| Time |
Event |
| 12:18a |
Researchers Warn of Climate 'Doom Loop' as Impacts Forestall Green Energy Transition
The climate "doom loop": the cost of coping with today's damage from
the early stages of climate breakdown is interfering
with the steps to
prevent
If it is too late to save everyone, and all the things important to
save, the long term must take precedence.
Taxing the rich more might make it possible to save everyone and
everything. If so, we had better push hard to do that while the
possibility still exists.
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| 12:18a |
Opinion: A ‘slam dunk’ bill to prevent a repeat of an ugly chapter of American history
Congress is considering a bill to prohibit the US from ever again
imprisoning people because of the
demographic groups they belong to.
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| 12:18a |
Met police and MI5 foil 15 plots by Iran against British or UK-based ‘enemies’
Iran is trying to mount terrorist attacks against Iranian journalists
in
exile in the UK.
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| 12:18a |
Science Museum sponsorship deal with oil firm included gag clause
London's Science Museum has signed contracts with large oil companies
(to mount exhibits) in which the museum promises not to say anything that
would make those companies look bad. For instance, not
to talk about
their global heating.
The museum's management now says it "has decided" not to sign such
clauses any more, but that doesn't tell us how many such contracts are
still in force, nor prevent it from making an exception next month or
next year.
It should be a crime for a museum presenting factual subjects to agree
to let any other organization decide what it can or cannot say,
unless those decisions are published.
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| 2:48a |
Price increases of US egg producers
Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter accuse the big US egg producers of
using the price increase caused by bird flu as a smokescreen for
an additional raise in prices just because they want to gouge.
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| 2:48a |
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| 2:48a |
Ohio spill is much bigger disaster than people realize
Steven Donziger: The Ohio spill of carcinogenic, toxic vinyl chloride
is a much bigger disaster than people realize; the gas will spread,
and due to the fire, we don't know what chemicals it contains.
The EPA is doing more to cover up the nature of the problem than to
protect people. He urges everyone to keep away from the area.
He points to the need to give the EPA the power to punish large companies
enough that it hurts, so that it can take charge and protect public safety
rather than a company's profits.
*East Palestine Residents Told Water Was Safe After "Sloppy" Testing
Paid for by Rail Company.*
We should take the response to train accidents out of the railroads'
hands, and have the NTSB do it — then tax the railroads to pay the
costs. |
| 2:48a |
Federal order bars Starbucks from firing for Union activity
*Nationwide Federal Order Bars Starbucks From Firing Workers for Union
Activity.*
I wonder what this order will do to Starbucks to stop it from
disregarding the order and firing workers for union activity
just as it has done until now. |
| 2:48a |
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| 2:48a |
Student data on requests for gender expression medical treatments
Many Florida universities have sent Governor DeMentis data on
students' requests for gender expression medical treatments. Students
are campaigning to demand that the other universities not send any.
I use the term "gender expression medical treatments" as a name which
describes the treatments in question without presupposing any opinion
or judgment about them. |
| 2:48a |
Senator Scott modified drastic proposal to cancel federal law after 5 years
Senator Scott has modified his drastic proposal to cancel each federal
law after 5 years, exempting Social Security, Medicare, and the whole
military budget.
It would still cancel many other crucial federal programs if the
Republicans could block them from being passed again, so it would
still be a disaster. Consider the Voting Rights Act (what the Supreme
Court has not gutted). |
| 2:48a |
Reusing medical implants taken from corpses
There is a foofaraw about reusing medical implants taken from corpses.
What are the important issues here?
- Is it safe to reuse medical implants from a corpse?
Might it carry germs? What criteria should be tested?>
- Can doctors verify that the implant is in good condition
and will last long enough?
- Does it contain a computer running nonfree software?
(That would be an injustice.)
However, the issue of "permission" should not arise — no more for the
deceased's implants than for per organs. Their only important use
(aside from studying them for research) is to be put into another
person and help that person stay alive. No one should have the power
to veto that life-saving use. |
| 2:48a |
Protests against Netanyahu's authoritarian plans
The protests against Netanyahu's authoritarian plans for Israel have
not made a compromise with Arab citizens, so those are staying away. |
| 2:48a |
The "collateral murder" video
The "collateral murder" video is important not only because it shows
US soldiers cheerfully shooting Iraqi civilians, but because it showed
that the Pentagon's description of the events was false.
The US wants to imprison Julian Assange for showing the public that
video along with other facts about what the US did in its wars.
Please show your support for him.
Preventing Assange's extradition will not by itself eliminate the
long-term danger to freedom of the press in the US. That calls for
overturning or amending the Espionage Act so that it recognizes that
publishing secrets about government crimes is not "spying", because
the American public is not a foreign power. But defending Assange
will be a step towards that vital change. |
| 2:48a |
Questionnaires filled out by students for a for-profit company
Seattle (and nearby towns)' school systems asked thousands of students
age 10 to 12 to fill out intimate questionnaires, collected from the
students by a for-profit company.
The article disregards, of course, the injustice of leading students
to run nonfree software. The author is not aware of that underlying
issue which affects all school computing. See https://gnu.org/education/.
The US government criterion for whether anonymized data that is
"identifiable" is too lax. Even if a "a reasonable person in the
school community" could not determine who a record is about, very
likely Google or Palantir could.
There is another side to this issue. Students entered information
about important personal problems such as using drugs and bullying.
Offering the students no help wouldn't be a good alternative.
What is the right way to offer such students help with proper
confidentiality? |
| 2:48a |
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| 2:48a |
Urgent: Insist that incineration is not recycling
US citizens: insist that incineration is not recycling.
Here is the message I entered:
The plastics industry and the American Chemistry Council are pushing
legislation to reclassify incineration as "advanced recycling."
That a dishonest statement to excuse a dishonest policy -- specifically
to evade the Clean Air Act laws that regulate incinerators. It would
not avoid the air pollution, only close the law's eyes to it.
Please reject denial-ism and adopt policies to reduce the production of
plastic.
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| 2:48a |
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| 4:48a |
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| 4:48a |
Virtual coup, UK
Starmer's
exclusion of the left from running for parliament
is
effectively a coup, as well as the direct contradiction of commitments
he made when he ran for leader of Labour.
In the US, progressive can win election via the (generally
plutocratist) Democratic Party because it can't simply veto them from
running in Democratic primaries. The plutocratists push hard against
them, even dishonestly;
nonetheless, in each election, the number of progressive Democrats in
Congress increases. In the UK, apparently, such an approach inside
the Labour Party is impossible now because its leaders have the
centralized power to exclude them.
I can't judge the election strategy questions, but in terms of the the
competition between parties, it is clear that Corbyn should move to
the Green Party if it will accept him. Appealing for Starmer to
relent would be a dead end; as long as they lock out any new left
candidates, Corbyn would be nothing but an aging token, with no chance
of inspiring anyone else.
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| 4:48a |
Trans rapist scare
One example of a male trans-woman convicted of
rape has inspired
disproportionate fear
among women, and licensed hatred by
antitransists, which in turn provokes fear among trans people.
It is an unfortunate social breakdown; is there any way to unbreak this egg? |
| 4:48a |
Keeping protests nonviolent
The prosecutor in Memphis was elected for criminal justice reform. He
decided to release the video of Tyre Nichols's killing quickly, and to
charge the killers before that, so as to keep protests nonviolent.
That succeeded. Here is
an interview with him.
He has set an example to judge other prosecutors against.
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| 4:48a |
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| 5:03a |
Spy balloons are normal
Spying on other countries, not limited to potential enemies, is normal
practice. The Chinese spy balloon was
not a reason to go postal.
I think it is unfortunate that the US does not have a way to force
down a balloon without damaging it.
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| 5:03a |
Fishing to extinction
An article begs us to
sympathize with the artisanal fishers
of Colombia,
who catch endangered sharks.
I do not sympathize. Preventing extinction must take precedence over
jobs. The opposite conclusion, combined with human population growth,
leads certainly to ecological disaster.
Of course, putting and end to larger-scale fishing of protected
species has higher priority. With that achieved, will there be room
for a little artisanal fishing of tollo sharks while still enabling
their population to recover? That is a factual question and Colombia
should act according to the answer.
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| 5:18a |
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| 5:18a |
Republican budget cut effects
Senate Democrats estimate that Republican budget cuts, if they shield
military spending, "would amount to
a 30% cut to all other federal
programs.
That's a 30% cut to the [National Institutes of Health],
opioid addiction and mental health treatment, housing assistance,
child care and child nutrition, law enforcement and public safety,
science and innovation, and veteran assistance programs."
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| 5:18a |
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