Tag: Regulations

Nord Stream 2 is a double-edged geopolitical tool

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

When Pavel Zavalny, the chairman of Russian parliamentary committee on energy, made the forecast last Friday that Nord Stream 2 pipeline could start shipping natural gas to Germany as early as next month, it was received with disbelief. But Zavalny was categorical, and was quoted by Reuters as saying, “I can say with a high degree of certainty that the first gas via Nord Stream 2 will go in January.”

Nord Stream 2 is a double-edged geopolitical tool

The Internet Is Not Facebook; Regulating It As If It Were Will Fuck Things Up

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Internet Is Not Facebook; Regulating It As If It Were Will Fuck Things Up

There’s only one problem: What is health misinformation? I know of no oracular source of truth about Covid-19. Scientific consensus has shifted dramatically during the pandemic, and even now experts are divided over important issues, such as whether everyone should get a vaccine booster shot. Klobuchar and Luján’s bill elides these complications. Instead they designate an all-knowing authority: Health misinformation, the bill says, is whatever the secretary of health and human services decides is health misinformation.

A Sad and Shameful Day for Australian Medicine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

September 10, 2021, was a black day, the day a group of faceless bureaucrats known as the “Advisory Committee for Medicines Scheduling”, through its effector arm, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), compromised medical practise and the health of their fellow Australians. The TGA used its regulatory muscle to prevent doctors at the COVID-19 pandemic’s coalface from prescribing ivermectin (IVM), the one therapy available that is safe, cheap and which reduces mortality in the order of 60 per cent. This poorly conceived action threatens the high standards of medical practise we have achieved in Australia, and the credibility of the administrative structure within which medicine operates.

A Sad and Shameful Day for Australian Medicine

The EPA said Utah’s ozone pollution was harming public health. Industry groups pushed the state to blame China instead.

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The EPA said Utah’s ozone pollution was harming public health. Industry groups pushed the state to blame China instead.

But according to data from air quality monitoring stations, ozone levels were not substantially reduced before that deadline. Instead, fossil fuel and mining industry groups in Utah waged a campaign to pressure state regulators and elected officials to shift blame for the problem away from local polluters and onto China and its neighbors in Asia in what environmentalists say is an attempt to avoid federal regulations.

It’s wrong to say China is heading for socialism, because it never really abandoned it

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

It’s wrong to say China is heading for socialism, because it never really abandoned it

Ultimately, what is behind the coverage you see in the West is a sense of dismay that China did not take the path they wanted. China was a socialist state, and still is, but refines its policies in pursuit of its national goals where necessary. It understands the difference between dogmatism and pragmatism, and that is why it so frequently succeeds.

Canada: Fast-moving proposal creates filtering, blocking and reporting rules – and speech police to enforce them

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

BY CORYNNE MCSHERRY AND KATITZA RODRIGUEZ | EFF | AUGUST 10, 2021

Policymakers around the world are contemplating a wide variety of proposals to address “harmful” online expression. Many of these proposals are dangerously misguided and will inevitably result in the censorship of all kinds of lawful and valuable expression. And one of the most dangerous proposals may be adopted in Canada. How bad is it? As Stanford’s Daphne Keller observes, “It’s like a list of the worst ideas around the world.” She’s right.

Canada: Fast-moving proposal creates filtering, blocking and reporting rules – and speech police to enforce them