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● Links 28/1/2022: LSFMM 2022 and 2021 UI Study Results From Elementary’s Distro

Posted in News Roundup at 8:16 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Kernel Space

=> ↺ LSF/MM/BPF: 2022: Call for Proposals

=> ↺ LSFMM 2022 call for proposals [LWN.net]

• The Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit is scheduled for May 2 to 4 in Palm Springs, California; with luck it will actually happen this year. As usual, it is an invitation-only event, with a preference for those who bring interesting topics to discuss. The call for proposals is out now, with a request for proposals to arrive before March 1.

=> ↺ Linus Torvald Confesses: Is the Father of Linux also the Father of Bitcoin?

• Linux creator Linus Torvald seems to be claiming that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the father of Bitcoin. Is he joking or is this the real deal?

• This is how the drama started. Torvalds modified a single line in the Linux Kernel, which has left everyone in a spin. The modification says ‘Name = I am Satoshi.’

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Reverse Engineering & Open-Source Driver Work Advancing For Arm’s Valhall GPU

• The Arm Mali Valhall architecture reverse-engineering started last summer and while limited in the reverse engineering capabilities for several months, it looks like by this summer we’ll hopefully see a working driver for Arm’s newer graphics IP.

• Alyssa Rosenzweig who has spearheaded the Panfrost driver effort wrote a new blog post detailing the months-long effort so far for reverse-engineering Arm “Valhall” GPUs (Mali G57 and G78) with the goal of having a working open-source driver stack just as there is for prior Mali graphics hardware on Linux.

=> ↺ Speeding up open-source GPU driver development with unit tests, drm-shim, and code reuse – CNX Software

• Getting an Arm platform that works with mainline Linux may take several years as the work is often done by third parties, and the silicon vendor has its own Linux tree. That means in many cases, the software is ready when the platform is obsolete or soon will be. It would be nice to start software development before the hardware is ready. It may seem like a crazy idea, but that’s what the team at Collabora has done to add support for Arm “Valhall” GPUs…

Benchmarks

=> ↺ WEKA dominates new SPECsolution 2020 benchmark tests – Blocks and Files

• The Supermicro configuration used 22 SK hynix 7.68TB NVMe drives attached via PCIe 4 to a SYS0-220U-TNR all-flash SuperServer with 40 Xeon cores. The system ran RHEL v8.3.

Applications

=> ↺ Software Privacy Day: Use Delta Chat, an open source chat tool | Opensource.com

• It’s Software Privacy Day again, the day meant to encourage users everywhere to spare a thought about where their data actually goes when it’s posted on, over, or through the Internet. One of the cottage industries around Internet communication that seems to ebb and flow in popularity is the venerable chat application. People use chat applications for all manner of conversations, and most people don’t think about what bots are recording and monitoring what’s being said, whether it’s to effectively target ads or just to build a profile for future use. This makes chat applications particularly vulnerable to poor privacy practices, but luckily there are several open source, privacy-focused apps out there, including Signal, Rocket.Chat, and Mattermost. I’ve run Mattermost and Rocket.Chat, and I use Signal, but the application I’m most excited about is Delta Chat, the chat service that’s so hands-off it doesn’t even use chat servers. Instead, Delta Chat uses the most massive and diverse open messaging system you already use yourself. It uses email to send and receive messages through a chat application, and it features end-to-end encryption with Autocrypt.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Install Anaconda Navigator Graphical Interface in centos 8

• In this article we will Install Anaconda Navigator Graphical Interface in centos 8. Anaconda is a widely-used, open-source distribution of the Python programming language. It aids in the processing of large-scale data, scientific computations, and predictive analysis. Anaconda comes with over 250 data science packages. Also, the Anaconda repository contains many open-source packages whose prerequisite is Anaconda.

• If you are working on any machine learning or data science project then this is a great environment to use. It consists of many useful python and R libraries that you might require in your project.

=> ↺ How to set PassivePortRange and PassiveIP in pure-ftpd on Ubuntu to secure the app! – Unix / Linux the admins Tutorials

• Hi guys, We will talk about setting PassivePortRange and PassiveIP in pure-ftpd.

• If you run a firewall on your Linux server and want to use passive FTP connections, you have to define the passive port range in pure-ftpd .

• The following example is for pure-ftpd on Ubuntu and ISPConfig 3.

=> ↺ How to Install Apache ServiceMix on CentOS 8

• In this article we will learn How to Install Apache ServiceMix on CentOS 8. Apache ServiceMix is a runtime container for service-oriented architecture components, web services or legacy system connectivity services. Apache ServiceMix is an enterprise open-source distributed enterprise service bus (ESB) based on the SOA model released under the Apache license. It is one of the most mature, open-source implementations of an enterprise service bus and an Apache top-level project. Apache ServiceMix provides an OSGi container in which we can run, configure and manage Camel and ActiveMQ instances and you can explore the other services that it can provide.

=> ↺ Install Java 8 on CentOS 8s

• Hi Guys, In this guide, we’ll show you how to install Oracle’s Java 8 programming language on CentOS 8 .

• It’s an object-oriented language used for many of the applications and websites you come across today.

=> ↺ How to install IMVU on a Chromebook with Crossover

• Today we are looking at how to install IMVU on a Chromebook with Crossover 21. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

=> ↺ 5 Ways to Improve Linux User Account Security

• The first and most crucial step towards securing Linux servers and systems is preventing malicious parties from unrequired access. Proper user account control is one of the many ways to enhance your system’s security.

• A hardened user account prevents the system from the most common attack methods of horizontal or vertical privilege escalation. Hence, as a Linux system administrator, you are also responsible for protecting your server via effective security techniques.

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ Emulate the TRS-80 home computer with Linux

• Emulation is the practice of using a program (called an emulator) on a PC to mimic the behaviour of a home computer or a video game console, in order to play (usually retro) games on a computer.

• Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single non-technical user.

Games

=> ↺ Vampire Survivors is a sleeper hit on Steam, Linux version planned

• Those who have checked social media within the past few weeks or so may have heard people discussing a game called Vampire Survivors. When it first came out on Steam last December, Vampire Survivors did not gain much attention from the gaming public. However, the game’s popularity began to surge dramatically this month. It amassed around 1,000 simultaneous players come January 6, and just today, it managed to reach a 24-hour peak of over 35,000 concurrent players. At least partially thanks to the game’s low price of $2.99 USD on Steam, Vampire Survivors has become the next surprise hit on the platform, to the point where the developers plan on porting the game over to both Mac and Linux in the near future.

=> ↺ ‘Welcome To Elk’ arrives on Switch and Linux next month

• The narrative indie game Welcome To Elk is launching on Nintendo Switch globally on February 10. You can pre-order the game now on the eShop for a 20% discount, which will be available until February 17. It will launch alongside the Linux release of the game, both costing £11.39.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ 2021 UI Study Results ⋅ elementary Blog

• Over the past couple of months we’ve conducted a user interface study to dig into how people multi-task on elementary OS as well as other desktop and tablet operating systems. In particular, we were interested in better learning how people use the dock, app launchers, and window management.

• As we continue to iterate on the core experience of elementary OS, we are also aware of newer technologies like Wayland that we’re actively adopting to improve privacy, security, and performance—but doing so requires reworking some components like the dock and window manager to use new protocols and APIs. As long as we’re reworking some of these technical bits, it could be advantageous to rethink and improve upon the experience itself—plus, we can ensure we’re not writing new code to support legacy designs just because that’s how things worked in the past.

• If that all sounds a bit ambitious… it kind of is! However, we’ve previously worked on a similar study around theming, dark styles, and night light modes that directly resulted in our implementation of a system-wide dark style as well as accent colors in elementary OS—and our advocacy in that realm helped influence GNOME’s adoption of a cross-desktop dark style that will work on both GNOME and elementary OS. That work has been years in the making, but the pay-off is well worth it.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ KDE Plasma 5.24 Will Be the Next LTS Release Receiving Support Until KDE Plasma 6

• KDE Plasma 5.24 (currently in public beta testing) is set to be the next LTS release of the acclaimed and widely used desktop environment for GNU/Linux distributions, replacing the KDE Plasma 5.18 LTS series, which reached end of life in October 2021.

• Set to arrive on February 8th, 2022, two years after the release of Plasma 5.18 LTS, the Plasma 5.24 LTS series promises cool new features like support for fingerprint readers to unlock the screen or authenticate in apps that require administration password or with sudo on the command-line.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Sharing the computer screen in Gnome – Fedora Magazine

• You do not want someone else to be able to monitor or even control your computer and you usually work hard to cut off any such attempts using various security mechanisms. However, sometimes a situation occurs when you desperately need a friend, or an expert, to help you with a computer problem, but they are not at the same location at the same time. How do you show them? Should you take your mobile phone, take pictures of your screen, and send it to them? Should you record a video? Certainly not. You can share your screen with them and possibly let them control your computer remotely for a while. In this article, I will describe how to allow sharing the computer screen in Gnome.

Distributions

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ tzdata, the time zone database for RHEL: 2021 update | Red Hat Developer

• The past year—particularly the second half of 2021—was a busy one for the Time Zone Database (tzdata) project, which provides Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with data specific to the local time zone. Project contributors engaged in lively discussion over how to treat historical time zone data, and changes in some countries’ daylight saving time (DST) start and end dates—including one announced with less than two weeks’ notice—kept the maintainers busy.

• The tzdata package contains the data files documenting both current and historic transitions for various time zones around the world. This data represents changes required by local government bodies or by time zone boundary changes, as well as changes to UTC offsets and DST. The GNU C Library (glibc) uses the tzdata package in order to make APIs such as strftime() work correctly, while applications such as /usr/bin/date make use of this information to print the local date.

• 2021 began slowly with the January release of the update tzdata 2021a, which supported time zone changes in South Sudan. However, over the subsequent months, significant changes were introduced upstream that combined or merged time zones and resulted in a lot of controversy.

=> ↺ Leading your financial services organization into the future: 8 lessons

• Hindsight is a gift, but it can also be frustrating. Often, you could have done things in different, maybe better, ways. For this article series, we asked IT and business leaders from financial services organizations who now work at Red Hat to share insights for leaders in financial services.

• No one could have predicted the events of 2020 and 2021. While there is no crystal ball to know what will happen in the future, we can learn from each other and benefit from the experience of others.

=> ↺ Congratulations to the 2022 Opensource.com Community Award recipients

• Many journeys into open source start with community interactions. Code is an important contribution, but so is sharing knowledge. The community knowledge base is often a person’s first exposure to a project.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Proposed deprecation of the Canonical partner archive

=> ↺ Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Looks To Drop Its Partner Archive In Favor Of The Snap Store – Phoronix

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS will likely do away with the Ubuntu/Canonical Partner Archive where their software partners could upload select proprietary/binary-only software for easy access by Ubuntu users.

• The Ubuntu Partner Archive has been where various extra software packages have been offered that may be proprietary software but blessed by Canonical and with significant user interest. Past examples include the likes of the Google Cloud SDK, Adobe Flash, TI Keystone HPC, the VMware view client, and other components.

=> ↺ Understanding bare metal Kubernetes | Ubuntu

• Bare metal Kubernetes is a powerful set of technologies that builds on the best ideas behind the public and private cloud, yet abstracts away some toilsome aspects related to virtualisation management and networking. For operators and users, it provides significant benefits, making it easier and faster to ship and maintain complex, distributed applications.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Vu Premium 32 Smart TV With Linux OS, 20W Speakers Launched in India: Price, Specifications | Technology News

• Vu Premium 32 Smart TV launched in India as the latest television offering from the company. The new Vu television is available in a single 32-inch size option and is powered by a 64-bit quad-core processor. Vu Premium 32 Smart TV sports a 60Hz refresh rate display with up to 500 nits of peak brightness. The new model is equipped with two speakers with 20W total output and comes with Dolby Audio support. It comes with DTS TruSurround audio technology as well. The Vu TV runs on Linux operating system. Vu’s Smart Remote features OTT keys and the Smart TV supports the discovery and launch (DIAL) from YouTube and Netflix allowing people to launch media apps to the TV from primary devices.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Indian govt looking to break dominance of Android, iOS; to facilitate homegrown OS, Technology News | wionews.com

=> ↺ Google has failed us with Android updates – Phandroid

=> ↺ How to Block Texts on Android: 4 Ways

=> ↺ How to Stream Torrent Files Without Downloading on Android

=> ↺ Unlocked Galaxy Z Flip, Galaxy Fold get Android 12 update in the US – SamMobile

=> ↺ Android 12 Update Rolling Out To Unlocked Galaxy Z Flip & Galaxy Fold

=> ↺ Magisk v24 hits beta with Android 12 support

=> ↺ Nvidia’s latest hotfix for Android 11 on Shield TVs restores your Plex server

=> ↺ Motorola MA1 hands-on: Dead simple wireless Android Auto – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Android Automotive apps look different from car-to-car – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Top 10 Best Android Apps For Winter Olympic Games – 2022

=> ↺ 42 ways Google Assistant can make you more efficient on Android | Computerworld

=> ↺ Google believes ‘Android Tablets’ are ‘future of computing’ – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Google to invest over $700 Mn in Airtel to boost Android adoption

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 11.5a3 (Android)

• Tor Browser 11.5a3 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

• This version includes important security updates to Firefox.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Prefer to change the code rather than write a workaround

• I can’t count how many times I’ve heard programmers talking about writing some new piece of code to work around the behavior of some other code which they don’t want to change. You are a programmer – you are allowed to change code! In fact, it’s your job! Just change the code to do what you want! Fix the bug! Change the behavior! Add the feature!

=> ↺ The Roots project: Implementing culturally responsive computing teaching in schools in England

Leftovers

=> ↺ The Irony of Fate

• “A poem is never finished,” wrote Paul Valéry. “[I]t is only an accident that puts a stop to it—i.e., gives it to the public.” Sometimes that accident is death, but, as Valéry himself knew, having left behind some 28,000 pages of notebooks when he died in 1945, there are many ways for a poet to be posthumous, just as there is more than one way for a poem to go unfinished. One can be almost entirely posthumous like Emily Dickinson, who published only 10 poems in her lifetime, or like Isidore Ducasse, whose career as the Comte de Lautréamont, author of Les Chants de Maldoror, which had been read by only a handful of people, was cut short at the age of 24 during the Siege of Paris. One can be partially posthumous like Fernando Pessoa and Robert Walser, whose unpublished writings, discovered in a trunk and a few shoeboxes after their respective deaths, were major enough to occasion significant reevaluations of their literary output.

=> ↺ All she wanted was a photo of the new-born babies and asked that István and Tamás love the twins

=> ↺ The Old Internet Shows Signs of Quietly Coming Back

• Old Computer Websites that are original and creative expressions of their creators’ personalities were the foundation of the early 1990′s Internet. In this article, I will use this as the definition of the term “old Internet”, not to imply that these websites are passe, but because their purpose and sometimes even their look has not changed since then. Although the old Internet will not replace the Internet we have today, signs point to it growing in size and visiblity as Internet users become increasingly disillusioned with the corporate-run shopping mall that today’s Internet has become.

=> ↺ Kinetic Art Installation Brings All The World’s Lightning To One Place | Hackaday

• Lightning is a force to be reckoned with: ever since ancient times, humans have been in awe of the lethal power of lightning strikes and the deafening roar of thunder. Quite reasonably, they ascribed these events to acts of angry gods; today, modern science provides a more down-to-earth explanation of the physics involved, and a world-wide network of sensors generates a real-time record of lightning strikes around the globe.

• [...]

• We’ve seen several types of lightning detectors, usually based on a standard radio receiver or a specialized chip. If you’re interested in growing your own piezo crystals, we’ve covered that too.

Science

=> ↺ That’s No Moon… It’s An Algae Robot | Hackaday

• When you think of a robot, you probably don’t think of a ball of underwater algae. But a team of university researchers used a 3D-printed exoskeleton and a ball of marimo algae to produce a moving underwater sensor platform. It is really at a proof-of-concept stage, but it seems as though it would be possible to make practical use of the technology.

• Marimo are relatively rare balls of algae that occur in some parts of the world. A robot powered by algae runs on sunlight and could be electromagnetically quiet.

Hardware

=> ↺ MediaTek Kompanio 1380 Cortex-A78/55 processor is designed for premium Chromebooks – CNX Software

• MediaTek Kompanio 1380 is a 6nm octa-core Cortex-A78/A55 processor clocked at up to 3.0 GHz designed for premium Chromebooks such as the new Acer Chromebook Spin 513 (CP513-2H), which will compete against the company’s Snapdragon 7c based Chromebook Spin 513 (CP513-1H).

• The processor supports LPDDR4x memory, UFS and eMMC storage, up to three displays, for example, the main display plus two external HDMI displays, WiFI 6/6E, and offers high-performance interfaces such as PCIe Gen 3 and USB 3.2 Gen 1.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Political Leaders Use “Personal Responsibility” to Justify Needless COVID Deaths

=> ↺ Progressives to Biden: Force Pharma to Share Vaccine Recipes Globally

• Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Wednesday pushed President Joe Biden to “use all legal tools” at his disposal to force U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies to share their closely guarded coronavirus vaccine recipes with the world, warning that not doing so will all but ensure the emergence of new variants.

• “As new data emerges about the quickly spreading Omicron variant, we know that the longer the global pandemic is allowed to run rampant, new, more virulent variants will continue to threaten health and economic wellbeing across the planet,” 30 CPC members wrote in a letter to Biden. “As the United States quickly approaches 800,000 pandemic deaths with roughly 1,000 deaths continuing daily, we fear the Covid-19 pandemic that has produced nearly 5.5 million deaths globally will continue ravaging the globe if inequity and apathy prevail.”

=> ↺ It’s Time to Expand the COVID-19 Exception to All American Health Care

• For example, the Biden administration is now taking action—albeit a year late—to ensure that Americans have a small measure of access to COVID-19 rapid antigen at-home test kits. Without requiring congressional approval, the government launched a centralized and straightforward website for people to order free antigen testing kits. The site is stunningly easy to use, does not require any other information besides a name and address, and relies on the U.S. Postal Service for distribution.

• That effort came on the heels of an announcement that private health insurance companies would now be required to reimburse their patients for the cost of such tests purchased out-of-pocket.

=> ↺ The US Needs to Start “Winning” Again

• That isn’t something that the US has done recently, despite getting rid of a deeply corrupt, narcissistic sociopath a year ago.

• Deaths from the pandemic have reached over 865,000, highlighting the government’s inability to protect its own people. Yet the US media will still criticize China to no end, even in how they handled the pandemic, despite China having almost the lowest per-capita Covid case rate in the world.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ CVE-2022-23968: Xerox vulnerability allows unauthenticated users to remotely brick network printers

• I never got to test my idea as I was hasty in the coding stage and unwittingly attempted to test the daemon with a valid multi-page TIFF container, but one where the TIFF Image Directory wasn’t correctly finalized (the pages within the TIFF were incomplete). Imagine my surprise – and anguish – when I discovered that the payload would – seemingly permanently – brick the network-attached printer! Here are the details of what happens: [...]

Security

=> ↺ PwnKit: Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability Discovered in polkit’s pkexec (CVE-2021-4034)

• Polkit (formerly PolicyKit) is a component for controlling system-wide privileges in Unix-like operating systems. It provides an organized way for non-privileged processes to communicate with privileged processes. It is also possible to use polkit to execute commands with elevated privileges using the command pkexec followed by the command intended to be executed (with root permission).

=> ↺ More stolen personal data is available online than ever before. A man who once ran a website that prosecutors called the Amazon of stolen identity information offers his tips on the best ways to protect your data.

• Ngô Minh Hiếu was once a fearsome hacker who spent 7 1/2 years incarcerated in the U.S. for running an online store that sold the personal information of about 200 million Americans. Since leaving prison, Hiếu has become a so-called white hat hacker, attempting to protect the world from the sorts of cybercriminals he once was.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Facial recognition and police records: European biometric systems to be expanded

• A new Prüm system will make it possible to query facial images across Europe in the future, and a central biometric EU repository will also be connected to it

=> ↺ #NoPlaceToHide…for Stupid Ideas Like Backdooring End-To-End Encryption and Undermining Privacy

• As part of its #NoPlaceToHide campaign, it has launched a new site. Although not mentioned by name, the central concern is over Facebook’s plans to add e2e encryption to Messenger and Instagram, something that the UK’s Home Secretary described as “not acceptable“. Partly as result of UK government pressure, Facebook’s plans are currently on hold until 2023.

=> ↺ Prison Profiteer Is Using Sandra Bland’s Death to Sell Surveillance Technology

=> ↺ “For the Children”: The Last Refuge of Anti-Encryption Scoundrels

• “Patriotism,” Samuel Johnson said in 1775, “is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” These days, it tends more toward first resort than last refuge. Both the UK and US governments have leaned into that approach for years — “TERRORISTS use encryption! You don’t like TERRORISTS, do you?” — with little success in budging public opinion.

• So, naturally, they’re moving to their true last refuge: “Child pornographers and child sex traffickers use encryption! You don’t like child pornographers and child sex traffickers, do you? End-to-end encryption must be stopped FOR THE CHILLLLLDRENNN!”

=> ↺ Tech leaders make their World Data Privacy day thoughts public on Jan 28, 2022

• World Data Privacy Day is today, January 28, although the Office of The Australian Information Commission and Stay Safe Online are celebrating a data privacy week, and this year, individuals are encouraged to “Own Your Privacy” by learning more about how to help protect the valuable data that is online, and businesses to “Respect Privacy”.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ “There Is No Military Solution” to Russia Tensions, Progressive Lawmakers Say

=> ↺ “There Is No Military Solution Out of This Ukraine Crisis”

• The State Department continues to signal that the United States is searching for a diplomatic solution to mounting tensions between Russia and Ukraine—with a senior official announcing last week, “The United States does not want conflict. We want peace.” Yet, in recent days, as media reports have amplified concerns about the threat of a Russian invasion, the United States has dispatched another $200 million in weaponry to Ukraine, and the Biden administration has entered into discussions with NATO allies about the deployment of thousands of additional US troops to Eastern European counties. At the same time, on Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats are fast-tracking proposals for devastating sanctions against Moscow and talking about dramatically increasing funding for US assistance to the Ukrainian military.

=> ↺ Opinion | It Sure Looks Like the US Corporate Media Wants a War With Russia

• The corporate media always carry water for the state, and they are never more dangerous than when the nation is on a war footing. Right now the United States government is sending weapons to Ukraine. One wouldn’t know that because of constant references to “lethal aid.” The euphemisms and subterfuge are necessary for a very simple reason. Everyone except the Washington war party knows that provoking war with Russia is extremely dangerous.

=> ↺ To Send Weapons and Troops to Ukraine You’d Have to Be a Stupid Son of a Biden

• The U.S. government’s internal memos said that the only way to get Iraq to use its weapons if it even had any would be to attack it. The U.S. government’s public statements were that Iraq certainly had weapons and therefore must be attacked. The U.S. government itself had every single one of the weapons in question and knew Iraq used to have some of them because the U.S. had provided them.

• This was not a question of faulty information. This was not a question of political ideology. This was a question of absofuckinglute insanity.

=> ↺ Pulitzer-Winning Holocaust Novel Latest Victim of GOP Book-Banning Wave

• The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday countered a Tennessee school board’s decision to ban the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, directing educators to its resources for teaching about the Holocaust and warning, “It is more important than ever for students to learn this history.”

• “Maus has played a vital role in educating about the Holocaust through sharing detailed and personal experiences of victims and survivors.”

=> ↺ The State of the World (and a Few Predictions)

• So I thought here still in the first month of 2022, I’d give a stab at making sense of some of the major news stories, providing just a little bit of relevant background information, of the sort that is so often not a part of even the more long-form reportage that’s out there in most of the western world’s press.  My purpose here is not to present any groundbreaking insights into geopolitics, but to bring people up to speed a little bit who may not have the time to keep abreast themselves,.

=> ↺ The Pentagon We Don’t Think About

• When my husband, a Naval officer of nearly 20 years, saw this symbol on a family member’s Facebook page, he pointed out to me that, despite the Hatch Act, created to ensure nonpartisanship among federal workers, DHS employees are not always held accountable for exercising “free speech” that would violate that law. The Three Percenters claim that they’re protesting government tyranny. The roman numeral itself refers to a debunked claim that only 3% of Americans in the original 13 colonies took up arms against the British in the Revolutionary War.

• What does it mean that an employee of the Department of — yes! — Homeland Security can openly and proudly promote a homegrown militia whose members have threatened and attacked American lawmakers and police? Sadly enough, this fits all too well an agency that national security expert Erik Dahl of the Costs of War Project recently described as looking the other way in the face of rising far-right extremism. That includes anti-government, white-supremacist, and anti-Semitic groups, armed and otherwise. Such right-wing militias and extremist outfits, as Dahl makes clear, have killed an increasing number of people in this country since the 9/11 attacks, significantly more than groups inspired by foreign Islamist organizations like al-Qaeda. And yet, in both its public statements and policies, the domestic agency created after the 9/11 attacks to keep this country “secure” has consistently focused on the latter, while underestimating and often ignoring the former.

=> ↺ Opinion | All Of Us Remain Hostages to the Military-Industrial Complex

• Do our “Defense Departments” really defend us? Absolutely not! Their very title is a lie. The military-industrial complex sells itself by claiming to defend civilians. It justifies vast and crippling budgets by this claim; but it is a fraud. For the military-industrial complex, the only goal is money and power. Civilians like us are just hostages. We are expendable. We are pawns in the power game, the money game.

=> ↺ US Money Pays for Converting Bad News for Cubans into Good News Elsewhere

• The U.S. government pays for information that can be construed as bad news about Cuba’s revolutionary government, and pays for its dissemination within Cuba and abroad. U.S. paymasters provide money to agents who deliver it – they keep some for themselves – to real or potential government opponents inside Cuba and beyond. The latter are spurred on to find or devise information unfavorable to Cuba’s image and then spread it.  Well-founded complaints about shortages, bureaucracy, low wages, and living with the pandemic also become news items.

• Those organizations that transfer money from the United States to disaffected individuals and groups in Cuba and elsewhere – many are based in Florida or Spain – are key to the entire operation. One recalls the “bagman” who in certain U.S. cities used to deliver pay-offs from point to point within a criminal network. The parties currently handing over U.S. money are an updated version of bagmen.

=> ↺ Despite U.S. Embargo, Cuba Aims to Share Homegrown Vaccine with Global South

• A 60-year U.S. embargo that prevents U.S.-made products from being exported to Cuba has forced the small island nation to develop its own COVID-19 vaccines and rely on open source designs for life-saving medical equipment such as ventilators. We speak to leading Cuban scientist Dr. Mitchell Valdés-Sosa about how massive mobilization helped produce three original vaccines that have proven highly effective against the coronavirus. “In a moment that the whole world was mobilizing to face this tremendous menace that was killing people around the world, the U.S. administration did not lift any of the 400 sanctions that were slapped on Cuba during the Trump administration plus this decades-long embargo,” says Valdés-Sosa, director of the Cuban Center for Neuroscience. “Medicines and vaccines are not a commodity. It’s not something to get rich with. It’s something to save people’s lives.”

=> ↺ Taliban Detain Dozens Trying To Leave Afghanistan ‘Illegally’ By Air

• Dozens of people were stopped from “illegally” leaving Afghanistan by air on Monday, a top Taliban official said, and several women among them are being detained until they are collected by male relatives.

• Tens of thousands of Afghans fled on evacuation flights from Kabul in August as the Taliban returned to power amid the hasty withdrawal of US-led forces.

• Some nations and international NGOs have since operated irregular chartered flights extracting Afghans, but Taliban authorities have increasingly clamped down.

=> ↺ Nigeria Again Worst in World in Killed, Kidnapped Christians

• Suspected Fulani herdsmen last week killed three Christians in attacks in Nigeria, where more Christians were killed for their faith last year than in any other country, sources said.

=> ↺ A prison battle in Syria was a disaster long foretold

• It took almost a week for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led militia, to wrest back control. Hundreds of inmates escaped; not all have been recaptured. Dozens of people were killed in fighting inside the prison and in surrounding neighbourhoods. Some of the dead are thought to be children held in Ghweiran who were used as human shields by IS.

=> ↺ EXCLUSIVE: Daring Boko Haram Terrorists Declare Borno Town As West African ‘Caliphate Headquarters’

• The terror group has caused over 100,000 deaths and displaced millions of individuals mainly in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states.

=> ↺ Indonesian terrorists ‘infiltrating Islamic schools’

• At least 198 Islamic boarding schools have ties to terrorist networks, according to Indonesia’s National Counterterrorism Agency.

• Agency chief Boy Rafli Amar made the claim at a meeting with MPs on Jan. 25, saying the assessment was a result of the agency’s terrorism prevention efforts last year.

=> ↺ France: Population with Muslim faith particularly guilty of spreading anti-Semitic ideas – Anti-Semitic prejudice stable among supporters of the left-wing party France Insoumise, sharp decline among supporters of the right-wing RN

• The general perception that there is too much coverage of anti-Semitism, while less and less shared by all French people, is persistent among certain groups of the population: those who inform themselves via blogs or [Internet] forums are the most likely to think that there is too much talk about anti-Semitism (27%, compared to 15% on average for the population as a whole), as are voters for La France insoumise (22%), the Rassemblement National (20%) and sympathisers of the anti-vaccine movement (22%).

Environment

=> ↺ Gas Stoves Even Worse for Climate, Health Than Previously Thought

• As policymakers across the United States consider bans on gas hookups in new construction, Stanford University researchers revealed Thursday that gas-burning cook stoves—coveted by many homeowners—are even worse for the global climate and human health than previously thought.

• “Gas stoves warm the planet and release indoor air pollutants that you breathe—you get both.”

=> ↺ LA City Council Moves to Ban New Oil and Gas Wells, Advance Phaseout

• Climate and environmental justice campaigners cheered a unanimous vote Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council to back a ban on all new oil and gas wells, with one group calling the move “the beginning of a new era” of an “equitable transition” toward a fossil-free future for the nation’s second-largest city and beyond. 

• “This is a momentous step forward for Los Angeles, and a clear message we are sending to Big Oil.”

=> ↺ ‘Climate Can’t Wait’: US Crop Losses Have More Than Tripled Since 1995

• Payouts to U.S. farmers for crops destroyed by droughts and flooding surged by over 340% from 1995 to 2020, and the cost of the nation’s federal crop insurance program is only expected to increase as the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis continues to exacerbate extreme weather and disrupt agriculture.

• “Making changes to these programs now will be key to making U.S. agriculture more resilient to the extreme weather that lies ahead.”

Energy

=> ↺ Biden Administration Cancels Two Trump-Approved Minnesota Mining Leases

=> ↺ Bikeshares: From Provocation to Commodity

• In the 1960s, Provo was a Dutch anarchist group inspired as much by the Dadists and Situationists as by Herbert Marcuse. It warned: “Because this bureaucratic society is choking itself with officialdom and suppressing any form of spontaneity. Its members can only become creative, individual people through anti-social conduct.”  Going further, it explained its vision in provocative terms:

• One of its “heartfelt attempts” was promoted by Laurens (Luud) Schimmelpennink, a social inventor, industrial designer and politician.  He proposed the “White Bike Plan” to give away free bicycles for use in Amsterdam.

=> ↺ ‘Utterly Shameless’: Former Democratic Senators Join Fossil Fuel Lobby Group

• Environmentalists on Thursday excoriated two former Democratic U.S. senators who announced they are joining a pro-fossil fuel group that falsely promotes fracked gas as a “solution” to the climate emergency. 

• “I don’t understand how these people sleep at night.”

=> ↺ New Reports Allege Texas Oil and Gas Regulator’s Lax Enforcement

• When a Canadian company started drilling for oil and gas near Jim and Sue Franklin’s ranch in a small Permian Basin town called Verhalen, Texas, it didn’t bother the couple too much at first. But Sue suspects that it was the third well that started causing problems. “They put up these big signs that said, ‘H2S gas, danger, keep out, blah blah blah,’” she says. The well was being drilled in what’s called a sour-gas field, an oil field that naturally has a high concentration of a deadly gas called hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The company promised the Franklins that the gas — which can cause headaches, irritate respiratory systems, and even be fatal in high concentrations — would never get into their home, despite the fact that it was barely a mile away.

• Sue started waking up with “roaring headaches” and a rotten-eggs smell — a tell-tale sign of H2S — permeating the house. The Franklins complained about the poisonous gas in their home to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which regulates air pollution. The agency, which only maintains non-binding recommendations for hydrogen sulfide emissions, never followed up directly, but the Railroad Commission did. 

=> ↺ While Exxon Touts Net-Zero Promise, its Huge Plastics Complex Goes Online in Texas

• The same day ExxonMobil announced its ambition to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, word spread that its mammoth plastics manufacturing complex near Corpus Christi, Texas, had begun production. “We are up and operating. We have been for a while,” Paul B. Fritsch, site manager for ExxonMobil’s joint venture with Saudi Basic Industries Corp, (SABIC), told the governing body of the Port of Corpus Christi at its Jan. 18 meeting.

• The facility, known as an ethane steam cracker, will feed the production of nurdles – tiny pellets that serve as raw materials for plastic products. The plant’s state air permit allows it to send more than 3.5 million tons per year of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

=> ↺ Chevron’s Prosecution of Steven Donziger

• Documents obtained by The Nation reveal a close collaboration between Chevron, its law firm, and the “private prosecutor” who sent environmentalist lawyer Steven Donziger to federal prison in October. The oil giant has pursued Donziger since he won a legal case against it for contaminating a vast stretch of rain forest in Ecuador. So far, although e-mails and billing statements between Chevron, the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and the lawyer Rita Glavin do not show evidence of legal wrongdoing, they do raise questions of fairness. And Donziger’s team is exploring legal action to remedy what they regard as this latest injustice.

=> ↺ Sioux Tribe Withdraws as Cooperating Agency Over Dakota Access Pipeline Threat

• The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe on Thursday confirmed that it is no longer a “cooperating agency” for the Dakota Access oil pipeline and demanded federal action to address concerns that a leak could affect Lake Oahe, the tribe’s only source of fresh drinking water.

• “If an oil spill were to occur today, the plans submitted for remediation at Lake Oahe probably couldn’t be implemented.”

=> ↺ Green Groups Rally Against ‘Filthy Oil Train’ in Western US

• Warning of “tremendous” environmental harm, more planet-heating pollution, and the undermining of White House climate goals, over 100 advocacy groups on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden’s agriculture secretary to take action to block a proposed oil rail line in eastern Utah.

• “Increased drilling and extraction the railway seeks to induce will boost greenhouse pollution at every step in the process.”

=> ↺ Cancer Patients File Landmark Suit Over Fukushima Disaster

• Six people—aged 6 to 16 years old at the time of the Fukushima meltdown—filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Tokyo Electric Power Company, demanding millions in compensation for thyroid cancer they say is a direct result of radiation from the 2011 nuclear disaster.

• “Some plaintiffs have had difficulties advancing to higher education and finding jobs, and have even given up on their dreams for their future,” Kenichi Ido, the lead lawyer in the class action lawsuit, told Agence France-Presse.

=> ↺ Ireland’s data centers are an economic lifeline. Environmentalists say they’re wrecking the planet

• If approved, it would be one of the country’s biggest. A Dublin-based company called Art Data Centres Ltd. submitted the planning application for the center in July. Not much is known about the company, which was set up in 2018. Its director and secretary have been involved in more than 6,500 other listed Irish companies — over 3,000 of which have since closed, according to the Irish company records checking site SoloCheck. CNN was unable to establish contact with Art Data Centres and its representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

• It is not clear what the data center will be used for, nor if other larger tech companies could ultimately be involved.

=> ↺ Should Environmental Activists Sabotage Fossil Fuel Infrastructure?

• The aim of fossil fuel property destruction would not be to enlighten the denialists but to inflict costs on the enemy: fossil capital. It is here that the movement in the Global North has grievously failed. Marches of a million children, divestment campaigns, parliamentary initiatives, court cases, square occupations, and road blockades are all good, and they have taken us to where we are in early 2022. But something more is needed.

• What about the second part of the argument, that tactical diversification will bring the hammer of state repression down on us? To answer this, we must be attuned to the temporality of this crisis. It will keep getting worse, which should—if there is any rationality left in the world—mean that the public appetite for fossil fuel property destruction will rise. The absurdity would be for humanity to plunge headlong into these killing fields without anyone striking blows against the responsible party. Only by ratcheting up the struggle in a crisis hardwired to worsen do we stand a chance to remain relevant and, yes, win people over. Our task is to make the impassive part of the public realize that fossil fuel property is not something indestructible like the moon. Once people reach that insight—unlikely to happen as long as such property is treated as untouchable by the climate movement—the prospects for mass unrest open up.

Finance

=> ↺ Over 80 Democrats Say It’s Time for Biden to Cancel $50,000 of Student Debt

=> ↺ The Federal Reserve Has Fueled Wall Street at the Expense of the Rest of Us

=> ↺ The Homeless Shelter on Billionaires’ Row

• In the summer of 2019, as the 2020 presidential election loomed large and an enduring pandemic was inconceivable, a series of billboards targeting a candidate in the race appeared across Iowa. Such a series isn’t out of the ordinary for the state during an election year, but the billboards in question alluded to a battle most Iowans weren’t aware of—one that was hyper-local to New York City and targeted the city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio.

=> ↺ New Report Shows How US Transportation System ‘Fuels Inequality’

• U.S. transportation policies prioritizing automobile use over public transit are leaving the poor and people of color behind, exacerbating inequality and the climate emergency. That’s according to a new report published Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies. 

• “For decades, the federal government has allocated about four times as much funding to roadways as it has to public transit such as buses and subways.”

=> ↺ Opinion | A Ban on Congressional Stock Trading Is a No-Brainer

• There’s no good reason for elected officials to trade individual stocks at all. Unless you have special insider knowledge, buying and selling individual stocks is a terrible way to get rich. It’s gambling, plain and simple. That’s why many Americans with retirement accounts prefer to invest in index funds—which are tied to the performance of the entire stock market

=> ↺ One-Day Strike Nets $5+ Hourly Raise for Mississippi Bus Drivers

• Poorly paid bus drivers in a rural Mississippi school district went on strike last Friday morning and by the end of the day, they had won an hourly pay raise of at least $5, lifting their wages to $20 an hour.

• The strike happened after the Jefferson Davis County school board authorized paying $25 per hour to drivers hired on an emergency basis, Magnolia State Live first reported Wednesday.

=> ↺ “The Lords of Easy Money”: How the Federal Reserve Enriched Wall Street & Broke the U.S. Economy

• As the Federal Reserve signals it will raise interest rates in March, we talk to Christopher Leonard, author of the new book “The Lords of Easy Money,” about how the Federal Reserve broke the American economy. He details the issues with quantitative easing, a radical intervention instituted by the federal government in 2010 to encourage banks and investors to lend more risky debt to combat the recession. “The Fed’s policies over the last decades have stoked the world of Wall Street,” says Leonard. “It has pumped trillions of dollars into the banking system and thereby inflated these markets for stocks, for bonds. And that drives income inequality.”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Cover-up: Brazilian Government Plot to Open Up Uncontacted Tribe’s Territory Revealed

• The cover-up involves top officials in FUNAI, the government Indigenous Affairs Agency, who have been hand-picked by President Bolsonaro. It can now be revealed that they have:

• – arranged a secret meeting with a notorious politician and Bolsonaro ally who is leading the campaign to open up the territory; – allowed him to view a confidential field report outlining new evidence of the tribe’s existence, including location data; – denied that the new evidence exists.

=> ↺ A Tale of Two Presidents

• For President Joe Biden, it’s about fighting with members of Congress, including two stubborn ones in his own party and losing two big bills – voting rights and social policy/climate change. For pretend president Donald Trump, it’s fighting and mostly losing in the courts.

• For Catholic Biden, it’s been a time for mea culpa (a Latin prayer said during confession meaning “it was my fault”). For his predecessor, there’s never a time to apologize for anything.

=> ↺ Because No One’s Making Them Do It, Maine Law Enforcment Agencies Aren’t Accurately Tracking Complaints Against Officers

• For three decades, the DOJ and FBI have barely tried (and always failed) to collect information about use of force by the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies. Despite occasional promises to be more thorough and do better, the FBI has, for the most part, done nothing with this opportunity — one thrust upon it by a crime bill passed in 1994.

=> ↺ How the Democratic Party Alienates Young Jews: A Reply to Alexis Grenell

• Not since the epic 2007 debate between Katha Pollitt and me over the saga of jailed quarterback Michael Vick have I written a public response to a Nation colleague. But I feel obligated to register my disagreement with fellow Nation journalist Alexis Grenell’s article “How The Left Alienates American Jews.” Rather than go through her column point by point and respond to each individual charge against the pro-Palestinian left, I want to give some context to why I believe her piece has evoked such a strong response.

=> ↺ Trump, While Golfing, Describes Himself as “45th and 47th” President

=> ↺ Fake Electors Casting Fraudulent Ballots for Trump Could be Charged by DOJ

=> ↺ US bans telecom giant China Unicom over spying concerns

• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it had voted unanimously to revoke authorisation for the company’s American unit to operate in the US.

• The firm must stop providing telecoms services in America within 60 days.

• The announcement comes after larger rival China Telecom had its licence to operate in the US revoked in October.

=> ↺ Mainstream Media Melts Down as ‘Defeat the Mandates DC’ Rally Overcomes Political Divides

=> ↺ To end Russia-Ukraine tensions, Vladimir Putin needs a way to save face

• Ukraine is a crisis that Russian President Vladimir Putin has brought on himself, and if it goes over the cliff as it could, he will have only himself to blame. But the West, especially America, must be sure that the Russian leader doesn’t drag the rest of the world, especially Europe, over the brink as well.

• This means that no matter who’s responsible at this point — and there will be plenty of time for finger-pointing once those 100,000-plus Russian troops along the border with Ukraine start heading for Kyiv, or for home — there must be some way to give Putin an off-ramp. At this point, that has been desperately lacking from President Joe Biden.

=> ↺ Digital sovereignty or digital colonialism?

• Beyond tensions of privacy and security, we are witnessing today a real confrontation between control and freedom, not only of the individual, but of entire populations and regions, enhanced by technologies and massive collection and analysis of data—from predicting and influencing behaviours, to the automation of public services and the ability to fully control and disrupt those services, even remotely. From gaining access to a global communications platform to losing the ability to protect the rights of those who are interconnected through those platforms. Are we witnessing a new form of digital colonialism?

=> ↺ The global digital divide is reminiscent of colonialism

• There exists a clear dichotomy between countries that produce vast amounts of digital data and countries that harness it for their benefit. Unlike the traditional North-South divide in the global economic order, the digital gap is being led by tech companies from the United States and China. Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent and Alibaba together account for two-thirds of the total market value of the global digital economy. These tech giants have expanded their services to the Global South, capitalizing on the vast amounts of data produced there. Developing countries lack the infrastructure to fully exploit the data they produce.

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Neil Young-Spotify row highlights podcast disinformation issues

• Neil Young’s ultimatum to Spotify that it choose between his music and the controversial star podcaster Joe Rogan has become a flashpoint in the conversation over online disinformation and corporate responsibility to moderate it.

=> ↺ Bragging and Dragging: Apple Music Seizes on Neil Young’s Spotify Removal

• Apple Music seems to have a new marketing campaign: Humble bragging that it offers Neil Young’s music. The corporate snark comes after Spotify, Apple Music’s largest competitor, was forced to remove the singer’s catalog due to his objections over the platform allowing Covid misinformation to be broadcast on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

• Apple’s passive-aggressiveness has been subtle, adopting the understated spite of a toxic ex posting an Instagram thirst trap right after a breakup. The jabs started Tuesday, a day after Young published a since-deleted letter demanding his management and label remove his music from Spotify. “They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both,” he wrote. Shortly after the letter went public, Apple Music posted a thinly veiled tweet that read, “It’s always a good idea to stream @NeilYoungNYA.”

=> ↺ Why Spotify can’t afford to lose Joe Rogan

• Yesterday, Young made good on his word and, along with his record label, removed his music from the service. Young then issued another letter on his website to illuminate how he learned of the issue, thank his label, and encourage others to follow suit. “I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the Spotify platform and stop supporting Spotify’s deadly misinformation about COVID,” he says.

• This marks a critical turning point in Spotify’s company narrative. It’s no longer a music company but one committed to podcasting to the point that it’ll compromise relationships with musical artists to ensure its strategy’s success. And, to be fair, we could have assumed this would play out like it did. Who was Spotify going to pick: a musician whose heyday was decades ago or a zeitgeisty comedian who causes PR headaches but also commands a minimum ad spend of $1 million?

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ You Don’t Have to Read ‘Em, But You Can’t Ban ‘Em

• Of course, book burning and banning is nothing new.  In what was to become the USA, the morality police were burning objectional reading material in the 1600s. And as history progressed, any number of books were banned by one moral authority or another, including, without limitation, Walt Whitman’s book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. And, of course, we are reminded of the stark reality of book burning in the wartime videos of the Nazi’s throwing books into a huge bonfire in May 1933.[2]

• Indeed, before I came of age, Catcher in the Rye, was among the books that was banned (I read it anyway).  And, the Catholic Church (of which I was then a member) had a list of banned books (its Index Librorum Prohibitorum) which included Les Misérables, The Count of Monte Cristo andthe Hunchback of Notre Dame (all banned, ironically, while the Church’s pedophile priests were out sexually abusing children and the hierarchy was covering it up). Anyway, I read those too.

=> ↺ New Tracking Global Online Censorship Site Explains Content Moderation Practices and Impacts

• The site provides our own original research and commentary, and also curates content from key allies, popular publications, and other vetted sources. It includes detailed information on content moderation practices from each company, updated explanations of appeals processes for users, details on the laws that govern content moderation, and additional resources from partners and experts. 

• Tracking Global Online Censorship, originally launched in 2012, was created as a joint project between EFF andVisualizing Impactand collected user experiences with content takedowns. In 2014 the project was awarded the Knight News Challenge for strengthening free expression and innovation on the internet. Since that time, public awareness of wrongful content takedowns has increased. We’re excited to transition from our original mission to serve as an information hub with original content and research from our allies around the world. The updated project was generously funded with a grant from the Swedish Postcode Foundation. To see more, visit https://www.onlinecensorship.org

=> ↺ EFF Launches Tracking Global Online Censorship Project to Shine Light on How Content Moderation Affects Freedom of Expression Around the World

=> ↺ Mississippi Mayor Withholds $110K From Library Over LGBTQ Books

=> ↺ Following the broadcast of a television programme about the Islamisation of France, one of the witnesses in the programme is threatened with beheading

• He dared to testify and is already paying the price. Public law lawyer Amine Elbahi was featured in Zone Interdite’s latest report entitled “Face au danger de l’Islam radical, les réponses de l’État” (Faced with the danger of radical Islam, the state’s responses). The programme Zone Interdite, broadcast on M6 on Sunday 23 January, focused on the city of Roubaix (northern France) where “a small radicalised minority rejects the laws of the Republic”. In it, Amine Elbahi denounces a growing communitarianism that could well tip towards fundamentalism. The day after the documentary was broadcast, the 25-year-old lawyer, who grew up in Roubaix, was a guest on BFMTV. He stated that he had been threatened with death.

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Assange case & Supreme Court Appeal Decision

• On January 24 the UK’s High Court announced that it has certified a point of law for Julian Assange to be able to apply to appeal to the Supreme Court.

=> ↺ UN Special Rapporteur Nils Melzer Discusses Persecution Of Assange On ‘Primary Sources’

=> ↺ Off to the Supreme Court: Assange’s Appeal Continues

• This raised the thorny issue of whether a direct appeal to that body against the High Court finding would be permitted. Ease and smoothness were unlikely to be permitted – judges are not necessarily in the habit of clearing the thick undergrowth that presents itself in appellate proceedings.  Doing so would have allowed all points of law raised by Assange to be considered, a dangerous prospect for the establishment fogeys.

• Defeated by District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s ruling on January 4, 2021, an unphased US Department of Justice appealed, furnishing the High Court of England and Wales with after-the-fact assurances that they claimed Baraitser could have sought.  Assange, it was promised, would not be subjected to Special Administrative Measures, or be sent to the vicious ADX Florence supermax facility.  He would also receive sufficient medical attention to mitigate the risk of suicide and could serve the post-trial and post-appeal phase of his sentence in Australia.  Each one of these undertakings were made subject to the conduct of the accused, ignoring the point that discretion at the hands of the authorities remains total.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ The Black Left Tradition: Its Enduring Lessons and Insights

• He stated, unequivocally, “[…] excepting the African slave trade, nowhere has history recorded any more unnecessary bestial and ruthless human carnage than the British suppression of the non-white Indian people.”

• Despite, at times, being an extremely frustrating and contradictory political figure, preaching self-help while condemning King for somehow not being “radical” enough, a major consistency in Malcolm X’s worldview was his insistence that the struggle for justice was always a global one. That black people in the U.S. had much in common with Africans and Asians and others who had experienced similar types of abuse and exploitation.

=> ↺ German activists receive asylum in Venezuela

• After Interpol already withdrew an arrest request, two leftists now finally escape persecution by the German justice system

=> ↺ A gaping hole in the criminal code Torture is endemic in Russia today. Here’s what can be done about it.

• There is no article on torture in the Russian Criminal Code. However, torture itself, unfortunately, remains a widespread practice: reports of brutal violence in prisons and police stations appear with frightening regularity. We believe that the use of torture is absolutely unacceptable, and we strive to ensure that as many people as possible are aware of this issue. The following text explains why the Russian Criminal Code needs to be changed — and how introducing a separate article on torture could influence the situation in the country. 

=> ↺ Are We Any Closer to Shutting Down Guantánamo?

• More than 20 years after its opening, that American offshore symbol of mistreatment and injustice the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is still open. In fact, as 2021 ended, New York Times reporter Carol Rosenberg, who has covered that notorious prison complex since its first day, reported on the Pentagon’s plans to build a brand-new prefab courthouse at that naval base. It’s intended to serve as a second, even more secret facility for holding the four remaining trials of war-on-terror detainees and is scheduled to be ready “sometime in 2023.”

=> ↺ Ocasio-Cortez Says Backing Progressive Over Sinema Would Be “Easiest Decision”

=> ↺ ‘When You Don’t Change People’s Lives, People Get Upset,’ Says AOC

• “When you don’t change people’s lives, people get upset.”

• That’s how New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez succinctly explained the reason behind President Joe Biden’s plummeting approval rating, which fell to 41% this week, as she countered claims Wednesday night that progressives have harmed the president’s ability to maintain voters’ confidence.

=> ↺ Stumbling on Chilean Stones—and Chilean History

• Last week, a few days after I returned to my native Chile from a prolonged, pandemic-induced absence, my face suffered an unfortunate accident. During an early morning walk, I stumbled on an uneven pavement and, staggering to regain my balance, ended up bashing my nose violently against the window of a parked car. Nothing broken, but blood galore drenched my aching face and body and a deep gash opened just above my nasal septum that required stitches, antibiotics, and an anti-inflammatory injection.

=> ↺ Afghanistan in Crisis

=> ↺ Opinion | The Anguished Wails of Jim Crow

• “The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”

=> ↺ Alabama Town Has 1,253 People, Nine Cops, And Generates $600,000 A Year From Traffic Stops

• Small towns strapped for cash sometimes decide to use their law enforcement agencies to generate a steadily increasing revenue stream. Towns that otherwise would never have been noticed by non-residents have achieved national notoriety by unofficially rebranding as Speed Trap, USA.

=> ↺ How the 13th Amendment’s Fatal Flaw Created Modern-Day Convict Slavery

• And one group of people are disproportionately, though not solely, criminalized – descendants of formerly enslaved people.

• “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,” the amendment reads, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

=> ↺ Mother’s Lawsuit Attempts To Hold Snapchat, Instagram Responsible For Her Daughter’s Suicide

• In the wake of a tragedy, it’s human nature to seek some form of justice or closure. The feeling is that someone should be held accountable for a senseless death, even when there’s no one to blame directly. This tends to result in misguided lawsuits, like the multiple suits filed by (far too opportunistic) law firms that seek to hold social media platforms accountable for the actions of mass shooters and terrorists.

=> ↺ The Many Remarkable Black Women Who Could Replace Stephen Breyer

• Justice Stephen Breyer is stepping down from the Supreme Court, effective at the end of the term. This means that President Joe Biden can now fulfill one of his boldest campaign promises: to put a Black woman on the Supreme Court.

=> ↺ Opinion | Regardless of Breyer’s Replacement, This Supreme Court Will Still Belong to Trump

• The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has developed a love/hate relationship with Donald Trump. Simply put, the majority loves the disgraced ex-President’s social and political agenda, but hates his inflated claims of executive authority and personal grievance.  

=> ↺ Exiting Breyer Quotes Lincoln: ‘We Are Now Engaged in a Great Civil War’

• Officially announcing his retirement Thursday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer quoted former President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as the outgoing jurist suggested the country was embroiled in something like the “great civil war” of the nation’s past.

• “This is a complicated country,” said the justice, adding that the U.S. was conceived as “an experiment” as he held up a copy of the U.S. Constitution.

=> ↺ Stephen Breyer to Retire, Giving Biden Chance to Nominate First Black Woman Supreme Court Justice

• Liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring after nearly three decades on the bench, giving President Biden a chance to fulfill a campaign promise to nominate the first Black woman in history to serve on the high court. Those worried that identity politics will hinder the most qualified candidate should consider that 108 of 115 justices since the nation’s founding have been white men, says Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation. Breyer’s retirement comes as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell threatened to stall any nominations that Biden put forth later in the year. Breyer leaves “an institution that I think he really idealized as beyond politics, and at the same time, it’s so, so clear that politics drove him out right now,” says Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor and senior legal correspondent for Slate, who has interviewed Breyer.

=> ↺ CIA Funded Experiments On Danish Orphans For Decades

• This article was funded by paid subscribers of The Dissenter, a project of Shadowproof. Become a paid subscriber and help us expand our work.

• An extraordinary Danish Radio report exposed how scores of children in Denmark, many of them orphans, were subject to CIA-funded experiments for at least two decades.

=> ↺ Electronic Frontier Foundation Is Looking for a Few Good People

• Here at FOSS Force we’re always keeping our eye out for open source community oriented job openings that might be of interest to our FOSS readership, and last week a couple from Electronic Frontier Foundation caught our attention.

• For those who aren’t familiar, EFF is a nonprofit organization defending online privacy and free expression. While it’s not an open source organization, it shares many of the same values as the FOSS and free software communities, and advocates for change in areas that are very important to our communities — such as it’s ongoing battle to have issues with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act changed or removed.

=> ↺ ‘No More Hiding’: Sanders Says Make GOP Vote on Popular Policies

• Voicing exasperation with months of fruitless backroom talks over the Build Back Better Act, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday demanded floor votes on individual pieces of the stalled legislation in order to force Republicans—and right-wing Democrats—to go on the record opposing policies with widespread public support.

• Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, wrote in an op-ed for The Hill that “amazingly, there have been no votes” in the Senate on the Build Back Better package, the House-passed version of which includes an extension of the boosted child tax credit, a plan to lower sky-high prescription drug prices, and significant investments in renewable energy, child care, housing, and other Democratic priorities.

=> ↺ Wealthy Progressives Back Primaries Against Dems Tanking Party Agenda

• A group of wealthy progressives announced Thursday that it will support primary challenges against Rep. Henry Cuellar, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, and other right-wing Democrats who have actively obstructed President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda and, in the process, potentially boosted the GOP’s chances of retaking Congress.

• “These radical moderates have done more damage to President Biden’s agenda than Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz combined,” Erica Payne, president of the Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement announcing the organization’s endorsements for the looming 2022 midterms—and its plans to back campaigns to unseat right-wing Democrats in this year’s elections and beyond.

=> ↺ NYT Twists Stats to Insist We Need More Policing

• The New York Times handed over its popular The Morning daily newsletter on January 18 to new hire German Lopez, formerly of Vox. His debut edition of the data-driven newsletter (usually helmed by David Leonhardt) was headlined “Examining the Spike in Murders.”

=> ↺ Islamic Extremist Terrorists Kill, Kidnap Christians in NE Nigeria

• Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists on Thursday (Jan. 20) attacked Pemi village, killing a Christian identified as Blan Gutto, kidnapping 17 Christian girls ages 10 to 13 and burning down a Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN) building, said area resident James Nkeki. They also burned the shop of Ayuba Bulus, also a Christian, he said.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Musk’s Starlink Continues To Struggle With Very Basic Customer Service

• We’ve noted a few times that Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband service is going to have a hard time meeting expectations. One, while the service is often sold as a near-magical cure for the estimated 20-42 million Americans without broadband access, it only has the capacity to serve somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 users. Due to additional supply chain issues, only about 150,000 users have received access so far. And those who’ve paid the company $100 to wait in line say the company is incapable of giving them any kind of timeline of when they can expect service.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Automakers Continue Efforts To Scuttle Popular Mass. ‘Right To Repair’ Law

• In late 2020, Massachusetts lawmakers (with overwhelming public support) passed an expansion of the state’s “right to repair” law. The original law was the first in the nation to be passed in 2013. The update dramatically improved it, requiring that as of this year, all new telematics-equipped vehicles be accessible via a standardized, transparent platform that allows owners and third-party repair shops to access vehicle data via a mobile device. The goal: reduce repair monopolies, and make it cheaper and easier to get your vehicle repaired.

=> ↺ Apple CEO: ‘We Don’t Make Purely Financial Decisions’ About Apple TV Plus Content

• Apple has shelled out untold millions on original content for Apple TV Plus. And CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that it isn’t necessarily looking for a financial payback on that investment.

=> ↺ Netflix Must Face ‘Queen’s Gambit’ Lawsuit From Chess Great, Judge Says

• A judge on Thursday refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Georgian chess master who alleged that she was defamed in an episode of the Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit.”

• Nona Gaprindashvili, who rose to prominence as a chess player in the Soviet Union in the 1960s, sued Netflix in federal court in September. She took issue with a line in the series in which a character stated — falsely — that Gaprindashvili had “never faced men.” Gaprindashvili argued that the line was “grossly sexist and belittling,” noting that she had in fact faced 59 male competitors by 1968, the year in which the series was set.

Monopolies

Trademarks

=> ↺ Are Overly Aggressive Trademark Lawyers Learning Not To Be Such Assholes All The Time?

• It’s been just over 17 years since I coined the phrase “The Streisand Effect,” which has totally taken on a life of its own. A key reason for naming it was to hopefully wake up overly aggressive lawyers to the fact that sending a nasty, threatening cease and desist letters to try to suppress information or stop someone from doing something wasn’t a good idea. A few years later, a lawyer friend of mine mentioned that he thought that the concept of The Streisand Effect had done its job — and that many, many corporate lawyers were much more averse to sending out such aggressive letters, recognizing that there might be a better approach. However, I still find it’s pretty typical for many lawyers to immediately go for the the nasty threat letter, so it seemed like perhaps the lawyers hadn’t quite gotten the message.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Dr. Seuss Enterprises Promotes Susan Brandt to President and CEO

• Susan Brandt has been promoted to CEO of Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the privately held company that manages the rich vault of books and IP [sic] associated with the beloved author.

• Brandt has been with the San Diego-based Dr. Seuss Enterprises for 24 years, most recently serving as president. 2021 marked the company’s highest revenue-generating year since its founding in 1993. Brandt is credited with expanding the company’s reach and helping to keep Seuss characters relevant to contemporary kids and their parents through partnerships, including notable ventures with Netflix, Warner Bros., PBS and Universal Studios through the Seuss Landing installation at the Islands of Adventure theme park in Florida.

=> ↺ Nintendo Sics Lawyers To Take Down Fan-Made FPS ‘Pokemon’ Game Footage

• At this point, posts about Nintendo getting fan-made games or content removed from the internet over IP concerns are evergreen. Nobody should be surprised by this shit any more, though you should still be either very angry about it, or at least disappointed. The company is almost a caricature of an IP maximalist company: anything and everything that even comes close to touching its IP gets thrown at the company lawyers to deal with. It’s bad enough to be parodied by the general public. This is where I remind you that companies like Nintendo have a wide spectrum of avenues for responding to fanworks. Depending on the IP in question, the company could do any of the following besides going legal: let fans have their fun, issue zero-dollar or cheap licenses to fans to legitimize their work, or incorporate fanworks into official releases by either licensing or employing these fans. Plenty of other companies have taken these routes, or others, and have survived just fine. Nintendo never does this.

=> ↺ BeIN First to Use New Anti-Piracy Law to Block 18 Pirate Streaming Sites

• Broadcaster beIN Sports has become the first company to obtain a pirate streaming site blocking order under new French legislation. The injunction requires local internet service providers to block access to 18 sites that offer live sporting events to the public without appropriate licensing. Any mirror sites that subsequently appear will be quickly blocked too.

=> ↺ Pirate Site Traffic Surged in 2021, Research Finds

• A new report published by Akamai shows that the number of visits to pirate sites rose in 2021. TV shows are the most sought-after content and represent nearly half of all pirate site traffic, with an average of more than 7 billion visits per month. The report concludes that piracy continues to be a major threat but this presents opportunities as well.

=> ↺ Huge Pirate IPTV Crackdown Hits Network Supplying 500,000 Users

• Authorities in Italy say they have dismantled a huge pirate IPTV network that serviced 500,000 subscribers. In addition to searching the homes of 20 suspects believed to have violated copyright law, the operation also identified the administrator of CyberGroup, an internet service provider whose servers were used by several IPTV suppliers.

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