/2024

  • Every Word Besides ‘Children’ Used To Describe Palestinians Under 18 - The Onion
    https://theonion.com/every-word-besides-children-used-to-describe-palestin-1851071213

    à comparer par exemple avec les mots employés pour un cryptofraudeur de 32 ans
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/technology/ftx-executives-parents.html

    As their children are sentenced for fraud, the parents of FTX’s top leaders have described their disbelief at how the crypto exchange upended their lives.

    #enfance #guerre

  • A Radical Approach to Flooding in England: Give Land Back to the Sea
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/world/europe/uk-steart-marshes-carbon-climate-change-flooding.html

    In a project costing 20 million pounds (around $26 million), tidal waters were allowed to flood the Steart Peninsula in 2014 for the first time in centuries.

    Rather than attempting to resist the sea, the land was given back to it. It was, in the words of Alys Laver, the conservationist who oversees the site, a “giant science experiment.

    A decade on, its results might offer a blueprint for how some parts of Britain — and the rest of the world — might adapt to the reality of climate change.

    [...]

    Steart is often described as a “rewilding” project, but Ms. Laver prefers not to use that term. The terrain has been returned to nature but it has been engineered by human ingenuity and curated by human hands.

    Looking after the site requires a lot of intervention,” Ms. Laver said, sheltering from a brief, furious rain squall in a bird blind. Through a window, we surveyed a landscape that was still, but ever-changing; natural, but human-made; new, but as it once was.

    #pré-salé #zone_humide #inondation #agriculture #climat

  • Kamala Harris Needs Young Voters. Her Envoy : Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/nyregion/aoc-kamala-harris.html

    Une belle définition de la politique « ce n’est pas un habit choisi que nous portons, mais cela rend ou non les choses possibles, cela permet de choisir les gens avec lesquels on va devoir se battre ».

    At Penn State, the largest university in the largest swing state, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez recalled her own feelings of “deep cynicism” when she worked as a waitress without health insurance, wondering whether politics was “just all a foregone conclusion.”

    Indulging that question, she warned hundreds of students in a packed theater near campus, would only empower Mr. Trump and work against the most vulnerable, the cease-fire movement and a host of other progressive policy positions.

    “I need us to understand that our responsibility here is real,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “When I say ours, I mean ours. I mean this room, and I mean young people specifically.”

    “Voting,” she added, “is not like something you wear. It’s not a personal expression. It’s about setting conditions, and it’s about who I want to be wrestling with.”

    #Alexandria_Ocasio_Cortez #Responsabilité_politique

  • Opinion | The F.T.C.’s Lina Khan Took On Big Tech. Now Her Job Is on the Line. - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/opinion/lina-khan-ftc-venture-capital-silicon-valley.html

    High-profile venture capitalists are demanding that Kamala Harris, if elected president, fire a top regulator for her aggressive policing of Big Tech. Not only do I disagree with them, I see their attacks as evidence of a bigger problem with the venture capital industry and, ultimately, our technology sector, which is a critical driver of our economy and society.

    Venture capital may be a small segment of the finance industry, but it has been a linchpin of the modern computing era. Over the past 75 years, venture capitalists repeatedly nurtured early-stage companies to the point where they could replace big, established firms and drive markets in new directions. From Fairchild Semiconductor to Intel, Apple to Google — all benefited from early venture capital support.

    Times have changed. The power of major technology incumbents is now so great, and the dependence of venture capital firms on those incumbents so complete, that today’s V.C.s are now siding with the monopolies — and fighting government agencies that are trying to advance competition.

    #Lina_Khan #Compétition #Antitrust #Capital-risque

  • Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’ - The Atlantic
    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-military-generals-hitler/680327

    The personal qualities displayed by Trump in his reaction to the cost of the Guillén funeral—contempt, rage, parsimony, racism—hardly surprised his inner circle. Trump has frequently voiced his disdain for those who serve in the military and for their devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice. Former generals who have worked for Trump say that the sole military virtue he prizes is obedience. As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” (“This is absolutely false,” Pfeiffer wrote in an email. “President Trump never said this.”)

    A desire to force U.S. military leaders to be obedient to him and not the Constitution is one of the constant themes of Trump’s military-related discourse. Former officials have also cited other recurring themes: his denigration of military service, his ignorance of the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his admiration for brutality and anti-democratic norms of behavior, and his contempt for wounded veterans and for soldiers who fell in battle.

  • Israel bombs south Lebanon municipality, kills mayor during relief work meeting
    https://thecradle.co/articles-id/27303

    Non seulement le titre du Monde hier (https://seenthis.net/messages/1077052) était répugnant, mais on apprend depuis que l’assassinat du maire de Nabatiyyé a eu lieu pendant une réunion qui coordonnait les secours après lesl bombardements israéliens...

    In response to the violent raid of the southern Lebanese town, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Israeli jets “deliberately struck a municipal council meeting focused on addressing the city’s relief and service needs.”

    “This new assault, along with the ongoing crimes committed by Israel against civilians, is a direct challenge to the international community, whose silence only emboldens the occupation to continue its violations and crimes,” Mikati added.

  • Hurricane Milton could cost insurers up to $100 billion, analysts say

    Hurricane Milton could result in losses of up to $100 billion for the global insurance industry, creating a surge in 2025 reinsurance prices that could boost some insurance companies’ shares, analysts said on Wednesday.
    The Category 4 hurricane is expected to make landfall on the Gulf Coast of Florida late on Wednesday or early Thursday. It is potentially one of the most destructive to hit the region, which is recovering from Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago.
    Insured losses from Milton could range from $60 billion to $100 billion if the hurricane makes direct landfall in the densely populated area of Tampa, analysts at Morningstar DBRS said.
    A loss of $100 billion would put Milton on par with Katrina in 2005, they added, saying that insured losses would likely be “substantial but not catastrophic”.
    Katrina caused the largest insured loss from a hurricane.
    The second-largest loss came from Ian, which hit Florida in 2022 and led to losses of around $60 billion.
    RBC analysts estimated Milton would cause similar losses to Ian that should be “very manageable” for the insurance sector.
    Analysts at Jefferies estimated a mid-double-digit billion-dollar insured loss would follow a major hurricane impact in one of Florida’s most heavily populated regions.
    “A 1-in-100-year event is estimated by some to result in $175 billion in losses for landfall in the Tampa region, and $70 billion in losses in the Fort Myers region,” they wrote in a note, outlining an extreme scenario.

    S&P analysts noted on Wednesday the scope of damages “remains highly uncertain” but that it could match the $60 billion caused by Ian in 2022.
    Hurricane Milton could “fully exhaust” many primary insurers’ 2024 catastrophe budgets, the S&P analysts wrote in a note.
    INDUSTRY RESPONSE
    Insurers and reinsurers - who insure the insurers - have responded to rising losses from natural catastrophes, which scientists say are being exacerbated by climate change, by raising rates and excluding higher-risk business.
    “Better reinsurance contract terms, broader earnings diversification and bigger reserve buffers should put the sector in better stead than before,” the RBC analysts said in a note.
    Shares in global reinsurers Swiss Re (SRENH.S)
    , opens new tab and Munich Re (MUVGn.DE), opens new tab and in Lloyd’s of London (SOLYD.UL) players Beazley (BEZG.L), opens new tab, Hiscox (HSX.L), opens new tab and Lancashire (LRE.L)
    , opens new tab have fallen this week. Swiss Re, Munich Re and Beazley have been trading at record highs in recent weeks following strong profits.
    “It’s only a matter of time before shares regain lost ground as prospects of harder pricing at the subsequent (policy) renewals set in,” RBC added.
    Reinsurers fix prices for many insurance contracts on Jan. 1.
    Analysts at Peel Hunt said on Wednesday that a major hurricane making landfall across Tampa Bay and travelling west across the Florida Peninsula would be similar to a realistic disaster scenario set out by Lloyd’s earlier this year, which projected a $134-billion loss for the insurance sector.
    Lloyd’s maintains a set of mandatory realistic disaster scenarios to stress-test both individual syndicates and the market as a whole. The event scenarios are regularly reviewed to ensure they represent material catastrophe risks.

    #assurance #Milton #changement_climatique #coût #climat #ouragan #assurances

    • Hurricanes Amplify Insurance Crisis in Riskiest Areas

      After #Helene and #Milton, some small #Florida companies risk bankruptcy. Larger ones will be in the hot seat with lawmakers and consumer groups.

      Until late last month, there was optimism in the insurance industry. Hurricane season had been quiet and the number of wildfires was still below the yearly average. Insurers were beginning to hope that the cost of reinsurance — that is, insurance for insurers — would only inch up next year, instead of shooting higher as it did the previous two years.

      Two major hurricanes have upended their calculations.

      Total economic losses from Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene could soar over $200 billion, according to early estimates. While it’s far too soon to know exactly what portion will be covered by insurance companies, some consumer groups, lawmakers and analysts are already worried about a big hit to insurers’ finances that could ultimately affect millions of people living in the most vulnerable areas.

      As climate change increases the intensity of natural disasters, insurance companies have pulled back from many high-risk areas by raising premiums or ending some types of coverage. The fallout from the two hurricanes, which landed within the span of two weeks, could accelerate that retreat. It could also further strain an already feeble federal flood insurance program that has filled in gaps for homeowners living in areas where private insurance companies no longer offer flood coverage.

      Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida’s west coast as a Category 3 storm on Wednesday, did not ultimately cause the catastrophe that had been predicted for the Tampa Bay area. But it still did plenty of damage.

      Sridhar Manyem, an analyst for the insurance industry ratings agency AM Best, said that while it was too early to estimate insurers’ obligations, industry insiders were already beginning to compare Milton to Hurricane Ian, which caused more than $55 billion of insured losses in 2022 when it hit the same area.

      “Because of lack of information at first blush, usually people do this,” Mr. Manyem said. “This storm is pretty comparable to another storm in terms of size and path and intensity, so we can try to figure out what an inflation-adjusted loss would be.”

      If the storm is that expensive for insurers, it will have a knock-on effect for customers. It will give insurance companies another reason to either raise premiums or stop selling policies to people living and working in certain areas. It could even drive some insurers out of business, as Ian did. Since 2021, nine property and casualty insurers have gone bankrupt in Florida.

      Insurance companies will most likely have to cover more damage from Milton than from Helene, because its major destructive force was windstorms, not floods, which private insurers do not frequently cover.

      Helene, which landed before Milton, also caused considerable damage. But the cost of repairing that damage, mostly caused by flooding, is more likely to fall on the National Flood Insurance Program, which provides more than two-thirds of all flood insurance coverage in the United States.

      Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are wondering whether that program will have enough money to pay flood claims without more funding from Congress. It could draw on about $15 billion before a new reauthorization bill would be necessary.

      “Hurricane Milton may blow through the N.F.I.P.’s remaining resources,” said Representative Maxine Waters of California, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees the program, in a statement to The New York Times. “Even just one more storm could bankrupt the entire N.F.I.P. and prevent future claims payments to devastated communities.”

      The program is plagued with problems. It is in debt to the Treasury Department for $20 billion already, with interest payments piling up.

      Ms. Waters said Congress should pass legislation that would forgive the flood program’s debt.

      The program also threatens to become unaffordable to people living in flood-prone areas who are required by their mortgage lenders to buy its policies. Lawmakers want to pass changes to the program, including a need-based plan that would help its poorest customers.

      Consumer groups are worried that private insurers will continue to pull back from areas where people are in grave danger of damage from big storms but cannot afford to move. The Greenlining Institute, a consumer group based in California, is beginning to pressure insurers to write affordable policies for low-income homeowners.

      Until recently, Greenlining focused its work on urging banks to do business with people who had been historically shut out of the banking system by redlining and other discriminatory policies. It expanded its mission when it realized that difficulties getting insurance were also taking a toll on poor and minority areas, said Monica Palmeira, the group’s climate finance strategist. Insurance companies are “allowed to essentially discriminate against climate-vulnerable communities,” she said.

      On Friday, Daniel Schwarcz, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, proposed a federally administrated marketplace for homeowners insurance modeled after Obamacare.

      Smaller insurers will have other things to think about first. If they have been poorly managed or have concentrated business too narrowly, they could collapse under the weight of claims from the storms.

      “Florida-focused property insurers, they are really at the highest level of danger,” Mr. Manyem said. Those companies, he said, are likely to have the hardest time getting new reinsurance policies, too.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/12/business/insurance-hurricane-milton-helene.html
      #Floride

      via @freakonometrics

  • Opinion | Anthony Fauci : My West Nile Virus Nightmare - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/07/opinion/fauci-west-nile-virus.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Qk4.G7Q-.aN0d1FiOhG_z


    Mais quel poissard !

    After I spent more than 50 years chasing and fighting viruses, one fought back and nearly took me down. I speak of the West Nile virus, delivered by the deadliest animal on the planet: the mosquito.

    I got infected not during any of my international trips over the years but most likely while I was outside my home in Washington, D.C. In mid-August I was feeling weak and exhausted but attributed it to a recent bout with Covid-19. Though I tested positive for Covid over a month prior, I experienced a rebound of symptoms after taking the treatment Paxlovid. Perhaps I was still experiencing lingering symptoms that would eventually resolve.

    Not so. Instead, I began to experience unexplained severe fatigue and exhaustion, culminating in my admission to a hospital on Aug. 16, delirious and incoherent, with a temperature of 103 degrees. I remember little of the five and a half days that I spent in the hospital, except that I had never felt so ill in my life. My physicians assumed that I had sepsis and treated me with antibiotics. After several days, my fever subsided, and I was discharged on antibiotics without a clear diagnosis. That changed the next day when blood tests revealed that I had West Nile virus.

  • Israel tells Washington it plans imminent ground operation in Lebanon, U.S. official says
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/09/30/israel-lebanon-hezbollah-hamas-war-news-gaza

    Israel is planning a limited ground operation in Lebanon that could start imminently, Israel has told Washington, a U.S. official said — an account corroborated by an Israeli familiar with military deliberations. Israel’s planned campaign would be smaller than its last war against Hezbollah in 2006 and would focus on clearing out militant infrastructure along the border to remove the threat to Israeli border communities, the U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks between the two governments. On Monday, Israeli forces carried out limited raids in Lebanon, according to the Israeli familiar with the operation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

  • Opinion | Conservatives Used to Rule the World. What Happened ? - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/26/opinion/trump-far-right-conservatism.html

    C’est toujours intéressant de lire les conservateurs (les vrais, pas les hystériques qui se montent du col un peu partout sur les télés).
    Et c’est absolument effrayant de voir son pays appartenir à la frange (la fange) qui peut tomber dans le pire.

    By Ferdinand Mount

    Mr. Mount is a political commentator and a former columnist for The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph. He wrote from London.

    Sept. 26, 2024

    The British Conservative Party has long boasted of being the most successful political party on the planet. The unimaginable scale of its defeat on July 4, when it won the fewest seats in its history, looks like the downfall of moderate conservatism. It appears to be the final straw for the center-right parties offering pragmatism, prosperity and opportunity that have dominated Western politics since World War II. Almost everywhere conservatism’s brash rival, nationalist populism, is on the march: already in power with its colorful leaders in Hungary, Italy and Argentina; on the brink of it in the United States and France; and eroding the old-style conservatives in Germany, the Netherlands and now Britain. The rivalry on the right is in danger of becoming a rout, with the senior, steadier force swallowed by its insurgent challenger.

    These shocks to our established ways of thinking are so violent that we immediately assume that this must be a unique apocalypse, the product of unprecedented social and economic forces. This, I think, is a temptation to be resisted. The reality is that something similar has often happened or nearly happened before, at different times and in different places. Nationalist populism, my umbrella term for the smorgasbord of hard-right forces, always sings the same song. The circumstances that gain it a sympathetic hearing are usually much the same, too: decline of old industries and loss of well-paid jobs for men, undercutting by rising nations and, of course, fresh waves of immigrants from new places. It’s when mainstream conservatism visibly flounders in dealing with the challenge — as it has so clearly done in recent years — that such movements can hope to surge.

    The upshot is both concerning and consoling. Conservatism has been here before — and it can get through it again.

    Our parents and grandparents had to grope their way through that postwar fatigue. The Conservatives then were especially aware that they had to begin afresh, to attend closely to the world as it was and not cling to outworn ideology. They worked to become relevant again, humbler, readier to listen. Today, that must include learning from the example of Keir Starmer and his patient remaking of the Labour Party, his professionalism and his attention to detail. The next Tory leader will need to be someone in that mold. In Europe, conservative parties must reposition themselves not as handmaidens of the far right — with whom they have developed an unfortunate habit of collaboration — but as guarantors of prosperity and social order.

    In the United States, too, moderate Republicans should be quietly regrouping and rethinking a program for the future. The situation frankly is a bad one, given the Trumpists’ grip on the party, but renewal is not impossible. A path to a more thoughtful and sociable politics can be cleared by those who want a responsible, common-sense alternative to the Democrats. I cannot pretend that it will be easy. The election campaign, with the two assassination attempts on Mr. Trump and the replacement of Mr. Biden with Kamala Harris, has been a roller coaster of emotion. Debate is far from sober, and hysteria and hostility abound. Yet in the end, nations calm down, because they have to. At that point, sensible conservatives should be on hand to pick up the pieces — as they have so many times in the past — and start again.

    #Conservateurs #Politique #Monde #Extrême_droite

  • Albania Is Planning a New Muslim State Inside Its Capital

    via https://diasp.eu/p/17144812

    Prime Minister Edi Rama says he wants to give members of the Bektashi, a Shiite Sufi order, their own Vatican-style enclave as a way of promoting religious tolerance.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/21/world/europe/albania-tirana-muslim-state-bektashi.html

    Linking #Bektashis and #Muslims (as #Sunites or #Shiites) so bluntly, at least in the headline, is evidence of sensationalism - in the article things are more differenciated.

    ...

  • Opinion | How the Powerful Outmaneuvered the American Protest Movement - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/21/opinion/campus-protests-internet-america.html

    Un essai de Zeynep Tufekci qui constitue un réel rebond sur son livre Twitter & les gaz lacrymogènes, en reprenant ses travaux à la lueur des manifestations actuelles aux Etats-Unis (mais on croirait y reconnaître également ce qui se passe en Europe, dans tous les pays que l’on considère pourtout comme « démocratiques »).

    Zeynep Tufekci

    By Zeynep Tufekci

    Opinion Columnist

    Sept. 21, 2024

    The year 2024 started out looking as if it would be a momentous one for political protests. All winter and spring, college campuses were aflame in anger and conflict and as summer approached, the Democratic National Convention threatened to be engulfed by street demonstrations in a potential repeat of the tumultuous 1968 party convention.

    The year was momentous, all right, but not for the reasons it seemed. Mass protests had already been showing diminishing returns, sometimes drawing big crowds but rarely getting proportionally big results. Now, 2024 looks like the end of the road, at least for the kind of power that such mass protests once had, a power that has defined political action in America and in democracies around the world for decades.

    Look at the campuses that seized so much attention last winter and spring. Over the summer, while protesters scattered to pursue internships or wait tables or help out at home, many institutions quietly changed the rules regarding political action. Mother Jones reported that dozens of institutions of higher education, in charge of nearly 100 campuses, were “effectively banning many forms of protest” with new regulations going far beyond the “time, space and manner” restrictions that were already in place.

    Students will still raise their voices, of course, but don’t count on seeing many big encampments, nor administrators paralyzed for months on end, unsure how to deal. The balance of power has tilted sharply back in their favor, where it is likely to stay for a while.

    The Democratic convention, meanwhile, saw sizable, energetic marches most days opposing Israel’s actions in Gaza — a stance that Democrats overwhelmingly support. But when the dust settled, there was no sign of any shift in policy from the Kamala Harris camp. It wouldn’t even let a single Palestinian American, a Georgia state legislator, give a brief speech mentioning the plight of Palestinians while wholeheartedly endorsing Harris.

    If anything, the antiwar movement departed Chicago in a weaker position, with less leverage than it had when it arrived.

    Thousands of people surging into the street or taking over college campuses, cheering on fiery speeches, presenting demands, chanting slogans — that familiar model won’t go away entirely. Especially not if a certain former president wins re-election, an event that could prompt millions to march. But as much as it pains me to say it, protesting just doesn’t get results anymore. Not the way it used to. Not in that form. It can’t.

    Those in power have figured out how to outmaneuver protesters: by keeping peaceful demonstrators far out of sight, organizing an overwhelming police response that brings the threat of long prison sentences, and circulating images of the most disruptive outliers that makes the whole movement look bad.

    It works. And the organizers have failed to keep up.

    The digital platforms they rely on make it difficult to impose any discipline on the message being communicated. Crackpot agitators and off-the-wall causes attach themselves more easily than ever. Conflict erupts. Fueled by the drama-loving algorithms of social media platforms, the movements descend into ugly public bickering.
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    Hell, no, we won’t go! The whole world is watching! No justice, no peace! R.I.P. the era when big protest marches, civil disobedience and campus encampments so often changed the course of history. It was a good run, wasn’t it?
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    The irony is that the very tool that has undermined the power of the protests — the internet — initially contributed to some of the most spectacular protests in history, starting with the convention of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999.

    I had gotten word about the Seattle demonstrations the same way most of the protesters did: through email lists, a major novelty at the time.

    It was magical. Tens of thousands of demonstrators assembled from seemingly out of nowhere. They took everyone — elected officials, the news media, the delegates in the convention center — by surprise, in a way that would previously have been impossible. The police were bewildered by the protesters’ ability to communicate among themselves at scale, in real time, to take over intersections and deftly circumvent obstacles and keep everyone else several steps behind. The whole thing brought the W.T.O. proceedings practically to a halt and gave the world a new way to think about globalization: Whom does it actually benefit?

    In 2011, that model expanded to include occupations. Protesters camped out in Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, inspired similar occupations around the world, with the same spirit of anarchic fun also playing out online. That movement gave the world a new way to think about inequality: the 1 percent versus the 99 percent.

    But considering the popularity and energy of these movements, they didn’t change the world that much. Two decades later, globalization still favors corporations. Wealth is as inequitably distributed as ever. Other large protest movements — the Iraq antiwar movement, which I participated in, and the Arab Spring, which I studied and observed — were ground down or ignored.

    By 2024, the authorities had the response down pat. In Chicago last month, protesters were assigned a circular marching route at least half a mile away from the convention site. The area was secured by two concentric fences and several more barriers. Protesters could be as loud as they wanted to be and they still wouldn’t even be heard anywhere near the arena.

    It was quite a decent crowd — not as many as some had expected, but I counted thousands of people energetically marching on multiple days.

    But big numbers alone can’t have the impact they once did because they no longer signal the same threat. The 1963 March on Washington took several months of extensive effort and planning, a show of immense strength and organizational ability that could keep the pressure on long after the protest ended. By comparison the Occupy movement came together much more easily, in just a few weeks. It produced one of the largest ever days of global protest, but what does that even mean when the internet juices so much of the prep work? “Biggest ever” protests keep occurring to little avail. The Women’s March in 2017 was considered the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, but Donald Trump is once again back as the Republican nominee in a toss-up race.

    The factors that have defanged big marches have made direct action and confrontational tactics lose their bite, too. With police officers responding in overwhelming numbers and courts doling out lengthy sentences, today’s disrupters often lack the discipline and preparation required to pull off effective civil disobedience.

    In Chicago, the few protesters who tried to defy the barricades were arrested immediately. Police officers vastly outnumbered them.

    With the news media swarming them, those protesters got some publicity but it was a double-edged sword: In addition to news outlets, right-wing media personalities and streamers flocked to the scene to try to use it to portray Chicago as a city in chaos.

    As a scholar of social movements and an alumna of more protests than I can count, I know that to distance itself from discordant voices, a movement needs designated spokespeople who make clear what it stands for and what it denounces. That kind of message discipline is always hard, but it’s an even bigger challenge when participants all have their own social media accounts and people are quick to say they are being silenced. In 2024 it became almost impossible.

    In the few weeks before the convention, a lot of drama erupted — especially on TikTok — between some Black activists and those with Palestinian or Arab heritage. These groups had previously worked in tandem, but now recriminations and ugly accusations spread virally as pro-Palestinian voices decried Harris as a warmonger and Black voices accused them of undermining a candidate of color — all fueled by ever more strident comments.

    Who were these commenters inflaming the conflict? Why did so many appear not even to live in the United States? Did TikTok’s Chinese corporate overlords pick the winners? Whatever the answers, the venom was online but the results were felt on the streets: Black Lives Matter protests, so visible in Chicago in 2020, seemed almost completely absent during the Democratic convention.

    The internal tensions that social movements have always faced become especially paralyzing when they play out in public, amplified by the algorithms that favor conflict. Without a counterbalancing organizational structure, there’s no way to bridge those differences and build consensus.

    All of this might help explain why, during the Republican convention in Milwaukee, there were no big protests at all, despite the provocations of Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Maybe the odds were stacked so high against protesters that they didn’t even bother.

    That’s not necessarily how it will play out on college campuses. Students have already begun making their voices heard. But many campus administrations (no doubt at the fervent behest of trustees) have spent the summer carefully preparing. They intend to return student protests to the status they occupied before this last extraordinary year: a common occurrence with little impact beyond the campus gates.

    History, of course, is full of innovation and counter-innovation. Protests will reinvent themselves eventually. So what form does the future of political protest take? If the past is any indication, the answers will surprise us all.

    After a tumultuous century of uprisings and conflict, in the mid-19th century, Paris imposed a new street plan that turned narrow roads into majestic boulevards — not merely for the aesthetics but also to make them harder for protesters to barricade. A century later, however, those boulevards were where the 1968 movement exploded with flair, creativity and impact.

    For activists, finding a way forward will mean figuring out new ways to leverage the power of social media without surrendering to its destructive effects. It will mean a new understanding of impact that goes beyond virality and self-expression. It will mea — ah, what do I know?

    I don’t have an easy answer, and I know that the protesters probably wouldn’t listen to me even if I did, just as I wouldn’t have listened to some scholar of protest movements when I was in their shoes. Each generation needs to creatively, purposefully find its own way.

    All I know is that protests and mass demonstrations of dissent are a necessary part of a healthy democracy. I can’t wait to see what this generation comes up with.

    #Zeynep_Tufekci #Mouvements_sociaux

  • In the South of France, a Utopian Town Inspired by Ancient Pyramids
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/t-magazine/la-grande-motte-french-resort-town.html

    The magnum opus of the Turkish-born French architect Jean Balladur, La Grande Motte began in 1965 as one of several working-class resort towns built by the French government in response to the post-World War II vacation boom. (Later in the decade, a law increased workers’ annual holiday allowance from three to four weeks.) These places were fashioned as cheaper, family-friendly alternatives to the ritzier attractions of the Côte d’Azur, farther east. La Grande Motte (the Big Mound), a 40-minute drive east of Montpellier and named after a nearby sand dune, was to offer affordable accommodation for 37,800 tourists, in the form of vacation homes, rental apartments and campsites.

  • Pour rappel : intercepter les colis pour y implanter des dispositifs d’espionnage, c’est une des pratiques américaines révélées par Snowden en 2013.

    De l’interception de colis à l’espionnage de l’écran, inventaire des outils de la NSA [décembre 2013]
    https://seenthis.net/messages/212366

    Der Spiegel raconte également que certaines livraisons d’ordinateurs sont interceptées et redirigées vers des ateliers secrets de la TAO, où des agents ouvrent précautionneusement le paquet et mettent en place des espions dans la machine. Cette technique permet notamment de cibler les personnes ayant recours à des ordinateurs neufs et qu’ils ne connectent jamais à Internet pour éviter les fuites.

    • Argh, j’avais l’intention de ne plus jamais assembler mes ordinateurs moi-même. C’est raté ! Si je prends au sériaux toutes ces nouvelles apocalyptiques il faudrait qu’en plus je compile tous les logiciels moi-même en commençant par l’OS, après avoir examiné le code, naturellement. Ne parlons pas des disques durs chiffrés qui te rendent impossible la récupération de données après un bon crash ...
      Mais enfin, bof, j’attendrai encore, je ne suis quand même ni le Mossad, ni l’Hezbollah, je ne suis même pas membre d’un parti politique (et fier de ne pas l’être) , alors mes pires ennemis sont les hackers black-hat qui de temps en temps me font exploser un serveur . ;-)

      #espionnage #autodéfense #informatique #paranoïa #wtf

    • How Israel Built a Modern-Day Trojan Horse: Exploding Pagers - The New York Times
      https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html

      Even before Mr. Nasrallah decided to expand pager usage, Israel had put into motion a plan to establish a shell company that would pose as an international pager producer.

      By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.

      B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.

      The pagers began shipping to Lebanon in the summer of 2022 in small numbers, but production was quickly ramped up after Mr. Nasrallah denounced cellphones.

    • Farin Urlaub - Dusche, Livealbum of Death (2006)
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0CLNxZcc9I


      Voici la chanson sur les objets qui fomentent un attentat contre leur propriétaire. Le chanteur a tout anticipé ! Est-ce un message secret ? On peut se poser la question si Farin Urlaub a servi de source d’inspiration au Mossad ou si depuis 1982 son groupe Die Ärzte est un projet écran du service secret pour infiltrer le monde de la musique pop allemande ;-)

      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_%C3%84rzte
      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farin_Urlaub

      Paroles

      [Strophe 1]
      Komm mir nicht zu nahe
      Sieh mich nicht so an
      Bleib im Hellen stehen
      Da, wo ich dich sehen kann

      Es begann mit meinem Fahrrad
      Diesem elend falschen Stück
      Ich trat in die Pedale
      Und mein Fahrrad trat zurück

      [Pre-Refrain 1]
      Als ich dann in die Wohnung kam, hab ich noch nichts geahnt
      Doch die Fußmatten und die Schallplatten
      Und die Krawatten hatten ein Attentat geplant

      [Refrain 1]
      Und ich schlafe in der Dusche, weil die Dusche zu mir hält
      Sie ist der einzige Freund, den ich noch habe auf der Welt
      Und ich schlafe in der Dusche, weil die Dusche ist normal
      Diese Rebellion der Haushaltsgegenstände ist ziemlich brutal

      [Strophe 2]
      Wenn Tassen in Massen
      Sich einfach fallen Lassen
      Wenn Scheren sich wehren
      Und dir den Krieg erklären
      See upcoming rock shows
      Get tickets for your favorite artists
      You might also like
      Nach Hause
      MELE
      Arrows
      Billie Marten
      Blau (Solo Version)
      Amanda
      [Pre-Refrain 2]
      Mein Kühlschrank hasst mich sowieso
      Er ist paranoid
      Doch als mein Bettbezug mich beissen wollte
      Wusste ich ich brauche Dynamit ...

      [Refrain 2]
      Und ich schlafe in der Dusche, weil die Dusche zu mir hält
      Sie ist der einzige Freund, den ich noch habe auf der Welt
      Und ich schlafe in der Dusche, weil die Dusche ist normal
      Diese Rebellion der Haushaltsgegenstände ist fatal

      [Coda]:
      Und ich weiß sie wollen mich kriegen und sie sind hinter mir her
      Aber ich bin vorbereitet, ja ich mach es ihnen schwer
      Man muss immer auf der Hut sein, man weiß nie, was so passiert
      Wenn ein durchgedrehter Haushalt gegen einen revoltiert

      Gestern Morgen flog der Toaster mir ganz plötzlich um die Ohren
      Ich weiß, die verdammte Küche hat sich gegen mich verschworen
      Doch ich werde sie besiegen, ich habe einen Plan
      Und wenn es sein muss, zünde ich die ganze Wohnung an

      Sie sollen brennen
      Sie sollen brennen in der Hölle
      Stirb! Stirb Fernseher, stirb!
      Stiiiiiiiirb! Haha!

      C’est une chanson à l’humour typique du groupe Die Ärzte et du chanteur. Initialement il a tourné en dérision la fait qu’on s’entoure de trop d’objets inutiles surtout électiques. Alors quelle leçon apprenons-nous de cette oeuvre remarquable ?

      #parodie #musique

  • Noguchi Museum in New York Fires 3 Employees for Wearing Kaffiyehs - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/11/arts/design/noguchi-museum-employees-kaffiyeh-fired.html

    Three employees of the Noguchi Museum were fired last week for defying its updated dress code by wearing kaffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian identity. A fourth employee, the Queens museum’s director of visitor services, was also terminated after the dress code changes.

    The museum, which was founded by the Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi, announced a policy last month that prohibited employees from wearing clothing or accessories that expressed “political messages, slogans or symbols.”

    The ban, which does not extend to visitors or staff members outside working hours, was introduced after several employees had been wearing kaffiyehs to work for months.

  • OpenAI, Maker of ChatGPT, Is Trying to Grow Up - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/technology/openai-chatgpt-revenue.html

    Cade MetzMike Isaac

    By Cade Metz and Mike Isaac

    Reporting from San Francisco
    Sept. 3, 2024

    OpenAI, the often troubled standard-bearer of the tech industry’s push into artificial intelligence, is making substantial changes to its management team, and even how it is organized, as it courts investments from some of the wealthiest companies in the world.

    Over the past several months, OpenAI, the maker of the online chatbot ChatGPT, has hired a who’s who of tech executives, disinformation experts and A.I. safety researchers. It has also added seven board members — including a four-star Army general who ran the National Security Agency — while revamping efforts to ensure that its A.I. technologies do not cause serious harm.

    OpenAI is also in talks with investors such as Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia and the investment firm Thrive for a deal that would value it at $100 billion. And the company is considering changes to its corporate structure that would make it easier to attract investors.

    The San Francisco start-up, after years of public conflict between management and some of its top researchers, is trying to look more like a no-nonsense company ready to lead the tech industry’s march into artificial intelligence. OpenAI is also trying to push last year’s high-profile fight over the management of Sam Altman, its chief executive, into the background.

    Today, OpenAI has more than 1,700 employees, and 80 percent of them started after the release of ChatGPT in November 2022. Mr. Altman and other leaders have led the recruitment of executive hires, while the new chairman, Bret Taylor, a former Facebook executive, has overseen the expansion of the board.

    “While start-ups must naturally evolve and adapt as their impact grows, we recognize OpenAI is navigating this transformation at an unprecedented pace,” Mr. Taylor said in a statement emailed to The New York Times. “Our board and the dedicated team at OpenAI remain focused on safely building A.I. that can solve hard problems for everyone.”

    OpenAI is also driven by technologies that worry many A.I. researchers, including some OpenAI employees. They argue that these technologies could help spread disinformation, drive cyberattacks or even destroy humanity. That tension led to a blowup in November, when four board members, including the chief scientist and co-founder Ilya Sutskever, removed Mr. Altman.

    After Mr. Altman reasserted his control, a cloud hung over the company. Dr. Sutskever had not returned to work.

    #Intelligence_artificielle #OpenAI #Management

  • Opinion | Naked Emperors and Crypto Campaign Cash - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/29/opinion/cryptocurrency-election.html

    Par Paul Krugman

    Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, was introduced 15 years ago and was promoted as a replacement for old-fashioned money. But it has yet to find significant uses that don’t involve some sort of criminal activity. The crypto industry itself has been racked by theft and scams.

    But while crypto has thus far been largely unable to find legitimate applications for its products, it has been spectacularly successful at marketing its offerings. Cryptocurrencies, which are traded for other crypto assets but otherwise mainly seem suited for things like money laundering and extortion, are currently worth around $2 trillion.
    Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.

    And in this election cycle the crypto industry has become a huge player in campaign finance. I mean huge: Crypto, which isn’t a big industry in terms of employment or output (even if you posit, for the sake of argument, that what it produces is actually worth something), accounts for almost half of corporate spending on political action committees this cycle.

    Crypto political spending isn’t just huge; it takes an unusual form. While cryptocurrency is associated with libertarian ideology and the industry’s spending has had a partisan tilt toward Republicans, crypto super PACs don’t seem to go after Democrats per se; they single out politicians who have called for greater scrutiny of the industry, including the financial risks it poses and its marketing tactics. Notably, crypto-financed attack ads helped to defeat Representative Katie Porter, who has been critical of the industry, in the Democratic primary for California senator.

    Politicians have taken notice. In 2021 Donald Trump called Bitcoin a scam. But last month he promised to turn America into a “Bitcoin superpower” and described crypto skeptics as “left-wing fascists.” The Biden administration has taken modest steps toward oversight and regulation of cryptocurrencies, but Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has declared that “we all believe in the future of crypto” and reportedly has been trying to get crypto industry players to back the Kamala Harris campaign.

    The gigantic political spending and influence of an industry that, if anything, destroys value rather than creates it (especially if you consider its environmental effects) is startling. But in a way it makes sense.

    #Crypto #Politique #Influence #Cryptomonnaie

  • Why California Is Considering Banning Food Dyes in Schools - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/26/well/eat/food-dye-california-ban.html

    For decades, researchers have been trying to answer a hotly contested question: Do the synthetic dyes used to add vibrant colors to foods like certain breakfast cereals, candies, snacks and baked goods cause behavioral issues in children?

    A bill before the California Senate, which is expected to come to a vote this week, has reignited the debate. If passed, it would prohibit K-12 public schools in California from offering foods containing six dyes — Blue No. 1, Blue No. 2, Green No. 3, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6 and Red No. 40.

    Between 1963 and 1987, the Food and Drug Administration approved nine synthetic dyes to be used in foods in the United States, and the agency maintains that they are safe.

    Yet some studies have raised concerns that they may have an effect on some children’s behavior.
    What the Research Suggests

    In the 1970s, a pediatric allergist from California caught the attention of physicians and parents when he suggested that a diet without artificial food colors, flavors and preservatives could help treat the majority of children with A.D.H.D.

    That was an enthusiastic but exaggerated claim, said Dr. L. Eugene Arnold, a professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral health at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Ensuing research from the 1980s “pretty much debunked” the idea that strict elimination diets were helpful for treating A.D.H.D., he said, so many physicians concluded that they were ineffective.

    But scientists continued conducting trials on one element of the elimination diets — synthetic food dyes — during the next decades.

    #Colorants #Santé #Californie #Troubles_attention #Controverse_scientifique