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● Links 18/11/2022: GIMP 2.99.14 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 1:46 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Kubuntu 22.10 Quick overview #shorts – Invidious

• A Quick Overview of Kubuntu 22.10

=> ↺ 5 Terminal Commands – Invidious

• I doubt everyone knows all 5, but they are game changers.

=> ↺ A First Look At Fedora Workstation 37 – Invidious

• In this video, I’m going to install the newly released Fedora 37 and take a quick first look around. This release will feature the GNOME 43 desktop, but what else will this release bring to the table? Let’s find out!

=> ↺ Automating Android Games: Skee-ball – Invidious

• In the latest installment of Android Game Automation, I choose to automate Skee-ball, a classic arcade game and one that has no shortages of virtual games on the Play Store.

=> ↺ Don’t sleep on the DeckMate (or any of these other gamechanging accessories) – Invidious

Applications

=> ↺ My favorite Git tools

• As with any other technology or skill, just reading about Git cannot make you proficient at it or make you an “advanced” user. Now it’s time to dig into some of the tools in Git that I’ve found useful, and hopefully, that will help you use Git.

• In my previous article, I wrote about Git history as a chain of commits, and that’s a very good model for most purposes. However, Git actually remembers everything you do with Git, not just commits. You can see your entire recent history with git reflog.

=> ↺ Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Apple Stickies

•  Apple Stickies is a small utility that lets users keep notes, lists and pictures in sticky notes on the desktop.

• Stickies is proprietary software and not available for Linux. We recommend the best free and open source alternatives.

=> ↺ VirtualBox 7.0.4 – Neowin

• VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source.

=> ↺ VirtualBox 7.0.4 Released with Initial Support for RHEL 8.7 and SLES 15.4 Kernels

• VirtualBox 7.0.4 comes only a month after VirtualBox 7.0.2, which added initial support for the upcoming Linux 6.1 kernel series, and introduces initial support for the kernel versions used in the recently released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.7, AlmaLinux 8.7, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2, CentOS Stream 9, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4 operating systems.

• The Linux Guest Additions have also been updated to fix the rebuild behavior of kernel modules on system shutdown and to fix progress indication during automatic installation of Linux Guest Additions. On top of that, the new VirtualBox release adds general improvements in startup scripts for both Linux hosts and guests.

=> ↺ Libre Arts – GIMP 2.99.14

• Releases like this are too rare to disregard and thus all the more to treasure. In one swift motion the team is doing away with floating selections and bringing strokes/outlines for text. But this has been a bumpy road.

• [...]

• Doing away with floating selections has been on the team’s roadmap at least for as long as that roadmap exists. Some of the bug reports on FS behavior date back as far as 2008. It was a quirky concept, hard to grasp for newcomers and somewhat annoying even for experienced users.

• It was possible to remap the Ctrl+V shortcut to pasting as a new layer, but then you’d have to wave goodbye to pasting Bezier paths etc. Not a real solution.

• Now, if you’ve been watching GIMP development closely, you probably noticed this nickname, Cmyk.Student, popping up every now and then lately. This Google Summer of Code student working with the GIMP team is in charge of cleaning up this mess.

=> ↺ Review: GIMP 2.99.14 (Libre Arts) [LWN.net]

• Libre Arts looks at the GIMP as the 3.0 release approaches.

=> ↺ GIMP 2.99.14 Released

• The GIMP team is happy to release GIMP 2.99.14 with a lot of nice milestones on the route to GIMP 3.0.

• We are getting into deep changes, so we hope you will all test thoroughly and we remind you that it is an unstable version meant for testing and reporting issues.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to rebase to Fedora Linux 37 on Silverblue – Fedora Magazine

• Fedora Silverblue is an operating system for your desktop built on Fedora Linux. It’s excellent for daily use, development, and container-based workflows. It offers numerous advantages such as being able to roll back in case of any problems. If you want to update or rebase to Fedora Linux 37 on your Fedora Silverblue system (these instructions are similar for Fedora Kinoite), this article tells you how. It not only shows you what to do, but also how to revert things if something unforeseen happens.

=> ↺ How to Install TeamViewer in Ubuntu and Other Linux

• A simple tutorial explaining the process of installing TeamViewer in Ubuntu and other Linux distros.

• TeamViewer is a free remote control software (Like ‘mstsc’) used to connect any PC over the internet in seconds remotely. Although several remote desktop software is available, such as Remmina and others, TeamViewer allows a quick and easy connection. And many prefer it.

• On a related note, check out the best list of remote desktop software in case you are evaluating options.

=> ↺ 2 Ways to Create Custom Light and Dark Wallpaper for GNOME

• An easy guide on creating your custom light and dark wallpaper for the GNOME desktop.

• GNOME 42 introduces the much-awaited light and dark theme to GNOME Desktop. It also brings the light and dark version of wallpaper, which automatically changes when you switch between light and dark themes.

• So, by default, GNOME gives you a few sets of pre-configured light and dark wallpapers.

• But what if you want a different wallpaper that changes automatically when the theme changes?

• Here’s how to configure and create your custom wallpaper for light and dark themes in GNOME.

=> ↺ Day 39: comma-separated functional color notations

• On day 11 I’ve introduced you to space-separated functional color notations. Early color functions like rgb() and hsl() support both the old comma-separated and the new space-separated syntax.

=> ↺ Connect FreeBSD to FreeIPA/Red Hat Identity Management

• Corporate needs are simple – one ring to rule them all place to get users from. On the open source path there are several ways to achieve that. Alongside ‘plain’ OpenLDAP there is also FreeIPA – which is open source and free version of the Red Hat Identity Management (IDM).

=> ↺ How to Install and Use htop in Linux

• Using top command apart from viewing the processes could be tricky. And this is where htop tops top. Pun aside, htop is a top-like utility but with a better and user-friendly interface.

=> ↺ Web UI Dashboard for Kubernetes

• Kubernetes dashboard provides a web-based UI for the cluster. One can deploy applications on the cluster using the dashboard as well as troubleshoot the existing applications in the cluster. In this article, we will install the official dashboard provided by Kubernetes and set up a service account to access it.

=> ↺ Linux Chown Command Tutorial for Beginners (12 Examples)

• In Linux, there may be times when you might want to change the owner and group-related information for a file or directory.

=> ↺ Linux ln Command Tutorial for Beginners (5 Examples)

• Sometimes, while working on the command line, you need to create links between files. This can be achieved using a dedicated command, dubbed ln. In this tutorial, we will discuss the basics of this tool using some easy to understand examples.

=> ↺ Linux touch Command Tutorial for Beginners (6 Examples)

• Sometimes, while working on the command line in Linux, you might want to create a new file. Or, there may be times when the requirement is to change the timestamps of a file. Well, there exists a utility that can you can use in both these scenarios. The tool in question is touch.

=> ↺ Linux watch Command Tutorial for Beginners (5 Examples)

• Sometimes, while working on the Linux command line, you might want to execute a command repeatedly so as to track any change in output. Well, you’ll be happy to know there exists a command line utility that lets you do this. The tool in question is Watch, and in this tutorial, we will discuss some of its basic features using some easy to understand examples.

=> ↺ Linux mv Command Explained for Beginners (8 Examples)

• Just like cp for copying and rm for deleting, Linux also offers an in-built command for moving and renaming files. It’s called mv.

=> ↺ How to Edit Kernel Boot Parameters on Linux

• Changing or editing your kernel boot parameters is very important when you want to fix an issue that causes errors during boot, or test a new feature, activate a different driver, or disable a feature on your system. These parameters are stored as text, in the boot loader’s configuration file which the kernel parses during the init process.

=> ↺ How to make Linux feel like Unix | Enable Sysadmin

• Take a trip back in time to 1972, and see what it’s like for a modern Linux user to work exclusively in the Unix terminal.

=> ↺ How to repair Grub 2 Boot Loader on Ubuntu

• Grub v2 offers a powerful rescue mode. Now using this mode, may not be exactly a walk in the park for most inexperienced users out there, so here’s a guide on how to easily fix your Grub with the Boot Repair tool.

=> ↺ How To Install Glances on Rocky Linux 9 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Glances on Rocky Linux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, Glances is a cross-platform monitoring tool that aims to present a large amount of monitoring information through a curse or Web-based interface. Glances provide information regarding memory, CPU, Disk IO, file system, Uptime, processes, interfaces, alerts & many other system information.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Glances monitoring tool on Rocky Linux. 9.

Games

=> ↺ Mixing tower defense with puzzle-platforming, TailQuest Defense has a demo up

• TailQuest Defense looks like one to pop on your wishlist. After 5 years in development from a two-person team in Godot Engine, a demo is up now.

=> ↺ Box64 and Box86 get more games running on Arm plus DXVK 2.0 support

• Box64 and Box86 are userspace emulators to run traditional x86 and x86_64 applications on Arm, and the 0.2 release of both are a nice big step forward. For those of you with Arm devices (like the Raspberry Pi), these two projects definitely sound interesting and will expand what you’re able to do.

=> ↺ How to fix the EA app on Steam Deck and Linux desktop

• Recently, Valve did an update in Proton Experimental that did get the EA app working again. The problem is that it doesn’t stick and the EA app will break itself. It might work fine for a few launches, and then suddenly another it just won’t work.

=> ↺ Valve update desktop Steam Stable Client with the New Big Picture Mode option

• Valve has released a new desktop update for the Steam Stable Client, and along with it comes the option to use the New Big Picture Mode. However, they broke it on Linux, at least for NVIDIA.

=> ↺ Valve put up a Preview and Stable update for the Steam Deck, here’s what’s changed

• Two updates rolled out over the last day, one for the Preview channel and a big one for Stable. Here’s a run over what’s changed. The Preview update is quite small but I saw a lot of people having issues with Vampire Survivors, so nice to know they’re on it but the Stable update includes quite a lot (and not to be confused with SteamOS 3.4 that’s still only in Preview).

=> ↺ Proton Experimental updated fixing Halo Infinite and more on Steam Deck & Linux

• Proton Experimental has been updated on November 16th, pulling in some more fixes for the likes of Halo Infinite for Steam Deck and Linux desktop. This is the special testing version of Proton from Valve, that you can manually swap over to that includes the latest changes before they roll out to the main version of Proton.

Desktop Environments/WMs

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ ‘Compact Quick Settings’ Puts GNOME’s New Menu on a Size Diet

• I don’t have data to back it up, but anecdotally it seems GNOME 43‘s new Quick Settings menu is a massive hit. People dig the improved look, layout, and functionality the new pod-based menu provides.

• But hey: not everyone.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Starfish PnP machine control board combines Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU with TMC2209 motor drivers

• We’ve already seen the Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU in a 3D printer controller board, so it should come as no surprise that the dual-core microcontroller also found its way into a Pick-and-Place (PnP) machine control board.

• Designed by Thea Flowers, the Starfish board leverages the RP2040 MCU capabilities to control three Trinamic TMC2209 motor drivers, MOSFET drivers to control DC vacuum pumps, two vacuum sensors, and offer RS485 and I2C connectivity for feeders and peripherals respectively.

=> ↺ OnLogic expands Raspberry Pi-powered industrial computing devices

• OnLogic just unveiled the Factor 200 Series which is built around the Raspberry Pi CM4. The new Factor is very similar to the Factor 201 released earlier this year, except that this version also includes a 2.7” capacitive touchscreen plus analog I/Os (DIO & AIO).

• As its predecessor, the Factor 202 is powered by the 64-bit Raspberry Pi CM4 System-on-Chip.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Introduce young people to coding with our updated projects

• A year ago we launched our Introduction to Scratch path of six new coding projects. This was the first path to use our new 3…2…1…Make! approach for prioritising fun and engagement whilst enabling creators to make the things that matter to them. Creators learn how to add code, costumes, and sounds to sprites as they make animations, a game, an app, and a book.

=> ↺ Sophy Wong interview: Meet the queen of wearable tech

• One of the coolest people on the wearable side of the maker community is Sophy Wong – she’s so cool that we have a book all about her wearable tech. You’ll often find her at cons showing off her amazing cosplays and 3D-printed fabric. However, it wasn’t until college for graphic design that she started making.

=> ↺ Cornell University’s Digital Systems Design course is taught on RP2040

• Lab work is central to this practical course. Students design digital systems using the RP2040-based Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller. Working in small groups, they design, debug, and construct different systems. It’s a Cumulative Design Experience (CDE) course, building on things learnt in the previous lecture to help you in the next one. Students employ their skills in coding, digital signal processing, analog circuits, control theory, computer graphics, robotics, and neural modelling.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Samsung brags on Android 13 speed, wants to go even faster

=> ↺ How to set language preferences per app in Android 13 | Android Central

=> ↺ How to Hide Sensitive Info Before Sharing a Photo on Android

=> ↺ Android themed icons: These apps support Material You makeovers

=> ↺ The Best Android Watch for 2022 | PCMag

=> ↺ Millions of Android owners urged to change settings – don’t ignore warning | The Irish Sun

=> ↺ Google bans four more Android apps and millions warned to delete them now – Mirror Online

=> ↺ Axios to AndroMoney: The top Android apps to help you track expenses | Technology News,The Indian Express

=> ↺ Samsung rolls out Android 13 (One UI 5) update to last-gen foldable smartphones – PhoneArena

=> ↺ Samsung Android 13 update: What devices will get the upgrade?

=> ↺ How to find the required Android version for apps on the Google Play Store | Android Central

=> ↺ Four Generations Of Alien Games On Android – Droid Gamers

=> ↺ Top 9 Ways to Fix Snapchat Notifications Not Working on Android – Guiding Tech

=> ↺ Google Releases a Guide to Android App Modularization

=> ↺ What to do when your Android phone is frozen? – Android Authority

=> ↺ 3 best ways to market your new Android app

=> ↺ Twitter is introducing a themed icon for Android 13 and rebranding “Super Follows” / Digital Information World

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy A52 gets Android 13 and One UI 5

=> ↺ 5 ways Android 13 has supercharged my Galaxy S22 experience | Digital Trends

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Get verified on Mastodon with your website | Opensource.com

• If you’re migrating away from Twitter, you might be looking for a way to ensure your followers that you are who you say you are. Ignoring debates of how anyone can be sure of anyone’s true identity online, it’s easy to verify yourself on Mastodon if you already have your own website. This requires a very basic understanding of HTML, so if you don’t maintain your own website, then send this article to your web maintainer instead.

=> ↺ Pororoca: HTTP and API Testing Tool

• Pororoca is a free open-source HTTP testing tool that works for HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. It is compatible with Postman and can be an alternative for it.

=> ↺ Software and hardware I use and recommend

• I use a lot of software, most of it free and open-source. I’ve tried to use much more, but it didn’t always go so well, so I’ve made a list of the programs I like enough to recommend. Such a list has been on my website for a long time already; this is its official publication.

Web Browsers/Web Servers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Mozilla to begin signing Mv3 extensions for Firefox • The Register

• Mozilla plans to add support for Manifest v3 browser extensions to its online store – addons.mozilla.org – so developers can have them cryptographically signed for distribution.

• Manifest v3 (Mv3) refers to a set of APIs and capabilities that are intended to become the new standard for browser extensions. It’s a software architecture revision initially proposed by Google for Chromium-based browsers and subsequently endorsed by Mozilla for Firefox (Gecko-based) and by Apple for Safari (WebKit-based).

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Getting Started with Mastodon’s Conversations API

• The social network service “Mastodon” allows people to publish posts. People can reply to those posts. Other people can reply to those replies – and so on. What does that look like in the API? Here’s a quick guide to the concepts you need to know – and some code to help you visualise conversations.

=> ↺ Dirk Eddelbuettel: RcppSpdlog 0.0.10 on CRAN: New Features

• A version 0.0.10 of RcppSpdlog is now on CRAN and in Debian. RcppSpdlog bundles spdlog, a wonderful header-only C++ logging library with all the bells and whistles you would want that was written by Gabi Melman, and also includes fmt by Victor Zverovich.

• This release continues on the path started less than two weeks ago with the RcppSpdlog 0.0.9 release. We continue to support both R and C++ access by adding a (simple) variadic template formatter exposing fmt::format() (by focusing on just string arguments). This can be accessed from R via the exact same formatting strings that fmt uses, and which we have come to like for its simplicity. Of course if one prefers a different string interpolation method, or plain sprintf(), or even paste: they all work as all that matters is that a character variable gets passed on. We also added a little bit of new documentation in the vignette.

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ This Week in PSC (087) | Perl Steering Council [blogs.perl.org]

• We briefly discussed conversion from C89 to C99. We think it’s not really worth updating old code proactively, but definitely writing new code in modern style. If significant changes are being made within a function it might be worth updating the entire function to C99, but otherwise don’t bother doing huge sweeping changes to entire files.

=> ↺ Setting up your haystack – DEV Community 👩‍💻👨‍💻

• This blog post will discuss the ways you can specify where to look for matches with rak as part 4 of the It’s time to rak! blog series.

Java

=> ↺ Shopping list for JavaOnRaspberryPi

• After my talk at J-Fall I got the question what is required to get started with #JavaOnRaspberryPi. In my book I list the components that are used, but indeed a short overview was missing (it’s now added to the ebook…). So here we go: [...]

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Finland and Estonia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the digitalisation of logistics

• “This agreement between our countries will facilitate cross-border transport and promote the green transition. As frontrunners in this field, Finland and Estonia encourage other EU countries to make use of our knowledge and expertise when introducing advanced digital solutions,” says Minister of Transport and Communications Timo Harakka.

Leftovers

=> ↺ These Moms Are Leading the Fight Against Environmental Racism

• On an evening in 1969, a mother carefully prepares dinner in the kitchen. Six siblings drape themselves over schoolwork downstairs, and a grandmother tends to her garden next door. The mother cries out, “¡La cena está lista!” (dinner is ready). In minutes, 18-year-old Jesse Marquez and his five younger siblings are sitting down to eat at the table, when an explosion pushes them all to the floor.1

=> ↺ The Average Driver Will Be in a Car Accident Once Every Eighteen Years

• Moonship comes when I’m on the road, A/C on, music on, the inside

=> ↺ Pop Your Way To A Fresh Roast Coffee

• The preparation and consumption of coffee has become something of an art from in our community, with many people going to extravagant lengths to achieve the perfect cup. [Eric Sorensen] was keen to roast his own beans, but given the price of a dedicated roaster, instead made his own using a hot air popcorn popper.

=> ↺ A World Gone Haywire

• Absent in this ‘rule-based-order’ is the simple humanity articulated in many children’s books: “A person’s a person no matter how small.”[1]

• Start with Soyinka’s question: what is human…how are humans capable of this kind of behavior? He states that economic values and class conflict insufficiently explain why human expectations since Hitler and Stalin get lower and lower. What makes Trump and Putin possible? There is not a single cause or explanation. Who are the perpetrators and facilitators and what do they tell themselves? And most urgent, how come attention to children is on the back burner across the political spectrum in the face of real extermination threats?

=> ↺ How to Save the Public Art Museums (A modest proposal!)

• When the Louvre is crowded, seeing Mona Lisa is difficult. Here’s how to avoid the problem. Buy your ticket in advance, get to the Louvre early, enter at the side door and walk very quickly to the Salle des États. Then you will have a few minutes almost alone with her before the crowds arrive.

=> ↺ Shatter Alley

• Having no other options than simply to continue seething, let me tear myself psychologically open for a moment here and see what happens. Yeah, this is personal. And yeah, I live in Chicago — part of what would, I presume, be called the “inner city,” which is where trouble happens, right? A lot of people avoid the inner city. Watch out, it’s dangerous.

• But it’s been my home for the last 45 years and I love it for many reasons — but, essentially, for its complex, evolving diversity. Back when I was a reporter with a neighborhood beat in this city, I had an astounding realization: The whole world passes through Chicago! Thus, though my beat was a few square miles of teeming neighborhood, I was, in effect, covering the whole world — not from the top down but from the bottom up. It was a world of struggle and squabble, crime and empathy. It was the melting pot of peace.

Science

=> ↺ Logic Via DNA

• We often say you can make logic gates out of nearly anything. [Steve Mould] would agree as he just finished playing naughts and crosses (tic tac toe if you are an American) with a tray full of DNA. You can see the resulting game and how it works in the video below.

Education

=> ↺ A Hungarian student spoke out for a better education system – now, she’s switching schools

=> ↺ Are college classes too hard for today’s students? Alarming numbers say ‘yes.’

• Maitland Jones, a professor of organic chemistry and a co-author of a respected textbook, was dumped by NYU after 82 students in Jones’ introductory organic chemistry course signed a petition saying the course was too hard and their grades too low.

• An NYU spokesman responded to the ensuing outcry by insisting that Jones had been “hired to teach, and wasn’t successful,” pointing to poor student evaluations and a lot of withdrawals from Jones’ class. Meanwhile, Jones asserted 60% of the final grades in his last course were actually A’s or B’s, only 19 of 350 students had failed and the real problem was that students simply didn’t study enough.

Hardware

=> ↺ Simple Plywood Lamp Has Neat Hidden Switch

• Shortly after the development of the electric light came the light switch, presumably. Of course, obvious switches are old-hat, and this neat lamp build from [Giovanni Aggiustatutto] goes with a design that’s altogether more coy.

=> ↺ Madness Or Genius? FDM Printing With Resin

• We aren’t sure what made him think of it, but [Proper Printing] decided to make an FDM printer lay down resin instead of filament. Why? We still aren’t sure, but we admire the effort nonetheless. In principle, extruding resin shouldn’t be much different than other liquid things you print like icing or concrete. Then you’d need to UV-cure the viscous liquid quickly. In fact, they wound up making up a paste-like resin using several chemicals and a filler.

=> ↺ Building A LEGO Pneumatic Engine

• Pneumatic engines aren’t something we use every day, but they’re compelling things to see working in practice. [Nico71] built an eye-catching example out of LEGO Technic, and it’s remarkably fully-featured.

=> ↺ MediaTek Kompanio 520 and Kompanio 528 processors targets entry-level Chromebooks – CNX Software

• MediaTek Kompanio 520 and Kompanio 528 octa-core Arm processors are designed for entry-level Chromebooks with all-day battery life and a display up to 2520 x 1080 resolutions.

• As time passes “entry-level” gets a new meaning as the new SoCs are equipped with two Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.2 GHz, six Cortex-A55 cores @ 2.0 GHz, and an Arm Mali-G52 GPU. That’s almost Rockchip RK3588 territory although not quite…

=> ↺ Supercon Badge Reads A “Punch” Card

• This year’s Hackaday Supercon, the first since 2019 thanks to the pandemic, was a very similar affair to those of the past. Almost every hardware-orientated hacker event has its own custom electronic badge, and Supercon was no different. This year’s badge is a simulation platform for a hypothetical 4-bit CPU created by our own [Voja Antonic], and presented a real challenge for some of the attendees who had never touched machine code during their formative years. The challenge set was to come up with the most interesting hack for the badge, so collaborators [Ben Hencke] and [Zach Fredin] set about nailing the ‘expandr’ category of the competition with their optical punched card reader bolt-on.

=> ↺ Amphibious Dragster Drives On Water

• Dragsters are typically about peak performance on a tarmac drag strip. [Engineering After Hours] took a different tack, though, building a radio-controlled amphibious dragster intended to cross small bodies of water.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Children’s Groups Want F.T.C. to Ban ‘Unfair’ Online Manipulation of Kids

• Now some prominent children’s advocacy, privacy and health groups want to ban user-engagement techniques that, they say, unfairly steer the behavior of minors and hijack their attention. On Thursday, a coalition of more than 20 groups filed a petition asking the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit video games like My Talking Tom, as well as social networks like TikTok and other online services, from employing certain attention-grabbing practices that may hook children online.

• In particular, the groups asked regulators to prohibit online services from offering unpredictable rewards — a technique that slot machines use — to keep children online.

• The groups also asked the agency to prohibit online services from using social-pressure techniques, like displaying the number of likes that children’s social media posts garner, and endless content feeds that may cause children to spend more time online than they may have wished.

=> ↺ The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

• The FBI has “a number of concerns,” director Christopher Wray told a House Homeland Security Committee hearing about worldwide threats on Tuesday, just days after Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban the app nationwide.

=> ↺ A Female Crash Test Dummy Finally

• A scaled down version of the male test dummy, equivalent to a child, is often used to represent women in a crash test even though the average woman is about 20 kilogrammes lighter and some 4 inches shorter. But there are much more than height and weight differences to be considered—men and women have different muscle strengths, torso shape, centre of gravity, and hip and pelvis outline, and these affect how they are impacted differently in a car crash.

• The numbers show that not taking into consideration gender differences in automotive safety has negative consequences. A study by the NHTSA in USA found that women are three times more likely to suffer whiplash injury from a rear impact compared to men. Another recent study found that women are twice as likely as men to be trapped in the car following a crash.

=> ↺ How banks and hospitals are cashing in when patients can’t pay for health care

• As Americans are overwhelmed with medical bills, patient financing is now a multibillion-dollar business, with private equity and big banks lined up to cash in when patients and their families can’t pay for care. By one estimate from research firm IBISWorld, profit margins top 29% in the patient financing industry, seven times what is considered a solid hospital margin.

=> ↺ Private equity health-care monopolies are on a profitable killing spree

• The fund managers don’t have to beat the market in order to make bank. They can take advantage of the “carried interest” loophole, which has nothing to do with interest rates – it’s a tax system that was invented for 16th century sea-captains (no, really): [...]

=> ↺ A Paradigm Shift in Medicine

• Firstly, the healer takes the side of the patient and the family – against the toxic culture that surrounds us. One component of the toxic culture that Maté identifies is the capitalism, the valuing of corporate profits over human life, the relentless drive to extract private wealth while killing our ecosystem. Under capitalism, in order to stay financially solvent, pregnant women stay on the job until they go into labor. They return to their workplaces within weeks of giving birth. The stresses of working while pregnant, or the infant’s need for nurturing and attention, receive little attention.

• Another component of the toxic culture is patriarchy, the control exerted over women and children’s bodies by men. In its ugliest form, this takes the form of sexual abuse and rape. Maté presents a number of case examples of how such past events become manifest as disease, not just psychological but also physical. The author, activist, and playwright V, who wrote The Vagina Dialogues, recounts to Maté how abuse by her biological father led to her endometrial cancer.

=> ↺ Public Schools Are NYC’s Main Youth Mental Health System. Where Kids Land Often Depends on What Their Parents Can Pay.

• On Staten Island, a middle schooler with a hair-trigger temper was in a fistfight every week. In north Brooklyn, a ninth grader cut class for months before he tried to commit suicide. A few miles east, where Brooklyn meets the marshlands of Jamaica Bay, a 13-year-old ended up in a psychiatric emergency room after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down her school.

• These kids all had two things in common: First, they were part of a growing cohort of students with serious mental health and behavioral problems that got in the way of their education. And second, they lived in New York City, which meant that their problems became, at least in part, the responsibility of the city’s school system.

=> ↺ Why Did Democrats Vote With the GOP to End the COVID National Emergency?

=> ↺ Young Voters Delivered Big Wins for Abortion Rights

• The “red wave” Republicans expected in this year’s midterms fell far short as younger generations mobilized to protect their reproductive rights from anti-abortion extremists. The dust is still settling on the results, but abortion proved a key factor in boosting turnout among Democratic-leaning voters in the battle for Congress, state legislatures, and gubernatorial races.

• In exit polls, for example, 44 percent of young voters named abortion rights as their top concern, and the vast majority of these voted for Democratic candidates. These voters played a big role in shaping the next Congress and helped deny Republicans control of the Senate.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Hive Ransomware is on the rise. How should you deal with it?

• Hive is not a new problem. It first surfaced in 2021 but it’s becoming a much bigger issue now. This is due to a growing number of affiliates and therefore attacks. 2022 has seen a more widespread country and industry target interest too.

• Ransomware growth in general is becoming a massive problem, so much so that these incidents now make up the majority of UK government crisis management COBRA meetings.

• [...]

• At the time, ESET, which discovered these capabilities, clarified that the Linux variant of Hive ransomware was functionally inadequate compared to its Windows variant.

=> ↺ Vanuatu: [Attackers] strand Pacific island government for over a week

• Vanuatu’s government has been knocked offline for more than 11 days after a suspected cyber-attack on servers in the country.

• The [attack] has disabled the websites of the Pacific island’s parliament, police and prime minister’s office.

• It has also taken down the email system, intranet and online databases of schools, hospitals and other emergency services as well as all government services and departments.

=> ↺ Researchers Quietly Cracked Zeppelin Ransomware Keys

=> ↺ Sen. Amy Klobuchar Asks DOJ to Look Into RealPage

• The senator tasked with overseeing federal antitrust enforcement is urging the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate whether a Texas-based company’s price-setting software is undermining competition and pushing up rents.

Security

=> ↺ Top passwords used in RDP brute-force attacks

• RDP over TCP Port 3389 is a popular way to provide IT teams remote network access to remote workers. While attacks on RDP ports grew during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of the rise of remote work, the port has continued to be a popular attack method for criminals despite many workers returning to the office. Password-related attacks continue to top the list of attack methods, with recent research finding brute force password guessing accounts for 41% of all intrusion vectors.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ New EU control system: Waiting times at German borders to triple

• In six months‘ time, travellers from third countries will have their passports, fingerprints and facial images checked automatically. Because of the time-consuming procedure, the German Federal Police is hoping for the timely delivery of self-service machines and is considering a call for help to Frontex.

=> ↺ This TikToker is ‘consensually doxxing’ people to teach them about social media privacy

• Stephen had set his TikTok videos to private, so Sotakoun wasn’t able to use his content for clues. His name wasn’t in his profile, and he uses different usernames across social media.

• Sotakoun admitted that the search was like playing a game on “hard mode,” but she was able to find Stephen’s birthdate using his profile picture and his public follower list. Using the profile of one of Stephen’s followers, she found him on Twitter and deduced his birthdate from old tweets. She said it took 20 minutes.

=> ↺ Why we should oppose Automated Video Surveillance.

• Automated Video Surveillance (AVS) has dug its roots and wired its plugs in France, with support from the central government, other local authorities and the French data protection authority, the CNIL (refer to our article “What is AVS?”). Our opposition is building up, both locally with the Technopolice campaign and at a national level with a response to the public consultation on AVS, recently organized by the CNIL. They are plenty of reasons to reject AVS, many of which we have gathered through your own contributions to us, 175 of which we then transmitted to the CNIL. As for now, here is the current state of our political motivations against AVS.

=> ↺ EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance Database Now Documents 10,000+ Police Tech Programs

• With this project, we are creating a searchable and mappable repository of which law enforcement agencies in the U.S. use surveillance technologies such as body-worn cameras, drones, automated license plate readers, and face recognition. It’s one of the most ambitious projects we’ve ever attempted. 

• Working with journalism students at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), our initial semester-long pilot in 2019 resulted in 250 data points, just from the counties along the U.S. border with Mexico. When we launched the first nationwide site in late summer 2020, we had reached just more than 5,000 data points.

• The Atlas of Surveillance has now hit 10,000 data points. It contains at least partial data on approximately 5,500 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states, as well as most territories and districts.

=> ↺ IFF’s first read of the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022

• The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology has released the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 [DPDPB, 2022] for public consultation. The feedback on the DPDPB, 2022 may be submitted on MyGov website in a chapter wise manner by December 17, 2022. The link for submission of comments will be provided by the Ministry at a later date. While we appreciate that a draft bill has been put out for public consultation, we would have preferred if the Ministry had made available, through a white paper, the issues it considered while developing the “comprehensive legal framework”, of which the DPDPB, 2022 will be a crucial part. The DPDPB, 2022 contains around 30 clauses, shrunk considerably from previous drafts of data protection proposals which contained 90+ clauses. As per the explanatory memorandum this is to achieve simplicity in drafting, however has made the present version bereft of first principles at several places. Further, we are concerned that the notice of public consultation accompanying the DPDPB, 2022 states that “no public disclosure of the submissions will be made”. This will weaken public trust in the development of the DPDPB, 2022 as it hampers the principles of transparency and accountability in the consultation process. Below, we lay down some of our initial concerns after a preliminary reading of the draft.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Fatwa Against Music To Burning Lesbians’ Genitals: Why Bengal’s Murshidabad Has Become Islamist Hotspot

• Muslim-majority Murshidabad is frequently in news for fatwas against music, lottery, or watching TV. In neighbouring Malda district with 51 percent Muslim population, local Muslims banned a girls’ football match in 2015 because they felt jerseys were too tight and un-Islamic for women.

=> ↺ York: Nurses’ hotel accommodation to be used by asylum seekers

• York Hospital hires rooms at two city centre hotels for overseas nurses and said it would struggle to find alternative accommodation.

• The Home Office, however, said it had not given notice to nurses to leave.

=> ↺ The GOP Won’t Drop Trumpism Any Time Soon

• Trump-backed Republicans did indeed blow some critical races. But this hope suggests there are reasonable Republican office-holders out there who are now ready to liberate themselves from Trump’s orbit and re-make the GOP as a normal, democracy-respecting party.

• The suggestion that there was an “extremist” fever that has run its course is false.

=> ↺ Opinion | With or Without Trump, The Pathetic Politics of Trumpism Is Here to Stay

• In the face of midterm election results that confounded predictions and crushed Republican hopes for a landslide victory, some in the media are suggesting that the party may finally turn away from Trump.

=> ↺ No Red Wave, But Plenty of Red Flags

• In Part 1 of “In Real Time” last April, I included a quote from the historian Thomas Zimmer in which he described our precarious, knife-edge political situation: “America will either slide into authoritarianism or make the leap to multiracial, pluralistic democracy.” Since he wrote that, our political situation has been sliding, not leaping. Much remains to be done if we’re to manage a leap toward real democracy—nevertheless, we’ve kept alive our prospects for achieving an ecologically livable future while fending off a host of power grabs by would-be autocrats.

• The stakes are higher than ever

=> ↺ Africa’s Forgotten Colony in the Sahara

• Seeking access to Western Sahara’s rich coastline, Spain first seized the territory after European colonizers partitioned Africa at the West African Conference of Berlin that took place from November 1884 to February 1885. By the 1970s, facing resistance from the Sahrawi people and increasing internal pressures, the regime of Francisco Franco in Spain agreed to hold a referendum on independence, which never took place. Spain eventually pulled out from Western Sahara. Meanwhile, to the south and the north, Mauritania and Morocco had set their sights on Western Sahara’s resources. In November 1975, despite a judgment from the International Court of Justice that neither Mauritania nor Morocco had territorial sovereignty over the land, Morocco sent 25,000 troops and 350,000 settlers to Western Sahara. On November 14, Spain signed the tripartite Madrid Accords with Morocco and Mauritania, effectively ceding Western Sahara to its invaders.

• The Polisario Front, a national liberation movement formed in 1973 to oppose Spanish colonialism, now fought on two fronts. Supported by Algeria, it defeated the Mauritanians in 1978. But Morocco retained its control over Western Sahara—with significant backing from Western powers, including the United States and members of NATO. At the Museum of Resistance in the camps, the Polisario keeps weapons of war captured during its struggle—tanks, airplanes, artillery, and armored vehicles from Austria, Germany, France, Spain, the U.S., Belgium, and apartheid South Africa.

=> ↺ Hungary will not support EU member states taking a joint loan to help Ukraine – Orbán

=> ↺ Hungary and Iran are working on the development of bilateral economic relations – Szijjártó

=> ↺ Orbán on sanctions: step by step, we are sliding towards war

=> ↺ US Arms Sales Continue to Enable War Crimes, Human Rights Violations Worldwide

=> ↺ Biden, the National Security State, and Global Arms Sales

• It would be one thing if it were simply a matter of money raked in by the industrial half of the military-industrial complex. Unfortunately, in these years, U.S.-supplied weaponry has also fueled conflicts, enabled human-rights violations, helped destabilize not just individual countries but whole regions, and made it significantly easier for repressive regimes to commit war crimes.

• At first glance, it appeared that Joe Biden, on entering the White House, might take a different approach to arms sales. On the campaign trail in 2020, he had, for instance, labeled Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state and implied that the unbridled flow of U.S. weaponry to that kingdom would be reduced, if not terminated. He also bluntly assured voters that this country wouldn’t “check its values at the door to sell arms.”

=> ↺ Congressional Amendment Opens Floodgates for War Profiteers and a Major Ground War on Russia

• If the powerful leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senators Jack Reed (D) and Jim Inhofe (R), have their way, Congress will soon invoke wartime emergency powers to build up even greater stockpiles of Pentagon weapons. The amendment is supposedly designed to facilitate replenishing the weapons the United States […]

=> ↺ Opinion | The Shame of Being the World’s Worst Weapons Dealer

• Here’s a seldom commented-upon reality of this century and this moment: the United States remains the number-one arms-exporting nation on the planet. Between 2017 and 2021, it grabbed 39% of the total global weapons market and there’s nothing new about that. It has, in fact, been the top arms dealer in every year but one for the past three decades. And it’s a remarkably lucrative business, earning American weapons makers tens of billions of dollars annually.

=> ↺ SCOTUS Refuses to Stop Alabama Execution Despite Jury Calling for Life in Prison

• The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday night declined to stop Alabama from executing Kenneth Eugene Smith, who is set to be killed by lethal injection Thursday evening—despite a jury’s recommendation against the death penalty—unless Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey intervenes.

• “Without an intervention, Smith will be executed under a system that is no longer permissible in Alabama.”

=> ↺ Brittney Griner taken to penal colony in Mordovia, her lawyers say — Meduza

• American basketball player Brittney Griner, who was sentenced to nine years in prison for drug smuggling, is now in Penal Colony No. 2 in Mordovia, her lawyers, Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov, told Interfax.

=> ↺ Flight MH17 trial concludes with guilty verdicts — and sorrow in the Dutch courtroom The court convicted three perpetrators and awarded damages — including same-sex couples as ‘next of kin’ — Meduza

• A Dutch court has convicted Igor Girkin (also known under the assumed name “Strelkov”) and two of the three other suspects in the 2014 Boeing 777 crash in the Donbas. The perpetrators have been found guilty of downing the aircraft and murdering 298 people on board. The Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down on July 17, 2014. Court hearings on the case began in 2020.

=> ↺ A teacher in Karelia punishes a seventh grader for coming to school in a hoodie with a U.S. flag — Meduza

• In Lyceum No. 1, in the city of Kostomuksha, in the Republic of Karelia, a teacher forced a seventh grader to sit with his back to her for an entire class period because he wore a hoodie in the colors of the American flag. The boy’s father, Aleksey Kulikov, discussed the events with Mediazona.

=> ↺ Peskov on Polish missile incident: ‘The prime cause of everything is NATO’ and the U.S. — Meduza

• NATO and the U.S. are the “prime cause of everything” that happened in Poland when two missiles landed on Polish territory on November 15, the day of Russia’s massive missile strikes on Ukraine.

=> ↺ Kremlin Press Secretary Peskov: No one in Russia has ever spoken of using nuclear weapons — Meduza

• The Kremlin doesn’t think it “permissible” to discuss the threat of nuclear weapons use. This is how Dmitry Peskov, the administration’s spokesman, responded to a remark about the recent Russia–U.S. agreement to abstain from using nuclear weapons:

=> ↺ Who’s behind Rybar? The Bell unmasks one of Telegram’s most widely-cited pro-Kremlin military analysis channels — Meduza

• Rybar, a pro-Kremlin military analysis channel on Telegram, has been cited by the world’s top news agencies, and it’s easy to understand why: the channel seems to have access to a wide network of informants whose claims are difficult to ignore, if impossible to verify. But despite its influence, Rybar’s administrators have remained anonymous throughout the war. In a new investigation, however, journalists from the independent Russian news outlet The Bell uncovered key information about the channel’s creators, its funding, and its contributors. In English, Meduza summarizes their findings.

=> ↺ Jan. 6 Panel Created Subcommittee for Potential Criminal Referrals to DOJ

• The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol has created a subcommittee to deal with “outstanding issues,” including potential criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, the panel’s chair confirmed Thursday.

• “We need to have a decision as to what we do with the members who did not recognize the subpoenas.”

=> ↺ Russian authorities claim video of soldiers describing mismanagement during Kherson retreat is ‘staged’ — Meduza

• Russia’s National Defense Management Center (NTsUO) has called a recent video that showed Russian soldiers complaining of mismanagement during the Russian army’s retreat from the Kherson region “staged.”

=> ↺ ‘Just the tip of the iceberg’: How Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary fighters steal cryptocurrency through Ukrainian charity sites — and use it to fund the war — Meduza

=> ↺ Blowback: Italian Police Bust Azov-Tied Nazi Cell Planning Terror Attacks

• The arrest of Italian neo-Nazis affiliated with the Ukrainian Azov Battalion highlights the terrifying potential for blowback from the Ukraine proxy war.

=> ↺ Why Is AP Still Protecting the Source Behind Its False Russia-Bombed-Poland Story?

• AP’s source claimed Russian missiles hit Poland. This seemed calculated to set off a frenzy and trigger NATO articles to create a wider war. Why won’t the AP tell us who the falsifying source is?

=> ↺ Is the USAF Really the Best Trained Air Force In the World?

• For example, in 2013 the conservative magazine National Review reported that American pilots were flying fewer hours than those of China, a peer competitor. According to the author, “U.S. pilots are flying only 120 hours or less per year, a drop of over 50 percent from a decade ago. In fact, American pilots now fly fewer training hours than do Chinese, Indian, or some European pilots…”(2) That amounts to only 10 ten flying hours per month, which is about the same as what the pilots got during the dark days of the late 1970s when readiness was abysmal. (3) Despite all the money that is given to the Air Force, it still finds itself unable to properly train its pilots. Pilots also use simulators but many don’t believe they fully compensate for the lack of time in the cockpit. Simulators, for example, are nowhere near as stressful as actual combat flying.(4)

• According to my calculations based on USAF Accident Reports between 2011 and 2020, the average A-10 pilot received 15.8 hours per month over a ninety day period before the mishap in 2011 (5), F-15C pilots a paltry 5.8 hours in 2020 (6), F-15E pilots, 19.4 hours in 2012 (7), the pilots of the F-16CM, just 4.9 hours in 2020 (8) and F-22 pilots, only 12.8 hours a month in 2018 (9). Finally, F-35A pilots flew only 9.1 hours per month in 2020. (10) Just a reminder, no aircraft, including extremely expensive stealth aircraft, which the Chinese claim they can easily detect (11), is better than the pilot..

=> ↺ Why a Diplomatic Solution to the Ukraine War is Getting More and More Elusive

• “From the information that we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Wednesday. “It is highly probable that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence.”

• A fresh crisis over the Ukraine war may have been averted, but other crises will recur as the war continues with no sign of it ending. The alacrity with which presidents and prime ministers attending the G20 summit in Bali jumped out of bed in the middle of the night to confer about an explosion in a village in east Poland shows how fearful they are that the war will spread.

=> ↺ Ukrainian Interior Minister reports bodies of 63 people killed by Russian soldiers found in Kherson region so far — Meduza

• Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky reported Thursday that authorities in the recently-liberated Kherson region have found the bodies of 63 people who were killed by Russian soldiers.

=> ↺ Ethiopia: Peace Agreed Now The Work Begins

• The great tragedy is that fighting could have ended months ago, saving thousands of lives, had the TPLF grasped the hand of peace repeatedly extended by the government since the conflict started. Instead of responding to an open invitation to talk “anywhere anytime”, the TPLF set impossible conditions for engagement; used ceasefire time to rearm and recruit fighters – forcing men and children to leave their families (‘join up or we will kill your family’ type recruitment), take up arms and risk their lives for the ambitions of a few greedy men.

• Engagement and inclusion have been central to the approach of the Abiy Ahmed government since they took office in April 2018. And, to the outrage of many, this included reaching out to the former regime officials. But the TPLF leaders (and their US backers), have never wanted peace or national unity for Ethiopia, and certainly did not want Abiy to succeed. From the moment they were ousted, it seems the TPLF have been plotting and scheming, gauging the level of US support – which was, it appears a good deal weaker under President Trump – and waiting, discussing when to emerge from the shadows and act.

=> ↺ Can Functionalism Help End the War in Ukraine?

• There has been new-found optimism in Geneva, although fleeting, about the war in Ukraine; and it wasn’t because of the results of the midterm U.S. election. “The resumption of the talks on a memorandum between Russia and the UN on the export of grain and fertilizer is another positive development for International Geneva,” wrote Philippe Mottaz in The Geneva Observer, the website of record for International Geneva. (Full disclosure: I am a contributor to The G/O.) While the resumption of talks was declared a “modest” step forward in returning Russian and Ukrainian grain and fertilizer to the world, according to Mottaz, it may have been a harbinger of larger and more needed talks about stopping the war in Ukraine. The underlying premise of Mottaz’s optimism was that by providing a space for dialogue the grain talks could lead to future peace talks and settlement.

• “Peace through pieces” was an important contribution to understanding mediating differences by the political theorist David Mittrany in the mid-20th century. Mittrany argued for an issue-specific strategy for solving larger problems. “The historical task of our time is not to keep the nations peacefully apart but to bring them actively together,” Mittrany wrote, “through the continuous development of common activities and interests across them.” Closer interaction because of global interdependence, Mittrany postulated, would lead to closer cooperation and peaceful co-existence, a concept known in international relations as Functionalism.

=> ↺ Bringing a Bit of Light to the Fog of War

• As the conflict in Ukraine heads towards its first winter solstice, one thing seems clear. This war is not over and it continues to cry out for a ceasefire and serious negotiations. Indeed, citizens of other European nations are beginning to demand an end to the flow of arms to Kyiv and a reconsideration of the sanctions. It’s too early to say if most of their governments feel the same. Even in the United States, a growing number of people of varying political allegiances are beginning to question the reasons for this war and its continuation. If we are to believe mainstream media outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post, this questioning reaches into the officer ranks at the Pentagon.

• Therefore, the timing of the publication of the book War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless War couldn’t be better. This text, written by antiwar activist Medea Benjamin and journalist Nicolas J.S. Davies, provides the reader with a clear and well-argued understanding of the Ukraine-Russian war that rejects the pro-war narratives of Kyiv, Moscow and Washington. The text tackles the conflict from a viewpoint that acknowledges Moscow’s February 22, 2022 aggression as illegal and wrong while also arguing that the conflict itself represents a greater geopolitical conflict where Washington is the instigator and the more aggressive actor.

=> ↺ Being Aware is First Step to Resisting US Militarization

• Travelers entering North Carolina on Interstate 95 almost immediately see a sign proclaiming “Nation’s most military friendly state” – a sign paid for, in part, by the N.C. Bankers Association.  In high schools, military recruiters “insinuate themselves into school life at every level.” Loudspeakers at sports events sound out tributes to veterans and active-duty troops. The latter may receive free tickets to performances, preferential parking, and discounts on merchandise.

• Unveiling of the new “Welcome to North Carolina” sign for interstate highways in the state – Fayetteville Observer

=> ↺ Roaming Charges: The Upside-Down World

• • General Milley seems to understand what joystick bombardiers like Victoria Nuland and Tony Blinken don’t: that the only predictable event in war is that something unpredictable will happen to dramatically change its course, usually for the worse. We’ve seen several of these unanticipated turning points already in Ukraine: the thwarted run on Kyiv, the butchery at Bucca, the annexation of the four oblasts, the sabotage of the Crimean bridge and Nordstream pipelines, Putin’s nuclear threats, Zelensky’s belligerence, the resistance to Putin’s draft orders, the retreats from Kharkiv and Kherson, the attacks on Ukrainian civilian power plants as winter sets in. This week we narrowly avoided another, when a grain facility in eastern Poland was struck by an errant Ukrainian missile, killing two people and threatening to detonate a chain of events that would have dangerously escalated the war, putting NATO on a direct nuclear collision course with Russia.

• • After nine months of bloodshed, it should be clear by now that this is a war which both sides could lose but neither can win. But with each massacre, the grievances on both sides deepen, almost to the point of becoming intractable. The precipitating causes of the war have now been eclipsed by dozens of other atrocities that are fresh in the mind and vivid in the memory. The Minsk Accords seem like ancient history now.

=> ↺ The Great COIN Con: Anthropologists’ Lessons Learned After Two Decades of America’s Failed Counterinsurgency Operations in Afghanistan

• Our session was in a vast almost empty ballroom with maybe 20 people in attendance, which struck me as a sort of perfect representation of America’s interest in forgetting this latest failed American military campaign. My colleagues discussed a range of topics. Diane Tober provided a larger context for the session and the protests in Iran, Nasim Fekrat provided details on the current persecutions and massacres of Shi’a Hazara in Afghanistan, Emily Channell-Justice described developments in the war in Ukraine, Nazif Shahrani presented a devastating critique of anthropology’s failure to adequately study contemporary wars and Ghani’s disastrous rule in Afghanistan, noting that anthropology has only ever produced two heads of state, Jomo Kenyata who challenged colonialist forces, and Ashraf Ghani who embraced neocolonialism. Because my colleagues had such greater firsthand knowledge about Afghanistan, I focused my remarks primarily on anthropology’s institutional engagement with this war, occupation, and what lessons might be learned from military desires to use anthropology to control such an uncontrollable situation.

• Obviously, many anthropologists spoke out in the post-9/11 world, warning that US military plans in Afghanistan could not work as promised, and rather than spending my 15-minutes just chanting “we told you so” it’s worth considering a few ways that military and intelligence agencies tried to harness anthropology for these campaigns, and why this didn’t work. Because US politicians, the public, and perhaps to a lesser extent the military, have not publicly taken stock in what went so wrong with this war, it is worth considering how false promises that counterinsurgency (COIN in military-speak) would bring American victories added to this mess.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ BuzzFeed’s Rise to Internet Phenomenon Examined in Documentary From Bright West Entertainment, Campfire Studios (EXCLUSIVE)

• The filmmaker say they plan to track BuzzFeed’s “rapid ascent and dominance in the early days of viral video,” but it’s not all clicks and soaring traffic. The film will also look at the “chaotic and often criticized workplace environment” at BuzzFeed. The company went public in 2021 and its stock has had plummeted more than 80% since then.

=> ↺ FSB expands list of non-classified information not to be conveyed to ‘foreign sources’ — Meduza

• The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has expanded its list of non-classified military and technical information, which might endanger state security if communicated to “foreign sources.” The new item on the list is information about military personnel transportation.

Environment

=> ↺ US, Canadian companies can mine Mexico’s lithium, but as minority partners: AMLO

• United States and Canadian companies will be invited to participate in Mexico’s nascent lithium mining sector, President López Obrador said Tuesday.

• However, any foreign and private companies that enter the sector will be required to be minority partners in joint ventures with the state-owned lithium company, he told reporters at his regular news conference.

=> ↺ Opinion | Is COP27 Already Too Lost and Too Damaged?

• The United Nations Climate Change Conference has convened here in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. It’s called COP27, the 27th Conference of Parties to the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the ever-evolving, never-quite-fully-negotiated treaty that, it is hoped, will someday ensure all countries rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions to forestall catastrophic climate change. An estimated 30,000 people from around the world have descended on this Red Sea resort on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The summit is hosted by Egypt, a dictatorship propped up by billions of dollars annually in military aid from the United States. This has been dubbed “The Africa COP,” to highlight the continent’s plight as one of the world’s poorest regions, already suffering dire impacts of the climate crisis.

=> ↺ At COP27 Indigenous Land Defenders from Mexico, Guatemala Warn “Green Capitalism” Creates Violence

• We continue our coverage of the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, by asking what Indigenous leaders at the frontlines of the climate crisis are calling for from world leaders. We speak to Andrea Ixchíu, a land defender from Guatemala, and Rosa Marina Flores Cruz, an Afro-Indigenous activist from Mexico, who are both part of the Futuros Indígenas collective. They discuss how their countries’ megaprojects and big business are devastating Indigenous communities. “Green capitalism is affecting our communities. It’s displacing people. It’s creating violence,” says Ixchíu. Amid the murder and persecution of climate activists across Latin America, “defend[ing] the land is one of the most difficult and dangerous activities that we can do,” says Cruz.

=> ↺ Opinion | Climate Talks Must Include BROAD Ecological Agriculture Solutions

• At the 27th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference happening right now in Egypt, one of the planet’s top sources of greenhouse gas emissions is barely on the agenda—industrial agriculture and the food we eat. Despite generating about one-third of all climate-harming emissions, industrial food and farming gets short shrift (at best) at the Conference of Parties (COP27) summit in Sharm el Sheikh. How can this be, and what can we do about it?

=> ↺ ‘Abdication of Responsibility’: Fury as COP27 Draft Omits Oil and Gas Phase-Out

• Climate action groups were outraged Thursday as global policymakers released a draft agreement making clear that dire warnings from energy experts and scientists regarding fossil fuel extraction have not gotten through to them, with the document failing to endorse a phase-out of oil and gas use.

• The draft agreement was published as the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) comes to a close in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and is expected to be heavily revised in the coming days.

=> ↺ False Corporate Solutions at COP27 Further Entrench Capitalism and Colonialism

=> ↺ How the West is Using COP27 to Shift Blame to Poorer Nations

• The net result is that we are almost certain to fail in our target to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. And if we do not act soon, even a target of 2 degrees Celsius is hard to achieve. At this rate, we are looking at a temperature rise of 2.5-3 degrees Celsius and the devastation of our civilization. Worse, the impact will be much higher in the equatorial and tropical regions, where most of the world’s poor live.

• In this column, I will address two issues. One is the shift from coal to natural gas as a transitional fuel, and the other is the challenge of storing electricity, without which we cannot shift successfully to renewable energy.

=> ↺ Climate Talks Spark Action Against Investment Treaties Favoring Fossil Fuel Corporations

Energy

=> ↺ FTX & The Joke of Democracy

• From its founding in 2017, the one-man company rose to a “partner organisation” of the WEF and second largest donor to Biden and the Democrats’ mid-term election. It has now gone bust.

=> ↺ Is this the end of [cryptocurrency]?

• The more that comes out about the demise of ftx, the more shocking the tale becomes. The exchange’s own terms of service said it would not lend customers’ assets to its trading arm. Yet of $14bn of such assets, it had reportedly lent $8bn-worth to Alameda Research, a trading firm also owned by Mr Bankman-Fried. In turn, it accepted as collateral its own digital tokens, which it had conjured out of thin air. A fatal run on the exchange exposed the gaping hole in its balance-sheet. To cap it all, after FTX declared bankruptcy in America, hundreds of millions of dollars mysteriously flowed out of its accounts.

=> ↺ Sam Bankman-Fried and the spectacular fall of his [cryptocurrency] empire, FTX

• That is, until last week, when it was revealed that the lion’s share of Bankman-Fried’s empire was built on FTT — the token sold by FTX, conjured out of thin air. The revelation shook investors and clients; they wanted out. The value of his companies plummeted, and there was no one to lend him a hand.

• Bankman-Fried’s companies — FTX and Alameda Research — filed for bankruptcy on November 11th.

=> ↺ Why the [Cryptocurrency] Collapse Matters

• It will take time — and multiple federal investigations — to fully understand what happened behind the scenes at FTX, a Bahamas-based [cryptocurrency] exchange. But the impact is already becoming clear. Lawmakers are calling for more oversight. [Cryptocurrency] die-hards are trying to distance themselves. Critics of this sector of finance are crowing. And for those of you who had, until now, managed to ignore the rise and rise and rise of crypto as a phenomenon? First of all, good for you. And second, you may want to watch this one play out. I’ll explain why shortly.

=> ↺ FTX Crypto Crash Threatens Life Savings of Working People

=> ↺ Big Ag Delegates More Than Double at COP27

• The number of delegates representing big agribusiness has more than doubled at the UN climate talks since last year, leading to concerns from campaigners at access enjoyed by high-carbon companies attending the Egypt summit. 

• DeSmog counted the number of registered COP27 delegates who were either directly linked to the world’s largest agribusiness firms – such as meatpackers JBS, food corporation Cargill, or biotech leaders Bayer – or participating in the UN talks as part of delegations that represent industry interests.

=> ↺ At COP27, US and Partners Announce More Funds for ‘Efficient’ Fertilizer as Industry Reports Massive Profits

• While the world’s top fertilizer producers report record profits and farmers worldwide face ongoing price spikes for chemical inputs, the agrochemical industry is touting innovation and increased efficiency as its solution to the economic and environmental impacts of its products. 

• It is a narrative that senior government officials, including those from the United States and the European Union, leaned into over the weekend at various agriculture-focused events at or on the sidelines of COP27, the annual United Nations climate negotiations, held this year in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

=> ↺ DTE Energy Seeks Rate Hike While Disconnecting More Customers for Nonpayment

• At the same time it pushed for a steep rate hike this year, DTE Energy was shutting off Michigan customers’ electricity for nonpayment at its fastest clip in at least nine years.

• DTE, which serves the Detroit area, disconnected electric accounts 176,923 times from January through September of this year, more than in the first nine months of any year since at least 2013, an analysis by Outlier Media and ProPublica found. During the same period Consumers Energy, Michigan’s second-largest utility, disconnected accounts 63,982 times, less than half as often as DTE when adjusted for the number of customers.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Manifesto For a Rainforest Defenders International

• Why a manifesto?

• In the terrible state it’s now in, planet Earth is screaming out for a movement from small to big, but not in the usual sense of the small begging the big (= powerful) for help because the big powers are hellbent on making matters worse. We mean big in terms of everyone coming together to fix this disaster: Indigenous rainforest communities, sinking islands like Tuvalu, occupied countries like West Papua, and millions upon millions of individuals, young and old, who all share the same concerns and fears. This planet is ours and “ours” includes all species. It’s not the private property of the powers that are ravaging it with a global economic system that has produced “its own grave-diggers”.

=> ↺ Greenland is Worse Than Ever, Much Worse

• The implications are extremely concerning and far-reaching especially for sea level rise. It is a significant development that will prompt climate scientists to recalculate global warming’s impact.

• In that regard, some facts are worth repeating. Here’s one that cannot be told often enough because of the gravity of its implications for the 130 coastal cities of the world each with over one million residents: During the 1990s Greenland and Antarctica combined lost 81 billion tons of ice mass per year on average. A decade later, during the decade of the 2010s, the ice mass loss increased 6-fold to 475 billion tons per year on average. (Source: Greenland, Antarctica Melting Six Times Faster Than in the 1990s, NASA, March 16, 2020)

=> ↺ Amazon Leader Welcomes Climate Vow from Brazil’s Lula to End Deforestation with Indigenous Help

• Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva addressed world leaders at the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Wednesday, vowing to end deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and create a ministry to represent Indigenous peoples in his government. Brazil’s new approach to climate change aims to reverse outgoing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s policies that have devastated Indigenous lands. “With Lula’s support, we can fight against deforestation and support Indigenous peoples in protecting and confronting the threats they face, including assassinations and human rights violations,” says Gregório Mirabal, an Indigenous leader from the Venezuelan Amazon. His colleague Atossa Soltani, board president of Amazon Watch, translated for him.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ Faucets poised to run dry for hundreds of Arizona residents by year’s end

• The rural community of about 2,200 homes in unincorporated Maricopa County does not have its own water system, and most residents get their water from private wells on their properties. But more than 500 homeowners rely strictly on truck haulers to deliver water from a standpipe in Scottsdale. Another 200 whose wells are running dry periodically use the water haulers, as well, residents say.

• But a year ago, Scottsdale notified Rio Verde homeowners that its water supply would be limited to city residents only starting Jan. 1, 2023, barring trucking companies from purchasing and exporting its water.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Federal Software Bill Gets House Companion Amid Lame-Duck Push

• The legislation would order Federal government agencies to undertake an inventory of all software used by the government – with a view toward eventually creating strategies to consolidate government software contracts, create governmentwide software licenses, and move toward adopting open-source software.

=> ↺ House lawmakers introduce bill to overhaul how agencies buy software

• It would also direct agencies to provide shared services or other assistance capabilities to support agency enterprise license adoption, transition to open-source software, cost savings, and performance improvements.

=> ↺ S.4908 – Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act

• This bill addresses software asset management practices by federal agencies.

• The bill requires each agency to complete a comprehensive assessment of the software entitlements and software inventories of the agency and submit the assessment to the head of the agency, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the General Services Administration, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and Congress.

=> ↺ Daily: Russian spy exchanged in 2018 flees back to Estonia, claims asylum

• Artjom Zinchenko had worked for the GRU, the Russian foreign military intelligence agency, but was arrested in Estonia on spying charges in January 2017, EPL reports (link in Estonian).

• EPL writes that Zinchenko was subsequently exchanged for Estonian businessman Raivo Susi, on the Piusa bridge in in Võru County, southeastern Estonia, in 2018, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine starting February 24 changed the situation for him.

=> ↺ #RIPTwitter: Panic, Confusion and Gallows Humor Hits Twitter as More Staff Exit

• In a thread, Fortune tech reporter Kylie Robison estimated that if the reports are true and 75 percent of the remaining staff left Twitter on Thursday then the total headcount would be down 88 percent since Musk took over the company. Robison tweeted that the 25 percent who were staying on at Twitter were likely on work visas and thus would find it harder to find new employment.

=> ↺ Twitter employees quit in droves after Elon Musk’s ultimatum passes

• Musk already laid off half the company’s 7,500 full-time employees on November 4, reportedly cut thousands of contractors last weekend, and fired several employees who had criticized him publicly.

• On Wednesday, in an email to staff entitled “A Fork in the Road,” Musk said Twitter would “need to be extremely hardcore” to succeed. Those who chose to stay should expect long, intense hours of work. Those who left would receive three months’ severance pay, he wrote. Employees were required to choose by Thursday afternoon.

=> ↺ Twitter exodus begins after Musk ‘hardcore’ ultimatum

• The troubled social media network’s management told employees Thursday that offices were temporarily closed and inaccessible, even with a badge, according to Zoe Schiffer, a journalist for the tech industry newsletter Platformer.

=> ↺ ‘How Democracy Gets Corroded’: Right-Wing Group Gets Two Dark Money Donations of $425 Million

• The right-wing dark money organization DonorsTrust was the beneficiary of two anonymous contributions of around $425 million each last year, according to a tax filing obtained by Politico, which described the gifts as “among the largest ever donations to a politically-connected group.”

• Politico reported Wednesday that DonorsTrust, a longtime funder of right-wing causes that describes itself as a defender of “free-market ideals,” disclosed just three financial gifts in 2021.

=> ↺ Nancy Pelosi Announces She Will Not Run For House Leadership Post

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that she plans to continue representing her Bay Area constituents for the remainder of her two-year term but will not seek re-election to a congressional leadership post.

• “No matter what title you all, my colleagues, have bestowed upon me—speaker, leader, whip—there is no greater official honor for me than to stand on this floor and to speak for the people of San Francisco,” the powerful California Democrat said in a much-anticipated address that comes one day after Republicans won narrow control of the House.

=> ↺ Opinion | Low-Wealth Voters Made the Key Difference in Midterms

• The midterm elections confirmed that in many ways, we are a nation divided. But maybe not as divided as we seem.

=> ↺ ACTION ALERT: NYT Invents Left Extremists to Make ‘Moderation’ the Midterm Winner

• Of the many lessons to be learned from this year’s midterms, in which Democrats defied historical trends to largely hold off a GOP wave, the New York Times‘ Jonathan Weisman and Katie Glueck  (11/14/22) singled out corporate media’s recurring favorite: Moderation won.

=> ↺ How Low Income Voters Shaped the Midterm Elections

• Voters may be split on their partisan preferences. But in ballot initiatives, voters across the political spectrum ushered in a wave of significant changes. They hiked the minimum wage in Nebraska, expanded Medicaid in South Dakota, capped medical debt in Arizona, and protected abortion rights not only in Michigan, California, and Vermont, but also in the redder states of Kentucky and Montana.

• These issues cross party lines. The common thread is that the people most impacted by them are poor — a voting bloc that demands attention like never before.

=> ↺ New Memo Details Legal Case to Indict Trump Over Mar-a-Lago Documents

• A model prosecution memorandum published Thursday by a team of U.S. legal experts lays out potential charges against Donald Trump related to the former Republican president and 2024 presidential candidate’s handling of classified government documents since he left office last year.

• “Trump’s conduct is indeed much worse than most of those prior cases and involves a host of aggravating factors.”

=> ↺ House Progressives Say No Corporate Tax Break Without Expansion of Child Tax Credit

• Dozens of U.S. House Democrats on Thursday sent a letter to the party’s congressional leaders, calling on them to push for the reinstatement of the expanded Child Tax Credit in a year-end compromise tax package—and to use Republicans’ demand for corporate tax breaks as a bargaining chip to secure much-needed aid for families across the country.

• Republicans are calling for the reversal of a rule which requires companies to amortize domestic research and development expenses every five years, instead allowing them to deduct those expenses every year.

=> ↺ Democrats Can Defeat GOP Extremism by ‘Fighting for Working People’: Warren

• During her keynote speech at an economic policy conference held Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren called on Democrats to step up their efforts to rein in corporate greed and create a better economy for working-class households, arguing that doing so is essential to defeating the increasingly anti-democratic GOP.

• “When Democrats fight for and deliver for working people, we win.”

=> ↺ Medicare for All Champion Bernie Sanders Eyes Key Senate Committee Chair

• Among the nation’s leading voices in the push for Medicare for All, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday confirmed his desire to be the next chair of the committee best positioned to make the hope of universal healthcare a reality in the United States.

• “Sen. Sanders intends to seek the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions for the 118th Congress,” said the Vermont Independent’s communications director, Mike Casca, in a statement, confirming reporting from earlier this week.

=> ↺ New Bernie Sanders Book to Declare: “It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism”

• “It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism presents a vision that extends beyond the promises of past campaigns to reveal what would be possible if the political revolution took place, if we would finally recognize that economic rights are human rights, and if we would work to create a society that provides a decent standard of living for all. This isn’t some utopian fantasy; this is democracy as we should know it.”

• “Sanders’ success today shows that much of America is tired of rising inequality.”

=> ↺ Thieves break into Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov’s Italian villa — Meduza

• On Wednesday night, burglars broke into Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov’s villa in the Tuscan town of Forte dei Marmi, according to Italian news outlet Adnkronos. Tinkov and his family were in Mexico at the time.

=> ↺ Kherson occupation official Ekaterina Gubareva reportedly released from custody — Meduza

• Ekaterina Gubareva, the deputy head of the collaborationist administration in Ukraine’s Kherson region, has been released from custody after her arrest earlier this week, her husband, Pavel Gubarev, reported on Telegram.

=> ↺ Putin expels human rights activists from Council for Human Rights, replaces them with pro-Kremlin politicians and propagandists — Meduza

• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree changing the composition of Russia’s Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. The document was published on Russia’s Internet portal for legal information.

=> ↺ Frightfully authentic feature film shows how Hungarian girls end up in child prostitution

=> ↺ Dem Lawmaker Circulates Letter in Congress Calling for Trump’s Disqualification

=> ↺ Republicans Are Sticking to a Losing Game

• Like horror-movie victims transfixed dead in their tracks as the avenging demon approaches, the GOP caucuses in both chambers of Congress appear to be staying the course. As the evidence continues mounting that the GOP’s status-quo arrangements are a prescription for doom, the party held its nominations for leadership Tuesday afternoon. To put things in the suitably bloodless prose of Hill gamesmanship: Both Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell survived test votes of their GOP leadership perches, with McCarthy on track to serve as speaker of the House, and McConnell officially poised to resume his present role as Senate minority leader.

=> ↺ May Day for Twitter

=> ↺ Senate Takes Crucial Step Toward Codifying Marriage Equality

=> ↺ Democrats, Time to Go Big

• Amazingly, Democrats survived 2022, retaining control of the Senate, and barely losing the House. With inflation and crime up, Biden unpopular, the vast majority saying the country is on the wrong track, and the history of voters’ punishing the president’s party in midterm elections, Republicans found it easy to peddle their “red wave” predictions. Among Democrats, fusillades from the perennial circular firing squad began long before Election Day. And yet, Democrats enjoyed the best midterm results for a presidential party since George Bush’s Republicans in 2002 in the wake of 9/11. Now, before the parties and pundits spin the results into fantasy, some commonsense reflections are in order.

=> ↺ The Coming Sinophobic Calamity

• But war with Beijing, the GOP project, is not a partisan effort; it is bipartisan, and the Republicans are quite proud of and open about that. So their House win last week means one thing: the military and the security state will push ferociously for the assault on China that they have long lusted for, though they are happy, for now, for that assault to remain economic. But don’t be fooled. There is real danger afoot. Those Dems who really want to avert World War III with Beijing will have to be very nimble. And they will have to go about it in a relentless, low-profile manner, because anyone perceived as standing up to the bash-China juggernaut will be crushed, regardless of the lull in Biden’s incendiary rhetoric.

• At the top of the GOP foreign affairs agenda is economic war with China – no matter what price we pay (and it will be high) in inflation. Because you can’t slap economic sanctions on your biggest trading partner with impunity. You can’t even slap economic sanctions on any major economy, like Russia’s, without them backfiring badly, as Biden and birdbrain Eurocrats found out when their precious sanctions on Moscow started destroying western economies.  Regardless, an economic fight to the death with Beijing is the first item on the GOP to-do list. The second item is actual, all-out, military hot war with China, if it makes any hostile move on Taiwan. Or, for some congressional Neanderthals, even if it doesn’t.

=> ↺ Biden and Xi Skirt the Abyss

• Admittedly, expectations for the November 4 meeting between Presidents Biden of the United States and Xi of China were not particularly high, so no one should be surprised that little of real substance emerged from their encounter in Bali, Indonesia. Both leaders laid out their concerns about the other side’s behavior while promising to contain their mutual antagonisms at a level below that of armed conflict. They also agreed to increase high-level contacts—Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Beijing early next year as part of this process—and to resume formal talks over climate change. But neither leader appeared to give ground on any of the major fissures in US-China relations, so the risk of conflict is bound to persist.

=> ↺ Patrick Lawrence: More Futile Pacific Overtures

• Nearly halfway through Biden’s term in office he finally met the Chinese president to discuss the single most important relationship between any two nations anywhere in the world.

=> ↺ How a Defender of American Empire Became a Dissenter

• When Lyle Jeremy Rubin enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in the mid-2000s, he possessed an unwavering commitment to America’s democratizing mission. As a young man, he was attracted to the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party and believed in the War on Terror as a moral project. In his own words, he embraced “the inevitability of capitalism, the primacy of the United States and the naturalness of a special relationship between the U.S. and the Jewish state.” And his decision to join the Marines was inseparable from a strict code of manhood that military service would bolster.

=> ↺ Joan Walsh on the Georgia Runoff; Gustavo Arellano on the LA Vote

• The Georgia Senate runoff campaign has begun–Joan Walsh has just returned from Atlanta, and explains why Trump’s candidate Herschel Walker seems likely to lose. Also: comment on what happened in Stacey Abrams’s tragic loss. Powered by RedCircle

=> ↺ Get Ready for More Ballot Initiatives to Restore Abortion Rights in Red States

• Get ready to see a whole lot more ballot measures to protect abortion rights.

=> ↺ Democrats Must Do Better in Rural America

• Like most progressives, we are relieved that a strong turnout of the Democratic base prevented catastrophe on election night and even led to flipping a couple of state legislatures blue. But while Democrats and liberals might be celebrating, most places in this country—and more than half of the population—still voted against us.

=> ↺ Outspent 11 to 1, Karen Bass Still Defeated a Billionaire to Become LA’s Mayor

=> ↺ ‘The Left Beat the Money’ as Karen Bass Defeats Billionaire To Become LA Mayor

• Bass, a six-term Democratic U.S. congresswoman, won despite being outspent 11-to-1 by real estate tycoon and erstwhile Republican Rick Caruso.

=> ↺ Joel Beinin: Israel’s Elections Spell More of the Same for the Country, Only With an Even Uglier Face

• Historian Joel Beinin uses his personal experiences to paint a picture of Israel, past and present, as a country and an idea.

=> ↺ Wakanda Forever: Imperial Apologia in Kente Cloth

• The Marvel Cinematic Universe has always been a funhouse mirror of American liberalism, which can be attributed in part to how the franchise began life reliant upon an open door policy with the Pentagon, trading script approval for access to military locations and hardware. (For further details, readers are encouraged to peruse 2017’s National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood by Alford and Secker.) After the George Floyd protests and the blossoming of grassroots mutual aid networks that were created to support the most vulnerable Black and Brown populations during the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was next to inevitable that director Ryan Coogler would reflect this by bringing into discourse the Afro-futuristic Wakanda with an Indigenous Latin American polity, Talokan, and its lord-protector, Namor (Tenoch Huerta).

• This occasions several questions. First, does the conflict between Black Wakandans and Latin American Talokan-ians adequately estimate the complexities of real world Black and Latin American communal intercourse? Second, should we expect such complexity from a comic book movie? Third, can we truly grapple with such questions in a picture that still holds allegiance with the American empire?

=> ↺ Alexey Navalny transferred to ‘cell-type room’ — Meduza

• Alexey Navalny, who is serving his sentence in a penal colony in the Vladimir region, has transferred to a cell-type room. The cell-type room is another form of solitary confinement. This news was reported by Navalny’s social media accounts.

=> ↺ Zelensky says all negotiations on ending war should happen publicly — Meduza

• All discussion of issues related to negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine should take place publicly, Volodymyr Zelensky told members of the Ukrainian media on Thursday.

=> ↺ László Kövér regrets postponement of Bratislava meeting

=> ↺ Head of the Hungarian public broadcaster: we provide credible, balanced and impartial information

=> ↺ A Post-Election Caution

• What a difference a day makes, as the old song goes. The day before Election Day, liberals and progressives feared the worst: a solidly MAGA takeover of the House and Senate. Consider these expectations that proved unwarranted:

• · MAGA election deniers would get control of key election posts, and the machinery, in the battleground states.

=> ↺ How the US Midterm Elections will Affect Nigeria

• Africa today is undergoing many changes, whether economic or political – some for better and some for worse. For African nations to maintain a steady upward climb toward democracy and stability, the continent needs a strong and stable America to help guide it and sustain it. A number of initiatives aimed at strengthening the partnership between Nigeria and the US could be compromised with a power change in Congress. There are voices in America that claim a Republican rise in power means the country is collapsing and naturally that would not be good news for Nigeria. But it is disingenuous to assume that Republicans care less about Nigeria. In fact there appears to be no proof that a Republican-led America would be worse for Nigeria.

• Under the Biden administration, the US donated $1 million in emergency humanitarian assistance in response to the devastating flooding in Nigeria and in September, US climate czar John Kerry visited Abuja where he met with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and pledged support for cleaner energy in Nigeria. Nigeria and the US also have a partnership to promote democracy, peace, and development in the country to help it further develop as a strong and independent country. In August, the US entered into an agreement with Nigeria to repatriate over $23 million in assets stolen by General Sani Abacha and his co-conspirators. This amount is just a small part of the over $300 million repatriated so far. Thanks to the US, Nigerians are receiving justice.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Family: Egypt activist very, very thin after hunger strike

• Abdel-Fattah, who turns 41 on Friday, is one of Egypt’s most prominent pro-democracy voices. He had intensified a hunger strike and halted all calories and water earlier in November to coincide with the start of the U.N. climate conference, known as COP27, in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

=> ↺ Turkey Tested New Censorship Powers After Istanbul Blast

• Social media services including Twitter, Instagram and YouTube were quickly made inaccessible after the blast on Sunday, and blocked until the following morning. Broadcasters reporting on the incident abruptly shifted to other topics as RTUK, the media watchdog, rapidly imposed a broadcast ban.

=> ↺ A Small-Town Librarian Spoke Against Censorship. Then the Dark Money Came for Her.

• A few days later, she found herself accused online of advocating pornography in the children’s section. That was not unusual — fights about book banning have gotten ugly all over the country. But in response, Amanda did something that few others have done.

=> ↺ [Repeat] Astronomer in Twitter limbo over ‘intimate’ meteor

• An astronomer from Oxfordshire was locked out of her Twitter account for three months after sharing a video of a meteor which was flagged by the site’s automated moderation tools.

• Mary McIntyre was told that her six-second animated clip featured “intimate content”, shared without the consent of the participant.

• Her only option was to delete the tweet.

• However, in doing so she would have had to agree that she had broken the rules.

• Her initial 12-hour ban went on for three months – and she exhausted the online appeals process.

=> ↺ SpaceX Employees Say They Were Fired for Speaking Up About Elon Musk

• The SpaceX letter ultimately led to the firing of nine workers, according to the employees and their lawyers. On Wednesday, unfair-labor-practice charges were filed with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of eight of those workers, arguing that their firings were illegal.

• The SpaceX case raises new questions about the management practices at Mr. Musk’s companies, where there is little tolerance for dissent or labor organizing.

=> ↺ Citing Orwell, Judge Blocks ‘Positively Dystopian’ Censorship Law Backed by DeSantis

• In an order that begins by quoting the famous opening line of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, a federal judge on Thursday blocked key provisions of a Florida censorship law that aimed to restrict how state university professors teach race, gender, and U.S. history.

• “‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,’ and the powers in charge of Florida’s public university system have declared the state has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom,’” Judge Mark Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, an Obama appointee, wrote in his scathing decision, which temporarily halts enforcement of parts of the law championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis—a possible 2024 presidential candidate.

=> ↺ THE PROJECT CENSORED NEWSLETTER – Censored Notebook

• At a time when pundits and politicians alike promote fearful understandings of “fake news” and the negative impacts of social media, this online event aims to provide participants with resources to resist the lures of sensational disinformation and omnipresent advertising.

=> ↺ Fact Check: Facebook’s Policy That Its Fact Checkers Can No Longer Check Trump Is Very, Very Bad

• Quite possibly you heard that former President Donald Trump, who has spent the past two years in delusional denial about the fact that he lost the last election, and who continues to lead a dwindling coterie of equally delusional fans, has now announced his plans to run for re-election in 2024. This was widely expected, even as the Republican Party greatly underperformed during the midterms, with many blaming Trump’s delusions and the ridiculous way in which many candidates felt they needed to go along with those delusions.

=> ↺ KOSA Would Let the Government Control What Young People See Online

• The latest version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is focused on removing online information that people need to see—people of all ages. Letting governments—state or federal—decide what information anyone needs to see is a dangerous endeavor. On top of that, this bill, supposedly designed to protect our privacy, actually requires tech companies to collect more data on internet users than they already do. 

• EFF has long supported comprehensive privacy protections, but the details matter. KOSA gets the details consistently wrong, and that’s why we’re calling on members of Congress to oppose this bill. 

• Although KOSA has been revamped since lawmakers introduced it in February, and improved slightly, it’s still a dangerous bill that presents censorship and surveillance as a solution to some legitimate, and some not-so-legitimate, issues facing young internet users today. 

=> ↺ Bad News For The Internet: Congress Looking To Sneak In Dangerous ‘Save The Kids!’ Internet Bill Into Year-End Omnibus

• Over the last week or so, I keep hearing about a big push among activists and lawmakers to try to get the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) into the year-end “must pass” omnibus bill. Earlier this week, one of the main parents pushing for the bill went on Jake Tapper’s show on CNN and stumped for it. And, the latest report from Axios confirms that lawmakers are looking to include it in the lameduck omnibus, or possibly the NDAA (despite it having absolutely nothing to do with defense spending).

=> ↺ First Circuit Trims First Amendment, Upholds New Hampshire’s Criminal Defamation Law

• It’s 2022 and somehow nearly half the nation still has some form of criminal defamation law on the books. This is a holdover from the days before the US went independent — laws that allowed (usually) the government to treat speech it didn’t like as a criminal act.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Journalist in prison writes about violation of rights in Adana jail

• 41-year-old Fatih Özgür Aydın, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Public Workers’ Front is suffering from chronic crohn’s disease. He is in prison in Adana F Type. He listed the violations of rights in prison in a letter he wrote to the Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG).

=> ↺ US moves to shield Saudi crown prince in journalist killing

• The administration said the senior position of the crown prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler and recently named prime minister as well, should shield him against a suit brought by the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group Khashoggi founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now.

• The request is non-binding and a judge will ultimately decide whether to grant immunity. But it is bound to anger human rights activists and many U.S. lawmakers, coming as Saudi Arabia has stepped up imprisonment and other retaliation against peaceful critics at home and abroad and has cut oil production, a move seen as undercutting efforts by the U.S. and its allies to punish Russia for its war against Ukraine.

=> ↺ Saudi Blood Money, Golf and Adelaide

• The press release from the premier’s office claimed that the rights to host the LIV Golf event had been “hotly contested” (governments across the world are gagging for it – queue up and wait your turn). It would take place over school holidays, thereby boosting the economy with the arrival of international and interstate visitors. They would fork out and help “pack out restaurants, bars, hotels, shops and other businesses, many of which suffered through the pandemic.”

• The glitz of the programme, an “innovative new format featuring team and individual play”, was also something to point out, not to mention the celebrities who would be turning up: Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Sergio Garcia, Patrick Reed. Dishonour boards in sports have rarely been so long.

=> ↺ ‘We have no sources inside Putin’s head’ Can the journalists predict the Kremlin’s next move? How do they find high-ranking sources of information? And will we get any warning about regime change in Russia? — Meduza

• When the Russian government launched an offensive against the independent media in 2021, no one could have predicted that this would be a step towards starting a war with Ukraine. Since February 2022, most of the free Russian media have been forced to leave the country and adapt to working in exile. Journalists who continue work in Russia compare themselves to “partisans” doing what’s necessary at their own risk. How do the free Russian media survive under these conditions? How does the war reshape journalistic standards? And what is the research process behind a story that reports on developments in the Kremlin? This article takes you behind the scenes of the new Russian political journalism. In this season’s first episode of Deadline, Meduza’s Russian-language podcast about the new media, Natalia Zhdanova spoke with two investigative journalists writing on Russian politics: Meduza’s Kremlin correspondent Andrey Pertsev and our former correspondent Farida Rustamova, author of the Faridaily newsletter. Anna Razumnaya retells their conversation for Meduza in English.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ University of California Grad Workers Are On Strike

• On November 14, 48,000 unionized graduate workers across the 10 schools in the University of California system went on strike, beginning what may be the largest higher education strike in U.S. history. That number includes postdocs, teaching assistants, tutors, and student and academic researchers, across four bargaining units represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW).

• After more than a year of negotiations beginning in spring 2021, the union chose to strike largely over wages and working conditions, alleging the university had not bargained in good faith and demonstrated unfair labor practices. Their demands include higher child care stipends and covering transit expenses. According to Inside Higher Education, non-tenured lecturers – who are prohibited from solidarity striking – have stated they won’t take work over for striking workers; and 53,000 workers at UPS were given their union’s consent to stop deliveries to UC campuses during the strike.

=> ↺ Iranians Are Protesting Far More Than Hijabs

• The people protesting in the streets of Iran have one common goal: an end to the Islamic regime. The problem isn’t just forced head coverings or economic conditions but rather a lack of free expression, inhumane killings, plundering of wealth, discrimination, unfair trials and funding of global terrorism. In fact, with no freedom of the press, covert satellite TV broadcasts such as ours have provided a lifeline of hope to Iranians surrounded by chaos, and we hope have been an encouragement to them that they have the support of the international community.

=> ↺ The Farda Briefing: Protesting Iranian Athletes Shun National Anthem, Remove Head Scarves

• The support of well-known athletes and sports figures has further publicized the protests and the brutal government response that has killed at least 330 people. Some 14,000 people have also been arrested in the crackdown, including athletes.

• What’s Next: More athletes are likely to publicly show their support for the protesters in the coming weeks, including during the soccer World Cup that kicks off on November 20 in Qatar. The Iranian national team includes several players who have criticized the authorities over the death of Mahsa Amini, who died on September 16 shortly after she was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s hijab law. Her death was the catalyst for the protests.

=> ↺ Another relationship—between man and dog—poisoned by Muhammad.

• On Nov. 4, 2022, Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab journalist, tweeted: “The mayor of Hebron [a Palestinian city] offered 20 shekels to anyone who kills a dog in his city. Palestinians took to the streets, torturing and killing dozens of dogs.” The tweet was accompanied by a picture of what appeared to be Palestinians beating or striking to death a dog with sticks.

=> ↺ Lucknow: Muslim boy ‘throws’ Hindu girlfriend off 4th floor to her death as she refused ‘nikah’, conversion to Islam

• The incident occurred when Nidhi’s parents took her to Sufiyan’s house to confront him. Reportedly, Nidhi’s maternal uncle also accompanied the family.

• There, it is alleged, the two families got involved in a heated argument during which Sufiyan also threatened Nidhi’s maternal uncle that he would set his car on fire if he did not stop interfering.

=> ↺ Attacks on Indian Child Welfare and Affirmative Action are the Reverberations of White Supremacy

• On Wednesday, November 9th, 2022, the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in Haaland v. Brackeen.This case is centered on the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, which was adopted to prevent family separation, specifically, the removal of Native American children from tribal lands. In this case, “Baby O” who was left in a hospital after birth under Nevada’s Safe Haven Laws, was adopted by the white foster parents, Heather and Nick Libretti. Investigation of Baby O’s family identified her biological father and other blood relatives, finding that she is eligible for citizenship in the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, a federally recognized Native American tribe. [1] Under the ICWA, preferred placement of Native children rests first with parents, then grandparents and other non-nuclear family blood relatives. The parents were notified that they would not be able to adopt Baby O, and they decided to contact all potential blood relatives with whom Baby O might be placed, to try to convince them to give up their custody rights. The Libretti’s approached Baby O’s grandmother, requesting she renounce tribal citizenship to remove Baby O from ICWA’s coverage. The Libretti’s hired attorneys and worked with biased social workers who did not reach out to many of Baby O’s blood relatives until a court ordered them to do so, and when they did, they tried to convince them from accepting custody of the child.[1]

• The Libretti’s eventually won full custody of Baby O, though this was not enough. The Libretti’s charge that their difficulties in adopting Baby O were a result of a racially discriminatory law—the ICWA—which devalues white parents in preference for Native parents. The Libretti’s claim that they were racially discriminated against and therefore, under the equal protection clause, the ICWA is unconstitutional. Their case is only one of four that has been brought under the single name of Haaland v. Brackeen. [1]

=> ↺ ‘Red Cup Rebellion’: Workers at 100+ Starbucks Locations Strike to Protest Union Busting

• Thousands of unionized Starbucks workers at more than 100 locations across the United States are walking off the job Thursday to protest the coffee giant’s refusal to engage in good-faith negotiations with stores that have voted to organize.

• Workers United, the union representing thousands of Starbucks employees, dubbed the nationwide day of action the “Red Cup Rebellion,” a pro-labor counter to Starbucks’ annual “Red Cup Day.”

=> ↺ Over 100 Starbucks Stores Go on Strike to Protest Company Union Busting

=> ↺ 109 Republicans Voted Against Bill to Ban Sexual Assault NDAs

• The House on Wednesday passed bipartisan legislation that prohibits employers from using pre-dispute non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or non-disparagement clauses to silence survivors of workplace sexual assault and harassment.

• President Joe Biden is expected to sign the Speak Out Act, which had already been approved in the Senate by unanimous consent, as soon as it reaches his desk.

=> ↺ Abolition Is About Escaping the Death Trap of “Normalcy”

=> ↺ Democrats Shouldn’t Take Women Voters for Granted

• So it turns out women do care about their right to control their own bodies. Who’d have guessed? In the run-up to the midterms, we heard a lot about how abortion had “peaked too soon”—a friend even suggested that the Supreme Court deliberately released the Dobbs decision in June precisely to give voters enough time to forget about it. Um, no. Too many people thought women couldn’t keep the loss of their reproductive freedom in their pretty little heads for more than a month or so when milk prices are so high. Democrats were criticized by everyone from David Brooks to Bernie Sanders for—finally!—making abortion their banner issue. If only the party had done so for the past 30 years!

=> ↺ Illinois Voters Just Made Collective Bargaining a Constitutional Right

• On November 8, voters in Illinois took to the polls to approve the addition of Amendment 1, also known as the “Workers’ Rights Amendment,” to their state Constitution. The amendment guarantees the fundamental right to to organize and collectively bargain for Illinois workers. “No law shall be passed that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.”

=> ↺ Chilean State to Address Historic Land Debt With Mapuche Indigenous Communities

• The Mapuche Indigenous communities have been in conflict with the Chilean State over land in the country’s Araucanía region for over a century.

=> ↺ Indigenous Activists Tom Goldtooth & Eriel Deranger on the Link Between Colonialism & Climate Crisis

• Democracy Now! is broadcasting live from COP27, the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where hundreds of activists protested outside the plenary hall Thursday to demand climate justice. We speak to two Indigenous activists and land defenders at the summit, Eriel Tchekwie Deranger and Tom Goldtooth. “It is frontline communities, land defenders and Indigenous peoples that have experienced the loss of our territories at the hands of oil and gas and extractivism,” says Deranger, executive director of Indigenous Climate Action and member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. “Colonialism has to be addressed in these hallways, and there’s been lack of political will around that,” says Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network and member of the Diné and Dakota nations.

=> ↺ New School Staff Strike Shows the Institution Is Not So Progressive When It Comes to Faculty Pay

• Over 1,300 part-time faculty have voted to strike unless a new union contract deal can be reached before Wednesday, Nov. 16.

=> ↺ Appeals Court Calls DEA Drug Tests Into Question, Overturns Sentence Based On Expert’s Assertions

• We all know field drug tests are inaccurate. The cheap, portable tests turn everything from diesel to humans ashes to contraband, resulting in the wrongful arrests of people who’ve done nothing wrong. Cases often get tossed once these substances are tested by drug labs, but the harm has often already been done. The faulty tests can’t necessarily secure convictions, but they can ruin people’s lives and, far too often, force them to accept plea deals admitting to acts they didn’t commit just so they can get back to their homes, kids, jobs, and lives.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Wireless Industry Feebly Trying To Kill Promising Shared Wireless Spectrum Effort

• Back in 2015, the FCC announced that it would be adopting rules for shared commercial use of the 3550-3700 MHz band (3.5 GHz band), creating an unlicensed Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) and a system to manage shared government, private, and public access to this spectrum. The move was a broadly welcomed one, as it not only let multiple parties share the same spectrum, it boosted the availability of unlicensed spectrum for localized, innovative use cases.

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ And This Year’s ‘Pharma Greed Awards’ Go to…

• As Big Pharma executives gathered in London to congratulate each other with awards for their performance amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, access to medicines activists interrupted the gala ceremony to condemn the industry’s profiteering and demand an end to pharma monopolies.

• “Pharma execs are celebrating their own greed with a round of back-slapping awards and swigging champagne.”

Copyrights

=> ↺ 20CC

=> ↺ YouTubers Must Pay $3.5m Damages For Uploading 10-Minute Movie Edits

• Two people who transformed full-length movies into YouTube videos that could be watched in just 10 minutes have been hit hard by a court in Japan. More than a dozen copyright holders targeted the pair in a civil suit claiming infringement of 54 movies. A decision handed down at the Tokyo District Court this week orders the pair to pay compensation of $3.56 million.

=> ↺ Google and Amazon Helped the FBI Identify Z-Library’s Operators

• Specializing in pirated books, Z-Library billed itself as “the world’s largest library”. The site excelled at making knowledge available to the public. However, based on details laid out in the criminal complaint against two alleged operators, security wasn’t high on the list of priorities. With search warrants directed at Google and Amazon, it wasn’t hard for the FBI to connect the dots.

=> ↺ ‘Publication Laundering’: How Publishers Happily Accept Fake And Nonsense Conference Papers In The Pursuit Of Profits

• Techdirt has written many times about the dysfunctional state of academic publishing. The main issue is that academics do most of the work required to publish a paper, but the publishers reap most of the benefit. Profit margins are extremely high for top publishers — typically 30-40%. And yet academics are routinely forbidden from sharing their own papers, because they are pressured to assign copyright in them to the publisher, which uses the control that affords to block wider access to knowledge.

=> ↺ Major Pirate IPTV Service Raided, Four Arrests, 95 Resellers Face Investigation

• In a joint operation carried out by Spain’s Policía Nacional and EUROPOL, a major pirate IPTV service serving half a million users across Europe has been shut down. Police say packages included 2,600 live TV channels and a 23,000-item VOD library, generating annual profits of more than €3 million for the operators. Four people have been arrested and 95 resellers placed on alert.

=> ↺ U.S. Indicts Two Russians for Running the ‘Z-Library’ Piracy Ring

• The U.S. Government has indicted two Russian nationals who stand accused of operating the ebook piracy site Z-Library. Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova were arrested in Argentina earlier this month and the U.S. plans to prosecute the pair for criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud and money laundering.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ 🔤SpellBinding: DHIMSPO Wordo: HALED

=> ↺ Neurodivergence, sexuality, connection and intimacy

• Sexuality, connection and intimacy amongst neurodivergent people do not necessarily look the same as they do in neurotypicality. The expressions of desire, love and care that are meaningful to us might not look like desire, love and care to neurotypical people.

• Some neurodivergent people can find light/gentle touch intolerable, but be fine (or actively enjoy) firm touch. Some experience love and care by being given substantial physical space, while some of us experience love and care through intense physical experiences.

Technical

=> ↺ iPod, iPad, iPhone, iPiss

• I don’t remember how I got the few albums on the iPad onto the iPad. Maybe I bought them? When I mount the iPad on my real laptop, no iTunes, I only get access to photos and app storage. The music is not accessible.

• [...]

• Of course, I don’t have access to the files I downloaded from Bandcamp to the iPad. I only have access to those files via the Bandcamp website.

• Ah. I blame them all. Apple. The music industry. The programmers. Their managers. Their executives. The lobbyists. The lawmakers supporting this shit show.

• I have 60GiB and more on my devices and can’t use them for the music on my disk drives because they all fear pirates.

=> ↺ A proposed package alert system

• Maybe package managers, I’m thinking of something like go get here, could work like this:

• 1. Writing a package were easy and you could just publish a random repo anywhere.

• 2. End users and admins could pull packages from any of those rando stranger’s repo but updates weren’t pushed out.

• 3. Package writers could alert the package manager app team for serious security updates.

• 4. The manager team would vet the fixed version, and if it was a false alarm would send out a message “don’t trust this package, they misuse the security update system” and if it was a real fix they’d send out a message telling you to update and giving you a way to optionally press “yes” right there and get their vetted version. (Or if it seems like an honest false alarm as opposed to a malicious one, just do nothing.)

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