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Link Policy

Glossary

28 February 2019 (Women who joined PISSI) Women who went to Syria and joined PISSI were not necessarily innocent "brides". They often worked for PISSI — just not as soldiers. Some of them changed their minds and could not get away.

28 February 2019 (Planned Parenthood) The proposed federal regulation intended to take funds from Planned Parenthood would mainly harm women who are poor or living precariously. By denying them effective birth control, it would lead to more abortions (somewhat undesirable) and lots of unwanted babies (terrible).

28 February 2019 (Recycling concrete) Challenges in recycling concrete instead of burying it.

28 February 2019 (Eminent domain) Various US states are using the power of eminent domain to seize land for businesses, using an argument that amounts to trickle-down. Wisconsin is using it in order to be able to give Foxconn a corrupt subsidy.

28 February 2019 (Only partly progressive) Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris, now seeking the Democratic nomination, have been only partly progressive. Especially Gillibrand, who has offered her support to plutocrats.

28 February 2019 (Progressive activist congresscritters) Several newly elected progressive activist congresscritters have been appointed to the Financial Services Committee, where they may be able to interfere with the banksters. Republicans in the Senate will block them from actually passing laws, but they may be able to help replace those Republicans by championing good bills.

28 February 2019 (Urgent: Sprint T-mobile merger) US citizens: call on the FCC to reject the merger of Sprint and T-mobile. If you sign, please spread the word!

28 February 2019 (Urgent: Marijuana convictions) In the US: call on district attorneys to commit to expunging convictions for possession of marijuana (in states where that has been legalized). If you sign, please spread the word!

28 February 2019 (Urgent: Military parade) US citizens: call on Congress to stop the narcissist's military parade. If you sign, please spread the word!

28 February 2019 (Force-feeding refugees) US deportation thugs are force-feeding refugees that are on hunger strike.

28 February 2019 (Paycheck Fairness Act) The Paycheck Fairness Act aims to end the gender pay disparity by giving all employees a basic part of freedom of speech: to say what they are paid and talk with each other to compare their pay.

28 February 2019 (Stolen Georgia election) The stolen election in Georgia, based on stopping blacks from voting, is compared with the Constitution's rule to count a slave as 3/5 of a person. With so many methods of voter suppression used, they can't be a coincidence. They must have been part of a broad effort, coordinated by the man who was in charge of running the state's election, the same man that is now the governor of Georgia.

28 February 2019 (Harris on truancy) Kamala Harris wanted to make students show up at school by threatening to jail their parents. Schools alone won't eliminate robbery and other street crimes; we do need prisons, too. But the US could do with a lot fewer prisons if it made life easier for the nonrich.

28 February 2019 (US military computing) The US government plans to hand over military computing over to a private company. That is a threat to national security.

28 February 2019 (Nonstop church services) A church in the Netherlands held nonstop services for 96 days to provide sanctuary to a refugee family.

28 February 2019 (Threatening Venezuela) The bullshitter and his assistants claim they are going to restore freedom and democracy to Venezuela, by threatening invasion. The previous Republican president said the same thing about Iraq, and made things much much worse. Intervention in Venezuela could make things much much worse, too. If the two sides come to some agreement, Venezuela might take a turn for the better.

28 February 2019 (Football spectators in Italy) Italian football officials have decided to suspend and maybe halt games when the spectators cry out racist insults. The minister of hate, Salvini, calls on all Italian racists not to be deterred by this.

28 February 2019 (Dying starfish) The mass death of many species of starfish on the Pacific coast seems to be triggered by warmer water. The loss of the sunflower sea star means that sea urchins are overrunning the US coast. They survive further north, but as global heating proceeds they could be wiped out there too, and the species will be extinct.

28 February 2019 (Killing albatrosses) Industrial fishing boats refuse to take steps to avoid killing albatrosses. Unfortunately, killing the albatrosses has not yet brought them any bad luck. Perhaps they are due for some strict laws.

28 February 2019 (Microplastic ban) EU Proposes Ban on 90% of Microplastic Pollutants. If this is effective, we will need to extend it world-wide.

28 February 2019 (Rice cultivation technique) A new technique for cultivating rice produces a lot more grains, uses half the water and much less seed, and cuts methane emissions too. This is a very good thing, but the benefit is not infinite. Population growth can wipe out the gains.

26 February 2019 (Urgent: Net neutrality bills) US citizens: if your congresscritter was newly elected last November, phone per office to explain the problems with the distractive, inadequate network neutrality bills. I have seen this advice for an effective call. Contact your members of Congress only. Calls from people who aren’t constituents typically aren’t as effective.

Be respectful to staffers. Even if you feel really strongly about an issue, always show them the same respect you would want yourself.

Keep your call under a minute.

Request a response if you want an update. Being added to the response database will earn you automatic updates if any of your representatives take action.

Leaving a voicemail is just as effective. Sometimes lines are busy or staffers are away. Thankfully, voicemails are checked daily and tallied just like calls. Just remember to leave your full street address. If you phone, please spread the word!

26 February 2019 (Urgent: Taxes from large companies) US citizens: call on Congress to make Amazon and other large companies pay their fair share of taxes. If you sign, please spread the word!

26 February 2019 (Urgent: Abortion rights) US citizens: call on Congress to defend abortion rights from obstructive arbitrary requirements. While this bill has no chance of becoming law under this administration, it's important that we build momentum and support for it now. If you sign, please spread the word!

26 February 2019 (Urgent: Gun control) US citizens: support common-sense gun control measures. If you sign, please spread the word!

26 February 2019 (History of Venezuela) Analyzing the history of Venezuela, before and during the presidency of Chávez. Oil money enabled him to implement socialist measures without curbing the power of the oligarchs, so the oligarchs were never weakened, and now they appear to plan to use Guaidó to take power again. Thus, Venezuela faces the choice between an acutely repressive government and a permanently unjust government.

26 February 2019 (Zumigo) "Zumigo, which sold the location data of American cell phone users, wanted the FCC to remove requirements around user consent." Requiring consent is not sufficient to make this acceptable. We need to require that any software that can send a user's location offer the option of spoofing the location.

26 February 2019 (Influence of 'big food') Experts call for influence of ‘big food’ to be curbed to also tackle issue of climate change.

26 February 2019 (Gilets jaunes parties) Some of the gilets jaunes protesters are starting political parties.

26 February 2019 (US Taliban agreement) The US and the Taliban seem to have made substantial progress in negotiating some sort of agreement.

26 February 2019 (UN court judge) A judge in a UN court quit and denounced the US and Turkey for acting against international courts. Bolton threatened to prosecute any judge in the International Criminal Court that investigated a US citizen. People have said for decades that the US is the biggest rogue state.

26 February 2019 (Courthouse arrests) The US deportation thugs used to arrest around 10 people a year from courts in New York City. Since 2017 it has been around 180 a year.

26 February 2019 (Global economic system) Good domestic policies such as the Green New Deal are not enough. We need to dismantle the global economic system that lets global capital and business move around and batter countries into economic submission.

26 February 2019 (Protest in Brussels) 80,000 protesters marched in Brussels for action to curb global heating, and thousands more couldn't fit in the trains to get to the protest.

26 February 2019 (Amazon's legal system) Amazon's domination of online sales in the US has led it to set up a private legal system to govern sellers, complete with lawyers, but the "laws" are all secret and unaccountable.

26 February 2019 (Wang Quanzhang) China sentenced human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang to four years in prison.

26 February 2019 (Evangelical schools) US evangelical Christian schools are preparing children to take over the US and impose their cult on everyone.

26 February 2019 (Rich people at Davos) The rich people at Davos nowadays acknowledge that our current economic system is leading to global disaster. But they never try to change it.

26 February 2019 (Deporting to Cambodia) The hateful one is deporting people to Cambodia who have been in the US since childhood and do not speak Cambodian.

26 February 2019 (Would-be Nazi terrorist in Coast Guard) A would-be Nazi terrorist, a complete supporter of the would-be tyrant, was caught planning to assassinate progressive politicians. He is an officer in the Coast Guard. I expect there are many would-be terrorists in the US military.

26 February 2019 (Recycling in the US) Recycling paper, glass and plastic in the US is a sham, since most of what people give to be "recycled" is not feasible to recycle. It ends up as landfill or in an incinerator. We need laws to require plastic made in large quantities to be made easy to recycle.

26 February 2019 (Raise the Wage Act) The Raise the Wage Act would raise the US minimum wage so it would reach $15 per hour by 2024. It would also eliminate the practice of paying waiters less.

26 February 2019 (Saboteur of Commerce) A US judge ruled that Saboteur of Commerce Wilbur Ross disregarded the law when adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, and the ruling effectively asserts that Ross committed a crime by lying to Congress.

26 February 2019 (Unjust treatment of Zaghari-Ratcliffe) The Iranian ambassador to the UK said that the campaign to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is not helping her release from prison. That statement seems plausible to me. Too much pressure against a government can motivate its officials to dig in their heels and refuse to make a concession, lest they appear "weak". However, this doesn't excuse the unjust treatment that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe has received, which failed to respect the rights of criminal defendants.

26 February 2019 (Wild coffee species face extinction) Most wild coffee species face extinction. Their loss would interfere with future efforts to breed cultivated coffee to resist or endure other threats. Many areas that now grow coffee will be unable to grow it by 2100. But what of the areas that can still grow it? Global disaster could put an end to the international trade by which coffee is shipped to other places where people drink coffee, and many of them won't be able to afford such luxuries anyway.

24 February 2019 (Very urgent: Anti-abortion bill) US citizens: call on your senators to vote against the anti-abortion bill S.311. If you send a message, please spread the word!

24 February 2019 (Urgent: Affordable housing) US citizens: call on Congress to build lots of affordable housing. If you sign, please spread the word!

24 February 2019 (Urgent: Special Counsel Transparency Act) US citizens: call on Senate Republicans to pass the Special Counsel Transparency Act, which would direct Mueller to publish the report of his investigation. If you sign, please spread the word!

24 February 2019 (Greece recovery) Greece might be starting to recover economically. I guess that is good, but it feels too good to be true. What is the bad news?

24 February 2019 (Social Security numbers) (satire) Big US government data breech: public advocacy agencies revealed Monday that 340 million Social Security numbers had fallen into the hands of the federal government.

24 February 2019 (Human rights record) (satire) Taliban officials announced Monday that they had agreed to a peace deal despite their concerns about America’s human-rights record.

24 February 2019 (UK city budgets) The UK's dooH niboR government has cut the budget for cities so hard that Labour-controlled local government can only make decisions about which poor people to crush first. In such a situation, it is a mistake to try to minimize the harm. "Working within the cruel system to make it less cruel" has the main effect of propping the system up.

24 February 2019 (UK wildlife protection) The UK has cut the budget for protecting wildlife and ecosystems to the point where the job cannot be done.

24 February 2019 (Billionaires) Is it morally appropriate for anyone to be a billionaire? I agree that "Every billionaire is a policy failure", but I disagree with Ms Ocasio-Cortez about Bill Gates: he got his money by doing wrong to people (proprietary software). Many problems that are intractable in today's conditions could be solved by spending money, but the government doesn't have money to spend on them. Why not? Too much money has gone to (1) reduced taxes for businesses and rich people and (2) spending more on the military than the next six countries together. If we claw back the money from that, we could truly make America great again — great in its ability to do great things and make a better life. The US could also do its share of reducing greenhouse gas emissions fast.

24 February 2019 (Venezuela elections) Proposing that Maduro and Guaidó share power for a couple of years and then hold new elections.

24 February 2019 (Sanders and Warren) The two 2020 presidential candidates that plutocrats really hate are Sanders and Warren. I have confidence that both of them will thwart the plutocrats, but Sanders is better on a range of other progressive issues. Warren says that the CEO of Wells Fargo should be fired; he has been in charge of the bank's operations for many years and has the responsibility for the various frauds the bank has committed.

24 February 2019 (Witness dialects) When witnesses speak in black American dialects, Court reporters and juries frequently misunderstand what they said.

24 February 2019 (Sea Shepherd in Liberia) Sea Shepherd is acting as Liberia's coast guard and putting a stop to illegal fishing. Illegal fishing is not just a matter of who gets to fish where. It is also a matter of preventing overfishing, and the use of fishing methods that destroy the marine environment.

24 February 2019 (Guns in Brazil) Bolsonaro just gave an order to allow Brazilians to own guns and keep them at home. Women are afraid their husbands will shoot them. Right-wing supporters of Bolsonaro make the usual right-wing argument that guns will enable people to protect themselves. Experience shows that this doesn't work: rather, having a gun in your home puts you in more danger. For protection against someone who lives in your house, who might have per own gun, your gun is almost useless. To use it for this, you'd need the experience and honed sharp thinking of Travis McGee or James Bond, both of whom are fictional characters. I don't know whether any real people really have that.

24 February 2019 (Virginia teachers) Virginia can't afford school buildings — its funds are offered to Amazon. Teachers plan to strike, and will make Amazon one of the demands.

24 February 2019 (Tulsi Gabbard and India) Tulsi Gabbard is associated with the organized Hindu extremists of India, a group that includes the governing party, which has been involved in various kinds of repression, sometimes fatal.

24 February 2019 (Uterus transplanted) A uterus transplanted from a dead woman's body has been used successfully to carry a pregnancy to term. I don't see anything inherently wrong with this procedure. I suppose that after a few decades of further advance, artificial organs of all kinds will be suitable for transplants, eliminating the need for organ donors. However, using the procedure in today's conditions is something society cannot afford. I think all methods of assisting fertility should be shelved until the world has achieved a stable human population that coexists sustainably with the natural world.

24 February 2019 (Nuclear fuel in Saudi Arabia) Salafi Arabia wants the US to sell it a nuclear reactor and let it manage the nuclear fuel. Meanwhile, the acting king, guilty of massive killing, already said he would develop nuclear weapons if Iran does. He has already started working on making sure that Iran develops nuclear weapons by convincing the bullshitter to cancel the deal which convinced Iran not to develop them. It all stinks. The US, remembering Yemen and Khashoggi, should not sell the reactor.

22 February 2019 (Fossil fuel target) Several US states are working on a target to end fossil fuel use for electricity. It is well-meant, but a target for 2045 is too remote to avoid disaster. We have only around 10 years to do that. Therefore, what we need is an ambitious target for 2025, and a more ambitious target for 2030. We need more than targets, though, because targets do not magically implement themselves. To reach a target which is ambitious enough to do the job, we need large programs starting now. It needs to tackle more than just electricity, too.

22 February 2019 (Abortion rights laws) US states need to pass laws granting abortion rights, given the danger that the Supreme Court will reverse the decision that made them available.

22 February 2019 (Zimbabwe's army) Zimbabwe is ruled by its army, which can replace the president and other high officials, and represses at will.

22 February 2019 (Dafne McPherson) Mexican Dafne McPherson was convicted after a miscarriage of murdering the fetus. Such repression is not limited to Mexico. If this converges with the current US tendency to punish parents for not being overprotective, it could make life hell for all US parents and all US children. And each of the two has the potential to potentiate the other.

22 February 2019 (Industrial democracy) Industrial democracy — putting workers on corporations' boards — is a way to reduce mistreatment of workers. The AFL-CIO needs to focus on organizing, not on money for Democratic candidates. As regards funding campaigns, I suspect its choice of candidates to support is not selective enough.

22 February 2019 (Material witness) Marzieh Hashemi says that US agents holding her as a material witness harassed her by offering her only food that she as a Muslim was not supposed to eat. She was required to testify against the Iranian broadcaster that she works for. Why did that require keeping her hungry? Her example points out the unfairness of the secret process for deciding whether to jail someone as a material witness.

22 February 2019 (Air controllers) Flights at major US airports were delayed because of a shortage of air controllers.

22 February 2019 (Regime change in Venezuela) The US government is seriously planning to impose regime change on Venezuela, working together with Guaidó. An open letter calls on the US government to stop pushing for a coup in Venezuela and support reconciliation efforts to move the country towards fair elections. The letter points out that US sanctions along with Maduro's bad economic policies are jointly responsible for the economic crisis in Venezuela. Medea Benjamin: "A Coup Is Not a Democratic Transition!" One Venezuelan journalist supports Guaidó as president but warns the US not to turn this into a bloody coup. Maduro's treatment of both Guaidó and the US embassy are astonishingly gentle. Can you imagine what the repressor would do if Clinton declared herself president, on the grounds that Republicans stole the election two years ago?

22 February 2019 (UK oil companies) Socialism for the rich now includes oil companies in the UK, which are shirking the responsibility to clean up and shut down oil drilling platforms in the North Sea. Big companies have a history of using bankruptcy to evade responsibilities, even pension obligations. Rather than trust a company to come up with money later to carry out its responsibilities, we should make it put the money in escrow in advance when it incurs the obligation, on a schedule that collects the money while the project is profitable.

22 February 2019 (Australian Invasion Day) Many Australians now mark the date of the landing of the first British fleet (of convict transportees) as "Invasion Day", looking at it from the point of view of the Australians of that time.

22 February 2019 (Asylum-seekers waiting) The US has started making asylum-seekers from Central America to Mexico to wait, perhaps for months or years, while their cases are considered. This is not inherently unjust, but it could become so if (for instance) they have to live in penury there, or if the gangs that threatened to kill them at home come after them there.

21 February 2019 (Urgent: Violence Against Women Act) US citizens: call on Congress to restore the Violence Against Women Act. If you sign, please spread the word!

21 February 2019 (Urgent: Revoke tyrant's national emergency) US citizens: call on Congress to revoke the would-be tyrant's national emergency. If you sign, please spread the word! Ordinarily I would consider it a waste of time for the House to try this, since the Republicans controlling the Senate would simply ignore it. But it seems that in this kind of case, if the House passes such a resolution, the Senate has to hold a vote on it. That would put pressure on senators to vote to cancel the emergency — it might even pass.

21 February 2019 (Conscience vs blind deep-state allegiance) Conscience Versus Blind Deep-State Allegiance. I do not advocate "limited government" if that means laissez-faire, laissez-mourir. I do believe in limiting the government's power to kill, torture, and imprison people.

21 February 2019 (China censors postings on Twitter) China censors postings on Twitter even though Twitter is not generally accessible in China. Twitter sometimes gets led by China into censoring people, but not always. Slimy LinkedIn obeys China reliably.

21 February 2019 (Human rights laws abolished in Ontario) Doug Ford premier of Ontario, has unchecked power over that Canadian province. He abolishes human rights laws while arbitrarily changing the structure of city governments.

20 February 2019 (Urgent: Debt bondage) Everyone: Urge Malaysia to end debt bondage for migrant workers — instead of enslaving them. If you sign, please spread the word!

20 February 2019 (Urgent: Venezuela) US citizens: oppose intervention in Venezuela. If you sign, please spread the word!

20 February 2019 (Urgent: Extreme weather pay) US citizens: call for requiring big companies' stores to pay their staff anyway when they close due to extreme weather. We should not forget the subcontracted workers and the ones whose schedules are precarious! If you sign, please spread the word!

20 February 2019 (Chrome extensions) Google is modifying Chrome (and Chromium) so that extensions won't be able to alter or block whatever the page contains. This implies, in particular, that nothing like LibreJS will be possible in Chrome. We can understand this as a further step towards making browsers serve the businesses that use web sites to snoop and manipulate, rather than serving the users that run them.

20 February 2019 (Paper maps) Paper maps are better than digital map systems for learning to understand the geography of an area.

20 February 2019 (Continuing education) Continuing education (with more student debt) for workers whose jobs are automated away will never give most of the non-rich a good life.

20 February 2019 (President of Venezuela) The US and other right-wing governments recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the president of Venezuela. Maduro responded by ordering US diplomatic personnel to leave. More info. I know very little about Guaidó, but in general the opposition in Venezuela represents the oligarchs and advocates right-wing dooH niboR policies. Maduro's government is a dictatorship, but the right-wing opposition would offshore the country's income and repress the poor.

20 February 2019 (Federal food assistance) The bully has a scheme to kick more people off federal food assistance.

20 February 2019 (Bombs in Somalia) The US drops bombs in Somalia, intended to attack al-Shabaab, but does not try seriously to determine which of the casualties were al-Shabaab fighters and which were bystanders. Since 7 years of this bombing have not crushed al-Shabaab, there is no reason to suppose 7 more years will achieve that. Guerrilla movements that can recruit more members easily are not defeated by attrition.

20 February 2019 (Universal medical system) Now that there is strong public pressure for a universal medical system in the US, the medical profiteers are proposing half-measures to preserve their role. Four years of Republican attacks on Obama's medical insurance law have driven 7 million Americans out of insurance coverage. But that's not the worst harm — millions have insurance that fails to cover a lot of the costs, and patients can be randomly screwed with enormous prices.

20 February 2019 (Meat inspection) Meat inspection in the US is inadequate — there are not enough inspectors to do the job. Most plants admit this, while others lie about it.

20 February 2019 (State of the Union) Denying the grandstander the use of Congress for a State of the Union address is very clever way of pressuring him. It denies him something he craves, while not harming anyone else because it has no intrinsic importance.

20 February 2019 (Cohen testimony) Michael Cohen says he has postponed his testimony to Congress because the bully is making legal threats against his family.

20 February 2019 (LA teachers) Los Angeles teachers won a partial victory, including a raise that is not enough to keep up with inflation. But they also won other benefits for the community, including a plan to limit charter schools. There needs to be a way for the public to convert charter schools to public schools.

20 February 2019 (Civil and political rights) The US has agreed to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but doesn't give people any recourse when the US government fails to follow its requirements.

20 February 2019 (Flooding in China) China is rebuilding some cities, vulnerable to flooding from rain, to absorb and store more water underground.

20 February 2019 (Libel for accusations) Women in the UK that make accusations of rape or domestic violence are threatened with lawsuits for libel.

19 February 2019 (Structural racism) "What's more offensive: a racist yearbook photo or structural racism?" The way for Northam to atone for racist jokes is to commit to eliminating structural racism.

19 February 2019 (Amtrak) Amtrak has reportedly dropped the requirement for passengers to show ID to buy a ticket. I think this means there is no longer a reason to refuse to ride Amtrak.

19 February 2019 (Christian extremist) A Christian extremist who publicly insulted the homosexuals that had been murdered in the Pulse club has now resigned because he hired sex workers. This is backwards. It was the insult that he should have resigned for.

18 February 2019 (Urgent: Ilhan Omar) US citizens: call on congressional Democratic leaders to stand by Ilhan Omar against right-wing attacks. If you sign, please spread the word!

18 February 2019 (Urgent: Paid family leave) In the US: call on Target to give its employees 12 weeks of paid family leave. If you sign, please spread the word!

18 February 2019 (Urgent: Taxes for rich people) US citizens: call Democrats in Congress to make rich people pay their fair share of taxes. If you sign, please spread the word!

18 February 2019 (Tobacco fronts) Tobacco companies, fighting public health measures (such as increased taxes) designed to reduce deaths from smoking, hire "free market" think tanks as lobbying and PR fronts. To the extent that cigarettes are smuggled, the effects of the tax would be less. One way to reduce that is to make agreements with neighboring countries to increase the tax on tobacco.

18 February 2019 (Assange's lawsuit) Julian Assange is suing the US in the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, demanding to know whether he faces US charges.

18 February 2019 (Refugee eviction) Italy is closing a refugee center and evicting the 500 refugees that live there. Supposedly some of them will be housed elsewhere. The rest, who knows?

18 February 2019 (William Barr) William Barr Has a Long History of Abusing Civil Rights and Liberties in the Name of "National Security".

18 February 2019 (Melting Greenland ice) Greenland ice is melting faster than before, suggesting 3 meters (10 feet) of sea level rise by 2100. I have visited many cities which are likely to become sea as a result: most recently, Kozhikode and Kochi in India. The actual rise is likely to be more. We don't know of all the positive-feedback cycles that will make global heating speed up.

18 February 2019 (Sewer cleaners in India) Some workers that clean sewers in India don't get safety equipment, and fairly often have accidents that turn fatal.

18 February 2019 (TSA sick days) 10% of the TSA's workers took sick days on Jan 20. After a while, many would have to quit, and air travel in the US would grind to a halt.

18 February 2019 (FBI's mission) A former FBI deputy assistant director said that the FBI defined its mission to include preventing the election of progressive and socialist candidates.

18 February 2019 (1960s assassinations) Relatives and colleagues call for a new investigation of the assassination in the 1960s of President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Senator Robert Kennedy.

18 February 2019 (Single payer medical bill) Democrats in Congress are weakening the single payer medical bill to make it more palatable to insurance companies.

18 February 2019 (Republicans in Florida) Florida's Republican governor has "suspended" two officials in charge of counting votes in Miami and replaced them with Republicans. Republicans in Florida have a history of unfair election practices.

16 February 2019 (Urgent: Subsidies for movies) Citizens of Massachusetts: call your state representative and senator to oppose subsidies for movies. States should not compete to attract businesses away from other states. If we don't stop this, next thing you know they will want to offer twice as much money as New York City offered as a handout to Amazon. If you phone, please spread the word!

16 February 2019 (Urgent: Paycheck Fairness Act) US citizens: support the Paycheck Fairness Act. If you sign, please spread the word!

16 February 2019 (Repression in Indonesia) Indonesia is accused of heavy repression in response to a guerrilla attack in West Papua. I believe the accusation, both because Indonesia has done such things before, and because another article said Indonesia was not allowing journalists into the area.

16 February 2019 (Lincoln Memorial confrontation) A verbal confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial between protesting right-wing white students and a group of protesting blacks became verbally nasty. It sheds light on the level of hostility in the US. The students probably were bigots and racists, since they were wearing right-wing extremist symbols such as "MAGA". That is no ground to infer anything about their parentage, or to insult homosexuals by calling someone "faggot". Nor to insult them for their race. The right way to oppose them is to focus on criticizing the views they choose to advocate.

16 February 2019 (Car seat prosecution) A mother faces prosecution in Minnesota because her child's car seat fell out of the car on the road. Punishing parents for mistakes is stupid as well as unjust. The accusation itself causes stress to the family, which harms the children as well as the parents. This is part of the overall US pattern of pressuring parents, even by threats, if they fail to be stiflingly overprotective. Antiabortionists even extend this to miscarriages. It constitutes one additional secondary reason why it is better not to have children.

16 February 2019 (Energy democracy) 2019 Is the Year to Embrace Energy Democracy — Or Face Social and Climate Breakdown.

16 February 2019 (MLK's views) Martin Luther King held views that were labeled as radical. Nowadays, they are not so radical — many of them are supported by most Americans.

16 February 2019 (Muslims in the Philippines) The Philippines government approved an "autonomous region" for the part of Mindanao inhabited mostly by Muslims. The article does not say whether the agreement reduces freedom of religion and other human rights in that region. Islamic law tramples various human rights, so there is reason to be concerned about that danger.

16 February 2019 (Summit in Rwanda) The British Commonwealth disregards its charter about democracy and human rights by hosting a summit in Rwanda.

16 February 2019 (Fundraiser t-shirts) Globalization's irony: Spice Girls t-shirts, sold to raise money to campaign for equality, were made in a factory in Bangladesh by women getting paid around 30 cents per hour. The book No Logo explained how business-supremacy treaties knocked down the unions that were starting to raise the wages of factory workers in some low-wage countries. The article also shows, tangentially, how the practice of despising sex workers is tied into broader misogyny.

16 February 2019 (Prosecutor as president) In an age when the US imprisons far too many people, a prosecutor as president (or other elected official) is in general a bad idea.

16 February 2019 (Spending money on Facebook) Facebook staff discussed in a tone of cupidity how they were leading minors to spend their parents' money playing games. Facebook kept the parents confused about the situation, too.

16 February 2019 (Charter schools) Charter schools are like tree roots growing into cracks in the building of public education. If not stopped, they will bring it crashing down. Teacher's strikes are weakening the political support that charter schools have obtained in the plutocratist system.

16 February 2019 (Dropgangs) Black markets are developing a sort of cell system by which the participants can't identify each other and can't betray each other. The customers never see any of them, and they can't identify the customers either. As sale of prohibited goods becomes anonymous and safe, lawful sales of lawful goods are becoming a dangerous system of massive surveillance. When will we be able to buy those through a darknet, for our privacy? If Tor sold its DRM-free contract-free e-books through a darknet, I would in principle (some details are crucial) be glad to buy them straight from the publisher that way.

16 February 2019 (Forced arbitration) Google's employees have launched a campaign to end forced arbitration in the US. Not solely for cases of sexual harassment — the campaign includes all forms of mistreating workers. Don't forget customers and clients!

15 February 2019 (Urgent: Drop charges against Senator de Lima) Everyone: call on the Philippines to drop charges against Senator de Lima, which seem to be trumped up to repress opposition to President Do-Dirty's murderous War on Drugs.

15 February 2019 (Surveillance cameras) Today at an airport I sat down at a table which had a tablet facing me. I am not sure what it's supposed to do for people, but I realized that one thing it might be doing to me was watching me with a camera. It is full of nonfree software and there is no basis to suppose it isn't malicious. So I put my coat down over it before sitting down. Sure, there are other cameras in the airport, making recordings. We are under total surveillance by the state, there. But the tablet might be spying for various companies that have no access to the surveillance camera recordings. If there are two snoopers, and I can block one of them, that is an improvement.

14 February 2019 (Sudden shift from drought to flood) Queensland shifted suddenly from years of drought to a flood that destroyed farms and killed hundreds of thousands of cattle. The author does not tie this to the global heating that is likely responsible. Extreme weather in both directions is one of the typical results.

14 February 2019 (Bully's supporters attack BBC cameraman) A BBC cameraman covering one of the bully's rallies was attacked by his supporters. What the bully says in his events is meant to inflame his supporters and distract the public from what the bully is doing. It would be better for reporters to stay away and cover events of some real significance.

14 February 2019 (Bernie Sanders) Plutocratist Democrats are already working hard to defeat Sanders. Their left hand says that the dozens of others are all progressive so we no longer need Sanders, while their right hand says that few of us will insist on Sanders. Either way, their real message is "Vote for someone who is less reliably progressive than Sanders."

14 February 2019 ("Fusion" centers) "Fusion" centers are not just about terrorism any more. They combine surveillance data from many sources, and in effect bring local and state thug departments more or less under federal control. They investigate and redistribute the videos the cameras that any level of government puts on your streetcorner, and even cameras in businesses.

14 February 2019 (Operation Choke Point) In "Operation Choke Point", the US government, under Obama, tried to shut down certain businesses extrajudicially by making banks drop them.

14 February 2019 (Letting children walk on their own) A couple found that a therapy office would allow their child to walk a block to the office. They only needed to sign a waiver that the therapists would not be liable for anything that might befall the child during that brief walk. If only it were so easy all the time.

14 February 2019 (Students call for prohibiting advocacy) Oxford students call for prohibiting advocacy of the traditional Catholic position on homosexuality, calling it "harassment". I disagree totally with the idea that sex should be limited to attempts to procreate. It is just the opposite: procreation makes more burden for the Earth, whereas sex, when it makes the participants happy and assuming precautions against conception and spreading disease, is good. But even though I disagree thoroughly with those views, I defend the right to advocate them.

14 February 2019 (Treatment of prisoners) Treating prisoners with utmost possible harshness and suspicion creates more crime.

14 February 2019 (Respecting people's right to say no) Writer Yann Moix said that he cannot be attracted to women in their 50s, and people are condemning him, claiming he has an obligation to be attracted to them. You might as well demand that a homosexual be attracted to people not of the same sex. Or that a heterosexual be attracted to people that are of the same sex. There is no arguing about tastes. If we respect people's right to say no, we should not rebuke them when they do. Of course, many people (especially men, but not only) despise those they find unattractive. That is a mean way to treat people who haven't done anything wrong. But being unattracted by someone is not the same as despising per. Yann Moix understands this.

14 February 2019 (Urgent: Force-feeding prisoners) US citizens: call on House committees to make the deportation thugs stop force-feeding prisoners. If you sign, please spread the word!

14 February 2019 (Air traffic control) The US government shutdown made air traffic control less safe. Controllers were not getting paid, so they may have been moonlighting rather than sleeping.

14 February 2019 (Tracking toothfish) A new system proposes to track each individual fish from when it is caught to when it is served in a restaurant, using blockchain, to stop illegal fishing of Patagonian toothfish. It is easier to preserve a database record across time than to make sure it always corresponds to the same actual fish. In this particular case, that problem may not matter. It may be sufficient to make sure that the number of toothfish that are sold is no more than the number that were caught lawfully. If customers keep restaurants honest by checking the record of an individual fish, they might find it impossible to make use of the fish caught by poachers. If the poachers of this fish, a luxury product, can't sell to expensive restaurants, they won't find it profitable. However, if a restaurant could sell the "same" fish multiple times, the system would not achieve its goal.

14 February 2019 (Apple and data brokers) Apple is crusading to regulate data brokers in a rather weak way that would let them more or less continue what they are doing. If on-line retailers let you pay using GNU Taler, and likewise respect your anonymity in other ways, they won't have any data about you worth selling.

14 February 2019 (INF treaty) The US has preferred to end the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty rather than work on restoring compliance with it.

14 February 2019 (Moodymann) Thugs arrested Detroit DJ Moodymann for "breaking and entering" into his own car, using the keys. Apparently they are on a power trip and arrest him frequently for no good reason. A thug that shows such ill-will towards the citizens person is supposed to serve is not fit for the job at all.

14 February 2019 (Farms in Gaza) The Israeli army damages farms in Gaza by spraying herbicides. These chemicals also endanger farmers, because they are carcinogenic. An unused no-mans-land as a buffer zone at the border is a good idea, but if Israel wants to make one unilaterally, it should do so on the Israeli side of the border.

14 February 2019 (Unrecycled plastic) A number of companies associated with making plastic have a plan to put a fair pile of money into reducing the unrecycled plastic — but not by making less plastic.

14 February 2019 (Food and water in the desert) In Arizona on the border with Mexico, what is the right way to leave food and water so border-crossers won't die in the desert? It might indeed be better to protect wildlife by filling large drums of water, rather than leaving small bottles. The same sort of method could be used for food. However, if this system were practiced adequately there to do the job, I suppose activists would not feel they had work to do there.

14 February 2019 (Unlocking phones in a raid) One US court ruled that thugs can't arbitrarily require everyone in a home unlock per phone biometrically merely because perse was present there at the time of a raid. This is a small and tentative step; we need to move much further than that to make the protections of the fourth amendment effective again. And we need to put an end to assembling many digital dossiers about each person.

14 February 2019 (Leaving the EU) A strange proposal: England and Wales could leave the European Union while Scotland and Northern Ireland remain part of it.

14 February 2019 (Children denied medicine) The US immigration prison where sick children are systematically denied medicine. Children there generally get sick, or sicker.

14 February 2019 (UK poverty and hunger) The Tory government continues to exacerbate the poverty and hunger that it has inflicted on millions, pretending compassion while announcing occasional small steps forward, in between the giant steps back. We should not forget, however, that it was Tony B'liar and New Labour that began the process of making wealth trickle upward. They did not target the poor particularly, but they gave the rich more power which they used to take from working people. This weakened traditions of compassion and solidarity, which then made it easy for the Tories to win popularity by promising to do more and better trickle-up, and hold it by squeezing the poor (but not acknowledging they were doing so).

14 February 2019 (Environmental protection in Brazil) Bolsonaro's war on the environment has launched with an arbitrary (and illegal) suspension of funding for environmental protection NGOs.

12 February 2019 (The former British Empire) Accusing the former British Empire of being responsible for present-day "racism, police brutality, privatisation, militarism, ongoing economic dispossession and the retention of the spoils of empire." I am not sure it is fair to blame the British Empire for militarism (which is millennia old) and police brutality (thugs torture people all around the world). I suspect that privatization would have been imposed anyway, though the empire may have helped to pave the way. The empire played a big role in the other three.

12 February 2019 (Urgent: Intervention in Yemen) US citizens: phone your congresscritter in favor of ending US support for Salafi Arabia's intervention in Yemen. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.

12 February 2019 (Oil spill lover) The ruiner must love oil spills, since he wants to cancel the safety rules that were put in place after the Big Spill, to prevent another pollution event.

12 February 2019 (Positive comments) Overcoming internet trolls by posting positive comments.

12 February 2019 (Pacific Gas and Electric) Pacific Gas and Electric has gone bankrupt because of its liabilities for starting giant fires.

12 February 2019 (Turkey and the Syrian Kurds) The bullshitter threatened Turkey with economic warfare if it attacks the Syrian Kurds. A threat like that might be an effective defense measure if issued by someone who keeps his word. The troops constitute a kind of commitment: if attacked, they will by default fight back. That constitutes a deterrent, notwithstanding the bullshitter's unreliability. A mere threat doesn't do that, so Erdoğan may ignore it.

12 February 2019 (Elections in Thailand) The Thai military have postponed elections, which has stimulated protests.

12 February 2019 (Iranian exiles) Iran is accused of assassinating two Iranian exiles that were living in the Netherlands. Iran accuses them of violent rebellion. I have no basis to judge the truth of those claims, but if the claim against Notamed is true, we would have to weigh it against the scattershot execution policies of the Islamic Republic in 1981.

12 February 2019 (Boko Haram) Women in Nigeria who escaped from Boko Haram have freedom, to the extent a woman can have freedom in that patriarchal culture, but they can't get work and go hungry. Some of them go back to Boko Haram.

12 February 2019 (Sheds in Oakland) Oakland, California, is moving people from sidewalks to sheds, whether they like it or not. A shed could be physically better and some people could be glad to move to one. But the sheds require people to have roommates even if they can't get along. Those who feel unsafe in them are forbidden to go back to the sidewalk. I don't see any reason Oakland can't offer sheds to those who prefer them while also allowing encampments.

12 February 2019 (UK patients and disabled people) The UK has a tradition of consulting organizations of patients and disabled people to improve the services for them, but this is falling by the wayside.

12 February 2019 (Menstruation in Nepal) Nepal is pressuring families quite firmly to stop confining women to special huts when they are menstruating, and to let girls go to school when menstruating.

12 February 2019 (Garment worker strike) The thugs in Bangladesh are repressing a strike by garment workers. They are paid very little and are forced to work in dangerous conditions.

12 February 2019 (Traditional masculinity) The American Psychological Association warns against raising boys with the traditional idea of masculinity that calls for suppressing feelings that are regarded as weaknesses. I was fortunate — I never learned that lesson.

11 February 2019 (Social networks) The UK is considering making social networks legally responsible for the specifics of users' postings. That requirement would shut them down. Some requirements about certain algorithms might be feasible to implement, and then one could discuss whether they are good or bad.

11 February 2019 (Camera doorbells) Big companies are selling camera doorbells that allow home owners, the companies, and in many cases the state as well, to watch everyone who passes by. With face recognition, these systems will identify everyone who passes by. We must do whatever it takes to eliminate these systems.

11 February 2019 (Iraqi Kurdistan tortures teenagers) Human Rights Watch says that Iraqi Kurdistan tortures teenagers to get them to confess to working for PISSI.

11 February 2019 (Green New Deal) Right-wing fallacious attacks on taxing the rich for a Green New Deal show Americans how wise that would be.

10 February 2019 (Very urgent: Automated copyright censorship) EU citizens: phone your MEPs to condemn the proposed automated copyright censorship scheme. German and French citizens, phone your members of parliament and/or other political parties to oppose this policy.

10 February 2019 (Urgent: Green New Deal) US citizens: support the Green New Deal. If you sign, please spread the word!

10 February 2019 ('Smart' TVs) The reason why you can only buy "smart" (read "spy") TVs nowadays is that the TV itself is sold at a break-even price. The profit on them comes from selling products to the users and from spying on them. If they sold non-"smart" TVs, they would have to charge more. If I wanted a TV set, I would definitely pay extra to get one that could not spy on me. Indeed, I would refuse to have a "smart" TV at all, unless I knew I could block it from communicating anything about my activities. (That would convert it into a mere appliance, and I would not need to care what is inside it.) The same applies for a cable box; but I can imagine that a cable box requires a contract I would consider immoral and thus refuse to sing. I don't in fact want those things, because they would lead me to waste time. As a child, I was a TV addict. I cut it off cold-turkey when I went to college.

10 February 2019 (Green New Deal) Ocasio-Cortez's Climate Genius Stroke: Her #GreenNewDeal Is the Most Serious Response to the Crisis Yet.

10 February 2019 (US border thug policy) The US border thugs have had for decades an unofficial policy jailing children, taking them away from their parents, and physical torture. Whatever we do in the future, it should not include this agency.

10 February 2019 (Phone-cracking rules) The US government has the power to learn almost everything about anyone's life by breaking into per phone, but it is not clear what rules it follows to get permission to do so. Please don't call this operation "hacking". The officials that do it are surely not doing it with the playful cleverness that constitutes hacking. So please don't insult us hackers by using that word to mean "breaking security". Please call it "cracking".

10 February 2019 (Cameras in Penang) The city of Penang has installed over 750 face recognition cameras so that the thug department can track people on the street at will. The article says this will be used to track "criminals", but the cameras can be used to track anyone, even to track everyone.

10 February 2019 (Drone attacks by Houthis) The Houthis now imitate the US in launching drone attacks in Yemen. We can't expect them to stop fighting outside the agreed-on cease-fire zone. So how about extending the cease fire to the whole of Yemen?

10 February 2019 (Nelson Espinal) The US deported Nelson Espinal back to Honduras. One week later, he was murdered, just as he said he feared.

10 February 2019 (Christianity in China) China's repression of Christianity includes censorship of the Bible. I condemn repression of Christianity, but we must keep in mind that when Christianity gets too powerful, it can itself become a repressive force. In the US it has almost reached that point as Christian fanatics are the supporters of the bullshitter.

10 February 2019 (Barr as attorney general) The cheater seems to have proposed Barr as attorney general as a way to put himself above the law. It is irrational to accept a disastrously bad appointment on the grounds that someone else worse could be found. The rational response is to oppose the disastrously bad one, and if a worse one follows, oppose that one too.

10 February 2019 (Suspected gang members) The UK thugs have a system that designates teenagers and adults as suspected gang members, often based on nothing but surmise about their associations, which ends up targeting them for various forms of repression based on their race.

10 February 2019 (Deficit in France) Macron got special EU permission to run a deficit more than 3% in France, so he could placate the French people for a while. Why not do this for Italy, which really needs it? Why not Greece? Macron seems to be aiming to do this mainly with temporary relief of pressure, so that the long-term process of dooH niboR will proceed steadily as planned.

10 February 2019 (Sea Shepherd attacked) Sea Shepherd is operating a boat in the Gulf of California to protect Vaquita porpoises. Mexican fishing boats attacked it, trying to burn it or sink it.

10 February 2019 (Automated copyright censorship) France and Germany made a "compromise" that will leave no way for companies in Europe to post anything submitted by users without using automated copyright censorship filters.

10 February 2019 (Canadian thugs arrest protesters) Canadian thugs have arrested indigenous protesters that were blocking pipeline construction teams from entering their land. Under the principle of necessity, they would be justified in destroying the construction equipment, since it is being used to bring about mass murder. Murder, per se, is not their immediate goal, but that changes nothing — building fossil fuel infrastructure will kill hundreds of millions, and any reasonable person should know that. How many of those millions would be due to this pipeline, if it is completed, is a question we don't need to answer.

10 February 2019 (Climate defense) Climate defense: "the fight for what's left and the people who get left with it." I think things are a little better than the article presents it. It is not quite true to say that the enemy "is us" — rather, it is a system, which we are part of, but which is effectively controlled by the plutocracy. So we have to fight them for the decision about whether governments should mobilize the world to save itself, or tread the non-rich down.

10 February 2019 (Seattle's warning about Amazon) Seattle warns NYC: Amazon will do the city harm. This is over and above the harm of the payment to Amazon to come and do that.

8 February 2019 (Transparency) The US Department of Labor's new "transparency" rule makes it easier for employers to get away with discrimination.

31 January 2019 (British activists block flight) British activists that blocked a deportation flight with nonviolent interference are threatened with life inprisonment. The activists are accused of blocking the runway, but they are not the ones who did that. It was the state. The state followed a policy of maximum overreaction, based on the worst imaginable case, which it had every reason to know was not occurring. It can't justly blame its overreaction on the activists. The article explains that the UK denies some deportees the right to appeal decisions, and cheats others out of that right by deporting them illegally fast.

29 January 2019 (Urgent: Refugee minors) US citizens: call on Congress to close and investigate the bully's prison camps for refugee minors. If you sign, please spread the word!

29 January 2019 (Urgent: Contract workers during shutdown) US citizens: call on Congress to pay the wages of federal contract workers that had no income during the shutdown. If you sign, please spread the word!

29 January 2019 (Urgent: Border wall) US citizens: call on Congress to resist both building a physical border wall and any other new deportation efforts that the bully wants. If you sign, please spread the word!

29 January 2019 (Defense contractor CEOs) Does it make a difference that "the CEOs of four of the [US's] five biggest defense contractors — Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the defense arm of Boeing — are now women"? I do not believe the claim that female political leaders will in general be less violent or less brutal than male leaders. They seem to vary much as male leaders do. But we are talking here about business leaders of the US military-industrial complex. They do not decide directly whether to fight any war or repress anyone. But they constantly sponsor persuasion that encourages war in a general way, and encourages repression at least indirectly. More concretely, they impoverish Americans by diverting ever more of the country's resources to buying arms from their companies. Let's not get distracted from this by their gender.

29 January 2019 (Google profits in Bermuda) Google assigns profits from various EU countries to Bermuda, through tax loopholes in Ireland and the Netherlands. The obvious response is for other EU countries to legislate that Google (and other multinationals) may not dodge their national taxes in this way. I think the reason they do not is that the EU does not allow this. Would leaving the EU enable the UK to tax these companies as they should be taxed? I would be very interested in talking with an expert.

29 January 2019 (Drone-radio jammers) The UK is buying drone-radio jammers to stop drones from operating near major airports. This would stop people from operating ordinary commercial drones near airports, but people determined to cause trouble could easily reprogram a drone to make a nuisance of itself without radio control.

29 January 2019 (Subcontracted workers) A US appeals court upheld a ruling that makes companies responsible for mistreatment of subcontracted workers. I would celebrate this, but I fear it will be overturned by the right-wing Supreme Court.

29 January 2019 (Distraction campaign against Warren) A right-wing distraction campaign attacks Senator Warren as a presidential candidate for being "unlikeable". Warren has fought the financial industry for many years, which puts her miles above Clinton and Obama, who are the banksters' pets. If Warren becomes the Democrats' nominee, I will vote for her. But in the overall range of progressive issues, Sanders is the one who excels. I think Warren should endorse him.

29 January 2019 (Bombing internet cafes) The US is bombing internet cafes in the Syrian towns still held by the remnants of PISSI. Meanwhile, the Kurds are negotiating a truce with PISSI so they can use all their forces to defend against Turkey.

29 January 2019 (400-mile human chain) Indian women made a 400-mile human chain upholding their right to enter a temple which formerly had been restricted only to men.

29 January 2019 (Italian medical policies) The head of Italian medical research has resigned because of the government's anti-vaccine policies.

29 January 2019 (Chipped school uniforms) Chinese Schools Track Students by Requiring Chip-Enhanced Uniforms. If you can force someone to wear certain clothing, it's almost equivalent to forcibly implanting a RFID. Naturally, the school's scheme of total surveillance also includes face recognition.

29 January 2019 (Imprisoned refugee minors) The staff of a prison for refugee minors were observed shoving and hitting them. Maybe they will be prosecuted for this. I hope to see a campaign to encourage that prosecution.

29 January 2019 (Facebook data ownership) Facebook says its useds "own their own data", but "their own data" doesn't mean what you would think. It includes only some of the data Facebook keeps about its useds. This is one reason why the demand that users "own their data" is fundamentally inadequate.

29 January 2019 (Attacks against Palestinians) Israel is trying to stop the terrorist attacks against Palestinians, and has arrested two people accused of this. Israel has the duty to stop that terrorism and should have started many years ago. Meanwhile, these suspects deserve respect for their rights, just as Palestinian suspects do.

29 January 2019 (Medical treatment for Gaza) Israel stopped 800 people in Gaza last year from traveling to get medical treatment which is impossible there.

27 January 2019 (Urgent: War in Yemen) US citizens: call on Congress to get the US out of the war in Yemen. To sign without running nonfree Javascript code, use the Salsalabs workaround.

27 January 2019 (Urgent: Neomi Rao) US citizens: call on the Senate to reject the appointment of Neomi Rao as a federal judge. Ms Rao's views on intoxication and rape fit the usual patriarchal pattern of searching for any excuse to blame the victim of rape. They never take that approach for other crimes such as robbery. Right-wingers never tell men, "Taking your wallet was not theft, because you consented by carrying it in your back pocket." I wish the writers would avoid lumping rape together with a wide range of other actions under the term "sexual assault". If you sign, please spread the word!

27 January 2019 (Censorship in Bangladesh) Bangladesh is using its new press censorship law to punish reports of problems in the election.

27 January 2019 (Houthis and food aid) The Houthis have been manipulating food aid to bring a bigger fraction of food aid to areas they control. The article is not clear about exactly what is going on. Unless the Houthis have been misrepresenting the amount of hunger in areas they do not control — and how could they do that? — the root of the problem seems to be that the total amount of food aid is not enough.

27 January 2019 (Indigenous people in Brazil) Bolsonaro has launched a plan to wipe out the indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest.

27 January 2019 (Increasing the deficit) Plutocratist Democrats in Congress have tied their hands with a rule against passing any measures that increase the deficit. This puts the US on course to have a balanced budget in 50 years: zero dollars revenue, and zero dollars expenditure.

27 January 2019 (Rule of the rich in the UK) If the non-rich can't afford a court case, rule of law degenerates into rule of the rich. That's what the UK is pushing things toward. The US situation is different in detail, but worse overall. Criminal defendants get a public defender who tries to only get them a plea bargain. In any other situation, including an asylum hearing, you have no help unless some charity wants to assist you.

27 January 2019 (Freedom of speech in the EU) The European Union doesn't adequately respect freedom of speech. One example: an anti-abortion activist was forbidden by Europe's highest court from calling abortion "murder" and from comparing abortions with the Holocaust. I disagree totally with what he said, but freedom of speech includes the right to say it. We who oppose plutocracy must defend all unpopular opinions against censorship, or we will be the next ones censored.

27 January 2019 (ISP censorship in Vietnam) Vietnam has adopted a Chinese-style requirement for ISPs to block criticism of the government. The avowed ideology of the Vietnamese government is "serve and obey global investors."

27 January 2019 (Foreign workers in Dubai) When foreign workers in Dubai get pregnant, they are imprisoned unless they conceal it. Some of them abandon their children to get out. Others hide their children for years because their families won't accept them back. Dubai's cruelty to women who get pregnant, indeed its cruelty to foreign workers in general, is inexcusable. However, the root cause of this problem — the reason why women from countries like the Philippines take the risky course of going to work in Dubai — is overpopulation in their home countries. That is why they take the risk of travelling to a country where they will certainly be exploited and from which they can't return home. Desperate conditions at home push millions into competitions in which many competitors must surely lose. When Japan brings in foreign workers, they are sometimes exploited in the same way. Japan should admit immigrants — not temporary workers to exploit. And in case someone does want to go home, Japan should guarantee the air fare. Japan can afford it.

27 January 2019 (Florida panther) Proposed development in Florida could drive the Florida panther to extinction. Meanwhile, sea-level rise will push from the other side.

27 January 2019 (Neil Prakash) Fiji says that Neil Prakash does not have Fijian citizenship and cannot apply for it. Thus, Australia seems to have rendered him stateless. Once Australia adopted the policy of making bets like this, it was certain that it would lose a bet sooner or later. What if he did have Fijian citizenship even though he has never been there? I question the legitimacy of telling a person, "You are now required to live in that country over there, which you don't know, where you don't know anyone, and you don't speak the local language." I criticized the US for doing that — for instance, deporting to Mexico a man who was indeed a Mexican citizen but had been brought to the US as a small child. Countries sometimes need to punish their own citizens, after a fair trial, but should never exile them. Not even after a trial — which Prakash did not have. Australia exiled him without a trial.

27 January 2019 (Climate danger coverage) Persistent pressure from climate activists have made the mainstream media cover the climate danger — a little.

27 January 2019 (Grass-roots candidate funding) The Democratic Party is going to require presidential candidates to demonstrate grass-roots funding in order to be included in debates.

27 January 2019 (Saying no to Apple) An object lesson in spinelessness: someone who passionately hates Apple's decision to eliminate the headphone jack, and hasn't got the guts to do anything but moan. A fool and his freedom are soon parted. How can you develop the strength not to be herded? Practice saying no! Practice when it is very easy, and in a year you will learn to at least consider saying no every time some company wants you to submit to mistreatment.

27 January 2019 (Privatized housing for soldiers) The US has privatized housing for soldiers, with the unsurprising result that some people are getting rich and soldiers live in intolerable conditions.

26 January 2019 (Urgent: Andrew Wheeler) US citizens: call on the Senate to reject coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler as head of the EPA. If you sign, please spread the word!

26 January 2019 (Marxist Student Society) Chinese students in the Marxist Student Society met with fierce repression after they tried to support a strike in the name of Mao Zidong. They have been jailed (some of them incommunicado, as is common in China). Mao Zidong is an ironic choice of icon for a movement to help workers against the power of the state, since he was as repressive as any ruler in history. Life and Death in Shanghai, by Nien Cheng, describes her experience in the Great Cultural Revolution; around ten years previously, Mao's policies causes a nationwide famine. But China's censorship has left these students little opportunity to learn about what Mao did. Despite this irony, their hearts are in the right place. That is what China has jailed them for.

26 January 2019 (Immigrants and crime rates) Immigrants from Mexico don't seem to cause much crime — US cities near the border have low crime rates.

26 January 2019 (1978 US copyright law) The 1978 US copyright law dealt a horrible blow to the public domain. Here is a list of just a few of the highly appreciated books that would be in the public domain now if not for that law. Copyright should last for ten years from the date of publication of a work.

26 January 2019 (Waymo vans in Arizona) People in Arizona are harassing Waymo's not-yet-quite-driverless vans in an attempt to drive them away. Bravo! We do not have to allow companies to automate millions of jobs; we do not have to allow them to drive camera platforms through the neighborhoods where we live, work, or travel. How about passing laws to stop them? Please join me in refusing to use the automated cash registers that stores have set up. I reject them absolutely — once I left a store without buying what I had come for, because the automated cash register was the only way to pay. But even if you don't feel the moral determination to reject them every time, rejecting them most of the time still helps. I also shout to the other customers, as I pass those machines: "If we use those machines, that puts other Americans out of work. When I realized that, I decided I would always go to the human sales agents, to help them stay employed. We don't have to let companies replace people with robots." On three occasions, someone immediately responded that that was a good point. Interestingly, each one was a black woman. Maybe they are accustomed to the idea of solidarity.

26 January 2019 (Hasan Minhaj) Hasan Minhaj made a comic video, published via Netflix, that mocked the official Salafi Arabian story about how Jamal Khashoggi disappeared. The acting king declared the story illegal, so Netflix banned access to the video from there. Because Netflix is the only distribution site, the only way anyone in Salafi Arabia can see the program now is via unofficial redistribution, which is hampered by Netflix's use of DRM. Netflix has the power to entirely terminate distribution of any video it made, and the video would essentially disappear because there is no other place to get it. Join me and flick off Netflix! It does other injustices too.

26 January 2019 (Uncontacted tribes of Brazil) The uncontacted tribes of Brazil could soon be wiped out by disease.

26 January 2019 (Health effects of poverty) Children that grow up in poverty are mentally and physically stunted. This is a big drag in the economy — estimated at around a trillion dollars a year for the US. The wealthy people who don't care about poor people's suffering might care about that.

26 January 2019 (Amazon warehouse workers) Amazon warehouse workers in the US are pushing to unionize. The company treats them as throwaways.

26 January 2019 (Concentrated US economy) The US economy is so concentrated that in many areas there is little competition. This drives consumer prices up, and drives small farms out of business. It also means less competition to hire any given worker, which drives wages down.

26 January 2019 (Employee vote persuasion) Companies and managers in the US really try to tell employees who to vote for. And not just a handful of them. In the absence of legal protection against this, we need to make it very easy for employees to lie to their bosses about how they voted.

26 January 2019 (Environmental protections) The environment-hater's cancellation of environmental protection regulations is causing damage all around the US.

26 January 2019 (Blacks attacked by thugs) When people see videos of blacks attacked by thugs, they often bend over backwards to find an excuse. This often takes the form of wondering what might have happened before someone started making a video of the attack.

26 January 2019 (Hitting children) "I used to defend smacking children. Now I see it as an abuse of power." When my father, and sometimes other adults, punished me physically, that taught me fear and anger which lasted for years. Even decades later, though I no longer felt in physical danger from him, I did not trust him. However, as I grew up, and saw other children behaving in intolerable ways, I saw the situation from the other side. What could I do to stop a child from doing things that were either dangerous or harmful to others, without losing my temper? It is easy to say, "Find some gentle way to solve the problem" — but I did not think I could find them. Maybe some other people, less easily upset than I, could do that, but I could see I would be stressed to my wits' end, and explode. At that point I made a very smart decision: to avoid getting into that situation, by not having children.

24 January 2019 (Plant species being wiped out) Hundreds, potentially thousands of Australian plant species are being wiped out by an introduced fungus.

24 January 2019 (Villages in India without toilets) Many villages in India do not have toilets. Women there have to set out before dawn to find a place in the fields they can use without being harassed by men. Now there is a campaign to build toilets all across India.

24 January 2019 (Weak federal "privacy" laws) Telephone companies and ISPs are pushing for weak federal "privacy" laws in the hope of stopping states from doing anything stronger. But even "stronger" laws to protect "privacy" only regarding commercial use of tracking people is inadequate to protect against repression.

24 January 2019 (Commercial manipulation) George Monbiot: University research is teaching advertisers how to manipulate people more compellingly. In the 1980s there was a push to make universities do research that would be more directly useful to business. I suspect this is the result of that. If you refuse — firmly refuse — to run nonfree software, that will cut a lot of the commercial manipulation out of your life. If in addition you stay off the online disservices, that will get rid of most of the rest. You will still see some ads, but they won't be enough to achieve the intended "cognitive depletion" effect.

24 January 2019 (Throwaway clothing) Throwaway clothing (an idea that seems absurd to me) is so widely used that it is a major source of greenhouse gases and plastic waste. When cotton is used, the growing of the cotton releases fertilizer runoff and competes with food production. We can hope that people will turn towards rejecting throwaway clothing (and any non-durable clothing), but that involves going against social pressure. Turning the pressure around would have more effect. Perhaps a 300% tax on clothing that appears designed to last less than six months, decreasing to zero for clothing that would last three years. Alternatively, require the store or the "brand" to buy the clothing back within three years, and put up a deposit for doing this. Another alternative: if you want a design on your body just once, paint it on.

24 January 2019 (Sixth mass extinction happening now) The sixth mass extinction is no longer threatening — it is happening all around us. For instance, many species of trees in the western US are already dead, and the animals that depended on them are dying or dead.

23 January 2019 (Mayor of Gdansk assassinated) The mayor of Gdansk in Poland was assassinated by a crazed fanatic who was apparently motivated by that party's propaganda. The mayor had defended human rights against the ruling right-wing party.

23 January 2019 (Thug shoots 14-year-old) 14-year-old Antonio Arce was shot by a thug while running away. It is possible he really was carrying a fake gun.

23 January 2019 (US deportation thugs) The US deportation thugs are so eager to deport people that periodically they jail US citizens and prepare to deport them. It's not clear how they would choose a country to send someone to, who was born in the US, but being so careless they might pick anywhere.

23 January 2019 (Refugee minor deportations) A leaked document shows that the bully and his henchmen intentionally planned to deport refugee minors quickly, denying them their right to a hearing, after taking them away from their parents. They lied about this, naturally, since they belong to the Republiar Party. Senator Merkley called for the FBI to investigate the Secretary of Homeland Savagery, Kirstjen Nielsen, who patently lied to Congress about this.

23 January 2019 (Plastic not getting recycled) Lots of plastic that Americans hand over for recycling does not really get recycled. The system is not able to cope with the needs of the real waste stream. Perhaps we need to tax the use of plastic packaging that doesn't match up with real recycling capabilities.

23 January 2019 (E-cigarettes) The adoption of e-cigarettes has greatly increased the fraction of teenagers that use nicotine. How bad is that? The change since 20 years ago is that today many of them are using e-cigarettes, whereas their counterparts 20 years ago were smoking. The UK Department of Health finds that vaping nicotine does only 5% as much harm as smoking tobacco. So it seems to me that the change reported in Mother Jones is a big change for the not-so-bad.

23 January 2019 (Syrian Kurds hand town to Assad's forces) Syrian Kurds have handed the town of Manbij to Assad's forces, hoping that will thwart Erdoğan's plan to attack Manbij. If Assad is willing to make peace with Rojava, that could give Rojava a way to survive. However, there is no way for Rojava to respect human rights under Assad's dominion, as long as he will not do so.

23 January 2019 (Blocking offshore oil drilling) Americans that live near costs are campaigning vigorously to block oil drilling off their coasts. Florida has just prohibited offshore drilling.

23 January 2019 (Urgent: Raise the Wage Act) US citizens: support the Raise the Wage Act, which would raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour over a few years. If you sign, please spread the word!

23 January 2019 (Urgent: Toxic fire extinguishers) US citizens: call on the US military to stop spraying toxic PFAS fire extinguishers; use other extinguishing substances instead. To sign this without running nonfree JavaScript code, use the Salsalabs workaround. If you sign, please spread the word!

23 January 2019 (Protests in Sudan) Sudan is full of nonviolent protests against al-Bashir's power.

23 January 2019 (Childhood leukaemia) The most common kind of childhood leukaemia may be caused by keeping babies away from germs.

23 January 2019 (Syrian civil war) Assad has clearly won the Syrian civil war. I think this is not a bad thing, overall, given that there was no one else less bad that we could support to replace him. The Syrian rebels were no better, and PISSI wasn't either.

23 January 2019 (Michigan governor) Outgoing Michigan governor Snyder, normally no hero of democracy, blocked most Republican attempts to reduce the power of the incoming Democratic state officials. It seems that he has some scruples about how far partisanship should go.

23 January 2019 (Israeli terrorism) Israeli terrorism against Palestinians is increasing. Often the terrorists destroy orchards and buildings, but sometimes they kill.

23 January 2019 (Elite in the UK) The elite in the UK no longer claim to be better than the masses because of their aristocratic pedigrees. Instead they claim to be better than the masses because their parents were wealthy enough to send them to better schools (and give them the best connections).

23 January 2019 (Micromanaging curricula) US Corporations Are Micromanaging Curricula to Miseducate Students.

23 January 2019 (Department of the Interior) The Department of the Interior, suspected of much corruption, has decided to make it harder to find out what it is doing and has done.

23 January 2019 (Obesity and sugar) George Monbiot discusses evidence that the increase of obesity is the result of eating more sugar.

23 January 2019 (Laws restricting advocacy) Laws whose stated purpose is to restrict advocacy of right-wing extremists end up being used to restrict leftist resistance to plutocracy.

23 January 2019 (Facebook and Google supporting campaigns) Facebook and Google provide support on contract to specific political campaigns. Given the role they play in communication between citizens, this is a conflict of interest, and should be prohibited.

23 January 2019 (Cities collecting data) French cities are collaborating with companies to combine data about people from every possible source. If the GDPR do not prohibit this, they are a joke. They aim to detect and use "weak signals", which means collecting lots of personal data, looking for barely detectable patterns, and acting on unreliable conclusions.

23 January 2019 (House climate committee) The plutocratist Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives has created a climate committee that lacks the power to investigate wrongdoing by the administration, and with a leader who won't push hard. We will have to put Democrats on the spot over this.

23 January 2019 (Ozone and climate crisis) With the the 1989 Montreal Protocol, all the countries on Earth agreed to ban production of the substances that were destroying the atmosphere's ozone layer. This example ought to have led to similar action to curb global heating, but lobbyists for disaster have blocked it.

23 January 2019 (Oil companies plan plastic expansion) Large oil companies such as Shell and Exxon are planning a big expansion in plastics production. Making plastic with the oil is not as bad as burning it, but it is harmful in its own way.

23 January 2019 (Contraceptive pills should be nonprescription) Contraceptive pills ought to be nonprescription medicine. The article is inaccurate in claiming that they are available without prescription in 100 countries. But that is the case in some countries, including Portugal and China. The arguments are valid anyway.

22 January 2019 (SOPA.au: extreme copyright block system) Three years of letting the copyright industry restrict Australian ISPs have not crushed forbidden sharing, so the copyright industry demands even more power. The article is weak in that it gets distracted by questions of price. The usual authorized methods of distributing music, books and video over the internet are unjust -- they typically identify people and what works they obtain, they impose DRM, and/or make people accept a contract to be a jerk. I never accept anything through such channels, and I would not do so even if they paid me a high price to do it.

22 January 2019 (Amazon and USPS) US Postal Service workers deliver lots of packages for Amazon, especially on Sundays. You can imagine how they are mistreated: some "part time" workers have to go weeks without a day off. The speedup is so intense that following the official safety procedures is not feasible.

21 January 2019 (Microfinancing in India) Microfinance loan plans are so rigid that in certain contexts they assure failure. I remember reading that the original microfinance loans were effective because they gave borrowers a way to get out of a specific kind of debt slavery. There is no reason they should be equally effective in places where the system that imposes poverty is similar.

21 January 2019 (India Gov't freezing Greenpeace accounts) India is shutting down the operations of Greenpeace and Amnesty International by freezing their bank accounts. Almost 20,000 other NGOs have been blocked from receiving donations.

21 January 2019 (DNA testing racial equality) "Racial equality once meant tearing down barriers, not doing a DNA test." I am not convinced by the idea that the question "who I am" is defined by a set of comparisons of my DNA with various other groups. My idea of my identity is not based on how closely biologically related to various groups of people. The aspects I identify with are more about what shaped my thoughts than about what shaped my body. As for "cultural appropriation", that's what culture is for. That is how culture develops. No community has the right to monopolize a style element.

21 January 2019 (Prescription opioids harder to access) As the US and states make it ever harder to get prescription opioids, addicts switch to illegal opioids which they obtain through the black market. That increases the rate of overdoses. Governments frantic to "do something", whether effective or not, react by making it even harder to get prescription opioids.

21 January 2019 (Banishing truth) Seymour Hersh cannot publish his investigations in US periodicals. They are too subservient to expose crimes of the powerful, let alone those of the rich.

21 January 2019 (African population in 2050) Africa could become the continent of a billion “angry, underfed, under-educated and under-employed” young people by 2050. How should we avoid this? One way is too invest trillions of dollars in educating them and employing them -- but it won't be easy to obtain that much money for this. Another way is to invest a few billion in reliable birth control, and sterilization. This will avoid not only the billion hungry unemployed, but also the damage that would be done by the population increase. If the human population keeps increasing, we will wipe out nature and then wipe out humanity.

21 January 2019 (Urgent: Laser drones) US citizens: call on Congress not to rubber-stamp the numbskull's laser drone anti-missile plan. In principle, defense against ballistic missiles could be a very good thing. But the US military has a bad record of spending hundreds of billions on such systems with no reason to think they would be effective, or what countermeasures might thwart them. If you sign, please spread the word!

21 January 2019 (Funds for border wall) How Congress can stop the bully from redirecting other funds to building a border wall.

21 January 2019 (Discouraging refugees) US border policies are calculated to discourage refugees by putting them at risk of death and rape. We can see that this is intentional when the US refuses to allow refugees to apply for asylum safely at a point or entry, so that they will risk their lives to cross the border.

21 January 2019 (Nitrates in ham and bacon) Producers of ham and bacon should stop adding nitrates, which cause cancer and other medical problems. They were needed in the past to prevent botulism, but modern sanitary methods prevent it anyway.

21 January 2019 (School-to-prison pipeline) DeVos has opened wide the entrance of the school-to-prison pipeline. I think schools should not be allowed to have a thug on premises except in response to a specific possible crime.

21 January 2019 (Israeli elections) Having elections in which 40% of the population is not allowed to vote is not enough to make Israel qualify as a democracy. Palestinians are supposed to be able to vote for the legislature of the Palestinian Authority. But that agency has little power — Israeli military rule overrides it in many areas of life — and Israel has blocked those elections for years.

21 January 2019 (Power plant explosion) An old, highly polluting oil-burning power plant in New York City exploded. It should have been shut down years ago.

21 January 2019 (Privatized immigration prisons) The US spend over 800 million dollars on privatized immigration prisons. We should not permit privatized prisons of any kind.

21 January 2019 (Palm oil) Palm oil is still driving massive deforestation of rain forests. That releases lots of greenhouse gas, and will cause extinction of many species. The producers have succeeded in defying public pressure to stop deforestation. The EU does wrong in permitting use of palm oil in fuel for vehicles. Burning oils produced by agriculture, with agricultural inputs, is no better than burning fossil oil. What would be better is oil made by microbes that don't need much input, or made from agricultural waste.

21 January 2019 (Sheikha Latifa) Mary Robinson met with Sheikha Latifa, who was grabbed off a boat in which she was fleeing to India, and is now kept at home by her family. Latifa said that she regretted trying to escape. Robinson said she appears "vulnerable". There are two possibilities. (1) She really does regret her attempt to escape, and is glad to be home. (2) She is a prisoner subject to brainwashing and/or intimidation. Neither one is impossible, but the fact that her family isolates her and blocks her from communication except for a short time with one chosen visitor suggests they don't believe she is glad to be home. So I believe (2).

21 January 2019 (Facebook censorship rules) Facebook has many complicated rules for judging what to censor, and employs thousands of censors who are supposed to apply them. Sometimes they get confused — but the rules themselves are confusing.

21 January 2019 (Resistance to the bullshitter) The bullshitter's sabotage is causing increasing harm, and is starting to drive hostile resistance since just working around him is not effective.

20 January 2019 (Making plutocratist Democrats worry) Progressives are making plutocratist Democrats worry about being replaced. Making them worry is not enough — we should follow through and really replace them. My old representative, Capuano, usually voted mildly progressive, but only within the limits of respect for the power of the plutocrats. Many years ago I went with a group of constituents to call on him to support a stronger measure, and he said, "If you want a representative more progressive than me, vote for one." Last summer, I voted for Ayanna Pressley.

20 January 2019 (State use of private surveillance cameras) In the Netherlands, the state can watch through thousands of private surveillance cameras. It is a mistake to refer to these as "security" cameras, because they facilitate massive surveillance. A security camera is one that records locally only. These cameras help security but do not threaten human rights. If the camera can transmit images remotely, it becomes a surveillance camera, a useful tool for repression. The Netherlands should take steps to replace surveillance cameras with security cameras.

20 January 2019 (Car license plate surveillance) Rhode Island is considering a bill to strictly limit car license plate surveillance by the state. The bill seems very solid, but I think it needs to restrict private systems too. Individuals must have the right to use their eyes and cameras here and there, but systematic tracking of people in general should not be allowed.

20 January 2019 (Right to sue when systems spy on you) You should have the right to sue when systems spy on you. A lawsuit is general over alleged damages. The law should say that being surveilled is in itself damage, and make sure there is no need to demonstrate the loss in financial terms.

20 January 2019 (Insurance companies and clinics pooling data) US insurance companies and clinics are pooling data to help Pharma companies market expensive drugs.

20 January 2019 (Foreign workers robbed and abused in UK) When foreign workers visit the UK to work as domestic servants, their employers rob and abuse them, knowing that they are desperate. The 6-month visa period is a protection for domestic workers: it means that at least every 6 months they have a chance to speak to an official about abusive employers. That makes it harder for employers to keep them locked up for years, effectively as slaves. But this doesn't eliminate the problem. The government could prevent wage theft too, by making employers send workers' pay to the government, which would then remit it directly to the worker's family. Nonetheless, their situation would be dire if they don't dare lose their job. In ordinary circumstances, it would be a foolish risk to take a job as a domestic servant in a country that would deport you if you quit. These women do it because they are desperate. So the deeper question is, why are these women desperate? The article says it is because they have children that they cannot afford to raise. We can try to stop specific injustices against them, and we should; but when overreproduction pressures people into making a desperate bet, inevitably some of them will lose. The long-term solution to these abuses is to reduce the birth rate.

20 January 2019 (Support for refugees) Rich countries should give adequate support to refugees that have fled to poor countries.

20 January 2019 (Sustainable tuna fishery) Indonesia has established a certified sustainable tuna fishery with an increasing tuna population.

19 January 2019 (Urgent: Ending the shutdown) US citizens: call on Senate Republicans to block other business until the Senate votes on ending the shutdown. If you sign, please spread the word!

19 January 2019 (Probation monitoring) UK courts don't trust privatized probation monitoring, so they sentence people to prison instead.

19 January 2019 (Touch screen scanners) Just when it seemed that phones could not snoop any worse: they will put fingerprint scanners in the touch screen! Don't touch a phone's screen without some sort of plastic over your fingers.

19 January 2019 (Terry Albury) FBI agent Terry Albury has been sentenced to four years in prison for revealing how the FBI intimidated people selected based on their race or religion.

19 January 2019 (Prime minister of Bangladesh) The prime minister of Bangladesh seems to be procuring reelection by repressing the opposition.

19 January 2019 (Border wall spending) A poll found that 80% of Americans want to spend 5 billion dollars on medical care, education, or infrastructure, not the border wall.

19 January 2019 (SF housing shortage) San Francisco has a terrible shortage of housing, but trying to build some is a terrible struggle. Or should I say "because" instead of "but"? Zoning laws are one of the causes of the shortage of housing in the US cities where jobs are. They force urban sprawl, which leads to long commutes. People object to denser housing in their neighborhood because it would increase the amount of traffic, but spreading that housing over a wider area would result in even more total increase in traffic. In the long run, the only lasting way to prevent gentrification without exiling people a long distance from their work and their lives is to make housing dense.

19 January 2019 (Kansas state legislators) Four Kansas state legislators have switched from Republican to Democrat. They feel the Republican party has become too right-wing. This might be good to some extent, but they will surely not be progressive Democrats.

19 January 2019 (Skin color recognition software) IBM has worked with the New York Thug Department to develop software to search for people by skin color. Now a thug that wants to beat up, arrest, or shoot a black male doesn't have to wait to happen upon one by chance. ;-{ Seriously, we should prohibit all systems to do any sort of recognition of faces in places where the public can normally go: outdoors, in theaters, stadiums, stores and other retail businesses when they are open, and in government buildings when the public is allowed to enter. Exceptions would require specific authorization by a court, specifying the place and the period of time.

19 January 2019 (Immunity for secret agents) The UK regularly gives its secret agents immunity from prosecution for torturing people in other countries.

19 January 2019 (Thugs carrying toy guns) Baltimore [thugs] Carried Toy Guns to Plant on People They Shot, to fabricate excuses for shooting them.

19 January 2019 (Birth rate in Japan) Japan is giving in to its low birth rate and allowing immigrants. This is a very good thing. The whole world needs to recognize low birth rates as a necessary step towards a sustainable population.

19 January 2019 (Urgent: Presidential candidates' tax returns) US citizens: call on Congress to require the president and all presidential candidates to release their tax returns.

19 January 2019 (Nuclear power plants) Three nuclear power plants planned for the UK won't be built, because the foreign companies that were going to build them have decided they were money-losers, even despite the billions in subsidy. The supposed reason for building them is to have power reliably available even if there is no wind at night. But we already know another way to do that: batteries. Batteries are still somewhat expensive, but are nuclear power plants cheaper? And batteries can't have a massive meltdown that converts a multi-billion-dollar investment into a tens-of-billions cleanup expense.

19 January 2019 (Censorship) Censorship of blasphemous art has struck in Israel.

19 January 2019 (Raising the federal minimum wage) "Legislation to raise the federal minimum wage is a direct response to activists raising their voices in unison." To get that legislation adopted, they will need to organize for progressive Senate candidates in Democratic primaries in 2020.

19 January 2019 (Japan whale killing) Japan will quit the International Whaling Commission and start killing whales again. With a decreasing population (something every country ought to have), why turn to such a morally questionable food source? It's not as if Japan needed whale meat.

19 January 2019 (US stop-and-search racial profiling) US thugs have a policy of preferentially stopping black drivers and inventing pretexts to search their cars. Each occasion might offer an opportunity to jail a black person, or perhaps cause per to be fired just for being arrested. Each time, it can push someone permanently into poverty. Why allow employers to find out whether a person has been arrested? We have no obligation to give businesses that power. How about making it illegal for employers to ask for, record, or act on that information?

19 January 2019 (Trump, Kavanaugh meritocracy falsehood) Rich and powerful white males have long claimed that they are so rich and powerful because they are better than everyone else -- in effect denying the existence of racism and sexism. They used to do this smoothly to make the claim appear plausible. Now they do it Repub