03.10.23

Links 10/03/2023: Bodhi Linux 7.0.0 Alpha and Thunderbird for Android Coming

Posted in News Roundup at 9:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  • GNU/Linux

    • Unix Men ☛ What You Need to Become a Linux Programmer

      Are you looking to become a Linux programmer? The open-source operating system is a popular choice among developers and is widely used in the tech industry.

      Programming is a challenging and rewarding field, and Linux programming is no exception. To become a Linux programmer, you’ll need to have a strong understanding of coding fundamentals and be able to work with the Linux operating system.

      We’ll go over 14 skills that are essential for any Linux programmer, paying close attention to the programming languages, tools, and other important elements required to make the most out of your experience. With the right knowledge, resources, and dedication, you can become a successful Linux programmer in no time.

    • Server

      • Avi Alkalay: Wonders of NextCloud

        CIOs must pay attention to NextCloud.

        It is an open source solution that kinda let you run your own Google Drive, own Google Apps, own Dropbox, own iCloud on your own servers and storage.

        Has an App Store with hundreds of extensions, vibrant community, supports multiple users with file sharing and pretty advanced collaboration, conference calls, corporate mobile device management, security and encryption, and much more.

        They also provide free and mature desktop and mobile apps that let users sync part or whole filesets with their devices for offline use (similar to Dropbox but limitless and with far more features). I’m running it on my family server and my folks (and me) are pretty impressed.

      • Riccardo Padovani: No heroes needed

        Being a hero is nice, isn’t it? You work hard, single-handedly save the day, and your teammates are eternally grateful to you. However, such behavior is, in fact, highly problematic.

        In Google, we have an internal document, quite often quoted, that says to let things fail if the workload to keep them alive is too high. From Google, many good practices have been exported and adopted in the IT world, and I believe this could be very useful to many teams.

      • Charles Plessy: If you work at Dreamhost, can you help us?

        Update: thanks to the very kind involvment of the widow of our wemaster, we
        could provide enough private information to Dreamhost, who finally accepted to
        reset the password and the MFA. We have recovered evrything! Many thanks to
        everybody who helped us!

        Due to tragic circumstances, one association that I am part of,
        Sciencescope got locked out of its account
        at Dreamhost. Locked out, we can not pay the annual bill. Dreamhost
        contacted us about the payment, but will not let us recover the access to
        our account in order to pay. So they will soon close the account. Our
        website, mailing lists and archives, will be erased. We provided plenty of
        evidence that we are not scammers and that we are the legitimate owners of
        the account, but reviewing it is above the pay grade of the custommer
        support (I don’t blame them) and I could not convince them to let somebody
        higher have a look at our case.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Tux Digital ☛ Sudo show 60: Private Cloud Strikes Back

        The hosts get together to discuss the apparent growth trend of Private Cloud, to us it sounds like a combination of cost savings, Edge computing and getting workloads closer to the user. Let us know what you think in the TuxDigital forum, or join us on Discord.

      • Tux Digital ☛ Linux Out Loud 53: Unpopular Opinions Part 2

        This week, Linux Out Loud chats about unpopular tech opinions, part 2. Welcome to episode 53 of Linux Out Loud. We fired up our mics, connected those headphones as we searched the community for themes to expound upon. We kept the banter friendly, the conversation somewhat on topic, and had fun doing it.

      • Kernel Podcast: S2E3 – 2023/03/09

        Season 2 – Episode 3 – 2023/03/09

        Summary

        The latest stable kernel is Linux 6.2.2, released by Greg Kroah-Hartman on March 3rd 2023. The latest mainline (development) kernel is 6.3-rc1, released by Linus on March 5th 2023.

    • Kernel Space

      • LWN ☛ Linux 6.2.3
        I'm announcing the release of the 6.2.3 kernel.


All users of the 6.2 kernel series must upgrade.


The updated 6.2.y git tree can be found at:
        git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-6.2.y
and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:

https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-s...

thanks,


greg k-h
      • LWN ☛ Linux 6.1.16
      • LWN ☛ Linux 5.15.99

    • Applications

      • Linux Links ☛ Machine Learning in Linux: Upscayl – image upscaler

        This series looks at highly promising machine learning and deep learning software for Linux.

        Upscayl is GUI software that uses sophisticated AI models to enhance your images by guessing what the details could be. It’s free and open source software.

      • LWN ☛ a2ps 4.15 released

        Version 4.15 of the “anything to PostScript” filter a2ps has been released — the first release since 2007. “”This release contains few user-visible changes. It does however contain a lot of changes “under the hood”: code clean-up, etc. Therefore, it’s likely that there are new bugs.””

      • LWN ☛ Samba 4.18.0 released

        Version 4.18 of the Samba interoperability suite is out. Changes include some significant performance improvements, better error messages, and more; click below for the details.

      • WordPress ☛ WordPress 6.2 Release Candidate 1

        WordPress 6.2 Release Candidate 1 is now available for download and testing.

        This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you test RC 1 on a test server and site.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • ID Root ☛ How To Install Wallabag on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Wallabag on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Wallabag is a self-hosted application that allows users to save web content for later reading.

      • Daniel Berrange: make-tiny-image.py: creating tiny initrds for testing QEMU or Linux kernel/userspace behaviour

        As a virtualization developer a significant amount of time is spent in understanding and debugging the behaviour and interaction of QEMU and the guest kernel/userspace code. As such my development machines have a variety of guest OS installations that get booted for various tasks. Some tasks, however, require a repeated cycle of QEMU code changes, or QEMU config changes, followed by guest testing. Waiting for an OS to boot can quickly become a significant time sink affecting productivity and lead to frustration. What is needed is a very low overhead way to accomplish simple testing tasks without an OS getting in the way.

        Enter ‘make-tiny-image.py‘ tool for creating minimal initrd images.

        If invoked with no arguments, this tool will create an initrd containing nothing more than busybox. The “init” program will be a script that creates a few device nodes, mounts proc/sysfs and then runs the busybox ‘sh’ binary to provide an interactive shell. This is intended to be used as follows

      • ZDNet ☛ How to install Linux on an old laptop

        Linux has been my primary operating system since 1997. When I first started using the open-source OS, it was not easy. There was a lot of command line work to do and keeping my 33.6k modem online was a nightmare. With some serious persistence, I made it work and eventually made a career out of covering Linux and open-source software.

        Back in those days, installing Linux on a laptop was something only the most skilled users could pull off. The problem was (at the time) Linux didn’t have a great deal of support for things like Wi-Fi cards, sound, and video. Because of that, it was pretty hit-and-miss. You might try to install your favorite Linux distribution, only to find out it didn’t support your video card. Try a different distribution that did support your video card, but not your sound card. If you were really good with the command line, you could install firmware for the hardware to get it running.

        Eventually, Linux caught up to the competition until it found support for most hardware (save for maybe cutting edge graphics and some newer peripherals). Even then, the Linux community has been doing a great job of keeping pace with the likes of Windows and MacOS.

      • Make Use Of ☛ How to Install Slack on Linux

        You might have seen your team members using Slack on their Windows systems. But what if you are a Linux user and don’t want to switch to Windows just to stay connected with your team? Luckily, Slack is also available for Linux.

        Whether you’re using Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, or any other Linux distribution, the installation process for Slack is straightforward and just requires a few simple commands. Let’s see how you can install Slack on Linux.

      • Make Use Of ☛ fd Is a Blazingly Fast Way to Find Files on Linux

        Finding files in the terminal is a pain. It’s slow, and the find command requires very specific arguments to ensure you locate the file you’re looking for.

        fd is designed to be a simple, quick, intuitive, and easy-to-use replacement for the find command. Here’s how to install and use fd on Linux.

      • Make Use Of ☛ How to Get the Best Linux Features With Windows Apps

        Even though Linux is a term that applies to many different flavors of operating system, there are a handful of features that Linux users will know well, but Windows users have to go without.

        Thankfully, much like Linux, Windows leaves power in the hands of the user. Let’s have a look at a handful of different features you can pull over from Linux into your own Windows system

      • Make Use Of ☛ speedread Lets You Rapidly Assimilate Text Documents on Linux

        Reading is a great way to pass the time, and a means to both expand your knowledge of the world around you and indulge in idle flights of fancy through fiction. But there are only 24 hours in a day, and there’s a limit to how many words you can force your eyeballs to take in during a lunch break at work.

        speedread is a terminal-based Linux app that can jack those numbers up, and help you to read faster and more efficiently than ever before.

      • UNIX Cop ☛ How to get the latest version of GCC on Debian 11

        Hello, friends. In this post, you will learn how to get the latest version of GCC in Debian 11. GCC is the compiler of the GNU project for C language, and one of the most important bases that we have on Linux.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KDE: Porting away from gbm_surface

          Until recently, the drm backend of KWin used gbm_surfaces for getting buffers to display on the screen. This is a relatively simple API that allows to extend what one can do with a EGL surfaces – you get to directly choose buffer format and modifiers and you get a gbm buffer after rendering a frame, which you can then use with the drm API to actually get the image on the screen.

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Linuxiac ☛ Elementary OS 7’s Latest Update Enhances Functionality

      In recent years, elementary OS has consistently ranked as one of the best desktop-oriented Linux distributions. It has a sleek, modern, intuitive user interface called Pantheon that is easy to use and visually appealing. At the same time, the distro offers a high degree of customization, allowing users to tailor the UI to their specific needs and preferences.

      The recently released elementary OS 7 is a confirmation of all this. At the same time, developers are continuously working on improvements of various aesthetics to give users the most simplified and pleasant user experience.

      Entirely in line with this, the latest advancements that came with the recent updates to the operating system prove it. So let’s see what it is all about.

    • TecAdmin ☛ 10 Best Lightweight Linux Distros for Old Computers

      As computers age, their performance inevitably degrades, and the operating system becomes less responsive. This can be frustrating for users who want to continue using their old hardware but are limited by the resources available.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Linux Links ☛ Calibrate your Monitor with these Open Source Tools

      The objective when calibrating a monitor is to ensure the monitor has color references known by everyone (humans and software). This will mean the colors are represented accurately on your monitor.

      Generally speaking, using a color measurement instrument to calibrate your display will result in a better calibration compared to a visual calibration. The following open source tools are invaluable for anyone looking for accurate color reproduction.

    • Events

      • SCALE Linux and free software convention returns to Pasadena for first time since COVID lockdown

        The Southern California Linux Expo and the city of Pasadena are getting back together.

        Known by its acronym SCALE, the convention for lovers of the Linux computer operating system and other free, open-source software last took place at the Pasadena Convention Center in early March 2020 — right before the COVID-19 lockdown.

        SCALE organizers spent the weeks prior to their 2020 dates watching COVID case numbers, consulting with experts and weighing whether or not to cancel.

        But the show did go on. Like in years before, thousands of free software users, developers, advocates and professionals came to Pasadena for the keynote speeches, technical talks, booth-filled convention floor — and to meet old friends and make new ones.

        The 2020 convention ended, and within days, gatherings of any kind were off the table as the new virus grew and threatened a world without any vaccines or treatments.

        Along with day-to-day work, school and family gatherings, tech conferences turned to Zoom, and SCALE went dark for 2021.

    • Web Browsers/Web Servers

    • Programming/Development

      • Rlang ☛ WebR IS HERE!

        WebR 0.1.0 was released! I had been git-stalking George (the absolute genius who we all must thank for this) for a while and noticed the GH org and repos being updated earlier this week, So, I was already pretty excited.

      • Steinar H Gunderson ☛ Steinar H. Gunderson: Solving a 1998 problem with 2023 methods

        A long time ago, in 1998, our family entered a contest with a puzzle;
        given a bunch of company names (they were the ones participating in a
        loyalty program known as Domino, which has since gone defunct),
        try to spell out as many Norwegian names as possible. (The name list
        was fixed, but you actually had to buy a book to find it.)

        The prize was fairly attractive, so I went to work with a computer program
        instead of trying to figure it out by hand. I remember running it literally
        for weeks on my 400 MHz machine at the time; at some point, we even went
        on vacation for more than a month, and I came back disappointed to see
        that the search hadn’t really gone that much further. Over time, I optimized
        it to use randomization in addition to backtracking, some bit fiddling tricks
        and so on. We thought we had a good shot.

      • Rust

        • Rust Blog ☛ The Rust Programming Language Blog: Announcing Rust 1.68.0

          The Rust team is happy to announce a new version of Rust, 1.68.0. Rust is a
          programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient
          software.

          If you have a previous version of Rust installed via rustup, you can get 1.68.0
          with:

          rustup update stable
        • LWN ☛ Rust 1.68.0 released

          Version 1.68.0 of the Rust language has been released.

  • Leftovers

    • Science

    • Hardware

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

    • Proprietary

      • Silicon Angle ☛ Oracle’s stock heads south on revenue shortfall
        Database giant Oracle Corp. missed expectations on revenue by a whisker as it reported its fiscal 2023 third-quarter earnings results today, sending its stock down in extended trading.

    • Linux Foundation

      • PR Newswire ☛ Linux Foundation Energy Announces Conference Schedule for LF Energy Summit

        LF Energy, the open source foundation focused on harnessing the power of collaborative software and hardware technologies to decarbonize our global economies, is pleased to announce the lineup of sessions for LF Energy Summit, taking place June 1-2, 2023 in Paris, France. LF Energy Summit is returning to an in-person format after three years as a virtual-only event. The summit will gather members of the LF Energy community including foundation members, developers, vendors, utility end users and other energy industry stakeholders to learn about LF Energy and its projects as well as to collaborate and share best practices for developing and implementing open source technologies and standards in the power sector.

    • Security

      • LWN ☛ Security updates for Wednesday [LWN.net]

        Security updates have been issued by Debian (apr), Fedora (c-ares), Oracle (curl, kernel, pesign, samba, and zlib), Red Hat (curl, gnutls, kernel, kernel-rt, and pesign), Scientific Linux (kernel, pesign, samba, and zlib), SUSE (libX11, python-rsa, python3, python36, qemu, rubygem-rack, xorg-x11-server, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (libtpms, linux-ibm, linux-raspi, linux-raspi, python3.7, python3.8, and sofia-sip).

      • LWN ☛ Security updates for Thursday

        Security updates have been issued by CentOS (kernel, pesign, samba, and zlib), Oracle (kernel), Slackware (httpd), SUSE (emacs, libxslt, nodejs12, nodejs14, nodejs16, openssl, poppler, python-py, python-wheel, xen, and xorg-x11-server), and Ubuntu (linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gkeop, opusfile, and samba).

      • Building a Pentest Lab for Beginners: Tips and Tricks for Success

        A penetration testing (pentest) lab is a safe and controlled environment where you can practice and improve your hacking skills without breaking the law. Building your own pentest lab is an excellent way to gain practical experience and learn new techniques.

      • Andrea Corbellini: Authenticated encryption: why you need it and how it works

        In this article I want to explore a common problem of modern cryptographic
        ciphers: malleability. I will explain that problem with some hands-on examples,
        and then look in detail at how that problem is solved through the use of
        authenticated encryption. I will describe in particular two algorithms that
        provide authenticated encryption: ChaCha20-Poly1305 and AES-GCM, and briefly
        mention some of their variants.

        The problem

        If we want to encrypt some data, a very common approach is to use a symmetric
        cipher. When we use a symmetric cipher, we hold a secret key, which is
        generally a sequence of bits chosen at random of some fixed length (nowadays
        ranging from 128 to 256 bits). The symmetric cipher takes two inputs: the
        secret key, and the message that we want to encrypt, and produces a single
        output: a ciphertext. Decryption is the inverse process: it takes the secret
        key and the ciphertext as the input and yields back the original message as an
        output. With symmetric ciphers, we use the same secret key both to encrypt and
        decrypt messages, and this is why they are called symmetric (this is in
        contrast with public key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, where
        encryption and decryption are performed using two different keys: a public key
        and a private key).

      • Security Week ☛ Custom Chinese Malware Found on SonicWall Appliance

        Malware deployed by Chinese hackers on a SonicWall SMA appliance includes credential theft, shell access, and persistence functionality.

      • Security Week ☛ Vulnerability Exposes Cisco Enterprise Routers to Disruptive Attacks

        Cisco has released patches for a high-severity DoS vulnerability in IOS XR software for several enterprise-grade routers.

      • Security Week ☛ Dozens of Exploited Vulnerabilities Missing From CISA ‘Must Patch’ List

        An analysis found that over 40 exploited vulnerabilities, mostly leveraged by botnets, are missing from CISA’s ‘must patch’ catalog.

      • Dark Reading ☛ IceFire Ransomware Portends a Broader Shift From Windows to Linux [Ed: The voices of Redmond, singing from the same lyrics?]

        In recent weeks, hackers have been deploying the “IceFire” ransomware against Linux enterprise networks, a noted shift for what was once a Windows-only malware.

        A report from SentinelOne published today suggests that this may represent a budding trend. Ransomware actors have been targeting Linux systems more than ever in cyberattacks in recent weeks and months, notable not least because “in comparison to Windows, Linux is more difficult to deploy ransomware against, particularly at scale,” Alex Delamotte, security researcher at SentinelOne, tells Dark Reading.

      • Bleeping Computer ☛ IceFire ransomware now encrypts both Linux and Windows systems

        Threat actors linked to the IceFire ransomware operation now actively target Linux systems worldwide with a new dedicated encryptor.

        SentinelLabs security researchers found that the gang has breached the networks of several media and entertainment organizations around the world in recent weeks, starting mid-February, according to a report shared in advance with BleepingComputer.

        Once inside their networks, the attackers deploy their new malware variant to encrypt the victims’ Linux systems.

        When executed, IceFire ransomware encrypts files, appends the ‘.ifire’ extension to the filename, and then covers its tracks by deleting itself and removing the binary.

      • Hacker News ☛ IceFire Ransomware Exploits IBM Aspera Faspex to Attack Linux-Powered Enterprise Networks

        A previously known Windows-based ransomware strain known as IceFire has expanded its focus to target Linux enterprise networks belonging to several media and entertainment sector organizations across the world.

        The intrusions entail the exploitation of a recently disclosed deserialization vulnerability in IBM Aspera Faspex file-sharing software (CVE-2022-47986, CVSS score: 9.8), according to cybersecurity company SentinelOne.

      • Security Week ☛ Jenkins Server Vulnerabilities Chained for Remote Code Execution

        Two vulnerabilities recently addressed in Jenkins server can be chained to achieve arbitrary code execution.

      • Security Week ☛ Fortinet Patches Critical Unauthenticated RCE Vulnerability in FortiOS

        Fortinet has patched a critical buffer underflow vulnerability in FortiOS and FortiProxy that could lead to remote code execution without authentication.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • Federal News Network ☛ Lawmaker says FBI wrongly sought surveillance info about him

          A Republican lawmaker has accused the FBI of wrongly searching for his name in foreign surveillance data, underscoring the challenges ahead for U.S. officials trying to persuade Congress to renew their authorities to collect huge swaths of communications. Rep. Darin LaHood of Illinois made the comments at a hearing Thursday but did not say why the FBI may have searched his name in information collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

        • Silicon Angle ☛ WhatsApp tells the UK it would rather be blocked than adhere to the Online Safety Bill [Ed: WhatsApp is mass surveillance; this seems like a PR stunt from Zuckerface]
          Meta Platforms Inc.’s chat app WhatsApp says it will not compromise end-to-end encryption, and since that’s required in the U.K. under the new Online Safety Bill, it might mean the end of its existence in the country.

      • Confidentiality

        • Gizmodo ☛ This Shadowy Catholic Group Says It Buys Grindr Data to Trace Gay Priests

          In a witch hunt to out gay priests, a conservative Catholic nonprofit in Denver has poured $4 million into buying data it claims is primarily sourced from Grindr and other gay dating apps, according to the Washington Post.

        • Gizmodo ☛ Congress’s Social Security Numbers Leaked in Health Data Breach

          In a classic “whoopsie” situation, a health data breach affecting members of the US House of Representatives and their staff exposed social security numbers, names of family members, emails, phone numbers, and home addresses, which are now for sale on the dark web.

        • Silicon Angle ☛ Members of Congress have personal information stolen in DC Health Link data breach
          Personally identifiable information belonging to members of Congress and others has been published online following a data breach at DC Health Link, the District of Columbia’s health insurance exchange. The breach first came to light on Wednesday when DC Health Link informed members of the House and Senate that hackers had gained access…

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Latvia ☛ ‘CMX23′ to test NATO’s crisis decision-making

        From March 9 to 15, the NATO crisis management exercise “CMX23″ (Crisis Management Exercise) will take place in NATO member states, including Latvia, the purpose of which is to check the consultation and decision-making procedures of alliance member states at the strategic political-military level.

      • AntiWar ☛ Why Is the US So Unhappy That China Offered a Peace Proposal?

        On February 24, China published its “Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.” The US reacted very negatively very quickly. They reacted more negatively even than Ukraine. What is it about the Chinese proposal that so unnerves the US? It is not even a fully developed settlement proposal ripe for negotiation.

      • AntiWar ☛ Women Don’t Let Women Drive War: Feminists Say Fire Nuland

        When President Biden nominated Victoria Nuland as Undersecretary of State, CODEPINK feminists objected to her nomination out of concern she would bring pain and heartache to mothers and daughters as she fomented war in their midst. Instead of promoting diplomacy, Nuland lights matches wherever she meddles, agitating for war in Afghanistan, and now Ukraine. I

    • Environment

      • Energy/Transportation

        • Gizmodo ☛ Sam Bankman-Fried’s Lawyers Say They May Need to Delay Trial

          Lawyers representing FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried announced on Wednesday that his October trial might need to be delayed. The lawyers said they were still waiting for important documents to be handed over and claimed the hold-up could hinder their ability to review the evidence and create a proper defense.

    • Finance

      • Latvia ☛ Latvia made progress on gender pay gap in 2021

        On the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 8, women’s issues are very much in focus, but with regard to the differences in pay between men and women, there is at least one sign of progress even if pay remains far from equal.

      • Silicon Angle ☛ Shares of tech startup-heavy Silicon Valley Bank plunge 60%+ on stock sale plan

        Shares of SVB Financial Group Inc., the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, plunged more than 60% today after the financial institution announced plans to sell $2.2 billion in stock. The stock sale is part of an effort by the company to address recent losses in its securities portfolio.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Daniel Miessler ☛ The Primary Liberal vs. Conservative Disconnect

        For a long time the main disconnect between Liberals and Conservatives was considered to be how much they embrace change and tolerate inequity. Those still seem like decent measurements, but new research by Nick Kerry suggests that the clearer distinction is the belief that the world is fundamentally hierarchical.

      • uni Emory ☛ Conservatism and progressivism are both necessary to improve society

        “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.” — John Stuart Mill Chinese philosophers invented the concept of yin and yang more than 2,000 years ago.

      • Federal News Network ☛ Trump invited to testify before NY grand jury, lawyer says

        Former President Donald Trump has been invited to testify next week before a New York grand jury that has been investigating hush money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 presidential campaign. That’s according to one of his lawyers. Such an invitation often indicates a decision on indictments is near. The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment. Any indictment would mark the first time any former U.S. president has been charged with a crime. Trump attorney Joseph Tacopina says a case would have no legal basis.

      • Federal News Network ☛ Mississippi man gets 42 months in prison for cross burning

        A Mississippi man who burned a cross in his front yard to intimidate his Black neighbors has been sentenced to 42 months in prison. U.S. Southern District of Mississippi Judge Sul Ozerden handed down the sentence Thursday after 24-year-old Axel Cox pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime in December. Cox was charged with violating the Fair Housing Act over a December 2020 incident in which he put together a wooden cross in his front yard and propped it up so his Black neighbors could see it. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke called it an “abhorrent act” intended to inspire fear and drive a Black family from their home.

      • NYPost ☛ China’s Xi Jinping secures precedent-breaking third term as president

        Nearly 3,000 members of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), voted unanimously in the Great Hall of the People for Xi, 69, to be president in an election where there was no other candidate.

      • NYPost ☛ Trump likely to face criminal charges in New York in Stormy Daniels case: report

        Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has notified attorneys for Trump, 76, that the former commander-in-chief will be given the opportunity to defend himself next week in front of the grand jury hearing evidence in the case before the indictment comes down.

      • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • EDRI ☛ 2023 Spring Fling

        CDT is pleased to announce our inaugural 2023 Spring Fling, a celebration during IAPP’s Global Privacy Summit. You won’t want to miss it!

      • Proposals sought for next round of OVPR Anti-Racism Grants

        The Office of the Vice President for Research seeks applicants for Anti-Racism Grants that fund research and scholarship related to societal and racial inequalities, and that inform actions to achieve equity and justice.

      • ACLU ☛ Judy Heumann’s Legacy Lives On

        “I wanna see a feisty group of disabled people around the world…if you don’t respect yourself and if you don’t demand what you believe in for yourself, you’re not gonna get it.” – Judy Heumann

        Judy Heumann, a civil rights titan who spent her life advocating and fighting for integration, accessibility, and dignity for people with disabilities, died on March 4. Her spirit and advocacy will live on in the generation of disabled activists she inspired and empowered to take up the mantle.

        When Judy was born, the fight for civil rights didn’t include people with disabilities. Disabled people faced rampant discrimination and segregation in American life. Disabled people experienced high rates of unemployment and were taught in separate schools. Changing these institutions wasn’t just a calling for Judy, it was a necessity. At a young age, Judy learned that the world did not see her the way she saw herself, and she spent the rest of her life committed to changing that.

      • ACLU ☛ The Women Who Made ACLU History

        From its early feminist founders, to the trailblazing clients and lawyers that have fought sex-based discrimination in the hundred years since, the ACLU’s history has been entwined with women’s rights since its founding in 1920 — the same year women won the right to vote.

      • The Strategist ☛ The future of UN peacekeeping and women, peace and security

        To make peacekeeping safer in an increasingly dangerous world, countries contributing troops to United Nations peacekeeping efforts need to embrace emerging technology more readily, and they must involve many more women on operations. Today ASPI’s …

      • EDRI ☛ Foss-north 2023

        Foss-north is a free / open source conference covering both software and hardware from the technical perspective. Hosted in Gothenburg between Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, with an international airport, we provide a meeting place for the Nordic foss communities and will bring together great speakers with a great audience.

      • EDRI ☛ EU DisinfoLab 2023 Annual Conference

        During those two days, the event will bring together renowned experts from diverse backgrounds, digging into the pressing issues in the disinformation space. By attending this physical forum, you’ll join leading experts and stakeholders from across the disinformation world for a mix of sessions formats and exciting networking opportunities. Don’t miss it!

      • EDRI ☛ #PrivacyCamp23: Event summary

        In January 2023, EDRi gathered policymakers, activists, human rights defenders, climate and social justice advocates and academics in Brussels to discuss the criticality of our digital worlds. We welcomed 200+ participants in person and enjoyed an online audience of 600+ people engaging with the event livestream videos. If you missed the event or want a reminder of what happened in a session, find the session summaries and video recordings below.

      • EDRI ☛ The Green/Digital/Society Conference

        If you are an environmental or digital rights activist, researcher, policymaker, community member or just a concerned human being from the SEE region or Europe, join the discussion on the current challenges and potential advocacy plans for the future on matters at the intersection of green politics, human rights and technology

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • Not feeling feelings for a long time

        As I look back, I used to be someone who always held an optimistic outlook on life. I was a “believer,” or at least someone who always “wanted to believe.” This also made me a gullible person at times, especially in my younger days. Once I found a cause to believe in, I became quite a dedicated believer, at least for a while, until I began seeing hypocrisies and internal inconsistencies, and started smelling bullshit.

        Outwardly, this made me appear to be a “model believer” to some. When I was a teenager, the adults in my church were impressed by how I talked like someone on fire, comparing me to their own kids who were begrudgingly attending church only because the parents made them to.

        [...]

        That summer, I felt aimless. I lost my community and the social capital I built. But somehow I survived, going through the motions. I didn’t feel “sad” or “disappointed.” I did not feel anything.

      • Steven Swanson, Astronaut

        My existence happens to coincide with a number of very interesting human achievements, not the least
        among them space travel. I recall watching the challenger explode on TV at school; they had let us
        all out of class to watch in a central area where they could setup a set. To be honest, that was the
        last I really paid attention to space travel, outside of science fiction.

        And while I’m being honest, I’m sort of ashamed of my inattention. We reach for the stars and
        actually touch them, and then we go about our business. Or worse, we make an international
        competition out of reaching for the stars, and then punish one another with our tech. For me
        personally, the age of home computing was more interesting than space. I guess a few things are, to
        this day, more interesting to me.

      • More time?

        I didn’t end up having more time to write today… I mean, today in local time. On the Zaibatsu,
        it’s already tomorrow.

      • Hardware Store Hijinks

        So I’ve been working at the local small-scale hardware store for the past few months.

        This was my first standard job; I’ve done a number of things for work over the past few years since I’ve stopped living with my parents. One of those jobs was working for my parents as a general laborer, but I also was a doordash driver and a courier boy for a tech liquidation company. Roomie has been working at the hardware store for about 6 months, and had put in a good word for me before my interview, so I wasn’t too surprised I got the job last November.

    • Technical

      • on EasyOS

        EasyOS is the latest distribution from the guy behind Puppy Linux. It has a bunch of cool ideas regarding security, mostly stemming from it being built around containers. I think it’s supposed to make it easy to create isolated containers on the fly, for e.g. building random software or whatnot. It has some nice X11 sandboxing features too. Besides that, it has first class support for live USBs, which is always nice.

      • MNT Pocket Reform Campaign Coming Soon

        I held off endlessly against the original MNT Reform because it was, quite frankly, a first-generation product. I’m leery of ever buying those. But the concept had lots of promise and potential, so I was more than willing to play the waiting game and see if I can get ahold of either a later generation of the original Reform, or.. the Pocket Reform.

        I’ll spare you the descriptions and ogling over it. Go take a look at it yourself.

      • Five years a sundog – Happy birthday, circumlunar space!

        Five years ago today, on the 10th of March in 2018, I made a post
        to my phlog[1], then hosted at SDF, announcing that I was moving it
        to a shiny new server – circumlunar.space.

        How much has changed since then! The Mare Tranquillitatis People’s
        Circumlunar Zaibatsu[2] began life as a single low-spec server spun
        up for the sole purpose of offering Gopherspace to the community.
        Today, still standing proud at the same IP address five years later,
        it is one part of many in an ongoing experiment into resilient and
        decentralised Do-It-Yourself digital community.

      • Stray Bridge Musings

        Holy heck. IRC, XMPP and email only have to worry about one message at a time on the wire. Matrix needs to sign & send the entire universe.

        Anyway, I was thinking about that ejabberd announcment today, since I’ve been on a bridges kick, prompted by my newfound enthusiasm for XMPP, after finding out that Bitlbee can send multiple-line messages.

        On Matrix’ old bridges blog post they list a bunch of categories of bridges, and mention in passing s2s bridges:

      • art ownership

        I’ve recently been thinking more about ownership of creations online. I remember a time online where people were encouraging others to spread their creations and repost them and use them freely because they did not care about having their name attached, it felt just nice having created something that others like and would use. You felt proud seeing it used on others’ pages, a part of you traveling through the web. The whole culture of spreading graphics around, like the dolls and a variety of blingees.

        I think with the state of capitalism at this point and the normalization of extreme copyright laws as well as virality and what comes with it, there’s been a change in that. I think hobbyists see how hard professionals have to guard and protect their work because for them, it means clients, it means money, it means survival. I totally understand the struggle professional creators go through to be recognized for their hard work, however I have found myself confused at hobbyists copying the same behaviors. I wonder if it happens because people do not see that many artists online have to behave this aggressively because it is their livelihood, not because all creations have to be treated like that.

* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.

EPO Weaponises International Women’s Day to Cover Up Its Attacks on Women

Posted in Europe, Patents at 11:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Video download link | md5sum 16272ba8c3034e82e1d6d5269085e6e5
EPO Women Affairs
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: The narcissistic management of the EPO pats itself on the back over “feminism”, “diversity” etc. while women who actually work — real work — at the Office (examiners, not the family/cabal lodged at the top floor) dispute this misleading PR-esque narrative

Some years ago there was some waffle [PDF] from Elodie Bergot, who was promoted not as a woman but as a family member (spouse) of the EPO‘s “mafia” (Benoît Battistelli‘s faithful servant from INPI). Bergot seems to be attacking more women than she attacks men (M. & E.). How’s that for an achievement? Cat fights are not breeding diversity — more so in an office that already fails to attract women and barely offers them promotions (compared to men), according to the EPO’s own numbers.

International women’s dayAntónio Campinos also “supports” women. He brought women without relevant experience in patents just because they had previously worked with him at EUIPO — the subject of a new scandal as noted in the video above. It is connected to Christian Archambeau, a confidant of Campinos, who originally came from the EPO.

Nothing allures women scientists more — and even attracts them to the EPO — than a Mr. Campinos dropping “F bombs” in front of women. Apply today, the “fucking president” (his description of himself) loves women applicants.

Staff Committee The Hague
Comité du personnel de La Haye
Personalausschuss Den Haag

8 March 2023

HAPPY WOMEN’S DAY 2023!

An invitation to work together towards gender equity at the EPO

Dear colleagues,

International women’s day is celebrated on March 8th: “a day to Celebrate women’s achievements, raise awareness about discrimination and take action to drive gender parity”.

#EmbraceEquity is this year’s campaign theme of the International Women’s Day. Equity aims to ensure the access, equality of opportunity and advancement for everyone, through the identification and removal of obstacles which, in the present context, prevent women from fully participating in all aspects of life.

In 2018 (reflecting the data up to 2017), the administration prepared a document “Gender Awareness Report – 2018” containing several indicators which revealed weak points in D&I policies at the Office.

Since then, the administration has put some measures in place. The staff representation believes that it is the right moment to evaluate the impact of each of the measures taken, and to receive an overview of the present situation as well as an evaluation of the previous policies. Therefore, we requested an update of the “Gender Awareness report” complemented with an in-depth study on “Equality in career”, with a specific focus on the impact of the NCS on female colleagues.

To shed more light on areas where the Office is doing well regarding gender equality, and where further improvements can be made, in 2018 staff representation requested that available data concerning the equality of careers by gender and by site of employment be made available. One deliverable of the D&I team is to “establish historical and current data sets on key D&I criteria to track progress and inform policy”, and we kindly request that the information be shared. In 2022 the central staff committee analysed some of the annually published statistics on the reward system, and described that although some steps in the right direction had been taken, the new career system still has the effect of widening the gender pay gap.
Furthermore, the negative effects of the education allowance and childcare reform on women should not be underestimated, and there are question marks as to the effects on women of the Bringing Team Together project.

According to the EPO intranet Diversity & Inclusion intranet page: “D&I is naturally embedded in our Office’s Mission, Vision and Values. In 2022 we will move to identifying and implementing concrete actions on D&I – that make a real difference to

our staff and that integrate D&I in our daily activities – as a core ingredient of the design and execution of the Office’s strategy. This approach will allow us to identify areas we need to improve, target solutions, assess outcomes and report openly on our progress.”

We welcome the administration to share the concrete actions and progress report, and once again express our willingness to work together towards embracing gender equity at the EPO leaving no one behind.

“We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back”
Malala Yousafzai

Kind regards,
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH)

The EPO is trying to dominate presence for this topic, hitting all sorts of keywords to distract from the actual stories of actual EPO employees who do the work and feel oppressed. We don’t suppose any blog or media site will tell the story of women inside the EPO; instead there will be sponsored puff pieces for the phony narratives pushed out by the EPO’s PR department, managed by a friend of Campinos (nepotism). █

Sirius ‘Open Source’ Pensiongate: A Long Story Merits Many Videos

Posted in Deception, Fraud, Free/Libre Software at 10:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Video download link | md5sum c00ff3859f267c20af0e44af8b6a439c
The Series on Sirius Crimes
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: Today we start a string of videos and short texts about the company my wife and I left in December (we resigned just over 3 months ago); as it turns out, the company had been committing crimes for years before we left

THE “Pensiongate” mini-series is becoming a lot more extensive and far longer than we first estimated. We find out more and more things as one scandal helps unfold another. As such, this morning we started a dedicated Wiki page, Crimes of Sirius Open Source — a complementary subset of Sirius ‘Open Source’, which started back in December.

For those who have missed some of the context, here are just several of the posts that covered this matter:

  1. Sirius ‘Open Source’ and the Money Missing From the Pension
  2. Sirius Finished
  3. Sirius ‘Open Source’ Pensiongate: An Introduction
  4. When the Pension Vanishes
  5. Sirius ‘Open Source’ Pensiongate (Sirius Financial Crisis): Company May Have Squandered/Plundered the Pensions of Many People
  6. Sirius ‘Open Source’ Pensiongate: Pension Providers That Repeatedly Lie to the Clients and Don’t Respond to Messages
  7. NOW: Pensions Lies to Its Customers and Protects Abusers
  8. Sirius ‘Open Source’ Pensiongate: It’s Beginning to Look Like a Criminal Matter and Sirius is in Serious Trouble

The video above explains the motivation and emphasises that we’ll try to cover this a lot in the form of videos, delivering perhaps a dozen more parts, including bits of evidence. Video will be a convenient means by which to deliver the material in a privacy-respecting matter.

“The video above explains the motivation and emphasises that we’ll try to cover this a lot in the form of videos, delivering perhaps a dozen more parts, including bits of evidence.”It’s sort of sad that we’ve come to this, but if you deal with people who defrauded not only you but also your colleagues, then it becomes imperative to speak out and do something about it. Some people have asked me to pursue a legal opinion on this. As a side note, several people say they love the term “Mr. Kink”, which does not infringe anyone’s privacy yet says a lot.

“So where is all that money now? Put aside and used for the 4-person DisneyWorld trips?”The journey required to write the series is mostly free — free as in beer/gratis. The material is in the public domain, e.g. the Companies House. It’s free. Except all the times we phoned pension providers — quite an expensive endeavour when you do it for 2-3 months. The upside is that along the way we learned a lot about how the system works and how it is abused. It’s cheaper to learn that on one’s own. For instance, when my wife and I demand the money from both our accounts the providers are pretending it’s not possible (it is; with the high tax applied) and if they say no, or intentionally mislead clients, one can threaten to sue (we shared a record to show how they obstruct people who exercise their legal rights). But upon further inspection it turned out to be a lot worse because the money had already been stolen. So where is all that money now? Put aside and used for the 4-person DisneyWorld trips? █

Links 10/03/2023: New siduction

Posted in News Roundup at 9:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  • GNU/Linux

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Programming/Development

      • OpenSource.com ☛ How the GDB debugger and other tools use call frame information to determine the active function calls

        In my previous article, I showed how debuginfo is used to map between the current instruction pointer (IP) and the function or line containing it. That information is valuable in showing what code the processor is currently executing. However, having more context for the calls that lead up to the current function and line being executed is also extremely helpful.

        For example, suppose a function in a library has an illegal memory access due to a null pointer being passed as a parameter into the function. Just looking at the current function and line shows that the fault was triggered by attempted access through a null pointer. However, what you really want to know is the full context of the active function calls leading up to that null pointer access, so you can determine how that null pointer was initially passed into the library function. This context information is provided by a backtrace, and allows you to determine which functions could be responsible for the bogus parameter.

        One thing’s certain: Determining the currently active function calls is a non-trivial operation.

  • Leftovers

    • Michael West Media ☛ What’s the scam with Nine’s “Panel of Experts”? Red alert, it’s ASPI

      The backlash over Nine Entertainment’s “Reds Under the Beds” campaign continues as they defend their stories by pointing to “panel of experts”. Who are these experts?

      Most of them are connected to the pro-war think tank ASPI (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) which is funded by the government and global arms manufacturers – in other words, the SMH and Age “Red Alert” campaign is supported by confirmation bias of the most dangerous kind, the kind which takes countries to war.

    • Counter Punch ☛ The Evolution of Baseball

      It was a Saturday afternoon. I was flipping through channels between sporting events. I landed on Roy Firestone’s “Up Close” interview program. He hosted hundreds of great sports personalities and heroes.

      Today was a bit different. Damn, one of the most exciting baseball players in the Los Angeles Dodger folklore was talking to Roy; Maury Wills. My childhood memories were raging. I couldn’t divert my stare. I am pretty sure my nose was almost touching the tv screen.

    • Scheerpost ☛ Looking at the Skeletons Inside the NFL’s Closet

      Renowned sports journalist Dave Zirin talks about his latest documentary, which explores the unjust, unfair and deeply racist history of the NFL coupled with its commitment to nationalism, militarism and corporatism.

    • The Nation ☛ Stuck in the Labyrinth

      Crises in Mexico have a way of taking on their own unique expression. Indeed, many in Mexico have come to believe that, rather than marking a sharp turning point, crisis is the permanent state of affairs.

    • Education

    • Hardware

      • Hackaday ☛ Physics-Controlled Component Auto-Placer

        [Jarrett] recently stumbled upon a class of drawing algorithms called force-directed graphs, which artificially apply forces to the elements. The final graph is then generated by applying the laws of physics and letting the system reach equilibrium. This can often result in a pleasing presentation of things like mind maps and other diagrams without having to hand-place everything. He realized that this approach almost mimics the way he places components when doing a PCB layout. Out of curiosity or intense boredom, we’re not sure which, he decided to implement this in a tool that interacts with KiCad ( see animated GIF below the break ).

      • Hackaday ☛ A Guided Tour Of The NES

        No matter your age or background, there’s an excellent chance you’ll recognize the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) at first glance. The iconic 8-bit system not only revitalized the gaming industry, but helped to establish the “blueprint” of console gaming for decades to come. It’s a machine so legendary and transformative that even today, it enjoys a considerable following. Some appreciate the more austere approach to gaming from a bygone era, while others are fascinated with the functional aspects of console.

      • Hackaday ☛ Measuring A Millisecond Mechanically

        If you are manufacturing something, you have to test it. It wouldn’t do, for example, for your car to say it was going 60 MPH when it was really going 90 MPH. But if you were making a classic Leica camera back in the early 20th century, how do you measure a shutter that operates at 1/1000 of a second — a millisecond — without modern electronics? The answer is a special stroboscope that would look at home in any cyberpunk novel. [SmarterEveryDay] visited a camera restoration operation in Finland, and you can see the machine in action in the video below.

      • Hackaday ☛ Power Tool Battery Fume Extractor

        A solder fume extractor is something we could probably all use. While there isn’t much to them, [Steven Bennett] put a lot of thought into making one that was better for him, and we admired his design process, as well as the extractor fan itself. You can see the finished result in the video below.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

    • Security

      • Krebs On Security ☛ Who’s Behind the NetWire Remote Access Trojan?

        A Croatian national has been arrested for allegedly operating NetWire, a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) marketed on cybercrime forums since 2012 as a stealthy way to spy on infected systems and siphon passwords. The arrest coincided with a seizure of the NetWire sales website by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). While the defendant in this case hasn’t yet been named publicly, the NetWire website has been leaking information about the likely true identity and location of its owner for the past 11 years.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Common Dreams ☛ Progressives Praise Biden Budget for Investments in ‘Widespread Prosperity and Economic Growth’

        While blasting the White House’s proposed $886 billion in military spending as “madness,” progressives on Thursday also praised portions of U.S. President Joe Biden’s fiscal year 2024 budget for sizable social investments that could lead to “broader opportunity, greater economic and health security, lower levels of hardship, and a nation where everyone can thrive.”

      • Counter Punch ☛ Ukraine’s Future: Like Korea’s or Yugoslavia’s?

        On February 24, the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to commemorate the occasion with a speech.

        There wasn’t much for Putin to celebrate. The invasion had failed to dislodge the government of Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv or incorporate all of Ukrainian territory into greater Russia.

      • Common Dreams ☛ UN Disarmament Official Lays Out Path to Reverse ‘Dangerous’ Nuclear Trends

        The head of the United Nations disarmament division warned Thursday of the need for urgent global action to eliminate atomic weapons, especially during the current heightened tensions between the United States and Russia—the world’s leading nuclear powers—over the latter’s thermonuclear threats during its invasion of Ukraine.

      • Common Dreams ☛ ‘Madness’: Biden Requests Record $886 Billion Military Budget

        President Joe Biden unveiled a budget blueprint Thursday that requests $886.4 billion in military spending for fiscal year 2024, pushing for a nearly $30 billion increase over current outlays as progressives demand cuts to the bloated and notoriously fraud-ridden Pentagon.

      • Common Dreams ☛ Fearing Future Probes of US Atrocities, Pentagon Blocks ICC From Russian War Crimes Evidence

        The Pentagon is helping to shield Russia from International Criminal Court accountability for its atrocities in Ukraine, fearing such a reckoning could set a precedent allowing the tribunal to prosecute U.S. war crimes, a report published Wednesday revealed.

      • Scheerpost ☛ The American War from Hell, 20 Years Later

        Juan Cole on how Washington lost Its moral compass in Iraq.

      • Counter Punch ☛ How Washington Lost Its Moral Compass in Iraq

        Who remembers anymore that, in 2003, we were Vladimir Putin? Today, our cable and social-media news feeds are blanketed with denunciations of the president of the Russian Federation for his lawless and brutal invasion of Ukraine. When Secretary of State Antony Blinken met briefly with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in New Delhi on March 2nd, he told him in no uncertain terms, “End this war of aggression.”

        Putin himself, however, has a longer memory. In the speech that launched his “special operation,” he pointedly denounced the U.S. for “the invasion of Iraq without any legal grounds.” Then he added, “We witnessed lies made at the highest state level and voiced from the high U.N. rostrum. As a result, we see a tremendous loss in human life, damage, destruction, and a colossal upsurge of terrorism.”

      • TruthOut ☛ “One Day Our Luck Will Run Out”: Ukraine Nuclear Plant Loses Power Again
      • Modern Diplomacy ☛ Turkey as an ally and a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine War. What does it want from it?

        During the course of the conflict in Russia-Ukraine, Ankara has managed to preserve its strategic autonomy and has avoided siding with the West in placing sanctions on Russia while yet managing to maintain its connections with both Moscow and Kyiv without jeopardizing its own geostrategic calculations.

      • Modern Diplomacy ☛ One year on, here’s how the Ukraine conflict is changing the world order

        In his recent landmark address to Russia’s parliament, President Vladimir Putin cited the war in Ukraine and US/NATO involvement in the conflict as the main reason for his decision to “suspend” Moscow’s participation in the 2010 New START Treaty on strategic nuclear weapons.

      • Meduza ☛ Transnistrian State Security Ministry says it thwarted assassination attempt order by Ukraine — Meduza

        The State Security Ministry of Transnistria, the Moscow-backed breakaway region in Moldova, said Thursday that it prevented a “terrorist attack” against “multiple officials” that was ordered by the Ukrainian Security Service.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Ethiopia: The Agony of Tribal Nationalism

        In whatever form it manifests, whether it’s distaste for foreigners, refugees and asylum seekers, a nationalistic economic policy or flag-waving patriotism, tribal nationalism is a cancer upon the world. Violent, ugly, and often deadly, it creates and strengthens divisions, often resulting in war, one after another after another throughout history.

        Ethiopia is a land rich with ethnic diversity: Some 70 tribal groups live within this ancient nation, all with their own cultures, traditions, and dialects. Tolerance, understanding, and cooperation are essential within such a bountiful landscape.

      • Counter Punch ☛ John Bolton, the Washington Post and the Death of Arms Control

        Arms control and disarmament are on life support, and John Bolton and the Washington Post have predictably come along to try to prevent any resuscitation.  The Post masthead daily proclaims that “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” but the paper fails to recognize that there are seminal issues that affect the interests of democratic regimes.  Arms control is one of these issues.

        Bolton has been fighting arms control and disarmament for the past several decades, and the Post has willingly provided a sounding board for his specious arguments.  In tracing the dangerous demise of disarmament, Bolton emerges as a dangerous and permanent presence.  He was the key adviser to the Bush and Trump administrations when they abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iranian nuclear accord).

      • Meduza ☛ Ukrainian military confirms identity of man shot on video as Oleksandr Matsiyevsky — Meduza

        Representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have confirmed that the soldier, who was shot in a video that appeared on social networks on March 6, was a fighter from the 163rd battalion of the 119th separate brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Chernihiv region, Oleksandr Matsiyevsky.

      • Meduza ☛ ‘Invisible’ migrants Ukrainian refugees in Poland brace themselves for a long war — Meduza

        After Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Polish government and public welcomed Ukrainian refugees with open arms. But as the war grinds into its second year, and with spring offensives reportedly on the horizon, the reality that many Ukrainians won’t be returning home any time soon is setting in. Meduza special correspondent Kristina Safonova traveled to Warsaw, Kraków, and Przemyśl to get a glimpse of what life is like for the 1.56 million refugees from Ukraine who have sought refuge in Poland.

      • Meduza ☛ Russian ‘foreign agents’ ask authorities in Georgia not to adopt its own ‘foreign agent’ law — Meduza

        Dozens of Russian journalists, activists, musicians, and public figures — all of whom are have been designated “foreign agents” by the Russian government — have signed an appeal to the parliament of Georgia, asking lawmakers there not to adopt an analogous law.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Why Sabotage is a Growing Form of Warfare in Ukraine
      • Counter Punch ☛ War Over Taiwan: Australia’s Gang of Five

        Diligently, obediently and with a degree of dangerous imbecility, a number of Australian media outlets are manufacturing a consensus for war with a country that has never been a natural, historical enemy, nor sought to be.  But as Australia remains the satellite of a Sino-suspicious US imperium, its officials and their dutiful advocates in the press seem obligated to pave the way for conflict.

        The latest example of this came in articles run in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age of Melbourne.  The premise is already clear from the columnists, Peter Hartcher and Matthew Knott.  Australia faces a “Red Alert”, and, to that end, needs a warring fan club.  Not since the domino theory bewitched strategists and confused military planners have Australians witnessed this: a series of articles featuring a gang of five with one purpose: to render the Australian public so witless as to reject any peaceful accommodation.

      • Meduza ☛ Heavy traffic buildup reported at Georgia’s Verkhnii Lars border crossing — Meduza

        A line of vehicles multiple kilometers long formed on the Georgian side of the Verkhnii Lars border crossing between Russia and Georgia early on the morning of March 9, according to media and eyewitness reports on Telegram, as well as Yandex Maps.

      • Meduza ☛ ‘Sent there to be meat’: Why Russian draftees are suddenly publishing so many video pleas to Putin — Meduza

        Since the start of 2023, Russian draftees have released numerous public video statements in which they complain about being assigned to units based in the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and sent into battle with inadequate training, insufficient supplies, and poor service conditions. According to military analysts, there’s a reason these public appeals have suddenly become so frequent: it used to be Donbas local draftees who were sent on these missions, but now there are few left, so it’s Russians’ turn to go. The independent news outlet iStories looked into the situation. Meduza is publishing a lightly abridged translation of their report.

      • Meduza ☛ Volunteer group fighting in Ukraine registers as a commercial enterprise in Russia — Meduza

        Russia’s Federal Tax Service has registered a group called the P. A. Sudoplatov Volunteer Battalion as a legal entity. BBC News Russian writes that this is the first instance of a company fighting in Ukraine officially registering as a commercial structure in Russia.

    • Environment

      • The Nation ☛ Ben Jealous’s New Mission: Saving the Planet

        Ben Jealous has spent much of his career fighting for voting rights and prison reform. Now, as he takes the helm of the Sierra Club, he’s thinking about other ways to fight injustice. That means pushing back against freeways that cut through neighborhoods, demanding accountability when a train derailment spills toxic chemicals into a community, and continuing the organization’s work to shutter coal plants. This article originally appeared in Nexus Media News.

      • Common Dreams ☛ Cleanup of Oceans ‘Futile’ If Plastic Production Continues at Current Rate: Scientist

        On the heels of a historic agreement to protect the biodiversity of the high seas, researchers from around the world published a study this week underscoring the need for rapid, sweeping action to address “unprecedented” plastic pollution of oceans and sharply reduce global production.

      • Energy/Transportation

        • DeSmog ☛ Top U.S. Law Schools Accused of Creating a Student ‘Pipeline’ into Firms Serving Fossil Fuel Industry

          Elite law schools in the United States are disproportionately funneling their students into jobs serving fossil fuel clients, according to a new report published Thursday.

          The Law Students for Climate Accountability (LSCA) report finds that the top 20 schools have produced fossil fuel lawyers at more than three times the rate of the average law school, based on the US News & World Report’s law school rankings. Nearly half (49 percent) of the corporate lawyers working for the fossil fuel industry, according to the report’s data set, came from one of the top 20-ranked schools.

        • Counter Punch ☛ Solar Mitigation Battleground

          A battle over how to protect the planet from overheating is heating up.

          Academics are coming out of the woodwork, forming coalitions, issuing declarations. A subdued debate over the merits versus demerits of solar geoengineering (SRM) has been ongoing for years. Now battle lines are forming.

        • Quartz ☛ India’s anti-money laundering laws will now apply to crypto transactions

          The Indian government will apply anti-money laundering provisions to transactions related to cryptocurrencies or virtual tokens, in an effort to tighten its supervision of digital assets.

        • Counter Punch ☛ A Dozen Years after Fukushima, Nuclear Power is Still a Death Wish

          A dozen years after four atomic reactors exploded at Fukushima, the plant STILL daily irradiates 150 tons of water which must be treated and stored forever.

          Thousands of tons more of such lethal liquid are still held in rotting tanks. The Japanese government wants to dump them in the Pacific, but local resistance is fierce. The build-up will continue for countless years to come, with gargantuan quantities of deadly liquid ever-readier to destroy our oceans….and perhaps, eventually, human life, whose irrational addiction to atomic power has yet to abate.

        • Common Dreams ☛ ‘One Day Our Luck Will Run Out,’ Warns IAEA Chief Over Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant

          The largest nuclear energy plant in Europe, located in southern Ukraine, lost all off-site power for the sixth time in a year as Russian forces carried out a massive missile attack on Thursday, once again raising fears of a nuclear catastrophe with continent-wide implications.

        • Hackaday ☛ How Simple Can A Wind Generator Get?

          As the world has moved towards sustainable energy sources over the last few years, it’s increasingly common to be close to a wind turbine. The huge turbines visible on the horizon from where this is being written are the upper end of the scale though, and along comes [Robert Murray Smith] with the opposite, probably the simplest and smallest wind turbine we’ve seen.

        • Quartz ☛ India fears a torrid summer of long power cuts

          India has just witnessed its hottest February in the last 122 years—and the country’s weather department thinks it’s only going to get worse. But between drastic weather conditions and fear of brutal heat waves lies another worry: hourslong power cuts.

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • Counter Punch ☛ There’s No Such Thing as the Humane Slaughter

          Most meat-eaters want to believe that the animals they eat don’t suffer, but time and again, federal records have shown that they do. It’s not unreasonable to assume otherwise; after all, most U.S. meat production is subject to the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, which requires that animals be stunned (rapidly rendered insensible to pain) before they’re hoisted upside down and killed. But this law doesn’t apply to all animals—chickens, turkeys, ducks, and fish are excluded—and federal inspection records reveal horrifying violations in which cows, pigs, and other animals have endured physical pain and psychological terror at slaughterhouses, where prolonged deaths occur disturbingly frequently.

          Reports from around the country read like horror stories. For example, on three different days between June and August 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) staff at South 40 Farms in North Dakota saw pigs cry out after being shot in the head during botched attempts to render them unconscious, and on another day in April 2022, a steer attempted to sit up after an employee from the same establishment shot him twice in the head. At Lightfoot Farm Market & Processing in Tennessee, a steer cried out and remained conscious after three rifle shots to the head until a fourth shot finally ended his suffering in June 2022. A similar scene was witnessed at the same facility in 2021, when a cow remained conscious, bleeding from the nose after the slaughterhouse owner shot her in the head the first time.

      • Overpopulation

    • Finance

      • Common Dreams ☛ Applause as Michigan House Dems Vote to Repeal Anti-Union ‘Right-to-Work’ Laws

        Progressives celebrated Thursday after Michigan’s Democratic-led House approved legislation that would rescind anti-union “right-to-work” laws imposed by Republican lawmakers in 2012 and restore prevailing wage requirements eliminated by the GOP in 2018.

      • Counter Punch ☛ A Very Brief History of Capitalism, Empire, and the Yellow Peril

        Unlike the propagandists that publish most of the textbooks that we brainwash our children with in the US, reality-based historians have oft observed that the history of civilization is a history of the ongoing conflict between the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the ruling class and those they would like to rule.  One of the main factors that continually makes this conflict a very dynamic one that is forever unfolding in new ways is the obvious inequity of the whole thing, with a small class of rulers, owners, and landlords always trying to control a very large majority of subjects, workers and tenants.  In order to maintain such a state of constant inequality, particularly in severely unequal societies/empires like the United States, strategies of divide and rule are always in play, whether we’re talking about maintaining domestic tranquility, or running the global American empire.

        From the time of British colonization of the Americas, the colonial rulers and later the sovereign US rulers of this land have sought to keep the bulk of the population — the tenant farmers, the small landowners, the urban workers and renters, the immigrant and the native-born, the enslaved and the free — at each other’s throats, and thus distracted with fratricidal conflict, rather than united in opposition to their common oppressors.  The ways society is divided and the ways the rulers seek to exploit those divisions locally and globally evolves over time, just as other things evolve, such as technology, and different forms of organization, such as corporations, unions, parliaments, and developments such as the massive US military industrial complex.

      • The Nation ☛ The Widespread Cruelty of Death Care Disparities

        So many crises—from war to mass species die-offs to climate meltdown—afflict our world that we often don’t take time to draw insights from what generally passes for the small stuff, the things that happen all too close to home, including aging. Most of us don’t relish the prospect of getting old, much less watching our parents approach their deaths, something that’s even worse if you’re dying poor.

      • Common Dreams ☛ Why Railway Workers Are Calling for a Nationalized Rail System

        If the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials in East Palestine, Ohio, tells us anything, it is that the corporate CEOs, billionaire speculators and profit-hungry investors who control America’s transportation systems are not up to the job of running railroads.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Who Will Bring the Railroads to Heel? Not This White House

        Some months back, Biden and congress smacked down a railroad workers’ strike. A key issue was working conditions: no sick days, crews that were too small for safety, etc. The Biden team, in cahoots with congressional Dems like Steny Hoyer and practically the entire GOP didn’t care. They, like the big rail corporations, wanted the trains to run on time. Nothing else mattered. Where was transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg during this hullaballoo? Nowhere to be found.

        Incidentally, during holiday season, Southwest Airlines seriously inconvenienced tens of thousands of customers by cancelling thousands of flights. Where was Buttigieg? AWOL. Then on February 3 a train jumped the tracks passing through East Palestine, Ohio, and 38 cars derailed in flames. What did Buttigieg say? Bupkis, until over a week later. Did he hurry to East Palestine, a hamlet poisoned by vinyl chloride and the other toxins released first by the accident and second by the train company, Norfolk Southern’s decision to burn these compounds, the better for business by clearing the tracks and getting freight moving again? He did not. At first he complained that his hands were tied. Buttigieg waited till February 23 to visit the stricken town. Biden didn’t bother to go at all.

      • Mexico News Daily ☛ Inflation declines in February

        Inflation rates declined in February compared to the previous month, indicating record interest rates are moderating prices.

      • Quartz ☛ The leisure and hospitality industry is driving US job growth

        The labor market remains strong but job openings are declining, according to the newly released January job openings and labor turnover report by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

      • Quartz ☛ JP Morgan is suing a former executive over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein [Ed: Microsoft not suing Bill Gates for much worse?]

        JP Morgan is suing former private banking head Jes Staley over his ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Inequality Costs Social Security Trillions
      • Counter Punch ☛ NPR and the Bad Economy

        Like much of the rest of the media, NPR is determined to convince the public that the economy is terrible under President Biden, regardless of what the data show. In real world land there are lots of good things about this economy.

        We have the lowest unemployment rate in a half century. Real wages for workers at the bottom end of the income distribution are rising rapidly (that means wages are rising faster than prices). Workers have unprecedented freedom to quit jobs they don’t like. Tens of millions of homeowners are saving thousands of dollars a year in interest expenses as a result of refinancing their mortgages. And, tens of millions of workers are saving thousands a year in commuting costs, as well as hundreds of hours in commuting time, as a result of the explosion in work from home since the pandemic.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Counter Punch ☛ Maggie Thatcher Sucked, But the Music She Inspired Didn’t

        Maggie Thatcher’s rule in Britain was, like the same years in Ronnie Reagan’s United States, a vicious attempt to move their nations as far right as they could.  The process they began continues today with a ruthlessness that is only matched by its idiotic insistence that it  is beneficial for the very demographic that has probably lost the most–the white working class. On the other hand, the attacks on working people and their unions, the theft of their nation’s wealth by the wealthiest people in the world, the blatant racism and the intensified love affair with nuclear weapons and power created some of the best political popular music since the Sixties, at least in Britain.

        It is that music which inspires and informs Hugh Hodges recent book, titled The Fascist Groove Thing: A History of Thatcher’s Britain in 21 Mixtapes.  Likewise, it is the history of Margaret Thatcher and her brand of selfishness packaged as politics that inspired and informed the music on those mixtapes.  From Heaven 17’s recording of “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thing” to Linton Kwesi Johnson’s radical reggae putting the police in their place and from the brash, even abrasive sounds of Penny Rimbaud and his band Crass to the Tom Robinson Band’s straight out rock against racism and homophobia, author Hodge’s story of the opening decade of neoliberal capitalism in Britain makes one thing clear: not everyone was buying the repackaged version of robber baron capitalism Maggie and her heartless henchmen were selling.

      • Counter Punch ☛ A Great Museum in Zagreb, Croatia

        Normal art museums present visual artifacts that have aesthetic value. The Museum of Broken Relationships is not a normal art museum. It collects objects, 1343 as of 2014 (in the most recent catalogue) associated with falling out of love. A normal museum usually is organized historically, with wall labels indicating the title and provenance of the individual works. In this museum, which has an international collection, the relatively small objects, displayed in no obvious order, are each accompanied by a statement from the donor. Some of these commentaries are as short as two words, while a couple are a few pages long. As the donation form which is filled out by each donor indicates, the objects are presented anonymously. Like a normal museum, the museum of broken relationships has a shop and a cafe.

        There are memorials to broken relationships of straight and gay couples, and people from varied nationalities, races and ages. And the artifacts exhibited here are very varied. In general, no detailed explanation is given why these relations failed. A relationship between an American diplomat and a British banker that only lasted one day is memorialized by a gingerbread cookie. Love between a Parisian and an Indonesia lasting 2 1/2 years was defined by a hockey puck. A London love affair is identified by 252 paper cranes. A two year long relationship ended by a sex change is related to Bob Dylan’s novel Tarantula. A sculpted frog was given by a mother to her three year old, 36 years ago when she left that child. Sometimes the objects presented to the museum were obviously meaningful for the broken relationship. A magnifying glass was given to someone who felt small when she was around the person she loved. And many of the objects are extremely sad. A pregnancy stick memorializes a child who died at 20 weeks. The parents write: “Life is hard, but joy and love make it worth the pain.” But a few exhibits have funny captions. A toaster is left by a lover, who asks her former partner: “How are you going to toast anything now?”

      • Common Dreams ☛ Trump Likely to Face Criminal Charges Over Stormy Daniels Hush Money Payment: Report

        Former U.S. President Donald Trump may soon face criminal charges in connection with the payment of hush money to the adult entertainer Stormy Daniels, The New York Times reported Thursday, citing four unnamed “people with knowledge of the matter.”

      • Insight Hungary ☛ Hungarian President meets Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

        Florida Governor Ron DeSantis met Hungarian President Katalin Novák on Tuesday after his State of the State Address in Tallahassee. Novak, a close ally to nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban also spoke with the Governor’s wife, Casey DeSantis.

        According to the Hungarian news agency’s (MTI) report, the “warm and trusting conversation” was based on the fact that the Hungarian President and the Florida governor share similar views on protecting families, parents’ right to education, and border security. Novak congratulated the Governor on his successes in politics and the development of Florida. DeSantis praised Hungary’s achievements and the President’s work, highlighting her “efforts to protect families”. 

      • Common Dreams ☛ Biden Budget Would Help Lift Up Those With the Least by Asking a Little More From Those With the Most

        President Biden’s 2024 budget invests in people and communities and creates a 21st century tax system that supports these investments to build toward an economy that works for everyone. It lays out an agenda that would move us closer to a nation where everyone — regardless of their background, identities, or where they live — has the resources they need to thrive and share in the nation’s prosperity.

      • FAIR ☛ WaPo’s All-White Edit Board Decides DC Can’t Be Trusted With Democracy After All

        President Joe Biden surprised fellow Democrats when he reversed course and announced he would support a Republican resolution to nullify an overhaul of crime laws passed by the Washington, DC, Council. While Congress has the authority to override DC legislation, it hasn’t done so in more than 30 years, making this move a dangerous new precedent at a time when Republicans are eager to use state power to swat down any progressive advances.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Indigenous Rebellion Continues as Post-Coup Peruvian Government Flounders

        Revived democratic struggle in Peru is well along into a second act. There was the parliamentary coup December 7 that removed democratically elected President Pedro Castillo and the “First Taking of Lima” in mid-January, embittered and excluded Peruvians occupied Lima and faced violent repression. Then on March 1 protests renewed as the indigenous inhabitants of Peru’s extreme southern regions prepared once more to demonstrate in Lima and would shortly be protesting in their own regions. The resistance’s make-up was fully on display.

        Protesters throughout Peru were rejecting a replacement president and an elite-dominated congress and calling for early elections and a new constitution. They belonged for the most part belonged to Aymara communities in districts south of Lima extending from Lake Titicaca both west and northeast, into the Andes region.

      • FAIR ☛ Right-Wing Media’s ‘Grooming’ Rhetoric Has Nothing to Do With Concern for Children

        In front of a graphic of fluffy pink handcuffs and “Kink for Kids” spelled out in blocks and crayon font, a red-faced Tucker Carlson (Fox News, 9/19/22) ranted about the story of a transgender Canadian high school teacher whose photos went viral on social media for wearing comically large prosthetic breasts to work.

      • TruthOut ☛ WH Blasts Fox News Report on Jan. 6, Describing Tucker Carlson as “Not Credible”
      • Modern Diplomacy ☛ Women in Peacebuilding and Peacekeeping Efforts in South Asia

        While interstate wars have declined significantly in recent decades, a considerable number of nations have been dealing with intrastate conflicts of various intensity and duration, demonstrating the relevance of both peacekeeping and peacebuilding processes.

      • The Kent Stater ☛ Former Ohio speaker, GOP chair found guilty of racketeering

        Ohio Capital Journal Cincinatti — After more than nine hours of deliberation, a jury on Thursday found former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and state Republican Chairman Matt Borges guilty of felony racketeering charges in connection with a billion-dollar utility bailout that was passed in 2019.

      • Modern Diplomacy ☛ An Alternative Future: Buen vivir’s Economic and Political Implication in South America

        An alternative approach of development stemming from the cosmo-visions of the Quechua peoples of the Andes’s sumak kawsay, the Aymara of Bolivia’s suma qamana, the Shuar people of Ecuador’s shiir waras, Guarani of Bolivia’s nandereko, and the Mapuche of Chile and Argentina—better known for its Spanish name Buen vivir, is a community-centric, ecologically-balanced…

      • Modern Diplomacy ☛ Wassenaar Arrangement and its Significance for India’s Chairmanship

        During 30 November – 1 December 2022, the twenty-sixth Plenary meeting of the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) was held in Vienna, for the first time since 2019 because of the pandemic constraints.

      • TruthOut ☛ Mississippi State GOP Puts Forth Bills to Take Over Majority-Black Capital
      • Meduza ☛ Anti-Corruption Foundation Chairman Leonid Volkov ‘pauses’ his leadership role amid scandal over letter requesting sanctions relief for Alfa Group shareholders — Meduza

        Leonid Volkov, the chairman of Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, announced Thursday that he’s “taking a break from his public socio-political activity” as head of the organization.

      • Pro Publica ☛ Some Election Officials Refused to Certify Results. Few Were Held Accountable.

        A week and a half after last November’s vote, members of the Board of Elections in Surry County, North Carolina, gathered in a windowless room to certify the results. It was supposed to be a routine task, marking the end of a controversial season during which election deniers harassed and retaliated against the county’s elections director. Not long into the meeting, however, a staffer distributed a letter from two board members stating that they were refusing to certify.

        According to the letter, the two members had decided — “with regard for the sacred blood shed of both my Redeemer and His servants” and “past Patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice”— that they “must not call these election results credible and bow to the perversion of truth.”

      • Shadowproof ☛ US Still Trying To Bury ‘Collateral Murder’ Video That WikiLeaks Released

        There is no shortage of activists, journalists, academics, and people of conscience who have some story to share about the impact of the “Collateral Murder” video.The U.S. military footage of an Apache helicopter crew shooting indiscriminately at a dozen Iraqi civilians — including Reuters journalists Namir Noor Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, and two young children — is widely recognized for exposing the true nature of the United States war in Iraq and for making WikiLeaks and Julian Assange household names.

      • Pro Publica ☛ Private, Conservative Teneo Seeks Political, Cultural Influence

        A few months ago, Leonard Leo laid out his next audacious project.

        Ever since the longtime Federalist Society leader helped create a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, and then received more than a billion dollars from a wealthy Chicago business owner to disburse to conservative causes, Leo’s next moves had been the subject of speculation.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Where Should Palestinians Search for Justice?

        A London hospital removes Palestinian children’s art because it upset some patients. Meanwhile, seemingly unassociated, far away in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian men, women and children are being ‘removed’ from their homes through a daily sustained process of genocidal cleansing.

        So abundant are the grievances of Palestinians, so relentless the attacks on their bodies, their voices, their land– on the very idea of Palestine– that any record or explanation of those erasures becomes buried behind the latest onslaught.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Violence and Resistance in Israel and Palestine Ramps Up

        Just this week, elite fighter pilots of the Israeli Air Force’s 69th squadron refused to attend training.

        This is one of many acts of resistance against the new Israeli government, which is the most right-wing and nationalist in Israeli history. This new government is run by Benjamin Netanyahu, who won the election for Prime Minister in November. Netanyahu’s coalition is known for, among other things, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Israel’s Liberal Supporters Are Taking Their Denial to a New Level

        This week, when the New York Times featured an opinion piece by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, it harmonized with a crescendo of other recent pleas from prominent American supporters of Israel. Bloomberg warned that Israel’s new governing coalition is trying to give parliament the power to “overrule the nation’s Supreme Court and run roughshod over individual rights, including on matters such as speech and press freedoms, equal rights for minorities and voting rights.” Such a change would, Bloomberg added, undermine Israel’s “strong commitment to freedom.”

        Strong commitment to freedom? That would sure be news to the more than 5 million Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.

      • Common Dreams ☛ Israel’s Liberal Supporters Are Taking Their Denial to a New Level

        This week, when the New York Times featured an opinion piece by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, it harmonized with a crescendo of other recent pleas from prominent American supporters of Israel. Bloomberg warned that Israel’s new governing coalition is trying to give parliament the power to “overrule the nation’s Supreme Court and run roughshod over individual rights, including on matters such as speech and press freedoms, equal rights for minorities and voting rights.” Such a change would, Bloomberg added, undermine Israel’s “strong commitment to freedom.”

      • Counter Punch ☛ The Better and Worse Angels of Jimmy Carter’s Nature

        Every time an ex-president dies a demon gets his wings. It’s a time-honored tradition in these hallowed halls of Babylon. Lucifer himself could drop dead and provided that motherfucker spent no less than a hot minute in the Oval Office, every self-proclaimed journalist from the Wall Street Journal to Penthouse Forum would be lined around the block to polish his horns with their filthy flicking tongues. In fact, fuck Satan, just look to Ronald Reagan if you don’t believe me. That B-grade cowboy slung crack to grade school kids for rapists in Nicaragua and limp-wristed Bay area liberals are still tripping over the AIDS quilt to throw themselves sobbing on his casket.

        Naturally, being the terminally jaded cunt that I am, I have made it my own private jihad in life to pop a squat over the graves of the powerful and unleash a hot steamy piss on their sacred soil. I have plenty of reverence for the dead, but nobody lights a candle for Hitler during Suicide Awareness Month. What the hell makes our monsters so fucking special? A cult of personality is a cult of personality and if I’m not game to deface a few monuments then I might as well turn in my slingshot with my shoplifted copy of Never Mind the Bollocks and call it quits on being an anarcho-anything.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Jimmy Carter Was Right, But There is Malaise When Power Speaks the Truth

        Speaking truth to power has been used by dissidents throughout history. But what about when power speaks the truth? As tributes pour in for Jimmy Carter and his many accomplishments, he should be remembered and venerated for giving a speech that was truthful but had negative consequences for his political career.

        On July 15, 1979, President Carter spoke truth to the American people from the Oval Office.  He began his 33-minute speech in a most unusual fashion, a form of self-critique. Instead of making a traditional presidential declaration, he spoke in a reflective tone: “Ten days ago I had planned to speak to you again about a very important subject – energy.” He then went on to describe why he changed the subject, why he wanted to share with the American people what he felt and what he thought they felt beyond immediate concerns: “It’s clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper – deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession.”

      • Techdirt ☛ The Great TikTok Moral Panic Continues As Senators Thune, Warner Attempt A More Elaborate Ban

        We’ve noted for a while now how most of the outrage surrounding TikTok isn’t exactly based in factual reality.

      • Counter Punch ☛ To See Fellows Crying

        The Department of Justice is investigating the Memphis Police Department, two months after police beat up Tyre Nichols. The fatal incident unfolded in front of anyone with a screen, anyone with Twitter. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, souvenir pictures of lynchings became postcards. Mailings of the physical images, an early form of social media, served as extensions of the lynching spectacle.

        “He cried out for me,” said Tyre’s mother.

      • Telex (Hungary) ☛ EC may assess whether Hungary has fulfilled commitments by April or May – Navracsics on Erasmus funds
      • The Nation ☛ Marianne Williamson: “Anything Is Possible”

        Marianne Williamson announced her presidential run on March 4 in Washington, making her the first prominent Democratic challenger to President Biden’s expected reelection bid. The best-selling author, spiritual counselor, and unsuccessful 2020 presidential contender faces a daunting task at a point when prominent Democrats—including many of the president’s 2020 rivals—say they want him to run and win in 2024. As she was preparing for campaign swings in South Carolina and New Hampshire, I spoke with Williamson about why she’s making this run.

      • The Nation ☛ GOP Warheads
      • Telex (Hungary) ☛ The suspension of EU funding for universities is anti-Hungarian, racially motivated revenge – Gulyás
      • Common Dreams ☛ Driven by ‘Mass Fear-Mongering’ on Crime, 31 Senate Dems Join GOP to Block DC Reforms

        Progressives on Thursday lambasted dozens of U.S. Senate Democrats for dealing “a huge blow to commonsense criminal justice reform efforts” by siding with the Republican Party on a resolution to block a criminal code passed by the Council of the District of Columbia—a move that one civil rights lawyer said was transparently made in response to GOP “fear-mongering” about crime, and not in the interest of keeping residents safe.

      • Telex (Hungary) ☛ “Unscrupulous politicians are doing everything to turn Hungarians and Ukrainians against each other, but people are wiser than that.”
      • Counter Punch ☛ Kicking the Encampment Around Again

        On Jan. 31 of this year, the city did what it had been doing for years to no effect; it had again raided the encampment called “First They Came for the Homeless.” It had been situated on Adeline St. at 64th for years. But not because of city largess. It was only because of external circumstances, like a federal suit (the Boise decision), and the pandemic. The fact that it represented the main principled and ethical response to homelessness would not have mattered. That encampment had been raided and torn apart more times than this city knew how to count. For some reason, even a liberal city like Berkeley could not bring itself to live with the effects of its own corporate structure, not with the autonomy of those dealing with that structure.

        They (the encampment) had set themselves up at city hall first, way back in 2016; it was at the old one, the one right under the noses of the police, whose HQ was 100 feet away. They had signs set up, saying why they were there, and what they hoped to accomplish by this protest. After about a week or so, the cops got tired of looking at them, and kicked them out of there. That was not what they wanted, but it what they expected — a level of dehumanization that matched the fact that the entire society seemed unable to live with its growing number of “unhoused” people.

      • Counter Punch ☛ Roaming Charges: The Man Who Came Out of the Darkness

        In 1996, Majid Khan moved with his family from Pakistan to Catonsville, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. Two years later, the Khan family was granted political asylum and given permanent residence in the US. Majid graduated from nearby Owings Mills High School, worked at his dad’s gas station, dated girls, smoked pot, played video games and got a job at the telecom company that managed the Pentagon’s phone system.

        Then in 2001 his mom died, the Towers came down and his life spiraled out of control. He moved to Pakistan, became a courier for Al Qaeda, got captured by Pakistani security, was turned over to the CIA and renditioned to a black site for what the Agency coyly called “enhanced interrogation.”

      • Counter Punch ☛ Wounded Knee 50 Years Later: the Fight for Self-Determination Continues

        The 1973 Siege at Wounded Knee is the longest “civil unrest” in the history of the US Marshal Service. For 71 days, the American Indian Movement (AIM) and members of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) nation were under siege in a violent standoff with the FBI and US Marshals equipped with high powered rifles and armored personnel carriers.  Two people were killed, over two dozen wounded.  At stake, sovereignty and self-determination guaranteed through treaty rights.

        Fifty years have passed but for American Indians the struggle for recognition of the nation-to-nation treaties continues to be seen as survival.  At the end of February, young Indian leaders joined older activists to gather at Wounded Knee to commemorate the violent events that began on February 27, 1973, and renew their call for self-determination and recognition of their treaties.

      • Modern Diplomacy ☛ Modernisation, Chinese Style

        Chinese-style modernisation has given a shot in the arm of the maxim “The Socialist Road is the broadest of all” (社会主义道路最宽广) which has enjoyed an unprecedented authority in Chinese decision-making circles for decades.

      • Marcy Wheeler ☛ The Michael Flynn Complaint For Damages Against The US

        Michael Flynn has filed a complaint against the government demanding damages for all his grievances. No, it is not going anywhere.

      • Marcy Wheeler ☛ Jenna Ellis Lied and Lied and Lied and Lied and Lied and Lied and Lied and Lied and Lied and Lied

        To save her CO bar license, Jenna Ellis stipulated to lying ten times during the period when she was also using those false claims to convince electors and Mike Pence to violate the law. The stipulation may be a useful admission for Jack Smith.

      • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

        • The Nation ☛ Fox News Doesn’t Believe Its Own Bullshit

          For anyone curious to learn what it would be like to serve as a juror in the upcoming defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News, you can create a simple life hack in the comfort of your home. First, tee up Tucker Carlson’s recklessly mendacious segment devoted to clumsily decontextualized footage from the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. Then, consult the recent barrage of headlines concerning the latest tranche of evidence from Dominion’s legal team that the judge in the case has unsealed.

        • The Nation ☛ Fox News May Finally Pay the Price for Its Lies

          Fox News is in trouble. The network has been sued for $1.6 billion by Dominion Voting Systems for false claims it aired about the 2020 presidential election. Fox hosts, and many of the guests they showcased, claimed that Dominion’s technology “stole” votes from defeated President Donald Trump, and, among their more wild allegations, claimed that Dominion’s machines were engineered in Venezuela with the help of Hugo Chávez (who died in 2013) to rig elections.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Techdirt ☛ Another Casualty If Section 230 Gets Repealed: Food Safety Data

        I’m a latecomer to the whole “podcasts” phenomenon. I didn’t start listening to them until 2020, when the pandemic suddenly gave me the free time and the incentive to get out of my small apartment and go on long walks. That’s my excuse for only recently discovering “Maintenance Phase,” a terrific podcast that “debunks and decodes” the wellness and weight-loss industries. 

      • Meduza ☛ Turkmenistan’s walled garden How Central Asia’s most autocratic country plans to build its own ‘autonomous Internet’ — Meduza
      • EFF ☛ Utah’s Governor Should Veto “Social Media Regulations” Bill S.B. 152

        S.B. 152 would require a social media company to stop a resident minor from creating an account unless they have the express consent of a parent or guardian. The law targets any site with over ten million account holders that allows a user to post their own content, and so would impact many sites that aren’t generally considered social media—for example, a site like AllTrails, which helps you find and share hiking spots, for example. 

        We requested that the governor veto the bill for four main reasons: 

        First, young people have a First Amendment right to information that S.B. 152 will infringe upon. If S.B. 152 is implemented as written, the majority of young Utahns will find themselves effectively locked out of much of the web. 

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • TruthOut ☛ Florida Passes Law Helping Election Police Bypass Judicial Scrutiny
      • EFF ☛ Incarcerated Individuals & Advocacy Groups Challenge California County’s Policy of Digitizing and Destroying Jail Mail

        The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five people incarcerated in San Mateo County jails, several of their family members, and A.B.O. Comix, a collective of artists who correspond with people in jail. The complaint argues that the new mail policy violates the expressive, associational, and privacy rights of those in the county’s jails, and their family, friends, and supporters who send them letters. This lawsuit is the first major challenge to the digitization of personal mail in U.S. jails. 

        “Banning physical mail is completely antithetical to the criminal justice system’s goal of reducing recidivism,” said Hannah Zhao, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Numerous studies have shown that letter-writing between incarcerated folks and loved ones outside lowers stress, reduces depression, and tightens relationships. For those in jail, communicating this way is an integral part of establishing strong interpersonal ties and feelings of community, which are universally considered to decrease the likelihood of reoffending.” 

        Under the current policy, the county prohibits people in jail from receiving any physical mail other than attorney communications. Members of the public must route letters to a private for-profit company, Smart Communications, which scans and stores digital copies of mail for at least seven years—even if its recipient has long been released from jail. The original letters, cards, drawings, and religious and educational materials are destroyed, while the scanned copies are retained in a database that allows the county—and anyone to whom the county has provided login credentials—to monitor, read, and search through mail for any reason, or for no reason at all.  

      • EFF ☛ Flipper Zero Devices Being Seized by Brazil’s Telecom Agency

        The device itself doesn’t introduce any fundamentally new technologies. All of the hardware—the infrared transceiver, RFID reader/emulator, SDR and Bluetooth LE capabilities—are available in other, perhaps more specialized products. What is novel about the Flipper Zero is its form factor and interface, which make it portable and easy to use in the field. 

        The Flipper Zero has been called a hacking multi-tool. And like a physical multi-tool, there are no doubt uses of it which would facilitate committing a crime. But also like a physical multi-tool, this is no justification for banning access to the device wholesale. Laws are already in place which criminalize acts of malicious hacking. Banning trade tools will only make security systems more vulnerable by limiting the access of those working to secure these systems. The malicious hacking that concerns Anatel and that Flipper Zero would allow is dependent on systems’ vulnerabilities—those are the actual problems that deserve a fix. But we can only patch security flaws once we know they exist, and that’s what security research is for.

      • Common Dreams ☛ The GOP’s Abhorrent Attack on Child Labor Laws

        Brad Greve has been a Scout leader for more than 20 years. The Davenport, Iowa retiree leads 50-mile canoe trips on Minnesota’s Boundary Waters that test teens’ mettle while teaching them essential skills.

      • Counter Punch ☛ The Unconscionable Push to Bring Back Child Labor
      • Scheerpost ☛ This International Women’s Day, Iranian Feminists Are at the Front Lines

        There is much that the global feminist movement can learn from the current women’s struggle in Iran and their vision.

      • Meduza ☛ Political scientist Demuri Voronin sentenced to 13 years in prison — Meduza

        A Moscow court has sentenced political scientist Demuri Voronin to 13 years and 3 months in prison, Interfax reports. The court found Voronin guilty of treason.

      • Democracy Now ☛ “Corrupt”: DOJ Report Slams Louisville Police for Abuse, Discrimination After Breonna Taylor Killing

        The Department of Justice has released a scathing report accusing the Louisville, Kentucky, police department of unlawfully discriminating against the city’s Black population, as well as against people with behavioral health disabilities. The report concludes an investigation that began after the police killing of Breonna Taylor, who was shot dead in her own home during a no-knock police raid on March 13, 2020. The DOJ also announced the establishment of a consent decree with Louisville police and an independent monitor who will oversee police reforms. “What we have are systems that absolutely need to be disrupted,” says Sadiqa Reynolds, longtime attorney and community activist in Louisville.

      • Democracy Now ☛ “Plantation Politics”: How White Mississippi Lawmakers Want to Seize Power in Majority-Black Jackson

        Mississippi’s Republican majority in the state Legislature has put forth a slew of bills in recent months to put the majority-Black capital of Jackson under a white-led superstructure. Under the proposed bills, the Capitol Police would be expanded and given greater authority over much of Jackson without being accountable to local leaders or residents, and a separate court system would be set up in the city, composed of judges appointed directly by white state officials. This comes after Jackson suffered a number of water crises in recent years stemming from systematic disinvestment by the state, and after the federal government approved $600 million late last year to address the city’s infrastructure problems. “These bills are an attack on Black leadership, a way to seize power of a majority-Black city which cannot be seized democratically through an election,” says Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. We also speak with community activist Makani Themba, who described the state’s plans in a recent piece for The Nation as “Apartheid American-Style.”

      • Democracy Now ☛ Opposition Grows to Atlanta “Cop City” as More Forest Defenders Charged with Domestic Terrorism

        Prosecutors in Atlanta have charged 23 forest defenders with “domestic terrorism” after their arrests late Sunday at a festival near the site of Cop City, a massive police training facility being built in the Weelaunee Forest. The arrests followed clashes between police and protesters on Sunday afternoon and came less than two months after Atlanta police shot and killed Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán, a 26-year-old environmental defender. For an update on the growing movement to fight Cop City in Atlanta, we’re joined by Micah Herskind, a local community organizer, and Kamau Franklin, founder of Community Movement Builders.

      • Telex (Hungary) ☛ Hungarian Justice Minister lodges defense with EU Court of Justice on infringement procedure
      • Counter Punch ☛ What Lund University Did to Umut Özkirimli

        Lund University, founded in 1666 and “consistently ranked among the top 100 universities in the world”, boasts, “We are united in our efforts to understand, explain and improve our world and the human condition”. In the case of Turkish-Swedish political scientist Umut Özkırımlı, author of several books on nationalism and of the about-to-appear Cancelled: The Left Way Back from Woke (Polity, 2023), it failed on all counts and exhibited a woeful debasement of the “human[e] condition” of its administrators and some of its academic staff. What follows are just some aspects of what Lund University did to Umut. All documents, several hundred pages, are available. I give some of the details because they show the mechanisms of disempowerment at work when the system victimises or makes an example of an individual. This account isn’t only a lament for Umut but also my personal protest against the whole vile system.

        But, first, I should explain what this has to do with me. To begin with, Umut is part of my elective family and I’ve seen, up close and throughout the process, the suffering the university has knowingly caused him. Also, I believe, as Audre Lorde said, “Focused with precision [anger] can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change”. And, yes, I’m angry, not only because of what Lund University did to Umut but because of what it represents in general. OK, so it’s just one guy and one more neoliberal university and, probably, nothing I say will change anything. But if we don’t speak out about what we know, we’re somehow abettors in offenses that are ever more routine.

    • Monopolies

      • Techdirt ☛ The Microsoft, Sony Fight Over The Activision Purchase Is Getting Ugly

        This took a bit longer than I expected, but the dirty tactics are starting to come out between Microsoft and Sony over the former’s desire to purchase Activision Blizzard. While we’ve been talking about the $69 billion mega-deal for some time, the conversation more recently has focused on three regulatory bodies that have expressed varying levels of concern about the deal: the FTC in the States, the CMA in the UK, and EU regulators. The last of those has begun signaling that the proposed and/or signed deals Microsoft has struck with other platforms to keep Activision games on those systems is likely to win them over. The FTC and CMA have yet to come off of their previously stated positions publicly.

      • Patents

      • Copyrights

        • Torrent Freak ☛ ACE & New Anti-Piracy Coalition Target South Korean Video Piracy Globally

          With South Korean movies and TV shows like ‘Squid Game’ enormously popular in the West , tackling pirate sites is seen as a priority in South Korea. Filmmakers, broadcasters and distributors have formed a new anti-piracy coalition and in collaboration with the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a $3.7 billion criminal complaint will get the ball rolling today.

        • Torrent Freak ☛ EU Upload Filters Mark the End For File-Sharing Site Hellspy

          In January, the Czech Republic updated national copyright law to reflect the provisions of the EU Copyright Directive. The updated legislation requires online services to prevent pirated content from being re-uploaded. File-sharing service Hellspy attempted to comply with the new rules but when that turned out to be unworkable, decided to shut down instead.

        • Techdirt ☛ Copyright Has Been One Of Life’s Certainties: But Will It Always Be?

          Copyright seems to be a fixture of our legal, economic and social systems. For 300 years, it has formed the backbone of the structures used to incentivize and remunerate creators. During that time, copyright has been extended repeatedly in length and breadth. The original term of the 1710 Statute of Anne – 14 years’ monopoly protection with a provision for renewal for a further 14 years – has blossomed into life plus 70 years for much of the world. Copyright now applies to areas far beyond the original scope of printed works. These constant and unidirectional moves by legislators around the world might seem to confirm that copyright is an effective approach where more is better, and that it is working as a means of rewarding artists fairly. The facts suggest otherwise.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

    • Technical

      • Ham Radio, Silent Key Archive, and Starting my journey

        So, I’ve recently been getting into ham radio. And by recently, I mean over the last 3 years I’ve tried a number of times to really get into learning the hobby, ultimately for something else to get in the way and lead to me falling off the path again. And this time, I’m bound and determined to jump in headfirst, considering that in a lot of ways I’m quite burned out of tech as a hobby beyond cozy stuff like the Ctrl-C pubnix or Gemini.

        And today I came across just about the saddest thing I’ve heard in a while: the National Silent Key Archive.

      • Internet/Gemini

* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.

Links 10/03/2023: Release of MAAS 3.3 and Chaos at EUIPO/EPO (Connected to Abuses)

Posted in News Roundup at 6:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.

IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 09, 2023

Posted in IRC Logs at 3:08 am by Needs Sunlight

Also available via the Gemini protocol at:

Over HTTP:

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#techrights log as HTML5

#boycottnovell log as HTML5

HTML5 logs

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#boycottnovell-social log as HTML5

#techbytes log as HTML5

text logs

text logs

#techrights log as text

#boycottnovell log as text

text logs

text logs

#boycottnovell-social log as text

#techbytes log as text

Enter the IRC channels now

IPFS Mirrors

CID Description Object type
 QmecYA171oC9Fj15cEnnq364UQn36AhfgRafRD6hM7Tq4A IRC log for #boycottnovell
(full IRC log as HTML)		 HTML5 logs
 QmdNhNEdasFypYiyHQYhVxqYAN3hMEDhWLTxFJfkBVmGVu IRC log for #boycottnovell
(full IRC log as plain/ASCII text)		 text logs
 Qmbzhx8ECsehG2kVtKno6gPAaK54JVTYZGxK5HBuhjLGx6 IRC log for #boycottnovell-social
(full IRC log as HTML)		 HTML5 logs
 QmcXfVPvJjnoa2fgqUv6HZCocSjVW9XKte6K1SewsYFjXG IRC log for #boycottnovell-social
(full IRC log as plain/ASCII text)		 text logs
 QmR7dduFk2KrzQdboNtSRpHoK4iTFnAKhaE9fY3PgaHM69 IRC log for #techbytes
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 QmZbvbNUC7ogVe61QzMqK9DhmWVuhjmyTmbxFLobZYF37F IRC log for #techbytes
(full IRC log as plain/ASCII text)		 text logs
 QmNbHRdLBRoaGiawzT5kNZF5nN51gG2sM4cVNEuKwok2fx IRC log for #techrights
(full IRC log as HTML)		 HTML5 logs
 QmajzauDRvNR2Lp16VmAM3bxafrq8Vmr6NXTYbMYJqn6zh IRC log for #techrights
(full IRC log as plain/ASCII text)		 text logs

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Bulletin for Yesterday

Local copy | CID (IPFS): QmTnP1v6aNW8jPiP313cczEQzowVU296XrZF1vCi6gg1ut

Despite the Paid-for (Very Fake) Hype for Microsoft Chatbots, Bing Falls to Lowest Share in Years

Posted in Deception, Google, Microsoft at 12:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

There are also Bing layoffs, but many publishers are being paid to turn a blind eye, focus on vapourware instead

Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT

The most prominent strain of A.I. encodes a flawed conception of language and knowledge, famed linguist Noam Chomsky writes this week

As per this month’s figures (as CSV/ODF), Google rose to new highs and Bing fell to 2.7% — its lowest levels since 2021:

Almost 94% for Google (Bing in a freefall, along with its proxies, e.g. DDG)

Summary: The bribed media (paid by Microsoft to relay/produce puff pieces) has predicted doom for Google’s search, but what we’re seeing is exactly the opposite; people need Web pages, not chatbots

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