| Time |
Event |
| 6:03a |
|
| 6:03a |
Politicians who delay climate action
*Politicians who delay climate action must live with consequences,
says [doctor in charge of environmental health at WHO].*
It should not come as a surprise that this is so, but it is good to
see it stated openly.
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| 6:03a |
Tory minister says homelessness is a "choice"
The Tory minister in charge of how homeless people are treated
claims that homelessness is a "choice".
That is not true in Britain today — the forms of state aid and
support that helped prevent homelessness have been cut so much that
many people are destitute.
|
| 6:03a |
Changing a model's skin color
If any model's skin color could be altered at will in photos,
would that be unfair to non-white models, or would it eliminate
one of the sources and mechanisms of prejudice?
I don't know the answer, but I think it is a question that calls for
an answer supported by careful thought, evidence, and reasons.
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| 6:03a |
A Briton added to sex offender list
A Briton has been put on the sex offender list for
dressing up in all-covering black costume with a full-face mask
and lying down to "writhe" on the ground.
The court ordered him not to own such a costume, and not to own a mask
that covers even part of the face, on pain of imprisonment. Does this
sentence him to Covid-19?
This decision seems to say that the bounds of crime are defined by
other people's imagination. It cannot be just to imprison anyone on
grounds that other people can so easily twist.
Simply being put on the sex offender list might directly render the
convicted man unemployed and/or homeless.
|
| 6:03a |
Arguing purpose of job interviews
Arguing that interviews with job candidates obtain nearly no real
information about the candidates — rather they act as a Rorschach test
for the interviewers, while giving them an opportunity for them to
convert their biases into an appearance of real information.
People like me, who reject SaaSS
and therefore will not use today's language
model generative systems, will however be put to a real test on which we
don't have a chance to cheat.
|
| 6:03a |
Snow White remake
Disney has a plan to remake Snow White with drastic changes to give it
a woke moral.
I have no particular esteem or attachment for the story of Snow White.
I am sure I saw the old Disney cartoon once when I was a child but I doubt
I would ever watch it again. If it disappeared, I would not miss it.
But it makes no sense to alter an old story in the drastic way that
appears to be proposed (assuming it is a real plan, not trolling).
Projects to confront real issues, by situating them in old stories
that disregarded them, can result in interesting reading. But this
project does nothing like that. It would restage Snow White in a
totally unrealistic woke world of the past, one that wasn't even
imagined back then.
The book, Catherine Called Birdy, was a bit of a stretch for
plausibility for a young noblewoman in the 13th century, but not
utterly unimaginable, and that made it fun. The movie made from that
book went far beyond credibility — it became propaganda to inculcate
an openly defiant form of feminism, an attitude that exists today but
was not even imagined back then.
Indeed, the only reason I can see for someone to want to stage Snow
White in a woke world that never existed is the goal that all
stories (for children, at least) must support a certain ideological
position. That project seems like brainwashing to me.
The article I linked to participates in the campaign to eliminate each
word that means a person with certain characteristics or in a certain
role, and replace it with a phrase that contains the word "people"
together with modifiers.
The motivations for some of these proposed changes to English are
well-meaning, but I doubt that they would improve society in the ways
that their proponents claim. Meanwhile, they would mutilate English.
I've decided not to go along with this campaign. I will continue
using the nouns.
|
| 6:03a |
New imitation "vintage clothing"
New imitation "vintage clothing" is being made and sold. Is there
anything wrong with this?
In my opinion, there is nothing bad about it. If people want clothing in
a style that was made a few decades ago, why shouldn't people get it?
Pretending that newly made similar clothes are old is a false
pretense, but that matters only if the people buying those old-styled
clothes make a fuss about whether they are "genuine old". Why should
that matter to anyone? There is no reason to pay attention to it.
Some people may try to profit because other people pay inordinate
attention to the difference between "genuine old" clothes and new
imitations, but is no reason to care whether they succeed in profiting
from that.
|
| 6:03a |
LNG facility predicted to endanger humpback whales
A new LNG export facility for Canada's Pacific coast is predicted to
endanger humpback whales with the number of collisions that they would
suffer with ships transporting the fossil gas.
This is not to mention that exporting the gas would drive us faster
into climate disaster, when what we need to do is put the engines into
"full reverse".
|
| 6:03a |
UK scientific advisors on Covid plans
The UK's official government science advisors could tell ministers that their
plans for dealing with Covid-19 were absurd, but they were not allowed to tell
the public this — and they were used to give an air of scientific legitimacy
to the absurd plans.
I think that science officials in the US are more independent than in
the UK, and that this problem is less here. But it must have been
difficult for an official who is in principle allowed to state per own
views to the public to disagree publicly with the bully when that last
was president.
|
| 6:03a |
French museum exhibit about Genghis Khan
A French museum exhibit about Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire
rejected cooperation with China on account of the censorship and
propaganda demands China made. It has now gone ahead with the
cooperation of Mongolia instead of China.
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UK was not prepared for 2020 pandemic
At the start of 2020 the UK government had no plans and no
preparations for how it would deal with a respiratory epidemic. But
this was but one example of a general systematic incompetence.
Just about every part of the system that would be stressed by
Covid-19, or needed to deal with Covid-19, was in tatters. But that
was not coincidence. It resulted from a general inability to
rationally address public needs and spend the needed funds to do it.
Labour won't be able to do better unless it is prepared to spend
enough to make the NHS work well and likewise other services needed
for dealing with an epidemic. To do that, it needs money to spend.
It needs to make the rich pay their fair share in taxes.
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| 6:03a |
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| 6:03a |
Iranian mother jailed
*Iranian mother jailed for 13 years after denouncing death of son shot
at protest.*
|
| 7:48a |
HAMAS as not "resistance"
HAMAS and Israel have given themselves over to heartless vengeance;
Palestinians and Israelis
should instead aim
for the wisdom to bring
about justice.
The author follows Aeschylus by using the Greek Furies to stand for
heartless vengeance, and Athena to stand for wisdom and justice. But
I think that where Israelis that serve vengeance get that idea is from
the Hebrew Bible, which describes acts of genocide without a qualm. |
| 7:48a |
Palestinians as not "HAMAS"
*Bernie Sanders calls for end to Israeli [air] strikes and killing of
thousands [of Gazans].*
He explicitly said that aid for Israel should be conditioned on ending
the bombardments that kill civilians.
|
| 7:48a |
Russia's war with West
*Continued support for Ukraine will
cost the west less
than letting Putin win.*
|
| 7:48a |
Palestinian state versions and visions
Difficulties
that must be
overcome to set up two states in Israel/Palestine.
One big obstacle is HAMAS. Another is the Israeli violent nationalist/racist right wing.
|
| 7:48a |
HAMAS' strategy
Netanyahu says that as long as HAMAS continues to hold over 200 hostages,
he
will continue
holding over 2 million hostages (the population of Gaza).
Meanwhile, he will continue the attacks that kill some of both groups of hostages.
*Pleas to end the suffering in Gaza are growing louder, but
neither side
actually wants a ceasefire.*
In Gaza, both sides are committing war crimes. Even if they both
prefer to continue them, the rest of the world should insist they
stop. Israel, in particular, can fight HAMAS if it wants to
but only if it avoids committing war crimes.
Note how this situation differs from the war in Ukraine. Putin orders
the Putin forces to commit unceasing war crimes, but Ukraine doesn't
retaliate in kind. Putin is committing aggression but Ukraine is not.
Thus, Ukraine is entitled to keep fighting to recover the territory
that the Putin forces have seized, but the Putin forces are not
entitled to continue their war of aggression or their war crimes.
|
| 7:48a |
Waterborne illness, GAZA
*Polluted water supplies and salty groundwater are making people [in
Gaza] ill, with UN warning of threat of
child deaths from dehydration.*
|
| 7:48a |
HAMAS–IDF tactical
Privately, Israeli officials recognize that
there is no obvious way
Israel can destroy HAMAS. And no obvious way to free the hostages except to trade for them.
|
| 7:48a |
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| 7:48a |
Israel's war splits US Democrats
Rashida Tlaib
accuses Biden of supporting
"the genocide of the Palestinian people."
I think that is somewhat of an exaggeration — Israel is indeed committing
mass murder of noncombatants
Palestinians, but that is not the same thing as genocide.
The difference is clear enough, but even though I disagree with Tlaib
on this point, I still support her politically.
|
| 7:48a |
Climate model advances
James Hansen
says that scientists have hitherto underestimated the
Earth's climate sensitivity, so global heating in coming years will
exceed the current predictions of climate models.
In particular, we will reach 1.5°C of heating in a few years
and 2°C of heating by 2050.
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