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● 05.11.16

● Links 11/5/2016: Docker Security, Cinnamon 3.0.2

Posted in News Roundup at 8:50 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Server

=> ↺ Docker tightens security

=> ↺ Docker launches a cloud-based security service for analyzing container images

=> ↺ Docker Security Scanning helps root out container vulnerabilities

=> ↺ Docker Announces the General Availability of Security Scanning to Safeguard Container Content across the Software Supply Chain

=> ↺ Docker Rolls Out Tool to Scan Containers for Vulnerabilities

=> ↺ Docker Hardens Application And Workflow Security With Latest Release

=> ↺ Docker launches Security Scanning to test containers for known vulnerabilities

=> ↺ Docker Security Scanning

=> ↺ Docker Security Scanning now available to Docker cloud users

=> ↺ Docker lets security bug sniffer dogs off the leash at container images

Kernel Space

=> ↺ How Linux Kernel Development Impacts Security

• The Linux kernel is a fast moving project, and it’s important for both users and developers to quickly update to new releases to remain up-to-date and secure. That was the keynote message Greg Kroah-Hartman, maintainer of the stable Linux kernel, delivered at CoreOS Fest on May 9 here.

• Kroah-Hartman is a luminary in the Linux community and is employed by the Linux Foundation, publishing on average a new Linux stable kernel update every week. In recent years, he has also taken upon himself the task of helping to author the “Who Writes Linux” report that details the latest statistics on kernel development. He noted that, from April 2015 to March 2016, there were 10,800 new lines of code added, 5,300 lines removed and 1,875 lines modified in Linux every day.

=> ↺ Neat drm/i915 Stuff for 4.7

• Let’s first look at the epic saga called atomic support. In 4.7 the atomic watermark update support for Ironlake through Broadwell from Matt Roper, Ville Syrjälä and others finally landed. This took about 3 attempts to get merged because there’s lots of small little corner cases that caused regressions each time around, but it’s finally done. And it’s an absolutely key piece for atomic support, since Intel hardware does not support atomic updates of the watermark settings for the display fetch fifos. And if those values are wrong tearings and other ugly things will result. We still need corresponding support for other platforms, but this is a really big step. But that’s not the only atomic work: Maarten Lankhorst made the hardware state checker atomic, and there’s been tons of smaller things all over to move the driver towards the shiny new.

=> ↺ CPUFreq’s New Scaling Governor Is Coming For Linux 4.7

• The new CPUFreq governor for Linux 4.7 is the Schedutil governor that we’ve previously talked about on Phoronix. With Linux 4.6 was an important power management redesign by changing the way CPU frequency updates are triggered to support using callbacks invoked by the scheduler rather than deferrable timers.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Nouveau NVC0 Compute Shader Support Is On For GTK110+ GPUs

=> ↺ RadeonSI’s New SDMA Texture Copy Code Lands In Mesa

Applications

=> ↺ man-pages-4.06 is released

• I’ve released man-pages-4.06. The release tarball is available on kernel.org. The browsable online pages can be found on man7.org. The Git repository for man-pages is available on kernel.org.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Xtreme Download Manager For Linux And Windows — Get 5 Times Faster Download Speed

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Running scripts before and after suspend with systemd

=> ↺ Zero size arrays in C

=> ↺ Backing up with borg and git-annex

=> ↺ Managing passwords in Linux with KeePassX

=> ↺ How To Use Netstat Commands To Monitor Network On Windows Using CMD

=> ↺ Ways to provide body payload in Ansible’s URI module

=> ↺ How To Install Netbeast On Linux For Developing IoT Applications With Great Ease

Games

=> ↺ Free to play action platformer MMO StarBreak released on Steam with Linux support

• An action platformer MMO isn’t something you see very often, but StarBreak hopes to pull it off. It’s free to play too, so you have nothing to lose by trying it out.

• It seems to have microtransactions where you’re able to buy in-game “UC” for real money. I imagine that will put people off depending on what you’re able to buy with it. If it’s only cosmetics, that’s fine, but if it allows you to buy weapons it will be ruined by pay to win junk.

• The game features permadeath too, so even though it’s an MMO you will lose your progress when you die. Also, considering it’s an MMO the lack of a friend feature makes me dislike it. I play MMO games to hook up with friends a lot of the time and I imagine I am not alone in this.

=> ↺ One of my favourite racing games ‘Distance’ has a massive update

• It seems for the most part the new update runs pretty well on Linux, performance seems to be much better than it was last time I tried that’s for sure.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Cinnamon 3.0.2 Desktop Environment Fixes Desktop Effects on Menus and Dialogs

• Today, May 10, 2016, Clement Lefebvre and his team of developers have released the second maintenance build for the Cinnamon 3.0 desktop environment, further polishing several of its components.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Trinity Desktop Environment Is Now Available to Install for SparkyLinux Users

• The SparkyLinux devs have just announced today, May 10, 2016, the availability of the Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) graphical desktop interface for the latest SparkyLinux operating system.

=> ↺ Tumbleweed gets Plasma 5.6.3, Firefox 46

• Since the last update, openSUSE Tumbleweed had two snapshots.

• Snapshot 20160505 and 20160508 brought quite a few goodies for Tumbleweed users.

• Firefox 46 and GNOME 3.20.2 were in the 20160505 snapshot along with some other packages like git 2.8.2, glib-networking 2.48.1 and a huge update to ostree in version 2016.5.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GTK+ 3.20.4 GUI Toolkit Introduces More Wayland Improvements, Adwaita Fixes

• The GNOME Project is preparing to unleash the second and last planned maintenance update of the GNOME 3.20 desktop environment, version 3.20.2, due for release later today, May 11, 2016.

• As with any new point release of the GNOME desktop environment, many of the core components and applications are being updated to fix bugs and annoyances reported by users since the previous milestones, as well as to add various improvements. The GTK+ open-source GUI toolkit is one of those components, and it has been updated to version 3.20.4.

=> ↺ Talking at GNOME.Asia Summit 2016 in New Delhi, India

• It’s spring time and that means it’s time for GNOME.Asia Summit! This year’s edition took place in New Delhi, India. This years makes five years after the initial GNOME 3.0 release. In fact, an important releases planning hackfest happened five years ago in India, so it’s been a somewhat remarkable date.

=> ↺ nana-4/Flat-Plat is a Material Inspired GTK Theme For GNOME

• Looks like we won’t be running out of Material design themes anytime soon. Just recently, I covered 6 Material inspired themes for your Linux desktop.

• nana-4/Flat-Plat is another material design like GTK 2/3 theme that is well suited for desktops using the GNOME shell.

Distributions

=> ↺ Here’s a List of All the Ethical Hacking Tools Included in BlackArch Linux

• At the beginning of the month, we informed you about the general availability of an updated ISO image for the Arch Linux-based BlackArch Linux operating system, which gave users access to over 1,400 penetration testing tools.

• BlackArch Linux 2016.04.28 was, as its version number suggests, baked and cooked at the end of April, and it introduced 80 new security-oriented utilities to the ever growing collection of tools that are available in the software repositories of this GNU/Linux operating system.

New Releases

=> ↺ Tiny Core Linux 7.1 Enters Development, First Release Candidate Is Out Now

• The Tiny Core devs recently announced that the Tiny Core Linux 7.1 operating system is now in development, with a first RC (Release Candidate) build seeded to public testers.

Screenshots/Screencasts

=> ↺ Ubuntu Kylin 16.04 LTS – Video Overview and Screenshot Tours

=> ↺ AryaLinux 2016.04 Screenshot Tour

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 Supports XFS File System Sizes of Up to 300 TB

• Red Hat Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, announced the general availability of the eighth maintenance release of the long-term supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 operating system.

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 arrives today for existing customers with an active Red Hat subscription, bringing dozens of improvements, bug fixes, and many exciting new capabilities (see below for a detailed list), all in order to keep the highly acclaimed and widely used GNU/Linux operating system stable and reliable at all times, as a trusted platform for any critical IT infrastructure.

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 Deprecates Btrfs

• Buried within the notes for today’s Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 release are a few interesting notes.

Finance

=> ↺ Consensus Rating Review for Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)

Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora 24 Beta released – See What is new

• Fedora Project, proudly announced the release and general availability of Fedora 24 Beta on May 10, 2016 after the release was delayed for various reasons for three times. In addition to tradition 32-bit and 64-bit architecture, Fedora 24 Beta server can now be downloaded and installed on machines having architecture PPC64, PPC64el and ARM64. Also, you can download and test Cloud and Docker images of this Beta Release.

=> ↺ Fedora 24 Beta Officially Released for AArch64 and POWER Hardware Architectures

• Peter Robinson of Fedora Project announced the release and general availability of the Fedora 24 Beta operating system for AArch64 (ARM 64-bit) and POWER instruction set architectures.

• The announcement for the release of Fedora 24 Beta for the AArch64 and POWER architectures comes hot on the heels of Fedora Project’s initial story on the availability of the Fedora 24 Beta operating system, unveiled to users on May 10, 2016, after being delayed three times for various reasons.

=> ↺ Fedora 24 Beta and RHEL 6.8 Released

• Topping the Linux news today was the release of Fedora 24 Beta built with GCC 6 and glibc 2.23 and features GNOME 3.20. Parent company Red Hat announced an update to version 6 bringing “new capabilities and a stable and trusted platform.” On the other side of town, Scott Gilbertson posted a detailed review of Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu’s Michael Hall shared his experiences using Unity 8 exclusively.

=> ↺ Fedora 24 Beta is out and ready to take you to Linux’s future

• If you want to really take Linux to the edge of what’s possible, you run Red Hat’s community Linux distribution, Fedora. And, for those who like to live dangerously, you can always run Fedora betas. The latest, Fedora 24 Beta, is out now.

=> ↺ Fedora 24 Beta Looks Nice, But Will They Ever Stop Mucking Up Anaconda?

=> ↺ Fedora 24 Beta Screenshot Tour

Debian Family

Derivatives

=> ↺ Debian-Based Univention Corporate Server 4.1-2 Brings Important Security Updates

• Maren Abatielos of Univention GmbH informs us today, May 10, 2016, about the release of the second maintenance build of Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 4.1.

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Unity 8 Continues To Improve, But Still Has Rough Edges

=> ↺ Dogfooding Unity 8

• Below I will discuss all of the steps that I went through to get it working to my needs. They are not the “official” way of doing it (there isn’t an official way to do all this yet) and they won’t cover every usage scenario, just the ones I faced. If you want to try this challenge yourself they will help you get started. If at any time you get stuck, you can find help in the #ubuntu-unity channel on Freenode, where the developers behind all of these components are very friendly and helpful.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (aka Xenial Xerus) What’s In The Bits and Bytes?

• For those not familiar or who need a refresh, Ubuntu is an open source Linux distribution with the company behind it called Canonical. The Ubuntu software is a Debian based Linux distribution with Unity (user interface). Ubuntu is available across different platform architecture from industry standard Intel and AMD x86 32bit and 64bit to ARM processors and even the venerable IBM zSeriues (aka zed) mainframe as part of LinuxOne.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ OCF Director Discusses Interoperability Between IoT Frameworks [Video]

• In his keynote address at the Embedded Linux Conference’s OpenIoT Summit, Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) Executive Director Mike Richmond discussed the potential for interoperability — and a possible merger — between the two major open source IoT frameworks: the OCF’s IoTivity and the AllSeen Alliance’s AllJoyn spec. “We’ve committed to interoperability between the two,” said Richmond, who went on to explain how much the two Linux Foundation hosted specs had in common.

=> ↺ We Don’t Need No Stinking “PC”

• The smartphone is the new PC and most of them run */Linux.

=> ↺ Slices of Raspberry Pi

• Quite a lot has happened in the Raspberry Pi world since my last article. From new hardware to Picademy, the past couple of weeks have been great, filled with news story after great news story. The month of April ended on a high note, with the release of Ubuntu MATE 16.04 for the Pi, and the month of May looks to keep carrying that trend. I realize how hard it is to keep up with the all the Raspberry Pi news, so here are what I consider to be some of the high points.

Phones

Android

=> ↺ Android is eating Apple’s iOS market share everywhere

• As if Apple wasn’t facing enough headwind this year, now comes word that Android smartphones are making big market share gains around the world.

• According to the latest market share numbers for the first quarter of 2016 from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Android grew significantly in the U.S., Europe, and China, while Apple’s iOS lost ground.

=> ↺ Logitech’s new car mounts bring smart hands-free to Android

• Logitech has announced a new pair of hands-free car mounts that work in concert with a voice-controlled app to keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel.

• ZeroTouch is available either as a vent mount ($59.99) or a dash mount ($79.99). The free app then connects with the the mount via a small metal plate or a disk hidden underneath a case, triggering a Bluetooth LE connection. When you remove the phone from the mount, the ZeroTouch app shuts down, so you only have to use the voice commands when you want.

=> ↺ “Modular” Smartphones Are Now The Official Gadget Gimmick Of 2016 (And Possibly Beyond)

• When LG announced the modular G5 at MWC in 2016, we were all taken a bit aback. Admittedly, there was plenty of reason to hold judgment – it seemed possible that LG had actually done something interesting and innovative with a smartphone that hadn’t quite been tried before, and gadget-lust is an easy feeling to succumb to in the face of something new and weird. It turns out that the G5′s “friends” were basically DOA as a concept, though, and there has been little indication that consumer response to the idea is even existent, let alone positive.

=> ↺ How to get emoji on Android: Use emoji on your Samsung, Nexus, or other Android phone

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Milestones in Free and Open Source Software History, 1969-2015

• In the fall of 1983 Richard Stallman, a veteran of MIT’s AI Lab who was unhappy with the increasingly closed nature of software source code, announced the GNU project. His goal was to build a clone of Unix using only code that could be freely shared and would always be publicly available. Many parts of the GNU operating system, which Stallman began building in early 1984, remain central to the free and open source software ecosystem today.

=> ↺ I am your user. Why do you hate me?

• Leslie is a developer engagement strategist who works at Red Hat and sits on several key nonprofit boards. In addition to running her own company, Donna also sits on many boards and does much of the thankless work to put on excellent open source events in Australia. They each bring over a decade of experience with open source to their work, and their upcoming talk at OSCON titled, I am your user—why do you hate me?

=> ↺ DIY : Open Source Software for your very own IoT

=> ↺ Nominations for the 2016 New Zealand Open Source Awards open

• Nominations for the 2016 New Zealand Open Source Awards are now open.

=> ↺ Four Ways for Developers To Open Source Their Next Big Idea

• The open source movement is transforming technology in many respects, and its fundamental stance toward collaboration can be used to transform the inspiration process for developers as well.

=> ↺ Amazon open-sources its own deep learning software, DSSTNE

• Amazon has suddenly made a remarkable entrance into the world of open-source software for deep learning, a type of artificial intelligence. Yesterday the e-commerce company unceremoniously released a library called DSSTNE on GitHub under an open-source Apache license.

• Deep learning involves training artificial neural networks on lots of data and then getting them to make inferences about new data. Several technology companies are doing it — heck, it even got some air time recently in “Silicon Valley.” And there are already several other deep learning frameworks to choose from, including Google’s TensorFlow.

Events

=> ↺ CoreOS Fest: Runway Provides a New Model Distributed Systems Design

• Ongaro explained that Runway is a new tool for distributed systems design. He noted that distributed systems are hard, they are hard to understand and hard to communicate about.

=> ↺ Watch Live Keynote From Mark Shuttleworth at Apache Big Data Today

• ApacheCon is the annual conference of The Apache Software Foundation. The Apache and open source community will gather May 11-13 to learn about and collaborate on the technologies and projects driving the future of open source, web technologies and cloud computing.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ You Can Help Build the Future of Firefox with the New Test Pilot Program

• When building features for hundreds of millions of Firefox users worldwide, it’s important to get them right. To help figure out which features should ship and how they should work, we created the new Test Pilot program. Test Pilot is a way for you to try out experimental features and let us know what you think. You can turn them on and off at any time, and you’ll always know what information you’re sharing to help us understand how these features are used. Of course, you can also use Test Pilot to provide feedback and suggestions to the teams behind each new feature.

• As you’re experimenting with new features, you might experience some bugs or lose some of the polish from the general Firefox release, so Test Pilot allows you to easily enable or disable features at any time.

• Feedback and data from Test Pilot will help determine which features ultimately end up in a Firefox release for all to enjoy.

SaaS/Back End

=> ↺ On the Multi-Cloud Future

• Do you run multiple operating systems? It’s not uncommon for the answer to that question to be yes. You may run Linux on a laptop and Android on a phone, for example. In the same fashion, many experts surveying the cloud computing scene predict that the growing trend toward hybrid cloud deployments will make it extremely popular for enterprises to run many cloud platforms and tools concurrently.

=> ↺ The Open Cloud, Demystified

• In this post, you’ll find several of the best free guides to popular cloud-centric tools, ranging from ownCloud to OpenStack, that can help boost your efficiency. We have updated this collection of documentation with a valuable overall guide to the open cloud platforms that you can choose from, and some brand new guides.

=> ↺ Bexar, Mitaka, Newton: Behind OpenStack release names

• Mitaka is not only the latest release of the OpenStack cloud infrastructure service, it’s also a city in Japan.

=> ↺ OpenStack Mitaka aims to make open source easy-peasy

• The newest release of the OpenStack cloud infrastructure is designed to be easier to install, easier to use and easier to manage.

• That could be big news for CIOs. The cloud platform is delivering flexibility and processing power at lower cost to big-name companies such as AT&T and eBay. But calling for lots of installation, maintenance and development support, OpenStack has come to be known almost as much for its DIY-style complexity as it has for its innovative potential.

=> ↺ OpenStack, SDN, and Container Networking Power Enterprise Cloud at PayPal

• This architecture has four layers. The Infrastructure & Operations layer at the bottom provides computer, storage, and network and is powered by OpenStack. On top of that is the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) layer — the core technology and analytics platform that provides services like messaging, logging, monitoring, analytics, etc. to be leveraged across all PayPal applications. On top of that is the Payments Operating System (POS), which is the foundation for all payments-related microservices and which serves all customer-facing experience through mobile and web apps. Finally, the top layer comprises customer-facing applications.

=> ↺ Lenovo’s Highly-Available OpenStack Enterprise Cloud Platform Practice with EasyStack

• In 2015, the Chinese IT superpower Lenovo chose EasyStack to build an OpenStack-based enterprise cloud platform to carry out their “Internet Strategy”. In six months, this platform has evolved into an enterprise-level OpenStack production environment of over 3000 cores with data growth peaking at 10TB/day. It is expected that by the end of 2016, 20% of the IT system will be migrated onto the Cloud.

=> ↺ SDN, NFV Can Make You Money

=> ↺ NEC/NetCracker’s NFV Platform Dives Into DevOps

• In a world of plentiful OpenStack offerings and NFV orchestrators, NEC/Netcracker looks to differentiate by “filling the gaps” in NFV, for example by providing integration with operations support systems (OSSs) and business support systems (BSSs). The platform also promises to deliver tools that enable technology vendors and service providers to collaborate on application and service design using a DevOps model.

=> ↺ Intel Debuts CIAO for OpenStack Cloud Orchestration [VIDEO]

• The new Go based project is s called CIAO, Cloud Integrated Advanced Orchestrator and is a potential replacement or optional component for existing orchestration in OpenStack

=> ↺ Tech spending priorities to shift with DevOps transition

• IT organizations should get ready to cede some budgetary control to business units, as software — and software developers — become key agents of commerce.

=> ↺ On the Rise: Six Unsung Apache Big Data Projects

• Countless organizations around the world are now working with data sets so large and complex that traditional data processing applications can no longer drive optimized analytics and insights. That’s the problem that the new wave of Big Data applications aims to solve, and the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has recently graduated a slew of interesting open source Big Data projects to Top-Level status. That means that they will get active development and strong community support.

=> ↺ An introduction to data processing with Cassandra and Spark

• So, what is Apache Cassandra? A distributed OLTP database built for high availability and linear scalability. When people ask what Cassandra is used for, think about the type of system you want close to the customer. This is ultimately the system that our users interact with. Applications that must always be available: product catalogs, IoT, medical systems, and mobile applications. In these categories downtime can mean loss of revenue or even more dire outcomes depending on your specific use case. Netflix was one of the earliest adopters of this project, which was open sourced in 2008, and their contributions, along with successes, put it on the radar of the masses.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ Italian Military to Save Up to 29 Million Euro by Migrating to LibreOffice

• Following on last year’s bold announcement that they will attempt to migrate from proprietary Microsoft Office products to an open-source alternative like LibreOffice, Italy’s Ministry of Defense now expects to save up to 29 million Euro with this move.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

=> ↺ Facebook Open Sources Its Hacking Game Platform Capture the Flag (CTF)

• Facebook has open sourced its hacking game platform Facebook Capture the Flag (CTF). Students and schools can take advantage of this platform and host Jeopardy and “King of the Hill” style Capture the Flag competitions. The Facebook CTF platform also takes advantages of Facebook’s other open source initiatives like Flow and HHVM.

=> ↺ Microsoft will deliver open source .Net Core in June

• In an effort to woo non-Windows developers, Microsoft is moving .Net Core, the open source, cross-platform implementation of its .Net programming platform, closer to availability.

=> ↺ Report: Companies in the Dark About Their Open Source Risk Exposure

=> ↺ Microsoft-connected FUD firm

=> ↺ Redis Labs Introduces Module Hub, the Redis Modules Marketplace

BSD

=> ↺ How BSD was built, and how it lost the lead to Linux

• BSD has been eclipsed by the popularity of Linux over the years. But how did BSD get started? And why did Linux overtake and surpass it? Salon has a detailed article that charts the creation of BSD, and why it eventually lost out to Linux.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Estonian finance ministry seeks OSS service provider

• The Estonian Ministry of Finance is looking for a service provider to host, maintain and support its open-source-based portal infrastructure. The framework contract runs for three years and has an estimated value of 300,000 Euro.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ A tip for dealing with the first GSOC weeks.

• No matter if you’re GSoC student in openSUSE, KDE, ownCloud or anywhere else, you’re community bonding period has started. This is not an easy time because starting something new is always hard and this is, in a sense, a new job.

=> ↺ Use Open Source to Hone Your Programming Skills

• How immersing yourself in open source projects can help you improve code quality in your own projects and at work.

=> ↺ BitKeeper’s open source release

• BitKeeper, the inspiration behind Git and Mercurial, has been released under the Apache 2.0 License.

=> ↺ BitKeeper Version Control Released As Open-Source

• Over one decade after the Linux kernel abandoned BitKeeper as their source version control system and years after Git’s continued widespread adoption, BitKeeper has finally been made open-source.

Leftovers

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Happiness and children

• Depression and anxiety are rising rapidly among young people: what’s going on?

=> ↺ All Angles Covered: Is the EU Completely in the Pocket of the Biotech Industry?

• On 9 May, Corporate Europe Observatory posted an article on its website that described how Genius, a lobby consultancy firm based in Germany, has been employed to distort the debate on glyphosate in favour the biotech industry.

• Research linking the use of glyphosate to various diseases is well documented, and the World Health Organisation has declared the substance as “probably causing cancer to humans.” Despite this, the European Commission is seeking to grant glyphosate re-approval for another ten years. The re-authorisation is being sought by the Glyphosate Task Force (GTF), an industry platform uniting producers of glyphosate-based herbicides, whose members include Monsanto, Dow Agrosciences, Syngenta, and Barclay Chemicals. Genius was used to run its website.

=> ↺ The EPA’s Ties to Monsanto Could Be Disastrous for the US

• Conservative politicians love to talk about how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) only issues “job-killing regulations,” especially if they’re taking campaign contributions from fossil fuel billionaires like the Koch brothers or from agrochemical giants like Monsanto.

• Republican Chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee Lamar Smith, for example, has spent years trying to stop the EPA from conducting any real research about climate change or passing any real regulations in general. But apparently it’s true that every once in a while, even a blind mouse finds cheese; it seems like Lamar Smith might actually have a legitimate complaint about an EPA report.

=> ↺ Doctors Agree With Sanders on Universal Health Care

• Sen. Bernie Sanders thinks it should be replaced with a single-payer health plan of the kind Europe and Canada have. This federally administered universal health care program would eliminate copays and deductibles. There’s currently a move afoot in Colorado to have such a plan.

=> ↺ Targeting Big Pharma Price Gouging, Sanders Backs California Ballot Fight

• Backing a citizen-led initiative to combat soaring drugs prices in California, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Tuesday endorsed a ballot proposal designed to curb what he described as a corporate “rip-off” of the state’s sick and vulnerable.

Security

=> ↺ IE and Graphics head Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday critical list

• There’s 15 flaw fixes covering 36 vulnerabilities in this month’s patch bundle from Microsoft.

• Microsoft’s browsers need a lot of work – Internet Explorer gets five fixes and the new Edge code has four. Both applications’ patches have been named as critical by Redmond. There’s also a five-fix bundle for Microsoft’s graphics component and seven flaws found in Windows kernel drivers, mainly for 32-bit versions of the operating system.

=> ↺ Exploits gone wild: Hackers target critical image-processing bug

=> ↺ ImageMagick’s ImageTragick: Exploits Not Yet Widespread

• Part of the reason for this may well be because of the nature of the vulnerability, which requires upload permissions. “These are generally restricted to subscribers and administrators,” Cid notes, “which by design negatively impacts the ability to perform a mass exploit across the web. Additionally, there aren’t that many open-source and public Content Management Systems (CMS) that use ImageMagick by default, which drastically reduces the potential attack surface – something required to see mass attacks.”

=> ↺ GnuTLS 3.5.0

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ The (Il)legality of UK Drone Strikes

• It was reported in The Guardian newspaper today that the UK parliamentary joint committee on human rights was questioning the legal framework underpinning the use of British drone strikes against terrorist suspects.

=> ↺ CIA-NSA Supported Brazilian Coup Back On, Rousseff Ousted Wednesday?

• One day after the Brazilian people breathed a sigh of relief after the lower house impeachment vote was annulled, that decision was unheroically walked back, creating what may become a gory constitutional crisis.

=> ↺ Brazilian Senate set to launch Rousseff impeachment

• Brasilia: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was only hours from possibly being suspended at the start of an impeachment trial Wednesday in a political crisis paralysing Latin America’s largest country.

=> ↺ Brazil Impeachment: Rousseff Appeals To Supreme Court

• Brazil’s President, Dilma Rousseff, has made a last-ditch appeal to stop the impeachment process against her by asking the supreme court to block the proceedings, hours before a crucial Senate vote.

• Ms Rousseff’s lawyers alleged the process is fraught with bias and irregularities but similar attempts have been rejected by the court.

• Ms Rousseff could be suspended for up to 180 days if the Senators vote for a full trial today.

• [...]

• The President is accused of illegally manipulating finances to hide a growing public deficit ahead of her re-election in 2014. She denies all the charges.

=> ↺ Daniel Berrigan’s Enduring Fight for Peace

• As Campaign 2016 almost ignores the vital issues of war and peace – despite the reality of perpetual war – Daniel Berrigan, one of America’s great voices for peace, has gone silent, writes Michael Winship.

=> ↺ President Obama Should Meet A-Bomb Survivors, and Heed Their Call To Ban the Bomb

• President Obama is considering a visit to Hiroshima during the G-7 economic summit in Japan later this month. Hiroshima is an impressively rebuilt, thriving city of a million people. The city was obliterated by the first atomic bomb, dropped by the United States on August 6, 1945, followed by the second bomb that devastated Nagasaki three days later, killing a total of more than 200,000 people.

• Remarkably, many Hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors, are still alive today, though they often suffer from various radiation-caused illnesses or other physical ailments 71 years after the bombs were dropped.

=> ↺ Masters of Mankind: the Costs of Violence

• Obama’s global drone assassination campaign, a remarkable innovation in global terrorism, exhibits the same patterns. By most accounts, it is generating terrorists more rapidly than it is murdering those suspected of someday intending to harm us — an impressive contribution by a constitutional lawyer on the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, which established the basis for the principle of presumption of innocence that is the foundation of civilized law.

=> ↺ Exploiting Global Warming for Geo-Politics

• When a severe drought hit Syria a decade ago, the U.S. government chose not to help but rather exploit the environmental crisis to force a “regime change,” a decision that contributed to a humanitarian crisis, writes Jonathan Marshall.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ After Only Nine Months On The Job, Administration’s New FOIA Boss Calls It Quits

• Depending on where you sit, Holzer was either the perfect pick for FOIA work or the worst.

• For FOIA requesters, Holzer was anything but. His former (and now current) agency has a terrible FOIA track record. That this background would somehow result in his promotion to a position meant to facilitate FOIA requests was inexplicable.

• Unless you’re the White House, in which case, he was the best man for the job.

• This administration doesn’t care much for transparency. Elevating someone from an agency with a history of ineptness and recalcitrance only makes sense — if what you want is for “facilitation” to mean little more than looking busy while status remains quo.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Dangerous New Normal as 400 ppm Carbon Baseline Expected Within Days

• Australian Greens deputy leader Larissa Waters said the landmark ‘should act as a global wake-up call’

=> ↺ The Oil Industry Just Backed Out Of A Multi-Billion Dollar Investment

• ConocoPhillips, ENI, and Iona have relinquished all their leases in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off the coast of Alaska, according to new documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request filed by advocacy group Oceana.

=> ↺ Network Newscasts Ignore Global Warming’s Role in Canada’s Wildfires

• As fast and furious as trailers for a Hollywood disaster movie, network news coverage of the massive fires ripping through Canada’s tar sands hub has missed opportunities to provide real information about the heavily polluting tar sands industry and global warming’s role in adding fuel to the flames.

=> ↺ GPS Tracking Devices Catch Major U.S. Recyclers Exporting Toxic E-Waste

• A two year investigation of electronics recycling using GPS tracking devices has revealed that policies aimed at curtailing the trade in toxic e-waste have been unsuccessful, with nearly one third of the devices being exported to developing countries, where equipment is often dismantled in low-tech workshops — often by children — endangering workers, their families, and contaminating the surrounding environment.

=> ↺ Almost Everything You Know About Climate Change Solutions Is Outdated, Part 1

• Almost everything you know about climate change solutions is outdated, for several reasons.

• First, climate science and climate politics have been moving unexpectedly quickly toward a broad consensus that we need to keep total human-caused global warming as far as possible below 2°C (3.6°F) — and ideally to no more than 1.5°C. This has truly revolutionary implications for climate solutions policy.

=> ↺ Nigeria Oil Well Protest Spotlights ‘Destroyed Livelihoods and Betrayed Hopes’

• Activists in Nigeria gathered at the site of the country’s first oil well on Tuesday as part of the global Break Free movement, to show what happens “when the oil goes dry, and the community is left with the pollution and none of the wealth.”

• Black gold, or oil, was discovered in Oloibiri in 1956 by what was then known as the Shell Darcy corporation—Nigeria’s first commercial oil discovery. The site has since been declared a national monument.

=> ↺ The U.S. Can’t Afford To Keep Losing Honeybees Like This

• On Tuesday, the Bee Informed Partnership released its annual report on total losses of managed honeybees — those kept by beekeepers — across the country. The survey, which asked beekeepers about bee losses between April 2015 and April 2016, showed that U.S. beekeepers lost 44 percent of their colonies in that timeframe. That means that total losses worsened compared to last year’s survey, which reported losses of 42.1 percent.

=> ↺ First Nation Wins Historic Victory Over Mammoth Coal Export Terminal

• In a move being hailed as a landmark victory for the climate movement, Pacific Northwest communities, and tribal members alike, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Monday denied federal permits for the largest proposed coal export terminal in North America.

• “This is big—for our climate, for clean air and water, for our future,” declared Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.

=> ↺ Army Corps Denies Permits for Biggest Proposed Coal Export Terminal in North America

• This is big—for our climate, for clean air and water, for our future. It’s also big because the U.S. government is honoring its treaty obligations. After a five-year struggle that engaged hundreds of thousands of people, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a landmark decision Monday to deny federal permits for the biggest proposed coal export terminal in North America—the SSA Marine’s proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal, a coal export facility at Xwe’chi’eXen (also known as Cherry Point), Washington.

=> ↺ National Parks to Seek Out, Recognize Corporate Funding Under New Plan

• The National Park Service (NPS) is proposing a relaxation on rules governing corporate partnerships in a move that could see parks increasingly commercialized and dependent on the whims of private donors.

• Some park superintendents will be asked to help raise up to $5 million in individual gifts, according to the NPS proposal.

Finance

=> ↺ Panama Papers Source Offers Documents To Governments, Hints At More To Come

• The anonymous whistleblower behind the Panama Papers has conditionally offered to make the documents available to government authorities.

• In a statement issued to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the so-called “John Doe” behind the biggest information leak in history cites the need for better whistleblower protection and has hinted at even more revelations to come.

• Titled “The Revolution Will Be Digitized” the 1800-word statement gives justification for the leak, saying that “income inequality is one of the defining issues of our time” and says that government authorities need to do more to address it.

• Süddeutsche Zeitung has authenticated that the statement came from the Panama Papers source.

=> ↺ ‘The Revolution Will Be Digitized’: Panama Papers Leaker Speaks Out

• No surprise, then, that the Panama Papers whistleblower would really like more legal protection for those who leak information in the public interest. What is more surprising is the anger that permeates this statement, and how well it is articulated. A striking recent development in the world of whistleblowing is the way in which Edward Snowden has become one of the most acute commentators on the digital sphere, as his extended essay “Whistleblowing Is Not Just Leaking — It’s an Act of Political Resistance” underlines. What’s most remarkable — and encouraging — about the Panama Papers whistleblower’s essay is that it indicates we may be about to gain another valuable voice in the same way.

=> ↺ Clinton Commits: No TPP, Fundamentally Rethink Trade Policies

• As reported in The Hill, in “Clinton opposes TPP vote in the lame-duck session,” Clinton replied to a questionnaire from the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, which consists of more than 25 labor, environmental and human rights organizations. When asked, “If elected President, would you oppose holding a vote on the TPP during the ‘lame duck’ session before you take office?” she replied, “I have said I oppose the TPP agreement — and that means before and after the election.”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Government called to answer urgent question on the future of the BBC

• Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs and George Osborne’s evidence to the Treasury committee about the EU referendum

=> ↺ Safe States, Inside-Outside, and Other Liberal Illusions

• Faced with that demoralizing prospect, some Sanders supporters are recycling failed old strategies in an attempt to salvage Sanders’ “political revolution” without opposing the Democratic Party.

=> ↺ The Establishment Rallies Around Kuenssberg

• The petition to sack Tory propagandist Laura Kuenssberg from her role as BBC Political Editor has been scrapped by 38 Degrees after it gained over 35,000 signatures. The reason given is sexist comments and tweets.

=> ↺ Member of BBC Election Night Team Writes Crude Anti-Sturgeon Slogan

• “Professor” Rob Ford of the University of Manchester was a member of Professor John Curtice’s election night results team at the BBC. But he is also a very active anti-Corbyn and anti-SNP propagandist.

• Indeed just the day before the election, which he was covering for the BBC as a “neutral and independent psephological expert”, Ford posted this nasty attack on Nicola Sturgeon. Please note that this is not a retweet – the slogan “All Hail Supreme Dear Leader, Daughter of Great Helmsman Sal-Mon” is all Ford’s own brilliant witticism.

=> ↺ Trump Gave $150,000 To Charity That CNN Head’s Wife Helped Lead

• The donations were for the private school that Trump’s son attends. The candidate and the media mogul have not publicly disclosed the connection.

=> ↺ Sanders Wins West Virginia Primary (And No, It’s Not Inconsequential)

• ‘Regardless of what the mainstream media would like you to believe, these victories matter.’

• [...]

• Though the mainstream and corporate media continue to push a narrative suggesting the race for Democratic nomination is essentially over, polling released in the last twenty-four hours shows that Sanders continues to do better nationally in a hypothetical general-election matchup against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

• Karli Wallace Thompson, a campaign manager for Democracy for America, an advocacy group backing Sanders’ campaign, said Tuesday’s win in West Virginia should not be downplayed.

• “Regardless of what the mainstream media would like you to believe, these victories matter,” said Thompson, “and not just because each win gets us closer to overtaking Hillary Clinton in the delegate count.”

• Sanders’ latest victories matter, argues Thompson, “because they send a clear message to the Democratic Party that we refuse to give up on our values. Now that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, some pro-corporate Democrats are sensing an opportunity to move the party even further to the right in order to win the votes of ‘Never Trump’ voters. They’re ignoring the fact that modern presidential elections are always won by candidates who motivate their base and speak to their values.”

=> ↺ Ralph Nader: Sanders Should Stay in Democratic Race, Is Only Losing Due to Anti-Democratic System

• Polls have opened in West Virginia, where Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are vying for the 29 delegates up for grabs. Eight years ago, Clinton won West Virginia in a landslide, beating Barack Obama by 40 percentage points—but many polls project Sanders will win today. We speak to longtime consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who argues that Sanders would be winning the primary race if every state had open primaries.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Censoring the news isn’t Facebook’s only threat to democracy

• Facebook’s denials that it routinely suppressed trending conservative news stories and reports from right-leaning media, as reported by Gizmodo, are lame, as are its supposed “rigorous guidelines” the company insists “do not permit the suppression of political perspectives.”

• What’s more, the social-media giant doesn’t seem to understand just how serious a threat it poses to the political process.

• To recap: After interviewing several former so-called “news curators,” responsible for Facebook’s trending news section, Gizmodo says that the social-media platform decided to ignore some stories about conservative topics that had actually generated a lot of discussion among users.

=> ↺ ‘One-Sided Neutrality’: Facebook Suppression of Conservative News is Part of Censorship Pattern, NRB Says

• Revelations that Facebook regularly suppresses conservative news websites from its trending section is just the latest example of a pattern of censorship by the social media behemoth, according Dr. Jerry A. Johnson, President & CEO of National Religious Broadcasters.

• “It’s time for Facebook to face the facts,” Johnson said in response to a May 9 report that former Facebook staff said the company regularly suppresses conservative news sources. “Social media users expect a level playing field and are tired of Facebook’s one-sided neutrality. For some time, Facebook has shut down conservative pages or censored their comments. Now Facebook is caught burying conservative news stories and puffing liberal ones. Facebook must change if they want our trust and our participation on their platform.”

• Gizmodo, a technology blog, quoted anonymously several former Facebook employees — “news curators” — that the social media company manipulated the use of its algorithm. Employees both “routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers,” according to one of its former journalists, and were instructed to artificially “inject” stories that were favored by Facebook management, known for its liberal positions on cultural issues.

=> ↺ Facebook Denies Anti-Conservative Bias, Censorship

=> ↺ Top Senate Republican calls on Facebook to respond to censorship accusations

• A top Senate Republican is calling on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to explain how the social media site curates its “Trending” news topics after a news story suggested the site routinely suppressed conservative stories or outlets.

• In the letter, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, said Facebook must answer questions about the ways in which it handles news content.

=> ↺ Ahead of Methodist Divestment Vote, Clinton Denounces BDS Movement (Again)

• Meanwhile, in a ‘clearly political’ escalation, Israel on Tuesday refused to issue a travel permit to BDS movement co-founder Omar Barghouti

=> ↺ Netflix confuses Indonesian censorship agency

• The Movie Censorship Agency ( LSF ) has admitted to being confused about censoring content on US-based streaming movie provider Netflix, because of a legal basis of obsolete regulations.

• The 2009 Law on Film Censorship only mentions imported movies as an object of censorship policy. Netflix is at ambiguous case, as it does not run a movie importing business, said LSF chairman Ahmad Yani Basuki.

=> ↺ HBO Accused of YouTube Censorship on Game of Thrones Spoilers

=> ↺ HBO May Have Finally Stopped Those New ‘Game Of Thrones’ Leaks

=> ↺ Can you get kicked off YouTube for spoiling Game of Thrones?

=> ↺ Facebook’s bias could very well open it up to litigations around the world

=> ↺ Senator seeks Mark Zuckerberg’s response to reports of Facebook political news bias

=> ↺ GOP Questions Alleged Facebook Political Bias

=> ↺ Is news censorship trending on Facebook?

=> ↺ Senator Slams Facebook Over Alleged Suppression Of Conservative News

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Hackers Attempt to Hold Capitol Hill Data for Ransom

• The House is under attack by hackers hoping to infiltrate congressional computers, encrypt their contents, and then force users to pay a ransom to get their access back.

• “In the past 48 hours, the House Information Security Office has seen an increase of attacks on the House Network using third party, web-based mail applications such as YahooMail, Gmail,” the House’s Technology Service Desk wrote in an email to House staffers on April 30.

• According to the email obtained by The Intercept, the hacked emails impersonate familiar people and invite staffers to download an attachment laced with malware—what’s known as a “phishing” attack.

=> ↺ Lauri Love and the potential civil law “backdoor” for obtaining encryption keys

• Today’s decision: Today the presiding judge District Judge Tempia will make a decision on whether Lauri Love be “directed” at this stage to provide an encryption key as part of the civil claim, and before the trial.

• This is because the National Crime Agency, the “defendant” in this claim, is insisting that the key be handed over before the application be tried and a decision made to return the equipment.

=> ↺ British Hacker Wins Court Battle Over Encryption Keys

• A British court on Tuesday rejected an attempt by security agents to force an alleged hacker to hand over his encryption keys.

• Thirty-one-year-old Lauri Love has been accused by U.S. authorities of hacking into U.S. government networks between 2012 and 2013, including those of the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and NASA.

=> ↺ The US Person Back Door Search Number DOJ Could Publish Immediately

• The Senate Judiciary Committee had a first public hearing on Section 702 today, about which I’ll have several posts.

• One piece of good news, however, is that both some of the witnesses (Liza Goitein and David Medine; Ken Wainstein, Matt Olsen, and Rachel Brand were the other witnesses) and some of the Senators supported more transparency, including requiring the FBI to provide a count of how many US person queries of 702-collected data it does, as well as a count of how many US persons get sucked up by Section 702 more generally.

=> ↺ Next NSA Fight Begins With Semantics: ‘Backdoor Search’ or ‘U.S. Person Query’?

• The practice is on the chopping block as lawmakers consider reauthorization of a pre-Snowden surveillance law.

=> ↺ The Next Big Surveillance Debate Has Arrived

=> ↺ Madison at Fort Meade: Checks, Balances, and the NSA

=> ↺ Privacy Advocate Tells Lawmakers Surveillance of Americans ‘Has Exploded’ Under Expiring FISA Law

• Lawmakers, privacy advocates and members of the intelligence community convened on Capitol Hill Tuesday to debate the renewal of the most divisive surveillance authority since the National Security Agency’s phone metadata program, potentially capable of sweeping up the communications of millions of Americans.

=> ↺ Edward Snowden says this one thing would save more lives than any NSA surveillance program

• On May 10, experts are gathering before the US Senate to debate a few of the NSA’s most robust internet surveillance programs.

=> ↺ Snowden: I had a ‘minor’ role in the NSA leak

• Edward Snowden said he is “staggered” by the reaction to his 2013 leak of National Security Agency documents detailing the extent of American government surveillance, and sees himself as having played a minor role in the revelation which shocked the defense community and continues to reverberate in Washington.

• “I’m really optimistic about how things have gone, and I’m staggered by how much more impact there’s been as a result of these revelations than I initially presumed,” Snowden told the Columbia Journalism Review. “I’m famous for telling [former Guardian editor-in-chief] Alan Rusbridger that it would be a three-day story. You’re sort of alluding to this idea that people don’t really care, or that nothing has really changed. We’ve heard this in a number of different ways, but I think it actually has changed in a substantial way.”

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Security researcher arrested for disclosing US election website vulnerabilities

• David Levin was later released on a $15,000 bond after reporting the SQL vulnerabilities.

=> ↺ David Cameron Is Absolutely Right!

• Of course when the Tories describe somewhere as “fantastically corrupt”, they mean “brilliant personal enrichment opportunity for me.” And not just the Tories. Tony Blair will be in there like a shot.

=> ↺ Airline Pilots Should Not Have to Choose Between Their Jobs and Breastfeeding Their Babies

• I’m a commercial airline pilot, and I love my job. As a kid, I was obsessed with airplanes. My parents encouraged my passion for flying, and in spite of the odds — women currently make up only six percent of commercial pilots — I became a pilot.

=> ↺ Striking Prisoners in Alabama Accuse Officials of Using Food as Weapon

• Alabama prisoners who have been on strike for 10 days over unpaid labor and prison conditions are accusing officials of retaliating against their protest by starving them. The coordinated strike started on May 1, International Workers’ Day, when prisoners at the Holman and Elmore facilities refused to report to their prison jobs and has since expanded to Staton, St. Clair, and Donaldson’s facilities, according to organizers with the Free Alabama Movement, a network of prison activists.

=> ↺ From a non-Jewish Left-Zionist: an open letter to Ken Livingstone

• It is, also, intellectually offensive to suggest that because they advocated transfer before ‘going mad’ and opting instead for genocide, the Nazis were Zionists. Peter Beaumont has already amply illustrated the crassness of this fallacious equation of agency and intention so I will let the case rest with him. Suffice it to say that a more ludicrous reading of Nazi anti-Semitism it is hard to imagine. But then, your piece of radio sophistry was not meant to illuminate history, rather to damn Zionism by innuendo.

=> ↺ Farm Workers Sue Over Labor Rights in Landmark Case for ‘Dignity and Humanity’

• Farm workers have sued New York for the right to organize in a groundbreaking lawsuit that demands they receive the same rights as “virtually every other worker,” the New York chapter of the ACLU said on Tuesday.

• The lawsuit claims that laborers are being forced to work in “life-threatening, sweatshop-like conditions” and are prevented from organizing under threat of retaliation.

• It also charges that the State Employment Relations Act is part of a Depression-era measure meant to enact protections for workers but which excluded farm workers, who were majority black at the time, to accommodate segregationist policies of racist Congress members. That exclusion has held, impacting laborers who are now largely Central American and Mexican immigrants, the lawsuit states.

=> ↺ ‘Days of Revolt’: Chris Hedges, Israeli Peace Activist Miko Peled Discuss the Devolution of Israel

• On this week’s episode of “Days of Revolt,” Truthdig’s own Chris Hedges sits down with Miko Peled, a Israeli peace activist and author of “The General’s Son: The Journey of an Israeli in Palestine.” The two discuss current events in Israel and Palestine, looking back on decades of ethnic cleansing and apartheid.

• Peled, who was born in Jerusalem, notes that while past generations of Israeli politicians presented a civil facade while committing atrocities, current figures like Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett “don’t understand why they have to pretend, because they’re getting all the money and all the support they need from America and from the Europeans.”

=> ↺ Detroit Teachers Are Determined To Stop This Legislation. Here’s Why.

• Detroit teachers are organizing to prevent a bill from passing the state legislature that they say would underfund schools and limit teachers’ rights.

• There are two competing bills in the legislature aimed at resolving Detroit Public Schools’ current financial mess. The school system was at risk of going bankrupt because school officials said the district was “running out of money” in April, but the state provided $48.7 million in emergency funding to keep the district running. Now, as the end of the school year approaches, there are questions about long-term solutions.

=> ↺ Why Teachers Matter in Dark Times

• Americans live in a historical moment that annihilates thought. Ignorance now provides a sense of community; the brain has migrated to the dark pit of the spectacle; the only discourse that matters is about business; poverty is now viewed as a technical problem; thought chases after an emotion that can obliterate it. The presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee, Donald Trump, declares he likes “the uneducated” — implying that it is better that they stay ignorant than be critically engaged agents — and boasts that he doesn’t read books. Fox News offers no apologies for suggesting that thinking is an act of stupidity.

=> ↺ Louisiana is Number One… in Incarceration

• Louisiana first became number 1 in the nation in 2005 when it was imprisoning 36,083 people. Louisiana remained number 1, in 2010 with 35,207 in prison, an incarceration rate of 867 per 100,000 people, over 200 points head of the next highest state Mississippi.

=> ↺ Interview: Singapore blogger Amos Yee on press freedom, feminism, and protest

• If he arrests me, the entire world, the press and all that [would] know, it’ll highlight a lot of flaws like what happened with the Lee Kuan Yew video. If they don’t arrest me, then I make even more videos that criticise them and break even more laws. It’s a pretty good position I’m in.

Intellectual Monopolies

Trademarks

=> ↺ Budweiser Is Making a Truly Ridiculous Name Change

• According to AdAge, which has confirmed with company officials, 12-ounce cans and bottles of Budweiser—owned by a company based in Belgium—will now bear the brand name America. You can look for the change as of May 23, and expect it to last straight through summer, aka “the high beer season.” But it won’t end there! The new look will stretch onward through the election season, because why not make your rebranding as ridiculous as our presidential campaign has been.

=> ↺ ‘Make Amerikkka Great Again’ trademark application filed

• A trademark application has been filed for the term ‘Make Amerikkka Great Again’, in what appears to be a dig at US presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s campaign slogan.

• The trademark was applied for on March 30 at the US Patent and Trademark Office by a company based in Los Angeles called 47 / 72 Inc.

• The slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ has been used in Trump’s campaign. The term is also a registered trademark owned by Trump and covers political campaigns as well as hats and t-shirts.

=> ↺ Facebook wins trademark dispute in China

• A Chinese court has ruled in favour of Facebook in a trademark dispute centring on the transliteration of the term ‘face book’.

• The Beijing Higher People’s Court backed the social media website in its dispute with Zhujiang Beverage, based in Zhongshan.

• Zhujiang sells products including milk-flavoured drinks and porridge.

=> ↺ Minnesota’s Broad Publicity Rights Law, The PRINCE Act, So Broad That It May Violate Itself

• We’ve written many posts on the area of so-called “publicity rights” laws. These are state laws that try to create a newish form of intellectual property around someone’s “likeness” or other identifying features. A few years ago, Eriq Gardner wrote the definitive piece detailing the rise of publicity rights as a new way to try to lock down “protections” for things that don’t really need to be protected. The initial intent behind many of these laws was to avoid a situation where there was a false endorsement — basically to stop someone from putting an image or likeness of a famous person in an ad to imply support. But the law has (not surprisingly) expanded over time, and there have been many, many crazy battles over publicity rights — including ones concerning Marilyn Monroe, Manuel Noriega, Katherine Heigl, Lindsay Lohan, Lindsay Lohan and Lindsay Lohan.

=> ↺ Minnesota Legislators Go Crazy, Pushing Dangerous PRINCE Act

• Just a few weeks after his death, some Minnesota legislators are using Prince’s name to ram through a dangerous publicity rights law that will give his heirs – and the heirs of any other Minnesotan – broad and indefinite rights to shut down all kind of legitimate speech and activities in perpetuity.

Copyrights

=> ↺ EFF at Copyright Office Roundtable Thursday and Friday in San Francisco

• On Thursday and Friday, May 12-13, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Legal Director Corynne McSherry will participate in public roundtable discussions about the effectiveness of safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) at the United States Ninth Circuit James R. Browning Courthouse in San Francisco. The discussions are hosted by the U.S. Copyright Office, which is studying how the provisions impact copyright owners, internet service providers (ISPs) and users—including the ongoing problem of takedown abuse.

=> ↺ Judge Says Copyright Case Against Star Trek Fan Film Can ‘Live Long’ And Possibly ‘Prosper’

• Just yesterday we filled you in on the latest in the copyright fight over a professional-level “fan film” in the Star Trek universe, dubbed “Axanar” (along with a short film “Prelude to Axanar.”) The makers of that film tried to get the case dismissed, arguing that Paramount Pictures and CBS failed to state an actual claim of copyright infringement. Specifically, they were arguing that Paramount/CBS highlighted a bunch of things related to Star Trek, some of which they may hold a joint copyright over, but failed to state what specific copyright-covered work the Axanar productions were infringing. And, of course, there was a side note in all of this that one of the many things that Paramount and CBS tossed against the wall claiming copyright was the Klingon language itself.

• This morning, the court released two short rulings, with the first one dumping the amicus filing over whether or not there was a copyright in the Klingon language. That one was short and sweet and just said that at this stage of the game the court has no reason to explore whether or not languages can be covered by copyright and “therefore, none of the information provided by Amicus is necessary to dispose of the Motion to dismiss.”

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