Sunday, July 30th, 2023

Time	Event
2:02a	Farage bank account closure *Muslim leaders decry "double standard" of Farage bank account closure furore.* The UK government chose to consider Islamic charities as supporters of terrorism, and used the banks to shut them down informally. The US did comparable things. (Comment on this)
2:02a	Teacher fired for attending drag show *Teacher fired by Texas Christian school for attending drag show.* The school officials believed their own false propaganda about drag shows and responded with Christian cruelty. (Comment on this)
2:02a	(satire) Möbius Highways (satire) *Raving Pete Buttigieg Launches Initiative To Build Möbius Highways Where Cars Can Drive For Infinity.* Buttigieg is confused again. To be able to drive without stopping, you don't need a Möbius strip. A road that goes in a circle is enough. (Comment on this)
2:02a	Twitter deletes its own fact check *Twitter Deletes Its Own Fact Check Correcting Elon's Bogus Vaccine Tweet.* I wonder whether Musk is acting like a child given a toy he can smash as he wishes, or has some serious purpose for destroying Twitter. (Comment on this)
2:02a	Ban on gas hookups in new homes Victoria, a state in Australia, will ban gas hookups on new homes starting next year. (Comment on this)
2:02a	Court case against Atheists in Kenya The Atheists in Kenya Society faces a court case that attempts to terminate its existence for criticizing religion. (Comment on this)
2:02a	Uniformly reliable product from music factories The music factories have learned to produce a reliably uniform product. The enormous dominance of a few pop singers is a reflection of that. (Comment on this)
2:02a	Universal web DRM system Google is implementing a universal web DRM system. Making it even a little worse, Google will control the software and the data. But don't get distracted by evil details — the worst thing about this scheme is that it is DRM. (Comment on this)
2:02a	Can't afford to be climate doomers Rebecca Solnit: *We can't afford to be climate doomers.* It is too late to prevent climate disaster, since that has already started. But humanity still has a chance to make the disaster smaller and enable civilization to survive. I wonder if the planet roasters are spending money promoting climate defeatism as a last-ditch method of discouraging climate defense action. (Comment on this)
2:02a	Ghana abolishes death penalty *Ghana abolishes death penalty, with expected reprieve for 176 condemned prisoners.* (Comment on this)
2:02a	US tracking cars by license plates One element of massive surveillance in the US is tracking cars by their license plates. I suggest requiring any entity to get permission from a car's owner before collecting car location records based on the car's license plate. Or else a court order specifying a license number. (Comment on this)
2:02a	Inquiry into Harvard's legacy admission policies *US education department opens inquiry into Harvard’s legacy admission policies.* (Comment on this)
2:02a	Poverty is Systemic failure *Poverty Is a Systemic, Not Individual, Failure.* If you want to blame it on individual poor people, you can spin the facts that way. When a system becomes hard for certain groups to cope with, some people will crack before others. Why would certain people crack sooner? Perhaps their personalities or other characteristics are more predisposed to cracking. Perhaps they have bad luck. There is always randomness that affects the outcomes in specific cases. But those causes of randomness have little to do with political questions — the aspects what make a system better or worse. That is what governments can adjust so that fewer people crack — or, for those who seek scapegoats, so that more people crack. (Comment on this)
2:02a	Progress against wild boar The US is making progress against wild boar the intelligent way: by hunting them and eating them. I've tried wild boar meat in Europe and liked it very much. (Comment on this)
3:17a	Another innocent young Algerian shot, maimed, FR Hedi, a Frenchman of Algerian decent, walked past some uniformed thugs, and one shot him in the back of his head with a "less lethal" weapon. The weapon did not kill him, but maimed him instead. It also knocked him down, which gave the whole group of thugs a chance to beat him up. He may have lost the sight of his left eye. France did the right thing, quickly prosecuting all of those thugs. Whether it is necessary to keep the shooter in jail until trial, I am not sure. When a non-thug is accused of such crimes, refusing bail is justified if there is a danger that that accused will commit more crimes, or flee justice. I can't judge a priori whether that is the case here. (Comment on this)
10:47a	Urgent: stifle "Mom's for Liberty" US citizens: call on Facebook not to give "Moms for Liberty" (a right-wing extremist group) a platform for hate. (Comment on this)
10:47a	Urgent: Stop fueling destruction of the Amazon forest US citizens: call on several big banks to stop fueling destruction of the Amazon forest. By contrast, let's all fuel destruction of the predatory near-monopoly called Amazon. (Comment on this)
10:47a	Fled China, nabbed in Laos Laos arrested Chinese human rights lawyer Lu Siwei on China's behalf as he was about to travel to Thailand. I think this is the definitive criterion for a puppet regime of China: arresting people that China wants to make political prisoners. (Comment on this)
10:47a	Staying cool in hot weather Describing alternatives to air conditioning for coping with the heat. I keep shades closed, use fans locally, and wear little clothing indoors. That enables me to set my thermostat several degrees higher. But I could not do without air conditioning in the heat of a Boston summer, not even many years ago. (Comment on this)

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