News You Can Use

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Loyola Has Safe Space For Self-Identified White Students | The Daily Caller

Loyola University Chicago offers a campus club “for self-identified White students” to admit their own racist feelings and to complain about the racism they perceive around themselves.

The segregated “affinity group,” called Ramblers Analyzing Whiteness, allows all students “who self-identify as White” to talk about their “anger and confusion about institutional racism” and to confess “guilt and hope about internalized racism.” Members can also “examine what it means to be White” and “begin the journey of operating in solidarity with others and their privilege.”

Students interested in joining Ramblers Analyzing Whiteness can’t just decide to start showing up at meetings. No, no.

Like other white affinity groups in the United States — such as, say, the white supremacist organization American Vanguard — Ramblers Analyzing Whiteness is a closed group.

Members must undergo an application process and take part in half a dozen two-hour workshops on topics including white privilege, safe spaces and cycles of oppression, according to Campus Reform.

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Alabama House bill would require Internet porn filters | WBMA

When Alabama lawmakers return to the Capitol next week they will consider a bill that would criminalize the sale of a smartphone or other internet access device without a pornography filter. Adults wanting to turn off the filters would pay a $20 fee and request the deactivation in writing.

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Second Arctic 'Doomsday Vault' will allow the world's precious books to survive Armageddon

A SECOND “Doomsday Vault” has just opened in the frozen Arctic wastes of Svalbard in Norway.

The huge storage facility is designed to hold vast amounts of data using a newly devised long-lasting storage method.

[Joel]

House of Representatives votes 231-189 do away with Broadband Privacy, allow ISPs to sell your private internet history


“The ayes have it.” Broadband Privacy has been dealt a blow in Congress with the recent repeal of online privacy protections by the FCC. Since the online privacy protections were voted in by the FCC in 2016, ISPs and their lobbying organizations have been donating and posturing hard to dismantle Internet privacy and bring us to this vote. The CTIA, a telecom lobbying organization, even went so far as to submit a filing claiming that web browsing history and app data usage shouldn’t be considered as “sensitive information.” This appears to be the true sentiment about your online privacy – that it isn’t private and isn’t sensitive and therefore deserves no protections.

Broadband Privacy protections voted down by Congress
According to GovTrack, after only one hour of debate and no allowance for amendments, S.J. Res 34 passed through the House of Representatives with a majority vote (231-189) along party lines. President Trump has signaled that he supports S.J.Res 34.

Opposition to the vote has been fierce. Representative Mike Pocan, vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said:

“Considering how much access providers already have to highly sensitive data, it is absolutely unacceptable for them to monetize personal information.”

Now, Americans will have no online privacy from their ISPs unless they take matters into their own hand. Rick Falkvinge, Head of Privacy at Private Internet Access, commented:

“Privacy isn’t a luxury privilege. It’s not even primarily an individual right. It’s first and foremost a collective necessity, for without it, we punish the freethinkers, the divergents, and the breakers of consensus: those we call entrepreneurs and trailblazers. Without it, our society stops dead, gray, and dull.”

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Student has grade docked for using 'mankind' in English paper

A Northern Arizona University student lost credit on an English paper for using the word “mankind" instead of a gender-neutral alternative.

Cailin Jeffers, an English major at NAU, told Campus Reform that she received an email from one of her professors, Dr. Anne Scott, informing her that she had been docked one point out of a possible 50 on a recent paper for “problems with diction (word choice)” related to her use of the word “mankind” as a synonym for “humanity.”

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Michael Moore Says Trump Will Cause Human Extinction

Liberal propagandist Michael Moore said Tuesday afternoon on Twitter that President Donald Trump will cause the "extinction of human life on earth."

"Historians in the near future will mark today, March 28, 2017, as the day the extinction of human life on earth began, thanks 2 Donald Trump," Moore tweeted.

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SMOKING GUN? Obama Defense Deputy Slips Up On Live TV - Reveals Spying On Trump Team And Leaking Of Intel | Zero Hedge

The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would not longer have access to that intelligence.

* * *

I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more. We have very good intelligence on Russia. So then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew they were trying to also get information to the hill.

 
That's why you have the leaking.
In other words; the Obama administration was concerned about spoliation of evidence gathered through various "sources and methods" of surveillance, so a plan was hatched to leak this information to congress - also known as "The Hill."

[Joel]

Crowdfunding campaign seeks to purchase search history of lawmakers who killed internet privacy


Republicans in Congress just voted to allow Americans’ browser history to be bought and sold. A genius crowdfunding campaign wants to use that against them.

The website searchinternethistory.com is attempting to raise $1 million in order to put in bids to purchase the internet history of leading Republicans and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) members. The first histories the site aims to buy are those of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

“If it takes a million dollars to get real change, I am sure a million people are willing to donate $1 to help ensure their private data stays private,” wrote Adam McElhaney, who launched a GoFundMe campaign for the endeavor.

McElhaney clarified on the GoFundMe campaign’s site that while he understands the privacy risks of using social media, the privacy rules Congress just eliminated goes far beyond what he feels is acceptable.

“I understand that what I put on the Internet is out there and not private. Those are the risks you assume. I’m not ashamed of what I put out on the Internet,” he wrote. “However, I don’t think that what I lookup on the Internet, what sites I visit, my browsing habits, should be bought and sold to whoever. Without my consent.”

McElhaney, who describes himself as “a privacy activist & net neutrality Advocate,” argues that since both houses of Congress have passed bills allowing anyone’s browser history to be sold and purchased by major telecom giants like Verizon, that the American people should be able to buy the browser records for their elected officials. If successful, the site aims to publish a searchable database of browser history for every member of Congress who voted to gut former President Barack Obama’s regulations prohibiting corporations from viewing Americans’ browser histories.

“Everything from their medical, pornographic, to their financial and infidelity. Anything they have looked at, searched for, or visited on the Internet will now be available for everyone to comb through,” the site promises, next to a survey of which public official’s browser history should be published first. “Since we didn’t get an opportunity to vote on whether our private and personal browsing history should be bought and sold, I wanted to show our legislators what a democracy is like. So, I’m giving you the opportunity to vote on whose history gets bought first.”

“Help me raise money to buy the histories of those who took away your right to privacy,” McElhaney adds.

Those who don’t have the means to donate money to the campaign are being asked to donate any legal skills they may have, so the site’s administrators can navigate around the tricky legal battlefield of purchasing and publishing the internet history of some of the most powerful people in the United States.

As of this writing, the campaign has raised nearly $100,000.

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J Scott Armstrong: Fewer Than 1 Percent Of Papers in Scientific Journals Follow Scientific Method - Breitbart

Fewer than 1 percent of papers published in scientific journals follow the scientific method, according to research by Wharton School professor and forecasting expert J. Scott Armstrong.

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Six jobs are eliminated for every robot introduced into the workforce, a new study says - Recode

The threat of robots taking our jobs is very real.

Job-stealing robots aren’t some distant scenario that’s unlikely to cause problems for another “50 to 100 years” from now, as Donald Trump’s treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin said in an interview last week.

New research released from the National Bureau of Economic Research yesterday shows that between 1990 and 2007, when one or more industrial robots were introduced into the workforce, it led to the elimination of 6.2 jobs within a local area where people commute for work.

The report, which was authored by economists Daron Acemoglu of MIT and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University, found that the wages of workers also declined slightly as a result of robots entering the U.S. economy. Wages dropped between 0.25 percent and 0.50 percent per 1,000 employees when one or more robots came into the picture.

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European Union - EU boss threatens to break up US in retaliation for Trump Brexit support | Politics | News | Express.co.uk

EUROPEAN Union boss Jean-Claude Juncker this afternoon issued a jaw-dropping threat to the United States, saying he could campaign to break up the country in revenge for Donald Trump’s supportive comments about Brexit.

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$374,793,000,000: Sales Taxes Hit Record in 2016

(CNSNews.com) - Americans paid a record $374,793,000,000 in general sales and gross receipt taxes to state and local governments in fiscal 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That was up $1,535,980,000—or about 0.4 percent—from the $373,257,020 in general sales and gross receipt taxes (in constant 2016 dollars) that state and local government collected in fiscal 2015.

Fiscal 2016 was the third year in a row that general sales and gross receipt taxes set a record.

[tribrac]

European Union - EU boss threatens to break up US in retaliation for Trump Brexit support | Politics | News | Express.co.uk

EUROPEAN Union boss Jean-Claude Juncker this afternoon issued a jaw-dropping threat to the United States, saying he could campaign to break up the country in revenge for Donald Trump’s supportive comments about Brexit.

Ha, thats like threatening to melt all the snow in the Utah. He has no power to do it on his own time-frame, but the snow will melt on its own through the passage of time. Would he dare claim credit for melting the snow?

This guy is playing for a headline, hoping to get credit for an eventuality. He has no power to make it happen. The only thing startling about his declaration is that the eventuality is close enough that he dares to speak it.

[Joel]

The First Horseman of the Privacy Apocalypse Has Already Arrived: Verizon Announces Plans to Install Spyware on All Its Android Phones

Within days of Congress repealing online privacy protections, Verizon has announced new plans to install software on customers’ devices to track what apps customers have downloaded. With this spyware, Verizon will be able to sell ads to you across the Internet based on things like which bank you use and whether you’ve downloaded a fertility app.

Verizon’s use of “AppFlash”—an app launcher and web search utility that Verizon will be rolling out to their subscribers’ Android devices “in the coming weeks”—is just the latest display of wireless carriers’ stunning willingness to compromise the security and privacy of their customers by installing spyware on end devices.

The AppFlash Privacy Policy published by Verizon states that the app can be used to

“collect information about your device and your use of the AppFlash services. This information includes your mobile number, device identifiers, device type and operating system, and information about the AppFlash features and services you use and your interactions with them. We also access information about the list of apps you have on your device.”

Troubling as it may be to collect intimate details about what apps you have installed, the policy also illustrates Verizon’s intent to gather location and contact information:

“AppFlash also collects information about your device’s precise location from your device operating system as well as contact information you store on your device.”

And what will Verizon use all of this information for? Why, targeted advertising on third-party websites, of course:

“AppFlash information may be shared within the Verizon family of companies, including companies like AOL who may use it to help provide more relevant advertising within the AppFlash experiences and in other places, including non-Verizon sites, services and devices.”

In other words, our prediction that mobile Internet providers would start installing spyware on their customers’ phones has come true, less than 48 hours after Congress sold out your personal data to companies like Comcast and AT&T. With the announcement of AppFlash, Verizon has made clear that it intends to start monetizing its customers’ private data as soon as possible.

What are the ramifications? For one thing, this is yet another entity that will be collecting sensitive information about your mobile activity on your Android phone. It’s bad enough that Google collects much of this information already and blocks privacy-enhancing tools from being distributed through the Play Store. Adding another company that automatically tracks its customers doesn’t help matters any.

But our bigger concern is the increased attack surface an app like AppFlash creates. You can bet that with Verizon rolling this app out to such a large number of devices, hackers will be probing it for vulnerabilities, to see if they can use it as a backdoor they can break into. We sincerely hope Verizon has invested significant resources in ensuring that AppFlash is secure, because if it’s not, the damage to Americans’ cybersecurity could be disastrous.

Verizon should immediately abandon its plans to monitor its customers’ behaviors, and do what it’s paid to do: deliver quality Internet service without spying on users.

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GE's Jeff Immelt: Robots won't kill human jobs - Axios

He thinks fears of robot-driven joblessness are overblown, even as he invests billions in automation: "This notion of the war of the robots happening in the short term, that's more of a Silicon Valley vision than the real world."
Robots are making Americans richer: Businesses can only pay workers more if they become more productive, and automation allows humans to focus on more valuable tasks.
It's not just technology, but politics that drive automation: "The question of the last election was, 'how do you create $25 per hour jobs?" Immelt argues. In a global economy, jobs that don't require trained workers to leverage the power of computers and automation simply won't pay that well.
All business will be in the education business: Immelt says that GE and firms like it must do more to train workers to rise above tasks that robots can do, "not because we're bleeding hearts, but because we're good at it."

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High doses of vitamin C can help treat cancer, scientists find | London Evening Standard

High doses of vitamin C injected into the blood stream could help treat cancer, new research from scientists suggests.

Injecting patients with a dose 1,000 times higher than the recommended level could target tumour cells and make radiation and chemotherapy more effective.

Scientists gave eleven brain cancer sufferers regular dosages of vitamin C every week for nine months while receiving typical radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Tests showed the extra vitamin – usually found in oranges, green vegetables, broccoli and strawberries – made cancer cells more susceptible to treatment.

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Connecticut considering weaponizing drones - Story | WNYW

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Connecticut lawmakers are considering whether the state should become the first in the country to allow police to use drones outfitted with deadly weapons, a proposal immediately met with concern by civil rights and liberties advocates.

The bill would ban the use of weaponized drones, but exempt police. Details on how law enforcement could use drones with weapons would be spelled out in new rules to be developed by the state Police Officer Standards and Training Council. Officers also would have to receive training before being allowed to use drones with weapons.

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Venezuela Muzzles Legislature, Moving Closer to One-Man Rule - The New York Times

IQUITOS, Peru — Venezuela took its strongest step yet toward one-man rule under the leftist President Nicolás Maduro as his loyalists on the Supreme Court seized power from the National Assembly in a ruling late Wednesday night.

The ruling effectively dissolved the elected legislature, which is led by Mr. Maduro’s opponents, and allows the court to write laws itself, experts said.

The move caps a year in which the last vestiges of Venezuela’s democracy have been torn down, critics and regional leaders say, leaving what many now describe as not just an authoritarian regime, but an outright dictatorship.

“What we have warned of has finally come to pass,” said Luis Almagro, the head of the Organization of American States, a regional diplomacy group that includes Venezuela and is investigating the country for violating the bloc’s Democratic Charter.

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Talk about materialism.

Elevating design: Porsche Design Tower in Miami turns residents' cars into works of art

With 95 per cent of the apartments in the inaugural Porsche Design Tower already sold, any new prospective buyers will have to be quick off the mark. Especially if they want to have any hope of parking a supercar (or 11) in the remaining 19,403 sq ft penthouse.

It’s no surprise that the unmistakable new landmark on Miami’s skyline, overlooking Sunny Isles Beach, would cause a stir. As Porsche Design’s first foray into residential real estate, indeed its first architectural project at all, the highly anticipated luxury high rise includes 132 apartments over 60 storeys, with an estimated sellout of $840 million.

From carbon fibre kitchens (with gull wing doors) to any number of astonishing over-the-top amenities such as plunge pools, cigar decks and golf simulators, the condominiums redefine the concept of "the bachelor pad" through the integration of seriously show-off technology and Porsche Design detailing at every turn.

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Ofsted to spy on Facebook accounts of parents and pupils 

Ofsted is looking to spy on the Facebook accounts of parents and pupils to help predict failing schools.

The school's watchdog is looking at the possibility of using social media to help predict which schools are at risk of a drop in performance.

In a new document Ofsted reveals it is talking to the government about a project that would explore how data and information gathered from the internet could be used to "predict and prevent" declines in standards.

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Nearly half the student population at Harrisburg High School slapped with suspension notices | PennLive.com

HARRISBURG--Nearly half the student population at Harrisburg High School was slapped with suspension notices this week because the students had racked up too many unexcused absences.

School officials handed out suspension notices to 500 students on Monday as part of a crackdown by the school's new principal. About 1,100 students are enrolled at the school.

At least 100 of the students served one-day suspensions on Tuesday as punishment. The disciplinary fates of the other students remain unknown as school officials continue to work with parents to confirm whether some of the absences were excused. School officials said many parents were able to provide documentation to clear up their students' records.

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Perez: Trump Didn't Win Election, GOP Doesn't Give A S**t About People | The Daily Caller

Newly elected Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez campaigned for Democrats in Newark, New Jersey Friday by telling a crowd the Republican Party doesn’t “give a $#!%” about them.

Perez, speaking at a rally hosted by the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, first congratulated protesters on showing up in droves to Washington, DC on January 21, the day after President Trump’s inauguration.

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We are a warlike people.

With Trump approval, Pentagon expands warfighting authority

WASHINGTON (AP) — Week by week, country by country, the Pentagon is quietly seizing more control over warfighting decisions, sending hundreds more troops to war with little public debate and seeking greater authority to battle extremists across the Middle East and Africa.

This week it was Somalia, where President Donald Trump gave the U.S. military more authority to conduct offensive airstrikes on al-Qaida-linked militants. Next week it could be Yemen, where military leaders want to provide more help for the United Arab Emirates' battle against Iranian-backed rebels. Key decisions on Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are looming, from ending troop number limits to loosening rules that guide commanders in the field.

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People are fleeing New York at an alarming rate | New York Post

More people are leaving the New York region than any other major metropolitan area in the country.

More than 1 million people moved out of the New York area to another part of the country since 2010, a rate of 4.4 percent — the highest negative net migration rate among the nation’s large population centers, US Census records show.

The number of people leaving the region — which includes parts of New Jersey, Connecticut, the lower Hudson Valley and Long Island — in one year swelled from 187,034 in 2015 to 223,423 in 2016, while the number of international immigrants settling in the tri-state area dwindled from 181,551 to 160,324 over the same period, records show.

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Sure, that's what we need, another war!

Trump: 'Totally' possible for U.S. to address North Korea threat alone - FT | Reuters

The United States is prepared to respond to North Korean nuclear threats on its own if China fails to pressure Pyongyang, President Donald Trump said in an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday.

"Well if China is not going to solve North Korea, We will. That is all I am telling you," he was quoted as telling the newspaper.