On Friday, January 23rd, RMS will give a talk, "Free/Libre Software And Our Freedom: Our shield against many digital injustices." at Scheller College of Business.

Seats are unreserved. Please bring cash to get FSF merchandise.

Progress in breeding perennial grains has already resulted in a commercially grown wheat-relative. Breeders hope to produce one with the same yield as ordinary wheat, but more efficient to grow.

The persecutor plans to impose fear and self-censorship on visitors from many countries (the ones whose citizens don't need visas to visit the US) by demanding almost full cooperation with monitoring of their past and future communications.

The one thing not demanded is your GPG keys.

There will surely be no stated criterion for what things it is forbidden to say, so no one could be sure that anything is safe. This pressure people to hush up any and all forms of opposition to the persecutor, other magats, and their cruel laws and policies.

*In many parts of the country, there are new work requirements to get food aid. But starving people doesn’t motivate them — despite centuries of this rhetoric.* In other words, poor people who can work will work, if work is doable.

The bully threatens to move highly profitable global sporting events out of US cities that don't bow down to him.

The head of FIFA has been sucking up to him so much as to suggest it would willingly cooperate with being used as a stick to beat US cities with. This article suggests that FIFA and the corrupt US government have become a partnership for plunder.

As for the Olympic Games, they have a decades-long history of demanding and getting laws that are unfair to the non-rich, including general surveillance of the public.

Meanwhile, the great expense to taxpayers goes to boost some local businesses.

This is why I support citizens' campaigns against hosting the games.

I make myself invulnerable to being bribed or manipulated by Big Sports by resisting the impulse to care who wins a sports match. The matches that I care about are elections for office, and I always root for the progressive-green-human rights defender. And, beyond just caring about the outcome, I can help them win.