[VIDEO] MONTAGE: Zuckerberg Promises ‘More AI Tools’
Posted: April 12, 2018 Filed under: Entertainment, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, video Leave a comment
Amber Athey reports: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a simple solution for most of the problems presented to him by Congress: “more AI tools.”
Zuckerberg repeatedly stressed Facebook’s growing focus on artificial intelligence during his testimony Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] MONTAGE: Zuckerberg Doesn’t Know — His ‘Team’ Will ‘Follow Up’
Posted: April 11, 2018 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, Science & Technology, U.S. News | Tags: Congress, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, media, video Leave a comment
During Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance before two Congressional committees, it was unclear whether the Facebook CEO knew the answer to ANYTHING. Don’t worry though, his ‘team’ will be sure to follow-up.
‘WE OWN YOU: Pay Us For Your Privacy’: New York Post Cover for April 7, 2018
Posted: April 8, 2018 Filed under: Business, Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Advertising, Facebook, media, New York, NYC, Sheryl Sandberg, Tabloid, Zuckerberg Leave a comment
Source: New York Post
Peggy Noonan Channels Jordan Peterson: ‘If Adults Won’t Grow Up, Nobody Will’
Posted: April 6, 2018 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, History, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Adulthood, Facebook, Harvey Weinstein, Jordan Peters, Laura Ingraham, Mark Zuckerberg, PEGGY NOONAN, WSJ Leave a comment
From Facebook to Harvey Weinstein, America’s scandals amount to a giant crisis of maturity.
“The signal fact of Mr. Zuckerberg is that he is supremely gifted in one area—monetizing technical expertise by marrying it to a canny sense of human weakness. Beyond that, what a shallow and banal figure.”
It has to do with not being able to fully reckon with your size, not because it is small but because it is big. I see more people trembling under the weight of who they are.
Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has been on this message for years. Are voices like his finally being being heard?
Laura Ingraham got in trouble for publicly mocking one of the student gun-control activists of Parkland, Fla. She’s been unjustly targeted for boycotts, but it’s fair to say she was wrong in what she said, and said it because she didn’t remember 
who she is. She is a successful and veteran media figure, host of a cable show that bears her name. As such she is a setter of the sound of our culture as it discusses politics. When you’re that person, you don’t smack around a 17-year-old, even if—maybe especially if—he is obnoxious in his presentation of his public self. He’s a kid. They’re not infrequently obnoxious, because they are not fully mature. He’s small, you’re big. There’s a power imbalance.
As of this week, it is six months since the reckoning that began with the New York Times exposé of Harvey Weinstein. One by one they fell, men in media, often journalism, and their stories bear at least in part a general theme.
They were mostly great successes, middle-aged, and so natural leaders of the young. But they treated the young as prey. They didn’t respect them, in part because they didn’t respect themselves. They didn’t see their true size, their role, or they ignored it. Read the rest of this entry »
BIG DATA: A Tale of Two Campaigns
Posted: March 24, 2018 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, Big Data, Data, Donald Trump, Facebook, Presidential Election 2012, Presidential Election 2016, Social media Leave a comment
What’s ‘Genius’ for Obama is Scandal When it Comes to Trump
Posted: March 21, 2018 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Cambridge Analytica, Democrats, Donald Trump, Facebook, Facebook’s algorithm, journalism, Mark Zuckerberg, media 1 Comment
The scandal involving Cambridge Analytica’s abuse of Facebook data underscores the point.
Ben Shapiro writes:
… In 2012, The Guardian reported that President Obama’s reelection team was “building a vast digital data operation that for the first time combines a unified database on millions of Americans with the power of Facebook to target individual voters to a degree never achieved before.”
… Facebook had no problem with such activity then. They do now. There’s a reason for that. The former Obama director of integration and media analytics stated that, during the 2012 campaign, Facebook allowed the Obama team to “suck out the whole social graph”; Facebook “was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.” She added, “They came to [the] office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.”
Not so with Trump. As soon as Facebook realized that Cambridge Analytica had pursued a similar strategy, they suspended the firm.
This whole hullaballoo about Facebook isn’t complicated.
1. Trump wins.
2. Democrats/Left declare social media in “crisis,” threaten legislation.
3. Social media heads punish conservatives.— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 20, 2018
Again, this isn’t surprising. Since Trump’s election, Democrats — in search of a rationale for their favored candidate’s defeat — have blamed a bevy of social media outlets. Senate Democrats trotted out pathetic Russian-created memes on Facebook, viewed by a handful of human beings, as an excuse for Hillary’s loss; Democrats claimed — without evidence — that “fake news” had swamped Facebook and thus led to Trump’s victory. Democrats have also insisted that Facebook be regulated. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) raged, “You’ve created these platforms, and now they’re being misused, and you have to be the ones to do something about it. Or we will.” Facebook’s former privacy manager called for the government to step into an oversight role regarding Facebook.
[Read the full story here, at TheHill]
In February, Wired magazine ran a cover story specifically dealing with Facebook’s role in the election of 2016, and their subsequent attempts to “fix” the problem. After the election, Mark Zuckerberg even met with Barack Obama, apparently in an attempt to convince Obama that he was serious about stopping the “misuse” of the platform. And in February, Zuckerberg said he wanted to re-jigger the algorithms on his platform to benefit content that Facebook deems “trustworthy, informative, and local.” Wired celebrated: “You can’t make the world more open and connected if you’re breaking it apart.” Read the rest of this entry »
Zuckerberg’s Dilemma: When Facebook’s Success Is Bad for Society
Posted: January 8, 2018 Filed under: Censorship, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Content Moderators, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, media, Mental health, Snapchat, Social media, Twitter Leave a comment
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with entrepreneurs and innovators at a round-table discussion in St. Louis on Nov. 9. Photo: Jeff Roberson/Associated Press
Facebook’s chief has signaled he will do what it takes to curb the social network’s negative effects—but how far will he go?
Christopher Mims reports: When scientists started linking cigarettes to cancer, the tobacco industry silenced them—only acknowledging the extent of the truth decades later, under legal duress.
Imagine if, instead, they had given these researchers license to publish papers, or even taken the information to heart and crippled their own moneymaking machines for the good of their addicted users.
No one has accused Facebook FB 1.37% of causing cancer, but Mark Zuckerberg now stands at a similar crossroads.
In the face of pressure brought by a growing roster of Facebook investors and former executives, many of whom have publicly stated that Facebook is both psychologically addictive and harmful to democracy, the Facebook founder and chief executive has pledged to “fix” Facebook by doing several things, including “making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent.”
Mr. Zuckerberg has also recently told investors he wants his company “to encourage meaningful social interactions,” adding that “time spent is not a goal by itself.”
Facebook researchers have acknowledged that while direct sharing between individuals and small groups on Facebook can have positive effects, merely scrolling through others’ updates makes people unhappy. Photo: ISTOCK
So here’s the multibillion-dollar question: Is he willing to sacrifice revenue for the well-being of Facebook’s two-billion-plus users?
Mr. Zuckerberg has already said the company will hire so many content moderators to deal with fake news and Russian interference that it will hurt profit, but whether he will go further and change the basic fabric of Facebook’s algorithms in the name of users’ mental health, he has yet to say.
[Read the full story here, at WSJ]
Clearly, Facebook, a company Mr. Zuckerberg started when he was in college, has changed so much that even its creator is playing catch-up to the reality of its globe-spanning power.
In June, he changed the company’s mission from “connecting” the world to bringing the world closer together. He said he used to think giving people a voice would make the world better on its own, “but our society is still divided. Now I believe we have a responsibility to do even more.”
In December, Facebook researchers surveyed the scientific literature and their own work and publicly acknowledged that while direct communication and sharing between individuals and small groups on Facebook can have positive effects, merely lurking and scrolling through others’ status updates makes people unhappy. Read the rest of this entry »
#Wheredidmattgo? Matt Lauer Apparently Quits Social Media Amid Firestorm
Posted: December 1, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: #Wheredidmattgo?, Facebook, Instagram, Matt Lauer, sexual harassment, Social media, Television, Twitter Leave a comment
#Wheredidmattgo? A day after Matt Lauer was fired by NBC the now-former Todayhost appears to have deleted all of his social media accounts and been excised from those of his ex-employer.
The online world quickly noticed today that the disgraced morning-show stalwart’s Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts have gone inactive. Read the rest of this entry »
What’s Killing Journalism?
Posted: August 6, 2017 Filed under: Censorship, Education, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Ajit Varadaraj Pai, Facebook, Federal Communications Commission, Google, Internet, Internet access, Internet of Things, Internet service provider, journalism, media, YouTube Leave a comment
The state of the Fourth Estate—and who can save it.
Brittany Karford Rogers writes: If hashtags had been a thing, these would have been some #FakeNews whoppers.
The 32 BC Mark Antony takedown: it began with a fake-news campaign masterminded by Octavian, complete with Tweet-like proclamations on ancient coins.
The Simon of Trent humdinger: in 1475 a prince-bishop in Italy set off a story that local Jews murdered missing 2-year-old Simon—and used his blood for rituals. Fifteen Jews burned at the stake.
The Benjamin Franklin special edition: he concocted an entire 1782 newspaper, peddling a fake story about Native Americans scalping 700 men, women, children, and infants.
In short, fake news is old news.
For all the handwringing over fake news today, BYU journalism professor Joel J. Campbell’s (BA ’87) response is more “meh.” It’s another punch for a profession that’s been in the ring for the better part of a decade. Trust in news media is at an all-time low. Revenue models are upended. Reporters are exhausted. Readers are fragmented. And that’s just a short list of jabs.
Looming larger in Campbell’s eyes are analytics-driven newsrooms and disenfranchised readers, who, flooded with content, are living in information silos or, worse, opting out altogether.
So how does one make sense of the crowded, increasingly polarized news landscape? And what’s left of journalism as we knew it?
[Read the full text here, at BYU Magazine]
BYU faculty and alumni practitioners—their collective résumés spanning Fox News, C-SPAN, CNN, the Atlantic, and more—have some ideas.
Before you throw your hands up, consider the forces at play, take heart in journalists’ earnest self-searching, and look in the mirror—because the finger pointing goes all the way around.
It’s worth asking, “Is journalism still doing its job?” But as our panel of experts chimes, there’s an equally important question: “Do the citizens of this country have the will to save it?”
A Happy Accident
Journalism has a lofty goal—one epitomized by the career of R. John Hughes.
The emeritus BYU professor won the Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for his coverage of an attempted communist coup and its bloody aftermath in Indonesia. Over his career as a writer for and then editor of the Christian Science Monitor, he covered revolutions and interviewed world leaders.
“Journalism was almost like a religion to me, to get the story, and get it right, to help evince change,” Hughes says. “It’s a kind of love affair for most journalists, shining light in dark corners.”
Journalists call themselves the watchdogs, the truth seekers. The press is dubbed the Fourth Estate after all, the final check on all three branches of government. Democracy requires informed citizens; the press make up the informants. “Democracy Dies in Darkness” goes the new Washington Post tagline.
That’s the why of modern journalism.
The how—being objective, non-partisan—“is rather a new phenomenon in the history of news,” says Campbell.
It has always depended on who’s paying.
Wealthy traders and merchants underwrote the first news in the Americas, and it was all route intel. In the colonial period political parties footed the bill for most papers—party organs that were far more partisan and acrimonious than what we cry foul at today. It wasn’t until the penny-press era—the 1830s on—that a new funding model developed: scale up the circulation, then sell readers’ attention to advertisers. That advertising revenue could bring the cost of the paper down to something many could afford.
Writing to a mass audience, publishers began to recognize there was a market for real, honest news that could cross political divides and speak with a relatively neutral voice. This paved the way for professional journalism standards. And for most of the 20th century, it made newsrooms the information power brokers.
Then the internet smashed the model.
“For the last decade, we have seen a steady erosion of the advertising economy for newspapers,” says Campbell. That’s the nice way of saying it. Revenue streams have been gutted.
Department stores and auto malls, the go-to advertisers, cut back on ads, facing their own disruptions: e-commerce competition and recession. Craigslist happened to the classifieds. And reader eyeballs, once concentrated among a few media outlets, are now diverted to Facebook, YouTube, and that thing you just Googled—and the bulk of advertising has followed them.
[Read the full story here, at BYU Magazine]
As they say in the industry, the digital transition traded print dollars for digital dimes and, in turn, digital dimes for mobile pennies.
One thing is certain: it’s a fascinating time to study the news. Alum Seth C. Lewis (BA ’02) holds the Shirley Papé Chair in Emerging Media at the University of Oregon and is a leading scholar on the digital transformation of journalism.
“We’ve gone from media monopoly to media disruption and ubiquity,” says Lewis. And in ubiquity, no one gets a sizable piece of the economic pie.
Lewis suggests that maybe the last century of advertising-based news subsidy—which fostered these objective, non-partisan notions—“was just a happy accident. Maybe instead we’re returning to other forms of funding and thinking about the news.”
Illustration by Dan Page
Casualties of the Internet
The internet is not the first technology to shake up the news industry. It happened after radio. It happened after TV.
This shakeup, however, may have taken more casualties.
News staffs have been decimated. The journalists who still have jobs are stretched thin—while the internet demands more of them than ever. Read the rest of this entry »
John Tierney: The Tyranny of the Administrative State
Posted: June 10, 2017 Filed under: Foreign Policy, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: A New Beginning, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Facebook, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Paris, Paris Agreement, President of the United States, Saudi Arabia, White House 2 Comments
Illustration: Ken Fallin
Government by unelected experts isn’t all that different from the ‘royal prerogative’ of 17th-century England, argues constitutional scholar Philip Hamburger.
Like the blind men in the fable who try to describe an elephant by feeling different parts of its body, they’re not perceiving the whole problem: the enormous rogue beast known as the administrative state.
Sometimes called the regulatory state or the deep state, it is a government within the government, run by the president and the dozens of federal agencies that assume powers once claimed only by kings. In place of royal decrees, they issue rules and send out “guidance” letters like the one from an Education Department official in 2011 that stripped college students of due process when accused of sexual misconduct.
Unelected bureaucrats not only write their own laws, they also interpret these laws and enforce them in their own courts with their own judges. All this is in blatant violation of the Constitution, says Mr. Hamburger, 60, a constitutional scholar and winner of the Manhattan Institute’s Hayek Prize last year for his scholarly 2014 book, “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?” (Spoiler alert: Yes.)
“Essentially, much of the Bill of Rights has been gutted,” he says, sitting in his office at Columbia Law School. “The government can choose to proceed against you in a trial in court with constitutional processes, or it can use an administrative proceeding where you don’t have the right to be heard by a real judge or a jury and you don’t have the full due process of law. Our fundamental procedural freedoms, which once were guarantees, have become mere options.”
In volume and complexity, the edicts from federal agencies exceed the laws passed by Congress by orders of magnitude. “The administrative state has become the government’s predominant mode of contact with citizens,” Mr. Hamburger says. “Ultimately this is not about the politics of left or right. Unlawful government power should worry everybody.”
[Read the full story here, at WSJ]
Defenders of agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Environmental Protection Agency often describe them as the only practical way to regulate today’s complex world. The Founding Fathers, they argue, could not have imagined the challenges that face a large and technologically advanced society, so Congress and the judiciary have wisely delegated their duties by giving new powers to experts in executive-branch agencies.
Mr. Hamburger doesn’t buy it. In his view, not only is such delegation unconstitutional, it’s nothing new. The founders, far from being naive about the need for expert guidance, limited executive powers precisely because of the abuses of 17th-century kings like James I. Read the rest of this entry »
Megan G. Oprea: After London Bridge, World Is Sick Of Politicians Downplaying Terrorism
Posted: June 5, 2017 Filed under: Global, Politics, Terrorism, War Room | Tags: Angela Merkel, Brexit, EUROPE, European Union, Facebook, Theresa May, Twitter, UK Independence Party, United Kingdom Leave a comment
Our political leaders are basically telling us that this kind of terrorism, random and deadly, is the price we have to pay for their policies of multiculturalism and political correctness.
Megan G. Oprea writes: As if on cue, in the wake of Saturday’s terrorist attack in London political leaders are trotting out the usual treacly lines that have become so rote. But the words they pretend will provide comfort to anyone but the most naïve are borderline worthless. Worse, they’re an insult to the families who have had to experience the shocking pain of the sudden loss of a family member or friend at the hands of a terrorist.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, called Saturday’s attack “deliberate and cowardly,” and asked “all Londoners to remain calm and vigilant today and in the days ahead.” Most notably, he said: “You will see an increased police presence today, including armed officers and uniformed officers. There is no reason to be alarmed by this. We are the safest global city in the world.”
What a thing to say at a time like this. Shouldn’t Britons be alarmed? Isn’t Saturday’s attack in London, coming as it did on the heels of the Manchester bombing, deeply disturbing? Why isn’t Khan more concerned about the threats that are so obviously at the doorstep, or better put, in Britain’s streets? Does anyone really take comfort from being told about swift police response times after yet another terrorist attack?
Our Politicians Can’t Handle the Truth
The sad truth, and getting sadder with every attack, is that the political class has little interest in doing what would really be necessary to combat Islamist terrorism, let alone talk about it. They don’t want to talk about how Britain’s lax immigration policies over decades led to hundreds of thousands of immigrants entering the country with varying degrees of willingness to assimilate and adopt Western values. They don’t want to openly criticize the blatant problems with the multiculturalism the UK has pursued for years and the obvious impact it has had on the immigrant population.
Oh no. This would cost them too much. It would shatter the façade of political correctness that’s been constructed over our “civilized” western world, and destroy the illusion, so vital to the political class, that Western values are universal. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] FCC Chairman Ajit Pai: Why He’s Rejecting Net Neutrality
Posted: April 28, 2017 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Ajit Varadaraj Pai, AT&T, Barack Obama, Comcast, Common carrier, Facebook, Federal Communications Commission, Internet, Internet service provider, Net neutrality Leave a comment
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai announced plans today to roll back net neutrality rules put in place by the Obama administration in 2015.
The FCC currently regulates Internet service providers (ISPs) under Title II regulations that essentially treat the internet as a public utility similar to the old phone monopoly. Proponents of net neutrality and the invocation of Title II regulations say that such oversight is necessary to ensure that the Internet remains “open” and ISPs don’t block sites or degrade offerings by rivals. Long a critic of Title II regulations, which were invoked after the FCC lost two court battles to regulate the Internet, Pai describes them as “a panoply of heavy-handed economic regulations that were developed in the Great Depression to handle Ma Bell.”
Scrapping these rules, Pai told Reason’s Nick Gillespie, won’t harm consumers or the public interest because there was no reason for them in the first place. The rationales were mere “phantoms that were conjured up by people who wanted the FCC for political reasons to overregulate the internet,” Pai told Gillespie. “We were not living in a digital dystopia in the years leading up to 2015.”
If left in place, however, the Title II rules could harm the commercial internet, which Pai described as “one of the most incredible free market innovations in history.”
“Companies like Google and Facebook and Netflix became household names precisely because we didn’t have the government micromanaging how the internet would operate,” said Pai, who noted that the Clinton-era decision not to regulate the Internet like a phone utility or a broadcast network was one of the most important factors in the rise of our new economy. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Berkeley Protesters Take the Pepsi Challenge
Posted: April 17, 2017 Filed under: Education, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Advertising, Bernice King, Black Lives Matter, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Kendall Jenner, Pepsi, Protest, video Leave a comment
Vito brings the taste of a new generation to a violent protest. Can he bridge the divide and save our great nation!?
*DISCLAIMER* I am not affiliated with the alt-right / antifa / whatever. This video is not an endorsement of anyone or anything (except Pepsi)(though seriously fuck Pepsi for that dumbass ad)
Music Credit:
Laser Groove by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
X-Men Artist Apologizes for Reportedly Anti-Christian, Anti-Semitic Imagery
Posted: April 10, 2017 Filed under: Comics, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Antisemitism, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, Bogor, Donald Trump, Facebook, Google, Halim Perdanakusuma Airport, Indonesia, Jakarta, Jews, Marvel 1 Comment
Oliver Gettell reports: Comic book artist Ardian Syaf has issued an apology for including hidden messages in an issue of X-Men: Gold that have been interpreted by many readers as being anti-Semitic and anti-Christian.
“My career is over now. It’s the consequence what I did, and I take it.”
The panels in question appear to allude to religious and political tensions in Syaf’s native Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.
“My career is over now,” Syaf said in a statement posted to Facebook on Monday. “It’s the consequence what I did, and I take it. Please no more mockery, [debate], no more hate. I hope all in peace.”
Syaf went on to address his inclusion of the number 212 and the phrase “QS 5:51” in the comic, writing that they were meant to represent “justice” and “love.” He also apologized “for all the noise.”
As reported by Bleeding Cool on Saturday, Syaf’s artwork in the first issue of X-Men Gold appeared to reference hardline opposition to Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the Christian governor of Jakarta, as well as anti-Semitic sentiments. Read the rest of this entry »
Simon & Schuster Cancels Milo Yiannopoulos Book Publication; Milo Disinvited From CPAC
Posted: February 20, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere, Politics, Reading Room | Tags: Barack Obama, Berkeley, Black Lives Matter, Books, Breitbart News, Buzzfeed, Donald Trump, Facebook, Milo Yiannopoulos, Protest, publishing, Simon & Schuster, Threshold Editions, Twitter, University of California Leave a comment
Simon & Schuster’s Adam Rothberg announced that the company and its Threshold Editions division would be canceling its publication of Yiannopoulos’ book, ‘Dangerous.’ It was due for release on June 13.
UPDATED: Controversial far-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos has been disinvited from speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, it was announced on Monday.
The decision comes amid a controversy involving a video from January 2016, in which Yiannopoulos appears to defend pedophilia. It resurfaced after it was recently shared on a conservative blog, and has gained traction and backlash over the past week.
Statement: After careful consideration @simonschuster and its @threshold_books have cancelled publication of Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos
— (((Adam Rothberg))) (@AdamRothberg) February 20, 2017
“We realize that Mr. Yiannopoulos has responded on Facebook, but it is insufficient,” American Conservative Union Chairman Matt said in a statement. “It is up to him to answer the tough questions and we urge him to immediately further address these disturbing comments.”
In the video, a 2016 episode of podcast “The Drunken Peasants,” Yiannopoulos discussed his own experience with sexual assault as a teenager. Read the rest of this entry »
Unhinged ‘Professor’ Whose Hissy Fit at NYU Went Viral Turns Out to Be Lobster Porn Artist
Posted: February 6, 2017 Filed under: Censorship, Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: 2 Chainz, Alt-right, Beatboxing, Dog, Facebook, Freedom of speech, Gavin McInnes, Lobster, Lobster Porn, Make America Great Again, The Huffington Post, Twitter, Viral video Leave a comment
In the video, she can be heard telling police to beat up Gavin McInnes.
Megan Fox writes: There are more lifestyles than you can shake a stick at in modern America. Whether you want to live as an animal, or a six-year-old, or a lizard, there’s just no end to the choices one can make regarding how you live your life these days in the free world. (This may be our penance for the invention of robot vacuum cleaners.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how disturbing this is”
With no physical labor left to do, human beings turn insane, apparently.) How exactly do you tell your parents you’ve decided to go into “lobster porn” like social media sensation Rebecca Goyette, whose expletive-filled hissy fit outside NYU went viral (NSFW). I imagine the conversation went something like this via email.
Dear Mom and Dad,I know you had high hopes that I would take my art degree and perhaps teach children to paint or create beautiful landscapes to sell to tourists in some tropical location, but none of that is going to happen. I wanted you to know your money was well spent because I have found a niche in the performance art community: Lobster porn. Read the rest of this entry »
Censorship Wins Again—and So Does Milo
Posted: February 1, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Anarchists, Anti-Fascists, Berkeley, breitbart, California, College Republicans, Facebook, Free Speech Movement, Milo Yiannopoulos, Protest, Riot, San Francisco, San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco Chronicle, Socialism, Tolerance, Twitter, University of California 1 Comment
UC-Berkeley Protesters Set Campus on Fire, Shut Down Milo Yiannopoulos Event
Robby Soave writes: Berkeley is burning tonight: the university campus that birthed the Free Speech Movement played host to a despicable display of violence and censorship Wednesday evening that culminated in the cancellation of a planned speech by controversial Breitbart tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos.
Anti-Yiannopoulos protesters wearing black scarves over their faces hurled fireworks at the building where the alt-right leader was supposed to speak. They also tore down barricades and smashed windows. They used gasoline to start a significant fire on the street that threatened to engulf a nearby tree, and forced police to push people back.
“This is what tolerance looks like at UC Berkeley.”
— Mike Wright
Authority figures deployed rubber bullets and tear gas in an attempt to control the situation. A student who attended the event told me that it seemed like the majority of the violent protesters were not students, but older, masked rioters from the “antifa” movement.
A protester runs back after smashing windows during a protest against right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos who was scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017. (Doig Duran/Bay Area News Group)
[Read the full story here, at Reason.com]
“This is what tolerance looks like at UC Berkeley,” said Mike Wright, a member of the Berkeley College Republican group that invited Yiannopoulos to speak. Shortly after he made this statement, smoke bombs were set off around him, and someone threw red paint at him, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
Yiannopoulos released the following statement on Facebook:
I have been evacuated from the UC Berkeley campus after violent left-wing protestors tore down barricades, lit fires, threw rocks and Roman candles at the windows and breached the ground floor of the building. My team and I are safe. But the event has been cancelled. I’ll let you know more when the facts become clear. One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.
As I write this, at 10:00 p.m., the violence and chaos are ongoing. Yiannopoulos was forced to evacuate the campus. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Protesters Start Fire Over Breitbart Editor Speech; UPDATE: Milo Responds
Posted: February 1, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Education, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: American Civil Liberties Union, Berkeley, Breitbart News, College Republicans, Donald Trump, Facebook, Left Wing, Martin Shkreli, Milo Yiannopoulos, Protesters, Riot, Twitter, University of California Leave a comment
Rioters break windows, set fire to force cancellation of Breitbart editor’s UC-Berkeley talk
A planned talk at the University of California-Berkeley by polarizing Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled Wednesday evening after protesters threw smoke bombs and flares at the student union building where he was scheduled to speak.
SHOCK VIDEO: Man Beaten Unconscious at UC Berkeley Riot – https://t.co/DIErDAZ8VG pic.twitter.com/WSrZYCLPwh
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 2, 2017
“Violent left-wing protesters stormed the building and forced me to be evacuated by police and by my security detail,” Yiannopoulos told Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson in a phone interview from an undisclosed location.
There were no immediate reports of any injuries or arrests.
Yiannopoulos, 32, is a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump and a self-proclaimed internet troll whose comments have been criticized as racist, misogynist, anti-Muslim and white supremacist.
The decision to cancel was made two hours before the start of the event because a crowd of more than 1,500 people had gathered outside the venue, the university said in a statement.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the violence and unlawful behavior that was on display, and deeply regret that those tactics will now overshadow the efforts to engage in legitimate and lawful protest against the performer’s presence and perspectives,” the statement read, in part.
Hundreds of peaceful demonstrators carrying signs that read “Hate Speech Is Not Free Speech” had been protesting for hours before the event.
BREAKING: Driver Runs Down #Milo Rioters Near UC Berkeley pic.twitter.com/aUNSN1WXp0
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 2, 2017
In the evening, a small group dressed in black broke windows, threw smoke bombs and flares, and set a large bonfire outside the building. Some members of that group were wearing hooded sweatshirts.
The demonstrators were met by tight security in the form of law enforcement armed in riot gear. Some rioters broke windows and lit fireworks, while others pulled away the metal barricades in front of the building.
A shelter in place order was in effect and the Cal campus was placed on lockdown. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] MILOMAGEDDON: Protests Against Breitbart Editor at Berkeley Turns Into Riot
Posted: February 1, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Anarchists, Breitbart News, College Republicans, Davis, Facebook, Left Wing, Martin Shkreli, Milo Yiannopoulos, Protest, Riot, San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco Chronicle, Twitter, University of California Leave a comment
Berkeley 1964 v Berkeley 2017. pic.twitter.com/2Qz6j9nxz1
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) February 2, 2017
BREAKING: Milo is now the 2nd most flaming thing on UC Berkeley‘s campus. pic.twitter.com/FuTt9q2nG0
— The Swog Blog (@hunterswogg) February 2, 2017
If you really want to crush Milo, or anyone in the audience-building business, ignore him. He prays day and night for drama like this.
— Kevin D. Williamson (@KevinNR) February 2, 2017
The Breitbart News editor was set to deliver a speech inside a UC Berkeley campus building but hundreds of protesters began throwing fireworks and pulling down the metal barricades police set up to keep people from rushing into the building. Windows were smashed and fires were set outside the building as masked protesters stormed it.
The Berkeley Police Department said people threw bricks, smoking objects, and fireworks at police officers. University police locked down all buildings and ordered a shelter in place, and later fired rubber pellets into the crowd of protesters who defied orders to leave the area.
#BREAKING: UC Berkeley planned event by @Breitbart editor #MiloYiannopoulos is canceled after protest turns violent pic.twitter.com/KsTPQ2yfNG
— Kris Cruz (@rc_kris) February 2, 2017
Protests against alt-right speaker Milo move off UC Berkeley campus and into the streets. pic.twitter.com/c8CKFszmPJ
— Shane Bauer (@shane_bauer) February 2, 2017
“This is what tolerance looks like at UC Berkeley,” said Mike Wright, a Berkeley College Republican member said as smoke bombs went off around him. Someone threw red paint on him. “It’s sad.”
Protesters argued that hate speech isn’t free speech, countering the university’s explanation — free speech — on why it had allowed the event to proceed even as students demanded that the university cancel it.
Yiannopoulos was invited to speak at the campus by the Berkeley College Republicans, a student group that was warned Tuesday by university officials that the event could result in the targeting of undocumented students. Yiannopoulos, an editor for the right-wing Breitbart News website, was expected to use the event in Berkeley to kick off a campaign against “sanctuary campuses” that have vowed to protect undocumented students as President Trump cracks down on illegal immigration.
Here’s a UC Berkeley ‘Antifa’ rioter attacking a female #Trump supporter, then beating a man with a flag-pole… pic.twitter.com/yWWmjXgXTW
— John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) February 2, 2017
Police now on the second floor balcony shooting pellets (tear gas, I think) into the crowd. Chants of “fuck the police.” pic.twitter.com/rIoUu3f5np
— Michael Bodley (@michael_bodley) February 2, 2017
Violence at UC Berkeley by antifa. This is not a protest #miloatcal pic.twitter.com/7tGd8q0ZTd
— Lukas Mikelionis (@LukasMikelionis) February 2, 2017
Event that was to feature a speech by alt-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos canceled amid protest on UC Berkeley campus https://t.co/MtKh0vdfdo pic.twitter.com/habG0p2PiM
— ABC News (@ABC) February 2, 2017
Violent protests force cancellation of speech by Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley https://t.co/1tqDvEWfVc pic.twitter.com/dWGOF5I3Dx
— USA TODAY Multimedia (@usatodayvideo) February 2, 2017
Three lines of zip-tied metal fencing separated the crowd of protesters from campus police officers who had secured the building where Yiannopoulos was supposed to speak at 7 p.m. He had arrived earlier, escorted by security, and police said he had left the building after the protests erupted. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] ‘NFL 2017’: A Bad Lip Reading
Posted: February 1, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: AFC Championship Game, Deflategate, Facebook, Internet, New England, New England Patriots, NFL, Pittsburgh Steelers, Super Bowl, Tom Brady Leave a comment
Tom Brady investigates a theft… and other things that didn’t happen
Facebook Is Trying Everything to Re-Enter China—and It’s Not Working
Posted: January 30, 2017 Filed under: Asia, Censorship, China, Global | Tags: Android (operating system), Beijing, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Facebook, Google, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Hugo Barra, Majority rule, Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan (philanthropist), Xiaomi 3 Comments
Since regulators blocked the service in 2009, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has hired well-connected executives, developed censorship tools and taken a ‘smog jog’ in Beijing—but the company has made no visible headway.
Such permits typically give Western firms an initial China beachhead. This one, which Facebook won in late 2015, could have been a sign Beijing was ready to give the company another chance to connect with China’s roughly 700 million internet users, reopening the market as the social-media giant’s U.S.-growth prospects dimmed.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s 2016 ‘smog jog’ in Tiananmen Square. Photo: Facebook
There was a catch. Facebook’s license was for three months, unusually short. Facebook executives found the limitation unexpected and frustrating, people familiar with the episode said.
Facebook never opened the office. The official posting disappeared and now exists as a ghost in cached versions of the government website. “We did, at one point in time, plan to have an office,” said Facebook spokeswoman Charlene Chian, “but we don’t today.”
[Read the full story here, at WSJ]
The episode is part of Facebook’s running tale of woe in China, where it has been trying to set the stage for a return. Blocked on China’s internet since 2009, Facebook has courted Chinese officials, made Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg more visible in China, hired a well-connected China-policy chief and begun developing technology that could cull content the Communist Party deems unacceptable.
It has made no visible headway. And as time passes, Facebook is watching from the outside as Chinese social-media giants mop up the market that might have been its own. Weibo, along with Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat and QQ, are now dominant in China, and it may be too late for Facebook, said industry executives including Kai-Fu Lee, Google’s former China head and now CEO of Innovation Works, a Chinese incubator.
“At this stage and time with WeChat, Weibo and other products, it’s hopeless,” Mr. Lee said.
Facebook also faces a wary central government, which blamed social media for stirring ethnic unrest in 2009 and remains uneasy with Facebook’s ability to be a dissidents’ megaphone, said industry executives and others who deal with Beijing regulators. And government censorship would be a prerequisite, under Chinese law, for Facebook to re-enter China.
“It’s important for Facebook to respect the laws and regulations of China,” said Guo Weimin, vice minister of the State Council Information Office. “The Chinese government has always had an open approach to social-media networks. Cooperation with new media is welcome on our side.”
Mr. Zuckerberg, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has said he considers China crucial to Facebook’s future. “Obviously you can’t have a mission of wanting to connect everyone in the world and leave out the biggest country,” he told analysts in 2015. “Over the long term, that is a situation we will need to figure out a way forward on.”
His drive has had fits and starts. He scored a high-profile board seat at one of China’s top universities to build inroads with Chinese officials but didn’t attend the body’s meeting last year. Read the rest of this entry »
Kochs Come Out Against Trump Travel Ban
Posted: January 29, 2017 Filed under: Foreign Policy | Tags: Antonin Scalia, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Christopher Bedford, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Donald Trump, Extreme Vetting, Facebook, Republican Party (United States), The Daily Caller, Travel ban, United States Senate Leave a comment
PALM SPRINGS, CALIF. — Christopher Bedford reports: The sprawling libertarian Koch network came out against Trump’s executive order banning travel from certain high-risk countries, emailing reporters that it “is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive.”
“We believe it is possible to keep Americans safe without excluding people who wish to come here to contribute and pursue a better life for their families. The travel ban is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive.”
— Brian Hooks, president of the Charles Koch Institute
“We believe it is possible to keep Americans safe without excluding people who wish to come here to contribute and pursue a better life for their families,” Brian Hooks, president of the Charles Koch Institute and co-chairman of the Koch’s far-reaching Seminar Network, said. “The travel ban is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive.”
“Our country has benefited tremendously from a history of welcoming people from all cultures and backgrounds. This is a hallmark of free and open societies.”
“Our country has benefited tremendously from a history of welcoming people from all cultures and backgrounds. This is a hallmark of free and open societies.”
(RELATED: Three Republican Senators Kick Off Koch’s First Massive Donor Conference In Age Of Trump)
Hooks and Koch are currently with hundreds of conservative and libertarian donors at the network’s conference in Palm Springs. Held twice a year, the seminars are a gathering place for the Seminar Network, a large group of wealthy donors interested in libertarian causes. This weekend’s seminar, held in the temperate desert outside of Los Angeles, will be the first since Trump’s election and inauguration.
(RELATED: Mike Lee Is Certain The Senate Will Confirm Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee)
The network spent hundreds of millions on advertising and advocacy for limited-government politicians — namely, Republicans — running for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, but notably stayed out of the presidential primaries and race. Read the rest of this entry »
China Cracks Down on Unauthorized Internet Connections
Posted: January 23, 2017 Filed under: Asia, Breaking News, Censorship, China | Tags: App Store (iOS), Apple Inc, China, Cyberspace Administration of China, Facebook, Government of China, Great Firewall, Internet, The New York Times, Virtual private network Leave a comment
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a notice on its website on Sunday that it is launching a nationwide clean-up campaign aimed at internet service provider (ISP), internet data centrer (IDC), and content delivery network (CDN) companies.
It ordered checks for companies operating without government licenses or beyond the scope of licenses.
The ministry said it was forbidden to create or rent communication channels, including VPNs, without governmental approval, to run cross-border operations.
VPNs can be used to gain access to blocked websites.
China has the world’s largest population of internet users – now at 731 million people – and is home to some of the biggest internet firms such as Tencent Holdings, Baidu Inc and Alibaba Group Holding. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE: Violence Punctuates UW Talk by Breitbart Editor Milo Yiannopoulos
Posted: January 20, 2017 Filed under: Censorship, Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Beitbart News, Breitbart News, College Republicans, Democrats, Donald Trump, Facebook, GOP, Left Wing Violence, Marxism, Milo Yiannopoulos, Progressivism, Protest, Socialism, Twitter, University of California, University of Washington, UW Leave a comment
Katherine Long and Lynn Thompson report: One man was shot and wounded, several people were hit with paint and officers avoided flying bricks outside the University of Washington’s Kane Hall on Friday night, where Breitbart News editor and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos addressed a crowd on President Trump’s Inauguration Day.
A chaotic confrontation between ticket-holders and protesters started early in the evening in Red Square with shouts and fights. Authorities reported a man in the crowd had been shot in the abdomen. Medics took him to Harborview Medical Center with potentially life-threatening injuries, the Seattle Fire Department said.
Yiannopoulos, who came at the invitation of the university’s student College Republicans club, briefly left the stage to confirm the shooting. Minutes later, he returned, saying, “If we don’t continue, they have won.” The crowd cheered.
The event was free but was sold out by reservation. His talk, which mocked liberals to big laughs and was greeted with a standing ovation, began just after 8 p.m.
Once the speech ended, police told the audience to remove their pro-Trump hats and other gear before leaving the lecture hall. Officers escorted the crowd out through an underground parking garage as a crowd of about 250 people remained outside the building.
Gayle Hammersley, a UW student, stood with friends in the middle of Red Square holding a sign that displayed her
opposition to the speech. “We’re not OK with fascism and racism,” she said. “I don’t think this should be allowed.”
Jimmy Michalee came up from Auburn with friends to hear the speech. He was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, but he said he was a libertarian, and voted for Gary Johnson. He said he didn’t agree with the crowd’s tactics to try to shut down the speech, and believed everyone had a right to speak his or her mind.
[Read the full story here, at The Seattle Times]
Ava Meier, a Pierce College student, called Yiannopoulos “the most fabulous villain on the internet.”
“We’re so politically correct, he’s a breath of fresh air,” she said.
The provocative far-right editor’s controversial tweets resulted in his being banned for life from using Twitter.
People began lining up for the speech late in the afternoon. The crowd began clashing about two hours later, when a group of people dressed in black showed up and forced its way to the front of the line. One man waved a black-and-red anti-fascist flag, and another shouted to the people in line: “Go back to Bellevue, rich kids!”
“White power,” one side shouted.
“Nazi scum,” the other side responded.
Some officers wore riot gear and carried batons. Crowds outside started throwing bricks and other items at officers, and several people were hit with blue paint.
Mara Kage, a University of Washington student from Brazil, held a sign with the word “respect” on it. She said Yiannopoulos, like Trump, was inciting hateful speech. Read the rest of this entry »
Liberals Will Canonize Obama, but History Will Likely Take a Dimmer View
Posted: January 19, 2017 Filed under: History, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Americans, Barack Obama, Chicago, Cuba, Donald Trump, Facebook, Politics of the United States, President of the United States, United States, White House Leave a comment
He will be remembered as the first black president of the United States—and not much more. He was no statesman. He did nothing to expand America’s influence in the world. From Russia to China to Iran to ISIS, he accommodated threats to American hegemony and fostered the impression of a great power in decline. He was, by consensus, a foreign policy failure.
Obama’s frequent appeals to history’s judgment reflect his confidence that history will be kind to him. In the short run, it will: liberals will canonize Obama. Like the faithful Catholics chanting “santo subito” after the death of Pope John Paul II, Obama’s liberal boosters will turn him into Saint Barack, savior of health care and slayer of bin Laden. You might see hints of this already in your liberal friends’ wistful Facebook posts: “I’m really going to miss this guy.” If liberals are calling the shots, Obama’s name will shortly be inscribed on statues and state buildings, and his face will someday appear on coins and currency, while the divisions he sowed and exploited in pursuit of personal glory will be papered over. Generations of schoolchildren will learn about the beloved, barrier-shattering college professor with the megawatt smile who could tell a joke and make a jump shot—not the ambitious, polarizing ideologue whose disdain for half the country was palpable. No mention will be made of his habit of insulting supposedly lazy, ignorant Americans who cling bitterly to their religion, guns, and “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them,” and who fall prey to “anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Read the rest of this entry »
John Fund & Hans von Spakovsky: Obama’s ‘Scandal-Free Administration’ Is a Myth
Posted: January 17, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, History, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Afghanistan, American Civil Liberties Union, Bowe Bergdahl, Democratic Party (United States), Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Donald Trump, Facebook, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, PayPal, Peter Thiel, RUSSIA, Silicon Valley, The New York Times, United States Department of Justice, White House Leave a comment
Even a prominent Trump adviser accepts the false premise that there has been no ‘ethical shadiness.’
Even Trump adviser Peter Thiel seems to agree. When the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd observed during an interview that Mr. Obama’s administration was “without any ethical shadiness,” Mr. Thiel accepted the premise, saying: “But there’s a point where no corruption can be a bad thing. It can mean that things are too boring.”
In reality, Mr. Obama has presided over some of the worst scandals of any president in recent decades. Here’s a partial list:
• State Department email. In an effort to evade federal open-records laws, Mr. Obama’s first secretary of state set up a private server, which she used exclusively to conduct official business, including communications with
the president and the transmission of classified material. A federal criminal investigation produced no charges, but FBI Director James Comey reported that the secretary and her colleagues “were extremely careless” in handling national secrets.
[Read the full story here, at WSJ]
• Operation Fast and Furious. The Obama Justice Department lost track of thousands of guns it had allowed to pass into the hands of suspected smugglers, in the hope of tracing them to Mexican drug cartels. One of the guns was used in the fatal 2010 shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Congress held then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt when he refused to turn over documents about the operation.
• IRS abuses. Mr. Obama’s Internal Revenue Service did something Richard Nixononly dreamed of doing: It successfully targeted political opponents. The Justice Department then refused to enforce Congress’s contempt citation against the IRS’s Lois Lerner, who refused to answer questions about her agency’s misconduct. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Fascinating 3D-Printed Light-Based Zoetrope by Akinori Goto
Posted: January 14, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Japan | Tags: 3D printing, Akinori Goto, Facebook, London, Manufacturing, New York City, Prosthetic Knowledge, Spiral Independent Creators Festival, Tokyo Art Beat, Zoetrope Leave a commentMedia artist Akinori Goto designed this fun 3d-printed zoetrope that when lit from the side reveals walking people. The piece was just on view at the Spiral Independent Creators Festival where it won both the Runner-up Grand Prix and the Audience Award. Video above from Tokyo Art Beat. (via Prosthetic Knowledge)
Movie Critic on Obama Farewell: ‘I Want to Grab His Pant Leg and Tell Him Not to Go!
Posted: January 12, 2017 Filed under: Mediasphere, White House | Tags: Actor, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Facebook, Golden Globe Award, Hillary Clinton, Meryl Streep, Streaming media, The Hollywood Reporter, Twitter Leave a comment
“I know exactly how you feel.”
…This sounds like a parody of media fawning over Obama….but then so does so much of the Obama-loving media. But the line about grabbing on to Obama’s pant leg is just priceless:
“I’m more optimistic than when we started,” declared Obama, and it was then that you fully realized that he was transitioning from commander in chief to therapist in chief.
“It has been the honor of my life to serve you. … I won’t stop,” he assured us, invoking the slogan that accompanied his ascendancy to the presidency: “Yes we can.” Except this time, he added, “Yes we did.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Democratic CNN Contributor Unsurrrre if Chicago Attack on Trump Supporter is a Hate Crime
Posted: January 5, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Black Lives Matter, BLM, Chicago, CNN, Democrat, Donald Trump, Facebook, Hate crime, kidnapping, Racism, Torture Leave a comment
GRAPHIC: Anti-Gun Activists Send Grotesque Gun Victim Christmas Cards
Posted: December 18, 2016 Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Mediasphere, Politics, Self Defense | Tags: Activism, anti-gun, Anti-Gun Rights, Christmas, Donald Trump, Facebook, Gun control, Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, National Rifle Association, propaganda, Twitter Leave a comment
Conservatives, gun store owners, and Second Amendment activists are receiving ‘Christmas Cards’ from anti-gun advocates that include graphic photos of victims who have received gunshots to the face.
Lana Shadwick writes: The Christmas card includes the Bible verse, “The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked. And the one who loves violence His soul hates.”
The card also bears the inscription:
The NRA gives the gift of nonfatal gunshot wounds like these to 100,000 Americans per year. Your continued support of ‘guns everywhere’ legislation is directly responsible for this health epidemic. In your heart, do you honestly believe this is what Jesus wants? Shame on you for dishonoring Jesus Christ with your support of gun-pushing legislation.
The Christmas card is signed from “The Betsy Riot” which describes itself on the card as “a decentralized movement that nonviolently opposes gun culture.”
I’ll say it again: Gun control advocates are the most violent, dangerous people I have ever encountered. They have no regard for safety.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 18, 2016
The post on Facebook bears a graphic warning that must be clicked on before the photos can be seen.
[Read the full story here, at Breitbart.com]
The photos can also be found on the U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health and the National Journal of Maxillofacial Surgery, Official Publication of Maxillofacial Society of India. These sources do not tell how both of these victims sustained their wounds. The male victim can be found under a case report for “self-inflicting gunshot injury.” Read the rest of this entry »
$1 Million Bail Sought for Suspect in #MountVernon Officer’s Shooting
Posted: December 16, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, U.S. News | Tags: Alford plea, Arrest warrant, Chief of police, Domestic violence, Facebook, Felony, Mount Vernon, murder, Police officer, Seattle, SWAT, Washington State Leave a comment
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. KOMO Staff & Associated Press report: A man suspected of shooting a police officer in the back of the head was ordered held on $1 million bail Friday.
The suspect, identified in court documents as Ernesto Lee Rivas, 44, appeared in Skagit County Superior Court the day after the cold-blooded shooting.
Rivas, who has a lengthy criminal history, was arrested earlier Friday morning after a seven-hour standoff in Mount Vernon that began after a police officer was shot and critically wounded, the Washington State Patrol said.
The online roster for the Skagit County Jail shows Rivas was booked at 1:55 a.m. Friday following his arrest.
Court and State Patrol records show that Rivas has eight felonies on his record, including unlawful possession of a firearm in 2011 and unlawful imprisonment in 1998. He was subject to a domestic violence protection order last year after the mother of his child accused him of stalking her at work.
At Friday’s court hearing, prosecutors said the suspect is being held for investigation of attempted first-degree murder. It was not immediately clear if Rivas has obtained an attorney. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] YouTube Sensation: Spamusement Park Project, Beppu, Japan 湯~園地計画！
Posted: December 8, 2016 Filed under: Asia, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Beppu, Facebook, Ferris wheel, Hot spring, Japan, Music video, Roller coaster, Theme Parks, YouTube, Ōita 1 Comment
The Japanese city of Beppu is known for its countless hot springs and spas that pop up around them. So much so, that the city’s mayor, Yasuhiro Nagano, pledged to build an entire spa-themed amusement park—although it might not be quite as awesome as the one featured in this promotional video.
The “spamusement” park’s development hinged on this promo video hitting a million views, which it did just a few days after hitting YouTube. The city’s mayor has since announced plans to begin planning and development of the park, and we’re really hoping that bathtub roller coaster makes the cut…(more)
人が入れる温泉として世界一の湧出量を誇る大分県別府市では、この度温泉都市別府の魅力を国内外にむけて幅広く発信すべく、新たな都市ビジョンとして“遊べる温泉都市構想”を策定。
構想実現にむけた取り組みの第一弾として、「湯～園地」計画公約ムービーを別府市内で開催中のイベントONSENアカデミアにて発表、同日Web上にて公開致しました。
[YouTube via RocketNews24]
Source: gizmodo
Cheap, Lethal Chinese Drones Are Filling Distant Skies
Posted: December 4, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: AGM-114 Hellfire, Chengdu J-20, China, China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition, Facebook, General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, Global Positioning System, Government of China, Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, People's Liberation Army, The New York Times, The Pentagon, Unmanned aerial vehicle Leave a comment
Lower quality, but they get the job done.
Ryan Pickrell reports: Chinese drones are taking flight in skies beyond China’s borders in great numbers, filling a massive void in a multibillion-dollar industry left by the U.S.
“I believe this is the largest campaign we’ve seen that has been focused on drone technology. It seems to align pretty well with the focus of the Chinese government to build up their own drone technology capabilities.”
— Darien Kindlund, manager of Fireeye’s Threat Intelligence division
While the U.S. is recognized as a leader in the development and deployment of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), it keeps its drone technology close and its armed drones even closer, creating new opportunities for China, which is eager to play a role in the global arms trade.
The U.S. only exports armed drones to a few select allies, such as the U.K., as part of a Department of State decision made early last year. Jordan, for example, requested permission to purchase U.S. drones in 2014 but was rejected.
The U.S. limits its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) exports, especially its armed drones, for two main reasons.
One, the U.S. is a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a multilateral partnership that prohibits the export of missile and UAV technology capable of delivering a 1,100 lb payload at a range greater than 185 miles. Two, some U.S. officials are concerned that regular U.S. drone exports would lead to an increase in drone warfare abroad, creating a less secure international environment.
[Read the full text here, at The Daily Caller]
Unhindered by international agreements and export restrictions, China is moving into the drone export business, creating cheap, yet effective alternatives for countries interested in purchasing drone technology.
Chengdu Pterodactyl I
China has been actively developing its drone technology, making great strides in recent years.
Early last month, China showed off its CH-5 Rainbow drone, which it claims can rival America’s MQ-9 Reaper, at an air show in Zhuhai.
[Read more here, at The Daily Caller]
The CH-5 “can perform whatever operations the MQ-9 Reaper can and is even better than the US vehicle when it comes to flight duration and operational efficiency,” Shi Wen, a chief designer of the CH series drones at the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, explained to the China Daily a little over a month ago.
“Several foreign nations have expressed intentions to purchase the CH-5, and we are in talks with them,” he added, signaling China’s interest in selling the new CH-5.
The CH-4, referred to as the “AK-47 of drones,” preceded the CH-5. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Tacoma Police Shooting Homeowner Statement
Posted: December 3, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere | Tags: Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, Domestic violence, Facebook, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jay Inslee, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, Police officer, Tacoma, The News Tribune, Washington Leave a comment
Debra Heine writes:
…Kristi Croskey owns the Tacoma, Washington, home where a domestic disturbance call resulted in a deadly police stand-off Wednesday. Tacoma police officer Reginald J. “Jake” Gutierrez was killed after being shot by a 38-year-old man — who was fatally shot by police hours later.
“I don’t want to hear about Black Lives Matter, because all lives matter” Creskey said. “I do not want to hear about the police officers being inhumane and shooting people unnecessarily or any of those things. I want to say that the Tacoma Police Department handled this matter with such professionalism despite their own being shot. I want to say that this did not have to occur. I want to say that when you make poor choices, and the response is someone being killed, if that may be the situation — I want you to know that the Tacoma Police Department did any and everything that they could to protect and serve.
Read the rest of this entry »
BREAKING: Facebook Helps Users Block The New York Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, with ‘B.S. Detector’, Fake News Warning Plugin
Posted: December 2, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Censorship, Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: ABC News, Audience (TV network), Buzzfeed, CBS, Donald Trump, Facebook, Google, Google Chrome extension, Hillary Clinton, Mark Zuckerberg, NBC, New York Times, News satire, Product Hunt, The New Yorker Leave a comment
Not only is Facebook not providing little red warnings along with links to potentially specious news—it’s now blocking links to the plugin that did.
Over the past week, some Facebook users reported seeing content warnings next to links from established fake news domains, apparently without realizing a third party was responsible. We reported this phenomenon, later clarifying that B.S. Detector is in fact a third party plugin that both we and a number of Facebook users mistook as a testing feature. Irony!
Now, if you attempt to share a link to B.S. Detector on Facebook, you’ll be met with this message. Apparently, blocking fake news (detectors) is quite simple!
“I believe they are doing this because of TechCrunch article that came out yesterday, falsely identifying a screenshot of my plugin as a Facebook feature under development,” Daniel Sieradski, design technologist and creator of B.S. Detector, told TechCrunch. “It would seem I’ve caused them some embarrassment by showing them to be full of bull when it comes to their supposed inability to address fake news and they are punishing me for it.”
For now, the B.S. Detector plugin itself remains functional, as do links to the plugin on Product Hunt and the Chrome app store. Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook User Verifies Truth Of Article By Carefully Checking It Against Own Preconceived Opinions
Posted: December 1, 2016 Filed under: Censorship, Education, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Facebook, Google, journalism, LinkedIn, Marketing, media, news, News satire, Parody, satire, Snapchat, Social media, Social network, Twitter Leave a comment
“You can’t just accept everything you see online, which is why I always take a closer look at the claims that are made in every article and make sure that each one of them is backed up by my existing assumptions and personal feelings about the world.”
CLARKSVILLE, TN—Explaining that people need to be critical of the news stories that circulate on social media these days, area Facebook user James Wheatley, 44, reportedly took the time to verify the truth of an article he came across Thursday by carefully checking it against the opinions he already holds.
“There are all kinds of bogus news stories out there, so it’s important to take a step back and hold each article up against my personal convictions to find out for myself whether what I’m reading is true or not. It’s pretty sad, but once I got in the habit of looking at articles this way, I could see just how many awful sites there are on the internet that don’t even adhere to the most basic tenets of my individual worldview, so now I just disregard them completely.”
“You can’t just accept everything you see online, which is why I always take a closer look at the claims that are made in every article and make sure that each one of them is backed up by my existing assumptions and personal feelings about the world,” said Wheatley, who told reporters he had to correct several friends on Facebook earlier this week after an investigation of his beliefs and individual political perspectives proved the articles they had posted to be entirely false. Read the rest of this entry »
Social Media Is Killing Discourse Because It’s Too Much Like TV
Posted: November 29, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Censorship, Entertainment, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: 2016, Ali Khamenei, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, News satire, propaganda, Social media, The Wall Street Journal, Twitter, United States presidential election Leave a comment
We need more text and fewer videos and memes in the age of Trump.
Hossein Derakshan writes: If I say that social media aided Donald Trump’s election,
you might think of fake news on Facebook. But even if Facebook fixes the algorithms that elevate phony stories, there’s something else going on: social media represents the ultimate ascendance of television over other media.
I’ve been warning about this since November 2014, when I was freed from six years of incarceration in Tehran, a punishment I received for my online activism in Iran. Before I went to prison, I blogged frequently on what I now call the open Web: it was
decentralized, text-centered, and abundant with 
hyperlinks to source material and rich background. It nurtured varying opinions. It was related to the world of books.
[Order Neil Postman’s book “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” from Amazon.com]
Then for six years I got disconnected; when I left prison and came back online, I was confronted by a brave new world. Facebook and Twitter had replaced blogging and had made the Internet like TV: centralized and image-centered, with content embedded in pictures, without links.
[Read the full story here, at technologyreview.com]
Like TV it now increasingly entertains us, and even more so than television it amplifies our existing beliefs and habits. It makes us feel more than think, and it comforts more than challenges. The result is a deeply fragmented society, driven by emotions, and radicalized by lack of contact and challenge from outside. This is why Oxford Dictionaries designated “post-truth” as the word of 2016: an adjective “relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals.”
Neil Postman provided some clues about this in his illuminating 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. The media scholar at New York University saw then how television transformed public discourse into an exchange of volatile emotions that are usually mistaken by pollsters as opinion. One of the scariest outcomes of this transition, Postman wrote, is that television essentially turns all news into disinformation. “Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information—misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information—information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing … The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining.” (Emphasis added.) And, Postman argued, when news is constructed as a form of entertainment, it inevitably loses its function for a healthy democracy. “I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?” Read the rest of this entry »
Can You Find the Hidden Word to Explain Venezuela’s Escape Economic Collapse?
Posted: November 25, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Economics, Global, Health and Social Issues, History, Mediasphere | Tags: Barack Obama, Brazil, CNN, Colombia, Congenital disorder, Facebook, Latin America, Middle East, North American Free Trade Agreement, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, The New York Times, United States 1 Comment
The New York Times Can’t.
WILLEMSTAD, Curaçao — Nicholas Case reports: The dark outlines of land had just come into view when the smuggler forced everyone into the sea.
Roymar Bello screamed. She was one of 17 passengers who had climbed onto the overloaded fishing boat with aging motors in July, hoping to escape Venezuela’s economic disaster for a new life on the Caribbean island of Curaçao.
Can you guess what word NYT’s Nicholas Casey failed to use even one time in his report on Venezuela’s economic crisis?
Afraid of the authorities, the smuggler refused to land. Ms. Bello said he gruffly ordered her and the others into the water, pointing toward the distant shore. In the panic, she was tossed overboard, tumbling into the predawn blackness.
But Ms. Bello could not swim.
As she began to sink under the waves, a fellow migrant grabbed her by the hair and towed her toward the island. They washed up on a rocky cliff battered by waves. Bruised and bleeding, they climbed, praying for a lifeline: jobs, money, something to eat.
“It was worth the risk,” said Ms. Bello, 30, adding that Venezuelans like her, “are going after one thing — food.”
Maria Piñero at an empty grocery store in La Vela, Venezuela. “I’m nervous,” she said. “I’m leaving with nothing. But I have to do this. Otherwise, we will just die here hungry.” Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Venezuela was once one of Latin America’s richest countries, flush with oil wealth that attracted immigrants from places as varied as Europe and the Middle East.
[Read the full story here, at he New York Times]
But after President Hugo Chávez vowed to break the country’s economic elite and redistribute wealth to the poor, the rich and middle class fled to more welcoming countries in droves, creating what demographers describe as Venezuela’s first diaspora.
Now a second diaspora is underway — much less wealthy and not nearly as welcome.
Well over 150,000 Venezuelans have fled the country in the last year alone, the highest in more than a decade, according to scholars studying the exodus.
Hundreds of Venezuelans lined up at a grocery store in La Vela in September to see if food would be delivered.Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
“It’s hard to see a solution to this problem because hunger is involved. Venezuela doesn’t have enough food for its people, so some are coming here.”
— Mayor Altemir Campos
And as Mr. Chávez’s Socialist-inspired revolution collapses into economic ruin, as food and medicine slip further out of reach, the new migrants include the same impoverished people that Venezuela’s policies were supposed to help.
“We have seen a great acceleration,” said Tomás Páez, a professor who studies immigration at the Central University of Venezuela. He says that as many as 200,000 Venezuelans have left in the last 18 months, driven by how much harder it is to get food, work and medicine — not to mention the crime that such scarcities have fueled.
“Parents will say: I would rather say goodbye to my son in the airport than in the cemetery,” he said.
Two would-be migrants waiting for the boat that will take them from Venezuela. Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Desperate Venezuelans are streaming across the Amazon Basin by the tens of thousands to reach Brazil. They are concocting elaborate scams to sneak through airports in Caribbean nations that once accepted them freely. When Venezuela opened its border with Colombia for just two days in July, 120,000 people poured across, simply to buy food, officials said. An untold number stayed.
But perhaps most startling are the Venezuelans now fleeing by sea, an image so symbolic of the perilous journeys to escape Cuba or Haiti — but not oil-rich Venezuela.
“It has all totally changed,” said Iván de la Vega, a sociologist at Simón Bolívar University in Caracas. About 60 percent more Venezuelans fled the country this year than during the year before, he added.
Read the rest of this entry »
pundit from another planet 