August 26th, 2018 • 2h 57m

1063: Furternity

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Professor Ted

Sir Ryan Bemrose reminded me of a quote from ISAIF on page 2:

Those who are most sensitive about “politically incorrect”

terminology are not the average ghetto-dweller, abused woman or disabled

person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any

“oppressed” group but come from privileged strata of society. Political

correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure

employment with comfortable salaries, the majority of whom are heterosexual

white males from upper-middle-class families.

The Purge

Why MSFT participated

NA-nonymous from Pacific NorthWest

Dear Adam and John,

First, about Brad Smith.

On the last show you talked about the recent “breaking news”

of Microsoft “disrupting Russian election hacking.” I wanted to add some

background to this story.

Microsoft’s Digital Crime Unit (DCU) for years has been

primarily concerned with malware, bot networks, ransomware, and such. In those

investigations and cat-and-mouse games DCU established the pattern of securing

court permissions to seize Command-and-Control servers used by the botnet

operators. Is it usually done in a very quiet manner except for a couple of

times when major botnets were taken down as a result.

The news of DCU seizing 6 domains via the same mechanism of

court order (https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/08/20/we-are-taking-new-steps-against-broadening-threats-to-democracy/)

doesn’t fit the previous pattern. It stands out as a preventative operation,

and a very politicized one – with strong claims of attribution, alleged

connections to other cases, the “2017 election in France” BS case, and even a

quote from Ben Franklin.

The announcement was written by Brad Smith. Even it were

written by somebody else, it would have to be signed off by Smith anyway. He’s

been Microsoft’s top lawyer since 2002, and was promoted to President in 2015.

The main reason for the promotion was the fact that Microsoft’s CEO Nadella

lacks charisma and posture necessary for dealing with top government officials

or the world. Why would an experienced corporate lawyer of a $700B company

publish a highly politicized post like that? Aren’t lawyers generally publicity

averse?

Of course, there’s a business aspect here with him promoting

Office 365. But wouldn’t irritating the current administration with the

Russiagate claims risk Microsoft’s government business potentially much more?

A few months ago, at a mundane meeting with Microsoft

employees Smith was asked an elementary school kind of question: “what were the

three people in your life that inspired you the most?” How would a lawyer

answer it? There are obviously many ways to give a good answer here: parents,

wife, professor in college, a war hero, the very same Ben Franklin if you

suddenly got a brain freeze.

Here’s the list that Smith gave:

Barak Obama

Tim Kaine

Satya Nadella

To me this gives a good glimpse into what’s in his head. I

would also speculate that he is seriously considering a political career. If

Susan DelBene was able to get elected as a representative (after being only a

VP at Microsoft), Smith can aim higher than that.

Now an OTG idea for Adam.

You raved about Surface Go as the ultimate OTG device. Have

you considered complementing it with Windows Phone? It may sound

counterintuitive at first. It is technically a smartphone, with an app store and

all. However, with Microsoft having discontinued the devices and most popular

apps leaving the sinking platform, it suddenly became essentially a feature

phone. A feature phone with a great camera, a modern browser, good email and

calendar apps, and many other minor conveniences you won’t find in other OTG

devices, running roughly the same Windows 10 that you seem to like.

The plus I see here is that you won’t get any of Google’s

crap you get on Android – there isn’t a single Google app for WP! Unlike Apple,

which is an iPhone company these days, or Google whose business model is built

on surveillance, Microsoft couldn’t care less about WP devices that it

considers dead, so it presumably won’t track you or target ads to you. But you

still get security patches, at least for now. You can buy a good one for

$100-$200. Just a thought.

TYFYC and good donation karma to you both!

NA-nonymous from Pacific NorthWest

No Agenda Social is getting good [public timeline]

Invites can be issued by anyone with an account

A.I. Zombies

"That's what these outfits might be doing, providing

training data for the 'ai'!!... maybe they are watching it at 1.37x speed and

skipping over the empty noise"

When Adam first turned me on to the idea that ai was bs I

decided to look into it.

My understanding is that the way 'it' works is best

described as 2 separate programs. One that does complex multi-variable calculus

problems to figure out the highest/lowest point on a curve defined by all the

variables (think signals). Then there is a "fine tuning" program that

adjusts the variables to have a high enough confidence rating to reliably match

training data!

"That's what these outfits might be doing, providing

training data for the 'ai'!!"

This brings me to my question, how much manpower do

you think would be necessary to review all the videos and not have it be a

bottleneck?

Facebook to add 3,000 employees to review videos of crime and suicide - Chicago Tribune

Link to Article

Archived Version

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 07:11

Facebook is stepping up its efforts to keep inappropriate and often violent material '-- including recent high-profile videos of murders and suicides, hate speech and extremist propaganda '-- off of its site.

On Wednesday, the world's biggest social network said it plans to hire 3,000 more people to review videos and other posts after getting criticized for not responding quickly enough to murders shown on its service.

The hires over the next year will be on top of the 4,500 people Facebook already tasks with identifying criminal and other questionable material for removal. CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote Wednesday that the company is "working to make these videos easier to report so we can take the right action sooner '-- whether that's responding quickly when someone needs help or taking a post down."

Facebook, which had 18,770 employees at the end of March, would not say if the new hires would be contractors or full-time workers. David Fischer, the head of Facebook's advertising business, said in an interview that the detection and removal of hate speech and content that promotes violence or terrorism is an "ongoing priority" for the company, and the community operations teams are a "continued investment."

Videos and posts that glorify violence are against Facebook's rules, but Facebook has drawn criticism for responding slowly to such items, including video of a slaying in Cleveland and the live-streamed killing of a baby in Thailand. The Thailand video was up for 24 hours before it was removed.

In most cases, such material gets reviewed for possible removal only if users complain. News reports and posts that condemn violence are allowed. This makes for a tricky balancing act for the company. Facebook does not want to act as a censor, as videos of violence, such as those documenting police brutality or the horrors of war, can serve an important purpose.

LIVE STREAM CHALLENGESPolicing live video streams is especially difficult, as viewers don't know what will happen. This rawness is part of their appeal.

While the negative videos make headlines, they are just a tiny fraction of what users post every day. The good? Families documenting a toddler's first steps for faraway relatives, journalists documenting news events, musicians performing for their fans and people raising money for charities.

"We don't want to get rid of the positive aspects and benefits of live streaming," said Benjamin Burroughs, a professor of emerging media at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.

Burroughs said that Facebook clearly knew live streams would help the company make money, as they keep users on Facebook longer, making advertisers happy. If Facebook hadn't also considered the possibility that live streams of crime or violence would inevitably appear alongside the positive stuff, "they weren't doing a good enough job researching implications for societal harm," Burroughs said.

EARNINGS RESULTSFacebook also reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results on Wednesday, as has been its custom. The company earned $3.06 billion, or $1.04 per share, in the January-March period. That's up from 76 percent from $1.74 billion, or 60 cents per share, a year earlier. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings of 87 cents per share.

Revenue grew 49 percent to $8.03 billion from $5.38 billion. Analysts expected $7.83 billion.

Facebook had 1.94 billion monthly active users as of the end of March, up 17 percent from a year earlier. Daily active users were 1.28 billion, on average, for the month of March.

FUNHOUSE MIRROR?

With a quarter of the world's population on it, Facebook can serve as a mirror for humanity, amplifying both the good and the bad '-- the local fundraiser for a needy family and the murder-suicide in a faraway corner of the planet. But lately, it has gotten outsized attention for its role in the latter, whether that means allowing the spread of false news and government propaganda or videos of horrific crimes.

Videos livestreaming murder or depicting kidnapping and torture have made international headlines even when the crimes themselves wouldn't have, simply because they were on Facebook, visible to people who wouldn't have seen them otherwise.

As the company introduces even more new features, it will continue to grapple with the reality that they will not always be used for positive or even mundane purposes. From his interviews and Facebook posts, it appears that Zuckerberg is at least aware of this, even if his company doesn't always respond as quickly as outsiders would like.

"It's heartbreaking, and I've been reflecting on how we can do better for our community," Zuckerberg wrote on Wednesday about the recent videos.

It's a learning curve for Facebook. In November, for example, Zuckerberg called the idea that false news on Facebook influenced the U.S. election "crazy." A month later, the company introduced a slew of initiatives aimed at combating false news and supporting journalism. And just last week, it acknowledged that governments or others are using its social network to influence political sentiment in ways that could affect national elections.

WHAT TO DOZuckerberg said Facebook workers review "millions of reports" every week. In addition to removing videos of crime or getting help for someone who might hurt themselves, he said, the company's bulked-up reviewing force will "also help us get better at removing things we don't allow on Facebook like hate speech and child exploitation."

Wednesday's announcement is a clear sign that Facebook continues to need human reviewers to monitor content, even as it tries to outsource some of the work to software due in part to its sheer size and the volume of stuff people post.

It's not all up to Facebook, though. Burroughs said users themselves need to decide whether they want to look at violent videos posted on Facebook or to circulate them, for example. And he urged news organizations to consider whether each Facebook live-streamed murder is a story.

"We have to be careful that it doesn't become a kind of voyeurism," he said.

Facebook moderator describes the horrors she had to take down - Business Insider

Link to Article

Archived Version

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 07:08

Monika Bickert, Facebook's head of product policy. Getty

A former Facebook moderator described disturbing imagery she says she would have to remove from the site.In an interview with the BBC, the unnamed woman said she had to make quick decisions about taking down photos and videos containing things like beheadings, animal abuse, and child pornography.She said the work gave her nightmares, and she accused Facebook of not providing enough support to staff members.Facebook's head of product policy told the BBC that graphic content was "a small fraction of what reviewers might see" and that the company is committed to giving moderators the tools to do well. A former Facebook moderator described to the BBC the horrors she was exposed to on the job and criticized the social network for not doing enough to support staff members handling disturbing imagery.

The content reviewer, who worked in a Facebook center in Berlin, spoke to the BBC on the condition of anonymity.

She told the BBC that she would have seconds to decide whether to remove some disturbing photos and videos. Among the worst images, she said, were beheadings, animal abuse, terrorist attacks, and child pornography.

The woman suggested that the work affected her mental health, describing a vivid nightmare she had during her time at Facebook:

"I had nightmares a couple of times. I remember one, for example: people jumping from a building. I don't know why. And I remember people, instead of helping the people jumping, they were just taking photos and videos ... I woke up crying."

She accused Facebook of not providing enough support to content reviewers and said staff members regularly complained to management.

"It's the most important job in Facebook, and it's the worst, and no one cares about it," she said.

In a message directed at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, she added: "How are you allowing this to happen? That young people like us are having to see these things '-- we're treated like nothing."

Facebook did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Monika Bickert, Facebook's head of product policy, acknowledged to the BBC that Facebook moderating was difficult work and said support systems were in place for employees.

"This work is hard, but I will say that the graphic content, that sort of content, is a small fraction of what reviewers might see," she said. "Increasingly, we've been able to use technology to review and remove some of the worst content."

Bickert added: "We're committed to giving them what they need to do this job well. If they're ever uncomfortable at work, there are counseling resources for them, and they can be shifted to work on a different type of content."

Facebook this week published the internal guidelines its moderators use. The document, which is 8,500 words long, goes into detail about what is and isn't allowed, including its policies about sexual or violent content and hate speech.

Facebook is increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to identify offending items on its site. But Zuckerberg said on Wednesday that it was "easier to build an AI system to detect a nipple than what is hate speech."

More: Facebook Mark Zuckeberg

Facebook Hires Antonio Lucio, Former HP and Visa Exec, as CMO '' Variety

Link to Article

Archived Version

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 14:38

August 24, 2018 6:30AM PTFacebook has turned to marketing pro Antonio Lucio to lead its communications strategy after a series of brand-tarnishing episodes.

Most recently, Lucio was HP's chief marketing and communications officer and previously was Visa's global CMO. At Facebook, he reports to chief product officer Chris Cox, with an official start date of Sept. 4. Lucio replaces Gary Briggs, who stepped down as the social giant's chief marketing officer in January 2018, saying he would consult for companies and Democratic candidates.

Cox, in a Facebook post Thursday (Aug. 23) announcing the hire, praised Lucio's ''extraordinary reputation in the industry as a leader, a marketer, an operator, and a wise, gracious, and deeply principled human being.''

Lucio comes on board as Facebook continues to deal with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal that erupted earlier this year, which involved the political consulting firm's illicit capture of data on millions of users. Just this week, Facebook disclosed that data on another 4 million users ''may have been misused'' by a third-party app, and it has suspended hundreds of other apps from the platform. The company also has been in the hot seat for its role facilitating attempts by Russia to influence U.S. elections, as well as how it manages content like misinformation and hate speech.

''Facebook's story is at an inflection point,'' Cox acknowledged in his post. ''We have never faced bigger challenges, and we have never had more opportunities to have a positive impact on the world '-- in our families, our friendships, our communities, and our democracy '-- by improving our products at their core, and then by telling the story outside that we all know to be true inside.''

Lucio, born in Spain and raised in Puerto Rico, also will contribute to diversifying Facebook's senior-executive ranks. Cox praised Lucio's outspokenness ''on the importance of building diverse teams at every level in the organization.''

Prior to joining HP in 2015, Lucio spent eight years at Visa, most recently as global chief marketing and communication officer, where he created the company's first global positioning and brand-identity system. He also has held marketing management positions at companies including PepsiCo, Kraft General Foods, RJR Foods International and Procter & Gamble.

Lucio holds a bachelor's degree in history from Louisiana State University. He's fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese, according to his HP bio.

Facebook has turned to marketing pro Antonio Lucio to lead its communications strategy after a series of brand-tarnishing episodes. Most recently, Lucio was HP's chief marketing and communications officer and previously was Visa's global CMO. At Facebook, he reports to chief product officer Chris Cox, with an official start date of Sept. 4. Lucio replaces Gary Briggs, ['...]

TorrentFreak is Blocked as a Pirate Site and Hacking Resource - TorrentFreak

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 26 Aug 2018 14:07

Court-ordered pirate site blockades are pretty common nowadays. While not everyone sees these as the ideal solution for the problem at hand, they follow the letter of the law. More problematic are the private blocking efforts by various Wifi providers, which we are frequently the target of. Apparently, TorrentFreak is a pirate site too.

From Australia to Sweden, all around the world courts have ordered ISPs to block access to pirate sites.

This usually happens after a careful review by a judge, who weighs the arguments from copyright holders and Internet providers before a final decision is made. That's a fair process.

However, these court-ordered blockades are only the tip of the iceberg. Much more common are private blocking efforts where local WiFi providers use broad blocklists to shield people from visiting dangerous sites, including the one you're on now.

This problem is not new but the lack of improvement has become increasingly frustrating.

Earlier this month a reader informed us that he was unable to read our news while staying at a Premier Inn in Croydon. Apparently, the hotel's Virgin WiFi network banned us for our ''Criminal Skills/Hacking, News.''

HackersThis is no temporary or local mistake. In recent months we've received several reports of similar Virgin WiFi blockades, including from our colleagues at ISPreview. They ran into the same TorrentFreak blockade while conducting a study of WiFi performance in UK hotels.

And it's not just Virgin that's doing the blocking here.

This week another reader alerted us that he was unable to access TorrentFreak on a GovWifi connection. This network is used by many government institutions and managed by the Government Digital Service.

Apparently, they, or their blocklist provider, has classified our news site in the ''Piracy and Copyright infringement'' category, and accessing it would be a violation of the acceptable use policy.

No accessThese two recent examples are related to the UK, but these broad blocklists are used elsewhere too. We've seen our site blocked in US libraries and airports, Norwegian trains, and even in a Canadian McDonalds.

We have reached out to both Virgin and the Government Digital Service for a comment on the most recent examples. At the time of publication, we have yet to hear back. Perhaps our email is blocked too?

We hope they can eventually shed some light on their motivations. In the meantime, let's hope our readers have learned enough from our ''hacking skills'' to know how to bypass these blocks'....

Persuasion

Trump's tweet one-naming Crooked's [emails]

Russian Bots!

How Russian bots used Mollie Tibbetts' death to distract from Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort | The Independent

Link to Article

Archived Version

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 06:19

A network of Russian-linked Twitter accounts have been disseminating divisive content about Mollie Tibbetts' death in an apparent attempt to divert attention from explosive news surrounding Donald Trump and his former associates.

Almost immediately after a guilty verdict was announced in the trial of Paul Manafort, the president's former campaign chairman convicted on eight counts of bank and tax fraud charges, there was a flurry of activity among hundreds of pro-Kremlin Twitter accounts believed to be controlled by Russian government influence operations. Those accounts began posting thousands of tweets about Ms Tibbetts, the 20-year-old University of Iowa student who had been missing for nearly five weeks.

Police had a major break in her case on Tuesday when surveillance footage led them to Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 24-year-old suspect who brought authorities to a cornfield where they located a body believed to be Ms Tibbetts.

The discovery also coincided with groundbreaking news about Michael Cohen, the president's former personal lawyer and "fixer" who plead guilty on Tuesday to eight counts of fraud and campaign finance violations.

As news networks scrambled to report all three major developments '-- two of which arrived within the same hour '-- the Russian accounts were pushing out stories focusing on Ms Tibbetts' alleged murderer, according to an analysis conducted by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) and reviewed by The Independent.

Read more Neighbour's security camera provides evidence in Mollie Tibbetts case

The bipartisan group, which, according to its website, "develops comprehensive strategies to defend against, deter and raise the costs on Russian and other state actors' efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions", has tracked Kremlin-oriented influence operations on Twitter since August 2017.

ASD monitors three categories of Russian-linked Twitter accounts, according to Bret Schafer, a social media analyst for the organisation. The first category is comprised of accounts believed to be operated by Russian intelligence officials or influence operations. The second includes pro-Kremlin accounts which typically promote Russian government media. The final pool of Twitter handles are "extremely active" in amplifying the first two categories, along with other pro-Russian media themes.

Mr Schafer described the spike in activity surrounding the murder investigation as "completely unsurprising," noting the timing of the news in relation to developments about the president's former associates.

"I'm not remotely surprised," he said in an interview with The Independent, as Ms Tibbetts was among the top topics being shared by the Russian accounts. "It's almost as interesting to see what they haven't been talking about compared to what they're tweeting about right now."

A screenshot of the Alliance for Securing Democracy's Hamilton 68 Dashboard shows a network of Russian-linked Twitter accounts have been exorbitantly posting hashtags about 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts on 22 August 2017. (Chris Riotta / Alliance for Securing Democracy)Throughout most of Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday, #MollieTibbetts was the most shared hashtag among the Russian-linked Twitter accounts monitored by ASD. The accounts tweeted out a link to one Fox News story referring to Mr Rivera in its headline as an ''illegal immigrant'' hundreds of times, among other stories highlighting the 24-year-old suspect's immigration status.

However, it remains unclear whether Mr Rivera is in fact an undocumented immigrant. His defence attorney filed a court request for a gag order in the case, offering work papers which call into question the claims that he has been living in the country illegally for four to seven years while working at a dairy farm in Iowa.

None of that was mentioned in articles and tweets shared by the Russian-linked accounts. The network was mostly posting content from Fox News, RT, Breitbart, Dailywire and other right wing sites which Mr Rivera's supposed immigration status rather than the details behind the disappearance or ongoing investigation.

Of the top 10 urls shared by the network on Tuesday worldwide, seven related to Ms Tibbetts' death. The top trending hashtags also related to polarising issues regarding illegal immigration, including #buildthewall and #buildthedamwall.

White House tweets video of 'permanently separated' families following death of Iowa student Mollie TibbettsMeanwhile, the Russian accounts were nearly silent on news about the president's former associates. The handles that were tweeting about those developments appeared to echo Mr Trump's defence for Manafort, while criticising Cohen for accepting a plea deal, Mr Schafer said Wednesday.

"We've seen a bit more attacking Cohen than defending Manafort," he said. "I think you can look at that in two different ways: they're still tweeting heavily about the broader goal of pushing out the most divisive commentary on any issue that is naturally divisive."

"But I do think there is also some sort of distraction element as well," he continued. "They're discussing Mollie Tibbetts instead of Paul Manafort, and they're shining a light on her death in a way we rarely see".

It's rare for the network of Russian-linked accounts to focus almost exclusively on any particular issue, but it has happened before.

A similar surge in activity occurred on 1 December 2017, when a not guilty verdict was announced in the murder trial of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, an undocumented immigrant accused of killing American citizen Kate Steinle in July 2015.

Russian-linked accounts pounced on the news, along with Russian troll accounts not included in the ASD's monitoring dashboard, known as Hamilton 68. Data collected by Clemson University from nearly three million tweets connected to Russian troll factories from 2012 to 2018 show how Ms Steinle's death was also used in an attempt to sow discord in the national conversation surrounding illegal immigration.

Out of the bulk of tweets occurring from 2015 through 2018, the majority focused on her death '-- and the fact that her alleged murderer was an undocumented immigrant. 20 per cent of all tweets included in the data reportedly refer to Ms Steinle or her murder investigation.

World news in pictures 1/52 23 August 2018Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

EPA

2/52 22 August 2018High waves hit Jeju Island, South Korea, as powerful Typhoon Soulik gradually approaches the Korean Peninsula

EPA

3/52 21 August 2018A Palestinian man throws his child in the air following morning prayers marking the first day of Eid al-Adha celebrations on the compound known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem's Old City. Eid al-Adha is the holiest of the two Muslims holidays celebrated each year, it marks the yearly Muslim pilgrimage (Hajj) to visit Mecca, the holiest place in Islam. Muslims slaughter a sacrificial animal and split the meat into three parts, one for the family, one for friends and relatives, and one for the poor and needy

Reuters

4/52 20 August 2018South Korean Lee Keum-seom, 92, meets with her North Korean son Ri Sung Chol, 71, during a separated family reunion meeting at the Mount Kumgang resort on the North's southeastern coast. Dozens of elderly and frail South Koreans met their Northern relatives for the first time since the peninsula and their families were divided by war nearly seven decades ago

AFP/Getty

5/52 19 August 2018The flag of the United Nations flying at half-mast to mark the death of former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, at the European headquarters in Geneva. Kofi Annan died on 18 August, aged 80

EPA

6/52 18 August 2018Newly appointed Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan inspects the guard of honor on his arrival in the Prime Minister House during a ceremony in Islamabad. Imran Khan was sworn in at a ceremony in Islamabad, ushering in a new political era as the World Cup cricket hero officially took the reins of power in the nuclear-armed country

PID/AFP/Getty

7/52 17 August 2018Muslim pilgrims walk out after the Friday prayer at the Grand mosque ahead of annual Haj pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Reuters

8/52 16 August 2018A man wades through flooded water in Kochi, Kerala state, India. According to reports, the region is on a high alert with schools and offices been closed due to the rising water levels of Periyar river after the gates of the Idukki reservoir were opened. The area has been hit by heavy rains that caused floods and reportedly killed at least 65 people

EPA

9/52 15 August 2018Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets schoolchildren after his speech as part of India's 72nd Independence Day celebrations which marks the 71st anniversary of the end of British colonial rule, at the Red Fort in New Delhi

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10/52 14 August 2018A large section of the Morandi viaduct upon which the A10 motorway runs collapsed in Genoa, Italy. Both sides of the highway fell. Around 10 vehicles are involved in the collapse, rescue sources said. The viaduct gave way amid torrential rain. It runs over shopping centres, factories, some homes, the Genoa-Milan railway line and the Polcevera river

EPA

11/52 13 August 2018Turkish President Erdogan addresses the 10th annual Ambassadors' Conference in Ankara. Global markets have reacted fearfully to Turkey's financial crash, which Turkish President Erdogan blames on a "political, underhand plot" by Donald Trump's USA. Last week the US doubled steel and aluminium tariffs against Turkey amidst diplomatic tensions over the latter's detaining of an American pastor

Turkish Presidential Press Service/AFP/Getty

12/52 12 August 2018NASA, The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 12, 2018 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Parker Solar Probe is humanity's first-ever mission into a part of the Suns atmosphere called the corona. The probe will directly explore solar processes that are key to understanding and forecasting space weather events that can impact life on Earth.

NASA via Getty

13/52 11 August 2018An activist confronts Virginia State Troopers in riot gear during a rally on the campus of The University of Virginia one-year after the violent white nationalist rally that left one person dead and dozens injured in Charlottesville, Virginia

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14/52 10 August 2018A man holds his son before Friday prayers at an evacuation centre in Sambik Bangkol village, in northern Lombok on West Nusa Tenggara province

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15/52 9 August 2018A rescuers stands next to a damaged tent in a flooded camping as storms and heavy rains sweep across France on August 9, 2018 in Saint-Julien-de-Peyrolas, southern France. - The bad weather caused large power cuts and a man who was working in a summer camp went missing according to the gendarmerie

AFP/Getty

16/52 8 August 2018A Palestinian girl smiles as she waits to receive aids at a United Nations food distribution centre in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza

AFP/Getty

17/52 7 August 2018An Israeli soldier rides an armoured vehicle during an army drill after the visit of Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israel

Reuters

18/52 6 August 2018Usable items are salvaged from a home destroyed in an earthquake in North Lombok, Indonesia. The powerful earthquake struck the Indonesian tourist island of Lombok, killing a number of people and shaking neighboring Bali, as authorities on Monday said thousands of houses were damaged and the death toll could climb

19/52 5 August 2018Accident investigators and rescue personnel work at the wreckage of a Junkers JU52 aircraft in Flims, after it crashed into Piz Segnas, a 3,000-metre (10,000-foot) peak in eastern Switzerland. Twenty people were confirmed dead after the vintage World War II aircraft crashed into a Swiss mountainside, police reports said. The Junker JU52 HB-HOT aircraft, built in Germany in 1939 and now a collectors item, belongs to JU-Air, a company with links to the Swiss air force, the ATS news agency reported

AFP/Getty

20/52 4 August 2018Members of different security forces stand guard and take evidence after an explosion targeted President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela. The Venezuelan Information Minister, Jorge Rodriguez, confirmed that President Nicolas Maduro was the victim of an attack with 'drone-type flying devices that contained an explosive charge', and that he escaped unharmed from the incident, which occurred during a military ceremony in Caracas

EPA

21/52 3 August 2018People in Mbare celebrate after officials announced the re-election of President Emmerson Mnangagwa of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) in Harare, Zimbabwe. The election was the first since Robert Mugabe was ousted in a military coup last year, and featured a close race between Mnangagwa and opposition candidate Nelson Chamisa of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC Alliance). Deadly clashes broke out earlier in the week following the release of parliamentary election results, amid allegations of fraud by Chamisa and MDC supporters

Getty

22/52 2 August 2018A supporter of the ruling ZANU-PF walks past a burnt vehicle at the party's offices a day after the clashes between security forces and opposition protesters in Harare, Zimbabwe

Reuters

23/52 1 August 2018A ceremony takes place in a hangar, to mark the return of 55 sets of remains of American troops killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. The ceremony was held five days after a US airplane transported the remains to South Korea from North Korea in a move expected to facilitate ongoing efforts to promote peace on the peninsula

EPA

24/52 31 July 2018Veronika Nikulshina, one of four members of Russia's Pussy Riot protest group who were jailed for 15 days for staging a pitch invasion during the football World Cup final and were detained again after their release on July 30, is escorted by a police officer before a court hearing in Moscow

Reuters

25/52 30 July 2018A relative of a passenger of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 reads the safety report that has concluded that the planes controls were deliberately manipulated and that illegal interference by a third party cannot be ruled out. Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on 8 March 2014

Reuters

26/52 29 July 2018Palestinian activist and campaigner Ahed Tamimi kisses the tombstone of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at his mausoleum in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, after she was released from prison following an eight-month sentence for slapping two Israeli soldiers

AFP/Getty

27/52 28 July 2018Zimbabwe's incumbent President and candidate Emmerson Mnangagwa arrives for his closing presidential campaign rally in Harare, two days ahead of the elections

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28/52 27 July 2018A house burns during the Carr fire in Redding, California. One firefighter has died and at least two others have been injured as wind-whipped flames tore through the region

Getty

29/52 26 July 2018Supporters of Pakistan's cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan, and head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) party, celebrate in Karachi, a day after a general election. Imran Khan claimed victory in the country's tense general election marred by allegations of "blatant" rigging by rival parties. A visibly tired Khan cut a conciliatory tone in a wide-ranging address to the nation following the controversial contest

AFP/Getty

30/52 25 July 2018A man who was injured in a suspected suicide bomb attack outside a polling station, receives medical treatment at a hospital in Quetta. At least 25 people were killed and 30 injured in the incident. Polling stations in Pakistan opened for the general election for around 105 million constituents. Voters will have to choose from 11,000 candidates to elect 272 members of the Parliament for the next term. These elections are the second in Pakistan's history in which a government was able to complete its term to make way for another government after being ruled by military dictators for half of the 71 years of its existence since its founding in 1947

EPA

31/52 24 July 2018A woman reacts as she tries to find her dog, following a wildfire at the village of Mati, near Athens, Greece. At least 60 people are thought to have been killed

Reuters

32/52 23 July 2018A house is threatened by a huge blaze during a wildfire in Kineta, near Athens. More than 300 firefighters, five aircraft and two helicopters were mobilised to tackle the "extremely difficult" situation due to strong gusts of wind, Athens fire chief Achille Tzouvaras said

AFP/Getty

33/52 22 July 2018Israeli-annexed Golan Heights shows a smoke plume rising across the border in Quneitra in southwestern Syria, as rebels destroy their arms stocks prior to their departure

Getty

34/52 21 July 2018A Syrian child looks through the window of a bus as displaced people from the Quneitra province wait at the Morek crossing point to be transfered in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, northwestern Syria. The transfers come under a surrender deal agreed this week between Russia and Syrian rebels in Quneitra province that will see the sensitive zone fall back under state control. Rebels will hand over territory they control in Quneitra and the neighbouring buffer zone with the Israeli-occupied Golan, a war monitor and a rebel

AFP/Getty

35/52 20 July 2018Men push a car past a flooded street in Ahmadabad, India. Hundreds of people have been rescued from flood affected areas in the past week as incessant rains continue to lash Gujarat state

36/52 19 July 2018Arab lawmakers stand up in protest during a Knesset session in Jerusalem. Israel's parliament approved a controversial piece of legislation that defines the country as the nation-state of the Jewish people but which critics warn sidelines minorities

37/52 18 July 2018The 12 boys and their soccer coach who were rescued from a flooded cave arrive for a news conference in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand

Reuters

38/52 17 July 2018President Barack Obama delivers the 16th Nelson Mandela annual lecture, marking the centenary of the anti-apartheid leader's birth, in Johannesburg, South Africa

Reuters

39/52 16 July 2018French supporters celebrate on the Champs Elysees their team's victory after the World Cup 2018 final between France and Croatia

EPA

40/52 15 July 2018Hugo Lloris lifts the trophy after France beat Croatia 4-2 in the World Cup final in the Luzhniki Stadium in Russia

41/52 14 July 2018Germany's Angelique Kerber beat seven-time champion US player Serena Williams in the Wimbledon final. Kerber won her first Wimbledon title

42/52 13 July 2018Firefighters using fire helicopters fighting wildfires in Sordal in Setesdalen in the southern part of Norway. The fires are thought to be caused by lightning in the very dry landscape

EPA

43/52 12 July 2018The Syrian national flag rises in the midst of damaged buildings in Daraa-al-Balad an opposition-held part of the southern city of Daraa. Syria's army entered rebel-held parts of Daraa city, state media said, raising the national flag in the cradle of the uprising that sparked the country's seven-year war, following a deal for rebels to hand over their heavy weapons in Daraa al-Balad and other opposition-held parts of the city

AFP

44/52 11 July 2018US President Donald Trump and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg attend a bilateral breakfast ahead of the NATO Summit in Brussels

Reuters

45/52 10 July 2018The last four Thai Navy SEALs come out safely after completing the rescue mission inside a cave where 12 boys and their soccer coach have been trapped since June 23, in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand. Thailand's navy SEALs say all 12 boys and their soccer coach have been rescued from a flooded cave in far northern Thailand, ending an ordeal that lasted more than two weeks

Royal Thai Navy via AP

46/52 9 July 2018Indonesia worker and firefighters try to extinguish a fire on fishing boats at Benoa harbour in Denpasar, on Indonesia's resort island of Bali. A massive fire laid waste to dozens of boats at a Bali port as firefighters battled to bring the dramatic blaze under control

Getty

47/52 8 July 2018Russia's football team are greeted celebrated by fans during a visit at the Moscow's fan zone after they were knocked out of the World Cup in their quarter final match against Croatia on penalties

Getty

48/52 7 July 2018Residents look over the flooded town by heavy rain in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, western Japan. Heavy rainfall killed 47 people, missing more than 49 people and five others in serious condition in southwestern and western Japan, public television reported on 07 July 2018. Japan Meteorological Agency has warned record rainfall on 06 July for flooding, mudslides in southwestern and western Japan. In nine prefectures in western and southwestern Japan, authorities issued evacuation orders to more than one million of people in southwestern and western Japan

EPA

49/52 6 July 2018An honour guard hold up a picture of Samarn Kunan, 38, a former member of Thailand's elite navy SEAL unit who died working to save 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped inside a flooded cave, at an airport in Rayong province, Thailand

Reuters

50/52 5 July 2018The International Space Station, center, passes in front of the Moon in its Earth orbit as photographed from Salgotarjan, Hungary

MTI via AP

51/52 4 July 2018Former Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak (C) arrives at Kuala Lumpur High Court in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysia's former prime minister Najib Razak appeared in court to face graft charges linked to the the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal

EPA

52/52 1/52 23 August 2018Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

EPA

2/52 22 August 2018High waves hit Jeju Island, South Korea, as powerful Typhoon Soulik gradually approaches the Korean Peninsula

EPA

Reuters

AFP/Getty

EPA

PID/AFP/Getty

7/52 17 August 2018Muslim pilgrims walk out after the Friday prayer at the Grand mosque ahead of annual Haj pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Reuters

EPA

AFP/Getty

EPA

Turkish Presidential Press Service/AFP/Getty

NASA via Getty

AFP/Getty

14/52 10 August 2018A man holds his son before Friday prayers at an evacuation centre in Sambik Bangkol village, in northern Lombok on West Nusa Tenggara province

AFP/Getty

16/52 8 August 2018A Palestinian girl smiles as she waits to receive aids at a United Nations food distribution centre in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza

AFP/Getty

17/52 7 August 2018An Israeli soldier rides an armoured vehicle during an army drill after the visit of Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israel

Reuters

AFP/Getty

EPA

Getty

22/52 2 August 2018A supporter of the ruling ZANU-PF walks past a burnt vehicle at the party's offices a day after the clashes between security forces and opposition protesters in Harare, Zimbabwe

Reuters

EPA

Reuters

AFP/Getty

27/52 28 July 2018Zimbabwe's incumbent President and candidate Emmerson Mnangagwa arrives for his closing presidential campaign rally in Harare, two days ahead of the elections

AFP/Getty

28/52 27 July 2018A house burns during the Carr fire in Redding, California. One firefighter has died and at least two others have been injured as wind-whipped flames tore through the region

Getty

AFP/Getty

EPA

31/52 24 July 2018A woman reacts as she tries to find her dog, following a wildfire at the village of Mati, near Athens, Greece. At least 60 people are thought to have been killed

Reuters

AFP/Getty

33/52 22 July 2018Israeli-annexed Golan Heights shows a smoke plume rising across the border in Quneitra in southwestern Syria, as rebels destroy their arms stocks prior to their departure

Getty

AFP/Getty

37/52 18 July 2018The 12 boys and their soccer coach who were rescued from a flooded cave arrive for a news conference in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand

Reuters

38/52 17 July 2018President Barack Obama delivers the 16th Nelson Mandela annual lecture, marking the centenary of the anti-apartheid leader's birth, in Johannesburg, South Africa

Reuters

39/52 16 July 2018French supporters celebrate on the Champs Elysees their team's victory after the World Cup 2018 final between France and Croatia

EPA

40/52 15 July 2018Hugo Lloris lifts the trophy after France beat Croatia 4-2 in the World Cup final in the Luzhniki Stadium in Russia

41/52 14 July 2018Germany's Angelique Kerber beat seven-time champion US player Serena Williams in the Wimbledon final. Kerber won her first Wimbledon title

EPA

AFP

44/52 11 July 2018US President Donald Trump and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg attend a bilateral breakfast ahead of the NATO Summit in Brussels

Reuters

Royal Thai Navy via AP

Getty

EPA

Reuters

50/52 5 July 2018The International Space Station, center, passes in front of the Moon in its Earth orbit as photographed from Salgotarjan, Hungary

MTI via AP

EPA

52/52 The ASD believes monitoring these accounts and their trends could provide valuable insight into Russia's information warfare campaigns.

In recent weeks, Twitter and other social media platforms have attempted to crack down on accounts with "inauthentic" or "manipulative" behaviour ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, suspending at least 284 accounts with apparent links to Iran. The platform has also repeatedly removed Russian-linked accounts.

Still, the ASD said it has not noticed "a major change" in the network of Russian-linked accounts or its influence operations ever since US intelligence agencies confirmed Russia performed multi-pronged cyber-attacks on the 2016 presidential election.

Tarriffs

Presidential Memorandum for the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Homeland Security, Postmaster General, and Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sat, 25 Aug 2018 01:57

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURYTHE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITYTHE POSTMASTER GENERALTHE CHAIRMAN OF THE POSTAL REGULATORY COMMISSION

SUBJECT: Modernizing the Monetary Reimbursement Model for the Delivery of Goods Through the International Postal System and Enhancing the Security and Safety of International Mail

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Definitions. (a) ''Good'' means any tangible and movable object that can be conveyed by the international postal system, excluding (i) written, drawn, printed, or digital information recorded on a tangible medium that is not an object of merchandise and (ii) money.

(b) ''Non-postal operator'' means a private express carrier, freight forwarder, or other provider of services for the collection, transportation, and delivery of international documents and packages, other than a postal operator.

(c) ''Postal operator'' means a governmental or non'governmental entity officially designated by a Universal Postal Union (UPU) member country to operate postal services and to fulfill the related obligations arising out of the Acts of the UPU on its territory.

(d) ''Terminal dues'' means the rates or fees determined through the UPU and paid by the postal operator in the country of origin to the postal operator in the country of destination to compensate for costs incurred in the country of destination for processing, transportation, and delivery of international ''letter post'' items, which may include documents or goods and generally weigh up to 4.4 pounds.

Sec. 2. Policy. (a) The UPU was established in 1874 by 21 countries. The United States played an integral role in the UPU's creation and, since that time, the United States has actively participated in all phases of the UPU's work. The United States is a party to the current Constitution of the UPU '' which was adopted in 1964 '' and intends to continue to participate fully in and financially contribute to the UPU, as provided in Article 21 of the UPU Constitution. As a member country of the UPU, the United States recognizes the importance of this long-standing organization and is proud of the United States' unbroken record of participation in it.

The Congress has provided that the Secretary of State (Secretary), in concluding postal treaties, conventions, or other international agreements, shall, to the maximum extent practicable, take measures to encourage governments of other countries to make available to the United States Postal Service (USPS) and private companies a range of nondiscriminatory customs procedures that will fully meet the needs of all types of American shippers (39 U.S.C. 407(e)(3)).

The Congress has likewise directed that responsible officials shall apply the customs laws of the United States and all other laws relating to importation or exportation of goods in the same manner to shipments of goods that are competitive products of the USPS and to similar shipments by private companies (39 U.S.C. 407(e)(2)).

It is the policy of the United States to promote and encourage the development of an efficient and competitive global system that provides for fair and nondiscriminatory postal rates.

(b) It is in the interest of the United States to:

(i) promote and encourage communications between peoples by efficient operation of international postal services and other international delivery services for cultural, social, and economic purposes (39 U.S.C. 407(a)(1));

(ii) promote and encourage unrestricted and undistorted competition in the provision of international postal services and other international delivery services, except where provision of such services by private companies may be prohibited by the laws of the United States (39 U.S.C. 407(a)(2));

(iii) promote and encourage a clear distinction between governmental and operational responsibilities with respect to the provision of international postal services and other international delivery services by the Government of the United States and by intergovernmental organizations of which the United States is a member (39 U.S.C. 407(a)(3)); and

(iv) participate in multilateral and bilateral agreements with other countries to accomplish these objectives (39 U.S.C. 407(a)(4)).

(c) Some current international postal practices in the UPU do not align with United States economic and national security interests:

(i) UPU terminal dues, in many cases, are less than comparable domestic postage rates. As a result:

(A) the United States, along with other member countries of the UPU, is in many cases not fully reimbursed by the foreign postal operator for the cost of delivering foreign-origin letter post items, which can result in substantial preferences for foreign mailers relative to domestic mailers;

(B) the current terminal dues rates undermine the goal of unrestricted and undistorted competition in cross-border delivery services because they disadvantage non-postal operators seeking to offer competing collection and outward transportation services for goods covered by terminal dues in foreign markets; and

(C) the current system of terminal dues distorts the flow of small packages around the world by incentivizing the shipping of goods from foreign countries that benefit from artificially low reimbursement rates.

(ii) The UPU has not done enough to reorient international mail to achieve a clear distinction between documents and goods. Without such a distinction, it is difficult to achieve essential pricing reforms or to ensure that customs requirements, including provision of electronic customs data for goods, are met. Under the current system, foreign postal operators do not uniformly furnish advance electronic customs data that are needed to enhance targeting and risk management for national security and to facilitate importation and customs clearance. My Administration's Initiative to Stop Opioids Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand, launched in March of this year, requires accurate advance electronic customs data for 90 percent of all international mail shipments that contain goods and consignment shipments within 3 years, so that the Department of Homeland Security can better detect and flag high-risk shipments.

(d) It shall be the policy of the executive branch to support efforts that further the policies in this memorandum, including supporting a system of unrestricted and undistorted competition between United States and foreign merchants. Such efforts include:

(i) ensuring that rates charged for delivery of foreign-origin mail containing goods do not favor foreign mailers over domestic mailers;

(ii) setting rates charged for delivery of foreign-origin mail in a manner that does not favor postal operators over non-postal operators; and

(iii) ensuring the collection of advance electronic customs data.

Sec. 3. Relations with the UPU. (a) The United States must seek reforms to the UPU that promote the policies outlined in this memorandum. Such reforms shall provide for:

(i) a system of fair and nondiscriminatory rates for goods that promotes unrestricted and undistorted competition; and

(ii) terminal dues rates that:

(A) fully reimburse the USPS for costs to the same extent as domestic rates for comparable services;

(B) avoid a preference for inbound foreign small packages containing goods that favors foreign mailers over domestic mailers; and

(C) avoid a preference for inbound foreign small packages containing goods that favors postal operators over private-sector entities providing transportation services.

(b) If negotiations at the UPU's September 2018 Second Extraordinary Congress in Ethiopia fail to yield reforms that satisfy the criteria set forth in subsection (a) of this section, the United States will consider taking any appropriate actions to ensure that rates for the delivery of inbound foreign packages satisfy those criteria, consistent with applicable law.

Sec. 4. Actions by the Secretary. (a) The Secretary shall notify the Director General of the UPU of the policies and intentions of the United States described in this memorandum.

(b) The Secretary or his designee shall, consistent with 39 U.S.C. 407(b)(1), seek agreement on future Convention texts that comport with the policies of this memorandum in meetings of the UPU, including at the September 2018 Extraordinary Congress.

(c) No later than November 1, 2018, the Secretary shall submit to the President a report summarizing the steps being taken to implement this memorandum. If the Secretary determines that sufficient progress on reforms to promote compatibility of the Acts of the UPU with the policy of this memorandum is not being achieved, the Secretary shall include recommendations for future action, including the possibility of adopting self'declared rates.

Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(d) The Secretary is authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

DONALD J. TRUMP

Homeless in ShitHole

An acquaintance of ours also live downtown, a little closer to ground zero, and there's a new drug in town: K2-Go Wacky taking their clothes off and loving or humping trees

Low-income workers who live in RVs are being 'chased out' of Silicon Valley streets | US news | The Guardian

Link to Article

Archived Version

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 21:01

In a Silicon Valley town where the median home value is $2.5m, next to a university with a $22.5bn endowment, not far from a shopping mall with Burberry and Cartier outlets, they present an eye-popping sight: dozens of run-down RVs and trailers parked in a line along a main road.

Outside in AmericaTheir homeless inhabitants must live in a way that is, to put it mildly, not the norm for somewhere like Palo Alto. ''I try not to use the restroom unless I have to because it costs money to go and drain it, and I don't want an odor to build up,'' said a man called Frank Aldama on Tuesday, with the forested outskirts of Stanford University visible through his screen door.

To keep the grungy carpet in the 30-year-old vehicle clean, he sprays it with Febreze every morning. And he is fastidious about the exterior, ''so people don't have a reason to want you to leave, other than maybe being an eyesore''.

The number of RVs in this part of Palo Alto has spiked this year, and no wonder. For Aldama and others like him, the city feels like a respite. Crime is minimal. Some trailers face groves of oak and eucalyptus trees, others look onto playing fields where parents cheer children playing soccer. But their toehold here has begun to feel tenuous.

Amid complaints from residents, Palo Alto has announced it will enforce a rule that bans vehicles from parking in the same spot for longer than 72 hours. The RV dwellers must accede '' they have few other options. Silicon Valley was recently ranked the second most inaccessible region in the country for low-income workers trying to find a place to live. Palo Alto's minimum wage is $12 an hour, but someone would have to earn $42.69 an hour to rent a two-bedroom apartment while having enough left over for other necessities.

For many people, the RV symbolizes the freedom of the open road, but for those living permanently in their vehicles, perhaps brimming with belongings and containing rudimentary hygiene and cooking facilities, the horizons often seem foreclosed.

The county in which Palo Alto is located is committing $950m for affordable housing, but in the meantime, tolerance of the crisis sometimes ebbs, as in the neighboring town of Mountain View, where the presence of over 200 RVs has prompted complaints.

On Tuesday in Palo Alto, meanwhile, there were 40 to 45 RVs and trailers parked along a busy stretch of road.

Mike Becker, 52, said he arrived in the Bay Area at the age of 20 and began living in the vehicle a few years ago after his rent was raised and he lost a carpentry job. The RV was free on Craigslist and makes sense because if he rented a home, ''I wouldn't have enough to pay for food''. He added, ''I'm stigmatized with the rest of the RVers. I get the sense they think we're dirtbags.''

Nicholas Newbury, 35, emerged from a beaten-up trailer with a tarp tied roughly over the top for privacy and protection from the weather. ''I'm not upset about it,'' he said of the city's plan, ''but at same time, where else do they want us to go?'' (He only sleeps occasionally in the trailer, which is not his; at nights he searches the trash on Stanford's campus looking for cans to sell to recyclers.)

RV dwellers are often local, said Brian Greenberg of LifeMoves, an organization that helps homeless people move into housing. ''There's this myth that we attract people from all over the place, and it really is a myth. Most of the people are what I'd say are our people '' they graduated from local high schools on the peninsula, in Silicon Valley. People aren't as mobile as one would think.''

Another California city with a large homeless population, Santa Barbara, has opened a parking lot where people living in RVs can stay safely overnight, but Greenberg said his organization had opted against that idea. ''Those things tend to become more permanent and take the pressure off finding a real solution,'' he said. ''You look at these vehicles '' they have hundreds of thousands of miles on them, they're not hooked up to septic, there's frequently not running, fresh water, inadequate toilet facilities.'' It is not a way to treat people, he argued, ''in the highest income region of the universe.''

Palo Alto's decision to implement the 72-hour rule was prompted partly by complaints, though the intention is not to banish people living in vehicles, said city spokeswoman Claudia Keith. The city rescinded its ban on inhabiting cars and RVs several years ago. Instead, the goal is to remove vehicles that are abandoned or used as storage, and Keith suggested that the ordinance is relatively toothless. ''They have to move half a mile according to the law, so potentially they could drive around the block, I suppose, and re-park,'' she said.

Stanford, for its part, has ''noted the additional parking of RVs'' on its borders, said spokesman EJ Miranda by e-mail. ''This is a reflection of the very challenging economic circumstances faced by many people in this region,'' he said. He did not respond to a question about whether the university supported the move, but said that the city was acting in accordance with the law.

Aldama, 56, has lived in his RV for four years. His family purchased it for him after he emerged from a spiral in which he became addicted to heroin, went to jail, and lost contact with his children. His generosity of spirit is striking considering his circumstances. Of Palo Altans he said, ''I don't have anything bad to say about these people, they've been good to me since I've been here,'' though he added: ''I wish I had a place to park that's safe like here, and clean, without being chased out.''

He has tried living in a cheaper town a few hours away and had a job at a gas station, but he was asked to leave the area when he was found to be residing full-time in the vehicle. He suffers from poor short-term memory, anxiety, and is kept awake by the cars that constantly rock his RV as they roar past.

Musing about how it would be to take a vacation, his features started to crumple, his face reddened, and his eyes glistened with tears.

''I don't wish this on nobody,'' he said. ''A terrible way to live.''

Do you have an experience of homelessness to share with the Guardian? Get in touchSign up for our monthly newsletter on homelessness in the US

OTG

Surface

Surface Go great with msft hardware

Surface better with EDGE browser

MSFT's ad business may be just sheer volume based, in basic age and category slices

Microsoft Surface Laptop Teardown - iFixit

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 26 Aug 2018 14:32

Alright, the Surface Book is out of the box and on our chopping block teardown table. Here's what we're looking to find today:

13.5'' IPS PixelSense' Display with 2256 1504 resolution (201 PPI)

Intel Kaby Lake Core i5 (3M Cache, up to 3.10 GHz) or Core i7 (4M Cache, 4.00 GHz) CPU

4 GB/8 GB/16 GB RAM

128 GB/256 GB/512 GB PCIe SSD storage

720p front-facing camera with Windows Hello sign-in

USB 3.0 port, Mini DisplayPort, and SurfaceConnect charging port

802.11ac Wi-Fi wireless networking, IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n compatible, Bluetooth Wireless 4.0 technology

Before we delve into (presumably) another repair nightmare, let's get the lay of the land with some sweet X-rays.

Thanks, Creative Electron!

Looks like we're gonna see a lot of battery, a fan, and a beefy heat sink.

Plus, a lot of shielding. This thing already looks scary.

All the usual regulatory markings are hiding out on the lower case alongside the model number: 1769.

We stack it up (literally) against a MacBook Air to play a game of spot the differences...

... But apart from the layout, there's not a ton. Both sport a headphone jack, proprietary charging port, Mini DisplayPort connector, and at least one USB 3.0 port.

Connectivity differences include: an SDXC card reader and a second USB port in the Air.

We take a peek under the suspicious rubber footpads, but find metal feet instead of the screws we were hoping for.

Looks like we have to peel up that (dubiously luxurious) Alcantara after all.

Jimmy in hand, we start popping clips and peeling adhesive. Already, this doesn't feel like it's going back together.

We try to remove the fabric cover, but the going gets a lot tougher south of the keyboard. What's going on here?

We have to pull out the big guns knife now, to cut off the rest of the pelt. Layered underneath we find a metal shield, the meat in our Surface sandwich.

With more adhesive and plastic bits holding the shield from beneath, we fire up the iOpener and get back to popping.

Now that we've got a clear look at the plastic, it seems these aren't reusable clips at all, but weak ultrasonic spot welds that we've been busting through. This is definitely not going back together without a roll of duct tape.

With the keyboard plate finally wrested free of its sticky and plastic-y jailers, we're at least pleased by the long cable connecting it to the body.

Our pleasure is short-lived. The connector is trapped under a clip-on shield on the motherboard, complicating its removal.

This is surprisingly not that uncommon with recent Surface devices.

With the keyboard out, we begin the search for the trackpad. Presumably it's in here somewhere, let's follow that cable trail!

The trackpad is trapped under tape and a metal shield, but it's nothing we haven't handled before.

We take a moment to check the silicon before releasing this trackpad into the wild:

NXP/Freescale MK22FN512 Kinetis K22-120 MHz ARM Cortex-M4 Core MCU

Synaptics S9101B touch controller (as seen in the Surface Book)

We look around for a battery connector to dispatch, but it's nowhere to be seen. Looks like we're doing this live! Time to start pulling out parts!

First up, speakers. What is there to say about speakers? They look like they're pretty good at speaking.

Like in the Surface Pro 4, they are not exactly symmetrical. Just like in the Surface Book, there are two of them.

At first glance, these white dots appear to be water damage indicators. Upon closer inspection, they're actually port covers to contain damping foam, increasing the speakers' bass response.

We are unsurprised to find an antenna nestled behind the plastic RF passthrough on the side of the case.

Turning back to the motherboard, all of the fun bits are hidden under shields packed with thermal pads. Looks like a lot of things get warm in here.

We'll have to just take the heat, because this heat sink is next. Out it comes, and its little fan, too.

Stop. Motherboard time!

Intel SR368 Core i7-7660U CPU

SK Hynix H9CCNNNBJTAL LPDDR3 RAM

Toshiba THNSND256GTYA 256 GB SSD

Marvell Avastar 88W8897 WLAN/BT/NFC SoC

Microsoft X904169 (x3) and X904163 display driver ICs

Nuvoton NPCT650SBBWX TPM IC

Freescale/NXP M22J9VDC Kinetis K22F 512KB 120 MHz ARM Cortex-M4 Based MCU

That's right folks, ten steps in and the battery is finally disconnected!

The Laptop packs a 45.2 Wh battery, roughly the same capacity as the latest Surface Pro (45 Wh), and more than both iPad Pro 10.5" (31 wh) and latest MacBook Retina 41 Wh).

Also visible in the rear case, a secondary heat pipe stuck to the rear case, helping dissipate heat from both sides of the motherboard.

The modular headphone jack, not charged with any crime, is free to go, contacts and all.

No Surface product is complete without a hinge, but these feel a little pedestrian compared to the other offerings. And with that, the display is unhinged.

The Surface Laptop is finally vanquished disassembled!

Verdict: The Surface Laptop is not a laptop. It's a glue-filled monstrosity. There is nothing about it that is upgradable or long-lasting, and it literally can't be opened without destroying it. (Show us the procedure, Microsoft, we'd love to be wrong.)

Here for your viewing pleasure: the parts that will never be whole again...

For more teardown below the Surface, check out the 2017 Surface Pro teardown!

Final Thoughts This laptop is not meant to be opened or repaired; you can't get inside without inflicting a lot of damage. The CPU, RAM, and onboard storage are soldered to the motherboard, making upgrades a no-go. The headphone jack, while modular, can only be accessed by removing the heat sink, fan, display, and motherboard. The battery is difficult and dangerous to replace, giving the device a limited lifespan. Repairability Score Repairability 0 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair)

Vegas Massacre

Feds Scramble after Las Vegas Shooter's Girlfriend Lists FBI as Place of Employment on Loan Application; 'She Might have Been an Asset' '' True PunditTrue Pundit

Link to Article

Archived Version

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 22:04

Featured Politics SecurityFeds Scramble after Las Vegas Shooter's Girlfriend Lists FBI as Place of Employment on Loan Application; 'She Might have Been an Asset'Marilou Danley, the girlfriend of Las Vegas mass shooter Stephen Paddock, worked for the FBI, according to credit application data the Australian national reported as part of a loan application.

That's the same Danley whose fingerprints were found on Paddock's horde of ammunition packed into unused rifle magazines.

Publicly available intelligence obtained from consumer credit reporting bureaus show Danley claimed the ''Federal Bureau of Investigation'' as her place of employment.

Interesting revelation.

When contacted Friday, one FBI source said the Bureau ''might have made payments to Danley but it is above my level,'' the source said referring to access to the FBI's confidential informant participant and payment records. The source said ''bosses are concerned'' with the new revelations about Danley's financial relationship with the FBI.

In FBI speak, Danley could have been a paid asset. And 'concerned' means folks are getting ready to cover their own butts if payments were made to Danley either before or after the massacre.

Perhaps FBI Director Christopher Wray can shed light on the matter.

Or Danley. If you can find her. It took the FBI days to locate her and interview her after the Mandalay Bay massacre.

Danley is an Australian national. She is not a U.S. citizen.

Of course this bombshell Intel is coming from FBI sources in the beltway, not the corrupt Las Vegas FBI field office headed by Aaron Rouse. The same FBI field office that has not been able to pinpoint a motive for the Oct. 1, 2017 massacre that killed 57 people.

Little wonder why the narrative doesn't fit the crime if the person whose fingerprints are on the ammunition also happens to be on your FBI payroll.

A YouTube video surfaced Thursday highlighting a database search with Danley's apparent employment link to the FBI as reported by database giant Intelius as well.

Perhaps a member of Congress can investigate. Who else can we call?

The FBI?

This story is developing.

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Oh Elon!

Move over, Musk: Kalashnikov unveils 'electric supercar'

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Thu, 23 Aug 2018 23:06

Moscow (AFP) - Russian arms maker Kalashnikov on Thursday presented its new electric car inspired by a rare 1970s model, saying the new technology will rival Elon Musk's Tesla.

The brand, best known for the AK-47 machine gun, presented the decidedly retro-looking pale blue prototype, the CV-1, at a defense expo outside Moscow.

The look was inspired by a Soviet hatchback model developed in the 1970s called "Izh-Kombi," a statement on the Kalashnikov website said.

Holding company Kalashnikov Concern said it has developed some cutting-edge elements for the "electric supercar", including a "revolutionary" inverter. The vehicle can travel 350 kilometres on one charge.

"We are developing our own concept of an electric supercar, which is based on several original systems developed by the concern," the firm said.

"This technology will let us stand in the ranks of global electric car producers such as Tesla and be their competitor," RIA-Novosti further quoted the Kalashnikov press-service as saying.

"We were inspired by the experience of global market leaders in developing our concept."

Kalashnikov Concern has long been trying to expand its brand, recently launching lines of clothing and other civilian merchandise ranging from umbrellas to mobile phone covers.

Its foray into electric vehicles however was met with mixed reactions from Russians. Comments to the news on the company's official Facebook page ranged from "cyberpunk" to "Izh-Zombie".

"Your tanks are great, but it would be better if you stayed away from cars," one user wrote.

Earlier this week, online users ridiculed Kalashnikov's new bipedal combat robot. The golden-colour machine, reportedly named "Igorek" in production stages, immediately became a subject of social media memes.

"Somebody had watched too much 'Robocop'," tweeted user happy__keanu, referring to the 1987 action film about a cyborg law enforcer.

Related Video: A Look at Elon Musk's Most 'Painful' Year Yet

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Syria

Leugens over de Witte Helmen | Willy Van Damme's Weblog

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Thu, 23 Aug 2018 23:15

Met aandacht het gesprek gelezen met Raed al-Saleh van de zogenaamde Syrische Witte Helmen (Als je mensen redt, heb je geen tijd voor angst, Knack 22 augustus). Men stelt daarbij Raed al Salah voor als de baas van die groep maar in feite is dat James Le Mesurier.

De Witte Helmen is immers een onderdeel, in wezen zelfs het enige, van de Nederlandse Stichting Mayday Rescue Foundation, De Cuserstraat 93 te Amsterdam en hiervan is Le Mesurier de enige directeur. Deze stichting werkt volgens haar website uitsluitend met gelden van Denemarken, Duitsland, Nederland en het Verenigd Koninkrijk.

James Le Mesurier was een hogere officier binnen het Britse leger en werkte o.m. voor de Britse militaire veiligheid in het vroegere Joegoslavi. De man ging nadien aan de slag bij private onderaannemers actief in de militaire sfeer zoals de Olive Group, nu een deel van de gekende private contractor Blackwater/Academi.

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James Le Mesurier, de echte baas van de Witte Helmen en een gewezen Brits militair inlichtingenofficier en private militaire contractor. Eigenaardig is dat volgens Bellingcat, de nepnieuwsverspreider, de Witte Helmen hen financieren. Waarna Bellingcat hun verhalen met zogenaamd eigen onderzoek nog eens weet te bevestigen. Van fraude gesproken.

Het is deze Le Mesurier die in maart 2013, ongetwijfeld in opdracht van derden, de Witte Helmen oprichtte met geld van de Britse regering en die daarvoor Raed al-Saleh aantrok. En aangezien de Syrische provincie Idlib grotendeels in handen is van al Qaeda kan de Witte Helmen zonder haar toestemming er niet werken. Zelfs rivaliserende jihadisten worden in Idlib door al Qaeda desnoods gedood.

Verder beweerde Raed al Saleh eerder dat er in de Syrische stad Douma dit jaar meer dan honderd doden gevallen waren bij een regeringsaanval met chemische wapens. Doden die tot heden ondanks meerdere onderzoeken door o.m. de Organisatie voor het Verbod op Chemische Wapens van de VN niet zijn gevonden. En hij wist naar hij stelde waar zijn mannen die doden begraven hadden.

Willy Van Damme

Lezersbrief naar Knack over het interview van Joanie de Rijke met Raed al Saleh. Volgens een publiek afgelegde verklaring vandaag van Brett McGurk, de Amerikaanse generaal verantwoordelijk voor de oorlog tegen Syri, is de provincie Idlib de grootste veilige zone voor al Qaeda sinds de aanslagen van II september 2001.

Met andere worden: Na Turkije laat nu ook de VS de jihadistische terreurgroepen ginds vallen als een baksteen. De smeekbeden van Raed al Saleh en zijn Witte Helmen vandaag in Knack halen dus niets uit. Maar dat is even verrassend als het opgaan van de zon morgenvroeg.

Clearances

Michael Hayden: Donald Trump Deserves the Respect Due Any U.S. President | National Review

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Sat, 25 Aug 2018 01:38

Former Director of National Intelligence Michael Hayden in Washington, D.C., August 22, 2018. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)Former CIA director Michael Hayden said in an interview released on Friday that President Trump should receive the respect every U.S. president is entitled to.

''I do think that the office and the occupant, the current occupant of the office, deserves the respect that is due [to] any American president,'' Hayden stated. ''Just in questions of style, I don't refer to the fellow down the street [Trump] with anything other than 'the president.' I never just use his last name without the title.''

Even so, Hayden expressed dismay with Trump's governing style, which he sees as a way for the president to further his personal and political needs.

''This is the most norm-busting president in the history of the United States. There are no norms that seem to bind him. None that he is not willing to cross or break for his personal, policy, or political needs of the moment,'' Hayden said. ''I think it's what frightens people like me.''

He added that officials should be careful not to take a page from the president's book by protesting him too outlandishly.

''We have got to be very, very careful because if we break our own norms in protesting the president's violation of norms, we're not making things better,'' he said.

The former CIA chief's comments come in the wake of Trump's decision to revoke the security clearance of another former CIA director, John Brennan, a move that sparked swift condemnation from a number of other ex-intelligence officials.

The White House cited Brennan's ''unfounded and outrageous statements, wild outbursts on the internet and television about this administration'' and his ''erratic conduct and behavior'' as the basis for the decision. Brennan responded with defiance, calling the move an ''abuse of power.''

''This action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech and punish critics,'' Brennan said. ''My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent.''

Earlier this week, Hayden said he would be ''honored'' to have his security clearance stripped as well.

''Frankly, if his not revoking my clearance gave the impression that I somehow moved my commentary in a direction more acceptable to the White House, I would find that very disappointing and frankly unacceptable,'' he said.

The White House is considering stripping security clearances from more current and former officials, including Hayden, former FBI director James Comey, former director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former deputy attorney general Sally Yates, former national-security adviser Susan Rice, former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and Justice Department staffer Bruce Ohr.

IN THE NEWS: '[WATCH] U.S. '' Russian Sanctions Go Into Effect Monday'

25 for 45

Omarosa: I'm ready to testify at Trump impeachment trial | TheHill

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Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:08

Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman Omarosa Onee Manigault NewmanSales of Omarosa book surged after Trump attacks Jimmy Kimmel: 'There's clearly something wrong' with Omarosa The Memo: Team Trump fights back MORE said she is ready ''anytime, anyplace'' to appear as a witness against President Trump Donald John TrumpAustralian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull ousted by party rivals CNN's Cuomo clashes with Kellyanne Conway over Cohen hush-money payments Lawmaker who pushed to impeach Nixon: Trump 'systematically' abusing power MORE , including a potential Senate impeachment trial.

''I have the truth on my side as well as a hundred emails and documents and other things,'' said Newman in an interview with the Yahoo News podcast ''Skullduggery'' released Friday, claiming she can testify about her knowledge of Russian ties to Trump's campaign.

Manigault Newman said that congressional committees have not yet reached out to her seeking testimony regarding information relevant to lawmaker probes into election interference and potential collusion with the Trump campaign.

Earlier this month she said that she met with special counsel Robert Mueller Robert Swan MuellerSasse: US should applaud choice of Mueller to lead Russia probe MORE and would be willing to speak with him again.

Calls for Trump's removal have renewed this week after his former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to charges including a campaign finance violation, implicating the president in the process.

Manigault Newman told the Yahoo News podcast that she still talks to Cohen frequently.

''Michael Cohen and I are still close,'' she said on Wednesday, when Cohen appeared in court. ''I talked to him today and I wanted him to know and reassure him that his friends are still his friends. We still have his back.''

Trump has been lashing out at Cohen in the days since his former lawyer accepted a plea bargain for eight counts related to bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance law violations.

"If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen!" Trump tweeted on Wednesday.

If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen!

'-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2018Manigault Newman said on the podcast that she was ''very upset'' about Trump's tweet.

''Why kick a man while he's down, you know? This man is facing jail time, he has a family, he has a beautiful wife. His daughter was my intern at the White House,'' Manigault Newman said. She previously served as the director of communications for the White House's Office of Public Liaison.

''He would not be paying off porn stars if Donald Trump had not slept with them and had these illicit relationships with them and if Donald Trump had not directed him to pay these women off,'' she continued, referring to the payments Cohen made to women alleging affairs with Trump.

Cohen did not refer to Trump by name during his court proceedings but told a judge that he made two six-figure payments to women '-- adult film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal '-- at the direction of a candidate for federal office.

Manigault Newman has been on a media blitz surrounding her new tell-all memoir, ''Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House,'' which hit No. 1 on The New York best seller list this week.

Opinion | Stormy Daniels, Feminist Hero - The New York Times

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Sat, 25 Aug 2018 01:46

For once we're listening to a woman who refuses to wear either a scarlet letter or a superwoman's cape.

By Jill Filipovic

Ms. Filipovic is the author of ''The H Spot: The feminist Pursuit of Happiness.''

Aug. 24, 2018 Image Stormy Daniels signed autographs at an adult entertainment store in West Hollywood, California in May. Credit Credit Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images Let's take a moment for Stormy Daniels.

On Tuesday, Michael D. Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, charges stemming from payments he made to two women, one of them Ms. Daniels, with whom Donald Trump is said to have had an affair. Mr. Cohen, a former lawyer for Mr. Trump, says he made the payments at the direction of the president, in an effort to influence the 2016 election.

It's an extraordinary admission, and an extraordinary political moment '-- not just because of what it means for Mr. Trump. It marks an unanticipated feminist turning point. Ms. Daniels is an adult film star and, like the president, an unapologetic self-promoter. Hers is not a female archetype that has historically garnered much respect, trust or sympathy. Yet here she is, an imperfect, entirely self-possessed woman telling her story with clarity and without shame. And here we are, actually listening to her.

Mr. Trump's own incompetence, inexperience and misogyny didn't stop his ascent to the White House; neither could a woman who spent her life cultivating capability, expertise and political pedigree. The usual rules don't seem to apply to Mr. Trump. And under the usual rules, a woman who so thoroughly breaks norms of female decorum and political propriety would be shamed into silence.

Which is why there is so much power in the fact that Ms. Daniels does not believe her job or her involvement with Mr. Trump or the payoff is her shame to carry. She wants him held accountable, and the justice system is actually stepping in. She is refusing to slink away, despite being paid to do exactly that in a pattern we've seen too many times from influential men seeking to maintain their dominance and avoid responsibility.

Ms. Daniels is a sex worker, making her the kind of ''bad woman,'' scorned for her work, who is not often believed when she indicts a powerful man.

This is what Mr. Trump's protectors are banking on. Ms. Daniels' lack of shame about her line of work has led to a right-wing escalation, with conservative media outlets hounding her as a ''prostitute'' once they realized she would meet ''porn star'' with a shrug. Rudy Giuliani, one of Mr. Trump's lawyers, said in June that although he respects ''all human beings,'' Ms. Daniels is apparently one exception: ''I don't respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman, or a woman of substance, or a woman who has great respect for herself as a woman, and as a person,'' he said. ''And isn't going to sell her body for sexual exploitation. So, Stormy, you want to bring a case? Let me cross-examine you.''

The threat is that Mr. Giuliani would do to Ms. Daniels what lawyers have done for centuries to imperfect women (and in particular, rape victims): Humiliate them on the witness stand by suggesting their sexual histories render their testimony unreliable and their credibility questionable.

Mr. Giuliani contrasted Ms. Daniels with the three ''beautiful women, classy women, women of great substance'' who Mr. Trump has married, perfectly encapsulating the profoundly misogynist virgin/whore dichotomy imposed on women, where we can be only perfectly good or entirely bad. A woman who behaved like the thrice-married and affair-prone Mr. Trump '-- going on the radio to brag about her promiscuity, leaking sordid details about her sex life to the tabloids '-- would be unlikely to fall in the ''virgin'' category. But men don't have to navigate these poles at all.

It would be hard to invent two people who better encompass one of the longest-standing sexist double standards than Ms. Daniels and Mr. Trump. But Ms. Daniels also undercuts liberal impulses to turn her into an oversimplified feminist hero. She is a vastly imperfect person by any standard, at times brave and at times venal, obviously admirable and obviously self-interested. These complications, of course, exist in most human beings. But most human beings could not survive the scrutiny she is under, nor so deftly dodge efforts at simplistic caricature. What's incredible is to see Ms. Daniels embody so many human extremes '-- so much boldness, so many flaws, and so many taboos broken '-- and to see her story nonetheless believed and acted upon.

Mr. Trump has built his image on gold-plated decadence and acts of dominance and degradation; in a sexist society, money and power continue to be the blunt masculine equivalents of the more enigmatic female sex appeal (which itself is largely measured and rewarded by men). There's little cost to men flaunting their wealth as extravagantly as Mr. Trump has.

But for women, there is a significant cost to advertising sexual availability and expecting dollars be handed directly over. Women who monetize their attractiveness through conventional acting or modeling, like Mr. Trump's wives, may be seen as less deserving of their resources than a man who was, like Mr. Trump, born rich, but they are generally in the clear. Younger, beautiful women who marry rich men might be princesses (''beautiful women, classy women,'' per Mr. Giuliani), trophy wives or gold-diggers (''the calculating woman who refuses to sign the prenuptial agreement because she is expecting to take advantage of the poor, unsuspecting sucker she's got in her grasp,'' as Mr. Trump put it in ''Trump: The Art of the Comeback'').

Women who have affairs with married men, whether those women are Ms. Daniels or Mr. Trump's second wife, are held more culpable as seductresses than the men who, like Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani, actually broke their vows. But it's women who cross the line from looking sexy for pay to having sex for pay, like Ms. Daniels, who face the most judgment. The men who pay for it, or pay to watch it, are generally unremarkable.

We are far from transcending the pervasive assumption that a woman's sexual decisions are decisive of her character and her integrity. In many swaths of the country, Ms. Daniels continues to be written off as a pole-dancing Hester Prynne '-- a woman not to be trusted.

But the country is also watching her dogged refusal to be quiet and her unflagging insistence that she isn't the one who should be embarrassed. We're seeing a woman who refuses to wear either a scarlet letter or a superwoman cape, and she stands in sharp contrast to a self-aggrandizing president who may face serious consequences once this all unspools. The potential triumph of a deeply imperfect woman over a powerful man won't exactly break a glass ceiling. But it could put a little crack in a stereotype just as tough to shatter.

Jill Filipovic is the author of ''The H Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness'' and a contributing opinion writer.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

Aiding And Abetting | Definition of Aiding And Abetting by Merriam-Webster

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 12:58

formal

: helping and encouraging She is charged with aiding and abetting the thief in his getaway. Word by Word Definitions : to provide with what is useful or necessary in achieving an end

: to give assistance

: the act of helping someone

: help given : assistance

: aide

: to actively second and encourage (something, such as an activity or plan)

: to assist or support (someone) in the achievement of a purpose

Seen and HeardWhat made you want to look up aiding and abetting? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).

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Merriam-Webster unabridged

Enemy of the United States Law and Legal Definition | USLegal, Inc.

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 12:58

According to 50 USCS § 2204 [Title 50. War and National Defense; Chapter 39. Spoils of War], enemy of the United States means any country, government, group, or person that has been engaged in hostilities, whether or not lawfully authorized, with the United States;

(3) the term "person" means

(A) any natural person;

(B) any corporation, partnership, or other legal entity; and

Aid and Comfort Law and Legal Definition | USLegal, Inc.

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 12:57

Aid and comfort refers to help given by someone to a national enemy in such a way that the help amounts to treason.

Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution declares, that adhering to the enemies of the United States, giving them aid and comfort, shall be treason. Any act that deliberately strengthens or tends to strengthen enemies of United States or that weakens or tends to weaken the power of United States to resist and attack such enemies is characterized as aid and comfort.

Aid and comfort may consist of substantial assistance or the mere attempt to provide some support. Actual help or the success of the enterprise is not relevant.

U.S. Constitution - Article 3 Section 3 - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 12:56

Article 3 - The Judicial BranchSection 3 - Treason<<Back| Table of Contents |Next>>

Treason against the United States, shallconsist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies,giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of twoWitnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except duringthe Life of the Person attainted.

Notes for this section:Note

<<Back| Table of Contents |Next>>

URL: //www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A3Sec3.html

Treason | Definition of Treason by Merriam-Webster

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 12:55

Anglo-French treison crime of violence against a person to whom allegiance is owed, literally, betrayal, from Old French tra¯son, from tra¯r to betray, from Latin tradere to hand over, surrender

Shut Up Slave!

Amazon Employees Tweet Happiness from Fulfillment Centers - Slog - The Stranger

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 14:47

What the workers at the Happiness Center might look like... alvarez/gettyimages.com Seattle Times reports that a "group of more than a dozen Amazon Twitter users in the last two weeks started responding to critics of the company on the social media site." Their job is to counter negative tweets with ones about the wholesome wonderfulness of life in town-sized warehouses called Fulfillment Centers. These workers are "identified by first names and 'Amazon FC Ambassador.'" Each of these Amazon social media ambassadors "opened a Twitter account this month." Their message comes down to this: Amazon is not exploiting their workers because the workers are not sad and screwed but happy to work for the e-commerce giant whose CEO has more money than there are stars in the sky. In mere seconds, he makes more money than the average employee in a warehouse makes in a year. The ambassadors are even positive about the astronomical difference between themselves and their boss. ''As an amazon employee," tweeted Sean, "I leave my shift stress free knowing I completed a hard days work. The company that brings him wealth is still able to treat me and my coworkers with respect and provide us great wages and benefits'...'' In short: What more does an American worker want out of life?

amazon literally has bot accounts that follow the same strict format now. dystopian[Name] - Amazon FC Ambassador ð'... @AmazonFC[Name]

[Role] @ [Amazon location]. [X] year Amazonian. [Hobby], [Hobby], and [Hobby]. Following: 0 Registered in August 2018 pic.twitter.com/N66pfPZ8eR'-- Vanson (@slutaburger) August 24, 2018

But what is wrong with this super-positive social media campaign? Why does it make a depressing situation appear to be even more depressing? Because its purpose is to rob the worker of a happiness that might be their own. Happiness cannot just be outside of work, or when you clock out. The boss also wants that, too. This doesn't mean all work needs to be bad or soul-sucking, but at least you must be free to decide what does and doesn't make you happy. And often, it is not the job, which for most is nothing more than a means to get things you need or desire. This understanding is not subversive. The struggle for higher wages and better benefits is based entirely on it. The purpose of a company is not to make workers happy, but to make a profit. And wages take a big bite out of profits.So, why does the boss want the happiness of workers? French economist and philosopher Fr(C)d(C)ric Lordon's book Willing Slaves of Capital has the answer. It goes something like this: In the old days, workers knew that their time at work was not theirs but bought/owned by the company. Their time was off the clock. And so there was this tension between work and the outside. In the latter, you could be you; in the former, you weren't you. But around the 1970s, there was a massive structural change in the economy, and as a consequence, a transformation of labor/management relations. Unions went into decline, managers became committed not to the companies they ran but to their shareholders, and workers were atomized. Attached to this atomization (or individualization), were the ideas of a school, based at University of Chicago, that replaced "class consciousness" (inside/outside) with a subjectivity that measured all aspects of life in entrepreneurial terms. Drinking, driving, working, stealing, sleeping, fucking, or raising children could be seen as situations that had clear economic outcomes. Gary Becker, the father of human capital, was the leader in this kind of thinking.

These ideas constructed a subject who wasn't really going to work but instead taking advantage of a business opportunity in the market. A he or she was now in competition with other enterprises for available ventures. In this way, the only boss could be you. As Lordon points out, this radical restructuring of the life-world of capitalism resulted in an alignment of the interests of all, from top to bottom, in an enterprise. The entrepreneurial subject had to be happy, in the way his or her boss, also an entrepreneur, was happy. This erased the line between the outside and inside. Home was also inside. The bedroom was inside. For homo economicus, happiness was as much at the desk or counter or factory or boardroom as the bar or cafe or country club or sofa in the living room.

But none of this is new. It's very old. "Making the dominated happy so that they forget their domination is one of the oldest and most effective ruses of the art of ruling," writes Lordon. But as a cultural mode, this form of domination (which claims not only your time but also happiness, and eliminates class issues like higher wages and social benefits'--what usually makes workers happy), was achieved in the past 40 years.

Later, he writes:

Neoliberal... assumes the specific task of producing on a large scale desires that did not previously exist, or that existed only in a minority of capitalist enclaves: desires for happy labour, or, to borrow directly from its own vocabulary, desires for 'fulfilment' and 'self-realisation' in and through work. And the fact is that, at least instrumentally, it gets it right. Intrinsically sad or extrinsically joyful, the affects-desires that capitalism was proposing to its enlistees fell short of taking away the sting of the idea that 'real life is elsewhere.'

Exactly. This is the source of this kind of sadness. The ontology of Amazon's happiness campaign is the removal of the hope that "real life is elsewhere." It is in the warehouse. It is a Fulfillment Center.

Mockingbird - Bernstein

Investigative Classics: Carl Bernstein on Journalists Working for the CIA, 1977 | RealClearInvestigations

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 13:43

Investigative Classics is a weekly feature on noteworthy past examples of the reporting craft. President Trump's decision to remove the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan highlights a startling new trend '' the decision by former spies like Brennan, who works for NBC, to come in from the cold and express their views publicly as paid media consultants.

It also shines a light on an all but forgotten piece of the history of journalism '' the fact it was once common for reporters to be working for the nation's intelligence services.

Fresh off his triumphant coverage of Watergate with Bob Woodward in the Washington Post, Carl Bernstein explored this practice in 1977 in a 25,000-word investigative article for Rolling Stone. Here's his opening:

Carl Bernstein, left, with Bob Woodward in 1973. Top photo: CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

AP Photo

Top credit: Carol M. Highsmith/LIbrary of Congress/Wikimedia

In 1953, Joseph Alsop, then one of America's leading syndicated columnists, went to the Philippines to cover an election. He did not go because he was asked to do so by his syndicate. He did not go because he was asked to do so by the newspapers that printed his column. He went at the request of the CIA.

Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty-five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. Some of these journalists' relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services'--from simple intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors-without-portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested in the derring-do of the spy business as in filing articles; and, the smallest category, full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America's leading news organizations.

Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times.

Wikipedia

The history of the CIA's involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception for the following principal reasons:

' The use of journalists has been among the most productive means of intelligence gathering employed by the CIA. Although the Agency has cut back sharply on the use of reporters since 1973 (primarily as a result of pressure from the media), some journalist operatives are still posted abroad.

' Further investigation into the matter, CIA officials say, would inevitably reveal a series of embarrassing relationships in the 1950s and 1960s with some of the most powerful organizations and individuals in American journalism.

William S. Paley of CBS.

Harris & Ewing/Library of Congress/ Wikimedia

Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier-Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald-Tribune.

By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.

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SCOTUS

Kavanaugh argued that a president can be impeached for lies, cover-ups and refusing to testify

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Sat, 25 Aug 2018 04:52

The young attorney decided the president deserved to be forced from office for ''his pattern of revolting behavior'' and the ''sheer number of his wrongful acts.''

''The president has disgraced his office.'... He has lied to his aides. He has lied to the American people,'' Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a 1998 memo to his colleagues. ''I'm strongly opposed to giving [him] any 'break' '... unless he either resigns or '... issues a public apology.''

Kavanaugh, a fast-rising Republican legal star, then 33, went back to work on a 132-page memo to his boss, independent counsel Kenneth Starr, that outlined the grounds for impeaching President Clinton.

It was 20 years ago this month that Kavanaugh, President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, set out his broad view of obstruction of justice and of what constitutes an impeachable offense, arguing the president could be removed from office even for a rarely charged crime '-- in this case, lying under oath in a civil deposition, to deny a sexual affair with a 22-year-old White House intern. By repeating false stories for months, lying to the public and his aides, trying to cover up the affair with Monica Lewinsky and helping her find a job in New York, the president, Kavanaugh argued, engaged in ''a conspiracy to obstruct justice.''

Now as Kavanaugh prepares to go before the Senate on Sept. 4 for his confirmation hearing, there is again talk of impeachment in Washington.

This week, President Trump was implicated in a scheme to pay hush money shortly before the 2016 election to two women to cover up sexual affairs. His own former attorney, Michael Cohen, has pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws and accused Trump of directing him to make the payments. Trump has publicly denied the women's claims and denied knowing about the secret payments in advance, though he can be heard on tape discussing how to make them.

Trump is also under investigation by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III for possible collusion between his campaign and Russia, and obstruction of justice in trying to hinder that probe.

''The Kavanaugh argument in the Starr Report is highly relevant now,'' says New York lawyer David R. Lurie, because it portrayed a president's false statements and public denials as reflecting a pattern of obstructing justice. If investigators ''wanted a template for charging the president with acts of obstruction meriting impeachment, they could do worse than using sections of the Starr Report drafted by Kavanaugh,'' Lurie said.

The Constitution says the president can be impeached for ''treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors.'' While scholars disagree on how to define an offense that warrants impeachment, most maintain it involves a significant abuse of power by the president.

In 1974, President Nixon faced impeachment for obstruction of justice for arranging to pay hush money to the burglars who broke into the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee, and for intervening with the CIA and the FBI to thwart the investigation.

Starr's investigators did not have evidence that Clinton used the machinery of the U.S. government to cover up his crimes as Nixon did. They did, however, have evidence he had lied when questioned under oath by lawyers for Paula Jones, who had sued him for sexual harassment.

Critics of President Trump say he could be vulnerable to obstruction of justice charges for firing FBI Director James B. Comey over the Russia probe and for drafting a misleading statement about a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign. Mueller has not alleged any legal wrongdoing by the president. Trump has repeatedly denied that his campaign coordinated with Russia's covert effort to defeat Hillary Clinton.

If confirmed to the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh would not likely face the question of what warrants impeachment. That is a question for Congress. But some legal experts say the Starr Report's roadmap could influence a future congressional debate if Trump faces impeachment.

''If the president's telling a false story to the public or to his secretary is an impeachable offense, how is that different from the president tweeting a false story? It could be a signal to witnesses,'' said University of Chicago law professor Daniel Hemel. ''You can imagine [Senate Minority Leader Charles E.] Schumer turning to the Republicans and saying, 'We should rely on the Kavanaugh argument for impeachment.' Of course, [Kavanaugh] won't have a vote, but if there is an impeachment, Kavanaugh would be looming in the background.''

In 1994, after Kavanaugh finished a one-year clerkship at the Supreme Court, Starr recruited him to join his investigation of Clinton and the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas. He spent three years re-investigating the suicide of White House deputy counsel Vince Foster. Conspiracy theorists had alleged Foster may have been murdered to cover-up Bill and Hillary Clinton's role in Whitewater. Kavanaugh and Starr's staff concluded his death was indeed a suicide.

Kavanaugh briefly left the counsel's staff, but returned in the spring of 1998 as the prospect of impeachment loomed. For the first time in his career, he would play a major role in a high-stakes constitutional clash.

Kavanaugh voiced disgust with Clinton and said he found his behavior ''abhorrent.'' The day before the president was set to testify before the grand jury, Kavanaugh urged his colleagues to ask the president highly explicit questions about sex acts to prove he had lied in the earlier deposition.

''It may not be our job to impose sanctions on him, but it is our job to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear '-- piece by painful piece '-- on Monday,'' he wrote in a memo released this week by the National Archives.

Clinton had continued to deny his affair with Lewinsky, in public and in private. Kavanaugh argued that the president's repeated false statements amounted to obstruction of justice and witness tampering because his statements could influence the grand jury. He cited Clinton's refusal to testify for seven months as grounds for impeachment, even after the president had changed his position and testified.

Andrew D. Leipold, a University of Illinois law professor who worked on the Starr Report, said that while Kavanaugh drafted the impeachment articles, ''everyone knew this was a report that reflected the views of the office and ultimately of Ken Starr.''

Clinton's defenders and most Democrats questioned whether the president's lies and cover-up amounted to a ''high crime'' warranting impeachment.

Leipold said the final decision rested with Congress. ''Was the referral aggressive in setting forth the grounds for impeachment? Some people say yes,'' Leipold said. ''I won't say everything was right, but I think we set forth truthful allegations. And what constitutes a 'high crime' is a political question for Congress.''

Critics alleged Starr's investigation was driven by partisan politics. ''They were political warriors and Federalist Society true believers,'' said Nelson W. Cunningham, a former federal prosecutor and a White House lawyer under Clinton. ''Starr had not been a prosecutor, and Kavanaugh had no credentials as a prosecutor or investigator. They were on a mission to bring down the president. No ordinary citizen would be charged for lying in a civil deposition denying an affair.''

In the November election, Democrats surprised political analysts by winning five seats, prompting House Speaker Newt Gingrich to resign. But the Republicans opted to press forward in December and rejected calls to pursue a less aggressive path by censuring Clinton instead. On a largely party-line vote, the House approved impeaching Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice.

A conviction required a two-thirds vote in the Senate, and to no one's surprise, the president was acquitted in February 1999. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), now the majority leader, and then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), now the attorney general, were among the Republicans who voted to remove Clinton for obstructing justice.

In his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee next month, Kavanaugh will face several other veteran lawmakers who played roles in the Clinton impeachment drama. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was one of the House members who argued for ousting the president, and Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) voted for conviction.

Schumer fought the charges as a member of the House. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) were among the Democrats who voted to acquit the president.

Bill Clinton Got His Supreme Court Pick While Under Investigation. Trump Should Get His. | The Heritage Foundation

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Back in July, some Senate Democrats started demanding that the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh be delayed until after the Mueller investigation is finished.

None of them, however, explained the connection between the two.

Now, after Michael Cohen's guilty plea and Paul Manafort's conviction stemming from the Mueller investigation, they are at it again. They make no more sense today than they did a month ago, especially given that some of those senators have openly opposed Kavanaugh from the get-go.

As I wrote in July, President Bill Clinton was under criminal investigation in 1993 when he nominated Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Senate voted 96-3 to confirm her nomination just 42 days later.

A year later, Clinton was actually under subpoena when he nominated Justice Stephen Breyer. The Senate voted 87-9 to confirm his nomination and no Democrat feigned concern or suggested delaying the confirmation process.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said that the American Bar Association's rating is the ''gold standard'' for evaluating judicial nominees.

Eighty percent of Trump's nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals received a ''well qualified'' rating from the ABA'--a higher percentage than any of the previous five presidents of both parties. Yet most Democrats voted against more than three-quarters of those nominees.

Let's be honest, these Senate Democrats oppose Trump's every policy, nomination, decision, thought, word, and deed. So does it surprise anyone that senators who are unalterably opposed to the president and to his judicial nominees would scrounge around for some way to interfere with the Kavanaugh confirmation process?

Schumer said in 2009 that a nominee's judicial record is the best way to evaluate a nominee. Yet most Senate Democrats refuse to look at the 700 opinions that Kavanaugh wrote or joined over a dozen years on the U.S. Court of Appeals.

So does it surprise anyone that senators who aren't even pretending to examine this nominee's record or evaluate his qualifications would grasp at straws to disrupt the confirmation process?

The time between Kavanaugh's nomination and hearing will be 25 percent longer than the last several Supreme Court nominees. The Judiciary Committee has made public hundreds of thousands of pages of documents relating to Kavanaugh's executive branch service.

Yet Senate Democrats insist on seeing emails from hundreds of George W. Bush administration staffers with whom Kavanaugh did not work, about matters for which Kavanaugh was not responsible.

So does it surprise anyone that senators'--many of whom announced opposition to Trump's nominee before they even knew who it was'--would make fake ''arguments'' that serve only to degrade the confirmation process even further?

No, none of this surprises anyone.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal

Mid Term Elections

Democrats Voted To Strip Power From Superdelegates

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 14:09

Democrats voted Saturday to drastically scale back the controversial superdelegate system that gives elected officials and party insiders an outsize say in the party's presidential nominating process, delivering a significant victory for Bernie Sanders and his supporters ahead of 2020.

The vote, held at the Democratic National Committee's annual summer meeting here in Chicago, brings a laborious two-year process to its conclusion, with party members agreeing on a set of sweeping changes to superdelegates, caucuses, primaries, and other rules.

Under the new system for choosing a Democratic nominee, in the first round of voting at the national convention, superdelegates will no longer be entitled to their own delegate to award to the candidate of their choosing. Around 700 people had superdelegate status in 2016. In the case of a contested convention and second round of voting '-- a historically unlikely possibility '-- superdelegates would again be allowed to cast a delegate vote.

Superdelegates make up about 30% of the 2,382 delegates needed to clinch the party's nomination. They include 450 DNC members, Democratic elected officials, and ''distinguished'' party leaders like former presidents and vice presidents. Superdelegates were a major point of contention during the 2016 primary '-- with Sanders supporters arguing that the system unfairly favored Hillary Clinton.

Second to the superdelegate measure, the biggest change made on Saturday was a set of rules meant to make caucuses more fair and transparent: States that hold caucuses over primaries will be asked to offer same-day registration, publicly report the results of caucus voting, create a mechanism for absentee voting, and ensure that every caucus site is accessible to people with disabilities and English-language limitations.

Led by chair Tom Perez and a 12-person whip operation, DNC members backing the proposed changes worked through the four-day meeting here to ensure a wide margin of support. For Perez, a party chair who's stirred some unrest among DNC members since he entered the role early last year, Saturday's meeting came as something of a personal victory. A DNC official noted that he spent more than 100 hours making calls and taking meetings with party members to lock in their votes.

There was some opposition in Chicago to the changes. Not every DNC member '-- all of whom are superdelegates themselves '-- was eager to give up power in the nominating process. Others made the argument that women, people of color, and LGBT members of the party would be stripped of representation.

About a dozen or so Democrats met in the basement of the Hyatt Regency to discuss their problems with the proposals. On the door, a handmade sign encouraged Democrats to ''RESIST,'' showing the letters ''RBC,'' in reference to the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee, circled and crossed out.

At Saturday's meeting, former DNC chair Don Fowler argued that eliminating superdelegates would in particular ''disenfranchise'' some 200 black superdelegates, 100 Latino superdelegates, and dozens of LGBT superdelegates. From the back of the room, members of the audience responded by yelling, ''Lies!''

DNC Vice Chair of Civic Engagement and Voter Participation Karen Carter Peterson, along with other DNC members of color, also made a strong appeal against the changes. ''Are you telling me that I'm going to go to a convention '-- after my 30 years of blood, sweat, and tears for this party '-- that you're going to take away my right?''

Among those supporting the changes were both Sanders and Clinton allies, who wore ''Vote Yes to Our Future'' lapel stickers throughout this week's meeting.

More than two years ago, at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, the two rivals established the Unity Reform Commission '-- a 21-person group mandated to review the party's nominating process, scale back superdelegates, make caucuses more accessible, and encourage the use of primaries over caucuses when possible. The commission met eight times before kicking the process to the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee '-- which then spent more than 80 hours in its own meetings.

Before Saturday's vote, Howard Dean, a former DNC chair and governor of Vermont, encouraged members to vote yes to the changes, telling Democrats that as long as superdelegates held a delegate vote in the nominating process, young voters would not trust in the party or a fair primary process.

''Make no mistake: This is a perception that's cost us at the ballot box,'' he said in a taped video that played just before the vote.

Perez, the current DNC chair, followed closely behind. ''It's time to make history,'' he said. ''It's time to make a clear statement to people who share our values that we trust you.

''That's what this package of reforms will do.''

The four-hour process concluded with a voice vote after Fowler, one of the strongest opponents of the proposals, conceded the fight, moving to waive the requirement for recorded paper votes.

Kill The Boer

Waarom de witte boeren in Zuid-Afrika ineens op Trumps agenda staan - NRC

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Fri, 24 Aug 2018 14:01

Voor een president die sinds zijn aantreden aanzienlijk minder belangstelling toonde voor het Afrikaanse continent dan al zijn voorgangers, was de timing opmerkelijk. Donderdagochtend vroeg '' Zuid-Afrikaanse tijd '' twitterde president Donald Trump over 'het op grote schaal uitmoorden van boeren'' en 'het in beslag nemen van boerderijen en boerenland in Zuid-Afrika''. Hij zou zijn minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Mike Pompeo er met spoed naar laten kijken.

Volgen Waar kwamen die beschuldigingen ineens vandaan? De mythe van een 'witte genocide' op de witte boeren in Zuid-Afrika doet al jaren de ronde op extreemrechtse websites, zoals Stormfront. De beschuldigingen vinden ook een gewillig oor bij rechts-populistische partijen als de PVV in Nederland. De Australische minister Peter Dutton zei in maart dat de witte Zuid-Afrikaanse boeren 'speciale aandacht'' verdienen en zou kijken of ze recht hadden op een versneld visum, nadat Australische media over 'een enorme toename van geweld tegen boeren'' had bericht.

Die cijfers worden stellig tegengesproken door AgriSA, notabene een vakbond van witte boeren. Volgens cijfers die AgriSA in juni bekendmaakte is het aantal moorden op witte boeren in de afgelopen twintig jaar nog nooit zo laag geweest. Werden er in 1998 nog 153 boeren vermoord, vorig jaar was dat gemiddelde gehalveerd tot 74. Onder die slachtoffers waren niet alleen witte, ook zwarte boeren en zwarte knechten. Het Institute for Security Studies benadrukt dat de moorden op boeren slechts 0,3 procent uitmaken van de 19.000 moorden die vorig jaar werden gepleegd in Zuid-Afrika.

Volgens cijfers van een witte vakbond was het aantal moorden op witte boeren in de afgelopen 20 jaar nog nooit zo laag

Debat over landonteigeningWat betreft het in beslag nemen van boerderijen was Trumps tweet ook bezijden de waarheid. De Zuid-Afrikaanse president Ramaphosa maakte deze maand wel bekend dat hij de grondwet wil aanpassen die de onteigening van boerderijen zonder compensatie mogelijk moet maken. De regering is gefrustreerd over het feit dat 25 jaar na de apartheid nog ruim tweederde van het land in handen is van witte Zuid-Afrikanen, die minder dan 10 procent van de bevolking uitmaken.

President Ramaphosa benadrukte woensdag in het parlement dat hij t(C)gen nationalisatie van land is en dat onteigeningen alleen bij hoge uitzondering een instrument mogen zijn.

Dus hoe kwamen de Zuid-Afrikaanse boeren terecht op het bureau van Trump? Trump vermeldde zelf zijn primaire bron in zijn tweet: Fox News. Presentator Tucker Carlson had woensdagavond op Fox gesproken over 'het racisme'' van de Zuid-Afrikaanse president Cyril Ramaphosa die 'land wil afnemen van zijn eigen burgers zonder compensatie omdat ze de verkeerde huidskleur hebben''. De bron van die beschuldiging kwam in de uitzending aan het woord, Marian Tupy van het CATO Institute. 'In een vrije en beschaafde samenleving pakken wij geen dingen van mensen af, op basis van hun huidskleur.''

Lees meer over landonteigening in Zuid-Afrika: Kaapse landinvasie leidt tot raciale spanningen Actiegroep lobbyt in VSHet CATO Institute, een libertarische denktank in Washington, werd afgelopen mei bezocht door de Zuid-Afrikaanse boerenactiegroep AfriForum. Voorzitter Kallie Kriel en lid Ernst Roets bezochten toen een aantal leden van het Amerikaanse Congres en gingen ook op de foto met Trumps nationale veiligheidsadviseur John Bolton, die ze toevallig tegenkwamen. 'Ik denk zeker dat onze lobby een impact heeft gehad, omdat we met veel mensen hebben gesproken die contact hebben met president Trump en met veel denktanks, zoals het CATO-instituut'', verklaarde Roets donderdag. Roets publiceerde dit jaar een boek met de titel Kill the Boer, waarin hij schrijft over moorden op witte boeren.

Zijn actiegroep Afriforum ligt in Zuid-Afrika onder vuur omdat ze deze maand een lijst van 139 boerderijen bekendmaakte die door de regering onteigend zouden worden. De actiegroep moest daarna excuses aanbieden, omdat de lijst nepnieuws bleek te zijn. Voorzitter Kallie Kriel zei eerder in een radiointerview dat hij apartheid 'geen misdaad tegen de menselijkheid'' vond omdat geen sprake was geweest van massaslachtingen 'zoals tijdens de holocaust of onder het communisme''.

Felle kritiek vanuit Zuid-AfrikaAfriforum werd in mei ge¯nterviewd door dezelfde Tucker Carlson van Fox News die gisteren Zuid-Afrika in zijn uitzending besprak. Het Amerikaanse CATO-instituut dat in die uitzending aan het woord kwam, was tijdens de apartheid fel tegenstander van economische sancties tegen het apartheidsregime.

In Zuid-Afrika kreeg de lobby van Afriforum bij het CATO-instituut en Amerikaanse Congresleden felle kritiek. De rector van de Witwaterrand Universiteit, Adam Habib, noemde Kriel en Roets zelfs 'weerzinwekkende mensen''.

De tweet van Donald Trump werd donderdag met dezelfde weerzin ontvangen in Zuid-Afrika. De Zuid-Afrikaanse regering sprak in een reactie over een 'eenzijdig perspectief dat alleen is bedoeld ons land te verdelen en ons herinnert aan ons koloniaal verleden''.

SJWBLMLGBBTQQIAAPK

Professor to students: Drop class immediately if you're 'triggered' by opinions that offend you - The College Fix

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Thu, 23 Aug 2018 23:00

A professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, fed up with the push to protect college students from ideas they don't like or disagree with, has decided to take matters into his own hands, at least where his classroom is concerned.

Professor Duke Pesta has his students sign a contract at the beginning of class that asks them to ''please drop the class immediately'' if they are ''triggered'' by ideas that offend them.

Pesta, a conservative scholar who has taught at various colleges and universities for the last 25 years and is also host of The College Fix's Campus Roundup YouTube show, said his two-page contract is something he created a year-and-a-half ago to counter the trend of infantilizing college students when it comes to academic debate and the free exchange of ideas on campus.

''In this course, we study literature from cultures that existed before you were born. Their world is not our world. Their beliefs may not be our beliefs. No one asks you to believe or endorse any premise, attitude, precept, theology, political system, or ideology contained in these books or expressed in class. Nor will you ever lose points or be docked grades because of your opinion (written, oral, or otherwise),'' the contract's Statement of Purpose explains.

''We will not malign or trivialize these texts because they do not always parrot our values. We will not assume these books are racist, sexist, or homophobic because of the period in which they were written, or because of the race, class, gender, or religion of the authors,'' it continues.

''People who approach alien cultures with such preconceived notions are bigots masquerading as critically sophisticated advocates, often in the name of 'social justice.' Persons who so diminish the past are neither social nor just, especially when they compel students to adopt their biases.''

The contract goes on to list provisos students must agree to, including:

Please drop the class immediately if you are triggered by free speech, the free exchange of ideas, or people who express and defend ideas or opinions that differ from your own.

Please drop the class immediately if you are triggered by open, direct, and adult discussion of issues, including but not limited to issues of faith, war, violence, race, gender, and sexuality.

Please drop the class immediately if you are triggered by recurring encounters with heterosexuality, traditional gender identities, sympathetic representations of Christianity (or religion in general), positive examples of free markets or capitalism, or unapologetic encounters with patriotism, hierarchies, or meritocracy-based institutions or attitudes.

Please drop the class immediately if you feel entitled to censor the thoughts or words of others or insist they tailor their language or attitudes to your preferences.

Pesta, in an interview with The College Fix, said he's used this exact version of the contract for three semesters. Before that, he said he used a much less specific version for about eight years.

''I have learned through personal experience that university administrators and equity officers are often not willing to defend classroom speech, even if that speech is taken directly from books or used to explain them,'' said Pesta (pictured).

''Students are now keenly aware that they can put professors through an intrusive investigatory process just by complaining, even without any corroborating evidence. I have even had department heads who allow students to substitute required classes for other courses just because students complain about what they have 'heard' a professor's classes are like,'' Pesta added. ''My contract is an attempt to make it harder for these kangaroo court investigations to be launched in the first place.''

New research shows that trigger warnings may be harmful to students, and Pesta said he finds them ''appalling from an educational standpoint.''

''But I have come to realize that they may have more utility for professors than students,'' he said. ''It's one more way to try and indemnify yourself from malicious and unfounded complaints by driving away at the outset students who only want their own preconceived ideas validated.''

So far, students are willing to sign it.

''I've not encountered a student yet who would not sign,'' he said. ''I do tell them, when I pass it out the first day, that if they refuse to sign they will have to meet with me sometime during the first week of classes to discuss the contract and make sure we're on the same page.''

MORE: Professors who voiced conservative views reported to bias response team

MORE: Complaints filed with UMich Bias Response Team often target professors

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The Algos

Christie's to Make History With Sale of AI-Generated Art - Barron's

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 13:45

Aug. 24, 2018 10:41 a.m. ETLeonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent Van Gogh have fresh competition: an artificial intelligence algorithm.

Christie's is offering the unique opportunity to own an AI-generated portrait at an auction this October, and it's expected to sell for up to $10,000. The auction will take place in New York from Oct. 23 to Oct. 25 and is part of a Prints & Multiples collection, featuring other artwork and antiques.

Coined ''Generative Art,'' Christie's is auctioning a portrait of a fictionalized character called Edmond de Belamy; the character's surname is a French play on the surname Goodfellow, which translates to ''Belamy.''

Ian Goodfellow was the inventor of generative adversarial networks, also known as GAN, the type of AI used by Obvious, a Paris-based collective, to create the portrait of Belamy.

''This new technology allows us to experiment on the notion of creativity for a machine, and the parallel with the role of the artist in the creation process,'' Hugo Caselles-Dupr(C), a representative of Obvious, said in a news release. ''The approach invites the observer to consider and evaluate the similarities and distinctions between the mechanics within the human brain, such as the creative process, and the ones of an algorithm.''

GAN is comprised of two algorithmic components, a generator and a discriminator, which together are fed a data set of 15,000 portraits. The generator makes new images based on the set, while the discriminator reviews all outputs until it deems the result indistinguishable from handmade versions.

''AI has already been incorporated as a tool by contemporary artists and as this technology further develops, we are excited to participate in these continued conversations,'' says Richard Lloyd, international head of prints & multiples for Christie's. ''To best engage in the dialogue, we are offering a public platform to exhibit an artwork that has entirely been realized by an algorithm.''

Vaccine$

Flash - In US, HPV-related cancers on rise - France 24

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Fri, 24 Aug 2018 14:47

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Despite rising vaccination rates, cancers related to human papillomavirus, a common sexually transmitted infection, are on the rise in the United States, particularly cancers of the head, neck and throat, officials said Thursday.

In men, most of the increase was in head, neck and throat cancers, while in women, cases of HPV-related anal cancer rose, according to a report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"From 1999 to 2015, the number of HPV-associated cancers increased from 30,000 to over 43,000 annually," said the report.

Even though vaccinations against HPV have been on the rise in recent years, the CDC said the increase in cancers is "likely due to increased HPV exposure over the past few decades."

Cervical cancer rates continue to decline -- about 1.6 percent annually since 1999 -- thanks to screening and early detection, added the report.

But there is no recommended screening for other HPV-associated cancers.

"HPV vaccination can prevent infection with the HPV types most strongly associated with cancer," said the CDC report.

"Increasing HPV vaccination rates among young males and females could prevent many cancers."

The CDC said that last year, nearly 66 percent of adolescents aged 13-17 received the first dose in the vaccine series, and nearly 49 percent of adolescents received all the recommended doses to complete the series.

"This vaccine is the best way to protect our youth from developing cancers caused by HPV infection," said CDC Director Robert Redfield.

After adjusting for rises in population, the overall rate of all HPV cancers in US women declined 0.4 percent from 1999 to 2015, largely due to drops in cervical cancer thanks to better screening, the report said.

In men, the rate of HPV cancers rose 2.4 percent over the same period.

#MeToo

Tavis Smiley Stumbling in PBS Lawsuit | Hollywood Reporter

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 11:53

August 24, 2018 3:42pm PTby Ashley Cullins

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The ousted anchor can't force PBS to hand over internal documents dating back decades and two of his claims have been dismissed.

Tavis Smiley can't force PBS to turn over documents related to every romantic relationship a network supervisor has had with a subordinate since the early aughts, a judge has ruled.

Smiley in February sued the network after it dropped his show amid sexual misconduct allegations. PBS in March filed a countersuit that claimed Smiley violated the morals clause in his contract and sought to reclaim nearly $2 million it had paid him.

A D.C. judge on Thursday denied Smiley's request for a motion to compel PBS to hand over certain documents as part of a discovery request the network challenged as overbroad.

In its opposition, PBS argued that he was requesting documents that dated back more than a decade and weren't relevant to the contract issues at hand, including the network's sexual harassment policies since 2000 and any records of PBS managers having a relationship with a subordinate and the resulting disciplinary actions, if there were any.

Judge Anthony Epstein found PBS responded reasonably to Smiley's discovery requests.

"TSM is not entitled to conduct a fishing expedition concerning all romantic or personal relationships between superiors and subordinates within PBS or within companies with which PBS did business," writes Epstein. "However, if TSM has information that PBS tolerated behavior inside PBS or within one or more of its partners that is comparable to the behavior in which Mr. Smiley is alleged to have engaged, or if other discovery in this case shows that PBS compared Mr. Smiley's conduct with conduct of other people with whom it did business, targeted discovery may be appropriate."

Smiley also sought information related to PBS' decision to cancel his show. He contends the sexual misconduct allegations were a smokescreen and claims the network is "racially hostile." PBS disputes the claim but argues that it had the contractual right to cancel the show for any reason, including a racially discriminatory one, and therefore documents concerning its motives are irrelevant. Epstein isn't entirely convinced.

"The Court is not inclined to decide in the abstract, and in the discovery context, whether this principle applies if PBS terminated its distribution agreement for racially discriminatory reasons," writes Epstein. "TSM does not provide any specific information supporting its allegation that PBS would not have terminated the distribution arrangement if he were not African-American, but the Court is unwilling to make an open-ended ruling that a contractual provision or the First Amendment gives media companies a license to engage in discrimination based on race."

In denying the motion, Epstein also denied Smiley's request to file a 145-page memorandum in support of his motion to compel. Epstein criticized the filing as "mind-numbing" in its repetition and full of "wholly unnecessary" details, such as where Smiley got his undergraduate degree.

Epstein denied Smiley's motions without prejudice. So there is a chance the host's attorneys could take another shot at it. However, Epstein chided the parties for not trying harder to resolve the issue on their own before seeking his intervention, so they may refrain.

In May, Smiley was dealt another blow when PBS was granted an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss two of his claims. Epstein found that Smileys causes of action for intentional interference with contract and tortious interference with business expectancy arose from activity protected by the First Amendment and he didn't prove that he was likely to succeed on the merits of those claims.

The claims centered on the network's press statements that said "'multiple credible' allegations of sexual misconduct" by Smiley prompted the decision to stop airing the show. Epstein found that PBS's conduct is "unquestionably" protected by the First Amendment and concerns both a public figure and an issue of public interest.

"PBS made the statement at a time of extraordinary public interest in alleged sexual misconduct by men in positions of power, particularly in news and entertainment," the judge writes in a May 15 order, noting that no amount of targeted discovery would have enabled Smiley to prove PBS didn't have a reasonable basis to believe the allegations were credible. Following the decision, PBS was awarded nearly $100,000 in attorneys' fees.

Out There

Mysterious Field Of Static Electrical Energy At Google In London - Business Insider

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Fri, 24 Aug 2018 22:02

YouTube/LessAmazingPhil There's something very strange happening outside Google's office in London.

Multiple people have reported being zapped by a field of static electricity outside the building, and they have started videoing it to prove the weird phenomenon exists.

Google declined to comment on this story when reached by Business Insider.

Reddit user "master_poop" was one of the first people to discover the strange electrical field, posting a video which shows his hair standing on end.

There's even an audible "buzz" from what he guesses is static electricity.

After posting the video online, he explained that both of the people featured in the video had since suffered from toothache, and he had even had a small nosebleed.

Some people on Reddit dismissed the video as fake. After all, people often try and game the popular site by inventing weird phenomenon. They can earn money if enough people watch their videos through ads on YouTube. But more videos have come to light showing the same electricity field outside Google's office.

Back in September, YouTube user "LessAmazingPhil" uploaded a video showing his hair standing on end at exactly the same spot outside Google's London HQ.

And there's even a third video showing another man standing outside Google's office with his hair standing on end from some kind of static electricity field.

There are a number of theories for what might be causing the strange build-up of electricity. Some people theorise that there could be a problem with electrical wires underneath the street outside Google HQ.

Others guess that the design of the building could be to blame. They claim that the building features a mesh of metal poles that could generate static electricity.

Flickr/La Citta Vita

Despite reports of painful tooth fillings and nosebleeds that may have been caused by the electrical field, UK Power Networks has investigated the area and declared it safe.

Earlier today, workmen were seen outside Google's office, digging up the exact spot where the electrical phenomenon was taking place.

Here's where you can find the spot on a map:

Google Maps

Procter & Gamble bids to trademark LOL, WTF and other acronyms | Business | The Guardian

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 14:11

Procter & Gamble, the household products company, has applied to trademark acronyms common in textspeak including ''LOL'' and ''WTF''.

If successful, the terms could be used to market products such as soap, detergents and air fresheners in order to attract younger consumers.

P&G registered the trademark applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office in April. The newly branded products would be sold alongside well known items such as Febreze, Fairy and Mr Clean.

Alongside LOL (laughing out loud) and WTF (what the fuck), other acronyms P&G has applied to trademark are NBD (no big deal) and FML (fuck my life).

The company's applications have not yet been approved. According to Ad Age, the trademark office has requested clarification regarding the applications and P&G has until January to respond.

P&G board member Nelson Peltz told CNBC in March that younger consumers did not want ''one size fits all'' brands but products ''they have an emotional attachment to''. According to the statistics portal Statista, millennials in the US are expected to increase their annual spending to $1.4tn (£1.09tn) by 2020.

P&G are not the first company to try to trademark well known terms. In the US, the New England Patriots tried to trademark ''19-0'', a reference to an unbeaten season, just two weeks before they lost the Super Bowl to the New York Giants.

Walmart tried to trademark the yellow smiley face, which has been around since the 1970s. It got into legal battles with a rival claim from Franklin Loufrani, the president of The Smiley Company in Brussels, and lost in an attempt to sue the artist Charles Smith for parodying the symbol. The court concluded the smiley was in the public domain.

More successful were Facebook, who trademarked the word ''face'' in reference to telecommunication services. Paris Hilton owns the words ''that's hot'' and successfully sued Hallmark greetings cards for using it, while celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe trademarked ''bananas''.

Disney applied to trademark the name Da de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), but a petition that attracted more than 21,000 signatures in less than 24 hours forced the company to withdraw the application.

In Britain, Chanel's attempt to trademark the name Jersey was denied by the UK's Intellectual Property Office. ''It was important that we challenged this,'' said Jersey senator Alan Maclean at the time. ''This was about ownership of the name Jersey. It is not about stopping Chanel using the name.''

Procter & Gamble has been contacted for comment.

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VIDEO - Conor Daly loses Lilly Diabetes sponsorship over remark his father made over 30 years ago - YouTube

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 14:44

VIDEO - Credit reports are getting a makeover. Here's what to do.

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 14:28

Your credit report might be getting a makeover.

And the three-digit credit score we all carry around, which can determine how likely we are to get a favorable loan to buy a house or a car, could be moving up as a result.

The reason behind the potential boost is a change in the way the three major credit rating firms deal with negative credit information, including unpaid bills and debts.

Some of new practices by Equifax, Experian and TransUnion include more updated reporting, such as noting when an overdue balance has been paid, along with the exclusion of certain debts and items of questionable accuracy.

"To the extent that the bureaus are looking and seeing what's accurate and cleaning up the report, it can improve family financial security," said Caroline Ratcliffe, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think thank.

Library fines and traffic tickets are also being scrubbed. Medical debts that have been or are being paid by insurance companies will disappear from profiles.

In response to these changes, Americans' credit reports are already showing fewer blemishes and scores are rising.

In June, the number of individuals with a collections account on their credit report fell to 25 million, down from 33 million the previous year, and the total collections balance reported on accounts declined by about $11 billion during that time, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In addition, some people might have seen their scores take a jump earlier this year when the three major credit companies scrapped tax liens from their reports.

More from Personal Finance:Here's the real reason why your 401(k) fees are fallingHere's why robo-advisors won't replace human financial advisors

Your retirement finances may not be as bad as you think, survey finds

You can see if your score is higher for free on websites like Credit Karma or Credit Sesame.

If it has, resist the urge to go deeper into debt or take a break from checking in with your score.

"Anyone who has experienced a jump in their credit score resulting from these changes should take advantage of the momentum and strive for even more progress toward improving their credit health," said Bruce McClary, vice president of communications at the National Foundation of Credit Counseling.

Consider calling your bank or credit card company and negotiating a lower interest rate. Doing so can result in major savings.

For example, if you have $10,000 in credit card debt with a 25 percent annual percentage rate, you'll have paid around $2,500 in interest over the year. But if you could get that rate down to 18 percent, you'll pay $1,800 over 12 months, and save yourself $700.

You might also consider making other financial moves with that better score, such as refinancing your car, taking out a new loan for a mortgage, checking insurance rates or getting a better credit card, said Kimberly Palmer, personal finance expert at NerdWallet. However, you'll want to be strategic, she added.

"Every application can cause a small ding to your credit," she said. "And if you are planning a big purchase like a car or a home in the next six months, hold off on credit card applications."

To keep your score moving up, pay every bill on time and try to keep your credit utilization low, she said.

"On the Money" airs on CNBC Saturdays at 5:30 a.m. ET, or check listings for air times in local markets.

VIDEO - Real Time with Bill Maher 8/24/18 SHOCKED John Brennan DEFEAT Trump is a traitor or merely treasonou - YouTube

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VIDEO - Real Time with Bill Maher 8/24/18 SHOCKED John Brennan DEFEAT Trump is a traitor or merely treasonou - Bing video

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Brennan: Trump divide could spill into streets 00:50 HD MSN Brennan: Trump's Attempts To Divide Americans 'Could Spill Over Into The Streets' 00:57 HD MSN Brennan Accuses Trump Of Causing Division That Could 'Spill Over into The Streets' | Gift Of Life 04:40 HD YouTube · 13 views Real Time with Bill Maher 8/24/18 SHOCKED John Brennan DEFEAT Trump is a traitor or merely treasonou 42:58 YouTube · 72 views

VIDEO - Brennan: Trump divide could spill into streets

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 12:13

CNN Duration: 00:50 22 hrs ago

Former CIA Director John Brennan accused President Trump of dividing the US in an interview on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," saying he's "concerned about whether this could spill over into the streets."

VIDEO - Tesla That Rear-Ended Fire Truck May Have Been Self-Driving CBS San Francisco

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Sun, 26 Aug 2018 12:05

August 25, 2018 at 10:00 pmSAN JOSE (KPIX) '-- Police were investigating a crash involving what may have been a self-driving Tesla and a fire truck.

The crash happened around 1 a.m. on southbound Highway 101, in San Jose, just south of Bailey Avenue.

A black Tesla slammed into a parked fire truck. No firefighters were injured, witnesses say the driver of the Tesla was put on a stretcher and a CHP officer appeared to give him a sobriety test.

The driver and a passenger were transported to the hospital, but there has been no news as to their condition.

In a Tweet, San Jose firefighters said this is the second time in recent months that a Tesla has rear-ended on of their trucks. They said the car was reportedly in auto-mode, but the braking system was not engaged.

In a statement, Tesla said the company ''has not yet received any data from the car but we are working to establish the facts of the incident.''

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VIDEO - Opus 55 Legacy - YouTube

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VIDEO - A Fight Is Breaking Out Over Bitcoin Cash '' And It Just Might Split the Code - CoinDesk

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Sat, 25 Aug 2018 10:23

With bitcoin cash developers at each other throats, the year-old cryptocurrency might just split into two.

Created from a hard fork off the original bitcoin network after the scaling debate boiled over last year, bitcoin cash stakeholders seemed unified in their goal of boosting the cryptocurrency's block size parameter in the hopes of attracting more users and enabling more transactions.

But a few cracks started to pop up in this united front over the past year, as bitcoin cash developers had one technical disagreement after another.

And a new software release by leading bitcoin cash implementation, Bitcoin ABC, has been perceived by some as a subtle declaration of war within the developer community.

The software includes a suite of upgrades, including a smart contract feature that would support atomic swaps, a way of trading one cryptocurrency for another without traditional exchanges. And while many cryptocurrency projects are excited about the idea of interoperable coins, some big names in the bitcoin cash community don't agree with the changes and have '' no surprise '' been very vocal about it.

Leading the opposition is Craig Wright, nChain CEO and the cryptographer who claims to be bitcoin's pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, though he's not provided any proof of this claim so far. And he's teamed up with Calvin Ayre, an entrepreneur and founder of crypto news site CoinGeek, to lead the resistance with a new bitcoin cash implementation called Bitcoin SV.

Bitcoin SV scraps Bitcoin ABC's scripts for its own '' as well as pushes the block size parameter to 128 MB (bitcoin cash's block size is currently at 32 MB).

Taking a dig at Bitcoin ABC developers, the Bitcoin SV release announcement reads:

"Bitcoin SV is intended to provide a clear bitcoin cash implementation choice for miners who support bitcoin's original vision, over implementations that seek to make unnecessary changes to the original bitcoin protocol."

While infighting about the technical direction of a cryptocurrency is no out of the ordinary occurrence, this particular disagreement could have big repercussions for bitcoin cash.

Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV are incompatible software, and both groups behind the implementations are seeking to trigger new code changes in November. As such, if some bitcoin cash users run one software and others run the other, it'll cause a chain split and create a new competing cryptocurrency.

All about 'fake Satoshi'The fire underlying this technical debate was fueled by none other than one of bitcoin cash's more prominent supporters '' Wright.

After ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin took the mic at a cryptocurrency conference to call Wright a "fraud," many developers and other stakeholders in the industry started taking sides. For instance, many devs argue against nChain's Bitcoin SV partly because they've started to distrust Wright's judgment.

Even Jihan Wu, the co-founder of mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain, who has been a proponent of bitcoin cash (his business holds a substantial stake in the cryptocurrency), joined many others on social media calling Wright "fake Satoshi" since they don't believe his claims that he created bitcoin.

Following up on his earlier condemnation, Buterin later tweeted:

"The bitcoin cash community should not compromise with Craig Wright to 'avoid a split' and should embrace it as an opportunity to conclusively ostracize and reject him."

Despite all this, though, Wright is far from alone in supporting the nChain implementation. Ayre promised in a statement to put all CoinGeek's mining power towards it (the mining pool is the largest for bitcoin cash at press time), and Cobra, the pseudonymous owner of Bitcoin.org, took to social media to voice his opinion that those behind Bitcoin ABC are in the wrong.

"This is what happens when you have incompetent rogue developers like Bitcoin ABC lead developer [Amaury Sechet] pushing their agenda instead of compromising," Cobra tweeted. "Tired of these fucking amateurs and morons screwing around with bitcoin cash. Upgrade with consensus, or don't upgrade at all."

Attempts at compromiseWhat's getting lost in the debate, though, is that several notable bitcoin cash developers actually think both sides are acting out and would instead prefer to compromise.

Besides BitcoinABC and nChain, there are still other bitcoin cash implementations, including Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Unlimited, two software implementations that actually predate bitcoin cash.

And these veteran developers are skeptical about the two proposals getting the most attention.

"Both ABC and nChain are trying to hard fork. Both of them are not giving any rationale why. Both of them are completely not responsive to any feedback or any compromise requests from the rest of the ecosystem," wrote Bitcoin Classic lead developer Thomas Zander.

And Bitcoin Unlimited lead developer Andrew Stone agrees.

He's not particularly swayed by either side, arguing that both developer groups don't have the best interest of the end user in mind.

"Given the 'no changes, no matter how reasonable, except mine' strategy being pursued by both of these organizations, I can only sadly conclude that this is again about power and ego not about technical merit and end-user adoption," Stone wrote on a popular bitcoin cash forum.

Instead, he believes bitcoin cash proponents need to "stick together," and to that goal, he's working on a code change that would allow Bitcoin Unlimited users to effectively vote on which set of changes they'd like to see activated.

This voting system, he hopes, will help resolve not only this caustic debate but also similar situations in the future.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Cobra announced a similar effort called the Cobra Client. But rather than allow users to vote, the client simply removes all contentious code changes and replaces them with replay protection, a code change that will protect users from accidentally losing their money in the case bitcoin cash does indeed split into two.

Yet, others, such as long-time crypto enthusiast and Bitcoin Magazine reporter Aaron Van Wirdum, remain pessimistic that a compromise will be reached.

Van Wirdum recently tweeted:

"Turns out if you start a coin by hard fork without consensus, precedent is to hard fork without consensus."

Photo by Ivan VraniÄ on Unsplash

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

VIDEO - Why is there a measles outbreak in Europe? - BBC News

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Sat, 25 Aug 2018 04:39

Cases of measles in Europe have reached the highest this decade, according to the World Health Organization.

So what's going on?

VIDEO - NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch: Democrats are ''trying to Al Capone the president''

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From the August 22 edition of NRATV's Relentless:

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x ADVANCED SEARCHABOUT THE VIDEOSIn addition to reviewing print and online media, Media Matters monitors at least 150 hours of television and radio each week. This section features highlights (or low-lights) from our monitoring efforts, other noteworthy clips as well as original videos.

LATEST 'º'º'º Tucker Carlson: Trump "bragged about his low sexual standards" in Access Hollywood tape video August 24, 2018 8:39 PM EDT Fox News' coverage of Mollie Tibbetts' death spiked after it was linked to an undocumented immigrant blog August 24, 2018 5:48 PM EDT Fox & Friends hosts a QAnon conspiracy theorist who has claimed the Parkland mass shooting was fake blog August 24, 2018 4:50 PM EDT PBS NewsHour provides a model for how media should cover Brett Kavanaugh's threat to Roe' blog August 24, 2018 4:50 PM EDT No crime but a witch hunt: Pro-Trump media's off-the-wall reactions to Manafort's conviction and Cohen's guilty pleaAfter former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen were found guilty and pleaded guilty, respectively, each on eight criminal counts, right-wing media immediately rose to President Donald Trump's defense. Multiple media figures claimed that none of the charges had anything to do with Trump and that Trump's former associates pleaded guilty to crimes that ''don't exist.''

research August 24, 2018 3:35 PM EDT Brett Kavanaugh will threaten Roe. Susan Collins needs to stop buying right-wing media's excuses. blog August 24, 2018 3:09 PM EDT Alex Jones says he's communicating with Trump: "We are talking to the president through different systems" video August 24, 2018 2:05 PM EDT Paris Dennard's history of commentary on sexual misconduct on CNNCNN has suspended political commentator Paris Dennard after a Washington Post report detailed allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior during his tenure as the events director for Arizona State University's McCain Institute for International Leadership. During Dennard's time as a political commentator at CNN, he staunchly defended President Donald Trump against reports that Trump sexually harassed and assaulted several women, attacking the reporting and complaining that such stories ''destroy[s] people's credibility'' and ''tear people down'' using ''unsubstantiated facts.''

research August 24, 2018 2:02 PM EDT Video: Climate change worsens extreme weather and hurts people of color the most. When will mainstream media tell this story? blog August 24, 2018 1:18 PM EDT NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch: Democrats are ''trying to Al Capone the president'' video August 24, 2018 10:48 AM EDT Infowars host: Hurricane threatening Hawaii has been split in two by energy beam shot from Antarctica, possibly by John Kerry video August 24, 2018 10:25 AM EDT Fox & Friends guest: If NFL players "really have disdain for law enforcement officers and the military, why don't they hire their own?" video August 24, 2018 9:28 AM EDT Study: AP quoted pro-Kavanaugh voices 50 percent more in its Supreme Court coverage blog August 24, 2018 8:46 AM EDT Media portray these tales of perseverance as uplifting and inspirational. They're actually horror stories. blog August 24, 2018 8:41 AM EDT Fox & Friends reacts to CEO of National Enquirer getting immunity: "You cannot blame the president for feeling like he's being surrounded and targeted" video August 24, 2018 8:39 AM EDT

VIDEO - Kamala Harris on Twitter: "As an unindicted co-conspirator of a federal crime, President Trump should not be allowed to appoint someone to a lifetime position on the highest court in our land '' a court which may very well adjudicate on this matt

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VIDEO - Britain Faces Risk of Sperm Shortage in Event of No-Deal Brexit - Bloomberg

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VIDEO - Mystery revealed: Why one woman duped dozens of guys on Tinder - ABC News

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Fri, 24 Aug 2018 20:43

The woman whose fake Tinder date with dozens of men became a group competition and later went viral says the stunt was actually a social experiment.

Interested in Tinder? Add Tinder as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Tinder news, video, and analysis from ABC News.Natasha Aponte, the woman who lured the would-be dates to a park in New York City last week, and Rob Bliss, the creative director behind the project, told "Good Morning America" Thursday that the ruse had been in the works for two years.

"The purpose of making this video was to simply take the Tinder experience and bring it into the real world," Bliss explained.

Aponte messaged dozens of men on Tinder and eventually asked them all to meet her at Manhattan's Union Square Park on Sunday. When they arrived, she jumped out on stage, delivered a speech and asked them to compete for the date.

While many of the men went home, a few stayed to partake in the competition.

ABCNews.com VIDEO: Woman dupes dozens of men into public dating contest via TinderBliss, who's behind several other recent viral video campaigns, said the extreme competition-style date provided a great insight into dating habits in the 21st century.

"It's kind of become socially acceptable to like disqualify people and say, like, you have to be X height, you have to work X job," he said, comparing it to Aponte's own disqualifying list for the potential suitors. "This project proved that doesn't matter at the end of the day."

Some outside commenters took issue with the real-life dating game and shared their opinions on social media, while a few men who participated seemed to have hurt feelings and bruised egos.

I TRUST NO ONE. I TRUST NOTHING ANYMORE. VANITY WILL BE THE DEMISE OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION. DON'T GET GOT. THE END.

'-- ???? (@bvdhai) August 19, 2018Aponte said that looking back on the stunt she doesn't have any regrets.

"I'm taking all of the hits right now, but I don't mind that," she said. "Because I know who I am and I'm secure in myself.

Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images, FILE Tinder is displayed on a smartphone in Berlin, Feb. 26, 2018."It's funny cause a lot of the negative [comments] that I'm getting, from these guys, are still in my inbox trying to date me," she added.

Aponte ultimately went on a date with one of the men from the competition and agreed with Bliss that this experience taught her something unexpected in the process.

"Be open because the person you actually might be with is something that you would never, ever choose," she said.

Bliss maintained that they were not selling anything with the viral stunt.

VIDEO - "WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFING" '-- A Bad Lip Reading - YouTube

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VIDEO - 'What Is The Empire's Strategy?' - Col Lawrence Wilkerson Speech At RPI Media & War Conference - YouTube

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VIDEO - Interview Reveals DNC's Collaboration With Ukraine To Take Down Trump - YouTube

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VIDEO - [REAL ATC] An UNRULY AIR MARSHAL forces emergency landing! - YouTube

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VIDEO - Ryan Saavedra ðºð¸ on Twitter: "CNN goes out into normal America, discovers most people don't care about the Cohen and Manafort drama.'... "

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