| Time |
Event |
| 2:40a |
Erased history, UK
Shortly before the last UK parliamentary election, the thug department
that had brutally attacked striking miners in 1984
destroyed its
records
about that attack. Thus they ensured that Labour's plans to
fully investigate what the thugs did in 1984 cannot now be fully
carried out.
If that prevents the investigation, Labour should pass laws to make it
a crime for thugs to destroy, or fail to protect, records about the
thugs' accused plausibly criminal past actions.
|
| 8:44a |
Human bait lures victims, Gaza
I wondered what was the cause of shooting so many
Palestinians
at food aid distribution points in Gaza. Here Médécins sans
Frontières explains the sadistic and dehumanizing system which creates
the violence.
The food is delivered inside a large walled compound surrounded by
armed mercenary ex-soldiers, with Israeli army fortifications nearby.
At a chosen hour, workers open the games and Palestinians
must rush in so as not to be left empty-handed. They can be shot for
coming early and shot for arriving late, and shot if they try to climb
over the compound's walls to bypass congestion at the gate.
That system is positively designed to produce chaos which serves as a
"reason" to shoot people. It would be simple to avoid shooting
anyone; indeed, when the UNWRA delivered food in Gaza, there was
normally no violence.
If I heard the words "the hunger games" and didn't know the story in
those books, I would imagine something like this.
Most of the food in the boxes is uncooked and dry, so it must be
cooked, and that requires both water and fuel. Those are not easy
for starving Palestinians to obtain in Gaza.
|
| 8:44a |
Labour MPs vs Starmer
108 Labour MPs demand changes in Starmer's plans to cut the support
for disabled workers, or
they
will vote against it and maybe defeat
it.
Starmer is standing absolutely firm. When he sets his heart on a right-wing
policy, nothing can change his mind.
|
| 8:44a |
Tesla self driving is dangerous
A demo of Tesla's driverless
cars saw
them driving dangerously.
Tesla calls them "self-driving", but I have seen no information about
whether their control system makes use of a data connection to drive.
We need some sunlight on their possible dependence on "clouds",
which could cause them to fail whenever there are no clouds to hide in.
Regardless of whether these driverless cars drive safely, I will
refuse to ride in them because Tesla will surely, imitating Uber,
require passengers to identify themselves using a snoop-phone and keep
track of where they go.
|
| 8:44a |
Emil Bove
Emil Bove, the wrecker's
nominee for a US appellate court judge,
reportedly said that the Department of
Justice should
tell courts "fuck you". This according to attorney Erez Reuveni,
who worked in the Department of Justice and heard him say it. He
reported the misconduct within the department and was fired for that.
|
| 8:44a |
Open letter from Board of Deputies
36 members of the Board of Deputies of British
signed
an open letter
stating their moral horror at Israel's destruction of Gaza's
population.
The board as a whole (mostly representing orthodox synagogues)
responded by voting to reprimand the signatories and to "suspend" a
few of them, described as punishment for making the board look bad.
|
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
Iran nuclear site report
*US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites
only
set back [nuclear] program months, Pentagon report
says.*
This leads to some questions:
- Will this teach some of the bully's
supporters to stop believing him?
- Will this teach him to stop believing Netanyahu?
- Is there any prospect now of a renewed non-nuclear deal
with Iran?
When the bully
discovered that the enormous US bombs didn't destroy
Iran's nuclear facilities, he announced a cease-fire,
and Iran
and Israel accepted it. Thus, that war is over, for the time
being.
|
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
E-Waste
Cheap throw-away electronics that few people will want to keep and use
are boosting
the growing problem of e-waste.
People may look at the low price and think, "Why not buy this? Its
price is so low." But the cost of disposal is not included in the
sales price.
|
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
Supreme Court lifts precipitous deportation prohibition
The Supreme Court temporarily lifted an order that prohibited
deporting immigrants
precipitously
to countries they do not come from.
The bully's
officials announced "guidance" that might be intended to
prevent abuses. But it is too weak in its enforcement, and I fear
could easily be disregarded.
|
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
US and Israel bombings
*Trump and Netanyahu aim to remake the Middle East with bombs. Iran
shows why
that will always fail.* It had planned in advance to cope with the
sort of attack that Israel and the US could deliver.
It was wise of whoever makes decisions for the US now to avoid, this
time, the trap of endless futile war that the US has fallen into
repeatedly.
|
| 8:44a |
Why did the US bomb Iran now
*If Iran’s nuclear program was not an imminent threat, what motived
the US-Israeli attack? Why now? The answer is
political
opportunity.*
Specifically, the opportunity to try to curtail Iran's refusal to comply
with the US's foreign policy.
That refusal does not imply that Iran stands for good. Its main
policy goal is religious fanaticism, resembling the fanatical current
US regime and opposed to it only in that they support two different
religions.
|
| 8:44a |
University of Toronto to host Harvard students facing visa restrictions
*University of Toronto
agrees
to host Harvard students facing [the
persecutor's] visa restrictions.*
</li>
|
| 8:44a |
"Food aid delivery" sites in Gaza make it easy to shoot people
The "food aid delivery" sites in Gaza are designed to make it as easy
as possible to shoot
anyone and everyone who has come for food.
Interestingly, none of then is anywhere near Gaza City. It seems to have been
left out of the supposed plans to provide food to Palestinians in Gaza.
</li> |
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
Europe's pledge to spend on military will hurt climate and social programs
*Europe’s pledge to spend more on military will
hurt
climate and social programmes.*
This reflects a policy that prioritizes keeping
taxes low for the rich.
</li> |
| 8:44a |
Deaths from tobacco exposure in 2023
*Tobacco exposure
killed
more than 7m people in 2023, study finds.
Researchers say tobacco linked to about one in eight deaths worldwide
and numbers rising sharply in some countries.*
</li> |
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
Russia and Ukraine have developed mostly autonomous drones
Russia and Ukraine have developed mostly autonomous
killer drones, and are
rapidly
researching full anonymity.
It could be easy to program one to hunt down and kill a specific individual
by recognizing per face.
Negotiations for a UN treaty to ban such weapons are becoming more
urgent, bu it is not clear how to make sure all countries, all
underground rebel groups and all mafias comply with such a treaty.
</li> |
| 8:44a |
Surveillance pricing
*Surveillance pricing lets corporations
decide
what your dollar is worth.*
* Algorithmic wage discrimination doesn't need to use third-party
surveillance data: Uber, who invented the tactic, use their own in-house
data as a way to make inferences about drivers' desperation and thus
their willingness to accept a lower wage.*
Uber stands accused of
optimizing
its pricing algorithm to manipulate
both riders and drivers so that they make out worse and the company
profits more.
Note that this is not an injustice of nonfree malware. The software
for the pricing algorithm runs in Uber's own computer. It is, I
suppose, Uber's private software, but if it were someone else's
released free software that Uber used a copy of, Uber would have the
right to make the same modifications in its copy.
The app that riders must use to be customers of Uber is nonfree software
and does have a
malicious
surveillance functionality,
but the computerized manipulation being criticized here is not
particularly related to that.
What makes the manipulation possible is that Uber forces its customers
to identify themselves, so it can make a complete record of its
dealings with each customer. It has a similar asymmetry of information
about each driver (and that could hardly be avoided). The results
are unjust because they are dooH niboR at work, enriching the rich
owners and pushing down the low-income drivers.
In my view, the lessons are (1) don't assume that all nasty behavior
of computing is caused by nonfree software, (2) governments should
stop Uber from identifying its customers or requiring them to run
nonfree software, and (3 governments should regulate drivers' pay to
keep it higher.
</li> |
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
Agents hiding identities highlights illegitimacy of actions
*Mike German, an ex-FBI agent, said immigration agents hiding their
identities [with masks and no badges]
"highlights
the illegitimacy of actions".*
He also explains how the masks put the public and also the cops in
danger — that making it clear you're a cop is the foundation of
safety practice. Also, how having
thugs from outside ICE deputized
to work with ICE can lead them to violate people's legal rights
without realizing it, but also enable them to hide the violation.
German worked in the FBI to infiltrate right-wing militia groups.
They may have been supporters of
the wrecker, and may still be such.
I speculate that he was fired this year precisely for having done that
job. But I have no way of finding out.
</li> |
| 8:44a |
Migrants jailed in Costa Rica
Costa Rica allowed the US to deport there 200 migrants from various
Asian and African countries. Costa Rica kept them in jail for a few
months, but a court
has ordered them freed.
Now will come their real problem: how to live in Costa Rica without
knowing any Spanish and not be an outcast. Some of them will be able
to learn a new language well, depending on their age and health,
but some will not.
</li> |
| 8:44a |
History of how Israel developed nuclear weapons
For comparison with Iran, the
history
of how Israel developed nuclear weapons.
In the 1950s, 60s and 70s several of Israel's neighbors insisted that
they sought to destroy Israel. There are countries that are hostile to
Iran, too, but only Israel might seek to destroy it.
</li> |
| 8:44a |
American student loan borrowers at risk of defaulting
6 million American student loan borrowers are
at
risk of defaulting
in the coming weeks.
This is the persecutor's
doing. Biden had allowed the borrowers to
stop making payments, while
searching
unsuccessfully
for a way to
forgive the loans despite the obstruction by Republicans in Congress.
The US should do what Britain has done, and make repayments
conditional on receiving a middle-class salary. Then the loan would
not ruin the whole rest of your life if you don't get such a salary.
</li> |
| 8:44a |
Swedish journalist arrested and tried in Turkey
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin visited Turkey and was arrested,
accused (and later convicted) of
insulting
President Erdoğan at a
protest in Sweden. He was also accused of terrorism, but it seems
those charges were dropped, because he was allowed to leave Turkey.
If anyone can tell me what concrete act constituted the alleged
terrorism, I would be grateful, especially if that comes with a URL that
I can link to about that.
</li> |
| 8:44a |
Global heating making Britain hotter and dryer
Global heating
is making
Britain hotter and dryer.
Global heating
will cause many problems around the world. Either
each part of the world can adapt to too little water or too much
water, and too much or too little of many other things that global
heating will cause, and then do some more of each in a decade or two,
or the world can get serious about curbing
global heating.
</li> |
| 8:44a |
UK minister for repression determined to label organization Palestine Action as "terrorist"
The UK minister for repression is absolutely determined to
label the organization Palestine Action as "terrorist" and ban it
on account of a protest where its members sprayed red paint on
warplanes in a military base.
If protesters can get access to them to spray paint, someone with
violent and hostile aims could get access too. The Royal Air Force
should be grateful that its weak security was discovered and reported
in this way, and the British government should cease its repression of
people protesting against support for Israel's war crimes.
The group's lawyers claim that the proposed ban would be illegal.
I wonder whether a court would have a chance to judge whether the ban
of the organization is lawful. Or would punishment of its members
be automatic, with no consideration of whether the group deserves
the name of "terrorist"?
</li> |
| 8:44a |
|
| 8:44a |
Urgent: Million-dollar deposit requirement for injunction
US citizens: Tell the Senate to
remove
the million-dollar deposit
requirement for asking for an injunction.
</li> |
| 8:37p |
|