2015: November - February Political Notes - Richard Stallman

2015: November - February Political Notes - Richard Stallman
RSS site feed
Richard Stallman's personal political notes from 2015: November - February
These are my personal opinions and do not speak for the GNU Project, the FSF, or anyone else.
2025: November - February
2025: July - October
2025: March - June
2024: November - February
2024: July - October
2024: March - June
2023: November - February
2023: July - October
2023: March - June
2022: November - February
2022: July - October
2022: March - June
2021: November - February
2021: July - October
2021: March - June
2020: November - February
2020: July - October
2020: March - June
2019: November - February
2019: July - October
2019: March - June
2018: November - February
2018: July - October
2018: March - June
2017: November - February
2017: July - October
2017: March - June
2016: November - February
2016: July - October
2016: March - June
2015: November - February |
2015: July - October
2015: March - June
2014: November - February
2014: July - October
2014: March - June
2013: November - February
2013: July - October
2013: March - June
2012: November - February
2012: July - October
2012: March - June
2011: November - February
2011: July - October
2011: March - June
2010: November - February
2010: July - October
2010: March - June
2009: November - February
2009: July - October
2009: March - June
2008: November - February
2008: July - October
2008: March - June
2007: November - February
2007: July - October
2007: March - June
2006: November - February
2006: July - October
2006: March - June
2005: November - February
2005: July - October
2005: March - June
2004: November - February
2004: July - October
2004: March - June
2003: November - February
2003: July - October
2003: March - June
2002
2001
2000
Archive index
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.
Link Policy
Glossary
29 February 2016 (
Urgent: Thank the FCC
US citizens:
Thank the FCC
for adopting network neutrality.
29 February 2016 (
Many sites block visitors that use Tor
Many web sites
block
or harass visitors that use Tor
What the article does not mention is that the CAPTCHAs typically
operate through nonfree Javascript code. We who refuse to run nonfree
Javascript code simply can't access these sites.
29 February 2016 (
Mining and violence
Around the world,
mining
is associated with violence
. (And often pollution too.)
29 February 2016 (
Deaths in Syria sieges
Thousands
May Have Died
in Syria Sieges, UN Human Rights Chief Says.
29 February 2016 (
Proposal to mobilize US economy
Sanders proposes to
mobilize
the US economy for growth
, so establishment-supporting economists
and media claim it won't work, without really studying it.
29 February 2016 (
Apple court order
FBI Says Apple Court Order Is Narrow, But
Other
Law Enforcers Hungry to Exploit It
What would
thugs
do, if not lie?
29 February 2016 (
Repression of prostitutes in Indonesia
Indonesia is
imposing
harsh repression
on prostitutes.
They will still work as prostitutes but it will be more dangerous for
them.
29 February 2016 (
The right to death
On watching one's father die in useless and terrible suffering;
doctors were
not
allowed to give him enough morphine to end the pain
(and with it
his life) although he begged for that.
29 February 2016 (
Trump and David Duke
In 2000, Trump knew who David Duke was, enough to refuse to be
associated politically with him. Now he
pleads
ignorance of Duke as an excuse not to reject his support
29 February 2016 (
Urgent: Contraceptive aid
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to approve contraceptive aid for regions affected by
Zika.
29 February 2016 (
Scalia
Scalia
did
grave damage to American workers and consumers
by allowing
companies to impose arbitration requirements on them, thus denying
them the right to go to court when mistreated.
29 February 2016 (
Student prosecuted for insulting Tories
Charges
have been dropped
against a UK student who was prosecuted for an
insult against Tories.
Bravo to anyone that insults Tories, but Aneurin Bevan expressed it
much more clearly. The Tories are lower than vermin.
29 February 2016 (
Forest-cutting in Australia
Australia is allowing so much forest-cutting that it
will
bust its climate target
29 February 2016 (
Religion-motivated discrimination
Republicans in Georgia
want
to legalize religion-motivated discrimination
against same-sex
couple.
29 February 2016 (
Cease fire in Syria
The cease fire in Syria is mostly holding, but
Assad's
side carried out some air strikes
. Perhaps they were directed at
al-Nusra or
PISSI
29 February 2016 (
Trump's tax returns
Some questions that
Trump's
tax returns
would answer.
29 February 2016 (
UK MP arrested by Turkish soldiers
A UK MP visiting southeast Turkey was arrested by soldiers for
making
a recording of the sounds of Turkish tanks firing on Kurds
29 February 2016 (
Noncompete agreements
Many US companies impose noncompete agreements on lots of employees
just because they can — so these employees,
if
laid off, can't work anywhere
The fact that most of these contracts would not be enforced by a court
does not stop them from doing harm. If it were up to me, I would
penalize companies for asking employees to sign them, outside some
narrow cases.
29 February 2016 (
Supposedly "left-leaning" economists
Supposedly "left-leaning" economists are
supporting
the establishment
in criticizing Sanders' economic plans.
29 February 2016 (
Regulations for undersea fracking
The US
proposes
very light regulations
for undersea fracking.
Do we have to risk learning the hard way?
29 February 2016 (
Support for solar power in Nevada
The people of Nevada are organizing strongly to
reverse
the decision to remove support for individuals to install solar
power
If we taxed carbon emissions enough, and eliminated subsidies for
fossil fuels, specific policies to encourage solar power would not be
needed. Simply avoiding the cost of fossil fuel would be enough
incentive for people to switch.
29 February 2016 (
Control of people through the media
China's rulers admit that, now that they can't please the people with
fast growth, they depend more on
control
of the people through the media
29 February 2016 (
Science
More Than Ever,
Science
Must Be Central to All Our Lives
28 February 2016 (
Urgent: The people's vote
US citizens:
call
on Democratic superdelegates
to follow the people's vote.
28 February 2016 (
The South Carolina primary
Clinton won the
South
Carolina primary
However, Sanders leads nationwide and can still win the nomination.
28 February 2016 (
False Benefit Fraud Allegations
People in the UK have reported around a million cases of alleged
benefit fraud, but only 15% of them were real fraud. The other
85%
of those accused were honest
28 February 2016 (
Surveillance cameras in nursing homes
Putting surveillance cameras in nursing homes
would
violate the privacy of the people living there
One possible trade-off is to install security cameras instead of
surveillance cameras. The difference is that a surveillance camera
can be watched remotely, while a security camera makes only a local
recording that is overwritten in a short time. The security camera
would deter abuses while not lending itself to watching everyone.
I believe that
only
security cameras, not surveillance cameras, should be allowed pointing
at places where the public is admitted
, with exceptions allowed
only under court orders for a specific place and time period.
As for nursing homes, they could install security cameras in the rooms
of those patients that request them.
28 February 2016 (
Urgent: Make Nestle pay to use water
Everyone:
call for making
Nestle pay
to use Lake Michigan water.
28 February 2016 (
Urgent: Support climate resolution
US citizens:
support
the Congressional Progressive Caucus climate resolution.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
28 February 2016 (
Urgent: Take stand on Israel's colonies
US citizens:
support
the US government stand
that Israel's colonies in Palestine are
not part of Israel.
28 February 2016 (
Protest rally in Poland
Anti-Government Protesters
Rally
for 'Free And Open Poland'
28 February 2016 (
Getting a fair trial in the UK
In the UK,
protesters
must now damage property
in order to get a fair trial.
28 February 2016 (
Offending religious feelings
Dalits worship a "demon" that in mythology was killed by the goddess
Durga. They believe he was a king that challenged the dominance of
the caste system. Jawaharlal Nehru University uses this feast day as
an occasion for political debates about caste, for which it
faces
prosecution for offending the religious feelings of higher caste
Indians that worship Durga
I suppose they offend the religious feelings of Dalits, reciprocally,
but they won't be prosecuted for that.
Religious freedom means that people are free to hold any views in the
area of religion, and freedom of speech means they are free to
praise or condemn any religion.
28 February 2016 (
Republicans want to punish single mothers
Republicans in Illinois
want
to exclude children of single mothers permanently from school and
employment, as well as state aid
, if the mother does not (or
cannot) name the father, or find some substitute.
I think the state should offer a gratis abortion to any woman
in that situation.
28 February 2016 (
Extreme right-wing budget cuts
A right-wing think tank is demanding budget cuts
so
extreme that even Paul Ryan doesn't dare endorse them
28 February 2016 (
Thugs kill emergency room patient
Joyce Curnell went to the emergency room, but the hospital informed
the local
thugs
that she was wanted for not paying debts. They took
her to debtor's prison, and the
thugs
killed
her there by denying her water and medical care
28 February 2016 (
US film and TV industry subsidized
The film and TV industry in the US gets big subsidies, which is a
waste
of our money
. The same companies then
turn
around and buy government support for unjust copyright laws
such
as the DMCA.
28 February 2016 (
Right-wing presuppositions in debate questions
Democratic debate moderators from PBS posed
questions
with right-wing presuppositions
The US right wing is not grateful for this support; rather, it
continues to condemn PBS as "liberal" no matter how reactionary it
gets. This is part of its long-term strategy to fool Americans into
considering all views but the most extreme reactionarism as "leftist
extremism".
The support for Sanders shows that many Americans are starting to
recognize this lie.
28 February 2016 (
Plutocrats realize Sanders may become president
Plutocrats in the US and the EU will try to get This Treaty Is
Plutocratic finished
in
time for Obama to sign it
They realize that the next president may be Sanders.
28 February 2016 (
Former NAACP president supports Sanders
Benjamin Todd Jealous, former president of the NAACP, says
why
he supports Sanders
rather than Clinton.
28 February 2016 (
Bill slashes wildlife protections
U.S. House of Representatives Approves Bill
Slashing
Wildlife Protections
. The victims of this SCROTUS initiative
would include wolves in the US and elephants in Africa.
SCROTUS
= Sleazy Congressional Republicans Of The United States.
28 February 2016 (
No usable scandals in NOAA email batch
After finding no usable scandals in one batch of NOAA emails,
denialist Lamar Smith has
demanded
a lot more NOAA emails to try to manipulate
28 February 2016 (
Computational idea patents
Two of the computational idea patents Apple used to attack Samsung
have been
invalidated
by a court
That's a victory for software freedom, but an limited and extremely
expensive one. We need to protect software from all patents on
computational ideas, all at once.
These patents are often called "software patents", but that term gives
the wrong idea of what such patents do. A patent is never associated
with any specific code. Rather, it is a
monopoly
on implementing some specific, stated idea
& in these cases, a
computational idea. Any code which implements the patented idea, or
any hardware which does, can be the basis for a lawsuit.
Another solution I've proposed is to
legislate
that software is exempt from patent law
This illustrates the error of focusing on "patent trolls" and ignoring
other patent aggressors. Apple is the biggest patent aggressor in the
software field, and we can hardly call it a patent
troll
. Its
products are
full
of proprietary software
with
malicious
functionalities
, but they are certainly a real business.
28 February 2016 (
AT&T pays legislators to approve bill
AT&T gave
62
thousand dollars
to Missouri state legislators to get a committee
to approve a bill to block municipal internet access in that state.
Even if they have to pay 10 times as much to get the whole legislature
to approve the bill, AT&T will get tremendous return on investment.
28 February 2016 (
Schoolchildren face felony charges
Two Florida schoolchildren face
felony
charges
for putting red pepper in a teacher's soda.
The school should punish them, but taking it to court is incompetence
on the school's part.
I reject the practice of calling teenagers "children" merely because
they are minors, but these are 12 years old, not even teenagers.
They really are children.
28 February 2016 (
Scalia's worth to corporate America
"Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was
worth
billions of dollars to corporate America
," extrapolating from
evidence that his death has denied them the chance to make off with
billions more.
28 February 2016 (
Overuse of antibiotics
An
E.Coli's Last Message to President Obama
28 February 2016 (
Growing marijuana indoors
Growing marijuana indoors
uses
up lots of electricity
Why grow marijuana indoors? Because it's illegal. Even were it is
legal, they still grow it indoors because they invested so much effort
in learning to grow a good crop indoors. But legalization will change
that over time, even if not instantly.
28 February 2016 (
Abuse of power by thugs
Baltimore
thugs
shot Keith Davis, apparently having mistaken him for
the robber of a taxi, then
went
all-out to frame him for that robbery
. They failed.
Will those involved in the frame-up be prosecuted for this abuse of
power?
27 February 2016 (
Whistleblowers Challenge Candidates
Whistleblowers Challenge Candidates:
Stand
Against Wall Street Fraud
27 February 2016 (
Urgent: Action against men that murder
Everyone:
call
on Obama
to endorse world-wide action against the men that murder
their daughters or sisters.
27 February 2016 (
Urgent: Protect survivors of massacre
Everyone:
call
on Indonesian President Widodo
to protect the survivors of the
1966 massacre and give them justice.
27 February 2016 (
Urgent: Block Alberta Clipper pipeline
US citizens:
call
on Kerry
to block the Alberta Clipper pipeline.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
27 February 2016 (
Rebel Girl or Super Predator?
So Which Clinton Is It Today:
Rebel
Girl or Super Predator
27 February 2016 (
Getting rich from public schools
How to Get Rich From Public Schools
Without
Actually Educating
).
27 February 2016 (
Illness caused by injustices
For 70 years, a study has tracked the medical history of everyone born
in Britain during one week. It has uncovered a
series
of injustices that systematically caused avoidable illness
, and some
were corrected, before the UK fell to the plutocrats.
I think the Tories will end this story before it shows any more about
what the state ought to
do
27 February 2016 (
Reducing poaching
A team of local women has had
great
success
in reducing poaching in one region of South Africa.
More money and more political will would do a lot of good in inspiring
such teams. Pay alone won't do it, but these efforts cost money.
27 February 2016 (
Seaworld employee tries to provoke violence
Seaworld sent an employee to infiltrate PETA, where he
tried
to provoke them into violence
It seems to me that a fraudulent attempt to lead others into crime (so
as to prosecute them) should itself be a crime.
27 February 2016 (
Tax avoidance treaties
The wealthy countries
imposed
tax avoidance treaties decades ago
, through which multinational
companies pay poor countries hardly any tax.
27 February 2016 (
FBI trying to break computer security
Since the FBI knows it can't ban or break encryption, it is now
trying
every possible method to break computer security in general
27 February 2016 (
Trump wants expanded libel laws
Trump proposes to
quash
press criticism
with expanded libel laws.
27 February 2016 (
UAE prison torture
UAE
Beat
Foreign Prisoners And Gave Them Electric Shocks
No wonder it is a US ally.
27 February 2016 (
Gov. Snyder
Some of Gov. Snyder's top advisers called for switching Flint's water
supply back to safer water in
October
2014
If Snyder did not know about this, he was incompetent at his job.
27 February 2016 (
Sexting
New Mexico has
legalized
sexting for teenagers 14 and over
I fear 13-year-olds are still in danger of punishment. You might
think it is wiser for them not to sext, or have sex, but some will do
it anyway and it is wrong to jail them when they do.
26 February 2016 (
Urgent: nominate a progressive to the Supreme Court
US citizens:
call
on Obama
to nominate a progressive to the Supreme Court.
26 February 2016 (
Palestinian journalist released
Israel has released Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qiq from
imprisonment
without trial.
However, he is too sick to leave the hospital.
26 February 2016 (
Intolerance of queers
In
Indonesia (and elsewhere),
Islam stands for intolerance of queers.
Tradition in Java and Bali includes a lot of public cross-dressing.
The forms of Islam that were common in Java in the past did not go in
for repression. In the past few decades, repressive Islam has spread
there. I've heard this attributed to funding from
Salafi Arabia
26 February 2016 (
Manus Island
One of Australia's prisoners in Manus Island was just granted refugee status,
after
a long hunger strike.
He can't walk or eat normal food.
The Papuan government wants to move him away from the only place he
can get medical care.
26 February 2016 (
Blocking imports of sea food
The US will start blocking imports of sea food from
Thailand
where there is suspicion forced labor was used.
26 February 2016 (
Employed people are homeless
In
San
Francisco,
even employed people are homeless.
It is fine to insist that housing for people must meet certain
standards, but not as an excuse to push people around on the street.
San Francisco's first step should be to legalize sleeping in RVs. Its
next step should be to provide homeless people with RVs, if not better.
With all the wealth flowing into the city, it will have no trouble paying
for this, if it taxes that wealth properly.
26 February 2016 (
Citizenship
Senator Cruz wants the US government to have the power to take away
people's citizenship by administrative order
(not
even a trial).
What next, Mr Cruz? Round up people on the street and shoot them?
26 February 2016 (
Assange "arbitrarily detained"
The UN working group's conclusion that Julian Assange has been
"arbitrarily detained" is based on the specific injustices of his
case: how Sweden is using an unjustly conducted investigation as
excuse to grab him and violate his rights.
Here
is its opinion.
This reasoning and conclusion would not apply if a war criminal
Dubya
for instance) were hiding in an embassy to avoid honest, overt
and justly conducted prosecution.
They would also not apply if Sweden conducted its investigation of
these accusations against Assange in an honest and above-board way.
26 February 2016 (
Trampled human rights
2015: When Global Governments Trampled Human Rights in Name of
National Security.
26 February 2016 (
Indigenous Palestinians
Haneen
Zoabi:
Why Israel Is Fighting the Indigenous Palestinians.
26 February 2016 (
Fires in forests in Tasmania
Global heating resulted in fires in forests in Tasmania, that for
at least a thousand years have been
too
wet for any fire.
Their entire ecosystem is likely to burn away as heating continues.
26 February 2016 (
Financial ties to Clinton's campaign
TV
Pundits
Praise Hillary Clinton On Air, Fail to Disclose Financial Ties to Her Campaign.
26 February 2016 (
Lack of love as children
Many heroin users are using it to blunt the
permanent
pain
of their lives, which comes from a lack of love as children.
I don't know if there is a way to help those people,
but making reliable birth control and abortion easy to get
will avoid many of them.
26 February 2016 (
Long-lasting brain problems
People who were not killed by
Ebola
have long-lasting brain problems.
26 February 2016 (
Stop selling arms to Salafi Arabia
The European Parliament adopted a
non-binding
resolution
to stop selling arms to Salafi Arabia.
26 February 2016 (
Ultimate treachery
Obama is considering the ultimate treachery: nominating a Republican for the
Supreme
Court.
With "Democrats" like that, who needs Republicans?
Fortunately, the official Republicans rejected this nominee.
But that doesn't mean Obama, the great weakling, won't offer
them an even bigger compromise.
26 February 2016 (
Tor anonymity
The US government hired
CMU
researchers
to break Tor anonymity.
26 February 2016 (
India's subsidy for solar power systems
India's subsidy for installing solar power systems it applies only
to solar cells made in India. The WTO called this a barrier to trade,
apparently under
prodding
from the US.
Its logic makes sense, but its priorities are twisted.
26 February 2016 (
Reaction buttons
Facebook's Five New Reaction Buttons:
Data,
Data, Data, Data, and Data.
26 February 2016 (
"Bedroom tax"
A disabled British woman, and her husband that cares for her,
may
become homeless
because of the "bedroom tax".
The Tories keep imposing cuts on the poor and sick, which they know
must push increasing numbers of people into penury. Precisely whom or
why, they don't care. The cuts must be applied rigidly, even
dishonestly, or they would not achieve the goal.
26 February 2016 (
Sanders plans to solve two US problems
Sanders plans to solve two US problems
at
once:
curbing speculation in the big casino and funding US infrastructure.
Incidentally, rebuilding the infrastructure will create lots of jobs.
26 February 2016 (
Treaties with very poor countries
The UK has treaties with many very poor countries, limiting what taxes they can charge to
UK companies.
26 February 2016 (
National health systems
The TTIP could force privatization of national health systems, in the UK and (I presume)
in
the rest of Europe.
It could also stop the US from setting up a proper national health service, which it badly needs.
26 February 2016 (
New taxes
Foreign companies could the use TTIP and other such treaties to forbid states from
imposing new taxes.
26 February 2016 (
Business Supremacy Treaties
Business Supremacy Treaties
26 February 2016 (
Urgent: Vote on state power
US citizens:
Call
on Congress
to vote on whether the government can make companies
change their products to snoop on people, and debate and vote on what
power the state should have.
26 February 2016 (
Post-war Iraq
Post-war Iraq:
Everybody
is corrupt
, from top to bottom. Including me'.
26 February 2016 (
CO
emission limit
Terrible news: to avoid 2C of heating,
we
can only emit 1,200 bn tons more CO
(or equivalent)
from now on.
That is only half what scientists estimated before.
"If we don't start reducing our emissions immediately, we will blow
[the carbon budget] in a few decades."
26 February 2016 (
Trade secrecy coverup of pre-clinical test
A French drug trial
caused
grave brain damage
, sometimes fatal. A previous test of the same
drug on dogs did similar damage, but it was covered up by trade
secrecy.
Drug companies should not be allowed to impose secrecy on any
information about drug trials. Any arrangements made by the company
that impede publication should land the executives responsible in
prison for a long time, and the company should be punished by
cancelling the patent on that drug.
However, this alone is not enough, because imposing secrecy is not the
only method these companies use to do corrupt medicine. For instance,
when drug companies finance or control drug testing, they ruin its
results. It is a fundamental conflict of interest. For a test to
kill subjects is rare, but lesser forms of harm happen
all
the time
Drug companies should have nothing to do with tests on drugs. The
government should run them, and drug companies
should
pay through their taxes
Drug companies have
many
ways of corrupting medicine
26 February 2016 (
The practice of requiring money bail
Some members of US Congress have proposed to
end
the practice of requiring money bail for people accused of crimes
The system keeps indigent people in jail for months or years, and many
plead guilty to crimes they did not commit because the sentence is
less jail time than they would spend waiting for a trial.
26 February 2016 (
Big Oil's disaster in Peru
As Rivers Run Black in Peru,
Indigenous
Tribes Left Cleaning Big Oil's Disaster
26 February 2016 (
Heating when an ice age ends
When an ice age ends, the Earth heats up — but
nearly
as fast as we are heating it now
26 February 2016 (
Bill Gates's lunacy
Bill Gates
says
there will be a "clean energy breakthrough" that will solve the global
heating problem
Mr Bill's faith in future technology is touching, but it's lunacy.
Such a breakthrough may or may not happen. Our plans for avoiding
global heating
disaster must not depend on it.
Fortunately, we can avoid disaster even
without
any
breakthrough — if we have the political will to make a forced
march to sustainable energy. If, that is, we do not justify laziness
by assuming that a "breakthrough" will make it easy.
26 February 2016 (
Many web sites blocking Tor users
Many web sites are
blocking
connection through Tor, or making users answer a CAPTCHA
. The
CAPTCHA typically requires nonfree Javascript software. Thus, these
sites demand that you either (1) let them track your location or (2)
run a
nonfree
program
. Either one means mistreating you. I refuse to do those
things — I would rather not access those sites.
I hope you will join me in rejecting them.
26 February 2016 (
Proposal to ban arms sales to Salafi Arabia
The European Parliament is voting on a
proposal
to ban arms sales to Salafi Arabia
, which is using the arms to
impose horrible suffering on Yemen.
Salafi Arabia
pretends that its enemies the Houthis are "terrorists"
that Europe needs to fight, but the Houthis are
only
interested in controlling Yemen
. They are no friends of Sunni
terrorists such as al-Qa'ida.
25 February 2016 (
FBI's demand to Apple
Why the FBI's demand to Apple
should
be judged invalid under US law
The article's arguments is entirely valid, but at the same time it
endorses "entrusting our digital lives" to companies such as Apple
that develop
proprietary
malware
. No thanks!
25 February 2016 (
Organophosphate pesticides
Advocates to EPA: It's
Time
to Ban Organophosphate Pesticides
25 February 2016 (
SCROTUS propose bills for more mining
SCROTUS
have proposed bills to allow lots more mining and
cutting
down of national forests
SCROTUS
= Sleazy Congressional Republicans Of The United States.
25 February 2016 (
"Smart guns"
"Smart guns" that recognize fingerprints
could
reduce gun violence
25 February 2016 (
Right to grow marijuana
A Canadian court ruled that
medical
marijuana users have the right to grow their own marijuana
25 February 2016 (
Journalists and whistleblowers
Journalists
Should Stand Up for Whistleblowers
25 February 2016 (
Bolivians decline to change constitution
Bolivia's voters
declined
to change the constitution
to allow Evo Morales to run for
president again.
He was a big change for the better, but it is dangerous to let one
person be president on and on.
25 February 2016 (
Google tax avoidance
France has demanded
almost
two billion dollars in avoided taxes
from Google.
25 February 2016 (
Trump's supporters
After
Sweeping Nevada, Trump Declares: 'I Love the Poorly Educated'
Pick any cruel and bigoted government action:
substantial fraction of Trump supporters are in favor of it
His supporters want someone who will be "tough" on all sorts of
undesirables, but
will
Trump really do that
I think Trump would be tough on the weak.
25 February 2016 (
Clinton campaign dishonesty
Clinton Campaign
Relies
On Rumors And Dishonesty
To Attack Sanders.
25 February 2016 (
Ocean acidification
Putting more CO
in sea water, as an experiment,
slowed
growth in a real coral reef
25 February 2016 (
US abortion clinic closures
1/4
of US abortion clinics
have closed in the past five years.
This is the Republicans' war on women.
25 February 2016 (
Voter suppression by Tories
Tories in the UK have suppressed
almost
800,000 voters
25 February 2016 (
In-N-Out beef raised with antibiotics
Pressuring
restaurant chain In-N-Out Burger to stop
using beef raised with
routine use of antibiotics.
25 February 2016 (
Black Thinkers Like Bernie Sanders
Black
Thinkers Like Bernie Sanders
. They've Studied the Clintons' True
Cost.
25 February 2016 (
Bernie Sanders ahead
This is
good
news
, but since real outcomes will come soon, I will wait and post
about them.
25 February 2016 (
Nissan Leaf tracks driver's movements
The Nissan Leaf
records
where it has traveled
, tracking the driver's movements.
This article reports on how crackers have been able to extract that
information from the car. However, I think the worst thing is that
the car keeps these records at all. I am sure Nissan has a way to get
at them, and I suppose governments can make Nissan extract them too.
25 February 2016 (
Heathrow Airport climate protesters
The Heathrow Airport climate protesters were given a
suspended
sentence
This means they won't be imprisoned now, but they are effectively
blocked from further protest activity.
One of the protesters, expecting to be imprisoned, said she
has
no regrets
I wish someone could tell her how to write her favorite music onto an
audio CD with GNU/Linux.
The UK should repeal its
"aggravated
trespass" law
25 February 2016 (
Climate impact
Calling on the US and Canada to
judge
projects such as pipelines based on their climate impact
25 February 2016 (
US spied on UN Secretary General
The US
spied
on the UN Secretary General
as well as leaders of various allied
countries.
25 February 2016 (
Criticizing Israel's occupation policies
US musicians are afraid that if they criticize Israel's occupation of
Palestine,
their
careers will be crushed
25 February 2016 (
Israeli demolition in Palestine
Israel
demolished
the school
in a Bedouin village in Palestine.
Israel has
demolished 400
Palestinians' homes
in 2016.
25 February 2016 (
Guantanamo prison still not closed
It's
Obama's
own fault
that he has not closed the Guantanamo prison, because he
accepted nearly all of its injustices.
25 February 2016 (
Dissident sentenced to year in prison
Bahraini dissident Ibrahim Sharif has been
sentenced
to a year in prison
for condemning government repression of
peaceful protests.
In the twisted language of the Bahraini regime, criticizing injustice
constitutes "inciting hatred".
The repression in Bahrain was
imposed
by troops from Salafi Arabia
*, with the implicit support of the
US.
* It's official name is "Saudi Arabia", but I think
Salafi
Arabia
" better describes the poison it spreads.
25 February 2016 (
Secret funding from Arch Coal
Arch Coal was secretly funding an organization that
harassed
climate scientists
25 February 2016 (
"Antisemitism" in Oxford student club
Regarding
"antisemitism"
in an Oxford student club.
Real antisemitism was widespread in the UK in the past, and it may
still exist today, but the criticism of Israel's occupation policies
as "antisemitism" is a falsehood.
25 February 2016 (
Treason convictions in secret trials
Russia is convicting people of treason in secret trials, apparently
based
on no evidence
I wish this practice were limited to Russia.
25 February 2016 (
Organized crime finances illegal fishing
Organized crime now
finances
illegal unsustainable fishing of endangered species
around the
world. A group of volunteers work to catch the criminals.
I do not approve of releasing tuna from a fish farm, which they did
once before, but that is a side issue.
24 February 2016 (
Disappeared in Thailand
Chinese
dissident
and whistleblower Li Xin
has disappeared in Thailand.
At least one of the Hong Kong publishers was apparently taken from
Thailand. It appears that Thailand is basically unsafe for anyone
that China wants to grab.
This resembles what the US did,
kidnaping
a man in Italy
and sending him to Egypt to be tortured. One
former CIA agent is going to be extradited to Italy for trial for
this.
24 February 2016 (
Urgent: Oppose the DARK Act
US citizens:
phone
Senator Stabenow
to oppose the DARK Act.
24 February 2016 (
Urgent: New York Times correction
Everyone:
call
on the New York Times
to admit US involvement in the war in Yemen.
24 February 2016 (
Urgent: Reject the DARK Act
US citizens:
call
on the Senate
to reject the DARK Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
It would ban states from requiring labeling of GMOs.
24 February 2016 (
Thugs block delivery to Chelsea Manning
Prison
thugs
blocked
delivery of printouts of EFF articles
to Chelsea Manning,
supposedly from concern that they violated the EFF's copyright. This
excuse is even more ludicrous than it seems, because printing a web
page to show a person who can't see it on the net is probably fair
use.
24 February 2016 (
Cease-fire in Syria
The US and Russia have
agreed
to a cease-fire in Syria
applying to all sides except al-Nusra
(al-Qa'ida) and
PISSI
I hope this can work. But given the way the non-Islamist rebels are
closely allied with al-Nusra, I am not sure the distinction is
practical.
24 February 2016 (
Whole Foods lies to customers
Whole Foods
systematically
lies to customers
. Perhaps it should be called Whole Cloth, as in
"made up out of".
24 February 2016 (
TTIP would protect Exxon from regulations
The EU's trade negotiator told Exxon that the TTIP would
protect
it from pesky regulations
That's effectively a confession that the TTIP is a form of corruption.
24 February 2016 (
"Safe space" censorship tactics
Right-wing law professors adopted "safe space" censorship tactics to
claim
that other professors had no right to dissent from praise of
Scalia
The article argues against the idea that we have to praise evil people
merely because they are dead.
24 February 2016 (
Protesters block TTIP meeting room doors
Protesters
blocked
the doors of the meeting room
where plutocratists were going to
meet to negotiate the TTIP.
24 February 2016 (
Rebelling against the establishment
Many Americans are
rebelling
against the establishment
Those who blame the real culprits support Sanders. Those distracted
with scapegoats support Trump.
24 February 2016 (
Prison to poverty pipeline
Jobs After Jail: Ending the
Prison
to Poverty Pipeline
24 February 2016 (
Pro-Palestinian posters in London metro
Pro-Palestinian activists put up posters in the London metro,
pretending to be advertisements, which
criticize
aspects of Israel's occupation of Palestine
As described here, the posters seem to be factual and accurate.
Israel and its supporters take offense at this contradiction of the
one-sided official picture, so they describe the posters as
"vandalism" and even pretend that they threaten violence.
24 February 2016 (
Imprisoned journalists in Egypt
Reporters Without Borders
calls
on Egypt to release dozens of imprisoned journalists
24 February 2016 (
Natural gas
Natural gas is
not
a bridge to a sustainable future
24 February 2016 (
Africa's forests threatened
Africa's Forests 'Threatened by
Palm
Oil Rush
'.
24 February 2016 (
China imprisons Tibetan blogger
China has imprisoned a Tibetan blogger for
reporting
visible facts people were not supposed to talk about
24 February 2016 (
Privatization of probation officers
Privatization of probation officers in the UK
led
naturally to mistreating them and the people on probation
24 February 2016 (
Rate of sea level rise
Global warming has caused sea level to rise at the
fastest
rate in the last 2,800 years
It is not clear whether sea level rose faster 2,800 years ago, or we
simply don't know how fast it rose then.
This study forecasts only 1.3 meters (4.3 feet) of sea level rise by
2100, but we don't know how much
global heating
will melt the
Greenland ice cap in this century.
In any case, sea level will continue rising, and over centuries the
rise could amount to
25
meters
. Many of the world's major cities will be inundated.
23 February 2016 (
Moving imprisonment without trial to US
Obama once again
proposes
to move imprisonment without trial from Guantanamo Bay to United
States territory
The evil of the Guantanamo prison is imprisonment without trial.
Moving it to the US would not reduce the evil, only smash the last
barrier against making it standard US practice.
Justice requires that each prisoner be tried or released.
23 February 2016 (
Sanders called for abolishing CIA
Sanders once
called
for abolishing the CIA
. So did President Kennedy, President
Truman, and various other elected officials.
23 February 2016 (
Bias of US mainstream media
Sanders's opposition to the TPP exposes the bias of US mainstream
media. MSNBC was covering Sanders' press conference, but
stopped
when he brought up the TPP
23 February 2016 (
4-year-old sentenced to life in prison
Egyptian
Army Court Sentences 4-year-old To Life in Prison For Committing
Multiple Murders
23 February 2016 (
"Three strikes" system for punishing sharing
The copyright industry finds Australia's "three strikes" system for
punishing people for sharing files
not
worth using
unless they make it super cheap to run, and
unreliable.
23 February 2016 (
Suing gun and ammo manufacturers
The relatives of people shot dead in Sandy Hook
want
to sue the manufacturers
of the rifle and ammunition that the
killer used.
I think this sort of unpredictable liability is the wrong way to
decide what kinds of guns may be sold. That policy should published
explicitly in advance, and companies that follow it should not be
liable.
Thus, I advocate prohibiting large magazines, but not suing the
companies that made them lawfully.
23 February 2016 (
Community solar electricity projects
Maryland has
adopted
rules to encourage
community solar electricity projects.
23 February 2016 (
Solitary confinement
44 Years in Solitary Confinement Is
Even
Worse Than You Can Imagine
. So says another person who spent
years in solitary confinement.
23 February 2016 (
Capitalism and socialism
A poll finds that US Democratic voters are
more
favorable towards socialism than towards capitalism
I advocate a mixture of capitalism (allow private businesses) and
socialism (regulate them tightly, tax them a lot, and keep them
small).
23 February 2016 (
Ugandan opposition leader arrested again
Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye was arrested again, reportedly
to
stop
him from gathering evidence of the rigged election
before the
deadline to challenge it.
23 February 2016 (
Urgent: Appoint progressive to Supreme Court
US citizens: phone the White House and call on Obama to appoint a
progressive to the Supreme Court.
The White House comments line is 202-456-1111.
23 February 2016 (
Urgent: Oppose the DARK act
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose the DARK act that would
prohibit states from requiring labeling of GMOs.
1-877-796-1949
23 February 2016 (
Urgent: Withdraw demand to break security
US citizens:
call on Obama
to withdraw the demand for Apple to break security on iPhones.
23 February 2016 (
Urgent: Investigate Exxon's lies
US citizens:
Call
on state attorneys general
to investigate Exxon's climate lies.
23 February 2016 (
Greenhouse emissions and air pollution
Greenhouse emissions often go with air pollution. Cutting emissions
to avoid
global heating
disaster could save almost
300,000
Americans
from death from respiratory diseases by 2030.
23 February 2016 (
Winner of the war in Afghanistan
At every stage, the winner of the war in Afghanistan has been …
opium
The suggestion at the end to put US money into rural development is,
however, easier to say than to do. The US has scattered lots of cash
for this, and
often
it only fed corruption
23 February 2016 (
Clinton's pay from big banks
Clinton ought to recuse herself from the presidential race for
conflict
of interest
: namely, her million-plus in pay from the big banks.
23 February 2016 (
Pope's small concession on birth control
The Pope's small concession on birth control
does
nothing to help women facing Zika under prohibition of abortions
23 February 2016 (
Fixing US public schools
The US
needs
democratic socialism
to fix its public schools.
23 February 2016 (
AGU urged to reject Exxon funding
Leading
climate scientists
call on the American Geophysical Union to
reject funding from Exxon.
23 February 2016 (
Another report from Heatland Institute
The Heatland institute* has published another report denying global
heating,
full
of falsehoods
* Its official name is "Heartland", but "Heatland" describes it more
accurately.
22 February 2016 (
Urgent: Require warrants to use Stingrays
US citizens:
call
on the FCC
to require thugs to register Stingrays and get warrants
to use them.
22 February 2016 (
Gov't shuts down Cairo art gallery
A Cairo art gallery was shut down by the government and will face
strict
censorship of what it shows
22 February 2016 (
Mexico's missing students
Mexico's Missing Students:
International
Investigators Say They Are Being Obstructed
22 February 2016 (
Egyptian anti-torture group
Egyptian Anti-Torture Group
Vows
to Defy Government Move to Shut It Down
22 February 2016 (
Australian gov't attacking democracy
The Australian government is subjecting democracy to a
"corrosive"
attack
. It is promoting secrecy and reducing accountability to
the public.
22 February 2016 (
Record-breaking heat in Australia
Australia had a
series
of three springs with record-breaking heat
, and global heating
seems to be responsible.
22 February 2016 (
Right-wingers want to repress transsexuals
Right-wingers want to repress transsexuals with
laws
requiring them to use the toilets for the sex they were born with
There is a real dispute here, between male-to-female transsexuals who
want to use toilets for females, and other females who feel
uncomfortable with people in their toilets that are rather similar to
males. Both of them have good reasons, and I don't see how to satisfy
them both. I don't have a solution to offer, but these laws clearly
only do harm.
22 February 2016 (
UK thug infiltration of dissident groups
Now that a public inquiry will be held into UK
thugs
' practice of
infiltrating dissident groups (often by getting sexually involved with
women in them),
the
thugs want the inquiry to be secret rather than public
, to
"protect" these infiltrators.
22 February 2016 (
Nevada Caucuses
Sanders
did
much better in Nevada than was expected a few weeks ago
, and got
almost as many delegates as Clinton.
The mainstream media are spinning this as "Clinton won".
Michael Moore's latest film shows what's missing in the US political
establishment (including the mainstream media): the idea that
issues
matter
, not only "winning".
22 February 2016 (
FBI unwittingly stopped Apple spyware
The FBI
unwittingly
stopped Apple spyware from operating automatically
in the shooting
suspect's iPhone.
22 February 2016 (
Colombia's water supply
Colombia's supreme court has
banned
mining and drilling in the high-altitude plains
which provide most
of the country's water supply.
22 February 2016 (
Charter schools
The "Success Academy", a group of charter schools, succeeds by
ejecting
students that aren't a big success
There's a place for schools for gifted children. Just don't judge
ordinary public schools against them.
22 February 2016 (
Urgent: Reject HR 4441
US citizens:
call on Congress
not to privatize
air traffic control — reject HR 4441.
22 February 2016 (
Excuse for internet surveillance
The latest excuse for imposing total surveillance on the internet is
the UK's
plan to make
all sites that have sexual material identify their visitors to check
their ages
It would be wrong to do this even if it were easy.
22 February 2016 (
US Army "burn pits"
US Army "burn pits" in Iraq and Afghanistan
seem
to have made lots of soldiers sick, some fatally
. Toxins were
contributed by the garbage that they burned, as well as remains from
Saddam Hussein's former chemical weapons programs.
22 February 2016 (
Criminalising Boycotts
Criminalising Boycotts Will
Help
Unethical Businesses Thrive
22 February 2016 (
FBI's demands to Apple unnecessary
Snowden
explains
why the FBI's demands to Apple are unnecessary.
Specifically,
The FBI already has all of the suspects' communications
records — who they talked to and how — as these are stored by
service providers, not on the phone itself.
The FBI has received comprehensive backups of all the suspects'
data until just 6 weeks before the crime.
Copies of the suspects' contacts with co-workers — the FBI
claimed interest — are available in duplicate from those
co-workers' phones.
The phone in controversy is a government-issued work phone,
subjected to consent-to-monitoring, not a secret terrorist
communications device. The "operational" phones believed to be
hiding incriminating information, recovered by the FBI during a
search, were physically destroyed, not "shielded by Apple."
Alternative means for gaining access to this device — and
others — exist that do not require the manufacturer's
assistance.
22 February 2016 (
Malicious functionalities of the iPhone
If Apple makes a modified iThing decryption program to facilitate
trying more decryption keys, that
will
affect all users of iThings
Apple's current defense of one aspect of user's privacy would be
admirable if it were the whole story. In fact, it is the exception
among a long string of abuses.
The article mentions one of the malicious functionalities of the
iPhone and the iBad: they are
tyrant devices
. This means
they
do
not allow the user to run an operating system that wasn't signed by
Apple
. This gives Apple total power over the user.
Schneier says that "either everyone gets security, or no one does."
For the iThings, it's the latter. No user of an iThing has security
against Apple, because Apple can do any nasty thing whatsoever in the
next "upgrade". It is infamous for
mistreating its own users
In general, no user of proprietary software has any
security
against the program's developer
22 February 2016 (
Pentagon predicted "Salafist Principality"
Pentagon
report in 2012
predicted that support for the (mainly Islamist)
anti-Assad rebels in Syria was likely to result in a "Salafist
Principality", basically something like
PISSI
That's what
Salafi Arabia
and Turkey wanted, but why did the US
support them? Even in 2012, some in the Pentagon knew that the Syrian
rebels were mainly Islamists. That doesn't mean Obama and his
advisers knew this — but if not, they should have.
The US may have expected this "Salafist Principality" to be more like
Salafi Arabia rather than the actual
PISSI
. That is hardly an excuse.
22 February 2016 (
Attacks on MSF facilities
Mèdecins Sans Frontiéres has decided to
stop
telling Assad and Russia where its medical facilities are located
It believes that they attack these facilities intentionally.
22 February 2016 (
Privately owned public spaces
In many cities, apparently public areas are private property and
people's
rights are restricted there
. This article describes the UK.
New York City has done it too, for instance in
Zucotti
Park
22 February 2016 (
dooH niboR pension "reform"
The UK's
dooH niboR
government is proposing a pension "reform" that
would
hurt 20 million low-paid workers when they retire
22 February 2016 (
Bernie Sanders' accomplishments
What has Bernie Sanders actually
accomplished
22 February 2016 (
Sydney nightlife lockout laws
Thousands
of people in Sydney protested
against laws that have made bars,
restaurants and music venues shut down.
These laws have avoided dozens of alcohol-related injuries each year,
but maybe it is possible to keep the venues open and reduce how much
alcohol people can drink in them.
22 February 2016 (
State-sanctioned child abuse
Prolonged
imprisonment of young refugees
is 'state-sanctioned child abuse',
says a leading Australian doctor.
The Australian law that
punishes
personnel who report this or other abuse of prisoners
is a
state-sanctioned coverup of systematic crime.
22 February 2016 (
Very urgent: Protect sea floor habitats
US citizens:
call
on the National Marine Fisheries Service
to protect sea floor
habitats.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
22 February 2016 (
Urgent: Protect forage fish
US citizens:
call
on the National Marine Fisheries Service
to protect forage fish.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
22 February 2016 (
Urgent: Stop merger
US citizens:
tell the FCC
to stop Charter
from merging with Time Warner Cable.
22 February 2016 (
Urgent: Support clean power plan
US citizens:
call
on your state governor
to support a clean power plan for your
state.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
22 February 2016 (
Repression in Bahrain
The UK lobbied the UN, apparently with success, to tone down its
criticism of
repression
in Bahrain
22 February 2016 (
Attacks on indigenous tribes in Amazon
Many uncontacted indigenous tribes in the Amazon are making contact,
mainly because they have been
attacked
by murderous criminal gangs
There is no vaccine against the common cold — or against the flu
in general.
22 February 2016 (
How Clinton enabled coup in Honduras
How Clinton
enabled
the coup in Honduras
. Honduras still suffers from the effects of
that coup.
Clinton's policy towards Latin America:
support
for the oligarchies against elected politicians that aimed to reduce
their power
21 February 2016 (
Student speech on the internet
Judges Have No Idea What to Do About
Student
Speech on the Internet
21 February 2016 (
US thugs protest conviction
Thugs
across the US
protested
the conviction of the thug who killed Akai Gurley
The
thug
did not intend to shoot Gurley, but did nothing to save him.
21 February 2016 (
UK to gag scientists
The UK
plans
to gag government-funded scientists
(even at universities) to stop
them from campaigning against harm that they have discovered.
21 February 2016 (
Prison for mentioning sex and drug use
An Egyptian novelist has been sentenced to
two
years in prison
for publishing a book that mentions sex and drug
use.
21 February 2016 (
Data copy during house raids rejected
French Constitutional Council
Rejects
Data Copy During House Raids
21 February 2016 (
Protesters surround Australian hospital
Large
numbers of protesters
surround the Australian hospital where a
refugee baby is being treated. They are concerned lest the state send
the baby back to the prison in Nauru, where the baby was burned.
21 February 2016 (
Environmental degradation
Environmental Degradation Takes a
Heavy
Toll on Women and Children's Health
21 February 2016 (
Scalia
Scalia was no "originalist". He turned the constitution upside down
to permit
Republican
voter suppression
21 February 2016 (
This year's US election issues
Most of the election issues in the US this year are really forms of
the issue of
plutocracy
vs democracy
21 February 2016 (
Erdoğan's move to tyranny
Erdoğan's move to tyranny, with the support of a substantial
part of the population,
compared
to fascism in Italy
21 February 2016 (
Forced labor and business
Studying the
relationship
between forced labor and business.
21 February 2016 (
Injustice of the TPP
useful
infographic
from the EFF explain the injustice of the TPP in the
area of copyright.
The article itself uses self-defeating terminology
such as
"digital
locks" and "digital rights management"
, but the infographic itself
does not use them.
21 February 2016 (
Arctic sea ice lowest on record in winter
Global heating
hits the Arctic especially hard.
This
January set a record
for the smallest amount of Arctic sea ice in
winter.
20 February 2016
Global heating to worsen US groundwater shortage
Global heating
will
make
the groundwater shortage worse
in parts of the US.
20 February 2016
Florida to strip funding from BDS organizations
Florida is
passing a bill to make a list of organizations
that support
boycott, divestment or sanctions directed at the occupation of Palestine,
and specifically cut funding to them.
Similar bills have been proposed in Illinois and California.
These are not local initiatives. It is an extension to the US
of the campaign to
prohibit dissent
in Israel.
20 February 2016
Global climate mayhem
Global
climate mayhem
has happened before
and it causes entire ecosystems
to collapse and disappear.
20 February 2016
Trumps admiration for atrocity
Trump stated his
admiration for an atrocity
(perhaps mythical) attributed to US General Pershing in the colonized
Philippines,
I've read (though not in detail) that the US's suppression of the
Philippines in 1900, when it had kicked out Spanish rule, was quite
brutal.
20 February 2016
Sanders leading over Clinton in National poll
Sanders now
leads Clinton
in a national poll.
Clinton's strategy of trying to prevent voters from learning about
Sanders,
by having few debates and obscure ones, was cunning, and it almost
worked.
Maybe now it will fail.
20 February 2016
Hired actors play concerned citizens
A company
hires actors
to pretend to be "concerned citizens",
reading from scripts.
20 February 2016
Additional Volkswagen lies
Documents show
additional Volkswagen lies
about the overpolluting cars.
20 February 2016
The case against tipping
Some US states long ago banned paying low wages to employees and telling
them
to
make it up with tips
It works fine.
I tip waiters in restaurants, because I know they depend on it, but I
would rather get rid of the practice and require employers to pay them
an adequate wage.
20 February 2016
Five questions for the CIA Director
Five questions
to ask CIA Director Brennan.
20 February 2016
Urgent: protect wildlife refuges from drilling
US citizens: call for strong rules to
protect US wildlife refuges
from oil and gas drilling.
20 February 2016
How to reduce inequality
To reduce inequality, we need to
change the rules
that the super-rich
have set up to grab most of the wealth that we produce.
20 February 2016
Exxon still spreading misinformation
Exxon is still
lobbying and spreading misinformation
about
global heating
trying to stop society from protecting itself from
the likes
of Exxon.
20 February 2016
Released after 43 years in solitary for bogus charges
Prisoner Albert Woodfox, who has been in solitary confinement for 43
years after bogus trials, was
released from prison
(The article was written before the release took place; I've heard
elsewhere that it did occur.)
20 February 2016
Housing for homeless veterans in Connecticut
Connecticut has
arranged housing
for all its homeless veterans.
All states should do this — but not just for veterans.
20 February 2016
Urgent: demand vote on sentencing reform
US citizens: call on Senator McConnell to
allow a vote
on sentence reduction.
20 February 2016
Urgent: tell Senate not to undermine financial oversight agencies
US citizens:
call on the Senate
not to undermine the independence of financial oversight agencies.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
20 February 2016
Ocean heating harming marine species
Ocean heating is
harming
some marine species.
20 February 2016
Sexism among Ebay shoppers
An experiment shows shoppers on Ebay
act in a sexist way
For most products, they offer a higher bid if the seller is male.
For a few products, the effect goes the other way.
Sexism has been demonstrated in other areas; for instance, evaluation
of the merit of scientific work is
affected by sexism
My father's second wife was a painter. When she was young, she signed
her
paintings with a name that could be take for masculine, to avert sexism.
Her paintings sold better that way.
20 February 2016
CO2 makes coral vulnerable to viruses
Increased CO2 in the water may not directly wipe out coral, but makes
coral
deformed and more more vulnerable to viruses
Young coral organisms have special difficulty, so a reef might not
recover
after events that kill part of it.
20 February 2016
Stop Trump, vote Sanders now
If you want to stop Trump in November,
vote for Sanders now
20 February 2016
EPA to investigate pesticide effects on endangered species
The
EPA will investigate
how pesticides, including Roundup, affect endangered species.
20 February 2016
Israeli law to kick elected Arabs out of Parliament
Uri Avnery: Israel is
planning a law
to provide an excuse to kick elected Arabs out of Parliament.
20 February 2016
PISSI using child suicide bombers
PISSI
is using
children of 12
as suicide bombers, as well as teenagers.
20 February 2016
Pope Francis relaxes prohibition on contraception
Pope Francis Relaxes Catholic Prohibition Against Contraception.
This is a positive step, but a very limited one.
20 February 2016
Crime rates and lead poisoning
Evidence from Australia
substantiates the theory
that lead poisoning controls society's overall crime rate.
20 February 2016
Uganda: opposition presidential candidate arrested
Uganda's main opposition presidential candidate
has been arrested
It is a fitting end to an apparently rigged election.
20 February 2016
FBI's empty boasts of disrupting terror threats
The FBI boasts of "disrupting" lots of supposed terrorist threats or
plans, but
won't explain concretely
what "disrupting" means.
It also isn't clear whether these were real terrorist plans,
or
fantasy plans
that wont go anywhere unless facilitated by the FBI.
20 February 2016
Thug fired for racist tweets was rehired
San Jose Police Officer Fired for Racist Tweets Back on Patrol
20 February 2016
Nauru restricting visits by Australians
Nauru has tightened security against exposure of how it treats the
prisoners
it imprisons for Australia by
restricting visits
by Australians.
This is in case they might be journalists. Nauru basically does not
allow
journalists to enter.
Nauru is Australia's equivalent of Guantanamo, except used for people
not even accused of terrorism and even less accountable.
20 February 2016
EU to reduce regulation of drug trials
The EU is proposing to
reduce regulations
on clinical trials of drugs.
The biggest problem with clinical trials today is that they are run by
the drug companies that make the drugs. This is a
form of corruption
One specific aspect of this problem is that many
trials go unpublished
"Lighter regulation" on clinical trials does not sound like it would
do anything to improve this. Indeed, it could make things worse.
What we need is specific additional regulation.
This article gives too little information to judge the change,
and that itself is a cause for suspicion.
20 February 2016 (
French gov't deal with Microsoft
French free software groups are
suing
the government for signing a deal with Microsoft
. They accuse
Microsoft of dumping.
The main wrong in the Microsoft deal is not an issue of competition,
but that it is
trying to impose
dependence on user-subjugating software
on the country.
20 February 2016 (
Police shooting scandals
Five Places [in the US] Where Police Shooting Scandals Have
Altered
the Political Landscape
20 February 2016 (
US policy in Syria based on fiction
US
policy in Syria
is based on the fiction that a "moderate" armed
opposition exists which is separate from al-Nusra (al-Qa'ida).
Obama and his top staff must know this. What I don't see is what they
hope to achieve. Convert part of al-Qa'ida into a US ally? It might
not be a ridiculous idea, given that nearly all sides in Syria have
committed great crimes (the exception being the Kurds). But if we can
forgive al-Qa'ida its crimes, why not Assad too?
20 February 2016 (
Spike in methane emissions
US 'Likely Culprit' of Global
Spike
in Methane Emissions Over Last Decade
It's the result of
fracking
20 February 2016 (
Urgent: Stand up for net neutrality
US citizens:
call on the
FCC
to stand up for network neutrality.
20 February 2016 (
Labour Party concerned about anti-semitism
The UK Labour Party is
concerned
about anti-semitism in its student club at Oxford
I agree with the opposition to anti-semitism; however, the claim that
comparing Israel's occupation with apartheid constitutes
"anti-semitism" makes me concerned that their definition of
"anti-semitism" is too broad and that this is being used as an excuse
to repress criticism of Israel.
20 February 2016 (
Ban on boycotts
The UK government has
banned
many entities from boycotting companies
for several reasons,
including involvement in arms trade and involvement in tobacco.
Boycotts Are Vital to Democracy.
So
That's Why the Tories Will Ban Them
The Tories are attacking democracy in the UK on a wide range of
fronts, including
voter
suppression
gerrymandering
and
attacks
on Labour party funding
. This adds up to a plan to quash
democracy and seize permanent power while pretending not to.
The Tories are
lower than
vermin
20 February 2016 (
Israeli terrorism
Israel's politicians
openly propose annexing part of
the West Bank
The Israeli Labor party
proposes
permanent apartheid in the West Bank, and terror bombing of civilians
in Gaza
Terrorism means making war on civilians. It doesn't become any more
legitimate when the bombs are fired from planes instead of carried by
suiciders.
20 February 2016 (
Israel's parliament
Israel's parliament is
trying
to prevent "biased" (that is, critical) foreign press coverage
20 February 2016 (
Big banks danger to society
Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis,
says the
big
banks remain a danger to society
We know that the US
has
not adopted the necessary reforms to prevent the banks from causing
another crisis
. The banksters did not allow sufficient reforms.
It is interesting to see a member of the financial structure say so.
20 February 2016 (
Fight to keep fossil fuel in ground
The fight to
keep
80% of fossil fuel reserves in the ground
is making great
progress, but it's a race against the clock.
As part of this campaign,
protesters
disrupted a US auction of oil and gas leases
20 February 2016 (
The pragmatic case for voting for Sanders
The pragmatic case for voting for Sanders:
Clinton
is less electable
, and her vaunted "experience" consists of
supporting hawks and plutocrats.
20 February 2016 (
Tracking voters
The practice of
tracking
voters through massive surveillance
threatens further danger to
democracy as well.
20 February 2016 (
Sit-in strike in Lexmark factory
Workers fired from a Lexmark factory in Mexico are
holding
a sit-in strike
When NAFTA gave Lexmark the option of moving its factory to Mexico, it
gave Lexmark the option of treating workers like dirt. I have nothing
against hiring Mexicans; I object to mistreating workers in any
country or paying them so little.
20 February 2016 (
Investigating one suspect
A judge
ordered
Apple to change the software in a suspect's iThing
so that
investigators can try more than 10 different passwords.
(I say "suspect", because legally that's what's pertinent; but there
is little doubt that this suspect, now deceased, was guilty of
murder.)
I do not object to this in principle, because it is part of
investigating one suspect and doesn't imply snooping on everyone.
19 February 2016 (
Urgent: Tear down Yellowstone dam
US citizens:
call
on the US Army
to tear down Yellowstone dam and save the Pallid
Sturgeon.
19 February 2016 (
Urgent: Net neutrality
US citizens:
call on
the FCC
to stop T-Mobile from violating Net Neutrality.
19 February 2016 (
Lead in Chicago's water
Lead in Chicago's water supply is the cause of a
lawsuit.
19 February 2016 (
Abortions in South America
Women in South America are
begging
for help to get abortions.
It appears that microcephaly can be detected at 22 weeks. That's
not too late for an abortion a fetus with a grave birth defect.
19 February 2016 (
NSA algorithm
The NSA's algorithm for detecting al Qa'ida couriers
was
an experiment,
not a system used to choose targets.
19 February 2016 (
Times' coverage of Iraq
The New York Times is suing the author and publisher of a book which
shows how the Times' coverage of the US conquest of Iraq
glorified that war.
Fair use in the US is not an explicit right, just a defense available
to those accused of copyright infringement. Thus, even if you are
pretty sure from precedents that you're going to win the case on
grounds of fair use, you're still in a perilous position.
19 February 2016 (
American public schools
Americans
rallied at 800 public schools
to oppose school budget cuts, violation
of local democratic control of schools, and imposed standardized tests.
19 February 2016 (
Catholic hospitals in the US
Patients are suing a US Catholic organization for its
broad
interpretation
of the policy of not doing abortions, which it
imposes on Catholic hospitals in the US.
The Catholic Church should remove itself from operating hospitals
rather than impose its dogma on patients.
19 February 2016 (
Netanyahu and Israeli hawks
Clinton
promises total support
for Netanyahu and Israeli hawks.
19 February 2016 (
Spills of toxic chemicals
The EPA will start making
rules
to prevent spills of toxic chemicals.
19 February 2016 (
Russian censorship of childrens' books
Russian censorship of childrens' books is so
absurdly
strict
that it provides a wonderful tool for selective enforcement,
and for squeezing publishers.
19 February 2016 (
Superdelegates that support Clinton
Some of the superdelegates that support Clinton
are
actually lobbyists.
19 February 2016 (
Extended state of emergency
France has extended its state of emergency
for
another three months.
The emergency powers don't seem to have
done much good so far, except for the fossil fuel companies by
crushing
rallies
during the Paris climate meeting.
19 February 2016 (
Stopping killer robots
Why Stopping Killer Robots Is A
Battle
Worth Fighting.
19 February 2016 (
Tories' attack on poor people
The Tories' latest attack on poor people is to eliminate funding for
refuges
for women victims of domestic violence.
19 February 2016 (
Demolition by Israel
Israel's soldiers demolish Palestinians' houses, farms, even outhouses
over and over.
"Every single child of these families who experienced the arrival of
the bulldozers and army jeep at dawn needs no social networks to hate
and hate more."
19 February 2016 (
Electromagnetic waves
People who report sensitivity to electromagnetic waves may really be suffering from something, but
it
isn't caused by electromagnetic waves.
19 February 2016 (
Runaway inequality in the US
Runaway inequality in the US has
extended
from wealth to life span.
19 February 2016 (
Subsidizing fossil fuel
Venezuela has
raised
the price of gasoline
— a very important measure.
Subsidizing fossil fuel puts the whole world in danger.
19 February 2016 (
NHS is degrading
The UK's local medical care directors say the NHS is degrading under the impact of
Tory
funding cuts.
It has been clear for years that the Tories aimed to destroy the NHS but were unwilling to say so.
19 February 2016 (
Hindu fanaticism
Kanhaiya Kumar, charged with "sedition" for criticizing India's trampling of human rights,
was
attacked in court
by a Hindu-extremist fanatic.
Hindu fanaticism has been a dangerous force in India since before
India was founded. Shortly after that, a Hindu fanatic assassinated
Gandhi.
As for charges of "sedition", any state that charges a person with
"sedition" (under whatever name) convicts itself of oppression.
19 February 2016 (
Burundi is crushing independent media
Burundi is crushing independent media, trying to hide the repression so as
to
pretend that the situation is normal.
Meanwhile, the country is plagued by
hunger
and disease.
19 February 2016 (
Netanyahu a war criminal
As
protesters
in Berlin
called Netanyahu a war criminal German thugs threatened
to prosecute them for saying so.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
Another instance of disrespect for freedom of speech.
19 February 2016 (
Selling student debt
The US government is selling student debt to
collection
agencies,
which immediately pile on more debt, and send US marshals to arrest debtors.
A plutocratic state regards the people as its prey.
19 February 2016 (
Big Pharma whitewash
Big Pharma is trying to whitewash its image with a campaign directed only at
7000
elite policymakers.
This way, they avoid the embarrassment that would result if the rest of us saw their bullshit.
19 February 2016 (
Shot for choosing who to marry
Each year, a thousand other women in Pakistan are murdered by their
families. Sharmeen Obaid was shot by her father for choosing who
to marry. By a freak accident,
she
survived to tell the tale.
The killer
got
off without punishment
after she was pressured to "forgive" him.
Until state punishes these killers, private revenge is justified.
Feminists in Pakistan would be justified in organizing to kill these
killers.
19 February 2016 (
Monitor torture in Egypt
The Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence tries
to monitor torture in Egypt. The government, finding this embarrassing,
is
shutting it down.
19 February 2016 (
Flint's expensive water bills
While
Lead Flowed Through the Pipes,
Flint Residents Paid America's Most Expensive Water Bills.
19 February 2016 (
CIA false reports
John Kiriakou: The CIA officially tells agents to make false reports,
which supposedly will be corrected by other reports. But sometimes
the false reports are
passed
on to Congress
and the corrections are not.
19 February 2016 (
San Francisco's wealthy
A particularly arrogant selfish jerk made the callous cruelty of San Francisco's wealthy people
manifest.
19 February 2016 (
"Official" TPP text
After the "official" TPP text was posted, a sneaky one-word change
was made that make the copyright provisions
even nastier.
19 February 2016 (
Tyrannical government of the Maldives
The tyrannical government of the Maldives imprisoned an opposition
politician for "terrorism" because
he
led a protest against the
imprisonment of dissidents.
In most countries, "anti-terrorism" measures are a far bigger danger
to the people than terrorism itself. Labeling of dissent as
"terrorism" is a
world-wide
tendency,
found also in the US.
19 February 2016 (
Better solution for Zika
Strange that governments urge women not to get pregnant and do not
urge
men not to get women pregnant.
I think it is ridiculous to demand that either men or women go without
sex for years, when a better solution is available.
There is
no
solid proof
that Zika causes microencephaly, but evidence is
accumulating.
There's enough evidence to base practical decisions on the
likelihood. Life decisions cannot always wait for scientific
certainty, which can take many years to achieve.
It is plausible for an insecticide to cause birth defects, but
implausible that the insecticide alone could explain the big increase
in microencephaly between 2014 and 2015 in Brazil.
Perhaps the microencephaly results from the combination of Zika and a
pesticide. Or maybe this idea can be ruled out, if some of the cases
occurred in cities and the pesticide is used only on farms.
19 February 2016 (
Nevada's solar industry
Sanders And Clinton Offer
Different
Solutions
For Nevada's Sabotaged Solar Industry.
19 February 2016 (
Syrian towns besieged
Seven
Syrian towns
are besieged and lack food and medicine.
19 February 2016 (
Climate mayhem
In trying to cope with climate mayhem, we must admit that
we
can't save everything.
As global heating advances and causes additional mayhem, we will
have to choose what to protect.
The only way we
can
save everything — at least, everything
that will only become threatened at later stages of heating — is to
keep the fossil fuels in the ground. This is why spending money
on mitigation instead of emissions reduction is total folly.
19 February 2016 (
Urgent: Cut nuclear weapons spending
US citizens:
call
on Obama
to cut military and nuclear weapons spending.
19 February 2016 (
Urgent: Thank Kamala Harris
Everyone:
Thank
Kamala Harris
for investigating Exxon's climate lies.
19 February 2016 (
Urgent: Tongass National Forest
US citizens:
call
for an end to clearcutting
in the Tongass National Forest.
19 February 2016 (
Sale of oil and gas leases
Climate activists protested the
US
government's sale of oil and gas leases
19 February 2016 (
Failure of the Brazilian state
Zika turns the spotlight on the failure of the Brazilian state
to
attend to the people's needs
19 February 2016 (
Natural gas myth
The European Commission's plan for "sustainable energy" is based on
the
natural
gas myth
It formerly appeared that natural gas produced less greenhouse effect
than other fossil fuels, but that was based on failing to take account
of the
methane
leaks
19 February 2016 (
Privatization of public services
Privatization of public services, such as schools, hospitals and
prisons, leads to perverse incentives, so that the company
oppresses
people to profit
New Rate Survey of 500 U.S. Water Systems Finds
Private
Water Providers Charge 58% More
Of course — they need to make a profit somewhere.
19 February 2016 (
"Preserving balance" to Washington Post
To the Washington Post,
perpetuating
a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court
is "preserving
balance".
19 February 2016 (
UK incomes
A report says UK incomes have returned to the
pre-crash
level
I suspect, however, that this does not take account of the way
house costs and rents have ballooned.
19 February 2016 (
Urgent: Repeal the military draft
US citizens:
call
for repeal
of the military draft.
19 February 2016 (
Urgent: Supreme Court
US citizens:
call
on the Senate
to consider Supreme Court nominees promptly.
19 February 2016 (
Urgent: Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act
US citizens:
Call
on the Senate
to pass the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
19 February 2016 (
Missing indigenous women
Many indigenous women in Canada have been murdered or disappeared,
but there are signs it
could
be 4000
rather than 1000.
19 February 2016 (
ID scans at music venues
Part of Australia
wants
to require music venues to scan guests' IDs
, not just to check
their ages.
This seems to imply a system of massive surveillance, far more
dangerous than occasional fights.
19 February 2016 (
Indonesia to attack human rights
Indonesia is
planning
to attack human rights
, following the bad examples of Australia
and Malaysia. People could be jailed for months on mere suspicion.
One part of the proposal is legitimate: to make it a crime to plan a
terrorist act.
19 February 2016 (
Global heating threatens Australian wine
Global
heating
threatens Australian wine.
Vineyards will have to move to Tasmania, to the land where
the old growth forests are burning down.
19 February 2016 (
100 million people short of food
100
million people
are short of food due to El Niño.
19 February 2016 (
Renewable energy efforts
17 US states have
agreed
to accelerate renewable energy efforts
18 February 2016 (
Urgent: Non-corruption condition for aid
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to restrain US support for the corrupt regime in
Honduras, by insisting on the non-corruption condition for US aid to
it.
17 February 2016 (
Turkey arrests journalist
Turkey arrested a journalist
for
interviewing possible PKK supporters
17 February 2016 (
Ban on imports made with slave labor
The US has
banned
imports of products made with slave labor
I expect that some companies or countries will try to use trade
treaties to make the US repeal this law,
as
they have done with other important laws to protect something
important
17 February 2016 (
Getting a prisoner out of Guantánamo
UN human rights experts say Australia violated David Hicks's human
rights by
jailing
him as part of a deal with the US
The deal was to get him out of Guantánamo, where the US was
violating his human rights. Is it right to agree to violate someone's
rights in order to get a worse violator to stop? And if you do,
should you break the deal? It is a difficult question.
17 February 2016 (
Urgent: Pass a Shareholders United act
US citizens:
Call
on your state legislature
to pass a Shareholders United act to
limit corporations' political spending.
17 February 2016 (
Urgent: Arrest Governor Snyder
Everyone:
Call for the arrest
of Governor Snyder
for recklessly poisoning the children of Flint,
Michigan.
17 February 2016 (
Urgent: Vote on replacement for Scalia
US citizens:
call on
the Senate
to vote on the replacement for Scalia.
17 February 2016 (
Making peaceful opposition a crime
Israel's campaign to make peaceful opposition to its occupation
policies a crime has
led
to oppressive policies in France and the UK
, and they are trying
it in the US too.
Some twenty years ago, Massachusetts passed a law to boycott companies
that did business in Burma. At the time, the US had not yet adopted
strong trade sanctions against Burma. Other countries called this a
"non-tariff barrier to trade" and said it violated the World Trade
Organization rules. Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, a
law that prohibited states from adopting such boycotts: a victory for
plutocracy over democracy.
This is one of the many plutocratist actions I condemn Bill Clinton
for. Hillary Clinton appears to be basically the same in
her
support for plutocracy
, which is why I will not vote for her for
president.
17 February 2016 (
Safe zone in Syria
Turkey
proposes
to establish a safe zone in Syria
, near the Turkish border, for
refugees.
I think the plan is a good idea, if it can be prevented from leading
to a war between Turkey and Russia.
Turkey
accuses
Russia of intentionally attacking civilians
to send them fleeing.
I would not put this past Putin. That doesn't prove it is an
intentional plan. Maybe sending so many people fleeing is just a
byproduct. If so, Putin clearly does not mind.
17 February 2016 (
OSHA violators battle new safety rules
Federal
Contractors with History of OSHA Violations Battle New Safety
Rules
17 February 2016 (
Patriarchy
Women rescued from enslavement by Boko Haram are
rejected
by their own communities
This is not only an injustice, it will help Boko Haram too. They can
tell their captives, "If you escape, your family will hate you. Your
only future now is with us."
Patriarchy is so cruel.
17 February 2016 (
Core dogmas of Clinton's party
The Issue is Not Hillary Clinton's Wall St Links But
Her
Party's Core Dogmas
17 February 2016 (
Egyptian thugs
No
one in Egypt is safe from the thugs
. The torture-killing of
Giulio Regeni called attention to what Egyptians suffer every day.
17 February 2016 (
Facebook's plans
Why we must defeat Facebook's
plans
to become a hub for publication
apologized
for deleting Viz magazine's page
, but the point is that
publications should have to depend on Facebook to act responsibility.
17 February 2016 (
Cluster bombs launched by Saudis
US Shrugs Off Yet Another Report of
Cluster
Bombs Launched By Saudis
In Yemen.
17 February 2016 (
Beavers may help control flash floods
Beavers Blamed for Flash Floods in Scotland
May
Actually Control Problem
17 February 2016 (
TTIP
The TTIP would give companies a
lever
to get rid of taxes
Only companies — not people, of course. After the Corporations
United
decision said that corporations deserve
the same rights as humans, what businesses want is more rights than
humans.
However, German judges say that there is
no
legal basis for the TTIP's special courts
* That group of corporations called itself "Citizens United", but I
call it what it was, not what it pretended to me.
17 February 2016 (
Being friends with a war criminal
Why
Not Being Friends With A War Criminal Like Henry Kissinger
Matters
A review of Kissinger's
atrocities
and crimes against humanity
. He's not the source from which the
president of the US should seek advice.
Clinton has done little to distance herself from Kissinger's crimes.
17 February 2016 (
Urgent: Food Recovery Act
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to support the Food Recovery Act, whose measures would
reduce waste of edible food.
17 February 2016 (
Urgent: Supreme Court nominees
US citizens:
call
on the Senate
to give proper consideration to Obama's Supreme
Court nominees.
17 February 2016 (
Urgent: No religion-based discrimination
In the US:
tell
Republican state governors
not to legalize religious-based
discrimination.
17 February 2016 (
Urgent: Clean energy
US citizens:
support
clean energy in/for US cities.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
17 February 2016 (
Urgent: Stop net neutrality violation
US citizens:
call on
the FCC
to stop T-Mobile from violating Net Neutrality.
17 February 2016 (
Garment workers' low pay
Marks and Spencer was lauded for pledging to pay garment workers a
living wage. In practice, the effect of the pledge is nil. These
workers are paid so little they
can
hardly get by
The low pay for these workers, and workers in general around the
world, is the intended result of "free trade" treaties. That's why we
must replace them with a different global system of trade, one that
keeps wages up.
17 February 2016 (
Bangkok bombing suspect retracts confession
Bangkok Bombing Suspect was
Tortured
into Confessing
, Says Lawyer.
17 February 2016 (
Chemical business-funded research
Chemical businesses fund research — even sheer fiction passing
as research — to give them
excuses
to defeat lawsuits and regulation to protect the public health
17 February 2016 (
Being bilingual helps the brain
Being bilingual
helps
the brain
— so urge parents not to miss a chance to pass a
minority language on to their children.
17 February 2016 (
Culture wars
Why Conservatives start
culture
wars
, and why they usually lose.
17 February 2016 (
Convicted Egyptian thug gets new trial
One of the few Egyptian
thugs
who was
convicted
for killing protesters
(while most thugs were acquitted) will has
been given a new trial.
I suppose the idea of convicting a
thug
was too shocking.
17 February 2016 (
Banksters' contempt for the little guys
Matt Taibbi:
banksters
and their friends the Clintons have
contempt
for the little guys
— how irrational of them to dislike
being pushed into poverty and losing their homes!
17 February 2016 (
Facebook tracking of non-useds
France ordered Facebook to stop
tracking
the browsing of people who are not useds
of Facebook. (Remember,
Facebook does not have users, it has
useds
.)
Facebook does this through Like buttons. The GNU browser
IceCat
already blocks
Facebook Like buttons so it cannot track you.
17 February 2016 (
Efforts to prevent "radicalization"
Efforts to prevent "radicalization" or "violent extremism"
must
not trample human rights
17 February 2016
FBI
The FBI
has ever more ways to snoop on everyone
even despite the use
of encryption.
Part of the blame
falls on companies that want to surveil people
through advertising.
"Smart" appliances are also
untrustworthy.
This increasing
snooping is dangerous for democracy
17 February 2016
Tory ministers
Several Tory ministers
secretly agreed to give fracking priority over
protecting national parts and sites
of scientific interest.
They don't expect to get cushy gigs from nature lovers or scientists,
after all.
17 February 2016
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
has investigated its own war crimes
in Yemen and found
itself innocent.
17 February 2016
ISP Cox
US ISP Cox
is still fighting against being required to snoop
on its users.
17 February 2016
Australian censorship
Australian censorship, specifically the criminalization of "hate
speech",
interferes with the debate
about whether to legalize same-sex
marriage.
Stating opposition is likely to lead to prosecution.
I support same-sex marriage, but I also support freedom of speech,
and this includes the freedom to offend, insult, condemn or mock
any person, belief, practice, institution, or group. That includes
gays, and that includes straights.
17 February 2016
Conspiracy Theorists
The Conspiracy Theorists
Who Have Taken Over Poland
17 February 2016
Mosul Dam
The Mosul Dam
is in danger of collapsing
and killing up to half a
million people.
Can't they release the water downstream to lower the pressure?
17 February 2016
EU leaders
European Leaders
Told to Keep Aid for Poor People
, Not Hosting Refugees.
Without taxing the rich properly, support for refugees will in the
short term fall on the poor. In a longer term, the refugees will
contribute to the economy if there are jobs for them; but there may
be no housing for them.
17 February 2016
NY Thugs
New York
thugs
want the power (in effect) to declare anyone a felon
on their own say-so.
17 February 2016
PISSI
PISSI
is accused of using chemical weapons
against Kurds in Iraq.
17 February 2016
Bahrain
Bahrain
arrested American journalists
who were covering a protest.
The government accuses them of participating in the protest, and of
doing journalism without permission. By doing so it confesses
disrespect for human rights.
The US government can't object much, since it supports the repression
in Bahrain.
17 February 2016
Overfishing
Overfishing
Is As Big a Threat
to Humanity As It Is to Our Oceans.
What the article does not mention is that human population growth is
the other jaw of the vice. To stabilize fish populations won't be enough
unless we stabilize the human population too.
17 February 2016
Russia and the Kurds
Russian air power
is supporting
the Kurds to advance in Syria.
I suppose this is because Russia regards Turkey as the regional enemy,
and the Kurds are the enemy of Russia's enemy.
Azaz is near to, but not part of, the strip by which
PISSI
trades
with Turkey. It would be a very good thing if the Kurds captured that
strip.
However, Turkey's recent shelling of Kurdish fighters suggests that it
is on the verge of starting a broader war against Syrian Kurds. If
that happens, the Kurds might lose greatly unless they get more support.
17 February 2016
Bank bullied UK
A giant bank
bullied the UK government
into weakening regulations
by threatening to leave.
The courageous response, what the world needs, is to tell the banks to
jump in the lake. But I won't say that the Tories were cowardly. I
doubt they ever wished to deny such a powerful company what it wanted.
17 February 2016
Protests in North Carolina
Tens of thousands
protested in North Carolina against voter
suppression laws
17 February 2016
Trump
Trump
Booed for Reminding
GOP of Bush's 9/11 Failure and Iraq War Lies.
Oh, the irony! Plain, unexaggerated truth from Trump! Right-wing
nuts
insisting on
Dubya
's lies instead!
Dubya
and Cheney repeated those lies over and over, even after the
facts were established; it was evil, but very effective at building a
movement disconnected from reality.
17 February 2016
TTIP
TTIP of the Iceberg: Consumer Concerns
Could Sink
the US-EU Trade Agreement.
If we are lucky, we will elect Sanders and he will pull the plug on
This Treaty Is Plutocratic
(TTIP).
17 February 2016
MSF
MSF
Condemns 'Deliberate' Attack
After Two Hospitals Bombed in Syria.
17 February 2016
Russian censorship
In Russia, official censorship
is surrounded
by a cloud of intimidation.
17 February 2016
Uganda
A few days before Uganda's presidential election, the state
has jailed
an opposition candidate.
All protests have been banned in
Kempala, in a Paris-style "state of
emergency".
17 February 2016
Student arrested
India
arrested a student
at Jawaharlal Nehru University for
"sedition", leading to a strike which has received support from other
campuses.
17 February 2016
Top Tax Rate
Reasons
the Top Tax Rate Should Be 80 Percent.
17 February 2016
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
is turning
itself into a tax shelter for billionaires to
parasitize the US.
Due to the failure of the US to rescue Puerto Rico from horrible debt,
I must admit that Puerto Rico is acting based on provocation.
Still, the competition to bow down to billionaires will hurt all of us,
except the billionaires. We must put an end to it.
16 February 2016 (
Urgent: Settlement of refugees
Everyone:
Call
on Tennessee
not to oppose settlement of refugees.
16 February 2016 (
Urgent: Dodd-Frank provisions
US citizens:
call
for implementation of the Dodd-Frank provisions
for alternatives
to usurious payday lending companies.
16 February 2016 (
Lobbyists for the chemical industry
The Union of Concerned Scientists reports on how lobbyists for the
chemical industry have
undermined
government efforts to protect the public
, as well as research on
toxicity.
16 February 2016 (
Massive surveillance by ISPs
Many organizations have called on the FCC to ban ISPs from collecting
personal
data about customers
and making them available to anyone else.
What they propose would be a step in the right direction, but it does
not go far enough. It would still permit massive general surveillance
by ISPs on behalf of Big Brother.
For democracy's sake, we must stop considering this kind of "solution"
as a real solution. Regardless of what entity collects the data, it
is Big Brother's use of the data that
threatens
democracy
ISPs should be forbidden to keep any records of a user's internet
contacts, except when ordered by a specific warrant.
16 February 2016 (
Tories like to UK doctors
Some UK doctors paid to attend a meeting with the health minister Tory
liars
moved
the meeting and told them it had been cancelled
What else would you expect from a Tory?
The Tories are lower than vermin.
16 February 2016 (
Gentrification of black neighborhoods
As banks gentrify old black neighborhoods, the Koch brothers are
funding
efforts
to cover up the history of blacks in the US
— of slavery,
and the civil rights movement.
16 February 2016 (
Foreign businessmen tortured in the UAE
The UAE tortured foreign businessmen into confessions, and they are
likely
to be sentenced to death
16 February 2016 (
Facing arrest to fight the TPP
Zahara Heckscher:
Why
I Faced Arrest
, Even as I Battle Cancer, to Fight TPP.
16 February 2016 (
US poverty and plutocracy
Relating US poverty and inequality to the
systematic
corruption of plutocracy
16 February 2016 (
Private ownership of public spaces
protest
in London
against putting public spaces under private owners that
can impose private rules.
We have the
same
problem in the US
16 February 2016 (
Cornel West for Bernie Sanders
Cornell West presents
why
American blacks should vote for Sanders
16 February 2016 (
Useless "abstinence-only" campaigns
The US has spent
almost
2 billion dollars
on the useless "abstinence-only" substitute for
sex education.
It's effective for promoting pregnancy and diseases among teenagers,
but no one can point to any good results.
16 February 2016 (
Student debts
Why Does the US Government
Pursue
Student Debtors in Prison
16 February 2016 (
Anti-semitism of Poles during WWII
Poland's right-wing government plans to strip a historian of an award,
because he
acknowledges
the anti-semitism of Poles during World War II
16 February 2016 (
Plant disease spreading
A plant disease is spreading around the world and
could
wipe out many kinds of trees and herbs
16 February 2016 (
Attacks on medical facilities
Attacks on medical facilities and personnel are
becoming
common in today's wars
16 February 2016 (
Bernie Sanders
Sorry, Corporate Media:
The
More Americans Hear Bernie Sanders, The More They Like Him
16 February 2016 (
Obama's replacement for Scalia
Now that Justice Scalia can no longer spread injustice in the US,
SCROTUS
have declared the intention to reject whatever replacement Obama
proposes
I fear Obama will propose someone "moderately" right wing in the hope
of gaining
SCROTUS
's
approval. Obama has not much record of standing
firm, but this would be an outrageous surrender.
16 February 2016 (
Urgent: Cancel nuclear weapons upgrades
US citizens:
call on Obama
to cancel nuclear weapons upgrades.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
16 February 2016 (
Former sex slaves to fight PISSI
Yazidi women, former sex slaves, have
formed
a brigade to fight PISSI
Right on!
Beyond contributing to the possible defeat of
PISSI
, they will also
help the struggle against the general patriarchal cruelty of Arab
society.
16 February 2016 (
Student tortured and killed in Egypt
An autopsy shows how Giulio Regeni was
tortured
in Egypt
16 February 2016 (
Liu Xiaobo square
The US Senate passed a bill to
name
a square in Washington after imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu
Xiaobo
China deserves this rebuke, and I hope it is adopted. Meanwhile, I
wish the US would cease its practices of
imprisonment
without trial
extracting
false confessions through torture
, and
imprisoning
whistleblowers, so that it could be in a good moral position to rebuke
other countries.
16 February 2016 (
Girls forced into marriage
Forcing girls into marriage, often in their early teens,
continues
in many countries around the world
It not only harms them economically and endangers their health, it
also increases the birth rate, which endangers everyone. It's also a
fundamental wrong.
16 February 2016 (
London "Garden Bridge" boondoggle
The London "Garden Bridge" boondoggle, approved in a corrupt way,
would
drain the public treasury uselessly
at a time when the government
is
cutting
public libraries
squeezing
the NHS
, and
driving
poor families onto the street
16 February 2016 (
"Happy Birthday" royalties
Warner/Chappell has
agreed
that it has no copyright on "Happy Birthday to You"
, and will
compensate those that it made to pay royalties before.
The song is probably in the public domain, but there is no way to
prove that.
16 February 2016 (
Turkey shells Arab allies
Turkey has
shelled
Kurds
(or rather some Arab allies) that captured an air base in
Northern Syria.
According to Wikipedia, Azaz was held by al-Nusra (al-Qa'ida) together
with other Syrian rebels; the Kurds cooperated with Russia to take it.
I can't begin to figure out what this implies.
16 February 2016 (
Haiti's rotten political system
New elections are not enough to right the wrongs of Haiti's
rotten
political system
US intervention is largely to blame for the rottenness, what with
forcibly
removing President Aristide
and
imposing
the former president Martelly
16 February 2016 (
Private prisons
The UK is concealing
thousands
of injuries done to minors in private prisons
. These injuries
range from suffocation to broken bones. The companies falsify records
and deny the victims medical treatment. But hey, they have to make
money, right?
To allow a privately run prison is to invite injustice. This practice
must be abolished. More generally, no government function should be
privatized unless that gives the public the benefit of a competitive
market.
16 February 2016 (
Surveillance in the UK
Destroying
Democracy
Under the Cloak of Defending It: surveillance in the UK.
16 February 2016 (
Lexmark's use of patents
Lexmark succeeded in using patents to
block
a company from refilling toner cartridges
Yet another reason why we should
abolish
patents
[Reference updated on 2025-05-09 because the
old
link
was broken.]
16 February 2016 (
Clinton's disastrous record
Hillary Clinton
Sugarcoating
Her Disastrous Record
President Clinton's media law,
bought
by media companies' lobbyists
, allowed them to merge and
concentrate, increasing their power. The biggest victim is democracy
itself.
No wonder they now support Clinton for president.
16 February 2016 (
Welfare "reform" bill
Kasich
played a central role
in Bill Clinton's welfare "reform" bill.
16 February 2016 (
US prisoners' phone calls
US prisoners' phone calls are
often
recorded
— even the calls with their lawyers, which are
supposed to be private.
16 February 2016 (
Flint's toxic water
Snyder's
top aides were informed
about Flint's toxic water within weeks.
16 February 2016 (
Tracking by data analysis company
A data analysis company tracked
16,000
people at the Iowa caucuses
I've read elsewhere that data brokers do reassociate these profiles
with people's names, by correlating data from various sources.
16 February 2016 (
War on Drugs
Judge Paul Cassell is
begging
Obama to give clemency
to the man that Cassell was required to
sentence to 55 years in prison.
16 February 2016 (
Mitochondria replacement prohibited
Congress has
prohibited
mitochondria replacement (to make a healthy embryo)
in the US.
This appears to be
SCROTUS
at work.
I think that public funds should not be spent on fertility treatments.
Public policy should aim for a lower birthrate, as long as the human
population is too high and still rising.
The US birth rate is low enough for population stability, if it were
not for immigration; but since we do have immigration, and the US
population is still rising, we should aim to reduce both causes of
population increase.
16 February 2016 (
Vulture funds in Argentina
Argentina's new government is offering vulture funds
75%
of the face value of the debt they bought for almost nothing
Some vultures are holding out for more.
If they get as much as a cent, that will be a victory for evil. The
court should award those fund managers 10 years, not 10 dollars.
16 February 2016 (
"Emergency manager" law must be repealed
The poisoning of Flint's children resulted from Michigan Republicans'
denial of democracy: the
"emergency
manager" law
must be repealed.
15 February 2016 (
Urgent: Update overtime pay limit
US citizens:
call on Obama
to
update the salary limit for required overtime pay promptly, so
SCROTUS
won't get a chance to cancel it.
15 February 2016 (
Urgent: Protect migrant minors
US citizens: call for providing the needed resources to
protect
unaccompanied migrant minors
from traffickers.
15 February 2016 (
Urgent: Restrict fossil fuel extraction
US citizens:
call
on Obama
to bar fossil fuel extraction near Western national parks
and in Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
15 February 2016 (
Urgent: Proposal for curbing global heating
US citizens:
Support
the Congressional
Progressive Caucus proposal for curbing
global heating
15 February 2016 (
UK court allows broad snooping by thugs
In a blow to the traditional rights of Englishpeople, a UK court
approved
of general warrants allowing the state to snoop on broad classes of
people
15 February 2016 (
Unusually high tide nearly floods London
An unusually high tide
nearly
flooded parts of London.
The tide itself comes on top of
sea-level rise.
Tides are not likely to change much in the next few million years, but
our greenhouse gases are pushing sea-level rise. In a few centuries,
much
of London will be permanently inundated
15 February 2016 (
Egyptian thugs attack doctors
Egyptian
thugs
attacked two doctors; now doctors are
threatening
to strike
15 February 2016 (
Israel's parliament
Israel's parliament is working on a
plan
to kick out the elected Arab members of parliament
15 February 2016 (
Scilly Isles seabird population recovery
Eradicating
rats
on the Scilly Isles has allowed seabird populations to start
to recover.
It's really Scilly to introduce non-native species.
15 February 2016 (
Black Lives Matter activist for mayor
DeRay McKesson, a Black Lives Matter activist, is running for mayor of
Baltimore, and proposes to
abolish
many of the special privileges of thugs accused of violence
15 February 2016 (
Nonfree software makes prohibition easy
Indonesia has
prohibited
messaging apps that permit use of LGBT symbols
You can blame this on proprietary software. This prohibition is
effective because the apps are proprietary software and can restrict
what users can say. A state would find it a lot harder to restrict
people through making demands on free software.
15 February 2016 (
Academics defying copyright law
Academics are defying copyright law to
share
copies of paywalled scientific articles
Hooray, and may this lead to the elimination of copyright from
scientific publishing,
as I
called for 15 years ago
15 February 2016 (
Promises from for-profit colleges
When for-profit colleges
promise
graduates jobs which they generally can't get
, are the colleges
guilty of fraud? Of false advertising? Or are they simply displaying
their grasping nature?
There is no need to investigate precisely how bad for-profit colleges
are, because there is no good reason for them to exist at all. The US
government should stop offering aid to study in them. That would more
or less get rid of them all. Traditional not-for-profit colleges
would pick up the load.
15 February 2016 (
Clinton's hazy social security plan
Clinton's Social Security Plan Is a Little Hazy. And
Sanders
Called Her Out on It
15 February 2016 (
Charter school
That Brutal Charter School Video Shows That
Rich
People Love No-Excuses Discipline … for Other People's
Kids
15 February 2016 (
Daughter of Eric Garner endorses Sanders
Erica Garner — daughter of Eric Garner, who was killed by
thugs
has
endorsed Sanders
15 February 2016 (
Perflurocarbons
Perfluorocarbons, used in waterproof clothing and on surfaces of pots,
can be
toxic
in minute quantities
and persist essentially forever.
15 February 2016 (
History of lead poisoning in the US
It's Not Just Flint. There's an Ugly
History
of Lead Poisoning and the Poor
in the US.
15 February 2016 (
Refugees face increased violence from French thugs
Refugees in France, camped at Calais because they can't get into the
UK, are facing
increased
violence from French thugs and right-wing gangs
They are not allowed to go to the UK, but France does not seem to be
trying to kick them out. If they can stay in France, isn't that good
enough to escape the persecution of whichever country they are fleeing
from?
14 February 2016 (
Get a map!
Stop
relying on a navigation system
, and get a map!
14 February 2016 (
Kissinger and Clinton
Kissinger was involved in
launching
wars and planning murders
. With her hawkish views, it is no
surprise that Clinton is following his advice.
The Clintons have had a
close
personal relationship with Kissinger
for years.
What this says to me is that if Clinton disapproves of anything
Kissinger did, she does not take the matter very much to heart.
14 February 2016 (
Bernie Sanders changing Hillary Clinton
Bernie Sanders Is
Changing
Hillary Clinton One Day (and One Debate) at a Time
While Clinton has started saying things that are more progressive, I
don't believe she means them sincerely, and I expect she would revert
to plucratism if she got elected.
14 February 2016 (
Political "compromise"
Political "compromise", nowadays, means
meeting
the banksters 90% of the way
. We need a president and a congress
that will give the
banksters
the opposite of what they want.
14 February 2016 (
Water shortages
2/3
of the world's people
face a water shortage for part of the year.
We are
using
up groundwater
as if there were an unlimited supply.
Let's
stop increasing
the world's population
14 February 2016 (
Assad rejects peace agreement
Assad has rejected a peace agreement and says he
intends
to retake all of Syria
14 February 2016 (
Recipe for homelessness
Treating
houses "as assets rather than homes"
is a recipe for homelessness
and suffering.
14 February 2016 (
Dreams and aspirations
"Dear
Americans, please stop dreaming of a better nation."
14 February 2016 (
Internet of Things
The Internet of Things: How Your TV, Car And Toys Could
Spy
On You
14 February 2016 (
UK laws harming aid efforts
UK
Counter-Terrorism
Laws
'Harming Aid Efforts of Islamic Charities'.
14 February 2016 (
Governor Snyder
If poisoning children in Flint was not bad enough, Governor Snyder set
up a system that automatically accused thousands of people of fraud in
unemployment insurance. Only about
8%
of the accusations were valid
14 February 2016 (
French Puns
New pun: fille au-pair.
14 February 2016 (
Urgent: Regulate untested chemicals
US citizens:
call for strong
regulation
of possibly toxic chemicals.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
14 February 2016 (
Urgent: Stop prison abuse of immigrants
US citizens:
call on
Congress
to stop private prisons from abusing immigrants.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
14 February 2016 (
Greek farmers and professionals protest
Greek farmers and professionals are
having
large protests
14 February 2016 (
Oral and anal sex prohibited in Michigan
Michigan's senate
passed
a bill prohibiting oral and anal sex
, in order to prohibit sex
with animals.
It is wrong to criminalize sex with animals if the animals are willing
and not injured. I've read about people that smear on their genitals
something that dogs find tasty, to get the dogs to lick them. That is
sex with an animal. The animal clearly chooses to do it. What part
of that deserves punishment?
14 February 2016 (
Ambulance bill for Tamir Rice's family
Cleveland has
apologized
for trying to charge Tamir Rice's family for the ambulance.
14 February 2016 (
AirBnB makes false claims
AirBnB sanitized its New York City listings on one day in order to
make
false
claims about its usual practices
I won't use AirBnB because I refuse to identify myself to
internet services.
14 February 2016 (
State-installed surveillance cameras
Appeals
courts disagree
on whether the state can set up a semipermanent
camera to watch someone, without a warrant.
I believe no one should be allowed to install a semipermanent remotely
viewable camera (a surveillance camera) looking at a public place
without
a court order
. However, in this case, a security camera which
makes local recordings with no remote viewing could have done the same
job.
I think that that use of the security camera is legitimate. A
security camera serves to get information about any crimes visibly
committed in a place, and that's what was done here.
However, it wouldn't hurt to require the state to get a warrant to set
up an outdoor security camera to snoop on a particular person.
14 February 2016 (
Former LA sheriff covered up corruption
The former sheriff of Los Angeles County pled guilty to lying to the
FBI; he led and covered up
pervasive
systemic corruption including abuse of prisoners
14 February 2016 (
Honda demands news site user information
Honda
demands
that news site Jalopnik delete comments
that report problems in a
Honda product, and demands information about the person who posted
them. Jalopnik stands firm.
This shows the importance of not keeping records about your users!
14 February 2016 (
Prison criminals in Romania
A Romanian Communist prison commander has been convicted of
crimes
against humanity
However, other prison criminals are
not
being prosecuted
14 February 2016 (
The Pentagon
Imperial Affluenza: The Pentagon as the
World's
Deadliest Spoiled Brat
14 February 2016 (
Snyder ordered lead tests kept secret
Snyder
ordered
Flint's lead tests kept secret
while thinking about a smooth way
to break the news.
14 February 2016 (
When thugs kill blacks
When
thugs
kill blacks, you can always find some excuse to say they
had it coming to them, if you look hard enough. But looking for flaws
in them is missing the point, because these flaws
don't
justify the killings
14 February 2016 (
Miscarriage can put woman in jail
In El Salvador, a miscarriage
can
put a woman in jail
. And Zika may cause an increase in
miscarriages.
14 February 2016 (
Bigotry
Dalits in India face
bigotry
that extends to basic aspects of life
14 February 2016 (
Sexism
Sad news: a study demonstrates
sexism
in judging contributions to free programs
When a patch is visibly offered by a woman, it has less chance of
being accepted by the developers. But when the developers don't know
she is a woman, women's patches have a higher chance of being
accepted.
Apparently the women are more competent, on the average, and face
prejudice.
14 February 2016 (
Gerrymandering in the UK
The Tories are adopting gerrymandering from the US, creating an excuse
to
redraw
districts to their advantage
13 February 2016 (
Erdoğan trying to blackmail Europe
Erdoğan is trying to blackmail Europe by
threatening
to send Syrian refugees to Greece and Bulgaria
What he demands is a free hand abolishing human rights in Turkey, and
perhaps attacking Kurds in Syria too.
On the other hand, Turkey has a legitimate demand that other countries
share in the cost of caring for the millions of Syrian refugees there.
13 February 2016 (
Jailing protesters
The UK opposition warns that jailing protesters would be a
blow
against human rights
Of course, that's what the Tories are after. That's why they created
the crime of "aggravated trespass", i.e.,
protesting
in an inconvenient way
. Now that they have
adopted
Republican voter suppression techniques so they can't lose
, they
don't fear political opposition; an inconvenient protest is the only
effective response to their abuses of power.
The Tories are lower than vermin.
13 February 2016 (
Syrian factions agree on cease fire
The Syrian factions have agreed on a cease fire
starting
in a week
It is not clear Russia will stop bombing, and if it doesn't stop, the
cease fire won't really take effect.
The cease fire does not include
PISSI
and al-Nusra.
13 February 2016 (
Sanders' civil rights activities
Bernie Sanders
helped
organize civil rights activities in Chicago
for two or three
years.
13 February 2016 (
Effect of lead on children
We now know how lead causes permanent brain damage, making boys
less
intelligent and more impulsive
(thus more likely to commit
crimes). When will we learn to keep American children, both poor and
not, safe from lead?
13 February 2016 (
Use of US funds to pay for abortions
Sanders and Clinton said they
would
allow US funds to pay for abortions for women that have been raped or
when necessary for their health
Sanders said he would entirely eliminate the restrictions on use of US
funds to pay for abortions, if we elect a Congress that will support
this.
13 February 2016 (
Wildlife refuge occupiers surrender
The last occupiers of the Malheur wildlife refuge office have
surrendered
Please do not endorse their claim to be a
"militia"
that gives them dignity they are not entitled to.
More about
how
the FBI approached the matter
13 February 2016 (
Use of cell phone trackers by NYC thugs
New York City
thugs
have used cell phone trackers
1000
times since 2008
13 February 2016 (
Georgia thugs push speeding cars
Georgia
thugs
regularly push a speeding pursued car into an
unpredictable
spin
. When this kills people in the car, the thugs hold its
driver responsible.
13 February 2016 (
UK contract on junior doctors
The UK government says it will impose a contract on the junior doctors.
They say
they
will strike
, and if that fails, quit.
Someone seems to have falsely signed NHS officials names to a
letter
backing the imposition of a contract
. Half of them have said they
reject the letter; some say the text was altered after they agreed.
What else would you expect from Tories?
13 February 2016 (
Teaching about global heating
US schools do a
lousy
job of teaching about global heating
. Most students are not
taught that human beings are causing it.
The teachers are
not
very well educated about the issue
13 February 2016 (
MySpace user data
MySpace has been bought — to mine its
user
data
Even if a company has a firm policy about not mistreating its users
(unlikely), that is unlikely to bind whatever company acquires it.
It also won't bind crackers that steal the data, or Big Brother armed
with a national security letter.
The best thing is not to let the company get any data about you.
I do my purchases anonymously.
13 February 2016 (
Who would MLK support?
If Martin Luther King Jr were alive,
he
would probably support Sanders
13 February 2016 (
NSA
The NSA
merged
the department for defending computer security with the department for
breaking security
13 February 2016 (
Trump and Cruz on torture
Ted Cruz used to understand that torture is wrong, and said so. But
when he felt pressured to compete with Trump to endorse torture, he
did so by
redefining
torture so narrowly that not much would qualify
Trump and Cruz are
promoting
the false assumption
that torture is an effective way to get
information from a suspect, as well as the immoral idea that it is
justified.
13 February 2016 (
Investment advisers
Investment advisers are
telling
the US government that requiring them to serve their clients' interest
would be disastrous
, and telling their stockholders that they
would cope with it just fine.
13 February 2016 (
Popular vote vs nomination
Even if Sanders Wins the Popular Vote, Clinton
Could
Still Get the Nomination
13 February 2016 (
Up to US to stop provoking violence
It is
up
to the US to stop
its violence-provoking deadly violence against
Muslim countries.
13 February 2016 (
Special passports for "sex offenders"
The US now has a law to give "sex offenders"
special
passports that will expose them to harassment
This lumps rapists together with teenagers that sext (which may be
foolish but should not be a crime at all).
Some states are thinking of converting sexting into a misdemeanor.
While that might reduce the harm done by prosecuting them, it is
not
a real solution
It also occurs to me that if having a copy of your own nude photo
becomes a felony when you reach 18 years of age, many will become
felons without noticing.
13 February 2016 (
Imprisoning and torturing protesters
Egypt's foreign minister, visiting the US,
defended
Egypt's practice
of imprisoning people by the hundreds for
protesting, then torturing them in jail for years pending a farce of a
trial.
Isn't it a shame that such a person gets invited to meet the US
government?
Isn't it a bigger shame that the US's own conduct does not provide a
clear rebuke to Egypt?
13 February 2016 (
Sanders winning the internet
Why
Bernie Sanders is Winning the Internet
13 February 2016 (
Wisconsin's corrupt supreme court
Wisconsin's corrupt supreme court has issued several
arbitrary
orders to block prosecutors
from appealing its decision to the US
Supreme Court.
The decision they intend to appeal was to shut down a criminal
investigation that might inculpate plutocratist Governor Walker.
13 February 2016 (
UK ministers and international agreements
The UK government has
quietly
erased the policy that ministers have an "overarching duty" to carry
out international agreements
I agree with this campaign as regards human rights. Ministers must
respect them. However, I think there are some international
agreements that every minister has a duty to stuff in the toilet —
the business supremacy agreements.
13 February 2016 (
Omitted Google search results
Google will omit search results based on the
"right
to be forgotten from searches"
for any access from a machine
believed to be in Europe.
13 February 2016 (
Biodiversity loss
Biodiversity
Loss
and the Doomsday Clock: An Invisible Disaster Almost No One
is Talking About.
13 February 2016 (
Prominent US blacks support Sanders
Two prominent US blacks, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michelle Alexander, have
announced
support for Sanders
Here's
the
article by Michelle Alexander
12 February 2016 (
Urgent: No more offshore drilling
US citizens:
call on
Obama
to allow no new offshore drilling for gas or oil.
12 February 2016 (
Urgent: Protect wildlife refuges
US citizens:
call
for the strongest possible rule
to protect wildlife refuges from
oil drilling.
12 February 2016 (
Inequality in America
How
Corporate Bamboozlers Intend to Widen Inequality in America
(Hint, it's a three-letter treaty.)
The only way they will let any wealth trickle down to the rest of us
is if we squeeze them.
12 February 2016 (
Sanders victory in New Hampshire
Sanders won a
landslide
victory
in New Hampshire, beating Clinton by 22 percent.
Sanders' conclusive victory
demonstrates
Clinton's electability problem
12 February 2016 (
"Social welfare" certification for dark money
IRS Gives Up, Grants Karl Rove's Dark Money Group
"Social
Welfare" Certification
12 February 2016 (
Delhi thugs beat up journalist
Delhi
thugs
beat up a journalist who was
covering
a protest of Dalits
12 February 2016 (
Thug chasing teenagers who make nude selfies
thug
chief in Pennsylvania is searching for all teenagers that have
made nude selfies, in order to
prosecute
them
12 February 2016 (
Drug trafficking
The Fiction That Drug Trafficking Is 'Inherently Violent' Could Harm
Sentencing
Reform
12 February 2016 (
Government snooping
Encryption is
not
stopping the US from monitoring anyone in particular
, but it is
somewhat of an inconvenience for monitoring everyone at once.
Internet-connected
devices
are already being used to snoop on people, by government
agencies and by others.
12 February 2016 (
Imprisoned for being at protest
Bahrain has
imprisoned
a journalist for being present at a protest
Bahrain has
repressed
protests cruelly
12 February 2016 (
Salafi Arabia's attacks on MSF
Last Call:
The
Life and Death of an Ambulance Driver in Yemen
12 February 2016 (
China's kidnapings of HK publishers
China's kidnaping of people who publish books in Hong Kong has
succeeded in
intimidating
the whole population
12 February 2016 (
The Military-Industrial Complex
Feeding the
Military-Industrial
Complex
12 February 2016 (
Monsanto lobbyist cash for Clinton
Big
Campaign Cash
for Clinton From Monsanto Lobbyist.
12 February 2016 (
French users' data in the US
France wants Facebook to stop
sending
French users' data to the US
12 February 2016 (
Obama proposes big cuts to water SRF
Obama proposed a
big
cut in US funds to help localities such as Flint cope with water
infrastructure problems
12 February 2016 (
Carbon capture and storage
The UK's carbon emission targets will be difficult to meet without
carbon
capture and storage (CCS)
The problems are that (1) the Tories (who don't seriously intend to
meet those targets) have cancelled the funds for CCS and (2) it is
experimental and might not work practically anyway.
12 February 2016 (
Child labor vs child slavery
Distinguishing
between child labor and child slavery.
12 February 2016 (
Extraction of false confessions
Some studies suggest that
sleep
deprivation
encourages false confessions.
In fact,
thugs
use
many
methods to extract false confessions
The article refers to a video on Netflix. Please
don't ever use
Netflix
12 February 2016 (
NFL interference in concussion research
The NFL has
subtly
interfered
in research about concussions and their effects on the
brain.
12 February 2016 (
Canada to support Syrian Kurds
Canada will choose to
support
Syrian Kurds
rather than adding to air attack against PISSI.
12 February 2016 (
The Greater Sage-Grouse
The US bent over backward to cater to business by weakening protection
of the Greater Sage-Grouse, but Utah is now
suing
to get the weakened plan cancelled
12 February 2016 (
Urgent: Transcanada's lawsuit
US citizens: tell Congress to look at Transcanada's lawsuit and
reject
the TPP.
12 February 2016 (
Urgent: oil exports
US citizens: call on Obama to use emergency powers
to
stop oil exports for one year.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
12 February 2016 (
Urgent: 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act
US citizens:
Support
the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act.
12 February 2016 (
Urgent: non-primary Democratic Party delegates
US citizens: call on the non-primary Democratic Party delegates
to
heed what primary voters decide.
12 February 2016 (
Urgent: confront the banksters
US citizens: state your support for
Sanders'
plan
to confront the banksters.
12 February 2016 (
"Emergency medical services"
Cleveland is trying to charge Tamir Rice's family $500 for "emergency medical services"
as
he was dying from the shots fired by a Cleveland thug.
12 February 2016 (
Former guard at Auschwitz
A former guard at Auschwitz will be tried as an accessory to
170,000 murders.
12 February 2016 (
"Clothing banks"
With
Tory success
in keeping wages down and boosting rents, working
people now need to get clothing for their children from "clothing
banks".
The Tories are
lower than vermin.
Repeating that slogan is vital to inform Britons that they should
blame the Tories, not themselves, for their difficulties.
12 February 2016 (
Citizenship laws
50
countries
have citizenship laws that discriminate against women.
In some countries, female citizens have children who can't get citizenship
in any country.
12 February 2016 (
Putin and the EU
George Soros claims that Putin is trying to make the EU disintegrate by
sending
lots of Syrians fleeing there.
In the long term, I think
PISSI
is more of a threat to Europe than Putin. For Putin, what approach
to take towards Europe is purely a matter of expediency, and he might
change it any day.
12 February 2016 (
"Snooper's charter"
The Tories' "snooper's charter" is set up to collect all data about everyone,
recipe for tyranny.
12 February 2016 (
Don't believe Governor Kasich
Don't believe Governor Kasich when he claims to be a
"moderate".
He wants to hurt women and the non-rich much like other Republicans,
only he is a little less crazy about it.
12 February 2016 (
Privatized prisons
The privatized prisons that hold families for deportation from the US are
unacceptable
places to put a child.
The US government is scurrying to set
up a licensing system that would eliminate the requirements these
prisons fail to meet.
12 February 2016 (
Climate Science Denial Clangers
Checking
Ted
Cruz's
Climate Science Denial Clangers.
12 February 2016 (
Criminal justice reforms
Department
of Justice
Will Sue Ferguson to Force Criminal Justice Reforms.
12 February 2016 (
Syria's population
Almost half of Syria's population is displaced, and 1 in 9 have been
killed
or injured by fighting.
12 February 2016 (
Criticizing candidates
Criticizing candidates for acknowledging that the US has
serious problems.
12 February 2016 (
Peace Action PAC
Peace Action PAC
has
endorsed Sanders.
12 February 2016 (
Extinction of mosquitos
Should we engineer the extinction of the mosquitos that spread
Zika,
Dengue, Malaria and so on?
In principle, I am in favor of wiping out Aedes aegypti and other
mosquito species that transmit diseases to humans. They will be no
great ecological loss. In principle, the loss of any species is
a loss to the world, but sometimes it is justified.
However, we had better be very careful not to make a mistake that
would backfire.
Meanwhile, we are wiping out thousands of other species
unintentionally through carelessness and inattention. Let's put an
end to that!
12 February 2016 (
Obama's clean power plan
Supreme Court Ruling on Obama's Clean Power Plan Just a
'Bump
in the Road'.
12 February 2016 (
Environmental racism
Due to environmental racism, many mostly-black communities in the US have
bad
water supplies.
12 February 2016 (
Global heating could affect investments
Fund managers that ignore the risk that global heating could affect their investments
could
be sued by their clients.
12 February 2016 (
Tidal lagoon energy storage
The UK government has
effectively
canceled
a tidal lagoon energy storage plan by delaying the decision.
This method is somewhat experimental, whereas burning oll is a time-tested
method for frying our ecosphere.
12 February 2016 (
MP can't afford a house
Tory MP
can't afford to buy a house and had to move in with his
parents. And it isn't even in London!
12 February 2016 (
Inconvenient legal obstacles
Obama wants to eliminate inconvenient legal obstacles to giving
Egypt's
tyrannical government
tear gas and such.
12 February 2016 (
Prison sentence for throwing rocks
Israel has sentenced Palestinian boys to
15
years in prison
after wringing confessions out of them. They
confessed to throwing rocks.
Never mind that there is no evidence that any rocks were actually
thrown there and then, or that some of the boys were proved to be
elsewhere at the time.
12 February 2016 (
Media protests killing of journalist
The media
went
on strike for a day in Guinea
to protest the killing of a
journalist there.
12 February 2016 (
Israel extending collective punishment
Israel is extending
collective
punishment of Palestinians that live near some who carried out a
violent attack against Israelis
12 February 2016 (
Israel sprays herbicide on farmland
Israeli planes
sprayed
herbicide on farmland
near the Gaza border, and even on some that
is not so near the border.
12 February 2016 (
Israeli Labor Party for apartheid
The Israeli Labor Party has gone
on
record
for imposing permanent apartheid on Palestinians.
12 February 2016 (
Israel's plan to deaccredit journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists
rebuked
Israel's plan
to deaccredit journalists based on the headlines of
their articles.
12 February 2016 (
Haitians oppose US-controlled election
Haitians have made US-imposed President Martelly step down when his
term ended, and now oppose the new
US-controlled
election plan
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
Here's how the US
imposed
Martelly on Haiti
11 February 2016 (
NY Times parody edition
Here are
the articles
in the recent
printed parody edition of the New York Times.
11 February 2016 (
Journalist on hunger strike
Palestinian journalist Muhammad al-Qiq rejected the meaningless court
decision to
suspend his
imprisonment without trial (but not free him)
, so he continues his
hunger strike.
11 February 2016 (
Activist trainers
An activist group trains people to
find
opportunities to meet presidential candidates
and demand answers
about issues.
11 February 2016 (
Mexico's missing students
Forensic
Experts Reject Mexico's Claim
That Criminals Burned Missing
Students.
11 February 2016 (
Republicans compete to be the worst
Republican candidates compete to pledge the
gravest
war crimes
10 February 2016 (
Urgent: End US support for Salafi Arabia
US citizens:
call
for an end to US support
for Salafi Arabia's war in Yemen.
10 February 2016 (
Urgent: Investigate death in jail
US citizens:
call on Attorney General Lynch
to investigate the death in jail of Ahjah Dixon.
10 February 2016 (
Urgent: Tell Clinton to stop lying
US citizens:
Tell
Clinton
, stop lying about your vote for the war in Iraq.
10 February 2016 (
Snooping with internet-connected "things"
Clapper acknowledged that it might use internet-connected "things" in
your home
to
snoop on you
10 February 2016 (
Privatization of water in NJ
Chris Christie and the New Jersey legislature just
authorized
privatization of people's water without their approval
10 February 2016 (
Treating drug overdoses like murder
New Hampshire
plans
to charge drug dealers with murder
when someone dies from an
overdose or contamination.
This won't deter anyone from selling drugs, and
won't
avoid overdoses
. It is just a way to look tough.
Dangerous drugs are used all around the world. Perhaps the laws and
medical systems of some other countries make overdoses less likely, or
less likely to be fatal.
Giving addicts a legal way to get a fix, with assured strength and no
toxic additives, could really prevent these problems from happening.
A better medical system might avoid deaths in some cases. Deaths from
guns, cars and drugs are significant causes of death for US males,
reducing life expectancy by a whole year, compared with some other
countries.
10 February 2016 (
US wars since 2001
Ever since 2001, the US army has kept on fighting wars, and despite
its military power, it
has
never really won any of these wars
I'd say this is because politicians have directed it into fights that
are unjustified and foolish.
10 February 2016 (
Enacting Sanders Agenda
Enacting Sanders Agenda Would
Catapult
Economy, Shatter Inequality
10 February 2016 (
Changes achieved by passionate movements
The "wise", "realistic" people who say passionate movements can't
achieve
big
changes for the good
have it 100% backwards.
Making things worse can be done working behind the scenes. That's the
way lobbyists work. But if you want to make things better, you can't
do it with their methods. You must rouse people. You must
demand
justice, and full solutions
to big problems.
That doesn't mean it is easy to win. But at least that way you can
make it a real fight.
I think Clinton realizes this. She is not interested in changing very
much, so she can denigrate the methods by which that could be done.
Here are
groups of Americans who have been beaten down
. Government policy
should be designed to help them.
10 February 2016 (
Syrian Kurds invited to Moscow
Putin
invited
the Syrian Kurds to open an office in Moscow
. I regard this as
good news. I hope this means Russian planes will not bomb them.
10 February 2016 (
Our Collapsing Democracy
It's Not Just Water That's Poisoning Our Kids; It's Also Our
Collapsing
Democracy
10 February 2016 (
Dissident kidnaped and sentenced to death
Ethiopian dissident expatriate Andy Tsege was
kidnaped
and taken to Ethiopia, and sentenced to death there
. In the mean
time, he has been denied contact with his lawyer and his family.
10 February 2016 (
The best feminist for president
RoseAnn DeMoro: I Will Vote for the Best Feminist for President:
Bernie
Sanders
10 February 2016 (
Erdoğan to rebuild city and keep Kurds out
After chasing the Kurds out of their historic part of Diyarbakir, and
destroying archaeological sites there, Erdoğan
plans
to rebuild it as a boring modern city
so they won't come back.
10 February 2016 (
Mississippi thugs
Mississippi
thugs
shot Ricky Ball dead, but they are
covering
up the circumstances and posting contradictory reports
10 February 2016 (
Obama sending troops back to Afghanistan
Obama is
sending
US troops back to Afghanistan
. The Afghan Army can't hold out
alone.
I'm worried this indicates a US decision to prop up the Afghan
government ad infinitem.
10 February 2016 (
Terrorist violence reduced in Pakistan
Pakistan's
war on jihadis
has greatly weakened them, and reduced terrorist
violence there.
10 February 2016 (
Death of visiting researcher in Egypt
4,600
academics outside Egypt demanded an investigation
into the
apparent death by torture of visiting researcher Giulio Regeni.
Here's
their
letter
The obvious suspects are the
thugs
and the army.
10 February 2016 (
Increasing inequality in the US
The US experiences
increased
inequality, without wage gains, since 1980
, due to policies that
Sanders would change.
10 February 2016 (
US Presidents accustomed to luxury
Former US presidents get a
pension
of $200,000 a year (plus office staff)
so they won't feel a need
for a private income — but presidents since Reagan are accustomed
to so much luxury that they find this insufficient.
10 February 2016 (
Weak rules for more efficient airliners
The proposed rules for more efficient airliners, starting with those
made in 2028, are
so
weak that they will be satisfied with no effort
This ineffective initiative replaces the flight tax that the EU
imposed, which was shot down by
business-subservient
states such as the US
10 February 2016 (
Imprisoned in Burma without charge
Burma has kept foreigners in prison for
over
a year
, using technicalities as an excuse to avoid charging them,
even though it is clear they could not have committed the crime they
were informally accused of.
10 February 2016 (
UK deaths caused by air pollution
5%
of deaths
in the UK are due to air pollution.
10 February 2016 (
Australia's disposal of boat people
Australians are
starting
to react with their consciences
against the policy of disposing of
boat people incommunicado in inaccessible islands.
10 February 2016 (
Feel the Bern in Bern
Feel
the Bern in Bern
9 February 2016 (
UN condemns Assad, PISSI and al-Nusra
A UN panel accuses Assad of
massive
killing of civilians in Syria
. It also condemns PISSI and
al-Nusra for war crimes.
9 February 2016 (
India rejects Facebook proposal
India has rejected Facebook's
proposal
to trash network neutrality
9 February 2016 (
EU wants to criminalize helpers
The European Union
wants
to criminalize all those who help refugees
, falsely calling the
helpers "traffickers" or "people smugglers".
9 February 2016 (
Phone tracking
Maryland Attorney General: If You Don't Want To Be Tracked,
Turn
Off Your Phone
Of course, we can do so. We can even refuse to have a mobile phone,
and that is what I do. But that is only a last recourse, and it
shouldn't be necessary.
9 February 2016 (
Starting council meetings with prayer
Phoenix used to start its council meetings with a prayer; then the
Satanic Temple said it wanted a turn to lead the prayer. The council
voted
to cease starting meetings with prayers
Bravo for the Satanic Temple. It is a clever
hack
9 February 2016 (
Trauma of living in detention as a child
"Children are not little adults. The
trauma
of living in detention
could last forever."
9 February 2016 (
NOAA temperature measuring stations
The NOAA set up temperature measuring stations in places in the US
with little human activity, to
calibrate
the temperature measurements from cities
. It turns out that
adjustments to the latter, which compensate for changes in local
conditions, do a good job of it.
9 February 2016 (
Georgia considers making insults a crime
Georgia is
considering
a bill to make insulting religion a crime
This is part of a worldwide push for more censorship. People are
entitled to the right to insult any person, any group, any practice,
any institution, and any belief.
9 February 2016 (
Proposed law against "swatting"
US Representative Clark
proposed
a law against "swatting"
, a false report designed to send a SWAT team
to someone's home, and someone responded by swatting her.
I support this goal, but I have doubts about the proposed bill. First
of all, prosecuting false reports will only be possible when the
author of the report can be identified. Aren't most of these reports
anonymous?
Second, the bill is much broader, and makes any false emergency report
a crime.
9 February 2016 (
Google to promote views opposed to extremism
Google plans to promote views opposed to Islamist extremism,
without
censoring the extremism itself
9 February 2016 (
Facial recognition software used by Super Bowl
That Time the Super Bowl
Secretly
Used Facial Recognition Software on Fans
9 February 2016 (
"Gay Cures"
Electrocution,
Rape And Submersion
: 'Gay Cures' And the Fight to End Them.
9 February 2016 (
Sodomy now a felony in Michigan
Just to show their bigotry, Republicans in the Michigan senate
passed
an unconstitutional bill to make sodomy a felony
9 February 2016 (
Record year for US wildfires
2015 set a record for
wildfires
in the US
. This year will be worse.
9 February 2016 (
Humanity not prepared for global pandemic
The UN says humanity has made
insufficient
preparations
to deal with a global pandemic.
This does not surprise me, because governments allocate to public
health the least they can get away with under normal circumstances.
By the time they see a need for more, it takes too long to ramp up.
9 February 2016 (
Sea-level rise
Sea-level rise caused by
global heating
will continue for thousands of
years and ultimately go up
25
meters
. New York, London, Cairo and Shanghai will all be
submerged.
9 February 2016 (
Lobbyists close to Clinton
Clinton is close to lobbyists who
worked
against Obama's medical care law and against reform of banking
9 February 2016 (
Public libraries in danger
Public libraries offered poor children a calm place to study and a
place to learn to love reading. Now they are
in
danger
The idea that talented people make the world a better place has no
traction among plutocrats. They care only about their own children's
future; most of the population is of no use to them any more and might
as well die young.
9 February 2016 (
Banning discussion of Plato
The UK's
campaign
to prevent radicalization in universities
would ban discussion of
Plato.
9 February 2016 (
"Debate" about TPP did not occur
There was a 90-day delay in signing the TPP, supposedly to permit
"debate" which
did
not occur at all
9 February 2016 (
Proposal to limit use of cash in Germany
Germans are
fiercely
resisting
a proposal to limit the use of cash.
09 February 2016 (
Consumers' free speech
Maryland
Bill Would Protect Consumers' Free Speech from Bad Contracts
It is too bad that the article uses the incoherent term "intellectual
property". As usual,
that term is a
gratuitous overgeneralization
, since in fact the law they try to
do this with is copyright law. Writing "intellectual property"
instead of "copyright" drags in several irrelevant legal issues
including trademarks, patents, design patents, IC mask monopolies,
trade secrets and publicity rights.
09 February 2016 (
Children in immigration prison
Children should not be sent to immigration prison. It
can
damage them permanently
09 February 2016 (
Allowing UK to order searches and wiretaps in US
The US
wants
to allow UK officials to order searches and wiretaps in the US
This is too dangerous. A search in the US should always require
approval of a US court, and likewise for every other country.
It must be possible to speed up international assistance
without removing crucial safeguards.
09 February 2016 (
Turkey blocks Syrians fleeing Aleppo
Syrians fleeing Aleppo are
blocked
at the border of Turkey
. They are getting some supplies there.
09 February 2016 (
Urgent: Planned Parenthood
Everyone:
call
on Ohio Governor Kasich
to veto the bill to defund Planned
Parenthood.
09 February 2016 (
Urgent: Call on Governor Snyder to testify
Everyone:
Call
on Governor Snyder
to testify to Congress about Flint's water.
09 February 2016 (
Collapse of the world's forests
The World's Forests Will Collapse
if
we Don't Learn to Say 'No'
09 February 2016 (
UK's tax collection office
The UK's tax collection office goes after 1000 alleged tax evaders per
year, a handful, and they
typically
choose working people rather than the rich
09 February 2016 (
HSBC fined for fraudulent foreclosures
HSBC was fined half a billion dollars for fraudulent foreclosures, but
that
does
not include sufficient compensation for all the victims
. And
nobody was jailed for this.
09 February 2016 (
Motor boat noise makes fish vulnerable
Noise from motor boats makes
small
fish more vulnerable to predators
09 February 2016 (
Speech violently shut down in London
An Israeli who supports two-state peace spoke in London; Palestinians
calling for the elimination of Israel
violently
shut down his speech
I am disappointed that he endorses the idea that speech can be banned
because it is "hate speech".
09 February 2016 (
"Economic benefits" of Super Bowl overestimated
The Super Bowl (football championship game) pretends to offer the host city
a lot of "economic benefits", but the are
systematically
overestimated
. (And they go mainly to some businesses, not to the
people in general.)
09 February 2016 (
Churches in Australia to offer refugees sanctuary
Churches in Australia will offer sanctuary to
refugees
threatened with being sent to Nauru
09 February 2016 (
Young Sanders supporters
Younger women that support Sanders
take
offense at Gloria Steinem's claim that they are doing it to get
attention from men
She should know better than to belittle women generally like that.
8 February 2016 (
Very urgent: Phone your congresscritter
US citizens: phone your congresscritter at 877-852-4710
and say to
oppose
the TPP
08 February 2016 (
Fees for Clintons' speeches
The Clintons were paid
over
$150 million dollars
for their speeches, but Clinton said that
that Sanders was "smearing" her by talking about this.
08 February 2016 (
India's gov't opposing science
India's government is opposing science and rationality, and
meddling
in university governance
08 February 2016 (
Campaign contributions via lobbyists
Clinton calls for
shaming
lobbyists
. How about shaming candidates that accept campaign
contributions via lobbyists?
08 February 2016 (
Sanders and Clinton tied
A poll finds Sanders and Clinton
tied
nationally
08 February 2016 (
Risking World War III in Syria
Risking
World War III in Syria
. The article says that Turkey is preparing
to invade Syria to fight the Kurds there.
08 February 2016 (
Bernie Sanders
Bernie
Sanders Lacks Foreign Policy Experience, But Also His Rivals'
Errors
Voting for the Iraq war was not a mere error. It demonstrated either
grossly bad judgment or a lack of courage to resist the political
pressure.
Progressive elected leaders, who have no experience in military
policy, sometimes feel they don't dare say no to militarists. But
those militarists are part of the corporate machine that Sanders has
stood against for decades, and I think he can and will face down the
military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about.
8 February 2016 (
Urgent: Drop plans to prosecute Assange
Everyone:
call
on the US
to drop its plans to prosecute Julian Assange.
8 February 2016 (
Israeli bloggers ordered to submit
The Israeli army is ordering Israeli bloggers to get
clearance
in advance for what they post
. Yossi Gurvitz says he refuses.
Israel's unending, permanent emergency shows
what
threatens in France
8 February 2016 (
Urgent: Reject colonies in Palestine
US citizens:
tell
Congress
to reject the bill that would endorse Israel's colonies
in Palestine.
8 February 2016 (
Urgent: Reject violation of Roe v Wade
Everyone:
call
on Florida
to reject the law to imprison doctors for doing
abortions.
This law would violate Roe v Wade, and would presumably be rejected
by courts; but it is hard to have confidence in this nowadays.
8 February 2016 (
Urgent: Social Security
US citizens:
call on
Democratic politicians
to reject the "Third Way"'s campaign to cut
Social Security.
8 February 2016
Thugs
US cities
made
agreements with thug unions
promising to destroy records
on complaints against
thugs
and investigations of thugs.
They also impede investigations of complaints against
thugs
8 February 2016
Nazis' final solution
How
and why
did the Nazis murder 6 million Jews? And what did the
German people know about it? A new book studies this in depth.
8 February 2016
Big Data
German Competition Watchdog
Wants
'Big Data' Hoards Considered in Merger Probes.
This can help limit the power companies get from their data hoards,
but we need to do more. We should make sure no company can accumulate
so much.
7 February 2016 (
Amazon "independent contractors"
Amazon pays Mechanical Turk workers
as
little as 2 dollars an hour
, making the excuse that they are
"independent contractors".
7 February 2016 (
Clinton says she's a progressive
Hillary Clinton Turns Stand-Up Comic:
"I'm
a Progressive Who Gets Things Done"
Sure she gets things done, but are they progressive?
7 February 2016 (
Conservative 'Dark Money'
The
Conservative Playbook for Keeping 'Dark Money' Dark
7 February 2016 (
Organic farming yields
Studies show that organic farming's yields are
enough
to feed the world
We would save a tremendous amount on pesticides.
7 February 2016 (
PISSI's manpower
PISSI
's manpower in Syria and Iraq is
said
to be decreasing significantly
, but maybe its supporters are going
to Libya instead.
7 February 2016 (
Private accounts used for classified emails
Colin
Powell And Condoleezza Rice Used Private Accounts for Classified
Emails
(as did Clinton afterward).
I think it was a bad practice, but the reason why I won't vote
for Clinton is
her
support for plutocracy
. It took her until a few months ago to
oppose the TPP, and I am
not
confident she really means it
7 February 2016 (
Thai thugs raid bridge club
Thai
thugs
raided a bridge club in Pattaya,
based
on false information
7 February 2016 (
Linking to copyrighted pages
The European Union's Court of Justice is
considering
a case about whether you have a right to make a link to a copyrighted
page
Please don't refer to pages as
"content"
That term disparages the works that are posted on the web.
7 February 2016
Arrested for refusing to remove crosses
China arrested the leader of a Christian church because he
opposed commands to remove crosses
I don't object to laws about how loudly churches can advertise
publicly, but enforcing those laws doesn't require or excuse
arresting someone for opposing the laws.
7 February 2016
Trump promises to reinstitute torture
Trump promised to
reinstitute torture
if he is elected president —
waterboarding and worse.
After World War II, the US executed Japanese officers responsible for
using waterboarding American prisoners of war. Torture is wrong no
matter who does it.
Even a subhuman monster like Trump does not deserve to be tortured.
Imprisoned, yes, if he does what he promises. The same for Cruz.
7 February 2016
Shaming of women who don't hide breasts
People continue to
publicly harass women
who don't hide their breasts well enough.
We would all be better off if women — all women, not just
attractive
women — felt no compulsion to cover their breasts. The taboo on
them
provokes exaggerated desire for them, this keeps men and women at
distance, and they understand each other less.
To see the bad effects of such taboos, look at an example that has
more of them: Arab culture.
7 February 2016
Tories to kick people out of state housing
The Tories will
kick tens of thousands of working British families out
of state housing to make room for the poorest and disabled.
This responds to the shortage of housing which was created by Tory
policies such as
selling state apartments
to their occupants,
together with failing to
properly tax expensive properties
that nobody lives in.
Banning squatting
contributed too.
Many of these families will end up on the street, or in a remote
place from which they reach their jobs any more.
7 February 2016
Provisional president in Haiti
Someone has
decided to elect a provisional president
in Haiti to run a new election.
It is not clear from this article whether the opposition agrees to
this plan.
7 February 2016
Clinton will not rule out social security cuts
Clinton has "no plan" to cut Social Security but
refuses to rule it out
7 February 2016
Rubio pretends he was never a lobbyist
Marco Rubio is
trying to pretend
he was never a lobbyist.
7 February 2016
Public health impact of domestic violence
The Public Health Impact of Domestic Violence.
7 February 2016
WiFi for homeless shut in war on sharing
A homeless people's charity had to
shut its WiFi network
because its ISP was going to fine it for forbidden file-sharing.
More casualties of the war on sharing.
7 February 2016
9-year-old rape victim denied treatment
A 9-year-old Dalit child was raped, and the surgeon at the local
hospital
refused to allow her to be admitted
and treated.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
In the US, patients are denied treatment for money.
In India, it's for caste.
7 February 2016
Privatization of Terrorism Blacklists
The Privatization of Terrorism Blacklists Will Damage Innocent
Lives.
7 February 2016
Tory planned smear campaign against charities
A Tory official
planned a smear campaign
against organizations that help
women and victims of domestic violence. By accident he sent the plans
to his targets.
Meanwhile, the government has
eliminated the funds
for the main organization that helps LGBT victims of domestic violence.
The Tories are
lower than vermin
7 February 2016
UN: Assange's rights violated by UK and Sweden
A UN Human Rights panel has ruled that the UK and Sweden have
violated Julian Assange's human rights
by keeping him bottled up in the Ecuadorian embassy.
The UK
does not care
though.
7 February 2016
GPS tracking bad for children's development
Tracking children with GPS is
bad for their mental development
(as well as their privacy).
It "protects" them against a danger of kidnaping by strangers
which is
so rare
it's not even worth thinking about.
7 February 2016
EU no longer serves the people
Varoufakis: The EU
no longer serves the people
— democracy demands a new beginning.
I've said the same thing for
ten years
7 February 2016
Urgent: tell Congress to reject bill to protect bankers
US citizens: call on Congress to
reject the Republican bill
to make it harder to prosecute bank fraud.
Republicans feel emboldened to act more and more blatantly
to allow the rich to trample everyone else.
7 February 2016 (
Kurdish journalist trapped in Turkey
A wounded Kurdish journalist is
trapped
in Cizre by the Turkish curfew
, and can't get out, since the
Turkish army shoots people almost at random.
7 February 2016 (
TPP
The
Treacherous Plutocratic Poison
threatens
our liberty
7 February 2016 (
Legionnaires' disease in Flint concealed
Snyder concealed knowledge of legionnaires' disease in Flint for
nearly
a year
, then lied about that.
7 February 2016 (
"Millenials" organization
Yet another dishonest conservative political organization:
"Millennials Rising" is
funded
almost entirely by old men
Plutocrats feel no shame in lying to the masses.
7 February 2016 (
Zika
Blood
transfusions can transmit Zika
, not surprisingly.
7 February 2016 (
China admits holding HK publishers captive
China admits holding some
disappeared
Hong Kong book publishers
captive.
7 February 2016 (
UK's "everything is for sale" attitude
The UK's "everything is for sale" attitude
occasionally
bites even the wealthy
7 February 2016 (
Cruel bans on abortion
The Catholic Church continues unbendingly to impose
cruel
bans on abortion
where it can.
From articles I've seen, it seems that microcephaly may only appear
late in pregnancy. Usually abortions are not done at that late stage,
but I think we should regard microcephalic fetuses as subhuman and
encourage abortion of them.
7 February 2016 (
Low-paid workers that deliver newspapers
The US media opened an eye to the low-paid workers that deliver
newspapers when the Boston Globe switched to a distributor that
tried
to pay so little that it couldn't find workers
, and papers went
undelivered.
7 February 2016
McMindfulness
McMindfulness: the commercialization of Buddhist techniques
perverts
their purpose.
7 February 2016
Nader
Nader
challenges Clinton
to revel the text of the speeches she gave to
banksters
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley?
Progressive 3.0:
Beware the Latest Version
of Hillary Clinton.
7 February 2016
Polluters
The Worst Polluters
Are In The Most Vulnerable Neighborhoods
, Study
Finds.
7 February 2016
Shopping
Americans generally
buy far far more things than they need
Those large houses are not found in the cities where most of my
acquaintances live, because rent is high.
7 February 2016
Taser
A taser shock
can leave a person mentally disorganized
and with gaps
or errors in memory. People in this state may make false statements
that appear to incriminate them.
7 February 2016
Brainwashing prison
The US has a prison in New York City
which brainwashes
prisoners
into pleading guilty.
The brainwashing conditions are officially a secret, but we know they
include isolation and sleep deprivation, as well as painful hot and cold.
7 February 2016
War Machine
Hillary
Is the Candidate
of the War Machine.
7 February 2016
Sex workers
A sex worker from Ulster
explains
how criminalizing her customers has
made her work more dangerous.
7 February 2016
Ted Cruz's policy
Ted Cruz's policy:
impose theocracy and mass poverty at home
while invading
other countries.
7 February 2016
Error 53
Apple's latest system upgrade for iThings
sabotages
them irreparably
if they were repaired by someone other than Apple.
7 February 2016
Discourage oil's use
The low price of oil
provides
a great opportunity to increase the tax on oil
and thus discourage its use.
Obama now
advocates
doing a little of that.
7 February 2016
Sanders and Clinton debates
Sanders and Clinton
have agreed
to more debates.
7 February 2016
Iowa
Coverage
of coin-tosses
in the Iowa caucuses was misleading.
7 February 2016
Salvadoran officer
The US
will send
a Salvadoran officer to Spain for trial for killing
dissident priests.
7 February 2016
Big Oil
How Big Oil
Spent $10m to Defeat
California [climate protection] Legislation.
7 February 2016
Mistreatment of prisoners
The US
released around 200 photos
of mistreatment of prisoners, out of
2000. The ACLU believes they are the mildest and that the other 1800
are worse.
7 February 2016
Empathy
In modern society
people are increasingly too busy
to help a stranger
in distress.
7 February 2016
Ban Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon
said that the UK has a duty to stop supplying arms
to
Salafi Arabia
Morally, the US does, too.
7 February 2016
PISSI
Isn't it foolish to
jail people who joined
PISSI
and learned how
foolish that was
7 February 2016
Ted Cruz
"Taken at face value, Republican presidential candidate
Ted Cruz's latest
fund-raising pitch to supporters is either impossible
, illegal, or a scam."
7 February 2016
Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery's long campaign for Israel to recognize a Palestinian state
has won
the support of just about every government on Earth,
except
Israel.
7 February 2016
Democrats
Many Democrats
are saying
they won't vote for Clinton for president
if she wins the nomination.
7 February 2016
Sanders Campaign
Sanders Campaign
Is a Genuine Progressive Social Movement
for Democracy.
7 February 2016
Mohammed al-Qiq
Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qiq, on hunger strike against
his imprisonment without trial,
is close to death
The Israeli Supreme Court says it has "suspended" his imprisonment,
but it is not clear what that means, since he is still not allowed to
leave the hospital.
7 February 2016
Guber
Guber
now
pays drivers
even fewer peanuts, and some former drivers are
planning to slow traffic during the Superbowl as a protest.
Since
Guber
attacks the freedom and privacy
of its users as well,
we should close it down.
7 February 2016
Gmail Scanning
Former, Current Students
Sue Google
over University-Issued Gmail
Scanning.
7 February 2016
Women's Rights
Women's Rights Crackdown
Exposes Deepening Crisis
in Chinese Society.
7 February 2016
Salafi Arabia
Salafi Arabia wants to send troops
to fight against
PISSI
in Syria.
However, they might actually fight against Assad, which would put
Salafi Arabia
directly into war with Russia.
I fear they would also fight the revolutionary Kurds.
7 February 2016
Angel Rosa
The US
deported
Angel Rosa to Guatemala, where he has no family. He
is ill from gangrene that he contracted in a US immigration prison,
and his children (US citizens who live in the US) cannot take care of
them there.
The US says it will investigate how he got gangrene, but will they go
to Guatemala to do it?
Sometimes I wonder if the immigration police are trying to demonstrate
how coldly and callously they can implements the rules.
7 February 2016
Ukraine corruption
Ukraine's economics minister and his whole team
resigned and denounced
ingrained corruption.
7 February 2016
Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein:
Let's make this
a real 'leap' year, and go fossil fuel-free.
long interview
with Naomi Klein.
7 February 2016
Asylum seekers turned back
It appears Australia
pays smugglers
to carry boat people back to
Indonesia, since the government refuses to deny this.
Now that the government tells the senate "just trust us", it is
totally out of democratic control. If I were a Senator I'd vote to
deny that department funding, just to make it accept accountability.
7 February 2016
Australian climate research
Australian climate research cuts
would wipe out programs
necessary
to measure how much and how
global heating
is changing the climate.
7 February 2016
Australia
7-Eleven franchise owners in Australia
systematically beat up workers
to steal their pay.
7 February 2016
Timbuktu
Timbuktu
Marks Rebuilding
of Mausoleums Destroyed by Islamists.
07 February 2016 (
Big Oil Giveaway
350.org:
Energy
Bill Is A Big Oil Giveaway
07 February 2016 (
Sanders Vows To Kill TPP
Sanders
Vows
To Kill TPP
If Elected. Will Clinton?
07 February 2016 (
Urgent: Regulate handling of methane
US citizens:
Support
the Bureau of Land Management
in regulating handling of methane.
07 February 2016 (
Urgent: Debate about TPP
US citizens:
call
on Rep. Wasserman Schultz
to debate primary opponent Canova about
the TPP.
07 February 2016 (
US anti-war movement 15 years ago
The US had a massive anti-war movement just
15
years ago
. You'd never know that, looking at the US today.
07 February 2016 (
Harassment of dissidents against TPP
The New Zealand government
preemptively
harassed dissidents that might protest
the TPP.
07 February 2016 (
Failure to close Ukrainian air space
The European Court of Human Rights has reportedly forgotten about a
case accusing Ukraine of negligence in
failing
to close the air
space over the battle in eastern Ukraine
, in which MH17 was shot
down.
07 February 2016 (
Urgent: Overtime pay
US citizens:
call on
Obama
not to let Republicans block a raise in the limit salary for
mandatory overtime pay.
07 February 2016 (
Holder making commercials for Clinton
Former Attorney General Holder, known for letting corporations get
away with fraud, is now
making
commercials for Clinton
06 February 2016 (
Israelis sentenced to prison for kidnap and murder
Israelis who kidnaped and murdered a Palestinian have been given
long
prison sentences
Israel barely holds on to fragments of justice, but
an
increasing right-wing current says to massacre Palestinians
06 February 2016 (
"Data-driven policing"
"Data-driven
policing"
means watching everything everyone does, making
suppositions about who is a criminal, and putting them on lists of
suspects.
If you believe that the
thugs
can be trusted, and you value safety but
not freedom, you would rationally want this — provided you will
never be a protester, a dissident, a journalist, a source, or a member
of a low-privilege minority.
We ought to prohibit it.
06 February 2016 (
Bridge closure scandal
Chris Christie is
suppressing
crucial emails
about the bridge closure scandal.
06 February 2016 (
Who poisoned our water?
Americans were supposed to fear that terrorists would poison our
water, but we see once again that
corrupt
and unjust government
is a bigger threat than foreign terrorists.
This is why we must not give up our freedom or privacy for
security, even on the rare occasions when the security is real.
06 February 2016 (
Taxing sugary drinks
Taxing sugary drinks
would
reduce the problem of obesity
, which leads to diabetes. There is
no excuse for failing to do this.
06 February 2016 (
Funding cuts for Planned Parenthood
Funding cuts in Texas for Planned Parenthood
hit
poor women hardest
, and women who used to get birth control from
Planned Parenthood had a substantial increase in pregnancy rate.
The Christian fanatics that attack abortion rights
really
want to attack contraception also
. They consider pregnancy a
punishment for having sex.
06 February 2016 (
Homeless kicked out for Superbowl
People in San Francisco are
protesting
the ouster of homeless people
for sponsors of the Superbowl.
06 February 2016 (
Aleppo
Russian bombardment is
forcing
Syrian rebels out
of Aleppo.
300,000
inhabitants may flee
from Aleppo.
06 February 2016 (
Supermarket food waste
French supermarkets are now legally required to
donate
food when it isn't fit to to sell but is still good to eat
06 February 2016 (
How to make banks smaller
Big banks would get a lot smaller if the US starts prosecuting their frauds.
A group of
bank
whistleblowers
recommend how.
I am confident Sanders will do this if we elect him. It doesn't
require new laws, just serious efforts to carry out the existing ones.
06 February 2016 (
Sanders questioning Clinton's integrity
Yes, Bernie Sanders Is
Questioning
Hillary Clinton's Integrity
She deserves that.
I've
questioned it for a long time
I don't believe Clinton adopted her positions because plutocrats
approached her and said, "We will give you money if you adopt these
positions." She would never do anything so crass. Rather, she knew
what plutocrats wanted (just as we all do). She could take a stand
for their side without ever having a discussion with them about it.
06 February 2016 (
Ban on books for Palestinian prisoners
Israel has
banned
Palestinian prisoners from receiving books
A few years ago,
the
UK banned prisoners from receiving books
06 February 2016 (
Human rights defenders in Israel
Human rights defenders in Israel
face
intimidation
; Breaking the Silence meetings are cancelled, and
people are afraid to criticize the right-wing dominance.
One fanatic
wants
thugs to systematically kill Palestinians
rather than arrest them.
The accusations made by a right-winger against a human rights defender
in the Tel Aviv City Council demonstrate the contempt for the truth
typical of the right-wing that now dominates Israel. Look at his
claim that Breaking the Silence is "silencing people" by publishing
what Israeli soldiers say about what they saw and did in the
occupation. The only adequate term is Orwell's term, "blackwhiting".
06 February 2016 (
Rejection of Israel's colonization
States and businesses are
increasingly
rejecting Israel's colonization of Palestinian territory
. Even
the US is criticizing it more than before.
A lot more is needed, but it is good to see progress.
06 February 2016 (
Ramallah under siege
Israel has put Ramallah under siege, as a form of
collective
punishment
06 February 2016 (
Misleading car pollution tests
Car companies
lobbied
the European Parliament
into accepting misleading pollution tests.
06 February 2016 (
Obama about to sign TPP
Obama is
just
about to sign the TPP
, which would be a climate disaster.
If he does not sign, he won't get his multimillion-dollar payoff.
06 February 2016 (
"Golden rice"
"Golden rice" is held back by
practical
drawbacks
, such as poor yield in real farms, and it's not clear
how much it would help those who are nutritionally deprived.
06 February 2016 (
False convictions in the US
In the US, convicts are
proved
innocent at the rate of three a week
Some of the false convictions were caused by dishonest
thugs
and
prosecutors.
06 February 2016 (
HK publisher kidnaped
Hong Kong publisher Li Xin was apparently
kidnaped
in Thailand and taken to China
06 February 2016 (
Middle-wage jobs disappearing
In the US, middle-wage jobs are disappearing:
new
technology creates only poverty-level jobs
06 February 2016 (
Flint Water Tragedy
Michael Moore:
10
Things They Won't Tell You
About the Flint Water Tragedy, But I
Will.
06 February 2016 (
FCC moves a step towards free software
One of the FCC commissioners
proposes
that net-connected devices should permit the users to study the source
code
This is not enough to make them
free software
, or even
"open
source"
, but it would be a step towards that.
Unfortunately,
the
TPP would prohibit this
6 February 2016 (
Urgent: Gynnya McMillen
Everyone: ask how Gynnya McMillen
died in jail.
6 February 2016 (
Urgent: fight pharma mergers
US citizens:
tell
the FTC
to fight pharma mergers.
6 February 2016 (
Urgent: reject the DARK Act
US citizens:
call
on the Senate
to reject the DARK Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
6 February 2016 (
Urgent: Social Security benefits
US citizens: call on Congress to
expand
Social Security benefits.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
6 February 2016 (
Urgent: Governor Snyder
Everyone: tell Governor Snyder
to resign.
6 February 2016 (
Urgent: fighting in Libya again
US citizens: call on Congress to
debate
whether to fight in Libya again.
6 February 2016 (
Urgent: "Energy Policy Modernization Act"
US citizens: tell Senate Democrats to
stop
the "Energy Policy Modernization Act".
6 February 2016 (
Public interest science
Professor Marc Edwards, who helped expose the poisoned water in Flint,
says that funding pressures on academics and government agencies have
destroyed
public interest science in the US.
6 February 2016 (
Google censored Samsung's ad-blocker
Google censored installation of Samsung's
ad-blocker,
saying that blocking ads is "interference" with the sites that
advertise (and surveil users through ads).
The ad-blocker is proprietary software, just like the program (Google
Play) that Google used to deny access to install it.
Using
a nonfree program
gives the owner power over you, and Google has exercised that power.
6 February 2016 (
French Catholic pressure group
A French Catholic pressure group is pressuring France to restrict some
well-known,
controversial movies.
6 February 2016 (
Information about ballot questions
Michigan Republicans
banned
local governments and schools
from giving information about ballot questions.
6 February 2016 (
Professor Resat Baris Unlu acquitted
Professor Resat Baris Unlu was acquitted of charges based on the exam
question in which he asked about comparing writings by the leader
of a
Kurdish
rebel group.
I fear students might have been charged with crimes because of their answers, too.
6 February 2016 (
Fires in world heritage forests
Unprecedented fires in world heritage forests in Tasmania may now be the
"new normal".
No one was prepared or equipped to fight the fires that are destroying
thousand-year-old trees. The whole ecosystem may be destroyed by them.
When I visited Lebanon, I saw some of the last remaining cedars. Those
trees can live a thousand years, too; but most of them were destroyed
in the civil war.
6 February 2016 (
Pakistan blocks foreign journalists from Balochistan
Pakistan blocks nearly all foreign journalists from Balochistan, and
tells
newspapers there what to publish.
6 February 2016 (
Refugee children in Australia
Refugee children in Australia, who are now at risk to be sent to Nauru,
have
tried to kill themselves.
6 February 2016 (
US coal use
US coal use is
declining
a noticeable amount.
This is good because it reduces toxic pollution. Burning natural
gas doesn't make much of that. However, natural gas implies
methane
leaks,
so replacing coal with gas doesn't reduce global heating the way companies claim.
6 February 2016 (
Coal mine in Australia
A proposed giant coal mine in Australia has been suspended because
the
export coal market has shrunk.
That is good for the Great Barrier Reef, but burning Indian coal in
India will pump almost as much CO2 as burning Australian coal in India.
6 February 2016 (
Australia cutting jobs in climate research
Australia is cutting hundreds of jobs in climate research in order
to make its research organization
"collaborate
better with industry".
Apparently this refers to the
global heating
industry.
"Mitigation and adaptation" is the last ditch excuse of the planet
roasters: the pretense that cleverness can prevent
global heating
from causing disasters, so we don't need to work expeditiously to curb it.
6 February 2016 (
Undocumented immigrants in UK
Undocumented immigrants in the UK skip prenatal care and give birth
at home, because they can't afford to pay almost
$10,000
in medical fees.
6 February 2016 (
Zika transmitted sexually
Zika can be transmitted
sexually.
6 February 2016 (
Walmart to pay 31 million dollars
Walmart was
sentenced
to pay 31 million dollars for operating its pharmacy incompetently and firing a whistleblower.
6 February 2016 (
Deregulation of business
Right-wing politicians in
various
EU countries
are planning sweeping deregulation of business.
6 February 2016 (
Iran imprisoned former BBC journalist
Iran has imprisoned a former BBC journalist,
evidently
about his writing.
6 February 2016 (
Anthropomophic toys
People are being raised to see
domesticated
and wild animals
as anthropomophic toys. It's as if they were
considered imperfect approximations of
a funny animal cartoon.
6 February 2016 (
Local democracy
US businesses,
operating
through ALEC,
are taking aim at local democracy.
6 February 2016 (
Prisoners in solitary
US prisons create excuses to keep prisoners in solitary for years, and do this over the
tiniest excuses.
6 February 2016 (
EPA warnings about Flint's water
Michigan officials
ignored
EPA warnings about Flint's water. But the EPA did not treat the matter with sufficient urgency.
6 February 2016 (
Legal bribery
Jimmy Carter:
Citizens
United
'Gives Legal Bribery a Chance to Prevail'.
6 February 2016 (
Safe harbor data "deal"
New Safe Harbor Data "Deal"
May
Be More Politicking Than Surveillance Reform.
'This
is a Joke':
Snowden, Others Slam New EU-US Data Sharing Deal.
6 February 2016 (
North Carolina's voting law
North Carolina's voting law was
intentionally
designed
to block various minorities from voting.
5 February 2016 (
Adventure of the Extraordinary Rendition
The
background
for "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Extraordinary
Rendition."
5 February 2016 (
Microcephaly
Microcephaly results in babies
so
mentally crippled that they are hardly human
I think they call for euthanasia, like a badly crippled dog.
5 February 2016 (
China repressing labor movement
China is now
repressing
the labor movement
5 February 2016 (
Social movements against Monsanto's GMOs
Social
movements in Argentina
are reacting strongly against Monsanto's
GMOs.
5 February 2016 (
Oil subsidies
The world is awash in oil and that the price has collapsed, but
plutocratic
states keep subsidizing the oil companies
5 February 2016 (
US public schools
When It Comes to Public Schooling,
US
Gets a Failing Grade
5 February 2016 (
Leader of anti-narco organization imprisoned
Mexico imprisoned Nestora Salgado for
running
a citizens' anti-narco organization that operated lawfully
5 February 2016 (
Professor faces prison for exam question
An Ankara University professor faces 7 years in prison
for
asking students to compare two articles written by Abdullah
Öcalan
5 February 2016 (
Australia's refugee prisons
Australia's Supreme Court
ruled
that the government cannot keep refugees in foreign prisons
forever
while making up its mind very slowly about their cases.
5 February 2016 (
Urgent: Don't push fossil fuel subsidies on Flint
US citizens: phone your senators and say,
don't
use Flint to pass subsidies for fossil fuels
Their "call tool" probably requires nonfree software, so skip that and
call your senators directly.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
5 February 2016 (
Urgent: Investigate Clayton Homes
US citizens:
call
for an investigation
of Clayton Homes for racial bias in lending.
5 February 2016 (
US government snooping
The FBI Says It Can't Disclose Its Records Because
Then
the Public Would Know How the Bureau Works
It is spreading further. The former head of the Department of
Homeland Security has applied that organization's approach in
monitoring faculty and students at the University of California.
Professors
condemn this snooping
She refuses even to discuss what kinds of monitoring are being done.
Supposedly our own safety forbids giving us any say in how much we are
monitored. That's a recipe for tyranny — in DHS or in UC.
Professors should set up their own local networks, and relay data in
and out of UC encrypted, to protect themselves and the students.
The article refers to security breakers as "hackers". To
avoid giving
us hackers a bad name
, please use the term "crackers" for that.
5 February 2016 (
Sending European data to the US
The US and EU have
agreed
on a deal for sending European data to the US
. The US will very
seriously promise not to have the NSA look at it.
If you believe that promise …
5 February 2016 (
Thugs' body cameras
Do
not live-stream
thugs' body cameras!
Here's
my
proposal
for controlling them.
5 February 2016 (
World's Biggest Robot
The
Internet
Of Things
Will Be The World's Biggest Robot.
The article suffers from a confusion when it says "It will collect
data and do things in our interests; that's why we're building it."
Who is this "we"? The most he could validly claim is that each part
serves someone's interest.
In a just and democratic world, perhaps you could expect these devices
to be benign towards you. In fact, parts are already designed and
used to monitor and control people.
For
instance
, since it is possible to spoof fitness data that
insurance companies use to monitor people, the article advocates
designing the devices to communicate with a company in a way that
totally bypasses the subject being monitored. This demonstrates that
they are a system of control imposed on a subject, not a product
offered to a user.
The use of such devices for any sort of monitoring should be
prohibited by law. All data they produce should be made available
directly to the user, and only in that way.
These devices can probably tell whether someone is having sex (though
Oral Roberts University says it isn't checking that
at
present
).
I suppose that university permits only Oral sex.
5 February 2016 (
Refugees traveling to Europe by boat
Most of the refugees traveling to Europe by boat now are
women
and children
5 February 2016 (
David Koch's baneful influence on NOVA
Although David Koch is no longer on the WGBH-TV board, he
continues
to exert his baneful influence
on the science program NOVA.
5 February 2016 (
Investigation of killing of journalists
Committee to Protect Journalists
calls
for an independent investigation
of the killing of journalists in
Yemen.
5 February 2016 (
Urgent: Volunteer for Sanders campaign
Go to New Hampshire this weekend to
volunteer for the Sanders
campaign
. The New Hampshire primary is next Tuesday, and it is
important that he get an astonishing victory to influence other
states.
5 February 2016 (
Removal of racist conqueror's statue
Demanding to remove the statue of an racist conqueror such as Cecil
Rhodes is a
substitute
for eliminating institutional racism and class bias
Where a symbol of racism is actively adored by some political groups,
as for instance the confederate flag, it makes a real difference to
demand that institutions (especially governments) visibly reject that
symbol. However, nobody admires Rhodes today as a symbol of anything.
5 February 2016 (
Protected forest in Canada
Canada has
set
up a large area of protected forest
5 February 2016 (
Russia bars former US officials
In retaliation for the US' barring of some Russian officials for the
killing of Sergey Magnitsky, Russia has barred some former US
officials,
accusing
them of involvement in torture
I don't know whether these people were in fact associated with torture
by the US, but if they were, that is plenty of reason for any country
to refuse to let them in. Or to let them in and then prosecute them.
But it changes nothing about the killing of Magnitsky.
5 February 2016 (
Urgent: oppose the TPP
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to oppose the TPP.
5 February 2016 (
Urgent: regulations of business
US citizens: call on Senate Democrats to resist
plans
to help business lobbyists block regulations of business.
5 February 2016 (
Urgent: new nuclear cruise missile
US citizens:
Phone
the White House
at 855-239-1424 to call on Obama to cancel the new nuclear cruise missile.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
5 February 2016 (
Demolishing homes of Palestinians
Israel is
back
to demolishing the homes of Palestinians.
5 February 2016 (
Hindu nationalists
India's Hindu nationalists are systematically persecuting dissidents,
drumming teachers out of schools, and prosecuting writer
Arundhati
Roy
for criticizing them.
5 February 2016 (
Delivery of poisoned water to Flint
The FBI is
investigating
possible crimes to prosecute in the delivery of poisoned water to Flint.
5 February 2016 (
Facebook's natalist pressure.
Facebook's
natalist pressure.
How about pointing out some great non-mothers and great non-fathers?
People who took advantage of not having children to dedicate effort
to something more constructive than increasing the number of humans?
5 February 2016 (
When ravens hide food
When ravens hide food, they can understand whether the surrounding
make it possible that another raven
could
be watching.
5 February 2016 (
Iowa caucuses
Sanders and Clinton got roughly
equal
numbers
of delegates out of the Iowa caucuses.
Clinton has backed off attacking Sanders' push for
universal
health care,
and has returned to supporting the idea. I guess that attack was backfiring.
Several important primaries will be held this month and on March 1.
If you would like Sanders to win, please volunteer to help his
campaign — don't put it off.
5 February 2016 (
Noise from ships
Noise from ships
seems
to harm whales.
Our overfishing of their prey, which in some cases we are driving to extinction, hurts them too.
5 February 2016 (
Articles condemning labeling of GMOs
Monsanto
paid
a university
for a professor to write articles condemning labeling of GMOs.
5 February 2016 (
Surveilling in the Super Bowl
The US is heavily surveilling everyone in the vicinity of the Super Bowl, which might mean
everyone
in San Francisco and the peninsula.
Past experience suggests that augmentations of surveillance for a
sports event remain permanently afterward.
5 February 2016 (
Pressure on Greece
There is a lot of
political
pressure in the EU
to demand that Greece force migrants back to Turkey.
5 February 2016 (
99,000 families evicted in the UK
99,000 families were evicted last year in the UK, as rents keep rising and the Tories keep
cutting welfare.
The Tories are lower than
vermin.
5 February 2016 (
Putin's bombing in Syria
Putin's bombing campaign in Syria, aimed mainly at groups opposed
to both Assad and PISSI, has the main effect of
strengthening PISSI.
5 February 2016 (
"Fragrance" chemicals
Thousands of chemicals are put in products as "fragrance", and some can be
toxic
or cause allergic reactions.
It's hard to find out which "fragrance"
chemicals are found in products.
We have no obligation to cater to companies' wish to keep secrets when
any public interest is at stake. I think we should require
publication of the full list of possibly volatile substances in every
product.
5 February 2016 (
California vineyards' harvest
Fires in California ruined a
large
part
of the vineyards' harvest.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
5 February 2016 (
DNA test agreements
Study: DNA Test Agreements
Disregard
Consumer Privacy.
Like many articles about new abusive practices, this article legitimizes
the known, current abuses. I think that is a mistake. We should not
limit ourselves to opposing further changes for the worse. We must
campaign to get rid of the existing evils too.
5 February 2016 (
Australian boy faces being questioned in secret
An Australian boy faces being questioned in secret about his mother
and his brother, and faces
imprisonment
if he ever discusses it with them.
Trying to obey those strictures would ruin his life anyway, so it
makes sense for him to respond courageously: "You're going to imprison
me sooner or later, so I won't serve you now merely to postpone it. I
refuse to answer."
I don't know what they are suspected of, but it can't be as dangerous
as what the government is doing here.
5 February 2016 (
E-waste scrapping facilities
The employees at e-waste scrapping facilities pick up lead on their
skin and hands, and it's enough to give their children
lead poisoning.
An ordinary shower does not wash it off.
5 February 2016 (
Denmark's old people
How Denmark
cares
for old people.
Other arrangements might also work well, but it puts most other countries to shame.
5 February 2016 (
Veteran's children
Kansas took away a veteran's children as he was preparing to move to Colorado, because
he
lawfully used medical marijuana in Colorado.
5 February 2016 (
"Internet assistants"
"Internet assistants" have a
secondary
danger,
beyond just snooping on their users and being SaaSS
(Service
as a Software Substitute).
It is amusing how someone can be blind to the dangers of these things
and worry only about a secondary danger. The secondary danger
is real, and the article makes a valid point — but don't forget
the primary dangers.
5 February 2016 (
Genetically modified human embryos
The
UK has given permission
to make genetically modified human embryos
and experiment on each one for two weeks.
The two-week limit seems hypercautious to me; there would be nothing
wrong with keeping them for 5 months. However, implanting them into a
woman would require advance consent to a mandatory abortion. While
abortion is safer and less traumatic than giving birth, it is not
something to ask lightly.
5 February 2016 (
ISIS Encrypted Messaging App
The
Myth
of the ISIS Encrypted Messaging App.
5 February 2016 (
Free to refuse to spread messages
Was it right to fine a bakery for refusing to make a cake with the message,
"support
gay marriage"?
I think individuals should be free to refuse to spread messages they
disagree with, and most other organizations too, but not publication
companies. Publication companies should be considered common
carriers, required to publish whatever customers will pay for, unless
there is so much competition that there is no difficulty finding one
to publish whatever you want to publish.
5 February 2016 (
Cambodian women trafficked to China
Cambodian women are trafficked to China as wives/slaves; when they
escape and get home, they are
rejected
by their communities, even parts of their families.
The root of this crime is treating women as things, as property.
5 February 2016 (
Resorts for rich foreigners
The foxes and vultures are waiting to buy
parts
of Havana
as resorts for rich foreigners.
I expect that politicians will profit from this wealth, and a few
random Cubans, but I think most Cubans will not even get trickle-down.
5 February 2016 (
Inequality in South Korea
Inequality is
growing
in South Korea. Those not privileged must work 14-hour days for low pay, and can barely get by.
It's what's happening in the US, only more so.
5 February 2016 (
Enslaving women as prostitutes
After a
hypocritical
"apology",
Japan once again denies enslaving women as prostitutes during World War II.
5 February 2016 (
Films in which characters smoke
WHO
says,
don't let children watch films in which characters smoke.
5 February 2016 (
Climate studies
Most climate studies don't look at what will happen after 2100.
However,
global
heating won't stop then.
If high-tech civilization survives till 2100, it may be able to bring down
the levels of CO2 in the air.
5 February 2016 (
Unpoison Flint's water
Here's
How
Hard It Will Be
to Unpoison Flint's Water.
It's not that the Flint river water itself contains lots of lead.
Rather, using that water involves so much chlorine that it corrodes
the lead pipes.
The Lead Pipes in Flint, Michigan, Are a Tiny Part of a
Huge
Problem
(of lead poisoning in the US).
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: investigation of Planned Parenthood
US citizens: call for an
end
to the investigation
of Planned Parenthood.
We already know there is nothing to find.
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: transparency on the Volcker rule
US citizens: Call for transparency on how the
Volcker
rule
is working.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: reduce Diesel emissions
US citizens: call on the EPA to reduce Diesel emissions from
cargo
shipping.
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: federal sale of coal leases
US citizens: phone your senators and say to oppose
Orrin
Hatch's amendment
which would resume federal sale of coal leases.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: gun control executive orders
US citizens: call on Congress to
respect
Obama's gun control executive orders.
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: Flint water supply
Everyone: call on Governor Snyder to fix the Flint water supply, and meanwhile
stop
charging for the toxic water.
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: deporting aliens in Flint
US citizens:
Call
on the state
to stop deporting aliens in Flint for trying to buy
water, and stop making them show government papers to get water.
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: merger of Time Warner Cable with Charter
US citizens:
call
on the FCC
to block the merger of Time Warner Cable with Charter.
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: ban neonicotinoid pesticides
US citizens:
call
on the EPA
to ban neonicotinoid pesticides
The EPA has just recognized that neonicotinoids contribute to the death of bees.
It is possible that other causes contribute as well, such as the varroa
mite. But we can't get rid of them, or prevent them from doing damage
— and we need the bees.
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: close the gender pay gap
Everyone:
call
on Congress and states
to close the gender pay gap.
4 February 2016 (
Urgent: disclosure of shell companies
US citizens: call on Senator Schumer to support a law requiring shell
companies to
disclose
who they are hiding.
4 February 2016 (
Claimed to have been raped by immigrants
A German girl claimed to have been raped by immigrants. But then she said she had
made it up.
The effects of her claim will probably not vanish away, alas.
4 February 2016 (
Israeli civics textbook
Right-wing changes in an Israeli civics textbook have provoked
protests
from teachers, and from one of the authors of the book.
4 February 2016 (
General forecast
General forecast for the next five years:
even
hotter than 2015.
4 February 2016 (
Child refugees are missing
10,000
child refugees in Europe
are missing, and maybe a large fraction have been enslaved.
4 February 2016 (
Google's island tax haven
Tories
Lobbying to Protect Google's £30bn Island Tax Haven.
4 February 2016 (
Uber is selling low
Uber is selling low and losing money
to
destroy its competitors.
If you are a short-term thinker, you will be delighted to take
advantage of this — until it controls the market and squeezes you
forever.
The article mentions a service called Kutsuplus as an alternative to
Guber
's
model. It might have been better in some ways, but could
people use it anonymously? Could they use it without running nonfree
software? If not, it shared Uber's basic injustice.
4 February 2016 (
UK's plutocratic rulers
comedian
finds a way to do justice to the UK's plutocratic rulers.
4 February 2016 (
Recognize Palestine as a state
France says it will sponsor
one
last effort
for a diplomatic settlement between Israel and Palestine;
if that fails, it will recognize Palestine as a state.
France might as well proceed directly to the second step; it will
take more than this to get the Israeli right wing to
seriously
consider peace.
4 February 2016 (
Tests for lead paint
Many US black children suffer from lead poisoning which reduces their IQ.
Sometimes greedy landlords manage to skip tests for lead paint, and thus
continue
poisoning them.
Mothers will tell their children not to eat the paint, unless they
have to work so many hours that they can't see what their kids are doing.
Lead and Race In Flint —
And
Everywhere Else.
4 February 2016 (
Super Bowl in San Francisco
Holding the Super Bowl in San Francisco is
hurting
the city:
new surveillance, cruelty to the homeless, and burdens on citizens and workers.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
4 February 2016 (
Abandon the "war on drugs"
A UN summit will provide an opportunity for the world to abandon
the
idiotic and destructive "war on drugs".
4 February 2016 (
Europe's immigration bind
Europe's Immigration Bind: How to Act Morally While
Heeding
the Will of Its People.
4 February 2016 (
Sharing classified files
David Petraeus to Receive
No
Further Punishment
for Sharing Classified Files.
Harsh punishment is reserved for heroes like Snowden that tell the public
about government wrongdoing.
4 February 2016 (
Control of government agencies
US businesses say the FDA is out of control —
protecting
people's privacy,
at least to a minimal extent.
They expect to have control of government agencies, you see.
4 February 2016 (
Doxing of thugs
A cracker obtained and posted
internal
communications
of a US thugs' union, some of which show right-wing extremism.
In general I do not approve of doxing, even of
thugs
, merely for being
thugs
There may be some specific cases where it is justified, such
as
thugs
that are infiltrating dissident organizations, but that does
not seem to be the case here.
4 February 2016 (
Reducing Puerto Rico's debt
Puerto Rico has proposed a
plan
for reducing its debt.
4 February 2016 (
Erroneous way of making decisions
Flint
demonstrates
the erroneous way of making decisions that we must not repeat in regard to global heating.
4 February 2016 (
Corrupted by lobbyist money
Republicans
and Democrats in Congress
are corrupted by lobbyist money.
4 February 2016 (
US planned to kidnap Snowden
The US apparently planned to kidnap Snowden with the help of some
subservient government, since it had a plane waiting in Denmark
to
take him away as he was travelling.
If the US had hoped a government would arrest him and then respect his
rights with an extradition hearing, there would have been no need for
that plane.
4 February 2016 (
Racial discrimination in US
UN Experts Catalog Seemingly
Endless
List
of Racial Discrimination in US.
I believe that the US owes reparations to the descendants of those who
suffered denial of equal rights, including both
slavery
and the racist laws
from 1880 to the 1960s.
4 February 2016 (
Tests of food
Just 3 years after horsemeat was passed off as "beef", the UK has
cut the amount of tests of food, making cheating
easier than ever.
We depend on the state to keep businesses honest, and
for
many other things.
4 February 2016 (
Ecological disruption
In England, flowers that normally bloom in May are
blooming
in January,
due to El Nino on top of global heating.
Since different species base their calendars on different cues, this
will cause ecological disruption, which will wipe out some species.
A cold snap in February could kill some organisms that have become active
early.
04 February 2016 (
Urgent: Congress' positions on TPP
US citizens:
call
on members of Congress
to take a stand on the TPP now and pledge
to stick with it after the election.
04 February 2016 (
Selective arrests for deportation
Southern Poverty Law Center accuses the US of
selectively
arresting women and children for deportation
, for corrupt reasons.
04 February 2016 (
Going beyond Sanders' proposals
Proposing
financial
reform measures
going beyond Sanders' proposals.
04 February 2016 (
AIG sells subsidiary
AIG sold off a subsidiary because it is
no
longer allowed to mislead customers
04 February 2016 (
Sanders donates speaking fees to charity
Sanders got paid speaking fees: almost $2000. He
donated
the money to charity
04 February 2016 (
Congressional hearing about FISA court
Congress
should
show the public
more of what it learns in its hearing about the
FISA court.
04 February 2016 (
Music in Mali
Mali's Irrepressible Musical Spirit Resounds after
Jihadi-Imposed
Silence
Some Muslim fanatics have banned music since a thousand years ago.
04 February 2016 (
NY Times covers campaign spending misleadingly
The New York Times found one small category of campaign spending in
which Sanders gets more support than Clinton, and
covered
it misleadingly
04 February 2016 (
Surveillance of students
An extreme example of surveillance of students: asking them to
wear
a fitbit all the time
Just because most schools' surveillance does not go this far does not
make it acceptable!
04 February 2016 (
EPA ordered to make polluters pay
A US court once again has ordered the EPA to
make
rules to make mines and factories pay for their pollution
04 February 2016 (
While Flint Was Being Poisoned
While Flint Was Being Poisoned,
State
Workers "Quietly" Provided Water Coolers
04 February 2016 (
Twitter gives special treatment to Trump
doesn't apply
its rules to Donald Trump
as it does to others.
04 February 2016 (
Marshall Island sues Britain, India and Pakistan
The Marshall Islands, a small country in the Pacific with painful
experience with nuclear weapons, has sued Britain, India and Pakistan
for not complying with treaty obligations to move towards
nuclear
disarmament
04 February 2016 (
Basic income for all
A basic income for all raises
many
questions about details
Will companies that sell to consumers really have the power to make
governments keep most people's incomes from falling? They haven't
done this in the US in the last decade. The tendency is to shift to
selling luxury products for those who still have money to spend.
04 February 2016 (
Google deal
Google Deal Highlights
Need
for 'Radical Change' to International Tax Rules
Here is
my
proposal
[Reference updated on 2022-07-15 because the
old
link
was broken.]
04 February 2016 (
Running states like corporations
Running states like corporations: a
poisonous
approach
04 February 2016 (
Tories' cuts reduce hospital staff
The Tories' spending cuts are
making
hospitals reduce staff
04 February 2016 (
Why Bernie can deliver
Why
Bernie
Can Deliver on Promises of Change
, While the Sensible Centrists
Can't.
"Sensible" middle-of-the-road Democrats such as Clinton won't even try
to change the things that are deeply wrong with the US, such as
plutocracy.
04 February 2016 (
French journalists arrested in Burundi
Burundi's dictatorship
arrested
two French journalists
. Under pressure from France, it freed
them, but still keeps their recording equipment.
04 February 2016 (
EU criticized for attacking tax-dodging
A US official
criticized
the EU
for attacking tax-dodging by US companies.
That official is evidently on the side of the plutocrats. Vote for
Sanders and get him replaced with someone who will work for the people
(of the US and other countries).
04 February 2016 (
US funding for Afghanistan's "reconstruction"
The US is still funding "reconstruction" in Afghanistan, but due to
the Taliban's increasing activity, in many cases there is
no
way to check what work is really being done
Could inspectors use little drones?
That's not a serious question, since we know this "reconstruction"
often just feeds corruption. Maybe it would be more effective to give
the equivalent of 10 dollars to every person in Afghanistan.
04 February 2016 (
How corporations escape punishment
Senator Warren reports how the US government
lets
corporations escape punishment
for giant crimes.
04 February 2016 (
Support Sanders!
Do you support Clinton but agree more with Sanders? If so,
give
your support Sanders
Obama showed that a black plutocratist president will not stop
plutocrats from forcing blacks into poverty. Clinton, if elected,
would show that a woman plutocratist president will not stop them from
pushing women into poverty.
03 February 2016 (
TPP negotiator resigns over corruption
Japan's head negotiator for the TPP has
resigned
over his corruption
Any politician who supports the TPP is corrupt at a deep level,
whether or not he took a bribe.
03 February 2016 (
Sanders gaining strength
Plutocratist Democrats are panicking about Sanders'
gaining
strength
Sanders pointed out the
falsehoods
in the Washington Post's attack
03 February 2016 (
Ending Israel's occupation of Palestine
Uri Avnery: the campaign to end Israel's occupation of Palestine
needs
the support of people inside and outside Israel
, working together.
The government knows this and plans to ban their cooperation.
03 February 2016 (
Insect species wiped out daily
We are wiping out
dozens
of species of insect every day
03 February 2016 (
Abortion rights in Brazil
Zika has made the issue of abortion rights
urgent
in Brazil
03 February 2016 (
Kurds not invited to Syria peace talks
Peace talks for Syria are
unlikely
to have good results
. The Kurds are not even invited.
2 February 2016 (
Urgent: Candidates' positions on GMO labeling
US citizens:
call on
candidates
to state their positions on GMO labeling.
2 February 2016 (
Imprisoned for planning civil disobedience
China imprisoned people for planning a civil disobedience movement,
calling this
"inciting
subversion of state power"
In the UK they might call the protests
"aggravated
trespass"
In the US they have
other
charges
to press against those who commit civil disobedience.
This sort of repression is wrong no matter who does
it and no matter what the excuse.
2 February 2016 (
Urgent: Anti-lead-poisoning programs
US citizens:
call on
Congress
to restore anti-lead-poisoning programs.
2 February 2016 (
Georgia rep defends Confederacy and KKK
A Georgia state representative
defends
the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan
2 February 2016 (
Missing people in Sri Lanka
Sri
Lanka's Missing Thousands
: One Woman's Six-Year Fight to Find Her
Husband.
The thousands may have been killed under direction of former tyrant
Rajapaksa.
2 February 2016 (
Morocco and Algeria labeled "safe"
Some European countries are labeling Morocco and Algeria as "safe"
countries,
rejecting
asylum applications
from people from those countries.
For most people in Morocco and Algeria, those countries are safe, but
some minorities and some dissidents are persecuted.
2 February 2016 (
Chicago thugs sabotage car microphones
Chicago
thugs
sabotage
their car microphones
; the car used by the thug that killed Laquan
McDonald had had its microphone destroyed.
2 February 2016 (
Policies that discourage breastfeeding
Changing bad government and business policies that discourage
breastfeeding could avoid up to
800,000
child deaths each year
2 February 2016 (
Canada's personal data sent to US
Canada's snooping agency
sent
Canada's personal data to the US
02 February 2016 (
Chicago thugs allowed to cover up misdeeds
The management of the Chicago thug department allowed
thugs
to cover
up their misdeeds by
turning
off cameras and microphones in their cars
02 February 2016 (
Contracting out support activities
Contracting out support activities, famous Silicon Valley companies
pay
many of their workers too little to live on
, and exclude them from
the benefits of employees.
Such contracting out is an obstacle to unionization, and that alone
is a reason to adopt policies to discourage it.
02 February 2016 (
Increased inequality
Oxfam's report on increased inequality gives
recommendations
for how to fix it
The report shows that it's not just that the rich are getting richer.
They are making the poor poorer, too. The poorest half of humanity
have lost around 40% of their wealth since 2010.
02 February 2016 (
UK government privatizing the state
The UK government is privatizing the state,
selling
off large state activities cheap as well as the land on which they are
run
The politicians that sell off the state cheap, and the cronies to whom
they sell it, are conspiring together to cheat the country. The
proper remedy, when the British people recognize the need, will be to
confiscate what was sold off, with no compensation.
That loss, for the "investors", will be right and proper. It will
teach future rich cronies not to be so eager to participate in such
conspiracies.
02 February 2016 (
Businesses that should shut down
Some executives know that the best thing their business can do for the
environment, and the world, is to shut down. But they consider that
impossible, so they find ways to
reconcile
themselves to doing harm
We can save them from this. We should shut those businesses down.
02 February 2016 (
Solitary confinement in Louisiana
Louisiana
refuses
to disclose how many prisoners it keeps in solitary confinement
or for how long.
02 February 2016 (
Torture by Chicago thugs
Chicago
thugs
extracted
false confessions using torture
. Instead of punishment, they
received promotions.
02 February 2016 (
The right-wing in Israel
The right-wing in Israel is now
calling
prominent writers and artists "leftwing moles"
(i.e., traitors).
01 February 2016 (
Urgent: Support Ezra Nawi
Everyone:
Support
Israeli human rights defender Ezra Nawi
, arrested in Israel for no
stated reason.
01 February 2016 (
Wealthy-white "Black Americans" organization
The right-wing organization "Black Americans for a Better Future" is
funded
entirely by wealthy whites
01 February 2016 (
Sale of coal mines to small operators
Big coal companies are selling coal mines to small operators that
won't
be able to afford to clean up the environmental damage
This is fraud; the executives involved should be prosecuted and
jailed.
01 February 2016 (
Republicans in Michigan
Republicans in Michigan
systematically
override democracy to maintain control of the state and its
people
, even though most voters don't vote for them.
This led directly to
lead
poisoning in Flint
What will it take to restore democracy in Michigan? How can Michigan
voters overthrow this tyranny?
01 February 2016 (
Disney sued by former workers
Former Disney workers are suing Disney for
abusing
a special visa system
to make them train visiting foreign workers
to replace them.
Workers, if your employer tries to do this to you, don't train your
replacement! Quit immediately! That way, the cheating employer
will suffer a loss from mistreating you.
01 February 2016 (
State-level solar energy incentives
US Republicans, led by the Koch brothers and ALEC, are
eliminating
state-level solar energy incentives
where they can.
01 February 2016 (
Bangladesh factory safety conditions
Safety conditions in some factories in Bangladesh are
just
like before the Rana Plaza factory fire
In general, supposed commitments to reform the abuses of these front
companies' supply chains are
undermined
by corruption
01 February 2016 (
Ferguson thugs
Ferguson
thugs
will be required to
record
all their actions with body cameras
. They are also required not
to adopt policies for the sake of collecting more money as fines —
but I fear that
thugs
will negate that requirement by misrepresenting
their motives.
Thugs
are
trained
liars
and feel entitled to lie to anyone,
even
in court
31 January 2016 (
Urgent: Attend LibrePlanet
Everyone:
attend
the Free Software Foundation's LibrePlanet event
on March 19 and
20. The lead speaker will be Edward Snowden.
31 January 2016 (
Urgent: Reject the TPP
Citizens of TPP countries:
Australia
Brunei
Canada
Chile
Japan
Malaysia
Mexico
New Zealand
Peru
Singapore
United States
Vietnam
Call
on your trade minister
not to sign the TPP.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
31 January 2016 (
Urgent: Reject airline passenger data collection
European Union citizens:
strengthen
the Parliament's resolve
to reject data collection about airline
passengers.
31 January 2016 (
Turkish journalists face life in prison
Turkish journalists are
facing
life in prison
for reporting on the government's practice of
arming Syrian jihadis.
31 January 2016 (
How to fight spread of Zika
Zika spreads where people are poor and don't have the time and money
needed to
limit
mosquito reproduction
. That shows how to fight it.
31 January 2016 (
Hydroelectric dams may be left without water
Thousand of hydroelectric dams
may
be left without water due to global heating
This reduces the attractiveness of building new dams, which could
in many cases destroy unique species.
31 January 2016 (
Kenya repressing press criticism
Kenya's government is
repressing
press criticism
31 January 2016 (
Gang violence in Latin America
Too
Afraid for School
: Latin America is Losing New Generation to Gang
Violence.
31 January 2016 (
Loss of libraries
The Loss of Libraries Is Another
Surefire
Way to Entrench Inequality
31 January 2016 (
Global heating wiping out trees in Tasmania
Global heating
is
likely
to wipe out the slow-growing trees
of Tasmanian highlands.
Fires started by lightning are no longer natural, because the
lightning has a human cause.
At lower altitudes, partial logging has made other Tasmanian forests
more vulnerable to fires.
31 January 2016 (
One armed occupier killed, some arrested
The FBI arrested some of the armed occupiers of the Malheur wildlife
refuge. There was a fight and
one
of the occupiers was killed
I can't criticize
thugs
for shooting someone in a group that was known
to be armed and which had talked about shooting them.
31 January 2016 (
"Probiotics"
"Probiotics" might be able to help human health, but
nobody
really knows which ones do
31 January 2016 (
Second boycott of Coca Cola Company
There is now a second boycott of Coca Cola Company — this one to
demand that it label GMOs
I guess they don't know about the worldwide boycott of Coca Cola
Company for
murdering union organizers
I don't like Coca Cola itself, but that is not the company's only
product. It also sells fruit juices and bottled water. I almost
never use bottled water except in places such as India and Flint,
Michigan, where the tap water is unsafe — but when I am in those
places, I make sure that the water is not from Coca Cola Company.
31 January 2016 (
The switch to lead-poisoned Flint river
The
motive
for switching Flint's water to the lead-poisoned Flint river
was
not saving money. Another deal was available which would have saved
more money, with the same safe water.
30 January 2016
Hillary's warmth and her wars
Who Cares if Hillary is Warm? I Care About Her Wars.
I care even more about her plutocracy, since the military-industrial
complex
promotes the wars and does many other bad thing.
30 January 2016
California defeats utility companies over home solar
California
defeated the utility companies
that wanted to put the brakes on home
solar power.
30 January 2016
Britain at war with Yemen
Britain Is At War With Yemen. So Why Does Nobody Know About It?
The same goes for the US.
30 January 2016
Swiss email company fights surveillance laws
An email company in Switzerland has
led a campaign
against massive surveillance laws.
30 January 2016
Texas police license plate readers
Thugs
in Texas don't pay money for their license plate readers.
Instead they
moonlight for the company "Vigilant"
that accumulates license plate sightings.
30 January 2016
Gas not as good as solar
'Natural' Gas Not as Good as Solar — Despite the Gas Industry's
Best Efforts.
30 January 2016
Profits over rights
Profits Over Rights as UK Sells Spy Gear to Repressive Regimes.
30 January 2016
US thugs tase blacks and Hispanics more
US
thugs
tend to
use tasers more often
against blacks and Hispanics,
whereas with whites they tend to warn instead.
30 January 2016
Bedbugs resistant to neonicotinoids
Neonicotinoids kill bees just fine, but bedbugs are
becoming resistant
to them.
30 January 2016
Salafi Arabia drops US bombs on Yemeni civilians
There is
no shelter for civilians
when
Salafi Arabia
drops US-provided bombs in Yemen.
30 January 2016
Yemeni-American's passport revoked over false statement
Yemeni-American Qarwash Mohsn Awad's passport was revoked because
of a
false statement
that his sister was bullied by US agents into signing.
It's part of a pattern of
self-contradictory injustice
against Yemeni-Americans.
30 January 2016
France adopts sedated dying law
France legalizes
keeping dying patients deeply sedated
(at their request) so that they feel no pain.
This is good for people who have a painful condition that will kill
them soon, but offers no escape to those who can't communicate and
experience years of boredom.
30 January 2016
Tories selling UK assets cheap
The Tories are
selling off UK state assets cheap
Bad for the country, but good for their cronies.
30 January 2016
Racial profiling on highways
More proof of racial profiling: blacks are more likely than whites
in Florida to be
ticketed for not wearing seatbelts
30 January 2016
Anaheim's cellular surveillance arsenal
Anaheim, a small city in California, bought a wide range of phone
surveillance
devices and
secretly let many neighboring cities use them
30 January 2016
Florida mayors tell Rubio to take global heating seriously
Mayors from Florida have told Florida senator Mario Rubio:
take global heating seriously before we get inundated
30 January 2016
Coal is a risky investment
Investors in coal mines are
likely to lose lots of money
I am glad, but humanity (and the earth's wildlife) deserves a system
of government which can protect us from man-made disasters even if
investors can profit from them.
30 January 2016
Chemicals that promote breast cancer
Women can
measure their exposure
to some of the chemicals that promote breast cancer.
30 January 2016
Join us in a revolt
Michael Moore:
Do Not Send Us Bottles of Water [in Flint]. Instead,
Join Us in a Revolt.
30 January 2016
Protonmail
The staff of Protonmail are
campaigning effectively
against new surveillance laws in Switzerland.
30 January 2016
Urgent: urge Delaware to repeal death penalty
Everyone:
urge Delaware
to repeal the death penalty.
30 January 2016
Northern right whales
Northern right whales now have
more protected areas
on the US Atlantic coast.
Whether it is enough to save them is not clear.
30 January 2016
Attacks on Sanders
The plutocratist Democratic establishment is
attacking Sanders
more and more.
Gandhi famously said: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you,
then they fight you, then you win. Sanders is moving from stage 2 to
stage 3.
30 January 2016
Threat of biometric data collection
Collection of Biometric Data Poses Serious Privacy and Personal
Security
Risks.
Not to mention that so much surveillance
threatens democracy
for everyone.
30 January 2016 (
Urgent: Investigate why FBI helped Walmart
US citizens:
call for an
investigation
of why the FBI helped Walmart silence its employees.
30 January 2016 (
PBS Newshour spreads falsehoods
PBS Newshour spreads
falsehoods
about single-payer health care
30 January 2016 (
How al-Sisi represses protests
How Egypt's tyrant al-Sisi
represses
protests
30 January 2016 (
America's poor have great work ethic
Americans who are poor have a
great
work ethic
. If only SCROTUS would allow making jobs for them. As
for the children, disabled and old,
SCROTUS
calls them "moochers".
30 January 2016 (
What we need to keep in the ground
Here's
what
we need to keep in the ground
, to limit global heating to 1.5C.
30 January 2016 (
DOJ whistleblower faces punishment
The hero who
informed
the press about Dubya's warrantless wiretapping
now faces
punishment.
30 January 2016 (
Ban Ki-moon condemns Israeli colonization
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
condemned
Israeli colonization of occupied Palestine.
He said that this calls into question Israel's commitment to a
two-state resolution of the dispute. That's an understatement;
according to Uri Avnery, Netanyahu
never
seriously entertained the possibility of such an agreement
, and
engaged in sham peace talks only to forestall international cognizance
of that fact.
Those peace talks collapsed a couple of years ago, and international
cognizance is taking hold.
30 January 2016 (
MI5, MI6, and US torture
MI5 and MI6: what was their
relationship
with US torture
30 January 2016 (
Schengen "free travel" zone
The stress of
million refugees
is making the Schengen "free travel" zone
crumble.
In 20 or 30 years we will probably see tens of millions of people
fleeing for their lives from
global heating
disaster. In 50 years,
there may be hundreds of millions — but maybe we can avoid
reaching that point, if we cut back carbon emissions as hard as we
can.
30 January 2016 (
Hold placed on Obama's FDA nominee
Senators Markey and Sanders placed a hold on Obama's nomination of a
commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, because he has been
tied
too much to Big Pharma
30 January 2016 (
Ben & Jerry's endorses Bernie Sanders
Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream has endorsed Bernie Sanders with a
symbolic
dessert
30 January 2016 (
Urgent: Investigate bogus WMD claims
Everyone:
Call
on the New York Times
to examine who knew Iraq WMD justifications
for war were bogus, when they knew it, and who should have known it.
30 January 2016 (
Urgent: Focus on right-wing terrorism
US citizens:
call on
the DHS
to focus on right-wing domestic terrorism.
Right-wing terrorists
kill
more Americans than Islamist terrorists do
30 January 2016 (
Sanders the realist
Sanders
not Clinton, is the realist.
30 January 2016 (
More bankster money for Clinton
Clinton is going to raise more money this week from her
bankster
supporters
30 January 2016 (
New UK budget cuts
New UK budget cuts
will
make 50,000 vulnerable people homeless
30 January 2016 (
GMOs
"Gene-Editing" Produces GMOs That
Must
Be Regulated
30 January 2016 (
Digital publishing formats
Publishers use digital formats as an opportunity to
take
away the rights that we enjoy when we buy copies of a work
. This
makes most commercial downloads (of books, music or video)
systematically unjust.
The CDT's characteristic weak recommendation is for slight regulatory
relaxation to eliminate just a few of the unjust consequences of that
shift. That is not enough. We must
stop
the injustice; we
must
put an end
to these unjust licenses.
Instead of the "authorized" copy that would oppress you, choose an
unauthorized copy that treats you ethically.
30 January 2016 (
Denmark to take refugees' valuables
Denmark will deter refugees by
taking
most of their valuables
30 January 2016 (
Family planning
Family Planning Is
'Critical
Link' in Eradicating Poverty
30 January 2016 (
Florida thugs burn prisoner to death
Florida
thugs
burned
Darren Rainey to death with very hot water
. The state ruled this
was an accident.
30 January 2016 (
Repression increasing in Israel
Peace activists in Israel face
increasing
repression
I expect that in 10 years Israel will have become so repressive that
all but right-wing extremists will flee.
30 January 2016 (
UK could punish Putin's regime
The UK could effectively punish Putin's regime for the murder of
Alexander Litvinenko,
without
breaking diplomatic relations
I don't think the Tories care all that much; they are not so different
from Putin, after all.
30 January 2016 (
Suppressed US intel report on WMDs
A secret US intelligence report expressing ignorance on the subject of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was
suppressed
in 2002
, and apparently not shown to Colin Powell before he argued
for invading Iraq to destroy those unverified (and in fact
nonexistent) weapons.
30 January 2016 (
License plate recognition cameras
A US-wide system of recording license plate recognition cameras,
called "Vigilant",
records
a million car spottings every day
. Every car that drives past a
camera is recorded. These records could be kept for years.
Such a system should be outright illegal. License plate recognition
cameras
should
be required to record only invalid license plates or cars sought by
court order
30 January 2016 (
Ted Cruz puts church above country
Ted Cruz says he puts
his
church above the United States
. That makes him totally
unqualified to be president (or any sort of official).
When John F. Kennedy ran for president, some Protestant Americans
claimed that he would put his church above the United States and take
orders from the Pope. He promised that the US and its Constitution
would be his first loyalty, and people accepted this.
30 January 2016 (
Rent strike for dorm rooms
Some students in London have started a rent strike for their dorm
rooms, which have become
intolerably
expensive
30 January 2016 (
Psychologists' torture ban
Pentagon
Asks Psychologists to Reconsider Torture Ban
, Argues 'You Never
Know …'
Yes, we know. Just because enemies are vicious and cruel is no reason
we should imitate them. Torture is never justified.
30 January 2016 (
Solitary confinement
Obama has
limited
who can be put in solitary confinement
in federal prisons.
This is a change for the better but probably not enough. More than a
short period of solitary confinement is dangerous to mental health.
30 January 2016 (
Pharmaceutical patents
Jamie Love fights to save people's lives from
pharmaceutical
patents
Medicine is one of the areas where patents do a special kind of harm,
but we would be
better
off eliminating patents entirely
[Reference updated on 2025-05-09 because the
old
link
was broken.]
I am disappointed that the first article uses the term "protection" to
describe what patents do, because that is spin in favor of the
patentholders. Using that term gives them an endorsement that they
will use when lobbying for more strict patent laws. Please join me in
refusing ever to use that term in regard to patents.
The term "intellectual property rights" is worse than spin: it spreads
confusion. Patents and copyrights are totally different in practice.
If you lump them together, you will misunderstand what they do.
See
30 January 2016 (
Milwaukee thugs hide stingray usage
New Evidence Shows Milwaukee Police
Hide
Stingray Usage From Courts and Defense
30 January 2016 (
Copyrighted laws in the US
Fighting
against copyrighted laws in the US.
30 January 2016 (
Half-billion-dollar "gift"
A half-billion-dollar "gift" to the premier of Malaysia was
"not
a bribe", says a court
What a strange definition of corruption.
29 January 2016 (
Urgent: Protest in France
Citizens and residents of France:
protest on Jan 30
against the
tyrannical proposal for permanent "emergency", and phone or write your
deputies.
Information in
29 January 2016 (
Stingrays used without warrants
Prosecutors
Say [thugs] Don't Need Warrants
For Stingrays Because 'Everyone
Knows' Cell Phones Generate Location Data.
First they got people hooked on these devices, then they use them to
track people, then they argue people have no rights.
What it adds up to is that portable phones are malicious technology.
29 January 2016 (
Anti-abortion activists indicted
A grand jury was asked to charge Planned Parenthood based on the lies
in the fraudulent smear video. Instead it
indicted
people who made the video
29 January 2016 (
Conviction of Canadian thug
thug
in Canada has been
convicted
of attempted murder, though not of murder
(although the victim was
killed).
29 January 2016 (
Peter Dahlin free
Swedish human rights activist
Peter
Dahlin and his girlfriend have been freed
by China.
29 January 2016 (
Salafi Arabia committing war crimes
Salafi Arabia
is committing war crimes in Yemen with US support by
indiscriminately
killing civilians
, and
repeatedly
bombing hospitals and medical facilities
29 January 2016 (
NJ governor vetoes gun bill
Chris Christie vetoed a New Jersey bill that
would
have prohibited convicted gang members from buying guns
That is because he is seeking the Gun-Nut Party's nomination for
president.
29 January 2016 (
Protocols for encryption of phone calls
Protocols for encryption of phone calls are
insecure
by design
29 January 2016 (
Products "for women" cost more
Products "for women" typically
cost
more than the same product "for men"
The root of this problem is that women are too easily manipulated by
the fashion industry; they are made to feel they must buy products
that are "feminine". But business is already working on trying to do
the same thing to men.
29 January 2016 (
"Crime" invented to jail protesters
Heathrow Climate Protesters Found Guilty of
"Aggravated
Trespass"
That "crime" was invented as a way to jail protesters.
29 January 2016 (
UK gov't quashing cases against soldiers
The UK government is
quashing
cases accusing soldiers of abuse of prisoners
, arbitrarily
claiming that some of them are phony.
29 January 2016 (
Beijing crushes legal assistants
Beijing's renewed tyranny
crushes
not only leading human rights lawyers but their legal assistants
29 January 2016 (
Arrested for protesting in Australia
The former leader of Australia's Green Party has been
arrested
for protesting logging of a wildlife area in Tasmania
, his home.
Protesters face extremely harsh punishment.
29 January 2016 (
Oklahoma science classes
Oklahoma legislators are
still
looking for ways to have dogma replace biology
in science classes.
29 January 2016 (
The recent hot years
The recent very hot years could have happened by chance without global
heating, but the chance would be
in 10,000
Want to bet the survival of civilization on that long shot?
2016 is expected to be hotter than 2015, because of El Niño.
If this El Niño ends, subsequent years will be a little cooler
for a while; however, 15 years from now,
the
current level of heat will be normal
even without El Niño.
29 January 2016 (
Punishment for ignoring "child" porn
Some US states
punish
technicians that
notice "child" pornography on a client's computer and don't report
it
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
Keep in mind that "child" includes teenagers of age 16 or 17, who in
Massachusetts can legally have sex. It even includes women of 18 or
older, if they look younger or have
small
breasts
It
includes
photos that teenagers take of themselves having sex
(but "only"
10% of them get prosecuted).
A law against possessing a copy of some sort of publication, no matter
what kind that is, is tyranny and leads to more tyranny. It must be
repealed.
29 January 2016 (
Women advised to avoid pregnancy
Some countries in Latin America are
advising
women to avoid pregnancy for the next year
These governments must pay for reliable birth control for women that
can't afford it. And women should demand an extension of abortion
rights, which are very limited in most countries in Latin America.
29 January 2016 (
Defeat of Syriza by banksters
Syriza was defeated by the
banksters
because it
never
seriously prepared to reject the Euro
. Now it has surrendered
totally and become the
banksters
' local satrap.
29 January 2016 (
Authoritarian rule of Hungary
Hungary's authoritarian rulers want to establish a "terror threat"
excuse for eliminating many basic human rights —
whenever
they wish
. Perhaps all the time.
29 January 2016 (
Callous public bigotry in Britain
Overt
callous public bigotry
has become normal in Britain again.
29 January 2016 (
London's poor face new expense
For those in London who can barely pay the rent and food, a new
expense will be
laundry
service
, since most of the laundromats have closed.
This is a small example of how changes in society make it hard to
survive on a low income. In the past, people could live in boarding
houses that cooked efficiently. Now they have no cooking facilities,
and the food stores they can reach are not set up to sell food to be
cooked, so they are
stuck
with the expensive prepared foods
29 January 2016 (
Thug tactic for "restraining" someone
A common
thug
tactic for "restraining" someone is
fatal
from time to time to people with medical problems
. As they choke
and die, the
thugs
think they are fighting and won't release them.
29 January 2016 (
Flint residents fear toxic municipal water
Residents of Flint are
afraid
to shower with the toxic municipal water
Does anyone know whether bathing in that water is actually dangerous?
The lead has affected adults as well as children. It doesn't sabotage
their brain development, since that has already finished, but it harms
their bones.
29 January 2016 (
Sanders aims for what US actually needs
The latest attack on Sanders is for
daring
to aim for what the US actually needs
. The only way to get even
"half a loaf" in politics is to inspire lots of people to demand a
big, whole loaf.
This is what the free software movement does, in the field of software
freedom. We demand what our freedom requires,
not less
Others, such as some supporters of the open source non-movement,
follow the ineffective "ask for only what you might possibly get
immediately" approach, which means
they
don't say anything that might inspire people to aim for more
In the Free Software Foundation's approach to
eliminating DRM
, to
reforming
the DMCA
, or
software
patents
(trolls are just part of the problem),
rejecting
substitution of someone else's service for a program you run
, and
opposing
digital surveillance
, you will see this difference over and over:
We demand the whole loaf where others ask only for half.
28 January 2016 (
62 billionaires own half the world
If you want to defend nearly everyone against the depredations of the
62 billionaires that own half the world,
throw
away the cynicism that is an excuse for giving up
28 January 2016 (
Poles protest antidemocratic laws
Poles are protesting against Kaczynski's antidemocratic laws
and
proposed
surveillance law
28 January 2016 (
Absurd "safe spaces"
The demand for "safe spaces" in UK universities has reached the point
of absurdity where fundamentalist Islamists
can
physically prevent an Atheist from giving a talk criticizing Islam
and claim that her criticisms constitute "intimidation" of them.
Insanely, the school's Feminist Society supported those religious
fanatics, who would deny women many human rights if they had the
chance.
Islamists are enemies of human rights,
especially
for women and also for men
. While respecting their right to state
their views, we should never forget how repugnant those views are.
28 January 2016 (
Google proposal for tracking users
Google has a proposal for security based on
tracking
user behavior
so completely that no one can pretend to be anyone
else.
28 January 2016 (
US thug department policies
A survey of the policies of many US
thug
departments found that many
have policies that
encourage
use of deadly force
28 January 2016 (
Egyptian repression
State Repression in Egypt Is
Worst
We've Ever Seen
, Says Activist.
It is worse than Mubarak, worse than Nasser.
28 January 2016 (
UK's weak deal with Google
The UK's weak deal with Google threatens to set a
bad
precedent
28 January 2016 (
Syrian Kurds making progress
Syrian Kurds, with air support from the US and Russia, are making
progress on
cutting
off PISSI's trade route to Turkey
28 January 2016 (
Chinese repression
Nanfu Wang made a film about a Chinese human rights defender and
experienced
repression directly
28 January 2016 (
Copyright law reform
The European Parliament
proposed
some reforms to copyright law
but they fail to touch the great
injustices such as DRM, the war on sharing, and the insanely long
duration of copyright.
I can't feel much gratification from the support for "open source"
since it avoids raising the question as an ethical issue.
28 January 2016 (
Study corrupted by UK government
It appears the UK government
corrupted
a supposedly objective study
about the feasibility of allowing
Chagossians to return to the Chagos Islands.
28 January 2016 (
Punishment without conviction
The UK
allows
severe punishment without conviction
: a man has been ordered to
notify the
thugs
24 hours before having sex with a woman, and must
give her full identification.
If a woman is attracted to him, those demands would surely put her
off. If he pays a prostitute, the prostitute won't want to give that
information. In effect, the man has been forbidden to have sex
(except underground).
28 January 2016 (
Suspended for helping a sick classmate
Anthony Ruelas was suspended from school for
carrying
a sick student to the nurse's office
. The other student was
having a severe asthma attack.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
The management of that school needs to be replaced with someone
who realizes that obedience is not the highest priority in life.
28 January 2016 (
Haiti election cancelled
Massive
opposition
made Haiti's imposed president cancel the presidential
election, which the people believed would be rigged (again).
Haiti's opposition presidential candidate describes the
history
of rigged elections
which convinced him to boycott the
just-cancelled vote.
28 January 2016 (
Israeli repression
Israeli repression of anti-land-grab activists is spreading. Two Jews
and a Palestinian are now
in
prison for no crime
28 January 2016 (
Four-year-old anxious about math test
A four-year-old US child was so anxious about a math test that he
could
not sleep
28 January 2016 (
Clinton operative tries to smear Sanders
A Clinton operative who tried to smear Anita Hill is now
trying
to smear Bernie Sanders
28 January 2016 (
Koch brothers try to smear reporter
After a reporter wrote about the Koch brothers' web of influence, they
decided to attack her by
paying
people to try to smear her
with false accusations of plagiarism.
28 January 2016 (
Iraqi victims suing UK soldiers
Since the UK declines to prosecute soldiers for war crimes in Iraq,
some Iraqi victims are suing. So Cameron is
looking
for ways to make that impossible
He's already done
basically
the same thing
to non-wealthy Britons.
28 January 2016 (
UK sells service of training soldiers
The UK sells the service of training soldiers for other countries,
including
some where the military carry out repression
Compare with the US
School
of the Americas
(or whatever name they call it now).
28 January 2016 (
Bill Gates' charter-school power play
"Bill Gates should be ashamed: His back-room, charter-school power
play
hurts
kids, public education
."
28 January 2016 (
Cameron vs Putin
David Cameron Denounces Putin's Contempt for the Law — Yet He
Proposes
to Exempt British Troops from Legal Accountability
28 January 2016 (
NY Times dishonest attack on Sanders
The New York Times
called
Sanders a communist
You have to expect dishonest attacks from the establishment.
28 January 2016 (
Consensus against Citizens United
The
Overwhelming
Consensus
Against Citizens United.
27 January 2016 (
Urgent: new nuclear cruise missile
US citizens:
phone
the White House
at (202) 456-1111 and call on Obama to cancel the new nuclear cruise missile.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
27 January 2016 (
Urgent: sales of fossil fuels
US citizens:
call
on Obama
to end sales of all fossil fuels on federal lands.
27 January 2016 (
Urgent: false accusations against Sanders
Everyone: call on the New York Times to
check
the facts
of Jake Sullivan's false accusations against Sanders.
27 January 2016 (
Urgent: trademark extortion against Yosemite
US citizens:
Delaware
North,
desist from trademark extortion against Yosemite.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
26 January 2016 (
Crime to read web sites
law professor wants to make it a crime to read
web sites posted by
PISSI
He
cites as a precedent the prohibition of even looking
at pornography
that includes minors (or adults that look like minors).
I think the argument goes the other way: this demonstrates that it is
an intolerable injustice to punish people for looking at (or having a
copy of)
any
published work whatsoever.
26 January 2016 (
"Donor class"
A voice from the Republican establishment wants the "donor class"
(i.e.,
billionaires)
to make someone other than Trump win the Republican nomination.
If they can do that, it would only prove that our elections are worthless
and our government has no legitimacy.
26 January 2016 (
Clinton's speeches for Goldman Sachs
Clinton
laughs
off
questions about her speeches for Goldman Sachs.
She is a toady for the
banksters
like most politicians, and equally unworthy of public office.
26 January 2016 (
Attending Davos
Let's Make Attending Davos as Shameful as
Running
a Sweatshop.
26 January 2016 (
UK public housing
The former head of the UK civil service says that the
Tories
intend to eliminate public housing. They will replace it with "starter
homes" that poor people can't afford at all.
26 January 2016 (
Terrorist attack on university in Pakistan
Pakistan has
arrested
people who aided a terrorist attack on a university.
26 January 2016 (
Trump and Sanders
superficially clever writer
tries to equate Trump and Sanders.
They are similar in being "outsiders", but different in what matters:
what they stand for. Trump will say anything to provoke TV and the
masses, while Sanders sticks to what he has fought for since 1980.
Trump stands for directing Americans' justified anger at weak scapegoats,
whereas Sanders wants to end the plutocratic system that is really
responsible for the injustice.
26 January 2016 (
US plans to deport Angel Rosa
The US plans to deport Angel Rosa to certain death from a gangrene
infection that he contracted while in
immigration
prison.
His children, who are US citizens, won't be able to take care of him in Guatemala.
26 January 2016 (
Meeting with Faheem Qureshi
A meeting with Faheem Qureshi, who was maimed by Obama's
first
drone attack.
He was 14 at the time.
26 January 2016 (
11 years of dodged taxes
Google has agreed to pay the UK about
19
million dollars per year
for the past 11 years of dodged taxes.
Compared with the income Google has siphoned out of the UK, that is a trifle.
Google extracts billions of dollars per year from the UK without tax,
so $20 million in taxes or even $50 million is
insignificant
as compensation.
26 January 2016 (
Morocco is cruel to women
Morocco is cruel to women —
here is how.
The women who get pregnant and work in bars get a raw deal, but the
origin of this wrong is not in the bars. It comes from their own
families and the state. If they were decent, the would help their
daughter get an abortion (because a baby would be a big burden) and
would see nothing wrong in it.
26 January 2016 (
UK courts dangerous for judges
A UK judge is suing the UK Ministry of Justice, saying that
cuts
in legal aid
have made courts dangerous even for judges.
Of course, the biggest danger is for defendants that get little or no chance for a defense.
26 January 2016 (
Haitian presidential election
Massive
resistance
by Haitians has blocked the Haitian presidential election.
The last president, Martelly,
was
imposed by the US,
which brushed aside real elections.
Haitians probably expect the US to impose him again.
26 January 2016 (
Fifth anniversary of the Arab spring
Arab intellectuals
comment
on the fifth anniversary of the Arab spring.
26 January 2016 (
Dealing with disputed election
The US still has
no
legal procedure
for dealing with a disputed election.
26 January 2016 (
Exiled dissident Andargachew Tsege
Ethiopia had exiled dissident Andargachew Tsege kidnapped and put him on
death
row.
He has been denied access to a lawyer or his family.
26 January 2016 (
Home-grown US terrorism
Stopping home-grown US terrorism depends on convincing American Muslims
to
trust the thugs.
It won't be easy to convince
thugs
to start acting like police officers.
26 January 2016 (
Bitcoin's scaling problem
Deciding how to fix Bitcoin's scaling problem involves a
political
question:
which of its goals are most important.
26 January 2016 (
Downloading illegal images
When the US government modifies web sites
to
identify the people that access them,
it can identify 1000 bystanders
to find 100 people who are sought.
It is no coincidence that this arose in the search for people
downloading illegal images. The making of those images, if it
involved real sexual abuse of real children, deserves to be
prosecuted, but prosecuting people for downloading something leads to
tyranny.
Perhaps these images were really images of children's being abused.
However, in practice "child pornography" includes 17-year-olds having
sex, or 20-year-olds that look younger and are getting paid.
26 January 2016 (
Companies that sue debtors
Courts and legislatures in the US have stacked the rules in favor
of companies that sue debtors. In some places, debtors face
great
obstacles
to have a chance to present their cases.
26 January 2016 (
Immigrants in Europe
The IMF sees immigrants in Europe as an opportunity to
knock
wages down.
As natives are replaced with lower-paid immigrants, it will give them a good
reason to be angry. Unfortunately, they will probably blame the immigrants
rather than the politicians that heeded the IMF's advice.
26 January 2016 (
2008 Crash
The Big Short Explains the Role of Top Bankers in the 2008 Crash,
But
Nothing Much Has Changed.
Due to deregulation of banks, the chief officers are no longer liable for losses, so it is in
their interest to close their eyes to the risks subordinates are taking.
This is one of the bad changes we must reverse.
26 January 2016 (
College education for girls
A town in South Africa is offering to pay for college education for girls if they
"prove
their virginity"
repeatedly.
Of course, this sort of test for virginity is unreliable, but even
if it were reliable, and even if it could be done for males as well,
it would be unjust.
26 January 2016 (
MSF bombed again
Salafi
Arabia bombed MSF again.
26 January 2016 (
Extreme, Extremer, Extremest
Uri Averny's
column:
Extreme, Extremer, Extremest.
26 January 2016 (
Fired striking workers
'Huge
Victory':
Walmart Illegally Fired Striking Workers, Judge Rules.
26 January 2016 (
Low reservoir levels in California
El Nino Rains Only
Slightly
Increased
Historic Low Reservoir Levels in California.
26 January 2016 (
Tests for lead pollution
Water utilities in the US
fudge
tests for lead pollution
so as to underestimate the actual level.
26 January 2016 (
Thug that shot Anthony Hill
The thug that shot Anthony Hill has been
charged
with murder.
Hill was not threatening anyone, he was only naked.
26 January 2016 (
Slavery and racism
The defenders of slavery and racism carry out violence against those trying to
remove
monuments to the Confederacy.
How sad America, in which loyalty to bigotry inspires people to fight
those hired to do the work, more than the sight of the rich evicting
the poor does.
26 January 2016 (
Chicago public school system
The governor of Illinois plans to take over the Chicago public school system
so
as to break the teacher's union.
26 January 2016 (
Oklahoma thug
An Oklahoma thug was sentenced to effectively
life
in prison
for raping 8 different poor black women.
He thought he could get away with it because witnesses would believe a
thug
rather than a poor black woman.
I don't consider a
thug
a very credible witness about anything.
I would trust a police officer's word, but how do you tell the few
police
officers
from the many thugs?
26 January 2016 (
Bankster to regulate Wall Street
New
York State's governor
appointed a bankster to regulate Wall Street.
25 January 2016 (
France considers extending state of emergency
France
talks
about extending the state of emergency
as long as PISSI continues
to exist.
This means, in effect, forever. If there is a repeat of the November
attacks, they will say, "See, it is still needed." When there is no
attack, they will say, "See, it works!"
25 January 2016 (
Sales of alcoholic drinks in the UK
60% of sales of alcoholic drinks in the UK are
to
people with a drinking problem
25 January 2016 (
Clinton's endorsements
When Clinton gets an endorsement from a union or an activist organization,
it's always decided by the group's leaders — and often the leaders are
business
executives that prefer Clinton for selfish reasons
25 January 2016 (
Poor people jailed permanently
In New Orleans, when poor people are charged with crimes, public
defenders refuse to take their cases; so they remain
permanently
in jail
25 January 2016 (
Walmart's bullying
Walmart bullied Washington DC into dropping a minimum wage bill by
threatening to cancel new stores in that city. Now it has
cancelled
some of them anyway
It was foolish to trust Walmart — after all, it did not sign a
contract to build those stores and keep them open for at least 10
years. But there was a bigger folly in giving Walmart what it wanted:
the very idea of trying to keep Walmart in DC was foolish. Walmart
reduces jobs, compared with other stores. Walmart pays workers so
badly that they need public assistance.
I recommend that DC raise the minimum wage high enough to drive
Walmart out completely.
25 January 2016 (
Overfishing of young bluefin tuna
Overfishing of young bluefin tuna is
driving
them to extinction
25 January 2016 (
Sanders on abortion rights
Sanders
should
take a clear and firm stand in favor of abortion rights and birth
control rights
I am not "pro-choice", I am
pro-abortion-rights
and pro-abortion
25 January 2016 (
Gates Foundation promotes plutocracy
The Gates Foundation
promotes
plutocracy around the world
, as well as privatizing education and
health care and seeds.
Simply by dominating the funding in a field, it corrupts the
organizations that are supposed to work for the public good.
The donations to the foundation are less than the taxes Microsoft
dodges.
25 January 2016 (
Fighting pollution along Atlantic coast
People living along the Atlantic Coast are
fighting
against the pollution that offshore oil drilling will cause
Given the falling price of oil, selling oil leases now would be a
foolish give-away, even if it weren't likely to cause global disaster.
25 January 2016 (
Mexican-Americans in Texas face prejudiced laws
Mexican-Americans in Texas faced prejudiced laws and
murder
by Texas Rangers
25 January 2016 (
Greek farmers and pensioners protest
Greek farmers and pensioners are protesting
bankster-imposed
laws
that could spell destitution for them.
25 January 2016 (
Special exemption for religious colleges
Religious colleges in the US have a special exemption
allowing
them to impose strict censorship, and regulate the lives of students
and faculty
I don't believe they should be allowed to get any government funding.
25 January 2016 (
Fires in Tasmania
Fires in Tasmania are
destroying
thousand-year-old slow-growing trees
25 January 2016 (
Fuel efficiency standard for planes
Europe
wants to be less ambitious
in a new fuel efficiency standard for
planes.
A few years ago, the EU put a tax on airline flights based on distance
flown. The US
helped
the airlines pressure the EU to drop it
I hope President Sanders will invite the EU to bring it back.
25 January 2016 (
Copyright industry wants new law
The copyright industry wants a new law to increase its power to
force
digital platforms to delete postings
DMCA takedown notices are
already
too powerful
, because it is easy to use a
bogus
complaint
to get someone's material removed.
25 January 2016 (
Bolivia's second-largest lake dry
The second-largest lake in Bolivia has dried up due to
global
heating and use of water for mining
Lake Poopó formerly covered 1000 square kilometers.
25 January 2016 (
Why white working class abandoned Democratic Party
Robert Reich:
Why
the White Working Class Abandoned the Democratic Party
25 January 2016 (
Urgent: Overturn Corporations United
US citizens:
call on
Congress
to adopt a constitutional amendment to overturn the
Corporations United
decision.
Those corporations called themselves "Citizens United", but I call
them what they were rather than what they pretended to be.
Why propagate their misrepresentation?
25 January 2016 (
Solar cells economical in Australia
Electric companies in Australia gouge so much that it is now
economical
to install solar cells and a battery
and disconnect entirely from
the power grid.
This is great for reducing fossil fuel use.
25 January 2016 (
Michigan governor's emails
Michigan Governor Snyder "released is emails", but with omissions, and
not
covering the time when the decision to use lead-contaminated water was
made
. And not those of the staff with whom he discussed the
question.
It's more of a distraction than an answer.
25 January 2016 (
World economy
Instead of recovering, the world economy has blown
bubbles
25 January 2016 (
American Museum of Natural History
David
Koch is gone
from the board of directors of the American Museum of
Natural History.
I wish we could place confidence in the Smithsonian's claim that its
donors do not influence its exhibits.
25 January 2016 (
Linux Foundation drops community representation
The Linux Foundation
eliminated
community-elected directors from its board
, apparently because
free software activist Karen Sandler was going to run.
Karen Sandler works for the Software Freedom Conservancy, which does
various noble things including enforcing the GNU GPL on Linux.
One of the violators is a donor to the Linux Consortium.
25 January 2016 (
Bill to ban real encryption
Feinstein and other senators are working on a bill to
ban
digital products with real encryption
. How far this will go, we
don't know. Will it ban GnuPG?
25 January 2016 (
Doing business in Israeli colonies
Human Rights Watch asserts that firms which do business with companies
operating in Israeli colonies in Palestine are
violating international
law
25 January 2016 (
Investigation of Exxon's climate lies
California
has joined New York
in investigating Exxon's climate lies.
25 January 2016 (
Hotter than any year in the 20th century
2015
was 1.6F hotter
than any year in the 20th century.
The last time Earth was this hot was
130,000
years ago
, and sea level was 6 meters higher (20 feet).
25 January 2016 (
Rate of killing rhinos in South Africa
Although the rate of killing rhinos in South Africa has stopped
increasing, it is already
high
enough to wipe them out
25 January 2016 (
Egypt launching repression
Egypt's military government is
launching
the repression in advance
as the anniversary of the freedom
movement approaches.
25 January 2016 (
Stores use phones' WiFi to track people
Stores are using portable phones' WiFi devices to
track
people in the store
25 January 2016 (
Call for sanctions against China's CCTV
Reporters Without Borders
calls
for legal sanctions against Chinese broadcaster CCTV
, which
presented Peter Dahlin's forced confession.
Let us not forget that the US has been
active
in the forced confession field
, and that its system of plea
bargaining tends to pressure accused people into false confessions.
25 January 2016 (
Investigation concludes Litvinenko was murdered
An investigation in the UK
concluded
that Alexander Litvinenko was murdered by Russian agents, and that
Putin must have personally approved the murder
However, the UK government is
unable
to retaliate
25 January 2016 (
Today's atomizing society
Today's atomizing society has
left
many people short of values
. It's not just that they don't share
my values — it's that they can't name any values.
25 January 2016 (
Tory bureaucracy kills disabled man
The hard wheels of Tory bureaucracy killed a mentally disabled man by
requiring
him to do things he could not cope with
, such as work.
They have killed
thousands
How many have a life of nothing but suffering due to these cuts and
punishments? Surely tens of thousands, if not hundreds.
And all to enrich
banksters
24 January 2016 (
Overfishing
The amount of fish humans have been taking from the sea is
50%
more than statistics reported
. This explains why the total amount
caught annually has been going down for 20 years.
We will have to catch less, or lose all.
Then again, due to ocean acidification, the fish we want to catch
may
be wiped out anyway in a few decades
24 January 2016 (
Haiti trying again to rig "election"
Haiti is
trying
again to hold the rigged "election"
that was
blocked
by popular resistance before
24 January 2016 (
Establishment backlash
The Seven Stages of Establishment Backlash:
Corbyn/Sanders
Edition
24 January 2016 (
Responsibility for Flint's poisoned water
How Governor Snyder's general approach was
directly
responsible
for Flint's poisoned water.
24 January 2016 (
Salafi Arabia forbids chess
In
Salafi Arabia
chess
is now forbidden
24 January 2016 (
US airport harassment
Yaseen Kadura has got off the US no-fly list, but is
still
subject to an interrogation
at the airport.
US citizens should not have to answer questions about what they are
doing in order to travel around the US, when there is no probable
cause to suspect them of a crime.
24 January 2016 (
Privatization of bus service in the UK
Privatization of bus service in the UK is even more of a
disaster
than privatization of trains.
24 January 2016 (
War on Hunger
How about replacing the War on Drugs with a
War
on Hunger
24 January 2016 (
Damage from the TPP
A model estimates secondary damage from the TPP:
almost
half a million US jobs lost
The main harms the TPP will do are the intentional ones: elimination
of regulations to protect the environment, public health, human
rights, and standard of living; more strict copyright rules;
damage
to democracy
24 January 2016 (
Governor knew about poisonous water in Flint
Michigan Governor Snyder knew about the poisonous water in Flint in
February
2015
24 January 2016 (
South Korea tramples freedom of speech
In South Korea, it is a
crime
to speak positively about North Korea
North Korea is hell on Earth, but this law tramples freedom in South
Korea.
24 January 2016 (
Mixed neighborhoods dwindling
US cities are increasingly segregated into
rich
and poor neighborhoods
. Mixed neighborhoods are dwindling.
24 January 2016 (
Trump a failure as businessman
Trump plays the part of a successful businessman, but actually
he
was a failure
24 January 2016 (
Urgent: FSF
Please
donate to the
fsf.org
and help us work for your freedom.
24 January 2016 (
Defeating the extension of copyright
If we defeat the next attempt to extend copyright in the US, it's not
just the first Mickey Mouse cartoons that we will eventually have in
the public domain. It's
all
sorts of admired works
24 January 2016 (
Daily security screenings at NYC schools
100,000
NYC School Children
Face Airport-Style Security Screening Every
Day.
24 January 2016 (
DEA greed for money
The DEA is so greedy for money it can steal (officially, confiscate)
that it
hired
a TSA agent to look for and report large amounts of cash
as it
could seize.
24 January 2016 (
Culture to blame for prison guard violence
When Prison Guards Are Violent, Blame Culture —
Not
"Bad Apples"
23 January 2016 (
A year in jail for offending Erdoğan
A Turkish teacher has been jailed for a year because Erdoğan
saw
her give him the finger (or something equivalent)
Erdoğan is the open enemy of freedom in Turkey, and the
secret
friend of PISSI
23 January 2016 (
War between human tribes
Skeletons of casualties demonstrate war between human tribes,
10,000
years ago
23 January 2016 (
US politicians' talk about back doors
US politicians' talk about "cooperation to put in back doors"
may be
political preparation for a tyrannical law to require them
And
they
are proposing a commission
to "search for a way" to do this while
"protecting our privacy".
They hope to "find" a way which damages our privacy,
and pretend that it doesn't.
23 January 2016 (
Repression of protesters in Tasmania
Tasmania (part of Australia) is
heavily
repressing protesters against clear-cutting forests
23 January 2016 (
Trump's boastful promises
Trump got approval for a big casino/hotel by making
boastful
promises he was unable to keep
. When the business went broke,
lots of investors lost money.
23 January 2016 (
Criminal prosecutions in the US
The US government is
much
more likely to prosecute an individual than a corporation
23 January 2016 (
China presents Peter Dahlin's "confession"
China presented Peter Dahlin on TV
making
an absurd "confession" and saying that he's having a lovely time in
jail
China is becoming a shameless tyranny again.
23 January 2016 (
Purpose of CISA is snooping
CISA, which
pretends
to serve the goal of better cybersecurity
, would not have
prevented the massive data breach about US government employees. Its
purpose is snooping, and security is just the excuse.
23 January 2016 (
Hottest year ever recorded: 2015
2015 was the
hottest
year ever recorded
. The second hottest was 2014.
2016 is expected to set a new record.
23 January 2016 (
EU migration crisis
Pressure to Resolve Migration Crisis
Could
Tear EU Apart
If that occurs, I think the flaw will be the weakness of central
democracy in the EU. The parliament is weak, the commission is not
democratic at all, and the countries' governments consider only their
narrow interests.
23 January 2016 (
Security on "internet of things"
glaringly
inadequate recommendation
for security on the "internet of
things".
What it
says
is true enough, but it only considers security
against third parties, and totally ignores the issue of security
against the manufacturer. That's a glaring omission, because the
software in these devices is nearly always proprietary. Nowadays it
is not merely
conceivable
that a proprietary program is
malware; it is
standard industry practice
23 January 2016 (
"Threat" to business
World business "leaders"
did
not recognize climate mayhem as the biggest "threat to business"
They are thinking short term, and their definition of "threat" means
"obstacle to their plans". So they said the biggest threat was
"over-regulation" — which means, stopping them from screwing and
cheating us as they would wish.
23 January 2016 (
Crappy accommodations for UK's homeless
The UK does not make homeless people sleep on the street, but its alternative
nowadays is
really
crappy
23 January 2016 (
Egyptian officials meeting with Torture Brennan
The US "assassination tsar", Torture Brennan, has been
meeting
with Egyptian officials
I presume he encouraged them to
torture
suspected enemies of the regime, such as Islamists
and
supporters
of democracy
23 January 2016 (
Verizon violating network neutrality
Verizon is directly violating network neutrality
in
the most flagrant way
, demonstrating why network neutrality is so
important.
23 January 2016 (
Hungary's surveillance law
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Hungary's surveillance
law
violated
human rights guidelines
. It did not require an individual
decision about each person to be surveilled.
23 January 2016 (
I voted for Bernie Sanders
I was the first person to vote this year in Cambridge Massachusetts.
I voted for Bernie Sanders, of course.
Why vote for a Republican in Democrat's clothing?
23 January 2016 (
Algorithms designed to detect terrorism
Any algorithm designed to detect terrorist planning on social media
would raise so many false alarms that it would be
no
use for finding any real terrorists
22 January 2016 (
The low price of oil
The low price of oil may not slow
adoption
of renewable electric generation
However, to avoid disaster, we must decarbonize more than just
electric generation. We need to reduce the emissions of cars, trucks,
trains, ships, and planes, too, as well as heating of homes and
buildings. The low price of oil reduces one of the incentives.
The low price
encourages
some oil exporters to put in renewable energy
, but the fraction of
oil that they use is tiny.
We should make sure the use of oil keeps decreasing, by putting a
bigger tax on it.
22 January 2016 (
Anti-slavery activists face clampdown
Anti-Slavery Activists in Mauritania Face
Violent
Clampdown
, Rights Groups Warn.
22 January 2016 (
Outsourced production of tools
Why outsourcing production of tools
tends
to produce inferior tools
22 January 2016 (
Symphony surveillance software
Apps that include Symphony surveillance software
snoop
on what radio and TV programs are playing nearby
. Also on what
users post on various sites such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
22 January 2016 (
Journalist blocked from visiting US
A BBC journalist, Iranian-British, was blocked from visiting her
brother in the US because of the
new
discriminatory immigration rules
She also cannot go to Iran, because Iran does not like the BBC.
22 January 2016 (
Irreproducible published results
Science faces a crisis of
published
results that are not reproducible
. Perhaps more than half of
published papers are mistaken.
It is nice to have one Journal of Irreproducible Results, but it's bad
to have thousands of them.
22 January 2016 (
Plastic in the sea
If we don't prevent it,
by
2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish
22 January 2016 (
Violent radical Judaist extremists
On the
violent
radical Judaist extremists
that are trying to kick the Arabs out
of Palestine.
22 January 2016 (
Right-wing extremists in charge of Israel
The right-wing extremists that
praised
the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
are now
in charge of Israel.
They are
restricting human
rights
for Arab citizens of Israel.
22 January 2016 (
UK's use of unjust questioning power
The UK uses its unjust questioning power on tens of thousands of
travelers each year, each of whom is compelled to answer
questions
that would otherwise be forbidden to ask
22 January 2016 (
Universities plan to track students
Universities plan to track
everything
students do, and everywhere they go
If this is really for the student's benefit, they should leave all the
data on the student's own computer, to be collected and then used by
free software on that computer. There is no need to be concerned with
possible "cheating", since the student would cheat only perself.(*)
* Since use of "they" in singular offends my sense of correct English,
I sometimes use Marge Piercy's nongendered third-person pronouns,
"person", "per" and "pers". They work like "she", "her" and "hers"
but specify nothing about the referent's gender. See the novel, Woman
on the Edge of Time.
22 January 2016 (
Plutocratist "Democrat" has challenger
Rep. Wasserman Schultz, plutocratist and reactionary "Democrat", has a
progressive
primary challenger
22 January 2016 (
Honduras plans anti-corruption body
Honduras plans an international anti-corruption body, in imitation of
the one in neighboring Guatemala, but it has been
designed
to lack the same authority
. Perhaps designed to fail.
22 January 2016 (
Ocean heating
90%
of the heat that greenhouse gases have collected
has gone into the
oceans.
21 January 2016 (
New French Pun
New pun:
« L'ail en chemise »
21 January 2016 (
New Pun
New pun:
"Realist or optimist?"
21 January 2016 (
Urgent: Investigate Flint's governor
US citizens:
call on the
Justice Department
to investigate Governor Snyder's role in
subjecting Flint to lead poisoning.
21 January 2016 (
Useless "nation-building"
More useless "nation-building": the US
tried to
develop mining and fossil fuels in Afghanistan
, and achieved
nothing.
Of course, if it had managed to develop fossil fuels there,
we would all be worse off.
21 January 2016 (
The richest 1%
The richest 1% of humanity owns
more
wealth than all the rest
21 January 2016 (
Regulation of fracking
The Florida legislature
may
bar cities and counties from regulating fracking
. This would make
it harder to stop fracking.
Fracking should be entirely stopped, because it endangers health of
humans and wildlife. Since we need to keep 80% of known fossil fuel
reserves in the ground, we should include in that 80% all the reserves
that would require fracking.
If we don't do that, the Everglades will become part of the Atlantic
Ocean and we will be worrying about whether coral can live there.
21 January 2016 (
Wearable computers
Wearable computers will oppress people if companies can get their
hands on the data. And most of them are
designed
to give the data directly to companies
Officially telling people they have the right to say no is not enough
to prevent it, because some companies will charge a hefty penalty for
doing so. We must make it illegal for companies to ask for this data
except in very special circumstances.
21 January 2016 (
Thug tells drivers to run over protesters
thug
told
drivers to run over Black Lives Matter protesters
, thus
demonstrating why we need Black Lives Matter protests.
21 January 2016 (
China's coal use
China's coal use
dropped
2 to 4 percent in 2015
That's not bad enough news for the global coal industry. We need to
knock it into the grave, as fast as we can!
21 January 2016 (
World-wide fish catches falling
World-wide fish catches are falling fast due to
overfishing
21 January 2016 (
Turkey demands exclusion of Syria's Kurds
Turkey
demands
to exclude Syria's Kurds from Syria's peace talks
. This would be
a great boost for
PISSI
, as well as making success impossible.
21 January 2016 (
The TTIP
The TTIP
could
destroy Europe's small farms
, or force them to use use GMOs and
lower their quality standards.
21 January 2016 (
Democratic candidates on encryption
The Democratic candidates'
statements
on encryption
: O'Malley is bad, and Sanders is so-so, while
Clinton is like a Republican (yech).
20 January 2016 (
Imprisoned Turkish editor rebukes EU
Turkish editor Can Dündar, imprisoned for writing about Turkey's
arming Syrian jihadis,
rebukes
the EU for its deal with Erdoğan
His lawyers are not allowed to see the charges against him, which
means his trial will be unfair. That's because he didn't do anything
wrong.
20 January 2016 (
Six Responses to Bernie Skeptics
Robert Reich:
Six
Responses to Bernie Skeptics
20 January 2016 (
Non-gay civil partnerships
Non-gays should have the right to a civil partnership
instead
of marriage
20 January 2016 (
Requiring special visas for journalism
Star
of Anti-Dolphin Killing Film, The Cove, Held by Japanese
Immigration
To require special visas for journalism is an attack on the truth, and
must occasion the strong suspicion that the government knows it is
doing something wrong. This policy is wrong no matter which country
practices it, whether that be Japan,
Nauru
China
or the
United
States
20 January 2016 (
Peru official fired for doing good job
Peru's chief official
in
charge of ending illegal logging
has been fired, apparently for
doing a good job.
20 January 2016 (
Bombing hospitals and schools
Bombing hospitals and schools
must
not be tolerated
Are you listening, Obama?
20 January 2016 (
Invasion in Middle East useless
US politicians must stop trying to repeat the useless approach of
invasion in the Middle East — it only
makes
things worse
I disagree partly with the article. It is legitimate to provide close
air support to armies fighting
PISSI
because that can be a big help
to them and civilians will usually have fled the immediate area. But
nothing more than that.
Islamic
State Holding Estimated 3,500 Slaves in Iraq, Says UN
These crimes are part of the reason why we should fight
PISSI
, but
only in ways that are likely to succeed, rather than aid its
recruiting.
20 January 2016 (
UK's terrorism law
An appeals court ruled that the UK's terrorism law, which was used as
an excuse to confiscate David Miranda's computer memories,
violates
human rights
. It has no protections against labeling journalist
as "terrorism".
The court does not appear to have addressed the worst aspect of that
evil law: that it punishes people with years of imprisonment for not
answering questions. Which questions are they required to answer?
They can't ask a lawyer, so really they are not allowed to know. This
means the
thugs
can bluff as they like.
Laws like this are a bigger threat to Britons than terrorists are, and
the same is true in all countries, except a few in North Africa and
the Middle East.
20 January 2016 (
Recognizing trafficking of girls
How flight attendants
recognize
trafficking of girls
20 January 2016 (
Marriage proposals from undercover thugs
A British woman is suing the
thug
department, because an undercover
thug
proposed
marriage to her in order to spy on her union activist friends
She wants the list of undercover spies published so other victims can
get an explanation (and perhaps compensation) for their mysterious
losses.
20 January 2016 (
Google to perform special censorship
Google has agreed to perform special censorship of Youtube for the
government of Pakistan,
deleting
views that the state opposes
This will help the illiberal Pakistani state
suppress
dissent
20 January 2016 (
Conned by rich predators of Davos
We've been
conned
by the rich predators of Davos.
20 January 2016 (
Candidates for Iran's parliament
Of 3000 "moderate" would-be candidates for Iran's parliament,
only
30 have been permitted to run
Iran remains a theocratic tyranny, notwithstanding its limited layer
of democracy, but that would be no reason to continue sanctions
against Iran. The sanctions were never going to make Iran respect
human rights.
20 January 2016 (
Urgent: Drop the Hyde amendment
US citizens:
call on Obama
to drop the Hyde amendment from his proposed budget.
The Hyde amendment forbids use of US government funds to pay for
"abortion as a method of family planning" — for instance, avoiding
having a baby because you know that would be a very bad idea.
SCROTUS
may insist on putting it back, but Obama need not propose it.
SCROTUS
= Sleazy Congressional Republicans Of The United States.)
20 January 2016 (
Urgent: Immigration policies
US citizens:
call
on the Senate
to reject immigration policies that target people by
race or religion.
20 January 2016 (
Urgent: Unbury research on neonics
US citizens:
call on the
USDA
to stop burying Jonathan Lundgren's research on dangers of
neonics.
20 January 2016 (
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is equivalent, for treating symptoms of menopause, to
fake
needles that only press the skin
This does not conclusively prove there is absolutely no validity in
acupuncture. Conceivably mere pressure has some unknown effect.
Or it could be the well-known placebo effect.
20 January 2016 (
Australia's immigration prisons
Doctors in Australia's outsourced immigration prisons say they are
designed
to damage (even kill) the imprisoned refugees
, and to cover it up.
20 January 2016 (
Putin's satrap in Chechnia
Putin's satrap in Chechnia, who makes Putin look kindly and liberal by
comparison,
terrorizes
Russians that criticize him
20 January 2016 (
US democracy broken by oligarchy
An Oligarchy Has Broken Our [US] Democracy.
It
Must Be Dislodged
20 January 2016 (
Business-supremacy treaties
On old-fashioned "national trade interests", the TTIP would be
bad
for Europe's small companies
and good for US multinationals.
Of course, national trade interests are a secondary issue compared to
the far-reaching
direct
injustices of
business-supremacy treaties
such as the TTIP (This
Treaty Is Plutocratic)
No wonder the think tanks that support the TTIP are
funded
by plutocrats as a form of policy laundering
20 January 2016 (
High doses of cocaine
High doses of cocaine, in mice, cause brain cells to
digest
essential organelles and die
Whether this happens in humans has not yet been established.
20 January 2016 (
EU condemns Israeli colonies
EU
Adopts Resolution Criticising Israeli Settlement Activity
The word "criticising" seems like an understatement. The resolution
roundly condemns the Israeli colonies in occupied territory, and some
other wrongs of the occupation.
20 January 2016 (
The nuclear deal with Iran
The
Era of Sanctions is Over in Iran
. So Why No Celebrations?
The purpose of the nuclear deal was to establish that Iran won't
develop nuclear weapons, thus to eliminate the excuse being used to
pressure the US into war with Iran. I think that is something to
celebrate, even though Iran remains an unjust theocratic regime.
20 January 2016 (
Electricity produced from wind in Denmark
Denmark produced
over
40% of its electricity
from wind in 2015.
20 January 2016 (
Oceans warming faster
World's Oceans Warming at
Increasingly
Faster Rate
, New Study Finds.
20 January 2016 (
Denialists grasping at straws
Denialists grasp at satellite straws to as an excuse to
disregard
the best evidence about past temperatures on Earth
20 January 2016 (
Ethical problem with big banks
The ethical problem with big banks is that
banksters
are amoral
. The only question they ask at work is, "How can we
profit through the loopholes that our lobbyists put in the law for
us?"
19 January 2016 (
Student punished for altruism
A 12-year-old girl in New Jersey saw offered the use of her asthma
inhaler to another girl who was choking. She is being
punished
for this act of altruism
19 January 2016 (
Nuclear power can't avoid global heating
Why
nuclear power can't avoid global heating
— though renewable
energy can.
19 January 2016 (
Reporting "sexual assault" to thugs
Women's rights activists
disagree
with Sanders' position
that schools should report all "sexual
assault" cases to the
thugs
I don't know what "sexual assault" includes, so I won't use that term.
In regard to rape, I agree with the women's rights activists that the
victim should have a choice about how to pursue it.
We can't demand that our candidates be perfect and never mistaken.
19 January 2016 (
Oligarchy using our lizard brain
The Oligarchy is
Using
Our Lizard Brain to Enable a Silent Coup
19 January 2016 (
Deficit of democracy in Uganda
Uganda's President
Epitomises
Africa's Perceived Democratic Deficit
19 January 2016 (
Imprisoning children causes mental damage
Imprisoning children that are seeking asylum causes them
progressively
increasing mental damage
19 January 2016 (
Forum-of-the-billionaires at Davos
The forum-of-the-billionaires at Davos now
proposes
to replace diplomacy of states with "multi-stakeholder governance"
in which businesses will lead the negotiations about how to rule us.
We have seen that in the negotiations for proposed business-supremacy
treaties such as TPP and TTIP (
Treacherous Plutocratic Poison
and
This Treaty Is Plutocratic
).
19 January 2016 (
Imprisoned HK publisher
Disappeared Hong Kong publisher Gui Minhai appeared on Chinese TV to
confess
to a supposed crime that no one had heard of before
This eliminates any doubt that China has imprisoned him and several
of his coworkers. It seems likely they have been kidnaped.
19 January 2016 (
Dutch man arrested for fighting PISSI
The Netherlands has
arrested
a man for joining the Kurdish forces and killing a PISSI fighter
He may be charged with murder.
This is nuts. Fighting on the battlefield is not murder, no matter
what side the person is fighting for.
19 January 2016 (
Schools propose finger-vein scans
Some schools propose to use finger-vein scanners to
check
students' identities
I pose a deeper question: what justification exists for this?
Is there a real problem for which this is a legitimate solution?
19 January 2016 (
Plans to label dissent as "cybercrime"
Bangladesh's government plans to label dissent as "cybercrime", with
sentences of
up
to 14 years in prison
19 January 2016 (
UK cafe and library communication data
The UK
threatens
to require cafes and libraries to record users' communication
data
I suppose this includes requiring them to identify themselves, which
is in itself an injustice of a sort that I always refuse.
19 January 2016 (
Urgent: Investigate Sandra Bland's death
Everyone:
call on
Attorney General Lynch
to investigate Sandra Bland's death and
press charges against those responsible.
19 January 2016 (
Urgent: Stop targeting families
US citizens:
call
on Obama
to stop targeting Central American families for
deportation.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
19 January 2016 (
Urgent: Repeal sale of Oak Flat
US citizens:
call on the
Senate
to repeal the sale (and destruction) of Oak Flat.
19 January 2016 (
Prosecutors protect Baltimore thugs
Baltimore
thugs
shot Keith Davis, then accused him of various crimes.
Apparently the culprit was someone else. Prosecutors are
trying
to undermine his defense to vindicate the thugs
19 January 2016 (
62 people own half the world
62
People Own the Same as Half the World
, Reveals Oxfam Davos Report.
19 January 2016 (
Spread of ticks due to global heating
Global heating
has
helped
spread the ticks that carry Lyme disease
19 January 2016 (
Australians' stored personal data
Australia
told
many government agencies they must get a warrant
to access a
person's stored personal data. The agencies don't like this.
The limit is a step in the right direction, but we need to
reduce
the amount of personal data that gets collected
19 January 2016 (
Arrested for posing nude in museum
An artist/hacker was arrested for stripping nude in a Paris museum and
taking
the same pose as the nude in the famous painting on the wall behind
her
19 January 2016 (
Outline for single-payer medical care
Sanders has published
the
outline
of his single-payer medical coverage for all.
It won't save as much money as an NHS would, but it would
put
an end to the gouging
of the
noninsured
19 January 2016 (
EU proposes weak car emissions tests
The new car emissions tests that the EU proposes in response to the
Volkswagen cheating scandal are too weak,
arguably
illegal
19 January 2016 (
TB rate in corner of Alabama
A corner of Alabama has the tuberculosis rate of a poor country,
because
people
don't trust medicine
. Partly it is due to official wrongdoing.
But not entirely.
19 January 2016 (
Kidnaped by China
Gui Minhai's daughter says his "confession" was bogus and that he
must have been
kidnaped
by China
19 January 2016 (
Colombian thugs snoop on journalists
Colombian
thugs
have a pattern of
snooping
on and tracking journalists that investigate them
The specific corruption this article focuses on might have been
avoided if prostitution were legal and thus did not need to pay
protection to the
thugs
but not all official corruption is so easy to
eliminate.
In general, too much surveillance
threatens
democracy
19 January 2016 (
Urgent: Information about poisoned water
Everyone:
call
for release
of full information about Flint's poisoned water.
19 January 2016 (
Urgent: Help Flint
US citizens:
call
on the Federal government
to give Flint the resources to cope with
poisoned water.
19 January 2016 (
Air pollution public health emergency
The WHO says that air pollution is a public health emergency, causing
over
3 million premature deaths each year
This is a lot more than terrorist kill.
19 January 2016 (
Sanctions against Iran to be lifted
The IAEA says that Iran has carried out its part of the nuclear deal,
so
international
sanctions against Iran will be lifted
However,
the
US will impose some sanctions
related to the testing of a
long-range missile.
19 January 2016 (
Kurds need weapons and ammunition
The Kurds
need
heavy weapons and ammunition
to keep fighting PISSI, and they
deserve our support.
Especially the fighting women.
19 January 2016 (
Deconstructing religious extremism
An Oxford University official says that religious extremists
must
be allowed to speak in public
, and that this helps students
develop arguments against them.
The UK will investigate where Muslim extremists get their funding, but
will
it dare to admit the answer?
19 January 2016 (
Studies of effects of various nutrients
Studies of effects of various nutrients rest on evidence that is
inherently
unreliable
19 January 2016 (
FBI's special rules for subpoenas
The FBI published special rules for subpoenas to journalists, but the
rules are
worthless
as protection for journalists
because they have a universal escape
clause: the FBI can use a PAT RIOT Act "national security letter"
instead of a subpoena.
The rules for that are secret.
We must repeal the PAT RIOT Act,
for our
freedom's sake
19 January 2016 (
Discontinued 3D printer with DRM
The "Cube" 3D printer was designed with DRM: it won't accept
third-party printing materials. It is the Keurig of printers. Now it
is being discontinued, which means that eventually
authorized
materials won't be available and the printers may become unusable
With a printer that gets the
Respects
Your Freedom
, this problem would not even be a remote possibility.
How pitiful that the author of that article says that there was
"nothing wrong" with designing the device to restrict users in the
first place. This is like putting a "cheat me and mistreat me" sign
on your chest. We should know better: we should condemn all companies
that take advantage of people like him. Indeed, it is the acceptance
of their unjust practice that teaches people to be doormats.
The proper response to DRM is:
Step 1, "I don't buy anything designed
to mistreat me — take your nasty product and
flush it down the toilet."
Step 2,
repeal the DMCA
Step 3,
make DRM a crime
18 January 2016 (
Rich people messing with US school system
Aaron Swartz: for rich people to mess with the US school system is
nothing
new
I think it is going too far to claim that the main or only purpose of
the school system is to make people obedient. Parents around the
world make sacrifices so their children can study, and if this were
nothing but a way to keep them down, parents would have learned that
by now and stopped.
18 January 2016 (
The motive for DRM
Arguing that the motive for DRM is not about illegal copying, but
really about
control
of legal markets
18 January 2016 (
Billionaire philanthropy
Billionaire philanthropy can't make up for
bad
things they did to get the money in the first place
, so don't let
it buy your good opinion.
18 January 2016 (
Flint, Michigan, cutting off water
Flint, Michigan, is cutting off water to families that have not paid
for
the
water that poisoned them
There are many levels of irony here.
18 January 2016 (
5 years in prison for prank
The CFAA puts a man under
threat
of 5 years in prison
for a prank that lasted 40 minutes.
18 January 2016 (
Prisoner trade
The US
traded
Iranian prisoners
for Jason Rezaian and some other Americans who
were imprisoned in Iran.
Rubio and Christie has a valid point to some extent; the danger they
point to can really happen under some circumstances. When President
Reagan traded arms for the release of Americans held hostage in
Lebanon, the hostage takers simply kidnaped more Americans to get more
ransom.
However, trading prisoners is different from demanding a ransom.
There is no sign that that exploitative pattern is happening here, or
that Iran imprisoned those people in order to trade them. As long as
Iran does not start to practice that abuse, we should continue trading
prisoners.
18 January 2016 (
Exxon's charter
Exxon's charter
should
be revoked
for its global heating lies.
18 January 2016 (
Clinton on single-payer medical care
Clinton
endorsed
single-payer medical care
, until Sanders started seriously
campaigning for it.
18 January 2016 (
Video proves thugs lied about shooting
The Baltimore
thugs
that shot Shaun Mouzon claimed he was trying to
run them over. A video
proves
they lied
The also appear to have lied when they said he was carrying a gun.
18 January 2016 (
Charter schools
Comparing charter schools with the
subprime
mortgage bubble
17 January 2016 (
Prison for taking abortion pills
A woman is
threatened
with life imprisonment
in Northern Ireland for taking abortion
pills.
17 January 2016
Urgent: get presidential committed to reinterpret Helms amendment
US citizens: presidential candidates,
commit to reinterpret the Helms amendment
more literally, to allow US funding for abortions in cases
of rape and medical need.
17 January 2016
Refugees from from Central America
Tens of thousands of women
from Central America are fleeing to the US
because gangs threaten violence against them or their children.
They are not economic migrants; they have a real claim for asylum.
Moreover, the US's "war on drugs" is partly responsible for their
plight.
17 January 2016
Cities can prevent gentrification
Bernie Sanders showed in the 1980s that
cities can prevent gentrification
It is not a law of nature, it is the outcome of choices made by
governments.
17 January 2016
Cheap gasoline drives Americans to drive
Cheap gasoline is
encouraging Americans to drive more
and produce more CO2.
To avoid backsliding on efforts to avoid future disaster,
we need an increase in the gasoline tax.
17 January 2016
False claims about natural gas
The
giant methane leak
illustrates the point that natural gas is cleaner than coal.
This false claim was put over by the money and PR of fossil fuel
companies, that want us to make the bad investment of replacing coal
with natural gas, rather than the good investment of replacing fossil
fuels with renewable energy.
17 January 2016
Netflix founder funds school privatization
The founder of Netflix gave millions to a fund "for education", but
his choice to head that fund has a history of working "
for privatizing public education
".
Privatized "charter" schools in the US are worse for teachers, worse
for the community, and not better for students; but they are great for
privatizing federal funds
17 January 2016
Manus Island prisoner
Refugee Benham Satah is a prisoner on Manus Island. He testified in
the trial over the murder of his fellow prisoner Reza Barati, and is
afraid the
guards will kill him
for that.
He testified seeing foreign guards as well as Manus islanders beat
Barati to death. However, only the islanders have been charged with
the killing; foreign guards enjoy effective impunity — one of the
injustices of the way Australia set up its proxy prison in Manus.
I've read two books about Manus Island: Manus Religion, by Reo
Fortune, and New Lives for Old, by Margaret Meade. They describe a
society that chose revolutionary change between the 1920s and the
1950s, inspired by the American soldiers that were stationed there
temporarily, who treated them as acquaintances rather than as colonial
subjects.
That society existed in one corner of the island, alongside other
societies that may have been quite different. I suppose that they
have all been assimilated together, by now, and I wonder whether the
nature of things in Manus Island today relates in any way to the
culture of those people, 90 years ago.
17 January 2016
UK school bans birthday cakes
A school in the UK has
refused to allow birthday cakes
in school,
for fear of being held responsible if some child has an allergic
reaction.
17 January 2016
Urgent: tell Congress to repeal visa waiver discrimination
US citizens:
call on Congress
to repeal the recently introduced discrimination
in the US visa waiver program.
17 January 2016
Bitcoin becoming unreliable
Bitcoin is becoming unreliable because of a
refusal to change a protocol
to increase the capacity for transactions.
17 January 2016
Contraception over the counter
Some US states have made it possible to
buy birth control pills
without visiting a doctor. This will make a big difference to women who
can't afford
to see a doctor for the prescription.
If we had a civilized medical system, and a proper minimum wage, etc.,
no women would be in that situation. But this change would still be
good,
even though not quite as urgently needed.
17 January 2016
Exaggerating the danger of terrorism
Americans exaggerate the danger of terrorism in the US
by roughly 1,000,000 times
and this reaction creates a self-fulfilling prophecy,
without which terrorism would occur even less.
17 January 2016
Rare hurricanes in January
Two hurricanes
have formed in January, one in the Atlantic Ocean and
one in the Central Pacific.
To have a hurricane in January in either place is a rarity. We are
seeing an effect of
global heating
17 January 2016
Dealing with student debt crisis
The way to deal with the crisis of student debt in the US is to
make college gratis
The government should pay for it.
Going to college can increase a person's income (though this does not
happen in every case), and it is fair that those who gain in this way
should pay to support the system. With a proper progressive income
tax, this would happen automatically.
17 January 2016
Urgent: call on TransCanada to drop NAFTA lawsuit
Everyone: call on TransCanada to
drop its NAFTA lawsuit
which demands billions of dollars in "compensation" for
the cancellation of the Keystone XL planet-roaster pipeline.
17 January 2016
Global heating is biggest threat to economy
Economists consider that the
biggest threat to the global economy
this year is a regional disaster caused by
global heating
That's with 1C of
global heating
With 2C of heating, such disasters
would happen all the time, and the uncertainty would be in the precise
details.
17 January 2016
Oregon anti-wildlife occupation
One of the Oregon anti-wildlife occupation protesters drove a
government vehicle to a town, and was quite properly
arrested for car theft
17 January 2016
Pointless pesticides on soybeans
Neonicotinoid pesticides appear to be
pointless
on soybeans.
17 January 2016
Trial of oil train protesters
The judge
yanked the necessity defense
of the five protesters on trial
for blocking an oil train. He said they had not presented any evidence
that this particular protest was the only way to stop a bigger harm:
the risk of an explosion in that city.
They were
convicted on one charge
but not jailed.
I think that what's necessary to prevent
global heating
disaster is
far more than they could possibly do.
17 January 2016
Jailed 6 months for photos of protest
Mary Anne Grady Flores will be jailed for six months for violating a
"protection order". Her violation consisted of
taking photos of a protest
against the use of armed drones.
This is an indirect excuse for trashing people's constitutional
rights.
17 January 2016
Obama stops issuance of coal leases
Obama has
stopped the issuance
of new coal leases on US public land.
This is a step in the right direction.
17 January 2016
CIA agent to face justice in Italy
A former CIA agent will face justice in Italy for
kidnapping an Egyptian
there and sending him to Egypt to be tortured.
17 January 2016
UK and US involved in Yemen
US and UK officers are
closely involved
in directing the intervention in Yemen.
17 January 2016
Goldman Sachs gets slap on wrist
Goldman Sachs got a 5 billion dollar
slap on the wrist
for its role in taking the houses of millions of Americans. Part of it
is
tax-deductible.
17 January 2016
EPA scientists criticize EPA
EPA scientists have
criticized
the EPA's determination that fracking is not
a big threat to water supplies.
17 January 2016
US imposing on Haiti again
The US and other powers, which didn't help the Haitian people rebuild
after the earthquake, are once again
imposing a president
through a rigged election.
17 January 2016
Clinton emails reveal lies
Release of Clinton's emails show how the US government
told lies about Gaddafi
as an excuse for intervention in Libya, and the pliant US
major media eagerly spread them without investigating them.
Officials were also aware of al-Qa'ida's presence among the
rebels.
The article does not go into depth about "special ops trainers inside
Libya", so I cannot judge whether this ought to be a scandal or not.
17 January 2016
Flint water poisoning ignored by EPA
The EPA
let months go by
after it found out that the water in Flint was poisoning children.
17 January 2016
Global heating and mass deaths
Global heating
plays a role in a
rash of mass deaths
of many kinds of
wild animals around the globe.
The die-offs include plants, too. Millions of pine trees in the US
west have been killed as
global heating
enabled a parasitic insect
to spread there.
17 January 2016
Yosemite National Park trademarks
The company that formerly managed Yosemite National Park applied for
trademarks on the names of the old hotels and restaurants it was
running, and is using those to
force them to change their names
This seems like extortion from the state. If it isn't a crime, it
should be.
Confusion appears in the article where it uses the term "intellectual
property". That term causes nothing but confusion.
Trademark law is nothing like copyright law or patent law. If you
think you "understand" a statement about "intellectual property", it is
a false understanding that will lead you astray.
17 January 2016
Seizing property of refugees
Switzerland and Denmark require refugees to
surrender their property
This is a way to select the poorest refugees.
Switzerland's special tax on refugees who start to work
is not quite as bad, but I think it is better to tax people
based on wealth and income, not based on being refugees.
17 January 2016
Crop insurance in India
India has set up a
new system of crop insurance
to help save farmers
from being pushed into failure and suicide by the cost of commercially
produced seeds.
I hope it works better than the previous systems.
17 January 2016
Drones in your backyard
Do you have the right to stop a drone from
hovering over your yard
17 January 2016
Research needs no moonshots
Research needs steadily increasing funding,
not flashy "moonshots"
17 January 2016 (
Arab Spring
The disastrous results of the Arab Spring show that civil resistance
can force out dictators but
building
democracy takes more
In Tunisia I was told that the free software movement there was a big
help, because people in it had learned how to work together
effectively without having a boss to give them orders.
17 January 2016 (
Urgent: Fire Baltimore housing chief
Everyone:
call
on Baltimore
to fire housing chief Graziano, who looked he other
way as his staff compelled women to have sex in exchange for legally
mandated repair of their dwellings.
17 January 2016 (
Urgent: Political spending disclosure
US citizens:
Call
on Obama
to require federal contractors to disclose their political
spending.
17 January 2016 (
Treatment for lead in children's bodies
The only treatment for the lead in children's bodies in Flint is
special
educational care for a long time
17 January 2016 (
Urgent: No government backdoors
Everyone:
call on your
government
not to require backdoors in your computers.
17 January 2016 (
New law against vacuuming up user contacts
In Germany, it is now
illegal
for a web site to vacuum up a users' list of contacts
17 January 2016 (
Plan to "redevelop" sex-work district
In Amsterdam, a plan to "redevelop" the sex-work district has caused
trouble for many prostitutes, but
found
very little trafficking of women
17 January 2016 (
Integrating segregated schools
Integrating segregated schools in the US
faces
opposition
17 January 2016 (
Civilians attacked in Burundi
In Burundi, reports say the president/tyrant's forces have
attacked
civilians
as reprisal for armed resistance.
17 January 2016 (
Internet of Things
The Internet of Things?
Up
your ass
17 January 2016 (
"Retaliation" for discriminatory US policy
Americans of Iranian ancestry
fear
they will be blocked from visiting Europe
in "retaliation" for the
discriminatory US policy.
For other countries to "retaliate" by restricting US citizens of
Iranian origin (and Iraqi, Syrian or Sudanese) would be ridiculous,
like "retaliating" against Nazi Germany by punishing German Jews. A
meaningful retaliation should infuriate those responsible for the US
policy. That's why I suggest imposing a visa requirement on US
citizens whose family names start with "Ry".
17 January 2016 (
Urgent: Nuclear diplomacy with Iran
US citizens:
call on
Senate Democrats
to defend nuclear diplomacy with Iran.
17 January 2016 (
Organ donation
When families of a dead person
veto
organ transplants
, they deny several people a chance to keep their
lives, and deny their deceased relative the chance to save lives.
My words for those families and their absurd obsession with parts of
corpses: "Grow up!" They should not have the power to veto
transplants.
Please sign up as an organ donor.
17 January 2016 (
The TPP
The TPP, with annotations
explaining
many ways it will do harm
17 January 2016 (
Copyright for political censorship
Using
copyright for political censorship
: this time, in Australia
against an organization for humane treatment of animals.
17 January 2016 (
Turkey arrests petition signers
Turkey has
arrested
academics for signing a petition
calling on Erdoğan to stop
repression in Kurdish areas. Over a thousand signatories face
possible prosecution for this.
Chomsky signed the same petition; in response Erdoğan invited
him to visit Turkey. He refused. Apparently that refusal was very
wise.
17 January 2016 (
Ostracized for wearing protest t-shirt
Vlad Kolesnikov
protested
Russia's conquest of Crimea
by wearing a t-shirt. His community
and his family ostracized him, and he committed suicide.
16 January 2016 (
Protection of reporters' sources
Can
We [Britons] Really Trust Judges to Protect Reporters' Confidential
Sources?
Britons certainly should not trust them to protect
dissidents
and union organizers
16 January 2016 (
Learning from women who have fled PISSI
Who Can Prevent British [and other] Women Joining [
PISSI
]?
Those
Who Have Returned
16 January 2016 (
Moderate use of marijuana
A study suggests that moderate use of marijuana
does
not harm teenagers' brains
— rather, use of marijuana tends to
accompany other factors, or other practices such as use of tobacco and
alcohol, which explain their low grades and IQ scores.
16 January 2016 (
Indonesia's wobbly human rights
A terrorist attack in Jakarta puts Indonesia's wobbly human rights
in
great danger
Everyone who loves Indonesia must help it to avoid attacking itself
now.
16 January 2016 (
Guantanamo prison
The Obama regime has speeded up release of some prisoners from
Guantanamo, but
still
holds 49 prisoners there whom it has no intention to try or
release
Imprisonment without trial is an injustice which the US should
condemn. It must cease this practice, to stop setting a bad example
that other regimes cite as an excuse.
10
more have had, or are supposed to have, "trials"
— but not
fair trials.
Unfair
trials
are an injustice too.
16 January 2016 (
"Auditing" by global front companies
Giant global front companies "audit" their supply chains with lots of
loopholes. The abuses continue, but the companies can
pretend
to have stopped them
16 January 2016 (
UK's record floods
The UK's recent record floods were statistically the
result
of global heating
16 January 2016 (
HK publisher cancels book from fear
A Hong Kong publisher cancelled a book from
fear
of Chinese repression
16 January 2016 (
Anthropomorphism
Don't give way to
anthropomorphism
when thinking about non-human animals.
It's possible for other animals to have feelings, but don't assume
they are similar to what you would feel.
16 January 2016 (
Pollution killing orcas and dolphins
Pollution
with PCBs
is killing the orcas and dolphins of western europe.
16 January 2016 (
Campbell's Soup Company to label GMOs
Campbell's Soup Company agreed to label all products that contain GMO
foods, saying that the
cost
of this labeling would be insignificant
This demonstrates that the opposition to a labeling requirement is
bullshit.
I do not believe that GMOs are invariably or inherently bad. But
there are many ways that they
can
do harm, and without a firm
and strong regulatory system, the companies that develop them will
choose to
ignore
the risks
16 January 2016 (
A defeat for religious fanaticism
Gambia has
backed
off from ordering female state employees to cover their hair
while
at work.
This is a small but significant defeat for religious fanaticism.
16 January 2016 (
China's leading human rights lawyers
China's leading human rights lawyers
face
years in prison for "subversion"
for trying to implement China's
human rights law.
16 January 2016 (
Palestinian poet's death sentence
Writers
Join Worldwide Action to Protest
Palestinian Poet's Death Sentence
in [
Salafi Arabia
].
I call that country
Salafi Arabia
to remind people that it has been
spending millions of dollars a year for decades to impose its
cruel,
strict and vicious version of Islam on the Muslim world
. One of
the consequences is the existence of
PISSI
and other Islamic
fundamentalist organizations.
16 January 2016 (
Encryption in France
France
may
prohibit strong encryption
If that happens, I may be unable ever to go to France again.
16 January 2016 (
Spy back doors in portable phones
A bill being considered in New York State
would
require portable phones to have spy back doors built in
16 January 2016 (
Income inequality
More income inequality in a country leads to
less
happiness for the whole population
— not only for the poor.
Look at the US: right-wing politicians use the generally shared
difficulties to divide people and lead them to blame scapegoats.
16 January 2016 (
Movement to privatize public schools
Primer
on the Damaging Movement
to Privatize Public Schools.
15 January 2016 (
Urgent: Iran deal
US citizens:
call
on Congress
not to sabotage the Iran deal.
15 January 2016 (
Fight between Turkey and PKK continues
Fighting between the Turkish state and the Kurdish independence
movement PKK
continues
They had a truce, but Erdoğan
broke
the truce in 2015
in order to get a better election result.
15 January 2016 (
Ted Cruz used unreported funds
Ted Cruz
used
unreported funds
in his 2012 Senate campaign.
15 January 2016 (
India's contempt for freedom of speech
India has demonstrated its contempt for freedom of speech
by
arresting
a comedian for mocking a religious leader
15 January 2016 (
Digital dossiers
Proposing a campaign for
"transparency"
about the algorithms
that make decisions about people based on
their digital dossiers.
This campaign is right, but misguided: it starts by presuming we
surrender the fight against collecting
digital
dossiers about all of us
. That's what we ought to fight against.
15 January 2016 (
Asylum seekers from Central America
The
UNHCR
will interview people in Central America
that hope to ask for
asylum in the US.
15 January 2016 (
Venezuelan opposition
The Venezuelan opposition
yielded
to the Supreme Court
, so the opposition does not have a 2/3
majority.
15 January 2016 (
Snooping on employees
In Europe, employers have been
given
the right to read all messages sent by employees at work
I am not sure whether this applies only to use of the company's
systems, or also to the employee's own computers.
possible
answer
to that and other related questions.
One worker says his messaging was
investigated for
months due to misunderstandings. He was eventually found "innocent",
but the process made it intolerable to remain in that company.
15 January 2016 (
Religious fanatics against vaccination
Some religious fanatics in Pakistan
still
fight against polio vaccination
. The CIA's hunt for Osama bin
Laden was partly responsible.
To have captured bin Laden and put him on trial would have been a good
thing. Killing him instead was
wrong
and made little progress against
religious
fanaticism
. Tarring the good name of polio vaccinators was a
grave
wrong
15 January 2016 (
Flint's water crisis
Flint's Water Crisis
Flows
From A Much Bigger Problem
15 January 2016 (
St Louis financing new stadium for NFL
St Louis is experiencing the burden of
stupidly
financing a new stadium for an NFL team
15 January 2016 (
Revolving doors in Washington
From
Google Payroll to Government and Back Again
Of course, this "revolving door" is not limited to Google or to
digital technology. It is standard practice in Washington,
and it is harmful across the board.
Senator Kay Hagan Promised to Take On Special Interests,
Now
She Works for Them
15 January 2016 (
PM Cameron's campaign to pollute
UK Prime Minister Cameron
says
he did not "backslide" in his environmental policies
That's true. His campaign to use up and pollute the environment has
only got stronger.
15 January 2016 (
Social media companies and government
Social Media Companies
Should
Decline the Government's Invitation
to Join the National Security
State.
15 January 2016 (
Oregon ranchers' difficulty
The Oregon ranchers' difficulty is not that the government regulates
use of land, but that it
allowed
four big companies to take over the beef-packing business
15 January 2016 (
Turkish journalists and opposition protest
Turkish journalists and opposition protested about the
arrest
of over 150 journalists in Turkey
15 January 2016 (
Labour Party support boosted by Corbyn
Corbyn, who rejects
Tony B'liar
's right-wing politics, has
boosted
the support for the Labour Party
15 January 2016 (
Christians flee persecution
Christians Flee Growing Persecution
in
Africa and Middle East
15 January 2016 (
Pakistan arrests extremist group members
Pakistan has arrested members of the
extremist
group that the state formerly supported
to attack India.
15 January 2016 (
The internet in poor countries
In poor countries, the internet has not spread equality; it
provides
more benefit to the wealthy
This is a secondary issue. More importantly, the internet
as most
people use it
is a system of oppression.
15 January 2016 (
US libraries purging patron records
US libraries are
starting
to purge information on books borrowed
, to protect readers'
privacy.
15 January 2016 (
Zika likely to reach southern US
Zika, the mosquito-borne virus that causes human fetuses to grow
without most of the brain, is
likely
to reach the southern US
Think of all the women in South America that will be forced by cruel
laws to carry these fetuses to term. Will Christian fanatics in Texas
try to do the same thing?
15 January 2016 (
Investigation of Israel's actions
Sweden's foreign minister
called
for an investigation of Israel's "disproportionate" deadly
response
to attacks by Palestinians; Israel has said she is not
welcome there.
Israel does not allow
its
actions
to be
investigated
15 January 2016 (
Trump praises dictators
Donald Trump has
praised
a long string of dictators
, in countries such as China, Egypt,
Libya, Iraq, Russia and North Korea.
15 January 2016 (
Mosul dam crumbling
Since
PISSI
captured the Mosul dam, the dam has not received its
necessary maintenance. It is
starting
to crumble and might collapse
The water would inundate Mosul, and could kill a million people or
two.
15 January 2016 (
US gov't wants reports about hotel guests
The US government
wants
hotel workers to report hotel guests for various non-criminal
activities
, because supposedly indicates "sex trafficking".
Some of them might suggest prostitution is going on, but prostitution
does not equal trafficking. The US has enacted dishonest laws which
pretend that all sex workers under a certain age are being raped, but
that is
not
for laws to decide
Some of these so-called signs don't relate to prostitution at all. I
do several of them every time I stay in a hotel by myself, even though
I'm no sex worker. (I'd never get anywhere in that profession with my
age and weight.)
15 January 2016 (
Protesters using "necessity defense"
Protesters that blocked an oil train are using the "necessity
defense", arguing that
their
action was needed to keep the community safe
from an explosion.
15 January 2016 (
Obama's nuclear modernization
Does
Obama's Nuclear Modernization Make the Unthinkable 'Thinkable'?
14 January 2016 (
Urgent: Reject fossil fuel money
US citizens:
call
on presidential candidates
to pledge to reject fossil fuel money.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
14 January 2016 (
Urgent: TPP explanation from Obama
US citizens:
call
on Obama
to explain just how the TPP would (he claims) block
Transcanada's NAFTA suit against the US for disapproving the Keystone
XL pipeline.
14 January 2016 (
Mafia-style cartels run Kenya
Kenya is run by mafia-style cartels,
reports
its chief justice
. He says that they have corrupted the branches
of government that are supposed to curb them.
14 January 2016 (
The Koch brothers' father
The Koch brothers' father, Fred Koch,
worked
closely with the fascist countries before World War II
, and in
1938 said he admired them.
14 January 2016 (
Sanders' health care proposal
Clinton's
dishonest attack against
Sanders' universal health care proposal.
14 January 2016 (
McDonald's
McDonald's is accused of
unfair
competition in Europe
14 January 2016 (
Ancient superstition oppresses women
In India, the ancient superstition that considers menstruating women
"impure"
still
oppresses women today
14 January 2016 (
200 prisoners died in Russia in 2015
200
prisoners died in Russia in 2015
. Were some of them killed by
thugs
14 January 2016 (
Attacks on abortion rights
Around the world, religious fanatics' attacks on abortion rights have
caused a substantial decrease in safe, legal abortions, matched by an
equal
increase
in unsafe illegal abortions
14 January 2016 (
Environmental costs of oil and coal
Obama proposes to
make
oil and coal extractors pay
for their environmental costs.
This would drive the price way up and encourage conservation.
However, it needs to apply to imported coal and oil, not solely
to the coal and oil extracted in the US.
The IMF endorsed a
carbon
tax on ships and planes
It should cover everything, but that would be a good start.
14 January 2016 (
Reducing carp infestation in Australia
virus
that infects only carp
may provide a way to reduce the carp that
infest a major Australian river.
It probably won't eradicate them, though; probably some are resistant.
By releasing several such species-specific viruses at once, and spread
them carefully, we might be able to eradicate the species from a
region.
14 January 2016 (
Red light cameras installed due to bribes
Chicago allegedly installed lots of red light cameras due to
bribes
paid by the manufacturer
We must establish a principle that it is an injustice to use computers
to monitor and punish human beings.
14 January 2016 (
Kaddie Abdul attends Trump rally
Kaddie Abdul attended a Trump rally and
gave
his supporters a chance to meet and talk with a Muslim woman
Through her conversations, she came to understand their point of view.
Basically, they have suffered real hurt and offense, and blame it on
scapegoats.
13 January 2016 (
China arrests human rights campaigner
China has
arrested
Swedish human rights campaigner Peter Dahlin
on typical absurd
charges.
Dahlin's campaign tried to defend Chinese human rights campaigners
who were arrested or disappeared by the state. China has arrested
many Chinese lawyers who have done that.
13 January 2016 (
Proposed attack on human rights in Canada
Canadians are
organizing
to oppose
the proposed attack on human rights.
13 January 2016 (
Obama forgot commitment to end US wars
Obama told us he would end US wars, but somehow
forgot
this commitment
. Aside from Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul, the
current presidential candidates propose increasing US interventions.
These interventions typically (1) cause terrible harm, (2) create
failed states, (3) spread militarism, (4) boost the
military-industrial complex, and (5) undermine human rights in the US.
I am not a pacifist. Some situations require war. But if the
president is predisposed to war, we will do it far too much.
13 January 2016 (
Hong Kong to ban import and export of ivory
Hong Kong has
agreed
to ban import and export of ivory
This may help save elephants.
13 January 2016 (
Cuts in legal aid in the UK
The UK's highest judge says that cuts in legal aid have made for
injustice
in trials
13 January 2016 (
Snooping on Muslim students
Directors of UK schools warn that pressuring them to snoop on Muslim
students
will
backfire
13 January 2016 (
Salafi Arabia arrests Samar Badawi
Salafi Arabia
has arrested Samar Badawi, sister of imprisoned Raif
Badawi,
for
advocating release of her former husband from prison
13 January 2016 (
Obama's men demand total snooping again
Obama's men are
demanding
total snooping
again.
It is absurd to claim that "security" requires that nobody be able to
have a private conversation any more. That's tyranny, not safety.
Our best chance, perhaps our only chance ever, to convert the US
back into a democracy is Sanders' "political revolution".
Please give him your energetic support.
13 January 2016 (
Ocean acidification
Acidification Affects the
Ability
of Bacteria to Clean Our Oceans
13 January 2016 (
Indonesia denies visa to journalist
Indonesia
denied
a visa to journalist Cyril Payen
, apparently because he made a
documentary about Indonesia's response to the independence movement in
West Papua.
13 January 2016 (
Monitoring people through "their" phones
The natural extension of monitoring people through "their" phones is
proprietary
software to make sure they can't "fool" the monitoring
13 January 2016
Benefits for people with injuries
Cutting benefits for people with injuries who might be able to work
will
make it harder
for them to find work.
13 January 2016
Bernie Sanders endorsed by MoveOn
MoveOn's members voted by almost 80% to
endorse Bernie Sanders
for president.
I hope this helps him win. I would be so glad to be able to vote for
a major party candidate for president again.
13 January 2016
Israel sued in US for attack on ship
Personnel from one of the Gaza aid ships, which flew the US flag, are
suing Israel
in the US for attacking their ship.
13 January 2016
Arrest of El Chapo
The arrest (yet again) of El Chapo will
have no effect
on the harm done by the "war on drugs".
Note that the War on Painkillers does collateral damage to people who
suffer from pain. I worry, when I think about it, that some day after
another operation I will once again be sent home and told to rely on
percoset
to treat the pain, and once again it won't be enough to do the job.
13 January 2016
Urgent: ask EPA to regulate methane leaks
US citizens:
call on the EPA
to regulate methane leaks from existing sources.
13 January 2016
Urgent: call on Congress to expand social security
US citizens:
call on Congress
to expand social security, not cut it.
13 January 2016
Bees and imidacloprid
Bayer has given up on
trying to deny
the EPA's finding that imidacloprid harms bees.
If it is really possible to use these pesticides without harming
honeybees or other pollinators, that would be nice. But we must be
careful of believing that too easily because Bayer pushes us to close
our eyes to facts.
13 January 2016
Anti-fracking protesters
Compare
these protesters
who aim to protect people and nature against
fracking with the armed Oregon protesters who demand to be allowed to
overgraze and destroy wild forests.
The anti-frackers have "fortified" the site with a moat ad tunnels
— but no weapons.
13 January 2016
Error in energy budget approach
The "energy budget" approach to measuring Earth's climate sensitivity
gave anomalously low results
— due to an error which has now been corrected.
This particular straw is no longer available for denialists to grasp
at
when arguing we should not hasten to decarbonize.
13 January 2016
Risks of additional children
Researchers Say Additional Children Increase Risk of Educational,
Behavioral Problems.
13 January 2016
Bernie Sanders' sincerity
Bernie Sanders is a sincere liberal who
cares more about what's right
than about what other people think.
I disagree with one thing he says, however. If I woke up and
discovered I had been transformed into a hedge fund manager, I'd quit
and
vote for Sanders.
I won't vote for Clinton, though. Of all the Democratic (and
Republican) presidential candidates, Sanders is the only one I would
vote for. If not him, then the Greens.
12 January 2016 (
Why Putin's men poisoned Litvinenko
It appears the reason Putin's men poisoned Alexander Litvinenko
was to
stop
him from testifying about Putin's links with Russian mafias
, which
were linked to Spanish mafias.
12 January 2016 (
Superstitious fear of vaccines
Superstitious fear of vaccines
kills
people
, even in the US.
12 January 2016 (
Iran arrests journalists
Iran
Arrests
Journalists, Bans Newspaper
Ahead of Elections.
12 January 2016 (
Juniper Networks backdoor
Why did Juniper Networks add the NSA-sabotaged key generation code,
which was already suspect, when it
already
had a safe method
12 January 2016 (
Thugs use metatdata to score people
US
thugs
now examine all sorts of records associated with a person's
name or address, to
estimate
how "dangerous" the person is
and whether to send a military-style
team to break down per door.
(I used Marge Piercy's third-person singular possessive form "per",
which is a gender-neutral alternative to "her". I absolutely refuse
to use "they" in singular.)
12 January 2016 (
Isolation of old and disabled people
In the UK, old and disabled people are now essentially
isolated
in their homes
, never seeing anyone. The activities where they
used to talk with other people have been eliminated, along with the
transport that would have brought them there.
People who have few social contacts tend to die sooner,
so I guess this is a way of getting rid of them.
12 January 2016 (
Promotion of long-term innovation
The Entrepreneurial State: states such as the US, Germany and UK have
made a big difference by actively promoting long-term innovation;
today's strip-the-state corporations
prevent
such long-term activity by evading taxes
We should not make the mistake of making innovation as such our
highest goal. When the richest get to direct which innovations we
use, they will do so for their good, not ours.
When we do need progress, the effects of illegitimate plutocratic
governance can be seen when people
foolishly
wish that billionaires would invest in the research
In the 1960s, when the US still made the rich pay substantial taxes,
the state funded important research.
12 January 2016 (
Sanders signs Fix Democracy pledge
Sanders is
First
to Sign 'Fix Democracy' Pledge
Rejecting Fossil Fuel Cash.
12 January 2016 (
Special Belgian tax breaks
The EU says that special Belgian tax breaks for some large companies
were
illegal
12 January 2016 (
Three MSF hospitals bombed since October
Three
MSF hospitals
have been bombed in Yemen since October, all by the
Salafi Arabia
with US support.
12 January 2016 (
Totoaba and vaquita headed for extinction
The totoaba fish, and the vaquita porpoise, are
headed
for extinction
because of selfish and callous rich Chinese who
don't care what they destroy in proving how important they are.
Curiously, the eating of fish swim bladder (from non-endangered fish)
is a common practice in Chinese food. Try crabmeat and fish maw soup
if you ever get a chance.
12 January 2016 (
Plutocrats' "money is speech"
"Money
is speech"
turns the First Amendment into a requirement for
plutocrats' money to rule all.
12 January 2016 (
State regulation of toxic chemicals
SCROTUS
are
trying
to stop states from regulating toxic chemicals
. The bill would
ban states from regulating chemicals that the EPA has started to test.
Because the EPA is constrained to be very slow and cautious, and has
little funds to do this, protecting Americans from toxic chemicals
depends on states that have more courage. That's inconvenient for the
businesses that use the chemicals, so naturally their subservient
legislators are trying to stop the states.
SCROTUS
Sleazy Congressional Republicans Of The United States
12 January 2016 (
UK's immigration law
The UK's immigration law converts foreign domestic workers into
slaves
of their employers
The employers go as far as
maiming
them
. If they run away, the government punishes them and denies
them medical care.
12 January 2016 (
Africa's population growth
Africa's population growth rate is not declining. If it doesn't
decline, it will cause a
disaster
of overpopulation
that will spill over to the rest of the world.
We should give Africa all the aid necessary to bring its population
under control.
12 January 2016 (
Carbon tax
A carbon tax can encourage cuts in emissions
while having
little
overall effect on prices of goods
12 January 2016 (
Tropical forests
Tropical forests are
effective
methods of pulling carbon out of the air
, as long as we don't
convert them into plantations.
12 January 2016 (
Children killed by Russian bombers
Russian bombers
killed
more children in Syria
They are matching the US-supported bombings carried out by
Salafi
Arabia in Yemen
12 January 2016 (
NHS privatisation
My Junior Doctor Colleagues Are Striking for the Wrong Reasons:
"Everyone in the [UK] NHS should rise up against
privatisation
."
12 January 2016 (
Americans eager to bomb other countries
Americans are
eager
to bomb other countries
; they feel little empathy with the people
who are killed, or made homeless.
12 January 2016 (
Republican Election Rigging Tactics
Republican
Election Rigging Tactics
12 January 2016 (
Urgent: Reduce diesel exhaust
US citizens:
call
on the EPA
to reduce diesel exhaust near ports, trains and truck
routes.
12 January 2016 (
Americans' long work hours
Why do Americans work such long hours? One cause is that
ordinary
workers wages have not kept up with their productivity
12 January 2016 (
Polish journalists protest new media law
Polish journalists protested the new media law that
gives
the state direct political control over public broadcasting
12 January 2016 (
The shadow banking sector
Good News: The Fed Is Finally
Going
After Leverage in the Shadow Banking Sector
12 January 2016 (
Guantanamo special bureaucracy
How special bureaucracy
slows
down release of prisoners
from Guantanamo.
12 January 2016 (
Uganda attacking dissidents
Uganda is
attacking
journalists and dissidents
12 January 2016 (
Melting icebergs
Melting icebergs create
negative
feedback
on global heating.
Good news, but that won't save us by itself.
12 January 2016 (
Cutting union funding for Labour Party
The UK Conservative party is trying to
rig
future elections in its favor
by cutting union funding for the
Labour Party.
Cutting plutocrats' support for the Conservative Party is not on the
agenda.
12 January 2016 (
Bernie Sanders leads Trump in polls
Media
Blackout
on Bernie Sanders Continues even though he leads Trump in
Polls.
12 January 2016 (
Proprietary software to measure bra size
If you are uncomfortable trusting another woman to measure your bra
size, now you can use a company's proprietary software, which entails
trusting
the company and Big Brother
11 January 2016 (
Urgent: Reject the TPP
US citizens:
call on
Congress
to reject the TPP.
11 January 2016 (
US political violence
The US has been
sponsoring,
teaching and carrying out
political violence in countries across
the globe for more than a century now.
11 January 2016 (
Urgent: Prevent lead poisoning
US citizens:
call for
restoration of funds
for preventing lead poisoning.
11 January 2016 (
Urgent: Investigate killer thugs
US citizens:
call on the
Justice Department
to investigate killer thugs.
11 January 2016 (
Urgent: Break up the big banks
US citizens:
support
Sanders' plan
to break up the big banks and put a leash on
banksters
' power.
11 January 2016 (
Imprisonment of children
UNICEF estimates that
at
least a million children
are imprisoned for various reasons.
11 January 2016 (
Digital surveillance of Pentagon staff
The Pentagon has
imposed
pervasive digital surveillance on over 100,000 staff
, even outside
of work.
This is, I presume, to make sure they don't give information to the
Pentagon's enemies, which include the American public.
11 January 2016 (
Basic income for citizens
A basic income for citizens has in several cases encouraged
social
cohesion
11 January 2016 (
The wildlife refuge occupiers
De-bullshitifying
the libertopian Legend of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
It is an exaggeration to call the occupiers
"terrorists"
but I expect that Doctorow is correct about the facts.
11 January 2016 (
Turkey and PISSI
PISSI
'Ran Sophisticated Immigration Operation' on Turkey-Syria Border
Turkey could seal the border if it tried. It has supported
PISSI
for
reasons
financial
and
ideological
PISSI
is the
Pseudo-Islamic
State in Syria and Iraq
10 January 2016 (
Forecast for the next decade
A long-range forecast for the next decade:
increased
conflict and economic difficulty
10 January 2016 (
Surveillance and punishment
The US is
drifting
into a surveillance-and-punishment social score system
like what
China's government has explicitly imposed.
This is a side effect of something that is bad for other reasons:
massive
surveillance
. Instead of trying to treat the symptom, let's cure
the disease.
10 January 2016 (
Fracking earthquakes
Proper regulations can prevent fracking wastewater from causing
earthquakes, but Oklahoma's legislature is
too
corrupted to bother
10 January 2016 (
Argentina's new Supreme Court judges
Argentina's right-wing president claims to have appointed new judges to the
Supreme Court
without
asking for the required Senate approval
10 January 2016 (
New snooping device
new
snooping device
is meant for watching pets.
Whose pet are you?
10 January 2016 (
Spooks and security reporters
Beware Spooks
Stringing
Along Security Reporters
10 January 2016 (
Catholic sexual rigidity
Pope Francis has put a softer glove on the same old Catholic sexual
rigidity, but
has
not made the underlying stance more flexible
10 January 2016 (
Malware from Forbes.com
Forbes.com demanded readers turn off ad-blockers — then sent
them
malware
In fact, ordinary ads in web pages are all malware
because they
track visitors
. Surveillance is a malicious functionality;
hence, malware.
10 January 2016 (
Internet of Things
The Internet of Things That
Talk
About You Behind Your Back
Some are
planning
to foist this on everything in your life
10 January 2016 (
Wall Street Taking Over Nonprofit Sector
Wall Street
Taking
Over Nonprofit Sector
. Increasingly, the boards of directors of
charities include representatives of Wall Street who will insure that
the charities never rock a boat.
10 January 2016
US gov to collect data about students
The US government wants to
collect data about thousands of students
Then, adding stupidity to injustice, it wants to entrust this data
to a private company.
10 January 2016
Surveillance meeting with tech firms
Planning for More Surveillance? US Officials Hold 'Shady Meeting' With
Tech Firms.
10 January 2016
In trouble for criticizing Israel
An Israeli expat high school student posted tweets that criticized
Israel. School officials accused her of "bullying" someone (who was
never named), and
threatened her with prosecution
10 January 2016
Cologne sex attacks
Bands of men, perhaps refugees,
marauded around Cologne
groping and raping women, with the effect of fueling German hostility
towards
refugees.
The left must
face this issue seriously
10 January 2016
FBI investigating Chicago police shooting
The FBI is
investigating
the shooting of Esau Castellanos by Chicago
thugs
10 January 2016
Woman escaped from Raqqa
A woman reports on how she
escaped from Raqqa
after converting to
Islam and moving there to be a slave of
PISSI
I hope she can teach others to resist this madness.
10 January 2016
California methane leak
How Corporate Greed Caused the Massive California Methane Leak.
10 January 2016
Results of marijuana legalization
Two years after marijuana became legal in Colorado, the
results
are clear:
a big drop in arrests and a big increase in state revenue.
10 January 2016
FBI to track some animal abuse
The FBI will start tracking instances of cruelty to animals,
except in factory farms
10 January 2016
You can make a difference
An individual can
still make a difference
to the world, through firm and thoughtful effort.
Even if you make only 1% of the difference that those people made,
it will still be an important contribution to humanity.
10 January 2016
Software censorship
China demonstrates that trying to stop unsnoopable conversation leads
straight to
absolute censorship of software
that people install on their computers.
Citizens of the US, UK and France, your freedom is directly
threatened. I suggest you join a strong and firm privacy defense
organization, without delay.
10 January 2016
Voice commands will not serve you
Various proprietary appliances and systems are competing to get you
to
give voice commands
to them.
They are designed to sucker you, not serve you. If you don't want
to be a sucker, you had better reject them all.
10 January 2016
Scan fingerprints to buy food
In Venezuela, purchasing food in a grocery store
requires biometric ID and fingerprints
Purchases there have long required giving a national ID number, and
that itself is oppressive. When in Venezuela I have refused to do
this.
10 January 2016
US drivers' licenses as ID
The US government is pushing to turn drivers' licenses into national
ID cards, but some states have resisted. Sad to say, some of them
seem to be
on the verge of caving in
10 January 2016
Facebook censors little mermaid
Facebook thinks that Copenhagen's famous mermaid statue
needs a bathing suit
The statue is also afflicted by today's harsh and insanely long
copyright.
10 January 2016 (
Urgent: Wasserman Schultz's resignation
US citizens: call on DNC chair Wasserman Schultz to
resign
10 January 2016 (
Guber
Guber
(*) will encrypt user location data to
protect
users' privacy from some forms of malicious access
Don't feel safe with
Guber
yet! If Guber retains the ability to
decrypt that data, the possibility of accessing the data will still
exist. Perhaps when Big Brother wants to see it.
Meanwhile,
Guber
demands to know who you are, and demands you run
nonfree software
* Its official name is "Uber", but I call it
Guber
" since it pays
drivers peanuts. Which is another reason to refuse to use
Guber
10 January 2016 (
South Africa to punish journalism
South Africa is
planning
to punish journalism as espionage
, following Obama's evil example.
10 January 2016 (
Chinese censorship
How
artists look for the cracks
in increasing Chinese censorship.
10 January 2016 (
Silicon Valley surveillance
Asking Silicon Valley to 'Disrupt' Terrorists Is Tech Talk for
'Surveillance'
10 January 2016 (
Dalits punished for protesting
Pressure from Hindu extremist political organizations in India has
influenced Hyderabad University to punish Dalits that
protested
mistreatment by bigoted students
10 January 2016 (
Video of murder suppressed
Internal emails show that Rahm Emanuel's team worked hard to suppress
the video of Laquan McDonald's murder secret,
for
his re-election's sake
This is one reason why Rahm Emanuel ought to resign as mayor.
10 January 2016 (
Charges for leaving children in car
Mr and Ms Hypes left their children in a car in a parking lot while
buying snacks for them. For this, they face criminal charges and
their children
may
be taken away from them
The Hypes did do one thing that was very wrong: they had a second
child which they could not afford without public assistance. (I don't
know whether they were already poor when they had their first child.)
Many people do that; it is unfair to those children and to the rest of
us.
We should take steps to prevent it from happening. However, arresting
the parents subsequently as they struggle to cope does no good at all.
10 January 2016 (
The occupiers of Oregon wildlife refuge
The right-wing anarchists that occupied Malheur's wildlife management
center are
judged
with prejudice
by many Americans because they are "rednecks".
We should not misrepresent the situation by calling them "terrorists".
However, there are fundamental differences between them and Black
Lives Matter.
Black Lives Matter demands that
thugs
stop unjustified killing of
black people. The occupiers of the Oregon wildlife refuge demand to
be allowed to destroy wildlife for their profit.
There is also a fundamental difference in their methods. Black Lives
Matter does peaceful (though occasionally inconvenient) protests. The
armed occupiers in Oregon threaten violence.
Thus, I support Black Lives Matter, while I hope to see the occupiers
sentenced and jailed.
We should not misrepresent the situation by calling the occupiers a
"militia". Under the US Constitution, they aren't one. If they were
one, they
would
be under the president's orders
10 January 2016 (
Harmful chemicals injected by frackers
Of 1021 chemicals injected by frackers, researchers found data about
240. Of those,
150
(over half) are associated with reproductive or developmental
damage
These problems can affect humans and wildlife.
For the other 781 chemicals, no experimental results have been
published, but we can expect that a large fraction of them cause
similar problems.
10 January 2016 (
Every time business calls the shots
The
Planet Will Lose
Every Time That Business Calls the Shots.
10 January 2016 (
Guns in Texas Psychiatric Hospitals
Guns in Texas Psychiatric Hospitals
Could
Harm Patients
, Advocates Say.
10 January 2016 (
American football
Football exposes players of all ages to the
danger
of brain damage
Players at certain ages may be specially vulnerable because certain
parts of their brains are still developing.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is
not
doing its job
to protect college football players from this danger.
10 January 2016 (
UK "junior doctors" to go on strike
UK "junior doctors" will go on strike
against
government plans to gradually cut their pay
10 January 2016 (
NY Thug Department surveillance
The New York Thug Department has
settled
a lawsuit
by adopting measures to prevent it from surveilling
people because they are Muslims.
09 January 2016 (
Urgent: Israel's "foreign agents" label
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to pressure Israel not to label human rights NGOs (but
not right-wing ethnic cleansers) as "foreign agents".
09 January 2016 (
Urgent: Protect the Grand Canyon
US citizens:
call on
Obama
to create the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National
Monument, which would protect the Grand Canyon area from uranium
mining.
9 January 2016
Disabled workers
The UK spends
more money testing disabled workers
to see who
supposedly could work than it saves by denying disability benefits to
them.
That's despite the fact that the testing system errs in favor of
finding
disabled people "fit to work".
9 January 2016
Jenny Jones
Jenny Jones, Green Party politician, thanks the heroic, whistleblowing
police officer
who revealed how thugs destroyed files about her
, and
pretended the files had never existed.
Apparently the surveillance continues, treating her as a terrorist
suspect
along with an unknown number of British dissidents.
9 January 2016
Taxes
Should "US" companies
pay the taxes
they owe? They are lobbying to
get out of it.
We should
tax them on progressive rates
, to put economic pressure
on large companies to split up.
9 January 2016
Dams
Proposed dams
could destroy
1/3 of the world's fresh-water fish species.
The dams
would ruin the seasonal flooding cycle
of Cambodia's lake, Tonle Sap,
source of fish for the Mekong river. Millions of people's food supplies
could be destroyed.
9 January 2016
PISSI
PISSI
fanatic '
Killed His Own Mother
in Syria'.
This story may be of use in convincing people not to join
PISSI
For his sake — as well as ours — I hope a bomb gets him soon.
9 January 2016
France
Where Were the Post-Hebdo Free Speech Crusaders as France
Spent
the Last
Year Crushing Free Speech?
I was there, for whatever little good I can do.
9 January 2016
"Internet of snoopers"
Businesses
must take precautions
against
staff's bringing "internet of snoopers" devices to the office.
They could be snooping on anything or everything.
Of course, individuals should take the same precautions
in their own homes. Don't trust a device that talks to the internet
if it has nonfree software in it.
9 January 2016
Melting of Greenland's ice
Some scientific evidence
that the rate of melting of Greenland's ice
is more than was projected.
9 January 2016
Haiti
Haitians angry at the plan
to rig the election
again
forced a postponement.
9 January 2016
French government
The French government
wants to make
"emergency" powers permanent,
which would be a blow to freedom in France.
9 January 2016
North Korea
North Korea's [Claimed] H-Bomb Test Points
to Need
for Global Ban on Nukes.
9 January 2016
Minimum wage
What a $14.44 minimum wage
has done
in Emeryville.
9 January 2016
California
California
now requires
the dishonest "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" to tell the
women they "advise" where to get honest advice about abortion.
9 January 2016
Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear Weapons Risk
Greater Than in Cold War
, Says [Former Head of Pentagon].
9 January 2016
Wild bison
Wild bison living around Yellowstone National Park
have received
increased protection.
9 January 2016
DRM
There is a hardware product that
strips the digital shackles
from
HDCP-encrypted video between a computer and its monitor.
These devices will probably become impossible to get in the US, in a
few weeks. Thus, they will not be able to free all users from this
kind of DRM, nor from the DRM on the media themselves (typically
BluRay or Netfux).
Nonetheless, even hundreds of these devices could make HDCP fail to
achieve what the copyright lords want, and that would be a victory
to celebrate.
Our ultimate goal is to abolish DRM.
DefectiveByDesign.org
9 January 2016
CIA
Two CIA agents
haves
reportedly been arrested
smuggling half a ton of cocaine from
Mexico in a CIA van. They say it was a CIA operation; the CIA says it
wasn't.
We can't take the word of anyone involved.
8 January 2016 (
Teenagers in solitary confinement
Nebraska puts teenagers in solitary confinement for months, effectively
throwing
away the key.
8 January 2016 (
Pillars of Poland's democracy
The Pillars of Poland's Democracy
Are
Being Destroyed.
And nobody sees any way to stop it.
8 January 2016 (
Thug prosecuted for perjury
The
thug that arrested Sandra Bland
is being prosecuted for perjury.
Hooray!
Only a tiny fraction of
thugs
actually kill people, but lots of them
make false accusations or lie to support them. Prosecuting only the
few killers will not change the behavior of
thugs
in general.
Prosecuting perjury could make all of them fear they will pay for
their crimes.
8 January 2016 (
Former officials in Guatemala
Former officials in Guatemala
are
being prosecuted
for crimes committed during the civil war.
8 January 2016 (
Sweetened drinks
Reducing the sugar levels in sweetened drinks
could
prevent lots of disease.
8 January 2016 (
North Korea's nuclear weapons
SCROTUS propose North Korea's nuclear weapons as an excuse for expensive anti-missile systems that
probably
would not work.
8 January 2016 (
Opposition legislators in Venezuela
In Venezuela, Congress and the Supreme Court
disagree
about whether certain opposition legislators were elected honestly or by fraud.
8 January 2016 (
Edward Pinkney
Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor promoted a
recall
petition for the mayor.
Officials accused him of a possibly imaginary crime, a white
jury convicted him based on
no evidence whatsoever
, and he
was sentenced to prison for years. But even that did not silence
him.
They have
mistreated
him in prison, too.
8 January 2016 (
Essential injustice of NAFTA
The company that was going to build the Keystone XL pipeline
is
suing,
claiming that under NAFTA the US has no right to reject the pipeline.
I don't know that it will win, but the mere fact that it can try demonstrates
the essential injustice of NAFTA and other
business-supremacy treaties
Let's put an end to NAFTA! And let's defeat the TPP!
8 January 2016 (
Tax on sugary drinks
Mexico's tax on sugary drinks has
substantially
reduced
consumption of them.
8 January 2016 (
Suzanne Lee
Suzanne Lee dares Northern Ireland to prosecute her for her
abortion.
Sarah Ewart needed an abortion because her fetus had a
fatal
defect,
but doctors in Northern Ireland were terrified of life
imprisonment if they did it. It cost her 3000 dollars to go to England
for the operation.
Women in nearly all countries in
Latin
America
face similar oppressive laws, but there is no nearby place they can go for an abortion.
8 January 2016 (
Reckless poisoning
Michael Moore: Michigan Governor Snyder
should
be jailed
for recklessly poisoning all the children of Flint.
8 January 2016 (
Urgent: US funds for abortions
US citizens:
call on
Obama
to use an executive order clarifying that US funds can be
used for abortions in cases of rape or incest, or when a woman's life
is in danger.
8 January 2016 (
Self-censorship in HK bookstores
wave
of self-censorship
hits Hong Kong bookstores.
8 January 2016 (
Global heating denialism
Organized
global heating
denialism
has
not stopped
Those rich would-be
planet roasters
know they will lose eventually,
but they are carrying out a real guard action to hold us back from
averting disaster.
They are
planning
to kill your grandchildren
8 January 2016 (
Oral contraceptives
Oral contraceptives taken before or during pregnancy are
safe
Specifically, they do not cause any increase in birth defects.
8 January 2016 (
Candidate who will work for the wealthy
Clinton shows that she will work for the wealthy, by
meeting
with wealthy donors
We can expect her to kowtow to the MPAA's attacks on our freedom and
to tech companies' attacks on our privacy.
8 January 2016 (
Twitter is
considering
encouraging users to post articles
on Twitter. Twitter could
control access to these articles, or delete them.
8 January 2016 (
Overprotecting attitude towards teenagers
The overprotecting attitude towards teenagers is a
great
excuse for some companies to gouge
8 January 2016 (
Bernie Sanders presents reforms for banks
Bernie Sanders presents a
long
list of reforms
for banks, and presents the facts to demonstrate
that fraud is their standard practice.
8 January 2016 (
Level of cortisol in children's hair
The
effects
of traumatic events on children's bodies
can now be measured from
the level of cortisol in their hair.
8 January 2016 (
Global heating slowing water circulation
Global heating
is slowing the
overall
water circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean
. One effect is
increased sea-level rise for the northeast US.
Some worry that this circulation pattern could slow so much that it
causes
drastic
changes
in the Arctic Ocean.
8 January 2016 (
Pacific Decadal Oscillation
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation causes
some
parameters of
global heating
to
resemble
a staircase
more than an even ramp.
For a while, the increased heat goes into the ocean, then for a while
it goes into the atmosphere. The denial campaign focused on the last
period when heat went into the ocean and
claimed
that global heating has "paused"
8 January 2016 (
Journalist jailed "for protective reasons"
A Turkish journalist who was arrested for filming a fight between
state
thugs
and PKK supporters was jailed "for protective reasons".
Now he has been released on bail, but
still
faces charges
What could this sort of thing
"protect"
Turkey from
? From the truth about
its
government
7 January 2016
Gun lobby
The gun lobby has cut the funding of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms to the point where
it can't enforce
existing gun laws.
7 January 2016
Federal Trade Commission
The head of the Federal Trade Commission
refuses
to use a Fitbit
because she doesn't want to be snooped on.
Bravo to the government official who presents a real example.
You won't recover your privacy with weak moans, "It's a shame how much
this device snoops on me, but I can't resist." But if you start
saying, "You snooping jerks, get out of my life!" you will start to
change things, first for yourself.
7 January 2016
Paiute tribe
Local area residents and local Paiute tribe both
want
the anarchists
occupying a wildlife management building to go home.
07 January 2016 (
Medical bills of insured Americans
One in Five Insured Americans Still
Struggle
to Pay Medical Bills
07 January 2016 (
Corporate crime
What's Being Fined? Not
Corporate
Crime
07 January 2016 (
Abortion advice in Northern Ireland
Medical personnel in Northern Ireland
fear
they will be jailed
if they tell women where to get abortions.
07 January 2016 (
Urgent: Human rights in Salafi Arabia
US citizens:
call
on Obama
to pressure Salafi Arabia to respect human rights and
refrain from militarism.
07 January 2016 (
Burundi's thugs killing dissidents
Burundi's
thugs
are
killing
dissidents
that impose the rule of president-turned-dictator
Nkurunziza.
07 January 2016 (
Armed seizure of wildlife refuge
All the sides involved in the armed seizure of a wildlife refuge
have done
substantial
wrongs
07 January 2016 (
College football
The President of Drexel University says why that school has no
football team: prestigious football teams
cost
schools a lot of money, and drive up the cost of education
The same problem with football exists for
college
students and younger students
07 January 2016 (
Climate mayhem
Climate mayhem
is
harming
farmers' mental health
07 January 2016 (
The stress of coping with racism
Coping with the stress of swimming against the US's racist current
makes
many black college students sick
Something similar can happen to students from low-income backgrounds,
but
school
policies can prevent it
7 January 2016
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka's new president
vowed to end torture
and official kidnapings,
but has not succeeded in ending them.
7 January 2016
Clinton
Clinton
was paid almost 12 million dollars
for 51 speeches.
What could make her speeches worth so much to those with lots of
money?
7 January 2016
Saudi
Saudi Game-Changing Head-Chopping
7 January 2016
America's Food System
America's Food System
Could Be More Vulnerable
to Climate Change Than We Thought.
7 January 2016
Convincing young
Convincing the Young to Blame the Old, Not the Rich
7 January 2016
Mall of America
Why
It's Scary That the Mall of America Can Crush Dissent.
7 January 2016
Political power of Wall Street
Sanders
plans to reduce
the political power of Wall Street.
Clinton's proposals simply don't go far enough.
Bernie Sanders and 'The Big Short'
7 January 2016
EPA
The EPA
found
that imidacloprid (a neonicotinoid pesticide) harms
honeybees.
It
has not investigate
how that chemical affects other pollinators,
but if the danger to honeybees is enough reason to restrict its use,
maybe the other studies won't be needed.
7 January 2016
Salafi Arabia
I suppose that
Salafi Arabia
did not intentionally bomb
the al Noor
Center for Care and Rehabilitation of the Blind, in Yemen. It's just
part of the hell that war is. Which is why
Salafi Arabia
and the US
are so wrong to pursue this unjustified war.
7 January 2016
NFL
The NFL
wants to ruin
a local children's soccer field by turning it into
a press center.
7 January 2016
Australia
Australia
saw reason and allowed
Hassan Asif's mother and brother
to visit and be with him as he died of cancer.
7 January 2016
Charlie Hebdo
Bravo Charlie Hebdo
for a cover
showing "god" as an armed extremist.
Pope Francis lost a few points in my esteem for trying to claim such
statements
should be off limits.
7 January 2016
Brazil
Soaring expenses for living in Brazil's cities, along with demolition
of favelas,
have given rise
to the Homeless Workers' Movement.
7 January 2016
Gas emissions from meat production
Thanks to
SCROTUS
, the US
does not even keep track
of the greenhouse
gas emissions from meat production.
7 January 2016
SCROTUS
SCROTUS
have proposed a bill
to shield companies such as Volkswagen from
lawsuits by victims of their fraud.
The plutocratist politician wants the government to take the side of
the rich in every kind of question.
7 January 2016
Right-wing anarchists
Violent right-wing anarchists
hate the federal government
, but they don't
mind accepting subsidized loans from it.
This shows one of many reasons
I disagree
with anarchism.
7 January 2016
NYC thug
New York City
thug
started groping a woman
in a restaurant.
When a friend started making a video, another
thug
attacked him
and arrested him. The
thugs
threw the cell phone out the window
and made false charges against him.
One of the
thugs
has been indicted. Why not both?
7 January 2016
UN Special Rapporteur
The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Palestine
has resigned
after 18 months of being blocked by Israel
from entering occupied
Palestine.
7 January 2016
Crimea
Putin's men
have shut down
a children's theater in Crimea; it is accused
of spreading pro-western propaganda.
7 January 2016
Insurance companies
Insurance companies
are increasingly giving
drivers an "offer" to track their
driving, an offer which most people effectively can't refuse.
I don't think it an injustice for insurance companies to track
how
you drive, safely or not. I also don't see anything wrong in making the
car
inform you if you do anything that seems risky (though there are some
occasions
when slamming on the brakes, or the accelerator, is important for
safety).
What I object to is anything that allows anyone to track
where you
go
The article ends with the obligatory "Give up trying to fight this"
message.
7 January 2016
Exxon
Why Is the Largest Earth Science Conference
Still Sponsored
by Exxon?
7 January 2016
William Binney
NSA whistleblower William Binney
told
Parliament that the UK's massive
listening plans will be useless for preventing terrorism.
They will be much more effective for spreading terror among
dissidents.
7 January 2016
Family planning advisors
Family planning advisors in Northern Ireland, who in general are
forbidden to do abortions,
are nonetheless harassed
at their homes and
in stores by religious fanatics that oppose birth control.
Some women there
get abortion pills
in the mail from where they are
legal.
7 January 2016
Christianity
A twisted form of Christianity
says
that true believers are rewarded
with riches.
Are they worshiping Mammon?
7 January 2016
Salafi Arabia
The
diplomatic rupture
that
Salafi Arabia
has provoked with Iran
is likely to block efforts to negotiate peace in Syria.
Iran is an evil theocracy, and
Salafi Arabia
is an evil theocratic
absolute monarchy. There is no legitimate room in the human world for
either one, but
Salafi Arabia
is worse. Both of them execute lots of
people, but
Salafi Arabia
executes people simply for criticizing state
policy. And it has spread a cruel form if Islam around the world.
In this conflict with Iran, nearly all the wrong seems to be on Salafi
Arabia's side.
Turning
Salafi Arabia
into a pariah and blockading its sales of oil
would do the world a lot of good.
7 January 2016
Organic farmers
Organic farmers
won a victory
when a court upheld a ban on genetically
engineered crops in part of Oregon.
7 January 2016
Reject Israeli products
Calling on European countries
to carry out their legal obligation to reject
products made by the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
7 January 2016
Global heating
Global heating
effects
can make
many power plants (fossil and nuclear and
hydroelectric) cease to function.
7 January 2016
Lee Bo
Publisher Lee Bo, before his disappearance,
said
that his disappeared partner
was planning to publish a book that the Chinese government wanted to
suppress.
7 January 2016
Women discrimination
Women in the US
face
many sorts of discrimination.
I think that it's foolish to vote for Clinton just because she's a
woman.
I don't think she wants to make real change in any area.
7 January 2016
PISSI
PISSI
is minor league terror
campaigned with the really big dangers,
including nuclear weapons and burning carbon.
North Korea
claims
to have tested a hydrogen bomb, defying both the US
and China.
PISSI
is important enough that we should make efforts to stamp it out,
and take care not to create more places it can spread to; but we
should not obsess over
PISSI
and get distracted by it from bigger
threats.
6 January 2016 (
Methane emissions from northern lakes
Large
And Increasing
Methane Emissions from Northern Lakes.
6 January 2016 (
Fees imposed on home solar power
Nevada increased fees imposed on home solar power,
during
the holiday
hoping people would not notice.
I suspect that money from the power utilities was used to corrupt the
officials.
6 January 2016 (
Wood poaching and overfishing
Thailand is fighting a war against
wood
poachers
Pacific bluefin tuna are
being
hunted to extinction
for sushi.
6 January 2016 (
Small victory for freedom of speech
A small victory for freedom of speech in the UK: a Christian who was
prosecuted for saying insulting things about Islam was
acquitted
Since there is no Satan and there is no Hell, all two of his
criticisms are clearly mistaken. As for "heathen", whether that
applies to Islam depends on the definition, but is that word an
insult? Not to me. I am proud to be a heathen.
But those details are all side issues. Freedom of speech includes the
right to criticize, offend, insult, or even mock any person, any idea,
any practice, any belief, and any institution. That includes any
religion — even the
Church of Emacs
6 January 2016 (
US officials to besiege armed anarchists
US officials say they plan to besiege the armed anarchists that took
over a wildlife refuge,
cutting
off food, power and phone service
It is wise to try to avoid shooting, but the gang must be prosecuted
for this.
6 January 2016 (
Schengen free-travel zone crumbling
Europe's
inability
to unify its handling of refugees
is making the Schengen
free-travel zone start to crumble.
6 January 2016 (
UK wiping out social housing
The UK government is
wiping
out social housing
in a giant act of
dooH
niboR
6 January 2016 (
Ignorant American vandals
A US bookstore named after the Egyptian goddess Isis was
forced
to change its name by ignorant American vandals
6 January 2016 (
Giant methane leak in California
The giant methane leak in California was partly due to
removal
of the blowout preventer
decades ago.
5 January 2016
Canadian CEO salary
Some
Canadian CEOs
have already made as much money in 2016 as the
average worker will make in a whole year.
5 January 2016
Electronic toys hamper language learning
Children that often play with electronic toys that sound bells and
whistles
advance more slowly
in language learning.
5 January 2016
About Nimr Al-Nimr
More about
Nimr Al-Nimr
dissident executed by
Salafi Arabia
Salafi Arabia
's well-funded PR campaign
pays pundits
to excuse the murder of dissident Nimr al-Nimr or to distract attention
to secondary issues.
5 January 2016
Canada put 6-year-old on 'no fly' list
Canada ludicrously put
6-year-old Syed Adam Ahmed
on its "no fly" list.
5 January 2016
Rape evidence left unanalyzed
Across the US, some 70,000 rape evidence kits have been
left unanalyzed
5 January 2016
Teenagers' access to abortion
Laws That Restrict Teenagers' Access to Abortion Services Make No
Logical Sense.
5 January 2016
Oregon militiamen
If the Oregon Militiamen Were Muslim Or Black, They'd Probably Be Dead
By Now.
5 January 2016
US surprise-cancelled Muslim's visa
The US surprise-cancelled a Muslim grandparent's US visa,
stopping her from visiting her newborn grandchild
in the US.
5 January 2016 (
Expense of global heating
Economists who have climate expertise say that
global heating
will be
painfully expensive, an
economic
drain
It will be far worse than a drain, of course. It is likely to kill
hundreds of millions of people. But people who think in narrow
economic terms may be persuaded more by the drain.
5 January 2016 (
The War on Women
The War on Women Is
About
to Get a Whole Lot Worse
5 January 2016 (
Consequence of civil war in Yemen
The civil war in Yemen has
allowed
al-Qaida to operate unchecked
, and PISSI is worming in their too.
There is no legitimate reason for
Salafi Arabia
to fight the Houthis,
and
no
legitimate reason for the US to help
5 January 2016 (
American football
American football
damages
the players' brains and causes them to die young
. We should put
an end to it.
The first step is not to buy, or wear, football fan merchandise. Get
GNU merchandise instead, since that supports a cause that deserves
support.
5 January 2016 (
How Mogadishu's mayor won popular support
How the mayor of Mogadishu
won
popular support away from al-Shabaab
This may be why al-Shabaab has found it necessary to sink to
using
Trump for publicity
5 January 2016 (
Police officer quits thug department
Redditt Hudson quit the
thug
department in a suburb of St Louis
because its racist brutality was
incompatible
with his wish to be a police officer
and to serve and protect.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
5 January 2016 (
Snooping video game consoles
Many video game consoles
snoop
on their users and report to the internet — even what their
users weigh
. A game console is a computer, and you can't trust a
computer with a nonfree operating system.
4 January 2016 (
Charlie Hebdo
Correcting
ignorant
anglophone criticism
of Charlie Hebdo.
4 January 2016 (
A chance to defeat plutocrats
The
2016
presidential election
gives the US a chance to defeat the vicious
cycle of plutocracy.
We need to stop being nice to plutocrats. They are trying to
impoverish everyone else. They deserve to be crushed.
4 January 2016 (
Anti-state militia occupies Oregon building
An anti-state militia has
occupied
a building at a wildlife refuge
in Oregon as a protest.
Setting fire to your grass, with the aim of burning only your grass,
may be good or bad, but it is not ethically comparable to setting fire
to a building.
On the other hand, occupying a government building with guns is not
ethically comparable to a peaceful sit-in.
4 January 2016 (
Prison for defaming a food
Michael McFeat, expat working at a mine in Kyrgyzstan,
faces
years in prison
for defaming a local food delicacy.
It is impossible to defame Kyrgyzstan's human rights record, which is
worse even than
Thailand's
Even "free" countries in Europe are not free of the practice of
criminalizing insults.
The state sensibly
deported
him rather than imprisoning him
, but that doesn't reduce the
injustice of having a law that prohibits such statements.
4 January 2016 (
Russian censorship
Russian censorship almost killed a series of
detective
stories for children
4 January 2016 (
Nonviolent dissident executed
Salafi Arabia
's
execution
of a Shi'ite leader of peaceful protests
has aroused threats of
violence from Iran.
I hope that we won't let issues of international rivalries bury the
really issue here: a repressive regime has murdered a nonviolent
dissident. Iran has done likewise. We don't have to choose a side
between them. We can demand they both respect dissent.
4 January 2016 (
Record-breaking floods
Record-breaking floods have
hit
many US states
. They are especially unusual because of happening
in winter, which is not when floods typically occur. This suggests
that
global heating
was part of the cause, which suggests that worse
floods are coming.
4 January 2016 (
UK flood defenses
The UK government
cut
spending on flood defenses
, knowing that this would double the
vulnerability over time.
What use is there in provoking rising seas and
unusual
heavy rains
but then preventing them from actually flooding
people's homes?
4 January 2016 (
Wolves
Poland saved the wolves, but the right-wing government probably wants
to
wipe
them out
, as happens also
in
the US
The article gives a clear explanation of why the absence of wolves
causes big problems with other ecosystems. (But it might make sense
to have more hunting of wild boars, whose meat is in demand from
European gourmets.)
4 January 2016 (
Facebook and Guber cults
Facebook and
Guber
can be seen as
cults
with the ability to mobilize millions of members to condemn any
regulations that protect people from those businesses.
4 January 2016 (
In independent press in Rwanda
President Kagame rigs the elections in Rwanda, even including a
prearranged small fraction of votes for opposition, and there is
no
independent press to report on it
3 January 2016 (
Urgent: Endorsement for president
US citizens:
call
on MoveOn
to ask its supporters which Democrat to endorse for
president.
3 January 2016 (
Urgent: Repeal Hyde amendment
US citizens:
call for repeal
of the Hyde amendment — allow US government to fund abortions.
3 January 2016 (
Urgent: File charges against killers
US citizens:
call
on the Justice Department
to file charges against Tamir Rice's
killers.
3 January 2016 (
Deaths in US wars since 2001
A study estimates that the US's wars since 2001 have killed
over
a million people
3 January 2016 (
HK publishing company employee missing
Yet another employee of a Hong Kong publishing company has apparently
been
disappeared
by China
3 January 2016 (
Personalized ads at stores
People who have more money than work really love getting
personalized
ads as they pass the door of a store
3 January 2016 (
Plans to impose seed monopolies
The Gates Foundation and USAID are
planning
together
how to impose commercial seeds monopolies in Africa.
3 January 2016 (
Leader of peaceful protest executed
Salafi Arabia
executed
the leader
of a peaceful protest movement.
3 January 2016 (
No need to continue security theater
New Years Eve demonstrated that, yet again, Islamist terrorists are
such
a small threat to Americans that we need not worry about them
, and
that we don't need to continue security theater.
But we have plenty of feckless fantasy terrorists;
the
FBI keeps generating them
. The latest one has been mentally ill
and easily manipulated all his life.
3 January 2016 (
ACLU suing Catholic hospital
The ACLU is suing a Catholic hospital to
demand
permission to give Rebecca Chamorro a tubal ligation
as part of
her expected birth by cesarean section.
Creeping control of medicine by religion has gone so far that there
are no hospitals near her which would do it.
She could get the tubal ligation separately, but that means an added
risk to her health.
If a church insists on limiting medicine, it should not be allowed
to operate hospitals.
3 January 2016 (
Trump in terror group recruiting video
Al-Shabaab, the Islamist terror group in Somalia, has made a
recruiting video
featuring
Donald Trump
Trump is not responsible for their decision to do this.
He is responsible for stirring up sectarian hatred of the sort
that helps every sort of fanatic.
3 January 2016 (
No charges against Tamir Rice's killers
Protesters are
picketing
the home of the prosecutor
whose underwhelming efforts led to no
charges against Tamir Rice's killers.
2 January 2016 (
Juniper Networks back door
The secret back door in Juniper Networks firewalls took advantage of a
weakness
introduced intentionally by the NSA
in an encryption standard.
Thus, the argument that "If we let the NSA break it, others will take
it" is not mere theory. (People usually state this as, "The bad guys
will use it too", but I reject the presumption that the NSA is always
a good guy.)
Since the weakness has been publicly known for years, this fact does
not prove that the NSA introduced this particular back door. That
might have done by various attackers. It's also possible that the
back door was inserted by Juniper Networks, or by some of its staff,
perhaps in collaboration with the NSA.
Juniper Networks has fixed only part of the known problem. Because
the software is proprietary, users are compelled to wait and see if
Juniper Networks inserts the presumed one-line fix for the rest of the
problem.
If it were free software, these users would be free to insert this
change on their own.
2 January 2016 (
Privatizing play for children
The next step in privatization of all aspects of life is
privatizing
play for children
. The promotion campaign says that parents who
don't pay the high fees for this are short-changing their children.
I am sure the idea that children should never be left unsupervised
contributes to this tendency.
2 January 2016 (
China's new "snooper's charter"
China's
new
"snooper's charter"
does not include the power to demand a
backdoor. It stops at demanding companies decrypt messages on demand.
Even this may be impossible if it covers messages encrypted by the
users with their own software.
2 January 2016 (
Earthquakes in Oklahoma
Injection
of oil and gas well wastewater
is causing a lot of earthquakes in
Oklahoma, and some of them are strong enough to do real damage.
2 January 2016 (
Book banned by Israeli schools
Israeli schools have banned a
book
about a mixed-ethnicity couple
2 January 2016 (
Britons gone to fight for the Peshmerga
Reportedly
100
Britons
have gone to fight for the Peshmerga against PISSI.
2 January 2016 (
Use of artificial ocean reefs backfires
Artificial ocean reefs, made of used tires, were intended to provide
shelters for marine life. They backfired: the metal clips that held
them together have rusted, loosing the tires to drift across the sea
bottom,
destroying
life there
2 January 2016 (
Copyright as a system of censorship
Copyright started in England as a system of censorship, and through
the end of 2015 it was used in Germany to
prohibit
publication of Hitler's hate tract, Mein Kampf
The world would be better off if nobody had ever thought of Hitler's
form of hatred, but we can't get rid of it through censorship.
2 January 2016 (
Unjust extension of copyright
Unjust extension of copyright in the US has denied us the use of many
books and works published in 1959. Here's a
list
of some
[Reference updated on 2018-03-28 because the
old
link
was broken.]
We should shorten copyright to last 10 years, for old works and new
works.
2 January 2016 (
Students' privacy
Some states have strict laws about students' privacy, which schools
violate by
handing
students' data to Google
. Schools try to defeat these laws by
designating Google as a "school official".
One part of the solution is that schools should not accumulate so much
data about their students. Personal data, once collected,
will
be misused
2 January 2016 (
US Planning New Iran Sanctions
US
Planning
New Iran Sanctions
over Ballistic Missile Programme.
2 January 2016 (
Facebook's grab for internet control
Comparing
Facebook's
grab for internet
control with Monsanto's control over seeds.
The article gets confused in one point by the incoherent term
"intellectual
property"
. The sense of understanding that you get from that term
represents a false understanding.
2 January 2016 (
Prematurely born fetuses
Due to advances in medicine, it is possible to save a fraction of
fetuses born prematurely after
as
little as 22 weeks
A 22-week fetus, whether inside of a womb or outside, is not a human
being. It is only a potential future human being.
If you give birth to one, you can try to keep it alive until it
becomes a human being. But unless we were in a space colony with an
urgent need to increase the population, I will not drop anything to
help you, and I don't think it's a good use of our tax money. There
is a superfluity of babies that are born without such extraordinary
efforts — and there are millions of real, existing, human beings
that already exist and need help. I think real existing human beings
should have priority over potential future human beings.
Writers have envisioned artificial wombs in which a zygote can develop
into a fetus and eventually into a human being. Perhaps some day we
will build them. That won't create an obligation to use them for
every zygote.
2 January 2016 (
"American Exceptionalism"
"American
Exceptionalism"
allows Americans to believe that the US is so
fundamentally morally right that it is still in the right no matter
what evils it commits.
1 January 2016 (
Urgent: Tamir Rice
Everyone:
call
for a new grand jury
to consider charges against the killers of
Tamir Rice.
1 January 2016 (
Bush forces' role in creating PISSI
Vincent Emanuele, formerly of the
Bush forces
in Iraq, reports on how
he and his fellow occupier
created
hatred that manifests in PISSI
The
Bush forces
were parts of the US military that were used by Bush
to carry out his private war. They
signed
up to serve their country
, but they ended up serving evil instead.
1 January 2016 (
TPP's rules about trade secrets
The TPP's rules about trade secrets would
require
inventors and competitors to treat them as secrets, even after they
have leaked
This reminds me of how the Obama regime treats the Snowden
revelations,
ordering
government employees not to look at them
1 January 2016 (
Thai military holds civilian prisoners
Thailand's military is holding people accused of various crimes
in
a military base
, where they are often kept shackled and
blindfolded.
This treatment of prisoners is not quite as bad as the US has done in
Guantanamo
but the wrong is broader in the sense that anyone in Thailand could be
treated this way. but the wrong is broader in the sense that anyone
in Thailand could be treated this way.
1 January 2016
China blocks foreign press
China
almost completely blocks
foreign press from Tibet and Xinjiang.
1 January 2016
UK spying
Tech Companies [will]
Face Criminal Charges
If They Notify Users of UK
Government Spying.
The US
committed a similar injustice
with Ladar Levison.
1 January 2016
Poland's public broadcasting
Poland's right-wing governing party
is moving to impose direct
political control
of public broadcasting.
Berlusconi did something similar.
1 January 2016
FBI
The FBI has protected us from
another fantasy
terrorist.
1 January 2016
Marco Rubio
Marco Rubio
doesn't mind how the US government snoops
on all of us,
but he condemns US snooping on Israeli officials.
1 January 2016
Boston thugs
Boston
thugs
have aggressively investigated
political dissent groups
for many years.
This
continued
with Occupy Boston.
1 January 2016
Terrorism
Trying to spot terrorists through supposed "behavioral indicators" of
terrorists
has never had a success
, and the evidence that they are
useless keeps increasing.
1 January 2016
California's aquifers
El Niño rains
will not suffice
to refill California's depleted aquifers.
1 January 2016
Killer thugs
The responsibility of prosecuting killer
thugs
in the US typically
falls on their colleagues
, the local prosecutors. No wonder it
is so
hard to do this.
Thugs
accused of killing, or making false accusations, should be
prosecuted by others.
1 January 2016
Ahmed Rajib Haider
Students
have been convicted
in Bangladesh of killing secular blogger
Ahmed Rajib Haider.
I disapprove of the death penalty on principle, but aside from that
I welcome this ruling.
1 January 2016
When India's government launched an inquiry about Facebook's
drastically unneutral internet access scheme (gratis access to the
poor, limited to a specific set of sites), Facebook
started a DDOS
campaign asking
its useds to send nonresponsive answers.
Worse, Facebook's proprietary apps made useds' computers send
expressions of support for this campaign, even when the useds did not
want to.
Never trust these cr…apps. They
are as dangerous
as any other
proprietary software.
1 January 2016
Avoiding taxes
Super-rich Americans
avoid millions of dollars in taxes
through dodges
such as moving money through tax heavens.
1 January 2016
Plutocracy
How plutocracy took over America
, starting with the fiscal power of
private banks.
31 December 2015
Capitalism
Capitalism in America
: Giving Crazy a Bad Name While Subverting Democracy.
31 December 2015
Pete Hoekstra
Former congresscritter Pete Hoekstra supported NSA surveillance
consistently while in office. He
was shocked
to discover recently
that the NSA listened to him.
31 December 2015
Obama's policies
Obama's policies encourage replacement of coal with fracked gas, but
some US cities
have policies to head toward renewable energy
instead.
31 December 2015
UK's cameras
The UK's parliament
was never consulted
about setting up cameras to
track all car travel.
31 December 2015
Brussels
Scandal in Brussels! Some soldiers and some
thugs
had a sex party
in the office, while they were sleeping there because transport was shut
down.
Why this constitutes a problem or a wrong is not clear to me.
It did not hurt anyone.
31 December 2015
Taliban
Afghan journalists suspect that the attempts on their life come from a
Taliban-supporting "fifth column"
inside the Afghan government
31 December 2015
Global heating
The question is not, "How likely are we to limit
global heating
to
1.5C,"
but rather, "
How much damage will it cause
if we don't?"
31 December 2015
El Niño
Hunger Threatens Millions as
El Niño Causes
Drought And Floods.
El Niño events have occurred for a long time, but this one
comes on top of the effects of 1C of
global heating
California seals
are starving
because sardines have had to head for
colder water.
31 December 2015
Putin's attacks
About 1/3 of the casualties of Putin's air attacks in Syria
are civilians
according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
31 December 2015
OpenJDK
Google
is shifting Android to use OpenJDK
rather than its own Java
implementation which used a reimplementation of Java based on the
proprietary header files of the proprietary Java implementation.
This concrete result is good for the free software community, but the
idea that a compatible implementation of an interface spec might
infringe the copyright on header files is very very dangerous.
Fortunately, the appeals court that made this decision hears copyright
cases only in very rare circumstances.
The FSF urged the Supreme Court not to consider the appeal
because we feared it might sustain the appeal court's ruling,
which would extend this bad decision to the whole US.
31 December 2015
Marijuana
Roughly half the jobs in the US
require
urine tests to detect use of
marijuana. This policy never made any sense, and it is even more
absurd in states which have legalized marijuana.
31 December 2015
Censorship in universities
2015's notorious censorship
attempts
in universities.
A school-sponsored sports team is not a person. I think it is
legitimate for the school to exercize control over what ateam does,
which would be wrong if directed towards an individual student.
31 December 2015
Google's snooping
As usual, campaigns to limit Google's snooping on students through
their schools
demand an inadequate remedy
If the school makes an account in a student's name on a company's
server, or stores any unencrypted information there about the
student's activity, that is already a violation of the student's
privacy.
Parents must go beyond asking "Please sir, may my child have some more
privacy" and organize to put an end to these snooping activities.
In addition, Google services
nearly all require the user to run
nonfree software
(written in Javascript).
31 December 2015
Pentagon
The Pentagon
is deliberately obstructing
the release of prisoners from
Guantanamo with a campaign of persistent non-cooperation.
31 December 2015
Afghanistan
The US commander in Afghanistan says that the US will needs more
troops to
continue propping up
the Afghan government.
The choice, as I expected, is to keep propping it up ad infinitem
or let it fall.
31 December 2015
Thomas Podgoretsky
The UK's Minister for Cruel Deportation
wants to deport
Thomas
Podgoretsky because he made the mistake of visiting the US, having a
stroke and heart attacks there, and staying there until he was well
enough to go home to the UK.
31 December 2015
Tamir Rice
The excuses offered to the grand jury for the shooting of Tamir Rice
beg
questions that were apparently ignored
— for instance, why
didn't they stay a little further away and take a second to understand
the situation.
31 December 2015
Chronicle of Woe
Chronicle of Woe
: US Policing Culture From Iraq and Vietnam to Jon
Burge's Chicago.
31 December 2015
Flawed terrorism
Is Flawed Terrorism Research
Driving
Flawed Counterterrorism Policies?
31 December 2015
US thugs
US
thugs
shot and killed
at least 28 people this year
who were holding pellet guns or BB guns.
I wonder what fraction of them were black.
I suspect
thugs
are more likely to take a pellet gun for a real gun
when it is held by a black.
31 December 2015
Hossein Derakhshan
In 2008, Hossein Derakhshan's blog was so influential that Iran
imprisoned for it. Released in 2014, he encountered an Internet in
which Facebook and Instagram discourage people from looking at any
other web sites. Real discussion
has been replaced
by trivia videos.
31 December 2015
Squatters in London
In London, squatters
occupied
the former mint site to protest
against homelessness.
31 December 2015
Syria
A six-month truce between Assad and rebels
is holding
in parts of Syria.
31 December 2015
Ramadi
Between US air strikes and
PISSI
's
explosive booby traps, Ramadi is
now
mostly a ruin
That's better than what it was a month ago, a stronghold of barbarity.
I expect that the civilian survivors will say so. Helping them get their
voice out, to show young Muslims what a monster
PISSI
is, will help them
resist radicalization.
31 December 2015
Success and failure
Evidence that the
key to success is dealing in a useful way with failure
31 December 2015
UK's budget cuts
The UK's budget cuts
have come back
as tremendous damage.
31 December 2015
US and immigration
The US government
is concealing
parts of its contracts with companies
that imprison immigration violators, specifically the parts that show
how these contracts financiall pressure the government to imprison
more of them.
31 December 2015
DMCA
Prohibiting farmers from repairing tractors is not a side effect of
the DMCA. It
is part of the core
goal.
31 December 2015
Encryption
Americans
must not stand
for officials' advocating China-style attacks
on our encryption systems.
Encryption alone can't protect us from all the sorts of digital
surveillance that are being set up in the US. Encryption won't stop
systems from recognizing your license plate or your face. Encryption
won't enable you to pay anonymously with a credit card, or carry a
portable phone
and not be tracked
31 December 2015
Global heating and tornado
It appears that
global heating
is increasing
tornado damage in the US.
31 December 2015
Zuckerberg
Facebook's Zuckerberg: If You Oppose
Our International Power Grab
You're An Enemy Of The Poor.
I have long challenged campaigns
that prioritize people's internet access over
their freedom
31 December 2015
Methan leak
An enormous methane leak
from an old gas well in California will take months
to shut off.
31 December 2015
Erdogan
I Revealed the Truth about President Erdogan And Syria. For That,
He Had
Me
Jailed.
31 December 2015
Obama
Obama's program to help homeowners faced with foreclosure
did not
function
well, and now
SCROTUS
have abolished it.
31 December 2015
Global heating
UK governments
have repeatedly refused
to confront the way global
heating effects put Britain in danger.
31 December 2015
Tamir Rice
The
thug
that killed Tamir Rice
will not be
prosecuted.
Prosecutors often intentionally throw the fight in the grand jury.
We need a special mechanism for bringing charges against
thugs
that shoot people, or make falls accusations.
31 December 2015
Capitalism
Capitalism in America
: Giving Crazy a Bad Name While Subverting Democracy.
31 December 2015
Pete Hoekstra
Former congresscritter Pete Hoekstra supported NSA surveillance
consistently while in office. He
was shocked
to discover recently
that the NSA listened to him.
31 December 2015
Obama's policies
Obama's policies encourage replacement of coal with fracked gas, but
some US cities
have policies to head toward renewable energy
instead.
31 December 2015
UK's cameras
The UK's parliament
was never consulted
about setting up cameras to
track all car travel.
31 December 2015
Brussels
Scandal in Brussels! Some soldiers and some
thugs
had a sex party
in the office, while they were sleeping there because transport was shut
down.
Why this constitutes a problem or a wrong is not clear to me.
It did not hurt anyone.
31 December 2015
Taliban
Afghan journalists suspect that the attempts on their life come from a
Taliban-supporting "fifth column"
inside the Afghan government
31 December 2015
Global heating
The question is not, "How likely are we to limit
global heating
to
1.5C,"
but rather, "
How much damage will it cause
if we don't?"
31 December 2015
El Niño
Hunger Threatens Millions as
El Niño Causes
Drought And Floods.
El Niño events have occurred for a long time, but this one
comes on top of the effects of 1C of
global heating
California seals
are starving
because sardines have had to head for
colder water.
31 December 2015
Putin's attacks
About 1/3 of the casualties of Putin's air attacks in Syria
are civilians
according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
31 December 2015
OpenJDK
Google
is shifting Android to use OpenJDK
rather than its own Java
implementation which used a reimplementation of Java based on the
proprietary header files of the proprietary Java implementation.
This concrete result is good for the free software community, but the
idea that a compatible implementation of an interface spec might
infringe the copyright on header files is very very dangerous.
Fortunately, the appeals court that made this decision hears copyright
cases only in very rare circumstances.
The FSF urged the Supreme Court not to consider the appeal
because we feared it might sustain the appeal court's ruling,
which would extend this bad decision to the whole US.
31 December 2015
Marijuana
Roughly half the jobs in the US
require
urine tests to detect use of
marijuana. This policy never made any sense, and it is even more
absurd in states which have legalized marijuana.
31 December 2015
Censorship in universities
2015's notorious censorship
attempts
in universities.
A school-sponsored sports team is not a person. I think it is
legitimate for the school to exercize control over what ateam does,
which would be wrong if directed towards an individual student.
31 December 2015
Google's snooping
As usual, campaigns to limit Google's snooping on students through
their schools
demand an inadequate remedy
If the school makes an account in a student's name on a company's
server, or stores any unencrypted information there about the
student's activity, that is already a violation of the student's
privacy.
Parents must go beyond asking "Please sir, may my child have some more
privacy" and organize to put an end to these snooping activities.
In addition, Google services
nearly all require the user to run
nonfree software
(written in Javascript).
31 December 2015
Pentagon
The Pentagon
is deliberately obstructing
the release of prisoners from
Guantanamo with a campaign of persistent non-cooperation.
31 December 2015
Afghanistan
The US commander in Afghanistan says that the US will needs more
troops to
continue propping up
the Afghan government.
The choice, as I expected, is to keep propping it up ad infinitem
or let it fall.
31 December 2015
Thomas Podgoretsky
The UK's Minister for Cruel Deportation
wants to deport
Thomas
Podgoretsky because he made the mistake of visiting the US, having a
stroke and heart attacks there, and staying there until he was well
enough to go home to the UK.
31 December 2015
Tamir Rice
The excuses offered to the grand jury for the shooting of Tamir Rice
beg
questions that were apparently ignored
— for instance, why
didn't they stay a little further away and take a second to understand
the situation.
31 December 2015
Chronicle of Woe
Chronicle of Woe
: US Policing Culture From Iraq and Vietnam to Jon
Burge's Chicago.
31 December 2015
Flawed terrorism
Is Flawed Terrorism Research
Driving
Flawed Counterterrorism Policies?
31 December 2015
US thugs
US
thugs
shot and killed
at least 28 people this year
who were holding pellet guns or BB guns.
I wonder what fraction of them were black.
I suspect
thugs
are more likely to take a pellet gun for a real gun
when it is held by a black.
31 December 2015
Hossein Derakhshan
In 2008, Hossein Derakhshan's blog was so influential that Iran
imprisoned for it. Released in 2014, he encountered an Internet in
which Facebook and Instagram discourage people from looking at any
other web sites. Real discussion
has been replaced
by trivia videos.
31 December 2015
Squatters in London
In London, squatters
occupied
the former mint site to protest
against homelessness.
31 December 2015
Syria
A six-month truce between Assad and rebels
is holding
in parts of Syria.
31 December 2015
Ramadi
Between US air strikes and
PISSI
's
explosive booby traps, Ramadi is
now
mostly a ruin
That's better than what it was a month ago, a stronghold of barbarity.
I expect that the civilian survivors will say so. Helping them get their
voice out, to show young Muslims what a monster
PISSI
is, will help them
resist radicalization.
31 December 2015
Success and failure
Evidence that the
key to success is dealing in a useful way with failure
31 December 2015
UK's budget cuts
The UK's budget cuts
have come back
as tremendous damage.
31 December 2015
US and immigration
The US government
is concealing
parts of its contracts with companies
that imprison immigration violators, specifically the parts that show
how these contracts financiall pressure the government to imprison
more of them.
31 December 2015
DMCA
Prohibiting farmers from repairing tractors is not a side effect of
the DMCA. It
is part of the core
goal.
31 December 2015
Encryption
Americans
must not stand
for officials' advocating China-style attacks
on our encryption systems.
Encryption alone can't protect us from all the sorts of digital
surveillance that are being set up in the US. Encryption won't stop
systems from recognizing your license plate or your face. Encryption
won't enable you to pay anonymously with a credit card, or carry a
portable phone
and not be tracked
31 December 2015
Global heating and tornado
It appears that
global heating
is increasing
tornado damage in the US.
31 December 2015
Zuckerberg
Facebook's Zuckerberg: If You Oppose
Our International Power Grab
You're An Enemy Of The Poor.
I have long challenged campaigns
that prioritize people's internet access over
their freedom
31 December 2015
Methan leak
An enormous methane leak
from an old gas well in California will take months
to shut off.
31 December 2015
Erdogan
I Revealed the Truth about President Erdogan And Syria. For That,
He Had
Me
Jailed.
31 December 2015
Obama
Obama's program to help homeowners faced with foreclosure
did not
function
well, and now
SCROTUS
have abolished it.
31 December 2015
Global heating
UK governments
have repeatedly refused
to confront the way global
heating effects put Britain in danger.
31 December 2015
Tamir Rice
The
thug
that killed Tamir Rice
will not be
prosecuted.
Prosecutors often intentionally throw the fight in the grand jury.
We need a special mechanism for bringing charges against
thugs
that shoot people, or make falls accusations.
31 December 2015 (
Urgent: Protect victims of forced labor
Everyone:
urge
your government
to
sign the treaty to protect victims of forced labor.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
More
information
about the treaty.
If you don't run the Javascript code, you won't see anything in your
browser to show that you signed, but in my case it did in fact work;
you should get a confirmation email.
31 December 2015 (
Japan apologizes to Korean women
Japan has apologized to the Korean women that it
forced
into prostitution during World War II
The Japanese army did that in other places, too, including what is now
Indonesia. After the war, many of these women never went home because
they felt ashamed — in effect internalizing the blame that
(according to their culture) their families would have imposed on
them.
31 December 2015 (
Internet of Things + DMCA
Combining the Internet of Things with the DMCA creates the
Internet
without Good Choices
31 December 2015 (
The TPP
The TPP is
harmful
even if evaluated based on the "free trade" ideology
Of course, that ideology is a mistake because it reduces the effective
power of democracy and increases the effective power of businesses.
Existing "free trade" treaties are part of the reason that the US has
become
a plutocracy
. This is why I advocate
cancelling
them
Part of the article uses the incoherent term
"intellectual
property"
. It is always a mistake, without exception, to group
together copyrights and patents as if they were a single issue. And
that term includes several other laws as well. If you think they are
similar than you don't understand what they really do.
31 December 2015 (
The TSA
No
Social Security number? No passport. Why? Are TSA Actions Subject to
Judicial Review?
31 December 2015 (
Polio vaccination in Pakistan and Afghanistan
Polio vaccination is
advancing
again
in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Extremist groups have stopped
opposing vaccination, and new infections have gone way down.
31 December 2015 (
Seizure of property by thugs
The US has stopped offering local
thug
departments the chance to
seize
people's property and split it with the Federal government
Ironically, this is due to budget cuts imposed by
SCROTUS
31 December 2015 (
Blockade of Yemen
Taiz, in Yemen, is
suffering
from a siege imposed by the Houthis
, within the general blockade
of Yemen imposed by Salafi (*) Arabia and the US.
The US is supporting this blockade (and the bombing and invasion) to
suck up to some private interests, since nothing about the
intervention serves any national interest.
* Officially "Saudi Arabia", but its global support for the repressive
and cruel Salafist form of Islam (which helped inspire al Qa'ida and
PISSI
) is the most important characteristic of that country.
31 December 2015 (
Wind energy
Wind energy is
becoming
the most efficient investment in power generation
Now think of how much faster we would progress towards curbing global
heating if fossil fuels did not enjoy their present
subsidies
31 December 2015 (
Sequestering carbon in the soil
Agriculture
may be able to sequester carbon in the soil.
31 December 2015 (
Israel's "transparency" law
Israel's "transparency" law requires human rights NGO to disclose
their funding, but
right-wing
NGOs have been given exemptions
The transparency requirement, per se, is not unjust, but it is being
applied selectively to oppose human rights.
31 December 2015 (
More Ethiopian journalists arrested
Ethiopia has
arrested
more journalists
and is threatening bloggers.
31 December 2015 (
El Niño + human-caused climate mayhem
Flooding in Britain, record US temperatures and Australian wildfires
result from El Niño
on
top of human-caused climate mayhem
31 December 2015 (
Iraqi army recapturing Ramadi
The Iraqi army is
slowly
recapturing Ramadi
. Most of the PISSI fighters have
fled
leaving a rear guard which seems to intend to slow the army's advance.
The Iraqi army is not defeating
PISSI
's full strength. Nonetheless,
the loss of Ramadi may weaken
PISSI
somewhat.
31 December 2015 (
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders:
can win the backing of Donald Trump supporters
."
Trump (and others before him) have distracted them into blaming weak
scapegoats. Sanders will show them who they should really be angry
at: the plutocrats.
31 December 2015 (
Deadly US ground beef
Ground beef in the US, if it isn't "organic grass-fed beef", is quite
likely to harbor
antibiotic-resistant
bacteria that kill people
The organic grass-fed beef will cost more, but that won't bother you
unless you eat too much beef (alas, many Americans do).
31 December 2015 (
US airports kicking homeless people out
US airports are kicking homeless people
into
the cold
31 December 2015 (
China adopts encryption back door law
China has adopted a law
requiring
services to hand over encryption back doors
This power seems to exist already in the US; it's what
forced
Ladar Levison to shut down Lavabit
That doesn't mean it is ok for China to do this — or for the US
to do it.
31 December 2015 (
How Peabody Energy exploits poverty
How Peabody Energy
exploits
poverty
to excuse burning coal.
Coal is not going to make poor people better off, beyond a decade or
two. The brunt of
climate mayhem
will fail mainly on the poor —
hundreds of millions of them.
31 December 2015 (
China adopts law against domestic violence
China has adopted a
law
against domestic violence
Chinese society before the revolution was very very sexist.
30 December 2015 (
Urgent: Democratic Party debates
US citizens:
call on
the Democratic Party
to schedule more debates and make them more
visible.
30 December 2015 (
Urgent: Reject measures to "protect" us
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to reject measures to "protect" us at the expense of
our human rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
30 December 2015 (
Twitter deletes journalist's tweets
deleted
a journalist's tweets
because a bank asked for this.
30 December 2015 (
Juniper Networks back doors
Evidence that points to
NSA
involvement
in putting the back door in Juniper Networks products.
30 December 2015 (
Taliban in Helmand
The Taliban have taken over
most
districts in Helmand
; Sangin is one of the few still being
contested. They may hope to make it their headquarters.
30 December 2015 (
System of bail in the US
The system of bail in the US
pressures
poor people to plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit
or else it puts them in debt.
30 December 2015 (
Cocaine in "legitimate" capital markets
"Legitimate" capital markets are thoroughly hooked on cocaine; in
laundering
drug money
, London is more important than the Cayman Islands.
30 December 2015 (
War on sites that facilitate sharing
The copyright industry's war on sites that facilitate sharing causes
harm
to users
even when not entirely successful.
Please do not use our enemies' smear term, "piracy", to refer to
sharing.
30 December 2015 (
MPAA Funds Pro-Copyright Scholars
MPAA Funds Pro-Copyright Scholars
to
Influence Politics
30 December 2015 (
Recognition technology
Advances in recognition technology
threaten
to enable tracking
people easily by cameras
through recognizing their faces or
irises.
There is no easy solution to this problem, but since it threatens
oppression
that can make democracy ineffective
, it justifies the cost of a
difficult solution.
30 December 2015 (
Guantanamo
Obama blames Congress for slowing the release of prisoners from
Guantanamo, but he and his staff are
primarily
responsible for the delay
"Guantanamo" has come to stand for "imprisonment without trial", but
they are not the same. Obama talks about "closing Guantanamo prison"
but his method of doing so is to move imprisonment without trial to
the US mainland. That would make it even more unjust. We could hope
that the Supreme Court would consider it more clearly unacceptable
— but what if it did the opposite?
The US must end its imprisonment without trial. Every prisoner in
Guantanamo deserves to get a real, fair trial or be freed.
30 December 2015 (
California's diminishing rainfall
California confronts the question of
how
to manage its diminishing rainfall
Global heating
will make the US midwest hotter and
interfere
with rain
The real solution, the efficient solution, is to cut back on
CO
emissions so that the climate won't get more screwed.
30 December 2015 (
TSA scanner policy
lawsuit
seeks to make the TSA change its policy of requiring some passengers
to go through a scanner.
30 December 2015 (
Game cr…apps
Modern gratis game cr…apps
collect
a wide range of data about their users and their users' friends and
associates
. Even nastier, they do it through ad networks that
merge the data collected by various cr…apps and sites made by
different companies.
They use this data to manipulate people to buy things, and hunt for
"whales" who can be led to spend a lot of money. They also use a back
door to manipulate the game play for specific players.
While the article describes gratis games, games that cost money can
use the same tactics.
All this reinforces the point that proprietary software is software
for suckers.
30 December 2015 (
Warm December
The unusually warm December is making some people concerned about
their
flowering
perennials
, some of which are blooming now instead of waiting for
spring.
However, what concerns me more is that this warm December will not be
so unusual at the end of the century.
30 December 2015 (
Listening machines
Beware
the Listening Machines.
30 December 2015 (
Taking risks during childhood
Should
I let my child take more risks?
" Probably yes, up to a point.
However, you might consider transporting your child by car to be too
dangerous and beyond the limit.
29 December 2015 (
Transportation in the US
Most of the US has been
restructured
around automobiles
. As people get older, eventually they can't
drive any more, so they become stuck at home.
29 December 2015 (
European Patent Office
The European Patent Office hired a surveillance company to
snoop
on its critics
29 December 2015 (
Corporatization of American Red Cross
The American Red Cross spent millions in Haiti to provide shelter
and
built
just six houses with that money
This seems to relate to its
overall
corporatization
29 December 2015 (
US supported creation of Salafist state
In
2013
, the US supported the creation of some sort of Salafist
"Islamic state" in Syria and Iraq as a way to weaken Assad.
Be careful what you wish for.
29 December 2015 (
Juniper Networks back door
Was it the NSA that put the
back
door in Juniper Networks firewalls
It has been trying to attack
antivirus
software
29 December 2015 (
Fingerprints required for cell phone
Bangladesh demands
fingerprints
from everyone that has a cell phone
That would convince me not to visit Bangladesh, if I carried a cell
phone.
29 December 2015 (
Fluoridation of water
There is
no
conclusive evidence
about whether fluoridation of water supply
reduces tooth decay, though there is suggestive evidence that it does.
29 December 2015 (
People's movements tracked in Hyde Park
The UK government tracked people's movements in Hyde Park
through
their mobile phones
This particular project did not record their names, but that would
have been easy to do.
29 December 2015 (
Syrian Islamist fighters in Damascus
2000 Syrian Islamist fighters and Assad's forces have made a deal
whereby the Islamists will
evacuate
an area near Damascus, leaving their heavy weapons
29 December 2015 (
Medical uses of marijuana
Ten
important medical uses
of marijuana.
27 December 2015 (
Social isolation
American society pushes people into social isolation, and
1/4
of American adults have no one they can confide in
. For old
people, loneliness is often fatal.
27 December 2015 (
Work-related diseases
Work-related diseases
kill
50,000 Americans a year
. That's more than are killed by guns, and
terrorism is a pinprick by comparison.
Meanwhile, we could do a lot to reduce work-related diseases
without limiting anyone's human rights.
27 December 2015 (
Endangered species
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has become
more
active in considering endangered species and establishing protection
for them
. The case backlog is decreasing.
Measures like the Endangered Species Act are adequate for dealing with
local threats in a world that is stable overall. Of course, many
countries don't have an Endangered Species Act and many governments
are not able to really enforce such laws. But even if they did, that
won't be enough in the future.
Climate mayhem
will swamp these local
protection efforts, much as rising oceans will swamp sea walls.
27 December 2015 (
Mosquito-borne virus spreading
A mosquito-borne virus in Brazil is spreading, and its spread can be
measured by the thousands of
babies
born with microcephaly
Global heating
effects are indirectly responsible for the spread of
the mosquitos that transmit the virus.
27 December 2015 (
USAF proposed killing civilians in 1959
In 1959, a US Air Force proposal for how to target nuclear weapons on
the Soviet Union
treated
killing of civilians as a goal
26 December 2015 (
Urgent: Investigate death of Sandra Bland
US citizens:
call on
Attorney General Lynch
to investigate death of Sandra Bland.
26 December 2015 (
Urgent: Oregon's national forests
US citizens:
Tell
Congress
not to sell off or cut down Oregon's national forests.
26 December 2015 (
Sanders
Polls show Sanders doing
considerably
better against Trump than Clinton would do
26 December 2015 (
Back Lives Matter protest
A Black Lives Matter protest at the Mall of America was
not
entirely blocked
by the mall management armed with court orders.
Nonetheless, the difficulties they faced show that replacing real
public space with pseudo-public space inside malls is dangerous to
democracy. People should have the right to protest inside malls.
26 December 2015 (
Guber
Seattle has arranged to give
Guber
drivers a
chance
to unionize
This can help the drivers get more pay, but it won't do anything to
reduce the surveillance that passengers are subject to, or save them
from the requirement to run nonfree software.
26 December 2015 (
The range of ideas that fit into Islam
It
takes
a rather large book
to describe the range of ideas that fit into
Islam — except in the opinion of Salafis.
26 December 2015 (
French citizenship
French President Hollande is getting strong criticism for
plans
to take away citizenship from people who were born citizens of
France
His other plans, such as the permanent state of emergency,
seen even worse.
26 December 2015 (
Gmail psychological profiles
Google's Gmail and other connected services create psychological
profiles of every user — and all the people they communicate
with by email. A slowly progressing lawsuit claims that this
violates
California law
You can opt out of this by
changing to
some other mail service
, running your own mail server, and/or
encrypting the text of your emails with the
GNU Privacy Guard
26 December 2015 (
US-Korea "free trade" agreement
The US-Korea "free trade" agreement, if evaluated in the conventional
terms of exports and imports, has been a
big
loss for US exports and US employment
This is on top of the harm that the treaty does to both countries by
undermining
democracy
26 December 2015 (
School voucher system in Sweden
In 1992, Sweden adopted a school voucher system. Since then the
Swedish educational system has become
more
unequal, and less effective
overall.
26 December 2015 (
French journalists in China
China seems to
plan
to expel a French journalist
whose articles in France have
criticized the regime.
26 December 2015 (
The Battle Over Sangin
The Battle Over Sangin Should Teach the West Some
Vital
Military Lessons
. And political lessons, too, about "attempting
cultural change on a management consultant timeline."
I still think the US might have achieved a good outcome in Afghanistan
if
it had refrained from attacking and destroying Iraq
26 December 2015 (
Judaist fanatics
Judaist fanatics in Israel had themselves filmed
celebrating
the murder of an Arab toddler
Judaist, Christianist or Islamist, they are all enemies of human
rights. The worst of them are killers, but the rest are still bad.
26 December 2015 (
India rejects Facebook's power grab
India has
blocked
Facebook's plan
to extend internet service without network
neutrality.
Access to the internet can be good or bad, depending on whether the
internet respects your freedom. If people make the error of assuming
that it is good unconditionally, that can lead them to mistake
Facebook's power grab for a real gift.
26 December 2015 (
Hunger and homelessness in the US
22 US cities reported
high
levels of hunger and homelessness
for the year Sep '14 — Aug
'15.
26 December 2015 (
Poverty in the US permanently stunts IQ
In the US, poverty
permanently
stunts childrens' IQ
, but not in other developed countries.
It is not clear why the US gets different results.
25 December 2015 (
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria in ground beef
Ground beef generally has bacteria all through it, and some of them
can make people sick. Consumer Reports found that US ground beef,
unless it is from 'grass-fed organic beef', often contains
antibiotic-resistant
bacteria
25 December 2015 (
British Muslims blocked from entering US
It appears the US is
blocking
many British Muslims from entering the US
, often in arbitrary
last-minute ways that cause unnecessary trouble and expense.
Blocking 10 family members from traveling because of an objection
to their one relative is especially nasty, and gratuitous.
Because there is no way to find out in advance if you will be blocked
in this way, British Muslims in general are
afraid to buy tickets
to the US
It seems to me that the US should offer a way to ask, before buying
tickets, "Will you allow me to fly there?" If the US responds that
you can go, and blocks you later, it should compensate you for the
costs of your flight and other preparations.
And it is unconscionable to block 11 people because of objections
about one.
25 December 2015 (
Australia's anti-renewable-energy policies
Australia is
slowly
shifting away from the anti-renewable-energy policies
that Abbott
set up.
25 December 2015 (
Russia dropping cluster bombs on Syria
Amnesty International says Russia is
dropping
cluster bombs on Syrian cities
, even on areas of no military
significance.
25 December 2015 (
Illegal spying on activists in Ecuador
Leaked documents say that Ecuador's intelligence agency
illegally
spied on activists
who campaigned against oil extraction in the
Amazon.
25 December 2015 (
Christmas in officially Muslim countries
Some officially Muslim countries have demonstrated their intolerance
of non-Muslims by
banning
visible celebration of Christmas
Will they ban
Grav-Mass
, too?
25 December 2015 (
The "no fly list"
The "no fly list"
punishes
people by surprise
, and people are put in the list based on
"predictive judgments" which can be based on nothing but noise.
25 December 2015 (
Raid in Sangin
Afghan army reinforcements
may
kick the Taliban out of Sangin
If the Taliban melt away when confronted by a relief force, that will
not constitute a victory for the Afghan government. Rather, it will
mean that the Taliban are following through after a large, successful
raid, in accord with standard guerrilla tactics.
To turn this raid into a victory, the Afghan army would need to
surround Sangin and kill the Taliban fighters caught in the trap.
I don't think they will try it.
25 December 2015 (
Shot dead by Georgia thugs
44% of the people shot dead by Georgia
thugs
(since 2010) were either
unarmed
or shot in the back
. That's just the beginning of it.
25 December 2015 (
Prison for throwing stones at car
Israel sentenced Palestinian teenagers to
15 years in prison
after they confessed under pressure to throwing stones at a car.
The car was driven by a family that lives in an Israeli colony in
Palestinian territory. One of the children in the car died from the
attack. The killing was a serious crime, but there is no credible
evidence about who did it.
25 December 2015 (
Israel violates international law
Israel violates international law by taking Palestinian prisoners out
of Palestine. Here's
why
that violation is important
25 December 2015 (
Israel on foreign funding
To the Israeli right-wing,
foreign
funding for Breaking the Silence is an outrage
; foreign funding
for extending colonies in Palestine is just fine.
After Israel arrested Jews who killed Palestinians, fanatical
colonists
attacked
another Palestinian family
. Fortunately not fatally this time.
25 December 2015 (
Palestinian Christians
Palestinian Christians suffer from the occupation like Palestinian
Muslims, but find it
easier
to move elsewhere
25 December 2015 (
Mennonites on occupation of Palestine
Mennonites who visited Palestine
defend
the need for boycott, divestment and sanctions
against Israel's
occupation of Palestine.
24 December 2015 (
Urgent: Tesoro-Savage oil export terminal
US citizens:
oppose
building the Tesoro-Savage oil export terminal in Washington State.
24 December 2015 (
Urgent: toy factories in China
Everyone: call on major toy branding companies to
improve
wages and working conditions
in their factories in China.
24 December 2015 (
Urgent: drone registration site
Does it work to use the US government drone registration site
with LibreJS enabled to block nonfree Javascript code?
Please email your answer to rms on the site gnu.org.
24 December 2015 (
Urgent: stand with Nagpur
Everyone: Stand with the people of Nagpur and tell the World Bank to
stop
pushing privatization of water.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
24 December 2015 (
Charging more for products
Companies tend to
charge
more for their products aimed at women or girls
than for comparable
products aimed at men or boys.
Why should scooters be meant specifically for one sex? There is no
good reason for that. That too is a marketing ploy. Give a girl a
blue scooter, and fight against creeping genderization of everything,
while also saving money.
24 December 2015 (
Adelson buys your newspaper
What If Sheldon Adelson Buys Your Newspaper?
Write
About Him, Then Leave.
24 December 2015 (
Obama's support for "moderate" Syrian resistance
The US military thought Obama's support for "moderate" Syrian resistance
was only helping Jihadis, so it began
feeding
intelligence indirectly to Assad
to help him fight those rebels.
24 December 2015 (
Physical search instead of body scanning
The TSA may
stop
some passengers
from requesting a physical search instead of body scanning.
I don't object to the millimeter-wave scanners now in use, but I still
consider this change dangerous. What if they move to another machine
that is potentially dangerous, as the x-ray scanners were?
24 December 2015 (
Colonies in Palestine
Israel's ambassador to the US has gone out of his way to send
holiday
gifts
made by colonies in Palestine.
24 December 2015 (
Bogus opinion polls
Thailand's dictators
don't
have elections,
but they have bogus opinion polls.
24 December 2015 (
Wearing makeup to appear Asian (or black)
Is it wrong for
Caucasian
actors
to wear makeup to appear Asian (or black)?
The article presents an incoherent mixture of perceived insult, lack
of Asian role models on TV, and loss of work for Asian actors. Any
or all of those issues might be valid, but they are all different,
and mixing them up produces only confusion.
If it is a matter of work discrimination, how about making up nonwhite
actors up to appear Caucasian? All actors' race would cease to matter.
If it is a matter of visible role models on TV, that's a matter of
appearance only. Why does it matter what the actor's real skin color
or appearance is, beneath the makeup?
If you feel insulted, please explain why an actor's makeup constitutes
a statement about Asians, because I don't see that.
24 December 2015 (
Poland's Christianist extremist government
Poland's Christianist extremist government is
undermining
the Supreme Court,
apparently to facilitate a
total
ban on abortions.
I support ending subsidies for IVF; the world has an excess of human
babies and it makes no sense at all to spend public funds on making
more.
Once babies are born, we must make sure they get good food, medical
care, education, and a good home with parents that are not stressed
about a lack of money.
Naturally, the right-wing government plans to cut that. Christianist
extremist don't care about real babies.
24 December 2015 (
The atmosphere as public trust
Officially designating the atmosphere as a
public
trust
might help get some countries to act against global heating.
24 December 2015 (
Exxon's global heating research
Exxon shared its global heating research with other major oil companies
as
far back as 1980.
They have all been knowingly working to make sure the US government does not avoid disaster.
24 December 2015 (
Loss of manufacturing jobs
The loss of manufacturing jobs in the US
is
not inevitable.
It is the result of political choices.
24 December 2015 (
Spending public assistance
The US and various states are prohibiting poor people from spending
public assistance on various expensive habits that
they
can't afford anyway.
The motive might be to fool the public into believing that welfare
recipients really have money for luxury foods such as lobster, on
ocean cruises, or even on tattoos.
If you can barely afford food at all, you will do without those things
anyway.
24 December 2015 (
ARM and IBM teamed up
ARM and IBM have teamed up to make devices that
monitor
and surveil their users.
24 December 2015 (
Libya's new unified government
The UN is moving towards authorizing Libya's new unified government to
invite
Western help to fight PISSI.
An intervention in support of Libyan ground troops has a reasonable chance of success.
24 December 2015 (
Israel considering Putin-style law
Israel is considering a Putin-style law to restrict human-rights NGOs
that
receive
support from European governments.
The President of Israel was
called a traitor for meeting with the New Israel Fund.
24 December 2015 (
Fall of Sangin
The fall of Sangin demonstrates the
futility
of NATO's trying to hold it.
Once the Taliban started to resurge, the US and NATO never had a
plausible plan for defeating the Taliban, since the Afghan government
has never generated enough loyalty to do so. The only question is how
long to prop it up.
24 December 2015 (
Geneva conventions
Increasingly, wars involve bombing
cities
full of civilians,
as countries ignore the Geneva conventions.
24 December 2015 (
Tax loophole
A tax loophole encourages US companies to
increase
pay to their CEOs.
23 December 2015 (
New web error code
A new Web error code has been established
for
legally imposed censorship
23 December 2015 (
Menstruating women treated as "unclean"
In rural India, the menstruating women are still treated as "unclean".
They are
banished
to rude huts outside the village
. Girls miss school.
23 December 2015 (
Boko Haram violence
Boko Haram Violence
Keeping
a Million Children Out of School
, Says UNICEF.
23 December 2015 (
Racist inspired by Trump
A racist inspired by Trump
built
a pipe bomb to attack Muslims with
23 December 2015 (
Antibiotic resistance
Humanity has not acted to slow antibiotic resistance; now it is
"almost too late" to avoid
losing
the most important current antibiotics
The responsibility is the plutocratic state, which obeys agribusiness
and disregards the general good.
23 December 2015 (
Unjust tech
Can
Laws Keep Up with Tech World?
It should be noted that
Amazon
Guber
and
WhatsApp
(proprietary software)
are inherently unjust.
23 December 2015 (
US thugs claim there is a "war on police"
US
thugs
continue to claim that there is a "war on police", violence
against
thugs
continues to be rare.
Marauding
thugs remain the bigger threat
Thugs
kill a lot more Americans than terrorists do; but they do lesser
forms of violence more often than killings.
23 December 2015 (
US wages war against lots of Muslims
In response to occasional crimes by a few Muslims, the US
wages
actual war against lots of Muslims
I should point out that the guns used by Malik and his spouse were not
lawfully purchased in the form he had them, and a
stricter
system of gun control
could have made them difficult for him to
get.
Because the US is waging actual war, its innocent victims greatly
outnumber the victims of Muslim terrorists in the US. Americans are
much more likely to be killed by
thugs
than by terrorists.
Christianist terrorism against US abortion facilities is a more
serious threat because it is concentrated against a few. If you are
an abortion doctor, that danger is large.
23 December 2015 (
Urgent: Don't legitimize Israeli colonies
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to reject a resolution to legitimize Israeli colonies
in Palestine.
23 December 2015 (
DNC reenables Sanders' access to voter data
The Democratic National Committee
reenabled
Sanders' access to voter data
; the Sanders campaign did the
requested investigation and took appropriate action.
23 December 2015 (
Exaggerated idea of level of danger
Lumping together crowd killing sprees with the more common multiple
shootings in families and gangs
gives
the public an exaggerated idea of the level of danger
from the
former.
If shootings cause around 110,000 casualties in the year in the US,
that shows guns are a serious problem, but the sensational killing
sprees are a small part of it.
23 December 2015 (
Violent domestic relationships
Violent domestic relationships
don't
make sense in rational terms
. The victims are so traumatized that
they blame themselves for the other person's violence.
23 December 2015 (
Wild bees declining
Wild bees are
declining
in US agricultural areas
23 December 2015 (
Dealing with terrorist videos
Proposal
for Dealing with Terrorist Videos on the Internet.
23 December 2015 (
Racial disparity in arrests
Study Documents
Extreme
Racial Disparity
in Arrests for Low-Level Offenses [in a US city].
23 December 2015 (
Clinton endorses FBI's take on encryption
Clinton has
endorsed
the FBI's take on encryption
I had already decided not to vote for her if she wins the nomination.
I hope you will join me. But let's try to prevent that issue from
arising. Please support the Sanders campaign.
23 December 2015 (
Force-feeding immigration prisoners
A US court ruled that the US
can
force-feed immigration prisoners on hunger strike
This is a violation of their human rights. A sane person has a right
to commit suicide and a right to fast to death.
Now that the prisoners have been denied the right to hunger strike, I
expect that some will commit quick suicide as a protest.
23 December 2015 (
Playing into hands of terrorists
Treating
every rumor or threat of terrorism as serious
is an effect of fear
and it plays into the hands of terrorists.
23 December 2015 (
Muslim students US schools bullied
Muslim students in US schools, even young ones, face
frequent
bullying that can go as far as physical attacks
Violent attacks against Muslims are
increasing
23 December 2015 (
Sudanese editors face death penalty
Sudanese Editors Face Death Penalty for
'Inciting
an Arab Spring'
In Sudan, only Winter is allowed.
23 December 2015 (
Ill treatment of homeless people
Many people and governments
treat
homeless people like vermin
. Laws that shove them into obscure
corners help others ignore how badly they are being treated.
Ultimately this is done to please store owners (who want them out of
the way) and rich (who don't want to pay taxes to give them homes).
The same rich people are responsible for the policies that make people
homeless.
23 December 2015 (
Prison
Could prison be replaced with a
different
correctional system
23 December 2015 (
Spain's parliament divided
Spain's parliament is
divided
it is not clear who will govern.
23 December 2015 (
Chicago thug may have made false accusation
A video suggests a Chicago
thug
may have made a false accusation about
Alfontish Cockerham
to
excuse shooting him dead
22 December 2015 (
Urgent: Reveal donors to Columbia's CGEP
Everyone:
call on
Columbia University
to reveal all the donors to Center on Global
Energy Policy, since they seem to include Exxon.
22 December 2015 (
Urgent: Free Waleed Abu al-Khair
US citizens:
Call
on
Salafi Arabia
to free human rights lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair.
22 December 2015 (
Urgent: Track and publish weapons sales
US citizens:
call
on Congress to resume tracking and publishing world weapons sales.
22 December 2015 (
Facebook "real name" policy
Facebook relaxed its "real name" policy, but only
for
people who are being harassed for certain specific reasons
This relieves a very specific acute problem, but does not enable
ordinary people to use Facebook without being tracked.
21 December 2015 (
How government tracks cell phones
How the Government Surveils Cellphones:
Primer
This doesn't include the possibility of using the
universal
back door
to turn the phone into a full-time listening device.
And there is also
extracting
data through WiFi
21 December 2015 (
UK immigration bill
The UK is planning a law that will
make
victims of trafficking afraid to speak up
21 December 2015 (
Undercover thug attacks protester
Montreal protester Katie Nelson recognized an undercover
thug
when he
took off his mask — he was pretending to be a protester —
because he was
one
of the thugs she was already suing for a previous attack on her
So he attacked her again. She is now in the hospital and preparing
another lawsuit.
21 December 2015 (
Right-wing billionaire-owned newspaper
Right-wing billionaire Sheldon Adelson appears to have bought the Las
Vegas Review-Journal just to
set
its reporters to trying to dig up dirt on judges who didn't bow down
to his wealth
More
information
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
21 December 2015 (
UK's anti-sharing thugs
The UK's anti-sharing
thugs
have come down on people who
noncommercially distributed karaoke recordings
because they are
not commercially available
, and
using
a sleazy trick of language to equate this with commercial
redistribution
21 December 2015 (
US alliance with Salafi Arabia
Yemen's civil war, in which the US-backed intervention by
Salafi Arabia
has
made
millions homeless and uses cluster bombs
, shows that the US
alliance with
Salafi Arabia
is a disaster.
21 December 2015 (
Extremist views of Syrian rebel fighters
Most Syrian rebel fighters hold
extremist
views similar to PISSI
, even though they are enemies of PISSI.
This shows that defeating
PISSI
won't eliminate Salafi oppression from
Syria. (There may be no way to do that, in the short term.) However,
those groups might not want to attack outside Syria; it might be
possible to make peace with them.
It will be hard to make peace in a way that includes them and the
secular Kurds.
21 December 2015 (
Punishing old people for falling
A UK local government, squeezed for funds, is
planning
to charge old people every time they need someone to pick them up
after falling
21 December 2015 (
"Smart" watches can tell what you're typing
Malicious code in a "smart" watch can tell what you are typing by
measuring
your arm motion
Anything called "smart", unless all the software is free, is an attack
on your freedom and privacy.
21 December 2015 (
Mandatory minimum sentences
Mandatory minimum sentences are a recent aberration in US history; we
could
get rid of most of them
21 December 2015 (
Dow still leaking pollution in Bhopal
Dow continues to disregard criminal court charges in India and
refuses
to remediate
the pollution that still leaks from its factory in
Bhopal.
I wonder if DuPont has property in India that could be seized if it
merges with Dow. Perhaps a lien could be put on it now, to stop
DuPont from selling it before the merger.
21 December 2015 (
Meeting Paris conference goals
The Paris conference didn't pay much attention to
meat
production
, but to meet the goal requires a big reduction.
21 December 2015 (
Urgent: Abortion clinics
US citizens:
call
on the Department of Justice
to investigate violence against
abortion clinics as terrorism.
21 December 2015 (
Urgent: Oppose Florida fracking bill
Citizens of Florida:
oppose
the state bill
to impose fracking everywhere in the state.
21 December 2015 (
Urgent: Cancel Corinthian College loans
US citizens:
call
on the Department of Education
to cancel all loans to students of
Corinthian Colleges.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
21 December 2015 (
Victory against PISSI
If we fight
PISSI
what
would we want victory to look like
21 December 2015 (
Suicide and depression in the UK
The UK's relentless
pressure
to declare disabled people capable of working
has led to around
600 suicides and over 700,000 prescriptions for antidepressants.
21 December 2015 (
Censorship of history
Cecil Rhodes Was a Racist, But You
Can't
Readily Expunge Him from History
21 December 2015 (
Ending the civil war in Syria
The UN has set up a
conference
of relevant powers
to try to end the civil war in Syria.
Has anyone proposed a solution to protect human rights for all the
ethnic groups and sects?
21 December 2015 (
US drone registration system
The US drone registration system
will
make drone owners' names and addresses visible to the public
21 December 2015 (
US's limits on visa waiver program
Ambassadors from EU countries
warn
of retaliation
for the US's limits on the visa waiver program.
Some have suggested that Europe would retaliate by imposing the same
restriction on Americans, blocking Iranian-Americans etc. That would
be a foolish way to retaliate, since the Americans who support the
recent restriction would be glad to see Iranian-Americans punished.
As retaliation, it would be ineffective.
My suggestion is that Europe should require visas for Americans whose
names begin with "R", or perhaps "Ry". That might be a small fraction
comparable to the fraction of Europeans affected by the new US
restrictions.
Another idea: require visas of Americans related to Republican
congresscritters.
21 December 2015 (
Arrest of Shkreli
Did
government officials tip off reporters
to film the arrest of
Shkreli?
Shkreli is a greedy bastard and we ought to make it illegal to act as
he did with Daraprim. (His arrest was about a
different
matter
.) However, for the issue raised here, he's just one
example among many, and the questions posed apply to everyone.
21 December 2015 (
Surveillance of people in cars in London
Thugs
will
collect
photos in real time of everyone riding in cars
in London.
When the state knows where everyone goes, and who talks with whom,
democracy
cannot
survive
. That doesn't bother the UK government, which is
applying
Republican-style techniques
to effectively eliminate democracy in
the UK.
21 December 2015 (
FBI demands personal information for drones
The FBI
demands a
credit card number
to register a drone, as well as other personal
information.
This puts the drone owners at risk.
21 December 2015 (
PAT-RIOT Act "national security letters"
We now know how broad and sweeping the PAT-RIOT Act "national security
letters" are; and
functionaries
can demand them arbitrarily
21 December 2015 (
Santa Claus confirms NSA attack
Santa Claus Confirms
NSA
Attack on Naughty-Or-Nice Database
21 December 2015 (
DNC's data company
The Democratic National Committee's data company has repeatedly failed
to keep each candidate's data secret from other candidates. One
Sanders staffer accessed some of Clinton's data, and the campaign
fired him for this.
The DNC took the excuse to deny the Sanders campaign
all
access to its own voter information data base
The Sanders campaign has
sued
the DNC for this
21 December 2015 (
Escalation of the War on Sharing
In an escalation of the War on Sharing, a US ISP was
fined
millions for not disconnecting users
that repeatedly did file
sharing.
Sharing
should be legal
21 December 2015 (
Tent cities in the US
Tent cities in the US are the result of
laws
that force homeless people out of downtown areas
21 December 2015 (
Pete Seeger's FBI file
Pete Seeger's FBI File Reveals How the Folk Legend First Became a
Target
of the Feds
21 December 2015 (
Germany can open investigation in US torture
Why Germany
Can
and Should
Open an Investigation into US Torture.
20 December 2015 (
30% of Republicans want to bomb Agrabah
30%
of Republicans
want to bomb Agrabah (a fictional medieval Arab
country).
Only around 20% of Democrats want to bomb Agrabah.
20 December 2015 (
Al Jazeera blocks access to an article
Al Jazeera deleted and
blocked
access to an article it had published
, which criticized Salafi
Arabia's disrespect for human rights.
Here is
the
article
20 December 2015 (
Loss of monkeys and birds
Loss of Monkeys And Birds in Tropical Forests
Driving
Up Carbon Emissions
The problem is that hardwood trees need those animals to disperse
their seeds.
20 December 2015 (
Foreign policy "advice" from a company
A company gives foreign policy "advice" to candidates such as Clinton,
Rubio and Cruz, led and
funded
by companies in the military-industrial complex
The company says this is not lobbying, but that's what it adds up to.
It looks like Sanders is not interested in their "advice".
20 December 2015 (
Martin Shkreli resigns after arrest
Martin Shkreli, whose company Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price
of Dataprim and blocked companies from making generic drugs, has
resigned after being
arrested
on charges of fraud
in his previous company.
I wonder whether the new management will reduce the price. But either
way his practices of blocking other companies from making generic
equivalents should be made illegal.
20 December 2015 (
Complaints filed against thugs
The Los Angeles Thug Department
investigated
over 1300 claims of bias in 2012-2014
, and judged
not one
of them valid.
Either LA
thugs
are remarkably free of bias, far beyond what humans
would be capable of, or they are protecting each other.
A study of complaints filed against Chicago
thugs
found that
10%
of the thugs got 30% of the complaints
These
thugs
can influence the behavior of other thugs, so it is
important to get rid of them.
Most
thugs
don't beat up or kill without justification, but nearly all
of them will protect other
thugs
that do so. That's why they
generally deserve the name of "
thug
".
Those few who refuse to protect
the violent thugs are the ones who merit the title of
police officer
".
20 December 2015 (
Municipal broadband
SCROTUS
, working to help pricey US ISPs, are
pressuring
the FCC to give up on defending municipal broadband
in the US.
SCROTUS
= Sleazy Congressional Republicans Of The United States.
20 December 2015 (
Girls rescued from FGM in Kenya
Kenyan [
thugs
] Rescue
Hundreds
of Girls Due to Undergo FGM
When I call them "
thugs
",
that doesn't mean everything the thugs do is
bad. It means that occasionally one of them kills someone unjustly
and the rest then try to protect that one.
20 December 2015 (
Nuclear industry waste in Subarnarekha river
India's nuclear industry dumps waste into the Subarnarekha river,
making its water
unsafe
to drink
20 December 2015 (
Don't binge on news about a tragedy
Recommendation:
don't
binge on news about a tragedy
20 December 2015 (
Gun control
The San Bernardino shooters used
large
magazines that are illegal to sell in California
It's not hard to buy them in some other state, perhaps Arizona or
Nevada, and bring them illegally to California. However, if they were
illegal in the whole US, it would really be hard to get them.
The guns were also
modified
illegally so they could fire faster
Those intending to commit murder will not be deterred by fear of
punishment for doing these modifications, but the law could require
designs that make this more difficult to do.
20 December 2015 (
Plain cigarette pack law survives attack
Australia's plain paper cigarette pack law
survived
an attack through a "trade treaty"
This is good news, but many good laws and policies have been destroyed
by these
business-supremacy treaties
, most recently US
country-of-origin
meat labelling
We should get rid of all such treaties.
20 December 2015 (
Congress's budget bill
Congress's budget bill includes
tax
breaks for some big businesses
20 December 2015 (
Global heating damaging lakes
Global heating
is
damaging
lakes around the world
20 December 2015 (
Charter schools forced into Philadelphia
Pennsylvania has passed a law to
force
charter schools into Philadelphia
Charter schools
do
not, in general, provide a better education
but they are great for
profiteering
at public expense
20 December 2015 (
Investigation of UK thug who shot a man
thug
in the UK is
being
investigated
for shooting a man; some say the victim was sleeping
in his car.
As usual,
thugs
are organizing to demand an end to the investigation.
19 December 2015 (
Urgent: Free human rights defender
US citizens:
call
on Obama and Congress
to press for release of human rights
defender Waleed Abu al-Khair, imprisoned by
Salafi Arabia
The country's official name is "Saudi Arabia", but that disguises its
nasty nature.
19 December 2015 (
Snooping cameras with "Facewatch"
"Facewatch" connects snooping cameras in stores to a
blacklist
of faces
We need to abolish this system; I believe it
should
be illegal for anyone to operate cameras in this way
, including
the state, except following a court order to put a camera in a certain
place for a certain period.
19 December 2015 (
Urgent: Disconnect from corrupting funding
Everyone:
Call on George
Mason University
to disconnect from the Koch brothers' corrupting
funding.
19 December 2015 (
Urgent: Clean energy tax incentives
US citizens:
call
on your congresscritter
to renew clean energy tax incentives.
19 December 2015 (
China's president wants help with censorship
The President of China
wants
countries to organize
to censor the internet.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
19 December 2015 (
UK's "bedroom tax"
The UK's "bedroom tax", a cut in benefits for disabled or unemployed
living in apartments judged to have an extra room,
has
pressured lots of people to skimp on food
, but few have moved to
smaller apartments.
That's partly because few smaller apartments are available in the
areas where these people live. Also, some disabled people couldn't
move to an apartment without room for the relatives that take care of
them.
The right-wing government won't mind this outcome. The policy was
meant as an excuse to squeeze the weak, and it has succeeded at that.
19 December 2015 (
Increasing prosecutions in Thailand
As the Thai king gets older and less able, the military is trying to
prop up the royal family's image by
prosecuting
more people
19 December 2015 (
Press ignores Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders Is More Popular Than Trump, But
the
Press Ignores Him
19 December 2015 (
Thugs attack peaceful protesters
Thugs
inexplicably
attacked peaceful protesters
who were responding to the mistrial
of a
thug
involved in Freddie Gray's death.
19 December 2015 (
CWA endorses Sanders
The Communications Workers of America
endorsed
Sanders for president
19 December 2015 (
When thugs are suspected of crimes
When
thugs
are suspected of crimes, they get
better
treatment than everyone else
19 December 2015 (
Global heating screwing up agriculture
Global heating
has
changed
the seasons
in Haiti, screwing up agriculture.
19 December 2015 (
Brazil blocks access to WhatsApp
A court in Brazil
blocked
all access to WhatsApp for 48 hours
WhatsApp requires running a nonfree program, which is a foolish thing
to do; you are making a mistake if you use it. It also involves a
server that will snoop on you for Big Brother. Still, it is wrong for
Brazil to forbid connections to that server.
19 December 2015 (
Hottest year ever recorded
Forecast:
2016
will be the hottest year ever recorded
, beating the previous
record from 2015.
19 December 2015 (
Christian extremists' war on women
How far do Christianist extremists take their
war
on women
when nobody stops them?
19 December 2015 (
Salafi Arabia to execute protester
Salafi Arabia
is
planning
to execute protester Abdullah al-Zaher
, who was 15 years old at
the time, after torturing him into confessing to various crimes.
18 December 2015 (
Why MIT must support student hackers
Star Simpson tells MIT why it must provide support for students who
make harmless technological hacks and are treated to
witch
hunts by panicking ignorant fools
18 December 2015 (
UK's supposed CO
reduction pledge
The UK is implementing its supposed CO
reduction pledge by
reducing
subsidies for solar power
. Just not reducing them as much as was
initially proposed.
In 6 months they will make another reduction.
18 December 2015 (
Burundi
Burundi
On
'Very Cusp' of Civil Conflict
, Warns UN Human Rights Chief.
18 December 2015 (
Overstating efficiency of light bulbs
Lightbulb manufacturers have found an
excuse
to overstate the efficiency
of their bulbs.
18 December 2015 (
"Terrorist" postings or messages
Senate
proposes
to require communications companies to report "terrorist" postings or
messages
(not merely actual threats) threaten human rights, and
companies would have a lot of trouble doing so.
I fear also that only companies that mistreat their users in other
ways will make enough money to be able to hire people to carry this
out.
18 December 2015 (
Extreme overprotection of children
Americans in general have an extreme overprotective attitude towards
allowing children even to
play
in the front yard
. Most Americans think children under 10 are too
young.
This is the effect of massive publicity about dangers that are
very
rare
I suspect this overprotection will tend to make children feel
smothered as well as making them timid.
The requirement to supervise children without a break, and the need to
bring them everywhere they are to go, imposes tremendous stress and
expense on parents. When I was 7 years old, I walked home from
school, used my keys to go in, and amused myself till my mother got
home from work. She did not have to pay for "child care" — I
knew how to read and play without adult help.
I support Sanders's proposal to
tax
the rich more to fund day care
. But we can eliminate a
substantial fraction of the expense by teaching parents that children
don't need to stay in day care for so many years.
18 December 2015 (
Republicans organizing for Sanders
Some Republicans, fed up with plutocracy, are
organizing
for Sanders
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
Interviews
with some of them.
Sanders talks about his
support
among Republicans
18 December 2015 (
Ukraine bans Communist Party
Ukraine has infringed political rights by
banning
the Communist Party
and even the word "communist".
18 December 2015 (
UK leaves big tax evaders alone
The UK is
cracking
down on people that evade small amounts of taxes
while leaving the
big tax evaders alone.
However, the tax dodging that governments choose to permit is
even
bigger
Under plutocratist governments, the purpose of taxes is to serve the
rich and crush the rest.
18 December 2015 (
Congresscritters work for Google
Google funded some congressional campaigns, and the congresscritters
elected performed for Google by
supporting
Google against an EU legal investigation
about abuse of its market
position.
18 December 2015 (
Avoiding global heating disaster
We are making a mistake, relying on some mysterious
"progress"
to save Earth from
global heating
disaster.
Avoiding heating disaster requires a
mobilization
comparable to what would be made for a large war
18 December 2015 (
Congress surrenders to the WTO
Congress used the budget bill as an excuse to surrender to the WTO:
it
voted
to eliminated country-of-origin meat labeling
Don't pretend that Congress would have the courage to defy the TPP.
17 December 2015 (
NSA's register of Americans' phone calls
Senator Cruz suggested that the NSA's register of Americans' phone
calls may actually have
increased
under the misnamed "USA Freedom Act"
Apparently he was not supposed to let us know this.
17 December 2015 (
Tories rigging electoral system
The Tories are rigging the UK's political and electoral system
to
eliminate the possibility of resistance
17 December 2015 (
Prosecution for coat hanger abortion
Tennessee's
prosecution
of a woman for a coat hanger abortion
is the armored unit at the
point of the war on women.
17 December 2015 (
iThings
"Is my iPhone listening to me?" An iPhone seems to have
heard a user's
conversation about where person was going
, and added it to the
user's profile for some Apple service.
The iPhone, like any other mobile phone, tells Big Brother where you
are. Your private destination will be known to the phone network (and
Big Brother) when you get there. Meanwhile, just about all mobile
phones can be made to listen to
all
the conversation around
them, and send it to whoever did this. This is why I call them
"Stalin's dream". Either of these is so vicious that I refuse to
carry one.
However, that snooping doesn't send data to Apple. The possible
listening feature reported here would enable Apple, also, to listen to
conversations around the device.
The iThings are full of nonfree software; Apple controls the software,
and the users don't. You
can
never rationally trust a nonfree program
. Whether or not they
have a functionality that listens for Apple, the device is
full of
malware
A listening functionality would be the sort of thing you must expect,
whether or not it is present now.
17 December 2015 (
Australian equivalent of SWAT
The Australian equivalent of a SWAT team
terrified
13-year-old April Clarke
after they woke her by pointing a bright
light and a gun at her.
17 December 2015 (
Sharif Mobley still alive
Sharif Mobley is apparently still alive, and has been
sentenced
to 10 years in prison
for (reportedly) shooting a prison guard.
17 December 2015 (
Congress trying legalize export of crude
The US Congress is trying to boost
global heating
by legalizing
export
of crude oil
17 December 2015 (
"Reform" for corporate criminals
The Koch brothers sponsor
"criminal
justice reform" for corporate criminals
17 December 2015 (
FTC fails to block mergers
The Federal Trade Commission could block mergers, but Obama's director
of the Bureau of Competition
hardly
ever tries
This is one thing President Sanders could fix on his own.
17 December 2015 (
Republicans propose war crimes
Republicans
propose
war crimes
as a response to PISSI.
You almost might as well join
PISSI
, if you're going to do that.
17 December 2015 (
Stand against sexist insults
Let's stand together against
sexist
insults on social media
I am against limiting freedom of speech, but there is a lot we can do
without going that far.
17 December 2015 (
"Moderate Syrian forces"
The idea of recruiting support from "moderate Syrian forces" is based
on
oversimplification
and confusion
17 December 2015 (
Record High Arctic Temperatures
Record High Arctic Temperatures in 2015
Having
'Profound Effects' on Region
17 December 2015 (
Bernie Sanders beating all Republicans
The subtle way some oppose Bernie Sanders is by trying to convince us
that he can't win — contrary to the polls that show him
beating
all the Republicans
If you would rather have Sanders as president than Clinton,
you should campaign now for Sanders. The worst that can happen
is that Clinton wins the nomination anyway.
17 December 2015 (
Secret trial and gag order
The UK convicted Wang Yam of murder in a secret trial, and has now
forbidden
him to take the case to the European Court of Justice
. He is also
gagged.
17 December 2015 (
Baltimore thugs preparing for repression
Baltimore's
thugs
are
preparing
for repression
when verdicts are announced in the trial of the
thugs
involved in killing Freddie Gray.
17 December 2015 (
Renewable energy roadmaps
We have roadmaps for
providing
the world's power needs with renewable energy
; don't heed the
naysayers.
17 December 2015 (
Urgent: Trump's campaign
US citizens: call on Republican leaders to say they
won't
support
Trump's campaign if he wins the Republican nomination.
17 December 2015 (
Urgent: military force against PISSI
US citizens: call on Congress to vote on an
authorization
for using military force against PISSI.
17 December 2015 (
Thug that killed Darrius Stewart
Witnesses
say
that the thug that killed Darrius Stewart
misrepresented the circumstances of firing the fatal shot;
Stewart was moving away, not threatening the
thug
If
the rest of the
thug
's
story is correct, the thug had just
had a need to defend himself. People cannot digest new information in
a fraction of a second. Perhaps he had no time to consciously digest
the fact that Stewart had started to flee, before firing the second
shot.
17 December 2015 (
Foam for extinguishing oil fires
Foam for extinguishing oil fires contains
toxic
chemicals
; in some towns these have contaminated the drinking water and cause cancer.
17 December 2015 (
Questioning assumption that Qur'an has to be obeyed
Some
Muslims
are questioning the assumption that the Qur'an has to be obeyed.
17 December 2015 (
Prisoners of Assad's forces
Human Rights Watch says
7000
prisoners
of Assad's forces were executed or died after torture.
17 December 2015 (
Different interpretation of Islam
Sudan plans to
execute
25 people for following a different interpretation of Islam.
Shari'a law is an offense against human rights; any state that adopts it is doing an
injustice
17 December 2015 (
UK general election
A Tory claimed that
Obama
sent help
so that the Tory party would win the UK general election.
Obama is a moderate Republican (they used to exist) in the Democratic
Party. That's why I never voted for him.
17 December 2015 (
American Red Cross
The American Red Cross picked up new management from AT&T, which
has "rationalized" the organization with
disastrous results
17 December 2015 (
Comcast hit with $26M penalty
Comcast Hit With
$26M
Penalty
For Dumping Hazardous Waste AND Revealing Personal Customer Info.
17 December 2015 (
Rate of death sentences
The death penalty remains legal in many US states, but the rate of death sentences has fallen by
almost
a factor of 10
since the 1990s.
17 December 2015 (
Threat to privacy
Sites that ask people to give data about their friends are a
fiendish
threat to privacy
17 December 2015 (
Hoax bomb threats
Los
Angeles and New York City
both got hoax bomb threats.
Los Angeles sent all the children home that day, whereas
New York figured out it was a hoax.
Do real bombers
ever
give advance warning?
Aren't these threats invariably hoaxes?
17 December 2015 (
Jews that attacked Palestinians
For once, Israel has treated Jews that attacked Palestinians as
real criminals.
17 December 2015 (
Lexmark workers in Mexico
Lexmark has fired the leaders of a union in Mexico;
the
workers are on strike
demanding a raise of 35 cents an hour.
17 December 2015 (
Abortions at home
Between
100,000
and 250,000
Texas women have done abortions at home, nearly always with drugs.
17 December 2015 (
Bangladesh banned Twitter
Bangladesh has banned Twitter, as well as
many
other
digital communications media.
17 December 2015 (
Iranian missile test
The UN concluded an Iranian missile test
violated
the nuclear agreement
17 December 2015 (
State-imposed bankruptcy government
State-imposed bankruptcy government in Flint, Michigan, switched to
taking municipal water from the polluted Flint River as a measure to
save money, and refused to acknowledge that it was contaminated with
lead. The new mayor of Flint has declared an emergency and residents
are going to
sue the state
The city has moved back to another source of water, but this is too late
for all the young children of Flint.
17 December 2015 (
"Real name" policy
Facebook relaxed its "real name" policy, but only for people who are being harassed for
certain
specific reasons
This relieves a very specific acute problem, but does not enable ordinary
people to use Facebook without being tracked.
16 December 2015 (
Urgent: Reject budget bill riders
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to vote against the budget
authorization bill if it has
any
riders that change policies
. Whether the changes are for big oil,
for snooping, against Planned Parenthood or against meat labeling,
reject them!
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.
16 December 2015 (
Coat hanger abortions
Women in some US states have been
forced
back to using coat hangers
16 December 2015 (
Investigation of Brazilian politicians
Major Brazilian politicians are
being
investigated for corruption
16 December 2015 (
Poland's new right-wing gov't
Poland's newly elected right-wing government is
trying
to seize extra power
by replacing the supreme court.
16 December 2015 (
Danger of accidental nuclear war
William Perry, Bill Clinton's secretary of defense, warns of a new
nuclear arms race and the danger of
accidental
nuclear war
16 December 2015 (
T-Mobile violating Net Neutrality
T-Mobile in the US seems to be clearly
violating
Net Neutrality rules
16 December 2015 (
Life in prison for attempting abortion
A woman in Tennessee
faces
life in prison
for trying to give herself a late term abortion.
I wonder why she did not get an early, safe abortion? Has Tennessee
taken measures to make this so inconvenient that she gave up on it?
16 December 2015 (
DuPont-Dow merger
The DuPont-Dow merger
would
create another seed sales giant
, like Monsanto.
16 December 2015 (
Journalists jailed in Egypt
Egypt Jails
Record
Number of Journalists
(23 as of December 1).
16 December 2015 (
Recording thugs
Spanish journalists will ask the European Court of Human Rights to
overturn the
law
that prohibits photos and videos of thugs
, [del: even ] especially
when they are at their worst.
16 December 2015 (
Decline of Britain's butterfly species
3/4 of Britain's butterfly species have declined, some very much,
in
the last 40 years
. This indicates that many other insect species,
less beloved by humans, have probably declined too — adding up
to an ecological calamity.
16 December 2015 (
School tells boy to cover up shirt
A school in California told a boy to cover up his Star Wars t-shirt
because
it showed a fictional character holding a gun
It may be a reasonable policy to exclude symbols of violence from the
classroom, not because someone else was shot, but rather to avoid
promoting militarism. It could also be a wise policy to prohibit
shirts with commercial advertising, which this was.
Note that they did not punish the boy. US schools punish students for
absurd reasons, even get them jailed, and that is a very harmful
practice; but it did not happen in this case.
16 December 2015 (
Ted Cruz's global heating denialism
Ted Cruz bases his
global heating
denialism on
simple,
clear lies
. Then he attacks the complex solution of regulation,
ignoring the market-based simple solution, a carbon tax.
16 December 2015 (
Muslim scholar defends freedom of speech
A Muslim scholar
defends
the freedom of speech of a Christian preacher
who is being
prosecuted — in the UK — for saying Islam is "Satanic".
Islam has bad aspects, like Christianity and other major religions,
but I would not apply the term "Satanic" to it. Nonetheless, I defend
other people's right to do that.
16 December 2015 (
Algorithms derived from "big data"
Algorithms derived from "big data"
can
come to implement racial discrimination
because the data reflect
the results of discrimination.
The article takes a foolish, naive attitude to companies that collect
data about people, in effect believing their claims that they use it
only
to "serve you better", and neglecting the danger that it
becomes available to others such as crackers and Big Brother. But
even though they ignore the principal injustices of collecting data
about you, their point about another injustice in the use of the data
is important.
16 December 2015 (
Mexican newspapers
Drug trafficking gangs
order
Mexican newspapers what to say
about drug issues.
16 December 2015 (
"Sarcastic" statement a crime in Thailand
In Thailand, even a
"sarcastic"
statement about the king's dog
is a crime.
Don't go to Thailand unless you have an urgent mission for some very
good cause.
16 December 2015 (
The Paris commitments
Claim No Easy Victories. Paris Was a Failure, But
Climate Justice Movement Is Rising
Is it rising faster than the temperature?
If the world takes them seriously, the Paris commitments could
shrink
the fossil fuel industry
and avoid global disaster.
But the fossil fuel industry is still strong and still working to stop
governments from carrying out those commitments properly.
16 December 2015 (
"Criminal insult" charge
An MP in Zimbabwe faces
charges
of "criminal insult"
against strongman Mugabe's wife.
16 December 2015 (
DRM in "smart" lightbulbs
Now DRM is in
"smart"
lightbulbs
If a product is "smart", and you didn't build it, it is cleverly
serving its manufacturer
against you
16 December 2015 (
DEA database of phone calls
The DEA reported to a judge that it has
erased
its massive database of phone calls made within the US
However,
when
phone companies keep these records for the DEA
, that is almost as
bad.
16 December 2015 (
Planted drugs
Some Alabama
thugs
planted drugs on a thousand black men
to put them
in prison. They were motivated by racism.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
16 December 2015 (
Fact-checking
Republicans have learned to make fact-checking useless: when their
claims are shown to be false,
they repeat the claims
and accuse the
media of a cover-up.
Dubya and his men did this
in regard to Saddam Hussein's nonexistent
weapons of mass distruction, and they convinced a lot of Americans.
I am surprised by the idea that CNN is "liberal." I have no TV, but
from everything I have heard, CNN is rather right-wing.
16 December 2015 (
Still Illegal
Obama's Speech
Reminded Americans
That the War with [PISSI] Is Still
Illegal.
16 December 2015 (
Designed to be addictive
If you "can't put down" a mobile device, that's because it was
designed
to be addictive
16 December 2015 (
Emissions tax
Sanders has endorsed a carbon emissions tax.
This is the way to
let the market decide just how and where
to reduce
emissions.
16 December 2015 (
Antisocialist opposition
The
antisocialist opposition won the election
in Venezuela.
People were very unhappy with the shortages, which were caused by
foolish government policies; for instance, subsidies for the prices of
certain foods, which encouraged people to smuggle them into Colombia,
and currency exchange controls.
I fear that the
antisocialists
will eliminate the programs that Chavez
set up for education and medical care. Subsidizing food for the poor
is necessary, and the problems come from the system that the
socialists set upl but I expect the
antisocialists
to end the
subsidies so as to make life hard for the non-rich.
16 December 2015 (
Food supply
Humans' food supply is
dangerously biologically concentrated
three-quarters of our food comes from 12 species of plants and five of
animals,
What's more, the number of different varieties of the plant species
is decreasing.
16 December 2015 (
Question what they are told
The UK says that children who question what they are told, or
criticize
government policy,
are terrorist suspects
16 December 2015 (
Left destitute
Many prisoners in the US are left destitute when they get out of
prison
because
the state sues them for just about everything they have got
or even more.
If this happened to me, I'd withdraw the money as cash and toss it
onto a street, just to spite the state.
16 December 2015 (
Pointing a gun
thug
has been convicted of a felony for pointing a gun at a man's
head. The man had done nothing to warrant attention; the
thug
was
showing off how much power he had
16 December 2015 (
Five San Francisco thugs
Five San Francisco thugs shot Mario Woods dead.
They said he had a
knife and wouldn't drop it — though he made no move to attack
them.
Maybe he did have one.
If I were in that situation, I might be in real danger, even if I were
holding a gun — since I have no training, skill or experience in
such a confrontation. However if five
thugs
with pointed guns think
they are in danger from a man with a knife at his side, they must be
incompetent.
16 December 2015 (
Richest 20 Americans
The richest 20 Americans
own more than half the population
To spread the wealth, vote for progressives.
16 December 2015 (
Constitutional convention
Right-wing groups are 7 states away
from triggering a constitutional
convention that could rewrite the US Constitution in unpredictable
ways.
16 December 2015 (
Sabotage efforts
The
TPP would sabotage efforts to curb global heating
in several ways.
This is a natural consequence of the way it was drawn up. For each
area of business, the US government asked the companies in that area
what they wanted. The fossil fuel companies asked for policies that
will help them.
Fundamentally, control of greenhouse gas emissions is good for the
people, so it's what democracy will do if it works right.
The TPP is a business-supremacy treaty with some secondary support
for unregulated trade. What these treaties do is weaken democracy
and give business more power.
16 December 2015 (
Contraceptive prescriptions
The
states of Washington and California
will allow most women to get
contraceptive prescriptions from pharmacists, without seeing a doctor
first.
16 December 2015 (
Urgent: Investigate Exxon
US citizens:
call
on the attorney general
to investigate Exxon.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
15 December 2015 (
Tunisia represses homosexuals
Tunisia, despite being more or less democratic,
represses
homosexuals
15 December 2015 (
Canadian mining companies
Canadian mining companies operating in Latin America often
trash
the environment and the rights of local inhabitants
15 December 2015 (
Inaction of US Fish and Wildlife Service
The US Fish and Wildlife Service takes action extremely rarely to
protect endangered species. Out of 88,000 proposed projects, the
F&WS approved all of them, and
took
action in just two cases
15 December 2015 (
Municipal broadband networks
Marco Rubio is trying to serve the large US ISPs by
banning
municipal broadband networks
15 December 2015 (
Foreign intervention in Yemen
The foreign intervention in Yemen, led by
Salafi Arabia
(*) and backed
by the US, suffered a setback:
commanders
of the ground troops were killed by Houthis
* I refer to Saudi Arabia this way to highlight how it spreads an
extreme and cruel version of Islam around the world.
15 December 2015 (
Shrimp peeled by slaves
Shrimp exported from Thailand to major multinational front companies
are
often
peeled by slaves
15 December 2015 (
India to continue burning lots of coal
India will make the Paris agreement futile by
continuing
to burn lots of coal
The UK will do likewise if the Tories continue
their
fossil-fool policies
15 December 2015 (
Urgent: Clear labels on GMO foods
US citizens: phone your senators at 1-877-796-1949 to demand
clear, transparent labels on
GMO food
— not QR codes.
15 December 2015 (
Urgent: Stop big pharma's tax dodging
US citizens:
tell
Congress
to stop big pharma's tax dodging.
15 December 2015 (
Democratic Syrian local councils
Some Syrian rebels have set up
democratic
local councils
: dictatorship and theocracy are not the only
options.
15 December 2015 (
The Paris deal
One advance in the Paris deal:
emissions
of armies are now counted
15 December 2015 (
Operation Ceasefire
An effective method of reducing gun violence by gangs is
no
longer in use in the US
because nobody will pay for it.
15 December 2015 (
Global heating deniers lose battle
The
Paris agreement
signals that deniers have lost the climate wars."
Their agents in many governments and institutions are still sabotaging
real progress, but they have lost the battle for society's overall
direction. It was inevitable that would happen once the effects of
global heating
became sufficiently visible. Thus, what they intended
was a delaying action.
Did they succeed enough to cause the slow destruction of human
civilization and Earth's biosphere? Time will tell.
15 December 2015 (
The NRA
Inside
the NRA
: the Officials Keeping Gun Control Laws Off the US Agenda.
Some of their lobbying is done through
disguised
relationships
14 December 2015 (
Urgent: discrimination in car loans
US citizens:
call
on GM
to oppose plans to legalize discrimination in car loans.
14 December 2015 (
License-plate recognition cameras
Free software turns mobile devices into
license-plate
recognition cameras
I've proposed that it should be illegal for
anyone
to set up
a license-plate recognition camera pointing at a public place except
with a specific court order.
14 December 2015 (
Encryption back doors to catch terrorists
Accusing governments of
lying
when
they say that they want encryption back doors to catch terrorists.
14 December 2015 (
"Energy U-turn"
The UK needs to make an "energy U-turn" to satisfy its
Paris
commitments
14 December 2015 (
"Saving" Greece
European
banksters
rather than show Greeks the full extent of what
they demand for "saving" Greece, are imposing it a step at a time.
But Greeks are threatening to
protest
and bring down the government.
14 December 2015 (
Syriac Christian women
Syriac Christian Women Take Up Kalashnikovs to
Fight
PISSI
Bravo!
14 December 2015 (
Climate deal: the pistol has fired
Climate Deal: the Pistol Has Fired,
So
Why aren't We Running?
14 December 2015 (
Nigeria proposing to censor internet
Nigeria is proposing to censor internet communication, making it a
crime to post
"false
information"
. That tends to mean information that the state
doesn't like.
14 December 2015 (
Legacy of death
US Nuclear Weapons Complex Leaves
'Legacy
of Death on American Soil'
14 December 2015 (
Torture of Shaker Aamer
Shaker Aamer rebukes extremists and terrorists, telling them
to
leave the UK if they don't love it.
He's
not alone
Aamer accuses
Tony B'liar
and other UK officials of knowing about his
torture, during which
UK
agents were present
14 December 2015 (
Keep on laughing at Trump
Don't
Ban Donald Trump
. Just Keep on Laughing at Him.
14 December 2015 (
Local councils in Salafi Arabia
17 women have been elected to local councils in
Salafi Arabia
overcoming the tremendous handicaps imposed by that country's
sexist
laws
However, these councils do not even theoretically offer women a path
to changing the laws that oppress them.
Islamic law is fundamentally opposed to human rights, and deserves to
be considered a gross injustice.
14 December 2015 (
Less disposable income
British companies
make
more money
than 15 years ago, and workers have less disposable
income than 15 years ago.
This is
dooH niboR
at work.
14 December 2015 (
Charter schools in the US
Charter schools in the US provide an avenue for private owners get
public money for their
private
businesses
I suppose that's why so many local and state policies to encourage
charter schools were set up: due to pressure from the businesses that
intended to enrich themselves.
Since charter schools do not in general provide a better education
(this supposed benefit was the ostensible reason for them), we should
phase them out. Creating them was a mistake, and those policies were
a mistake.
14 December 2015 (
Raqqa and Mosul are prisons
People living in Raqqa and Mosul say they are now
simply
prisons
Can't they find any guns, any knives, any suicide bombs
with which to kill the
PISSI
militants?
13 December 2015 (
Urgent: Repudiate bigotry
US citizens:
repudiate
Trump's bigotry.
13 December 2015 (
Sweden will finally question Assange
Sweden
will
finally question Assange
about the sex charges against him.
Assange and Ecuador both said years ago that they would
let
Swedish officials question him in the embassy
. Swedish
prosecutors have dragged their feet in a way that confirms that they
are not really interested in justice on these charges, rather using
them as an excuse.
The acts that Assange is accused of doing are
not
"rape" as the term is normally used
. Swedish law is more strict
than in most countries.
13 December 2015 (
Altered history of fiscal crisis
Clinton
uses
an altered history of the fiscal crisis
to excuse her opposition
to the reforms that are really necessary, such as restoring the
Glass-Steagall act.
I read previously that Bill Clinton had no real choice about the
repeal of Glass-Steagall, because it was passed with a
veto-proof
majority
. But this does not excuse anyone from the duty to fight
to bring it back.
13 December 2015
Chat program
A new chat program
tries
to provide privacy
about who is talking with whom.
I'm not an encryption expert, and I can't judge whether it provides
good security.
13 December 2015
Inequality
Inequality
Is Now Killing
[people in] Middle America.
13 December 2015
TPP
How the TPP
Will
Affect You and Your Digital Rights
(if it goes into effect).
13 December 2015
Syria
After some rebels evacuated al-Waer, in Homs,
others
have made
a cease fire with Assad's rule.
13 December 2015
Poland
Poles
held
a large protest
against the recently elected right-wing government
which seems to be trying to twist the constitution.
13 December 2015
1.5C of global heating
With 1.5C of
global heating
the Seychelles may still exist. 2C of
global heating
will
probably inundate
the flat coastal parts of the islands.
They would still have the mountainous inland areas, but couldn't grow
any food there.
13 December 2015
Cell-site simulators
Government, Can You Hear Me Now?
Cell-site
Simulators
Aren't Secret Anymore.
13 December 2015
Bernie Sanders
A number of interesting
points
about
Bernie Sanders.
If Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, I won't vote for her.
She's a plutocratist, part of the problem rather than the solution.
If
we
keep voting for the lesser plutocratist
our government will get more and more plutocratist. I will vote
Green.
I support Sanders because he's not just a lesser evil. He's good.
13 December 2015
Climate
"Until governments undertake to keep fossil fuels in the ground, they
will
continue to undermine agreement
they have just made."
13 December 2015
Atheists in Lincoln
Atheists in Lincoln, Nebraska,
booked
all the exhibition space
in the state capitol building so that no
sectarian exhibit can be presented about Christmas.
It is not right to promote a religion in a state capitol building. It
is also not right to censor any view by cornering the market on places
to present it, but the atheists didn't do that. There must be plenty
of places in Lincoln, outside the capitol, where manger displays for
Christmas can be set up — churches, for instance.
13 December 2015
Paris climate deal
The
main
points
of the deal agreed in Paris.
Paris climate agreement 'may signal end of fossil fuel era',
according
to optimists.
This agreement could very well start a process leading towards truly
curbing
global heating
. I fear
we
can't afford to lose
that time in getting started. The agreement
will still raise global temperatures 3 to 4 degrees centigrade. The
problem is,
it
involves "no action, just promises"
. When a country adopts a
long-term emissions target without policies that will realize it, it
may never adopt suitable policies. By the time the target is not met,
it is too late.
13 December 2015
France's "states of emergency"
France's constitution
may
be changed
to support long-term repressive "states of emergency".
13 December 2015
Unhappiness
Some
research
suggests that unhappiness does not predispose people to illness.
There are distinct questions here:
Factual: does being unhappy tend to cause other sorts of harm
to you?
Moral: is unhappiness something unfortunate that happens to you,
or is it wrong on your part?
The research suggests that the answer to (1) is no. That's fortunate,
for unhappy people. But whatever the answer to (1) is, it does not
mean that being unhappy is blameworthy. If there is no ethical,
reliable way to decide to be happy, then your unhappiness is no more
your fault than an injury or a birth defect.
13 December 2015
H-1B visas
Senator Cruz
is
proposing
to block companies from using H1B visas to bring foreign
workers to the US temporarily for training.
It is a good cause, but his solution operates by closing off H-1B
visas except for very highly paid jobs. I think the solution should
more directly address the problem.
I propose that any company or division hiring H-1B workers should be
forbidden to eliminate any US jobs for the next two years, unless it
has suffered a big drop in gross sales, or to move any work out of the
US or to a subcontractor during that time. Fines for violations
should be very high.
Also, workers who are told to train their successors (and then be
fired) should refuse to train them, or quit immediately. Resisting
oppression calls for some guts.
13 December 2015
Spying companies
Making tech companies spy on their users for the state
is
unamerican, and useless too
An issue not mentioned here is, which criterion is used to define
terrorism? Do attacks on abortion clinics count? They ought to, but
so far the US government is not treating them as terrorism.
13 December 2015
Moral Failure of Computer Scientists
The
Moral Failure of Computer Scientists
: an interview with Phillip
Rogaway.
Perhaps we need a Bulletin of the Information Scientists.
13 December 2015
PISSI
PISSI
seduces naive youths
by
offering a cause and a community
to people who feel that no one
takes them seriously.
13 December 2015
New system for work
It would be good to
change
legally required pension schemes
so that they are not connected
with any particular employer.
The article's picture of the "future of work" shows distortions. "An
algorithm matches you with a gig that optimizes your income
opportunity"? Not likely. Rather, it will optimize the income of the
company that runs it, as it accumulates data about you that it will
sell to someone.
Will you be able to decide when to work? Maybe in theory,
but in practice you'll find out at 08:00 that you have to work
for 4 hours from 11:00 to 15:00 or go without.
13 December 2015
Reliable gene editing
Now that reliable gene editing has been developed, it will certainly
be used to
eliminate
hereditary diseases
. To deny people this remedy would
be too cruel.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
I don't think it is bad in principle to make enhancements using this
technology. However, designing an enhanced human that doesn't already
exist is not as straightforward as replacing a defective gene with its
normal counterpart. Until a number of people with a certain supposed
enhancement grow up, we won't know whether the change is an
enhancement or an impediment.
13 December 2015
CO2 emissions
The carbon emissions commitments of some countries
are
so weak that their emissions will keep increasing
. What should we
do about this?
Since this is about avoiding global disaster, the response implicitly
proposed in the article (Just give up) is stupid. What we really need
to do is make those countries reduce emissions.
Given the hundreds of millions of deaths this disaster is likely to
cause globally, emitting too much carbon is an act of war. It would
be justified to bomb coal-burning power plants to stop their
emissions, if nothing less can do the job.
13 December 2015
Artificial gene drives
Artificial gene drives
make
it possible to modify entire wild populations of organisms
that
reproduce sexually and don't take long to mature. For instance, we
could modify wild mosquitoes so that they can't carry malaria. We
could wipe out populations of invasive species, such as zebra mussels
or asian carp in the US.
Because it is possible to remove the drive later, if any of the
drive-harboring asian carp got back to Asia where these fish normally
live, we could easily eliminate the drive to protect the species in
the range where it belongs.
13 December 2015
Images generator site taken down
A web site that generated images in the style of handwritten signs
used in the London subway ("Underground")
was
taken down
at the request of the subway. The subway said the site
was being used to generate racist signs and presented this as legal
grounds for censorship. Racist messages are nasty, but it's wrong to
shut down a medium of communication just because some people used it
communicate nasty messages. The UK does not respect freedom of speech
enough, but I hope that this demand was not legally enforceable
there.
would
have refused all along to use a web site to generate parody signs
because doing such a job using someone else's service is SaaSS
(Service as a Software Substitute).
Any digital service automatically gives the service operator power
over its users. This service's operator demonstrated that power when
he shut it down, thus stopping people from making any more signs no
matter what the messages. In addition, users could not freely alter
any aspects of how the service worked, except those for which it
offered explicit settings. The service controlled that too.
The right way to make these sign images, or do any computing job that
involves you alone, is with a free program you run in your own
computer. That way, the program's author does not subsequently have
power over the users once they get copies.
If the developer had released a free program to do this, he would not
have been able to "shut it down" on demand.
13 December 2015
Addiction to video
Young children are getting addicted to video
to
the point that they don't experience much real social
interaction
13 December 2015 (
Growth of racist hate groups in the US
Trump's bigotry is
encouraging
the growth of racist hate groups
in the US.
13 December 2015 (
Urgent: Oppose restriction of web linking
Everyone:
call on the EU
not to restrict web linking.
13 December 2015 (
Urgent: Pardon Jeffrey Sterling
US citizens:
call
on Obama
to pardon Jeffrey Sterling.
13 December 2015 (
Urgent: Stop forced marriages
Everyone:
call
on Burkina Faso
to save girls from being forced into marriage.
13 December 2015 (
Destroying the Great Barrier Reef
Australia's planet-roaster "environment minister", whose mission is to
trash the environment, demanded to be allowed to speak after a
documentary about the Great Barrier Reef, which will be
destroyed
by CO
emissions
along with all the other coral reefs.
It's not just the heat, it's the
acidity
13 December 2015 (
Chicago Mayor's support for killer thugs
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanual hopes to get away with having supported
killer
thugs
by giving an "apology"
without
admitting he did anything wrong
Emanuel is directly responsible, and
he
should resign
After he is gone, Chicago could have a chance to elect someone who
would be mayor during the daytime. Emanuel is just a night-mayor.
13 December 2015 (
Pakistan's fighting against Taliban
Pakistan's fighting against the Taliban has
pushed
many foreign jihadis into Afghanistan
While this may be difficult for Afghanistan, at least it is a sign of
progress.
13 December 2015 (
Urgent: Oppose arms sale to Salafi Arabia
US citizens:
Reps
and Senators
, oppose sale of arms to Salafi Arabia.
13 December 2015 (
Urgent: Include Syrian Kurds in negotiations
Everyone:
call
for including the Syrian Kurds
in multilateral negotiations about
Syria's future.
13 December 2015 (
Injustice of the "no-fly list"
Rejection of a bill to block gun purchases by people on the "no-fly
list" has called attention to the
injustice
of that list
That list is punishment without trial, and if that's not bad enough,
it is punishment secretly sprung on people after they have spent
hundreds or thousands of dollars on nonrefundable tickets they can't
use. No one lawfully present or resident in the US should be blocked
from riding in US airline flights except as punishment for a crime.
As for people not lawfully present or resident in the US, the
government has the option of denying them entry, which is both more
effective and more legitimate than the no-fly list.
Blocking people from buying guns is more legitimate than blocking
people from flying, so it is ok to do that based on weaker criteria.
However, there are limits to what this can achieve. Blocking a small
list of people will not stop attacks by undetectable small teams. But
perhaps nothing can stop that.
13 December 2015 (
Microbeads banned from soap
The US House of Representatives passed a bill to
ban
microbeads from soap and toothpaste
Microbeads are harmful to marine life, and sewage treatment does not
stop them from
getting
into waterways
13 December 2015 (
Chicago thugs
Chicago
thugs
who
shot
Ronald Johnson dead
say he was carrying a pistol. His mother says
the pistol was planted on him after he was shot.
DA Alvarez, following her
general
tendency
, is protecting the thugs.
Neither of them merits our unreserved trust. The
thugs
could be lying
to excuse their actions. The mother could be saying what she wishes
were true. But the fact that witnesses report that
thugs
told them
what to say suggests that the
thugs
are lying.
12 December 2015
Killings by thugs and tax cuts
Relating
killings by US
thugs
to US tax cuts.
12 December 2015
Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow: don't think of trying to work for the NSA so as to
limit its wrongs. Great heroes
have tried and failed
12 December 2015
Low price of oil
The low price of oil is making most oil extraction projects
unprofitable to invest in. It the price stays low,
it will limit
the oil extracted
to the fraction which is cheap to extract.
That's good, but the low price also reduces the incentive to invest in
renewable energy and increased efficiency. And it tends to encourage
investment in burning oil in the future (though that may take years).
Increased tax on oil, or a carbon tax, would give us the best of both
worlds: the extraction projects would still be unprofitable, while
renewables and efficiency increases would be encouraged.
12 December 2015
US stopped a hunger strike
Demonstrating cruelty, the
US government stopped
a hunger strike in an
immigration prison by threatening to force-feed the prisoners.
Remember that most of these prisoners have not been charged with a
crime, let alone convicted. The US keeps them in prison as
preparation for possibly deporting them. It may be legitimate
to deport them, but that is no excuse for force-feeding them.
12 December 2015
DuPont and Dow Merger
The DuPont and Dow Chemical Merger:
Bad Deal
for People and the Planet.
The merger of two large companies that operate in the same areas
reduces competition in all the areas they both operate in.
Splitting that company according to area of operation does
nothing to increase competition in any one of the areas.
Thus, the overall effect is to reduce competition.
12 December 2015
Pinochet's man
One of General Pinochet's men
phoned a talk show to confess to murdering
dissidents
under orders.
I guess his conscience insisted on this. He said that he would have
been
killed if he refused.
12 December 2015
Turkey
On the politics and irrationality of Western responses to Syria:
"So
Why Did Turkey Shoot Down That Russian Plane
?"
12 December 2015
Oklahoma thug
Oklahoma
thug
convicted
of raping 12 women after intimidating them with
is power to threaten them.
12 December 2015
Airlines and global heating
If Airlines Care About [
global heating
They Should Make Everyone Travel
Economy
12 December 2015
Egypt's censorship
Egypt's censorship
is being applied
repressively to all media.
12 December 2015
UK praises China
The UK is sucking up to China so hard that
it praised China on Human
Rights Day
12 December 2015
Decline of US middle class
Figures
demonstrate the decline
of the US middle class.
12 December 2015
US meat production
US meat production
has decreased
since 2009, but use of antibiotics
in farms has increased by almost 1/4.
We're going to pay with our lives for this folly.
12 December 2015
Third Runway
Never Mind a Third Runway
— What Heathrow Needs Is Managed Decline.
12 December 2015
1.5C as maximum target
1.5C of heating as a maximum target
is a lot safer
for everyone than
2C.
The farther heating goes, the more chance of triggering some positive
feedback which would shove it far above 2C.
12 December 2015
Ohio thug
An Ohio
thug
has been indicted
for two different killings.
12 December 2015
Cuban dissidents
Cuban Dissidents
Say 100 Detained in Human Rights Day Protest
Crackdown.
12 December 2015
Raif Badawi on hunger strike
Jailed
Saudi Blogger Raif Badawi
on Hunger Strike.
12 December 2015
US plans to punish Europeans
The US plans to punish Europeans with connections to Iran because of
a murder carried out by by Pakistanis
inspired by Salafi Arabia
However, neither Pakistan nor
Salafi Arabia
are affected by this bill.
I suggest that the European Union retaliate by requiring visas from
Americans whose family name starts with R. Paul Ryan, for instance.
The absurdity of this response will show the absurdity of what the US
is doing.
12 December 2015
Fight against PISSI
The US announces "progress" in fighting
PISSI
, but
the supposed
progress may not mean anything
The US tends to label any "military-age males" killed by air strikes
as enemy fighters, but that's definitely an exaggeration. If air
strikes in Ramadi killed 350 military-age males, we have no idea how
many were fighting for
PISSI
and how many were civilians.
The caution of the army attacking Ramadi is likely to result in fewer
casualties to soldiers, but could cause more casualties to civilians
in Ramadi, which would build support for
PISSI
As for a few leaders killed, such a group can always replace them
as long as more people are volunteering.
12 December 2015
Malaria
People have made great progress against malaria using
insecticide-treated
mosquito nets, but mosquitos
are developing resistance
to
the
insecticides.
If we step up the effort, we could cut off malaria transmission in
some areas.
12 December 2015
Thailand
Thai
Man Arrested
for Facebook 'like' of Doctored Royal Photo.
He supported a campaign that criticized Thai corruption.
After a Thai investigator fled to Australia fearing for his life,
Thailand
looks to charge
him with "defamation" for saying so.
Thailand's repressive government does not care that he said it in
Australia.
To visit Thailand is an act of folly — stay away!
12 December 2015
Volkswagen
Volkswagen explains that the "defeat devices" that faked emissions
levels
for tests
came from a system
that had a tendency to do
this.
12 December 2015
Overprotectiveness
small step against overprotectiveness
: the US "no child left alone"
law has been amended to say that it does not criminalize parents for
allowing a child to walk to school.
12 December 2015
Discussion of Islamic terrorism
Western discussion of Islamic terrorists
studiously avoids
mentioning
how
Salafi Arabia
and Qatar promote their ideology and fund their
attacks.
12 December 2015
US teachers
Some US teachers
are leading their students
to treat Muslim students
as terrorists.
I think it would be useful for non-Islamist Muslims to invent a term
to describe themselves, so that they can say in a positive way what they
stand for, without using a negation. Then, when someone asks them,
"Are you an Islamist", they can say, "No, I'm an XYZ, and proud of it."
12 December 2015
Give away expired food
France
is passing a law
to require supermarkets to give away
"expired" food.
12 December 2015
Sanders on Trump
Sanders
presents
the positive response to Trump's randomly scattered
hatred.
12 December 2015
Mental health care
Mental health care
is unavailable
to half the Americans that need it.
Perhaps as a result, they are more likely to get killed by
thugs
12 December 2015
Global heating
Global heating
threatens to inundate
Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay,
turning it first into a marsh, then later into open water.
Only 500 people live their now, but it's not the only place in the US
that is going to be under water.
Spending money to protect each vulnerable place is stupid. We should
spend it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and thus protect them all
at once.
12 December 2015
Syria
Without Syrians
at the Front And Centre of Talks, There Can Be No Lasting
Peace.
12 December 2015
ACLU
ACLU: FBI Director
Completely Ignores
Anti-Abortion, Right-Wing
Terror, Focuses Exclusively on Muslims.
12 December 2015
UK tax on renewable energy
The UK's government isn't satisfied with eliminating subsidies for
wind and solar energy. Now
it plans to tax
them heavily.
12 December 2015
China
China
has cancelled
the punishments applied to children who were
born in violation of the one-child-per-family law.
I supported limiting families to one child, but it was wrong to punish
the children. They are not responsible for who decided to have them.
12 December 2015
California thug
A woman raped by a California
thug
, under the guise of a "cavity
search",
had the courage to report it
and sue.
12 December 2015
France will not ban Tor
The Prime Minister of France says France
will not ban
public WiFi or
use of Tor.
It is not clear how broad the requirement for companies to break their
client's encryption will be.
12 December 2015
Dow and DuPont
Dow and DuPont
want
to merge.
Large companies should never be allowed to merge. Let's hope that
today's
weakened antitrust laws provide a basis to block it.
12 December 2015
Elections in Venezuela
The Venezuelan right wing has repeatedly accused Chavez of stealing
elections. We see now that
the elections in Venezuela are honest
However, I fear that the
antisocialists
, now in power, will change
that. Republicans in the US have perfected several methods of rigging
elections that they could follow.
12 December 2015
China
China
has arrested
many labor activists in Canton (Guangdong).
12 December 2015
Ivory smuggling
Japan's failure
to act against
ivory smuggling is impeding efforts
to protect elephants.
12 December 2015
Human Trafficking Investigator
Thailand's Most Senior Human Trafficking Investigator to Seek
Political Asylum in Australia
The investigations lead to
people high up in the army and the
thugs
12 December 2015
South Korea
South Korea is becoming repressive: a union leader who sought refuge in
a Buddhist temple
has been arrested
12 December 2015
Feminism
Now that feminism has revived, it can do a lot of good, but also
threatens censorship
I support feminism except when it
starts to attack freedom of speech.
Calling someone a "slut" is nasty, and foolish as well: it presumes a
prudish sexist idea of good and bad sexual conduct. Let's rebuke
anyone who calls anyone a "slut" — we could call then "Taliban"
— but people have a right to say nasty, prudish, sexist things.
No matter how nasty a statement is, censorship is nastier.
12 December 2015
dooH niboR
UK right-wing policies of
dooH niboR
are spreading
hunger.
12 December 2015
Homs
Syrian rebels
evacuated
the city of Homs, under cease fire.
12 December 2015
Antibiotics to animals
Many countries
feed more antibiotics
to healthy animals than the
humans use.
This provokes antibiotic resistance in the bacteria that inhabit the
animals,which spreads to bacteria that can infect humans.
12 December 2015
"Reconciled" CISA
The "reconciled" version of CISA
contains all the worst snooping provisions
approved by the House and Senate.
12 December 2015
US competition law
Anheuser-Busch
is taking advantage
of a gap in US competition law to push
small competitors out of supermarkets.
This shows one more way that US competition law needs to be
strengthened. It should also prohibit the sort o contracts that
Microsoft pushed on PC manufacturers, by which they agree to pay
for a Windows license even when they sell a computer without Windows.
12 December 2015
Thailand's censorship
Under Thailand's tyranny,
any criticism of repression can be twistedly
labeled as "insulting the monarchy"
which makes it a target of repression.
12 December 2015
Vicious ideas
You can't stop vicious ideas, whether those of Trump or those of
PISSI
by
banning
them.
12 December 2015
Alaska permafrost
One quarter of Alaska permafrost
could melt
by 2100 — US
Geological Survey.
Since this would release a lot of methane, we'd be truly cooked.
12 December 2015
FBI director
The FBI director
has returned to demanding
an end to encryption that
really works.
Imagine if someone like Trump becomes president and starts using the
US
spy apparatus to find and imprison scapegoats.
12 December 2015
Louvre
Activists
protested at the Louvre
against its acceptance of sponsorship
from an oil company.
Isn't it cute how the oil company sums up plutocratic rule: "In recent
years, the relationship between business and society has changed."
Protests like this are very important for turning fossil fuel
companies into the pariahs they deserve to be. Having dealings with
those companies should make a person or organization the object of
general scorn. This is necessary because it will reduce their
plutocratic power to block necessary action to avoid disaster.
12 December 2015
CISA
Librarians and privacy advocates
oppose
CISA together.
12 December 2015
Ramie Abounaja
Ramie Abounaja displayed a Palestinian flag from his dorm window, so
George Washington University
sent a thug
to make him take it down,
then made some unclear disciplinary accusation against him.
It is formally prohibited to hang flags from a window,
but students that hang other flags never get bothered.
12 December 2015
War in Ukraine
The war in Ukraine
has quieted down
since August; the cease-fire has
held.
It is no longer serves Putin's purposes to heat it up.
A total of 9,000 deaths are estimated.
12 December 2015
Senate's torture report
While Obama's officials refuse to read the Senate's torture report,
Republicans
are trying to destroy
all copies, so as to cover up US crimes.
12 December 2015
Germany pays fascists
Germany
is still paying
pensions to those still living of 37,000
Spaniards who fought for Hitler.
12 December 2015
Encryption
"Everything
you need to know
about encryption: Hint, you're already using
it."
This article exhibits a blind spot that is common in writing about the
issue:
namely, it is unwilling to consider that the US government's official use
of
a back door might be for evil.
I'm not willing to maintain that blind spot. What if we have President
Trump,
or someone like him?
12 December 2015
Scapegoat the Internet
Trump and Clinton
are both scapegoating
the internet.
12 December 2015
American housing
Community land trusts and public housing
can make life better
for people
that privately owned housing.
12 December 2015
Diesel generators
The UK
is promoting
diesel generators over renewable generators.
12 December 2015
Afghan army
The Afghan army is having trouble winning support from the people
because it kills
too many civilians.
12 December 2015
Visa restrictions
The US is on track
to make it inconvenient
for Europeans to enter the US
if they have visited Iraq, Syria, Iran or Sudan.
This will hit Europeans who participated in humanitarian, diplomatic
and business activities in those countries. Yet another US attack
against
Medecins Sans Frontières.
Ironically, it will also hurt any Europeans that worked for the US
mercenary companies such as Blackwater (or whatever it's called
today).
12 December 2015
US thugs
The FBI
will start counting
people killed by
thugs
in the US.
12 December 2015
Sanders about fossil fuels
Sanders
states how he will achieve
big cuts in US fossil fuel
emissions, as well as banning some of the most dangerous or polluting
forms of fossil fuel extraction.
12 December 2015
Sanders
Sanders
told reporters
not to neglect US poverty and injustice out of
obsession with how to deal with
PISSI
12 December 2015
Global heating disaster
Humanity
must invest
7 trillion dollars a year to avoid
global heating
disaster.
That is 20 times what we invested in this in 2014.
Fortunately, we can get most of that 7 trillion by taking it from
investment in fossil fuel use.
12 December 2015
Trump
A danger from Trump
is that he makes
serious bigots seem within the range
of normal views.
12 December 2015
Gun control
Gun killings in the US today
are running at half the rate
of 20 years ago.
Americans need not feel terrified of being shot.
Although the total death rate from shooting is going down,
the death rate from multiple shooting incidents is rising.
Common sense gun control measures can't make multiple shooting
impossible, but could reduce how often they happen.
Also, prohibiting large magazines nationwide would eventually make
them scarce. That would reduce, in many cases, the number that a
shooter can succeed in killing.
12 December 2015
Philip Coleman
Philip Coleman was lying on a cot in jail when Chicago
thugs
came into
his sell and
repeatedly tased
him. Coleman died shortly after.
12 December 2015
Global heating
Global heating
denialists for hire, by the hour,
to write reports
to support planet-roasters.
12 December 2015
Cease-fire in Syria
There
may be a real prospect
of a cease-fire in Syria among the
sides other than
PISSI
12 December 2015
Windows 10
Microsoft
is attacking
computers that run Windows 7 and 8,
switching on a flag that says whether to "upgrade" to Windows 10
when users have turned it off.
This, by the way, reaffirms the presence of a universal back door
in Windows 7 and 8.
12 December 2015
Oil Fuels War
Oil Fuels War and Terrorists Like [
PISSI
]. The Climate Movement
Can
Bring
Peace.
12 December 2015
TPP
Clinton:
will you take actions
to oppose the TPP?
12 December 2015
PISSI
Foreign recruits
continue
flowing to
PISSI
It is very important to cut off the flow, since
PISSI
's training turns
many somewhat-confused people into expert soldiers. But the only way
to do it is to close the border with Turkey. Erdogan won't do it, so
it
has to be done by ground troops on the Syrian side.
12 December 2015
Paris climate conference
Saudi Arabia
is trying
to poison the Paris climate conference.
China and India
are also blocking
a strong agreement.
12 December 2015
Disabled people
The UK
is planning to cut the support
for disabled people, supposedly
to give them an incentive to do the work that they can't do.
11 December 2015 (
Urgent: Endorse a president
US citizens:
tell
Democracy For America
who you suggest it should endorse for
president. (I chose Sanders.)
11 December 2015 (
Human rights violations in Rio
Rio Olympics
Linked
to Widespread Human Rights Violations
, Report Reveals.
When the games start, other forms of harshness are likely to start,
including chasing away street vendors so certain elect businesses can
get the spectators' business. Meanwhile, there may well be new
systems of surveillance and new harsh laws that will be permanent.
The city of Boston
wisely
killed Boston's bid
to hold Olympic games.
11 December 2015 (
Planned highways and railroads in Africa
Planned highways and railroads in Africa
could
destroy the currently roadless ecosystems
they run through.
11 December 2015 (
Demand for ivory in China falling
Demand for ivory in China is
falling
which bodes well for elephants.
The question is whether this is due to a change in attitudes or only
to China's current economic slump.
11 December 2015 (
Legalizing MDMA
MDMA (Ecstasy) is already quite safe, but
legalizing
it would make it even safer
11 December 2015 (
Forcible return of exiled Chinese dissidents
Several countries are
forcibly
handing exiled Chinese dissidents to China
. They include
Thailand, and even Vietnam, which is not generally friendly with
China.
11 December 2015 (
Canadian oil exports
Even without the cancelled Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian oil exports
via the US have
almost
doubled since a year ago
11 December 2015 (
How Trump attracts support
Much like
PISSI
with its beheading videos, Trump attracts support by
proposing
shocking actions
His reaction is
what
PISSI hopes to provoke
. So is the success of bigots in French
elections.
11 December 2015 (
Zuism
Iceland has its own counterpart to Pastafarianism: Zuism worships
ancient Sumerian gods, and
will
give its members a refund of their mandatory tax surcharge to support
churches
11 December 2015 (
Australian islands being flooded
As Australia pushes for more coal export, some Australian islands are
gradually being flooded, and
changing
weather is killing their crops
11 December 2015 (
Enforcement of Geneva Conventions
Proposing
a mechanism
to enforce compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
11 December 2015 (
PISSI's loss of profitability
A commentator suggests that
PISSI
's loss of profitability
might
make the groups that support it split apart
11 December 2015 (
Trump cites unscientific poll
Trump Cites
Unscientific
Poll From Fringe Group
in Call for Banning Muslim Immigration.
11 December 2015 (
Liberate scientific knowledge
Calling on the public
to
liberate scientific knowledge through forbidden sharing of the
articles and books that embody it.
11 December 2015 (
Tortured in Egypt, imprisoned in Australia
Mubarak's
thugs
tortured Sayed Abdellatif into confessions that appear
to be false, but Australia uses them as an
excuse
to imprison him
11 December 2015 (
England hit hard with floods
Global heating
is
hitting
England hard with great floods
that would have been extremely rare
in the past.
The government continues going all-out to make this worse.
11 December 2015 (
The Paris conference
10
criteria
for judging whether the agreement from the Paris
conference will do what needs to be done.
11 December 2015 (
Finland considers universal basic income
Finland is considering a
universal
basic income
11 December 2015 (
Disagreeing with Putin
A "liberal" Russian TV channel which disagrees with Putin is being
examined for
"extremism"
11 December 2015 (
1.5C limit for global heating
The
US, China, Canada and the EU
are supporting a 1.5C limit for
global heating
It is necessary to make India accept this target. Flooding other
countries is an act of war; perhaps the US and China should convey to
Modi that they will preemptively bomb India's coal-burning power
plants to stop India from flooding cities such as New York,
Washington, Miami, Nanjing and Shanghai.
Of course, this would be hypocritical if the US and China don't
do their share to prevent the flooding.
10 December 2015 (
Global heating denial
Fossil fuel companies continue funding denialism. Fortunately, one of
their events in Paris was a
risible
failure
I fear the companies that are
"sponsoring"
the Paris climate negotiations
are having a lot more influence.
10 December 2015 (
Renewable energy plan for Africa
A large renewable energy plan could
lead
Africa away from fossil fuels
This could make life better for many people in Africa, but
if we don't make India drop its plans for burning coal, people may not
be able to live there at all.
10 December 2015 (
The WTO
The WTO
will
try to fine the US a billion dollars
unless it abolishes
country-of-origin meat labels.
Let's abolish the WTO instead. The WTO's purpose is to undermine
democracy in all the countries that have signed it, transferring power
from the legislature to multinational businesses.
The plutocratists try to distract us from this effect by comparing
exports and imports, which slips in the assumption that the interests
of Americans are nothing but a matter of total economic consumption.
Even aside from questions of whether the economy is sustainable,
economic growth in all countries doesn't help most people if it is
achieved in a way that benefits the rich at the expense of the
non-rich. To prevent that, we need to make laws that assure the
wealth is spread around and that businesses don't hurt the public.
These laws are precisely what "free trade" treaties attack. They also
make it hard to maintain unions.
Don't let the plutocratists distract you from the real issue at stake.
And please organize now to
defeat
the TPP
10 December 2015 (
Global greenhouse emissions
Global greenhouse emissions
fell
in 2015
, but they are still so high that disaster will result; and
the decrease may not last.
10 December 2015 (
UK rightwing gov't plans for universities
The UK's rightwing government plans to reduce universities to the
status of
training
institutions for the "labor market"
09 December 2015 (
New Spanish Pun
El jaguar muerde
08 December 2015 (
Urgent: Make oil and gas extractors pay
US citizens:
Support
the BLM's proposed rule
to make oil and gas extractors pay for all
they extract.
08 December 2015 (
Urgent: Emanuel and Alvarez's resignation
Everyone:
call on
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and prosecutor Anita Alvarez
to resign.
08 December 2015 (
Urgent: Day in court for torture victims
US citizens:
call
on the attorney general
to let victims of US torture have their
day in court.
07 December 2015 (
More government snooping
Clinton, like the Republicans, wants more
government
snooping.
She wants to pressure companies into bypassing encryption.
Her bogus premise is that we should keep increasing snooping
until it identifies in advance all attacks by small groups.
But
no
amount of surveillance
is enough to do that, so she will always
have an excuse to demand more surveillance.
Vote for Sanders for president.
07 December 2015 (
Hypothetical crimes
The UK spy agency argues it should be allowed to spy on people with
hardly
any limits,
and attack their computers, just because the hypothetical
crimes are really bad.
Note the similarity between the argument in favor of massive
surveillance and the argument in favor of torture: that it "just might
someday" make it possible to prevent a crime. But neither
massive
surveillance
nor
torture
really does this.
07 December 2015 (
Malaysia approves security law
Malaysia Approves Security Law Amid Warning It Could Lead to
Dictatorship.
France is following the
same
path;
I fear for France.
07 December 2015 (
Greenhouse gases emitted by airplanes
Crackpot theories about
"chemtrails"
are distracting people from the dangerous greenhouse gases emitted by airplanes.
Here's a conspiracy theory. Maybe the "chemtrails" idiocy was funded by the
Heatland Institute
(*) through ALEC.
* It calls itself the "Heartland Institute", but since its goal is to make the Earth hotter,
"Heatland"
fits it better.
07 December 2015 (
Disobeying terms of service
A US appeals court endorsed a
narrow
interpretation of the CFAA:
disobeying terms of service is not a crime.
This might have saved Aaron Swartz from being
hounded to death.
7 December 2015
Muslims
Muslims in London
have started a campaign against fanaticism
telling a fanatic who attacked someone in a train that he is not
a real Muslim.
7 December 2015
Surveillance technology
Advancing surveillance technology
threatens
to make it impossible to
do anything that the state does not follow.
7 December 2015
War on PISSI
The US and France
may attack PISSI in Libya
, where it is expanding
and is viewed by most of the public as merely an occupying army.
However, we
should take care not to consider its expansion in Libya as
a sign of weakness
in Syria and Iraq.
Many have lost wars by underestimating the enemy.
7 December 2015
UK Government
The UK government
is eager to bomb someone
, saying it must try to
protect Britons from terrorism even if that is ineffective or
backfires. Meanwhile, it rejects the effective measures to protect
the British people from the larger threat of
global heating
7 December 2015
Arable Land
Earth
Has Lost a Third of Arable Land
in Past 40 Years, Scientists Say.
We're riding the Earth too hard, and we can't keep it up for long.
7 December 2015
Religions
Christianist terrorists, like Islamist terrorists,
believe
that their religion authorizes
any sort of crimes.
7 December 2015
Canadian thugs
The Canadian national
thugs
want to access personal data
without warrants.
7 December 2015
Elon Musk
Elon Musk
condemns
the 5 trillion dollars a year in damage that the fossil
fuel industry is not being forced to pay for.
7 December 2015
Nuclear power
James Hansen and some other scientists
say nuclear power is needed
to end carbon emissions.
I respect James Hansen, but I think he
is mistaken. To develop
nuclear power at the rate he proposes would require ignoring safety.
He is talking about hypothetical advanced reactors that could only
work many years from now, and certainly won't be available soon.
This amount of nuclear power would be so expensive that it would be
cheaper to build an excess of renewable energy, plus power storage
capacity.
7 December 2015
SCROTUS
Another
SCROTUS
budget bill rider
would allow
increased consolidation
in US television.
SCROTUS
= Sleazy Congressional Republicans Of The United States.
7 December 2015
Janet Alder
After Janet Alder's brother was killed by UK
thugs
, she started
campaigning for justice, and
thugs started snooping
on her life
looking for some way to throw dirt on her.
If it is impossible to convict the
thugs
in charge of this operation,
the law must be changed so that next time a conviction is obtained.
7 December 2015
Businesses' lies
Businesses surround us with
little lies
that no one expects us to take
seriously. This can devalue truth in general.
7 December 2015
Sanders' tax plan
Sanders' tax plan for multinational companies
would raise
all the money
the US needs for its infrastructure.
I hope he will put a lot of the revenue into renewable energy.
7 December 2015
Damage of global heating
Multinational oil companies
face an investigation
for complicity in
causing the damage of
global heating
7 December 2015
Drone attack whistleblowers
The US mainstream media
ignore
the drone attack whistleblowers.
7 December 2015
Faking violence
When someone was stabbed during an art event in Miami,
witnesses
thought the attack was theater
, part if the performance.
Faking violence as a hoax or "art" can indirectly hurt people by
confusing society about how to react. It should not be illegal, but
it is wise to disapprove of it.
7 December 2015
Laquan McDonald
The official statements of several
thugs
about the murder of Laquan
McDonald
were lies
— and the video proves it.
Is it a crime
to report falsely?
7 December 2015
Banning for no-fly listed people
Democrats proposed a law to ban people on the no-fly list from buying
guns,
and
SCROTUS blocked it
as a denial of due process.
The no-fly list is already punishment without due process. Being
stopped
from flying is more of a punishment than being stopped from buying a gun,
and this is why the no-fly list must be abolished, or else redesigned
so that people are only placed in it by a court's judgment.
At that point, it could also be applied to purchase of guns.
7 December 2015
NSA snooping
The NSA still
has the power to snoop massively
on Americans,
never limited as the Constitution calls for.
We have evidence from France and the US that this power doesn't
prevent terrorist attacks anyway.
7 December 2015
US parents
US parents
would rather their children see violence
than sex.
7 December 2015
Indian energy plans
Modi talks about boosting solar power in India, but
he still plans
to double
coal extraction.
To some extent, the new coal mines in India will replace coal imports.
However, continuing to burn so much coal will bring disaster regardless
of where it is mined.
7 December 2015
Hello Barbie
A week with Hello Barbie: it constantly tells you what good friends you
are,
then
asks you for personal information
Seems designed to manipulate children into giving personal data.
7 December 2015
Active Investigations
Why 'Active Investigations' Don't Justify
Keeping Police Video Secret
7 December 2015
Global heating
By 2050,
global heating
will disrupt
food production in every region
of the world. This will add to the harm done by population increase.
7 December 2015
Clinton Super PAC Donor
Clinton Super PAC Donor
is Former Goldman Exec and Foreclosure Crisis
Profiteer
Clearly he expects her not to clamp down on the power of the
banksters
7 December 2015
TPP
The TPP
would prohibit laws
requiring certain products come with
source code, which is needed for their security and for users' right
to repair.
7 December 2015
Censorship in Thailand
The tyranny of Thailand is demonstrated by
repeated censorship of New
York Times articles
that can hardly be said to actually criticize the
Thai monarchy.
7 December 2015
Terrorism
Many Americans
are too quick to assume a killing is terrorism when the
killer is a Muslim
, but drag their feet against acknowledging
Christianist terrorism.
I use the term "Christianist" for Christians that want to impose laws
that come from their religion, by analogy with "Islamist". Only a
fraction of Christianists and Islamists are violent, but all are
enemies of human rights.
7 December 2015
Brazil women
Brazil
has advised
women not to get pregnant now, because a virus once
in a rare while causes microcephaly.
It ought to be possible to abort the very few fetuses that develop
microencephaly, but I suppose Brazil doesn't respect women's rights
that much.
On the other hand, a substantial reduction in births would be quite
useful too.
7 December 2015
MSF clinic bombed
US-supported
Salafi Arabia
bombed
an MSF clinic in Yemen.
7 December 2015
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, which is a total tyranny,
is ordering all internet users
to install back doors
in their computers.
This goes only a little beyond how the UK plans to attack all internet
users.
7 December 2015
Burundi
The tyrant of Burundi
demands
that everyone join his party; those
who don't are beaten. Those who try to flee are killed if caught.
7 December 2015
Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
Encryption alone cannot protect our privacy from all the systems of
snooping that have been set up in today's "free" countries —
only partly from some. We need to
redesign systems
so that they do
not accumulate data about people other than court-designated suspects.
7 December 2015
Population growth
Human population growth
continues to threaten humanity
, as it is on a
collision course with the food shortages that
global heating
does and
will cause.
If we don't want people to remain poor, we must make fewer of them.
7 December 2015
CO2
We must go beyond "zero carbon emissions" and
actively reduce
the
CO2 level in Earth's atmosphere.
The urgency is in the first step. Once that is done, reducing the CO2
level may prevent the subsequent inundation of some of the cities that
are threatened.
7 December 2015
Maria Hasankolli
Maria Hasankolli overslept and her 8-year-old child walked to school.
She
faces ten years
in prison for this unconscious act.
When I was 8 years old, I walked to school every day. So did everyone
else in my school. But that was in Manhattan. Perhaps these nasty
fools think that Connecticut is a more dangerous place than Manhattan.
7 December 2015
Trade In Services Agreement
The secret negotiations for the Trade In Services Agreement
propose
to
prohibit subsidies, or any sort of preferences, for renewable energy.
This is typical of how "trade treaties" betray the people:
subordinating
everything that really matters to business interests.
This is
based on the
leaked text
of one chapter.
6 December 2015
Thugs deleted footage to cover up murder
Thugs
deleted
part of the Burger King store's security video recording
in order to cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald.
6 December 2015
Court case over Facebook data storage in the US
A European court case demands that Facebook
cease sending Europeans' data to the US
6 December 2015
Corporations exempting themselves from tax
Around the world corporations are
exempting themselves from taxation
forcing too much tax burden onto individuals, especially the non-rich.
In the past, countries have been weakened because too much property
ended up in the hands of untaxable churches. Churches or
corporations, it's the same phenomenon.
6 December 2015
On trial for handing out jury pamphlet
Prosecutors
stretch laws and ignore the constitution
to attack people that distribute information from the Fully Informed Jury
Association
about the purpose of juries.
When someone is on trial for handing out a pamphlet, I wonder whether
the pamphlet must be entered in evidence for the jury to examine.
6 December 2015
Westerners who fight PISSI prosecuted
Westerners who fight along with the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, against
PISSI
, are
often prosecuted
just like those that fight for
PISSI
6 December 2015
Urgent: reject spending bills with Republican riders
US citizens: phone the White House at (202) 456-1111 and leave a
message for President Obama, calling for rejecting spending bills with
nasty Republican riders.
Whether they are tax breaks for companies, or attacks on Planned
Parenthood, or attacks on the environment, or attacks on food labeling
requirements, or anything else, Obama should reject them one and all.
6 December 2015
SCROTUS preparing tax breaks for businesses
While
SCROTUS
continue to cut spending that helps people, they are
preparing
big tax breaks
for businesses.
6 December 2015
Thirty meter telescope cancelled
The thirty meter telescope, which would have been by far the largest
telescope
in the northern hemisphere,
has been cancelled
because some of the ground it would be built on is considered "sacred".
Faith has, apparently, triumphed over knowledge.
Can any other place can be found to build this telescope?
Another telescope, even larger, is planned for Chile, where it will be
able to observe the southern skies — but parts of the northern
skies will be outside its range.
6 December 2015
Zuckerberg helps himself
Zuckerberg "donated" most of his assets — to a
new corporation he owns
And he calls that "charity".
6 December 2015
Trudeau only good compared to predecessor
New Canadian PM Trudeau looks great on
global heating
, but only
because he is
compared with the over planet-roaster Harper
6 December 2015
Chicago Mayor in murder coverup
Chicago Mayor Emanuel seems to have tried to
cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald
in order to get the black vote for reelection as mayor.
I gave to Chuy Garcia's campaign. I hope he wins next time.
6 December 2015
UK decides to bomb PISSI
The UK decided to bomb
PISSI
in Syria, a gesture that will have
negligible military effect
I'm not necessarily opposed to gestures, but gestures are not a valid
reason to kill people.
6 December 2015
James Hansen calls for increasing fee on emissions
James Hansen calls for a
predictably increasing fee
on carbon emissions.
6 December 2015
Sanders' proposal for affordable college
How Bernie Sanders proposes to
make college affordable
for masses of Americans, as we did before.
The other candidates are too much in cahoots with the rich.
6 December 2015
US extremists trying to cut off women from contraception
US Christianist extremists are trying to
cut off American women from contraceptives
but pretend this isn't so.
6 December 2015
Urgent: please donate to the Free Software Foundation
Everyone: please
donate
to the Free Software Foundation.
6 December 2015
SCROTUS threatens with government shutdown
SCROTUS
are planning to
threaten a government shutdown
to abolish some of the laws that regulate
banksters
SCROTUS
stands for Sleazy Congressional Republicans Of The United
States.
6 December 2015
Demanding resignation of Chicago Mayor
Demanding the
resignation of Chicago Mayor Emmanual
6 December 2015
Climate negotiators hope physics will make concessions
The climate negotiators in Paris hope that nature (physics) will make
concessions, if they
show good intentions
6 December 2015
Safe zone for PISSI
Turkey wants to set up a
"safe zone"
in Northern Turkey — safe
for
PISSI
, that is. Thus, the Kurds are opposed to it.
6 December 2015
Prosecution of US torturers
Human Rights Watch demands
prosecution of US torturers
6 December 2015
Prison for Â3D printer files
A state in of Australia will
imprison people
for having 3D printer files for making a gun.
It is legitimate to prohibit making guns, but any law that makes it a
crime to have a copy of some published work is tyranny. It subjects
innocent people to great danger from anyone that wants to get them
in trouble.
6 December 2015
Trump exploits the internet
Trump exploits the internet with speeches that are a series
of clickbait. They
don't need to be coherent
to succeed.
I occasionally use Google search, but Google never knows who I am. If
you do the same, then your Google search is the same as mine; Google
can't tell us apart.
6 December 2015
South Korea repressing labor protesters
The President of South Korea is
repressing labor protesters
and tried to associate them with hypothetical terrorists.
6 December 2015
Myths about Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks, whose arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott,
was a mature lifelong activist who had
plenty of experience
6 December 2015
Airstrikes don't change much
People in Raqqa say that
airstrikes alone don't change much
Aside from Russian airstrikes, which often hit civilians.
6 December 2015
ALEC organizing sabotage of climate plans
ALEC, funded by fossil fuel businesses, is trying to organize
Republican-controlled US states to
actively sabotage US plans
to avoid
global heating
disaster.
6 December 2015
UK Tories adapting Republican gerrymandering
The UK Tories are
adapting Republican techniques
of voter suppression and gerrymandering to make the UK government
nondemocratic.
6 December 2015
Truth shines through North Korean propaganda movie
A Russian director, authorized to make a deceptive North Korean
propaganda movie,
found a clever way
to show some of the truth.
6 December 2015
UK cuts mean no parks, libraries, museums
Right-wing cuts in the UK mean no parks, no public libraries, no
museums, no place for young people to
do anything but get in trouble
6 December 2015
Paying to keep forests standing
Rich Countries Should Pay to Keep Tropical Forests Standing.
Avoiding global disaster will be well worth the price, but there are
two issues that we must resolve:
Making sure the money spent really preserves the forests.
Making the rich and the multinationals pay a fair share of tax,
so they can't shrug the cost of this onto the non-rich.
Paying a price to preserve forests is one thing; assigning them a
value in money is another. It is a mistake to see the issue in the
narrow economic terms such as "ecosystem services" and "buying them".
That encourages people to treat them as fungible.
6 December 2015
Richest 10% produce half of emissions
The World's Richest 10% Produce Half of Global Carbon Emissions.
The US must do a lot more to switch to renewable energy.
This calls for spending money, perhaps instead of some weapons.
6 December 2015
Egyptian journalist charged for talk about rebels
Another Egyptian journalist has been
charged with "spreading false news"
for giving a talk about the Islamist rebels in the Sinai.
6 December 2015
China to cut emissions from electricity
China
states the plan
to make huge cuts in CO2 emissions from electricity by 2020.
This would be a real step forward, but don't forget the emissions
from transport, home heating, factories, and agriculture.
6 December 2015
Struggle to protect marine species
The slow struggle to establish protection of marine species threatened
by overfishing takes place in the shadow of the CO2 threat to
wipe out entire ecosystems and families
6 December 2015
US troops in Syria likely to make things worse
Sending independently operating US combat troops to fight in Syria
invites making things worse
6 December 2015
A Turkish Gollum
Repression in Turkey has reached the point where a state employee
has been fired
for comparing Erdoğan's face to that of Gollum.
When Erdoğan doesn't understand is that he is the one bringing
Turkey into
disrepute.
6 December 2015
Putin expelling Turkish citizens
Putin is
expelling Turkish citizens
from Russia in the harshest possible way,
clearly meant as a gesture to prove what a
bully
he can be.
The reasons stated for this action include bullshit, plus an
accusation that is probably true: that Turkey is protecting
PISSI
's
oil export trade.
Both Turkey and Russia
must be lying
about what happened in the downing of the Russian jet.
6 December 2015
Loan companies force spyware on borrowers
Loan companies, in Africa and the US, make would-be borrowers submit
to total surveillance by
installing spyware
in their phones.
I think we need laws to prohibit companies from requiring or even
asking customers (including borrowers) to run any nonfree software.
A "smart" phone is a computer. If your computer runs nonfree
software, it is someone else's tool to mistreat you. There are
smartphones that can run the free operating system Replicant in the
main or "application" processor, but all mobile phones have nonfree
software, at least in the radio communication processor.
6 December 2015
Fined for refusing fingerprinting
An arrested protester in Paris has been
fined for refusing to be fingerprinted
Bravo!
However, I do not approve of throwing bottles or cans at the
thugs
This plays into the hands of repressors.
05 December 2015 (
Schoolchildren's personal data
Many schoolchildren in the US are being told by their schools to use
mobile computers with proprietary software, and the machines typically
give the
children's personal data to some company
(often Google or Apple).
If a school makes an account in a student's name with a company, it
has already violated that student's privacy. If the account does not
have the student's name or other personal details, sending it
unencrypted information about the student's school work violates that
student's privacy.
These mobile computers always run nonfree software. Parents shouldn't
allow their young children to be given nonfree software by anyone.
I was surprised that the EFF legitimizes the term "the cloud", which
is meant to cloud people's thinking about letting companies have their
data and do things with it. There is no cloud, only computers
belonging to various companies. The term "cloud" is intended to
encourage people not to ask, "Which company is getting which data,
what does it do with that data, and which country's jurisdiction is it
under?" Please, EFF, stop encouraging this cloudy thinking.
05 December 2015 (
Salafi Arabia's expensive PR campaign
Salafi Arabia
's expensive PR campaign has
close
ties to the Clinton campaign
05 December 2015 (
The hard way to curb global heating
Billionaires' investments in
centralized,
subsidized and profitable energy long-shots
are the hard way to
curb
global heating
05 December 2015 (
Investigation of insider trading
Republicans in Congress are
trying
to sabotage an investigation
against some of them for insider
stock trading.
05 December 2015 (
Imprisoned in Guantanamo by mistake
After 13 years the US has admitted it put Mustafa al-Aziz al-Shamiri
in Guantanamo prison
by
mistake
, but still won't let him go.
05 December 2015 (
Claims made by Tamir Rice's killer
Tamir Rice's killer was allowed to testify to his own grand jury. He
made
claims
that can't fit the timeline shown by the video
05 December 2015 (
How to fight PISSI
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
applies
practical sense
to the question of how to fight PISSI.
05 December 2015 (
Obama plans to use US troops against PISSI
Obama
plans
to station US troops in Iraq
to attack PISSI independently.
While I think the aim of attacking
PISSI
is legitimate, using US
troops to do it is asking for trouble. Do they speak Arabic?
05 December 2015 (
Chicago thug chief fired
Chicago's
thug
chief has been fired for
helping
to protect a thug from punishment for murdering Laquan McDonald
05 December 2015 (
"Male" and "female" brain features
Features in a human brain, which may have a form that is typically
"male" or one that is typically "female",
can
change with experiences
, sometimes in 15 minutes.
This suggests that the reason it is most common for the feature to
have a certain form in males or in females is that males and females
tend to have certain kinds of life experiences.
05 December 2015 (
Tobacco company bribery
A global tobacco company
bribed
officials and politicians
in various African companies to
undermine laws intended to reduce smoking.
Big Tobacco
Targets
the Young in Poor Countries
— with Deadly Consequences.
05 December 2015 (
Chicago DA protects thugs from prosecution
It is no surprise that Chicago DA Alvarez prosecuted Laquan McDonald's
killer only when compelled to. She shows a pattern of
going
to any length to protect thugs from prosecution
, even prosecuting
victims for complaining.
She also defends false convictions, even harassing law students who
are working pro bono to investigate them, on the principle that the
system should never admit a mistake.
05 December 2015 (
Murder of Union organizers in Honduras
Union organizers in Honduras face murder, in which
employers
may be involved
. The government, set up by the
US-backed
coup
, is firmly on the side of the businesses.
05 December 2015 (
Poor Americans
Poor Americans are
not
lazy
. They work harder (on the average) than people who have more
money.
05 December 2015 (
Former head of DIA says US reacted stupidly
General Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency,
admitted
that the US reacted stupidly
in response to the September 2001
attacks.
05 December 2015 (
Protest for climate defense in Paris
Ten
thousand protested peacefully
for climate defense in Paris,
forming a human chain in defiance of the state's ban.
I love the way Naomi Klein says what's what.
After that, thousands of people formed a
protest
march
Unfortunately, the black bloc turned that into a riot.
We need public defiance — with discipline.
05 December 2015 (
Teacher and staff sit-in at CUNY
Teachers and staff at the City University of New York have held a
sit-in and are
moving
towards a strike
05 December 2015 (
Assad's forces bomb MSF hospital
Assad's forces
bombed
an MSF hospital
, and bombed again a few minutes later to kill
medics aiding the victims.
05 December 2015 (
India's ban on The Satanic Verses
A minister in power when India banned The Satanic Verses says the ban
was a mistake — but the book
remains
banned
05 December 2015 (
Bombing PISSI not enough
Bombing
[PISSI] Is Not Enough — We'll Need to Talk to Them Too
If we can have a peaceful relationship with a state as cruel and
barbaric as Salafi Arabia, in principle we can do the same with
PISSI
05 December 2015 (
Distrust of thugs
People
More Likely to Report Suspected Violent Extremists 'If They Trust
Police'
05 December 2015 (
Climate refugees
Global heating
is already sending climate refugees
fleeing
to Dhaka from rural Bangladesh
4 December 2015 (
Planned parenthood
Planned Parenthood employees
receive
death threats constantly
4 December 2015 (
Uruguay
Uruguay
gets
over 50% of its energy from renewables
4 December 2015 (
Public shootings
For gun manufacturers, public shootings are
good
for business
4 December 2015 (
Discrimination against women
At least 155 countries still have laws that
discriminate
against women
04 December 2015 (
Fish disappearing from Cambodia's Tonle Sap
Fish are disappearing from Cambodia's giant lake Tonle Sap. 1/3 of the protein eaten by Cambodians
comes
from those fish.
04 December 2015 (
Dow's new dual pesticide
The EPA should carry out independent tests of the effects of Dow's new dual pesticide, not accept
Dow's
own experiments.
04 December 2015 (
Licenses to carry concealed guns
Michigan
has made it easier for possibly dangerous people to get licenses to carry concealed guns.
Gun nuts say they are opposed to the government's "taking their guns
away." But this shows that their goal is not a matter of keeping guns,
but rather expanding the possession and use of guns.
(There may be some guns that ought to be taken away from everyone.)
04 December 2015 (
Uncertainty about climate change
Greater uncertainty about climate change means bigger risks and
more
reason to act.
If we don't want to take a foolish bet, with civilization at stake,
we must work hard enough to make survival almost certain.
Paris Climate Talks: Vulnerable Countries Demand
1.5C
Warming Limit.
We all need this, because we can't measure the distance to the
cliff — all we know is that
we
are heading towards it.
04 December 2015 (
Ways to counter PISSI
list
of possible ways to counter PISSI.
Only the gullible thought that killing Osama bin Laden was going to
achieve anything. (And the US should have captured him and put him
on trial, since it was in a position to do so.)
04 December 2015 (
Poverty means lower life expectancy
In the UK, poverty means a lower life expectancy.
Up
to 16 years less.
04 December 2015 (
Shkreli would not lower drug price
Shkreli, the drug gouger who said he would lower the price,
did
not really mean it.
Just before Thanksgiving he announced he would not lower it.
The asshole is to blame for his own actions, but we should not allow
him to get away with them. Specifically, we should not allow him
to take measures to block manufacture of equivalent generics.
04 December 2015 (
Public policy journalism in the US
Public policy journalism in the US is now available only to insiders and businesses willing to pay
high
subscription fees.
04 December 2015 (
Today's Republicans
Today's Republicans make
Dubya
look good on one specific issue: he refused
to stir up public hatred towards Muslims in general. However, this virtue
was the exception to
many
other forms of cruelty and injustice
towards American Muslims.
04 December 2015 (
Blackberry will cease operations in Pakistan
Blackberry, in an act of
unusual
courage,
will cease operations in Pakistan rather than betray all its customers.
The UK wants to make such companies secretly betray all their customers.
04 December 2015 (
US cooperation with Kurds
US
soldiers
are fighting in Iraq in close cooperation with Kurds.
I don't see any danger in this. They are fighting on battlefields
against enemy soldiers, and few civilians will be killed. This
is not the sort of situation where the danger of intervention lies.
04 December 2015 (
President of the Maldives
The elected president of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed, cannot contribute
to saving humanity from global heating disaster. He is
in
prison,
overthrown by tyrants that work in cahoots with the fossil fuel industry.
I have to wonder whether fossil fuel magnates arranged the coup to
remove an inconvenient hero of humanity.
04 December 2015 (
Kidnapped and burned to death
Israelis who kidnapped a Palestinian and burned him to death
have
been convicted of murder.
It is good that Israel can still do justice for some cases of violence
against Palestinians. How sad that so many are ignored.
04 December 2015 (
Likely to be killed by a thug
US thugs have killed
1000
people
so far, this year.
An American is much more likely to be killed by a
thug
than by a terrorist.
04 December 2015 (
Christianist terrorist attack
The latest Christianist terrorist attack
murdered
two people
who were visiting the Planned Parenthood clinic.
Anti-abortion Christianist terrorism in the US has got much worse since the
deceptive
attack videos
that were aimed at Planned
Parenthood.
04 December 2015 (
New Atheists
Some of the New Atheists have become supporters of
right-wing
Christianist policies.
I am disappointed with them.
For the most part, in the West, Christianity is willing to coexist
with non-Christians. But Christianism, as a political movement, is
dangerous. There are plenty of Christian fanatics who are prepared to
lie to stir up
terrorism
against abortion providers.
04 December 2015 (
Spin failure in Paris
People are already trying to spin failure in Paris as the start of a
"long
road"
to curbing global heating in the future.
If only we had that much time to do the job! Slowness now will make
doom come faster and harder. This article seems to reach for
self-delusion to avoid despair.
04 December 2015 (
EU participation in "peace process"
Now that the EU has stopped Israel from passing off products of colonies
in Palestine as "Made in Israel", Netanyahu has
retaliated
by cancelling EU participation in the "peace process".
The joke is that the "peace process" involving the EU is pure theater,
just like the one that the US tried to broker. Netanyahu used them to
pretend
he wanted peace.
Now he has "canceled" the remaining one, pretending
that that makes a real difference and that it is a real punishment
for the EU. Who knows, he may fool a few dumb klucks.
Netanyahu is pretending to have sabotaged a real peace process as an
act of blackmail. If he had really done that, it would be despicable
of him — but since it was a sham anyway, he hasn't really done
anything. Somehow he claims that his pretense puts the EU in the
wrong.
All this would be risible if the occupation and its effects were not
so tragic.
The sham "peace process" shielded Netanyahu effectively from pressure
for peace, while he made sure it would never get anywhere. Its demise
is one shield stripped away.
04 December 2015 (
NSA's legal authority
The NSA's legal authority to collect everyone's phone call records in the US
has
just expired.
Will the NSA really stop?
I don't think phone companies should be allowed to keep records of
all of everyone's phone calls, either.
04 December 2015 (
Kurdish human rights defender assassinated
A prominent Kurdish human rights defender was assassinated
while
talking to the press.
We don't know whether the Turkish state was responsible for the Elci's
assassination, but we know it was responsible for his completely
indefensible prosecution. The Turkish state has often engaged in
violence, even fatal, against opposition political groups; this has
gone on for decades.
Erdogan's party seems to have got
PISSI
to help out with a couple of
handy bombings of Kurdish rallies. That doesn't prove it arranged the
assassination, but I doubt it would have scrupled to do so.
04 December 2015 (
ALEC and global heating disaster
ALEC,
with
the support of Ben Carson,
continues to sabotage attempts to avoid global heating disaster.
ALEC has lost over a hundred sponsors, but it still gets plenty of
money from the Koch brothers.
04 December 2015 (
Protest messages in Paris
People are looking for
clever
ways
to express protest messages in Paris.
I suggest the way that the civil rights movement used: walk with a
sign, chanting, and
dare
the authorities to interfere
04 December 2015 (
TPP and TTIP
The TPP and TTIP, ostensibly meant to "liberalize trade" but designed
mainly to give business more power, can sabotage efforts to avoid
global
heating disaster.
02 December 2015 (
Urgent: Electronic Communications Privacy Act
US citizens: phone your representatives and senators to support
full reform of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act,
requiring
a search warrant in all cases.
02 December 2015 (
Urgent: don't let Republicans put riders in a spending bill
US citizens:
phone
your senators
and say, don't let Republicans put
riders in a spending bill to do nasty things such as exclude Syrian
refugees, or attack Planned Parenthood, or cancel network neutrality.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
02 December 2015 (
Urgent: support diplomacy in Syria
In the US: call on the TV show
Face
the Nation
to have some guests that support diplomacy in Syria.
02 December 2015 (
Urgent: investigate attacks on abortion providers as terrorism
US citizens: call on the
Department
of Justice
to investigate attacks
on abortion providers as terrorism.
02 December 2015 (
Urgent: denying global heating
Everyone: call on the Philippes to start soon their
investigation
into companies suspected of dishonestly denying global heating.
02 December 2015 (
Urgent: stop terrorist suspects from buying guns
US citizens: call on Senator McConnell to
support
a law
to stop identified terrorist suspects from buying guns.
02 December 2015 (
Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction
Dubya and B'liar
ignored
an expert report
saying that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.
This does not surprise me. After so much effort to manufacture a lie,
why would they have cared about the truth?
02 December 2015 (
"Prosperous" cities expensive to live
Many "prosperous" cities are so expensive to live in that ordinary workers can only rent
8-hour
shifts in a bed.
02 December 2015 (
Fight PISSI directly
Some Republican senators want to send US troops to fight
PISSI
directly.
They are right that defeating
PISSI
requires ground troops, but
Westerners that don't speak Arabic won't be able to do it. Many will
hate the civilians, call them by ethnic slurs, and dehumanize them.
They will have frequent misunderstandings with civilians they can't
talk with, often fatally. The civilians will consider
PISSI
the
lesser evil.
How do I know? Because we saw this happen in Iraq just 10 years ago, and
this
is what PISSI came out of.
For Turkish troops to fight
PISSI
is a pipedream, since they'd have to
mutiny first. Erdogan has been
protecting
PISSI's communications.
He wants to attack the Kurds, and PISSI has proved helpful in this.
Troops from Salafi Arabia might fight
PISSI
, but they would spread
Salafism which is the basis of
PISSI
's ideology. Troops from Egypt
might do the job.
02 December 2015 (
The power of repeated lie
Trump demonstrates the power of the repeated lie, as his supporters too claim they saw the
nonexistent
TV broadcasts.
This wasn't the first time. Dubya succeeded in convincing many Americans
that Saddam Hussein had had
weapons
of mass destruction
in 2003, even though US inspectors after the conquest said he didn't.
02 December 2015 (
"Endanger the public order"
The French state has given itself the power to abolish any
organization that does things that "might" prove useful to others that
"endanger the public order" (for instance, criminals or protests).
Organizations that promote encryption, or provide a place for people
to meet and talk without being listed to,
might be banned.
In addition, may be made a crime simply to look at a web site that the state
calls "terrorist".
A state like this, systematically crushing freedom, does more harm
over the long term than the terrorists it claims to be protecting
people from — unless repression also fuels the terrorists,
which is possible.
02 December 2015 (
Clinton wants more war
Clinton wants more war against PISSI,
never
mind strategy.
She is also against fixing the problems in the US medical system which
exist because of the compromises Obama made to insurance companies.
02 December 2015 (
Pushing a cashless society
Why The Powers That Be Are Pushing A
Cashless Society.
This is partly speculative, and I am not sure it is true, but it might be true.
02 December 2015 (
Global heating denialism
Global heating denialism has seeped into several
public
school textbooks
in California.
We must suspect this reflects the influence of some rich denialist, such
as Exxon or a Koch brother or the
Heatland Institute
02 December 2015 (
Multinational digital companies
Multinational digital companies screw the rest of us out of
millions
of dollars in taxes.
In the US, this adds up to $130 billion a year.
This is why America can no longer do things right: the wealthy in
America have
stopped
providing funds
for what America needs to do.
To the extent that international agreements about taxation get in the
way of fixing this problem, states must defy the agreements and fix
the problem anyway. But that requires voting out the politicians who
would rather say they can't do this than dare to try.
progressive
tax
on a business's gross income could help fix this.
02 December 2015 (
Right-wing rhetoric
Right-wing rhetoric calling for killing abortion doctors translates repeatedly into
murderous attacks.
The term "pro-choice" represents a weak decision not to defend
abortion itself. The issue here is not "choice", it is the right to
get an abortion when you want one.
02 December 2015 (
Labour Party against bombing Syria
The
UK
Labour Party
is turning against bombing Syria.
The question is not whether to consider
PISSI
an enemy, but rather
what to do about that. Is it wise or ethical to drop bombs on people
as an act symbolic participation, without a strategy to win, in a way
that is likely to strengthen the enemy by
killing
lots of civilians
which would aid PISSI's recruiting as well as being an injustice in itself?
Cameron responds to these questions with "but the symbol is so
important!" and "I have a rabbit in my hat".
The problems presented by the Raqqa exiles are so complex that there
may not be way to avoid all of them. However, ignoring them is
a recipe for doing harm and losing.
02 December 2015 (
French banned from marching
The French, banned from marching to demand defense of Earth's climate,
are making
pile of shoes
to symbolize the march they would have done.
It would be more effective to defy the ban and march anyway.
A substantial climate protest in Paris was taken over by "black bloc" people that
wanted
to fight with the thugs.
I can't disagree with what they said, but it was a stupid choice of
tactics. A nonviolent confrontation, maintaining the moral high ground,
would have put the state in the wrong, but this senseless violence gave
the state a victory.
In past protests, the "black bloc" was infiltrated by
state
provocateurs.
Perhaps that occurred this time too.
02 December 2015 (
Nuclear safety regulations
Companies designing "advanced" nuclear reactors want safety regulations
taken
out of their way.
Then nothing would stop them from making us guinea pigs for their
radioactive experiments, just when the nuclear power is becoming
pointless because of the tremendously superior efficiency of renewable
energy.
02 December 2015 (
Flaws of Alcoholics Anonymous
Confronting the flaws of Alcoholics Anonymous — not limited
to insisting people surrender to a "higher power"
even
though they know there isn't one.
02 December 2015 (
Bottom-fishing and dredging
Modern bottom-fishing and dredging equipment destroys
precious
sunken ships,
as well as the
life
on the bottom.
02 December 2015 (
Future of work
Predicting that work will become more precarious, lower paid, and involve intrusive surveillance,
for
those who can find work at all.
I don't use computer systems that want me to talk to them, except when
I'm talking to a company's computer by phone. In that case, I expect
the company to know and remember what I say. But when it comes to my
own activities, the server company that would translate the speech to
text has no right to know, let alone remember, what I say.
I will also refuse to use a "fitness tracker" that reports to anyone
other than me.
02 December 2015 (
Thugs' avoidable feeling of "danger"
How thugs created an avoidable feeling of "danger" in dealing with
Tamir Rice.
02 December 2015 (
Women's rights defenders murdered
Women's rights defenders
murdered
for their activism in 2015.
02 December 2015 (
Arundhati Roy meeting Edward Snowden
Arundhati Roy
reports
on meeting Edward Snowden, and ideas about refugees.
The recent actions of the French government and recent statements of
Republican political candidates show how right Snowden is.
02 December 2015 (
Conversing through digital devices
Conversing mainly through digital devices may have to do with the
decline
in ability to empathize
seen in young Americans.
02 December 2015 (
Shooting at Colorado Planned Parenthood
A man shot people at Planned Parenthood in Colorado because he had been stirred up by
deceptive
attack videos.
He's also identifying fetuses with babies, which is a common
irrationality among those that want to ban abortion.
The main terrorist threat in the US comes from fanatics like those,
who call themselves "pro-life" but they mean "life for fetuses —
not for real human beings."
02 December 2015 (
US social decay
The common theme in US social decay: redesigning various systems to privilege the rich and
push
the rest down.
02 December 2015 (
Unhealthful food
Poverty, in today's social system,
forces
parents to feed their children unhealthful food.
Healthful food
costs too much, requires time and skill to cook that these parents
don't have.
It may not even be on sale in many urban areas where the stores are geared
towards those that don't cook.
To touch on the unrelated topic of the last section of the article, I
see nothing wrong with protesting a speaker by theatrically walking
out of the talk. As long as the protest doesn't compel everyone to
participate, those who want to hear the speaker can do so.
02 December 2015 (
Anatomy of the Deep State
Essay:
Anatomy
of the Deep State.
The US government is deadlocked, but the president
and the executive spy and war agencies are allowed
to do almost anything with no checks.
02 December 2015 (
Western response to PISSI
Uri Avnery: the western response to
PISSI
is feckless and absurd
because politicians don't think straight about the problem.
Meanwhile,
Netanyahu
is working to confuse them.
02 December 2015 (
Prostitution in Morocco
Many Arab countries have banned a film presenting prostitution in Morocco,
and the people who made the film are receiving
death threats.
02 December 2015 (
Etat d'urgence climatique
From
France:
"Etat d'urgence climatique: mobilisons-nous!"
02 December 2015 (
Fasting on Thanksgiving
Fasting on Thanksgiving in solidarity with the
hunger-striking
prisoners of Guantanamo.
02 December 2015 (
Extraction of ground water
California has failed to limit farmers' extraction of ground water.
They are pumping so much that the land is sinking up to
inches a month
in some places.
The unequal sinking is destroying infrastructure.
If normal rainfall returns for a few years, these farms may turn into
lakes. But they will dry out again, more or less forever, in a few
decades.
02 December 2015 (
Future global heating
The foretaste of future global heating did not discourage
large
climate marches
in Australia and New Zealand.
02 December 2015 (
Urgent: Call for arresting Trump
US citizens:
call for arresting
Trump
for inciting violence.
02 December 2015 (
Urgent: Press Turkey to free journalists
US citizens:
call
on Obama and Congress
to press Turkey to free the journalists
prosecuted for reporting on arms smuggling to Syria.
02 December 2015 (
Banning anonymity
The idea of preventing terrorist attacks by collecting more data
and banning anonymity is inherently impossible.
It can oppress dissidents very well, and crush protests,
but
can't
distinguish a small group of terrorists from any small group of
friends
02 December 2015 (
New Zealand bows to business
The bow-to-business government of New Zealand sabotaged efforts to
reduce obesity, because they might interfere with the
profits
of fat-food establishments
. (That seems a more accurate term than
"fast food").
The excuse these bow-to-business politicians use is, "If it is
possible for heroic people to resist, there is no need to help the
rest." I've seen people use the same excuse to justify letting
companies lure and pressure people into being surveilled.
02 December 2015 (
Thugs want to prosecute for mockery
Australian
thugs
illegally searched for
mocking
statements made by Rhys Liam Halvey to his friends
. They wanted
to prosecute him for mockery.
The
thugs
withdrew the case against Halvey when a judge
threatened
to expose their illegal methods
of searching for what Halvey had
said.
That doesn't seem like enough of a punishment for them.
But supposing they had not used those illegal methods, supposing they
had been able to find Halvey's mocking statements in a legal way,
wouldn't Halvey have the right to mock them?
Doesn't Australia have any vestige of freedom of speech?
02 December 2015 (
Deforestation in Brazil
Deforestation in Brazil has
increased
16%
02 December 2015 (
Australia imprisons refugees without telling why
Australia imprisons refugees for years
without
telling them why
02 December 2015 (
Bombing PISSI in cities can backfire
Bombing
PISSI
in the cities it holds
can
backfire
02 December 2015 (
EU bowing to Turkish blackmail
The EU, desperate for Turkish help in reducing migration of Syrian
refugees, is at the point of
bowing
to Turkish blackmail
Providing money to support the Syrian refugees in Turkey is both wise
and ethical, but aside from that, this is a terrible mistake. Turkey
keeps open
PISSI
's
lifeline for
money,
arms and foreign recruits
. To defeat PISSI requires, one way or
another, a confrontation with Turkey.
02 December 2015 (
Pamplona calls for murder investigation
The city of Pamplona
calls
for an investigation
into Franco's murders.
02 December 2015 (
The election in Burma
The election in Burma was
not
free for the Rohingya minority
, whose candidates were banned.
02 December 2015 (
Proprietary software in drones
The US may require proprietary software in every drone, to
implement
surveillance and a back door
The article says the location of every drone will be sent to "the
cloud", meaning "don't ask who will store this data or for how long."
I think it's not a good idea to fly a drone in a cloud.
Avoiding drone collisions is important, but it can be done using local
communication which doesn't track them all. Keep in mind that it
won't be hard to disconnect this system entirely. Criminals will
easily be able to overcome the system; it won't be able to directly
stop them from doing anything. Its total surveillance and back door
will fall on non-criminals, who would cooperate willingly with a less
nasty system that would achieve the same goal.
02 December 2015 (
Repressive state of emergency in France
The state of emergency in France has become
repressive
People have been arbitrarily placed in house arrest, blocked from
working, for no apparent reason. This includes the leader of a
charitable organization that helps Muslim prisoners.
But repression is not limited to Muslims. Many people suspected of
planning climate protests have been
raided
and arrested
too.
These repressive actions have nothing to do with the officially stated
goal of preventing more terrorist attacks. The French
thugs
know full
well that these climate defenders are not terrorists. Their goal is
to crush anyone who would dare to
disobey
— because, to
a tyranny, disobedience is worse than terrorism. Terrorism offers
tyranny an excuse, but disobedience can make tyranny weaker.
The harm done to France by this attack on liberty will dwarf that of
the terrorist attacks — only to be dwarfed in turn by the global
heating disaster that this repression is helping to increase.
02 December 2015 (
Cameron's Drive to Bomb Syria
Cameron's Drive to Bomb Syria Is
Macho,
Foolish And Must Be Stopped
Jürgen Todenhöfer: I Know [
PISSI
] Fighters.
Western
Bombs Falling on Raqqa Will Fill Them with Joy
The proposed response has one problem. We can't "help" Turkey seal
the border through which
PISSI
because Turkey secretly supports and
arms
PISSI
. The border would have to be sealed despite Turkey's
interference.
02 December 2015 (
Attempts to block freedom of communication
Western attempts to block freedom of communication on the internet are
providing
cover to China in doing the same thing
02 December 2015 (
UK data retention plans
UK data retention plans are
based
on outdated ideas
of what is technically feasible or not.
02 December 2015 (
Having multiple lovers
Famous men who have many lovers are called "prodigious" while
women
who do likewise are sneered at
I can't tell from this information whether Ms Murdoch was promiscuous;
that's not the same as having multiple lovers.
02 December 2015 (
Salafi Arabia
Salafi Arabia
executes
terrorists and peaceful dissidents
— to those religious
fanatics, the difference is insignificant.
02 December 2015 (
Effect of global heating on birds
Global heating
is systematically
pushing
birds away from the equator, or up mountains
Those that run out of somewhere to go will become extinct.
01 December 2015 (
Urgent: Reject special prejudice
US citizens:
call on
Senators
to reject laws that would impose special prejudice
against Syrian refugees.
01 December 2015 (
Urgent: Condemn racism
Everyone:
call
on Republican candidates
to condemn racism in their supporters and
in other candidates.
01 December 2015 (
Turkey torturing Syrian refugees
Turkey is
torturing
Syrian refugees
into "voluntarily" leaving.
01 December 2015 (
Venezuelan candidate assassinated
An opposition candidate in Venezuela was
assassinated
in a rally
I don't know whether the socialist party is responsible for the
killing, but it has arrested and blocked a number of opposition
candidates in the past. Their current leaders do not have the stature
of Chavez, and they don't seem to know how to correct policies that
have bad consequences.
01 December 2015 (
Pissing on train station wall in Germany
A train station in Germany proposes to discourage pissing on a wall by
making
streams of liquid bounce back
I sympathize with those who want to discourage pissing on these walls,
but I have to wonder why so many people piss there. Does the train
station have toilets? If so, why don't homeless people use them? Is
there some obstacle?
A person in Germany confirmed that pay toilets are the usual in
Germany, and that's why people piss on walls. Instead of spending
lots of money on piss-reflecting surfaces, they should spend it on
giving people a proper place to use the toilet.
01 December 2015 (
Making cities porous
How
to make cities, neighborhoods and buildings porous
rather that
monofunctional and controlling.
01 December 2015 (
Attacks on Israelis by Palestinians
This year, Palestinians have frequently attacked Israelis. Many of
the attacks have occurred at
crossroads in Palestine where Israelis travel between the (illegal)
colonies in Palestine and Israel
Those colonies are the root of the current violence. They are not a
mere provocation, but a tremendous injustice. They were established
as a scheme to
take
Palestinians' land and water and drive Palestinians to flee
Netanyahu has used them to
make
sure peace negotiations would be a sham
The US should demand that Israel tear down those colonies, and should
put its money behind it. Aid to Israel should be proportional to the
decrease in size of the colonies, until they are gone.
01 December 2015 (
The TTIP
A central goal of the TTIP is to
export
massive amounts of tar sands oil from Canada to Europe
, with
disastrous effects world-wide.
The TTIP is a business-supremacy deregulation treaty, and it would
abolish the regulations that currently ban import of tar sands oil
because it is so toxic.
Business-friendly politicians will find no end of opportunities to
betray the public in the name of "growth" (for the rich) and other
goals that are not important enough to justify the harm they will do.
Americans, vote for Bernie Sanders for president. He will kill the
TTIP.
01 December 2015 (
UK prosecuting people who went to fight PISSI
While the UK bombs
PISSI
, it continues to prosecute
people
who have gone to fight PISSI alongside the Kurds
01 December 2015 (
Replanting mangrove forests
Replanting mangrove forests
may
reduce the coastal damage caused by El Niño
01 December 2015 (
Protesters block entrance to Heathrow
Protesters against airport expansion blocked an entrance to Heathrow
airport, and spoke about the need to
curb
flying in general to put brakes on global heating
01 December 2015 (
Suicide advisor resigns as doctor
Suicide advisor Philip Nitschke resigned as a doctor
so
he can continue giving suicide advice
to people who want to die.
01 December 2015 (
Journalists face "espionage" charges
Turkish journalists are facing
charges
of "espionage" and "divulging state secrets"
for publishing that
Turkey armed Islamists in Syria.
Calling this a "state secret" implies the report is true.
However, it an act of tyranny to prosecute them,
whether the statement is true or not.
01 December 2015 (
"Nation building"
The US used to be able to build anything and do a pretty good job.
Nowadays, when it tries
"nation
building"
, it gets everything wrong. But the corruption extends
to the US too.
The reason the US could build anything in the 50s and 60s
is due to the high tax rate placed on rich people and businesses
under that Republical socialist, President Eisenhower.
01 December 2015 (
Co-responsibility for terrorism
A UK politician
dares
to blame B'liar
for provoking terrorism with an unjust war.
Terrorism is wrong, and the terrorists are always responsible for that
wrong; however, when the terrorism was provoked by an even larger
wrong such as launching a war based on lies, those who did that are
co-responsible for the terrorism as well.
01 December 2015 (
Carbon emissions from Unilever
Unilever
says
it will become "carbon positive"
in regard to its direct energy
use by 2030.
This does not mean, however, that its products would be carbon
positive. Its suppliers and its shipping may account for the majority
of their emissions footprint.
01 December 2015 (
Wearable thermometer
A new thermometer allows parents, and probably various businesses too,
to
monitor
a child's body temperature all the time
01 December 2015 (
Peace
You Won't Win a War Against [
PISSI
If
You Don't Know What the Peace Looks Like
I disagree with one point.
PISSI
is an army; there is no good in
underestimating the enemy. But that is not crucial to the article's
point, which I think is valid.
01 December 2015 (
Wasting your money
Beware, if you choose what to buy based on a symbol of what sort of
person you like to think you are! You are being
manipulated
by subtle psychology into wasting your money
. And it could be
lot
of your money.
There is one situation where buying a product to communicate a
symbolic message to others is rational and wise: to support a worthy
cause.
1 December 2015 (
Strong marijuana
Very strong marijuana can cause serious harm to long-term users,
but prohibition
makes
it hard to get milder forms
1 December 2015 (
Whaling
Japan Under Fire Over Decision to
Resume Whaling
1 December 2015 (
Microsoft
Microsoft Once Again
Disregards
People's Settings and Abuses Them
, Again Pretends It's Just an Accident.
1 December 2015 (
Paris Attacks
Paris Attacks Plot Was
Hatched
in Plain Sight
1 December 2015 (
The human brain
Every human's brain is a
mosaic
of male and female characteristics
1 December 2015 (
'War' on Terrorism
Why a 'War' on Terrorism
Will
Generate Yet More Terrorism
30 November 2015 (
Urgent: No prize for Netanyahu
US citizens: phone the White House and urge Obama not to give
Netanyahu any military consolation prize for failing to block the
nuclear peace deal with Iran.
Israel
carries out collective punishment
and
continues
expanding colonies in Palestine
30 November 2015 (
US media system
The business-dominated, concentrated US media system is
not
the only possible system
Many other countries have a lot of newspapers, and even though some
are dominated by right-wing thought, they have exceptions too.
US "public" media are also business-dominated, because many programs
depend on funding from business or from business owners such as the
Kochs. This too is not inevitable; it developed in the 1990s. Now a
Koch is on the WGBH-TV board, in a position to limit coverage of
global heating
so as to protect the effectiveness of
the
Kochs' paid denialism
30 November 2015 (
Hype and exaggeration about terrorism
It's proper for news media to cover terrorism, but they don't need to
hype
and exaggerate
in a way that plays into terrorists' hands by
traumatizing the public.
30 November 2015 (
EPA cancels approval of toxic pesticide
The EPA has
cancelled
its approval
of the latest toxic pesticide, which certain GMOs
were designed to operate with.
30 November 2015 (
Sanders on US immigration policy
Sanders says he will
fix
the cruelties
of US immigration policy.
30 November 2015 (
Gaps in report about attack on MSF
MSF says that the Pentagon's report about the attack on the MSF
hospital in Kunduz has
suspicious
gaps
, while showing procedures that amount to negligence.
I pointed out some instances of
negligence
30 November 2015 (
Prison for letting child play outside
A mother in Sacramento is
threatened
with six months in prison
for letting her child play outside the
house.
The point that the child is in far more danger riding in a car with a
parent is especially cogent. American society is tied up in knots by
obsession with some rare and unlikely dangers, such as child-snatching
and terrorism.
30 November 2015 (
Statistics for "sex trafficker" arrests
US statistics for arrests of "sex traffickers" are
grossly
inflated
: most of them are sex workers and customers. Some pimps
that aren't traffickers are also included.
30 November 2015 (
Banning strong encryption
Don't
fall into the trap
of agreeing that banning strong encryption
would be justified if terrorists or criminals ever use it.
30 November 2015 (
Turkey's downing of Russian plane
On
the
significance
of Turkey's downing a Russian plane.
The article doesn't mention it has been standard Russian practice for
the past few years to probe many countries' borders persistently. In
a way, that's asking for a violent response. However, that changes
things only slightly.
30 November 2015 (
Climate meeting in France excludes public
By
banning
the public parts of the climate meeting
, France decided that the
people hardest hit by
global heating
should not be heard.
Bravo for the Swedish government official who wasn't totally
distracted from impending global disaster by a crime that killed 130
people. The danger of
climate mayhem
, perhaps
100
million killed by 2030
, and far more afterward, dwarfs that of
terrorism.
Indeed, the terrorism is a part of the effect of
global heating
's
climate mayhem
, which
created
the impetus for the Syrian civil war
, which in turn led to
PISSI
I urge those in Paris to
defy the
French state and march anyway
30 November 2015 (
Fertilizer polluting lake in Wisconsin
The cultivation of cranberries in Wisconsin pours fertilizer into the
nearby lake. This pollution
kills
the fish and makes the lake water unsafe
Would diverting the waste into a holding pond solve the problem?
Would the pond have to grow each year, or could it be used to separate
the fertilizer and apply it again?
30 November 2015 (
UK has no strategy for defeating PISSI
The UK government is determined to bomb
PISSI
in Syria as a symbolic
gesture of commitment — never mind that there is
no
strategy for actually defeating PISSI
Britons are
planning
protests against this bombing
A proper campaign to defeat
PISSI
militarily would probably include
air attacks as well as artillery and infantry. I would support the
bombing of
PISSI
fighters. However, bombing with no strategy and few
militarily justified targets will achieve nothing and tend to kill
civilians.
30 November 2015 (
Snooping with Hello Barbie
Crackers can
take
over a Hello Barbie to listen to the kids in the room
. They can
listen all the time.
It's a lot like a
portable
phone
This is what you must expect from devices with proprietary software
and a network connection. It's the Internet of Snooping Things,
Telemarketers, Cheaters, and worse.
30 November 2015 (
Sweden's fossil fuel challenge
Sweden Is Challenging the World to
Go
Fossil Fuel-Free
30 November 2015 (
Bushfires in Australia
As Australia suffers
"horrific"
bushfires
, will the Australian government agree to greenhouse gas
measures to limit how much worse they will get?
30 November 2015 (
The "dying cat" rhetorical switch
The
"dying
cat" rhetorical switch
— blocking consideration of an
important, uncomfortable issue by bringing out a very emotional issue
and arguing about which is more important.
29 November 2015 (
Urgent: Israeli colonies in Palestine
US citizens: oppose the plan to make the
Export-Import
Bank
support building more Israeli colonies in Palestine.
29 November 2015 (
Urgent: rebuke Governor Baker
Massachusetts citizens: rebuke Governor Baker for saying he wants to
exclude
Syrian refugees from Massachusetts.
29 November 2015 (
Urgent: preserve network neutrality
US citizens:
phone
congressional leaders
to preserve network neutrality.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
29 November 2015 (
Urgent: unauthorized poetry in Saudi Arabia
Everyone:
call
on Saudi Arabia
not to behead a poet for unauthorized poetry.
29 November 2015 (
Brazilian bloggers shot dead
Two Brazilian bloggers have been shot dead,
apparently
for criticizing local politicians.
29 November 2015 (
Ebola overwhelmed World Health Organization
Ebola Overwhelmed the World Health Organisation:
It
Must Never Happen Again.
29 November 2015 (
Trump's latest bullying
Trump's latest bullying:
mocking
a reporter
for a visible disability.
However, Trump's bullying goes far beyond mockery. He incited his
supporters to
physically
attack
a Black Lives Matter protester who came to his campaign rally.
He should be arrested and charged for this, and I hope soon
to post a link to a petition to that effect. If he loses
the Republican nomination, and chooses to run independently,
he should start the Childish Bullies Party.
29 November 2015 (
Impunity of thugs in Chicago
Measuring impunity for thugs in Chicago:
only
4% of complaints
made against them are upheld by the thug department.
60% of the complaints were made by blacks, but only 25% of the
complaints upheld were made by blacks.
29 November 2015 (
Australia's government proposes Reaganomics
Australia's government proposes to apply Reaganomics by reducing tax
rates — for businesses only. Benefits of this are supposes
to
trickle
down to the people.
29 November 2015 (
Murder of Laquan McDonald
Call on officials that tried to minimize the murder of Laquan McDonald to resign, and
call
for a special prosecutor.
29 November 2015 (
ISIS That Has Made It
Saudi
Arabia,
an ISIS That Has Made It".
29 November 2015 (
Blocked roads into Crimea
Interviews with people in Ukraine, near the Crimean border, where they
have blocked the roads leading into Crimea,
which
puts pressure on Putin.
29 November 2015 (
Caterpillar back doors
Caterpillar vehicles have
remote
shut-off back doors.
29 November 2015 (
Thugs prosecution delayed for 400 days
The
only
reason
the Chicago thug that killed Laquan McDonald is
getting prosecuted is that a court ordered release of the video
showing the killing. The prosecutor delayed the release, and the
prosecution, for 400 days.
I don't think we can trust that prosecutor to make a sincere attempt
to win a conviction.
29 November 2015 (
Global heating denialist organizations
A textual study found evidence that global heating denialist organizations were
working together.
29 November 2015 (
"Criminal justice reform"
The push for "criminal justice reform" ran into trouble because liberals
want to reduce prosecution of individuals, while the Koch brothers only
want
to
reduce prosecution of corporations.
29 November 2015 (
Pervasive anxiety about security
Pervasive anxiety about security helps right-wing politicians make budget
cuts
that
make everyone's lives insecure.
These budget cuts are likely to kill a lot more people than terrorists,
even if you consider only the suicides.
29 November 2015 (
Cruise missile fired at ceramics factory
Salafi Arabia fired a UK-made cruise missile at a ceramics factory,
for
no apparent military reason.
29 November 2015 (
Shelling MSF hospital in Kunduz
The US Army says that the crew of the plane shelling the MSF hospital
in Kunduz thought they were in a different place attacking a different
building. Their inability to recognize the error was due to several
systems that were
nonfunctional
or even missing.
Do the rules say that the crew was
supposed
to continue the
mission despite such problems? If so, the US is asking for such
mistakes, and must be considered responsible due to negligence.
29 November 2015 (
Protest next to Guantanamo prison
Americans will protest next to the Guantanamo prison,
across
the border in Cuba.
Cuba does not respect human rights
either,
but as a patriotic American I am most pained by these crimes when
they are committed by my own country.
29 November 2015 (
Thug that killed Laquan McDonald
The
thug
that killed Laquan McDonald could easily have remained at a
greater distance where McDonald could not possibly have hurt him.
If he felt "threatened",
his
own incompetence was to blame.
Will the
thugs
who erased the video be prosecuted for obstruction of justice?
That is called for.
29 November 2015 (
Punishing people who express ideas
France is trying to kill ideas by
punishing
people who express them.
Here in the US, it is possible to speak honestly about the holocaust.
There is plenty of evidence proving that it occurred. See, for
instance, the book Hitler's Willing Executioners, by Daniel Goldhagen,
and Story of a Secret State, by Jan Karski.
However, no honest statements about that question are possible
in a country such as France, that imposes censorship on the subject.
France also bans free discussion of the question of the
genocide
of the Armenians.
29 November 2015 (
Shots at Black Lives Matter protesters
Racist terrorists fired shots at Black Lives Matter protesters.
The protesters were in a camp,
doing
nothing noteworthy to anyone,
but most of them were engaged in protesting while black.
Thugs were present and
did
nothing to catch the shooters.
Because the shooters were whites?
(I will post about Trump later.)
A particularly vicious
thug
refused to call an ambulance for the
wounded protesters, then claimed that being shot by white supremacists
was
what the protesters wanted.
Perhaps the
thug
was projecting — he was the one who wanted the
protesters to be shot.
Then other
thugs
came and sprayed the wounded protesters (and those
trying to care for them) with mace.
29 November 2015 (
Persistent drought in Somaliland
In Somaliland,
global heating
has brought a persistent drought.
The
people cannot survive there.
They deserve help, but if Somaliland can no longer sustain its
population, the requisite help includes contraception. Under such
circumstances, each birth causes a death.
29 November 2015 (
Uzbekistan's tyrant
Uzbekistan's tyrant seems to seek to kill a dissident living in Sweden.
Not having killer drones to send there, he sends
human assassins.
29 November 2015 (
banned sales of bottled water
A university banned sales of bottled water, and found that consumption
of bottles increased —
people
bought soda and juice instead.
A hefty deposit on each plastic bottle might be effective for reducing
bottles while not making an incentive to choose something other than
water.
29 November 2015 (
Two-faced Exxon
Two-faced Exxon: the
Misinformation
Campaign
Against Its Own Scientists.
29 November 2015 (
Mine waste dams
Brazil's standards for mine waste dams are inadequate;
several
such dams have burst,
and the mine waste is a lot more harmful than water from a reservoir.
29 November 2015 (
Organs available by default in Wales
Wales will assume by default that any dead body's organs
are
available for use to save living people.
29 November 2015 (
Fanatics beat teenager to death
Christian fanatics in New York beat a teenager to death because he wanted to
leave
their church.
Saudi Arabia says
it
will do the same thing
to a poet who said he wanted to leave their church.
Saudi Arabia's form of Islam, Salafism, is poison.
PISSI
is its most
extreme form, but it's a threat to human rights
in any form.
I will try out referring to that country as
Salafi Arabia
29 November 2015 (
Towns for Jews where Bedouin now live
Israel
plans
to build towns for Jews where Bedouin now live.
These Bedouin are Israeli citizens but they don't have equal rights.
29 November 2015 (
Sponsors of Paris climate conference
Major sponsors of the coming Paris climate conference have
big
investments in fossil fuel, even in coal.
If this conference does not reach an adequate agreement, some
countries that will be devastated by
climate mayhem
might launch
last-ditch military attacks at the fossil fuel facilities that are
trying to kill them.
29 November 2015 (
Merger between Pfizer and Allergan
A merger between Pfizer and Allergan would reduce competition, increase
drug prices especially in the US, and
help
Pfizer taxes.
The US should make it quite difficult for major companies to merge,
and it should tax both domestic and foreign companies (when operating
in the US) more.
29 November 2015 (
Cuts in welfare
The UK government has investigated how cuts in welfare will hurt poor families,
and
is keeping the conclusions secret.
29 November 2015 (
Eating less meat
Eating Less Meat Isn't Just Good for You,
It
Could Save the Planet.
29 November 2015 (
Human Rights
The UK says it will start applying human rights concerns in its
foreign policy —
but
not to Salafi Arabia of course
29 November 2015 (
Bypassing censorship
Tor gives people in Bangladesh
way to bypass tight censorship.
Many supposedly "free" countries censor the internet, including France and the UK.
29 November 2015 (
Clean energy future
The Clean Energy Future: a roadmap for
moving
the US to renewable energy
and expanding jobs.
29 November 2015 (
Urgent: Human-readable GMO labels
US citizens:
phone
Senator Stabenow's office
to oppose the plan to put GMO labels
into non-human-readable QR codes.
29 November 2015 (
Surveillance of voters
Surveillance of voters
enables
campaigns to say different things to different groups of people
and effectively cover up the difference.
29 November 2015 (
Solar storm could destroy electrical grids
A powerful solar storm, like one that happened in 1859, could
destroy
electrical grids world-wide
. It could take ten years to rebuild.
Preparing to reduce the damage is part of the government's job.
To do its job, it needs to collect more taxes — from those
that are paying too little.
29 November 2015 (
Pakistan's Electronic Crime Bill
The
Sorry
Tale of the PECB
, Pakistan's Terrible Electronic Crime Bill.
29 November 2015 (
Quiet electric cars
The US
may
require quiet electric cars to make sounds
to warn pedestrians and
cyclists.
29 November 2015 (
Global heating
Fossil Fuel Companies
Risk
Wasting $2tn of Investors' Money
, Study Says.
Developing Countries Will Need
$270bn
More
to Adapt to [2C of] Climate Change.
29 November 2015 (
Chicago thug charged for murder
A Chicago
thug
has been
charged
for murdering Laquan McDonald
McDonald was perhaps carrying a knife when the
thugs
confronted him,
but he never tried to attack them. A group of 8
thugs
with guns
should not have had to kill him preemptively in case he might, just
might, try to attack them with a knife. They could have waited for
such an attack to start before they shot.
Prosecution of killer
thugs
in the US is
on
the rise
, but what we really need, to change the situation, is to
change the way
thugs
are
trained
to kill at the first suspicion
(especially if the person has a
skin
color that tends to inspire suspicion
).
29 November 2015 (
UK's "fit for work" tests
The UK's "fit for work" tests have
normalised
the suffering of sick and disabled people
I think this is a goal of the Tories, not merely a byproduct of
spending cuts. Tories believe poor people are morally inferior and
suffering is what they deserve.
29 November 2015 (
Primates on endangered species list
More
Than Half
of the World's Primates on Endangered Species List.
29 November 2015 (
Attack on US water supply
Polluters are using the bill to exclude Syrian refugees as an
opportunity to
attack
US water supply
29 November 2015 (
Refugees in EU countries
Sweden has
taken
all the refugees it can cope with
, and now refuses to accept more.
EU countries are
diverting
foreign aid
to pay for the refugees they have admitted.
29 November 2015 (
Mistaken accounting
Economists have claimed that advancing technology enables more
production with less in the way of material inputs. But this was just
a mirage produced by
mistaken
accounting
29 November 2015 (
Alberta's green economy plan
Alberta's green economy plan sounds great, but it
protects
tar sands extraction for too long
29 November 2015 (
Colorado Shooter
Our Culture And Laws
Enabled
the Colorado Shooter
, Whatever His Motive.
28 November 2015 (
Urgent: Condemn proposed repression
US citizens:
Condemn
Trump's proposed repression
of US Muslims.
28 November 2015 (
Urgent: Congressional Review Act
US citizens:
Thank
or criticize your senators
for their votes on the Congressional
Review Act.
28 November 2015 (
MIT Cozies Up to Fossil Fuels
Rejecting
Campus Consensus
, MIT Cozies Up to Fossil Fuels.
28 November 2015 (
Global heating denial
The denialists who claimed they had found a
"hiatus"
in global heating applied criteria that were rather loose
28 November 2015 (
Downed Russian fighter plane near Turkey
Turkish planes
shot
down a Russian fighter plane
near the Turkey-Syria border.
Turkey and Russia have been enemies for centuries. They are also at
odds in regard to Syria. Erdoğan
quietly
supports and protects PISSI
, while Putin supports Assad and may
now actually want to fight
PISSI
due to the
bombed
airliner
. To have Russian planes operating near the Turkish
border is going to be a danger spot.
Russian troops are
fighting
a Turkic minority in Northern Syria
28 November 2015 (
Decline of butterfly numbers
Neonicotinoid
pesticides are associated
with decline of butterfly numbers.
28 November 2015 (
Trump wants to torture
Trump wants to torture suspected terrorists
for
sheer sadism
28 November 2015 (
Texas thugs charged with homicide
Texas
thugs
have been arrested and charged with negligent homicide for
squeezing
a prisoner by the neck and then pepper-spraying him
. He died
shortly thereafter.
28 November 2015 (
Proposed US regulations for drones
The proposed US regulations for drones are a
disaster
28 November 2015 (
Municipal use of fossil fuel energy
Various cities are
pledging
to stop municipal use of fossil fuel energy by 2050
These pledges may stimulate the climate defense movement, but in
practice the time scale is too long for them to make much difference.
What matters is to get rid of most fossil fuel use sooner rather than
later.
28 November 2015 (
Vatican corruption
The Committee to Protect Journalists says the Vatican should drop
charges
against two journalists who investigated Vatican corruption
The Vatican should focus on eradicating the corruption, and thank
those who helped shed light on it.
28 November 2015 (
Snooping
To stop terrorist attacks, the state doesn't need to snoop on
everyone. It's enough to
watch
those that are already known and suspected
Many tech companies are allying to
oppose
state demands for back doors
Most of these companies don't deserve your trust, for other reasons.
You must not rely, for your privacy, on
proprietary software
28 November 2015 (
Austeria
Welcome to Austeria — a Nation
Robbing
Its Poor to Pay for the Next Big Crash
28 November 2015 (
Black lives matter
Why responding to "black lives matter" with
"all
lives matter"
is a statement of racism.
Responding with "all lives matter" misrepresents the position of the
anti-racists, pretending that their slogan "black lives matter" means
"only black lives matter". But they don't say, or mean, "only".
Properly understood, "black lives matter" is not racist at all. It is
a compact way of saying that "black lives matter just as much". It is
a rebuke to the covert, racist "black lives don't matter" movement,
which few overtly endorse but many act to support.
28 November 2015 (
The lockdown of Brussels
The lockdown of Brussels is
starting
to chafe
It's an overreaction which serves
PISSI
's purposes.
28 November 2015 (
Censorship in Poland
Poland's new right-wing government is
starting
to censor the theater
28 November 2015 (
Climate mayhem in Somaliland
In Somaliland, [
climate mayhem
] Is Now a
Life-Or-Death
Challenge
28 November 2015 (
Thugs having sex pretending not to be thugs
If it is just to imprison a woman for having sex pretending to be a
man, why not imprison an
undercover
thug that has sex pretending not to be a thug
28 November 2015 (
Alberta to tax carbon emissions
Alberta will impose a
tax
on carbon emissions
. The article does not make it clear whether
this covers fuel
burned
in Alberta or fuel
extracted
in Alberta.
27 November 2015 (
Urgent: Buy Nothing Day
Everyone: celebrate
Buy
Nothing Day
today.
26 November 2015 (
New Pun
Medieval ICs
25 November 2015 (
Urgent: Close "revolving door"
Everyone:
call on
Goldman Sachs
to close the "revolving door" that carries its
employees into US government service.
25 November 2015 (
Urgent: Tighten laws for buying guns
US citizens:
call
for tightening laws
for buying guns so that terrorist suspects
can't buy them.
25 November 2015 (
Urgent: Stop torture in Tibet
Everyone:
call
on China
to
stop torture in Tibet.
25 November 2015 (
Urgent: No more mass surveillance
US citizens:
call
on Obama
: no more mass surveillance.
See also
25 November 2015 (
Australia's greenhouse gas emissions
Using technicalities, Australia will claim it has met its commitment to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions; never mind that they are actually
increasing
25 November 2015 (
Fungibility and the Loss of Demandingness
The View from Hell:
Fungibility
and the Loss of Demandingness
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
I don't know how to summarize this one, so I could only quote
its title. It is a fascinating idea.
25 November 2015 (
Pharmaceutical ads
The American Medical Association
has
called for a ban
on direct advertising of pharmaceuticals.
25 November 2015 (
Let's Not Get It Wrong This Time
Let's Not Get It Wrong This Time:
The
Terrorists Won After 9/11 Because We Chose to Invade Iraq, Shred Our
Constitution
25 November 2015 (
Torture of prisoners in Bahrain
Bahrain makes a practice of torturing prisoners. The UK
looks
the other way
. So does the US.
25 November 2015 (
Human Ponzi Scheme
Human Ponzi Scheme of
Population
Growth
Can't Go On For Ever.
25 November 2015 (
Trump and Carson advocate torture
Trump and Carson
explicitly
advocate torture
They are appealing to the worst side of Americans by saying that since
PISSI
is evil, we should be evil too.
Obama opened the path to this by
failing
to prosecute Dubya and his henchmen for their torture
. As a
result, Trump and Carson expect they can get away with this crime.
25 November 2015 (
Barbaric cruelty
Analyzing the situational factors that led to a form of Islamism that
incorporates
barbaric
cruelty
There seems to be an aspect of human nature that includes dehumanizing
enemies. What is unusual about
PISSI
is that it dehumanizes nearly
everyone.
25 November 2015 (
Home robot sends what you say to Amazon
The home robot that listens to you, and
sends
everything you say to an Amazon server
Don't fool yourself by calling it
"the
cloud"
25 November 2015 (
NSA bulk collection of emails
The NSA "shut down" its bulk collection of emails, but only because it
had
found
another way to get them
25 November 2015 (
Arab "allies"
Arab "allies" against
PISSI
are
not
doing much to fight PISSI
25 November 2015 (
Easiest method of economic sabotage
The easiest method of economic sabotage is to
phone
and say you put a bomb on an airplane
There have been real bombs on airplanes, but was there
ever
been a case where a bomb threat call was made for a flight that had a
real bomb?
25 November 2015 (
Weeding robot
A fast weeding robot could
reduce
farm work and herbicide usage
I think this sort of efficiency improvement is a good thing provided
that those who become unemployed can share in the resulting bounty.
In the past, automation handled only a limited range of work, so many
new jobs were created and unemployment did not result. But now we are
likely to automate away all the jobs most people can get.
25 November 2015 (
Speed cameras
Speed cameras
systematically
issue speeding tickets illegally
25 November 2015 (
Thieving thugs
In 2014, US
thugs
took
more money
and property from the public than burglars took
25 November 2015 (
Unionizing in Juarez, Mexico
Factory workers in Juarez, Mexico, are trying to
start
unions
The aim of "free trade" treaties is to enable manufactures to create
the lousy working conditions of Juarez. They do this by threatening
to move production elsewhere unless workers lie down and take it.
This is why we must abolish the "free trade" treaties. We must pin
down production to some country (whichever one it may be), so that
workers in each country have the chance to campaign for better wages
and working conditions.
25 November 2015 (
Urgent: Pressure to fight PISSI
US citizens: call for
pressure
on Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar
to start really fighting PISSI.
In the case of Turkey, this is really pressure to
stop
supporting PISSI
25 November 2015 (
Restoring power to the people
Ralph Nader: Candidates for public office, especially at the state and
national levels, are never asked this
central
question of politics
: "Since the people are sovereign under our
Constitution, how do you specifically propose to restore power to the
people in their various roles as voters, taxpayers, workers and
consumers?"
Sanders spontaneously presents his answer to at least part of this
question.
25 November 2015 (
"Biodegradable" plastics
"Biodegradable" plastics
may
not biodegrade in the ocean
— and the label might encourage
littering.
25 November 2015 (
Foreign policy experience
Clinton's
foreign policy experience
provides plenty of reasons not to vote
for her.
Clinton's vote for attacking Iraq was a bad decision, but it was not a
"mistake". It reflects her bad general positions. I won't vote for
Clinton, any more than I would vote for the Republican candidates.
While Sanders is not my ideal candidate in regard to foreign policy,
he is superior to everyone else in the race.
25 November 2015 (
WTO forbids "dolphin-safe" labels on tuna cans
The WTO decided that protecting dolphins by allowing tuna cans to
carry a "dolphin-safe" label is a
forbidden
"obstacle to trade"
This stems from the wrong fundamental values of the WTO, which place
business profit above everything important.
The TPP would further strengthen the power of businesses to attack
measures to protect the environment. We need to abolish all the
existing
business-supremacy treaties
, but we are still on the
defensive. First we need to block the TPP, the TTIP, and the TISA.
If you have not done so, I urge you to contact your elected officials
to call for rejection of the TPP. We must not put democracy in a
trance
25 November 2015 (
UK's housing problem
The UK's housing problem comes from
allowing
the rich to make homes into investments
. Even some conservatives
see this.
The conservatives' proposed solution is unnecessarily nationalist.
Increasing taxes on large houses and apartments, especially those that
are no one's primary residence, would do the same job without
discriminating against anyone. That would also encourage foreigners
to sell the real estate investments they have already bought.
25 November 2015 (
Talking to bank over internet unsafe
In the UK,
talking
to your bank over the internet is unsafe
, because if someone
steals your password and uses it to take your money, the bank holds
you responsible.
Does anyone know whether the situation is the same in the US?
25 November 2015 (
Confronting PISSI
Confronting
PISSI
does not call for revenge, or destructive gestures, or
cruelty. It
calls
for a strategy
Anxiety
to Defeat [PISSI] Must Not Dictate the West's Military Strategy
25 November 2015 (
Traditions of oppression
Acceptance of other ethnic groups and their religions
must
never include acceptance of their traditions of oppression
I agree with the author about this issue, but I think he is making a
mistake by claiming that "progressive liberals" take the other side.
Some do, but I call myself "progressive" and "liberal", and I don't.
25 November 2015 (
UK thug infiltration of dissident groups
The UK
thugs
(except the department in London) refuse to commit to
stop
infiltrating
dissident groups and pretending to love female members
25 November 2015 (
PISSI manipulation
Since
PISSI
's
strategic goal is to make Muslims and non-Muslims hate
each other, we must
refuse
to be manipulated
into doing so.
25 November 2015 (
Effects of global heating
Around the world, the effects of
global heating
are
hurting
people
25 November 2015 (
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
Paris Attacks: Security and Surveillance Cast a
Dark
Shadow over France's Love of "Liberté" and
"Fraternité"
I've been using those two words in France to rebuke the state
for decades now.
25 November 2015 (
Convention on Children's Rights
The US is the
only country that has not ratified
the UN Convention on
Children's Rights.
25 November 2015 (
Medical records privacy law
The US medical records privacy law doesn't apply to many kinds of
medical
data
including the data collected by exercise trackers
This is a problem because of exercise trackers that contain
proprietary software and are designed to send the user's personal data
to a company site.
Such products are essentially unethical
and people should not be surprised when the
proprietary software
turns out to be malware
The US medical records privacy law (HIPAA) is totally inadequate when
it comes to government access to your records.
25 November 2015 (
Fanatics in Mississippi
Christian fanatics in Mississippi fired a teacher
for allowing a
student
to demonstrate, with a cucumber, the correct way to put on a condom.
The Christian fanatics want to keep teenagers ignorant of this
so that they will get pregnant, and then the fanatics can claim
that proves they should not have had sex.
Do you think I am exaggerating? All that is literally true.
25 November 2015 (
Pfizer tax rate
Pfizer misleads about the tax rate it pays by
not mentioning most of
its income
25 November 2015 (
Texas state textbooks
Texas officials
refused
to allow academics to check state textbooks for falsehoods
Miseducating children is their goal.
25 November 2015 (
Tracking
Trump
wants
to track all Muslims in the US but opposes tracking all guns
25 November 2015 (
Urgent: Sentencing Reform Act
US citizens:
ask
your congresscritter
to support the Sentencing Reform Act.
25 November 2015 (
Hostility towards Muslims
General hostility towards Muslims is
spreading
in the UK
, whereas in the US Trump called for making all Muslims
carry
special
ID cards
This is just what
PISSI
hoped to achieve.
25 November 2015 (
"Right to be forgotten"
The EU is considering a
directive
to extend the current "right to be forgotten"
, which is currently
a right for person P to demand that some pages be removed from
searches for the name P, so that it would cover comments that others
post which say things about P.
This would turn it it into a system of censorship.
25 November 2015 (
Local back doors in mobile devices
Baseless
Calls to Expand Surveillance
Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern.
A law has been proposed to require a
local
back door in all mobile devices
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
Once the back door was leaked, anyone who stole your device would be
able to decrypt its disk.
When citizens can't keep secrets from the state,
democracy
is in danger
25 November 2015 (
Fighting PISSI
The UN Security Council
called
for all countries to fight PISSI
I am in favor of fighting
PISSI
, but not in stupid ways.
25 November 2015 (
Saudi court sentences poet to death
Saudi Court
Sentences
Poet to Death
for Renouncing Islam.
25 November 2015 (
CNN "suspends" correspondent for opinion
CNN "suspended" a correspondent for
expressing
the wrong opinion off the air
25 November 2015 (
The practice of "swatting"
Congress is considering a law to make it a serious crime to
send
a SWAT team to someone's house by making a false report
I don't think this will put an end to the practice of "swatting". It
is too easy to make these false reports. Meanwhile, the practice is
made easier by
thug
departments that use SWAT teams too readily. The
lower the bar for sending the SWAT team to raid your house, the less
someone needs to do to get them to send it.
25 November 2015 (
Surveillance using stringrays
A US court has
imposed
strict limits
on surveillance using stingrays (cell tower
simulators).
I expect that the Supreme Court will eventually decide the question.
Even if stingrays were banned, or did not exist, the government could
get their location records from the phone company. For me, that is
too intrusive already.
25 November 2015 (
The "gray zone" of mutual tolerance
The
"gray
zone" of mutual tolerance
that PISSI wants to eliminate is what we
should defend.
25 November 2015 (
Civilian casualties
The Pentagon admitted, in very bureaucratic language, that
perhaps
some civilians were killed
in one of its air attacks against
PISSI
It is impossible to fight a war and totally avoid civilian casualties.
This attack was aimed at soldiers and hit some civilians that were
near them. I don't think it was a war crime.
But I can't believe that only two attacks in Syria have killed
civilians. No army can be that close to perfect. Thus, I suspect the
US is still covering up civilian casualties. In addition, the
standoffish and bureaucratic language of the Pentagon's statement is
likely to offend the very people it is trying to mollify.
PISSI
kills civilians brutally and shamelessly. In regard to violence
in Syria and Iraq, the US is ethically far above
PISSI
. That's not
sufficient. The US should be frank about civilian casualties. The US
must properly respect civilians' lives.
However, the comparison between the US and
PISSI
is pertinent in a
different way. Civilians under
PISSI
's
rule will make that comparison
when choosing sides. If we want them to regard
PISSI
as occupiers, we
need to think about how they will judge us and
PISSI
24 November 2015 (
Urgent: Defeat anti-environment riders
US citizens:
Call
on Congress
to defeat anti-environment riders in spending bills.
24 November 2015 (
Urgent: No more Goldman Sachs insiders
US citizens:
demand
no more
Goldman Sachs insiders in the Federal Reserve management.
24 November 2015 (
Islamist fanatics attack hotel in Mali
Islamist fanatics attack a hotel in Mali and
took
hostages, killing some
24 November 2015 (
Murder of human rights activists in Colombia
Over
700 human rights activists
have been murdered in Colombia in the
past 20 years.
24 November 2015 (
Deforestation in the Amazon
Deforestation in the Amazon
threatens
extinction for thousands of tree species
that live only there.
Global heating
is likely to wipe out large parts of the Amazon
rainforest, through drought and fire.
24 November 2015 (
Syrian free software leader Bassel Khartabil
Rumors
say that imprisoned Syrian free software leader Bassel Khartabil is
going to be executed by Assad's men.
Unfortunately there is no better source of information about whether
this is true. Syrian
thugs
are even more secretive about their
killings than US
thugs
24 November 2015 (
US thugs frequently steal
US
thugs
only occasionally hit, kick or kill people, but they are
very
frequently stealing
under the cover of law.
24 November 2015 (
Ultrasonic surveillance audio
TV commercials now include
ultrasonic
surveillance audio
, meant to be detected by malware in any nearby
mobile device.
The main wrong here is in the malware, which should be prohibited.
However, television regulators should prohibit the inclusion of these
sounds in broadcasts.
The hypothetical example in China is silly, because it is easy for Big
Brother to determine that several cell phones are in the same place,
just through the normal tracking that is done. This tracking, and the
remotely-enabled capability to listen on all conversations in the
room, are why I call those phones "Stalin's dream", and the main
reason why I refuse to carry one.
24 November 2015 (
Bill to reduce corporate tax
Senator Warren
blasted
Congress's bill to reduce taxes for multinational corporations
The low taxes on businesses and rich people are the cause of all the
US's fiscal problems.
24 November 2015 (
French gov't attack on human rights
La Quadrature du Net describes the French government's
blitzkrieg
against human rights
Amnesty International
criticizes
it
too.
24 November 2015 (
Republican candidates' apps
Certain Republican candidates distribute apps that
collect
lots of personal data
, even the user's contact list.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
These apps are proprietary software, so they are
software
for suckers
. They run on proprietary platforms that are also
software for suckers. For that reason alone, it's foolish to run
them, and wrong to develop them. I won't reject a candidate for
having such apps, because I know they are following the usual
standards of Americans. But I hope you will learn to reject nonfree
apps and nonfree platforms.
24 November 2015 (
Methane-charged undersea permafrost
Methane-charged undersea permafrost is
becoming
active in the Arctic Ocean
This suggests we are approaching the point where lots of methane will
be released, causing
global heating
positive feedback.
24 November 2015 (
UK thug department apologizes
A UK
thug
department has apologized for the
undercover
thugs
that infiltrated various dissident groups by forming long-term
relationships with women in the groups
The thug department has not admitted encouraging the
thugs
to form
such relationships, but that could hardly be false when so many did
it.
24 November 2015 (
Protests against racism
Protests against racism have
spread
to many US universities
There are many things that universities can do to reduce racism,
but one demand they should reject is to punish the
expression
of racist views
When students demand the university "suspend" Professor Swain, they
advocate conduct comparable to that which
Professor
Salaita
received.
I agree more or less with Professor Salaita's controversial
statements. I mostly disagree with Professor Swain's controversial
statements (*). But whether you or I agree with someone's views is
beside the point. We must respect people's rights to express views
whether we agree or disagree, and that includes professors.
* I think that Islam is dangerous in some situations, and the same
applies to Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and even occasionally
Buddhism. Or rather, the
bad
aspects of human nature can find in religion a field to express
themselves
24 November 2015 (
Antibiotic resistance
What
we must do
to confront antibiotic resistance.
24 November 2015 (
Adapting the Marseillaise
Adapting the Marseillaise to the
greatest threat to civilization
23 November 2015 (
Urgent: Join climate defense rallies
Join a
climate defense rally
near you, or start
one.
23 November 2015 (
Urgent: Curb global heating
Everyone:
call
on world leaders to take strong action to curb
global heating
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
23 November 2015 (
Asylum for threatened cultural treasures
France
will offer asylum
to cultural treasures threatened by fanatics.
23 November 2015 (
Bahrain refuses to prosecute thugs
Bahrain Refuses to Prosecute
Police
Who Tortured Journalist
23 November 2015 (
Pulling CO
out of the atmosphere
Technologies
being developed today
might be able to pull large amounts of
CO
out of the atmosphere.
23 November 2015 (
Heat stress and deaths of farm workers
Heat
stress could be responsible
for the death of many farm workers in
Central America.
Global heating
is going to
make
people less productive
in most of the world.
23 November 2015 (
Water damage due to global heating
Our 1C of
global heating
has
quadrupled
weather damage to historic properties
in the UK.
23 November 2015 (
Massive incarceration in the US
Massive incarceration in the US goes
beyond
the war on drugs
The topic is too big, and I know too little about it, for me to have
an overall opinion. All I can say is that we need to eliminate
private prisons, and that we should release most convicts that have
become so old that they are not likely to commit crimes again.
23 November 2015 (
Thugs tase man to death
Thugs
killed
Linwood Lambert by tasing him 20 times
, then lied about the
circumstances.
They could have just left him alone, since they did not think he had
done anything wrong.
23 November 2015 (
Evidence of corruption in unions and NGOs
Suggestive evidence that unions and NGOs, such as the League of
Conservation Voters, have endorsed Clinton
even
though Clinton doesn't support their cause as well as Sanders
Maybe they have been corrupted.
23 November 2015 (
What Elsevier considers "stealing"
Elsevier Says
Downloading
And Content-Mining Licensed Copies Of Research Papers
'Could Be
Considered' Stealing.
This isn't the last straw. Elsevier's last straw was years ago.
I urge academics to refuse to review papers for any Elsevier journal
except when there is a specific overriding moral imperative to do so.
23 November 2015 (
US ISPs undermining net neutrality
US ISPs are undermining network neutrality by
giving
special deals to certain sites and then charging more for access to
everywhere else
23 November 2015 (
Detroit thug convicted
A Detroit
thug
has been convicted of attacking Floyd Dent. The thug
punched
Dent 16 times in the head
, for no evident reason.
23 November 2015 (
Minneapolis thugs beat up protesters
Thugs
in Minneapolis
beat
up two women
who were protesting the killing of Jamar Clark.
23 November 2015 (
US attack drone controllers
US attack drone controllers have developed a
callousness
towards killing civilians, even children.
23 November 2015 (
Trump wants special ID cards
Trump wants to require Muslims to carry
special
ID cards
It is unamerican to require people to carry ID cards.
Why not make them wear armbands with a star and crescent?
23 November 2015 (
French intelligence knew Paris attackers
French intelligence
knew
several of the Paris attackers
. If the goal was to prevent these
attacks, total surveillance of everyone was irrelevant.
23 November 2015 (
Repression in Morocco
Morocco
uses
unjust pretexts
to repress journalists and human rights defenders.
23 November 2015 (
FBI entrapment
The FBI entrapped Eric McDavid into a fantastic bombing scheme, then
lied
to convict him and concealed evidence to support the lie
When he asked for an explanation for the illegal concealment of
evidence, the US responded by threatening to jail him again.
This is what the FBI means when it says it "protects" us.
23 November 2015 (
Sale of genetically modified salmon
The FDA has
approved
sale
of genetically modified salmon.
I expect that these salmon are safe to eat, because there is nothing
that would tend to make them dangerous. However, the defenses against
contaminating
wild salmon genetically
are not enough. The company wants to get
to market now, not in several years after developing more levels of
defense. Thus, the company will always tend to take insufficient
precautions.
23 November 2015 (
Livestock population
The livestock population is
increasing
faster than the human population
and is a big environmental
threat.
The statements in the article about limiting human population growth
are self-contradictory. It says, "When there is almost nothing to be
done, there is no requirement to act," but then shows that the world
could reduce human population growth quite a bit. I am glad I have
contributed to this goal by
having no
children myself
, and I recommend you think about it too.
23 November 2015 (
France attacking itself
France passed an "emergency" law
permitting
the state to impose house arrest on anyone with no judicial review,
and examine any computer without a warrant
Poor France, attacking itself at a level that mere terrorists cannot
reach.
23 November 2015 (
UK gov't keeps global heating advancing
The UK government is
going
all-out
to keep global heating advancing.
23 November 2015 (
Rallies for climate protection
Rallies for climate protection are planned
around
the world
instead of the banned march in Paris.
Activists should
defy
the ban and march in Paris anyway
. There are too many lives at
stake here to let the government's minor short-term concerns get in
the way.
22 November 2015 (
Urgent: Regulate oil well emissions
US citizens:
call
on the EPA
to regulate methane emissions from old and new oil
wells.
22 November 2015 (
Doctors in UK's NHS to strike
Doctors in the UK's National Health Service have
voted
to strike
, as the government's program of spreading poverty and
stress targets them.
22 November 2015 (
Stateless in the Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic arbitrarily deprived of citizenship
four
generations of people born in that country if they are of Haitian
ancestry
. Many of them are not Haitian citizens, and if they can
get into Haiti it is only because that failed state can't control its
borders.
22 November 2015 (
The craving for revenge
You
Needn't
Crave Revenge
After Attacks like Those in Paris. I Didn't After
9/11.
What I crave is to
defend
against the follow-on attack which targets our freedom
22 November 2015 (
Renewable energy in tropical countries
Many tropical countries are
investing
heavily in renewable energy
22 November 2015 (
Male-female sex-change
Germaine Greer
had
to struggle to be allowed to speak in a UK university
. She says
that a male-female sex-change operation doesn't produce a real woman,
and many condemn her views.
I think Greer is right in a narrow sense, but perhaps wrong at a
deeper level.
What is the difference between a typical man and a typical woman?
It's actually many miscellaneous differences. Changing one of them in
a man won't produce a woman. Changing several of them might result in
a close-enough woman.
Not all men are alike, and not all women either. Perhaps the man that
wants to be a transsexual starts out woman-like on some of those
points.
22 November 2015 (
Curfews
Various countries are
shutting
down city streets and parks at night
. This narrows the life of
the city and narrows human rights.
Other cities are
promoting
walking on the streets
22 November 2015 (
Housing crisis in Europe
Europe is suffering from a lasting
housing
crisis
This is part of the reason I have not encouraged European countries to
take in lots of refugees. They have not got enough housing or enough
jobs for their current population. If they don't adopt policies to
create a lot more housing and jobs, the refugees will have to compete
with the poor for too little.
22 November 2015 (
DA wants back door in mobile devices
The
Paris attackers did
not use encryption
, it seems.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
Meanwhile, a district attorney
wants
to require back door in all operating systems for mobile devices
Doesn't he know that
all
mobile phones already have them
Just as in 2001, the next target is our freedom!
22 November 2015 (
CMU's Tor-cracking investigation
CMU says that the FBI didn't pay for its Tor-cracking investigation,
but
refuses
to answer any more questions
Maybe it was paid for by some other US agency rather than the FBI.
22 November 2015 (
Myth of genetic determinism
Our culture is
erecting
a myth of genetic determinism
Note that it is clearer to make a clear distinction between a cell's
genetic sequence and its epigenetic tagging. They are both found in
DNA, but they are quite different.
22 November 2015 (
Emails with embedded URLs
If you allow emails to embed URLs, you're asking to be
mistreated
I normally look at an email via the ASCII text in it. On the
occasions that I look at HTML, I render it with lynx, which ignores
anything embedded. None of these tracking methods work on me, and if
you use this method, they won't work on you either.
22 November 2015 (
Conservatives attracted by subjection of women
Conservative westerners are attracted by
Islamists'
subjection of women
22 November 2015 (
Urgent: Investigate climate fraud
US citizens:
call on the
SEC
to investigate Exxon's climate fraud.
22 November 2015 (
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Many bacteria are
developing
resistance to the last line of antibiotics we have left
This was caused by feeding the antibiotics to pigs.
All sorts of surgery will become quite dangerous if we don't develop
new antibiotics — and stop farms from ruining them!
22 November 2015 (
Workers protest Clinton's failure
Walmart workers protested Clinton's
failure
to endorse a raise in the minimum wage
22 November 2015 (
Shoot-to-kill Won't Make Us Safe
Shoot-to-kill Won't Make Us Safe from Terror —
Just
Sorry
22 November 2015 (
Prepare for peace
French Pirate Party:
If you
want peace, prepare for peace
22 November 2015 (
US to sell more weapons to Saudi Arabia
The US will sell repressive, Islamist Saudi Arabia
over
a billion dollars more
in weapons.
Human Rights Watch calls on the US to stop selling bombs to Saudi
Arabia because it is
dropping
them on Yemen and killing lots of civilians
Saudi Arabia, a US "ally", seems to have
helped
start the Islamist armed revolt in Syria
, aided by US "ally"
Turkey
Meanwhile, Saudi money has been
behind
the spread of Wahhabism
, the extremist and oppressive form of
Islam that has been pushing out the more humane forms of Islam.
22 November 2015 (
Iran dismantling nuclear program
Iran Starts Dismantling Nuclear Programme,
Says
UN Watchdog
22 November 2015 (
Neonicotinoids
Neonicotinoids found to
impede
pollination by bumblebees
22 November 2015 (
Warning from former US drone operators
Former US drone operators warn that
US
drone attacks are important recruiting forces
for PISSI and
terrorists.
22 November 2015 (
UK climate and energy policy
Is UK Climate And Energy Policy
Hypocritical
or Just Incompetent
22 November 2015 (
Islamists
It's a mistake to say that the US (or France) is at war with "radical
Islam". Even most radicals
don't
want to attack western countries
Islamists are not necessarily violent enemies of anyone, but their
views make them political enemies of human rights.
22 November 2015 (
Extremist parties in Israels gov't
Extremist parties that call for demolishing the al-Aqsa mosque are now
included in Israel's government. It is
not
wild imagination to suppose they might actually do it
Building the "third temple" is part of
what
US Christian nuts think is necessary to bring about their prophesied
apocalypse
. I suspect that some of them are spending millions to
help those parties.
22 November 2015 (
Jailed Palestinian minors
Israel jails Palestinian minors
as
young as 8
in painful conditions and arbitrarily hampers them from
talking with their families.
I expect that most of these minors are teenagers, but some really are
children.
22 November 2015 (
Harassment faced by Palestinians
Palestinians living in part of Hebron face
additional
harassment
designed to drive them to abandon their homes.
Israeli troops
forced
international human rights activists out
of the apartment they had
rented in Hebron.
These activists serve as witnesses to how Israelis officially and
unofficially treat Palestinians, which makes their presence
inconvenient. In practice, the state supports the
repeated
pogroms carried out by Israeli fanatics
22 November 2015 (
Collective punishment
Demolishing
a family home
because one person in it committed (or is accused
of) a crime is an unjust collective punishment.
Israel says it will carry out unjust collective punishment on any
family, but in practice it's
only
done to Palestinians
. And it already has inspired relatives to
respond with violence.
21 November 2015 (
Urgent: Release videos of killer thugs
Everyone:
demand
the release of the videos
showing the killing of Jamar Clark.
21 November 2015 (
Urgent: Diplomacy to end Syrian civil war
US citizens:
support
Kerry's efforts
for diplomacy to end the Syrian civil war and
target
PISSI
21 November 2015 (
Urgent: Network neutrality
US citizens:
phone
your senators
against riders in a spending bill to eliminate
network neutrality.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
21 November 2015 (
Neonicotinoid pesticide approval cancelled
A US appeals court
cancelled
the approval of neonicotinoid pesticide sulfoxaflor
, saying that
the EPA must first properly test its effects on bees.
21 November 2015 (
Spain wants to arrest Israeli officials
Spain wants to arrest
Israeli officials and ex-officials
responsible for the deadly
attack on the Mavi Marmara.
21 November 2015 (
Reducing our combustion of oil
The Norwegian oil company Statoil has
given
up on drilling in the Chukchi Sea
The US government
postponed
a sale of oil leases in US public land
These are victories, but we will need lots more of them. We must
reduce our combustion of oil, reduce it to zero in not too much time,
to avoid
climate mayhem
21 November 2015 (
PISSI wants war
PISSI
wants a war between all Muslims and all non-Muslims. How we can
avoid
falling into PISSI's trap
21 November 2015 (
Declining wages in the US
The US has made substantial progress towards the goal of equal pay for
equal work, because of the
fall
in the income of men
21 November 2015 (
Turkey keeps PISSI's supply lines open
Turkey
could
cut off PISSI's supply lines
, but Erdoğan threatened war against
the Kurds just to keep those lines open.
21 November 2015 (
Borqa bans
Several African countries have
banned
borqas to prevent hiding bombs under them
21 November 2015 (
Reduced funding for coal
The OECD countries
agreed
to reduce funding for coal power
in other countries, but Japan
blocked eliminating this funding.
This may do some good, but it is not the sort of vigorous action that
could save civilization from global disaster. To risk civilization's
survival for a comparatively small short-term goal, such as improving
access to electricity in some poor countries, is foolhardy. It won't
help the people of those countries to get electricity in the next
decade, then wiped out in 70 years.
Besides, solar power is much better for providing electricity to
dispersed rural populations.
I have to suspect that Japan's representatives were working for the
coal interests and what they said was just an excuse.
21 November 2015 (
Global heating
2C
of global heating is probably too much
, except under unlikely
assumptions.
21 November 2015 (
Killing people by remote control
What it is like to be a
US
drone pilot
and kill hundreds of people by remote control.
21 November 2015 (
France bans rallies for climate defense
France has
banned
rallies during the climate conference
This decision is short-termist folly. Rallies for climate defense are
necessary for public safety. Terrorists could at worst kill a few
hundred people in a rally.
Global heating
is likely to kill
hundreds
of
millions
of people
, though over a longer time.
I urge activists to march anyway and dare the state to stop them.
21 November 2015 (
Attackers were European citizens
It appears the Paris attackers were
all
European citizens
— most have been identified, and they
included no refugees or visitors.
21 November 2015 (
Refugees
To
Turn On Refugees Because Of Paris Is Weak And Absurd
21 November 2015 (
Victims of PISSI's attack
In France, the victims of
PISSI
's attack
include
Muslims
In Syria and Iraq, most of
PISSI
's
victims are Muslims. Ordinary
Muslims and
PISSI
are natural enemies.
21 November 2015 (
France making the same mistakes as the US
Will France now commit the same errors and wrongs that the US did
after the September 2011 attacks?
It
has already started to
21 November 2015 (
Whales killed in marine sanctuary
An Australian court found a Japanese whaling company guilty of
killing
whales in an Australian marine sanctuary
It may not be easy to make the company pay the fine.
21 November 2015 (
Secret interpretation of CISA
A secret interpretation may make CISA even
worse
than its wording appears
. The ACLU is suing to find out.
21 November 2015 (
Boko Haram still setting off bombs
Boko Haram is still setting off bombs in cities and
causing
hundreds of casualties
21 November 2015 (
High levels of CO
impede good thinking
High levels of CO
in the air
impede
good thinking
Global heating
is not likely to raise the general world CO
level enough for this to happen. But it can already happen inside a
building in a city, and with
global heating
, the problem inside
buildings in cities will get worse.
21 November 2015 (
Protests in Washington
Protests in Washington are
aimed
at the US Trade Representative
, the office that promotes
antidemocratic treaties such as the TPP.
21 November 2015 (
Harming children's academic success
Parents that
make
unreasonable academic demands
on their children tend to harm their
academic success.
20 November 2015 (
Another reason to vote for Sanders
Another reason to vote for Bernie Sanders for president:
Clinton
wants more war
Haven't we learned
how
stupid this is
Whereas Sanders recognizes that
climate
mayhem is a bigger danger than today's terrorists
20 November 2015 (
Curtailing Liberty Provokes Terrorism
Curtailing
Liberty Provokes Terrorism
20 November 2015 (
Science museums and planet roasters
Several important science museums have
stopped
accepting funds from planet roasters
20 November 2015 (
PISSI
Does
PISSI
] Direct Attacks or Inspire Them — And Why That
Matters
20 November 2015 (
CIA and NSA try to smear Snowden
The CIA and NSA
have
not found anyone trying to start a terrorist attack in the US
But they pretend they have, in order to smear Snowden.
20 November 2015 (
Bombing PISSI
Countries are joining the bombing campaign against
PISSI
, not because
more planes would achieve a military objective, but
as
a symbol
We
Accept That Russian Bombs Can Provoke a Terror Backlash. Ours Can
Too
I am not a pacifist. Effective military action may be justified even
despite blowback. But effective military action tends to be
concentrated on enemies, so it causes less blowback. Reflexive,
ill-calculated military action "because we must bomb something" will
tend to be self-defeating.
PISSI
hopes to provoke Western reactions that would create a war
between the West and all Muslims.
Some politicians are eager to fall into this trap.
19 November 2015 (
Employment
Global
developments
in employment.
19 November 2015 (
Greenhouse gas footprints
When a company tried to reduce the greenhouse gas footprints of its
products, that turned out to be a
big
challenge
We need a carbon emissions tax so that the market will factor in your
greenhouse gas footprint.
19 November 2015 (
Just what terrorists hoped to achieve
The assassinations at Charlie Hebdo have
elevated
hostility towards Muslims in France
— just what terrorists
hoped to achieve.
19 November 2015 (
Climate defense march in France
France
may
block a large climate defense march
in the name of safety.
Global heating
is a far bigger danger than PISSI.
If we can't overcome the plutocrats and make states take adequate
action to curb
global heating
, we might as well be dead.
19 November 2015 (
Russian airliner destroyed by terrorist bomb
It is now ascertained that a
terrorist
bomb destroyed a Russian airliner over the Sinai
, killing 224
people.
19 November 2015 (
Fossil fuel divestment sit-in at Stanford
Stanford Students Begin 'Indefinite'
Sit-in
over Fossil Fuel Divestment
19 November 2015 (
Activists charged with "rebellion"
The dictator of Angola has charged activists with "rebellion"
for
a book reading event
. The book was about nonviolent resistance.
19 November 2015 (
Urgent: Postal banking
US citizens:
call on the postmaster
of the USPS
to implement postal banking.
19 November 2015 (
Total surveillance
Total surveillance is giving France so much data that the
real
terrorists can hide in the plain sight of the national panopticon
19 November 2015 (
Mine waste in Brazil
The ecological damage from the mine waste in Brazil could last
decades and when it reaches the ocean, it will
threaten
ecologically vital areas
19 November 2015 (
Tasers
It is
not
clear that tasers reduce either killings or injuries
from the
actions of
thugs
19 November 2015 (
Attacking PISSI
France is
sending
an aircraft carrier
to increase the number of planes it can use to
bomb
PISSI
There are some fishy things here. Why use an aircraft carrier
rather than sending additional planes to the land base in Jordan?
Operating planes from a carrier must be more expensive than operating
them from the ground.
And what's the use of more planes if it is hard to find good targets
to attack?
On the other hand, the US seems to have found an important vulnerable
point:
the
trucks PISSI uses for smuggling oil
If
PISSI
is indeed a gang that raid and loots to propagate itself to
loot again, then it can be forced into collapse if it can't get loot
and can't sell oil.
Capturing
PISSI
's
territory near the Turkish border is strategically
crucial. However, trying to do this with Western troops would
backfire terribly.
18 November 2015 (
Urgent: Oppose war on drugs
Citizens of Massachusetts:
Oppose
a bill to ramp up the war on drugs.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
18 November 2015 (
Witnesses see thugs shoot handcuffed man
Protesters blocked a highway after
thugs
in Minneapolis
shot
a black man dead
. Witnesses say he was in handcuffs, but the thugs
say he wasn't. Who do you believe?
18 November 2015 (
Repressive Wahhabism
Accusing Saudi Arabia of poisoning the Muslim world with repressive
Wahhabism
18 November 2015 (
PISSI
PISSI
, the
pirates
of the desert
Cole's point that it is impossible to "contain"
PISSI
can be literally
correct, but not in the way he asserts. It may be that a stable
situation in which
PISSI
exists for a long time under containment is
impossible; if so, that suggests that containing
PISSI
would lead to
its collapse, as it could no longer do profitable raids.
18 November 2015 (
UK faces ecological derangement
The UK faces
ecological
derangement all over
, as a result of the 1C of global heating we
have already caused.
18 November 2015 (
Coal
Coal is
not
an effective way to extend access to energy
, even ignoring that it
could cause ecological disaster.
Just eliminating coal combustion isn't enough to avoid the disaster;
it's just the first step.
18 November 2015 (
FBI-CMU "research" on Tor
The Tor Project says that the FBI-CMU "research" to identify Tor users
was a
fishing
expedition
, aimed at finding anyone they could accuse of anything.
18 November 2015 (
Chinese companies bottling glacier water
Chinese companies are hurrying to
bottle
water from Himalayan glaciers
before global heating melts them.
Ok, that is a slight exaggeration.
18 November 2015 (
Collective punishment
Israeli troops carried out a collective punishment,
demolishing
a house in a refugee camp
; local Palestinians threw stones at
them, so the Israeli troops shot and killed some of them.
Collective punishment is always an injustice. In my estimation, the
culpability in this incident falls entirely on the Israeli troops.
They cannot claim the justification of self-defense for shooting if
they were on a mission of wrong.
18 November 2015 (
PISSI's hate for civilization
PISSI
Hates
Middle Eastern Civilisation Too
18 November 2015 (
Governments of the World Agree
Lauren's Blog Redux: "Governments of the World Agree:
Encryption Must
Die!
18 November 2015 (
Using attacks as excuse to skip debate
UK anti-privacy activists
seek
to use the Paris attacks as an excuse
to skip debate about new
mass surveillance powers.
Each terrorist attack, anywhere in the world, provides an excuse for
Big Brother to say we should surrender more freedom so he can
"protect" us. Aside from the danger of tyranny, which exceeds that of
terrorists, it's
not
even clear that increased surveillance would achieve its goal
There is no limit to how many people a tyrannical state can kill,
torture, or imprison. We need a state, for the
many
essential things that states can do
, but we must make sure it
remains under our control, and we
can't
do that if it knows everywhere we go and everyone we talk with
Prohibiting expression of opinions, "advocating" this or that, is a
form of tyranny. When "extremism" is prohibited, will plutocrats
declare rejection of plutocracy "extreme"? We be prosecuted for
advocating a return to democracy?
18 November 2015 (
Cease-fire between Assad and his enemies
The US and Russia have
agreed
to ask the UN to broker a cease-fire
between Assad and his
enemies.
18 November 2015 (
The inequality created by the Tory gov't
Britain's previous Tory prime minister
rebukes
the current Tory government
for the inequality it has created.
18 November 2015 (
US history of keeping Haiti down
More about the Haitian election and how it relates to the
US
history of keeping Haiti down
18 November 2015 (
Massive surveillance
Raising consciousness about massive surveillance:
do
you dare call a number that's possibly on an NSA suspicion list?
Reading stallman.org might do the same thing.
18 November 2015 (
Businesses pretend to have feelings
Businesses pretend to have human feelings …
to
exploit grief.
The Facebook feature praised in the article is
also a way of manipulating users: after any sort of disaster, they
are under pressure to be used by Facebook because not doing so would
suggest they were among the casualties.
18 November 2015 (
Warning against violence
A former hostage of PISSI
warns
against the mistake
of playing into its hands with ill-calculated violence.
18 November 2015 (
Reduced elephant poaching
Kenya has succeeded in
driving
elephant poaching way down.
18 November 2015 (
Saudi-US coalition
The Saudi-US coalition is
bombing
the cultural history of Yemen to bits.
18 November 2015 (
Attempt to block research
Republicans are trying to
block
students from doing research
on the effect of Republican abortion-harassment laws.
16 November 2015 (
Call it PISSI
Why
it is important
not to call PISSI by the names it gives itself.
It's the same reason we shouldn't call sharing "piracy", or call the
prohibition of sharing "protection".
16 November 2015 (
Software to recognize microexpressions
Software has been developed to
recognize
human microexpressions
. Most people (maybe all) will be unable to
hide their feelings from these.
This may be good in some circumstances, and bad in others. Even if
everyone has access to this, it will tend to reinforce the power of
those with more power already.
16 November 2015 (
Campus thugs
Why
Campus Cops Are So Dangerous
16 November 2015 (
Prison for spraying children with watergun
New Mexico has sentenced a man to
18
years in prison
for spraying children with a watergun containing
water mixed with his semen.
People should not do this, mainly because if they have some disease,
there is a small chance they could transmit it this way. But if he
didn't have a disease, I can't see that it did them any harm, or why
they should be called "victims". This was not really "sexual
contact".
16 November 2015 (
Kurdish journalist imprisoned by Australia
Kurdish journalist Behrouz Bouchani fled Iran because he was going to
be imprisoned for his work. Now he is
imprisoned
by Australia for being a refugee
16 November 2015 (
Americans' medical coverage
Many Americans' medical coverage has such a high deductible that they
still
can't afford medical care
These insurance plans may be worth their price, because in the event
of hospitalization or a major illness they might save the people far
more than $3000. But these people are in such a desperate situation
that they can't afford to make rational investments.
16 November 2015 (
Haitians protesting rigged election
Haitians are
protesting
massively
against the rigged presidential election.
16 November 2015 (
Winter snowpacks shrinking
Global heating
is
making
winter snowpacks shrink
; declining water supply will affect two
billion people.
16 November 2015 (
NATO's responsibility for torture
The ICC
seems
to be investigating
NATO's responsibility for torture in
Afghanistan.
16 November 2015 (
Portland bans new fossil fuel infrastructure
Portland, Oregon, has
banned
all new fossil fuel infrastructure
The whole world ought to do this.
16 November 2015 (
Toxic mine waste in Rio Doce
As toxic mine waste slowly flows downstream in the Rio Doce, it
poisons
water and kills fish
Some towns are emptying as people in them have no water. What I
wonder is, how long will it take before the river water is safe again?
Will it be weeks, or decades?
Talking of "slow-motion environmental catastrophe", the whole world is
facing an even slower one.
16 November 2015 (
Tor "research" at CMU
Tor
Says Feds Paid Carnegie Mellon $1M to Help Unmask Users
Comp sci "research" aimed at sabotaging Tor reflects
an
ethical
blind spot
16 November 2015 (
Chances of experiencing abuse from thugs
When black Americans deal with a
thug
, their chance of experiencing
abuse from the
thug
is
twice
that of white Americans
16 November 2015 (
Progress against massive state surveillance
ACLU:
Thanks
to Snowden
, we are making slow progress against massive state
surveillance.
16 November 2015 (
Corrupt and phony armies built by the US
The Afghan army and Iraqi army and Syrian rebel army that the US spent
millions to build turned out to be
as
corrupt and phony as the construction projects it paid for
16 November 2015 (
Smoking at home
The US government is considering a
ban
on smoking in public housing
Tobacco is death, and I implore tobacco smokers to quit; but it is
wrong to ban people from smoking in their homes.
16 November 2015 (
Prison for pretending to be male
Gayle Newland has been sentenced to
years in prison
for having sex with a woman while pretending to be
male.
This verdict seems totally absurd to me. What next? Will people be
sentenced to prison for having sex while pretending to be rich? While
pretending to be blonde?
16 November 2015 (
Supporting Israel while condemning occupation
Most British Jews strongly support Israel, and
condemn
Israel's occupation policies and refusal to make peace
16 November 2015 (
Vote-rigging in Haiti
Accusations of vote-rigging in Haiti with
UN
complicity
16 November 2015 (
Professor fired for political views settles lawsuit
Professor Salaita, fired by the University of Illinois for his
political views, sued; the university has now
paid
him a large amount of money, but he still does not have a job
there
. He comments that the injustices that motivated his
controversial tweets have not been corrected.
16 November 2015 (
Fraudulent foreclosure of home
A Texan family won $5 million in damages for the
fraudulent
foreclosure of their home
— one home among 6 million that US
banksters
stole.
Too bad the Obama regime was
on
the side of the fraudsters
16 November 2015 (
Black Lives Matter tweets
The State of Oregon
systematically
investigated everyone that tweeted
in support of Black Lives
Matter.
16 November 2015 (
Fungus wiping out bats in the US
A fungus
spreading
steadily across the US
is wiping out bats.
The absence of bats will have grave ecological consequences. If some
bats survive, it it will take a century for the bat populations to
recover.
16 November 2015 (
Ali al-Nimr being denied medical care
Ali al-Nimr, sentenced to death for a peaceful protest, is
being
denied medical care in prison
Please
sign the
petition
for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Saudi
Arabia.
16 November 2015 (
Walmart workers fasting a protest
Walmart workers are fasting as a protest against
wages
that don't pay them enough to afford lunch
16 November 2015 (
TSA agents look for drugs in luggage
The US government admits that TSA agents
actively
look for drugs in luggage
They are supposed to search a bag if an x-ray scan shows something
that looks like drugs.
15 November 2015 (
Urgent: colonies are not part of Israel
US citizens: Thank Obama for standing up for the EU's requirement
not to label products of Israeli colonies as "Made in Israel" and
for
recognizing
that these colonies are not part of Israel.
15 November 2015 (
Urgent: shun television news
I urge everyone to shun television news for the next few days. There
were terrorist attacks yesterday in Paris, and footage is likely to be
shown.
Repeatedly watching footage of terrorist attacks can traumatize. I
know someone in California who became afraid to go outdoors in 2001,
after repeatedly watching pictures of the September 2001 attacks.
Whatever you want to know about the attacks, you can find in text.
15 November 2015 (
Urgent: stop suppressing research
US citizens: tell the
Department
of Agriculture
to stop suppressing scientific research.
15 November 2015 (
Urgent: free imprisoned protesters
Everyone: call on the
government
of Burma
to free imprisoned protesters.
15 November 2015 (
Anti-racist activists and free speech defenders
Anti-racist activists and free speech defenders must reconcile
to
support a free society.
15 November 2015 (
Mormon "mass resignation"
Mormons plan a "mass resignation" to protest the Mormon Church's policy
demanding children renounce their
same-sex parents.
15 November 2015 (
Award for avoiding lethal force
The LA thugs' union has
condemned
an award for avoiding lethal force.
This award is meant for police officers whose job is to "serve and protect".
Thugs
think they should get awards for killing citizens.
15 November 2015 (
FSF's LibrePlanet event
The FSF's LibrePlanet event, which will be held in March, is
looking
for people to propose sessions.
15 November 2015 (
Jihadi John and court of law
Jeremy Corbin: it would have been far better for us all if
Jihadi
John
had been held to account in a court of law.
I agree. Killing someone proves he was vulnerable. Convicting him in
a fair trial proves he did wrong.
I do not think killing him was wrong under the circumstances; there
was no feasible way to arrest him. Corbyn did not say it was wrong to
kill Jihadi John, but his political enemies are pretending that he
did.
By contrast, the US could have
arrested
and tried Osama bin Laden,
so it should have done so rather than kill him.
15 November 2015 (
Inaudible sounds from ads
Some web advertisements
play
inaudible sounds
to be picked up by proprietary malware running
on other nearby computers so as to determine that they are nearby.
It is unlikely free software will do this, but malware introduced
by an attack could do it.
I conclude that access to a microphone needs to be controlled like
access to a camera. Applications should need special authorization to
use the microphone.
15 November 2015 (
Divestment from fossil fuels
Piketty
calls for divestment from fossil fuels before the Paris climate conference.
15 November 2015 (
Laws of war
We must follow the laws of war even against enemies
that
reject them completely.
15 November 2015 (
Mosquitoes in November
Global heating means mosquitoes in November in
New York City.
15 November 2015 (
Torture by crucifixion
prisoner
facing execution in Egypt reports on torture by crucifixion.
He was convicted along with around 500 other people, clearly a joke of a trial.
15 November 2015 (
Assistance to the homeless
Some parts of the US have set up funds to provide
various
small assistance to the homeless.
The trust funds established by the New Jersey law are good, but the
stamp tax (as the colonists called it) is a regressive way to fund it.
It would be better to tax the rich for this.
Some places go further and provide housing
to
all homeless people.
15 November 2015 (
Giving money to stop refugees
Giving Money to Eritrea and Sudan to Stop Refugees
is
Almost Satire.
The corrupt repression of those countries is what drives the people
to flee.
15 November 2015 (
Destruction of natural environment
Businesses that destroy the natural environment
often
use slaves to do it.
15 November 2015 (
PISSI expelled from Sinjar
Some of the inhabitants of Sinjar are
returning
to the city,
from which PISSI has been expelled.
15 November 2015 (
Burma's National League for Democracy
The National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi's party,
has
won a majority in Burma
even counting the seats that the military gets.
15 November 2015 (
Church faces investigation
The Catholic Church in Australia made a statement opposing same-sex
marriage, and faces a criminal investigation, because
"offensive"
statements are a crime in Australia.
I probably disagree with a lot of things the Church said, but I support its right to say them.
15 November 2015 (
Binding climate agreement
France reproached Kerry for trying to abandon the goal of a binding climate agreement
before
the Paris conference even starts.
If the US doesn't want one, it can surely make sure there isn't one,
or that it doesn't count for anything.
15 November 2015 (
End to student debt
Students in the US
protested
in many cities
demanding an end to student debt.
15 November 2015 (
Background checks for gun buying
States with more background checks for gun buying
have
fewer mass shootings.
15 November 2015 (
Greenland megaglacier
Greenland's Zachariae Isstrom megaglacier has started breaking up, a
process likely to raise sea level
half
a meter over just three decades.
Nothing we can do (short of
engineering considerable global cooling) can stop this.
Another neighboring megaglacier could do likewise as
global heating
continues, which would cause another half meter of sea level rise.
Every glacier that feeds into an ocean is likely to have similar
points of no return, that we will reach at some point.
15 November 2015 (
Hindu Taliban
Anish
Kapoor:
India Is Being Ruled by a Hindu Taliban.
15 November 2015 (
Don't trusk bankers
Society must not learn to trust
bankers!
15 November 2015 (
UK's Environment Agency
The UK's Environment Agency has become feckless and
fails
to enforce pollution laws.
I suppose this is Tory policy.
15 November 2015 (
Austerity suicides in the UK
Austerity seems to have caused around
1000
suicides
in the UK.
Many had despaired from being forced to apply uselessly for jobs they
correctly thought they could not get.
15 November 2015 (
Corrupt dealings of Scott Walker
More
corrupt
dealings
of Scott Walker come out.
15 November 2015 (
World Health Organization criticized the TPP
The World Health Organization has
criticized the TPP.
15 November 2015 (
Medicins sans Frontieres' report
Médicins sans Frontières' report on the attack on its
hospital shows that the US air attack
concentrated
on the main building
where operations were then being done.
There could hardly be any armed Taliban lurking in the building unseen.
Anyway, unarmed MSF guards maintained full control of the
grounds. The
US
excuse
— which would be insufficient if it were true — cannot be true.
15 November 2015 (
UK curbing "extremism"
The UK wants to curb "extremism" by
censoring it.
All the UK government has is a censor, so all publications look like…
15 November 2015 (
Battle against Texas pipeline
After White House Rejects Keystone XL, Battle Against
Larger
Texas Pipeline
Intensifies.
15 November 2015 (
PISSI's violence helps Erdogan
Although Erdoğan says PISSI is an enemy, PISSI's violence in Turkey seems
directed
to help him.
And PISSI seems to be able to attack its enemies in Turkey.
15 November 2015 (
NSA massive data collection
A court decision is a
symbolic
condemnation
of NSA massive data collection.
It might help against other NSA data collection in the future.
15 November 2015 (
Urgent: EPA's CO
emission limit plan
US citizens:
write
to your senators
to urge them to leave the EPA's CO
emission limit plan alone.
15 November 2015 (
Burst dam in Brazil
A dam burst in Brazil,
releasing
mine waste that washed away houses and killed people
The toxic wastes might kill people in the long term, but I have no
idea how many.
The US
doesn't
have adequate regulations for mine waste dams either
15 November 2015 (
Confidentiality agreements
Many large US companies now impose confidentiality agreements to
bar
employees from revealing wrongdoing to the US government
The SEC is
taking
action against this
15 November 2015 (
Toxic PCBs in the SF Bay
Monsanto Accused of
Knowingly
Polluting SF Bay with Toxic PCBs
15 November 2015 (
Torture in China
Amnesty International says that China
still
regularly tortures prisoners
: especially human rights activists
and Falun Gong believers, as well as officials accused of corruption.
The Chinese government resists efforts to try to stop torture, and
so
does the US government
We Americans can't do much to stop torture in China, but we ought to
be able to stop it in the US.
14 November 2015 (
Spying by German intelligence
German intelligence spied on
the
FBI, the French foreign minister, and UNICEF
14 November 2015 (
India's planned fossil fuel increase
India's planned fossil fuel increase will
break
the world's carbon budget
This suggests the world should make a deal in which India reduces
fossil fuel use, and other countries pay for renewable energy
development in India.
14 November 2015 (
Social media stars
For social media stars, paid by companies that want to connect with
their fans, not only their clothing but even their relationships may
be
designed
to get more fans to sell
14 November 2015 (
Mistreatment in juvenile prison
Experience cleaning up a juvenile prison, in which the prisoners and
the guards faced sexual harassment and the prisoners were
treated
horribly
Mistreatment was not rare, it was the usual case.
14 November 2015 (
Personal data in remote storage
Microsoft
offers
European users services that keep their data in a European computer
run by a European trustee company
, so that the US government has
no jurisdiction over them.
This is a sensible solution for that one specific problem. It does
not alter the point that it's unwise to entrust your personal data to
any remote storage.
It also
does
not make Microsoft's proprietary software acceptable
, or excuse
its
malicious
functionalities
14 November 2015 (
Global heating hitting Tibet
Global heating
is hitting Tibet:
glaciers
and permafrost are melting visibly
14 November 2015 (
43 years in solitary
Albert Woodfox has spent 43 years in solitary, and will be kept there
further until his surrealistic retrial,
to
stop him from organizing other prisoners
14 November 2015 (
Burma's election
The National League for Democracy
has
done very well in Burma's election
, and looks set to win a
majority in parliament even despite the 25% of seats set aside for the
military.
14 November 2015 (
Privatization
"Public-private partnerships" are touted as an easy way to get
infrastructure built, but they are a form of privatization which
drains
the treasury later
We simply must tax the rich more.
14 November 2015
Comcast admitted data caps unrelated to network congestion
Comcast
admitted internally
that its data caps have nothing to do with network congestion.
They are not traffic-shaping, but market-shaping. Comcast is taking
advantage of the lack of competition in the US network market.
Wireless networks are too close to a monopoly to be allowed to set
their own rules. They should be regulated as utilities.
14 November 2015
UK snooping bill is last debate before mass gagging
The UK's snooping bill is
the
last policy discussion about
surveillance before the mass gagging.
If this bill passes, no debate will be allowed; the entire subject
will be secret.
14 November 2015
FAA can't properly inspect US airlines
Major US airlines have
offshored heavy maintenance
to facilities
that the FAA can't properly inspect, and in practice does not try.
Maintenance workers in the US report serious flaws.
There is no reason to allow US-flag airlines to do maintenance outside
the US except in emergencies.
14 November 2015
Ban on prohibiting customers from giving honest reviews
The Senate is
considering a bill
to ban companies from using contracts
to prohibit customers from saying anything bad about the company.
That would be good.
Will the bill ban attempts to use copyright to do this?
Will it ban imposing arbitration on customers?
14 November 2015
SCROTUS trying to legalize car loan discrimination
SCROTUS
are trying to
legalize a kind of racial discrimination
in car loans.
14 November 2015
Large companies monopolise US H-1B visas
Large outsourcing companies have figured out how to use the US H-1B
visa program to
bring foreign teams to the US
so there are no visas available for other businesses.
14 November 2015
USDA meat inspection
An
undercover video
shows that the USDA's new, "more efficient" meat
inspection is almost no inspection at all.
14 November 2015
Cancellation of citizenship without trial
Australia's exile bill would still permit
cancellation of citizenship
without a trial.
14 November 2015
General strike planned in Greece
general strike against austerity
is planned in Greece.
14 November 2015
Australia to deport resident of 50 out of 51 years
Australia plans to
deport Ian Whiteman
who has lived in Australia since
he was one year old, to a country he hardly knows.
This because of a crime that caused no damage but is considered
"serious".
Deportation of criminals is justified, sometimes, but not in
a cruel and mindless fashion. A person whose only family ties
are in Australia, and who could easily have become a citizen,
should not be deported if not likely to be a repeat criminal
or if some other country is not "home".
Stopping his parents from visiting him is cruel also.
Several people will be
deported to New Zealand
because of membership in an arbitrarily banned motorcycle club.
14 November 2015
Face recognition in Walmart
Walmart
tried using face recognition
to compare everyone in the store
to a list of faces of known shoplifters.
If this works, and it is extended a few small steps, I see a danger
that anyone who has ever shoplifted will never be able to buy
groceries again — in any store. This could be a choice between
a death sentence and life imprisonment.
For the most part I don't see a problem in having Walmart (or some
other store — I refuse to buy from Walmart, after all) scan my
face and not keep records of it. What I object to is if someone scans
my face on the street and keeps track of where I go. Especially if this
is done by the state.
14 November 2015
Paris climate conference set up to fail
The Paris climate conference has been
set up to fail
just as Copenhagen was, with governments making efforts to spin failure
as
success.
14 November 2015
PEN calls on US to stop prosecuting whistleblowers
PEN calls on the US government to
stop prosecuting whistleblowers
under the Espionage Act.
14 November 2015
Anti-racism campaigns in US universities
Campaigns against racism are
spreading to other US universities
"Mizzou" seems to be an affectionate nickname referring to the
University of Missouri, used by people who work or study there. Since
I have no relationship with that school, for me to use that nickname
would mean pretending to an intimacy I don't have. Thus, I call
the school by its official name.
14 November 2015
No legal obstacles to ending Guantanamo
There are
no legal obstacles
stopping Obama from ending the indefinite
imprisonment of Guantanamo, if he wanted to.
14 November 2015
Raising minimum wage accompanied by decreased unemployment
Raising the minimum wage is often accompanied by
decreased unemployment
14 November 2015
14-year-olds charged over sex video
Two 14-year-olds in New York State
face felony charges
for making a
video in which one of them has sex with someone else. Other students
they sent the video to are being punished as well.
Provided the other star was involved voluntarily (information not
available), then I think it is wrong to punish any of them.
It is even more clearly wrong to punish students for receiving a
message containing the video. And parents that examine their
children's phones to see if they have been sent sexts are held by this
twisted law to have
committed the same "felony"
Any law making it a crime to possess a copy of some text, photo or
video
is injustice, pure and simple.
14 November 2015
UK increasing subsidy of fossil fuels
The UK is giving
increased subsidies
to fossil fuels.
So this is why they have to make so many families homeless and
hungry.
14 November 2015
Urgent: make election day a national holiday
US citizens:
call
for making election day a national holiday.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
14 November 2015
Urgent: support goal of zero nuclear weapons
US citizens:
call on presidential candidates
to support the goal of global zero nuclear weapons.
14 November 2015
UK Snooper's Charter would endanger security researchers
The Snooper's Charter would
endanger computer security researchers
in the UK.
There might be one way around this. If you publish info about the
back door you found, encrypted, on a foreign site, and send the key to
another foreign site that will publish the information in several
months no matter what you subsequently say or do, you might then be
safe discussing the matter with some foreign colleagues with
a view to publishing it in a better way with better checking.
Of course, it's nuts to make security researchers go through these
steps to protect themselves from state repression.
14 November 2015
Making pointless apps or solving real problems
Never Mind Pointless Apps — Our Best Minds Should Be Solving
Real Problems.
This is not to mention that those apps are usually
nonfree software
and often
malware
as well.
14 November 2015
Modern slavery found in any industry
Modern slavery can be
found in any industry
Employers want immigrants to undercut wages for everyone else.
Sometimes the immigrants are entirely willing. Sometimes they are
threatened, exploited, or imprisoned. Either way, the overall result
is that business owners around the world get more money, and workers
get less.
14 November 2015
UK journalists imprisoned in Indonesia
Two British journalists imprisoned in Indonesia say that naval officers
paid close attention to their case, while the UK's
supposed help was incompetent
Even though they had money to pay for some privileges in prison, they
could not avoid the dirty food, and they could not get medicine when
they got sick.
14 November 2015
Forced confession of Timothy Johnson
Timothy Johnson was convicted of murder based on a false confession,
then
exonerated as there was no real evidence against him. He says that the
thugs
dangled him off the side of a bridge
to get him to confess.
They also laid false charges against his parents to put pressure on
him.
14 November 2015
Beheading of Afghan Shi'ites
Someone, presumably supporters of
PISSI
murdered some Afghan Shi'ites
by beheading them.
In response, crowds tried to storm the presidential palace, crying
"Death to [President] Ghani, death to the Taliban."
I don't see why they want the former; but if Afghans remain fired up
to fight the Taliban, they may have what it takes to defeat the
Taliban.
14 November 2015
Hack reveals illegal surveillance of prisoners
A company that handles prisoners' phone calls, including with their
lawyers, records them all. Even when
prisoners talk with their lawyers
Someone just got these recordings and leaked them.
Leaking them en mass was wrong, but not as wrong about what this
company (Insecurus?) did.
14 November 2015
Vandana Shiva on 'fail-anthropy'
The West's 'Fail-Anthropy'.
14 November 2015
Colorado single-payer health care initiative
Colorado is
considering a ballot initiative
for single-payer health care.
I am concerned that this is not a large enough step to work. Many
low-paid workers have been forced to be "independent contractors", and
I think many of them can't afford to contribute 10% of their pay for
medical care.
I don't see how health care for the unemployed would be covered, and I
don't see anything to push gouging prices down. Perhaps the scheme
has measures for this which are not mentioned in the article.
If not, I think it won't work.
14 November 2015
UK's hidden family homelessness
In the UK, ever
more families are becoming homeless
(even though the adults are working), and put into cramped shelters.
In the US, homeless families don't get shelters.
14 November 2015
Republicans debate how to prevent wage increases
Republican candidates
debated why and how
to stop American workers from
getting a wage.
Trump effectively admitted that globalization driven by business
interests imposes poverty on most people. This globalization is not a
natural phenomenon; it was imposed by those business interests through
bad laws and worse "free trade" treaties. So let's get rid of those
laws and treaty.
It is true that wages, and benefits, encourage employers to replace
workers with machines. We can reduce this problem by funding Social
Security and unemployment benefits from taxes that are independent
of employment — taxes that businesses will have to pay even if
they replace all workers with machines.
However, we must also block the forms of automation that would put
many people out of work, until we establish a universal basic income
so that people don't need employment.
14 November 2015
2050 future history
On the Verge of the Great Unraveling.
14 November 2015
Saudi Arabia releases 74 year old
Saudi Arabia compassionately released 74-year-old Karl Andree, who had
been sentenced to 350 lashes for
possession of drugs
(specifically, wine).
The US has stopped repressing people for carrying wine, but you can
get
imprisoned for having other drugs.
14 November 2015
NYC solitary confinement and pepper spray
New York City's replacement for solitary confinement turns out to
be more or less
solitary confinement with pepper spray
13 November 2015 (
American applies for asylum in Canada
Kyle Lydell Canty has applied for asylum in Canada
because
of racism in the US
13 November 2015 (
Modi's Hindu-nationalist government
Modi's Hindu-nationalist government
presides
over repeated lynchings
and attacks the pluralist basis of the
Indian state.
13 November 2015 (
Legal Battles to Protect The Environment
Legal Battles to Protect The Environment
'Easier
to Fight in China Than the UK'
13 November 2015 (
Labels for products made in Israel's colonies
The EU has adopted requirements that products made in Israel's colonies
in Palestine must be labeled specially,
not
as "Made in Israel"
Of course, the purpose of this labelling is discrimination —
like all such required labelling. The discrimination in this case is
not against Israel, but against its violations of international law by
setting up colonies in Palestine and settling Israelis in them. This
labelling will help people practice a narrow boycott against those
colonies, much narrower than the boycott of nearly all Israeli
institutions that Palestinians have called for.
I support the boycott of products of those colonies ("settlements").
13 November 2015 (
Angolan dictatorship
The independent Angolan dictatorship has
picked
up the practices of the former Portuguese dictatorship
that ruled
Angola as a colony.
13 November 2015 (
Captive orcas
A writer describes how
seeing
a captive orca made him ashamed
This article is packed with idiocy, such as the misused cliche
"playing god", which is irrational even in its usual meaning.
However, I agree with its basic point that it is cruel to cage orcas.
13 November 2015 (
Senate's CIA torture report
The US government has
ordered
executive branch agencies not to read
the copies of the CIA
torture report that the Senate sent them.
This is based on a bizarre and twisted legal excuse, so it's clear
that the goal is to stand up for torturers and torture.
13 November 2015 (
Effects of Tories' spending cuts
The Tories choose not to see or believe
the
effects of their spending cuts
13 November 2015 (
Sale of endangered lizards as pets
The sale of exotic, endangered lizards as expensive pets
could
wipe out those species
13 November 2015 (
The 1965-66 massacre in Indonesia
Survivors of the 1965-66 massacre in Indonesia
continue
trying to open investigation
into those events, and continue to
face censorship.
13 November 2015 (
Australia's funding of coal
Australia may block an
OECD
deal to stop funding coal
13 November 2015 (
US upgrading some nuclear bombs
The US is
upgrading
some nuclear bombs
to make them more "usable".
That is going in the wrong direction.
12 November 2015 (
The resistance at University of Missouri
The University of Missouri had started attacking women's rights and
was mistreating all its students. Resistance was widespread, and the
black football players were
joined
in resistance by a large fraction of the campus
12 November 2015 (
Unlawful killings by Israeli forces
Amnesty: Israeli Forces in Occupied Palestinian Territories
Must
End Pattern of Unlawful Killings
Some of these Palestinians had attacked Israelis. Others hadn't done
anything wrong.
Amnesty's point is that even when they had attacked someone with a
knife, that doesn't call for shooting them when it was possible to
arrest them, let alone for killing them by denying them medical care.
12 November 2015 (
Drug traffickers and palm-oil planters
In Honduras, drug traffickers and palm-oil planters are
working
together to take land from indigenous people and deforest it
12 November 2015 (
Imprisonment without trial in the US
Congress blocked Obama's plan to "close" the Guantanamo prison by
moving
imprisonment without trial to the US itself
Obama's plan might perhaps be a scheme to end imprisonment without
trial by supposing that the Supreme Court would grant them habias
corpus. If so, it would be great provided it works — but with
our current authoritarian Supreme Court, I would not count on that.
12 November 2015 (
Maldive state of emergency
The Maldive "president" has
cancelled
the state of emergency
12 November 2015 (
Australia's privatized refugee prison
Australia imprisoned Iranian refugee Fazel Chegeni in the
privatized
Christmas Island prison
, apparently forever. He died trying to
escape, and the other prisoners responded by rioting and destroying
parts of their prison.
Thugs
moved in and regained control
, but it's not clear that's a good
thing.
12 November 2015 (
The UK's Snooper's Charter
The UK's Snooper's Charter
imposes
a gagging requirement
on everyone ordered to snoop on people.
This is "the last policy discussion about surveillance before the mass
gagging."
"Note that this section is absolute: it does not have exceptions, for
example in relation to the public interest: such as the ability to
discuss the benefit or downsides of part interception activities; no
exception for talking about this to MPs, or other democratic
representatives; or even to exculpate anyone who otherwise would be
wrongfully found guilty."
12 November 2015 (
US thugs trained to shoot without thinking
US thug departments train
thugs
in how to shoot, but not in how to
resolve a crisis without shooting. And the training says to shoot
fast,
without
taking time to think
. No wonder that's what they do.
Then the Supreme Court upholds an
extreme
level of immunity for them
, so they are almost certain to get away
with killings.
12 November 2015 (
Prejudice against sex workers
Moroccan actress Loubna Abidar played a sex worker in a film which
Morocco banned. Then she was
attacked
by a mob on the street, and hospitals would not admit her
. She
fled the country.
I blame these events on the prejudice against sex workers. The film
made prejudiced Moroccans uncomfortable by showing that sex workers
exist there, so they took it out on her.
Many other laws reflect this prejudice, which I have never understood.
12 November 2015 (
Portuguese celebrate
Portuguese celebrate because an anti-austerity coalition
is going to take power
12 November 2015 (
Saudi bombing accusation
The ICRC accused Saudi Arabia (backed by the US) of intentionally
targeting
hospitals in Yemen.
12 November 2015 (
Urgent: Israel-Palestine conflict
US citizens: ask congresscritters to sign the
Ellison-Yarmuth-Dingell
letter
calling for a political resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
12 November 2015 (
Urgent: FDA nomination
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose Obama's nomination of
Robert
Califf
to head the Food and Drug Administration.
He is too much in bed with the pharma companies to regulate them properly,
and we must suspect he wouldn't want to try.
12 November 2015 (
Urgent: don't move Guantanamo to the US
US citizens:
Phone
your congresscritter
and say, don't move Guantanamo
prison to the US. Each prisoner should be tried in a civilian US
court, or freed.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
12 November 2015 (
Urgent: support the SAVE Benefits Act
US citizens: call on members of Congress to support the
Benefits Act.
12 November 2015 (
Urgent: methane pollution
US citizens:
call
on the EPA
to take strong action against methane pollution.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
12 November 2015 (
Urgent: reject the TPP
US citizens: call on Congress to
reject
the TPP.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
12 November 2015 (
Forced medication
mental
health bill
now in the US Congress would lead to forced medication.
12 November 2015 (
Thugs' unofficial slowdown strike
When thugs say they are deterred from doing their job by the danger
citizens' videos will reveal their unjust violence, it amounts to
threatening
an unofficial slowdown strike
to demand restored impunity.
12 November 2015 (
UK Snooper's Charter
Where the
UK
Snooper's Charter
is leading.
12 November 2015 (
Facebook app scanning photos
Facebook's app has started
scanning
photos
people take with their phones.
The article says "camera", but that word is misleading; cameras do not
have a Facebook app installed in them. This applies only to phones and
tablets.
I suspect the face recognition is done by sending the photos to a
Facebook server. If so, the server could do other things with those
photos. It could save them and send them to Big Brother. From now on,
when people want to snap me with a mobile, I will verify it does not
have a Facebook app installed before I say yes.
12 November 2015 (
House Anti-Science Committee
House Anti-Science Committee Attempts to Suppress
Climate
Change Studies.
One way to fight back is by replacing the weak term that the denialists
chose, "climate change", with something stronger such as "global heating"
or
climate mayhem
".
12 November 2015 (
Linking as violation of copyright
The EU is considering a law to declare linking to a page a
violation
of copyright.
It is too bad that the article uses the enemy's propaganda word,
"protection",
to refer to copyright.
12 November 2015 (
UK's attack on end-to-end encryption
The UK's attack on end-to-end encryption is serious, and
its
denials are clearly lies.
It wants to force computer manufacturers
and sellers to sabotage users' computers on demand to make their data
decryptable.
However, encryption done in proprietary software
can't
be trusted anyway.
Whether or not a state can force the company
to sabotage it, the company might do so on its own initiative at any
time. You can't rationally trust nonfree programs: they do computing
for suckers.
When the author says "the services you and I use", apparently assuming
that you and he use software you and he can't rationally trust, he
says he's a sucker and he assumes you are too.
12 November 2015 (
Blood shed for oil
Nigeria
Must Own Up
to the Blood Shed for Oil.
The officials responsible for the murder of Ogoni environmental activists
20 years ago have not been punished or even censured, and some remain
in positions of power today.
12 November 2015 (
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights ruled against freedom of speech
by
endorsing
censorship of opinions and even views about history.
Evidently
it doesn't fully support human rights. Respecting freedom of
speech means respecting the right to state views we oppose.
Antisemitism is prejudice against a group of people which (in the
usual interpretation) includes me. I disapprove of it, but I respect
people's right to state that opinion or any other.
When a state mandates a specific position on a factual question, that
makes it impossible to discuss that question frankly in that country.
12 November 2015 (
Hossam Bahgat freed
Egyptian journalist Hossam Bahgat
has
been freed.
The article does not indicate whether the charges, publishing something
that displeased the state, have been dropped.
12 November 2015 (
Jail for sexting
Teenagers are
threatened
by laws
that could jail them for sexting or inviting others to sext them.
I think it is unkind to pressure someone to sext, and I would not do
that, even though pressuring is not equivalent to forcing. However,
it is simply wrong to punish adolescents for sexting, or anything else
sexual that they willingly do. Sex is the normal preoccupation of
adolescents.
12 November 2015 (
Leprosy in India
Although leprosy is curable, people in India whose bodies show harm
done by the disease face various sorts of
discrimination
and cruelty.
I am shocked by the point about "grounds for divorce". Does India
still require people present "grounds" if they want a divorce?
If so, the change that's needed here is to eliminate that requirement.
12 November 2015 (
Dual citizens convicted of terrorism
Australia
will take citizenship away
from dual citizens convicted of terrorism crimes.
At least it is limited to those actually convicted. The previous proposal
would have allowed officials to do this without a trial.
12 November 2015 (
Unauthorized immigrant children
A US appeals court
overturned
Obama's executive order
against deporting certain unauthorized immigrant children.
I don't want a large amount of immigration to the US, but people who were
brought as children and have spend many years in the US should be allowed
to become citizens.
The right-wing concern about
"anchor
babies"
is due to a fear that is not based on facts.
12 November 2015 (
Rightwingers Push 'Moral' Coal
Rightwingers Push 'Moral' Coal Only After They Doomed a
Truly
Moral Alternative.
The fossil fuel magnates pay lots smart but selfish people to say all
sorts of bogus things in favor of using fossil fuels. We will see through
them all, but will we do it soon enough to prevent disaster?
12 November 2015 (
Violent thug received light sentence
The
thug
whose gratuitous violence seems to have caused the death of
Matthew Ajibade has received a light sentence
including
15 weekends in jail.
Still, if every violent
thug
were sentenced this way, it might be enough
to deter their violence.
12 November 2015 (
250,000 euro fine for Facebook
A Belgian court will fine Facebook 250,000 euros per day unless it stops
tracking
people that don't have Facebook accounts.
The issue is that Facebook sends some visitors cookies. It is not
clear that the court realizes that Facebook also tracks people who
merely
see
a "Like" button.
12 November 2015 (
Suing the World Bank
Indian
fishermen and farmers
are suing the World Bank for investing in
a giant coal-fired power plant where they live. The World Bank says it can't
be sued in US courts.
Investing in burning coal is planet-roasting behavior. Young people,
who may well be killed by
climate mayhem
, have grounds to use force
to block the activities that threaten their lives.
12 November 2015 (
EU directive to limit trade in wildlife and toxic waste
The UK has
killed
an EU directive to limit trade in wildlife and toxic waste.
12 November 2015 (
Netanyahu never supported a Palestinian state
Netanyahu Has Never Actually Supported a Palestinian State,
Despite
What He Told Obama.
12 November 2015 (
Saudi Arabia emptied its aquifer
Saudi Arabia emptied its aquifer for agriculture; now all its wells
are dry and it has no more agriculture.
California
is following the same path.
12 November 2015 (
Fraternity Sues Rolling Stone
UVA Fraternity Sues Rolling Stone for $25m over
Retracted
Rape Article.
12 November 2015 (
Speed eviction of families
Europe's banksters demand Greece
speed
eviction of families that can't pay their mortgages,
or its creditors
won't get the next next batch aid.
It's a mistake to call these payments "aid", if that means aid for Greece.
12 November 2015 (
Sex crimes common among US thugs
Sex crimes are
common
among thugs in the US
12 November 2015 (
Door to KGB building set on fire
A Russian performance artist set fire to the door of the building used
by what was formerly called the KGB, to point out that it's
still
there and still dangerous
The author understates the danger from UK spy organizations. What
they threaten to do, when they violate privacy, is
imprison
journalists' sources and thus endanger democracy
. Even if they
don't torture people like Russian and
US
spy organizations
, that is still a terrible threat. Besides, the
UK spy organizations
did
hand
over people to Qadhafi for torture
12 November 2015 (
The Divisive Manipulator Who Charmed the World
Narendra
Modi
: the Divisive Manipulator Who Charmed the World.
12 November 2015 (
Employees of HK publisher disappear
Four employees of a Hong Kong publisher have
disappeared
separately. This is apparently the work of Chinese agents, perhaps
with the help of Thailand.
12 November 2015 (
UK's surveillance bill
The UK's surveillance bill would give the state the
power
to order companies to sabotage end-to-end encryption facilities that
they provide to users
This is one more reason why you shouldn't trust a nonfree program for
encryption, on top of many other reasons. Basically, nonfree programs
cannot deserve your trust; they do computing for suckers.
12 November 2015 (
Wasted development aid money
Development aid money is mostly wasted since
only
a tiny fraction goes to the local organizations that actually do
work
12 November 2015 (
Politicians' excuse for inequality and surveillance
Blaming
inequality and massive surveillance on digital technology
is a
handy excuse for politicians that want to increase inequality and
surveillance.
12 November 2015 (
Pollution in Ogoniland
Pollution in Ogoniland is just
as
bad now as it was 20 years ago
when Nigeria executed protest
leaders.
10 November 2015 (
Burmese constitution rigged
The National League for Democracy won the election for parliament in
Burma, but
the
constitution has been rigged
so as to limit its political power.
10 November 2015 (
Protecting US teens from radicalization
Suggesting
a way
to protect US teens from radicalization that won't backfire.
10 November 2015 (
1C of global heating reached
Global heating
has reached 1C, and is
still
accelerating
10 November 2015 (
Poor people's children disposable to plutocrats
For plutocratist politicians, poor people's children are
disposable
just blame all the consequences of poverty on their parents.
10 November 2015 (
Urgent: Keep fossil fuel in the ground
US citizens:
call on
Obama
to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
10 November 2015 (
Obama offers to meet Netanyahu
Obama
offered
Netanyahu a meeting
, and used it to show he will do nothing to
pressure Netanyahu to end the
perpetual
occupation of Palestine
Netanyahu will continue the occupation until he faces enough pressure
to make him change. If I were president of the US, I would tell
Netanyahu that Israel will get US aid for one purpose only: building
replacements in Israel for the colonies in Palestine, and demolishing
those colonies.
10 November 2015 (
Enslaved migrants on palm oil plantations
"Palm oil: why do we care more about orangutans than
migrant
workers
?"
It's simple. An individual migrant worker has more rights than an
individual orangutan; but orangutans are an endangered species
while humans are reproducing like weeds.
However, that question is purely theoretical; there is no practical
reason to compare the two, because it's easiest to protect them both.
Anything we do to prevent the enslavement of migrant workers on
palm oil plantations will protect the orangutans, by discouraging the
spread of palm oil plantations.
10 November 2015 (
Thais accused of "insulting" royals dead
Two Thais accused of criticizing the royal family have
died
in prison
Merely accusing them of this "crime" is an injustice.
10 November 2015 (
Corrupt US state legislators
Corruption is
common
in US state legislators.
10 November 2015 (
Storm and drought in Europe
Storm
And Drought
: What Europe Has to Fear from [global heating].
10 November 2015 (
NSA's use of operating system bugs
The NSA reports most of the bugs it finds in operating systems,
but only
after
a delay while it uses them to attack computers
10 November 2015 (
Journalist charged with publishing news
Hossam Bahgat, Egyptian journalist and human rights activist, has been
charged
with "publishing false news"
"False news", in Egypt, means anything that doesn't come from the
state.
10 November 2015 (
Yemeni children's game called airstrike
Yemen: 'The children have a game called airstrike in which they
fall
to the ground
'.
How long before they start playing "suicide bomber"?
10 November 2015 (
Rejection of Keystone XL
Obama reportedly decided 2 years ago to reject Keystone XL, but
waited
for a "politically opportune time" to announce it
Curbing
global heating
is a battle against time. If he had rejected
Keystone XL earlier, the rejection would have boosted our side
sooner.
10 November 2015 (
French Pun
Trocadero
10 November 2015 (
Urgent: Oppose building oil terminals
US citizens:
oppose
building oil terminals
in Washington State.
I used this as my text.
The Keystone XL pipeline has been cancelled. Please don't allow it to
be replaced with oil trains to Washington State. We need to keep the
tar sands oil in the ground, to avoid toxic spills and disastrous
global heating
Oil trains will also cause fires repeatedly.
10 November 2015 (
Urgent: Protect marine mammals
US citizens:
protect
marine mammals
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
10 November 2015 (
Urgent: Defeat the TPP
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to defeat the TPP.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
In the text of the letter, I replaced "Trans-Pacific Partnership" with
"TPP", and added "This is a partnership of corporations to attack
democracy, with some secondary and unimportant effects on trade."
10 November 2015 (
SCROTUS delaying appointment of ambassadors
SCROTUS
are
delaying
the appointment of 32 US ambassadors
, as a harassment technique.
10 November 2015 (
Safety for pedestrians in Mexico
Mexican real-life "superhero" Peatónito
campaigns
for safety for pedestrians
10 November 2015 (
The Crotch Brother fights spread of solar power
A deceptive campaign in Florida to check the spread of home solar
power just got a boost from a
secret
donor
Since we don't know who the donor is, we can make up a fictional
name for him without lying. We could call him "John Doe", or "The
Crotch Brother".
10 November 2015 (
Football players on strike
Black football players at the University of Missouri have gone on
strike
demanding
the resignation of the university president
, who has not done much
against racism on campus.
They are powerful because they bring in a lot of money to the school,
and they are trying to use this to do some good. Bravo for them, but
I think it is a shame that many Americans are obsessed with the
artificial struggle of football and thus distracted from the real
struggle against the plutocrats.
The strike is getting
support
from others on campus
, and the president
has
resigned
10 November 2015 (
Haiti's presidential election
One of Haiti's presidential candidates, who came in second in the
first round of voting, says the election was
rigged
by Martelly
10 November 2015 (
UK surveillance bill
The UK's surveillance bill threatens investigative journalism
by
putting sources in danger
Here's a
case
in point
Another bill would attack journalism on another front, by
hampering
freedom of information access
10 November 2015 (
Dubya
Donald Trump dares to point out that
Dubya
left
the US wide open to the September 2001 terrorist attacks
, even
cancelling precautions that Clinton had set up.
This was
more
widely acknowledged 10 years ago than it is now
I will not take as certain that
Dubya
didn't do any worse things in
regard to the attack. His official investigation of the attacks was
weakened
and then
corrupted
I support the demand for a
new
investigation
09 November 2015 (
Urgent: close gun sale loopholes
US citizens: call on Obama to use executive orders
to
close some gun sale loopholes.
09 November 2015 (
Urgent: end subsidies for fossil fuels
Everyone:
demonstrate
on Nov 14
to end subsidies for fossil fuels.
09 November 2015 (
Urgent: don't include fracking in climate "solution"
US citizens: call on officials
not
to include fracking in any climate "solution".
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
09 November 2015 (
Urgent: ending gerrymandering
US citizens:
stand
for ending gerrymandering.
09 November 2015 (
UK's housing crisis
The UK's housing crisis could be solved if the disused buildings were made
available to live in. Instead,
Tory
policy is to put squatters in jail.
09 November 2015 (
McCarthyism in the UK
The UK's plans to chase "extremists" out of positions of influence
remind
me of McCarthyism.
09 November 2015 (
Journalists in Zimbabwe arrested
Journalists in Zimbabwe were arrested for accusing officials of corruption
(participating
in hunting of elephants).
09 November 2015 (
Local social relationships
When globalization destroys local social relationships, it sparks
local rivalries; these can attract to previously unimportant religious
or ethnic differences and turn into
hatred
and violence.
09 November 2015 (
Web services deny users' rights
A project sets out to summarize how various web services deny users' rights through their
and conditions.
I doubt that competition will be effective for eliminating nasty
conditions. The overall level of competition in this field is too
low.
I think we need laws to limit what conditions essential digital
services can impose. And rather than judging violations themselves,
they should have to go to court in order to cut off service to anyone.
09 November 2015 (
Censorship in Bali
The writers festival in Bali was forced to cancel sessions about the
1965 massacre, but people discussed it anyway, and
condemned
the censorship.
09 November 2015 (
"Special" violent intelligence operations
Australia's secrecy about "special" violent intelligence operations extends to the point of
refusing
to say whether there have been any.
If an Australian agent on one of these operations kills your child,
you will need to escape from Australia before you can safely say so.
09 November 2015 (
EU's proposed trade secrets directive
The EU's proposed trade secrets directive bows down to business at the expense of
journalism,
workers, and public safety.
Trade secrecy is harmful to the public interest, and one of the
supposed purposes of the patent system is to discourage trade secrecy.
How about discouraging it by not adopting laws to facilitate it?
09 November 2015 (
Privacy of reading on the internet
The UK's threat to the privacy of reading on the internet is
extremely dangerous.
So is the surveillance exercised by snooping web sites.
We
must put an end to all of it.
09 November 2015 (
Thugs face murder charges
The thugs that killed 6-year-old Jeremy Mardis face charges of
second-degree murder.
They should be prosecuted also for their false accusations.
09 November 2015 (
Sell out to fracking
Denmark's government wanted to sell out to fracking,
but
the people organized and blocked it.
09 November 2015 (
Democratic Socialism
Many
famous Americans
do or did support Democratic Socialism.
09 November 2015 (
Unions reducing inequality
Unions are very effective at reducing inequality and preventing dooH niboR laws,
according
to an IMF study.
09 November 2015 (
Proposed oil export terminals
The summary of public comments about the proposed oil export terminals in Washington State
mysteriously
omits some comments that indicated dangers.
09 November 2015 (
Shot dead while lying wounded
Mahdi Mohammad Ramadan al-Mohtasib was shot dead by an Israeli soldier
as
he lay on the ground, already shot and wounded.
09 November 2015 (
Bedouin village of al-Araqib
Israeli bulldozers have knocked down the Bedouin village of al-Araqib
90
times in just 5 years.
Each time, the villagers return and rebuild.
09 November 2015 (
The 'Ferguson Effect'
The 'Ferguson Effect' Is Just
Ploy to Reduce Scrutiny of the Police.
09 November 2015 (
Myths about the "Free market"
Six myths about the
"free market".
The market system is a useful tool, but if all you have is a market
system, everything starts to look like it's for sale.
09 November 2015 (
Secret imprisoning by Assad
Amnesty accuses Assad's regime of
secretly
imprisoning 60,000 people.
Some were tortured.
Their relatives can't get any information about them, except underground.
09 November 2015 (
Restrain spies with total access
You can't trust judges to
effectively
restrain
spies equipped with total access.
The experience with the
FISA
court
shows this is true in the US as well.
09 November 2015 (
"Voluntary self-regulation"
As states bind themselves by treaty not to regulate businesses, they
are left with no tools except to ask them to "voluntarily
self-regulate". And this method usually fails, because businesses
don't really carry out the self-regulation.
"Governments are liberating global corporations from the rule of law and
leaving them to
rip
the world apart.
09 November 2015 (
Snooping agencies' contacts for complaints
US snooping agencies were ordered to set up contacts for complaints,
but
they have ignored the order for 17 years.
09 November 2015 (
Curb global heating
Canadians are already campaigning to press the new prime minister
to
take real action to curb global heating.
I wish they would replace the term "climate change", imposed by
Dubya's officials because it downplays the danger, with
one
that does justice to the importance of the issue.
09 November 2015 (
Impunity of thugs
The impunity of thugs in the US goes to absurd lengths: a thug who
shot a tased man who was lying on the ground face down was
acquitted
because she said she was afraid of him.
Even if he had had pulled a gun, and shot, he was not likely to hit her
under those circumstances.
Next time, a
thug
will say, "Yes, he was sitting on the ground with his hands
in the air, but I was afraid he would think deadly thoughts and kill
me with telepathy." And get acquitted.
US
thugs
kill so many people because they have been taught to kill
whenever they see even a shadow of a shade of a threat. We have to
change that training and that attitude. There are other countries
that teach a
different approach.
9 November 2015
EU low-tax deals
Several EU countries
want to keep
their sleazy low-tax deals with
multinational companies secret from investigating MEPs.
9 November 2015
Websites leaks Data
Nine Out of Ten of the Internet's Top Websites Are Leaking Your
Data
To data brokers, that is.
I follow the recommendations at the end of the article.
9 November 2015
Guantanamo
Obama wants to "close Guantanamo prison" by
transferring imprisonment
without trial
to Colorado.
This would normalize imprisonment without trial, which is bad;
however, it might also make it easier for these prisoners to get the
benefit of the US constitution in the courts.
The US must try or release each of these prisoners.
9 November 2015
New libre journal
The whole staff of the Elsevier's paywalled journal Lingua
have quit
to start a new libre journal
9 November 2015
Facebook bans Tsu
Facebook found another social network to be a source of spam links, so
it banned all mention
of that site's name anywhere.
9 November 2015
Private prisons
A perverse law requires the US government to keep at least 34,000
possibly-unauthorized immigrants in prison at any time,
regardless of
whether there is any good reason
to do so.
The motive for this law seems to be to assure the profits of private
prisons.
Hundreds of prisoners in one of these private prisons are on hunger
strike. The prison company says there is no hunger strike, but the
leaders of the supposedly nonexistent strike
are being punished
with
solitary confinement, persistent cold, isolation from their families,
etc.
These prisoners have not been convicted of a crime, and some will win
appeals and be granted US residency. Although the prison executives'
motive for punishing them for not eating is obvious, they have no
grounds to do so.
9 November 2015
President of Haiti
Who Will the
U.S. Declare
President of Haiti This Time?
9 November 2015
Bullies
A teacher in Kansas showed a film in class to open students' eyes to
what it feels like to be bullied for homosexuality
has faced bullying from
right-wing parents
, but has decided not to resign.
Bravo! Resigning would endorse the bullies' position.
9 November 2015
UK government
The UK government
plans to prohibit
renting out a bedroom smaller than
6.5 square meters.
This will make the housing shortage a little worse, though not as much
as
the other bad things that it is doing. Rather than subdivide a bedroom,
several people will sleep in the same bed, medieval style.
The government's responsibility is to make enough space for people to
live in
available at a decent price. As long as it fails to do this, people
will suffer one way or another.
9 November 2015
Death rates increased
For 15 years, death rates among middle-aged white men in the US
have
increased
: this now adds up to half a million additional deaths.
The natural explanation is that
dooH niboR
policies made their lives
collapse.
It should be noted that blacks still have it even worse.
9 November 2015
US middle class
US retailers recognize that most Americans
can't afford
to buy much.
9 November 2015
US economy
The US economy
is rigged in many ways to redistribute wealth to the
rich
Let's pass laws to take it back from them.
9 November 2015
MSF hospital bombed
One day before the US bombed the MSF hospital in Kunduz, a US official
asked if any Taliban were "holed up" there. The MSF said
that the only
Taliban there were disarmed patients
being treated.
The MSF in Kunduz called their US army contact about the attack,
but the attack continued
for
45 more minutes.
MSF reminds the US that
wounded
patients in a hospital are not legitimate military targets.
9 November 2015
Credit cards
US officials
continue trying
to shut down or pressure organizations by
intimidating credit card companies.
The article makes a mistake when it refers to "johns who engage in
trafficking". When prostitutes are trafficked, pimps are typically
involved in the crime, but johns probably not.
9 November 2015
Violence escalation in Hebron
Israeli soldiers shot and killed an old Palestinian woman who was
driving a car in Hebron. This
seems
to have provoked retaliation on various occasions.
9 November 2015
Turkey and Syrian rebels
Seymour Hersh reported in 2014 that the sarin attack in Syria,
attributed to Assad's army,
was actually a false-flag attack carried
out by Turkey
in connection with al-Nusra (al-Qa'ida).
He also said that the US had armed Syrian rebels in cooperation with
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar since 2012, exporting arms from Libya
by way of the Benghazi consulate. The US stopped this after the
Benghazi consulate was attacked, but the other three countries
continued.
8 November 2015
Interview with Chomsky
An
interview
with Noam Chomsky.
8 November 2015
FBI claims to have given up on demanding back doors
The FBI says it has
given up on demanding back doors
in encryption software.
That doesn't mean it won't try again next year.
8 November 2015
Danger of increasing rubber production
Increasing rubber production could lead to
massive deforestation
and extinction of many species.
8 November 2015
Ben Carson's crazy religion
Ben Carson's religion is
more crazy than fundamentalist
8 November 2015
Arundhati Roy on murder of secularists in India
Arundhati Roy says she was not shocked by murder of secularists in
India,
because that's
what she expected
of this government.
8 November 2015
Opponents of new constitution in Nepal stage import blockade
Opponents of Nepal's new constitution are trying to force it to
change the constitution by
blockading imports
from India.
8 November 2015
Could Assad become Schröinger's Dictator?
Could Assad become
Schrödinger's dictator
politically alive and politically dead at the same time?
8 November 2015
St. Louis lawsuit targets fine system
Lawsuit Targets Rapacious City Fine System in St. Louis Community.
8 November 2015
Israeli videos of violence against Palestinians
Israelis
revel in videos
in which real soldiers or
thugs
, egged on by rabid
mobs, really shoot harmless Palestinians.
Arabs in Israel know that anyone can murder them with impunity.
All of Israel is Ferguson for them.
8 November 2015
TPP allows banks to sue for compensation
The TPP will allow banks to
sue for "compensation"
for any regulations they don't like, including possible reinstatement
of the Glass Seagall Act.
8 November 2015
US policies drive people to suicide
Cruel US policies are driving many middle-aged white males to
commit suicide
Sad to say, the relatives of these men probably won't associate
the effect with the right-wing cause.
The article speculates that blacks are better able to cope with
poverty;
they may be psychologically or socially ready for it.
8 November 2015
Carson lied in autobiography
Ben Carson
admitted lying
in his autobiography about being offered a scholarship to West Point.
Such lies have ruined many a career, but right-wing crazies are often
immune.
8 November 2015
Sanders and Warren propose to close tax loophole
Senators Sanders and Warren proposed a bill that would
close a tax loophole
for hedge funds and give the money to retired people, disabled people,
and
veterans.
Some of the added tax money would go into the Social
Security trust fund.
8 November 2015
Summary of TPP injustices
One page
summarizes many specific injustices and damage of the TPP.
This is in addition to the general injustice of allowing companies to
sue governments for reducing their profits.
8 November 2015
Experiment finds secular children more altruistic and judgmental
psychological experiment
found that children from secular families
are more altruistic and more harsh in judging other people than
children from Christian and Muslim families.
Since many psychological studies turn out to be irreproducible
results,
I would not treat this as thoroughly established based on one study.
8 November 2015
Obama rejects Keystone XL pipeline
Obama
has rejected
the Keystone XL pipeline.
Although he ultimately made the right decision, the fact that he took
years to make it means that this is not greatly to his credit.
Obama now has a bigger climate decision to make, in the Paris climate
summit, and so far he is not pushing very hard to avoid disaster.
The
Keystone XL Pipeline Defeat Is One Goal in the Game, And We're Way
Behind.
8 November 2015
UN predicts millions of climate refugees
The UN predicts
millions of climate refugees
8 November 2015
UK threatened to act against Muslim Brotherhood
The UK took action against the Muslim Brotherhood
under pressure from a threat
by the UAE to cut arms purchases.
8 November 2015
Urgent: boycott, divestment and sanctions against Saudi Arabia
US citizens:
call for
boycott, divestment and sanctions against Saudi Arabia.
8 November 2015
Illegal oil palms on burned forest lands
Palm oil palms have already been
illegally planted
on recently burned Indonesian forest areas.
If complicated supply chains make it hard to stop this, then the
supply chains must be simplified, whether the companies want this or
not. Since the CO2 emissions from these fires threaten all
civilization, force is certainly justified.
8 November 2015
Google location history and law enforcement
Now that Google has made location tracking a feature, the state can
subpoena a person's location history
going back years.
Communicating with a service from your own computer using a mobile
device,
and not going through Tor, is for suckers.
8 November 2015
EU snooping borders
Injustices
in the EU's proposal for snooping borders.
8 November 2015
India orders Greenpeace India to shut down
India has ordered Greenpeace India to
shut down
8 November 2015
Emission target pledges only half of what is needed
The carbon pledges of the world's countries are
only half
what's probably needed to remain under 2C of heating.
8 November 2015
No Israel-Palestine peace deal while Obama in office
Obama has acknowledged that there is
no prospect of a peace deal
between Israel and Palestine while Obama remains in office.
The reason for this is that Obama has no intention of doing what is
required for a peace deal: putting pressure on the Israeli government.
Netanyahu is against peace
and will reject it as long as the US lets him get away with that.
8 November 2015
Only renewable electricity in Lower Austria
Lower Austria, one of the states in Austria, now uses
only renewable electricity
This does not mean it has eliminated greenhouse gas emissions. It
still
burns fossil fuel for other purposes, and that must be reduced next.
8 November 2015
Netanyahu spokesman calls Iran deal 'antisemitism'
Netanyahu's new spokesman called the Iran nuclear deal
"antisemitism."
This is part of Israel's persistent dishonest campaign of labeling
anything but blanket support for Israeli policy as "antisemitism".
8 November 2015
Nuclear energy too slow to develop
Nuclear energy is
too slow to develop to play
a substantial role in
avoiding
global heating
disaster. It is so expensive that it sucks
money away from the efficient renewable energy that we should be
building as fast as possible.
8 November 2015
Exxon investigated by New York State
New York State is
investigating
Exxon's climate lies.
8 November 2015
VW admits to deception about fuel consumption
Volkswagen
admits
understating the fuel consumption of some car models.
8 November 2015
Thug lies after shooting self
Another US
thug
shot himself
(not fatally) and then claimed someone else had shot him.
Perhaps this is the true "Ferguson effect": encouraging
thugs
to lie
even more than before.
8 November 2015
Incompetence of Theater of Security Agency
The
Theater of Security Agency
is
pitifully incompetent
at finding weapons and explosives.
8 November 2015
Consequences of Iraq war
Analyzing the consequences
of Bush's conquest of Iraq.
8 November 2015
Turkish editors charged for edgy headline
Two Turkish editors
published an edgy headline
and are charged with starting a rebellion.
This insane exaggeration reminds me of how
Aaron Swartz
was treated in the US.
Bogus charges resulting from exaggeration are wrong in any country.
8 November 2015
Urgent: prevent Grand Canyon shopping mall
US citizens:
oppose
the plan to build a big shopping mall next to the Grand Canyon.
8 November 2015
Seattle democracy vouchers
Seattle's
innovative public campaign
funding system lets each voter dispose of $100 to municipal campaigns.
Also in Seattle, children are
suing the state
for not limiting CO2 emissions.
There's a significant chance that
global heating
, by 2070, will cause
catastrophe, and kill them.
8 November 2015
Keeping ex cons out of public housing
Obama has slightly
softened the policies
that usually keep ex cons out of public housing.
A century ago, ex cons could get most kinds of work, and were not
excluded from most places to live. This helped them go straight.
8 November 2015
Letting kids play on the beach
Vacationing parents
face charges
for leaving their children on the
beach, from which they would walk back to the campground along a
footpath.
8 November 2015
Pentagon pays for patriotism
The Pentagon
pays professional sports
to promote a militarist version of "patriotism".
If patriotism is love of one's country, then the core of patriotism is
campaigning to make that country deserve to be loved.
07 November 2015 (
Urgent: Peace negotiations for Syria
US citizens:
call
on congress
to support peace negotiations for Syria and support
compromise rather than continued war.
07 November 2015 (
Urgent: Investigate Exxon's lies
US citizens:
call for
an investigation
with a view to prosecuting Exxon for lying about
the danger of
global heating
07 November 2015 (
President Bush 1 bored without war
President Bush 1
felt
bored with his job
once he didn't have a war to make it exciting.
07 November 2015 (
UK ministers uninformed about digital snooping
Nick Clegg, former UK deputy prime minister, says that
very
few ministers were informed
about massive digital snooping.
07 November 2015 (
False "intelligence" about WMDs
The US government funded the Iraqi National Congress which
generated
false "intelligence"
that reported Saddam Hussein had weapons of
mass destruction.
This gave the Bush regime raw material for its distorted intelligence
reports, which we now know were used to provide "reasons" for a war
that Bush had already decided to launch (but pretended he had not).
07 November 2015 (
Afghan gov't makes deal with corrupt banker
The Afghan government
made
a business deal with a banker that is in prison for corruption
07 November 2015 (
UK to kill renewable energy products
The UK's planet-roasting government
plans
to kill off community-scale renewable energy products
07 November 2015 (
Text of the TPP
Obama has published the text of the TPP, and it would
give
foreign companies the power to demand relaxation of food
inspection
, even to demand approval of GMOs and demand that they
not be labeled.
It's literally a treaty to allow
Treacherous Plutocratic Poison
It provides
handouts
to fossil fuel companies
. For instance, they could sue states and
cities that ban fracking.
It
criminalizes
whistleblowers
that reveal a company's criminal "trade secrets",
such as for instance that cigarette companies knew that their products
caused cancer and that Exxon knew its products caused
global heating
This in addition to prohibiting breaking digital handcuffs
It's too bad that article adopts enemy propaganda terms such as
"protection"
"Digital
Rights Management"
, and weak terms such as
"digital
locks"
Sanders points out that companies could demand
"compensation"
for increases in the minimum wage
Here are
many
other bad things
that have just been discovered in the text.
This should be no surprise. The TPP was designed to be a corporate
supremacy treaty, mislabeled as a "trade agreement", and that's what
was designed.
07 November 2015 (
Investigation of drug companies sabotaged
SCROTUS
has sabotaged a congressional
investigation
into drug companies that greatly increase prices
07 November 2015 (
Cheney wanted to use nuclear weapons
Cheney
wanted
to use nuclear weapons
against Iraq and Iran.
07 November 2015 (
Arrogance of US thugs
US
thugs
have organized
pressure
campaigns against prominent people that criticize them
even a
little.
They are arrogant as well as
dishonest
07 November 2015 (
Restoring the Voting Rights Act
Another variation on restoring the Voting Rights Act has been
proposed
Most Republican officials are
in
favor of voter suppression
. They want power, and regard democracy
as an obstacle. They appointed people to the Supreme Court that would
overturn crucial parts of the Voting Rights Act, and having won that
victory over poor and minority US citizens, they are not going to give
it up.
07 November 2015 (
Restrictions on Palestinians in Hebron
"It Will Become a Prison": Palestinians of Hebron Required to
"Register" in Preparation for
Severe
New Restrictions
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
This is in the name of "protecting" a group of Israeli fanatics that
insisted on living in the middle of an Arab town, and got the
government's support to keep them there at any cost (to Palestinians).
Meanwhile, Israel
closed a
Palestinian radio station in Hebron
, accusing it of "incitement"
to violence.
The
Israeli
actions that support keeping those fanatics in Hebron
do more to
incite Palestinian violence than any radio station could.
A former Israeli soldier, who was stationed in Hebron, says more or
less the
same
thing
The Israeli's use of a colony in Hebron as the base for continued
ethnic cleansing of the surrounding neighborhood of Hebron is a
microcosm of the
policy
of the occupation as a whole
Israel
continues
authorizing additional extensions
of its colonies in Palestine.
07 November 2015 (
New Pun
New pun: "Argonne Street"
06 November 2015 (
Wikipedia editing
A supporter of Deepak Chopra criticizes
Wikipedia's
practice in editing the page about him
Chopra's metaphysical statements are unsupported by what is actually
known in quantum physics. They are extraordinary claims, and would
require extraordinary proofs. Proofs would entail a systematic series
of experiments that Chopra hasn't reported doing. This is
pseudoscience, and it is good that Wikipedia makes this clear.
It is also true that patients may die from using "alternative
medicine" instead of scientific medicine — Steve Jobs is perhaps
the most famous example of this, though we are arguably
better
off without him
— and it is Wikipedia's responsibility to
point this out.
However, some of the practices described in the article do seem wrong
to me. Two clear examples are those about the Yoga section and the
bibliography. That's why I am posting this note.
Real scientists sometimes propose
strange
metaphysical hypotheses
, but they recognize that these are
speculative and don't present them as certain truths.
I am disappointed that the article refers to Wikipedia as "open
source", thus misrepresenting the meaning of "free" in "free
encyclopedia".
06 November 2015 (
Urgent: No Trump on SNL
Everyone:
call on NBC
not to have Donald Trump host Saturday Night Live.
6 November 2015
Science of the Seance
Science of the Seance
: Why Speaking to Spirits is Talking to Yourself.
It seems unjust to convict Anna Stubblefield of sexual assault, since
she believed she had been given positive consent.
6 November 2015
Australia's face database
Australia's face database
lends itself to creeping tyranny
, and there is
nothing to block the creep.
6 November 2015
Ravil Mingazov
A Guantanamo prisoner, Ravil Mingazov,
wants to join his family
in
England. A US court found there was no evidence to justify holding
him in prison.
6 November 2015
Thugs using tasers
Many US
thug
departments
are sloppy about using tasers
, and every so
often this kills someone — usually someone who was unarmed and
no danger to anyone.
6 November 2015
Blacks excluded from juries
US prosecutors
systematically exclude
blacks from juries using various
forms of deceit.
6 November 2015
Censorship in Lebanon
Censorship of criticism of religion
afflicts Lebanon
too.
6 November 2015
US Special Forces
A US special forces team in Afghanistan
seems to have tortured
dozens
of prisoners and killed 17 of them.
6 November 2015
UK's snooping bill
The UK's snooping bill
offers "protections" with loopholes
so big
that they are hardly meaningful.
The bill
is deceptive
, presenting so-called safeguards
that are not what they appear to be.
6 November 2015
Curbing global heating
A tax on flying
could raise a lot of money
for dealing with
global heating
But we would be fools to spend it on "adapting" when we could instead
spend
it on
curbing the problem
itself.
Curbing
global heating
is a very profitable investment.
The US should go in a lot more.
6 November 2015
Global heating warning
Scientists
warned President Johnson
about
global heating
in 1965.
6 November 2015
Corals
A research project
is trying to breed
corals that can cope with heat
and acidity.
If the project is successful, it might preserve a few of the hundreds
of species of corals. It's better than nothing, but it would be far
better
to curb our CO2 emissions.
6 November 2015
Sculpture in honor of Ken Saro-Wiwa
A sculpture in honor of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was
executed by a military dictatorship 20 years ago,
was seized
by the
Nigerian government on account of its political message.
6 November 2015
High rents
San Francisco voters
rejected
an initiative to limit how many days per
month a room can be rented out.
I am not sure this would have helped the problem of high rents at all,
but at best it would have done a tiny bit.
What San Francisco needs is lots and lots of housing construction.
But the home owners don't want that.
6 November 2015
Automated jobs
Bank of America says that half the jobs in the US
might be automated
in the next 20 years.
Plutocratist rulers will use this as an
opportunity to cut wages for
the remaining jobs, and will shuffle the surplus humans around until
they die.
6 November 2015
Louisiana thugs
Louisiana
thugs
shot
at driver Chris Few, and killed him and his son.
The are obfuscating the situation by saying that maybe Few had a
gun and shot his own son, but this seems to be pure fabrication.
The
thugs
have admitted that Few was not shooting at them (he
didn't have a gun). They claimed Few was backing up his car towards
them, but the evidence shows
that
was false too
6 November 2015
Fingerprints in EU
The EU
is proposing
to take the fingerprints of visitors to the EU.
I think that would mean a lot of countries I would never visit again.
6 November 2015
Federal war on marijuana
Sanders
has introduced
legislation to end the federal war on marijuana,
leaving the decision about its legality clearly to the states.
6 November 2015
Thug
The
thug
who attacked and paralyzed Sureshbhai Patel, an old man who
was simply walking next to his son's house,
has had a deadlocked jury
for the second time.
This indicates that some aspect of the
system needs to be changed.
6 November 2015
Corporate tax dodging
The EU
must stop
member states from competing to offer businesses the biggest
opportunities for tax dodging.
6 November 2015
Murdoch
Murdoch
has fired
hundreds of employees of the "National Geographic"
magazine, which he bought from the National Geographic Society.
This suggests that all the worst fears about what he would do it
are true.
6 November 2015
VolksWagen
VW
says
that some of its cars emit more CO2 in real use than in tests.
6 November 2015
Burma
The Rohingya minority in Burma
have been blocked
from voting and from running
for office.
6 November 2015
Keystone XL pipeline
The US
rejected
TransCanada's request to delay consideration of the
Keystone XL pipeline.
This means that Obama can make the decision, if he does not delay it
instead.
6 November 2015
Marijuana legal in Mexico
Mexico's Supreme Court
ruled
that growing and smoking marijuana are legal.
6 November 2015
PISSI
PISSI
may have brought down
a Russian airliner with a bomb smuggled on
board.
It may have been difficult, but if they did it, it was not impossible.
6 November 2015
Clinton
Clinton
distorts
Sanders' words as an excuse to call him racist and sexist.
6 November 2015
Maldives
To prevent an opposition rally, the Maldives government
has declared
"state of emergency".
The leader of the opposition is the legitimately elected president, who
was
removed
in a coup.
6 November 2015
al-Sisi
Egyptians
protested
al-Sisi in London, since he has crushed all dissent
in Egypt.
5 November 2015
US thug suicide
A US
thug
committed suicide, making it look like murder, because
he
was about to be caught stealing
from charity.
Other
thugs
tried to use this to condemn Black Lives Matter.
5 November 2015
Sanders
Sanders
has proposed
a bill to close off fossil fuel extraction from
US public lands.
5 November 2015
Fracking
The UK
has cancelled
its push to impose fracking in "Sites of Special
Scientific Interest".
That's good, but fracking elsewhere can poison the water for people
and farms.
5 November 2015
Vatican
Corruption and peculation
are rife
in the Vatican.
5 November 2015
Koch brother
A Koch brother
admits
that he expects something in return for his
campaign contributions.
In fact, he gets plenty for them.
5 November 2015
Iran's religion
Iran
admits
sentencing two poets to around 10 years in prison for
"insulting religion".
If you want to see a worse insult against Iran's religion, their
sentence is one.
If their appeals are not successful, it may be time for an
international poetry campaign to insult Iran's religion for its
censorship.
5 November 2015
Indonesia
British journalists
were sentenced to short prison terms
for making a
documentary in Indonesia that the Indonesian government didn't like.
Their local employees might be jailed for years.
In the name of avoiding inconveniences,
public protests in Jakarta have
been limited to unusual "free speech zones"
and required to keep quiet.
Shame on Indonesia for this censorship.
5 November 2015
Renewable energy
Renewable energy not only helps avoid disaster,
it also helps spread
the wealth
5 November 2015
Nauru
Australia
says
it is unhappy about the multiple human rights violations
of Nauru.
If Australia were serious about this, it could easily make Nauru
change its policies. I suspect that Australia has encouraged these
policies so as to cover up the treatment meted out to the refugees
Australia sends to Nauru.
5 November 2015
Ohio and marijuana
Ohio voters
defeated a corrupt proposal
to legalize marijuana,
perhaps because they didn't like the corrupt aspect.
5 November 2015
Beer brewing
Traditional beer brewing
has
ceased to function
in Belgium because of global heating.
5 November 2015
PM of Romania
The prime minister of Romania
has resigned
because of protests against
corruption.
5 November 2015
Chinese coal consumption
China
appears to be underreporting
coal consumption by as much as 17%.
5 November 2015
Australia's government
Australia's right-wing government is no longer led by a suppository,
but it still plans increased
dooH niboR
. Now
it plans a big increase
in VAT (a kind of sales tax)
, which will put the burden mainly on the
poor.
What's really called for is an increase in income tax for high
earners,
or the progressive income tax on businesses that
I've proposed
5 November 2015
University education
Students
protested
today in London demanding a return to gratis university
education.
5 November 2015
Taliban
The Taliban
have an assassination program
for journalists.
5 November 2015
Encryption
The UK
plans to ban
companies from offering encryption they can't break.
If big companies surrender to this, other countries will make the same
demand.
The UK's
new attack on privacy
, spelled out.
5 November 2015
Food waste
Conservative food use-by dates
tend to generate
food waste.
I would not blame the supermarkets so much. They will face public
criticism when goods don't last to their "use by" dates.
It is no use urging people to learn and remember rules about how long
food lasts. The fraction of people who regularly cook is much less
nowadays, and those who don't do this won't be motivated to learn them.
We will inevitably depend on what the supermarket says.
5 November 2015
US thugs
When US
thugs
rape, the
victims hardly ever report it
They believe, and I suspect they are right, that the other
thugs
will defend the rapists.
5 November 2015
Monsanto
The EPA concluded that glyphosate is not an endocrine disruptor, but
the evidence
was
provided by Monsanto
, which means we can't rely on it.
5 November 2015
Lead generators
People who do Google searches for "need money fast"
see ads for
companies called "lead generators"
that put them on a list of
potential suckers.
If you do a Google search in a way that doesn't hide who and where you
are,
including use of Tor, not specifying any account, and blocking cookies,
you do seem to be a sucker.
5 November 2015
Israeli "settler"
A fanatical Israeli "settler"
set
fire
to Palestinians' olive trees while a team from Rabbis for
Human Rights was trying to protect them by serving as witnesses.
Official firefighters did not arrive soon, so the president of Rabbis
for Human Rights tried to put the fire out himself. The fanatic did
not like this and tried to stab him.
The
thugs
took their time arriving, making sure the fanatic could get
away, and then called the Rabbis presence a "provocation" against the
fanatics.
I have to wonder if the firemen stayed away because coming to put out
this fire would have been considered a "provocation".
5 November 2015
Arabs in Jerusalem
Israel has been slowly cutting off the non-central parts of Jerusalem
where
Arabs live, and those Arabs themselves. Recently
it became clear
that this
is aimed at the goal of cutting them all off.
5 November 2015
Israel
East Jerusalem has one hospital, so wounded Palestinian protesters all
go there. Israel
has recently been raiding the hospital
and harassing
the doctors, even shooting tear gas inside the hospital.
They could kill patients that way.
5 November 2015
Qadhafi
Qadhafi's forces
did not massacre civilians
in the Libyan rebel cities
they recaptured.
When Clinton warned there would be a massacre in Benghazi, this claim
had no support
from intelligence.
The intervention was,
it seems,
intended simply to remove Qadhafi from
power
. Although for a time it appeared to lead towards democracy,
it led to chaotic violence that spread beyond Libya.
I've decided to spell the name "Qadhafi" because that follows the
standard
transliteration of Arabic. "Gaddafi" is more common, but not correct.
5 November 2015
Liberal media
Right-wing US politicians
invented
the "liberal media" claim in the
1950s. In fact, the US mass media were predominantly right-wing then,
before, and since.
5 November 2015
"Death to America"
Ayatollah Khamenei
says
that the slogan "Death to America" refers to
US policies and arrogance, not the the American nation.
This makes a big difference. If Iran declares a wish for genocide
against Americans, we would have to consider Iran an enemy. But when
it condemns only how the US government treats and has treated Iran
(and possibly some other countries), Americans can easily recognize
valid points in that criticism. This provides a basis for patriotic
Americans to push for the changes in the US needed for reconciliation
with Iran.
The remaining cause of friction between the US and Iran has to do with
the Iranian regime's oppression of Iranians. Progressive Americans
really care about these injustices. US plutocrats probably don't.
If the US were to support Iran totally, that would be wrong,
just as it is wrong for the US to support Saudi Arabia and Egypt
today.
When Khamanei dies, there may be an opportunity for diplomats to
lead
both countries to correct their wrongs.
5 November 2015
China moves to clean energy
Christiana Figueres, the UN's head climate official, says that China
is trying very hard to move
to clean energy, while the US is
dragging
its feet.
In China, the state is a plutocrat. In the US, private plutocrats
control the state. As a result, China is capable of making an
investment for long-term good, while the US is blocked by the
plutocrats.
5 November 2015 (
Domestic violence
The UK government is treating help for women facing domestic violence
as
it is treating renewable energy
4 November 2015 (
Jewish-Arab peace
Calling for a
Jewish-Arab
peace and justice party
in Israel.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
4 November 2015 (
Birth control education
Non-extremist imams in Afghanistan
teach
the use of birth control.
04 November 2015 (
Banned book in Ukrainian library
Russia says
it
arrested the director of the Ukrainian library
because it had
a banned book. The deputy director says that the banned book in question
was not theirs; that Russian thugs planted it to frame them.
We don't need to ask which one is telling the truth, because the
Russian state is wrong either way. It is wrong to ban books.
04 November 2015 (
Selling "smart guns" in the US
Companies that try to sell "smart guns" (with access control) in the
US have faced
violent threats.
The access control in these guns is not DRM, because it is under the control of the gun owner.
04 November 2015 (
Replacing the FISA court
Chelsea Manning calls for replacing the FISA court with courts that will make it their mission to
resist
unreasonable searches.
Limiting access to digital dossiers is not sufficient to protect
whistleblowers from being identified. We need to
redesign
digital systems
so that they don't collect digital dossiers, except about
court-designated targets.
04 November 2015 (
Detroit thug prosecuted
A thug from near Detroit shows how much violence a thug can get away with in the US.
Finally
he is being prosecuted.
04 November 2015 (
UK transfers spending from poor people
As UK transfers its spending from poor people to nuclear power plants,
more people are homeless. In once city,
volunteers
have organized to give
them breakfast.
That will work for a while, but as the Tories continue cutting further,
many of those now giving will join the hungry or the homeless.
As Aneurin Bevan said,
the
Tories are lower than vermin.
04 November 2015 (
Apples censored Chaos Congress app
Apple censored an app to display videos presented at the Chaos
Communications Congress
because
it did not censor presenters as Apple demands.
Apple's censorship is wrong, now as always, and designing computers as
platforms for censorship should be illegal.
However, it is also wrong to make proprietary apps for the iThing.
The Chaos Computer Club should do its streaming on the World Wide Web
using a freedom-respecting video format.
04 November 2015 (
TransCanada and Keystone XL
TransCanada has tried to delay its application to build the Keystone XL
pipeline,
hoping
to defer the decision to the next president.
Perhaps it is betting the next president will be bought. Or perhaps
it's no longer profitable. Obama may still be able to veto it if he
wishes.
I often referred to Keystone XL as the "planet-roaster pipeline",
because it would enable the export of a decisively dangerous
amount of tar sends oil.
This does not mean that avoiding the Keystone XL will make us safe.
We need to leave 80% of the world's known fossil fuels in the ground,
just to keep
global heating
to under 2C. There are many fossil fuel
projects that could roast our planet, many chances to fail.
In the real World Series, humanity vs plutocrats, humanity is losing.
We need to win nearly every game from here on.
04 November 2015 (
"Cloud passports"
Australia's latest horrible idea:
passports
that are only data in a server.
They call them "cloud passports", using the standard buzzword.
There is no "cloud" — only other people's computers.
The passport data would be stored in some computer, but whose?
And how will that computer be run?
Storing passports as data in some server will eliminate the problem
that tens of thousand of passports are lost or stolen (mostly lost)
individually, and introduce the problem that millions could be stolen
at once digitally.
I suspect this will also involve a lot more biometric data than now.
04 November 2015 (
Imprisonment for criticizing chief minister
An Indian singer faces possible life imprisonment for
criticizing
the chief minister of Tamil Nadu state.
The chief minister, in India, is the equivalent of a governor in the US.
I don't agree with the singer's position in favor of banning alcohol.
I have no idea whether the chief minister profits from sales of
alcohol. It is not clear whether the singer accused the chief minister
personally, or the state government, of getting profits from alcohol.
What is important is that saying such things must not be a crime.
04 November 2015 (
Drink less soda
Soda
companies
fund "health" organizations to corrupt them so that
they won't take action to lead people to drink less soda. They also
promote campaigns for people to exercise more, so as to deny space
to campaigns to drink less soda.
Soda with sugar leads to obesity, but
soda
with sugar substitutes is not innocuous;
they tend to confuse the brain.
04 November 2015 (
Urgent: Close loophole
US citizens: call for closing the
carried
interest loophole
[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the
old
link
was broken.]
04 November 2015 (
Retreat of ice in Western Antarctica
Researchers say that ice in Western Antarctica is
irreversibly
retreating
— there is no way to prevent it from raising sea
level by 3 meters, though that will take centuries.
04 November 2015 (
US foreign policy
In many countries, the US practices a foreign policy that is
wicked
(and absurd too)
04 November 2015 (
Inequality
Why
Every Environmentalist Should Care about Inequality
03 November 2015 (
French Pun
New pun: Le
climat d'Alger
03 November 2015 (
Urgent: Prosecution of Exxon
US citizens:
call
for prosecution
of Exxon for fraudulently denying global heating.
03 November 2015 (
Urgent: Discharge petition for gun-control
US citizens:
call on
Pelosi
to file a discharge petition for a gun-control bill.
This discharge petition is a step towards reducing the number of
discharges of guns.
03 November 2015 (
LA thug sentenced to prison
An LA
thug
has been sentenced to prison because he
let
his deputies beat up a man
who came to visit his brother in jail.
The rule that visitors can't bring portable phones may be legitimate,
but there is no reason to beat them up if they have one. Anyway,
doesn't each prisoner have a cell phone?
03 November 2015 (
Pentagon spending
Pentagon Spent $43m on
'World's
Most Expensive Gas Station' in Afghanistan
03 November 2015 (
The Migrant Crisis
There's
No
Perfect Answer to the Migrant Crisis
. We need to change foreign
policies that have destabilized so many countries and driven millions
to flee.
03 November 2015 (
Replacements for chlorofluorocarbons
The replacements for ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons
turn
out to be powerful greenhouse gases
; we need to switch again.
03 November 2015 (
Conviction based on secret evidence
Wang Yam was convicted of
murder
in the UK by a secret court
. Why is the evidence secret? That's
a secret too.
Wang Yam is now trying to appeal to the European Court of Human
Rights, but the government has arbitrarily vetoed this.
03 November 2015 (
Discussion of sex-work trafficking in Wisconsin
A discussion of sex-work trafficking in Wisconsin has been totally
confused, because it is based on blindly
labeling
work by teenagers as "trafficking", and equating their customers to
pimps
Thus, when the article talks of "rescuing" minors from sex work, we
can't tell how many have indeed been rescued from pimps, and how many
saw their customers arrested and felt compelled to pretend to be
grateful.
No good can come from willful blindness about this difference.
Minors that do sex work are called "trafficked" even if they do it by
choice and have the option to stop at any time. No wonder that,
according to the article, many of the minors that are "rescued" from
"trafficking" choose freely to go back to it. Maybe they chose it
freely the first time, too.
The article acknowledges that they do this because their other options
are very bad. That's where they could use some help. But the state
of Wisconsin won't give them that.
I wonder how much of their problems are due to Wisconsin's Governor
Walker and his
attacks
on aid to the disadvantaged
, as well as
political
ethics requirements
and
campaign
finance laws
His policies are just the thing to force poor people into some sort of
underground economy.
03 November 2015 (
The Antarctic ice sheet
The Antarctic ice sheet is gaining thickness inland due to
increased
precipitation there
This doesn't alter the observed rise in sea level, so it means the
increase is coming from some other unknown source.
03 November 2015 (
"Sequester" imposed as "compromise"
SCROTUS
and Obama imposed the "sequester" as a "compromise" to cut the
US budget in all areas. Now they have a new "compromise" that expands
the war budget, while
threatening
Social Security and Medicare
Selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, when the low price
suggests buying it instead, is sabotage of the treasury. "Buy high,
sell low" is stupid, except when (as here) it is worse than stupid.
Ultimately, plutocratist politicians betray the country to their
paymasters.
SCROTUS
stands for Sleazy Congressional Republicans Of The United
States.
03 November 2015 (
Buddhist extremists in Burma
In Burma, Buddhist extremists
attack
women's rights, sex education, and any discussion about sex
The Buddha would advise those monks to question their attachment to
those prejudices.
I expect there is a word in Burmese for "vagina", but it was omitted
from the dictionary because it is considered too rude.
03 November 2015 (
Mandatory fun
Mandatory, organized fun as part of a job is a form of
manipulation
Japanese companies pushed this to extreme lengths. Someone I know,
who had no tolerance for alcohol and had to avoid it, had no choice
but to work for a government lab, because all companies would require
him to get drunk as part of "leisure" activities.
03 November 2015 (
Renewable energy investment cut
The suppository of all carbon emissions, Tony Abbott, succeeded in cutting
renewable energy investment in Australia by
almost
1/3
03 November 2015 (
Global heating
Even 2C of
global heating
will do great harm. Drastic action is
needed to avoid
climate mayhem
, and it
doesn't
look like leaders are prepared to do it
It isn't certain that 2C of heating is possible. It might be that
once warming goes beyond 1.5C (or 1.75, or 1.25, or some such amount),
a positive feedback will kick in and push the heating up to 2.5C (or
3C, or 4C, or 5C, or some such amount). We are playing with fire, and
the only certainty is that we must stop.
03 November 2015 (
Ukraine's Russia-supported rebels
Ukraine's Russia-supported rebels are
unhappy
now that Putin is dialing down that war
03 November 2015 (
Election rigging in Haiti
Haitian President Martelli is
using
government vehicles painted with Red Cross markings
to carry false
ballots to rig the election.
03 November 2015 (
Global heating and the Pacific Islands
Pacific Islands Make
Last-Ditch
Plea to World Before Paris Climate Change Talks
They will be inundated, and their people have no recognized right to
go anywhere else.
03 November 2015 (
Turkey's election
Erdoğan's party won the
election
in Turkey
. His war and his repression of the press have paid off,
leading
Turkey towards tyranny
Monitors say that
Turkey's
election was unfair
03 November 2015 (
Money from Haiti's supposedly empty treasury
Haiti's US-imposed president Martelli unilaterally
gave
each minister a golden parachute of $46,000
, although the treasury
is supposed to be empty.
03 November 2015 (
School thug's violent attack on teenager
The
whole
dirty story
about the school thug's violent attack on the orphaned
teenager because she would not give her phone to the teacher.
The teacher, the principal, and then the
thug
, were all defending the
principle of total obedience.
03 November 2015 (
Wolf-whistles and compliments
The
clash
of two world-views
about wolf-whistles and compliments.
In the posted highlights of the hours of
video
made by a woman walking in New York City
, some men were very pushy
and wouldn't take no for an answer. That's clearly harassment. Even
some brief remarks were harsh in their attitude. It is unkind to
treat someone that way.
However, there is no need to consider kind complements as harassment.
This is not a subjective question. You can get offended when someone
says "hello", but that doesn't mean we consider your offense justified.
03 November 2015 (
Billionaires suppress criticism
Billionaires including the Koch brothers
suppress
criticism by donating money
to universities, museums, public TV,
etc.
The Gates Foundation has done something similar
in
the field of US education
For a university to do what Florida State University did, and let
donors choose their professors, is a despicable surrender.
It would be well for students there to picket the economics
department ever year for this.
02 November 2015 (
New Pun
New pun: "Trinidadian"
2 November 2015
Marijuana
Ohio
proposes
to legalize selling marijuana, only for certain specific
companies that have invested in advance.
2 November 2015
Anti-Knowledge
The 'anti-Knowledge' of the elites in Washington
goes unchallenged
by the established press.
2 November 2015
Racial profiling
Standardized tests
can have the effect
of racial profiling.
The English Regent's Exam tests for a real skill, and the people who
fail that test really lack that skill. Is that important? That
depends on what they are going to do.
I speak French well enough to give speeches, have useful meetings with
public officials, and write articles for publication (though they
require editing by others). But I could not pass the French
equivalent of the English Regent's Exam, because there are many French
words and idiomatic expressions I don't know, and many references I
would not catch.
Would my failure on that hypothetical test be significant? Is my
command of French adequate or not? That depends on what activity I am
going to do. For understanding le Canard enchainé, I am hopelessly
incompetent; for championing free software in French, I seem
reasonably capable.
Likewise, whether someone's failure on the English Regent's Exam is a
real shortcoming depends on what you want that person to do. If it is
to have sophisticated conversations in English the way an educated
native speaker can, it is a real shortcoming and you should look for
someone else. For college study in a field other than English, the
failure at that exam may not matter.
2 November 2015
SXSW
SXSW cancelled panels about online harassment, giving way to online
harassment. In response to criticism,
it has brought
them back, and
added more.
Gamergate Didn't Fade Into Obscurity. We Just
Stopped Noticing
Its Existence.
It is cowardly to cancel an event because of threats —
especially online threats, which are generally nothing but bombast.
2 November 2015
UK's ash trees
A fungus
is going to kill
90% of the UK's ash trees. Should genetic
modification be used to make ash trees that can survive the fungus?
It seems plausible to me. These trees won't be fed to people, and
pesticide won't be used on them; that eliminates two of the main
issues. Furthermore, since the wild type is being wiped out anyway,
there is no need to be concerned that it will be contaminated by the
inserted gene.
2 November 2015
Female Bosses
Hurrah for Female Bosses, But
Let's Not Forget
Their Cleaners.
I would go further. What matters about the people corporate
boardrooms is not their gender, but that they have too much power and
get too much money. The poorly-paid female employees, and male
employees too, deserve a higher wage.
2 November 2015
Phone call metadata
The state
can learn
a lot about you from your phone call metadata.
2 November 2015
Spying Systems
6 Spooky Ways Local Law Enforcement
Is Watching
You.
I think we must
prohibit
several of these systems.
2 November 2015
UN Climate Summit
Upcoming UN Climate Summit
Can't
Overlook
China's Support of Global Coal Power.
2 November 2015
Thugs
When US officials prosecute
thugs
thugs organize retaliation
, in the
form of private and even official noncooperation, as well as frame-ups.
This is why they all deserve the name of "
thugs
". Anyone in
Albuquerque who claims the honorable title of
police officer
" should
validate that claim by publicly denouncing these retaliation campaigns
and affirming that
thugs
shouldn't get away with murder.
2 November 2015
Wall Street banks
Moving your money out of the big Wall Street banks
can be 20 times
as effective as it appears
2 November 2015
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress
approved
several specific three-year exemptions
to the DMCA's prohibition on breaking DRM (digital restrictions
management).
However, since the exemptions do not allow distributing the means to
actually do so, they may in some cases be impossible to take advantage
of.
The campaigns for these exemptions are a harmful distraction which
saps energy from what we really need: to repeal what the DMCA says
about DRM. It should be a crime to make systems with DRM.
The article uses the ill-advised term "digital locks" to refer
to digital restrictions mechanisms. See the explanation
of why that term is a bad analogy, and please join me in not using
it.
2 November 2015
Corporations United
The
Corporations United
(*) decision
allows companies to tell their
employees how to vote
, and one big investor is trying to do this
through all the companies he invests in.
This shows why we need a constitutional amendment that denies across
the board that corporations are entitled to human rights — not
just in regard to campaign spending.
* The front group used the misleading term "Citizens United"; there is
no reason for us to join it in misleading people about what it
represented.
2 November 2015
Republicans
Republicans in several state legislatures
have passed laws
to pre-empt
cities from regulating areas such as minimum wage and fracking; and they
remove local voter initiatives from the ballot, so that the city cannot
challenge the validity of the state's pre-emption.
2 November 2015
NSA
A German investigation
has determined
that the NSA spied pervasively on
the German government.
2 November 2015
Intellectual Freedom in UK
Intellectual freedom in in the UK
is threatened
by the right-wing state
and by left-wing students.
2 November 2015
Somalia
Now that the Somali pirates have been suppressed, illegal foreign
fishing
boats
have returned
to the area.
2 November 2015
Shaker Aamer
Shaker Aamer
suffers
from PTSD and will need years of treatment.
01 November 2015 (
Urgent: no tax break for BP
US citizens: insist that BP get
no
tax break from its damage payments.
01 November 2015 (
Urgent: the People's Climate Test
US citizens:
call
on Obama
to adopt the People's Climate Test.
01 November 2015 (
Urgent: rules for labeling meat
US citizens: call on the Senate to maintain the rules for
labeling
meat by country of origin.
01 November 2015 (
Forest fires make people sick
Indonesia's forest fires, a scheme for deforestation, have made
half
a million people
sick in the region.
01 November 2015 (
Publishers and writers attacked in Bangladesh.
Four more secularist publishers and writers have been
attacked
in Bangladesh.
01 November 2015 (
A limit on standardized tests
Obama said he has become disenchanted with standardized tests, and proposes a limit on them —
but
not a real reduction.
The issue is not how many hours students spend
taking
the
tests, but how much their studies are shaped around the tests, and
how the tests are used.
Bigger
policy changes are needed.
01 November 2015 (
Black Lives Matter protests
The FBI director admits he has
no
objective basis
for claiming that Black Lives Matter protests
caused a recent increase in crime. But he will blame them anyway.
He also blames the fact that people can use videos to demonstrate the
crimes that
thugs
commit. His argument is that anything that makes
thugs
hesitate to beat people up and lie about it constitutes an
impediment to their work.
01 November 2015 (
Forest fires threaten Orangutans
Indonesia's Forest Fires Threaten
Third of World's Wild Orangutans.
01 November 2015 (
"Sanctions" against the unemployed
The UK
refused
to investigate
whether "sanctions" against the unemployed are
achieving any of their supposed purposes.
01 November 2015 (
Throw stones and we hit you with gas
Israeli troops told Palestinians: "Throw stones and
we
will hit you with gas until you all die
— the youth, the
children, the old people…You will all die. We will not leave
any of you alive."
Palestinians are already being killed regularly by tear gas.
01 November 2015 (
State court elections
Money Flooding State Court Elections
Threatens
the Promise of Equal Justice.
01 November 2015 (
US options in Syria
How
presidential
candidates
stand on the US options in Syria, which all have major drawbacks.
The article has one section entitled "'Safe zones' and special forces",
but the section discusses only the safe zones, not special forces.
01 November 2015 (
Borrowing money to get an abortion
Women in Ireland and Northern Ireland have to borrow money
so
they can travel to England to get an abortion.
The way to end the stigma placed in Ireland on abortion is for women
to talk about their abortions unapologetically. It is imperative for
women in Ireland to stop acting ashamed.
01 November 2015 (
Doing business with Al-Sisi
Al-Sisi offers Britain the
sort
of tyrant
that Britain is accustomed to doing business with.
"I got 643 days of torture [in Egypt]. My tormentor gets
Cameron's
red carpet."
01 November 2015 (
Tap water not safe
Parts of the US no longer have tap water that is
safe to drink.
01 November 2015 (
Thugs' persecution
Lesbians occasionally bear, like blacks,
the
brunt of thugs' persecution.
01 November 2015 (
Transparency and privacy
Transparency for the State,
for the Rest of Us.
01 November 2015 (
Diets and weight loss
Diets generally
do
not achieve much weight loss.
Low-fat diets are the least effective, but perhaps that is because
low-fat food products have added sugar.
01 November 2015 (
Ending the death penalty
Sanders
calls
for ending the death penalty, legalizing marijuana, reducing
incarceration, and helping ex-cons get back into society.
01 November 2015 (
Repression in US public schools
The
thug
's
vicious attack on a sitting high school girl is the extreme
example of a systematic repression imposed in US public schools
generally. Any student can be punished or suspended for minor or even
fantasy "wrongs",
but
black students generally face worse treatment.
Suspension from school is extremely frequent: high schools suspend, each year,
almost as many students as they graduate. Smaller punishments are probably
far more frequent.
This system resembles a training program for living in an occupied
country, and students could understand it as such. The
thugs
in the
schools are soldiers in the occupying army, and the school officials
are the local collaborators, quislings (that's why they order quizzes).
The teachers are mostly sincere, trying to provide what education they
can under the occupation which they cannot defy, but that is easier
said than done.
The goal is to make trouble for the occupation without letting the
soldiers figure out who did it or how.
01 November 2015 (
US to assist Syrian Kurds
Obama is sending a
contingent
of US special forces
to assist the Syrian Kurds.
This seems like a good idea to me. A limited amount of help for the
Kurds could make a big difference for them in fighting
PISSI,
while avoiding the harm that a large US intervention force would do.
If the Kurds can cut off
PISSI
from the Turkish border, it would crimp
PISSI
's funds (obtained by selling oil) and recruitment (foreign
recruits come through Turkey).
Obama
should ask Congress for approval
of the US intervention against
PISSI. I expect he would easily get approval. The point is to maintain
the system of checks and balances.
01 November 2015 (
Suspected of setting fire to churches
A black man is suspected of
setting
fire to churches near Ferguson.
01 November 2015 (
Netanyahu's realm of lunacy
Uri Avnery says: in blaming the holocaust on a factional Palestinian
leader, Netanyahu went beyond the realm of dishonesty and
manipulation,
into
the realm of lunacy.
01 November 2015 (
Pregnant refugee Abyan
Australia will give pregnant refugee Abyan
another
chance to get an abortion.
01 November 2015 (
US foreign policy lies
Even Sanders goes along with
official
US foreign policy lies
some of the time.
Chavez won elections honestly, but his successor, Maduro, represses
the opposition increasingly as it grows in strength.
Sanders doesn't do everything right, but he's a lot better even on
foreign policy issues than the other candidates.
01 November 2015 (
Extremism is a form of patriarchy
Sara Khan tries to convince British Muslim girls to
reject
extremism
because it is a form of patriarchy.
I strongly dislike religious extremism, in any religion, even in the
Church of Emacs. However, people have a right to profess those views,
and it is wrong to prohibit them. The UK government has trashed so
many human rights already that I expect the worst.
01 November 2015 (
Neonicotinoids harm bees
A scientific review finds that
experiments
demonstrate
that neonicotinoids harm bees, but it is not yet proved
that they are responsible for colony collapse.
Since bees are crucial to agriculture, and to the survival of many
species of plants, we can't afford to risk it.
01 November 2015 (
Recording of browsing history
The UK government is about to demand
ISPs
record everyone's browsing history.
01 November 2015 (
New St Louis stadium
An NFL team wants to
drain
St Louis of millions
for a new stadium; a movement of citizens opposes the fans.
NFL teams are businesses. It's too bad so many Americans direct their
loyalty at businesses.
01 November 2015 (
Indian "climate of intolerance"
Major Indian historians have condemned the "climate of intolerance"
that encourages violence and censorship of dissent from
Hindu
nationalist ideology and myths.
01 November 2015 (
Market-dominated university system
UK students will protest to oppose the adoption of a
US-style
market-dominated university system.
01 November 2015 (
Shaker Aamer returned to Britain
Shaker Aamer has been
released
from Guantanamo
and has returned to Britain.
Rebellious officials in the Pentagon
delayed
his release for 5 years
by refusing to let him go back to the UK.
He is going to
sue
the British government
for complicity in his imprisonment and torture.
He certainly deserves compensation, but if the UK government settles the case
to avoid exposure of its wrongs, that will not do justice.
01 November 2015 (
"Unarmed civilian protection"
"Unarmed civilian protection" persuades armed groups in South Sudan
to
refrain from violence,
at least some of the time.
01 November 2015 (
Assad fired missiles at a market
Assad's forces
fired
missiles at a market
and killed at least 40 people. I would expect
most of them were civilians.
01 November 2015 (
Indonesia is burning
Indonesia
Is Burning.
So Why Is the World Looking Away?
01 November 2015 (
Urgent: Replace CNN commentator
Everyone:
call on
CNN
to replace commentator Harry Houck, who never saw a violent
thug
he didn't like.
01 November 2015 (
Criminalizing criticism
Criminalizing criticism of officials
threatens
democracy in Malaysia
Democracy in Malaysia was never very strong, which makes it even more
vulnerable now.
01 November 2015 (
Large forest fire in the Amazon
A large forest fire is
burning
in the Amazon "rainforest"
, and has been burning for two months.
This suggests o me that there is not as much rain as there normally
used to be.
Large parts of Brazil have suffered from an
unprecedented
drought
Global heating
could play some role in this, but the cutting down of
much of the forests are responsible for both.
01 November 2015 (
Current carbon pledges
The UN says that current carbon pledges will probably keep global
heating to
under
3C
That is still taking too big a risk. Even the 2C target is somewhat
arbitrary, since we don't know it will avoid disaster (or
positive-feedback tipping points that would push warming further).
In addition, without an enforcement mechanism, we can't be confident
all the countries will carry out their unilateral pledges.
01 November 2015 (
Internet censorship in US universities
Various
organizations demand internet censorship in US universities
to
eliminate racist statements and insults.
I find some of those statements disgusting — others are merely
foolish — but censorship is far more disgusting.
The scariest thing is that this sort of censorship has already become
deeply implanted in many otherwise free countries. And in some of
them, such as France and the UK, it is spreading to other kinds of
censorship.
01 November 2015 (
Jailed for talking to children
Pennsylvania has jailed a man for
telling
children on the street that he was on the way to a cabin in the
woods
A paranoid US parent, who has probably heard exaggerated stories about
the
nearly
nonexistent "stranger danger"
, reported this as suspicious.
Perhaps
thugs
regarded the man as dangerous because he is autistic
and could not rebut the suspicion.
01 November 2015 (
Haiti's election
Haiti's "president" Martelly is
trying
to impose a successor by rigging the election
The US imposed Martelly through
blatant
contempt for the Haitian
electoral system
01 November 2015 (
Guber for piecework "journalists"
Following
Guber
, a new service
matches
up PR companies with piecework "journalists"
that will take pay to
write their press releases into "news articles".
I call it
"Guber"
because it pays
drivers peanuts, but there are many reasons why we should refuse ever
to use
Guber
01 November 2015 (
Censorship on the rise
Censorship
on Rise as Global Internet Freedom Continues Downward Spiral
01 November 2015 (
Gulf of Maine too warm for cod
The Gulf of Maine is now
too
warm for cod to live there
This area of the sea used to be a major cod fishery, though they were
mostly wiped out by overfishing a few decades ago. Massachusetts must
now replace the
Sacred Cod
with
Sacred Car.
<< Next (2016 March - June)
2015 November - February |
Previous (2015 July - October) >>
Each note starts with a date and a brief topic in parentheses. That
text is also a link to that note.
For instance, if the note
starts with "20 July 2003 (Iraq)" then you can link to it with
"https://www.stallman.org/notes/may-aug-03.html#20 July 2003 (Iraq)".
Return to
Main page
Please send comments on these web pages to
rms@gnu.org
Copyright (C) 2015 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is
permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.