Global heating has been advancing faster than models predicted. Some scientists are concerned that Earth has moved beyond the region of climate space that the models work in.

So it looks like global heating will be worse than predicted.

Earth's weather is a chaotic system. Some of that mathematical chaos may get into the climate too. There are plenty of positive feedbacks that could be taking over.

*With modern solutions such as air-con aggravating the problem, ancient heat-management techniques can offer answers.*

*Shell oil non-profit donated to anti-climate groups behind Project 2025.

Foundation says it ‘does not endorse any organizations’ while funneling hundreds of thousands to rightwing causes.*

It also donated to the Heatland Institute, which campaigns to protect global heating and keep it going.

*Survivors of [fossil fuel] disasters demand US inquiry into big oil's "climate crimes."* They include spreading misinformation about global heating and its causes.

*German climate activists stop air traffic after breaking into four airport sites.*

These protests may be dangerous, but not as dangerous as the failure to curb global heating. Is it stupid to try this method when gentler ones don't serve?

Ukraine's army in the Kursk region is taking many prisoners; they say Putin's conscripts often don't want to fight.

It makes sense that they don't; so when Zelenskiy says that prisoners of war become part of the "exchange fund" to swap for Putin's Ukrainian prisoners, that creates a moral quandary. If a Putin forces soldier surrenders in order to get out of the Putin forces, swapping him back to Putin would spoil the point of his surrender.

Does Ukraine give each prisoner the option not to be traded?

*Inciting rioters in Britain was a test run for Elon Musk. Just see what he plans for America.*

We should not suffer anything like today's antisocial media platforms to live. But what is the crucial aspect that we must make them change? I suggest that it is that they run recommendation engines and impose them on every user.

We can't be sure that changing this would correct the danger, but unless we have a better idea, we should try it.

US citizens: Protect the Biden-Harris Antitrust Agenda.

After RFK Jr tried to corrupt the corruptor, he reportedly tried corrupting Kamala Harris the same way — he would endorse her in exchange for a cabinet job.

The reports say she made no reply to him.

How pitiful it is to try to sell out and find that what you're selling is not worth anything.

US citizens: call on Congress to ban thugs' use of deception to trick minors into false confessions.

I signed the petition but we should go further. Many adults are vulnerable to pressure to make false confessions, and those are unjust no matter who is the victim. We should adopt this measure regardless of who the victim is.

If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

Israeli bombing killed 18 people in the same family at once.

Families tend to stick together when they flee in search of safety. So if you make a habit of bombing places where hundreds of civilians are sheltering, and sometimes killing dozens of them, by chance sometimes the many civilians you kill will include a dozen or two from one family.

Whether the victims are related is not morally crucial. The war crime consists of bombing a place where there are many civilians. Related or not, civilians are not a legitimate target.

Fanatical "settlers" carried out another pogrom in the West Bank, but this time the president of Israel called it "a pogrom" and officials have said they will arrest and try the perpetrators.

This might be a significant change. We can't take that for granted, and it would be only a first step. But we can hope that it is real, and we can encourage that.

The US president can cut off arms shipments to Israel without any help from Congress. He can do this by enforcing two existing laws, which forbid arms deliveries to countries that (1) violate the rules of war or (2) block delivery of US humanitarian aid.

US citizens: Stand with Bernie Sanders: Not another nickel for Netanyahu's war. End U.S. funding and weapons sales to Israel.

If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

The wrecker could harm abortion rights in many countries if he seizes the US presidency again.

(I don't say "wins" because Republicans are constantly trying to rig elections.)

US citizens: support Biden's proposal for a "No One Is Above the Law" amendment.

If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213

US citizens: call on Congress to repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

*Newly Sober God Admits He Has No Recollection Of Creating Universe.*

The German legal system is deliberating on the precise meaning of the slogan, "From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free." Specifically, is it antisemitic?

My conclusion about the slogan is that it is not antisemitic, and does not specifically advocate doing any harm to Jews as persons, but it does advocate the abolition of Israel. Said abolition might in certain circumstances be accompanied by a genocide, though in other circumstances it would not.

I don't advocate the abolition of Israel, and I do not associate with use of that slogan. What I advocate is a free and democratic state of Palestine in the region alongside Israel. I have advocated that for many years. Of course, this is easier said than done.

*Is the US Still a Democracy? 'Yes and No,' Says Bernie Sanders. "I use the term oligarchy... I think we are moving rapidly in that direction."*

I have said basically the same thing for many years, except that I prefer the word "plutocracy". The two words have a subtle difference but they are mostly the same.

There is no sharp line between a democracy, a degraded democracy such as the US is now, and a plutocracy. Rather, it is a spectrum. But if we take his issue seriously we must campaign to reduce the extent of plutocracy.

US democracy is also threatened currently by authoritarian extremism (led by the corrupter). That and plutocracy are different currents but they work together.

Is US democracy doomed? I don't know. What I know is that throwing in the towel is foolish because it guarantees defeat.

Spreading fires burnt the northwest suburbs of Athens. Many houses were destroyed.

There have always been fires in rural areas that took many days to control, but we have come to expect that the modern state can protect cities from such fires. That can no longer be assumed. Global heating produces higher temperatures, and in some places more aridity, and those combine to enable fires to overwhelm defense.

Coming sooner or later to a city near you — unless we curb global heating.

Medical effects of heat cause tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths per year. Often there is no record that attributes a death to heat. In poor countries, especially, no one is likely to determine that a poor person's death was due to heat.

*Inquiry into Mexico's [deadly repression from 1965 to 1990] obstructed by military and other agencies, board says.*

This repression included the Tlotelolco massacre in which soldiers secretly posted by the president in a nearby large building shot a crowd of protesting students down below.

There were, of course, cops outside that were sent officially to control the protest — but those cops were not the ones that opened fire. ISTR hearing that the hidden soldiers shot at them so that they would shoot "back" at the only possible visible enemy.

US citizens: call on Congress to overturn the "Citizens" United decision.

If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

US citizens: call on governments to invest in community safety, and reduce reliance on police and punishment.

US citizens: call on Congress to take care of US national parks.

If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

Omer Bartov, Israeli historian living for 25 years in the US, writes about how Israel has changed.

*As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel.* He describes an Israeli people that has come to see peace as unthinkable. That was not so before.

He cited his previous publication in November:

*We know from history that it is crucial to warn of the potential for genocide before it occurs, rather than belatedly condemn it after it has taken place. I think we still have that time.*

But then he said,

*I no longer believe that. By the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions.*

Tim Walz taught in a high school in China, and brought American students to see China -- and he taught them about the massacre of students that set up a small version of the Statue of Liberty in Beijing.

The UN Human Rights Office (UNHCR) recorded 21 Gaza schools bombed from July 4 through Aug 10.

I don't think this was a matter of chance.

Around 36 potential Republican election saboteurs are still in state offices.

Miami public school teachers have been compelled to vote to choose between their existing union and a trojan horse union set up by right-wing plutocrats.

I call it a "trojan horse" because it is the work of a campaign to abolish unions for teachers and public workers, Whatever it may offer them, it is a trap.

WHO says that its weak standards for two PFAS were meant to head off adequate standards, and were drawn up by people corrupted by industry. It plans to eliminate them and start over.

A UN special rapporteur judges Canada's temporary foreign worker program to promote debt bondage. Also, he found that workers are subject to many of the usual kinds of abuses; some of those abuses are illegal, but there is insufficient effort to prevent them.

Side issue: every time I see the term "global south" it strikes me as gratuitous geographical error. Mexico, Guatemala and Jamaica are all far north of the equator. The significant issue that these countries have in country is that they are poor enough that their people suffer, but developed enough for their workers to be useful in wealthier countries.

*Student Protesters Were Suspended With No Chance to Defend Themselves. Will Courts Return Them to Campus?*

To identify oneself "pro-Israel" or "pro-Palestine" presupposes that one cannot be in favor of the well being of both — as I am. I am not anti-Israel or anti-Palestine, I am anti-war-crime. I am pro-peace and pro-coexistence.

*Gaza sees first polio case in 25 years as UN calls for mass vaccinations.*

Krishna Maharaj convinced a judge to rule he was innocent of murder, but Florida officials would not let him out of prison. He has died there.

A person can become sentimentally attached to anything, but this miscarriage of justice was real, not merely sentiment in other people's minds. It called for redress in reality, not merely in sentiment. And it calls for changing the system so it won't do that again to someone else.

*A Simple Safety Net Could Keep People Like Me out of Prison.*

It used to be that if you got out of prison, most ways to make a new start were still open to you. Nowadays, in the US, most avenues to having a decent life are explicitly forever barred to you. Thanks to "tough on crime" politicians, more interested in showing they are tough than on avoiding future crime, we have a system designed, in effect, to ensure that former criminals never go straight.

Violent crime in the US in Jan-June 2024 is around 5% less than the previous year. Homicides dropped around 15%. (These estimates do not have accuracy within 1%, so I have rounded each to the nearest multiple of 5%.)

[begin irony] Eventually right-wingers and bigots will have no one to help them out. [end irony]

*Ex-Kansas police chief who raided local newspaper criminally charged.*

An Ohio thug has been charged with murder for shooting a woman dead.

Shoplifting is not a violent or dangerous act, so the suspicion of shoplifting was no grounds for shooting Ms Young. I do wonder how fast her car was moving and whether he could get out of the way. If it was no real danger to him, that too was not grounds for shooting her; he should have got out of the way and followed her.

I wonder why there are four charges of murder when only one person was killed. I hope it does not reflect the fanatical claim that a fetus is a person. Please do not give any sympathy to that scheme to eliminate abortion rights.

In Iran, the fanatics shoot women in their cars for "crimes" of disobedience to religion.

US citizens: call on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act

Side issue: I've been convinced that it is a bad practice in general to name laws, either officially or unofficially, after prominent victims of a harmful practice to be prevented in the future. A law is meant to be a better rule for society, not a memorial to a person.

If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

Workers in many US cities have organized "Heat Week" to demand measures to help them avoid death from dangerously hot weather.

Such regulations will help for a time, but if we keep burning too much fossil fuel and making Earth's average surface temperature ever hotter, they will eventually overcome our resistance. The only method that will continue to work is to curb global heating.

US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to prosecute big oil.

US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

US citizens: call on Congress to insist that we have no new wars, and de-escalate crises in the Middle East.

If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

We have to wonder: how can Venezuela get rid of Maduro, now that he visibly stole an election and launched readiness for repression of those who object.

The same question applies to other countries.
How can Nicaragua kick out Ortega?
How can Israel Kick out Netanyahu?
How can Russia kick out Putin?
How can China kick out Xi?
(Those last two have such total repression that few there dare admit wishing for freedom.

If the corrupter grabs the presidency of the US again, and institutes fascism, how could the US kick him out?

Rising seas, due to global heating, are polluting the wells in the islands of Vanuatu.

Putin's cracker corps is using very sophisticated phishing against people involved with the Russian opposition in exile.

Ukraine's small invasion of Russia was still going strong as of Tuesday, and Putin has sent only inadequate forces to repel it.

*[UCLA] cannot allow pro-Palestinian protesters to block Jewish students from accessing classes and other parts of campus, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.*

This ruling is right. You have a right to hold rallies to protest on political grounds, but you don't have a right to mistreat individuals by discriminating on their religious views.

To judge from this description, that kind of protest also commits the wrong of distorting reproach for Israel's practices into antisemitism. Antisemitism, like other bigotry, is wrong.

Whenever we criticize a country, we must be careful not to let that lead to punishing people for having an ethnicity or religion associated with that country.

UCLA should show ways that students can stand up for their views, ways that are visible to others using the campus, not tucked away uselessly, but without blocking them.