Richard Stallman's Political Notes' Journal

Mosquito Aedes aegypti

Opposition has delayed the planned test of releasing sterile males of the mosquito Aedes aegypti in California. The method to be tested could perhaps wipe out that pest in California.

Aedes aegypti in California is an intrusive species, so its effects on ecosystems are essentially negative. Species which depend on eating mosquitoes must have eaten only the native species until recently, and can still do so. The benefit to be obtained by eradicating Aedes aegypti in California, in reduced disease and reduce pesticide use, is surely enormous.

The state should insist on researching what can be tested, and developing further precautions for aborting the experiment early. But don't let Aedes aegypti hang around for long.

Diseases from wild animals

As humans enter areas formerly wild, the danger of catching diseases from wild animals keeps on increasing. Several recent epidemics came from animals, Covid-19 being one of them.

Making parks safer for women

Making parks safer for women through changes that don't treat anyone harshly.

Elections in Karnataka

The Hindu-nationalist party (BJP) lost the state elections in Karnataka, a state in the south of India.

Perhaps the new government will crack down on the BJP's efforts to stir up hatred against Muslims in places with long traditions of friendship between people of different religions.

Self-driving cars

Self-driving cars now supposedly work without human backup drivers. In practice, they work poorly. In addition, they are full of cameras inside and out, and the company staff (remote) can look at the camera feed at any time.

It should be illegal to operate a car with such surveillance capability without a warrant to authorize the surveillance.

In order for a self-driving car to be tolerated in society, its sensors must not pick up enough data about the passengers, or the passers-by, to figure out who they were. However, that limited amount of data needs to suffice to figure out where they are and where they might be in n seconds.

Second Amendment Celebrations

An ironic proposal to rebrand mass shootings as "Second Amendment Celebrations".

Overturning trial of Richard Glossip

A number of officials are calling for overturning the trial of Richard Glossip. He might get a new trial.

The crucial lesson from the bogus trial he received is that it is all too easy for US courts to reach a verdict of guilty based on evidence that is obviously insufficient to justify punishing anyone.

Two different concepts of women's rights

Edinburgh University is trying to calm the dispute between the partisans of two different concepts of women's rights, in the hope of discussions between them.

Daniel Perry charged with manslaughter

Daniel Perry, who killed Jordan Neely in the New York subway by using a chokehold, has been charged with manslaughter.

Neely apparently seemed upset, but what he said did not threaten violence.

Hong Kongers ask for asylum in Britain

Many young Hong Kongers have asked for asylum in Britain. It's not clear they will receive asylum.

The saddest thing is that the UK is becoming repressive much like Hong Kong. However, the UK won't jail people for criticizing the government of China. so these Hong Kong refugees will probably be safe there if they get asylum, even though other Britons are not.

Israel maintaining occupation

* Francesca Albanese says Israel is maintaining occupation to get as much land as possible for Jewish people.*

Hindu fanatics sabotaging traditional celebrations

Hindu fanatics in India are sabotaging traditional celebrations in which various religious groups joined harmoniously for hundreds of years.

Banning hijab in India is basically the same injustice as requiring hijab in Iran.

Coronation arrests are just the start

George Monbiot: *The coronation arrests are just the start. [Thugs] can do what they want to us now.*

The thugs can now arrest people in Britain for almost any sort of protest that could attract attention, or even carrying harmless tools for one. In addition, experienced organizers can be ordered pre-emptively to stay away from all protests and other protesters, and jailed if they disobey.

Britain is at the tipping point of joining regimes such as China and Russia in repression of dissent.

Making it hard for blacks to vote

Greg Palast warns that the bullshitter's campaign to make it hard for blacks to vote is working very effectively, and Republicans are still working hard at it.

Urgent: California residents oppose CJPA bill

California residents, urge state legislators to oppose the CJPA bill.

That bill would not protect the real local journalism, only reward the fake.

Big Pharma's tax avoidance

*Senate Investigation Shows How [Republican tax cuts in 2017] Enabled Big Pharma's "Extreme" Tax Avoidance.*

Hong Kong legal isolation

China has given itself the power to bar foreign lawyers from working in "national security" trials (political repression). It had already terminated the residence visa of the British lawyer that Jimmy Lai wanted to hire, and postponed the trial 'til after that lawyer was compelled to leave; but apparently China was so worried about the presence of a lawyer that might actually try to defend Lai that changed Hong Kong law to make sure this could never happen.

CNN's live townhall

CNN's live presentation for the bullshitter was a complete success for the bullshitter and for the plutocratists. They both got what they wanted: to tell the public, "You can choose fascism, or you can choose the cruel system that boosted fascism."

Presidential candidates and TV media

*CNN’s Trump debacle suggests TV media set to repeat mistakes of 2016.*

Or are they mistakes? The CEO of CNN's owner seems to be quite content to have attracted more support from fascists.

CNN outwardly graceful towards Trump

CNN gave the bullshitter a big situational advantage over the moderator.

It sank lower than that. Staff spoke to the audience shortly before the show, saying they were welcome to applaud but that booing was forbidden.

CNN's townhall features unreliable source

In his long CNN "town hall", the bullshitter brushed aside inconvenient facts by opening the firehose of lies.

I have a hunch that CNN intended this program to increase its audience among US fascists, and that it succeeded.

There were a few topics on which the bullshitter seemed unwilling to dismiss reality entirely. For instance, he said he would quickly end the war in Ukraine, but refused to state any support for it. This gives us reason to believe he still supports Putin and would "end the war" by stabbing Ukraine in the back. This would end the deaths in combat, but would not end the killing. The Putin forces did plenty of killing in parts of Ukraine that were occupied in the first months of the war, as well as kidnapping and torture. If the war turns into a bigger occupation, they will surely continue.

The line that the bullshitter is following was worked out by many progressives, who now demand to "end the war" at any cost. After years of condemning the US for starting gratuitous wars based on lies, they can't adjust to a situation where for once the US is on the right side.

(Satire) CNN Town Hall

(satire) *Trump Condemned For Giving Platform To CNN.*

When CNN Reliable Sources went off-air

How a right-wing billionaire compelled CNN to take a neutral stand about the bullshitter's gusher of lies.

When Philly bombed its citizens

Mike Africa Jr, one of the survivors of the Move collective, was not in the house when thugs firebombed it and killed everyone inside. He has bought the building that was built to replace that house, and plans to make it into a memorial to Move and the people who were killed in that fire.

Canceling Kalinin as "hostile"

Poland has declared a new name to use for the currently Russian city of Kaliningrad. Poland's choice choice of name, Królewiec, was the Polish name for that city during the short period, 1454 to 1457, that the city was under Polish control. Aside from those few years, the city's name was Königsberg for 7 centuries.

It seems to me that Russia and Poland are both being fools about this.

Russia is a place of horrible tyranny and repression. Poland is a place of diminished human rights and imposed Christian restrictions. Those issues are more important than the name of Kaliningrad.

Rehabilitation of Bashar al-Assad's regime

*The grotesque rehabilitation of Bashar al-Assad's regime — Syria’s criminal president has been cordially invited to this week's Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia — makes sense to cynical Arab governments. They hope to reduce Damascus's dependence on Iran, encourage refugees to return, halt state-sponsored drug rackets and cash in on reconstruction.

Would it be better to maintain hostilities so that Assad is not forgiven? I'm not sure.

On one hand, peace would do a lot to reduce Syrians' suffering. On the other hand, peace could result in Assad's getting the support to conquer Rojava.

Racketeering lawsuit over jailed satirist

*Twitter and Saudi officials face racketeering lawsuit over jailed satirist.*

(satire) Removal of stars obstructing view of universe

(satire) *World's Wealthy Call For Removal Of Stars Obstructing View Of Universe.*

Rejection of military rule

*Thai Voters Back Opposition in Decisive Rejection of Military Rule.*

Will the next step be a military coup?

Ocasio-Cortez on Jordan Neely

*Ocasio-Cortez Slams Adams for Attack on "Very Services" That Could Have Helped Jordan Neely.*

Children working long hours

In the US, children of age 10 are working long hours, as plutocratists work to legalize more kinds and longer hours of work by children and younger teenagers.

This is harmful because it harms those children permanently by denying them the opportunity for an education. Some kinds of work are dangerous for young people. The existence of the practice, enables businesses to lower wages generally.

I support education for everyone, and limiting labor by children and younger teenagers; I support Eisenhower taxation of the rich also. I must admit I don't see a close relation between them. Each is good for society but in its own way.

People trafficked as slaves in UK

The number of people per month reported in the UK as possibly being trafficked as slaves keeps increasing. What does this imply?

Maybe more people are being trafficked as slaves.

Maybe the methods of detecting possible trafficking are being improved so that a greater fraction are being reported.

Maybe, as Braverman the Tory minister claims, the problem is caused by immigrants' making false claims. I don't know for certain that this is false, but if a right-wing politician makes such a claim, I check my pockets to make sure my freedom is still there.

Large language models and general "artificial intelligence"

Confusion of large language models with general "artificial intelligence" is causing panic.

Artificial general intelligence may someday be developed, and if so it could pose many sorts of dangers, I recommend _A Fire upon the Deep, for an example, and Accelerando. And many other stories, with a wide variety of outcomes.

I agree that these systems can be dangerous. But they are dangerous in the short term in ways that hardly resemble the disaster scenarios. Indeed, artificial general intelligence is unnecessary for digital systems to bring disaster. Imagine payment systems that track all purchases, and transportation systems that track people's travel. Those already exist, and if we don't want our countries to be like China, we need to abolish them.

ChatGPT is nothing like that. It can't make coherent plans, let alone carry them out. It can generate text that looks like a plan until you study it carefully. The problems it causes come from side effects.

High-speed rail in the US

High-speed rail may finally be built in the US, starting with a line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

While the US has done almost nothing for decades, China has covered the whole country with high-speed train lines. Why has the US failed to do this? I conjecture that in the US, businesses are too powerful. So powerful that they can stop the US government from doing important things, such as building train lines.

By contrast, in China the government is more powerful than any combination of businesses. So if the Chinese government decides to build the railroad equivalent of the interstate highway system, and boost the country's industrial capacity, it can go ahead and do that.

China is using that boost in industrial capacity to build up its armed forces so it can conquer Taiwan and turn it into hellish tyranny. Meanwhile, the US can barely afford to defend Ukraine. And since business orders the US government to crush the poor, the poor turn towards fascism.

The bullshitter likely to face criminal charges

The bullshitter is likely to face criminal charges about several matters. He is likely to be convicted. But will that happen before the election, and do Republicans have enough shreds of decency to defeat him for his crimes?

Cruelty at convicts

Democrats and Republicans are now competing for who can direct the most cruelty at convicts.

That is not very effective for reducing crime. What succeeded in the 1990s was partly the elimination from lead from gasoline in the late 70s, and partly an increase in income on the average for poor people in the 90s, which helped them get by without crime.

We can't get rid of any more lead from gasoline, because none remains in gasoline, but we might be able to make life easier for poor people by electing more progressive Democrats.

DeMentis's attack on voting rights

*[Governor DeMentis's] Attack on Voting Rights Won't Stay in Florida.*

Fanatics at US-Mexico border

At the border with Mexico, US border thugs arrest humanitarians under Arizona's trespassing laws, while right wing fanatics shoot holes in their water tanks. The fanatics are proud of their harassment even when they are convicted of it.

This is in addition to the nonfree app that is the only way to apply for an asylum appointment. Mark my words, if the US government gets away with doing this to asylum seekers, doing it to Americans will be next.

Student stops bus

A student riding home in a school bus noticed that the driver had blacked out, because he did not have a snoop-phone. He ran to the driver and stopped the bus without an accident, while everyone else was too distracted.

If this were the worst danger caused by having a snoop-phone, I would not consider it much reason to refuse one. But they hurt nearly all their users in a number of ways.

Paralyzed with a taser

A UK thug paralyzed Jordan Walker-Brown with a taser, and justified that based on the "belief" that the latter had some sort of weapon. If he did have one, he had not pulled it out.

The thug was tried for causing gross bodily harm, but Walker-Brown said he knew the thug would not be convicted.

London thugs assaulted teenager

Two London thugs have been fired for punching and kicking a teenager while arresting per, and then lying about it.

Please don't refer to a teenager as "a child" — that is propaganda for constraining their lives.

In my view, it should be a crime for uniformed thugs to kick or punch anyone, of whatever age, absent clear and strong justification. Even an adult!

Tories’ revised plans to scrap EU laws

*Tories’ revised plans to scrap EU laws are still reckless, say lawyers.*