News You Can Use

[tribrac]

Well, that went obsolete quickly.

I felt like bloodshed was inevitable given all the rhetoric by the politicians and media, but I was hopeful the sight of real blood, injuries or death would stir up the people to their senses. Reading and listening to the discussions post Alexandria shooting and it doesn't feel like anyone is backing off the rhetoric, rather it is increasing. God help us now. I hope there is still a chance for peace.

I thought Saunders made a pathetic attempt to distance himself from the actions of the shooter. Saunders and Hillary both ran campaigns centered on "Fighting for the people" fighting with other Americans mind you, not terrorists or Russians as the enemy. Saunders created a sense of fear, told the people they were in danger, identified the "enemy" and now after the bloody deed he weakly tries to wash the blood from his own hands by declaring "I'm peaceful" . He didn't back off the rhetoric that "they" are the enemy, nor did he back off the rhetoric that people were in danger if anything less than his agenda was forwarded.

So my good mormon friends are you for Shiz or Coriantumr?

[mes5464]

Unable To Pay Bills, Illinois Sends "Dear Contractor" Letter Telling Firms To Halt Road Work On July 1 | Zero Hedge

The state of Illinois has not passed a budget for close to three years.

Arguably it’s just as well because Illinois budgets for decades have been nothing but a moth-eaten collection of lies, one time deficits repeated endlessly, and financial wizardry statements designed to disguise Illinois’ real problems: failure to rein in spending coupled with a very business unfriendly environment.

As Illinois’ bond rating careens towards junk, Illinois Unpaid Bills Jumped to $14.3 Billion. Today, the state told contractors to halt roadwork other than that required for safety.

Dear Contractor
I do not have a link, but here is the letter in image form.

[mes5464]

An Artificial Intelligence Developed Its Own Non-Human Language - The Atlantic

A buried line in a new Facebook report about chatbots’ conversations with one another offers a remarkable glimpse at the future of language.

In the report, researchers at the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research lab describe using machine learning to train their “dialog agents” to negotiate. (And it turns out bots are actually quite good at dealmaking.) At one point, the researchers write, they had to tweak one of their models because otherwise the bot-to-bot conversation “led to divergence from human language as the agents developed their own language for negotiating.” They had to use what’s called a fixed supervised model instead.

[mes5464]

$240,418,000,000: Feds Collect Record Taxes in May; Still Run $88,246,000,000 Deficit

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Treasury hauled in $240,418,000,000 in total taxes in the month of May, setting a record for inflation-adjusted tax revenues for that month of the year, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released this week.

Despite these record revenues, however, the federal government still ran a deficit of $88,426,000,000 in May—because it spent $328,844,000,000 in the month.

In the first eight months of fiscal 2017 (October through May), the federal government hauled in $2,169,160,000,000 in total taxes and spent $2,602,013,000,000—thus, running a deficit of $432,853,000,000. Fiscal 2017 will end on Sept. 30, 2017.

Prior to this year, fiscal 2006 held the record for most federal taxes collected in the month of May. That year, the Treasury collected $232,837,160,000 (in constant 2017 dollars) during May.

[lundbaek]

PUERTO RICO VOTES TO APPLY FOR STATEHOOD
In a surprisingly low turnout (27%) a small minority of voters elected to seek statehood in the United States of America. It’s a bad idea for many reasons. First and foremost, it would provide two more Leftist Democrats to the Senate roster, and secondly, Puerto Rico’s massive financial problems would now become a liability to the union. Francisco Gonzalez, a liberal public school civil rights administrator (who one would expect to favor PR statehood) came out against it in this editorial, for the right reasons: [startribune.com]

[lundbaek]

West London Apartment High Rise Didn’t Collapse in Fire: Although being totally engulfed in flames that gutted the apartment building, the 24 story building didn’t even come close to collapse. Compare this with the WTC towers which were also designed to withstand fire, but supposedly collapsed from lingering flames including building 7 which only had a small localized blaze. In fact, no modern steel high-rise building had ever collapsed from fire—even under raging infernos—until 9/11.

This was a public housing project and local government supervising this type of housing has come under severe criticism for paying millions for a renovation that put flammable panels on the exterior and failing to require simple safety features like working fire alarms (only some worked).

To make matters worse the standing orders were for residents to stay put in their apartments and not try to flee a fire. But the fire started on the second floor and easily progressed upward trapping people as hallways were cluttered with old mattresses, furniture and some refuse. There was only one exit to the building and firefighting equipment at the tower had not been checked for years. Fire extinguishers had expired, and some even had the word "condemned" written on them.

[mes5464]

Canada Criminalizes Use Of Wrong Gender Pronouns | The Daily Caller

Canada passed a law Thursday making it illegal to use the wrong gender pronouns. Critics say that Canadians who do not subscribe to progressive gender theory could be accused of hate crimes, jailed, fined, and made to take anti-bias training.

Canada’s Senate passed Bill C-16, which puts “gender identity” and “gender expression” into both the country’s Human Rights Code, as well as the hate crime category of its Criminal Code by a vote of 67-11, according to LifeSiteNews. The bill now only needs royal assent from the governor general.

“Great news,” announced Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister. “Bill C-16 has passed the Senate – making it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression. #LoveisLove.”

[mes5464]

James T. Hodgkinson Carrying A Political Assassination List | The Daily Caller

James T. Hodgkinson, the shooter who opened fire on dozens of Republican congressmen and staffers at a baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, on Wednesday, had a list of Republican names in his pocket that was recovered by the FBI, The Daily Caller has learned.

The news that the shooter had a list of names suggests the shooting was not a random outburst, but instead appears to be a premeditated political assassination.

The list was written out on notepad paper and found in the shooter’s pocket, according to multiple sources with intimate knowledge of the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the investigation. The list of names included Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan and Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, TheDC has confirmed. Fox News reported after this story that Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, Tennessee Rep. Scott DesJarlais and Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith are also on the list. All six congressmen are members of the House Freedom Caucus, which contains the lower chamber’s most conservative members.

[mes5464]

Data on 198M voters exposed by RNC contractor | TheHill

A data analytics contractor employed by the Republican National Committee (RNC) left databases containing information on nearly 200 million potential voters exposed to the internet without security, allowing anyone who knew where to look to download it without a password. 

"We take full responsibility for this situation," said the contractor, Deep Root Analytics, in a statement.  

The databases were part of 25 terabytes of files contained in an Amazon cloud account that could be browsed without logging in. The leaky account was discovered by researcher Chris Vickery of the security firm UpGuard. The files have since been secured. 

[mes5464]

Myrtle Beach shooting captured on Facebook Live | Daily Mail Online

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT 
The incident occurred in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at 12:30am on Sunday
Officers were called to the scene after a crowd was blocking traffic
A fight broke out among three members of the crowd
A man in a white T-shirt pulled out a gun and fired more than a dozen shots
Seven were injured but treated for non-life threatening injuries
The suspect tried to flee via carjacking but was apprehended by police
Tourist Bubba Hinson captured the entire event was captured on Facebook Live
So far, the video has more than 2.6million views and more than 70,000 shares

[mes5464]

The great American fallout: how small towns came to resent cities | Cities | The Guardian

Joe’s voice takes on a mocking tone.

“You gotta quit driving!” he says. “Don’t drive as much.” He rolls his eyes and looks around at his pals, a handful of them perched on moulded plastic lawn chairs in a tiny town in central Wisconsin. He’s talking about the way city people look down on rural folks like himself. In his normal voice he adds: “You gotta drive 20 miles to work? You can’t cut that in half.”

Joe gathers with his friends every morning over coffee to solve the problems of the world. With a wink, they call themselves the Downtown Athletic Club (the closest downtown is 30 miles away) and are a mix of independent contractors in construction trades, an independently employed auto mechanic, and several retired public school teachers. They have a mix of political leanings among them, but most of them openly support Donald Trump.

[mes5464]

US shoots down Syrian government fighter jet that dropped bombs near coalition-backed forces fighting Isis | The Independent

American forces have shot down a Syrian government fighter jet accused of attacking Kurdish-led troops, prompting a furious response from Damascus as tensions increase.

US Central Command said the SU-22 dropped bombs near the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are being supported by the US-led coalition as they advance on the terrorist stronghold of Raqqa.

“In accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defence of Coalition partnered forces, it was immediately shot down by a US F/A-18E Super Hornet,” a statement said.

Russia to treat US jets in Syria as 'targets' after America guns down first regime warplane | The Independent

Russia has said it will treat US warplanes operating in parts of Syria where its air forces are present as "targets" amid a diplomatic row caused by the downing of a Syrian jet.

The country's defence ministry said the change in position would apply to all aircraft, including those operating as part of the US-backed coalition.

It will also suspend a hotline between Russia and the US set up to prevent mid-air collisions.

[mes5464]

Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city | Technology | The Guardian

In an extract from his new book, Brian Merchant reveals how he gained access to Longhua, the vast complex where iPhones are made and where, in 2010, unhappy workers started killing themselves

[mes5464]

[lundbaek]

http://www.wnd.com/2017/06/city-of-utic ... gee-flood/

[mes5464]

[lundbaek]

"Merkel Commits Germany to Pay Africa to Stem the Flow of Refugees
German Development Minister warned that global warming could cause up to 100-million Africans to come to Germany as climate and economic refugees."

[lundbaek]

The Lord commanded us to awake to a sense of our awful situation because of a secret combination that SHALL be among us. We have suffered that those murderous combinations have gotten above us. Now what ? Wake up and die right !

Seriously, what can we do now ?

[Sunain]

The Lord commanded us to awake to a sense of our awful situation because of a secret combination that SHALL be among us. We have suffered that those murderous combinations have gotten above us. Now what ? Wake up and die right !

Seriously, what can we do now ?

Good question. I think it will take the Lord himself to help us overcome this aweful situation. The Nephites prayed for deliverance, perhaps we need to start doing the same. The world isn't going to correct itself like we are told it will. "Things will get better as time goes on." Isn't that the big lie to lower our defenses to the evils around us. The Lord's Prayer has been banned from schools here for decades and this generations seems to have forgotten that we need to pray to "deliver us from evil."

[lundbaek]

Years - decades - ago we were told what to do by prophets and apostles. Very few members of the Church did as we were told. For some years now I have felt constrained to try to make Latter-day Saints aware of our divinely mandated responsibilities to study, uphold and abide by the principles of the US Constitution in the tradition of the Founding Fathers, or as the Founders meant it to be understood, and to understand and support the proper role of government according to gospel principles.   This involves promoting awareness of what I believe is a doctrinal imperative or divine mandate to learn and abide by the principles of the US Constitution as He who established it intends it to be understood.   Also, I am making people aware of the conspiracy to overthrow the freedoms of all lands, nations, and countries and establish a single global government.   The plan to establish a global government includes gaining control over and making a shambles of America and destroying what is left of our constitutional republic government and turning our nation into a highly centralized socialist state.

But hardly a day goes by without my thinking of giving up on it all.

[mes5464]

Mexico accused of spying on journalists and activists using cellphone malware | World news | The Guardian

The Mexican government has deployed sophisticated software to spy on journalists, activists and anti-graft groups as they worked to highlight some of the country’s most notorious cases of crime, corruption and abuse of authority.

Targets received SMS messages with links which appeared legitimate but led to false sites and the installation of malware on their mobile phones, according to an investigation by the press freedom organisation Article 19 and Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.

The malware recorded keystrokes and compromised contact lists. It was used against targets ranging from activists pushing for soda taxes to journalists reporting on alleged army atrocities and the lawyers representing the families of the 43 teacher trainees abducted by police.

[mes5464]

Yellowstone Supervolcano Hit by a Swarm of More Than 400 Earthquakes in One Week

Updated | Yellowstone supervolcano has been hit by a series of earthquakes, with more 400 recorded since June 12. The latest was recorded on Monday, June 19, with a magnitude 3 earthquake striking 8.6 miles north northeast of West Yellowstone, Montana.

The swarm began last week, and on June 15 saw a magnitude 4.5 earthquake take place in Yellowstone National Park. “The epicenter of the shock was located in Yellowstone National Park, eight miles north-northeast of the town of West Yellowstone, Montana,” scientists from the University of Utah, which monitors Yellowstone Volcano, said in a statement.

“The earthquake was [reportedly] felt in the towns of West Yellowstone and Gardiner, Montana, in Yellowstone National Park, and elsewhere in the surrounding region.”

[mes5464]

It’s Time To Break Up Amazon

“Amazon just bought Whole Foods,” my friend texted me seconds after the announcement of the proposed acquisition. “It’s over. The world.”

This unease is widespread, and has raised new calls for breaking up Jeff Bezos’s impending monopoly by force. Surely the company, which now generates 30% of all online and offline retail sales growth in the United States, and already controls 40% of internet cloud services, has reached too far. The 3% hike in Amazon’s share price since the announcement—which would alone more than pay for the acquisition—may attest less to the deal’s appropriateness than to investors’ growing fear that missing out on Amazon means missing out on the future of the economy.

Whatever you may think of Jeff Bezos, and whether or not antitrust regulations can justifiably be applied to a company whose expansion doesn’t raise but actually lowers costs for end consumers, may be beside the point. Many of us get that something is amiss, but are ourselves so deeply enmeshed in the logic of last century’s version of free-market industrial capitalism that we can’t quite bring ourselves to call this out for the threat it poses to our markets, our economy, and even our planet.

[mes5464]

5 facts that prove Americans are terrible at managing money

About 1 in 4 literally have no emergency savings
We are more worried about paying for our next vacation than about saving enough for retirement.
Millions of us hide money from our spouses and partners.
We prioritize paying the wrong bills first.
We’ve racked up $1 trillion in credit card debt — and that’s just a fraction of what we owe.

[mes5464]

READ: Independent group releases new report on Seth Rich's murder investigation | WJLA

AA
WASHINGTON (ABC7) — A new report has been released by an independent group on the investigation into the death of DNC worker Seth Rich, who was murdered last July in DC.