On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Yes, we're hitting the eight-billion mark in living humans this week. When I was starting grade school, I think we were at four billion.

Now, though, we have some debate over how difficult things are expected to become, how quickly, and in what ways exactly.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/8-billion-global-population-1.6646018

I was inspired by this entry by autopope on his "home" weblog:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2022/04/behind-the-ukraine-war.html

As we were (rightly) advised to not centre western - including Canadian - political concerns in our comments on the Russian governance situation as Charlie understands it right now (his blog, his rules)...I'm going to post such comments here at my "home" blog where they belong:

I see Jason Kenney's government in the province of Alberta desperately trying to make sure Canada as a whole falls into the same governance trap as you describe Russia having fallen into. There's still a chance he might succeed with the help of a federal Conservative regime run by, say, Pierre Pollievre, Candice Bergen (not the American actor, the Canadian politician), Leslyn Lewis, or a few others I can think of. But the federal Conservatives first have to get a leader chosen this fall, and then that leader and whatever team they end up cobbling together has to have any hope of breaking up the confidence-and-supply agreement now in effect between the Liberals (led by Justin Trudeau) and the New Democrats (led by Jagmeet Singh).

I do worry that the Conservatives - or Maxime Bernier's "People's Party" or worse - will try to further "Putinize"/"Trumpify" Canadian society, worse than Harper already did despite his own personal antipathy to Putin.

Opinions from informed Albertans are definitely welcome here.

I have a problem with the idea of letting the International Space Station just de-orbit and burn up. Yes, we've gotten over twenty years' operational life out of ISS. I understand that, and I see how the place is increasingly becoming a thing held together in no small part by Red Green/Jett Reno techniques. I'm still unconvinced that it can't be safely repurposed elsewhere in Sol system.

Specifically? If I had my way, I'd have ISS turned into our first orbital museum. We've missed multiple opportunities with the Skylab, Salyut/Almaz and Mir and it would be a good thing if that not be repeated here. Yes, there's impracticalities that have already been cited elsewhere, and I'm still resistant to accepting any of them as deal-killers.

Good that they've gotten around to ALEC...

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021/12/07/leading-free-market-policy-network-enabling-anti-lgbtq-hate

1. Facebook is playing numbers games about how/if they're (not) managing the hate-propaganda problem.

https://www.wired.com/story/facebooks-deceptive-math-when-it-comes-to-hate-speech/

2. We have the beginnings of a global taxation treaty. 136 countries are signed on thus far, and Deputy PM/Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is one of those who've helped make this happen. Chris Hall has an interview with her on The House.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/chrystia-freeland-global-taxation-1.6213178

3. Lee Valley Tools gives their customers and the wider public a heads-up of their own about global supply networking issues. Also, supply issues notwithstanding? They're still looking to hire according to the same newsletter that alerted their customers to the supply issues! (I know this because I'm subscribed to that newsletter.)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/lee-valley-supply-chain-1.6212065

I suppose we should have expected this reaction from "Tsar" Vladimir?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/27/world-aviation-body-to-launch-inquiry-into-belarus-hijacking

Basically, it looks like Putin and Lukashenko have decided that it's time the rest of humanity was forced to rewrite the 1944 Chicago Convention on civil aviation on their terms. I think they're going to need a time-out session, don't you?

This news might also be of some help.

https://twitter.com/ldobsonhughes/status/1390026479191400453

Also, from Cory Doctorow re: infrastructure for stopping future pandemics:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1389978938273714181

Apparently, this is a thing to worry about. Especially with about a third of the planet trying to lurch back towards authoritarianism, fascism, "illiberal democracy", autocracy, etc. at whatever speed they can muster over the objections of the people they assert the right to master.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/17/1014967/balkanization-cloud-computing-bad-everyone/

To some extent, as users of Dreamwidth, we have to subscribe to this POV ourselves or lose some degree of contact with one another. And we definitely consider that international communication and community to be a public good.

How do we deal with this?

Ghislaine Maxwell, crony of Jeffrey Epstein, specifically.

What she says next to whom and how soon she dies of speaking to anyone...?

"If you refuse to back off of fact-checking my propaganda, I'll put you all out on the streets! With no clothes!"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-trump/trump-to-sign-executive-order-on-social-media-on-thursday-white-house-idUSKBN2331NK