| Time |
Event |
| 4:36a |
|
| 4:36a |
Apple Stupidity's false statement
Apple Stupidity "summarized" BBC news with a grossly false statement.
Perhaps all publications partly written by bullshit generators
should be required to display prominent warnings saying,
"This was generated by a bullshit generator. Parts may be true;
parts may be false."
|
| 4:36a |
Cecilia Sala
The US accuses Iran of arresting Italian journalist Cecilia Sala
as a hostage
to procure the release of an Iranian
accused by the US of violating sanctions on drone components.
I will not join in pressuring Italy or the US to trade that prisoner
for Sala.
|
| 4:36a |
Palau marine protection zone
Palau established a large and effective marine protection zone, but
population pressure is leading to pressure to reduce the size of it.
That is a short-termist "solution" which doesn't solve anything in the
long term. Perhaps Palau needs to limit the numbers of people
(inhabitants and visitors both).
|
| 4:36a |
Ibrahima Bah
Was it just to conclude that Ibrahima Bah was guilty of killing the
other refugees who were passengers in the overloaded rubber raft that
he piloted?
I think it depends purely and simply on whether it is true that the
smuggler gang threatened to kill him if he refused. If that did that,
we can't blame him for obeying, given that his other choice was to say,
"No, kill me and choose someone else." But if that was a lie and they
did not force him, then he is responsible for joining in the crime.
That conclusion may be disappointing if there is no way to find out
whether his claim is true or not. But that's not a justification for
choosing a different conclusion.
I find his claim plausible -- I've read that (at least some) smugglers
regularly force one of the customers to pilot the boat.
|
| 4:36a |
Iran repression
Iran has intensified its persecution of "indecency" to the utmost
degree. People who show themselves on recordings in a way the regime
calls "indecent" can be executed. Anyone who fails to join in repression
faces persecution.
Iran's regime has been weakened in international power rivalry by the
fall of Assad, but that doesn't mean its repression is in danger of
tottering. I can't foresee that it will fall, but I will cheer when
it falls.
|
| 4:36a |
|
| 4:36a |
Urgent: protect green trucks project
US citizens: call on postal officials to protect the Green Trucks project.
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:
First, go to the end and insert `&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.
|
| 4:36a |
Online decision manipulation
Warning that companies that collect personal data might draw conclusions
about what you might do in the future, and sell those predictions.
|
| 4:36a |
Gazan hospital shut down
*One of the few doctors still working in northern Gaza has been taken to
an Israeli prison and his hospital shut down, his family believe.*
Destroying and shutting Gaza's hospitals is an atrocity by itself.
It has to be deliberate, because otherwise the result would not be the
same for all the hospitals.
|
| 10:36a |
Urgent: A DNC for the working class
US citizens:
call
on the next DNC chair to rebuild the Democratic Party for the
working class.
|
| 10:36a |
|
| 10:36a |
Urgent: Office of Management and Budget
US citizens:
call on the
Senate to reject Russ Vought as head of the Office of Management
and Budget.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
|
| 10:36a |
Undersea cables sabotage, CHI, RUS
An anchor-drag trace on the seabed shows that the
electricity cable
from Finland to Estonia was intentionally attacked.
If the only ship that was in a position to do it at that time and
place was the Eagle S, it must have been that ship. Other ships must
have been crossing the cable, but if they crossed it at other points
they could not have been responsible for the sabotage.
It seem to me that countries must armor their undersea cables to make
sabotage physically more difficult. The method needs to be cheap
compared with the cable. Not being an expert, I can only speculate,
Putting a meter or two of boulders over the cable might work, or maybe
concrete blocks with holes to lift them by.
|
| 10:36a |
|
| 10:36a |
Republicans, dissidents and protesters
It won't take long for the voters who voted for he bullshitter to see
that what Republicans are doing is
harming
them terribly. At that point, they will organize to thwart and
defeat Republicans. Therefore we can expect the Republicans to act
forcefully to suppress dissent and protest.
It occurs to me that the law-twisting repression of protests on behalf
of Palestinians will turn out to have been great preparation for
repressing protests on behalf of non-rich Americans, non-white
Americans, and unwillingly pregnant Americans.
|
| 10:36a |
Elec. car mfg, surveillance
Hundreds of thousands of electric cars made by Volkswagen (including
its subsidiaries, Audi, SEAT and Skoda) were
reporting
the car's movements to the company. Sometimes security breaches in
the cloudy servers Volkswagen uses allow others to get the data too.
Bizarrely, the author is not outraged at Volkswagen's snooping, not
that itself. Perse seems to think that would be ok,
if only Volkswagen had taken care not to let others, even others
unknown to Volkswagen, access the data too over the net.
And Volkswagen reassures the owners that where they went is not very
sensitive information.
Of course, the most dangerous thing the car company can do with that data
is give or sell it to the state, if the state is repressive (as many are).
If you own a "connected" car, be sure to engage a mechanic to
deactivate the antennas that enable it to (1) receive GPS (and
therefore remember the location for the next servicing) and (2) make
radio transmissions (whose location of origin are tracked).
Owners of connected cars should organize to demand that manufacturers
let the owners deactivate these malfeatures. If the manufacturer
makes it necessary for you to trust them not to tell others where you
went, it is already mistreating you.
|
| 10:36a |
|
| 10:36a |
Jimmy Carter's good work
Remembering
Jimmy
Carter's work for peace and democracy after his term as president.
The
reason
he was not reelected seems to be that Republicans made a deal with
Iran so that they would refuse to make a deal with the US government
to free the US embassy hostages until after the 1980 election.
Carter was not a pacifist. He sent US troops to rescue the hostages.
It was not his fault that some of the
aircraft
collided while on the way.
|
| 4:36p |
|