2024-07-30
etc
Horseshit
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Ford patent cars reporting speed to the police and mandatory speed limit
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Homeowners are 'hacking' their pools and lawns to earn extra cash
Within the first few weeks of listing her home, Hammond, a psychiatrist, earned enough to cover her mortgage payment that month. Since then, she’s rented out her home on Peerspace for everything from photoshoots to baby showers — starting at $100 an hour.
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(Jun 2024) ‘SimCity’ Isn’t a Model of Reality. It’s a Libertarian Toy Land | WIRED
Although Wright considered SimCity to be more like a sandbox or a dollhouse than a game per se, it came to have an outsize effect on the real world, inspiring a generation of urban designers. Many players credit the game with giving them a deeper understanding of how cities function and how effective governance ought to work. But a look under the hood suggests that SimCity is less an insight into reality than a libertarian toy land.
- even the toys must be ideologically Pure
LimpLicks
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Far-left extremists likely behind France rail sabotage, interior minister says
France is leaning towards the likelihood that far-left extremists were behind last week's sabotage of the country's SNCF rail network – which coincided with the Olympic Games opening ceremony – French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Monday.
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Cables cut at various locations belonging to the French SFR telecom
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Is computer-aided judging the future of gymnastics or just a surveillance tool?
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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US Military admits to misinformation campaign about Sinovac Covid vaccine
The U.S. Defense Department admitted that it spread propaganda in the Philippines aimed at disparaging China’s Sinovac vaccine during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a June 25 document cited by a former top government official earlier this month. The U.S. response to the Philippines was recounted in a podcast by Harry Roque, who served as spokesman for former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Reuters subsequently reviewed the document, which hasn’t been publicly released by either government. The news agency was able to verify its contents with a source familiar with the U.S. response.
According to the June 25 document, Pentagon officials concluded its anti-vax campaign was “misaligned with our priorities.” It says the U.S. military told Filipino officials that operatives “ceased COVID-related messaging related to COVID-19 origins and COVID-19 vaccines in August 2021.”
Musk
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Video shared by Musk mimics Harris' voice, raising concerns about AI in politics
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Tesla says carmaker will begin selling its Optimus humanoid robot in 2026
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The legacy media engages in the mass synchronization of emotion for political purposes. They are a de facto arm of the DNC.
Electric / Self Driving cars
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Big Mac Demand Drops At Micky D's As Same-Store Sales Slide For First Time Since 2020 | ZeroHedge
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Earnings Derail Stock Rally over Doubts on AI, Consumer Strength
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'It was humiliating.' Evictions in these cities are worse than before Covid
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Opinion | The Fed Is Impacting Our Election, Our Climate, Our Economy - The New York Times
While the Fed keeps waiting, the pain keeps accumulating. By jacking up rates at a speed not seen in over four decades, and then keeping them at or near 25-year highs, the Fed has all but frozen the housing market and kept a generation of potential first-time home buyers stuck in the rental market, where price spikes have been especially steep. That trend has been devastating for many people — homeownership is where many middle-class Americans store most of their wealth, and the average homeowner gained about $210,000 in equity over the last decade. There is also the damage that unnecessarily high interest rates are inflicting on our battle against climate change. Clean energy projects typically involve heavier upfront financing costs that become more expensive with higher rates. A 2020 report estimated that raising rates from 3 percent to 7 percent could increase the cost of a renewables project by roughly a third for projects in the U.S. And of course, higher interest rates have hurt poorer consumers who depend on variable credit card rates and auto loans.
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
TBA 2024 / Democrats Demonstrate "Our Democracy"
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The Kamala Harris coconut tree meme, explained as best we can : NPR
The “coconut tree” meme originates from a May 2023 speech Harris gave at a White House event for advancing opportunities for Hispanic Americans. At one point near the end of her remarks, Harris talked about how the initiative's work would be focused on young people, but it should also take into account the needs of their families, teachers and communities, "because none of us just live in a silo." "Everything is in context," Harris said, before launching into the now-famous anecdote.
"My mother ... would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, 'I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?' " Harris said with a laugh. "You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you."
The moment was first meme’d in earnest in February of this year, when for a period of time, one could not open X, formerly known as Twitter, without seeing clips of or oblique references to those remarks. But the meme took on new life this summer, after President Biden’s disastrous debate performance fueled speculation that he might step aside as the Democratic nominee. Harris’ supporters, also known as the KHive, were waiting in the wings. Since then, the moment has been remixed into Charli XCX’s “Von Dutch” and Britney Spears’ "Gimme More." Democratic operatives have spoken of being “coconut-pilled.” The meme flourished into 2028 debate fan fiction. Google searches for "coconut tree" started climbing in the U.S. in early July.
- wooo "Harris’ supporters, also known as the KHive," brane splode
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Kamala Harris Campaign Responds to Elon Musk Sharing Fake Video About VP
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VP Harris Endorses Venezuelan Election Despite Widespread Fraud
Biden Inc
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But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on July 1 to grant presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. The only limits will be those that are self-imposed by the person occupying the Oval Office. If a future president incites a violent mob to storm the Capitol and stop the peaceful transfer of power — like we saw on Jan. 6, 2021 — there may be no legal consequences. And that’s only the beginning.
First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment. It would make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. I share our Founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute. We are a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators.
Second, we have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years. We should have the same for Supreme Court justices. The United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court. Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity. That would make timing for court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary. It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come. I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court.
Third, I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. This is common sense. The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced. Justices should be required to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. Every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable code of conduct, and there is no reason for the Supreme Court to be exempt.
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Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, said on social media Mr. Biden’s proposed reforms would be “dead on arrival” in the House. When asked about the speaker’s comments, Mr. Biden responded, “That’s what he is.” The confused reporter, seeking clarification, said, “He is?” “He is dead on arrival,” Mr. Biden responded.
It is unclear what the 81-year-old president meant by the comment. A spokesman for Mr. Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Later, Mr. Biden attempted to clarify his remarks saying Mr. Johnson’s “thinking” is “dead on arrival.”
Trump / Right / Jan6
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When one of the three countersnipers was about to call off at the end of their shift at around 4:26pm, they noticed a man who they later confirmed to be Crooks sitting on a picnic table. 'Guys I am out. Be safe,' he wrote. 'Someone followed our lead and snuck in and parked by our cars just so you know. I'm just letting you know because you see me go out with my rifle and put it in my car so he knows you guys are up there,' he wrote.
One of the two remaining snipers photographed Crooks multiple times and texted the pictures to the group chat. 'Kid learning around building we are in,' one wrote. 'I did see him with a range finder looking towards stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.'
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Gunman at Trump Rally Often One Step Ahead of Secret Service - The New York Times
By 5:10 p.m., the young man was no longer on the picnic table. He was right below the countersnipers, who were upstairs in a warehouse owned by AGR International. One of the countersnipers took pictures of him, according to a law enforcement after-action report, which along with the texts from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit was provided to The Times by the office of Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. The text messages were independently verified by The Times. At 5:38 p.m., the photos were shared in a group chat, and another text went out among the officers, saying they should inform the Secret Service. “Kid learning around building we are in. AGR I believe it is. I did see him with a range finder looking towards stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.”
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CIA Denies Conspiracy Theory That It Used MKUltra on Trump Shooter
Was the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump earlier this month part of a secret CIA program involving brainwashed killers? That’s the claim being made by some far-right accounts on X, but the U.S. intelligence agency is taking the unusual step of directly and forcefully denying the claims.
"These claims are utterly false, absurd, and damaging,” a CIA spokesperson told Gizmodo on Thursday. “The CIA had no relationship whatsoever with Thomas Crooks. Regarding MKULTRA, the CIA’s program was shut down more than 40 years ago, and declassified information about the program is publicly available on CIA.gov.” The CIA’s denial, first reported by Wired and confirmed by Gizmodo after we reached out, suggests the agency is perhaps now more willing to engage with the public after so many decades of those stereotypical “no comment” or Glomar responses on just about everything.
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Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman and Other Tech Billionaires Brawl Over Politics - The New York Times
Less than an hour after a gunman in Butler, Pa., tried to assassinate Donald J. Trump this month, David Sacks, a venture capitalist based in San Francisco, directed his anger about the incident toward a former colleague. “The Left normalized this,” Mr. Sacks wrote on X, linking to a post about Reid Hoffman, a technology investor and major Democratic donor. Mr. Sacks implied that Mr. Hoffman, a critic of Mr. Trump who had funded a lawsuit accusing the former president of rape and defamation, had helped cause the shooting. Elon Musk, who leads SpaceX and Tesla and previously worked with Mr. Sacks and Mr. Hoffman, then weighed in on X, name-checking Mr. Hoffman and saying people like him “got their dearest wish.”
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Iran Is Working to Undercut Trump in Election, U.S. Spy Agencies Say
U.S. spy agencies have “observed Tehran working to influence the presidential election, probably because Iranian leaders want to avoid” increased tensions with the U.S., an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said during a press briefing. The assessment of Iran’s election preferences marked a shift from a view shared by American intelligence agencies just a few weeks ago, when they said that Tehran was chiefly focused on acting as a “chaos agent” in the election. The officials didn’t assert directly that Tehran was seeking to undermine Trump, but said that its current operations aligned with its goals before the 2020 election, when it sought to harm Trump’s candidacy. “We haven’t observed a shift in Iran’s preferences” since 2020, the intelligence official said.
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
Health / Medicine
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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Farming ocean depths could raise global temperatures significantly
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Four hottest days ever observed raise fears of a planet nearing 'tipping points'
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Just Stop Oil Activists Who Threw Tomato Soup at Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ Get Prison Time.
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To protect mangroves, some Kenyans combat logging with hidden beehives
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Chimpanzee utterances refute purported missing links for syllabic speech
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Mine waste contaminates air with toxic dust, threatening nearby communities
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The ‘extraordinary’ growth of California’s largest fire raises alarms. It could burn for months.
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(Jul 12 2024) First beaver born in Northumberland for 400 years
A beaver has been born in Northumberland for the first time since the 1600s, the National Trust has revealed. The kit's arrival is less than 12 months after the conservation charity released four beavers into an enclosure on the Wallington Estate, near Rothbury.
- I'm not sure this counts as fulfilling whatever prophecy starts "When the beavers return to Rothbury".