Some users argue that Microsoft limited Windows 11 by requiring TPM 2.0 to make more hardware sales, rather than for user safety. Sure, the security benefits of TPM, like Secure Boot, are good for preventing malicious software from loading at startup. However, when the choice is to either replace your perfectly functioning hardware so you can run Windows 11, or switch to a Linux distro; for many, the choice was seemingly pretty easy. This is especially true when no OS is truly secure to begin with.
Pussy Riot labelled as extremist organisation in Russia
The art collective were classified as an extremist group on December 15th by the Ministry of Justice in the Tverskoy Court in Moscow, after their series of outspoken incidents against the Russian government.
The judge who presided over the ruling was Judge Maria Moskalenko, who has a history with the members of Pussy Riot as well as other political prisoners, including Alexei Navalny.
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With regards to the latest ruling, members of the art collective made an extensive statement. Its founder, Nadya Tolokonnikova, said: “When I was tried for the punk prayer, facing seven years in a labour camp, I told the judge and prosecutors that I was still freer than they would ever be. Today, exiled from my own country, I still feel the same.”
She continued: “I can say what I think about Putin — that he is an aging sociopath spreading his venom around the world like cancer. In today’s Russia, telling the truth is extremism. So be it – we’re proud extremists, then.”
Russian law introduced which makes searching for Pussy Riot videos illegal
“What’s most striking is that under the draft law, even Interior Ministry officials monitoring such content could technically be acting illegally. And any private citizen who reports, say, [potential school shooters] to law enforcement could also face fines,” she added.
Mizulina concluded: “We actively monitor this kind of [‘extremist’] content and share findings with law enforcement as part of our chartered mission.”
Meanwhile, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the state-funded RT network, also hit out at the bill, writing on Telegram, “How are we supposed to carry out investigations and throw shade on all types of extremist groups like FBK if we are barred from even reading about them?”
Bernie Sanders Calls for Halt on Construction of New Data Centers
While some anti-AI advocates have called for some extreme property damage to halt the AI boom, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has a proposition that’s a little more down to Earth: simply shut it all down until we can figure out what the hell is going on.
In a video shared on social media, Sanders announced he’ll be pushing for a “moratorium on the construction of data centers that are powering the unregulated sprint to develop and deploy AI.”
His main contention is that society needs to slow down on the rapid deployment of new tech, and ask an important question: who benefits?
Medieval peasants probably enjoyed their holiday festivities more than you do
As a professor of medieval history, I can assure you the popular belief that the lives of peasants were little more than misery is a misconception. They enjoyed rich social lives – maybe richer than ours – ate well, celebrated frequently and had families not unlike our own. For them, holiday festivities didn’t begin with Christmas Eve and end with New Year’s.
The party was just getting started.
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Today, many people start thinking about Christmas after Thanksgiving, and any sort of holiday spirit fizzles by early January.
In the Middle Ages, this would have been unheard of.
Advent – the period of anticipation and fasting that precedes Christmas – began with the Feast of St. Martin.
Back then, it took place 40 days before Christmas; today, it’s the fourth Sunday before it. During this period, Western Christians observed a fast; while less strict than the one for Lent, it restricted meat and dairy products to certain days of the week. These protocols not only symbolized absence and longing, but they also helped stretch out the food supply after the end of the harvest and before meats were fully cured.
Christmas itself was known for feasting and drunkenness – and it lasted nearly six weeks.
The Kennedy Center, a living memorial to JFK, is renamed after Donald Trump
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will now be renamed to honor President Donald Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced.
Leavitt, 28, shared that the building — which was dedicated in 1964 as a “living memorial” for JFK — would now be known as the “Trump-Kennedy Center” in a post on X on Thursday, Dec. 18.
“I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building,” Leavitt said. “Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation.”
Kennedy Family Comments On Center Being Renamed
The name change has stirred backlash, particularly from members of the Kennedy family. Former Representative Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, questioned whether the name change was legal. He posted on social media that the Kennedy Center was established by an act of Congress as a memorial to President Kennedy and compared the change to trying to rename the Lincoln Memorial.
Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and head of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Center, also expressed strong disagreement. In a message shared online, she accused the Trump administration of targeting freedom of speech, including artists and journalists. She claimed that President Kennedy and President Trump represent very different values and said Trump’s name should not appear next to her father’s.
Maria Shriver, daughter of President Kennedy’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, also reacted emotionally. She said she was left “speechless” and in “disbelief.” Shriver had previously clashed with Trump on social media, particularly after his remarks about the death of filmmaker Rob Reiner.
Kennedy Family Comments On Center Being Renamed
The name change has stirred backlash, particularly from members of the Kennedy family. Former Representative Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, questioned whether the name change was legal. He posted on social media that the Kennedy Center was established by an act of Congress as a memorial to President Kennedy and compared the change to trying to rename the Lincoln Memorial.
Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and head of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Center, also expressed strong disagreement. In a message shared online, she accused the Trump administration of targeting freedom of speech, including artists and journalists. She claimed that President Kennedy and President Trump represent very different values and said Trump’s name should not appear next to her father’s.
Maria Shriver, daughter of President Kennedy’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, also reacted emotionally. She said she was left “speechless” and in “disbelief.” Shriver had previously clashed with Trump on social media, particularly after his remarks about the death of filmmaker Rob Reiner.
Fears Putin could unleash ‘psychedelic brain weapons’ that wipe memories & ‘untrain’ armies in terrifying new age of war
“…Professor Malcolm Dando suggests implanting misinformation to bend perception may no longer be confined to science fiction and could soon be a conceivable reality.
Prof Dando, who recently penned a report on the rising threat of neuro weapons, is now begging the UK to take the threat seriously.
The University of Bradford’s Department of Peace Studies professor warns that untraceable drones that spike soldiers with hallucinogens could be just around the corner…”
The Radioactive Reindeer Problem
In fact, scientists had been aware of fallout-contaminated reindeer for decades. In the 1960s, the discovery of contaminated caribou triggered a major public health investigation in Canada. Historian Jonathan Luedee describes how, in their efforts to unravel the mystery, scientists and politicians grappled with the reality of a nuclearized world.
“Between 1953 and 1958,” Luedee explains, “the US, UK, and the Soviet Union conducted more than 220 atmospheric nuclear tests,” leading to concerns about widespread ecological contamination. Caribou were already on scientists’ minds. Their population had been mysteriously declining, and Indigenous groups in northern Canada had long relied on caribou meat. Early radiation studies showed that caribou had “higher exposure levels than other grazing animals, including groups of animals located closer to nuclear testing sites,” Luedee writes. Then, in 1959, Canadian botanist Eville Gorham noted high levels of radioactive material in lichen.
The New York Times Fails Again — Standing Rock: ‘We are Sitting Bull’s People’ — Dakota Access Pipeline: A Snake in the Water
“We are Tatáŋka Íyotake’s Oyate — ‘Sitting Bull’s People,’ therefore our
fight and resistance must continue for our future generations because we
cannot drink oil.” — Standing Rock Nation
The Problem With Machado: Assange Sues The Nobel Foundation
On December 17, Assange submitted a criminal complaint to the Swedish Economic Crime Authority and Swedish Crimes Unit. The legal complaint is directed against the Nobel Foundation, arguing that the pending transfer of 11 million SEK ($US 1.18 million) and the award of the prize medal to Machado violates the terms of Alfred Nobel’s will of November 27, 1895.
The will, binding under the terms of Swedish law, stipulates that the award of the prize and monies be given to a person who, during the preceding year, “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind” in pursuing “the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Given that the peace prize laureates are selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, seeking to hold them accountable for their poor choice of awardee might have been a better starting point. But the complaint is alert to this, noting that the Swedish funds administrators have a fiduciary duty when it comes to disbursing the funds. “The Norwegian committee’s selection does not grant them criminal immunity.” Indeed, it was up to the administrators to consider such a decision made “in flagrant conflict with the explicit purpose of the will, or where there is evidence that the awardee will use or is using the prize to promote or facilitate the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity, or war crimes”.