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Glossary

31 October 2019 (GM strike) The GM workers' strike was a victory, part of a trend toward more labor militancy.

31 October 2019 (Don't be a zucker) Thousands of tourists photograph themselves on a stairway just because it was a movie set. How foolish. The fact that thousands of people do something for no reason is not a reason for you to do it. If you do do it, you will experience a sensation of "So what?" Best of all, don't have an Instagram account, and you will avoid being influenced by "influencers." Remember, Instagram is another tentacle of Facebook. Don't be a zucker!

31 October 2019 (Lock him up chants) Was it wrong to greet the conman with chants of "Lock him up"? I think he asked for it, very directly. And note that they didn't say, "without trial."

31 October 2019 (Giuliani and Ukraine) Giuliani's complex connections with business and officials in Ukraine.

31 October 2019 (Pensions in Chile) Pinochet's privatization of old-age pensions is still impoverishing Chile. Chile needs to tax the rich more.

31 October 2019 (Urgent: ban government use of face recognition) US citizens: call on Congress to ban government use of face recognition. We must also strictly regulate private use of face recognition. If you call, please spread the word!

31 October 2019 (Smearing Colonel Vindman) Republicans are trying to smear Colonel Vindman by questioning his loyalty to the US. Vindman was born in the Soviet Union, and moved to the US at age 3 as a refugee, with his family. It is characteristic of right-wing politicians to accuse their opponents (or anyone that doesn't serve them) of the wrongs that they themselves commit. Today's Republicans' primary allegiance is to the conman, not the US.

31 October 2019 (Armenian genocide) The House of Representatives adopted a resolution condemning the genocide of the Armenians. In and of itself, this is the right thing to do. It would be wrong, however, to impose censorship on what others say about this question, as both Turkey and France do. It won't hamper Erdoğan's attack on the Kurds, but it is a setback for his policy.

31 October 2019 (Birds in Australia) Even common birds in Australia are in danger as governments allow massive elimination of native forests.

31 October 2019 (Lynching) A lesson for today's Republicans, and the rest of us, about lynching.

31 October 2019 (Impeachment in senate) What will Tump impeachment trial look like in Mitch McConnell-controlled senate? Even if Republicans defend him regardless of his crimes, the Senate's rules and Chief Justice Roberts will make the Senate examine the evidence.

30 October 2019 (5G phone communication radio waves) Scientists do not know whether the radio waves used for 5G phone communication are dangerous to human health.

30 October 2019 (Abuse by Big Tech companies) Big Tech companies are screwing their workers and spying on their customers, like the robber barons of the 1920s, but Americans are fed up and are pushing for laws that will tie them up.

30 October 2019 (Julian Assange extradition hearing) Craig Murray attended a preparatory court session about extraditing Julian Assange, and reports that Assange is aging rapidly and seems mentally dazed — like torture victims Murray has seen. Assange's lawyers were unable to talk with him until a week before the hearing, and asked for a delay so they could present their case properly. The UK magistrate refused, apparently insisting on a schedule imposed by the US. This schedule may prevent evidence from a Spanish court, which is investigating a CIA plan to kidnap Assange, from being considered in the extradition hearing. The actual extradition hearing will be held in a place nearly inaccessible to the public, so that the UK can violate Assange's rights without any reporting of it.

30 October 2019 (Italian pun) Italian pun: gli ulivi sulle scogliere

30 October 2019 (Gang war in DRC) The Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been convulsed by civil wars for decades. Now this has degenerated into unending war between armed gangs that will murder at the drop of a hat.

30 October 2019 (Children in danger) The bully has forced 3,400 children under 5 years old to wait for an immigration hearing in very violent border regions of Mexico. The article itself refers to all minors as "children", which is an attempt to exaggerate; but the unexaggerated facts are bad enough.

30 October 2019 (Whistleblowers) Explaining the legal distinction between whistleblowers that go through channels and whistleblowers that speak to the public.

30 October 2019 (Urgent: Non-profit colleges) US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Students Not Profits Act., which would deny federal aid to for-profit "colleges". If you call, please spread the word!

30 October 2019 (Al-Baghadid's torture) A Reminder Following al-Baghdadi's Death: 'The Terrorists We're Killing Today Are the Terrorists We Created Yesterday.' He experienced US torture himself, and this surely influenced his career. It takes a great spirit to respond to torture by rising above hatred. Most people are not so gifted. So they are likely to respond to torture by seeking revenge. Just as people who were abused as children often abuse other children, people who experienced torture may turn to torture themselves.

30 October 2019 (Fireproof by design) The Getty museum north of LA was designed specifically to be safe from fires around it.

30 October 2019 (Resettlement in Canada) Canada pays people to relocate from isolated villages. A village with 54 permanent villages voted to resettle, and all but two people will move away.

30 October 2019 (Measuring security) "We should stop measuring our counter-terrorism efforts by how many terrorists we kill or our security by how many US troops are deployed." Source

30 October 2019 (Selling water in plastic bottles) The fight to stop Nestlé from taking America's water to sell in plastic bottles. A hefty tax on bottles of water might do the job. The tax could be two dollars per liter.

30 October 2019 (Eliminating the green tape) Australia's extractivist government wants to eliminate the "green tape" that slows down potentially damaging projects, so it can plow full-speed-ahead through everything that ought to be preserved.

30 October 2019 (Urgent: make fossil fuel companies financially responsible) US citizens: call for making fossil fuel companies financially responsible for the damage they cause through global heating. To literally make them pay for the damage is impossible. The damage will be a large fraction of the total wealth of humanity. Perhaps as little as 30%. Perhaps as much as 99%. Either way, it is far more than the money that will pass through these fossil fuel companies' hands. If we sued them for those damages, we'd end up owning the fossil fuel companies but still not compensated for the damage. Moreover, by the time those damages fully occur, there may be no functioning legal system to sue them in. So the reason to do this is not to make them "pay for the damage". It is to give them a pressing reason to stop doing the damage. If you call, please spread the word!

30 October 2019 (Urgent enact network neutrality regulations) US citizens: call on states, especially your state, to enact network neutrality regulations. If you call, please spread the word!

29 October 2019 (Millionaire supports Sanders's tax plan) 'Tax the Hell Out of Me,' Says Young Millionaire Google Exec at Prospect of a President Bernie Sanders. You don't have to choose your vote according to your own selfish interest.

29 October 2019 (WeWork's economic model) WeWork aimed to dominate the market by running at a loss and underselling its competitors. Then it tried to go public for an inflated stock price, and fell flat on its face. The strategy of trying to dominate the world by running at a loss is what Uber is doing. It is predatory, and we should not leave its failure to chance. We should make it a crime and prosecute the executives who do it.

29 October 2019 (Flood defenses) Some cities are finding ways to make the construction of flood defenses profitable in itself. I don't see anything wrong with doing this. At the same time, we must reject the idea that every flood defense must be profitable to construct. That would lead to bowing down to business and letting it extract too much from the public. To get a good deal with businesses you must always be ready to say "no deal". The best flood defenses will work only for a few decades. Beyond that, we need to stop increasing the levels of greenhouse gases in the air, then massively remove them from the atmosphere.

29 October 2019 (Democrat plutocrats) Some "centrist" Democrats in Congress are acknowledging how plutocratist they are, by working with the US Chamber of Commerce.

29 October 2019 (Cure sitting) (satire) pharmaceutical giant Pfizer unveiled a new prescription medicine Thursday to help adults cut down on and eventually quit the practice of sitting.

29 October 2019 (Giuliani) A law professor suggests that the House of Representatives arrest Giuliani and others who are not US officials and refuse to answer questions.

29 October 2019 (Rehabilitation) Sanders calls for bringing back rehabilitation as the primary goal of prison. US prisons put substantial emphasis on rehabilitation in the 1970s, but the massive increase in imprisonment in the 1980s meant that prisons could barely afford to warehouse the prisoners.

29 October 2019 (Al-Baghdadi's death) US forces cornered al-Baghdadi, head of PISSI, and he blew himself up along with a few of his children, who he was using as hostages. Even disregarding questions of right and wrong, I can't see the logic of using human shields against one's own suicide bomb. The bullshitter is presenting this as a great victory. Perhaps mainstream media will say that war makes him "appear presidential", as they did for Dubya in such situations. Alas, this is unlikely to be a significant setback for PISSI. Such organizations expect their officers to be killed, and systematically prepare replacements for them. If the bullshitter does get a boost from this, that could harm the US and the world. That harm could easily outweigh the good of doing a small setback to PISSI.

29 October 2019 (Catholic church considers reducing bias) Catholic bishops from the Amazon region call for ordaining married men as priests, and even women, though not yet as priests. I can't see the sense in religious belief, but I am nonetheless glad to see a major church consider reducing bias. A woman I loved long ago, Julie Fabre, became an Anglican priest. Since then I have lost touch with her. If anyone knows her, I would be glad to speak with her again.

29 October 2019 (US no-fly list) An appeals court ruled in favor of the US no-fly list, approving a drastic punishment without trial. If understood as a precaution against air terrorism, it is being misapplied, since many of these people are not associated with any such thing.

29 October 2019 (Protests in Chile) Over 1 Million Chileans Take to the Streets to Demand Political Reforms, Change to Country's Neoliberal Economic System. Chilean thugs are attacking protesters, sometimes with bullets or something like round shot, sometimes with rubber-coated bullets in the eye to blind them. They shoot at witnesses, too. Doctors say it is hard for them to treat the hundreds of casualties. The underfunded public hospital is short of all sorts of supplies. This reflects the right-wing policies that the protests oppose.

29 October 2019 (Small and cheap apartments) Experiments with particularly small and cheap apartments might offer a way to reduce homelessness. However, in order to do that, they need to be made in large quantities.

28 October 2019 (Protests in Iraq) Protesters in Iraq aim to overthrow the government. Government suppression forces are responding with great violence. What would the replacement government be? The current government is surely corrupt, but any government in Iraq would be corrupt. It was chosen democratically, and its sectarian nature reflects the sectarian voters. To get a better government in a legitimate way would seem to require educating the voters.

28 October 2019 (Better old people housing) Special housing for old people, in a central part of town, can enable them to avoid expensive nursing homes and have a better life.

28 October 2019 (European Commission sues Poland) The European Commission is suing Poland in the European Court of Justice for failure to respect judicial independence.

28 October 2019 (Europe neutralization) How Erdoğan neutralized Europe as a restraint on his aggression in Syria.

28 October 2019 (Optimized for outrage) Facebook isn't free speech, it's algorithmic amplification optimized for outrage. In other words, don't censor the specific material people post on Facebook. Instead, forbid the kind of algorithm that spreads violence and fake news most.

28 October 2019 (Face recognition in China) China will require each new portable phone user to give a face scan. Let's make face recognition surveillance illegal for both governments and private entities, with very limited exceptions.

28 October 2019 (Eliminating officials) Attorney General Barr has launched an investigation of the Mueller investigation. Investigations by Republican officials tend to be some sort of nasty sabotage. Think of Starr, the special prosecutor appointed to investigate President Clinton; that was a scheme to eliminate special prosecutors so that they could not be used against the real crimes of Republican officials. Now, however, Republicans use will deploy this against any official that gets in their way.

28 October 2019 (Target employees) Target employees really are the target employees for a system of tracking and punishment comparable to the Amazon warehouse. Here is their organizing campaign.

28 October 2019 (Students surveillance) Many US schools issue each student with a computer running nonfree software that monitors everything the student does. The operating systems of tablets, and ChromeOS, collect and transmit personal information about the user. The schools add more spyware so as to surveil students totally.

28 October 2019 (Google workers fear surveillance) Google has put a new Chrome add-on on the computers of Google workers. Workers fear this will be used to surveil them and then attack their rights in one way or another. Every nonfree program warrants that suspicion, since so many are in fact malware.

28 October 2019 (Universal medical care) Ralph Nader: progressive candidates state only part of the case for single-payer universal medical care.

28 October 2019 (Sex work in UK) Right-wing rule in the UK crushes the poor so much that single mothers, and students, are compelled to do sex work. Sex work is not immoral, and it shouldn't be illegal. But when a society that people need to do sex work in order to survive, or to keep their children well, that is a cruel society. And what about the ones who are not attractive enough to succeed at sex work? What can they do to survive, or keep their children well?

27 October 2019 (Face recognition at festivals) Fight for the Future organized musicians and fans to pressure US music festivals to back off use of face recognition. Are there any festivals that still plan to use it?

27 October 2019 (Questions to Zuckerberg) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked Zuckerberg some carefully chosen questions. His answers will aid the investigation of Facebook's cover-up of its dealings with Cambridge Analytica.

27 October 2019 (Incremental changes) when the centrist neoliberals tell you that change is incremental, what they're really saying is they don't want that much change. The New Deal was not incremental. Civil rights laws were not incremental. Environmental protection laws were not incremental. The laws we need to end plutocracy, provide medical care for all, and curb global heating cannot be incremental either.

27 October 2019 (Protest in military base) Seven protesters who protested symbolically against nuclear weapons in a military base have been convicted of crimes including "destruction" of government property.

27 October 2019 (Numerous and angry) About 41% of the world's people are under 24. And they're angry… One of the valid reasons for them to be angry at older people is for having made so many people under 24. It is hard to give a good life, in a sustainable way, to such a large population. Our population is living unsustainably and it is still increasing. This is one underlying cause of many of the specific hardships that people are protesting about. The other underlying cause is inequality, which protects the privileged (and especially the wealthy) from these hardships by dumping them entirely onto the disprivileged and the poor. Reducing inequality is a just cause, but we also need to reduce the cost of our existence, and doing that without making everyone poor will be much easier if we have fewer humans in the future. Let's aim for 25% or less of the population under age 24.

27 October 2019 (Smartphone worries) Why you should worry if you have a Chinese smartphone. If you have a non-Chinese smartphone, you should worry too. Other countries are moving rapidly in the direction of massive surveillance used to control and repress, and the system developers (Google and Apple) don't respect freedom much either.

27 October 2019 (Golden rice) The approval of "golden rice", which supplies Vitamin A, has been delayed for 20 years by regulation. I find it plausible that this rice will, in medical terms, help people and not cause harm. This does need to be verified; perhaps it has been. But does it carry nonbiological pollution — with patents, or plant variety monopolies? Are farmers allowed to save the seeds and plant them?

27 October 2019 (Reasons to deny benefits) When bureaucrats are told to find reasons to deny benefits to the poor and sick, your politeness and even the bureaucrats' own mistakes become excuses to put you in the wrong.

27 October 2019 (Minimizing massacres) An analysis of how two of Peter Handke's books tried to minimize and excuse the well-documented massacres of Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs. One important point is that the existence of a prior state of war does not justify committing a war crime.

27 October 2019 (Fossil fuels and you) George Monbiot: The [planet roaster's]’ Masterstroke Was to Blame the Climate Crisis on You And Me — by creating a system which leads people towards heavy use of fossil fuels. The article also explains the reasoning for massive disruptive but nonviolent protests as a way to make governments change this system.

27 October 2019 (Queer targets in Eastern Europe) Authoritarian right-wing politicians in Eastern Europe are choosing queer people as the next handy scapegoat. The Catholic Church is supporting those politicians.

27 October 2019 (Invasive species) Governments are not doing enough to prevent the spread of invasive species. Part of the problem is the massive international trade in live (or dead unsterilized) plants and animals. There are so many opportunities for a weed to tag along. Why not require safety inspection of every cargo? The ballast water of ships often carries invasive aquatic organisms, often as larvae. Why not have an official go aboard while the ship is 20 miles out, to require it to clean its ballast tanks? These measures would be expensive, but so are invasive species.

27 October 2019 (Climate rush) How the perceived obligation to reach a consensus pressures scientists to err on the side of underestimating the likely effects of global heating.

27 October 2019 (Tax cut for all) Now that Americans are required to have medical insurance, the premiums are in effect taxes. This means that Medicare for All would reduce taxes (counting the insurance premiums) for most Americans.

27 October 2019 (Automated face recognition) Why we need to ban automated face recognition. (Note that article's title is misleading, a red herring. The author of an article in a newspaper does not write the title.) Another reason to reject the straw man suggestion to simply wait and let the Supreme Court decide is that we can't count on it to protect our privacy. If all we wanted was to have the question decided, never mind how, we could leave it to the Supreme Court. But if we want anonymity, that approach won't work. We can't campaign to influence the Supreme Court. So we must campaign to influence legislatures. We do need to campaign to limit all kinds of surveillance. But that is not a reason to avoid deciding specific cases. Quite the contrary: laws banning face recognition would pave the way for restricting other kinds of massive surveillance.

26 October 2019 (Candidates assassination in Colombia) Seven mayoral candidates in Colombia have been assassinated. President Duque blamed a remnant of the FARC, and drug dealers. He omitted to blame the paramilitares, Colombia's worst terrorists, perhaps because he is associated with them. He belongs to the political party founded by ex-president Uribe ("Horrible"), and Uribe was closely associated with them. In order for Colombia to know peace, it must disarm the paramilitares.

26 October 2019 (Family separations continue) The US border thugs are still separating families. Sometimes the "parents" of the family are not the biological parents, but are the parents that the child loves and needs.

26 October 2019 (Generous tax evasion) Facebook is "donating", to buy public admiration, a fraction of what it should be paying in taxes.

26 October 2019 (Ignoring patients in need of monitoring) The US medical system spends less money on a black patient than on a white patient, given the same level of health. As a result, a widely used algorithm estimates that the black patient is less sick and doesn't need supplemental health monitoring. This is one more example of a common occurrence: bias that results from innocently-collected data that reflects the bias of society.

26 October 2019 (From Warren to Sanders) Why Ilhan Omar shifted from supporting Warren to supporting Sanders.

26 October 2019 (Protect black-footed ferrets) US citizens: protect black-footed ferrets from extinction. If you sign, please spread the word!

26 October 2019 (Press freedom in Australia) Australia denies Cameroonian journalist visa for press freedom conference. The Cameroonian journalist happens to work in Germany, making Australia's given reason to refuse the visa absurd by ordinary standards. That does not mean it was a cover for some other reason. It could be the real reason for the refusal. When people are trained to seek and find reasons to say no, they learn to exaggerate.

26 October 2019 (Companies political donations) Some US companies are giving in to pressure to publish their political donations.

25 October 2019 (Toxicologist speaks out about PFAS) Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, was forbidden to say that PFAS chemicals cause various diseases. That conclusion was embarrassing to the businesses that donate to Republicans. Now that she has retired, she can say that. I expect the next person appointed to those posts to be chosen for willingness to advance by subservience.

25 October 2019 (Ignoring bigotry) Activists demand that a UK study of bigotry and harassment in UK universities to define harassment for being white, or English, as outside the question. Bigotry against whites, or English people in Wales, is unusual. It doesn't generally happen enough to blight someone's life, and the victim can easily move elsewhere to avoid it. Bigotry against blacks or Muslims is a much more grave problem, and you can't avoid it by moving. This should be the priority target of the investigation. Nonetheless, the other is still bigotry, and it shouldn't be omitted.

25 October 2019 (Ambassador testimony about Ukraine) The US ambassador to Ukraine testified to Congress about the conman's shakedown of Ukraine. The conman's own negotiators went around the ambassador, who was not personally involved, but they told him about the details of the shakedown, and he reported what they told him. They described a deal which demanded a quid-pro-quo from Ukraine, and said it wasn't a quid-pro-quo.

25 October 2019 (Border tyranny) A US citizen living in the US went to a customs office at the border to pay the duty for a shipment of gifts which had arrived by plane, so he could go back to the airport and collect the gifts. The border customs office made him and his relatives prisoner and searched their phones. This is total tyranny. Whatever special powers the customs agency has at the border should be limited to people who just did cross the border, or are about to cross it.

25 October 2019 (Prosecuting monopolies) Sanders and Warren advocate prosecuting CEOs for monopolistic practices once again, as we used to do.

24 October 2019 (Effects of global heating on Denmark) [Disused but loved] Danish Lighthouse Put on Wheels to Move It Away from Eroding Sea. This is just one of the thousands of harmful effects global heating is causing already. It seems a shame they did not move the old church. Buildings from the 1200s must not be very common in Denmark.

24 October 2019 (Reducing HIV transmission rate) Medical initiatives to treat and suppress HIV, carried out in certain cities, can greatly reduce the transmission rate. Humanity can lick HIV, if technological civilization continues. But it will take a century or more to get rid of HIV this way. If global heating disaster makes the efforts stop, HIV will resume spreading.

23 October 2019 (Terrorism everywhere) The FBI has a long history of treating political dissent as terrorism. (Especially leftist dissent.) This is not to say there is no such thing as real terrorism.

23 October 2019 (Whistleblowers are not spies) Sanders says he would end prosecution of whistleblowers as "spies." Will Senator Warren adopt the same stance?

23 October 2019 (Kurd retreat) Assad, Russia and Turkey are now combining to force the Syrian Kurds out of an 18-mile zone along the frontier with Turkey. The effect will be considerable ethnic cleansing, since that is where many of the Kurds live.

23 October 2019 (Testifying on quid pro quo) The US ambassador to Ukraine testified that the conman did threatened to cut off military aid unless Ukraine investigated Biden's son. The conman tried to order the ambassador not to testify to Congress, but he did it anyway.

22 October 2019 (Slow move to renewable) The International Energy Agency forecasts only 50% growth in renewable electricity generation in the next 5 years. This is not fast enough!

22 October 2019 (Uncontacted indigenous) Eliminating the protections for uncontacted indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon will surely lead to killing them. Diseases will kill most of each group, and they are so small that they could not continue.

22 October 2019 (Honduras corruption) The brother of Honduras's president has been convicted in the US of taking bribes on the president's behalf to permit smuggling cocaine through Honduras. Prohibition of cocaine makes it so profitable that it is nearly impossible to stop it from generating corruption. However, the existing corrupt, plutocratist Honduran regime is the result of the coup that Hillary Clinton winked at, and which has received US support ever since.

22 October 2019 (Taliban condemn suicide bombing) A suicide bomber attacked a mosque in Afghanistan and killed 62 people. The Taliban condemned the attack, which makes sense: they are strict Islamists, and their policies violate human rights, but they are not madmen. I suppose this was the work of PISSI.

22 October 2019 (Smuggling antibiotics) Prohibiting the routine use of antibiotics in farm animals, necessary to slow the evolution of resistance genes that can spread to organisms that cause disease, has led to a new form of drug smuggling. I don't think this will be as hard to control as smuggling addictive drugs. A farm uses the antibiotics to increase its profits, so it won't pay any more than the increased profit would be. Indeed, given the risk of legal trouble, it won't pay even half that much.

22 October 2019 (Kurd allies) Leading US generals are extremely angry at the conman for abandoning the Kurds. Those who have retired are saying so. The argument that the US should not abandon an ally has validity, but only to a certain extent. It was used to argue for continuing the war in Vietnam, and the war in Cambodia. ISTR it was also used in Iraq, and I think it has been used to argue for continuing the war in Afghanistan. In the case of the Syrian Kurds, this argument reinforces other reasons why the US should have defended them.

22 October 2019 (Hate and phobia) There are many systematic forms of hate, but hatred of the poor may be the biggest. Hatred and phobia are different things. A phobia is an intense, irrational fear. People who are afraid of heights or small places do not hate them; conversely, people who hate the poor do not fear them (though they may feel disgust, which is not the same). To avoid building confusion, let's not refer to systems of hatred as "phobias". I disapprove of antigayism, antimuslimism and antitransism, but I reject the terms "homophobia", "islamophobia" or "transphobia". Another systemic form of hatred, which the article cites an example of but doesn't discuss, is hatred of atheists. In the domain of religion, atheists are the most hated group. We should oppose antiathism (short for antiatheistism) as well as antimuslimism and antisemitism.

21 October 2019 (Mortgage prisoners) When a couple get a mortgage together, then split up, the one who moved out can destroy the other — by refusing to pay per own half of the mortgage.

21 October 2019 (Fired for mentioning a word) Zero-tolerance at work: a student called a school security guard, who is black, "nigger". The guard said, quite properly, "Don't call me nigger." The guard was fired for this. The guard did not use that word. Rather, he mentioned it, to oppose its use. I can't believe that the school officials fail to understand the difference — of course they understand it, just as you do. So why the absurd decision? I suspect they have bought into the idea of rigidity as virtue, which is the root of zero tolerance. All rules, including valid rules, are liable to become harmful and unjust when applied rigidly.

21 October 2019 (Reasons to demand right to repair) A secondary reason to demand the right to repair is to reduce gratuitous waste. I call this reason "secondary" because stopping people from fixing and modifying products is simply oppressive.

20 October 2019 (Pakistan blocks Steven Butler) Steven Butler of the Committee to Protect Journalists had a visa to visit Pakistan, but when he arrived at passport control his visa was specially cancelled, and Pakistan somehow sent him back to the US under a kind of arrest.

20 October 2019 (Warren to reintroduce Schedules That Work Act) Senator Warren will reintroduce the Schedules that Work Act which will forbid employers from jerking part-time workers around on short notice.

20 October 2019 (Surrendering deal) The bully ordered the Kurds to surrender to Turkey a 20-mile strip along the border within five days or face mass murder. He called this a "cease fire deal".

20 October 2019 (Nelson and slavery) It turns out that Admiral Nelson, Britain's greatest naval hero, was also a defender of slavery. Does that mean his statues should be taken down? It is impossible to compare the evil Nelson did by defending slavery with the good he did by helping to defeat Napoleon to see which is more important. That is imponderable. But we can be sure that Nelson, who died in 1805, had no say over how Britain treated es-slave black sailors after the war ended in 1814. Statues of Confederate generals were put up to glorify the past system of slavery, aiming to strengthen the system of segregation. That is what those statues stand for. I think they should be taken down. By contrast, statues of Nelson were put up as symbols of naval victory, and that is what they stand for. They don't stand for any position on race relations. I don't think there is a need to take them down, even though British naval power is a thing of the past.

20 October 2019 (Spying on students) Florida plans to demand that students give lots of personal details and biometrics. This is supposedly to keep them safe. Like the thugs in the schools, it will endanger them instead. The direct harm will fall mainly on people from minority groups, but don't assume your child will be safe!

19 October 2019 (Sexual education) The UK has canceled its requirement for porn sites to identify users. The stated motive for this was to exclude teenagers, but what is important is the tracking itself, not its purpose. Why stop people from viewing porn, if they want to? Much of today's porn is aimed at heterosexual men and presents a totally wrong idea of what women like. When teenage men believe this, they can get twisted. When they practice out what they have learned from this, they can make women very unhappy. Leading them to porn showing sexual practices that various real teenage women really do enjoy would solve this problem in a better way. (This does not require real teenage actors, or even real human actors.) Why replace bad education with no education? Replace it with good education.

19 October 2019 (Corporate debt) Corporations have too much debt. Even a moderate downturn would cause a crisis. Governments are supposed to prevent this sort of situation from arising.

19 October 2019 (Apple approval) Apple plans to require that all application software for MacOS be approved by Apple first. Offering a checking service as an option could be useful and would not be wrong. Requiring users to get Apple's approval is tyranny. Apple says the check will only look for malware (not counting the malware that is part of the operating system), but Apple could change that policy step by step. Or perhaps Apple will decide that helping Hong Kong protesters constitutes malware.

19 October 2019 (As in free lunch) Sanders and Ilhan Omar introduced a bill to provide gratis school lunches to all public school students.

19 October 2019 (Seafood bisque) (satire) marine biologists at the University of Rhode Island projected Tuesday that the planet's oceans will be a nice, simmering seafood bisque by 2040.

18 October 2019 (Urgent: PROTECT Hong Kong Act) US citizens: call on Congress to pass the PROTECT Hong Kong Act. If you sign, please spread the word!

18 October 2019 (Urgent: Defend US civil rights law) Everyone: call on Comcast to withdraw its Supreme Court challenge of the first US civil rights law. If you sign, please spread the word!

18 October 2019 (Urgent: Preserve methane emissions limits) US citizens: call on the EPA to preserve methane emissions limits, to help avoid global heating disaster. The methane emissions do local harm too, but global disaster is enormous by comparison with that. You can sign without running the nonfree Javascript code if you use Lynx. If you sign, please spread the word!

18 October 2019 (Progressive reps endorse Sanders) Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Omar are endorsing Sanders, for the same reasons I do: his positions are more boldly progressive. I don't choose candidates to support based on gender.

18 October 2019 (America's poor in pre-trial jail) Ten million poor Americans are jailed for a while each year, most of them pre-trial because they can't afford bail and fees. How about taking the opportunity to register them to vote?

18 October 2019 (Protest and arrest for Extinction Rebellion) George Monbiot writes about planning to be arrested for protesting for Extinction Rebellion. (I read that he was indeed arrested.) It is misguided, even unfair, to criticize Extinction Rebellion for being "too white" or "too male" or too whatever of that kind, because that is not their choice. A volunteer activity must to go with those that volunteer. When an activity needs to recruit as many people as possible, it would be self-defeating to reject some volunteers for the sake of demographic balance. Rather, the activity must seek, and welcome, every volunteer that is willing and able to work for the cause. If you would like more blacks or more women to participate in Extinction Rebellion, by all means try to recruit them. But don't criticize the campaign for doing the most it can with the people who have volunteered. Indeed, people from less privileged groups may have rational reasons to hold back. Maybe they have to work 50 hours a week to get by. Maybe they expect the judicial system to treat them with bias. Maybe they can't afford bail and fear being jailed for months if they are arrested, or being stuck for years in a Ferguson-like cycle of fines and jail. Given that privilege exists, I'm glad that people with more privilege are taking advantage of it to take risks for the sake of saving the world from disaster.

18 October 2019 (Los Angeles community service) When Los Angeles sentences people to community service, they often have to work to difficult targets in stressful, even hazardous conditions. They are also required to pay to do this work. If this is meant as a way to pay fines or other debts, they should be paid the prevailing wage.

18 October 2019 (Australia and climate denial) Australia wasted decades in climate denial — and must break free of the mire of misinformation.

18 October 2019 (Gun control strategies) Cory Booker's gun control legislation focuses strategies on people, not guns. It might be a good idea.

18 October 2019 (EU and democracy) The insane behavior of the UK makes the EU look wise and just by comparison, so don't forget its oppressive side. The EU has a democratic structure that doesn't give the people much power to limit what the banksters and businesses want. Look, for instance, at the unjust copyright directive that was adopted under pressure from the publishing lobby. Since three branches of the EU must agree any change, it is hopeless to repeal bad directives once they have been adopted.

18 October 2019 (Sanders and Warren) Sanders advocates government programs that aid everyone, whereas Warren advocates similar aid only for the poor. The weakness of the latter is that the rich can organize the middle class to support cutting these programs and attaching onerous conditions — which is exactly what right-wing politicians do. As for the waste of subsidizing a few rich people along with the many non-rich, it will be a small fraction of the total cost of these programs. A progressive tax on the rich will easily make up for it.

18 October 2019 (Machine learning) Machine learning can be useful for guiding the priorities of social services, as long as humans think about the actual decisions. This could be a good thing provided the government doesn't use it as an excuse to cut budgets even more. Right-wing governments are looking for any excuse, and whatever makes for more efficiency will mean they can cut more.

18 October 2019 (StackExchange) StackExchange has imposed a code of conduct saying that participants have to refer to each other person by per specified pronouns. Paraphrasing to avoid pronouns is forbidden; people are required to get practice using all sorts of pronouns. The rule was received with tremendous hostility. I have never used in StackExchange and wasn't thinking of doing so. (Too busy, in any case.) I don't even know whether it is possible to post on the site without running nonfree Javascript software — if it isn't, I urge you to reject posting there, for your freedom's sake. But I reject the demand to speak or write with singular "they". I have a better system for gender-neutrality in English, and I will use that. I hope others will take it up; I suggest you consider it. But I don't claim the power to demand you use it. If you do participate in StackExchange, you might choose unusual pronouns for yourself. Not absurd ones, or nasty ones, just unusual.

17 October 2019 (Anti-net-neutrality lobby) How the anti-net-neutrality lobby impersonated a million people to kill network neutrality. This is in addition to whatever they spent to get Ajit Pai put in charge of the issue.

17 October 2019 (Sadism of US border thugs) A family of British tourists in Canada were arrested for entering the US on an road with no warning of the frontier. They were taking a short detour to avoid an animal in their intended road. This incident puts the sadism of the border thugs in clear relief. Why arrest people for entering the US such a short time? Why not wait a minute and see if they leave again? Why deport them to the UK instead of back to Canada where they were? In addition to the trouble that causes them, it will also cost the US government a lot of money — perhaps tens of thousands of dollars. We see that, to the border thugs, a chance to be cruel is worth any expense. It is clear that the thugs are looking closely at that road. If temporary entry there is deemed a real problem, why not put a sign there telling people not to cross? That would have been cheaper, but the thugs would have missed a possible opportunity for sadism. This is in addition to the cruel conditions that the thugs have arranged to visit on tens of thousands of people who knew they were entering the US, simply by overcrowding the immigration prisons. British tourists are not the intended target of this cruelty. It was set up to deter, and endanger, refugees from Central America. But now that cruelty is their priority goal. the most zealous grab any opportunity that comes their way.

16 October 2019 (Russian actions in Syria) Russian soldiers are acting as peacekeepers between Assad's forces and Turkey's proxy forces, in one area, but their attack on the Kurds continues.

16 October 2019 (Homelessness benefits in EU) "EU nationals are often barred from homelessness benefits unless they have a job — a hostile environment policy that charities are effectively enforcing." Source

16 October 2019 (Private hospitals and universal national health system) Investor-owned hospitals are leading the fight against the creation of a universal national health system in the US. This suggests that one step forward would be for states to prohibit for-profit hospitals.

16 October 2019 (Blue angels) On the issues raised by US military airshow jets. I disagree with the article's arguments. The costs are insignificant compared with the US military budget, the dangers to the airmen is a small problem compared with the danger of professional football, and the danger to the public is small compared with the dangers of life. On the other hand, military airshow flights can do big harm in another way: they strengthen the grip of the military-industrial complex, which wastes hundreds of billions of dollars, and encourages wars of aggression that can kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people.

16 October 2019 (Biden's contributors) Rich people, their media and their politicians are trying hard to prop up Biden, but it isn't working very well.

16 October 2019 (Corporate promise) (satire) "As the business leaders of this country, we promise to never, ever stop fighting to ensure that the vast majority of Americans aren't able to afford the products they need or live the life they want."

16 October 2019 (Thanks Trump) (satire) Jubilant [PISSI] Prisoners Hail American Liberators.

16 October 2019 (Gatorade) (satire) a new patriotic Gatorade ad that aired Friday showed terrorists being waterboarded with Gatorade.

16 October 2019 (Recycled plastic price on the rise) The price of recycled plastic has risen greatly due to increased demand. This is a sign of progress. It will lead to an increase in recycling capacity; then the plastic handed in for recycling will really be recycled.

16 October 2019 (Benefits system automation) Using AI to judge applications for public assistance provides right-wing governments with an opportunity to cut welfare benefits without any official change in the rules.

15 October 2019 (Duterte thugs and drug) Duterte's chief of national thugs (including their death squads) has resigned due to accusations of involvement in drug dealing.

15 October 2019 (Urgent: ban facial recognition government use) US citizens: call on Congress to ban government use of facial recognition. This is not enough, but it's a good start. If you call, please spread the word!

15 October 2019 (Urgent: stop funding war in Yemen) US citizens: call on Congress to end all funding for the war in Yemen. If you call, please spread the word!

15 October 2019 (Government post qualification) Preet Bharara: Congress should formalize the former unwritten rules about who is qualified for appointed government executive posts.

15 October 2019 (Rejection of authoritarian in Hungary) Hungarians showed their mounting dissatisfaction with the authoritarian Fidesz party by defeating it in significant local elections. This is a step towards removing it from power, but that won't be easy because of the grip it has given itself over other institutions.

15 October 2019 (Syrian Kurds and Assad) The Syrian Kurds have allied with Assad to resist the invasion from Turkey, and turned over two border cities to Assad in exchange. If Rojava can peacefully reconcile with Assad, perhaps recognizing his suzerainty but without submitting to the tyranny of his regime, it would be a step forward — as long as Assad allows it to continue. However, the fighting between Assad and Turkey could lead to fighting between Russia and Turkey. That is potentially dangerous.

15 October 2019 (Unlawful campaign financing) Federal prosecutors charged two men (who work with Giuliani) with transferring foreign funds to the cheater's campaign. This might be part of a broader scheme that could be managed by Giuliani.

15 October 2019 (Friendship with political opponents) We should not reject friendship with people who disagree with us on important political issues. I won't condemn Ellen DeGeneres for being friends with Dubya. I've called for prosecuting him for war crimes since the time he was in office, but I don't condemn her for not thinking so. I bring up my politics so often that I might find it difficult to be friends with right-wing people, but that's just me.

15 October 2019 (Poverty sentence) US sanctions are driving Cuba into poverty because no ships can transport Venezuelan oil to Cuba. It surprises me that Russia or China or Iran doesn't send ships to do this.

14 October 2019 (Hong Kong Anthem) Hong Kong now has an unofficial national anthem, which protesters sing at every protest. The video linked in the article — which you can view and hear without nonfree software by using Icecat, or the Viewtube extension for Firefox — makes me cry because of their heroism against all odds.

14 October 2019 (Warren and Facebook) Senator Warren gave Facebook a taste of its own medicine with a political ad that said Zuckerberg supported the bullshitter — then said that wasn't really so and Facebook shouldn't allow ads with lies.

14 October 2019 (Turkey in Rojava) Turkey's Arab proxy army is advancing into Rojava against hard resistance. Rojava is rather thin, from North to South, so it can easily be cut in two. Turkey may aim to conquer it entirely.

14 October 2019 (Likenesses) (satire) … the NCAA announced a new rule Thursday forcing athletes to remove all facial features to prevent them from profiting off their likenesses.

14 October 2019 (Fossil fuel firms hypocrisy) Fossil fuel firms spend millions on social media ads against climate regulations while portraying selves as green heroes.

13 October 2019 (Haitians impoverished by "free trade") The US has impoverished most Haitians by applying neoliberal "free trade"; Haitian farmers could not compete with subsidized US megafarms. The US tendency to impose large aid projects without verifying they will be useful occurs here as it did in Afghanistan.

13 October 2019 (Arrests in Hong Kong) Hong Kong thugs have arrested around 2400 protesters, of who 750 were minors. I doubt that any of them were children, though.

13 October 2019 (Hunter Biden) Hunter Biden's career, whether or not it involves crimes, is payback for political favors. It reflects systemic corruption.

13 October 2019 (Kurds' bombardment) Syrian Kurds retaliated for Turkish bombardment by bombarding a Turkish border town. I don't think that can be militarily justified — it sounds like a war crime. Meanwhile, arousing resentment among Turks will strengthen Erdoğan.

13 October 2019 (Al-Soufi remains open) The Al-Soufi Syrian restaurant in Toronto will remain open, defying right-wing death threats. I wish I could go to Toronto and give my support by eating there.

13 October 2019 (Thinktank undermining climate science) Revealed: Top UK thinktank spent decades undermining climate science.

13 October 2019 (Lead pipes) The sabotage US government updated the regulations for lead in water supplies to _slow down_ the replacement of lead pipes.

13 October 2019 (Protests in Ecuador) Protesters in Ecuador have taken over Quito and captured some state thugs. Some protesters are looking for targets for violence; others try to prevent violence. It is crucial that the movement reject violence (except in defense) in a very clear way. President Moreno certainly ought to be replaced, but the fact that the opposition to him is based mainly on a demand for cheap fossil fuels is very sad. It is an example of the foolish short-term thinking that impedes defense of Earth's climate. The survival of civilization, and millions of species of life, depends on overcoming that foolish way of thinking.

13 October 2019 (Paris carbon targets in Australia) For Australia to meet its weak Paris carbon targets, it needs to apply a carbon tax of more than USD 75 per ton of CO2 or equivalent.

12 October 2019 (Nicotine addiction) Young people often become addicted to nicotine even from smoking once per month. Don't take the risk of using nicotine even once. If your friends pressure you to do things that are bad for you, such as smoking tobacco (even if mixed with marijuana) or playing nonfree games together, find some new friends — true friends.

12 October 2019 (Extreme weather and extinction) The extra-powerful hurricanes that result from global heating do lots of short-term damage, which can be repaired if there is enough money. They can also cause extinction of species, especially those that live only in limited areas near the Florida or the Caribbean.

12 October 2019 (India plans nationwide face-tracking) India plans to follow China's example, with a nationwide system of face-tracking surveillance cameras. Don't be distracted by the discussion of data protection laws. If India had them, they would make little difference to the injustice that such a system would enable.

12 October 2019 (Urgent: Stop "vulture" hedge funds) US citizens: call on Democrats in Congress to fight the hedge funds that control Puerto Rico. Instead of fighting them over and over, why not change the law to chop down the hedge? If you sign, please spread the word!

11 October 2019 (Leveraged buyouts killing newspapers) Leveraged buyouts are killing America's remaining newspapers. (As well as many other businesses.) What I wonder is, if the debt gets dumped on a company that is likely to go bankrupt, does that mean the bank that lent the money never gets repaid? If so, why don't banks refuse to lend for these transactions?

11 October 2019 (Presidential candidates and global heating) Sanders is the only presidential candidate who proposes a sufficient effort to curb global heating.

11 October 2019 (A nice tree for Kurds) (satire) Trump assures Kurds there will one day be very nice tree planted in D.C. commemorating their deaths.

11 October 2019 (Surveillance in Thailand) Thailand's government demonstrates its repressiveness by requiring cafes to keep records on customer's internet contacts, and to record customers' identification. It is obvious when Thailand does this that the purpose is repression. In countries that are less overtly repressive, this may not be so obvious, but it serves the goal of repression. This is why I refuse to identify myself to an organization that will store my name in a database in order to connect to the internet. If I do it at a friend's house or a host's house, I don't mind that person knows who I am, but the ISP must not know.

11 October 2019 (Anti-abortion laws) "Anti-abortion laws are an attack on our right to live with dignity and decide what happens to our bodies." Source

10 October 2019 (Asylum seekers jailed in Papua New Guinea) Papua New Guinea jailed 50 asylum seekers incommunicado. These are among the refugees that Australia gave Papua New Guinea to hold. I am sure Australia's minister of cruelty will claim he had nothing to do with jailing them.

10 October 2019 (Dubya's war crimes) Dear Ellen: The Problem With George W. Bush Is Not His Beliefs — It’s His War Crimes (and other destructive and deadly deeds).

10 October 2019 (China's NBA-to-NHL re-fanification camps) (satire) “To show that China will not tolerate this flagrant disrespect for our nation amongst the ranks of the NBA, we intend to enlighten our citizens in the ways of the National Hockey League,” said Vice Premier Han Zheng, overseeing the first of many re-fanification ceremonies in a detention center outside of Beijing…

10 October 2019 (No cooperation) The conman blocked cooperation with the impeachment inquiry. Congress could demand that the Supreme Court decide the conflict, but the cheating party has already rigged it to support their continuation in power at almost any price. However, Congress dare not give up.

10 October 2019 (Climate goals in Australia) Revealed: Northern Australia's fossil fuel plans push climate goals beyond reach.

10 October 2019 (Carbon emissions responsibility) "Just 20 companies are responsible for 35% of carbon emissions yet they continue to ignore calls for change." Source

10 October 2019 (Tax dodging) The OECD has proposed to reform taxes on multinational businesses so that they can't dodge all taxes by shifting nominal profits between countries.

10 October 2019 (Walter wedding) (satire) area man Daniel Walter was wed Saturday to Kelly Kaminski, a woman he hardly even knows after five years of dating.

10 October 2019 (Rebranding) How the Right [Wing] has tried to rebrand antisemitism. In particular, American Jews are called "antisemitic" if they are more loyal to the US and human rights than to Israel and its occupation policies.

10 October 2019 (Interrogation conditions) Sleep deprivation and a freezing cell: a Palestinian woman is interrogated by Israel. It would be no less wrong to treat a man the same way. However, the fact that this prisoner is a journalist does make the wrong worse.

10 October 2019 (Skin color in drug transportation in LA) In LA, a white driver is more likely to carry illegal drugs than a black driver, but the black driver is much more likely to be searched arbitrarily than the white driver. Even if there were not a hint of bias in these searches, they would still be an injustice.

10 October 2019 (Silencing protesters) Australian Extinction Rebellion protesters are being given bail with a requirement not to associate in any way with other members of the group. The state wants them to go home and act neutral. Whatever they do, it must not be that. It is better to reject bail and be jailed.

10 October 2019 (Silencing speakers) Australia censored speakers in a cybersecurity conference — banning two whistleblowers from speaking there, and trying to stop someone else from showing how Australia's encryption law was similar to China's.

10 October 2019 (Global warming in California) Substantial parts of rural California are facing a power shutoff to avoid fires started by electric power. A friend was told the shutoff might last for 36 hours. This is one of the many forms of harm done by global heating. Not the worst harm, but spread over a wide area. In 20 years there will be much worse regular problems.

10 October 2019 (ICE Medical aid) A Guatemalan refugee was seriously ill due to having been shot in the head. The treatment US border thugs offered him was months of solitary confinement, and ibuprofen.

10 October 2019 (Business supremacy in Australia) Australia's two principal parties, both more or less neoliberal in philosophy, are both in favor of two new business-supremacy treaties. The article does not even touch on how such treaties can undermine democracy; it gives no information on whether the treaty includes an ISDS (I Sue Democratic States) clause that would give foreign businesses the power to (effectively) veto laws.

10 October 2019 (HKmap) China has openly demanded that Apple obey orders to ban the protest-supporting HKmap.live app. I would consider that app a totally good thing, if only it were free software. Come to think of it, there is probably an Android version. It could be released as free software and included in FDroid — and it should be. Readers, if you know the developers of HKmap.live, would you please suggest this to them? An app to defend freedom ought to respect freedom too.

10 October 2019 (War with law) "President Trump is at war with the rule of law. This won't end well." Source

10 October 2019 (Poverty in Bangladesh) Economic growth has lifted a large fraction of Bangladesh out of poverty. Slowly, things are getting better. Alas, this progress cannot continue for very long, because of an overriding factor that the article fails to mention: global heating. Sea-level rise will inundate substantial parts of Bangladesh, and millions will be forced off their land. Indeed, the cloth from which to make the clothing pushes against resource limits. Most articles about development of poor countries, indeed most articles about possible future economic growth, disregard the limits to growth. These limits used to be projections into the distant future, but we are starting to run into them, and they will press humanity tightly in the next few decades.

10 October 2019 (More crimes) White House notes on the conman's phone calls could find more crimes to impeach him for.

10 October 2019 (Samer Arbid) Israeli thugs arrested Samer Arbid and tortured him, stopped him from seeing a lawyer, then took him to a hospital in critical condition and didn't tell his family.

10 October 2019 (Ending sectarian hostility) One way to end sectarian hostility in Northern Ireland is through integrated schools — integrated with Catholics and Protestants.

10 October 2019 (Granting rights to a personified "Nature") The Swedish parliament is considering a constitutional amendment that would grant a personified "Nature" the rights to "exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve." I am in favor of making ecocide a crime, and also other acts that greatly reduce habitats or the world's greenhouse gas capture. I can't agree that "Nature" is capable of having rights. I am specifically worried by the mention of "evolve" in that list. Evolution has no target; it means that things change however they happen to change. If "Nature" has a right to evolve, that seems to mean a right not to be shaped intentionally by humans. That could possibly lead to prohibiting efforts to eradicate intrusive species, even efforts to keep them out. In the US, it is humans that want to stop kudzu, zebra mussels, Asian carp, Burmese pythons and many more introduced species from wiping out other species. In evolution, such things happen, and the fact that human activity introduced those species into the US doesn't alter the fact that they are present now. Would "Nature's" "right to evolve" cover viruses such as smallpox and polio, or the protozoa that cause malaria and sleeping sickness? Let's not risk it.

10 October 2019 (Urgent: Cancel student debt) US citizens: call on Congress to cancel student debt for attending colleges that went broke. If you sign, please spread the word!

9 October 2019 (No business donation) Lobbyists are denouncing Sanders' decision to bar business donations to the Democratic National Committee if he wins the Democratic nomination for president. Sanders welcomes their hatred. Money from business can help a party win, but the price of accepting that money is that the party has to represent business. Bravo, Bernie Sanders!

9 October 2019 (Loneliness epidemic) 1/3 of millennials generally feel lonely; 1/4 can't identify a single real friend. This could be because "social media" have distracted them from the activities where one can make real friends. Would it be more accurate to refer to them as "antisocial media"?

9 October 2019 (Right to protest) From the US to Hong Kong, the right to protest peacefully is under attack.

9 October 2019 (Computer game addiction clinic) NHS opens clinic to help child addicts of computer games.

9 October 2019 (Uighur repression) US blacklists 28 Chinese companies and government agencies over Uighur Repression. This is the right thing for every country to do. It is a shame that the unabashed cruelty of the bully and his ministers has stripped this of moral seriousness.

9 October 2019 (Modi's vision) "Modi’s vision for [India] is one that stifles dissent and difference, in defiance of its people’s history." Source

9 October 2019 (Hong Kong and Xi) Hong Kong suspends metro system and closes banks after violent protests. The ban on face masks enraged the people. The move could backfire. Xi can crush Hong Kong if he resorts to unlimited force. What I hope is that that will boost general hatred for him and his repressive regime. I think other countries should ban WeChat and the other Chinese digital systems that are used to impose conformity on Chinese people living outside China.

8 October 2019 (Tree thieves) Thieves often cut down trees in US national forests and sell them.

8 October 2019 (Emergency in Hong Kong) Lam's emergency decree banning wearing masks in Hong Kong was a big inspiration for the citizens. However, the thugs have started arresting people for wearing masks. Ironically, the "emergency" law that the Hong Kong puppet government is using was imposed on its colony by the UK. Hong Kong did not have a democratic government until the absence of democracy there embarrassed the UK, which was criticizing China for planning to deny democracy to Hong Kong. In such situations, it is a fundamental mistake to compare the wrongs of two parties. Rather, we should hold each one responsible. The UK should have given Hong Kong a democratic government much earlier, but that lateness doesn't excuse what China has done to make democracy a sham.

8 October 2019 (Turkey and Kurdish Syria) The bully agreed that Erdoğan could attack part of the Kurdish region of Syria. Supposedly Turkey will take over holding the captured supporters of PISSI. I suspect it will gradually kill them off, over time — but how will Turkey get hold of them to start with? By attacking and capturing the prisons? In the confusion, many of them would get loose, and they could become underground supporters of PISSI. If Turkey and Northeast Syria made a deal to hand over the prisoners, that could be carried out.

8 October 2019 (Extinction rebellion should pressure) The next challenge for Extinction Rebellion is to pressure politicians to propose climate defense plans that could could possibly do the job. Plans like the ones advocated here. “We always apologize for causing inconvenience, but this is nothing compared to the inconvenience that is going to start happening when we start to run out of food and water.” Source

8 October 2019 (Punishing California) The bully is punishing California by selling oil leases there.

8 October 2019 (Daring) The bully has responded to impeachment with flagrant illegalities: "Stop me if you can!"

8 October 2019 (Urgent: Investigate communications breakdown) US citizens: call on Congress to investigate how Hurricane Maria caused a general communications breakdown in Puerto Rico. If you sign, please spread the word!

8 October 2019 (Urgent: Protection of whistleblowers' identities) US citizens: call on the acting DNI to pledge to protect the identity of whistleblowers that report on the bully's crimes. The bully is trying to find out the Ukraine whistleblower's identity, so that people can persecute per. Some sentences in the article are hard to understand due to referring to an individual whistleblower as "them" instead of "per". If you sign, please spread the word!

8 October 2019 (Army bases named after Confederate generals) Ten US army bases are named after Confederate generals that fought against the US army. Some of them were special champions of slavery. I understand the concept of honoring specific soldiers separately from the issue of slavery, but I don't think all of them were ever soldiers in the US Army. In any case, rejecting the Confederacy, along with the system of slavery it fought to defend, takes priority. The army should change those names.

8 October 2019 (Jailed tourists traded for Iranian prisoner) Australia traded an Iranian prisoner for two Australian tourists jailed in Iran. The Iranian prisoner was accused by the US of violating trade sanctions. I don't think Australia had any reason to cooperate with that. At the same time, this demonstrates that Iran is quick to treat visitors as pawns.

8 October 2019 (US diplomatic campaign against Venezuela) The US diplomatic campaign against Venezuela is making no progress. However, the economic sanctions are doing harm.

8 October 2019 (Repression of climate protests) Australia's planet-roaster governments at all levels stand firm for committing ecocide and mass murder, and they don't intend to let annoying protesters interfere. It's repression all the way.

7 October 2019 (Traitor rhetoric) Bogus Johnson's message, "If you don't support us you're a traitor", is stirring up death threats against Labour MPs. As a man of little moral scruples, he may rejoice in intimidating them from campaigning by meeting their constituents.

7 October 2019 (Children in cages) Putting children (or adolescents) in cages is also an impeachable offense: it demonstrates direct contempt for laws that the president's duty is to uphold.

7 October 2019 (Protect bilbies) A fenced-off national park in Australia will provide a safe habitat for the threatened bilby. Keeping cats and foxes out of such a space requires maintenance. A few decades from now, if civilization is too hard pressed, people will let those fences fall apart, and cats and foxes will kill the bilbies. Perhaps before that happens it will be possible to wipe out the feral cats and foxes in Australia, as well as the cane toads and rabbits, and other introduced species that shouldn't be there. Might it be possible to clone the extinct lesser bilby?

7 October 2019 (Giant sequoias) Human fire-suppression practices have made giant sequoia trees vulnerable to fire. Droughts caused by global heating make them vulnerable to beetles. Global heating could make the places they now live unsuitable for them. They may need to grow in other places — but we cannot predict the microclimate of a particular place in 30 years, let alone the different microclimate in 60 years, ore the even more different microclimate in 90 years.

7 October 2019 (Future children) Extinction Rebellion activist: "I'm scared of my own future. How could anyone think about having kids now? It's not even just about the carbon footprint and population growth … What kind of world are you thinking they're going to live in?"

7 October 2019 (Labour and generics) Labour's pledge to authorize generic manufacture despite drug patents will save lives. No sooner did the WTO get set up, imposing drug patents on all member countries but allowing an exception for compulsory licensing when necessary, than big countries started pressuring against use of that exception. In the late 90s, President Clinton put Al Gore in charge of that pressure. Jamie Love pointed out to Gore that this would look bad if he ran for president, and Gore stopped.

6 October 2019 (Preemptive arrests) London thugs preemptively arrested suspected Extinction Rebellion protesters preparing for another nonviolent action.

6 October 2019 (Carcinogenic chemicals in firefighting) One after another, the chemicals used to fight fires are being found carcinogenic. Will we have any acceptable way to put out fires when water won't do it?

6 October 2019 (Pseudo-discovery) (satire) the nation’s top pseudo-scientists announced Friday that they had harnessed a high-energy quartz crystal capable of reversing the effects of being a Gemini.

6 October 2019 (Sniper's targets) "Almost all the nearly 10,000 persons shot by live fire by Israeli professional snipers have been unarmed civilians posing no threat to anyone." Source The heartless president wants the US to do the same thing to people crossing the border.

6 October 2019 (Trump gifts) (satire) Trump furiously searching Raytheon catalog for gift after realizing he promised China And Ukraine same Javelin missile.

6 October 2019 (Medicare profiteers) Many for-profit "Medicare advantage" medical plans, which add to the coverage Medicare itself provides, have been cheating their customers. Saboteur officials want to help and encourage them.

6 October 2019 (Wealth migration) The bully wants to limit immigration to the US to wealthy people only. Medicare for all would save so much of our medical costs that we could afford to cover immigrants.

6 October 2019 (Victims deportation) London thugs agreed to stop the practice of reporting crime victims for deportation, but they are desperate to resume. That practice threatens public safety for everyone: it makes people in the group least likely to commit violent crime afraid to report it or testify about it. I think Corbyn would put an end to it for good and all.

6 October 2019 (Plutocrat funding) Serving the rich is not as useful for presidential candidates as it used to be. Sanders raised almost 1.7 times as much money, from small donations alone, as Biden got from plutocrats.

6 October 2019 (Prohibiting customers anonymity) Some large US movie theater chains have prohibited customers from covering their faces if they go to watch one particular movie. The important issue here is anonymity. Do those theaters save pictures of their customers? Do they save those pictures permanently? Do they make those pictures available to any other entity, even when no crime is reported?

6 October 2019 (Foreign interfering) "Imagine if the CIA were asked to bring down the government of Australia." Source This is not hard to imagine, since it did just that in 1975.

6 October 2019 (Visiting Iran) Two of three Australian visitors recently imprisoned in Iran have been freed. The third has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. I give roughly the same advice as the Australian government about visiting Iran: "reconsider your need to travel", and stay away.

6 October 2019 (Urgent: No face recognition at music festivals) US citizens: call on music festivals not to use face recognition. The site also indicates what various festivals say they will do about this. If you sign, please spread the word!

6 October 2019 (More capabilities, fewer results) Ralph Nader presents a series of ironic contrasts between increased raw capabilities and decreased actual results. In some cases, there may be an ironic causal relationship. The difficulty of getting through to people personally could be due to the larger number of people that could try to reach them. The increase in exercise opportunities may be the result of increased obesity. The increase in numbers of hungry Americans could be partly due to the increased international trade in food.

6 October 2019 (State Department warped by the corrupter) Ukraine Texts Show How [the corrupter] Has Warped the State Department … into serving him personally rather than government policies. Government policies can be evil and unjust in other ways, but inserting personal corruption is no remedy for that — it only adds another level of evil.

5 October 2019 (Evidence from torture) Ahmed Abu Ali was convicted in the US based on evidence obtained by Salafi Arabia's torturers. (They testified that they did not torture him.)

5 October 2019 (No outside thoughts allowed) (satire) … Amazon reportedly issued a reminder Wednesday that the company expressly forbids bringing outside thoughts into the workplace.

5 October 2019 (Reviving democracy) "Democracies will only begin to revive when we reverse the Reagan Revolution and return to the classical economic and political systems that existed in the Western world before the neoliberal 1980s." Source If all "democracy" gets you is what trickles down from plutocrats' excreta, it isn't functioning properly.

5 October 2019 (Access to abortion in Ireland) Ireland has legalized abortion, but antiabortionists are making it difficult to get an abortion. Women have resumed the campaign to make abortion accessible.

5 October 2019 (Public banks) California has legalized public banks, so that cities don't have to enrich private banks holding their funds.

5 October 2019 (Support whistleblowers) Snowden calls on the mainstream media to support whistleblowers that inform the public, such as Daniel Hale who is being prosecuted for publishing right now.

5 October 2019 (Purdue and small farms) Saboteur of Agriculture Purdue told the owners of small farms to drop dead.

5 October 2019 (Energetic recall campaign in Alaska) Alaska Governor Dunleavy faces an energetic recall campaign after he made sweeping cuts on spending that helps the non-rich. The cuts were advised by the Koch brothers' lobbying organization.

5 October 2019 (Fossil fuels subsidies in Equator) Ecuador is paralyzed by protests over an end to fuel subsidies. Subsidies for fossil fuels boost the consumption of fossil fuels, just as taxes on them reduce consumption. Thus, it is vitally important to eliminate all subsidies to fossil fuels, whether at the retail level, the extraction level, or the transport level. However, for poor people this is not merely an incentive to conserve, it can ruin them immediately. Therefore, it is important to protect the poor from this effect. One way is to distribute the subsidy money to the poor in some other way. It can also help to taper off the subsidy rather than cut it abruptly. Why did Ecuador do it the cruel way? The answer is two acronyms long: "US, IMF". President Moreno accepted US dominion, the US pushed Ecuador to surrender to the IMF, and the IMF aims (as usual) to crush the poor.

5 October 2019 (Bird extinction) Half the bird species in the UK are heading towards extinction. Mammal species are doing a bit better, as only a quarter are at risk. That will increase in a few decades as global heating speeds up.

5 October 2019 (Forcing hand on Ukraine) US officials told Ukraine's President Zelenskiy in writing that to get US civilian aid he would have to publicly call for an investigation of Hunter Biden. They even sent him words he was supposed to say to the public. Ukrainian officials were uncomfortable with this corrupt deal. They did not like being a tool for dishonest US domestic politics. I suspect that the bully had a feeling Ukraine would not go through with it and that he canceled US military aid to increase the pressure. But this backfired.

5 October 2019 (Lula's exoneration) Now that Lula's trial has been exposed as corrupt, prosecutors want to release him from prison while letting his conviction stand. Lula insists on exoneration, which would allow him to run for office again. The real question is, how to get rid of ecocidal president Bolsonaro and allow Lula to assume the office he would surely have won if not for the unfair trial against him.

5 October 2019 (Tyranny in India) The Silencing of Kashmir: Arundhati Roy on India, Modi, and Fascism. The repression of Kashmir has continued so long that we cannot consider it a momentary action. It is a lasting military occupation. India used to be a democracy, with some problems. Now it is being rapidly modi-fied into outright repressive tyranny.

5 October 2019 (Curfew in Hong Kong) After one repressive measure in Hong Kong (banning face masks), Lam threatens a curfew next. Hong Kong elections are rigged, a sham, so delaying one would be no loss.

4 October 2019 (Single-use packaging) Industrial proposals for recycling single-use packaging have big flaws. The are not sustainable for the long term. We need to move to repeated-use packaging.

4 October 2019 (Stock buybacks) When the SEC allowed corporations to buy back stock, it gave the stockholders a way to drain the corporations. As a side effect, it put US corporations on the road to failure in the market.

4 October 2019 (Banks and identity theft responsibility) "I was scammed by a fraud so ingenious even bank staff were fooled." Source If the bank staff are fooled by the fraud, the bank should have to make good the loss. That's how it used to be. It was the bank's responsibility to detect and stop fraud, not the customer's. If the bank failed to do this, the loss was to the bank. With internet banking, banks redefined this. Instead of "fraud against the bank", they decided to call it "identity theft", a crime against the customer. Which means that the customer loses the money instead of the bank. This is one reason I don't do internet banking. The other reason is that I would have to run nonfree Javascript code.

4 October 2019 (Urgent: support popular vote) US citizens: support the National Popular Vote Compact to elect the president by national popular vote. If you sign, please spread the word!

4 October 2019 (Killed for sitting) The thugs that shot and killed unarmed black man Stephon Clark will not face charges. However, Amber Guyger was sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing Botham Jean. I don't think merely finding a man in what you believe is your apartment excuses killing him, if he is only sitting on the couch watching TV and eating ice cream.

4 October 2019 (Refugees DNA sampling for surveillance) When the bully ordered border thugs to take DNA samples from refugees, supposedly that was in order to reunite families after first separating them. That made no sense as a reason. Now it is overt: surveillance as such is the purpose. DNA samples did not make sense for reuniting families because (1) the people in a family are not necessarily biologically related, and (2) there are much easier ways to do it.

4 October 2019 (Urgent: impeach) US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say, "Impeach the conman now." If you call, please spread the word!

4 October 2019 (Polluter revenge) Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger won the lawsuit against Chevron for polluting part of Ecuador, so Chevron has destroyed his life with an unfair trial, apparently rigged by the judge.

4 October 2019 (Harvard preferences) 43% of the white students admitted to Harvard College were given a special preference, often for being an athlete or the child of an alum, a faculty member, or a donor. Most of those would not have been admitted without without the preference. Racial wealth inequality ensures that few black applicants have any of those preferences, except perhaps being athletes.

4 October 2019 (Kindness in discourse) "The language of violence and outrage is dominating our discourse. To defeat it, we must learn not to respond in kind." Source Perhaps we need to adopt the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines for political discussions.

4 October 2019 (Pedestrians deaths) The number of pedestrians killed (and the number injured) by car collisions in the US increases every year. It is not clear why. The first step in understanding this issue might be to report on the number of pedestrians killed per pedestrian mile walked. Driverless cars with nonfree software, and driverless taxis, may not kill additional people through collisions, but the increased political repression that they facilitate could easily kill protesters and whistleblowers. Simply repressing protesters and whistleblowers could pave the way for policies that will kill millions of non-rich people.

4 October 2019 (Cover their victims) Instead of covering right-wing extremists and what they say or do, which gives them opportunities to sabotage discourse, cover their victims.

4 October 2019 (War on science) [The saboteur's] War on Science Has Hit 'Crisis Point', Experts Warn.

4 October 2019 (Peace with nuclear North Korea) North Korea claims to have launched a ballistic missile from a submarine. This makes North Korea a real nuclear threat. There is nothing the US can safely do to change this; we must simply accept this. Attempting to eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles with a military attack would court disaster, since anything other than total success would likely result in a nuclear war. It is possible for two nuclear powers to remain at peace. I am surprised that North Korea, an impoverished country, has been able to make so much progress in missiles. Has it been receiving continuing help?

4 October 2019 (Caligula) The infant had a tantrum about impeachment while hosting Finland's president for a joint press conference. Everyone there was bullied to pretend it was normal. Pundits talk about the "imperial presidency" — this is the presidency of Caligula.

4 October 2019 (Home median price) In most of the US, a worker of average salary can't afford to buy a home with the median price. And things are getting worse. Use of the average (mean) to compute the salary to compare tends to understate the problem, since the median wage is likely to be lower than the mean wage. A significant factor is that new jobs in the US are concentrated in a few very successful cities.

4 October 2019 (Forest ranger's low hopes of seeing tree) (satire) … rookie forest ranger TJ Hayward told reporters Friday that he was not getting his hopes up about seeing a tree on his first day of work.

4 October 2019 (Australian banks and right-wing government) Australian banks convinced the right-wing government to enforce "responsible lending" laws weakly and tell the borrowers that if they don't understand the consequences of loan contracts, it's their tough luck.

4 October 2019 (Oceans and ice caps) Oceans and Ice Caps to be Compromised Beyond Repair Unless We Put an End to Fossil Fuels Now, Finds New IPCC Report.

3 October 2019 (Singapore's new censorship law) Singapore's new censorship law will permit government ministers to order deletion of "fake news". The bullshitter wants that power, and you can imagine what he would do with it. Singapore's ministers are not bullshitters; their lies are consistent. Their repression may be sober and predictable, but it will still be repression.

3 October 2019 (Fusion center tracks activists) The Oregon Titan Fusion Center was established to stop terrorists, but it helped track environmental activists. Such mission creep is easy, and when big oil asks right-wing thugs to help crush protesters, they will tend to give help. We must make sure they don't have the opportunity.

3 October 2019 (Foreign policy threat) The conman's foreign policy of corruption threatens even US national security in the narrowest sense. In a broader sense, the security of the US as a society depends on more honesty, more democracy, and less inequality. We already knew that the conman is opposed to all three.

3 October 2019 (Global warming at workplace) Even if the heat outside isn't enough to kill you, the heat in a factory or bakery can do it. Revealed: Hundreds of Migrant Workers Dying of Heat Stress in Qatar Each Year. They are working outdoors, and heat stress can kill them even in the cooler parts of the year. If you build a building in a place like Qatar, you're betting that global heating will be curbed and reversed. Will Qatar have the sense to try to cut down world greenhouse gas emissions?

3 October 2019 (Climate marketing) "Big food and agribusiness companies are desperate to portray themselves as part of the solution to the climate crisis." Source Their own initiatives, presented as ways to reduce greenhouse emissions, have failed to do so.

3 October 2019 (Renewable energy in universities) A campaign aims to pressure 150 US universities to commit to moving quickly to 100% renewable energy. The universities themselves are responsible for a small fraction of US greenhouse gas emissions, but the campaign makes sense because they would influence the rest of society. We need a similar campaign demanding universities move to free software.

3 October 2019 (Green New Deal in Congress) Environmentalists in Congress support Mass Senator Markey, coauthor of the Green New Deal, and oppose Joe Kennedy's running against him. It turns out Kennedy even owns fossil fuel stocks.

3 October 2019 (Homeless local persecution) The local social network Nextdoor excludes homeless people, which makes it ideal for organizing a neighborhood to persecute the homeless.

3 October 2019 (Whales and carbon) Whales sequester large amounts of carbon. This service may be worth millions of dollars per whale to humanity.

3 October 2019 (Evoting vulnerabilities) Some [US] voting machines still have decade-old vulnerabilities.

3 October 2019 (Corporations prosecution) For many years, the US Department of Justice has basically ceased to prosecute large corporations. Instead it allows the corporations to plead "guilty but not subject to punishment". Often the same corporation does this over and over.

3 October 2019 (Sanders' wealth tax) Sanders proposes an annual wealth tax of around 5% on billionaires. That would cut their fortunes in half in 15 years. Eventually they would get into a lower bracket and the tax rate would decrease, I presume.

3 October 2019 (Urgent: Terminate propaganda program) Everyone: call on Netflix to cancel "Border Security: America's Front Line". That show is propaganda for the border thugs. I have supported this petition calling on Netflix to terminate one program, even though it does not go as far as I really wish. Netflix ought to shut down entirely, because its manner of operation attacks the freedom of its users. DRM.

Requiring users to identify themselves.

Making users agree to be antisocial in three ways (not sharing copies, not lending the one copy, not giving the one copy). I have refused to support petitions that asked Netflix to change how it handles certain programs because they implicitly support the continued operation of Netflix without correcting those injustices. If you sign, please spread the word!

3 October 2019 (Urgent: End ban on most Muslim visitors) US citizens: call on Congress to end the bully's indirect ban on most Muslim visitors to the US, as well as other arbitrary obstacles to visas. If you sign, please spread the word!

2 October 2019 (Banning books for prisoners) It is amazing and absurd how far US prisons have gone in banning books for prisoners.

2 October 2019 (Impeachable offense) "An impeachable offense occurs when a president violates the oath to abide by the constitution’s limits and respect its values. [The cheater's] use of political pressure on a foreign power to further his own re-election chances clearly fits." Source

2 October 2019 (Crime against nature as person) Efforts to make it a crime to destroy parts of nature are going astray by designating them as "persons". If you start from the fixed assumption that only a person can have rights, the only way to give a river or an ecosystem rights is to call it a person. But that assumption is unnecessary.

2 October 2019 (Abortion in Oaxaca) Oaxaca has legalized abortion in the first 12 weeks. Let's hope this serves as an example for the rest of Latin America.

2 October 2019 (Solar power in Gaza) An indomitable Palestinian is bringing solar power kits to Gaza to substitute for the diesel generator that can't get fuel.

2 October 2019 (Tory party adopts antimuslimism) The Tory party has adopted antimuslimism. This at the same time as Labour is suffering from the zero-tolerance extirpation of antisemitism, making it difficult to for Labour supporters to criticize Israel's continued occupation (and creeping annexation) of Palestine.

1 October 2019 (Fake proof of Maduro was supporting Colombian rebels) Colombia published supposed "proof" that Maduro, in Venezuela, was supporting Colombian rebels. But the "proof" proved to be fake, and Colombia's head of military intelligence was found to be insufficiently intelligent.

1 October 2019 (Massive surveillance to catch people with unexplained wealth) French plans for massive surveillance to catch people with unexplained wealth carry a big danger of tyranny. The talk of "data protection" is a clear example of how that concept is bullshit, The idea is that the state collects your personal data and uses it against you. So what if the state "protects" it against some other use against you? Perhaps it is acceptable to look at at publicly visible postings for this. But the state is surely not going to limit itself to those. I expect it will also look at "private" communications on the same sites. The danger of snooping on people's purchases on eBay is that once the state benefits from tracking people's every purchase, it will try to force people to identify themselves in every purchase.

1 October 2019 (Effective climate defense plans must also address housing shortage) To be effective, a climate defense plan must also address the shortage of housing. I disagree about one point. We should not encourage 10 million immigrants to come to the US unless we reduce the per-capita environmental footprint of Americans to a level comparable to Europe. Without that, bringing the immigrants to the US would harm the whole world.

1 October 2019 (Chile disregarding the laws about national parks) Chile has given permission to use bulldozers or steam shovels to dig up buried pirate treasure, disregarding the laws about national parks. One must suspect corruption at work.

1 October 2019 (Managed decline of fossil fuel production) Climate Leadership Requires a Managed Decline of Fossil Fuel Production. Our use of fossil fuels will end. Each path to end it — barring some technological miracle — is some mix of painful and disastrous. We had better choose the pain, and soon.

1 October 2019 (Italy legalized assisting of suicide) Italy's constitutional court ruled to legalize assisting the suicide of someone facing "intolerable suffering" due to an incurable illness. Significantly, this is not limited to people who will die anyway soon.

1 October 2019 (German coal) Germans vow to resist the expansion of a strip-mine for coal onto their lands. The bigger danger would come from burning the coal.

1 October 2019 (Feeding birds) (satire) Audubon society president spends another morning in attic feeding nation’s 2.9 billion missing birds.

1 October 2019 (Fossil fuel industry crime) Sanders vows, if elected, to pursue criminal charges against fossil fuel CEOs for knowingly 'destroying the planet'. What they have done ought to be a crime. I don't know whether there is or was a law against it, though. Is it negligent homicide?

30 August 2019 (Urgent: DoorDash tips) In the US: call on DoorDash to stop confiscating workers' tips. You can also ask the restaurant, before you order takeout, "Do you use DoorDash for deliveries?" If it does, say "I will order somewhere else." If you sign, please spread the word!

30 August 2019 (FBI search list) Journalist Dave Lindorff has been put on an FBI-controlled list for an extra search when he boards a plane to the US. He knows this because a British official told him — the FBI won't confirm it. Fortunately for him, his harassment is minor: the usual quick explosives test, when he flies to the US. For others, it results in substantial harassment. The fact that a journalist is on the list suggests this is all politically motivated.

30 August 2019 (Amazon deforestation) Brazilian Amazon deforestation Surges to Break August Records.

30 August 2019 (Private social credit system) Private companies including Uber, Airbnb and WhatsApp are building a private social credit system, in which anyone can be banned arbitrarily from the very dis-services that people say they "can't live without". If a bar or restaurant insisted on knowing who I am before letting me in, I'd leave pre-emptively.

30 August 2019 (Google's browser dominance) Google uses its dominance over browsers to defend its ad business. This exactly what antitrust law was designed to deal with. It suggests that breaking up Google would do some good. It would not go far enough, however, because it would not put an end to surveillance capitalism.

30 August 2019 (Money for Amazon fires) Burner Bolsonaro rejected the 20 million dollars to help put out fires in the Amazon, not for being too little, but for being too much. (More than zero is too much.) The latest idiotic distraction is to call this "colonialism". The Brazilian government claims the power to burn every tree in Brazil.

30 August 2019 (The next G7) "We need to cancel the next G7. Let's resume them when Trump is gone." The point of the G7 meetings is cooperation (even if only partial) among the most powerful countries. The bullshitter has no interest in that. It is useless to make a deal with him, since he may break it the next day or the next month. He will attend the meeting only to sow discord — he is the drama queen that would be king. Why make an opportunity for him?

30 August 2019 (Koch brothers campaigns) The Koch brothers funded organized campaigns to block construction of public transport in various cities across the US. Less public transit means they sell more oil. In a few decades, it means a bigger disaster with a bigger chance of killing you.

30 August 2019 (Vaping and recycling) Vaping's Other Problem: Are E-Cigarettes Creating a Recycling Disaster? There is an obvious solution: impose a deposit that is high enough to discourage one-time use.

30 August 2019 (Urgent: Domestic Workers Bill of Rights) US citizens: call on Congress to support the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Act. The article brings up race in a way that is not truly pertinent. The US society of extreme inequality dumps injustice on the poor, and due to racism and other forms of prejudice, members of disprivileged groups are more likely to be poor. Therefore, many unrelated injustices hit them harder, including the mistreatment of domestic workers. But we don't need to refer to that to justify this bill, because it is a simple matter of right and wrong. Domestic workers deserve justice regardless of their demographics and regardless of whether they suffer from prejudice.

30 August 2019 (Urgent: Media coverage of Amazon fires) US citizens: call on media to cover the fires in the Amazon as much as they covered the fire in Notre Dame cathedral.

30 August 2019 (Stretching the term "autism") The term "autism" has been stretched so far that it is incoherent: to stretch from the mild abnormalities or Asperger's syndrome to mentally crippling disabilities. It may be the case that they all result from the same biological cause — does science know? But even if so, we can distinguish them for moral, social and legal purposes.

30 August 2019 (Regulation on face recognition) The EU is considering a weak regulation on face recognition. All it would do is give people the right to be informed when their face was recognized — and not always even that. This by itself would not protect society from massive surveillance, but the information obtained could aid campaigns to do that.

30 August 2019 (Bogus Johnson acting like monarch) Bogus Johnson has openly told Parliament it has no authority over what he does. He is trying to act the absolute monarch. The last time someone tried that, Parliament had him executed. The death penalty is wrong, but Parliament could sentence Johnson to life in prison.

30 August 2019 (Chinese expat writer Yang Hengjun is being investigated for spying) Chinese expat writer Yang Hengjun is being investigated for spying. More precisely, with "committing espionage crimes", which could mean anything that China wants us to think of as if it were spying. Tyrannical governments often are very secretive and may consider ordinary journalism, picking up information from the public, as spying.

30 August 2019 (US Forest Disservice) The US Forest Disservice proposes to eliminate environmental disclosure and public comment for over 90% of its decisions about permitting roads and exploitation in national forests. It would be able to trash any amount of forest land provided it does so in medium-size chunks.

30 August 2019 (The cruel structure of the gig economy) The cruel structure of the gig economy — or service sweatshop economy — is illustrated by a British family about to become homeless, after the breadwinner died because he didn't dare skip work to see a doctor.

30 August 2019 (Global aircraft production down after Boeing crashes) Aircraft Production Down 24% Globally after Boeing 737 Max Crashes. Each airplane contributes greatly to global heating. If this downturn means less flying in the future, that will be a good thing. But we cannot leave that to chance — we need a tax to make sure it happens.

30 August 2019 (US banking and tax regulations) US banking and tax regulations are ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in other countries, who were born while their mothers visited the US and thus have US citizenship but were not aware of that. The US should exempt foreign citizens who have not, in the past 10 years or since reaching adulthood, done anything to assert or acknowledge a connection to the US. However, in the mean time, other countries should protect their citizens.

29 August 2019 (Correction on Gun Control Note) In 2018 I thought I understood an artic