| Time |
Event |
| 8:18a |
Grassroots revolt crushed, Florida
DeMentis passed a law to negate local democracy in Florida
to help an exploitative
local scheme succeed.
I consider this a kind of corruption.
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| 8:18a |
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| 8:18a |
Israeli forces raid Nablus
An Israeli raid on Nablus
killed 10 Palestinians and injured over 100.
Many were noncombattants.
The occasion for this bloody attack was that two Palestinians accused
of belonging to a real terrorist group were at that location.
That can't justify attacking so many.
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| 8:18a |
US support for Israel
Biden said that he gives Israel total support in its confrontation
with Iran. Since Israel is on the brink of war with Iran, in effect
this says
the US is willing to join
in that war.
That risks disaster. It could even start a nuclear war.
I doubt that Iranians who have protested since last fall will declare
themselves enemies of their country; I think it is more likely to
unite them with the regime.
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| 8:18a |
Ohio toxic train wreck, blame
*Trump’s environmental rollbacks
in focus on visit to Ohio toxic train site.*
That's because some of them contributed directly to this accident.
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| 8:18a |
Immigration obstacles, US
Biden's new
rules for asylum
— which directly contradict US law — seem
like they were inspired by the wrecker.
People have noticed the hardship imposed by requiring each applicant
to carry a snoop-phone that can run a special nonfree app. They have
noticed the monetary hardship caused by the price of getting such a
phone plus internet access. I have nothing to add to those valid
points. But I do notice other injustices, which are common in the form
of computing that the US demands of them.
Such a phone is full of unjust nonfree software, and the app is
nonfree also. Any nonfree program is inherently an injustice to
whoever runs it, and is likely to be malware. That app does facial
recognition. I wonder what other malicious functionalities it
implements.
I conjecture that there is no need at all for that facial recognition.
If a migrant gets an appointment to meet with a human agent, the agent
can check the migrant's identity against per
papers then.
It would not be terribly hard for the US to set up kiosks in various
parts of Mexico where people can do the required communication knowing
that a kiosk has no ability to snoop on them through their own
computers, or mess with them in any other way.
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| 8:18a |
Unjust wars, US
The US has done nothing to hold Dubya accountable for using lies to start
an unjust war
by attacking Iraq.
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| 8:18a |
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| 8:18a |
Caste system digs commedians
Indian Dalits are becoming successful in India as
comedians in the teeth
of caste prejudice.
I watched a few minutes of Manaal Patil's show on invidio.us (a proxy
for Youtube, which I cannot access directly because it requires users
to run nonfree software). He made me laugh. I would have watched the
rest but I have to work.
|
| 8:18a |
Nuclear treaty pullout tactic, US
*Putin aiming to divide US
public opinion with nuclear treaty pullout,
experts say.*
It's more of what we've seen several times: "I'm a lunatic with
nuclear weapons, so do whatever I say!"
|
| 10:33a |
Car pollution kills more than crashes
*Car pollution kills more Australians than crashes, new research finds.* Indeed, pollution seems to kill 10 times as many as crashes.
It would be interesting to see a comparison based on the total number
of years of life lost to each cause.
I am also curious about similar comparisons for other countries, in
particular the US.
|
| 10:33a |
Google's response to a Canadian bill
Google is considering how to respond to a Canadian bill that would
require Google and other platforms to negotiate deals with Canadian
publishers for permission to retransmit their articles. One possible
approach would be to refuse to carry the articles covered by this law.
Google has decided to show Canadians what that would feel like, by
making all those articles unavailable to some Canadian users.
I have no opinion on whether this law would do good or harm. If it
only restricts giant companies such as Google, I don't see anything
outrageous about it.
Ms Scaffidi's comment uses misleading words. The law does not require
Google to do anything for the journalists who write news articles
Google retransmits. Rather, it requires Google to make a deal with
the news publishers that the journalists submit articles to. That
may wall entail paying those publishers more money, but how much of
that would trickle down to human journalists is a question to be
investigated.
If Canada dropped the trickle-down plans and changed this law to
directly support individual journalists, not only news businesses,
I would support it more.
Please don't refer to these news articles as "content" -- that term
disparages all works of writing and art.
|
| 10:33a |
Cr...app car
A new "luxury" car will come equipped to load various nonfree software
cr…apps.
Some of them will distract the driver by showing video. Don't use that
while the car is moving!
Since the car has a camera that faces the people in the car, and it is
controlled by nonfree software, I expect that sooner or later the
car's delivered software will make use of that against those people's
interests and will, and they will be unable to stop it.
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| 10:33a |
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| 10:33a |
Tories and asylum applications
The Tories' plan to handle the growing backlog in asylum applications
is to give applicants 20 days to answer a questionnaire in legal
English, without legal advice or translation help, and no chance of
clarifying errors.
I'm tempted to joke that this seems designed to fail. Alas, with
Tories involved, I have a feeling it is precisely true.
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Roald Dhal books
The original versions of Roald Dahl's books will continue to be published,
alongside the new supersensitive versions.
I think this is a good compromise.
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| 10:33a |
DeWine's railroad ties
Ohio governor DeWine has so much ties to the railroads that one must
wonder whether he is serious when he talks about holding them responsible
for the vinyl chloride leak.
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| 10:33a |
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| 10:33a |
Italy arrests refugee rescue ship
Italy has arrested a refugee rescue ship operated by Médecins Sans
Frontiers, trying to impose artificial requirements that make it
essentially impossible to operate such ships.
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| 10:33a |
Ohio train derailment was preventable
The NTSB said that the Ohio train derailment was "100% preventable"
and that it was the fault of company practices and policies.
Railroad workers propose several precautions for the US to require for
railroads.
They include
- Ensure sufficient staffing to do the job properly, efficiently,
and safely, with all trains operating with a minimum of a two-person
crew;
- Cap train length and weight at a reasonable level to mitigate the
increased likelihood of breakdowns, train separations, and
derailments;
- Implement adequate and proper maintenance and inspections of
locomotives and rail cars, tracks and signals, wayside detectors, and
other infrastructure; and
- Standardize ample training and time off without the harassment of
draconian attendance policies.
Perhaps we should require a safety inspection for each train car
after a certain number of hours of operation.
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| 10:33a |
Urgent: Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Programs
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call on per to continue
full support for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are
+1-202-224-3121,
+1-888-818-6641 and
+1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
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