rms

rms , 5 hours ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jun/18/your-plastic-is-here-how-easter-island-rapa-nui-copes-with-500-pieces-of-rubbish-an-hour-washing-ashore

Enormous amounts of plastic debris wash ashore on Easter Island. They have to clean the beaches repeatedly. Over 5 million pieces of rubbish wash ashore there each year. They have no way to dispose of it all.

rms , 5 hours ago to random

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2024/06/18/big-oils-plan-to-criminalize-pipeline-protests/

Politicians bought by fossil fuel companies are working on laws to make protesting near pipelines a crime.

rms , 5 hours ago to random

https://act.ourrevolution.com/signup/oppose-netanyahu-speech-dem-leaders/
https://stallman.orgtel:+12022243121

US citizens: call on Democratic leaders to rescind their support for Netanyahu's speech to Congress, and all Democrats to boycott the speech. If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

rms , 6 hours ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/15/new-york-face-masks-ban-subway-crime

A horrible idea: New York Governor Hochul is thinking of banning masks in the New York City subways. Everyone in the subway (or buses) should wear a mouth and nose mask! Policy should encourage everyone to do so. To ban or discourage masks will cause real infections and real deaths - merely so people will feel less worried.

rms , 6 hours ago to random

[2/2] … made itself ridiculous by doing this, but think about the process that must have led to it. The least powerful of those given the duty of going to Australia's Parliament were surely not of the lowest rank, and some higher official must have ordered them to do this. That displays the rigidity of a self-important dictatorship, and the dangerous hostility latent in its arrogance sense of entitlement to power.

rms , 6 hours ago to random

[1/2] http://stallman.org/archives/2024-mar-jun.html#16_June_2024_(Cheng_Lei)
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/18/australia-complains-to-chinese-embassy-over-ham-fisted-attempt-at-blocking-view-of-cheng-lei-at-event

At a signing ceremony in Australia's Parliament building, Chinese embassy personnel tried to hide views of formerly imprisoned journalist Cheng Lei from Chinese cameras. Australian personnel had to physically stand in their way. The Chinese government …

rms , 6 hours ago to random

[2/2] … would exclude me, too. Even the task of reading the menu can exclude me - if I would need to have a snoop-phone to see it, or if it is so high up that I can't make out the letters. (My eyes are not as good as they were a couple of years ago.)

rms , 6 hours ago to random

[1/2] https://ajw-origin.potaufeu.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15309830

In Japan, many restaurants have required customers to order using the restaurants' tablets, or even with their own snoop-phones. This makes it impossible for blind customers. The restaurants have cut staff drastically, so blind customers find no one who can help them. They are effectively excluded. If the restaurant requires customers to bring a snoop-phone, or to pay using a digital system that identifies the user, that …

rms , 7 hours ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/19/china-has-renamed-hundreds-of-uyghur-villages-and-towns-say-human-rights-groups

China is erasing the Uyghur past in the region they have lived in.

rms , 1 day ago to random

[2/2] … size of tsunami sufficient to cause a disaster will decrease. Meanwhile, they surely don't know what they will do with the nuclear waste. Nuclear generation is so expensive that it cannot be worth that cost anywhere in the world. Simply for this reason, I have to suspect corruption is behind it somehow.

rms , 1 day ago to random

[1/2] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jun/17/kenya-plans-first-nuclear-power-plant-kilifi-opposition-activists
https://stallman.org/glossary.html#global%20heating

A proposed nuclear power plant for Kenya's coast is sure to be an enormous waste of money at best, contributing to global heating because renewable generation would have been cheaper and finished many years sooner. At worst, a tsunami will destroy he reactor. As global heading raises sea level, the …

rms , 1 day ago to random

https://www.freerangekids.com/every-day-is-the-worst-day-ever-signed-the-media/
http://stallman.org/archives/2014-mar-jun.html#14_June_2014_(Rate_of_violence_in_US_schools_has_been_declining)

The US murder rate today is less than in the 70s, 80s and 90s, but parents are more terrified than ever. We know that the high crime rates of the 60s to 90s were due to lead in the gasoline; eliminating leaded gas was followed, after under 20 years, by decreases in crime.

rms , 1 day ago to random

US citizens: phone your congresscritter to demand an investigation into corruption in the Supreme Court. If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

rms , 1 day ago to random

[2/2] … free software, and why you should not systematically expect programs under the control of a company to maintain your security. Even if it never seeks to attack you, it can have a motive to let you down. Side issues about terminology: the article uses misleading propaganda terms such as "intellectual property" and "cloud", and says "hackers" when it ought to say "crackers".

rms , 1 day ago to random

[1/2] https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-solarwinds-golden-saml-data-breach-russian-hackers
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#CloudComputing
https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html

Microsoft Chose Profit Over Security and Left U.S. Government Vulnerable to Russian crackers, Whistleblower Says. This shows the error of assuming that a proprietary program is going to be more secure than …

rms , 1 day ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/article/2024/jun/14/what-is-social-health

Social heath consists of having social connections to other people. Our age seems to be creating massive social illness. Roughtly 330 million adults around the globe endure weeks at a time without speaking to a single family member or friend …

rms , 1 day ago to random

US citizens and residents: phone your state governor to say to veto any attempt to restrict or criminalize mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs used to cause abortions and for various other purposes. (Can anyone tell me a convenient place to get phone numbers for governors' offices?)

rms , 1 day ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/17/global-spending-on-nuclear-weapons-up-13-in-record-rise

The US has greatly increased its spending on nuclear weapons, and other countries have followed suit.

rms , 1 day ago to random

[6/6] … I do not hold them personally responsible for this wrong, because they are surely not aware of the issue. But I can't close my eyes to its presence and let it run on my computer.

rms , 1 day ago to random

[5/6] … "your elected representatives." That problem is caused by something outside actionnetwork's control. The nonfree JavaScript for those campaigns comes from the officials' own web sites in the official web sites of Congress, not from actionnetwork.org, and I know of no way to bypass it, and no way to reach them digitally. All I can do is phone them. It's sad and ironic that our elected representatives require their constituents to run nonfree software to communicate digitally with them. …

rms , 1 day ago to random

[4/6] … visiting it, is the only additional work needed to sign with nonfree JavaScript code blocked. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort to stop some unjust, and potentially malicious, software from running on your computer. This method works for letter campaigns that send letters to a fixed destinee, the same destinee for all senders. I have posted this campaign, and these instructions, because it is of that kind. Alas, there is no workaround for the letter campaigns that send to …

rms , 1 day ago to random

[3/6] … all, but by editing its URL in the browser's address bar, you can finish sending your letter. First, if &redirect' appears in the address bar, delete that and everything after it, until the end of the URL you see. Then, unconditionally, add &nowrapper=true'. Then type ENTER to make the browser access the modified URL. This will give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. In that page you can edit the text of your letter, and send it. That step, editing the URL and …

rms , 1 day ago to random

[2/6] … server not to add unnecessary material that depends on JavaScript. Following that link should show you a page that starts with the message, Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!' But that message mostly refers to material that ?nowrapper=true' has suppressed. In that page, fill in the personal information 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. You will get a page that does not work at …

rms , 1 day ago to random

[1/6] https://actionnetwork.org/letters/free-leonard-peltier-3?nowrapper=true

US citizens and residents: call for parole for Leonard Pelletier. This is an actionnetwork.org "send a letter" campaigns with a single, fixed destination. It normally runs nonfree JavaScript code. Here's how you can sign it while using LibreJS to block nonfree JavaScript code from running. The first step, I have done for you. I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign's URL. That parameter directs the …

rms , 1 day ago to random

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/15/over-50000-children-in-gaza-need-treatment-for-malnutrition-un-says
https://stallman.org/articles/benevolence.html

UNRWA says that 50000 minors in Gaza are on the edge of starvation. UNICEF describes the constant obstruction applied by Israel to transport of aid into and within Gaza. Let's not lose sight of where we want to end up.

rms , 1 day ago to random

https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-the-petition-justices-alito-and-thomas-must-recuse-themselves-from-cases-related-to-jan-6?nowrapper=true&referrer=group-bowers-news-media-main-list&source=20240521TAR_BNM

US citizens: call on Justices Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves from cases about the Jan 6 insurrection.

rms , 1 day ago to random

[3/3] … Modi imposed martial law and an internet shutdown on the whole state (which India asserts is no longer a state).

rms , 1 day ago to random

[2/3] … will prosecute Arundhati Roy for her political opinions, under a law passed by Modi's party for that purpose. Other human rights defenders in India have been persecuted too. <!-- Could not find the pol note about the speaker who could to come to the Kerala Book Fair because he was being persecuted by the Indian government --> India promised Kashmir a referendum on whether to be part of India, then never held te referendum. There has been unrest in Kashmir ever since. A few years ago, …

rms , 1 day ago to random

[1/3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/15/india-author-arundhati-roy-to-be-prosecuted-over-2010-kashmir-remarks
http://stallman.org/archives/2022-mar-jun.html#30_June_2022_(Mhammed_Zubair_arrested_in_India)
http://stallman.org/archives/2017-may-aug.html#15_July_2017_(Young_people_in_Kashmir_organizing)
http://stallman.org/archives/2019-nov-feb.html#8_January_2020_(Internet_ban)
http://stallman.org/archives/2019-may-aug.html#10_August_2019_(Kashmir_converted_to_a_pair_of_territories)

India …

rms , 3 days ago to random

[2/2] … "content"!), and won't train machine learning models with it. (Please don't call them "artificial intelligence"!) But it does indeed intend to snoop, having effectively forced users to give permission for that. This is a big step towards a society of total surveillance, in which privacy and the US fourth amendment are reduced to fragmentary relics.

rms , 3 days ago to random

[1/2] https://www.engadget.com/adobe-is-updating-its-terms-of-service-following-a-backlash-over-recent-changes-120044152.html
https://gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content
https://gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#ArticicialIntelligence

Adobe corrected some misconceptions that were suggested by loose wording in its newly imposed requirement that users give Adobe permission to snoop on their work. Adobe agreed not to publish their work (Please don't call anyone's artwork …

rms , 3 days ago to random

[2/2] … should tell their officials to refuse to visit countries that might be seeking pawns to capture and trade.

rms , 3 days ago to random

[1/2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/15/swedish-eu-diplomat-johan-floderus-freed-from-iran-jail-in-prisoner-swap

Sweden ransomed Johan Floderus, who had been imprisoned in Iran based on political accusations, by releasing Iranian convict Hamid Noury, who was convicted of participating in the killing of over a hundred political prisoners of Iran. One must suspect that the accusations against Floderus were fabricated specifically to use him for this trade. Governments …

rms , 3 days ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/15/jail-jp-morgan-fossil-fuels-civil-disobedience

Amy Pritchard is the first person to be jailed for a campaign in which climate protesters targeted banks across London. She explains her decision to break windows at the office of JP Morgan.

rms , 3 days ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/15/tories-and-labour-on-course-for-lowest-share-of-the-vote-since-1945

Tories and Labour on course for lowest combined share of the vote since 1945. It looks like a lot of people don't want to vote for plutocratists.

rms , 3 days ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/15/labour-and-tories-would-both-leave-nhs-worse-off-than-under-austerity-says-thinktank

Labour and Tories would both leave NHS worse off than under previous austerity, says thinktank.

rms , 3 days ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/15/trump-white-house-leaker-execution

Former White House staffer says she heard the wrecker call for leaker to be executed.

rms , 3 days ago to random

https://act.ourrevolution.com/signup/biden-asylum-executive-order/

US citizens: call on Biden not to imitate the bully's asylum restrictions.

rms , 3 days ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/15/republicans-no-fault-divorce

Republicans want to make it harder to get a divorce in the US. That fits into the general plan to impose their religion, and its sexual prudery, on everyone. We must defeat them.

rms , 3 days ago to random

https://stallman.org/glossary.html#wrecker
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/13/trump-state-department-project-2025-purge

The wrecker's planned mass purge of state department likely to sow chaos, US diplomats say.

rms , 4 days ago to random

https://www.platformer.news/stanford-internet-observatory-shutdown-stamos-diresta-sio/

Stanford University is shutting down the elections research of the Stanford Internet Observatory because defending against Republican lawfare was too expensive.

rms , 4 days ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jun/11/four-tops-alexander-morris-hospital

Singer who joined the Four Tops in 2019 was involuntarily hospitalized for claiming to be a member of the Four Tops.

rms , 4 days ago to random

https://act.demandprogress.org/sign/end-trump-tax-cuts-musk/?t=1001
https://stallman.org/glossary.html#corrupter

US citizens: call on Congress to undo the corrupter's tax cuts for the rich.

rms , 4 days ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/13/kids-no-iphone-screen-time

Some teenagers can recover from antisocial media addiction if they simply don't have a user-manipulating device to be used by. Remember that part of what enables them to manipulate the users so much is that the client programs of the antisocial media platforms are nonfree software. Companies design them to be addictive, and users cannot modify them to be less so.

rms , 4 days ago to random

https://act.ourrevolution.com/signup/oppose-netanyahu-speech-schumer/

US citizens: call on Schumer and Jeffries to withdraw their invitation to Netanyahu to address Congress.

rms , 4 days ago to random

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/12/rare-tropical-birds-central-america-cocaine-drugs-trade-trafficking-deforestation-study-aoe

Cocaine traffickers have put two-thirds of Central America's key habitats for threatened birds under threat, study finds.

rms , 4 days ago to random

https://stallman.org/glossary.html#plutocratist
https://www.levernews.com/license-to-drill/

Some plutocratist Democrats in Congress are pushing to fund new export terminals for fossil gas, provided it is "certified" as emitting somewhat less greenhouse gas than other fossil gas. This is a swindle - replacing a small but real contribution to climate defense with mere lip service.

rms , 4 days ago to random

[3/3] … into the Eventbrite data base to find out who attended this performance. The performers were aware that Chine would try to identify the attendees; they should have protected their audience from digital identification as well as from cameras. And did they insist on making it possible to pay cash? As China demonstrates every day, making people identify themselves to buy things is the foundation of repression.