| Time |
Event |
| 10:38a |
Belief in Santa Claus
In parts of Britain, children of age 10-11 are likely to still believe
in Santa Claus. And parents
demand
that other adults maintain the falsehood.
I'm amused by the irony of a cleric's puncturing one myth while
upholding another. But I find it shocking and disturbing that anyone
as old as 10 would still believe in Santa Clause.
Parents who hoax that children are liable to try to conscript other
people into supporting the lie. This has happened to me, and it puts
me in a moral conflict. I don't want to overturn their family
arrangements, but joining in the hoax would be doing wrong to the
children. I resent the attempt to rope me into doing wrong.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
UK universities joining fossil fuel pledge
*More than three-quarters of UK universities
join
fossil fuel pledge, say
activists.*
Governments must do much more to restrain "investment" in causing
global disaster, at whatever levels they can.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
Authorizing extraction of more natural gas
A study by the US department of Energy reports that, as we would expect,
authorizing extracting (and exporting) a lot more natural gas would
speed
up global heating.
This would increase the risk of deadly damage from "natural"
disasters, such as hurricanes, flooding, fires, heat waves, and
crop
failures, as well as collapse of technological civilization, and these
could lead to the death of tens or millions of people in the US.
In the shorter term, more natural gas exports could
cause
difficulties in
Americans' lives by making fossil gas more expensive.
This has been
criticized
as a weak criticism.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
New Zealand government hollowed out environmental protections
New Zealand's right-wing government
hollowed
out environmental protections
by allowing some of them to be "fast-tracked" — that is, evaluated without
taking due care.
There may be occasions when this is necessary, but mere profit can never
be enough to justify it. Only something desperately needed can justify this.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
Depending on experts for carefully studied decisions
Society depends on agencies that appoint experts to make carefully
studied decisions. Right-wing extremists are working on
destroying
the ability to do this.
I will not claim that these agencies are always right. Business
lobbies often persuade them to go against the interests of society and
non-wealthy people. But the right-wing extremists are not trying to
restrain that power — on the contrary, they seek to open the
floodgates.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
Coca-Cola's pledge on reusable packaging
Coca-Cola made a highly publicized pledge to move to 25% reusable packaging
by 2030. But now it seems to have
quietly
stopped talking about all that.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
Practical threats from wrecker's fascist machine
Some major
practical threats that
the wrecker's fascist machine could wreak.
The page does not include some most profound threats which are longer term:
-
The fascist machine could completely control future federal elections.
-
A media system dominated by the fascist machine.
-
A legal system fully dominated by the fascist machine.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
|
| 10:38a |
Spain returns items taken by dictator 84 years ago
*Spain's culture ministry has
returned
the first of more than 5,000 items
taken by the dictator [Franco] 84 years ago.*
That was shortly after the end of the civil war, in which most of
the army joined the fascist rebellion, and the Spanish Republic was
defended by the volunteers it could raise.
My friends in Spain told me, earlier in this century, that the
right-wing party was still permeated by he influence of people who
supported Franco's dictatorship, who blocked efforts to end the
state's support for Franco. In the past decade, those efforts are
going faster.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
Statement on Syrian-led transition process
The US, EU and Turkey
endorsed
a statement calling for *A Syrian-led
transition to "produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative
government formed through a transparent process", with respect for
human rights.*
That doesn't mean it will be easy, or successful, but at east they
endorse a good goal.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
Fear for attacks on climate research
* Experts express fear — and resilience — as they
prepare for
[the wrecker]'s potential attacks on climate research.*
Climate science depends on measurements and records of measurements.
Sometimes the same measurements are made in the same way for decades
so that they will be fully comparable, So planet-roasters have
canceled
series of measurements,
presumably in order to
hamper climate science and thus interfere with reaching
conclusions that will show the extent of the coming crisis.
They have even
tossed
out data from past measurements.
Scientists had to rescue the precious records from dumpsters.
If they were saboteurs working for alien enemies, sent to weaken
Earth's civilization, their actions would make sense. Why Earthlings
would do it is beyond me.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
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| 10:38a |
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| 10:38a |
Computers judging how a person is treated
It is fashionable to adopt policies whereby a computer system judges
how a certain person deserves to be treated, but they "put a human in
the loop" by giving per the job of looking at the computer's recommendations
and authorizing them or not.
Experiment shows that
such
systems systematically fail. The article
explains why they fail. What it comes down to is that "putting a
human in the loop" is ineffective at correcting the computer system's
errors, but instead has the practical effect of serving to excuse
those errors.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I
denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that
practice it. But I make exceptions for some articles because I
consider them important — and I label them like this.
The experience with Israel's machine learning target selector system
tends to confirm this conclusion.
</li> |
| 10:38a |
Urgent: Reject Billy Long for head of IRS
US citizens: phone your senators and tell them to reject Billy Long
for head of the IRS. When in Congress he proposed to eliminate income tax
so as to tax low-income people more with a national sales tax.
Every sales tax falls unfairly hard on low-income people.
We ought to replace them with taxes that fall mainly on those
who can afford to pay them.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
</li> |
| 10:38a |
Urgent: Prevent cuts to Social Security
US citizens: call on Congress to
prevent
any cuts to Social Security.
Stop any efforts to privatize this critical government program.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
</li> |
| 4:39p |
Elon Musk as congressional leader, US
Emperor
Tusk the First killed an urgently needed omnibus spending bill by
ordering Republicans to vote it down, and spreading false criticisms
on ex-Twitter.
Bernie Sanders referred to him as "President Musk", but "emperor" fits
better, since he is nothing like a president.
Like Augustus in Rome,
he has no official position, but through his riches he
compels legislators to bow to him. Of course, there are many
differences in detail; history does not repeat itself exactly.
This is very dangerous to the republic, since after some years of this
it will be presented as normal and expected by the powerful voices. |
| 4:39p |
Musk foreign relations as security risk
The musk rat has been failing military security examinations because
of refusing to tell the examiners about some of his meetings with
foreign officials. Some US and allied
officials see him as a risk.
|
| 4:39p |
Amazon union-workers now on strike
Amazon workers in various
US
cities are now on strike.
|