| Time |
Event |
| 2:51a |
|
| 2:51a |
|
| 2:51a |
Google's Android scanning audio calls
Google has announced a new Android "feature" of analyzing the audio of phone calls and
informing
when it hears something resembling a deepfake scam.
That feature could potentially be useful, if it were implemented in a trustworth way (with
free software, for instance). But given that it is implemented using nonfree software,
there is the danger it could be extended to scan for other things, perhaps conversations
about "subversive" topics such as defending human rights or rejecting nonfree softwae.
The notification when these are detected may go to the FBI instead of the user.
|
| 2:51a |
Windows 11 timeshift feature next month
Microsoft will make Windows save all the screen output so as to look through it later; but
don't
worry about snooping, it says.
What Microsoft says about privacy seems impressive until you think about the
consequences of the universal back door that enables Microsoft to forcibly install
any change in the installed software. If Microsoft wants to see some of the files in
your computer, it can look at them at any time.
Indeed, can you be sure it isn't looking already?
Cops too could seize your computer and look at those records, perhaps to see whether
you had an abortion.
|
| 2:51a |
US complicity in Gaza
*Biden will be
remembered
as a president who could have restrained Israel but instead made the US complicit
in this war.* (Unless he pushes harder and actually changes Israel's actions.)
|
| 2:51a |
Political border-patrol, USA
Ilan Pappé: *I'm an Israeli critic of Zionism. Why did
border
agents detain me at a US airport?*
It seems that US government "security" agencies are meddling politically, which they have
no business doing. Fortunately they did not bar his entry to the US this time.
I don't know Pappé's views in detail and I probably would disagree with part of them
— but I am incensed at the US government for meddling in this way.
|
| 2:51a |
"Antisemitism" as the new McCarthyism
The US faces a wave of McCarthyism, this time using "antisemitism" rather than
"communism" as the target for repression. Congress is working on
a bill to "combat
antisemitism"
which is based on the IHRA criterion for antisemitism, which is a way
of arbitrarily declaring some views on political questions to be "antisemitism".
Jewish civil libertarians, including
the
author of the IHRA definition, are campaigning against this bill.
Americans, if you love our freedoms, now is the time to defend them.
|
| 2:51a |
Vice- as virtue-signalling, USA
The fascist energizes supporters by saying
"fuck you" to
Liberals, Democrats, truth, justice, and human decency.
When they start their coup, will we be organized to fight them and defeat them?
|
| 2:51a |
Violence against Gaza protesters, NY
New York City thugs went to town
beating
up the protesters they had already arrested.
Even if those protesters deserved to be arrested — a question on which I won't
presume to trust the judgment of thugs was valid — it could not justify that violence.
|
| 2:51a |
Fallout from death of president, Iran
*Ebrahim Raisi was no moderate, but his death may mean Iran becomes
even
more hardline.*
I don't see any way that Iran could become less repressive, other than via a
revolution which seems rather unlikely.
|
| 2:51a |
Freedom of the Press, USA
* It’s not possible for the US to prosecute Assange while claiming to
be a friend of press freedom. Biden should
end
this now.*
|
| 2:51a |
|
| 8:51a |
Sex education, UK
*Sex education in English schools set to be
banned
before children are nine.* These guidelines cover education of teenagers as well as
that of children, and some topics won't be allowed until age 15.
A fraction of teenagers find themselves (willingly or unwillingly) in sexual situations
before that age. They would be better off knowing some crucial points about birth control
and preventing disease, and how to say no firmly but without rejecting the person, before
they need to know it.
Here is
criticism
of that rule.
|
| 8:51a |
Investigating a suppressed, UAW vote, AL
Union busting by Merecedes defeated
a
campaign to unionize its plant in Alabama. However, the company made significant
concessions to workers to obtain this result.
|
| 8:51a |
Wearing a mask as illegal, NC
North Carolina's senate has
attacked
the right to protest
by prohibiting wearing a mask for anonymity. Immunocompromised people like me are also endangered.
|
| 8:51a |
|
| 8:51a |
River-to-sea interview-style explainer
*Norman Finkelstein on Gaza, "from the river to the sea" and
political
messaging: "We need to bring unity to this struggle."*
|
| 8:51a |
Displaced-revenge on prisoners in ISR
Israel competes with HAMAS in regard to
cruelty
and violence towards prisoners. In effect, Israel is now using its political
prisoners as hostages for revenge.
|
| 8:51a |
Racial equality
*The Black Lives Matter era is over. It taught us the limits of diversity for
diversity’s sake.*
I hope the Black Lives Matter campaign is not truly over. It is a
campaign to put a stop to the hairtrigger racist violence of uniformed
thugs. That campaign is as justified and necessary now as it ever
was. It deserves our support.
Diversity is a different issue. Efforts for diversity are desirable
when they operate at the long term -- aiding the members of
disprivileged groups to overcome the unfair obstacles that bigotry
puts in their way. But we should not be carried away in pursuit of
diversity.
|
| 8:51a |
Global heating and rail lines
Global heating effects are damaging rail lines in Britain.
The rate of damage is increasing rapidly, and some lines may
eventually have to be abandoned, long before sea-level rise inundated
them permanently.
|
| 8:51a |
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| 8:51a |
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| 8:51a |
Guantanamo prisoner released to Algerian jail
The US released a Guantanamo prisoner to Algeria, which supposedly promised
to allow him to live in freedom, but instead it jailed him.
|