| Time |
Event |
| 3:36a |
Brexit stated intentions, actual results
The
trade pluses and minuses
of taking Britain out of the EU add up to an enormous minus.
This is not to count all he suffering that the Tories have imposed on
Britain by restricting immigration, and the sadness of people who
cannot go to work or retire across that border.
I forecast that leaving the EU would be a disaster for Britain
if
the Tories were in charge, and that it might be beneficial if Labour were in charge. The
first one is what happened, and my forecast come true, and for the reasons I gave. A
plutocratist party would use all "opportunities" for dooH niboR. By contrast, it is clear
that Corbyn's preference to maintain a customs union with the EU would have avoided a big
part of the harm, and he would have encouraged foreign workers to come and keep the NHS
and other public services functioning.
As for Starmer Labour, he is almost as plutocratist as the Tories were
then, so that party would not reduce the harm much. |
| 3:36a |
Race-based dramas in high places
*[Right-wing] activist
who led ouster of Harvard president linked to "scientific racism" journal.*
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| 3:36a |
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| 4:36a |
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| 4:36a |
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| 4:36a |
Drone warfare
*Deadly, cheap and widespread: how Iran-supplied drones are changing the
nature of warfare.*
What makes them so dangerous to the US now is that the religious
fanatics that use them cannot be deterred by the expected losses from
a probable counterattack.
Small, cheap drones have destabilized warfare, but I don't think the
instability will last. Every country now needs a defense against
drone-bearing fanatics. I expect the US will have a cheap
counter-drone weapon a few years from now.
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| 4:36a |
Fleeing to Egypt
Israel's siege and bombardment has made most Palestinians in Gaza want
to flee to Egypt.
That is what Israel wants -- to depopulate Gaza of Palestinians. And
the cruelty of its treatment of them seems designed to pressure them
to run.
To enable Israel to succeed in terrorizing Palestinians into fleeing
is not a just outcome. Israel should stop its reign of terror, and the US
should make sure that it does.
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| 4:36a |
Insurance authorization
The Biden administration is trying to stop insurance companies from
going too far in refusing to cover specific medical treatments.
The "approvals" process is meant to save the expenses of procedures
and medicines whose effectiveness would be dubious, but it is too
eager to say "no". The people who do this are not doctors and do not
know the patient -- they are working from rules,
My doctors have had to spend time dealing with the approvals process
to get authorizations for medicines they have prescribed for me. The
authorization come from a CVS company called "Carelon", and I don't
know why it mails me a copy of authorizations for procedures. I worry
that under some circumstances some clinic will demand I prove a
procedure has been "authorized."
Every medicine-related organization seems to use "care" in its name,
which seems to me like a marketing campaign. So I generally omit or
replace that word. I call that company "Scarelon",
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| 4:36a |
Bitcoin EFTs
Gauging that the US approval of Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds)
without trustworthy regulation makes them sucker bait.
I certainly will not but into them. I don't want to speculate; I want
safe investments that don't require being watched with an eagle-eye
every day or second-guessing everyone else.
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| 4:36a |
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| 4:36a |
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| 4:36a |
Phony scientific papers
Companies that write phony scientific papers for a fee have
infiltrated the editorial boards of "real" academic papers.
That led to 10,000 articles retracted last year.
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| 4:36a |
Asylum seeker conditions
The asylum seekers in the UK, given housing only on a remote barge,
are living
in terrible conditions and say it is like a prison.
MPs told ministers, "We were disheartened to see some of the living
conditions on the Bibby Stockholm, with many individuals having to
share small, cramped cabins [originally designed for one person],
often with people [up to six] they do not know [some of whom spoke a
different language to them]."
One said told a reporter tat "We are concerned that housing asylum
claimants on Bibby Stockholm is leaving them in a claustrophobic
environment, isolated from external support, including legal advice,
and without important links to community, faith or family, potentially
for months on end."
|
| 10:24p |
Biden and Palestine
Biden seems to have in mind a deal for diplomatic recognition of Palestine. But it faces many obstacles, and probable obstruction by Republicans
under orders from the wrecker is not the biggest of them.
I don't think the US can wait several months to stop supporting the
killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, not even to achieve
the hoped-for progress.
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| 10:24p |
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| 10:24p |
(Satire) Russian Roulette
(satire) *NRA Narrows Search For New Leadership With Round Of Russian
Roulette.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling JavaScript entirely or
telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts in the page, then
right-click and select item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser
such as lynx that doesn't implement JavaScript and CSS.
|
| 10:24p |
Exxon suing to silence shareholders
After Exxon's lawsuit against the shareholders' motion made by climate defenders, they dropped the motion.
I suspect that defending the suit would have cost too much for those
climate defenders. For Exxon, with its billions, suing is cheap.
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| 10:24p |
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| 10:24p |
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| 10:24p |
Bullying and brainwashing
Putin's henchmen are bullying and brainwashing the kidnapped Ukrainian
children. Ukraine has the name of around 20,000 kidnapped children,
but there are probably much more.
There are strange variations in how Russians treat kidnapped children
and the Ukrainian relatives who search for them. I theorize that he
has not systematically informed all Russians of what he is trying to
do, and not given everyone orders to cooperate. The result seems to
be that individual Russians who deal with these children react
to events according to their views and values.
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| 10:24p |
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| 10:24p |
Urgent: Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act.
This would not do as much good as raising taxes generally on high
incomes together with limiting the ability to shelter large amounts of
wealth from taxation. We should continue to push for that as what we
really want.
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| 10:24p |
Urgent: Stock Buyback Disclosure Rule
US citizens: call on the SEC to propose again the Stock Buyback Disclosure
Rule.
Stock buybacks used to be prohibited entirely, before a plutocratist
change in the law. We should undo that change and prohibit them
entirely once again. But this rule will be much better than no change.
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| 10:24p |
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| 10:24p |
Criminal charge for parody
Students at Northwestern University face criminal charges for publishing
a parody of the school's student newspaper. It criticized the school's
support for Israel and its atrocities in Gaza. They wrapped their parody
around some of the copies of the newspaper they were parodying.
They are being prosecuted under an obscure law against "theft of
advertising services". It prohibits inserting other material into
newspapers. Does the law cover wrapping a different cover around the
newspaper? In terms of advertising, that is very different.
More deeply, prosecuting people for expressing their political views
in a parody is an attack on freedom of speech. No matter if it is
offensive to someone -- since it is about a real political issue, we
must recognize its redeeming social value whether we agree with it or
not.
It seems clear that this is part of a campaign of persecution,
in the US, Britain and parts of Europe, of people who publicly
defend Palestinians rights.
I disagree with those people on a least one point. They call Israel's
war in Gaza "genocide"; in my view, it has not reached that level yet,
but it is heading that way.
But that disagreement is not pertinent to the issues of raised
by prosecuting them.
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| 10:24p |
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