Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman's Political Notes -
Political philosophy of UK Labour Party - 2025-04-25T20:39:13+00:00
The political philosophy of the UK Labour Party seems to be "we must convince businesses to invest here by giving them all the power they want, no matter how this puts us in danger from them."
"Professional failures" over Gaza paramedic killings - 2025-04-25T20:39:13+00:00
*Israeli military admits "professional failures" over Gaza paramedic killings.*
This admission is such an understatement that it amounts to continued denial of the facts. The PR brigade has pulled back to the next line of defensiveness, but not all the way back to where it would confess the truth.
Pope Francis allowed Vance to visit - 2025-04-25T20:39:10+00:00
Pope Francis allowed Vance to visit, then died the next day.
An overdose of disgust?
Tunisia's activists sentenced to decades in prison - 2025-04-25T20:39:09+00:00
Tunisia's dictatorship has sentenced opposition activists to decades in prison for political opposition.
It makes me very sad to see Tunisia's new-formed democracy fall into a dictatorship as bad as before.
Severity of climate disaster in unequal society - 2025-04-25T20:39:08+00:00
For the present stage of climate disaster, "The more unequal the society is, the more severe the climate disaster".
That is plausible in the short term, while the disasters are within what society can cope with if it is well organized to do so. Thus, the people who are truly crushed are the poor. Make fewer people poor, and the local climate disasters are survivable.
But that won't apply if climate disaster reaches the stage at which globalized industrial production collapses, each region is reduced to what it can produce locally, the level of technology is sinking, and most humans die.
(satire) Bringing back extinct species - 2025-04-25T20:39:08+00:00
(satire) *Pros And Cons Of Bringing Back Extinct Species.*
Judge blocks shuttering Consumer Financial Protection Board - 2025-04-25T20:39:07+00:00
*Federal judge blocks [muskrat's] effort to shutter [Consumer Financial Protection Board].*
(satire) DOJ Plants Gun On Maine - 2025-04-25T20:39:06+00:00
(satire) *DOJ Plants Gun On Maine.* The state's population is now in jail.
US measles outbreak growing - 2025-04-25T02:39:08+00:00
The US measles epidemic is spreading so fast that the CDC, after being gored by the t-usk, is unable to keep up with them.
RFK defends his harmful propaganda by saying that "We can't rely simply on the vaccine. We also have to know how to treat measles." That, in itself, is true but it is also changing the subject.
If his idea is that it's good to discourage vaccination so as to ensure plenty of patients for doctors to maintain their skill, that is sick.
Wrecker regime legal setbacks - 2025-04-24T20:53:10+00:00
*The wrecker's officials create uncertainty to evade court orders rather than comply.*
Wind projects imperiled, US coasts - 2025-04-24T20:53:10+00:00
[The wrecker] *halts construction of big wind farm off New York coast.*
"Christian nationalists" imposing religion on the US - 2025-04-24T08:39:09+00:00
The wrecker is trying to help plutocratist "Christian nationalists" impose their extreme religion on the United States — and to lead them to be more plutocratist.
Lies and coercion used to arrest Aditya Wahyu Harsono - 2025-04-24T08:39:08+00:00
Deportation thugs lied to Aditya Wahyu Harsono, saying they had revoked his permanent visa weeks before so he was "late" in leaving the US, then pressured his coworkers to fake a work meeting so they could surprise and arrest him.
Those coworkers may be ashamed of this for the rest of their lives. Worse, they may teach themselves to believe the bully's lies so as to convince themselves that what they did was right.
Or they may instead join the resistance to make up for the harm they did.
Effects of wrecker bullying China - 2025-04-24T08:39:07+00:00
With the wrecker bullying various countries to demand that they punish China, China is now threatening those countries with similar bullying if they do what the wrecker demands.
Urgent: D.C. U.S. Attorney nominee - 2025-04-24T08:39:07+00:00
US citizens: Call on the Senate to reject Ed Martinâ as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. His praise for a notorious January 6 rioter should disqualify him from any position in the government; in this position, he will leave Congress exposed to physical violence.
Supreme contempt of court - 2025-04-24T08:39:07+00:00
*[Senator] Amy Klobuchar calls on supreme court to hold Trump officials in contempt.*
I hesitated to call for that particular action because I was not sure it was tactically wise. It might just play into the wrecker's hand. But if a senator thinks that we have come to this, I suppose it is so.
Unraveling decades of progress in safeguarding our nation - 2025-04-23T14:42:44+00:00
* Despite such painful lessons of [the Big Spill], we find ourselves once again hurtling toward disaster. The [saboteur in chief]'s personnel and programmatic cuts at science, environmental and safety agencies, and the wholesale rollback of environmental regulations, threaten to unravel decades of progress in safeguarding our nation. These actions aren't just misguided — they're a dangerous rejection of the hard-won knowledge gained from former crises and a gamble we cannot afford to take.*
Disasters of melting Arctic ice - 2025-04-23T14:42:44+00:00
Melting Arctic ice is a disaster mainly because it is raising sea level, but it is causing several kinds of secondary disasters too.
UK imprisoning people for sleeping on the street - 2025-04-23T14:42:44+00:00
The UK is putting people in prison for months for sleeping on the street. That is shame-worthy in itself, but it gets worse: sometimes the decision is made in a court hearing where the accused person was not present, has no legal representation, or both.
Proposed new powers to punish people for begging or feeding pigeons are even harsher.
For the man who desperately needs to feed pigeons for company, I wonder if giving him a budgerigar to take care of might have enabled him to feel better while avoiding bothering neighbors.
US-deported Venezuelans now pawns, SLV - 2025-04-22T08:39:16+00:00
The persecutor has sent hundreds of Venezuelan refugees to El Salvador which engaged to hold them in prison without trial. Now El Salvador is offering to release many of them to Venezuela in exchange for Venezuela's political prisoners.
Such an exchange might be good, if we could assume that (1) the Venezuelans now in El Salvador want to go to Venezuelans and would be safe there, and (2) the prisoners now in Venezuela want to go to El Salvador and would be safe there.
I can't tell from the article whether any of that would be so.
Feeding the exploiter more wins - 2025-04-22T08:39:16+00:00
Ariel Dorfman imagines new kinds of honors that might be bestowed on the bullshitter.
Mass rallies condemn regime, US - 2025-04-22T08:39:16+00:00
Robert Reich: mass rallies to condemn the bully are a display of courage, which inspires courage in those who felt helpless to resist.
Tesla odometer as warranty cheater - 2025-04-22T08:39:15+00:00
*Tesla accused of hacking odometers to weasel out of warranty repairs.*
Perhaps we should make a legal requirement for odometers to be implemented such that other systems in the car cannot override their settings.
RMS will give a talk in London - 2025-04-21T02:38:51+00:00
I will speak about free software and computing freedom, and about related issues that affect whether your computing respects your freedom.
This talk will be at King's College, on Tuesday, April 22 in London, England.
There are many threats to freedom in the digital society. They include nonfree software, massive surveillance, and censorship. Nonfree programs are often designed to restrict users, control users or manipulate users. The War on Sharing aims to stop users from sharing copies of published works. Computers for voting make election results untrustworthy.
Other threats come from use of web services, implemented by companies that can impose any conditions whatsoever. Finally, most internet activities (aside from those which existed before 2000) are precarious, dependent on permission from one company. All of these threats originate more or less in the use of nonfree software. That is why free software is the first battle in the liberation of the digital society.
RMS will give a talk in Oxford - 2025-04-21T02:38:51+00:00
I will give a talk at the Lecture Theatre, on Thursday, April 24 in Oxford, England.
The topic is free/libre software and freedom in the digital society.
We understand that the uses of computing can be unjust. Most do not realize that the mechanisms of computing can be unjust in other ways.
If a program that the users do not control does your computing, it controls your computing.
When servers that the users do not control do your computing, those servers control it.
So don't entrust your own computing to a program that isn't libre or a server whose operator isn't a loyal friend. For your own computing, instead of a server that might mistreat you, use free software on your own computer.
Foreign disinformation welcomed in US - 2025-04-21T02:38:51+00:00
The wrecker has eliminated an agency whose mission is to detect and counter disinformation campaigns, especially Russian.
I suspect this is one little part in the establishment of the axis of dictators, to start with the wrecker and Putin. But it may be more than that. The wrecker depends on disinformation too, and some of that originates in Russia.
Forever chemicals - 2025-04-20T08:39:09+00:00
*Fears that UK military bases may be leaking toxic "forever chemicals" into drinking water.*
Trump’s coal expansion - 2025-04-20T08:39:08+00:00
The saboteur in chief wants to expand coal mines, and is cutting programs that try to protect the workers from getting sick from working in a coal mine.
Musk & Social Security - 2025-04-20T08:39:08+00:00
*Musk Is Lying About Waste and Fraud in Social Security to Have an Excuse to Kill It.*
Berkeley Fire Safety - 2025-04-20T08:39:06+00:00
Berkeley, California, is about to vote on new fire safety rules designed to slow the spread of wildfires.
The rules include having no plants (and other flammable material) within 5ft of a residence.
I wonder why this does not include other kinds of buildings, in the areas that are most vulnerable.
Legal saga of Ábrego Kilmar - 2025-04-20T08:39:06+00:00
Detailed history of the case of Kilmar Ábrego García.
President Bukele justifies holding him in prison on the supposed grounds that he is a "terrorist", but has not tried to prove that that is true. He has not had a trial to justify that claim.
Under Bukele's "war on drugs", it is normal to imprison people for years and trials are considered unimportant.
The greatest outrage of this case for the United States is that the bully and Bukele are blatantly conspiring to respond to the Supreme Court by coordinated deceptions.
The bully's deception is the claim that he has no influence over Bukele.
Bukele's deception is the claim that
The two deceptions are designed so that there is no way to prove that either of them is false, even though by common sense we can be completely sure they are false. The message to the Supreme Court is, "We can use these deceptions to thumb our noses at your rulings."
A US senator went to El Salvador and asked to speak with Ábrego. The vice president told him that was somehow impossible, as some law of nature.
Homan, the Tsar's "border tsar" called Ábrego a "terrorist". Since Ábrego has not sought publicity, can he win a lawsuit for libel against Homan?
Kilmar Garcia - 2025-04-20T08:39:06+00:00
The bully admits that deporting Kilmar Ábrego Garcia was a "mistake", but he shows no contrition about the harm that it did to Ábrego and to his family. He joins Bully Bukele in laughing at their suffering.
Note the curious contrast between the bully's ready admission that he has no authority to order Bukele to release Ábrego to the US, when it is an excuse to allow Bukele to do what the bully really wants Bukele to do. Contrast this with what the bully does when he wants to impose his will by force in the US in situations where legally he has no such right.
Doge agency - 2025-04-20T08:39:06+00:00
The DOPE agency demanded to mess with an NGO because it received some government funds.
The agency personnel were embarrassed to discover that the wrecker had cancelled the government support a few weeks before.
Lyft convo transcription - 2025-04-20T08:39:05+00:00
Canadian friends riding in a Lyft car found that their conversation had been recorded and sent in the form of text to the phone of one of them.
This is supposed to be illegal, but Lyft says it shouldn't have been possible and it doesn't understand what happened.
I can't draw any specific moral conclusions about Lyft from these fragments of understanding, but it is clear that microphones in cars are dangerous and taxi passengers should be able to switch them off.
Endangered species - 2025-04-20T08:39:05+00:00
The wrecker plans to change endangered species protection to enable reckless habitat destruction.
ISR ready to starve all in Gaza - 2025-04-20T02:38:57+00:00
Israel says that, to get the hostages released from Gaza it is ready to starve everyone Gaza to death (which includes the hostages).
I can imagine the government claiming that, "We had to destroy our people to save them."
Were Gaza paramedics murdered? - 2025-04-20T02:38:57+00:00
Autopsies of [the Gaza paramedics] killed in Gaza show ‘gunshots to head and torso’.
This is additional evidence that they were murdered.
Urgent: GOP weak in all voting districts - 2025-04-20T02:38:57+00:00
US citizens: call on the Democratic Party to run candidates all across the country in 2026, to take advantage of the hostility and resentment generated by the Republicans that hate our freedoms.
J. Stiglitz on Columbia U. capitulation - 2025-04-20T02:38:57+00:00
*Nobel Winner Joseph Stiglitz Denounces Columbia’s Apparent Capitulation to [the wrecker].*
Toxic metals in cropland - 2025-04-20T02:38:55+00:00
*About 15% of world’s cropland polluted with toxic metals, say researchers.*
I wonder if there is a feasible way to decontaminate large areas of soil.
Food and Drug Administration staff cuts - 2025-04-20T02:38:54+00:00
*The FDA labs that test food to prevent illness have been affected by wider health and human services staff cuts.* Some tests have ceased to be made.
European State of the Climate report - 2025-04-19T08:39:06+00:00
* European State of the Climate report "lays bare" impact of fossil fuels on continent during its hottest 12 months on record.*
*Deadly floods and storms affected more than 400,000 people in Europe in 2024.*
(satire) Salvadoran President lacks humanity - 2025-04-19T08:39:05+00:00
(satire) *Salvadoran President Claims He Lacks Humanity To Return Wrongly Deported Man.*
Threats to end rule of law over deportation - 2025-04-19T08:39:05+00:00
The bully threatens to end rule of law over deportation in two different ways.
We must not idolize system of global "free trade" - 2025-04-19T08:39:05+00:00
We must not let the damage done by the wrecker's stupid tariff policies lead us to idolize the system of global "free trade" that he has smashed. That system was inflicted on us by plutocrats who did dooH niboR's dirty work.
Mohsen Mahdawi is bully's latest choice for arbitrary expulsion - 2025-04-19T08:39:04+00:00
Mohsen Mahdawi, the bully's latest choice for arbitrary expulsion for supposedly hampering the bully's plans for peace between Israel and Palestine. (Comparing this claim with the actions of the US suggests that, for the US, "peace" for Palestinians means "the peace of the grave".)
Here Israeli student Mikey Baratz, who works with Mahdawi to make real peace possible, refutes that accusation.
You could hardly imagine clearer proof that the magats are using the Big Lie method.
We must take care to resist the mind-set of all-out conflict which can blind people to tactics that can make the world worse even when used for a cause that is basically valid. Like Baratz, I have felt that the movement to end the bombardment and siege of Gaza and defend Palestinians' rights often goes too far — to the point of demanding to annex and abolish Israel. A demand for annexation is as wrong in one direction as it is in the other.
My criticism of that excess is in no way meant to excuse Israel's atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank, which are enormous crimes that call for prosecution.
Students sue Hegseth over book bans - 2025-04-19T08:39:04+00:00
*Students at Pentagon schools sue Hegseth over book bans on race and gender.*
University of Pittsburgh's suspension of Pro-Palestine Student Group - 2025-04-19T08:39:04+00:00
*[The University of Pittsburgh]'s Suspension of Pro-Palestine Student Group Violates First Amendment, Says ACLU Lawsuit.*
Harvard's pushback against Trump - 2025-04-19T08:39:04+00:00
*How Harvard's pushback against Trump may embolden more US resistance.*
Bezos's publicity stunt suborbital rocket flight - 2025-04-19T08:39:04+00:00
Bezos's publicity stunt suborbital rocket flight, in which all the passengers were women, reduces science, engineering and feminism to superficial tokens, replacing the substance they formerly had.
It is not a bad thing that the launcher is so automated that it doesn't need a crew. What was bad was the pretense that this publicity stunt had real significance.
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