Why do people broadcast film and book spoilers? (No spoilers!)

Yesterday saw the release of the film Avengers: Endgame, the latest in the franchise of superhero films based on the Marvel comic books. These films have been roaring commercial successes. I myself am not a fan of the genre and have watched just a couple (The Avengers and Spiderman: Homecoming) to see what all the fuss was about. I had not planned on seeing the latest film.

But last evening I got an email from someone I do not know in which the subject line, all in upper case, revealed what is apparently a major plot twist in this film. The person who had sent out the spoiler had gone to great lengths to make sure that every single person who might in any way be connected to my university (including alumni) was made aware of the spoiler. The address line contained the addresses of about 250 email address lists (not individual addresses) that seemed to cover pretty much everyone. I think my address was in the list of physics faculty, staff, students, and emeriti. This person had gone to great lengths to obtain all these email address lists, presumably by hacking into the university server that has the database that contains all of them.
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Third federal judge strikes down anti-BDS laws

There have been moves to pass laws in various states that seek to punish people who support the BDS movement by denying them access to government contracts. Glenn Greenwald provides a map that shows the extent of those efforts.

Greenwald writes that a federal judge in Texas has become the third, after judges in Kansas and Arizona, to rule that such state laws punishing people for advocating boycotts of Israel are unconstitutional. The case was brought by five people who were denied contracts with schools and universities in Texas under the law H. B. 89 because they refused to sign contracts that contained anti-BDS clauses.
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College democrats urge boycott of DCCC

The DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) announced recently that they would boycott all vendors who worked with any candidate who challenged a Democratic party incumbent. This move at protecting incumbents, however bad they are like Dan Lipinksi, was seen as an attempt by the party leadership to protect their power that was being challenged by the new young progressives some of whom, like Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, got into Congress by challenging long-term incumbents. Now the DCCC itself is being boycotted by some college Democratic groups who are angered by this move.

YOUNG DEMOCRATS AT 31 colleges across the country are boycotting the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee over its decision to cut off vendors working for primary challengers.
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The students also call out the DCCC for releasing the vendor rule alongside diversity standards it will hold vendors to. They cite Pressley, who said that Democrats “cannot credibly lay claim to prioritizing diversity & inclusion when institutions like the DCCC implement policies that threaten to silence new voices and historically marginalized communities.”

Alienating young people is not a good strategy for any party.

A poignant story

I have just finished reading How to Hide an Empire by historian Daniel Immerwahr. It is an excellent book about the complex relationship of the US with the concept of empire and the great lengths it has gone to hide the fact that it is an imperial power. In the early part (p. 56-58) he recounts a poignant story. He tells it so well that to summarize and paraphrase it would be to do a disservice to the story so I give it below.

He sets it up by saying that industrialized agricultural practices had greatly depleted the soil and up to the beginning of the 20th century, the main sources of fertilizer to revive soils were natural sources that were mined from rocky islands in the Pacific ocean that were made of out of hardened bird droppings called guano.
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Bernie hasn’t changed

Watch this interview with Phil Donahue from back in 1981 just after he had won the race for mayor of Burlington, Vermont. He was fighting against the big banks and corporations and for the poor and working class back then too and his basic message has not changed. It is also clear that he has never combed his hair in his life.

The far side of the moon

While spacecraft have sent back images of the far side of the Moon, until that was possible we could only see one side of it. Wayne Schlingman explains why that was.

Now the Moon takes one trip around the Earth in the same amount of time it takes to make one rotation around its own axis: about 28 days. From Earth, we always see the same face of the Moon; from the Moon, the Earth stands still in the sky.
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All sides of the moon experience night and day just like we do here on Earth. All sides have equal amounts of day and night over the course of a single month. A lunar day lasts about two Earth weeks.

Here is a short video.

I wonder if the flat Earthers think that the Moon is flat too. You would think that the fact that we see only one side of the Moon would make a stronger case for the flatness of the Moon than the case they have for the flatness of the Earth.

Marie Newman will challenge conservative Democrat again

The Democratic party establishment has announced a crackdown on insurgent candidates challenging incumbents in primaries, warning that any vendors who support such candidates will be blacklisted by the party. It is clear that they are so scared of the energy of the new young progressives that they will go to any lengths to support neoliberal and even conservative incumbents. An excellent test case of this is Illinois congressman Dan Lipinksi. If you did not see the (D) after his name, you could be excused for thinking of him as a Republican based on his views and voting record.
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The Extinction Rebellion protest in London

Over the past nine days, a group known as Extinction Rebellion has been blockading central London to highlight the problem of climate change and to protest lack of action on it. They just ended the protest.

Extinction Rebellion, which has been backed by senior academics, politicians and scientists during nine days of peaceful mass civil disobedience, said it would leave its remaining blockades, but added: “The world has changed … A space for truth-telling has been opened up.

“Now it is time to bring this telling of the truth to communities around London, the regions and nations of the UK, and internationally. In this age of misinformation, there is power in telling the truth.”

The group said it would like to “thank Londoners for opening their hearts and demonstrating their willingness to act on that truth”.

The statement added: “We know we have disrupted your lives. We do not do this lightly. We only do this because this is an emergency.”

The activists said protesters had “taken to the streets and raised the alarm” in more than 80 cities in 33 countries. “People are talking about the climate and ecological emergency in ways that we never imagined,” they said.

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