| Time |
Event |
| 4:47a |
Child-labor history, UK
A study of the corpses of English teenagers (and a few children) taken
from poor parents in the 1800s,
and sent to work in cotton mills far
away, shows that they were basically systematically stunted and killed
by malnutrition.
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| 4:47a |
Medicare for all news
*Medicare for All
Legislation Introduced
to Address Poor U.S. Health Outcomes,
Inequities.*
I think that focusing on "inequity" in US medicine is a distraction
from the real issue. What's wrong with the US medical system is that
many Americans can't get the medical care they need.
We should set up a national medical system to give all Americans the
medical care they need. Other countries prove every day that that is
possible.
If we gave every American good medical care, as a byproduct there
would be no more inequities in medicine. But we should not formulate
the goal in terms of inequities. We could eliminate inequities by
giving all Americans _no_ medical care, but that is not what we should
aim for.
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| 4:47a |
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| 4:47a |
Count of "terrorists" killed by US
A study estimates that the the US "war on terror" is responsible for
at least
4.5 million deaths.
1 million seen to have been killed by fighting, but far more
died from poverty and disruption of society
caused by the fighting.
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| 4:47a |
Campaign finance spike
*Billionaires Spent
Over $1 Billion on 2022 Elections—More
Than Any Year in US History.*
Don't assume their money was defeated. In addition to bringing about
the election of more plutocratists (Democrats as well as Republicans),
it also convinces many candidates who would have won anyway to adopt
increasingly plutocratist positions.
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| 7:47a |
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| 7:47a |
President of Ecuador dissolved Congress
President Lasso of Ecuador had been impeached, and was in the process
of being tried for removal from office, when he dissolved the whole Congress.
It seems to me that the Ecuadorian constitution has a grave flaw
if the president can always prevent impeachment so easily. |
| 7:47a |
Chinese comedian's joke
A Chinese comedian made a joke that some extreme patriots interpreted
as a slight on the Chinese army, though it apparently didn't say
anything about the army. The government forced him to publish a
confession of guilt, then silenced him on communication platforms.
The government also fined the company he works for around 1.5 million dollars.
I have a hunch he will be punished in other ways that were not officially
announced. For instance, that he won't be allowed to work as a comedian
any more. |
| 7:47a |
Twitter's support of Erdoğan's censorship
Musk said that Twitter's support for Erdoğan's censorship is his choice.
In other words, he is using the power he gets from Twitter to support global
fascism.
It's a reason to stop using Twitter. |
| 7:47a |
Neo-Nazi cops
*It's hard to get neo-Nazi cops fired. Too hard.*
We should not allow firing employees, even cops, for having a mere
opinion we disapprove of. However, in the case of cops, who are
given special forms of authority, we should be able to insist that
they not have attitudes which are likely to result in unfairness
to some demographic groups among the public. |
| 7:47a |
Strengthening democracy in the UK
Arguing that the only chance of strengthening democracy in the UK
is if neither the Tories nor Starmer gets a majority in the next
election. |
| 7:47a |
Face recognition in Cardiff
UK thugs plan to use face recognition in the center of Cardiff to find
people wanted for various reasons.
The supposed occasion for this is that Beyonce is giving a concert
in a stadium in Cardiff. But the facial recognition won't be limited
to the stadium and its entrances.
Nor do we know that the tracking and data collection will not extend
to everyone else who passes by. In fact, UK ministers are considering
running facial recognition on everyone who shows up in a thug's body
camera.
The UK is full of cameras, and I suspect many of them are surveillance
cameras (images transmitted to some network which can recognize faces
later).
Those cameras could become, or perhaps already are,
the introduction of Chinese-sty;e surveillance in Britain.
That could be, or perhaps already is, part of the system of heightened
repression in Britain.
Do they use video tracking to figure out who to arrest for planning
to walk slowly, or glue perself to the street?
There is no need for the software to gauge a person's ethnicity if it
identifies each person against a database that record's per ethnicity. |
| 7:47a |
Oil company subsidiaries
Oil companies generally set up a subsidiary to do oil drilling in each
area or country, and make the subsidiary alone liable for the cost of
oil spills, so that the main corporation's liability is limited by the
total wealth of the subsidiary. This way, the victims of a spill
won't be compensated for the damage the spill does to them.
However, Guiana, on the eastern part of South America's north coast,
refuses to let them do this any more.
Will this make Exxon work harder to avoid a spill? I think people tend
to be biased towards belief that disaster won't happen. If a regional disaster
does happen, the countries and people affected could end up owning Exxon.
If so, would they handle drilling in a safer way, or would the vision of
riches corrupt them as it corrupted the current owners of Exxon? |
| 7:47a |
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| 7:47a |
Southern Asia heatwave
*Climate breakdown made southern Asia heatwave at least 2C hotter,
study finds.* |
| 7:47a |
Youtube recommending videos of guns
A study found that YouTube tends to recommend videos about guns and shooting to boys of age 9, and boys of age 14.
Many of these videos were not supposed to be allowed on
YouTube, but it seems not to enforce those policies. |
| 7:47a |
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| 7:47a |
Urgent: Discharge petition for bill to raise debt ceiling
US citizens: call on the House of Representatives to use a discharge
petition for a bill to raise the debt ceiling (and change nothing else). |
| 11:17p |
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