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Tuesday, December 24th, 2024

    Time Event
    4:38p
    Belief in Santa Clause

    In parts of Britain, children of age 10-11 are likely to still believe in Santa Clause. 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>
    4:38p
    Urgent: Health and Human Services Secretary

    US citizens: call on the Senate to reject RFK Jr. as Secretary for Health and Human Services.

    4:38p
    Urgent: NO more US weapons against Gazans

    US citizens: call on Congress to cease supplying weapons and funds for Netanyahu's war in Gaza.

    If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

    4:38p
    Urgent: Amazon bargain for striking workers

    US citizens: call on Amazon to bargain with its striking workers and give them fair wages and working conditions.

    Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html.)

    First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.

    I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without javascript!"

    They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.

    To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.

    Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:

    Go to the place where it says `&redirect' and replace all the text from there to the end with `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.

    This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.

    4:38p
    Recent humid-to-drylands trends

    40% of Earth's land is now arid. A substantial fraction has become arid due to global heating in recent decades.

    This is a big part of why it will be hard to feed humanity in a few decades — and part of the reason we should have a lot fewer children.

    4:38p
    Unbearable-heat livelihoods, IND

    *Global heating is already making [brick] kiln workers’ lives unbearable [in India]. And it will only get worse.*

    4:38p
    Urgent: Fire DeJoy

    US citizens: call on the USPS board of governors to fire DeJoy.

    4:38p
    Urgent: Sanders' universal medical system

    US citizens: Support Sanders and call for a national universal medical system.

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