BRINGING DIVERSITY TO THE NINTH CIRCUIT: Trump Announces New California Judicial Nominees.
Archive for 2019
January 31, 2019
DEATH SPIRAL FOR BUZZFEED, THE MILLENNIAL READER’S DIGEST:
The second part of the BuzzFeed makeover, coming soon, is to grow. BuzzFeed has hinted that it intends to hoover up many other similar sites, all those fourth-rate imitators of a third-rate product that also seek to provide micro-dopamine infusions to cupcake-scarfing arrested-development cubicle prisoners as they daydream of shopping at Forever 21 and wonder if Jafar is kind of hot. If 17 bajillion dollops of extreme-low-quality content delivering 150 gajillion eyeballs doesn’t work, double down! If gigantic scale doesn’t work, activate ludicrous scale!
By the time all of these mergers and acquisitions are complete, the next recession will be nigh, the first thing that always happens in recessions will happen first again (America’s great companies will slash ad budgets) and low- and medium-quality media companies reliant on advertising are going to segue from creating dystopian movie plots to experiencing them. Say, BuzzFeed, Which Pandering And Meretricious Yet Doomed Advertorial Dungbot Are You? Take The Quiz!
Heh. If you’re not too busy learning to code, read the whole thing.
HOTEL EUROFORNIA: U.K.’s May needs to renegotiate Brexit, but the EU won’t budge.
PAUL BEDARD: As base shrinks, GOP urged to ‘show up’ in black, Hispanic communities. If the Democrats’ new platform of post-birth abortion doesn’t help the GOP in black and hispanic communities, something’s wrong.
Meanwhile Juliette “Baldilocks” Ochieng posts this on Facebook. She’s been warning for a while that leftist agitators are deliberately trying to sow racial division.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, BOOK-COOKING EDITION: Federal Judge Approves $5.5 Million Settlement In Temple U.S. News Rankings Scandal.
COLD WAR II: Beijing Set for ‘Ideological Battle’ with U.S.
“Chinese leaders will increasingly seek to assert China’s model of authoritarian capitalism as an alternative—and implicitly superior—development path abroad, exacerbating great-power competition that could threaten international support for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law,” he stated.
Xi and his advisers are imposing new dictatorial measures at home while backing authoritarian regimes around the world. The practice can be “corrosive to civil society and the rule of law,” the DNI said.
Xi also declared last year China will try to launch a program to reform the global governance system that Coats forecast will produce increased Chinese activism internationally and promote “a Chinese worldview that links China’s domestic vision to its international vision.”
“Beijing has stepped up efforts to reshape the international discourse around human rights, especially within the U.N. system,” he stated.
China’s Communists are feeling cocky enough to drop the non-ideological facade they’ve worn since brutally asserting their authority at Tiananmen Square.
WELL, SHE’S A PROGRESSIVE, SO. . . Kamala Harris Has Made A Whole Career Out Of Hurting Vulnerable People. “Harris spent years doling out fines and jail time to poor parents whose kids were skipping school. Now she makes life more dangerous for prostitutes, too!”
Ironic, considering, well, you know.
HMM: Facebook just hired a handful of its toughest privacy critics.
On Tuesday, Facebook acknowledged that it had hired three veteran privacy law activists, including Nate Cardozo, an attorney formerly of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who has been very publicly critical of the company in recent years.
In 2015, Cardozo once wrote in an op-ed that Facebook’s “business model depends on our collective confusion and apathy about privacy.”
In addition to Cardozo, Facebook also hired attorney Robyn Greene, previously with the Open Technology Institute in Washington, DC, and Nathan White, who is set to leave his position at Access Now.
Will their new jobs entail changing Facebook’s sociopathic corporate culture, or making excuses for it? Time will tell, but either way they have their work cut out for them, as you’ll see below.
RELATED: Facebook to Shut Down Controversial iOS Market Research App as Apple Revokes Certificate.
In a statement given to TechCrunch and other websites, the company said that its “Facebook Research” app, which paid volunteers between the ages of 13 and 35 up to $20 a month to access nearly all their data, would no longer be available on iOS.
The news came just hours after TechCrunch’s exposé on the Facebook app, which used an enterprise certificate on iPhones to get people to sideload the app and skirt Apple’s App Store rules.
Two things.
First, Facebook used Apple’s beta program to gain root access to participants’ iPhones, which would presumably include all of their contact information, private text messages, emails, etc. So the data invasion — I almost wrote “breach” — extended far beyond those getting the $20 each month to participate.
Facebook’s abandonment of the program is pure window dressing — Apple revoked the certificates necessary for it to continue.
AND IT ISN’T JUST FACEBOOK: Google Also Exploiting Enterprise Certificates to Bypass iOS App Store for Data Collection.
Apple has also revoked Google’s certificates, shutting down their data invasion, also. But one would hope that going forward, Apple will be much more proactive about what kinds of access can be granted even outside the App Store’s strict rules. What Facebook and Google did was, to borrow a word, evil, but Apple getting caught prone here has left them has a real black eye.
The inescapable conclusion, if one hadn’t concluded it long ago, is that Facebook and Google are shitty companies run by shitty people.
OH, I CAN THINK OF A FEW REASONS: If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?
THE END OF SLAVERY IN SIGHT: On this day in 1865, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Constitution’s Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude. Since the Senate had already approved the measure, the proposed Amendment was then placed before the state legislatures for ratification. That came quickly. Within a week, 11 states had ratified, led by Lincoln’s Illinois. By December, the requisite ¾ of states had approved the measure.
Ratification beyond the ¾ of states was purely symbolic. But since the Thirteenth Amendment was more significant than most, some states ratified even though their assent was no longer needed. Among the stragglers were Delaware (1905) and Kentucky (1976), both of which had initially rejected it. The most recent ratification came from Mississippi in 1995. Better late than never.
JODI GIDDINGS: 5 Issues Trump Should Discuss at the Feb. 5th State of the Union Address. I kinda wish he’d just cancelled the whole thing, or better yet just done it during the shutdown from some other place.
WELL, HE’S RIGHT: Pink’s Husband Carey Hart Claps Back After He’s Slammed for Teaching Daughter, 7, How to Shoot a Rifle: ‘You Are Completely Ignorant.’
My eight-year-old is a little guy, but he tries really hard with a .22 every time we have a family day at the range.
NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: Ocasio-Cortez Caught Lying About Her Comments On Israel Occupying Palestine.
YES. Federal Judge: Court Should Block Enforcement of Tampa ‘Conversion Therapy’ Ban. “Counselors have the free speech to engage in sexual orientation change efforts.“
Conversion therapy strikes me as mostly BS, but either people are free to practice their religious beliefs, or we’re forced to endure the establishment of non-religion. And that liberty should hold whether people are administering the therapy or choosing to receive it.
LAMAR ALEXANDER on what’s next.
SO DOES THAT MEAN THE INCREASED PROMINENCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA IS PROBABLY DUE TO CHINESE COLLUSION? DNI: Beijing Set for ‘Ideological Battle’ with U.S.: China spreading communism to replace U.S.-led democratic, free market system.
Related: During all the Russia hacking hype, China is rising in influence.
FROM BLAKE SMITH, THE POOR CHILD WHO IS IN THE HABIT OF HAVING RAMBLING CONVERSATIONS WITH ME AT MY KITCHEN TABLE, AND IS THEREFORE DESTINED TO WRITE SOME VERY ODD STUFF: The Hartington Inheritance (The Hartington Series Book 1).
In a future organized on the principles of those ancient and respected social philosophers Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer…
Almira Hartington was heir to the largest fortune in the galaxy, amassed by her father during his time as a director of the Andromeda Company. But when Sir Josiah commits suicide, Almira discovers that she and her siblings are penniless. All three of them must learn to work if they wish to eat, and are quickly scattered to the far reaches of the universe. Almira stubbornly remains on-planet, determined to remain respectable despite the sneers of her former friends.
Sir Percy Wallingham pities the new Lady Hartington. But the lady’s family will take care of her, surely? It’s only after he encounters Almira in her new circumstances that he realizes the extent of her troubles and is determined to help her if he can. He doesn’t know that a scandal is brewing around Sir Josiah’s death and Almira’s exile from society. But it could cost him his life, and the lady he has come to love.
THE FLAGELLANTS NEVER WENT AWAY. THEY BECAME THE TASTE ARBITERS OF SCIENCE FICTION. AND THEY SURE ARE WINNING THE FUTURE (WTF, REALLY!): Message Received.
THE LEFT INSISTS WE ALL FIGHT THOSE INVISIBLE UNKNOWABLE EVILS OF PATRIARCHY, PRIVILEGE AND MICRO AGGRESSIONS. IS IT ANY SURPRISE THE RESULT IS HYSTERIA? The Evil Clowns.
NAH. THEY’RE INCAPABLE OF LEARNING: What Big Media Learned This Week.
OKAY. SOMETHING VERY WEIRD IS GOING ON HERE. INTERMITTENTLY, LINDSAY GRAHAM IS BEING REPLACED WITH SOMEONE MUCH MORE INTERESTING. AFTER WHICH HE SUBDUES THE REPLACEMENT, LOCKS HIM IN THE BASEMENT. ONLY FOR THE REPLACEMENT TO EMERGE AGAIN A FEW DAYS LATER. I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU GUYS, BUT I’M FOR THE BASED LINDSAY GRAHAM CLONE: Sen. Lindsey Graham Demands Answers From FBI on Roger Stone Raid.
IF THEY DIDN’T HAVE DOUBLE STANDARDS, THEY’D HAVE NO STANDARDS AT ALL: Sen. Sherrod Brown Complains That Trump Rips Babies from Families on Same Day His Party Pushes for Infanticide.