idea? Do Belarusian troops feel like fighting to maintain the tyrant Lukashenko's rule, or would they eagerly surrender to get rid of him? I don't know.
US citizens: Stop the saboteur in chief from eliminating mail-in voting.
If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: call on congress to save Veterans' medical treatment — Stop VA Privatization.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: demand answers about the terrorist's unauthorized military attack in the Caribbean.
US citizens: call on the DOE to make a coal plant close as scheduled.
US citizens: Submit an official comment Against the EPA's plan to rescind its ability to limit greenhouse gas emissions from any industry and gut vehicle standards needed to fight global heating.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
US citizens: call on Congress to tell RFK jr to resign.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: Tell Costco’s Board of Directors and CEO Ron Vachris: Don’t cave to extremists. Allow your pharmacies to carry mifepristone nationwide now.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
Unicef is running malnutrition treatment in Gaza. In the past 2 weeks, 7,000 additional young children have started treatment.
It is a good surprise that Unicef is able to do this.
Endangered species law in Australia has failed to slow the accelerating destruction of koala habitat.
A new national park may help.
A non-state British inquiry into Britain's conduct towards Israel and its atrocities in Gaza revealed a series of accusations of failing to try to end them, and sometimes assisting them.
*"Landmines have become the greatest protectors": how wildlife is thriving in the Korean DMZ.*
The antivaxxer has "approved" the new versions of Covid-19 vaccines, but most Americans will face regulatory barriers that are likely to be prohibitive.
Military spending (in general) is far less effective at creating jobs than civilian spending (in general).
*Pentagon sending up to 600 military lawyers to serve as immigration judges.*
Hiring more immigration judges is a sensible way to reduce (over time) the number of asylum-seekers waiting for a decision. But I fear that these will be untrained in non-military law, and chosen for right-wing bias.
Bottom-trawling is putting deep-sea sharks in danger of extinction, and sea-bottom mining could finish the job.
Many of these species have never been observed live in their habitat.
* Most alarming are the brazen lies of the likes of [the saboteur in chief], who has called climate science "a giant hoax", "a scam" and "bullshit" [he] and many of his influential supporters in business and politics are well aware of the global heating risks and are responding in a way that suggests they think their best hope for survival is to build up their wealth, consider invading cooler neighboring countries, such as Canada and Greenland, and prepare their doomsday bunkers.*
Fossil fuel lobbyists claim that achieving Australia's greenhouse gas goal would cost half a trillion dollars. I expect that the cost to Australia of global climate disaster would be far more.
No one country can protect itself from global climate disaster by itself. They need to do it together. Australia can't make other countries choose survival. What it needs to do is convince them.
I think that taking the issue seriously in its own actions has a chance of succeeding.
RFK jr may try to cut off availability of mifepristone in the US, using as an excuse an unsubstantiated claim that it is dangerous.
*Airborne particles cause toxic clumps of proteins in brain that are hallmarks of Lewy body dementia, study indicates.*
The saboteur in chief or his henchmen are putting payment finality in danger. With that done, they could threaten to delete funds from organizations' and people's bank accounts arbitrarily.
*Israel committing genocide in Gaza, world’s top [genocide scholars] say.*
The saboteur in chief is making the National Labor Relations Board a no-op by putting magats in charge of it.
*Israeli drones dropped grenades near peacekeepers in south Lebanon, UN says.*
The bully is deporting Russian refugees back to Russia, where Putin is sure to torture them.
No one with a basic awareness of the world political situation could fail to realize that no Russian dissident can be sent to Russia. The people in charge of this must be either ignorant to the point of incompetence, or something much more vicious.
The article says that this began under Biden, although the bully made it worse. It surprises me that Biden did that, and I wonder why.
*Trump cannot use Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans he claims are gang members, [appeals] court rules.*
That law was meant for use in time of war with a foreign country.
The persecutor's henchman *lowers hiring standards and floods social media with [nationalistic], often xenophobic, recruitment posts* for the deportation thugs.
This supports the conclusion that the pattern of extreme cruelty, from abruptly canceling visas to rushed deportation to a foreign torture prison without a hearing to horrible conditions in US deportation prisons, is no accident. It is the magats' intention — a system for instilling hate in their supporters.
Due to global heating, many US schools are sometimes dangerously hot for students, even in periods before and after the summer. Meanwhile, their homes may be even more hot and dangerous.
Professor Elizabeth Weiss fights to prevent a vague escalatory demand to "respect" constantly "sacredness" that threatens to engulf and suffocate parts of anthropology.
Individual religious freedom includes the freedom not to bow to other people's ideas that certain things are "sacred".
In my view, other people's lives are something like sacred, in that we should go to efforts to save their lives. When we die, doctors should use our organs to save other people's lives.
*Blue States That Sued Kept Most CDC Grants, While Red States Feel Brunt of [the inflictor's] Clawbacks.*
This is more evidence for the maxim, "never comply in advance." And never without a fight.
It also shows that magat politicians care nothing for the magats they are taking advantage of. They act like officers in an occupying army. Whether they admit this openly to themselves, I do not know.
The bully's idea of "law and order": if you're in trouble with the law, step right up and order your pardon — and pay him the price.
Watch v=NflcWXdV-B0
The FBI lied when it claimed that one minute of camera footage from just outside of Epstein's cell was mysteriously missing. That video has been released. It is not clear that it reveals anything crucial.
*US Democrats warn that controversial Gaza ["humanitarian" Foundation] may be cover for intelligence operations.*
Australia has punished a lawyer for submitting court papers written by a bullshit generator.
This is wise. The lesson would be taught more effectively if they didn't contradict their point by using the term "artificial intelligence".
*Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi returns to Columbia University: "They have failed to silence me."*
He is a great example of leadership for peace and justice/
* Lawyers for five men deported by the US to Eswatini, formerly [called] Swaziland, said they are being denied proper access to their clients, who they said are being imprisoned illegally.*
*Climate crisis will increase frequency of lightning-sparked wildfires, study finds. These wildfires tend to burn in more remote areas and grow larger faster, posing a higher risk to public safety and health.*
Britons are overloading the jails with protesters for the cops to arrest for "supporting Palestine Action."
The bullshitter is, reportedly, responsible for a false history lesson which shows founding fathers saying things they are not recorded to have said.
Ralph Nader challenges various parts of US society to pick up methods of resistance that they are neglecting to use.
*Pentagon Official: Trump Boat Strike Was a Criminal Attack on Civilians.*
The US and Israel demand to disarm Hezbollah, which might actually happen, but might include peaceful integration of Hezbollah into the Lebanese government.
This is both danger and opportunity. Perhaps Lebanon's civil war could be ended.
The bully's deadly missile attack on a Venezuelan boat accused of carrying drugs violated US law and international law.
The US could legitimately have seized the boat and arrested the crew after searching it for drugs.
I don't know what drugs the boat was carrying, if it was indeed carrying some. Some illegal drugs ought to be legalized, but not addictive opioids.
A museum in Bristol, England, has "returned" artifacts from an Australian aboriginal group.
If this trend continues, museums will have little to show about any past culture except the major civilizations.
And it can't be long before there is a campaign to destroy and censor books that discuss aspects of indigenous cultures that are "supposed" to be sacred and secret.
*Vaping may be causing irreversible harm to [millions of] children's health, doctors say.*
*Former CDC leaders slam RFK Jr for endangering Americans’ health.*
Harms that the use of chatbots can do to society, even if they are free/libre in their implementation.
New pun: 911 caller: A body of water has suddenly appeared in the middle of downtown.
US citizens: Support SB 42, the California Fair Elections Act.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
US citizens: call on Hegseth to cancel the muskrat's chatbot contract.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
US citizens: Stand With FEMA workers suspended by the bully for speaking out.
US citizens: call on Congress to stop the snooper's Palantir broad-spectrum surveillance scheme.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on major league baseball owners to keep deportation thugs out of their stadiums.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
US citizens: call on Congress to keep the DOPE's hands off Social Security.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: Support the Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act.
There were massive rallies for democracy and the right to unionize across the US on September 1, which is Labor Day in the US.
South Australia has banned some kinds of small single-use plastic packages, aiming to reduce total plastic use. It is a small step on a long journey, but it is a good start.
I was given one of the fish-shaped soy sauce containers this summer, and I thought, "How egregiously wasteful — so much plastic to serve so little soy sauce." Since I have soy sauce at home, as well as cutlery and chopsticks, I am trying to learn to ask restaurants not to give me any of those things with a to-go order.
*[Chicago mayor] Brandon Johnson's order directs city police not to collaborate with federal agents in immigration enforcement.*
* Lawyers say arrest of man fighting Bear Gulch fire in Oregon was illegal and demand immediate release from detention.* He was in the process of obtaining a residency permit in a way that eliminates deportation thugs' authority to arrest him.
If journalists feel they have an obligation to report what right-wing officials say about situations like this, they ought to warn the reader that these people make a habit of lying so be skeptical about all they say.
Deportation thugs cancel bail for jailed immigrants after judges order it. This could result in weeks or months more time in jail, motivated by sadism.
A team of scientists is reviving the climate.gov site that the saboteur in chief shut down.
* Therapists say they are seeing negative impacts of people increasingly turning to [bullshit-generator] chatbots for help.*
Calling these things "AI" is a marketing hype campaign. Please stop supporting the hype — reject that term for them!
Don't be defeatist — your refusal won't "change the world" by itself, but it will contribute. Your objections to the use of that misleading term can influence others.
Australian governments are allowing themselves to be thwarted too easily by self-declared "sovereign citizens", and this harms public safety.
A refugee from Turkey, who is an Atheist and not ethnically Turkish, was convicted of harassment in the form of burning a Qur'an. He will appeal the conviction.
The case is subtle because the judge ruled that some details of his other statement implied an attack on Muslims rather than criticism of Islam (burning a Qur'an is lawful to express that).
I think it is proper to make this sort of distinction, but lacking the details, I am unable to have an opinion about where the line was drawn in this case.
When a law against harassment is interpreted to ban one man burning a religious "holy book" lest believers feel offended, it becomes hard to distinguish from a law against blasphemy.
To keep those two things clearly distinguished, our criterion for harassment must require somewhat more than one person's anger at per own persecution by believers.
*[The voter suppressor] says he plans unconstitutional executive order to mandate ID for voters.*
It is clear this is unconstitutional, so what could be his motive for doing it? I see some possibilities.
Humans are predisposed to attribute feelings and intentions to almost anything, even things much stupider than a chatbot.
It is possible that some day we will discover how to build systems that can understand, suffer, and have desires. Today's bullshit-generators are far from having such capabilities, but every time someone calls them "artificial intelligence" it promotes the belief that they already do.
An anti-vaxxer, who has been put in charge of US vaccine regulation as head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), demands the deletion of videos he posted several years ago. Maybe he finds them embarrassing now.
A doctor documenting the past statements of the anti-science campaigners re-posted them on youtube. Now they are inaccessible.
I consider this a kind of censorship of important public discourse.
The UK plans to shift rail travelers into a ticketing system based on GPS. That would increase the surveillance of everyone's movements.
Eventually they might eliminate the possibility of buying a paper ticket with cash.
British train tickets were simple enough before privatization. In effect, this system is a surveillance-based solution to a problem whose full solution is to nationalize the trains.
The US is punishing the Palestinian Authority by blocking some of its delegates to the UN General Assembly meeting.
The US, as the host of the UN General Assembly, promised to allow other countries' representatives to attend meetings.
A new form of payday loan company is the next step in developing loan dependency.
One of the reasons to pay cash is that cash helps people avoid overspending and avoid getting in disastrous debt.
*[The perverter] says he will award Rudy Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom.*
And, to himself, the Presidential Medal of Evil.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to reject the law that the persecutor demands, that would allow permanent occupation of US cities.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call on per to vote to impeach antivaxxer RFK Jr to remove him as head of the department of Health and Human Services.
In firing Susan Monarez as head of the CDC, the death-spreader fully endorsed JFK Jr's perverse attack on scientific medicine, and specifically on one of its most effective methods of preventing disease.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call for ending the persecutor's illegal deportations, including those to El Salvador' torture prison and those to South Sudan.
The bully claims to have fired one of the directors of the Federal Reserve, specifically Lisa Cook. Presidents are not supposed to have the power to do that. She is suing to block the effort.
Indonesian president Prabowo is increasing the influence of the military in civilian life — recruiting large numbers of "military" personnel to do civilian jobs such as farming.
He claims Indonesia needs a larger army, but why would that be? Unless Indonesia and China head into a confrontation, which does not seem to be developing, I see no reason why a larger army would be needed. Supposing it ever is someday needed, "military" battalions for agriculture, pharmaceutical production and conversion of plantations will not be of much help in a war.
The deportation thugs said they would deport Kilmar Ábrego a second time, again with no hearing. A US court ordered them not to do this.
Will they heed the court?
Ukraine's long-distance drone attacks have damaged oil refining in Russia and created a shortage of gasoline.
The Putin forces still have all the fuel they want. But if Ukraine keeps up the campaign, eventually they may not have enough.
The cruel and authoritarian president of Argentina now has a corruption scandal: his sister, who works closely with him, is accused of systematically demanding bribes.
It is natural that an authoritarian ruler who has contempt for other people's rights spreads corruption. They believe they are entitled to this. Recall how, in the US, the corrupter turned his inauguration into an opportunity to buy his favor.
*Gaza famine likely to worsen as Israel ends pauses for aid deliveries in capital (and starts the proclaimed expulsion of all inhabitants from Gaza City).*
One Democratic congresscritter has sworn off AIPAC funds under political pressure.
She is a soi-disant "moderate" Democrat, which means plutocratist rather than progressive. That is disappointing but much less bad than a magat. Her rejection of AIPAC is a sign of progress.
Everyone wake up, and recognize that the president of the US is trying to become a dictator.
*US air force to grant military honors to Capitol rioter fatally shot on January 6.*
In effect, the US military has declared war against the United States Constitution. Every member of the US military should think about per oath to defend the constitution from all enemies, foreign or domestic, about who its domestic enemies are, and about what it means to keep that oath today.
One of Earth's principal ocean circulation systems, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, is slowing down so much that it might flip the circulation system into a different mode in which that system hardly flows at all.
That would make Europe cold and dry, devastating agriculture there. I think it could mean the death of millions in Europe.
Whether any part of Earth would benefit from this change, I don't know.
UK, Germany and France demand Iran permit more inspection of its uranium refining system, to verify it is not making bomb material.
If Iran does not comply, they will impose broad trade sanctions.
An Australian whistleblower was spared prison at the end of a trial, 7 years after telling the public that the agency was rushing to seize money from small businesses, going too fast for them to file a counterargument.
Deportation thugs are quietly getting asylum cases dismissed before a scheduled hearing so they can use the canceled hearing as bait to arrest the asylum seeker.
This is a method of establishing gratuitous cruelty as normal behavior for the US government, and eliminating the idea that the state should avoid cruelty even to those it should punish.
The article omits to address an important point: who dismisses these asylum cases, what grounds are given for doing so, and who evaluates those grounds? Are these dismissals violating the right to due process, or do they satisfy it? I wouldn't expect the bully to wake up his cryogenically suspended conscience about this, but I would like to know whether this does violate it.
Lawyers for Palestine Action in Britain accuse the minister of security of using dirty publicity tricks to smear their client, seeking to influence the result of their appeal.
To label any organization as "terrorist" without a fair trial is fundamentally unjust. It seems to punish what may potentially thousands of people, based on grounds that are deemed insufficient to convict anyone of any other crime.
Whether a group's actions constitute terrorism must be decided in court, respecting the rights of those accused in the usual way.
Many countries have established ecocide as a crime, and others are planning to do so.
I am in favor of this. Declaring ecosystems to be "persons" is an absurdity, but fortunately we can protect them legally without being absurd.
A lesson for all of us, and especially for the worst enemies of the US constitution: What Is Due Process?
*Social Security official alleges that [the muskrat's DOPE] uploaded personal data of hundreds of millions of Americans to vulnerable [cloudy computer],*
Apparently DOPE now stands for Department of Perverse Errors.
*Mexico steps into unknown with world’s first popular election of all judges: "A blind date with democracy". Critics warn the experiment will lead to low turnout, a political power grab and infiltration by organized crime.*
I've heard accusations that he practice of electing judges in some US states has given rich people and companies a lot of influence in who gets elected judge, and that the result is that those rich people and companies get away with mistreating the public. I don't have any proof of this or any references.
*Deforestation has killed half a million people in past 20 years, counting only deaths from increased local temperature in the areas deforested.
US citizens: call on Congress to extend the ACA (Obamacare) Premium Tax Credits.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on the Democratic National Committee to pass Resolution #18, which would endorse ending US weapons exports to Israel.
US citizens: call on Congress to stop the fascist from making himself an autocrat.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to pressure Israel the Gaza famine by stopping U.S. military aid to Israel now.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: Tell the would-be dictator that we don't want a dictator.
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