| Time |
Event |
| 8:37a |
Bullshitter's stance on his Big Beautiful Bomb
The bullshitter
admitted for a time that his Big Beautiful Bomb
probably
didn't destroy Iran's uranium enrichment factory, but since
then reverted to his wishful pretense. And now he has threatened to
imprison journalists who published the leaked intelligence report
unless they reveal their source.
We do not know whether the journalists know the identity pf the leaker(s).
We can hope they do not know. But what if they do?
Their duty is to go prison rather than help the authoritarian regime
lie in the future. But that takes special courage, that few people
have.
A leaker could protect the journalists by fleeing and then announcing
perse
was the leaker. But where could perse be safe? Is there a
country on Earth that would protect the leakers?
Some enemies of the US might protect the leaker, out of hatred for the
US rather than out of love of human rights; but they are ruled by
tyrants even worse than what the bully seeks to become. Accepting
shelter from such a tyrant would not be a defense of freedom and
truth.
(Remember that Snowden did
not
choose to live in Russia.
He bought tickets for a connection in Moscow, but
while he was in the air, the US cancelled his passport,
so he could not board his flight out of Moscow.)
|
| 8:37a |
Israel announced intention to attack east side of Gaza
Israel announced
the intention to attack the east side of Gaza City,
and warned all civilians to leave.
This suggests a plan to disregard the safety of civilians there.
Warning civilians to "evacuate" — supposing they can find an intact
house somewhere else — will not excuse indiscriminate killing of
civilians.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
|
| 8:37a |
Ukrainians who fled to UK being refused asylum
*Ukrainians who fled to UK
being
refused asylum on grounds it is "safe to
return" [to Ukraine].*
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Invention for capturing CO2 emissions from cargo ships
A new
invention will capture CO2 emissions from cargo ships
by passing the exhaust through a shipping container filled with lime.
Shipping generates 3% of all emissions, so this step is more than
tokenism, but won't delay disaster long by itself. We need to demand
reductions in greenhouse emissions from ground transport and agriculture.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Using copyrighted work to train pattern recognizer
A US court ruled that
using
a copyrighted work to train some sort of
pattern recognizer is not copyright infringement.
That means that we will not lose the right to do digital style analysis.
The recognition program that was being trained was an LLM, and it
has the ability to generate output imitating the sty;e of existing works.
Copyright does not cover generalities such as writing style, so it is
correct that the possibility of imitating styles does not make for infringement.
Attempts to broaden copyright are typically organized by publishers with
the support of famous best-selling authors, who label non-infringing uses
as "theft" to convince us to surrender more of our freedom. Usually
these campaigns advocate changes that we should reject.
For my view on copyright law, and how to support authors better while respecting
readers' freedom more, see my speech,
Copyright
vs Community.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Eliminating negative information about US from national parks
The propagandist is seeking to eliminate any information that is negative about
the US from national parks, monuments and historic sites. If anyone
mentions that the US did something bad there, the public is asked
to report it so that
it can be gagged.
At the camps where Japanese Americans were
jailed
during World War II.
this policy creates an irreconcilable contradiction.
it won't be easy to explain what events those sites commemorate.
This reflects the persecutor's
general priorities: loyalty over truth.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
|
| 8:37a |
Supreme Court authorized states to arbitrarily exclude Planned Parenthood
The Supreme Court has authorized states to
arbitrarily
exclude Planned Parenthood
(or any other clinic or set of clinics) from Medicare funding.
South Carolina, under fanatical right-wing rule, already passed a law
to exclude Planned Parenthood. This won't have much effect on
abortions, which are nearly always prohibited in South Carolina. But
it will impede pregnant women in South Carolina from getting prenatal
monitoring and treatment.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Example of magats' performative cruelty
An example
of magats' performative cruelty: the deportation of US army veteran
Sae Joon Park. There were excuses to deport him, and reasons for mercy.
Previous administrations chose mercy;
the bully chose cruelty.
The pattern of acting this way, by deporting some people, denying
other people abortions and depriving yet others of medical care, is
one of the basic general characteristics of
the persecutor.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Gate for aid to Gaza now closed
Israel has been allowing some aid through the Gaza border wall into the north of Gaza, but
closed
that gate last Thursday.
Perhaps this is why the lack of any hunger games food sites in northern Gaza
had not caused a total starvation there … yet.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Orcas used strands of kelp as tool
Orcas cut off strands of kelp to
use
as a tool to mutually scratch with.
It requires two orcas to use the tool together, by rolling it or
rubbing it between their bodies.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
US intelligence parroting saboteur in chief's line on Iran
*The saboteur in chief
is making
US intelligence parrot his line on
[war with] Iran,* much as Dubya did on war with Iraq.
*[His] intervention on the issue of the damage done to Iran's nuclear
facilities is also crucially important. By setting out the narrative
that the spy agencies are [expected to loyally] adhere to, [he] is
slamming shut a door on actual investigation and
intelligence-gathering.
The saboteur-in-chief
has distrusted US intelligence agencies every since they
took
note of signs that he was under Putin's control or influence.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Deportation thug grabbed and carried US citizen to deportation prison
A deportation thug
grabbed
US citizen Andrea Velez and carried her off to
a deportation prison, uninterested in seeing her identification.
Her relatives hired lawyers, and it took hours for them to get any information
about what happened to her. The deportation
thugs said that she was
arrested for assaulting a deportation thug.
I am skeptical about that claim, because she would have had no motive
to bother him unless he did something wrong to her first.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Cost of air pollution to Americans
A study concluded that air pollution costs Americans, on the average,
around $2500
per person per year as of 2014 in damage from illness or death,
and killing around 100,000 people per year in the US.
These harms are mostly due to PM2.5
particulates pollution,
and the US has greatly reduced them by reducing the burning of coal.
We should reject the demands of the
plutocratist politicians that want
to preserve coal burning.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
As many as 35,000 Ukrainian children missing
* As many as 35,000 Ukrainian children are
still
missing and thought to
be held in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, according to an
American team of experts, with families saying they are being forced to
take desperate and risky measures to try to rescue them.*
</li> |
| 8:37a |
|
| 8:37a |
Israeli officers and soldiers claim they were ordered to fire at civilians getting aid
*Israeli officers and soldiers said that they were
ordered
to deliberately fire
at unarmed civilians waiting for humanitarian aid.*
I find the accusation credible, given how the aid-bait sites were
designed to make killing easy.
* The Israeli military has
launched
an investigation into possible war
crimes following growing evidence that troops have deliberately fired
at Palestinian civilians gathering to receive aid in Gaza.*
We can't take for granted that the investigation will
seriously consider punishing
guilty killers, but at least it has taken the first step
towards possibly doing so.
If Israel fails to carry out a proper
investigation and prosecution, I think the International Criminal Court
could do it.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Andrew Cuomo may run as independent in general election
Andrew Cuomo lost the Democratic primary for mayor of NYC, but he may
run for night-mayor
as an independent
in the general election — against
both Mamdani and Eric Adams.
It would be fun to see them split the opposition. Or, who knows, one of them
might run as a Republican.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Urgent: Retract nomination of Fedex board member to USPS
US citizens: call on the USPS board of governors to
retract
its nomination
of a Fedex board member as head of the USPS.
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
for why that issue
matters.)
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 by visiting that page.) 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.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Urgent: Restore funding for vaccine development
US citizens: call on the CDC to
restore
funding for vaccine development.
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
for why that issue
matters.)
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 by visiting that page.) 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.
</li> |
| 8:37a |
Erdoğan banned the Queer Pride march in Istanbul
Erdoğan banned the Queer Pride march in Istanbul, and
arrested activists
who tried to hold it anyway.
When you wish to refer to bigotry against queer people, please don't
use the multiply misleading term "homophobia". Bigotry and phobia are
different things. A phobia is an anxiety disorder, and we cannot
blame a person for suffering from one. By contrast, bigotry is a
moral fault, and anyone who is bigoted ought to learn not to be.
</li> |