#corporate news december 2022

[reasonsforhope]

"On Monday this week [first week of December, 2023], workers in London’s financial centre were met with an unfamiliar sight – and sound. Around 100 chorists, some sporting bowler hats, had gathered at the headquarters of the City’s biggest fossil fuel-backing corporations to sing in protest.

The singers, encompassing a range of generations and vocal pitches, were part of the Climate Choir Movement, a network of choirs that officially launched in January 2023. While world leaders convened at the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai, they raised their voices in support of the Stop Ecocide campaign, which is working to criminalise the destruction of the environment.

The Climate Choir Movement’s co-founder Jo Flanagan first formed a choir in April 2022 with Extinction Rebellion to protest against HSBC’s fossil fuel investments at the bank’s AGM. Dressed smartly to blend in with shareholders, the singers rose up from their seats to disrupt the meeting with a rendition of the Abba classic "Money, Money, Money," the lyrics adapted to urge HSBC to finance renewable energy. [Note: A+ Song choice for this, tbh]

Flanagan had been inspired by a video of US activists singing as a flashmob in the middle of a conference speech to protest against greenwashing. “It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck,” she recalls. “They walked out of the room in a very dignified way, still singing. I just thought, that’s the way I want to do it.”

Since then, the movement has grown from its first choir in Bristol to 10 choirs across the UK, with around 550 members at the time of writing. The local choirs organise their own rehearsals and protests, while all movement members can attend monthly sessions on Zoom where they learn new songs, to be performed at protests like the one in London.

For Ruth Routledge, who works as a singing for health practitioner and leads the Portsmouth choir in her spare time, taking part in this action was a “wonderful, uplifting” experience. “Singing and harmonising together is a very beautiful way to protest,” she says. “There’s something very gentle, very moving, and very powerful about it. It’s so vulnerable. There’s just a real naked, stripped back humanity that I think cuts through a lot of noise.”

The movement welcomes all new members, regardless of singing ability. Routledge was touched when some passersby – including “a couple of lads” – joined in with the songs. 

She is eager for others to experience the sense of hope that singing together brings. “I feel very passionately about the state of the environment. I’m very concerned about my children’s futures, and I’m concerned about the whole world. It keeps me awake at night.

“Joining together means we’re not isolated, worrying that the world is on fire and no one’s going to do anything.” 

For Flanagan, what sets the movement apart from other choirs that sing songs about nature is its targeted approach. “We organise very carefully choreographed, peaceful performance protests. We want to change hearts and minds.”

Seeing onlookers in tears illustrates to her what singing can achieve. “It reaches deep inside people in a way that other forms of protest can’t.”"

-via Positive.News, December 6, 2023

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 5, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Dec 06, 2024

Yesterday a gunman assassinated the chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, as he arrived at a meeting of investors in New York City. While authorities are still investigating, officials have released the information that the casings of the bullets that killed Thompson bore the words “deny,” “defend,” “depose,” all words associated with companies’ denial of health insurance, taken from the longer phrases “deny the claim,” “defend the lawsuit,” “depose the patient.”

While those clues could simply be a red herring, posters on social media have cheered what they seem to see as revenge against an abusive system in which people’s lives are at the mercy of executives who prioritize profits.

Health insurance companies have long been under scrutiny for their practices. For the past two years, ProPublica has run a long series exploring the different ways in which companies have developed systems to deny healthcare coverage to their policyholders.

UnitedHealthcare has been no exception either to such practices or to scrutiny. Its parent group UnitedHealth has a market valuation of $560 billion and was the eighth largest corporation in the world last year as measured by revenue. This year, UnitedHealthcare—Thompson’s unit—is expected to bring in $280 billion in revenue.

UnitedHealth is embroiled in a number of lawsuits. Andrew Stanton of Newsweek reported that on November 14, 2023, families of two now-deceased patients sued UnitedHealthcare over denial of coverage for Medicare Advantage patients for nursing home stays prescribed by their doctors. Medicare Advantage is the private insurance alternative to Medicare that receives a flat fee from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It’s an enormously profitable industry, and UnitedHealth controls almost a third of it.

The lawsuit alleges that UnitedHealthcare uses artificial intelligence to deny claims from Medicare Advantage policyholders. The lawsuit claims that the company knowingly uses an algorithm that makes errors 90% of the time because it also knows that only about 0.2% of policy holders will appeal the decision to deny their claims. Last month the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hammered UnitedHealth for dramatic increases in their denial rates for post-acute care between 2019 and 2022 as it switched to AI authorizations.

On the same day as the shooting, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance covering Connecticut, New York, and Missouri announced it would cover anesthesia during surgery or procedures only for a specific time period in order to make insurance more affordable by reducing overbilling.

After an outcry both from anesthesiologists and the public, the company today retracted its policy change, saying it had never intended to avoid “medically necessary anesthesia,” but meant simply to “clarify the appropriateness of anesthesia consistent with well-established clinical guidelines.” Their explanation might have calmed the news cycle, but its suggestion that the insurance officials rather than doctors should determine what anesthesia is appropriate for a patient during surgery echoed the argument in the UnitedHealthcare lawsuit.

Thompson’s murder seems to be a cultural moment in which popular fury over the power big business has over ordinary Americans’ lives exploded. Maureen Tkacik of The American Prospect noted, “Only about 50 million customers of America’s reigning medical monopoly might have a motive to exact revenge upon the UnitedHealthcare CEO.” The shooter, whose actual motive remains unknown, is fast becoming a folk hero.

Social media has exploded with users writing things like “[t]his claim for sympathy has been denied”; songs featuring the words “deny, “defend,” and “depose”; and recorded commentary condemning the healthcare insurance industry. UnitedHealth Group posted its sadness about Thompson’s death on Facebook yesterday about 1:00 p.m.; 36 hours later the post had 65,000 laughing emojis under it.

Security expert Charlie Carroll expressed surprise to Josh Fiallo of the Daily Beast that Thompson did not have a security detail. “We’re living in a world where people are extremely disgruntled,” Carroll said. “When people lose trust in the system, you start seeing more kidnappings and assassinations because they feel like they have to take matters into their own hands.”

In the wake of the shooting, UnitedHealthcare and several other insurance companies took down from their websites the names and photographs of their officials.

Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were on Capitol Hill today where they met with lawmakers to explain their vision for the Department of Government Efficiency, the group designed to cut the U.S. budget. Neither they nor the lawmakers shared much with the press, although Fox Business played a video of Representative Ralph Norman (R-SC) saying that that “nothing is sacrosanct,” and that “they're going to put everything on the table,” including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Representative Tom Tiffany (R-WI) told Just The News that cuts to the budget “don’t have to be just the discretionary spending. We can get at some of the mandatory spending also��food stamps, some of those things.” He continued: “There may be more bang for the buck in terms of growing our economy…making regulatory changes, get the impediments out of the way, let those job creators and entrepreneurs really be able to go to work.”

In view of today’s news about healthcare, it’s probably worth remembering that Musk has called for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and that Project 2025 has called for making Medicare Advantage—the privatized Medicare in which UnitedHealth specializes—the default enrollment option for Medicare. This would essentially privatize Medicare for the 66 million people who use it, but since Medicare Advantage costs taxpayers about 6% more than Medicare, this would not create the savings Musk is supposed to be finding.

Andrew Perez of RollingStone reported today that election financial disclosures filed yesterday revealed that Elon Musk was the secret funder of the “RBG PAC,” a Super PAC created just before the election that claimed Trump had the same position on abortion as the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Although Trump has bragged about overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion and the 2024 Republican platform supported the far-right idea of “fetal personhood”—which would apply all the rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from the moment a human egg is fertilized—the RBG PAC ran ads promising that Trump would not support a national abortion ban.

Ginsburg’s granddaughter called the comparison of Trump and her grandmother “nothing short of appalling.”

The super PAC was created so late that it avoided disclosure before November 5. It was funded entirely by Musk with an injection of $20.5 million.

Bridget Bowman, Ben Kamisar, and Scott Bland of NBC News reported tonight that Musk spent at least $250 million to get Trump elected. In addition to the $20.5 million to the RBG PAC, he put $238 million into the America PAC. Musk also supported Trump through free advertising and commentary on his social media platform X.

Today provided a snapshot of American society that echoed a similar moment on January 6, 1872, when Edward D. Stokes shot railroad baron James Fisk Jr. as he descended the staircase of New York’s Grand Central Hotel. The quarrel was over Fisk’s mistress, Josie, who had taken up with the handsome Stokes, but the murder instantly provoked a popular condemnation of the ties between big business and government.

Fisk was a rich, flamboyant, and unscrupulous man-about-town, who was deeply entwined both with railroad barons like Jay Gould, Daniel Drew, and Cornelius Vanderbilt and with New York’s Tammany Hall political machine and its infamous leader, William Marcy Tweed. Tweed made sure the laws benefited the railroads and, the papers noted, snuck into the hotel to say goodbye to his friend in the hours it took for him to perish.

After the Civil War, most Americans applauded the nation’s businessmen for the support their growing industries had provided to the Union, but by 1872 the enormous fortunes the railroad men had amassed had tarnished their reputation. At the same time, big operators were starting to squeeze smaller enterprises out of business in order to control the markets, and popular anger simmered over their increasing control of the economy.

Stokes’s shooting was the event that sparked a popular rebellion. Newspapers covered every minute of the event and Fisk’s demise, while sensational books about the murder rolled off the presses.

Together, they redefined late nineteenth-century industrialists, with one painting Fisk as a representative businessman who with just “an hour’s effort,” could “gather into his clutches a score of millions of other people’s property, impoverish a thousand wealthy men, or derange the values and the traffic of a vast empire.”

Both those covering the murder and those reading about it rejoiced in Fisk’s misfortune.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[coochiequeens]

Another example of someone facing possible fines or even prison over expressing gender critical views, in this case questioning the impact of letting men on hormones "breastfeed" on the babies being fed the chemical cocktail.

By Reduxx Team December 6, 2024

A gender critical activist in Iceland is under police investigation for seven posts he made to Facebook and X in which he criticized male breastfeeding and teaching “gender diversity” to children. Eldur Kristinsson, who also stood candidate in the recent Icelandic elections, informed Reduxx that he was reported to police by a LGBT rights organization that has accused him of violating the country’s hate speech laws.

Kristinsson is the chairman of Samtökin 22, a gender critical organization that supports single-sex spaces and opposes the medical transitioning of children. In the recent Icelandic parliamentary elections, which took place on November 30, Kristinsson stood as a candidate in the centre-right Democratic Party for the Northwest constituency.

During the election cycle, RÚV, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, ran an interview with the leader of the Democratic Party, Arnar Þór Jónsson. During the episode, the interviewer interrogated Jónsson on Kristinsson’s membership, and repeated an unsubstantiated claim that Kristinsson had once been removed from a school by police for making rude comments about a transgender person’s genitals and photographing pupils and staff. Speaking to Reduxx, Kristinsson noted that not only were the claims completely false, but that the state broadcaster had refused to issue an apology beyond affixing a small “correction” to their coverage.

In an effort to further prove RÚV‘s comments defamatory, Kristinsson went to his local police station to request a copy of his record to prove he’d never had any interactions with police beyond a 2001 speeding ticket. It was at this time he learned he was under investigation for hate speech.

Within 24 hours of visiting the police station, Kristinsson was told he would be required to submit to a criminal investigation surrounding social media posts he had made criticizing gender ideology. The investigation had been launched after Samtökin 78, a member organization of the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association, had filed a formal complaint against him.

In total, seven of Kristinsson’s posts dating back to November of 2022 were under investigation. Kristinsson provided Reduxx with a copy of the complaint Samtökin 78 had filed, which listed the dates and text of the posts they believed violated Article 233 of the Icelandic Criminal Code.

Some of the comments made by Kristinsson that are currently under criminal investigation. Document translated to English from the original Icelandic by Reduxx.

Among them were a comment Kristinsson made about Pride Month, in which he wrote that corporations “alter their logos to appease all the little führers in the cult of validation and we will hear nothing else than trans, trans, trans, translesbians, girl dick this and that.”

In another comment, Kristinsson noted that some trans-identified males have autogynephilia – in which males are sexually aroused at the thought of themselves as women. Further posts include Kristinsson saying that “people who give birth to children are called women,” and suggesting that Samtökin 78 was “grooming 10-year-old kids in the 5th grade.” The group’s activities have included lecturing on “gender diversity” to children of that age in Iceland’s elementary schools.

Two of the seven posts which were reported to police involve Kristinsson condemning news outlets promoting trans-identified males who induced lactation for the purposes of “breastfeeding” children.

Two of the posts under investigation.

In their complaint to police, Samtökin 78 said that Kristinsson “actively participated in criminal hate propaganda against gay people because of their gender characteristics and/or gender identity,” and that he should be “charged and sentenced to punishment for that behavior according to the law.”

Because his comments were “serious, grossly hurtful and prejudicial,” the group claims that they “cannot be considered to add anything relevant to the social debate,” and therefore would not be protected under freedom of expression. If found guilty under Article 233 of Iceland’s hate speech laws, Kristinsson could face either a fine or up to two years in prison.

In a statement on the lawsuit given to Visir News, Bjarndís Helga Tómasdóttir of Samtökin 78 said the organization “will not sit by idly while individuals continue to perpetuate lies about queer people and trans people.”

Tómasdóttir continued: “He claimed in one comment that Samtökin 78 is grooming or seducing children. In other comments, he calls trans women pedophiles. We believe such comments are indefensible and simply endanger the safety of our staff, volunteers, and the entire queer community.” A second article published by Visir the following day claimed Kristinsson had a “long history of inflammatory remarks.”

Ironically, Samtökin 78 had previously come under fire after it was learned that one of its board members had been sexually harassing children.

As previously reported by Reduxx, Þórhildur Sara Sveinbjörnsdóttir, a trans-identified male who was chairman of the group’s Community Council, was forced to resign after allegations emerged that he had sexually harassed children online and raped a man with cognitive impairments.

According to the victim, Sveinbjörnsdóttir had asked him to come with him to the washroom, at which point Sveinbjörnsdóttir held him down and raped him orally and anally.

Sveinbjörnsdóttir was also accused of having inappropriate communications with children, with one young girl coming forward to allege that the man had sexually harassed her when she was just 13.

[gingerofsuburbia]

BDS Consumer Boycott Targets

Everything here is copied over from the BDS website.

Hewlett Packard Inc (HP Inc)

HP Inc (US) provides services to the offices of genocide leaders, Israeli PM Netanyahu and Financial Minister Smotrich. HPE, which shares the same brand, provides technology for Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority, a pillar of its apartheid regime.

Chevron (including Caltex and Texaco)

US fossil fuel multinational Chevron is the main corporation extracting gas claimed by apartheid Israel in the East Mediterranean. Chevron generates billions in revenues, strengthening Israel’s war chest and apartheid system, exacerbating the climate crisis and Gaza siege, and is complicit in depriving the Palestinian people of their right to sovereignty over their natural resources. Chevron has thousands of retail gas stations around the world under the Chevron, Caltex, and Texaco brand names.

Siemens

Siemens (Germany) is the main contractor for the Euro-Asia Interconnector, an Israel-EU submarine electricity cable that is planned to connect Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory to Europe. Siemens-branded electrical appliances are sold globally.

PUMA

Since 2018, we have called for a boycott of PUMA (Germany) due to its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association (IFA), which governs teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. In a major BDS win in December 2023, PUMA leaked news to the media that it will not be renewing its IFA contract when it expires in December 2024. Until then, it is still complicit, so we continue to #BoycottPUMA until it finally ends its complicity in apartheid.

Carrefour

Carrefour (France) is a genocide enabler. Carrefour-Israel has supported Israeli soldiers partaking in the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza with gifts of personal packages. In 2022, it entered a partnership with the Israeli company Electra Consumer Products and its subsidiary Yenot Bitan, both of which are involved in grave violations against the Palestinian people.

AXA

Insurance giant AXA (France) invests in Israeli banks financing war crimes and the theft of Palestinian land and natural resources. When Russia invaded Ukraine, AXA took targeted measures against it. Yet, Axa has taken no action against Israel, a 75-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid, despite its ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.

SodaStream

SodaStream is an Israeli company that is actively complicit in Israel's policy of displacing the indigenous Bedouin-Palestinian citizens of present-day Israel in the Naqab (Negev) and has a long history of racial discrimination against Palestinian workers.

Ahava

Ahava cosmetics is an Israeli company that has its production site, visitor center, and main store in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory.

RE/MAX

RE/MAX (US) markets and sells property in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land, thus enabling Israel’s colonization of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli produce in your supermarkets

Boycott produce from Israel in your supermarket and demand their removal from shelves. Beyond being part of a trade that fuels Israel’s apartheid economy, Israeli fruits, vegetables, and wines misleadingly labeled as “Product of Israel” often include products of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Israeli companies do not distinguish between the two, and neither should consumers.

Non-BDS Grassroots Boycotts:

McDonald’s (US), Burger King (US), Papa John’s (US), Pizza Hut (US), WIX (Israel), etc. are now being targeted in some countries by grassroots organic boycott campaigns, not initiated by the BDS movement. BDS supports these boycott campaigns because these companies, or their branches or franchisees in Israel, have openly supported apartheid Israel and/or provided generous in-kind donations to the Israeli military amid the current genocide. If these grassroots campaigns are not already organically active in your area, we suggest focusing your energies on our strategic campaigns above. 

Recently, McDonald’s franchisee in Malaysia has filed a SLAPP lawsuit against solidarity activists, claiming defamation. Instead of holding the Israel franchisee to account for supporting genocide, we are now witnessing corporate bullying against activists. For both these reasons, we are calling to escalate the boycott of McDonald’s until the parent company takes action and ends the complicity of the brand.

Remember, all Israeli banks and virtually all Israeli companies are complicit to some degree in Israel’s system of occupation and apartheid, and hundreds of international corporations and banks are also deeply complicit. We focus our boycotts on a small number of companies and products for maximum impact.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

All the books I reviewed in 2023 (Graphic Novels)

Next Tuesday (December 5), I'm at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC, with my new solarpunk novel The Lost Cause, which 350.org's Bill McKibben called "The first great YIMBY novel: perceptive, scientifically sound, and extraordinarily hopeful."

It's that time of year again, when I round up all the books I reviewed for my newsletter in the previous year. I posted 21 reviews last year, covering 31 books (there are two series in there!). I also published three books of my own last year (two novels and one nonfiction). A busy year in books!

Every year, these roundups remind me that I did actually manager to get a lot of reading done, even if the list of extremely good books that I didn't read is much longer than the list of books I did read. I read many of these books while doing physiotherapy for my chronic pain, specifically as audiobooks I listened to on my underwater MP3 player while doing my daily laps at the public pool across the street from my house.

After many years of using generic Chinese waterproof MP3s players – whose quality steadily declined over a decade – I gave up and bought a brand-name player, a Shokz Openswim. So far, I have no complaints. Thanks to reader Abbas Halai for recommending this!

https://shokz.com/products/openswim

I load up this gadget with audiobook MP3s bought from Libro.fm, a fantastic, DRM-free alternative to Audible, which is both a monopolist and a prolific wage-thief with a documented history of stealing from writers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

All right, enough with the process notes, on to the reviews!

GRAPHIC NOVELS

I. Shubiek Lubiek by Deena Mohamed

An intricate alternate history in which wishes are real, and must be refined from a kind of raw wish-stuff that has to be dug out of the earth. Naturally, this has been an important element of geopolitics and colonization, especially since the wish-stuff is concentrated in the global south, particularly Egypt, the setting for our tale. The framing device for the trilogy is the tale of three "first class" wishes: these are the most powerful wishes that civilians are allowed to use, the kind of thing you might use to cure cancer or reverse a crop-failure.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/11/your-wish/#is-my-command

II. Ducks by Kate Beaton

In 2005, Beaton was a newly minted art-school grad facing a crushing load of student debt, a debt she would never be able to manage in the crumbling, post-boom economy of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Like so many Maritimers, she left the home that meant everything for her to travel to Alberta, where the tar sands oil boom promised unmatched riches for anyone willing to take them. Beaton's memoir describes the following four years, as she works her way into a series of oil industry jobs in isolated company towns where men outnumber women 50:1 and where whole communities marinate in a literally toxic brew of carcinogens, misogyny, economic desperation and environmental degradation. The story that follows is – naturally – wrenching, but it is also subtle and ambivalent. Beaton finds camaraderie with – and empathy for – the people she works alongside, even amidst unimaginable, grinding workplace harassment that manifests in both obvious and glancing ways.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/14/hark-an-oilpatch/#kate-beaton

III. Justice Warriors by Matt Bors

Justice Warriors is what you'd get if you put Judge Dredd in a blender with Transmetropolitan and set it to chunky. The setup: the elites of a wasted, tormented world have retreated into Bubble City, beneath a hermetically sealed zone. Within Bubble City, everything is run according to the priorities of the descendants of the most internet-poisoned freaks of the modern internet, click- and clout-chasing mushminds full of corporate-washed platitudes about self-care, diversity and equity, wrapped around come-ons for sugary drinks and dubious dropshipper crapola. It's a cop buddy-story dreamed up by Very Online, very angry creators who live in a present-day world where reality is consistently stupider than satire.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/22/libras-assemble/#the-uz

IV. Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

The story of three young Canadian women meeting up for a getaway to New York City. Zoe and Dani are high-school best friends who haven't seen each other since they graduated and decamped for universities in different cities. Fiona is Dani's art-school classmate, a glamorous and cantankerous artist with an affected air of sophistication. It's a dizzying, beautifully wrought three-body problem as the three protagonists struggle with resentments and love, sex and insecurity. The relationships between Zoe, Dani and Fiona careen wildly from scene to scene and even panel to panel, propelled by sly graphic cues and fantastically understated dialog.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/11/as-canadian-as/#possible-under-the-circumstances

Like I said, this has been a good year in books for me, and it included three books of my own:

I. Red Team Blues (novel, Tor Books US, Head of Zeus UK)

Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. He lives and roams California in a very comfortable fully-furnished touring bus, The Unsalted Hash, that he bought years ago from a fading rock star. He knows his way around good food and fine drink. He likes intelligent women, and they like him back often enough. Martin is a—contain your excitement—self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He’s as comfortable with social media as people a quarter his age, and he’s a world-level expert on the kind of international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500 companies, mid-divorce billionaires, and international drug gangs alike. He also knows the Valley like the back of his hand, all the secret histories of charismatic company founders and Sand Hill Road VCs. Because he was there at all the beginnings. Now he’s been roped into a job that’s more dangerous than anything he’s ever agreed to before—and it will take every ounce of his skill to get out alive.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

II. The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (nonfiction, Verso)

We can – we must – dismantle the tech platforms. We must to seize the means of computation by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. Interoperability will tear down the walls between technologies, allowing users to leave platforms, remix their media, and reconfigure their devices without corporate permission. Interoperability is the only route to the rapid and enduring annihilation of the platforms. The Internet Con is the disassembly manual we need to take back our internet.

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

III. The Lost Cause (novel, Tor Books US, Head of Zeus UK)

For young Americans a generation from now, climate change isn't controversial. It's just an overwhelming fact of life. And so are the great efforts to contain and mitigate it. Entire cities are being moved inland from the rising seas. Vast clean-energy projects are springing up everywhere. Disaster relief, the mitigation of floods and superstorms, has become a skill for which tens of millions of people are trained every year. The effort is global. It employs everyone who wants to work. Even when national politics oscillates back to right-wing leaders, the momentum is too great; these vast programs cannot be stopped in their tracks.

But there are still those Americans, mostly elderly, who cling to their red baseball caps, their grievances, their huge vehicles, their anger. To their "alternative" news sources that reassure them that their resentment is right and pure and that "climate change" is just a giant scam. And they're your grandfather, your uncle, your great-aunt. And they're not going anywhere. And they’re armed to the teeth. The Lost Cause asks: What do we do about people who cling to the belief that their own children are the enemy? When, in fact, they're often the elders that we love?

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

I wrote nine books during lockdown, and there's plenty more to come. The next one is The Bezzle, a followup to Red Team Blues, which comes out in February:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

While you're waiting for that one, I hope the reviews above will help you connect with some excellent books. If you want more of my reviews, here's my annual roundup from 2022:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/01/bookishness/#2022-in-review

Here's my book reviews from 2021:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/08/required-ish-reading/#bibliography

And here's my book reviews from 2020:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/08/required-reading/#recommended-reading

It's EFF's Power Up Your Donation Week: this week, donations to the Electronic Frontier Foundation are matched 1:1, meaning your money goes twice as far. I've worked with EFF for 22 years now and I have always been - and remain - a major donor, because I've seen firsthand how effective, responsible and brilliant this organization is. Please join me in helping EFF continue its work!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/01/bookmaker/#2023-in-review

[wolfliving]

Meanwhile, in Brickland

Cory Doctorow:

Analog companies can raise their prices, or worsen next year's model of their products. *Digital* businesses can *travel back in time* and raise the price of something you already own, but need to pay a "subscription" fee for. They can reach back in time and remove features you've already paid for. They can even go back in time and take away things you already own. The omniflexible, omnipresent digital tether between a device and its manufacturer creates *so many* urges that they can't resist:

Are you one of 4,000,000 people who built "smart home" products from Wink into your walls, ceiling and foundation slab at any time since they started shipping in 2014? Surprise! Now you have to pay a "subscription" for all of those gadgets or they'll *brick your fucking house*:

Did you buy a "Mellow Sous Vide" gadget? Surprise, it now costs $48/year to use that gadget!

Did you buy an Exogen ultrasound device to stimulate bone growth after a fracture? Surprise, it bricks itself after you've used it 343 times! Enjoy your e-waste, Hopalong!

Did you *buy a Ferrari performance sports-car*? Surprise, it bricks itself if it detects "tampering" - and the only way to un-brick it is to connect it to the internet, so you'd better hope it doesn't brick itself deep in an underground parking garage. Oops!

Did you buy a Peloton treadmill? Surprise, your $3,000 "smart" treadmill no longer works in standalone mode - unless you pay $480/year, that treadmill is now a clothes-drying rack:

Did you buy an Epson printer? Surprise! It will brick itself after you print a certain number of pages, *for your own good*, because otherwise its ink-sponges might leak:

Did you get - no, wait for it - *did you get a neural implant?* Surprise. The company's new owners don't want to continue supporting your implant, and they won't let anyone else do so either. So now, *part of your brain* has been bricked:

This is like a lifetime money-back guarantee - *for companies*. Any company that experience's seller's remorse can cancel or alter the transaction, retroactively. It's as if Darth Vader opened an MBA program whose only lesson was *I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further":

Darth Vader has the Force. Corporate enshittifiers have something even more powerful: IP law. Companies can cleverly arrange overlapping layers of IP - anticircumvention, trademark, patent, trade secrecy, terms of service, cybersecurity law, contracts - to criminalize otherwise legal activity, like reverse-engineering, jailbreaking, creating alternative clients or third-party parts:

That means that companies know that they can enshittify to their heart's content without fearing a competitor's disenshittification products. Raise the price of ink all you want, because you've figured out how to criminalize generic ink cartridges:

That's a lesson Spotify took to heart. Aaaallll the way back in 2022, Spotify started selling $90 "Car Thing" tablets - little car-vent-mounted gadgets that made it slightly easier to connect your car stereo to your Spotify account. Now that a suitable interval has gone by, Spotify has decided to remotely brick every one of these solid-state devices, no later than December of 2024:

Now, this may seem like a loss to all those Car Thing owners, who are out $90. But consider this: our descendants are *gaining* thousands of pieces of immortal, infinitely toxic e-waste.

So there's that.

Then there's this: Jason Koebler just published a breakdown of a leaked sSamsung repair contract on 404 Media, revealing how Samsung requires its "independent" repair partners to trick you, abuse you, spy on you, and literally destroy your phone:

First: every time you bring a phone to an independent Samsung repair shop, the company has 24 hours to notify Samsung, providing your name, email, phone number, address, the IMEI of your phone, your warranty status and complaint.

Then, the technician is required to inspect your device for any evidence that you have had it serviced by unauthorized technicians or fixed with third-party replacement parts. If they believe you have failed to act in accord with Samsung's shareholders' interests, the technician is required to *immediately destroy your phone* and notify Samsung.

(This is radioactively illegal, and has been since 1975, when Congress passed the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which protects your right to use third-party parts:)

Why does Samsung do this? They can't help themselves. It's in their nature.

[darkmaga-returns]

With the assassination of Russia's Biodefense General, Putin's patience to not engage in a kinetic war with the United States over the Ukraine and US-backed bioweapons labs is running out.

Karen Kingston Dec 18, 2024

December 18, 2024: Russian papers are reporting today that Ukraine is responsible for the assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of Russia’s radiological, chemical and biodefense programs. However yesterday, Russian media outlets were pointing fingers at US intelligence agencies and deep state democratic leaders for Kirillov’s murder.

US Biological Warfare Program was Orchestrated under President Barack Obama, Coordinated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Funded through V.P. Joe Biden Karen Kingston · Dec 17 US Biological Warfare Program was Orchestrated under President Barack Obama, Coordinated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Funded through V.P. Joe Biden Originally published on May 8, 2023: According to a May 11, 2022 article from the domestic Russian news agency, RIA Novisti, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov conducted a military investigation of global biological labs and outbreaks, US military operations, US government documents, and private government-corporate contracts;

Read full story Brannon Howse and I discussed the most probable party behind the Russian General’s assassination (and it’s not Ukraine), as well as the fact that my med-legal analysis on the COVID-19 mRNA injections as bioweapons was cited by Kirillov (which has placed my own life in danger).

[rjzimmerman]

The Carbon Footprint of Amazon, Google, and Facebook Is Growing. (Sierra Club)

Excerpt from this story from Sierra Club:

IN MARCH The Information reported that Microsoft was in talks with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, about spending an eye-popping $100 billion on a gargantuan data center in Wisconsin dedicated to running artificial intelligence software. Code-named “Stargate,” the data center would, at full operation, consume five gigawatts of electricity, enough to power 3.7 million homes. For comparison purposes, that’s roughly the same amount of power produced by Plant Vogtle, the big nuclear power station in Georgia that cost $30 billion to build.

Stargate is in the earliest of planning stages, but the sheer scale of the proposal reflects a truth about artificial intelligence: AI is an energy hog. That’s an embarrassing about-face for the technology industry. For at least 20 years, American electricity consumption has hardly grown at all—owing in part, say computer scientists, to steady advances in energy efficiency that have percolated out of the tech industry into the larger economy. In 2023, according to the US Energy Information Administration, total electricity consumption fell slightly from 2022 levels.

But according to a report published last December by Grid Strategies, a consultancy that advises on energy policy, multiple electric utilities now predict that US energy demand will rise by up to 5 percent over the next five years. One of the chief culprits responsible for the surge, say the utilities, are new data centers designed to run AI. To meet the growing demand for power, those utilities want to build new fossil fuel power plants and to dismantle climate legislation that stands in their way.

For environmentalists, this represents a giant step backward. Artificial intelligence was supposed to help us solve problems. What good are ChatGPT and its ilk if using them worsens global warming?

This is a relatively new story—the AI gold rush is still in its infancy, ChatGPT only having debuted in fall 2022. But computing’s energy demands have been growing for decades, ever since the internet became an indispensable part of daily life. Every Zoom call, Netflix binge, Google search, YouTube video, and TikTok dance is processed in a windowless, warehouse-like building filled with thousands of pieces of computer hardware. These data centers are where the internet happens, the physical manifestation of the so-called cloud—perhaps as far away from ethereality as you can get.

In the popular mind, the cloud is often thought of in the simple sense of storage. This is where we back up our photos, our videos, our Google Docs. But that’s just a small slice of it: For the past 20 years, computation itself has increasingly been outsourced to data centers. Corporations, governments, research institutions, and others have discovered that it is cheaper and more efficient to rent computing services from Big Tech.

The crucial point, writes anthropologist Steven Gonzalez Monserrate in his case study The Cloud Is Material: On the Environmental Impacts of Computation and Data Storage, is that “heat is the waste product of computation.” Data centers consume so much energy because computer chips produce large amounts of heat. Roughly 40 percent of a data center’s electricity bill is the result of just keeping things cool. And the new generation of AI software is far more processor intensive and power hungry than just about anything—with the notable exception of cryptocurrency—that has come before.

The energy cost of AI and its perverse, climate-unfriendly incentives for electric utilities are a gut check for a tech industry that likes to think of itself as changing the world for the better. Michelle Solomon, an analyst at the nonprofit think tank Energy Innovation, calls the AI power crunch “a litmus test” for a society threatened by climate change.

[dinosly]

Maritimes Against Climate Change

One week ago my group Maritimes Against Climate Change held a rally to bring the community together and hold the fossil fuel companies, who get tax breaks while destroying our world, accountable.

Here was the speech I was supposed to do, but had to wrap it up due to me recovering from a cold and the weather:

"Hello everyone, thank you all for coming despite the weather. We can all see that Canada still has a little bit of cold left in her despite what were here for.

Over the last couple of years, outright Climate Denialism has been waning. Many people see with their own eyes that "October used to be cold" or "we would get long lasting snow before December".

Denying that humanity is the cause usually follows, that's easy to disprove, then denying that its a problem is next, which if you come across that I have some information to help argue that point:

Cost of Environmental Events: Atlantic Canada has experienced significant financial losses due to extreme weather events. For instance, Hurricane Fiona in 2022 caused damages exceeding $800 million, underscoring the vulnerability of our infrastructure and communities. CBC

Fisheries and Aquaculture: Warming ocean temperatures and changes in salinity are affecting fish stocks and aquaculture operations. Notably, the lucrative lobster industry in Nova Scotia has faced challenges due to shifting populations and increased competition.

Agriculture: Increased frequency of droughts and heavy rainfall events disrupt crop yields, impacting food security and rural economies. The 2023 drought in Atlantic Canada led to significant agricultural challenges, with some regions receiving only a quarter of their usual rainfall. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Fishing and agriculture are the backbones of our communities, farmers in particular are in tune and rightfully worried about the climate crisis, because their crops and their livelihoods are on the line.

For more individual impacts to counter the "it doesnt effect me specifically" crowd:

Insurance and Financial Services: The rise in climate-related disasters has led to higher insurance claims and premiums. In 2021, severe weather caused $2.1 billion in insured damages across Canada, with Atlantic Canada being particularly affected. IBC

Health: Rising temperatures are increasing heat-related illnesses, while poor air quality during wildfire seasons poses respiratory risks. In 2023, Atlantic Canada experienced an unprecedented wildfire season, leading to health advisories and evacuations. CBC

Housing: Coastal and riverine flooding threaten homes and necessitate relocation or expensive retrofitting. Sea-level rise projections indicate that the Atlantic region will experience the largest local sea-level rise in Canada, increasing the risk of flooding and erosion. CNN

Thank you to Climatlantic for these statistics.

As I say a lot in these marches, in New Brunswick, we have the forest to our left and the sea to the right, both integral to our survival but with climate change, can also be a risk. I have nightmares all the time of me, my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my future family being evacuated because their homes are no longer safe. I do not wish that upon anyone on this earth.

Finally, the last state of climate denialism is also the one that hurts the most, because it comes not from a place of ignorance, but apathy, hopelessness. The viewpoint that we cant solve it, that its too late.

And i get it, the world is a big place, a lot of moving parts, lobbying is so rampant it easily makes you feel small. But you are not alone. The average New Brunsweicker is closer to being homeless than ever having as much as the people who influence the world's politics, but the thing is, there are way more if us. And if we come together in solidarity and tackle the same problem, we can influence the policies that effect we the people.

For many years we have seen that corporate greed has not only hurt the environment, but our communities as well. Multimillion dollar Companies continue to choose profits over the people that brought them to that place. Rising costs of everything has been straining all of us thin, and the climate crisis, exacerbated by the fossil fuel industry will not help. We need to be vocal that the reason that these companies as well as our politicians are at the place they are is due to the blood sweat and tears of the hardworking individuals of our communities. Every time we try to make companies pay their fair share, they make their customers or even their own employees shoulder the burden.

We need to stand in solidarity with workers and demand for policies that not only change, but improve the lives of all New Brunsweickers. Making sure that the future of Maritimers aren't thought of with fear and worry, but hope.

And how do we get our voices herd? Rallying our communities. Organizing events, bringing these towns, cities, communities together all under a single driving force, our future. Starting small with local governments, municipalities, up to provincial and hopefully to a national scale, we will bring the voice of the people to where it needs to be. Just as one kid rallied the world for climate action before covid, I plan to rally the maritimes for the same cause. Our voices need to be loud! Our mission needs to put the lives of New Brunsweickers first! The environment of will be a priority of course but we will never forget that this will be done by New Brunsweickers for New Brunsweickers.

This fight needs to be workers, the everyday person, versus the companies and CEOs that effect us all. We need to show them that we stand together and wont stand for this treatment anymore! So rally your fellow workers, strike, picket, march, get involved with local government, local groups, everything. Because if we won't do it, who will?"

[fatehbaz]

If you wanted to know more about the saga of protests and resistance against Canada’s open-pit copper mining in Panama:

---

Screenshot and headline from: “Canadian firm blames Panama for closure of copper mine.” AP News. 16 December 2022.

---

Headline from: “Panama: Canadian mining company First Quantum denied to expand copper exploitation area for alleged failure with environmental commitments.” Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. 26 January 2023.

---

Headline from: Valentine Hilaire. “Panama won’t allow Canada’s First Quantum to expand its copper mine operations.” Reuters. 26 January 2023.

---

Headline by: The Associated Press. “Panama reaches 20-year deal with Canadian copper mine.” As republished at ABC News. 8 March 2023.

---

An excerpt and explanation:

In Panama, a dispute has emerged of a type that is common to countries in Central and South America: a huge transnational company has invested in the country’s resource wealth, resulting in a conflict over suitable payments to the government that draws in officials from the company’s nation of origin in defence of corporate profits. In this case, the company in question is First Quantum Minerals, a mining giant with lucrative investments across the Global South -- and the country of origin is Canada.

This summer [2022], Panamanians rose up in nationwide protests against the neoliberal status quo imposed on the country by the government of Laurentino Cortizo.  Beginning on July 1, these protests brought together diverse groups including teachers, students, trade unionists, farmers, and Indigenous organizations [...]. The causes of the summer 2022 protests go back decades and help illustrate the dynamics of the current conflict between First Quantum (and their backers in Ottawa) and the Panamanian state.

Throughout the 1990s, Canada aggressively pushed for states in Central and South America to adopt neoliberal reforms that would permit more foreign investment and fewer regulations for transnational companies. [...]

Several protest movements emerged in Panama in the 2010s in opposition to the effects of free market reforms generally and the predominance of Canadian mining specifically.  At the heart of these resistance movements is the Canadian-owned Cobre Panamá mine, which is the largest foreign investment in the country [...].

---

Cobre Panamá was owned by the Toronto-headquartered Inmet Mining until 2013, at which point it was acquired by Vancouver-based First Quantum. In 2011, the Martinelli government attempted to limit the Indigenous Ngäbe-Buglé nation’s rights to autonomy and self-government in order to grant mining companies access to minerals on their land. Meanwhile, Martinelli repealed a law that prevented foreign governments from investing in the mining sector -- a gift to Canada’s Inmet Mining, which at the time was seeking financing from the sovereign wealth funds of Singapore and South Korea.

These moves sparked protests that continued into 2012. Martinelli responded to demands for the annulment of mining and hydroelectric concessions on Indigenous territory with violence by dispatching riot police. The police killed one protestor, injured thirty-two, and detained forty.  The protestors did not budge; instead, they blocked the entrances to Cobre Panamá and another mine owned by the Canada’s Petaquilla Minerals.  Eventually Martinelli relented and vowed not to approve mining projects on or near Ngäbe-Buglé lands.’

---

During the 2011-2012 conflict, nobody in the Canadian government issued a single statement on the matter.  When protestors took to the streets again in 2022, Ottawa released a statement that totally omitted the reasons behind the uprising.

Following the economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cortizo government declared that Panama’s recovery would rely on incentivizing foreign investment in the mining sector. Social movements have by and large rejected this new arrangement due to the history of corrupt collaboration between state officials and foreign companies and the weakness of environmental protections.

---

For example, in April 2022 the Panama Worth More Without Mining Movement -- which arose in opposition to the Canadian-owned Cobre Panamá mine -- released a report that found over 200 “serious” breaches of environmental commitments by the project managers, including the breaking of reforestation promises, “the felling of 876 hectares… in an area of high biodiversity and international importance,” and “the discharge of waste from the tailings tank into natural bodies of water without official endorsement.”

Following the summer 2022 protests, the Cortizo government announced plans to reform the mining sector by instituting greater regulations on foreign companies. In the meantime, the Panamanian state and First Quantum were in the process of negotiating a renewed contract. Jason Simpson, CEO of Canada’s Orla Mining (which is hoping to begin extraction at its Cerro Quema gold project), said, “The biggest story in Panama is Cobre Panamá, so as the government works through their renewed contract law for First Quantum’s asset there, that’ll take priority… We’ll be patient for that to be resolved and then we hope to get working on construction in Panama.”

The negotiations for the renewal of the Cobre Panamá contract began in September 2021. The two parties agreed that First Quantum would provide Panama with between 12 and 16 percent of its gross profit, a new rate that would replace the previous two percent revenue royalty. [...]

---

Much like Ottawa jumped to the defence of Centerra Gold following Kyrgyzstan’s nationalization of the Kumtor gold mine last year, the Trudeau government has taken a keen interest in Cobre Panamá and, according to the unnamed Reuters source, is actively backing the mining company’s position. Given Canada’s long history of support for neoliberal reforms and transnational investment in Central and South America, Ottawa’s support for First Quantum in these negotiations should come as no surprise.

---

Headline and text by: Owen Schalk. “Ottawa backs Canadian mining giant in dispute with Panama.” Canadian Dimension. 26 December 2022. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph contractions added by me.]

[randomthefox]

https://www.sonicstadium.org/news/features/interviews/takashi-iizuka-wants-to-connect-the-sonic-universes-and-create-a-unified-sonic-experience-sonic-stadium-interview-r1283/

https://www.sonicstadium.org/news/features/interviews/takashi-iizuka-on-sonic-teams-expansion-and-shadows-evolving-motivations-tss-interview-r2254/

Why did iizuka let flynn do this? Want to connect comics and games?

His ideas are honestly just as good as flynn's...why not?

Think about it, he's made the where the wisps returned home and then brought them back to Earth offscreen...

First of all that first one is from 2022 dude. Bit late.

Second of all these are very good demonstrations of why you should take print interviews like this with a metric assload of salt. More salt than meat. Basically you should just completely ignore print interviews. They're total bullshit. Fucking look at this shit.

Third of all as I've emphasized repeatedly: TAKASHI IIZUKA DOESN'T SPEAK ENGLISH. Every question he answers needs to be translated from japanese into english. And sometimes even the question itself needs to be turned from english into japanese before he'll even be able to answer it. The second interview you linked has the DECENCY to specify that Iizuka's answers are being provided via interpreter. But the first does not. Which is disingenuous. Because ALL of Iizuka's answers are absolutely being provided via interpreter.

To the first

Look at this fucking- What is all these fucking brackets? "[to connect them]"? So he didn't actually say "to connect them" that's the interviewer who is writing this shit editorializing. And yet what does the headline say?

The headline is quoting THE FUCKING BRACKET QUOTE THAT THE INTERVIEWER INVENTED.

This is SLIME journalism at its purest.

What Iizuka is ACTUALLY FUCKING SAYING HERE is that he wants there to be brand integrity with the various Sonic medias.

Remember how they had the guys dressed up in the mascot costumes at the Tokyo Game Show, and they were acting super in character? That's brand integrity, baby.

This is something that makes complete sense from a corporate perspective when managing a multi media franchise, where every new released piece of media needs to also serve as a commercial for another piece of media. That's why they made Shadow Generations in the first place. Shadow is getting a lot of hype because of the Sonic 3 movie coming out, so they made a new little game to synergize with that. And the movie DLC they're releasing in December when the movie actually comes out is only going to do that moreso. They want people who buy tickets to the Sonic movie to be able to pick up the new Sonic video game and feel like they're getting an internally consistent experience, instead of going "wait what?" and getting completely alienated. You and I can quibble about the differences in continuity between the Sonic movies and Sonic video games, but the average movie goer doesn't care. And neither does SEGA.

People are getting hung up on this idea of "canon" which is a word everyone likes to use but is very obvious that they don't understand. When he says they want all the different pieces of Sonic media to be a connected universe, they're not talking about it all being part of one canon of continuity. They're talking about brand integrity. Sonic X the anime was considered part of the connected universe of Sonic back then too. Even though it clearly wasn't canon to the video games. They were not keeping the anime's adventures of Chris Thorndyke in mind when making new video games. They just wanted kids who were watching the Sonic X anime on saturdays to swivel over and start playing the video games and feel like it was more or less basically the same thing to a casual observer.

SEGA caring about having a "connected universe" of Sonic which includes the IDW comics doesn't mean Ian Flynn suddenly have more creative control over the Sonic universe, and Sonic Team is suddenly going to start tailoring their video game releases to take the latest storyline of IDW into account. It actually means exactly the opposite of that. The IDW Comics are going to be under additional scrutiny from SEGA to make sure the comic isn't fucking up their brand integrity, and the comic is going to be expected to disrupt their ongoing storylines and character plots to start creating storylines that tie into the wider franchise direction.

Obviously they have actually been fumbling the ball on that incredibly hard, which is why you had the Fang The Hunter mini series releasing THREE MONTHS after Sonic Superstars came out, the Knuckles Anniversary comic is releasing SEVEN MONTHS after the Knuckles Paramount show, and the Shadow Special Comic is releasing a month after the Sonic 3 movie and three months after the release of Shadow Generations. This is probably because the production of this comic is an absolute shit show, and IDW as a company is going the fuck out of business lol.

Anyway anybody who thinks the video games are suddenly going to be secondary to the comic books is fucking delusional and a retard. It's the other way around. The comics are going to be bent and twisted to follow along with the games. Which Flynn has been absolutely dreading, which is why he was insisting for YEARS that the comics were NOT canon.

Anyway

Sounds like a "no" to me, but I speak Corporate =P

also note that this interview actually included the fact that these answers are being delivered via Interpreter. Again I tell you, a Metric Assload of Salt.

[ericleo108]

Blog Navigation 2023

“The nation's greatness can be judged by how it treats its weakest members.” - Gandhi

Blog Navigation List: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019

Last Updated 12/29/2023

Summary

I make these navigation posts at the end of the year to give a wrap-up and a look back on the year. I post a long-form Update every sunday to YouTube that ends up being in my Friday song release blog post. (You can find the Sunday Update YouTube playlist here.) My book “108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness” is still fundamental in understanding my story, perspective, and the content I talk about here in the blog. I put the cosmic luve log first this time because I think it’s the most relevant. If you actually understand what I’m saying about how these celebrities are reflecting me and I think the coincidences are how Gaia is communicating using them as a vessel, you get it. The only real new treatise editions are to FarmingHumans.com where I came out with a new rendition for the “American Inequality” song release and the “Corporate Rule” album expands upon the public reaction to this in an aggressive tone.

2023 Cosmic Luve posts: (In Chronological Order)

In Last year’s blog navigation (2022), I listed all the cosmic luve entries since the very beginning. This year, I will begin where we left off and the last entry about Taylor Swift’s Folklore.

CosmicLuve.com April 2023 - Sun: In this entry, I give more of a personal update and set goals while relating it to the semantics I’ve been experiencing and previously mentioned. 

CosmicLuve.com July 2023 - The Main Thing: In this entry, I talk about how Emma Watson is the main thing and the reason for all my aspirations, so we can become friends. I talk about her posts on Instagram and relate them as a response to my poem in the Hope Sept 2022 entry. 

CosmicLuve.com August 2023 - Orange: In this entry, I talk about how it appears as if Gaia got me a taco for my birthday. I came to this conclusion after getting semantics from Selena Gomez and Connor Price. 

CosmicLuve.com September 2023 - Bam: In this entry, I introduce Janelle Monae as a cosmic luve and explain how Blue has diabolical plans against Big Carbon. 

CosmicLuve.com November 2023 - Cosmic Bros: In this entry, I induct Connor Price as the first cosmic bro after relating new semantics to the previous entry, Slender Man, Connor’s new “Thrillin” video, and new Hailee Steinfeld reflections. 

CosmicLuve.com December 2023 - Deer: In this entry I give a prophecy by identifying semantics from Gaia that come from Emma Watson being referenced by a deer, a tree, the color purple, etc.

Media and Treatise List:

Sociology:

🏚️FarmingHumans.com 2023 - This was the “American Inequality” song officially released this year and posted as the official Farming Humans 2023 edition. In this post I talk about what socialism is, how money is speech, and how corporations are legal persons and farming humans for labor and money (through consumption).

🎃Corporate Rule Album - The “Corporate rule” album expands upon the information outlined in the “American Inequality” song. The album is a response to that assault on democracy with an Immortal Technique approach. The blog post expands upon how there is a conspiracy of the corporate rich working in unison (using far-right tactics) because it serves their self-interests.

🧾NouveauEconomics.com 2022 - In this post, I talk about how the economy needs to account for what the environment does naturally and give it a monetary value. A start is how certain parts of the environment, like Lake Erie, are being granted personhood. This will be updated semi-annually and can be found at NouveauEconomics.com

🍱 The Psycho Consumption Cage 2021 - In this treatise, I talk about how it’s hard to see environmental degradation that is not added to our economics, how you should be using your buying power strategically, how apex species need economic and congressional representation, some solutions, and examples of psycho tendencies from Christmas and hip-hop.

🏳️‍🌈 Gender Equality 2021 - In this essay, I break down gender equality into six categories: LGBTQ, Phobic, Sexual, Mental, Feminist, and Economic. To properly show the subject of gender equality I reference the 6 Netflix documentaries and linked and discuss related videos from Ellen, HeForShe, TED, Jordan Peterson, The World Bank, and the UN.

🏁 Dark Racism 2021 - In this treatise, I explain the science of racism, how it’s an arbitrary distinction that is socially constructed. Black people do have it worse due to institutionalized racism and white privilege. However, I talk about how black people create their own in-group morality around the word “nigga,” and my presented solution.  

🌎👣 Earth: Sustainability, How To Save Our Planet - If you want to know how to save our planet this post is the summation. Taking from the featured WWF video, I focus on a carbon tax and the three ways to save the planet. Along the way I discuss how it relates to The Psycho Consumption Cage.

🌲Marijuana Treatise 2021 - Published on April 20th and introduced with a discussion of my personal use, in this essay, I wrote about the versatility of hemp, the immorality and failure of the war on drugs, and the medical benefits of cannabis. 

Philosophy: 

🌍108 The Story Of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness (post) - This book is fundamental to understanding me and stands as the foundation in which I build my artistry. The book is nonfiction and autobiographical and about celestial consciousness, my personal story of struggling with schizoaffective disorder, atmospheric consciousness, sustainability, and eugenics, and finishes with what the number 108 means for the origins of life on Earth.

🚸🚜 Knhoeing 2020 -  The information is broken down into celestial consciousness, atmospheric consciousness, sustainability, and eugenics. Knhoeing states the planets, stars, and atmosphere are alive, and how humans can understand that through sustainability and eugenics. Knhoeing has to do with understanding your position in the universe and expresses and addresses human purpose through a eugenics goal. To survive & thrive as a species, we must support ourselves through healthy sustainability and breed to understand higher dimensions. 

🙏Sentientism 2022 - This post contains insights into my mind and the voice in my head, Gaia. Sentientism explores the belief (whereas knhoeing is the knowledge) that Gaia is conscious and communicating. I explain how sentientism is the religion of Gaia where you worship through action and create dogma through science and philosophy. If the planet earth is conscious how would she try to communicate considering she has no mouth or ligaments? How would Gaia try to communicate? I postulate and explain how Gaia could be communicating through a kind of telepathic randonauting.

📐 Expanding on Plato’s Philosophy: Forms and the Tripartite Soul (2020) - In this treatise, I explain how Plato’s forms are stored and strived for by Gaia and how Plato’s theory about the tripartite soul is similar to my theory about the will.

♟️ Logic - This post is a short introduction to logic. I use quotes and pictures of pages from the book “How Philosophy Works.” The content includes deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning, fallacies, and formal logic. I have also embedded a couple of CrashCourse videos.

Releases

🕸️New Release Blog at EricLeo.org - Over the last year I have been releasing at least on the 1st, 3rd, and if there is a 5th Friday of every month if not every week. Each release has its own post in my new release blog which is constantly being updated. The same posts are also here on this Tumblr blog as I post them at the same time. A list of releases is cataloged as follows:

2021

Read 108 - about my book

Vibe on the Wave - catchy intro

Eat The Mind - intellectual rap

Bump This Banger - party music

Cloud 9 - about recreational drugs

2022

Who’s Hip-Hop - my perspective in hip-hop

Black Lives Matter - support for the cause

Smoke Blunts - high intellectual bars

Flossin - dance track

Hey Emma - dance track, made for Emma’s everywhere

Champagne and Chocolate - romance track

Just Us Two - expression on evolution and companionship

Make It Hip-Hop - Homage to favorite artists

My Word - Celebrating 10 years

Gaia and Blue - Expands on “108” book

Love the Mission - the purpose of my music

Hit Me with the Download - a great tune

Talk to Me - romance track about wanting more

Cunnilingus - dating life experience track

Just Dance - dance track

Just Like You - happy expression 

We Dance - play when dancing is a protest

Come On Dawg - what my music stands for

The Villain - playing the role of the villain

Rage - subjects will put you in a rage

Bounce with This - party music inspired by Charlotte

Take Your Medication - Kayne Diss

2023

Gold Shaw Farm - about Morgan and Alyson’s farm on YouTube

Betsy - about the character from Hulu’s “Dopesick”

Bo Peep - political rap about America

Atheist Raps - self-explanatory, rebuke’s Christianity 

Blow Me Up - asking for help with exposure

Michigan Love - romance track about love in Michigan

I Got You - Letter asking for help from my fans

Breaking Bad - Eminem and Dr. Dre homage

Bleed - heartfelt plea about ending mass shootings

Going Gaga - fun romance track with Gaga Gaga-inspired hook

Funk You - response track to Olivia Rodrigo’s “good for you” and “deja vu”

What Now - 6 track EP about and inspired by other artists

Bong Hits For Jesus - about how when you smoke, you smoke with Jesus

Up Wasted - subjects and getting “fucked up wasted”

God Damn - fun and energetic track showing skill

Love You Mom - A thank you to my mother for being a good mom

American Inequality  - about how America is an oligarchy

John Wick - gets out aggression toward sex traffickers

Philosophy 101 - based off Cornel West’s Introduction to Philosophy Masterclass

Yeah We Bang - about American imperialism

Legend - about my feelings toward the music industry

We Make The Party - Party music with global warming bars 

Freaky Naughty - emulating Dr. Dre’s sound with global warming bars

With You - Cmadd feature about riding with your girl

Vulnerable - Selena Gomez response to her song with the same name.

Mitten Kingz - a song with artists representing Michigan

Soldier For Love - a message to keep going out of love

Our Love - a break-up and get back together song

My Everything - how your lover is your everything

Be My Dream - how I want Emma Watson to be my dream come true,

Reputation - A response to Taylor Swift's reputation 

Karma - about your fate in terms of civilization

Corporate Rule - 8-track album in Immortal Technique style

Earth - my hit and best representation of my music

Back to Life - Hailee Steinfeld response and homage. 

Process, People, Product - about Marcus Lemonis 3 P’s business philosophy 

All Homo - An edgy and controversial take on support for the gay community

Cosmic Luve Brownies - A response to Taylor Swift’s Lover album

Praises - a sexually charged song from artists from Kalamazoo Michigan 

…

Chalice Mixtape side note: “Talk to Me” (2022), “John Wick,” “Be My Dream,” “Reputation,” “Karma,” and the “All Homo” ep, were all remakes from ‘The Chalice Mixtape. “Charlotte’s Web” drops April 15 2023 and the remake for “I Love You” is in production. I will probably never remake “Listen Alice,” “Loyal,” “Problems,” or “The Profit.”

Already uploaded and scheduled to drop in 2024:

Kyle Beats Collective EP - 6 tracks made with free beats from Kyle Beats. Jan. 5th

Check it out - track from the (unofficial) party politics era/album Jan. 19th

Kato & Wysh Album - 7 tracks made with Kato and Wysh beats. Feb. 2nd

The Industry Album - 12 tracks with 14 features some with big names over Anno Domini beats. March 1st

Sun poem - spoken word track I recorded from the Cosmic Love Sept 2022 hope post. March 19

Charlotte’s Web - Emma Watson-inspired track released on her birthday. April 15th

Westside Connection Album - 7 tracks with big name features over Anno Domini beats. May 3

YOU - Song based on John Gottman’s 7 principles for making marriage work. June 7th

Can You Hear Me? - Rap song about global warming and summer heat. June 20th

[thehopefuljournalist]

According to a new survey, lawmakers are playing an increasingly important role in holding corporations and governments accountable for failures to tackle the climate crisis.

The research was done by Columbia Law School, and was commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). It revealed that the number of climate-related court cases has more than doubled since 2017 and is steadily rising around the world.

Their report confirms a trend highlighted in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2023, which claimed that individuals and environmental organizations were, more and more, turning to the law, as it became clear that the pace of transition to net-zero emissions was too slow.

“Climate litigation is increasing and concerns about emissions under-reporting and greenwashing have triggered calls for new regulatory oversight for the transition to net zero,” the Forum report said.

The UNEP report catalogues a number of high-profile court cases which have succeeded in enforcing climate action. In 2017, when climate case numbers were last counted, 884 legal actions had been brought. Today the total stands at 2,180.

The majority of climate cases to this date (1,522) have been brought in the US, followed by Australia, the UK, and the EU. The report notes that the number of legal actions in developing countries is growing, now at 17% of the total.

Climate litigation is also giving a voice to vulnerable groups who are being hard hit by climate change. The report says that, globally, 34 cases have been brought by children and young people, including two by girls aged seven and nine in Pakistan and India.

Here are five of the climate breakthroughs achieved by legal action so far.

1. Torres Strait Islanders Vs Australia

In September 2022, indigenous people living on islands in the Torres Strait between northern Queensland and Papua New Guinea won a landmark ruling that their human rights were being violated by the failure of the Australian government to take effective climate action.

The UN Human Rights Committee ruling established the principle that a country could be in breach of international human rights law over climate inaction. They ruled that Australia's poor climate record was a violation of the islanders’ right to family life and culture.

2. The Paris Agreement is a human rights treaty

In July 2022, Brazil's supreme court ruled that the Paris climate agreement is legally a human rights treaty which, it said, meant that it automatically overruled any domestic laws which conflicted with the country’s climate obligations.

The ruling ordered the government to reopen its national climate mitigation fund, which had been established under the Paris Agreement.

3. Climate inaction is a breach of human rights

Upholding an earlier court ruling that greenhouse emissions must be cut by 25% by 2020, the Netherlands Supreme Court ruled that failure to curb emissions was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The December 2019 ruling stated that, although it was up to politicians to decide how to make the emission cuts, failure to do so would be a breach of Articles 2 and 8 of the Convention which affirm the right to life and respect for private and family life.

4. Companies are bound by the Paris accord

Corporations, and not just governments, must abide by the emissions reductions agreed in the Paris climate treaty. This principle was established by a 2021 ruling in the Netherlands brought by environmentalists against energy group Royal Dutch Shell.

The court ordered Shell to cut its CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 bringing them in line with Paris climate targets. The judge was reported as saying there was "worldwide agreement" that a 45% reduction was needed, adding: "This applies to the entire world, so also to Shell”.

5. Courts overturn state climate plans

Up until now, three European governments have been defeated in the courts over their climate plans.

In March 2021, Germany’s highest court struck down a climate law requiring 55% emissions by 2030 cuts, ruling it did not do enough to protect citizens’ rights to life and health. The same year, the French government was ordered to take “immediate and concrete action” to comply with its climate commitments. And in 2022, the UK’s climate strategy was ruled unlawful for failing to spell out how emissions cuts would be made.

[seosejun]

SEO SEJUN, better known simply as SEJUN, is a fictional idol soloist under C ENTERTAINMENT. He got his start in the entertainment industry as a participant in fictional survival show LAST ACT where he placed twenty-third in the finale. While not good enough to win, it was good enough for a spot in temporary project boy group 1V1, of which he was a member for fifteen months. Shortly after 1V1’s disbandment, he signed to C Entertainment and made his debut as a soloist on January 15, 2023.

During his time on Last Act, he was an unpopular pick, given his lack of screen time that supposedly stemmed from his inability to be entertaining. This changed the moment he debuted as 1V1’s main rapper. His relationships with fellow members ALEX and JINWOO, alongside his uncensored, unfiltered, and generally unhinged personality immediately propelled him into becoming one of the group's most popular members.

Since making his solo debut, he’s enjoyed a considerable amount of fame and freedom. His debut album was well-received by 1V1 fans, as he continued to build off of their video game concept. Although his variety show prowess has declined slightly without the other 1V1 members, he’s made up for it in his frequent social media interactions with them and his semi-frequent Twitch streams with Alex.

GENERAL.

STAGE NAME: Sejun

DEBUT DATE: December 16, 2020 (1V1) / January 15, 2023 (solo)

COMPANY: Starship Entertainment (2018 - 2020), KDA Entertainment (2020 - 2022), C Entertainment (2022 - present)

FANDOM NAME: Serangdan /세랑단

TRAINING PERIOD: 2 years

POSITION: Main rapper (1V1)

DISCOGRAPHY.

NEW GAME / mini album, 2023

RNG / mini album, 2023

BIOGRAPHY.

Sejun was born on June 28, 2002, in Ilsan, South Korea. Growing up, he was raised less by his parents, both of whom worked long hours at their corporate jobs, and more by his maternal grandparents and his unrestricted access to the Internet. As he entered high school, he was immediately overwhelmed by the pressure of figuring out his future and picking something to do for the rest of his life. His greatest interests were Overwatch and writing, the first of which he was not good enough at to be a pro, and the second of which he saw firsthand was not sustainable on its own, given his father’s own webtoon writer career in the down time of his office job.

Instead, Sejun tried his hand at developing other interests. Part of this included attending an open audition for Starship Entertainment where he surprised everyone, including himself, by passing. He had little interest in becoming an idol and more interest in being a songwriter or producer. His wishes were ignored and he ended up representing the company on Last Act. The surprises continued when he enjoyed his time on the show, and then immensely enjoyed his time in 1V1. 

He has yet to enjoy his solo career as much as he enjoyed 1V1.

FULL NAME: Seo Sejun

BIRTHDAY: June 28, 2002

BIRTHPLACE: Ilsan, South Korea

HOMETOWN: Ilsan, South Korea

ETHNICITY: Korean

NATIONALITY: South Korean

FACE CLAIM: Hwang Hyunjin

[justinspoliticalcorner]

[TW: Corporal Punishment, Child Abuse, Child Neglect. Cruel and Unusual Punishment Of A Minor]

Molly Parker and Beth Hundsdorfer at Capitol News Illinois, via ProPublica:

It was on L.J.’s 11th birthday, in December 2022, that child welfare workers finally took him away. They arrived at his central Illinois home to investigate an abuse allegation and decided on the spot to remove the boy along with his baby brother and sister — the “Irish twins,” as their parents called them. His mother begged to keep the children while her boyfriend told child welfare workers and the police called to the scene that they could take L.J.: “You wanna take someone? Take that little motherfucker down there or wherever the fuck he is at. I’ve been trying to get him out of here for a long time.” By that time, L.J. told authorities he hadn’t been in a classroom for years, according to police records. First came COVID-19. Then, in August 2021 when he was going to have to repeat the third grade, his mother and her boyfriend decided that L.J. would be homeschooled and that they would be his teachers. In an instant, his world shrank to the confines of a one-bedroom apartment in the small Illinois college town of Charleston — no teachers, counselors or classmates.

In that apartment, L.J. would later tell police, he was beaten and denied food: Getting leftovers from the refrigerator was punishable by a whipping with a belt; sass was met with a slap in the face. L.J. told police he got no lessons or schoolwork at home. Asked if he had learned much, L.J. replied, “Not really.” Reporters are using the first and middle initials of the boy, who is now 12 and remains in state custody, to protect his identity. While each state has different regulations for homeschooling — and most of them are relatively weak — Illinois is among a small minority that places virtually no rules on parents who homeschool their children: The parents aren’t required to register with any governmental agency, and no tests are required. Under Illinois law, they must provide an education equivalent to what is offered in public schools, covering core subjects like math, language arts, science and health. But parents don’t have to have a high school diploma or GED, and state authorities cannot compel them to demonstrate their teaching methods or prove attendance, curriculum or testing outcomes.

The Illinois State Board of Education said in a statement that regional education offices are empowered by Illinois law to request evidence that a family that homeschools is providing an adequate course of instruction. But, the spokesperson said, their “ability to intervene can be limited.” Educational officials say this lack of regulation allows parents to pull vulnerable children like L.J. from public schools then not provide any education for them. They call them “no schoolers.” No oversight also means children schooled at home lose the protections schools provide, including teachers, counselors, coaches and bus drivers — school personnel legally bound to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Under Illinois law, parents may homeschool even if they would be disqualified from working with youth in any other setting; this includes parents with violent criminal records or pending child abuse investigations, or those found to have abused children in the past.

The number of students from preschool to 12th grade enrolled in the state’s public schools has dropped by about 127,000 since the pandemic began. Enrollment losses have outpaced declines in population, according to a report by Advance Illinois, a nonprofit education policy and advocacy organization. And, despite conventional wisdom, the drop was also not the result of wealthier families moving their children to private schools: After the pandemic, private school enrollment declined too, according to the same report.

In the face of this historic exodus from public schools, Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica set out to examine the lack of oversight by education and child welfare systems when some of those children disappear into families later accused of no-schooling and, sometimes, abuse and neglect. Reporters found no centralized system for investigating homeschooling concerns. Educational officials said they were ill equipped to handle cases where parents are accused of neglecting their children’s education. They also said the state’s laws made it all but impossible to intervene in cases where parents claim they are homeschooling. Reporters also found that under the current structure, concerns about homeschooling bounce between child welfare and education authorities, with no entity fully prepared to step in.

“Although we have parents that do a great job of homeschooling, we have many ‘no schoolers’” said Angie Zarvell, superintendent of a regional education office about 100 miles southwest of Chicago that covers three counties and 23 school districts. “The damage this is doing to small rural areas is great. These children will not have the basic skills needed to be contributing members of society.” Regional education offices, like the one Zarvell oversees, are required by law to identify children who are truant and try to help get them back into school. But once parents claim they are homeschooling, “our hands are tied,” said Superintendent Michelle Mueller, whose regional office is located about 60 miles north of St. Louis. Even the state’s child welfare agency can do little: Reports to its child abuse hotline alleging that parents are depriving their children of an education have multiplied, but the Department of Children and Family Services doesn’t investigate schooling matters. Instead, it passes reports to regional education offices. [...]

There’s no way to determine the precise number of children who are homeschooled. In 2022, 4,493 children were recorded as withdrawn to homeschool, a number that is likely much higher because Illinois doesn’t require parents to register homeschooled children. That is a little more than double the number a decade before. In late fall of 2020, L.J. was one of the kids who slipped out of school. After a roughly five-month hiatus from the classroom during the pandemic, L.J.’s school resumed in-person classes. The third grader, however, was frequently absent. At home, tensions ran high. In the 640-square-foot apartment, L.J.’s mother, Ashley White, and her boyfriend, Brian Anderson, juggled the demands of three children including two born just about 10 months apart. White, now 31, worked at a local fast-food restaurant. Anderson, now 51, who uses a wheelchair, had applied for disability payments. Anderson doesn’t have a valid driver’s license. The family lived in a subsidized housing complex for low-income seniors and people with disabilities.

In an interview with reporters in late February, 14 months after L.J. had been taken into custody by the state, the couple offered a range of explanations for why he hadn’t been in school. L.J. had been suspended and barred from returning, they said, though school records show no expulsion. They also said they had tried to put L.J. in an alternative school for children with special needs, but he didn’t have a diagnosis that qualified him to attend. The couple made clear they believed that L.J. was a problem child who could get them in trouble; they said they thought he could get them sued. In the interview, Anderson called L.J. a pathological liar, a thief and a bad kid. “I have 11 kids, never had a problem with any of them, never,” Anderson said. “I’ve never had a problem like this,” he said of L.J. The boy, he said, lacked discipline and continued to get “worse and worse and worse every year” he’d known him.

To support the idea that L.J. was combative, White provided a copy of a screenshot taken from a school chat forum in which the boy cursed at his schoolmates. At the end of the school year, in spring 2021, the principal told White and Anderson that the boy would have to repeat the third grade. Rather than have L.J. held back, the couple pulled him out of school to homeschool. They didn’t have to fill out any paperwork or give a reason. On any given day in Illinois, a parent can make that same decision. That’s due to a series of court and legislative decisions that strengthened parents’ rights against state interference in how they educate their children.

[...] Faced with cases of truancy or educational neglect, county prosecutors can press charges against parents. But if they do, parents can lean on Illinois’ parental protections when they defend themselves in court from a truancy charge. [...] More recently, the ISBE made one more decision to loosen the monitoring of parents who homeschool: For years, school districts and regional offices distributed voluntary registration forms to families who homeschool, some of whom returned them. Then last year, the state agency told those regional offices that they no longer had to send those forms to ISBE.

[...] Over the years, the legislature has taken up proposals to strengthen the state’s oversight of homeschooling. In 2011, lawmakers considered requiring parents to notify their local school districts of their intent to homeschool, and in 2019 they considered calling for DCFS to inspect all homeschools and have ISBE approve their curriculum. Each time, however, the state’s strong homeschooling lobby, mostly made up of religious-based organizations, stepped in. This March, under sponsorship of the Illinois Christian Home Educators, homeschoolers massed at the state Capitol as they have for decades for Cherry Pie Day, bringing pies to each of the state’s 177 lawmakers. Kirk Smith, the organization’s executive director and former public school teacher, summed up his group’s appeal to lawmakers: “All we want is to be left alone. And Illinois has been so good. We have probably the best state in the nation to homeschool.”

This @capitolnewsil / @propublica story on how a set of parents decided to homeschool one of their kids, and it served as a crude excuse to abuse and torment that child.

This is one of the reasons why regulation-free homeschooling is a bad idea, and there ought to be some common sense regulations on homeschooling.

The main reason why Illinois remains regulation-free for homeschooling is the homeschooling lobby, which is disproportionately dominated by conservative evangelical/fundamentalist Protestants.