| Time |
Event |
| 9:31a |
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| 9:31a |
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| 9:31a |
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| 9:31a |
Australia's support of Catholic hospitals
Australia supports Catholic hospitals with public funds
while they turn away women who need abortions.
One way to finesse this problem would be to set up an organizationally
separate facility for abortions, physically next to the religious
hospital but not under church funding or control. |
| 9:31a |
Chinese political slogan mural
Is painting slogans on a wall, that are meant to criticize China's
repression, "art"?
Is painting the regime's own statement, aiming for people to recognize
their ironic contradiction with its actions, an effective mode of
criticism?
In my view, the answers are "no" and "it's chancy".
I am all for condemning China's repressive dictatorship, as a
political act; but in order to qualify as art it needs to present
its meaning in a subtle, unobvious way. That's the part that could be
art. However, merely intending a text as irony fails to do that. It
doesn't present the meaning in a subtle way, because the subtlety is
not in the work itself; rather, the artist hopes that it will come up
in the viewer's minds only.
As for the effectiveness, it seems that many of the public did not notice
the irony and mistook the quotation from the regime for support — and they
responded by painting over it with non-ironic condemnation of the regime,
thinking that the artist disagreed with them.
You could say that the condemnation manifested itself by ricochet.
Maybe that is a kind of success. Maybe.
It seems to me that this art student's heart was in the right place
politically, but his artwork calls for an F as art.
|
| 9:32a |
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| 9:32a |
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| 9:32a |
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| 9:32a |
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| 9:32a |
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| 9:32a |
Australia's export of fossil fuels
*Australia's export of fossil fuels is like selling drugs to "maintain"
lifestyle, former [state head fire official] says.*
This is so obvious that when officials who are not stupid don't see it
we must conclude they are determined not to see. Sometimes the
not-see party can be almost as dangerous as the Nazi party.
|
| 9:32a |
|
| 9:32a |
Paying prisoners 23 cents an hour
Paying prisoners 23 cents an hour to work for private businesses
is supposedly justified to teach them job skills so they can get jobs
after release. Except that nobody will hire them no matter how well they
do the job. |
| 9:32a |
Too many wolves in Europe
The EU is coming to think that there are now too many wolves in Europe.
That could well be true.
I do not consider wolves sacred, and I have no wish to maximize their
numbers. Rather, I want to see ecosystems healthy and extinctions
avoided. That entails keeping wild populations well away from zero.
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| 9:32a |
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| 9:32a |
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| 9:32a |
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| 9:32a |
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| 9:32a |
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| 9:32a |
Microsoft tells users not to install Chrome
Users report that Microsoft has installed popups that tell users not to use
Chrome.
That is entirely valid advice. Chrome is nonfree software, which
implies it imposes unjust control over the user (see fsf.org/tedx).
It also has has malicious functionalities.
What I wonder is, does Microsoft single out Google's malware, or does it
also warn about malware from Apple, Microsoft and other countries?
|
| 12:01p |
|
| 12:01p |
Climate justice research, the dilemma
African countries are compelled to choose
between coping with global heating effects, fighting poverty and paying debts.
I suppose the greenhouse emission rate of African countries is small enough
that reducing those countries' emissions is not urgent.
|
| 12:01p |
Today's disaster restoration industry
Private equity is investing
in causing climate disasters, and profiting from the work to clean them up.
|
| 12:01p |
Financing Prager University disinformation
*US "university" [calling itself PragerU] spreads climate lies and
receives
millions from rightwing donors.*
Prager you too!
|
| 12:01p |
|
| 12:01p |
Climate targets elusive
*UN warns world
will miss climate targets unless fossil fuels phased out.*
|
| 12:01p |
Coal-fired power plants
Big banks are financing US coal power plants,
despite a supposed commitment
to stop,
by lending instead to their parent companies.
The effort to stop lending and insurance for fossil fuel projects is a
backup plan, which we try because we can't get Congress to do what
really needs to be done: prohibit some of those projects and tax the
rest so much that some will be canceled. If it worked, it would be a victory.
|
| 12:01p |
Climate aftermaths and the hundredth US activist
Ralph Nader: as second-order unnatural disasters (caused by the
effects of the first-order unnatural disasters) spread death and
suffering around the world,
we must join to crush the power of the
corporations
that make sure these disasters keep happening.
Nader believes the time is ripe for a left-right coalition to do this,
but I think one of the purposes of right-wing disinformation is to ensure
most right-wing people, in various countries, are so absorbed with fantasy
problems that they can't focus on real problems.
|
| 12:01p |
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| 12:01p |
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| 12:01p |
Online Safety Bill, spy clause, UK
The Tories have backed down,
for the moment, on plans to scan users' digital communications, but
the requirement is still in the law they are about to pass.
Perhaps they plan to make another try in a year or two.
|
| 12:01p |
Property registration and the economic crime bill, UK
UK enforcement of the registration rules is so lax that
secret owners
are in no danger
of being punished or hassled.
This applies to ordinary tax evaders as well as Russian oligarchs
subject to sanctions because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
|
| 12:01p |
Dirty money as economic crime, UK
The UK parliament passed laws a few years ago to require registration of
the effective ("beneficial") owner of foreign-owned properties,
but left a loophole
that defeats the system: when the nominal owner is a trust, it can still
conceal the identity of the effective owner.
This is plutocratism at work.
|
| 12:01p |
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| 12:01p |
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| 12:01p |
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| 12:01p |
Poor sacrificing 3 days, India
Modi has walled off poor neighborhoods of Delhi and
shut all business
in them,
so that India will look shiny to visiting foreign dignitaries.
Although Muslims, Christians and Dalits are the usual targets of his contempt,
any poor person can be a target when that is convenient for him.
|