Zelensky's speech to Congress

At ~20:22 to 22:42 of this 26:39 video, Ukrainian president Zelensky showed a video of Putin's attacks on Ukraine. The images are heart wrenching.

Watching it is quite upsetting. Zelensky desperately pleaded for desperately needed help. After Zelensky's speech, Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) responded with emotion in a 1:24 video that C-Span broadcast this morning. 

Sasse's reaction is mostly raw emotion and barely controlled commentary from a sitting US Senator. This is the kind of natural human response that can lead to an intended or accidental nuclear exchange and destruction of civilization. Billions of people would die.

Given all the misery, pain, heartbreak and blood that got humans paid to get to this point, blowing it all to smithereens would be a shame. Who wants mankind to go back to some kind of Mad Max post-apocalyptic hell on Earth? Self-annihilation would be disrespectful of the human struggle for civilization, to say the least.

A thought about Russian opposition in Russia: Try to support them

This one is from the One Cannot Afford to Ignore Allies files. A commenter here, Doug1943, posted this yesterday:

What would be desirable is if we could prevent the entire Russian people being driven into a nationalist, hail-our-glorious Leader frenzy. There are brave Russians who are trying to prevent this. (I lived there for a few months in 1985, returned several times after that, both before and after the fall of Communism, and made several Russian friends. Every single one of them loathes Putin. But right now, the mood is running against them.)

How can we help Russians now? The worst possible thing is for Russia to be intellectually isolated, for them to feel everyone despises them. Already we're hearing crap like "Russians are natural robots, don't you know where the word 'Slav' comes from?" etc.

So we need to make links. Not to scold them, not to urge them to go to prison by demonstrating -- that's their choice, not ours -- but to say, "We want you to be part of the democratic civilized world." And, ideally, according to me, to acknowledge that NATO expansion -- which we promised Mr Gorbachev would not happen -- has played a role in this horrible affair.

I have some ideas for making this happen. It involves some minimal searching, then cutting and pasting, ending up with a harvest of Russian email addresses. (When I last checked with a friend in Moscow, email was still working.)

Anyone interested in working with me on this should let me know.

Also: At a minimum, if you use the Chrome or Firefox browsers, get the 'Snowflake' (sic) add-on. It turns your computer into a relay point that allows Russian users of the TOR browser to evade censorship. It takes about two minutes to do, is free, and puts no load on your own computer.

The Tor browser is used by some people to evade government surveillance. The Chinese government has banned it. The Tor browser isolates each website you visit so third-party trackers and ads can't follow you. Any cookies automatically clear when you're done browsing. So will your browsing history. It prevents someone watching your connection from knowing what websites you visit. All anyone monitoring your browsing habits can see is that you're using Tor. It tries make all users look the same, making it difficult for you to be fingerprinted based on your browser and device information. Your traffic is relayed and encrypted three times as it passes over the Tor network. The network is comprised of thousands of volunteer-run servers known as Tor relays.

The Tor Project, a 501(c)(3) US nonprofit. Its goal is to advance human rights and defend privacy online through free software and open networks.

A screen shot of the add-on Snowflake for Firefox:

Snowflake is a WebRTC pluggable transport for Tor. Enabling this extension 

turns your browser into a proxy that connects 

Tor users in censored regions to the Tor network.

Fighting the global war for information and truth on the internet --

the Tor Snowflake system

ZDNet wrote this about Snowflake for Firefox and Chrome in 2019:

Tor Snowflake turns your browser into a proxy for users in censored countries

The extensions are not meant to be installed by users living in oppressive countries that block access to the Tor network. They're meant for those living in free countries, where governments don't block Tor access.

Users who want to help those living under oppressive regimes can install the Tor Snowflake extensions -- for Chrome or Firefox.

The two extensions effectively transform a user's browser into a proxy, allowing users in oppressive countries to connect through the extension (and the user's computer) to the Tor network.

We would be the Snowflake proxies resisting 

demagogues and tyrants

The Tor network is a collection of servers that encrypt and bounce traffic between each other, to anonymize a user's real location.

This network has multiple types of servers. There are Tor "guard" servers that serve as entry points to the Tor network. There are Tor "relays" that bounce the traffic inside the network and help anonymize the user's location. And then there are Tor "exit" servers, through which Tor traffic reconnects to the regular internet.

Due to their nature, the IP addresses of Tor guard servers are public, listed on the Tor website, so Tor clients (usually the Tor Browser) can read the list and connect to the Tor network through a safe server.

Over the years, countries have realized that they can block access to these servers, and effectively block a user from accessing Tor.

The Tor Project fought back by developing another type of Tor server, called a Tor bridge. These are Tor guard servers that don't have their IP addresses listed publicly.  

However, Tor bridges aren't a foolproof solution. Oppressive regimes have realized they can also request access to Tor bridges as well, and compile a list of IP addresses to block alongside the regular Tor guards.

Tor Snowflake is the Tor Project's reaction to governments that have managed to block Tor bridges.

Tor Snowflake helps the Tor Project create a constantly moving mesh of proxies that no government could ever block.  

The only downside to Tor Snowflake is the fact that another user's traffic now flows through your browser, taking up your bandwidth. Users on metered connections are advised against activating Snowflake, as this will incur additional costs.

Doug makes an important point by arguing that we should not blindly attack the Russian people. That can turn potential allies and neutrals into enemies. 

There is another point important lurking in the room. America and liberal democracies and civil liberties the world over are in a fight to the death with demagogic tyranny and anti-democratic radicalism. Democracy and freedom are under deadly attacks both from within the US (the Republican Party, Christian nationalism, laissez-faire capitalism) and from the outside (China, Russia, etc.). Allies everywhere are precious and need to be supported when possible.

IMHO, it is time to pick a side and fight for it as best one can.

Question for Doug: Would you please elaborate some on your ideas to help Russian allies trapped in Russia?

The unique stuff of life…

According to newscientist.com:

"Because everyone's DNA is unique – except for identical twins – it can be used to identify people, which is why forensic scientists collect samples of blood, saliva or hair and the like at crime scenes. Aside from encoding your physical features, DNA can also reveal some of your risk for certain medical conditions."

Now, add in a dash of massive worldwide computing power, coupled with continued advancements in DNA mapping, and voila!  You got yourself a practically foolproof way of identifying people.  A person has to go to a LOT of trouble to not sluff off any of their DNA.

Then I Googled “Is DNA registered at birth,” and I got:

"The DNA of virtually every newborn in the United States is collected and tested soon after birth. There are some good reasons for this testing, but it also raises serious privacy concerns that parents should know about. States require hospitals to screen newborns for certain genetic and other disorders."

This, according to the ALCU as well as other sites.  Seems that different states keep the data on file for various lengths of time.

Here are the questions:

-Are you for or against mandatory DNA registration at birth? Or do you see such a thing as intruding on personal freedom?

-Who/What kind of person would be against such a thing?  And why??

-If you are for such registration, how long should the data be kept?

-Who should have access to that data?  E.g., FBI, insurance companies, law enforcement agencies, doctors and medical facilities, your neighbors, etc.  Where do you draw the line, if you do?

On vindicating the rule of law

Commitment to the rule of law is one of the core values of a liberal legal system. The adherents of such a system usually regard the concept of a "government of laws and not people" as the chief protector of the citizens' liberty. This Article argues that such is not the case. .... I refer to the myth of the rule of law because, to the extent that this phrase suggests a society in which all are governed by neutral rules that are objectively applied by judges, there is no such thing. As a myth, however, the concept of the rule of law is both powerful and dangerous. -- J. Hasnas, The Myth of the Rule of Law, 1995 Wis. L. Rev. 199 (1995)

Although reference to the judicial ermine [the intellectual purity myth] has fallen from common usage, the assumption it embodies-that when they don their robes, independent judges set aside their passions, prejudices, and interests and follow the law-remains integral to the legal establishment's traditional conception of the role that the judiciary plays in American government. That assumption has come under sustained attack by scholars and policymakers, leading to the question of whether there is enough truth to this "ermine myth" to make it one still worth defending, or whether the time has come to demythologize our understanding of what judges do and to acknowledge that, truth be told, the ermine is just a glorified weasel. Put another way, can the rule of law survive judicial politics? -- CG Geyh, Can the Rule of Law Survive Judicial Politics, Cornell Law Review, 97(2):191-254, 2012

I like weasels. Are judges weasels (ermine)? -- Germaine, 2022

Newsweek writes:

Former U.S. Army prosecutor Glenn Kirschner believes that failing to hold former President Donald Trump "accountable for his crimes" will "destroy" the legitimacy of U.S. institutions.

Trump is facing multiple high-profile investigations, and some legal experts have urged the Justice Department to indict the former president or appoint a special counsel to investigate him. Kirschner has previously contended that Trump will face accountability for his actions related to January 6, 2021—when hundreds of his supporters violently attacked the U.S. Capitol.

"DECLINING to hold Trump accountable for his crimes in light [of] the overwhelming evidence would be a political calculation. It would also would make a mockery of honest, law-abiding politicians & destroy the legitimacy of the institutions of American government. This is an easy call," Kirschner, who now works as a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC News, wrote in a Saturday tweet.

The attorney posted the remarks while sharing a tweet from the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The nonpartisan watchdog group wrote: "Frankly, we're getting tired of the whole 'prosecuting Donald Trump for crimes he may have committed is politically motivated' argument some of y'all are making. Holding him accountable isn't political, it's justice."

DECLINING to hold Trump accountable for his crimes in light the overwhelming evidence would be a political calculation. It would also would make a mockery of honest, law-abiding politicians & destroy the legitimacy of the institutions of American government. This is an easy call. https://t.co/UDWNwKx2Ia

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) March 12, 2022

Mr. Kirschner argues that failing to try to vindicate the rule of law would be a political decision, not a legal one, and that would damage the legitimacy of democratic institutions. 

Question: Is Kirschner's argument and opinion reasonable? 

The stoat or short-tailed weasel (Mustela erminea), also known as the 

Eurasian ermine, Beringian ermine, or simply ermine, is a mustelid 

native to Eurasia and the northern portions of North America