Yanis Varoufakis claims that capitalism has given way to a form of platform feudalism, where the dominant powers are the companies that charge rent for transactions passing through digital platforms that most people consider impossible to avoid.

It is not in fact impossible -- I almost never touch any of them -- but avoiding them does require an effort. I am able to stand firm in this effort because I hate the wrongs they impose on individuals (nonfree software and tracking each person) even more than their wealth and power.

Most people don't appreciate the injustice of that nonfree software or the tracking of everyone so they can't draw strength and resilience from that source.

If you want to discuss Varoufakis's interesting political theory, I suggest not adopting the term "cloud" that he so often uses. That is a marketing term designed to distract the mind from the one-user-at-a-time wrong that these companies' sites do to each user.

Pity the poor fools who think that what Europe needs is "its own Apple or Google". One of each of those is too many. And pity even more the Europeans, if that quest for home-grown European feudal lords is a success.

Various US states have found legal pretexts to persecute 61 women for giving themselves abortions or helping with them. Many have suffered lasting harm as a result.

The new records set by global heating (and its consequences) this year are frightening.

* Senator [Sanders] introduces resolution to investigate "humanitarian cataclysm … being done with American bombs and money".*

*[Former EPA employee] Karen McCormack says regulators at [that] environmental agency are discouraged from speaking up about dangerous chemicals.*

She said *that she believed the EPA was not fulfilling its mission to protect the public from harmful chemicals.* One example is the weedkiller, paraquat.