JUSTICE: My Rape Doesn’t Justify Punishing People Without Due Process.
This is a powerful piece, impossible to excerpt.
Just read the whole thing.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
September 19, 2018
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Kava-Nope strategy: delay, delay, delay. Oh, and pay protesters. “Unlike in notorious #MeToo cases like those of Larry Nassar and Harvey Weinstein, this accusation has not launched more accusations. The most prominent men accused of sexual assault in the #MeToo era have had a long history of abusing women — many women. The allegations are decades old, well beyond the statute of limitations. This fact means that Ford is essentially a character witness against Kavanaugh. That’s why it matters that approximately 200 women have testified to the judge’s high moral character (a story of mine that Rush Limbaugh talked about yesterday). It also matters that two of Kavanaugh’s former girlfriends — who both knew him in high school — called him ‘a perfect gentleman’.”
Tyler O’Neil is filling in for Liz today with some very good stuff.
LAYERS OF EDITORS AND FACT-CHECKERS: The New York Times Thinks Angela Bassett is Omarosa. “Tuesday’s print edition of The New York Times incorrectly identifies a picture of actress Angela Bassett—the Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominee who has played Tina Turner and Betty Shabazz—as Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former Trump employee who has played herself on both network television and in real life.”
Pretty sure that’s racism when a right-leaning publication does it.
NOW IT’S LITTLE MORE THAN A VIRTUE-SIGNALING HASHTAG: A French Veteran of la Résistance During WW II: “Use the word Resistance only if, by misfortune, the duty to Resist were again to arise for real.”
PRIVACY: 10 years later, Google still has the creepy ability to remotely control a phone.
Ten years is a long time. Nearly long enough to forget that Google — and for that matter, Apple — have the ability to control some parts of your phone over the internet. And maybe quietly change things without your permission.
But Google made a very public mistake last week, and it’s raising the specter of doubt once again.
Last week, Android users began reporting that their phones’ Battery Saver feature had mysteriously turned on, all by itself, regardless of whether their batteries needed saving or not. Fully-charged devices started throttling themselves, halting background updates, seemingly because of a bug in the Android P update, as Android Police reported.
Only it wasn’t a bug. According to one of the company’s official Reddit accounts, Google itself was responsible. The company was conducting “an internal experiment to test battery saving features that was mistakenly rolled out to more users than intended,” according to the statement.
Is there anything Google does that isn’t creepy?
THE DEEP STATE STRIKES BACK: FBI, DOJ Plan Redactions Despite Trump’s Document Order.
The Justice Department, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence are going through a methodical review and can’t offer a timeline for finishing, said the people, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive matter.
The White House issued a statement on Monday listing material that Trump wants declassified immediately, echoing demands of Republican lawmakers who share his contention that the continuing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was tainted by anti-Trump bias well before Robert Mueller was named special counsel to run it.
Among Trump’s demands was the full public release of all text messages concerning the Russia probe by Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and by several former officials, including two who were fired — former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe. One person described the order to release text messages as unprecedented, and another said additional talks will probably be held with the White House over the matter.
What are they trying to hide and why are they trying to hide it?
NICHOLAS BALLASY: GOP Congressman Says Only Way to Pass DACA Fix Is ‘Jamming This on People.’ “Hurd notes difficulty bringing Republican colleagues on board immigration bill because “they are afraid of ultimately being pegged as you support amnesty’.”
September 18, 2018
I’M GOING TO LIVE FOREVER: Beer, Wine, and Chocolate Are Key to Living a Long Life, Study Says.
CIVILIZATIONAL SUICIDE: Norway Fetes Young Muslim Refugee Writer for Trashing Norway.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: “We are 10 steps behind”: Detroit students seek fair access to literacy.
#METOO ALLEGATIONS SHOULD ALWAYS BE UNCRITICALLY ACCEPTED UNLESS THEY’RE DIRECTED AT DEMOCRATS: Keith Ellison Accuser, Karen Monahan, Says Democratic Party Doesn’t Believe Her.
NIKKI HALEY: ‘Russian Corruption Is Like a Virus,’ Could Sicken UN Security Council. “‘Lying, cheating, and rogue behavior have become the new norm of the Russian culture,’ she says of cheating on North Korean sanctions and covering it up.”
What’s new is having an American UN Ambassador willing to speak up so forcefully about it.
SPYWARE TO GO: In Major Auto Partnership, Google’s Android System to Power Dashboard Media Display.
Google is making a major push into the auto industry, partnering with the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance to use the tech company’s Android operating system to power media display that will eventually be sold in millions of cars world-wide.
The auto-making alliance, which together sells more vehicles than any other auto maker, is picking Google to provide the operating system for its next-generation infotainment system, marking a major victory for the Silicon Valley tech giant, which has spent more than a decade trying to replicate the success it has had with the smartphone in the car.
The alliance, which last year sold a combined 10.6 million vehicles globally, will debut the new system in 2021, giving drivers better integration of Google’s maps, app store and voice-activated assistant from the vehicle’s dashboard, the companies said.
The move comes as other auto makers have been reluctant to cede control of this space to tech rivals, in part because they see the technology as generating valuable consumer data that can be turned into new revenue streams.
But can it be turned off, this traveling telescreen?
AND EVERYBODY BLAMES THE JEWS: Russian military aircraft downed by Syrian forces, killing 15; Moscow blames Israeli aggression.
RICK MORAN: WaPo’s Attempted Smear of Trump Administration Crashes and Burns.
This was easily WaPo’s most obvious and ham-fisted attempt until the next time.
Update: Link was wrong before, but is correct now. Sorry!
DISRUPTION: Life after Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy.
The most dangerous aspect of the Google mindset, in Gilder’s view, is that security takes a back seat. Security “is the most basic and indispensable component of any information technology,” yet Google almost completely ignores it. Protecting and authenticating data are its users’ and customers’ problems, not Google’s. In a world in which the free exchange of information eventually erases borders and irons out all human differences, the company believes, serious threats to security will disappear anyway. Indeed, Google’s commitment to building an AI-research center in China — where Chinese scientists will be able to develop technologies to help the People’s Liberation Army — while Google employees publicly protest working with the Pentagon gives a clear picture of Google’s failure to take national-security concerns seriously.
So what’s the answer? Gilder is clear and unequivocal: Blockchain is the future, not just because it will protect user data but because it will allow every user safe and immediate access to that data. It will usher in a world beyond Google.
Looks like a good read. I just ordered a copy.
BLUE STATE BLUES: California angers some zero-emission drivers by taking away decals that allow them to use carpool lane.
Are they angrier over the loss of convenience or the loss of virtue-signaling?
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Declassified & It Feels So Good and Much, Much More. “Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) claims the declassification is an abuse of power. Let’s just see what’s in the those documents and then we can determine how dangerous it was to release them. The Democrats have played that card before, like when they shrieked the Nunes memo was a danger to national security and then once it was released we all saw what garbage that was.”
The claim or the memo? Do we really have to choose?
FULL-SERVICE STATION: Navy to Flight Test First-of-its-Kind Carrier-Launched Drone in 2021.
The emerging Navy MQ-25 Stingray program, to enter service in the mid-2020s, will bring a new generation of technology by engineering a new unmanned re-fueler for the carrier air wing.
“The program expects to be in flight test by 2021 and achieve initial operational capability by 2024,” Jamie Cosgrove, spokeswoman for Naval Air Systems Command, told Warrior Maven.
The Navy recently awarded a development deal to Boeing to further engineer and test the MQ-25.
A central key question informs the core of this technology effort: What if the attack capability of carrier fighters, such as an F-18 or F-35C, could double the range at which they hold enemy targets at risk? Could such a prospect substantially extend the envelope of offensive attack operations, while allowing carriers themselves to operate at safer distances?
One valid criticism of the Navy’s air wing composition is that their planes have “short legs” and don’t give carrier task forces the reach they need to keep the ships out of harm’s way. The MQ-25 could change that.
UGH: 1 in 11 Teens Have Vaped Marijuana, New Study Shows.
Of the slightly more than 20,000 teens surveyed in the school-based study, 9% self-reported that they had vaped marijuana. That extrapolates to 2.1 million middle and high school students using e-cigarettes to get high on cannabis products.
“Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are the most commonly used tobacco product among U.S. youth,” the study authors noted, confirming other reports that trends toward teen vaping, including the use of popular brand Juul, are only increasing. The study authors, affiliated with the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, also found that young people who lived with a tobacco user were more likely to report using e-cigs to vape marijuana.
I’d rather they didn’t use it at all, but almost anything has to be better than smoking the stuff.
Also note the importance of parental example-setting.
UNEXPECTEDLY: The Results Are In After Socialist Venezuela Dramatically Raised Its Minimum Wage — It Ain’t Pretty.
Alongside rampant inflation, the government also threatened jail time for businesses that raised their prices. According to the Miami Herald, the combined economic conditions fostered the environment for 40 percent of Venezuelan stores to close after the wage hike.
“It is a perfect storm,” Maria Carolina Uzcategui, president of the National Council of Commerce and Services of Venezuela, said. “These decisions are leading many business people to say, ‘No, I can’t do it any more,'” she added.
Economist Orlando Ochoa pointed to the country’s currency market as a source of economic woes. “The government sector has the monopoly on imports, the currency market is dysfunctional and there’s hyperinflation,” he said.
“So, if salaries are increased by decree, and the commercial and industrial sectors cannot sell their products because of these problems, and on top of that because of electricity blackouts, infrastructure problems and the loss of qualified personnel, which is leaving the country, then it’s easy to understand that many may prefer to close.”
Up next: Directive 10-289.
THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT: Democrats Have Made Sure That Brett Kavanaugh Will Never Get A Fair Hearing. “There will never be genuine due process on the floor of the Senate circus.”
David Harsanyi:
It’s worth remembering that these Democrat tactics aren’t only meant to sink this nomination — should they end up forcing Kavanaugh to withdraw — but also to damage the credibility of any Supreme Court featuring Trump-nominated (or, let’s be honest, Republican-nominated) justices. Democrats have been dishonestly challenging the “legitimacy” of the court throughout these hearings. They don’t want to abide by any authority that treats the Constitution seriously, because it’s often the only thing standing in the way of their coercive policies.
They’ll destroy any institution they can’t seize.