US citizens: call on Congress not to let Amazon influence future laws about face recognition.

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US citizens: call on Amazon to stop giving "ring" doorbell videos to thugs.

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Support the bill to tax companies extra if the CEO gets much higher pay than the median worker salary.

More information.

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The Swedish parliament is considering a constitutional amendment that would grant a personified "Nature" the rights to "exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve."

I am in favor of making ecocide a crime, and also other acts that greatly reduce habitats or the world's greenhouse gas capture. I can't agree that "Nature" is capable of having rights.

I am specifically worried by the mention of "evolve" in that list. Evolution has no target; it means that things change however they happen to change. If "Nature" has a right to evolve, that seems to mean a right not to be shaped intentionally by humans. That could possibly lead to prohibiting efforts to eradicate intrusive species, even efforts to keep them out.

In the US, it is humans that want to stop kudzu, zebra mussels, Asian carp, Burmese pythons and many more introduced species from wiping out other species. In evolution, such things happen, and the fact that human activity introduced those species into the US doesn't alter the fact that they are present now.

Would "Nature's" "right to evolve" cover viruses such as smallpox and polio, or the protozoa that cause malaria and sleeping sickness? Let's not risk it.

Juan Cole's view of likely consequences of a Turkish invasion of the Kurdish region of Syria.

Another extrapolation on the same subject.