| Time |
Event |
| 4:28a |
Lukewarm adverts
Advertainment is taking over movie-making. Why spend money on product
advertisements to accompany some sort of show if you can have the show
based
entirely on your product?
The article highlights a general tendency towards milking assets that
are available rather than making anything new.
To describe the result, the article falls into the intellectual
pitfall of the misleading term "intellectual property", which twists
thinking about any of the disparate laws that have been crammed into
it.
If you want to think clearly about copyright, for instance, shun
the term "intellectual property" and say you are talking about
"copyright". Don't bring patents into that discussion — they are
totally different from copyright. Also don't bring in trademarks,
or trade secrets, or publicity rights.
For this article's point, the term "licensing rentierism" would fit better
and avoid that confusion.
|
| 4:28a |
Sewage laws
* insiders say UK water firms knowingly
break sewage laws.*
If the government really wanted this to stop, it could stop them.
Seeing as the UK government can make it a crime to protest in
"annoying" ways, it could, it could clearly make it a crime, punished
by imprisonment, to intentionally pollute the waters.
So why doesn't it? I speculate that it is a matter of values. Under
plutocratist rule, letting the "investors" extract money they are
supposedly entitle do takes priority.
|
| 4:28a |
Wales speed limit petition
Wales (part of the UK) has given local communities control over
which streets to
limit to 20 mph.
Many citizens had objected to the way the Welsh government set this up.
|
| 4:28a |
Oil firms influence
Louisiana State University is accused of selling oil companies
the opportunity to influence research topics or
even control research.
I have the impression that many other US universities do this,
and even more in other countries.
|
| 4:28a |
Political debate
Politicians right and left are trying to censor political views,
but censorship by the right wing has
an easier time succeeding.
|
| 7:57a |
Columbia U. arrests peaceful protesters
*54 Columbia Law School Faculty Condemn Administration for Mass
Arrests
and Suspensions.*
|
| 7:57a |
Columbia U. President shocks nation, USA
The Columbia and Barnard chapters of the American Association of University Professors have
condemned
the president of Columbia for repression of students protesting in support of Palestine.
They said, “We are shocked at her failure to mount any defense of the free inquiry central to
the educational mission of a university in a democratic society and at her willingness to
appease legislators seeking to interfere in university affairs.”
The president of Columbia has acted like a coward, and had better develop some courage soon.
"In favor of Palestine" includes a range of views — including some I agree with and
others (for instance, calling for the elimination of Israel) that I oppose. People, including
students, are entitled to the right to advocate any of those views, or other views different
entirely, whether you agree with them or not, whether I agree with them or not. We depend on
this freedom and we must defend it firmly.
|
| 7:57a |
The science of tree- and plant-life
Questioning the claim that
trees communicate and plan.
To control transfer of nutrients is far simpler than consciousness. Trees can do fairly
complex behaviors without anything like consciousness,
|
| 7:57a |
Pro-Iranian Iraqi bases attacked
There was an air attack on Iraqi army auxiliaries that unofficially support Iran. At the
moment it is hard to know whether the attack was done by Israel or by
PISSI. The US probably
knows but is
not
telling us.
If this was Netanyahu's doing, he is playing a dangerous game, and the US should demand he stop
provoking Iran if he wants any help when Iran retaliates.
|
| 7:57a |
Tightening Internet control, China
Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads
from [Apple' China] App Store,
We could hardly expect Apple to defy government orders to stop distributing a certain program,
whether those orders are backed by valid judgments or arbitrary commands. But why does that
choice come down to Apple at all? For a simple reason:
Because Apple doesn't allow users to freely install application programs!
Apple is compelled to serve repressive governments in repressing Apple customers because Apple
designs the software to give it unjust power over users in the first place.
We should not forget that the apps for WhatsApp and Threads (like those for Facebook and
Instagram) are themselves nonfree and therefore freedom-trampling.
|
| 7:57a |
Murder charges on cops, CA
The California thugs who killed Mario Gonzalez by
holding
him down for a long time face charges of manslaughter.
|
| 7:58a |
Sanctions against extremist groups in ISR
The US and Europe have put sanctions on two right-wing Israelis who are
leaders
of the movement to take Palestinians' land, and associated with pogroms against them.
I don't know how much good this will do, but at least it is an effort in the right direction.
|
| 7:58a |
|
| 7:58a |
Salman Rushdie
*Salman Rushdie warns young people against forgetting
value
of free speech.*
How dangerous, how foolish, and what a shame: young people motivated by good causes think they
can make the world better by tactics of bullying. It makes them kin to fascists, and once they
eliminate freedom of speech, it is the fascists that take advantage.
|