[Reason] U.K. Parliament member Lucy Powell of the Labour Party wants to use her government authority to ban your private online group discussions.
I'm not exaggerating here. Powell introduced legislation in the House of Commons this week that would ban secret, private, invite-only groups on Facebook. It would go so far as to hold moderators legally responsible for hate speech or defamation on the forums.
Powell believes that secret online groups are responsible for radicalization (rather than the more logical likelihood that radicalization prompts people to seek out private online outlets). And she has this strange idea that outrageous ideas presented on social media outlets simply don't get challenged. She writes in The Guardian:
Online echo chambers are normalising and allowing extremist views to go viral unchallenged. These views are spread as the cheap thrill of racking up Facebook likes drives behaviour and reinforces a binary worldview. Some people are being groomed unwittingly as unacceptable language is treated as the norm. Others have a more sinister motive.
While in the real world, alternative views would be challenged by voices of decency in the classroom, staffroom, or around the dining-room table, there are no societal norms in the dark crevices of the online world. The impact of these bubbles of hate can be seen, in extreme cases, in terror attacks from radicalised individuals. But we can also see it in the rise of the far right, with Tommy Robinson supporters rampaging through the streets this summer, or in increasing Islamophobia and antisemitism.
In fact, extremist views get challenged all the time, online and elsewhere, by people like Powell and by many, many others. But she doesn't really mean that these views aren't being "challenged." What she means is that these radical views aren't being punished.
Powell notes that allowing private groups to exist "locks out the police, intelligence services and charities that could otherwise engage with the groups and correct disinformation." By "correct disinformation" she actually means "prosecute people." She doesn't say as much in her Guardian column, but her motion for consideration of the bill explicitly says that too few people have been prosecuted under the United Kingdom's Communications Act, which criminalizes online hate speech. She makes it clear that she doesn't think enough people are being punished by the government for saying bad things. This is not about correcting disinformation at all: Read the rest at the link
#6
I suppose that banning people at the discretion of mere human beings is a horrible idea. But if one is going to ban people it would be a good idea to start by banning Lucy Powell.
Posted by: Daniel ||
09/15/2018 13:31 Comments ||
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#7
Dunno. Looks like fun, actually. Do NOT click this (much less the "Back to The Gang" button) unless you'd enjoy imagining an entire long-running sitcom, complete with two-tone/country soundtrack, in thirty seconds.
Posted by: Oscar Snusoper8219 ||
09/15/2018 19:06 Comments ||
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#8
Huh. Hobhouse was pretty cool. Who knew (outside of Sudnaziland, I mean)? It's almost like I wasn't told the whole story as a kid. Naaaah.
The bounty of Africa's hot-house,
Its cannibalistic-ass lobscouse,
I'd trade (call me hasty --
I'm sure that it's tasty!)
For the pen of Ms. Emily Hobhouse.
[Washington Examiner] That recession driven grimness hanging over the workplace has lifted and now workers of all shades are feeling good about their future.
A new survey provided to Secrets said that 72 percent of blue collar workers and 76 percent of white collar workers are optimistic about their future.
What’s more, half feel that it would be easy to find another job if they needed or wanted to.
But in its survey of 1,001 employed workers, Porch, a free online network that links homeowners and repair, renovation and cleaning professionals, found that there is concern about robots and automation.
For example, 29 percent of blue collar workers are worried that their jobs will soon be automated. But for white collar workers it was just 24 percent.
The survey also found that most blue collar and white collar workers are happy, feel respected, and like each other.
#5
But somewhere inside the Beltway, a conservative pundit feels a little embarrassed at the billionaire who won the presidency. Please, won't you think of this this pundit's social life and phony-baloney career?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/15/2018 14:33 Comments ||
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[American Greatness] Perhaps, in the Headline Hall of Fame, alongside "Headless body in topless bar," we can add a new entry to display for generations to come. This week a Washington Post editorial declared: "Another hurricane is about to batter our coast. Trump is complicit."
The point was that hurricanes are caused or intensified by the man-made climate change that we’ve experienced in recent decades, and that Trump ignores that supposedly obvious fact, bringing about destruction. Never mind that, between Wilma in 2005 and Harvey in 2017, no major hurricane (Category 3 or higher) made landfall in the continental United States. That’s the longest such hiatus ever recorded.
Never mind that, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, 40 major hurricanes hit the United States in the 55-year period between 1906 and 1960. In the following 55 years, during the era of global warming, the number was 26. The number in the worst categories, Categories 4 and 5, fell from 12 to 5.
This week, California Governor Jerry Brown is hosting a conference of people involved in what’s called the Climate Resistance. As noted by the Washington Times, "The massive three-day bash hosted by Mr. Brown will feature top Democrats, liberal megadonors, Obama administration figures, international leaders, green energy, Silicon Valley, Hollywood celebrities, and Al Gore."
This follows state legislation signed by Brown requiring utilities to get all their electricity from "zero-carbon" sources by 2045. Massive expansions of hydropower and nuclear power are off the table, so that means relying mainly on intermittent sources like wind (which works only when the wind blows) and solar (which works only when the sun shines).
California officials claim the state currently gets about a third of its electricity from "renewable" sources. In June, the price of electricity in California was 65.3 percent higher than the national average. The difference would be greater except for the fact that some 41 other states have their own, smaller scams driving up electricity prices by requiring electricity consumers to buy expensive, unreliable wind and solar power.
Jerry Brown just wants to do to America and the world what he and his fellow environmentalists have already done to California.
#2
The massive three-day bash hosted by Mr. Brown will feature top Democrats, liberal megadonors, Obama administration figures, international leaders, green energy, Silicon Valley, Hollywood celebrities, and Al Gore.
In other words, the largest collection of stretch limos ever assembled.
Posted by: Matt ||
09/15/2018 13:51 Comments ||
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#3
In other words, the largest collection of stretch limos ever assembled.
Well, did you expect them to walk from the airport's private jets field?
[Powerline] Someone leaked to Breitbart an hour-long video of an "all hands" Google meeting that was held just after the 2016 election. The video features Google’s co-founder, Sergei Brin, its CEO, Sundar Pichai, and numerous other high-ranking "Googlers" speaking in turn about the election’s tragic outcome. It is stunning.
All of the speakers express grief over Donald Trump’s election. All of the speakers assume that every Google employee is a Democrat and is stunned and horrified that Hillary Clinton‐the worst and most corrupt presidential candidate in modern history‐lost. There is much discussion about what Google can do to reverse the benighted world-wide tide exemplified by Brexit and Trump’s election. The insane doctrine of "white privilege" rears its head.
You really have to see it to believe it. Having suffered through the hour-long cri de cœur‐OK, to be fair, there is a huge element of schadenfreude, too, and you will relish much of it‐you probably will have several reactions: 1) These people may have certain valuable technical skills, but they aren’t very bright and are unusually lacking in self-awareness. 2) It is remarkable that they can achieve such an extraordinary monoculture in an organization with thousands of employees. It must require vigorous enforcement of right-think. 3) It is easy to see how these uniformly left-wing robots/people seamlessly transitioned into Resisting the duly elected Trump administration.
h/t Instapundit
Democrats and their media allies seeking to advance a liberal political agenda corrupted the FBI and Justice Department in improperly spying on Donald Trump's presidential campaign, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said this week.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), the intelligence panel head who has spearheaded an investigation into corruption at the FBI, also warned in a speech that China has emerged as the most serious strategic threat facing the United States.
[Real Clear Politics] Much of what we now know about the unethical and often illegal behavior of the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and Department of Justice emerged due to the efforts of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Its chairman during its stunning disclosures has been Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who in turn has been constantly demonized for his efforts.
Yet without the committee's digging, Americans would not have known that Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for an unsubstantiated 2016 dossier on Donald Trump compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
Prior to the committee's work, we did not know that the FBI and Justice Department used unverified information from the Steele dossier to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing for the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Without the committee's disclosures, Americans would not have had any idea that Bruce Ohr, who once ranked fourth in the Department of Justice hierarchy, coordinated opposition research on Trump with Steele, the FBI and Fusion GPS. Ohr took this unethical step because his wife was working for Fusion GPS -- a fact that was withheld on federal disclosure forms.
The Nunes-led committee also uncovered the names of prominent FBI and DOJ officials -- including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein and Sally Yates -- who had approved FISA court warrant applications that were based on the largely discredited Steele dossier.
Most dramatically, we learned that members of the Obama administration had unmasked the names of U.S. citizens swept up in government surveillance. Many of those names were illegally leaked to the press. This disclosure forced former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice to confess that they had requested most of the unmaskings. Rice had previously denied it.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence also confirmed that FBI agents had interviewed former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and did not think he had lied to them concerning his contact with a top Russian diplomat.
No one so far has refuted the committee's findings. Yet Chairman Nunes has become the subject of unprecedented venom, largely because a spate of further embarrassing scandals at the FBI, DOJ and CIA have resulted from his committee's findings.
UNDISCLOSED‐A missions trip to a remote tribe in an undisclosed closed country has successfully converted the entire village into conservative Republicans, sources from the missions team confirmed Friday.
After contextualizing the basics of right-wing beliefs to the culture of the tribe for several months, the missionaries finally made a breakthrough as they communicated to the group their need for conservative political philosophy to save them from their sins. Finally, missionaries gave a moving altar call Thursday evening, and the village elders responded in faith, accepting Republicanism as Lord of their life.
The rest of the village soon followed.
"When the people saw the glory of our savior Donald Trump, they erupted into spontaneous celebration," one of the American missionaries said in an emotional video uploaded to Facebook. "It was so great to see these people finally abandon their un-American culture and embrace the gospel of the United States, forever changing their eternity."
At publishing time, missionaries had confirmed there was still much work to do, such as converting the village into middle-class white people.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/15/2018 18:05 Comments ||
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#4
midcentury breakfast table:
AI grandg(r)om: "Alexa, tell me about headhunters."
g(r)om's Jap assistive robot: [looks nervous]
Sexbots, simultaneously: "Hey, I was just thinking about that!"
Big Mouth Bass on wall: "Don't worry! Be happy!"
Harriet Buttle, from behind the picture: "Y'all are so busted!
[USAtoday] Health officials in New Mexico have urged clients of a spa performing services such as "vampire facials" to get tested for blood-borne infections such as HIV or hepatitis.
According to a statement from the New Mexico Department of Health, the VIP Spa in Albuquerque was shut down after health officials discovered practices identified at the spa could spread disease to clients.
The inspection was conducted after a client of the spa developed an infection officials believe originated from a spa treatment.
Officials are reaching out to people who had any injection-related service at the spa, including "vampire facials," a treatment where a person's blood is isolated to obtain platelet-rich plasma, then injected into that person's skin using a microneedling process.
Any one who received such treatment in May or June of this year is asked to visit the New Mexico Department of Health for free, confidential testing.
#1
In other New Mexico news: SUNSPOT - Sunspot Observatory was closed and evacuated Sept. 6 due to an undisclosed security risk. ... AURA released a statement Friday, stating it has "decided that the observatory will remain closed until further notice due to an ongoing security concern.
[American Thinker] I find it humorous and sad that some reporter at Huffington Post would think that President Trump, or anyone, should care what Jimmy Carter thinks of Trump's economic and other policies but somehow, that "news" organ thought otherwise as they sought to trash Trump on on their pages:
Former President Jimmy Carter clearly has no love or respect for the policies of President Donald Trump's administration. In fact, Carter said he would change "all of" them if he had his time in the White House again, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "If I were foolish enough to feel I could be president again, I think the first thing I would do would be to change all of the policies that President Trump has initiated," Carter told students at an Emory University event in Atlanta on Wednesday.
Haven't these journalists ever researched what kind of president Jimmy Carter was?
This article implies that Carter would have insight as to what good policies are, even after he handed off an economic disaster to his successor, Ronald Reagan. Thank goodness Carter was defeated in 1980 because our economy was collapsing. absolutely true. The man was incompetent at best
In December 1980, the unemployment rate was 7.2%. Today it is 3.9%. In December 1980, black unemployment was 15.0%. Today it is 6.3%. In December 1980, Hispanic unemployment was 10.3%. Today it is 4.7%.
Inflation was in double digits through 1980, following four years of Carter, yet Carter inherited a 5.76% rate in 1976. The cost of everything was skyrocketing.
And interest rates were something else. On Jan. 5, 1981, at the end of Carter's term, the ten-year Treasury bond had a yield of 12.57%. Today it is 3%. Carter inherited a rate of 6.84% from Dec. 20, 1976. Think of the cost of a mortgage at that time and how unaffordable houses would be.
Think what would have happened if Reagan hadn't lowered taxes and allowed the Federal Reserve to wring inflation and high interest rates out of the economy.
Why would anyone think that advice about policies from Jimmy Carter would be valuable to Trump ... or anyone?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/15/2018 07:34 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
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#1
Carter was the George Costanza of Presidents. Every instinct was wrong. Knowing the wrong decision helps point out the right one.
h/t Instapundit
[PJMedia] You’re walking down a foggy road, it’s twilight. You’re thinking about how divided this country is and feeling rather gloomy.
There’s a smell of sulfur in the air. And you think here, finally, is the answer to your worries. As a gentleman with horns and forked tail comes out of the fog, you slap your forehead and realize there is a reason the left is going completely insane and can’t leave anyone alone.
You slap your forehead, tell the guy that it’s early for Halloween costumes and walk on.
...The problem is this: the deals with the devil people make ‐ the real ones, which apply whether one believes in the devil or not ‐ are not the kind made at twilight at a crossroads with a being of distinctly evil shape, and imbued with a suspicious smell.
Instead, they’re made in nice rooms, in meeting rooms, at conferences, with well-dressed people who are so benign, so kind, so full of wish to help us. And also, inevitably, powerful and full of the aroma of success.
...Is this a sin only of the left? I don’t know. For my entire life, the half century or so I’ve been cognizant of such things, the people in control, the people who were rich, famous, well put together, were leftist.
And the problem with deals with the devil is that they sound so plausible: after all, sure, I hated communism, but these people, so smart, so successful, seemed to think that this time they could do it right. I was always contrary. What if it were I who was wrong? What if I had lacked the knowledge they had? Before the internet, who did you know who agreed with you? Some friends, sure, but you ‐ loving them madly ‐ could also justify their opinion. They were contrary. They were rebels. That was probably it.
...again and again, in academia, in the media, in writing, in the arts, you wanted to get in, you wanted to advance, you wanted access to the public. And it was clear they wouldn’t let you in if they knew you were one of those: unwashed, stupid, or evil. Those people who stood outside the magical circle cast by the words "one of the good ones." (Yes, I heard them used often, back and forth, as sign and counter sign. Not, note, about me.)
...It’s funny that the left who coined the term "sell out" and who reviled Pope Benedict for his stint in the Hitler Youth, despite his pointing out everyone did it then, to survive, to pass unremarked, is composed of a large number of people who "sold out".
...The thing is that the left, in control of various institutions as they’ve been for seventy years, are losing their grip.
Part of this is because three generations of being hired for ideology is enough to create a generation too stupid to pour p*ss out of their boots with the instructions written on the heel.
...So the wheels of the industries the left controlled started coming off and other things arose to replace them. Certainly true of the media and writing. Or people stopped paying attention, which seems to be the case with the visual arts.
...And now the worm is turning. The ground is shifting under their feet. People are going around them, not making obeisance. The industries are shrinking. There is less power, less money, less adulation in the path they chose than they thought there would be.
But that’s where they are.
A lot of the unhinged rage from the left is the rage of the dupe who finds out exactly how the devil swindled them.
Sure, they’ll never admit it. A lot of them will cling to the crazy left harder than ever, rather than admit what they did.
#1
A lot of the unhinged rage from the left is the rage of the dupe who finds out exactly how the devil swindled them.
A great line but I think it is deeper than just being swindled by the left. Many have been swindled by someone and it does not unleash such unrestrained rage, craziness and dangerous behavior. Why don't we see such behavior on the right when things don't go as they wish?
#3
Wonderful quote from the article: Part of this is because three generations of being hired for ideology is enough to create a generation too stupid to pour p*ss out of their boots with the instructions written on the heel. I hope to be able to use this sometime soon. I suspect opportunaties abound.
[CNS] "It's un-Christian" to oppose the abortion of unborn children, former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton declared this week at a SiriusXM Town Hall.
Discussing the threat to the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion posed by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Clinton said:
"When I think about all of the statistics that are painful, of what women are confronting today in our country, and what even more women confronted pre-Roe, and how many women died, and how many more women were maimed because of unsafe abortion practices ‐ we just can’t go back to that. That’s unconscionable to me.
"And, also--and I’m sure this will unleash another wave of hate in my direction--but: As a deeply religious person, it’s also un-Christian, to me."
How do you define deeply religious, my dear, and how do you define Christian? Do you apply both terms to yourself? Would those more conventionally viewed as religious Christians agree with both your definitions and your self-description?
#11
Does 'it' even understand what human sacrifice is? And does 'it' realize that murdering innocent babies is NOT a part of Christianity. If God wants it down, he's got a guy for it.
#16
I gather that abortion is central to her religion. IIRC it was also pretty much the only principle her father was faithful to.
And I notice that she lies about the pre-Roe statistics too.
Posted by: james ||
09/15/2018 19:36 Comments ||
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#17
Boy, I tell you.... I AM having one Hell of a time with the Church right now. I wonder which one She is attending?
I'm considering shaving ALL Candlesticks right now. Time to rapture it maybe?
What Am I to do with Three Popes when this idiot resigns?
#18
She wares the cross upside down tells it all.https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQN0YLa8ZkhU6yu1Vl9JI-6w8HzVXwOWqzX0LU7RBXZMNgi9VaKjQ
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Washington Examiner] That recession driven grimness hanging over the workplace has lifted and now workers of all shades are feeling good about their future.
[American Greatness] Perhaps, in the Headline Hall of Fame, alongside "Headless body in topless bar," we can add a new entry to display for generations to come. This week a Washington Post editorial declared: "Another hurricane is about to batter our coast. Trump is complicit."
UNDISCLOSED‐A missions trip to a remote tribe in an undisclosed closed country has successfully converted the entire village into conservative Republicans, sources from the missions team confirmed Friday.
In other New Mexico news: SUNSPOT - Sunspot Observatory was closed and evacuated Sept. 6 due to an undisclosed security risk. ... AURA released a statement Friday, stating it has "decided that the observatory will remain closed until further notice due to an ongoing security concern. 
[American Thinker] I find it humorous and sad that some reporter at Huffington Post would think that President Trump, or anyone, should care what Jimmy Carter thinks of Trump's economic and other policies but somehow, that 
[CNS] "It's un-Christian" to oppose the abortion of unborn children, former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton declared this week at a SiriusXM Town Hall.
"It's that guy again." 
