Richard Stallman's Political Notes' Journal
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Wednesday, July 12th, 2023
| Time |
Event |
| 1:01p |
Urgent: Pass Preemption of Real Property Discrimination Act
US citizens:
call on Congress
to pass the Preemption of Real Property Discrimination Act.
The campaign presents the state laws this would preempt as racist, but
at least in the case of the Florida law, that is not so.
That law seems to be a bogus response to an fabricated security threat.
Either way, these laws should not exist. | | 1:02p |
A growing discrimination, FL
A Florida law which
prohibits citizens of certain countries from owning property
is being criticized as "racism against Asians", but it is clear that that is confusion.
The law prohibits citizens of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba,
Venezuela, and Syria from buying property within 10 miles of "critical
infrastructure."
Of those countries, China, Iran, North Korea and Syria are in Asia.
Cuba and Venezuela are not. Russia is partly in Europe and partly in
Asia. This law is clearly not directed at "Asians".
The fact that South Korea, Japan and Taiwan are not in the list shows
that this is no racism against East Asians. The inclusion of Syria
but bot Jordan and Iraq shows this is not a matter of racism against
Arabs. The inclusion of Colombia and the Dominican Republic shows
that this law is not about racism against Hispanics.
The law is clearly intended to terrorize scapegoats, since instead of
simply prohibiting the purchase, it proposes to put the purchaser in
prison: a terrible danger to anyone who might overlook some piece of
critical infrastructure 9 miles away.
The ban appears to be limited to a small fraction of the state's
territory, but I suspect that in practice important urban areas are
entirely excluded because cities tend to have airports, seaports,
power plants, water/sewage treatment sites, and military bases
scattered around. (Consider, for comparison, the way many cities have
almost nowhere
that someone on the sex offender list is permitted to
live.)
I think Republicans are constructing an imaginary "national security"
scare so they can pretend to "protect" the country from it,
and adding a little scapegoating so that they look tough.
If they wanted to truly protect the US from acts of sabotage,
they ought to make it apply to Republicans instead of Chinese.
| | 1:02p |
A disturbing arrest, LAPD
A Los Angeles county thug attacked and tackled a woman for making a video of
the arrest of her husband.
Thugs that unjustly attack people for upholding their rights and other people's rights should go to prison!
| | 1:02p |
Chatbot regulation: hiring in NYC
*NYC will require businesses to prove A.I. employment
software isn't racist or
sexist.*
Bias in AI systems used to judge individual humans is a well-known
problem, and I support this effort to prevent it.
But it won't be trivial to check for bias.
| | 1:02p |
| | 1:02p |
Civil war in Sudan
*Sudan on brink of
all-out civil war, UN chief warns.*
I don't post much about Sudan because I don't know what to say except
"How sad." I don't have any insight into the fighting, and I have no
ideas to suggest. Neither does anyone else, so I can't comment
on proposed resolutions or actions.
| | 1:02p |
Violent split, Manipur, India
The small Indian state of Manipur has split between its two ethnic groups,
which have withdrawn into
separate fortified territories.
The Indian government with its strong religious bias is not very well
suited to doing anything to resolve this problem — if anyone has a way to do so.
| | 1:02p |
| | 1:02p |
A UK NHS as funded by pharma
Drug companies' money is keeping the UK's NHS from collapse, but also
corrupting every part of it.
To keep the NHS effective and honest, it must be funded adequately by the state.
| | 1:02p |
Eurozone inflation
*Corporate profits were the
biggest factor driving up prices
last year and will be again in 2023 unless businesses are forced to absorb rising
wage bills, the head of the European Central Bank has said.*
| | 1:02p |
| | 1:02p |
Urgent: Help wild animals cross the roads
US citizens:
call on your state governor
to help wild animals cross the roads.
To sign without
running nonfree JavaScript
code from the web site,
use the Salsalabs workaround.
If you have disabled the page's JavaScript, you may get a blank
response after signing. That does not mean anything is wrong; your
signature has probably been sent in properly. The blank screen has
text that is rendered invisible by CSS; if your browser gives you a
way to disable the CSS in the page (as Icecat does), that should make
the text appear.
| | 1:02p |
Urgent: ban bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides
US citizens:
call on Biden
to ban the worst uses of bee-killing
neonicotinoid pesticides.
To sign without
running nonfree JavaScript
code from the web site,
use the Salsalabs workaround.
If you have disabled the page's JavaScript, you may get a blank
response after signing. That does not mean anything is wrong; your
signature has probably been sent in properly. The blank screen has
text that is rendered invisible by CSS; if your browser gives you a
way to disable the CSS in the page (as Icecat does), that should make
the text appear.
The White House comments lines are
+1-202-456-1111
and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
| | 1:31p |
| | 1:46p |
Urgent: NO IRS deduction for dirty hydrogen
US citizens:
call on the IRS
not to let dirty hydrogen (dirty because made from fossil fuels) get deductions for clean energy.
| | 1:46p |
Heat-event-triggered deaths: 61K, Europe
*Heatwave last summer killed
61,000 people in Europe,
research finds.*
This is surely just a small fraction of the people killed in 2022 by
the increasing heat of global heating. People die from heat on every
hot day, even normal summer days, and as normal summer days get hotter,
more people die from the heat.
Global heating kills people in indirect ways, including due to
food shortages caused by floods and droughts. I'd expect it to
be millions per year. Can anyone find a plausible estimate?
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