Not a bad idea
/jd
The man who never released his tax returns wants to tax speech against him. Tyranny much?
/jd
‘…For the first time, the U.S. government wants demonstrators to pay to use our parks, sidewalks and streets to engage in free speech in the nation’s capital. This should be called what it is: a protest tax.
This is a bold effort by the Trump administration to burden and restrict access to public spaces for First Amendment activities in Washington. If enacted, it would fundamentally alter participatory democracy in the United States.
[….] Such a “pay to protest” plan will probably be challenged in court. The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances cannot be burdened by such charges. And discretionary fees or measures that can serve as a proxy for content-based discrimination are unconstitutional.
[….] Free speech is not a cost. It is a value. It is a fundamental pillar of democracy.
It also costs money to hold elections, to print ballots, to open and staff polling places. Yet we have recognized and rejected poll taxes as anti-democratic methods of voter suppression. Charging for protest is no different…’
Charges Dismissed in Pipeline Shutdown Case
‘Charges were dismissed against Emily Johnston, Annette Klapstein, and their support person Ben Joldersma in a criminal case stemming from an October 11, 2016 action that shut down tar sands oil from flowing [….]
Judge Robert Tiffany dismissed the charges, saying that based on the statutes being used, there was not enough evidence to charge Emily Johnston with damaging pipeline equipment. He also found that charging Annette Klapstein and Ben Joldersma with aiding and abetting the damage was impossible because damage couldn’t be proved. The statute’s “clear definition” of a pipeline also did not include the chains that were cut to enter the valve site.
The decision came as a surprise in a trial that the defense had suggested could go into Friday. The defense was based around a historic “necessity defense,” in which Johnston, Klapstein and Joldersma openly admitted to their actions that would normally be a crime, but that they insist were necessary to prevent greater harm to humans on the Earth…’
https://unicornriot.ninja/2018/charges-dismissed-in-pipeline-shutdown-case/
Yes, Lock her up. But only after we can tax Trump's Nuremberg Rallies, also.
/jd
‘…President Trump’s supporters don’t care which woman gets locked up, as long as one of them does.
At a rally in Iowa on Tuesday night, attendees began chanting “lock her up” when Trump referenced Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and her handling of allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh…’
https://theweek.com/speedreads/801165/trump-rallygoers-now-chant-lock-about-woman-dont-like
video…
Crowd breaks into cheers of “Lock her up” as Pres. Trump rails against Sen. Dianne Feinstein at Iowa rally, mocking her denial of leaking Christine Blasey Ford’s letter. https://t.co/YZHDSQ0ptC pic.twitter.com/nSZS3FPN8r
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 10, 2018
So fucked up.
/jd
US Weapons Systems Are Easy Cyberattack Targets, New Report Finds
‘…the report concludes that almost all weapons that the DoD tested between 2012 and 2017 have “mission critical” cyber vulnerabilities. “Using relatively simple tools and techniques, testers were able to take control of systems and largely operate undetected, due in part to basic issues such as poor password management and unencrypted communications,” the report states. And yet, perhaps more alarmingly, the officials who oversee those systems appeared dismissive of the results.
[….] The GAO report says that one tester was able to guess an admin password on a weapons system in nine seconds. Other weapons used commercial or open-source software but administers failed to change the default passwords. Yet another tester managed to partially shut down a weapons system by merely scanning it—a technique so basic, the GAO says, it “requires little knowledge or expertise.”
Testers were sometimes able to take full control of these weapons. “In one case, it took a two-person test team just one hour to gain initial access to a weapon system and one day to gain full control of the system they were testing,” the report states…’
https://www.wired.com/story/us-weapons-systems-easy-cyberattack-targets/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iW-8xPw3k
Can Civilization Survive What’s Coming?
‘…Here’s what this new IPCC report says, in a nutshell: To avoid blowing through the 1.5 C target, nations of the world need to cut carbon pollution as fast as humanly possible. To be more precise, nations of the world need to get to zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Let me underscore this: It’s not enough that Portland, Oregon, or Berkeley, California, get to zero carbon emissions by 2050. Or the entire state of California, for that matter. Or even the entire United States. The entire world must eliminate (or offset)carbon pollution by 2050.
“It’s like a deafening, piercing smoke alarm going off in the kitchen. We have to put out the fire,” Erik Solheim, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, told the Washington Post…’
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/can-earth-survive-climate-change-735067/
France sued for ‘crimes against humanity’ over nuclear tests in South Pacific
‘France is being taken to the International Criminal Court for nuclear weapons tests in French Polynesia. France has long denied responsibility for the impacts of the tests and only recently began compensating civilians.
[….] Oscar Temaru, the archipelago’s former president and current leader of the Tavini Huiraatira Party, announced the move during a United Nations committee dealing with decolonization.
Temaru accused France of “crimes against humanity” and said that he hopes to hold French presidents accountable for the nuclear tests with the ICC complaint.
“We owe it to all the people who died from the consequences of nuclear colonialism,” he told the UN committee.
[….] The French territory, currently home to 290,000 people, is best known for the popular tourist island of Tahiti, but its atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa were used for decades for nuclear tests.
France carried out 193 nuclear weapons tests on islands in the archipelago between 1960 and 1996 until French President Jacques Chirac halted the program.
Around 150,000 military and civilian personnel were involved in France’s nuclear tests, with thousands of them later developing serious health problems.
[….] In 2010, France passed a law allowing military veterans and civilians to be compensated if their cancer could be attributed to the nuclear tests.
Out of approximately 1,000 people who have filed complaints against France, only 20 have been compensated…’
Nazi enough to call it Nazi-like?
/jd
Migrant children may be adopted after parents are deported
‘…Holes in immigration laws are allowing state court judges to grant custody of migrant children to American families without notifying their deported parents [….] Legally, when a parent is deported without their child, that child is not supposed to be allowed to be permanently adopted.
“And the reality is that for every parent who is not located, there will be a permanent orphaned child,” U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw said in August.
[….] Associated Press’s conclusions are especially important given that 300 parents were deported to Central America without their children just this summer as part of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy at the border…’
More Capitalism means More Freedom, or not.
/jd
‘…Back in 2016, printing giant HP sent a deceitful, malicious update to millions of OfficeJet and OfficeJet Pro printers that disguised itself as a ‘security update.’ Users who trusted HP and applied the update discovered to their chagrin that the update didn’t improve their printers’ security: rather, the updated printers had acquired the ability to reject cheaper ink, forcing the printer owners to throw away their third-party and refilled ink cartridges and buy new ones.
Now, Epson has followed suit: in late 2016 or early 2017, Epson started sending deceptive updates to many of its printers. Just like HP, Epson disguised these updates as routine software improvements, when really they were poison pills, designed to downgrade printers so they could only work with Epson’s expensive ink systems…’
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/eff-texas-ag-epson-tricked-its-customers-dangerous-fake-update
Computers are not gender-neutral because the humans who programmed them are not gender-neutral.
/jd
‘Amazon.com Inc’s machine-learning specialists uncovered a big problem: their new recruiting engine did not like women.
[….] “Everyone wanted this holy grail,” one of the people said. “They literally wanted it to be an engine where I’m going to give you 100 resumes, it will spit out the top five, and we’ll hire those.”
But by 2015, the company realized its new system was not rating candidates for software developer jobs and other technical posts in a gender-neutral way.
That is because Amazon’s computer models were trained to vet applicants by observing patterns in resumes submitted to the company over a 10-year period. Most came from men, a reflection of male dominance across the tech industry. ..’
Who was Cecilia Payne?
‘…Not only did Cecilia Payne discover what the universe is made of, she also discovered what the sun is made of (Henry Norris Russell, a fellow astronomer, is usually given credit for discovering that the sun’s composition is different from the Earth’s, but he came to his conclusions four years later than Payne—after telling her not to publish).
Cecilia Payne is the reason we know basically anything about variable stars (stars whose brightness as seen from earth fluctuates). Literally every other study on variable stars is based on her work…’
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1764457033653272&set=a.359457910819865&type=3&theater
like, duh...
/jd
It’s better to be born rich than gifted
‘…A revolution in genomics is creeping into economics. It allows us to say something we might have suspected, but could never confirm: money trumps genes.
Using one new, genome-based measure, economists found genetic endowments are distributed almost equally among children in low-income and high-income families. Success is not.
The least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents…’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/09/its-better-be-born-rich-than-talented