2024-06-27
etc
Horseshit
-
Basic income could solve global poverty and stop environmental destruction
-
Einstein letter warning FDR of threat of Nazi nuclear bomb set to fetch $4M
-
Number of Pedestrians Killed by Drivers Remains Vexingly High
-
New inspection tool set to be used at Tour de France to combat motor doping
-
Circling the Square: Designing with "Squircles" Instead of Rounded Rectangles - 99% Invisible
- A culture so concerned with rounding off its corners, it didn't realize it was disappearing up its own arse.
-
Australian Bank Monitors How You Tilt Your Phone to Detect Scams
Electric / Self Driving cars
celebrity gossip
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
-
Be reassured, Citizen! From now on, anything you are allowed to see on the Internet can be assumed to have been Approved by Government.
-
Supreme Court tosses claim Biden admin coerced social media to remove content
The Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out claims that the Biden administration unlawfully coerced social media companies into removing contentious content. In reaching its conclusion, the court overturned an injunction that would have limited contacts between government officials and social media companies on a wide range of issues if allowed to go into effect. The Supreme Court had previously put the injunction on hold. The court on a 6-3 vote found that plaintiffs did not have standing to sue.
The Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, along with five social media users, filed the underlying lawsuit alleging that U.S. government officials went too far in putting pressure on platforms to moderate content. The individual plaintiffs include Covid lockdown opponents and Jim Hoft, the owner of the right-wing website Gateway Pundit.
-
Supreme Court allows White House contacts with social media firms - The Washington Post
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a Republican-led effort to sharply limit White House officials and other federal employees from pressuring social media companies to remove posts from their platforms that the U.S. government deems problematic. State leaders in Missouri and Louisiana, in addition to individual social media users, filed a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of violating the First Amendment by operating a sprawling federal “censorship enterprise” to improperly influence platforms to modify or take down posts related to public health and elections. In a 6-3 ruling, the majority said the challengers did not have legal grounds — or standing — to bring the case against the Biden administration.
-
SCOTUS Rules That US Government Can Continue Talking to Social Media Companies
-
The Supreme Court rules in favor of Biden administration social media censorship.
-
Supreme Court Issues Troubling Decision in NCLA Case Against Censorship Industrial Complex
The Court today protected the government’s ability to censor truthful speech that opposed the government’s false and manipulative narratives on multiple aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic, including our clients’ true statements challenging government falsehoods about natural immunity, vaccine efficacy, masking, the origins of the Wuhan virus, and many other topics.
-
Supreme Court Dismisses Challenge Against Biden Admin Pressuring Social Media to Censor Speech
The plaintiffs tried to prove this point by insisting “hearing unfettered speech on social media is critical to their work as scientists, pundits, and activists.” Barrett pointed out that they did not provide the court with “any specific instance of content moderation that caused them identifiable harm.”
“The state plaintiffs assert a sovereign interest in hearing from their citizens on social media, but they have not identified any specific speakers or topics that they have been unable to hear or follow,” added Barrett. “And States do not have third-party ‘standing as parens patriae to bring an action against the Federal Government’ on behalf of their citizens who have faced social-media restrictions.”
-
Biden Admin Wins Supreme Court Case on Requests for Social to Delete Posts
Musk
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
-
Submit to leftism or you’re an authoritarian - Washington Examiner
Beauchamp is a writer for the leftist website Vox. In The Reactionary Spirit, he spends a lot of time arguing that former President Donald Trump and the new political populism represent authoritarianism — despite the fact that most political and cultural repression today is coming from the Left. Leftists such as Beauchamp keep preaching that Republicans are authoritarians, then in the next breath demand that you submit to the Left’s policies, no matter how irrational, immoral, unconstitutional, or bizarre. Here is the sleight of hand that Beauchamp uses. He takes old cases of people resisting moral and necessary social change and declares that such attitudes are still a driving force on the Right. Are you against a boy claiming to be transgender sharing a locker with your daughter? You’re no different from the goons who beat up civil rights marchers. You’re an authoritarian.
-
Security Cameras Turned Off During Mar-a-Lago Raid ‘For Agent Safety.’
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
-
E.U. Charges Microsoft with Antitrust Violations over Teams Bundling
-
AT&T wants Big Tech firms to pay into telecom and broadband subsidy fund
-
The law should treat personal data like human organs – not for sale
-
Oops, a Meta 'error' limited political content on Instagram and Threads
-
Researcher extracts DRM key from Microsoft and downloads Netflix movies
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
-
Inside the million-dollar campaign to smear the Supreme Court ahead of 2024 election.
-
Supreme Court strikes anti-corruption law that bars officials from taking gifts
-
Some of the 51 “Spies Who Lie” were active CIA contractors when they claimed files from first son Hunter Biden’s laptop had “the classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election — a fact that was uneasily noted inside the agency, records acquired by The Post show. Former CIA acting director Michael Morell, who previously told Congress he organized the Oct. 19, 2020, letter to give Joe Biden a “talking point” ahead of a debate against then-President Donald Trump, was under contract with the CIA at the time, the agency told Congress. Ex-agency inspector general David Buckley also was a contractor at the time of the letter, according to an interim report from two House committees investigating the matter, and records suggest that at least two other letter-signers may also have had active contracts at the time.
-
The Coming Great Conflict | TIME
I believe we now have to face the fact that fighting for democracy as we know it—with thoughtful disagreement and compromises governed by rule of law—is unlikely to work. People like me who had a long shot hope for the emergence of strong middle that fights against the extremists to bring the country together and makes major reforms to improve the system must recognize that the differences are becoming too irreconcilable for this to happen. Based on the lessons I learned from studying history about how things typically transpire under similar circumstances, I believe that what we are now seeing is the parties increasingly moving to greater extremism and a fight-to-win at all cost mode. This is threatening the rule of law as we know it and is bringing us closer to some form of civil war. (As I will explain below, this is not necessarily a violent conflict, though that is possible).
-
Oakland Mayor Raided By FBI Claims She Is Being Targeted By 'Radical Right Wing Forces' | ZeroHedge
In a surreal press conference replete with tears, Thao declared her innocence while hinting at an insidious conspiracy of unnamed 'radical right wing forces' determined to sabotage her activist reforms and maintain their power within the greater Oakland area. Thao asserted that the FBI raid never would have happened 'if she was rich' and that the agency should have given her a warning.
-
Outside advisers urging Biden team to focus on Trump – not first-term record.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations with the campaign, four sources close to the White House said they’ve urged the Biden camp to go on offense on the economy, using the time on the debate stage to challenge Trump’s cozy relationship with corporate America and the inflationary nature of his proposed policies. Biden and Trump square off in the first presidential debate at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday live on CNN. The behind-the-scenes warnings echo concerns raised by Biden’s longtime aide, Ron Klain, Biden’s first chief of staff who is also prepping the president for Thursday’s debate in lasagna-fueled sessions at Camp David. Earlier this year, Klain reportedly remarked to a private crowd that Biden was spending too much time praising bridges that were being built instead of connecting with voters. The White House at the time denied that Klain’s views were a departure from their strategy.
“Klain gets it,” one of the sources said of the former chief of staff, who is taking vacation from his job as Airbnb’s chief legal officer to return to a role as debate coach. That’s a departure for Biden, a lifelong politician who has grown accustomed to seeking credit when he feels credit is due, especially as the list of accomplishments has grown longer. His frustration when he feels that credit is withheld can be apparent.
-
Nate Silver's updating forecast: Silver Bulletin 2024 presidential election forecast
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
-
JPMorgan Hacker May Have Built New Fraud Empire While Working With FBI - Bloomberg
When Gery Shalon, mastermind of the infamous JPMorgan hack, flipped, US law enforcement considered it a triumph. But new evidence suggests that while Shalon was working with the FBI, he built a massive new fraud empire in Europe.
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
-
Whether women should be required to register for the draft resurfaces
-
For American Brands Worried About China, Is India the Future?
-
New Army policy punishes soldiers who share, like extremist social media content
Soldiers can be more easily held accountable for liking and sharing what is considered extremist content on social media under a new policy revision unveiled by the Army on Wednesday. The new set of rules also allows disciplinary action -- including being kicked out of the service -- for knowingly displaying flags and symbols or wearing clothing associated with radical causes even when off duty.
Previously, the Army's guidance forbade soldiers from participating in extremist activities, but never clearly defined what extremism is and what activities are prohibited -- leaving interpretations up to commanders. But the new set of rules more clearly outline that extremism is broad and includes advocating for widespread unlawful discrimination based on "race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation." It also more clearly outlines that supporting the overthrow of the government, in any way, is strictly prohibited -- a rule that has not been otherwise clearly defined in current Army policy.
Part of the problem is extremist groups continually evolving, rebranding themselves and adopting new symbols and slogans at a pace sometimes too swift for experts to keep up with. The Pentagon has also been hesitant to talk about the issue more bluntly even as far-right groups are seen by law enforcement as a top domestic terror threat, partly because targeting those groups has been conflated by some conservatives on Capitol Hill as targeting Republicans. In some cases during the stand-down, soldiers reported that briefings conflated political protests such as Black Lives Matter with anti-government movements such as the Oath Keepers, a group whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
World
-
Picasso Museum in Paris opens artist's rare archives to the internet
-
Germany has featured more and more incidents involving young people charting, “Foreigners out, Germany for the Germans,” over the beat of the hit electronic song “L’amour toujours” by Gigi D’Agostino. Now, police are being deployed in “operations” to respond to such instances. This time, police arrived at a birthday party in Cochem on the Moselle River, in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, only to be surprised when they learned who was singing the song. Once on the scene, officers learned that everyone calling for foreigners to leave Germany were actually foreigners.
-
Modi's govt calls on Indian state to look into Reuters report on Foxconn hiring
-
Coup Attempt in Bolivia (Archive)
Bolivia’s presidential palace was stormed by soldiers led by a top general on Wednesday in an apparent coup attempt, shortly after an armored vehicle crashed into the building. Military personnel had already taken over the capital’s main square, according to images broadcast on local TV. Bolivian President Luis Arce said on social media earlier that some military units were conducting “irregular” operations.
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
Health / Medicine
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
-
Denmark planning a levy on farms in first agricultural carbon tax
-
Scientists find another way we're exposed to forever chemicals: Through our skin
-
Everything Hikers Know About Lightning Safety is Wrong - Backpacker
Lightning tears through the air with enough force to break apart airborne nitrogen molecules. That leaves nitrogen atoms free to combine with oxygen, creating molecules called “nitrates” that are essential for soil and plant health.