| Time |
Event |
| 8:55a |
Former Dutch colony
Relatives call on the Dutch government to rehabilitate the
conscientious objectors who refused to fight against the
independence
of Indonesia.
|
| 8:56a |
Trump Bibles
The bullshitter condemns trade with China, but he had his
special bibles
printed there.
(Those are the very expensive bibles he is going to sell to
the state of Oklahoma.)
This in its own right is a minor issue, but it epitomizes his
dishonesty.
|
| 8:56a |
Investment summit
Starmer has surrendered to big business, and promises to "slash the red tape"
that is meant to protect the public from a
wide range of dangers.
A previous period of "slashing red tape" weakened the building code
enforcement and permitted use of flammable materials in building tall
buildings. It was not actually lawful, but builders knew
they could get away with it, because the red tape as no longer there
to stop them. Some of the
buildings had fatal fires.
This shows what happens when a government says it will get the funds
to solve pressing problems by encouraging "economic growth".
|
| 8:56a |
Cambridge exhibition
A museum in Britain that is supposed to be about science will present
"stories" about the "afterlife" of
dead animals on display.
The "stories" are constructed by
bullshit generators,
and they teach religion and superstition under the rubric of science.
|
| 8:56a |
Discrimination
Some Indian states have passed laws to make it easy to boycott
restaurants that
employ any Muslims.
Clearly this is the work of Hinduismist party.
|
| 8:56a |
Battleground voters
*Endorsements from Republicans and
CEOs won’t help Kamala Harris win.*
People who were Republicans in 2015, before the corrupter became that
party's nominee, and who have not been sucked into his fantasy land,
can be persuaded by these endorsements. It may cost the corrupter
some votes. But they are not so numerous as as the Democrats who gave
up on the party because Obama protected the rich from the 2009
financial crisis that was generated by those Republicans, rather than
saving the poor and middle-class.
|
| 8:56a |
Structural remedies
The US government is considering breaking
Google up into separate
companies.
Would that do anything about the injustices of Google? Let's look at
them:
-
Snooping on its users actions and identities.
-
Selling ads based on that data.
-
Requiring users to run nonfree software to use the services.
-
Pressuring users to identify themselves to use most services.
-
Using DRM for distribution of some ethings.
I don't see how splitting up Google would correct these.
Perhaps Google itself would not use the collected data as a base
for advertising. Perhaps instead Google would sell the use of
that data to various advertising companies. I don't think that
would make that use of personal data acceptable and it would not help with the others.
|
| 8:56a |
Coalmines and gasfields
Coal mines and gas wells in Australia seem to be underestimating
their rate of methane leaks by as
much as a factor of two.
|
| 8:56a |
Free speech on campus
Republicans seek to bully US colleges with threats unless they repress
students'
freedom of speech.
Whatever your position on the war in Gaza, if you love civil liberties
you should fight those dangerous religious fanatics here in the US.
Nov 5th is your opportunity.
|
| 8:56a |
Societal collapse
*Record emissions, temperatures and population mean more scientists are
looking into possibility of
societal collapse, report says.*
I used to say that the best picture we have now of future climate
disaster is the Hunger Games, but I am having doubts about that. In
the Hunger Games, there is an organized society with a state. It can
still make some high-tech products. It surely has a population in the
hundreds of thousands.
A high tech society needs global reasource, and that requires
communications and shipping that will no longer exist.
No one will be able to make an IC, let alone a computer.
|
| 8:56a |
Electoral college
Walz stated support for eliminating
the electoral college.
I am in favor of that, but what Harris and Walz most importantly need
to call for is directing more of the nation's wealth generation to the
non-rich, as it did in the 1950s.
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| 8:56a |
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| 8:56a |
Social Security COLA on ballot
Republicans want to make Social Security payments decrease
in real value every year.
They would do this by eliminating the cost of living adjustment
Thus they would drive old people into penury.
|
| 8:56a |
Israel attacked Children's hospital
Israel ordered the only children's hospital in North Gaza to evacuate,
but there is no way to evacuate the children in intensive care, and no
place to bring them to.
To attack that hospital would be an atrocity, but such atrocities
have become normal for Israel.
To attack a hospital is generally a war crime.
Th attack the one and only hospital is even worse.
*On Thursday, UN investigators accused Israel of deliberately targeting
health facilities and killing and torturing medical personnel in Gaza.*
|
| 8:56a |
The wrecker and elites
Non-rich Americans who want to stop the elite from impoverishing them
see little to support in "centrist" Democrats. Meanwhile, the wrecker
falsely claims to oppose the elites even as he appears on stage with
them.
|
| 8:56a |
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| 8:56a |
Workers' rights penalty enforcement
The UK will have a new agency whose staff will actively enforce
penalties for violating workers' rights.
I've called for the US to do this.
Stealing N dollars from your employee
should be as serious a crime as stealing N dollars from a business,
and enforced similarly.
|
| 8:56a |
Fossil fuel foreign aid quadrupled
* Foreign aid for fossil fuel projects quadrupled in a single year,
… rising from $1.2bn in 2021 to $5.4bn in 2022.*
There should never be foreign aid to spend on increased planet roasting.
No matter what pain is caused by a local scarcity of fossil fuel,
it is not as bad as death for nearly everyone.
|
| 8:56a |
Dutertes and Marcoses families power struggles
*Two of the [Philippines'] most powerful political families, the
Dutertes and the Marcoses, are set for an epic struggle for power.*
I expect that one of them will seek support from China. It is the
obvious thing to do, for anyone that would sacrifice his country to
gain power over it.
|
| 8:56a |
Growing threats
*MI5 chief: UK facing growing threat from Islamic State, Russia and Iran.*
The threat includes assassinations and terror attacks.
|
| 8:56a |
Taylor-Greene's hurricane conspiracy
A right-wing conspiracy theory claims that Hurricane Helene was
brought about by a business plot, intended to eliminate obstacles for
a lithium mine.
The inventors of that myth are, it seems, trying to demonize building
batteries to facilitate decarbonization.
It is surprising how close the myth is to the truth. There was no
conspiracy to cause Hurricane Helene -- nobody would know how to do
that intentionally. But there is a conspiracy of fossil fuel
interests to maximize global heating, and that did cause this
hurricane to be so powerful and damaging. The existence of this
conspiracy is well documented.
The difference between the truth and the myth is just enough for the
latter to put the blame on the wrong side.
*Study confirms Hurricane Helene fueled by Big Oil’s emissions:
Greenpeace calls for climate polluters to pay.*
|
| 8:56a |
Abolishing privacy to tax
A British official wants to abolish privacy in the UK just to make
each motorist pay tax exactly in proportion to per driving.
The short-term solution for the shortfall in tax funds is simple:
increase the tax rate on gasoline and diesel fuel. until the total
revenue reaches the former level. That will speed the elimination of
all fossil fuel vehicles.
In a few years, when those are mostly gone, that method will no longer
solve the problem. At that point Britain could tax all electricity
usage to get the money to pay for road maintenance. Or tax the rich
in one way or another.
Armitt seems to treat as sacred the goal of measuring everyone's use
of roads so as to compute precisely how much value each person gets
from them. Such exactitude is an improvement in theory, but it is not
crucial. We should not accept Orwellian surveillance just to make the
tax perfectly fit the usage.
|
| 8:56a |
Wildlife population falls
As average [wildlife] population falls reach 95% in some regions,
experts call for urgent action but insist "nature can recover."*
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| 8:56a |
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| 8:56a |
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| 8:56a |
Criticizing by stock trading
In China, there seems to be only one way to criticize the government
which is not forbidden: by stock trading.
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| 8:56a |
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| 8:56a |
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