2021-01-10

etc

• Amazon, Walmart Tell Consumers to Skip Returns of Unwanted Items

• Over 73% of U.S. Adults Overweight or Obese

• Gunman, 32, goes on shooting spree in Chicago area, killing four before being shot dead by police | Daily Mail Online

• horseshit: [Which hacker group is most like your astrological sign? - Atlantic

  Council](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/which-hacker-group-is-most-like-your-astrological-sign/)
  

• Careful Drilling Keeps Stadia From Listening In

  The fact that the user should have to go to such ridiculous lengths to disable the microphone in a game controller is a perfect example of why we should try to avoid these adversarially designed devices, but that’s a discussion for another time.

  Removing the microphone seems to have had no adverse effect on the device as, surprisingly enough, it turns out that a game controller doesn’t actually need to listen to the player. Who knew?

• (from 2010, worth preserving) Chemistry of Cast Iron Seasoning: A Science-Based How-To | Sheryl's Blog

• The Lafayette Park Protests And The Revision Of History | ZeroHedge

• Tor – all v3 onion addresses are unavailable

  If I were to attack the Tor project that's one of the cards I'd want in my quiver to mix metaphors with a blender; assume there's a deficiency in v2 addresses; having a weakness in the protocol that allows someone to "crash" v3 addresses and force everyone back to v2 for a period of time might be a one-time shot; but it could be worth playing the card if the stakes were high...

  The coincidence of this with Parler and all the hoopla going on right now is interesting. Nothing to see, citizen, move along. -- HN comment

• The Platform Is The Enemy

• We Will Soon Have Sentient Sex Robots. Will They Be Able To Consent? | The Swaddle

  As Frank and Nyholm write, “If we legally incorporate sex robots into the legal community, but we don’t require that consent—or something similar to consent—be required in the context of human–robot sex… It means that the legal community does not take a strong stance against non-consensual sex with human-like members of the legal community. We think that this is an unacceptable implication.”

• Michael Cusack, Who Helped Spark the Special Olympics, Died

• Debris from downed Indonesian plane found, including black boxes

COVID

• Covid deaths: 2020 is deadliest year in US history with 3M dead

• UK Covid variant extremely unlikely to evade vaccines, scientists say

• New cover-up fears as Chinese officials delete critical data about the Wuhan lab | Daily Mail Online

World

• Kim Jong Un assumes party's highest title, previously held by his father

• Lifting Self-Imposed Restrictions on the U.S.-Taiwan Relationship - United States Department of State

  The United States government took these actions unilaterally, in an attempt to appease the Communist regime in Beijing. No more.

  Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions. Executive branch agencies should consider all “contact guidelines” regarding relations with Taiwan previously issued by the Department of State under authorities delegated to the Secretary of State to be null and void.

  The purpose here is to set a fire that the Biden administration has to deal with. That’s why it’s getting done on the way out the door and not when the President took office 4 years ago, or Pompeo was confirmed 2.5 years ago. -- HN comment

• Twitter deletes China embassy's Xinjiang 'emancipation' tweet - BBC News

• Nationwide power blackout plunges Pakistan into darkness | World news | The Guardian

• Hong Kong police block HKChronicles.

  "The Hong Kong and Beijing governments say it is vital to plug holes in national security defenses exposed by months of sometimes-violent anti-government and anti-China protests that rocked the global financial hub in 2019."

• Chinese Media Told to Use Capitol Riot to Attack Democracy

The Purge

• First they came ... - Wikipedia

  First they came for the Communists
  And I did not speak out
  Because I was not a Communist

  Then they came for the Socialists
  And I did not speak out
  Because I was not a Socialist

  Then they came for the trade unionists
  And I did not speak out
  Because I was not a trade unionist

  Then they came for the Jews
  And I did not speak out
  Because I was not a Jew

  Then they came for me
  And there was no one left
  To speak out for me

• From Nazis to Incels: How Cloudflare Helps Hate Groups Thrive

• Stripe bans Trump campaign

  • Stripe will halt processing Trump campaign donations

• YouTube bans Steve Bannon's podcast channel

• Simon & Schuster cancels publication of Hawley's book | TheHill

• The Navalny thread

  1. This precedent will be exploited by the enemies of freedom of speech around the world. In Russia as well. Every time when they need to silence someone, they will say: 'this is just common practice, even Trump got blocked on Twitter'.

  • Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny, A Fierce Putin Critic, Blasts Twitter For Censoring Trump | The Daily Wire

• Prepare for the new “Domestic Terrorism Bill” – OffGuardian - or ZH link

• Will Cloudflare and godaddy block HTTPS://www.donaldjtrump.com/?

• Trump Twitter ban 'raises regulation questions' – UK govt minister

• How Do You Solve a Problem Like QAnon? | The American Conservative

  > Not to put too fine a point on it, Righties have a weakness for
  

  believing stupid shit. It’s just that they learn them from random YouTube videos because they don’t know how to use PACER to find court records, or how to file FOIA applications to get government documents, or how to look up Form 990s to learn about how nonprofits are organized and funded. …but what if they did know those things?

• Mozilla Calls for Sites to Do More Than Just Deplatform Bigots

• The Left's Reichstag Fire | The American Conservative

• Protest at Twitter HQ and Employee's Homes Planned for Monday

• Rep. Nunes Calls for Racketeering Investigation Into Big Tech Companies Following Parler Ban

• "These CEOs Who Are Doing This Should Be Prosecuted Criminally" - Rep. Devin Nunes Calls for Criminal Charges Against Tech Giants (VIDEO)

  Rep. Devin Nunes: It doesn’t even matter if you’re Republican or conservative. If you don’t want to be regulated by left-wingers that are at Twitter and Facebook and Instagram where you get shadowbanned and nobody gets to see you. They get to decide what’s violent and nonviolent. It’s preposterous. So, I don’t know where the hell the Department of Justice is right now or the FBI. This is clearly a violation of antitrust, civil rights, the RICO statute. There should be a racketeering investigation on all the people that coordinated this attack on not only a company but on all of those like us, like me, like you, Maria… These CEOs who are doing this should be prosecuted criminally. I’ve been talking to many of my colleagues, Republicans on the House side and a couple Senators… The Supreme Court, these federal judges, have got to step in.

• Gab’s response to Senator Mark Warner – Gab News

• Mollie Hemingway Calls Out Media’s Double Standard on Riots and Violence | Newsbusters

Parler

• How Parler, a Chosen App of Trump Fans, Became a Test of Free Speech

• "Archive the evidence"

  RELEASE: Every Parler post made during the 06/01/2021 US Capitol riots. https://donk.sh/06d639b2-0252-4b1e-883b-f275eff7e792/ (batches of 100k URLs, for archival purposes) -- https://twitter.com/donk_enby/status/1347896132798533632

• Amazon, Apple and Google Cut Off Parler

  • 3,200 comment HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25706993

• "This Was A Coordinated Attack": Parler CEO Speaks Out After Amazon Boots From AWS, Vows To Rebuild 'From Scratch' | ZeroHedge

  There is the possibility Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch.

  This was a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the market place. We were too successful too fast. You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don’t count us out. -- Parler CEO

• Amazon is cutting off Parler's servers

• Amazon cuts off Parler’s web hosting following Apple, Google bans

• Amazon suspends Parler, after Google and Apple also take action

• Amazon said it would no longer pro­vide cloud-com­put­ing ser­vices to Par­ler

Insurrection

• How a String of Failures Led to the Capitol Siege

• FBI, NYPD told Capitol Police about possibility of violence before riot, senior officials say

• QAnon congresswoman faces calls for arrest after live-tweeting Nancy Pelosi's location to rioters - Raw Story - Celebrating 16 Years of Independent Journalism

  Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), a gun-toting supporter of the QAnon movement, is facing backlash after she was accused of live-tweeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) location during the attack on Capitol Hill last week. Boebert shared the tweet soon after President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol with deadly results.

  "The Speaker has been removed from the chambers," Boebert wrote.

  "@FBIWFO please arrest @laurenboabert for aiding and abetting those who were hunting down @SpeakerPelosi on Jan, 6th by tweeting the Speaker's whereabouts," one person responded. "She's 5ft tall, 100 pounds and carries a Glock (and won't stop telling everyone)."

  "@SpeakerPelosi you need to have her removed with every fight that you have. This is nothing short of an attempt on your life," another Twitter user agreed.

Dear congress, Just lock the door, dim the lights, and don’t make a sound. Maybe they will move on to the next room. - the entire k-12 student body -- posted by a teacher

• House Democrats Plan Trump Impeachment Vote This Week : NPR

• U.S. Capitol Latest News: Nancy Pelosi Says Prepare for Action on Donald Trump - Bloomberg

  • now it's slipping to Tuesday or Wednesday

• Capitol police officer dead by suicide after responding to Capitol riot

  • Capitol Police Officer Dies By Suicide Just Days After Siege | ZeroHedge

  • Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood Dead, Reportedly by Suicide

  Former Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer calls Liebengood's death a "line of duty casualty"... clearly meaning even if it was a suicide there's a direct connection to the riot.

• Unlawful assembly declared as Trump supporters, counter protesters ...

• Pence has not ruled out 25th Amendment, source says

• Violence in the Capitol, Dangers in the Aftermath

• YouGov poll: Terrorists, Extremists, or Patriots

• Shouldn't Wall Street be more concerned about the Capitol insurrection?

• Clearview AI being used to identify Capitol rioters

• In Capitol Riot, Communications Between Agencies Hampered Forceful Response