| Time |
Event |
| 6:04a |
Iranian women journalist not covering their head
Two Iranian women journalists were jailed for not covering their heads;
then they were freed on appeal. They celebrated this by appearing in
public and not covering their heads, so now they face new charges.
They seem to be determined to show their rejection of these unjust
laws.
</li>
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| 6:04a |
Mexicans who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande
Texas state thugs blocked US border patrol agents from approaching the
border to rescue some Mexicans who had drowned while trying to cross
the Rio Grande.
I find it strange that article reports, unquestioningly, that Texas
personnel could bar US border patrol agents from Shelby Park if the
former insist. I would expect the border patrol to arrest them
rather than heeding their objectives.
</li> |
| 6:04a |
Ten years away from world's first Trillionaire
*World's First Trillionaire Just 10 Years Away as Richest Men Double
Their Wealth.*
</li> |
| 6:04a |
Adopting right-wing policies
*[Data show that] adopting rightwing policies "does not help
centre-left win votes."
Study of European electoral data suggests social democratic parties
alienate supporters by moving towards the political centre.*
I conjecture that parties do this to cede to pressure from the
rich. rather than pressure from the voters. Even if it did win more
votes, it would be wrong.
</li> |
| 6:04a |
Taliban's bar on women teaching
* Human Rights Watch warns [that the Taliban's] bar on women [as
teachers] means unqualified men now teach boys, fewer subjects are
taught and beatings [of students] are routine.*
</li> |
| 6:04a |
Rushing execution of Marcellus Williams
Missouri's governor is rushing to execute Marcellus Williams and
disregard the evidence that he was convicted unjustly. He was
convicted of murdering Felicia Picus using a knife. Later DNA was
found on the knife, and it certainly did not belong to Picus or
Williams.
It looks like the governor is trying to bring about something we could
call an "abortion of justice".
</li> |
| 6:04a |
Local governments in England
Due to big Tory cuts in support for local government, plus inflation,
1/5 of the local governments in England will go bankrupt in 2025.
Tories won't help avoid that, of course. Clearly that crisis is
something they desire. What could their motive be? They have
adjusted the fuse to make it explode after the next election; that
could be one purpose, but I think they must have another alongside
that.
It would be natural for the Labour Party to try to fix this, but that
would require spending money. Starmer understandably refuses to
borrow that money, but he won't do that because he has changed the
party into Tory Light.
A former leader of Labour said, "The Labour Party is a moral crusade
or it is nothing."
Starmer's choice is "nothing". How can Britain get itself a true
Labour Party, or something comparable?
I think it must start with Corbyn,
Ideally he should be joined by several progressive-minded
Jews, to demonstrate that this party may criticize Israel's actions,
but it will never tolerate antisemitism.
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| 6:04a |
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| 6:04a |
Ex-Shin Bet director
*Ex-Shin Bet director Ayalon calls on Israel to release intifada
leader [Marwan] Barghouti [and negotiate with him to recognize the
state of Palestine].*
*“We Israelis will have security only when they, Palestinians, …
have hope.*
Be careful to avoid confusion about Palestinian leaders named
"Barghouti". There are other political leaders in the Barghouti
family, and they follow different approaches.
</li> |
| 6:04a |
Florida school district pulls dictionaries
*Florida school district pulls dictionaries for "sexual conduct" descriptions.*
They look for opportunities to be absurdly repressive as a way of
proving their loyalty to extremism. The sad thing is that progressives
go in for something similar — it is called "virtue signaling".
I resent being pressured to do anything for such reasons, so I often
resist such pressure, even for a cause I fully support. I may like
your way of stating these views, and follow you. But if I don't like
it, I will state our shared views in my own way.
You're entitled to do that too.
</li> |
| 6:04a |
Accusations of US plan to meddle in Russian election
Putin's official *accuses US of plan to meddle in its election.*
The first level of lie in this accusation is the assumption that Russia
is free enough that its elections could be influenced. With all the meddling
that Putin directs in Russian elections,
there is no space for anyone else to meddle.
Meanwhile, people who criticize Putin are likely to end up in prison.
This sort of lie is typical of right-wingers. Whatever accusation
could be validly made against them, they make it against their
critics, because the truth is of no significance to them.
</li> |
| 6:04a |
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| 6:04a |
Effort to smear University of Pennsylvania president
*Pro-Israel Effort to Smear [University of Pennsylvania] President
Started Well Before Oct. 7.*
</li> |
| 6:04a |
Chatbots as sweethearts
Chatbots seem to be good at giving a superficial imitation of the emotional
responses humans want from sweethearts.
The article discusses several potential dangers to society if many
people decide to have fake-intelligent sweethearts, but doesn't take
that far enough. Society could fragment increasingly into male and
female fractions, perhaps more than one of each. As a science fiction
fan, I am reminded of A World out of Time by Larry Niven, in which
the Boys and the Girls (each immortal) became separate groups and
fought a war.
The author, unaware of the issues raised by the free software
movement, omits the one we would think of first: each one of these
chatbots, if it isn't free software running on the user's own
computer, will be controlled by a company. Barring unforeseeable
major changes, those companies will profit by emotionally manipulating
the users they supposedly serve. They will program the servers, and
the apps for interacting with them, to make the customers obey the
company and serve its goal.
Calling chatbots "artificial intelligence" helps lull humans into
treating them like persons. That is why I decided never to do that,
and refer to them instead as "bullshit generators".
</li> |
| 6:04a |
Superpowers in the Middle East
*The US isn’t the biggest power in the Middle East any more. Iran is.*
The fact that foolish US actions, and sometimes unjust US actions,
helped bring about this result does not make it a good thing. Iran is
a cruel, repressive state,
much like Russia
and China
which are its allies. We face, this time for real, an "axis of evil."
</li> |
| 8:48p |
Voting machine ballots in code
A court case demands that Georgia stop using voting machines that
write the votes on ballots in a code that voters can't read if they try.
As explained here,
devices like this create the possibility of a centralized
fraud that would be hard to detect.
This case is not about any specific allegation of actual rigging.
Republicans have used may efforts to rig US elections, including
gerrymandering and voter suppression, and are continuing to do so, but this case is not about those
methods. Facts suggested that a few US elections were rigged through
voting machines around 20 years ago, but there was no proof.
[pol notes about those instances, or copy links from evoting.html if
they are there]
Fraud can be committed using paper ballots too, and that has been done
for centuries. However, a big fraud with paper ballots tends to be bulky
and thus hard to hide.
</li> |
| 8:48p |
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| 8:49p |
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| 8:49p |
Oil companies mis-using First Amendment
Oil companies are arguing in court that the First Amendment prevents them
from being held liable for damages caused by misleading people.
</li> |
| 8:49p |
FTC suing data brokers
Data brokers collect lots of data about most people, including location data
that they get from snoop phones, apps for sapps, and web sites and use machine
learning to identify patterns in that data and what the patterns mean.
The FTC is suing individual data brokers and making them agree not to
do these things in the future.
It is a brave effort, but when one company stops, another will pop up
to do the same thing. To make privacy secure. we need to require
products and services to be designed so that they don't tend to track
anyone.
</li> |
| 8:49p |
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| 8:49p |
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| 8:49p |
Tossing human rights aside
Several countries in Latin America are tossing human rights on the
garbage pile in trying to defeat gangs by making war on them in parallel with
arbitrary imprisonment of suspects.
This war of repression looks like "the only way" for the government to
end gang violence, but that assumes the government will win the war —
and they don't seem to actually win. (The US government likewise
assumed it would eventually win in Vietnam and Afghanistan, but it
never did.) The governments of El Salvador and Ecuador may not win
either. Haiti's government eventually surrendered to gang rule.
I don't know what these governments should do. Maybe it is hopeless.
But it seems to me that this war is an extension of the US "war on
drugs". If the US switches to a harm-reduction policy, with
decriminalization and treatment, it could reduce the profits that
keep gangs interested.
</li> |
| 8:49p |
Urgent: Investigate DeJoy's coverups
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate DeJoy's coverups of
neglecting to protect postal workers from heat stroke.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
</li> |
| 8:49p |
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| 10:34p |
Settlers & news shows, ISR
*The far right infiltration [and even domination] of Israel's media is
blinding the public
to the truth about Gaza.*
There is a peace movement in Israel which demands to end Israel's
atrocities in Gaza, and an end to the fighting there. Fair access to
the media would help it succeed. |