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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.

My intention is to make links only to publicly accessible, stable URLs. If you find a link to a page that requires subscription, please report that as you would report any other broken link.

Link Policy

31 December 2015 (Pete Hoekstra) Former congresscritter Pete Hoekstra supported NSA surveillance consistently while in office. He was shocked to discover recently that the NSA listened to him.

31 December 2015 (Brussels) Scandal in Brussels! Some soldiers and some thugs had a sex party in the office, while they were sleeping there because transport was shut down. Why this constitutes a problem or a wrong is not clear to me. It did not hurt anyone.

31 December 2015 (Taliban) Afghan journalists suspect that the attempts on their life come from a Taliban-supporting "fifth column" inside the Afghan government.

31 December 2015 (El Niño) Hunger Threatens Millions as El Niño Causes Drought And Floods. El Niño events have occurred for a long time, but this one comes on top of the effects of 1C of global heating. California seals are starving because sardines have had to head for colder water.

31 December 2015 (Putin's attacks) About 1/3 of the casualties of Putin's air attacks in Syria are civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

31 December 2015 (OpenJDK) Google is shifting Android to use OpenJDK rather than its own Java implementation which used a reimplementation of Java based on the proprietary header files of the proprietary Java implementation. This concrete result is good for the free software community, but the idea that a compatible implementation of an interface spec might infringe the copyright on header files is very very dangerous. Fortunately, the appeals court that made this decision hears copyright cases only in very rare circumstances. The FSF urged the Supreme Court not to consider the appeal because we feared it might sustain the appeal court's ruling, which would extend this bad decision to the whole US.

31 December 2015 (Marijuana) Roughly half the jobs in the US require urine tests to detect use of marijuana. This policy never made any sense, and it is even more absurd in states which have legalized marijuana.

31 December 2015 (Censorship in universities) 2015's notorious censorship attempts in universities. A school-sponsored sports team is not a person. I think it is legitimate for the school to exercize control over what ateam does, which would be wrong if directed towards an individual student.

31 December 2015 (Google's snooping) As usual, campaigns to limit Google's snooping on students through their schools demand an inadequate remedy. If the school makes an account in a student's name on a company's server, or stores any unencrypted information there about the student's activity, that is already a violation of the student's privacy. Parents must go beyond asking "Please sir, may my child have some more privacy" and organize to put an end to these snooping activities. In addition, Google services nearly all require the user to run nonfree software (written in Javascript).

31 December 2015 (Pentagon) The Pentagon is deliberately obstructing the release of prisoners from Guantanamo with a campaign of persistent non-cooperation.

31 December 2015 (Afghanistan) The US commander in Afghanistan says that the US will needs more troops to continue propping up the Afghan government. The choice, as I expected, is to keep propping it up ad infinitem or let it fall.

31 December 2015 (Thomas Podgoretsky) The UK's Minister for Cruel Deportation wants to deport Thomas Podgoretsky because he made the mistake of visiting the US, having a stroke and heart attacks there, and staying there until he was well enough to go home to the UK.

31 December 2015 (Tamir Rice) The excuses offered to the grand jury for the shooting of Tamir Rice beg questions that were apparently ignored — for instance, why didn't they stay a little further away and take a second to understand the situation.

31 December 2015 (US thugs) US thugs shot and killed at least 28 people this year who were holding pellet guns or BB guns. I wonder what fraction of them were black. I suspect thugs are more likely to take a pellet gun for a real gun when it is held by a black.

31 December 2015 (Hossein Derakhshan) In 2008, Hossein Derakhshan's blog was so influential that Iran imprisoned for it. Released in 2014, he encountered an Internet in which Facebook and Instagram discourage people from looking at any other web sites. Real discussion has been replaced by trivia videos.

31 December 2015 (Squatters in London) In London, squatters occupied the former mint site to protest against homelessness.

31 December 2015 (Syria) A six-month truce between Assad and rebels is holding in parts of Syria.

31 December 2015 (Ramadi) Between US air strikes and PISSI's explosive booby traps, Ramadi is now mostly a ruin. That's better than what it was a month ago, a stronghold of barbarity. I expect that the civilian survivors will say so. Helping them get their voice out, to show young Muslims what a monster PISSI is, will help them resist radicalization.

31 December 2015 (US and immigration) The US government is concealing parts of its contracts with companies that imprison immigration violators, specifically the parts that show how these contracts financiall pressure the government to imprison more of them.

31 December 2015 (DMCA) Prohibiting farmers from repairing tractors is not a side effect of the DMCA. It is part of the core goal.

31 December 2015 (Encryption) Americans must not stand for officials' advocating China-style attacks on our encryption systems. Encryption alone can't protect us from all the sorts of digital surveillance that are being set up in the US. Encryption won't stop systems from recognizing your license plate or your face. Encryption won't enable you to pay anonymously with a credit card, or carry a portable phone and not be tracked.

31 December 2015 (Erdogan) I Revealed the Truth about President Erdogan And Syria. For That, He Had Me Jailed.

31 December 2015 (Global heating) UK governments have repeatedly refused to confront the way global heating effects put Britain in danger.

31 December 2015 (Tamir Rice) The thug that killed Tamir Rice will not be prosecuted. Prosecutors often intentionally throw the fight in the grand jury. We need a special mechanism for bringing charges against thugs that shoot people, or make falls accusations.

31 December 2015 (Urgent: Protect victims of forced labor) Everyone: urge your government to sign the treaty to protect victims of forced labor.

[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the old link was broken.] More information about the treaty. If you don't run the Javascript code, you won't see anything in your browser to show that you signed, but in my case it did in fact work; you should get a confirmation email.

31 December 2015 (Japan apologizes to Korean women) Japan has apologized to the Korean women that it forced into prostitution during World War II. The Japanese army did that in other places, too, including what is now Indonesia. After the war, many of these women never went home because they felt ashamed — in effect internalizing the blame that (according to their culture) their families would have imposed on them.

31 December 2015 (The TPP) The TPP is harmful even if evaluated based on the "free trade" ideology. Of course, that ideology is a mistake because it reduces the effective power of democracy and increases the effective power of businesses. Existing "free trade" treaties are part of the reason that the US has become a plutocracy. This is why I advocate cancelling them. Part of the article uses the incoherent term "intellectual property". It is always a mistake, without exception, to group together copyrights and patents as if they were a single issue. And that term includes several other laws as well. If you think they are similar than you don't understand what they really do.

31 December 2015 (Polio vaccination in Pakistan and Afghanistan) Polio vaccination is advancing again in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Extremist groups have stopped opposing vaccination, and new infections have gone way down.

31 December 2015 (Blockade of Yemen) Taiz, in Yemen, is suffering from a siege imposed by the Houthis, within the general blockade of Yemen imposed by Salafi (*) Arabia and the US. The US is supporting this blockade (and the bombing and invasion) to suck up to some private interests, since nothing about the intervention serves any national interest. * Officially "Saudi Arabia", but its global support for the repressive and cruel Salafist form of Islam (which helped inspire al Qa'ida and PISSI) is the most important characteristic of that country.

31 December 2015 (Wind energy) Wind energy is becoming the most efficient investment in power generation. Now think of how much faster we would progress towards curbing global heating if fossil fuels did not enjoy their present subsidies.

31 December 2015 (Sequestering carbon in the soil) Agriculture may be able to sequester carbon in the soil.

31 December 2015 (Israel's "transparency" law) Israel's "transparency" law requires human rights NGO to disclose their funding, but right-wing NGOs have been given exemptions. The transparency requirement, per se, is not unjust, but it is being applied selectively to oppose human rights.

31 December 2015 (Iraqi army recapturing Ramadi) The Iraqi army is slowly recapturing Ramadi. Most of the PISSI fighters have fled, leaving a rear guard which seems to intend to slow the army's advance. The Iraqi army is not defeating PISSI's full strength. Nonetheless, the loss of Ramadi may weaken PISSI somewhat.

31 December 2015 (Bernie Sanders) Bernie Sanders: "I can win the backing of Donald Trump supporters." Trump (and others before him) have distracted them into blaming weak scapegoats. Sanders will show them who they should really be angry at: the plutocrats.

31 December 2015 (Deadly US ground beef) Ground beef in the US, if it isn't "organic grass-fed beef", is quite likely to harbor antibiotic-resistant bacteria that kill people. The organic grass-fed beef will cost more, but that won't bother you unless you eat too much beef (alas, many Americans do).

31 December 2015 (How Peabody Energy exploits poverty) How Peabody Energy exploits poverty to excuse burning coal. Coal is not going to make poor people better off, beyond a decade or two. The brunt of climate mayhem will fail mainly on the poor — hundreds of millions of them.

30 December 2015 (Juniper Networks back doors) Evidence that points to NSA involvement in putting the back door in Juniper Networks products.

30 December 2015 (Taliban in Helmand) The Taliban have taken over most districts in Helmand; Sangin is one of the few still being contested. They may hope to make it their headquarters.

30 December 2015 (Cocaine in "legitimate" capital markets) "Legitimate" capital markets are thoroughly hooked on cocaine; in laundering drug money, London is more important than the Cayman Islands.

30 December 2015 (War on sites that facilitate sharing) The copyright industry's war on sites that facilitate sharing causes harm to users even when not entirely successful. Please do not use our enemies' smear term, "piracy", to refer to sharing.

30 December 2015 (Guantanamo) Obama blames Congress for slowing the release of prisoners from Guantanamo, but he and his staff are primarily responsible for the delay. "Guantanamo" has come to stand for "imprisonment without trial", but they are not the same. Obama talks about "closing Guantanamo prison" but his method of doing so is to move imprisonment without trial to the US mainland. That would make it even more unjust. We could hope that the Supreme Court would consider it more clearly unacceptable — but what if it did the opposite? The US must end its imprisonment without trial. Every prisoner in Guantanamo deserves to get a real, fair trial or be freed.

30 December 2015 (TSA scanner policy) A lawsuit seeks to make the TSA change its policy of requiring some passengers to go through a scanner.

30 December 2015 (Game cr…apps) Modern gratis game cr…apps collect a wide range of data about their users and their users' friends and associates. Even nastier, they do it through ad networks that merge the data collected by various cr…apps and sites made by different companies. They use this data to manipulate people to buy things, and hunt for "whales" who can be led to spend a lot of money. They also use a back door to manipulate the game play for specific players. While the article describes gratis games, games that cost money can use the same tactics. All this reinforces the point that proprietary software is software for suckers.

30 December 2015 (Warm December) The unusually warm December is making some people concerned about their flowering perennials, some of which are blooming now instead of waiting for spring. However, what concerns me more is that this warm December will not be so unusual at the end of the century.

30 December 2015 (Listening machines) Beware the Listening Machines.

29 December 2015 (Transportation in the US) Most of the US has been restructured around automobiles. As people get older, eventually they can't drive any more, so they become stuck at home.

29 December 2015 (European Patent Office) The European Patent Office hired a surveillance company to snoop on its critics.

29 December 2015 (US supported creation of Salafist state) In 2013, the US supported the creation of some sort of Salafist "Islamic state" in Syria and Iraq as a way to weaken Assad. Be careful what you wish for.

29 December 2015 (Fluoridation of water) There is no conclusive evidence about whether fluoridation of water supply reduces tooth decay, though there is suggestive evidence that it does.

29 December 2015 (People's movements tracked in Hyde Park) The UK government tracked people's movements in Hyde Park through their mobile phones. This particular project did not record their names, but that would have been easy to do.

27 December 2015 (Work-related diseases) Work-related diseases kill 50,000 Americans a year. That's more than are killed by guns, and terrorism is a pinprick by comparison. Meanwhile, we could do a lot to reduce work-related diseases without limiting anyone's human rights.

27 December 2015 (Endangered species) The US Fish and Wildlife Service has become more active in considering endangered species and establishing protection for them. The case backlog is decreasing. Measures like the Endangered Species Act are adequate for dealing with local threats in a world that is stable overall. Of course, many countries don't have an Endangered Species Act and many governments are not able to really enforce such laws. But even if they did, that won't be enough in the future. Climate mayhem will swamp these local protection efforts, much as rising oceans will swamp sea walls.

27 December 2015 (Mosquito-borne virus spreading) A mosquito-borne virus in Brazil is spreading, and its spread can be measured by the thousands of babies born with microcephaly. Global heating effects are indirectly responsible for the spread of the mosquitos that transmit the virus.

26 December 2015 (Urgent: Oregon's national forests) US citizens: Tell Congress not to sell off or cut down Oregon's national forests.

26 December 2015 (Back Lives Matter protest) A Black Lives Matter protest at the Mall of America was not entirely blocked by the mall management armed with court orders. Nonetheless, the difficulties they faced show that replacing real public space with pseudo-public space inside malls is dangerous to democracy. People should have the right to protest inside malls.

26 December 2015 (Guber) Seattle has arranged to give Guber drivers a chance to unionize. This can help the drivers get more pay, but it won't do anything to reduce the surveillance that passengers are subject to, or save them from the requirement to run nonfree software.

26 December 2015 (Gmail psychological profiles) Google's Gmail and other connected services create psychological profiles of every user — and all the people they communicate with by email. A slowly progressing lawsuit claims that this violates California law. You can opt out of this by changing to some other mail service, running your own mail server, and/or encrypting the text of your emails with the GNU Privacy Guard.

26 December 2015 (Judaist fanatics) Judaist fanatics in Israel had themselves filmed celebrating the murder of an Arab toddler. Judaist, Christianist or Islamist, they are all enemies of human rights. The worst of them are killers, but the rest are still bad.

26 December 2015 (India rejects Facebook's power grab) India has blocked Facebook's plan to extend internet service without network neutrality. Access to the internet can be good or bad, depending on whether the internet respects your freedom. If people make the error of assuming that it is good unconditionally, that can lead them to mistake Facebook's power grab for a real gift.

25 December 2015 (Antibiotic-resistant bacteria in ground beef) Ground beef generally has bacteria all through it, and some of them can make people sick. Consumer Reports found that US ground beef, unless it is from 'grass-fed organic beef', often contains antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

25 December 2015 (British Muslims blocked from entering US) It appears the US is blocking many British Muslims from entering the US, often in arbitrary last-minute ways that cause unnecessary trouble and expense. Blocking 10 family members from traveling because of an objection to their one relative is especially nasty, and gratuitous. Because there is no way to find out in advance if you will be blocked in this way, British Muslims in general are afraid to buy tickets to the US. It seems to me that the US should offer a way to ask, before buying tickets, "Will you allow me to fly there?" If the US responds that you can go, and blocks you later, it should compensate you for the costs of your flight and other preparations. And it is unconscionable to block 11 people because of objections about one.

25 December 2015 (The "no fly list") The "no fly list" punishes people by surprise, and people are put in the list based on "predictive judgments" which can be based on nothing but noise.

25 December 2015 (Raid in Sangin) Afghan army reinforcements may kick the Taliban out of Sangin. If the Taliban melt away when confronted by a relief force, that will not constitute a victory for the Afghan government. Rather, it will mean that the Taliban are following through after a large, successful raid, in accord with standard guerrilla tactics. To turn this raid into a victory, the Afghan army would need to surround Sangin and kill the Taliban fighters caught in the trap. I don't think they will try it.

25 December 2015 (Prison for throwing stones at car) Israel sentenced Palestinian teenagers to 15 years in prison after they confessed under pressure to throwing stones at a car. The car was driven by a family that lives in an Israeli colony in Palestinian territory. One of the children in the car died from the attack. The killing was a serious crime, but there is no credible evidence about who did it.

25 December 2015 (Palestinian Christians) Palestinian Christians suffer from the occupation like Palestinian Muslims, but find it easier to move elsewhere.

24 December 2015 (Urgent: drone registration site) Does it work to use the US government drone registration site with LibreJS enabled to block nonfree Javascript code? Please email your answer to rms on the site gnu.org.

24 December 2015 (Charging more for products) Companies tend to charge more for their products aimed at women or girls than for comparable products aimed at men or boys. Why should scooters be meant specifically for one sex? There is no good reason for that. That too is a marketing ploy. Give a girl a blue scooter, and fight against creeping genderization of everything, while also saving money.

24 December 2015 (Obama's support for "moderate" Syrian resistance) The US military thought Obama's support for "moderate" Syrian resistance was only helping Jihadis, so it began feeding intelligence indirectly to Assad to help him fight those rebels.

24 December 2015 (Physical search instead of body scanning) The TSA may stop some passengers from requesting a physical search instead of body scanning. I don't object to the millimeter-wave scanners now in use, but I still consider this change dangerous. What if they move to another machine that is potentially dangerous, as the x-ray scanners were?

24 December 2015 (Colonies in Palestine) Israel's ambassador to the US has gone out of his way to send holiday gifts made by colonies in Palestine.

24 December 2015 (Wearing makeup to appear Asian (or black)) Is it wrong for Caucasian actors to wear makeup to appear Asian (or black)? The article presents an incoherent mixture of perceived insult, lack of Asian role models on TV, and loss of work for Asian actors. Any or all of those issues might be valid, but they are all different, and mixing them up produces only confusion. If it is a matter of work discrimination, how about making up nonwhite actors up to appear Caucasian? All actors' race would cease to matter. If it is a matter of visible role models on TV, that's a matter of appearance only. Why does it matter what the actor's real skin color or appearance is, beneath the makeup? If you feel insulted, please explain why an actor's makeup constitutes a statement about Asians, because I don't see that.

24 December 2015 (Poland's Christianist extremist government) Poland's Christianist extremist government is undermining the Supreme Court, apparently to facilitate a total ban on abortions. I support ending subsidies for IVF; the world has an excess of human babies and it makes no sense at all to spend public funds on making more. Once babies are born, we must make sure they get good food, medical care, education, and a good home with parents that are not stressed about a lack of money. Naturally, the right-wing government plans to cut that. Christianist extremist don't care about real babies.

24 December 2015 (The atmosphere as public trust) Officially designating the atmosphere as a public trust might help get some countries to act against global heating.

24 December 2015 (Exxon's global heating research) Exxon shared its global heating research with other major oil companies as far back as 1980. They have all been knowingly working to make sure the US government does not avoid disaster.

24 December 2015 (Loss of manufacturing jobs) The loss of manufacturing jobs in the US is not inevitable. It is the result of political choices.

24 December 2015 (Spending public assistance) The US and various states are prohibiting poor people from spending public assistance on various expensive habits that they can't afford anyway. The motive might be to fool the public into believing that welfare recipients really have money for luxury foods such as lobster, on ocean cruises, or even on tattoos. If you can barely afford food at all, you will do without those things anyway.

24 December 2015 (Libya's new unified government) The UN is moving towards authorizing Libya's new unified government to invite Western help to fight PISSI. An intervention in support of Libyan ground troops has a reasonable chance of success.

24 December 2015 (Israel considering Putin-style law) Israel is considering a Putin-style law to restrict human-rights NGOs that receive support from European governments. The President of Israel was called a traitor for meeting with the New Israel Fund.

24 December 2015 (Fall of Sangin) The fall of Sangin demonstrates the futility of NATO's trying to hold it. Once the Taliban started to resurge, the US and NATO never had a plausible plan for defeating the Taliban, since the Afghan government has never generated enough loyalty to do so. The only question is how long to prop it up.

24 December 2015 (Geneva conventions) Increasingly, wars involve bombing cities full of civilians, as countries ignore the Geneva conventions.

23 December 2015 (Antibiotic resistance) Humanity has not acted to slow antibiotic resistance; now it is "almost too late" to avoid losing the most important current antibiotics. The responsibility is the plutocratic state, which obeys agribusiness and disregards the general good.

23 December 2015 (US wages war against lots of Muslims) In response to occasional crimes by a few Muslims, the US wages actual war against lots of Muslims. I should point out that the guns used by Malik and his spouse were not lawfully purchased in the form he had them, and a stricter system of gun control could have made them difficult for him to get. Because the US is waging actual war, its innocent victims greatly outnumber the victims of Muslim terrorists in the US. Americans are much more likely to be killed by thugs than by terrorists. Christianist terrorism against US abortion facilities is a more serious threat because it is concentrated against a few. If you are an abortion doctor, that danger is large.

23 December 2015 (Exaggerated idea of level of danger) Lumping together crowd killing sprees with the more common multiple shootings in families and gangs gives the public an exaggerated idea of the level of danger from the former. If shootings cause around 110,000 casualties in the year in the US, that shows guns are a serious problem, but the sensational killing sprees are a small part of it.

23 December 2015 (Violent domestic relationships) Violent domestic relationships don't make sense in rational terms. The victims are so traumatized that they blame themselves for the other person's violence.

23 December 2015 (Dealing with terrorist videos) A Proposal for Dealing with Terrorist Videos on the Internet.

23 December 2015 (Clinton endorses FBI's take on encryption) Clinton has endorsed the FBI's take on encryption. I had already decided not to vote for her if she wins the nomination. I hope you will join me. But let's try to prevent that issue from arising. Please support the Sanders campaign.

23 December 2015 (Force-feeding immigration prisoners) A US court ruled that the US can force-feed immigration prisoners on hunger strike. This is a violation of their human rights. A sane person has a right to commit suicide and a right to fast to death. Now that the prisoners have been denied the right to hunger strike, I expect that some will commit quick suicide as a protest.

23 December 2015 (Ill treatment of homeless people) Many people and governments treat homeless people like vermin. Laws that shove them into obscure corners help others ignore how badly they are being treated. Ultimately this is done to please store owners (who want them out of the way) and rich (who don't want to pay taxes to give them homes). The same rich people are responsible for the policies that make people homeless.

23 December 2015 (Prison) Could prison be replaced with a different correctional system?

23 December 2015 (Spain's parliament divided) Spain's parliament is divided; it is not clear who will govern.

13 December 2015 (Syria) After some rebels evacuated al-Waer, in Homs, others have made a cease fire with Assad's rule.

13 December 2015 (Poland) Poles held a large protest against the recently elected right-wing government which seems to be trying to twist the constitution.

13 December 2015 (Bernie Sanders) A number of interesting points about Bernie Sanders. If Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, I won't vote for her. She's a plutocratist, part of the problem rather than the solution. If we keep voting for the lesser plutocratist, our government will get more and more plutocratist. I will vote Green. I support Sanders because he's not just a lesser evil. He's good.

13 December 2015 (Atheists in Lincoln) Atheists in Lincoln, Nebraska, booked all the exhibition space in the state capitol building so that no sectarian exhibit can be presented about Christmas. It is not right to promote a religion in a state capitol building. It is also not right to censor any view by cornering the market on places to present it, but the atheists didn't do that. There must be plenty of places in Lincoln, outside the capitol, where manger displays for Christmas can be set up — churches, for instance.

13 December 2015 (Unhappiness) Some research suggests that unhappiness does not predispose people to illness. There are distinct questions here: Factual: does being unhappy tend to cause other sorts of harm to you? Moral: is unhappiness something unfortunate that happens to you, or is it wrong on your part? The research suggests that the answer to (1) is no. That's fortunate, for unhappy people. But whatever the answer to (1) is, it does not mean that being unhappy is blameworthy. If there is no ethical, reliable way to decide to be happy, then your unhappiness is no more your fault than an injury or a birth defect.

13 December 2015 (H-1B visas) Senator Cruz is proposing to block companies from using H1B visas to bring foreign workers to the US temporarily for training. It is a good cause, but his solution operates by closing off H-1B visas except for very highly paid jobs. I think the solution should more directly address the problem. I propose that any company or division hiring H-1B workers should be forbidden to eliminate any US jobs for the next two years, unless it has suffered a big drop in gross sales, or to move any work out of the US or to a subcontractor during that time. Fines for violations should be very high. Also, workers who are told to train their successors (and then be fired) should refuse to train them, or quit immediately. Resisting oppression calls for some guts.

13 December 2015 (Spying companies) Making tech companies spy on their users for the state is unamerican, and useless too. An issue not mentioned here is, which criterion is used to define terrorism? Do attacks on abortion clinics count? They ought to, but so far the US government is not treating them as terrorism.

13 December 2015 (New system for work) It would be good to change legally required pension schemes so that they are not connected with any particular employer. The article's picture of the "future of work" shows distortions. "An algorithm matches you with a gig that optimizes your income opportunity"? Not likely. Rather, it will optimize the income of the company that runs it, as it accumulates data about you that it will sell to someone. Will you be able to decide when to work? Maybe in theory, but in practice you'll find out at 08:00 that you have to work for 4 hours from 11:00 to 15:00 or go without.

13 December 2015 (Reliable gene editing) Now that reliable gene editing has been developed, it will certainly be used to eliminate hereditary diseases. To deny people this remedy would be too cruel.

[Reference updated on 2018-03-27 because the old link was broken.] I don't think it is bad in principle to make enhancements using this technology. However, designing an enhanced human that doesn't already exist is not as straightforward as replacing a defective gene with its normal counterpart. Until a number of people with a certain supposed enhancement grow up, we won't know whether the change is an enhancement or an impediment.

13 December 2015 (CO2 emissions) The carbon emissions commitments of some countries are so weak that their emissions will keep increasing. What should we do about this? Since this is about avoiding global disaster, the response implicitly proposed in the article (Just give up) is stupid. What we really need to do is make those countries reduce emissions. Given the hundreds of millions of deaths this disaster is likely to cause globally, emitting too much carbon is an act of war. It would be justified to bomb coal-burning power plants to stop their emissions, if nothing less can do the job.

13 December 2015 (Artificial gene drives) Artificial gene drives make it possible to modify entire wild populations of organisms that reproduce sexually and don't take long to mature. For instance, we could modify wild mosquitoes so that they can't carry malaria. We could wipe out populations of invasive species, such as zebra mussels or asian carp in the US. Because it is possible to remove the drive later, if any of the drive-harboring asian carp got back to Asia where these fish normally live, we could easily eliminate the drive to protect the species in the range where it belongs.

13 December 2015 (Images generator site taken down) A web site that generated images in the style of handwritten signs used in the London subway ("Underground") was taken down at the request of the subway. The subway said the site was being used to generate racist signs and presented this as legal grounds for censorship. Racist messages are nasty, but it's wrong to shut down a medium of communication just because some people used it communicate nasty messages. The UK does not respect freedom of speech enough, but I hope that this demand was not legally enforceable there. I would have refused all along to use a web site to generate parody signs, because doing such a job using someone else's service is SaaSS (Service as a Software Substitute). Any digital service automatically gives the service operator power over its users. This service's operator demonstrated that power when he shut it down, thus stopping people from making any more signs no matter what the messages. In addition, users could not freely alter any aspects of how the service worked, except those for which it offered explicit settings. The service controlled that too. The right way to make these sign images, or do any computing job that involves you alone, is with a free program you run in your own computer. That way, the program's author does not subsequently have power over the users once they get copies. If the developer had released a free program to do this, he would not have been able to "shut it down" on demand.

13 December 2015 (Destroying the Great Barrier Reef) Australia's planet-roaster "environment minister", whose mission is to trash the environment, demanded to be allowed to speak after a documentary about the Great Barrier Reef, which will be destroyed by CO 2 emissions along with all the other coral reefs. It's not just the heat, it's the acidity.

13 December 2015 (Pakistan's fighting against Taliban) Pakistan's fighting against the Taliban has pushed many foreign jihadis into Afghanistan. While this may be difficult for Afghanistan, at least it is a sign of progress.

13 December 2015 (Injustice of the "no-fly list") Rejection of a bill to block gun purchases by people on the "no-fly list" has called attention to the injustice of that list. That list is punishment without trial, and if that's not bad enough, it is punishment secretly sprung on people after they have spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on nonrefundable tickets they can't use. No one lawfully present or resident in the US should be blocked from riding in US airline flights except as punishment for a crime. As for people not lawfully present or resident in the US, the government has the option of denying them entry, which is both more effective and more legitimate than the no-fly list. Blocking people from buying guns is more legitimate than blocking people from flying, so it is ok to do that based on weaker criteria. However, there are limits to what this can achieve. Blocking a small list of people will not stop attacks by undetectable small teams. But perhaps nothing can stop that.

13 December 2015 (Chicago thugs) Chicago thugs who shot Ronald Johnson dead say he was carrying a pistol. His mother says the pistol was planted on him after he was shot. DA Alvarez, following her general tendency, is protecting the thugs. Neither of them merits our unreserved trust. The thugs could be lying to excuse their actions. The mother could be saying what she wishes were true. But the fact that witnesses report that thugs told them what to say suggests that the thugs are lying.

12 December 2015 (Cory Doctorow) Cory Doctorow: don't think of trying to work for the NSA so as to limit its wrongs. Great heroes have tried and failed.

12 December 2015 (Low price of oil) The low price of oil is making most oil extraction projects unprofitable to invest in. It the price stays low, it will limit the oil extracted to the fraction which is cheap to extract. That's good, but the low price also reduces the incentive to invest in renewable energy and increased efficiency. And it tends to encourage investment in burning oil in the future (though that may take years). Increased tax on oil, or a carbon tax, would give us the best of both worlds: the extraction projects would still be unprofitable, while renewables and efficiency increases would be encouraged.

12 December 2015 (US stopped a hunger strike) Demonstrating cruelty, the US government stopped a hunger strike in an immigration prison by threatening to force-feed the prisoners. Remember that most of these prisoners have not been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. The US keeps them in prison as preparation for possibly deporting them. It may be legitimate to deport them, but that is no excuse for force-feeding them.

12 December 2015 (DuPont and Dow Merger) The DuPont and Dow Chemical Merger: Bad Deal for People and the Planet. The merger of two large companies that operate in the same areas reduces competition in all the areas they both operate in. Splitting that company according to area of operation does nothing to increase competition in any one of the areas. Thus, the overall effect is to reduce competition.

12 December 2015 (Oklahoma thug) Oklahoma thug convicted of raping 12 women after intimidating them with is power to threaten them.

12 December 2015 (US meat production) US meat production has decreased since 2009, but use of antibiotics in farms has increased by almost 1/4. We're going to pay with our lives for this folly.

12 December 2015 (1.5C as maximum target) 1.5C of heating as a maximum target is a lot safer for everyone than 2C. The farther heating goes, the more chance of triggering some positive feedback which would shove it far above 2C.

12 December 2015 (US plans to punish Europeans) The US plans to punish Europeans with connections to Iran because of a murder carried out by by Pakistanis inspired by Salafi Arabia. However, neither Pakistan nor Salafi Arabia are affected by this bill. I suggest that the European Union retaliate by requiring visas from Americans whose family name starts with R. Paul Ryan, for instance. The absurdity of this response will show the absurdity of what the US is doing.

12 December 2015 (Fight against PISSI) The US announces "progress" in fighting PISSI, but the supposed progress may not mean anything. The US tends to label any "military-age males" killed by air strikes as enemy fighters, but that's definitely an exaggeration. If air strikes in Ramadi killed 350 military-age males, we have no idea how many were fighting for PISSI and how many were civilians. The caution of the army attacking Ramadi is likely to result in fewer casualties to soldiers, but could cause more casualties to civilians in Ramadi, which would build support for PISSI. As for a few leaders killed, such a group can always replace them as long as more people are volunteering.

12 December 2015 (Malaria) People have made great progress against malaria using insecticide-treated mosquito nets, but mosquitos are developing resistance to the insecticides. If we step up the effort, we could cut off malaria transmission in some areas.

12 December 2015 (Thailand) Thai Man Arrested for Facebook 'like' of Doctored Royal Photo. He supported a campaign that criticized Thai corruption. After a Thai investigator fled to Australia fearing for his life, Thailand looks to charge him with "defamation" for saying so. Thailand's repressive government does not care that he said it in Australia. To visit Thailand is an act of folly — stay away!

12 December 2015 (Volkswagen) Volkswagen explains that the "defeat devices" that faked emissions levels for tests came from a system that had a tendency to do this.

12 December 2015 (Overprotectiveness) A small step against overprotectiveness: the US "no child left alone" law has been amended to say that it does not criminalize parents for allowing a child to walk to school.

12 December 2015 (US teachers) Some US teachers are leading their students to treat Muslim students as terrorists. I think it would be useful for non-Islamist Muslims to invent a term to describe themselves, so that they can say in a positive way what they stand for, without using a negation. Then, when someone asks them, "Are you an Islamist", they can say, "No, I'm an XYZ, and proud of it."

12 December 2015 (Mental health care) Mental health care is unavailable to half the Americans that need it. Perhaps as a result, they are more likely to get killed by thugs.

12 December 2015 (Global heating) Global heating threatens to inundate Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay, turning it first into a marsh, then later into open water. Only 500 people live their now, but it's not the only place in the US that is going to be under water. Spending money to protect each vulnerable place is stupid. We should spend it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and thus protect them all at once.

12 December 2015 (Syria) Without Syrians at the Front And Centre of Talks, There Can Be No Lasting Peace.

12 December 2015 (China) China has cancelled the punishments applied to children who were born in violation of the one-child-per-family law. I supported limiting families to one child, but it was wrong to punish the children. They are not responsible for who decided to have them.

12 December 2015 (France will not ban Tor) The Prime Minister of France says France will not ban public WiFi or use of Tor. It is not clear how broad the requirement for companies to break their client's encryption will be.

12 December 2015 (Dow and DuPont) Dow and DuPont want to merge. Large companies should never be allowed to merge. Let's hope that today's weakened antitrust laws provide a basis to block it.

12 December 2015 (Elections in Venezuela) The Venezuelan right wing has repeatedly accused Chavez of stealing elections. We see now that the elections in Venezuela are honest. However, I fear that the antisocialists, now in power, will change that. Republicans in the US have perfected several methods of rigging elections that they could follow.

12 December 2015 (South Korea) South Korea is becoming repressive: a union leader who sought refuge in a Buddhist temple has been arrested.

12 December 2015 (Feminism) Now that feminism has revived, it can do a lot of good, but also threatens censorship. I support feminism except when it starts to attack freedom of speech. Calling someone a "slut" is nasty, and foolish as well: it presumes a prudish sexist idea of good and bad sexual conduct. Let's rebuke anyone who calls anyone a "slut" — we could call then "Taliban" — but people have a right to say nasty, prudish, sexist things. No matter how nasty a statement is, censorship is nastier.

12 December 2015 (Homs) Syrian rebels evacuated the city of Homs, under cease fire.

12 December 2015 (Antibiotics to animals) Many countries feed more antibiotics to healthy animals than the humans use. This provokes antibiotic resistance in the bacteria that inhabit the animals,which spreads to bacteria that can infect humans.

12 December 2015 (US competition law) Anheuser-Busch is taking advantage of a gap in US competition law to push small competitors out of supermarkets. This shows one more way that US competition law needs to be strengthened. It should also prohibit the sort o contracts that Microsoft pushed on PC manufacturers, by which they agree to pay for a Windows license even when they sell a computer without Windows.

12 December 2015 (Vicious ideas) You can't stop vicious ideas, whether those of Trump or those of PISSI, by banning them.

12 December 2015 (Alaska permafrost) One quarter of Alaska permafrost could melt by 2100 — US Geological Survey. Since this would release a lot of methane, we'd be truly cooked.

12 December 2015 (FBI director) The FBI director has returned to demanding an end to encryption that really works. Imagine if someone like Trump becomes president and starts using the US spy apparatus to find and imprison scapegoats.

12 December 2015 (Louvre) Activists protested at the Louvre against its acceptance of sponsorship from an oil company. Isn't it cute how the oil company sums up plutocratic rule: "In recent years, the relationship between business and society has changed." Protests like this are very important for turning fossil fuel companies into the pariahs they deserve to be. Having dealings with those companies should make a person or organization the object of general scorn. This is necessary because it will reduce their plutocratic power to block necessary action to avoid disaster.

12 December 2015 (CISA) Librarians and privacy advocates oppose CISA together.

12 December 2015 (Ramie Abounaja) Ramie Abounaja displayed a Palestinian flag from his dorm window, so George Washington University sent a thug to make him take it down, then made some unclear disciplinary accusation against him. It is formally prohibited to hang flags from a window, but students that hang other flags never get bothered.

12 December 2015 (War in Ukraine) The war in Ukraine has quieted down since August; the cease-fire has held. It is no longer serves Putin's purposes to heat it up. A total of 9,000 deaths are estimated.

12 December 2015 (Encryption) "Everything you need to know about encryption: Hint, you're already using it." This article exhibits a blind spot that is common in writing about the issue: namely, it is unwilling to consider that the US government's official use of a back door might be for evil. I'm not willing to maintain that blind spot. What if we have President Trump, or someone like him?

12 December 2015 (Afghan army) The Afghan army is having trouble winning support from the people because it kills too many civilians.

12 December 2015 (Visa restrictions) The US is on track to make it inconvenient for Europeans to enter the US if they have visited Iraq, Syria, Iran or Sudan. This will hit Europeans who participated in humanitarian, diplomatic and business activities in those countries. Yet another US attack against Medecins Sans Frontières. Ironically, it will also hurt any Europeans that worked for the US mercenary companies such as Blackwater (or whatever it's called today).

12 December 2015 (Sanders about fossil fuels) Sanders states how he will achieve big cuts in US fossil fuel emissions, as well as banning some of the most dangerous or polluting forms of fossil fuel extraction.

12 December 2015 (Sanders) Sanders told reporters not to neglect US poverty and injustice out of obsession with how to deal with PISSI.

12 December 2015 (Global heating disaster) Humanity must invest 7 trillion dollars a year to avoid global heating disaster. That is 20 times what we invested in this in 2014. Fortunately, we can get most of that 7 trillion by taking it from investment in fossil fuel use.

12 December 2015 (Trump) A danger from Trump is that he makes serious bigots seem within the range of normal views.

12 December 2015 (Gun control) Gun killings in the US today are running at half the rate of 20 years ago. Americans need not feel terrified of being shot. Although the total death rate from shooting is going down, the death rate from multiple shooting incidents is rising. Common sense gun control measures can't make multiple shooting impossible, but could reduce how often they happen. Also, prohibiting large magazines nationwide would eventually make them scarce. That would reduce, in many cases, the number that a shooter can succeed in killing.

12 December 2015 (Philip Coleman) Philip Coleman was lying on a cot in jail when Chicago thugs came into his sell and repeatedly tased him. Coleman died shortly after.

12 December 2015 (Windows 10) Microsoft is attacking computers that run Windows 7 and 8, switching on a flag that says whether to "upgrade" to Windows 10 when users have turned it off. This, by the way, reaffirms the presence of a universal back door in Windows 7 and 8.

12 December 2015 (PISSI) Foreign recruits continue flowing to PISSI. It is very important to cut off the flow, since PISSI's training turns many somewhat-confused people into expert soldiers. But the only way to do it is to close the border with Turkey. Erdogan won't do it, so it has to be done by ground troops on the Syrian side.

11 December 2015 (Human rights violations in Rio) Rio Olympics Linked to Widespread Human Rights Violations, Report Reveals. When the games start, other forms of harshness are likely to start, including chasing away street vendors so certain elect businesses can get the spectators' business. Meanwhile, there may well be new systems of surveillance and new harsh laws that will be permanent. The city of Boston wisely killed Boston's bid to hold Olympic games.

11 December 2015 (Demand for ivory in China falling) Demand for ivory in China is falling, which bodes well for elephants. The question is whether this is due to a change in attitudes or only to China's current economic slump.

11 December 2015 (Canadian oil exports) Even without the cancelled Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian oil exports via the US have almost doubled since a year ago.

11 December 2015 (Liberate scientific knowledge) Calling on the public to liberate scientific knowledge through forbidden sharing of the articles and books that embody it.

11 December 2015 (The Paris conference) 10 criteria for judging whether the agreement from the Paris conference will do what needs to be done.

11 December 2015 (Disagreeing with Putin) A "liberal" Russian TV channel which disagrees with Putin is being examined for "extremism".

11 December 2015 (1.5C limit for global heating) The US, China, Canada and the EU are supporting a 1.5C limit for global heating. It is necessary to make India accept this target. Flooding other countries is an act of war; perhaps the US and China should convey to Modi that they will preemptively bomb India's coal-burning power plants to stop India from flooding cities such as New York, Washington, Miami, Nanjing and Shanghai. Of course, this would be hypocritical if the US and China don't do their share to prevent the flooding.

10 December 2015 (Global heating denial) Fossil fuel companies continue funding denialism. Fortunately, one of their events in Paris was a risible failure. I fear the companies that are "sponsoring" the Paris climate negotiations are having a lot more influence.

10 December 2015 (Renewable energy plan for Africa) A large renewable energy plan could lead Africa away from fossil fuels. This could make life better for many people in Africa, but if we don't make India drop its plans for burning coal, people may not be able to live there at all.

10 December 2015 (The WTO) The WTO will try to fine the US a billion dollars unless it abolishes country-of-origin meat labels. Let's abolish the WTO instead. The WTO's purpose is to undermine democracy in all the countries that have signed it, transferring power from the legislature to multinational businesses. The plutocratists try to distract us from this effect by comparing exports and imports, which slips in the assumption that the interests of Americans are nothing but a matter of total economic consumption. Even aside from questions of whether the economy is sustainable, economic growth in all countries doesn't help most people if it is achieved in a way that benefits the rich at the expense of the non-rich. To prevent that, we need to make laws that assure the wealth is spread around and that businesses don't hurt the public. These laws are precisely what "free trade" treaties attack. They also make it hard to maintain unions. Don't let the plutocratists distract you from the real issue at stake. And please organize now to defeat the TPP!

10 December 2015 (Global greenhouse emissions) Global greenhouse emissions fell in 2015, but they are still so high that disaster will result; and the decrease may not last.

07 December 2015 (More government snooping) Clinton, like the Republicans, wants more government snooping. She wants to pressure companies into bypassing encryption. Her bogus premise is that we should keep increasing snooping until it identifies in advance all attacks by small groups. But no amount of surveillance is enough to do that, so she will always have an excuse to demand more surveillance. Vote for Sanders for president.

07 December 2015 (Hypothetical crimes) The UK spy agency argues it should be allowed to spy on people with hardly any limits, and attack their computers, just because the hypothetical crimes are really bad. Note the similarity between the argument in favor of massive surveillance and the argument in favor of torture: that it "just might someday" make it possible to prevent a crime. But neither massive surveillance nor torture really does this.

07 December 2015 (Malaysia approves security law) Malaysia Approves Security Law Amid Warning It Could Lead to Dictatorship. France is following the same path; I fear for France.

07 December 2015 (Greenhouse gases emitted by airplanes) Crackpot theories about "chemtrails" are distracting people from the dangerous greenhouse gases emitted by airplanes. Here's a conspiracy theory. Maybe the "chemtrails" idiocy was funded by the Heatland Institute (*) through ALEC. * It calls itself the "Heartland Institute", but since its goal is to make the Earth hotter, "Heatland" fits it better.

7 December 2015 (Muslims) Muslims in London have started a campaign against fanaticism, telling a fanatic who attacked someone in a train that he is not a real Muslim.

7 December 2015 (Surveillance technology) Advancing surveillance technology threatens to make it impossible to do anything that the state does not follow.

7 December 2015 (UK Government) The UK government is eager to bomb someone, saying it must try to protect Britons from terrorism even if that is ineffective or backfires. Meanwhile, it rejects the effective measures to protect the British people from the larger threat of global heating.

7 December 2015 (Elon Musk) Elon Musk condemns the 5 trillion dollars a year in damage that the fossil fuel industry is not being forced to pay for.

7 December 2015 (Nuclear power) James Hansen and some other scientists say nuclear power is needed to end carbon emissions. I respect James Hansen, but I think he is mistaken. To develop nuclear power at the rate he proposes would require ignoring safety. He is talking about hypothetical advanced reactors that could only work many years from now, and certainly won't be available soon. This amount of nuclear power would be so expensive that it would be cheaper to build an excess of renewable energy, plus power storage capacity.

7 December 2015 (SCROTUS) Another SCROTUS budget bill rider would allow increased consolidation in US television. SCROTUS = Sleazy Congressional Republicans Of The United States.

7 December 2015 (Janet Alder) After Janet Alder's brother was killed by UK thugs, she started campaigning for justice, and thugs started snooping on her life looking for some way to throw dirt on her. If it is impossible to convict the thugs in charge of this operation, the law must be changed so that next time a conviction is obtained.

7 December 2015 (Businesses' lies) Businesses surround us with little lies that no one expects us to take seriously. This can devalue truth in general.

7 December 2015 (Sanders' tax plan) Sanders' tax plan for multinational companies would raise all the money the US needs for its infrastructure. I hope he will put a lot of the revenue into renewable energy.

7 December 2015 (Faking violence) When someone was stabbed during an art event in Miami, witnesses thought the attack was theater, part if the performance. Faking violence as a hoax or "art" can indirectly hurt people by confusing society about how to react. It should not be illegal, but it is wise to disapprove of it.

7 December 2015 (Laquan McDonald) The official statements of several thugs about the murder of Laquan McDonald were lies — and the video proves it. Is it a crime to report falsely?

7 December 2015 (Banning for no-fly listed people) Democrats proposed a law to ban people on the no-fly list from buying guns, and SCROTUS blocked it as a denial of due process. The no-fly list is already punishment without due process. Being stopped from flying is more of a punishment than being stopped from buying a gun, and this is why the no-fly list must be abolished, or else redesigned so that people are only placed in it by a court's judgment. At that point, it could also be applied to purchase of guns.

7 December 2015 (NSA snooping) The NSA still has the power to snoop massively on Americans, never limited as the Constitution calls for. We have evidence from France and the US that this power doesn't prevent terrorist attacks anyway.

7 December 2015 (Indian energy plans) Modi talks about boosting solar power in India, but he still plans to double coal extraction. To some extent, the new coal mines in India will replace coal imports. However, continuing to burn so much coal will bring disaster regardless of where it is mined.

7 December 2015 (Hello Barbie) A week with Hello Barbie: it constantly tells you what good friends you are, then asks you for personal information. Seems designed to manipulate children into giving personal data.

7 December 2015 (Global heating) By 2050, global heating will disrupt food production in every region of the world. This will add to the harm done by population increase.

7 December 2015 (TPP) The TPP would prohibit laws requiring certain products come with source code, which is needed for their security and for users' right to repair.

7 December 2015 (Terrorism) Many Americans are too quick to assume a killing is terrorism when the killer is a Muslim, but drag their feet against acknowledging Christianist terrorism. I use the term "Christianist" for Christians that want to impose laws that come from their religion, by analogy with "Islamist". Only a fraction of Christianists and Islamists are violent, but all are enemies of human rights.

7 December 2015 (Brazil women) Brazil has advised women not to get pregnant now, because a virus once in a rare while causes microcephaly. It ought to be possible to abort the very few fetuses that develop microencephaly, but I suppose Brazil doesn't respect women's rights that much. On the other hand, a substantial reduction in births would be quite useful too.

7 December 2015 (Burundi) The tyrant of Burundi demands that everyone join his party; those who don't are beaten. Those who try to flee are killed if caught.

7 December 2015 (Population growth) Human population growth continues to threaten humanity, as it is on a collision course with the food shortages that global heating does and will cause. If we don't want people to remain poor, we must make fewer of them.

7 December 2015 (CO2) We must go beyond "zero carbon emissions" and actively reduce the CO2 level in Earth's atmosphere. The urgency is in the first step. Once that is done, reducing the CO2 level may prevent the subsequent inundation of some of the cities that are threatened.

7 December 2015 (Maria Hasankolli) Maria Hasankolli overslept and her 8-year-old child walked to school. She faces ten years in prison for this unconscious act. When I was 8 years old, I walked to school every day. So did everyone else in my school. But that was in Manhattan. Perhaps these nasty fools think that Connecticut is a more dangerous place than Manhattan.

7 December 2015 (Trade In Services Agreement) The secret negotiations for the Trade In Services Agreement propose to prohibit subsidies, or any sort of preferences, for renewable energy. This is typical of how "trade treaties" betray the people: subordinating everything that really matters to business interests. This is based on the leaked text of one chapter.

(Thugs deleted footage to cover up murder) Thugs deleted part of the Burger King store's security video recording in order to cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald.

6 December 2015 (Corporations exempting themselves from tax) Around the world corporations are exempting themselves from taxation, forcing too much tax burden onto individuals, especially the non-rich. In the past, countries have been weakened because too much property ended up in the hands of untaxable churches. Churches or corporations, it's the same phenomenon.

6 December 2015 (On trial for handing out jury pamphlet) Prosecutors stretch laws and ignore the constitution to attack people that distribute information from the Fully Informed Jury Association about the purpose of juries. When someone is on trial for handing out a pamphlet, I wonder whether the pamphlet must be entered in evidence for the jury to examine.

6 December 2015 (Urgent: reject spending bills with Republican riders) US citizens: phone the White House at (202) 456-1111 and leave a message for President Obama, calling for rejecting spending bills with nasty Republican riders. Whether they are tax breaks for companies, or attacks on Planned Parenthood, or attacks on the environment, or attacks on food labeling requirements, or anything else, Obama should reject them one and all.

6 December 2015 (Thirty meter telescope cancelled) The thirty meter telescope, which would have been by far the largest telescope in the northern hemisphere, has been cancelled because some of the ground it would be built on is considered "sacred". Faith has, apparently, triumphed over knowledge. Can any other place can be found to build this telescope? Another telescope, even larger, is planned for Chile, where it will be able to observe the southern skies — but parts of the northern skies will be outside its range.

6 December 2015 (Chicago Mayor in murder coverup) Chicago Mayor Emanuel seems to have tried to cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald in order to get the black vote for reelection as mayor. I gave to Chuy Garcia's campaign. I hope he wins next time.

6 December 2015 (Sanders' proposal for affordable college) How Bernie Sanders proposes to make college affordable for masses of Americans, as we did before. The other candidates are too much in cahoots with the rich.

6 December 2015 (Prison for Â3D printer files) A state in of Australia will imprison people for having 3D printer files for making a gun. It is legitimate to prohibit making guns, but any law that makes it a crime to have a copy of some published work is tyranny. It subjects innocent people to great danger from anyone that wants to get them in trouble.

6 December 2015 (Trump exploits the internet) Trump exploits the internet with speeches that are a series of clickbait. They don't need to be coherent to succeed. I occasionally use Google search, but Google never knows who I am. If you do the same, then your Google search is the same as mine; Google can't tell us apart.

6 December 2015 (Paying to keep forests standing) Rich Countries Should Pay to Keep Tropical Forests Standing. Avoiding global disaster will be well worth the price, but there are two issues that we must resolve: Making sure the money spent really preserves the forests.

Making the rich and the multinationals pay a fair share of tax, so they can't shrug the cost of this onto the non-rich. Paying a price to preserve forests is one thing; assigning them a value in money is another. It is a mistake to see the issue in the narrow economic terms such as "ecosystem services" and "buying them". That encourages people to treat them as fungible.

6 December 2015 (China to cut emissions from electricity) China states the plan to make huge cuts in CO2 emissions from electricity by 2020. This would be a real step forward, but don't forget the emissions from transport, home heating, factories, and agriculture.

6 December 2015 (A Turkish Gollum) Repression in Turkey has reached the point where a state employee has been fired for comparing Erdoğan's face to that of Gollum. When Erdoğan doesn't understand is that he is the one bringing Turkey into disrepute.

6 December 2015 (Putin expelling Turkish citizens) Putin is expelling Turkish citizens from Russia in the harshest possible way, clearly meant as a gesture to prove what a bully he can be. The reasons stated for this action include bullshit, plus an accusation that is probably true: that Turkey is protecting PISSI's oil export trade. Both Turkey and Russia must be lying about what happened in the downing of the Russian jet.

6 December 2015 (Loan companies force spyware on borrowers) Loan companies, in Africa and the US, make would-be borrowers submit to total surveillance by installing spyware in their phones. I think we need laws to prohibit companies from requiring or even asking customers (including borrowers) to run any nonfree software. A "smart" phone is a computer. If your computer runs nonfree software, it is someone else's tool to mistreat you. There are smartphones that can run the free operating system Replicant in the main or "application" processor, but all mobile phones have nonfree software, at least in the radio communication processor.

05 December 2015 (Schoolchildren's personal data) Many schoolchildren in the US are being told by their schools to use mobile computers with proprietary software, and the machines typically give the children's personal data to some company (often Google or Apple). If a school makes an account in a student's name with a company, it has already violated that student's privacy. If the account does not have the student's name or other personal details, sending it unencrypted information about the student's school work violates that student's privacy. These mobile computers always run nonfree software. Parents shouldn't allow their young children to be given nonfree software by anyone. I was surprised that the EFF legitimizes the term "the cloud", which is meant to cloud people's thinking about letting companies have their data and do things with it. There is no cloud, only computers belonging to various companies. The term "cloud" is intended to encourage people not to ask, "Which company is getting which data, what does it do with that data, and which country's jurisdiction is it under?" Please, EFF, stop encouraging this cloudy thinking.

05 December 2015 (Imprisoned in Guantanamo by mistake) After 13 years the US has admitted it put Mustafa al-Aziz al-Shamiri in Guantanamo prison by mistake, but still won't let him go.

05 December 2015 (How to fight PISSI) Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn applies practical sense to the question of how to fight PISSI.

05 December 2015 ("Male" and "female" brain features) Features in a human brain, which may have a form that is typically "male" or one that is typically "female", can change with experiences, sometimes in 15 minutes. This suggests that the reason it is most common for the feature to have a certain form in males or in females is that males and females tend to have certain kinds of life experiences.

05 December 2015 (Chicago DA protects thugs from prosecution) It is no surprise that Chicago DA Alvarez prosecuted Laquan McDonald's killer only when compelled to. She shows a pattern of going to any length to protect thugs from prosecution, even prosecuting victims for complaining. She also defends false convictions, even harassing law students who are working pro bono to investigate them, on the principle that the system should never admit a mistake.

05 December 2015 (Poor Americans) Poor Americans are not lazy. They work harder (on the average) than people who have more money.

05 December 2015 (Protest for climate defense in Paris) Ten thousand protested peacefully for climate defense in Paris, forming a human chain in defiance of the state's ban. I love the way Naomi Klein says what's what. After that, thousands of people formed a protest march. Unfortunately, the black bloc turned that into a riot. We need public defiance — with discipline.

05 December 2015 (India's ban on The Satanic Verses) A minister in power when India banned The Satanic Verses says the ban was a mistake — but the book remains banned.

4 December 2015 (Public shootings) For gun manufacturers, public shootings are good for business.

4 December 2015 (Discrimination against women) At least 155 countries still have laws that discriminate against women.

04 December 2015 (Dow's new dual pesticide) The EPA should carry out independent tests of the effects of Dow's new dual pesticide, not accept Dow's own experiments.

04 December 2015 (Licenses to carry concealed guns) Michigan has made it easier for possibly dangerous people to get licenses to carry concealed guns. Gun nuts say they are opposed to the government's "taking their guns away." But this shows that their goal is not a matter of keeping guns, but rather expanding the possession and use of guns. (There may be some guns that ought to be taken away from everyone.)

04 December 2015 (Ways to counter PISSI) A list of possible ways to counter PISSI. Only the gullible thought that killing Osama bin Laden was going to achieve anything. (And the US should have captured him and put him on trial, since it was in a position to do so.)

04 December 2015 (Shkreli would not lower drug price) Shkreli, the drug gouger who said he would lower the price, did not really mean it. Just before Thanksgiving he announced he would not lower it. The asshole is to blame for his own actions, but we should not allow him to get away with them. Specifically, we should not allow him to take measures to block manufacture of equivalent generics.

04 December 2015 (Public policy journalism in the US) Public policy journalism in the US is now available only to insiders and businesses willing to pay high subscription fees.

04 December 2015 (Today's Republicans) Today's Republicans make Dubya look good on one specific issue: he refused to stir up public hatred towards Muslims in general. However, this virtue was the exception to many other forms of cruelty and injustice towards American Muslims.

04 December 2015 (Blackberry will cease operations in Pakistan) Blackberry, in an act of unusual courage, will cease operations in Pakistan rather than betray all its customers. The UK wants to make such companies secretly betray all their customers.

04 December 2015 (US cooperation with Kurds) US soldiers are fighting in Iraq in close cooperation with Kurds. I don't see any danger in this. They are fighting on battlefields against enemy soldiers, and few civilians will be killed. This is not the sort of situation where the danger of intervention lies.

04 December 2015 (President of the Maldives) The elected president of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed, cannot contribute to saving humanity from global heating disaster. He is in prison, overthrown by tyrants that work in cahoots with the fossil fuel industry. I have to wonder whether fossil fuel magnates arranged the coup to remove an inconvenient hero of humanity.

04 December 2015 (Kidnapped and burned to death) Israelis who kidnapped a Palestinian and burned him to death have been convicted of murder. It is good that Israel can still do justice for some cases of violence against Palestinians. How sad that so many are ignored.

04 December 2015 (Likely to be killed by a thug) US thugs have killed 1000 people so far, this year. An American is much more likely to be killed by a thug than by a terrorist.

04 December 2015 (Christianist terrorist attack) The latest Christianist terrorist attack murdered two people who were visiting the Planned Parenthood clinic. Anti-abortion Christianist terrorism in the US has got much worse since the deceptive attack videos that were aimed at Planned Parenthood.

04 December 2015 (New Atheists) Some of the New Atheists have become supporters of right-wing Christianist policies. I am disappointed with them. For the most part, in the West, Christianity is willing to coexist with non-Christians. But Christianism, as a political movement, is dangerous. There are plenty of Christian fanatics who are prepared to lie to stir up terrorism against abortion providers.

04 December 2015 (Spin failure in Paris) People are already trying to spin failure in Paris as the start of a "long road" to curbing global heating in the future. If only we had that much time to do the job! Slowness now will make doom come faster and harder. This article seems to reach for self-delusion to avoid despair.

04 December 2015 (EU participation in "peace process") Now that the EU has stopped Israel from passing off products of colonies in Palestine as "Made in Israel", Netanyahu has retaliated by cancelling EU participation in the "peace process". The joke is that the "peace process" involving the EU is pure theater, just like the one that the US tried to broker. Netanyahu used them to pretend he wanted peace. Now he has "canceled" the remaining one, pretending that that makes a real difference and that it is a real punishment for the EU. Who knows, he may fool a few dumb klucks. Netanyahu is pretending to have sabotaged a real peace process as an act of blackmail. If he had really done that, it would be despicable of him — but since it was a sham anyway, he hasn't really done anything. Somehow he claims that his pretense puts the EU in the wrong. All this would be risible if the occupation and its effects were not so tragic. The sham "peace process" shielded Netanyahu effectively from pressure for peace, while he made sure it would never get anywhere. Its demise is one shield stripped away.

04 December 2015 (NSA's legal authority) The NSA's legal authority to collect everyone's phone call records in the US has just expired. Will the NSA really stop? I don't think phone companies should be allowed to keep records of all of everyone's phone calls, either.

04 December 2015 (Kurdish human rights defender assassinated) A prominent Kurdish human rights defender was assassinated while talking to the press. We don't know whether the Turkish state was responsible for the Elci's assassination, but we know it was responsible for his completely indefensible prosecution. The Turkish state has often engaged in violence, even fatal, against opposition political groups; this has gone on for decades. Erdogan's party seems to have got PISSI to help out with a couple of handy bombings of Kurdish rallies. That doesn't prove it arranged the assassination, but I doubt it would have scrupled to do so.

04 December 2015 (ALEC and global heating disaster) ALEC, with the support of Ben Carson, continues to sabotage attempts to avoid global heating disaster. ALEC has lost over a hundred sponsors, but it still gets plenty of money from the Koch brothers.

04 December 2015 (TPP and TTIP) The TPP and TTIP, ostensibly meant to "liberalize trade" but designed mainly to give business more power, can sabotage efforts to avoid global heating disaster.

02 December 2015 (Urgent: don't let Republicans put riders in a spending bill) US citizens: phone your senators and say, don't let Republicans put riders in a spending bill to do nasty things such as exclude Syrian refugees, or attack Planned Parenthood, or cancel network neutrality. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.

02 December 2015 (Urgent: support diplomacy in Syria) In the US: call on the TV show Face the Nation to have some guests that support diplomacy in Syria.

02 December 2015 (Urgent: denying global heating) Everyone: call on the Philippes to start soon their investigation into companies suspected of dishonestly denying global heating.

02 December 2015 (Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction) Dubya and B'liar ignored an expert report saying that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. This does not surprise me. After so much effort to manufacture a lie, why would they have cared about the truth?

02 December 2015 (Fight PISSI directly) Some Republican senators want to send US troops to fight PISSI directly. They are right that defeating PISSI requires ground troops, but Westerners that don't speak Arabic won't be able to do it. Many will hate the civilians, call them by ethnic slurs, and dehumanize them. They will have frequent misunderstandings with civilians they can't talk with, often fatally. The civilians will consider PISSI the lesser evil. How do I know? Because we saw this happen in Iraq just 10 years ago, and this is what PISSI came out of. For Turkish troops to fight PISSI is a pipedream, since they'd have to mutiny first. Erdogan has been protecting PISSI's communications. He wants to attack the Kurds, and PISSI has proved helpful in this. Troops from Salafi Arabia might fight PISSI, but they would spread Salafism which is the basis of PISSI's ideology. Troops from Egypt might do the job.

02 December 2015 (The power of repeated lie) Trump demonstrates the power of the repeated lie, as his supporters too claim they saw the nonexistent TV broadcasts. This wasn't the first time. Dubya succeeded in convincing many Americans that Saddam Hussein had had weapons of mass destruction in 2003, even though US inspectors after the conquest said he didn't.

02 December 2015 ("Endanger the public order") The French state has given itself the power to abolish any organization that does things that "might" prove useful to others that "endanger the public order" (for instance, criminals or protests). Organizations that promote encryption, or provide a place for people to meet and talk without being listed to, might be banned. In addition, may be made a crime simply to look at a web site that the state calls "terrorist". A state like this, systematically crushing freedom, does more harm over the long term than the terrorists it claims to be protecting people from — unless repression also fuels the terrorists, which is possible.

02 December 2015 (Clinton wants more war) Clinton wants more war against PISSI, never mind strategy. She is also against fixing the problems in the US medical system which exist because of the compromises Obama made to insurance companies.

02 December 2015 (Pushing a cashless society) Why The Powers That Be Are Pushing A Cashless Society. This is partly speculative, and I am not sure it is true, but it might be true.

02 December 2015 (Global heating denialism) Global heating denialism has seeped into several public school textbooks in California. We must suspect this reflects the influence of some rich denialist, such as Exxon or a Koch brother or the Heatland Institute.

02 December 2015 (Multinational digital companies) Multinational digital companies screw the rest of us out of millions of dollars in taxes. In the US, this adds up to $130 billion a year. This is why America can no longer do things right: the wealthy in America have stopped providing funds for what America needs to do. To the extent that international agreements about taxation get in the way of fixing this problem, states must defy the agreements and fix the problem anyway. But that requires voting out the politicians who would rather say they can't do this than dare to try. A progressive tax on a business's gross income could help fix this.

02 December 2015 (Right-wing rhetoric) Right-wing rhetoric calling for killing abortion doctors translates repeatedly into murderous attacks. The term "pro-choice" represents a weak decision not to defend abortion itself. The issue here is not "choice", it is the right to get an abortion when you want one.

02 December 2015 (Labour Party against bombing Syria) The UK Labour Party is turning against bombing Syria. The question is not whether to consider PISSI an enemy, but rather what to do about that. Is it wise or ethical to drop bombs on people as an act symbolic participation, without a strategy to win, in a way that is likely to strengthen the enemy by killing lots of civilians which would aid PISSI's recruiting as well as being an injustice in itself? Cameron responds to these questions with "but the symbol is so important!" and "I have a rabbit in my hat". The problems presented by the Raqqa exiles are so complex that there may not be way to avoid all of them. However, ignoring them is a recipe for doing harm and losing.

02 December 2015 (French banned from marching) The French, banned from marching to demand defense of Earth's climate, are making a pile of shoes to symbolize the march they would have done. It would be more effective to defy the ban and march anyway. A substantial climate protest in Paris was taken over by "black bloc" people that wanted to fight with the thugs. I can't disagree with what they said, but it was a stupid choice of tactics. A nonviolent confrontation, maintaining the moral high ground, would have put the state in the wrong, but this senseless violence gave the state a victory. In past protests, the "black bloc" was infiltrated by state provocateurs. Perhaps that occurred this time too.

02 December 2015 (Nuclear safety regulations) Companies designing "advanced" nuclear reactors want safety regulations taken out of their way. Then nothing would stop them from making us guinea pigs for their radioactive experiments, just when the nuclear power is becoming pointless because of the tremendously superior efficiency of renewable energy.

02 December 2015 (Future of work) Predicting that work will become more precarious, lower paid, and involve intrusive surveillance, for those who can find work at all. I don't use computer systems that want me to talk to them, except when I'm talking to a company's computer by phone. In that case, I expect the company to know and remember what I say. But when it comes to my own activities, the server company that would translate the speech to text has no right to know, let alone remember, what I say. I will also refuse to use a "fitness tracker" that reports to anyone other than me.

02 December 2015 (Women's rights defenders murdered) Women's rights defenders murdered for their activism in 2015.

02 December 2015 (Arundhati Roy meeting Edward Snowden) Arundhati Roy reports on meeting Edward Snowden, and ideas about refugees. The recent actions of the French government and recent statements of Republican political candidates show how right Snowden is.

02 December 2015 (Conversing through digital devices) Conversing mainly through digital devices may have to do with the decline in ability to empathize seen in young Americans.

02 December 2015 (Shooting at Colorado Planned Parenthood) A man shot people at Planned Parenthood in Colorado because he had been stirred up by deceptive attack videos. He's also identifying fetuses with babies, which is a common irrationality among those that want to ban abortion. The main terrorist threat in the US comes from fanatics like those, who call themselves "pro-life" but they mean "life for fetuses — not for real human beings."

02 December 2015 (US social decay) The common theme in US social decay: redesigning various systems to privilege the rich and push the rest down.

02 December 2015 (Unhealthful food) Poverty, in today's social system, forces parents to feed their children unhealthful food. Healthful food costs too much, requires time and skill to cook that these parents don't have. It may not even be on sale in many urban areas where the stores are geared towards those that don't cook. To touch on the unrelated topic of the last section of the article, I see nothing wrong with protesting a speaker by theatrically walking out of the talk. As long as the protest doesn't compel everyone to participate, those who want to hear the speaker can do so.

02 December 2015 (Anatomy of the Deep State) Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State. The US government is deadlocked, but the president and the executive spy and war agencies are allowed to do almost anything with no checks.

02 December 2015 (Prostitution in Morocco) Many Arab countries have banned a film presenting prostitution in Morocco, and the people who made the film are receiving death threats.

02 December 2015 (Extraction of ground water) California has failed to limit farmers' extraction of ground water. They are pumping so much that the land is sinking up to 2 inches a month in some places. The unequal sinking is destroying infrastructure. If normal rainfall returns for a few years, these farms may turn into lakes. But they will dry out again, more or less forever, in a few decades.

02 December 2015 (Future global heating) The foretaste of future global heating did not discourage large climate marches in Australia and New Zealand.

02 December 2015 (New Zealand bows to business) The bow-to-business government of New Zealand sabotaged efforts to reduce obesity, because they might interfere with the profits of fat-food establishments. (That seems a more accurate term than "fast food"). The excuse these bow-to-business politicians use is, "If it is possible for heroic people to resist, there is no need to help the rest." I've seen people use the same excuse to justify letting companies lure and pressure people into being surveilled.

02 December 2015 (EU bowing to Turkish blackmail) The EU, desperate for Turkish help in reducing migration of Syrian refugees, is at the point of bowing to Turkish blackmail. Providing money to support the Syrian refugees in Turkey is both wise and ethical, but aside from that, this is a terrible mistake. Turkey keeps open PISSI's lifeline for money, arms and foreign recruits. To defeat PISSI requires, one way or another, a confrontation with Turkey.

02 December 2015 (Proprietary software in drones) The US may require proprietary software in every drone, to implement surveillance and a back door. The article says the location of every drone will be sent to "the cloud", meaning "don't ask who will store this data or for how long." I think it's not a good idea to fly a drone in a cloud. Avoiding drone collisions is important, but it can be done using local communication which doesn't track them all. Keep in mind that it won't be hard to disconnect this system entirely. Criminals will easily be able to overcome the system; it won't be able to directly stop them from doing anything. Its total surveillance and back door will fall on non-criminals, who would cooperate willingly with a less nasty system that would achieve the same goal.

02 December 2015 (Repressive state of emergency in France) The state of emergency in France has become repressive. People have been arbitrarily placed in house arrest, blocked from working, for no apparent reason. This includes the leader of a charitable organization that helps Muslim prisoners. But repression is not limited to Muslims. Many people suspected of planning climate protests have been raided and arrested too. These repressive actions have nothing to do with the officially stated goal of preventing more terrorist attacks. The French thugs know full well that these climate defenders are not terrorists. Their goal is to crush anyone who would dare to disobey — because, to a tyranny, disobedience is worse than terrorism. Terrorism offers tyranny an excuse, but disobedience can make tyranny weaker. The harm done to France by this attack on liberty will dwarf that of the terrorist attacks — only to be dwarfed in turn by the global heating disaster that this repression is helping to increase.

02 December 2015 (UK data retention plans) UK data retention plans are based on outdated ideas of what is technically feasible or not.

02 December 2015 (Having multiple lovers) Famous men who have many lovers are called "prodigious" while women who do likewise are sneered at. I can't tell from this information whether Ms Murdoch was promiscuous; that's not the same as having multiple lovers.

01 December 2015 (Urgent: Reject special prejudice) US citizens: call on Senators to reject laws that would impose special prejudice against Syrian refugees.

01 December 2015 (Venezuelan candidate assassinated ) An opposition candidate in Venezuela was assassinated in a rally. I don't know whether the socialist party is responsible for the killing, but it has arrested and blocked a number of opposition candidates in the past. Their current leaders do not have the stature of Chavez, and they don't seem to know how to correct policies that have bad consequences.

01 December 2015 (Pissing on train station wall in Germany) A train station in Germany proposes to discourage pissing on a wall by making streams of liquid bounce back. I sympathize with those who want to discourage pissing on these walls, but I have to wonder why so many people piss there. Does the train station have toilets? If so, why don't homeless people use them? Is there some obstacle? A person in Germany confirmed that pay toilets are the usual in Germany, and that's why people piss on walls. Instead of spending lots of money on piss-reflecting surfaces, they should spend it on giving people a proper place to use the toilet.

01 December 2015 (The TTIP) A central goal of the TTIP is to export massive amounts of tar sands oil from Canada to Europe, with disastrous effects world-wide. The TTIP is a business-supremacy deregulation treaty, and it would abolish the regulations that currently ban import of tar sands oil because it is so toxic. Business-friendly politicians will find no end of opportunities to betray the public in the name of "growth" (for the rich) and other goals that are not important enough to justify the harm they will do. Americans, vote for Bernie Sanders for president. He will kill the TTIP.

01 December 2015 (Journalists face "espionage" charges) Turkish journalists are facing charges of "espionage" and "divulging state secrets" for publishing that Turkey armed Islamists in Syria. Calling this a "state secret" implies the report is true. However, it an act of tyranny to prosecute them, whether the statement is true or not.

01 December 2015 ("Nation building") The US used to be able to build anything and do a pretty good job. Nowadays, when it tries "nation building", it gets everything wrong. But the corruption extends to the US too. The reason the US could build anything in the 50s and 60s is due to the high tax rate placed on rich people and businesses under that Republical socialist, President Eisenhower.

01 December 2015 (Co-responsibility for terrorism) A UK politician dares to blame B'liar for provoking terrorism with an unjust war. Terrorism is wrong, and the terrorists are always responsible for that wrong; however, when the terrorism was provoked by an even larger wrong such as launching a war based on lies, those who did that are co-responsible for the terrorism as well.

01 December 2015 (Carbon emissions from Unilever) Unilever says it will become "carbon positive" in regard to its direct energy use by 2030. This does not mean, however, that its products would be carbon positive. Its suppliers and its shipping may account for the majority of their emissions footprint.

01 December 2015 (Wasting your money) Beware, if you choose what to buy based on a symbol of what sort of person you like to think you are! You are being manipulated by subtle psychology into wasting your money. And it could be a lot of your money. There is one situation where buying a product to communicate a symbolic message to others is rational and wise: to support a worthy cause.

1 December 2015 (Whaling) Japan Under Fire Over Decision to Resume Whaling.

30 November 2015 (US media system) The business-dominated, concentrated US media system is not the only possible system. Many other countries have a lot of newspapers, and even though some are dominated by right-wing thought, they have exceptions too. US "public" media are also business-dominated, because many programs depend on funding from business or from business owners such as the Kochs. This too is not inevitable; it developed in the 1990s. Now a Koch is on the WGBH-TV board, in a position to limit coverage of global heating so as to protect the effectiveness of the Kochs' paid denialism.

30 November 2015 (Hype and exaggeration about terrorism) It's proper for news media to cover terrorism, but they don't need to hype and exaggerate in a way that plays into terrorists' hands by traumatizing the public.

30 November 2015 (EPA cancels approval of toxic pesticide) The EPA has cancelled its approval of the latest toxic pesticide, which certain GMOs were designed to operate with.

30 November 2015 (Gaps in report about attack on MSF) MSF says that the Pentagon's report about the attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz has suspicious gaps, while showing procedures that amount to negligence. I pointed out some instances of negligence.

30 November 2015 (Prison for letting child play outside) A mother in Sacramento is threatened with six months in prison for letting her child play outside the house. The point that the child is in far more danger riding in a car with a parent is especially cogent. American society is tied up in knots by obsession with some rare and unlikely dangers, such as child-snatching and terrorism.

30 November 2015 (Statistics for "sex trafficker" arrests) US statistics for arrests of "sex traffickers" are grossly inflated: most of them are sex workers and customers. Some pimps that aren't traffickers are also included.

30 November 2015 (Banning strong encryption) Don't fall into the trap of agreeing that banning strong encryption would be justified if terrorists or criminals ever use it.

30 November 2015 (Turkey's downing of Russian plane) On the significance of Turkey's downing a Russian plane. The article doesn't mention it has been standard Russian practice for the past few years to probe many countries' borders persistently. In a way, that's asking for a violent response. However, that changes things only slightly.

30 November 2015 (Fertilizer polluting lake in Wisconsin) The cultivation of cranberries in Wisconsin pours fertilizer into the nearby lake. This pollution kills the fish and makes the lake water unsafe. Would diverting the waste into a holding pond solve the problem? Would the pond have to grow each year, or could it be used to separate the fertilizer and apply it again?

30 November 2015 (Bushfires in Australia) As Australia suffers "horrific" bushfires, will the Australian government agree to greenhouse gas measures to limit how much worse they will get?

30 November 2015 (The "dying cat" rhetorical switch) The "dying cat" rhetorical switch — blocking consideration of an important, uncomfortable issue by bringing out a very emotional issue and arguing about which is more important.

29 November 2015 (Urgent: Israeli colonies in Palestine) US citizens: oppose the plan to make the Export-Import Bank support building more Israeli colonies in Palestine.

29 November 2015 (Urgent: preserve network neutrality) US citizens: phone congressional leaders to preserve network neutrality. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.

29 November 2015 (Trump's latest bullying) Trump's latest bullying: mocking a reporter for a visible disability. However, Trump's bullying goes far beyond mockery. He incited his supporters to physically attack a Black Lives Matter protester who came to his campaign rally. He should be arrested and charged for this, and I hope soon to post a link to a petition to that effect. If he loses the Republican nomination, and chooses to run independently, he should start the Childish Bullies Party.

29 November 2015 (Impunity of thugs in Chicago) Measuring impunity for thugs in Chicago: only 4% of complaints made against them are upheld by the thug department. 60% of the complaints were made by blacks, but only 25% of the complaints upheld were made by blacks.

29 November 2015 (Australia's government proposes Reaganomics) Australia's government proposes to apply Reaganomics by reducing tax rates — for businesses only. Benefits of this are supposes to trickle down to the people.

29 November 2015 (Murder of Laquan McDonald) Call on officials that tried to minimize the murder of Laquan McDonald to resign, and call for a special prosecutor.

29 November 2015 (Blocked roads into Crimea) Interviews with people in Ukraine, near the Crimean border, where they have blocked the roads leading into Crimea, which puts pressure on Putin.

29 November 2015 (Thugs prosecution delayed for 400 days) The only reason the Chicago thug that killed Laquan McDonald is getting prosecuted is that a court ordered release of the video showing the killing. The prosecutor delayed the release, and the prosecution, for 400 days. I don't think we can trust that prosecutor to make a sincere attempt to win a conviction.

29 November 2015 (Global heating denialist organizations) A textual study found evidence that global heating denialist organizations were working together.

29 November 2015 ("Criminal justice reform") The push for "criminal justice reform" ran into trouble because liberals want to reduce prosecution of individuals, while the Koch brothers only want to reduce prosecution of corporations.

29 November 2015 (Pervasive anxiety about security) Pervasive anxiety about security helps right-wing politicians make budget cuts that make everyone's lives insecure. These budget cuts are likely to kill a lot more people than terrorists, even if you consider only the suicides.

29 November 2015 (Shelling MSF hospital in Kunduz) The US Army says that the crew of the plane shelling the MSF hospital in Kunduz thought they were in a different place attacking a different building. Their inability to recognize the error was due to several systems that were nonfunctional or even missing. Do the rules say that the crew was supposed to continue the mission despite such problems? If so, the US is asking for such mistakes, and must be considered responsible due to negligence.

29 November 2015 (Protest 