Jury Awards $687,000 to BlueCross BlueShield Scientist Fired for Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine
July 3rd, 2024Via: 2nd Smartest Guy in the World:
A federal jury has awarded $687,000 to a research scientist who was fired from BlueCross BlueShield in Tennessee for refusing to comply with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Tanja Benton, who had worked 16 years at the firm when she was fired, was awarded $177,240 in back pay, $10,000 in compensation, and $500,000 in punitive damages, according to a document made public by the federal court in eastern Tennessee on June 30.
Dave Dentz: They Tried to Kill Me Three Times
July 3rd, 2024While he was near death and the hospital was trying to get his family to end life support, his family secretly gave him Ivermectin.
The doctors were baffled by his recovery.
They Tried to Kill Me 3 Times https://t.co/mEirF89OWf
— Children’s Health Defense (@ChildrensHD) June 26, 2024
Futo’s Mobile Apps Are High Quality and Open Source
July 3rd, 2024I sometimes use an Android phone and I’ve started to rely on three apps from Futo.
Grayjay: Google’s official Youtube app is a disaster. Grayjay fixes Youtube on mobile devices. I installed this directly from the APK and not the Play Store in case Google bans it.
Keyboard: Your keyboard shouldn’t connect to the Internet.
Voice Input: This allows you do use voice input without Google and offline. No data is stored.
Note: I have no relationship with Futo except that I like their apps.
Debloat Windows 10 and 11 Installations with Answer Files
July 2nd, 2024Via: Memory’s Tech Tips:
Differential Increases in Excess Mortality in the German Federal States During the COVID-19 Pandemic
July 2nd, 2024Via: Preprint, Christof Kuhbandner and Matthias Reitzner:
The most obvious expectation of an effective vaccination would be that the increase in excess mortality would be lowest in the federal states in which the most vaccinations were administered. However, the opposite is the case.
Happiness
July 2nd, 2024Via: Steve Cutts:
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Trump Has Immunity for Official, Not Private Acts
July 1st, 2024Update: Trump Moves To Overturn Manhattan Conviction After Supreme Court Immunity Decision
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Via: Reuters:
The U.S. Supreme Court found on Monday that Donald Trump cannot be prosecuted for any actions that were within his constitutional powers as president, but can for private acts, in a landmark ruling recognizing for the first time any form of presidential immunity from prosecution.
The justices, in a 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, threw out a lower court’s decision that had rejected Trump’s claim of immunity from federal criminal charges involving his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. The six conservative justices were in the majority, while its three liberal members dissented.
FedEx’s Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network
July 1st, 2024Is there more to FedEx than meets the eye?
FedEx was founded by Frederick W. Smith, a member of Skull & Bones.
Smith, a former Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps and a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, has developed a close relationship with the U.S. Government. FedEx is a major contractor to U.S. Government agencies and military branches. FedEx participates in U.S. Air Force airlift operations.
FedEx’s operations depend on tracking employees, vehicles, aircraft and millions of packages throughout its global shipping system in realtime. FedEx had to develop massive, proprietary information systems to do this.
And now we come to this headline:
“FedEx’s Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network”
I think I know at least part of why this is happening.
I worked for FedEx in the 1990s. There are (or at least were) terrifying security vulnerabilities in FedEx’s operations that I will not discuss. If you know what these vulnerabilities are, please don’t feel motivated to mention them here. These vulnerabilities may or may not be known to state and non-state actors who intend to cause serious harm to the U.S. I’d rather not give anyone any ideas.
I would like to think that FedEx’s partnership with Flock Safety is related to addressing these vulnerabilities. Maybe that’s the goal. Maybe there are multiple goals.
FedEx is a strategic asset to the U.S. Government that happens to be vulnerable. I’m almost certain that The Department of Homeland Security and/or the Department of Defense is coordinating this mass surveillance operation with FedEx and Flock Safety. My guess is that, besides protecting FedEx, a copy of all the collected data is being used elsewhere. Maybe, “They’re keeping track of where you are and where you’ve been.”
What happens to all of the data that the Flock Safety systems are collecting in and around FedEx assets?
Does it get deleted after 30 days, which is the default retention period for Flock Safety systems?
*wink*
Via: Forbes:
Twenty years ago, FedEx established its own police force. Now it’s working with local police to build out an AI car surveillance network.
Forbes has learned the shipping and business services company is using AI tools made by Flock Safety, a $4 billion car surveillance startup, to monitor its distribution and cargo facilities across the United States. As part of the deal, FedEx is providing its Flock surveillance feeds to law enforcement, an arrangement that Flock has with at least four multi-billion dollar private companies. But publicly available documents reveal that some local police departments are also sharing their Flock feeds with FedEx — a rare instance of a private company availing itself of a police surveillance apparatus.
To civil rights activists, such close collaboration has the potential to dramatically expand Flock’s car surveillance network, which already spans 4,000 cities across over 40 states and some 40,000 cameras that track vehicles by license plate, make, model, color and other identifying characteristics, like dents or bumper stickers. Lisa Femia, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said because private entities aren’t subject to the same transparency laws as police, this sort of arrangement could “[leave] the public in the dark, while at the same time expanding a sort of mass surveillance network.”
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said it was “profoundly disconcerting” that FedEx was exchanging data with law enforcement as part of Flock’s “mass surveillance” system. “It raises questions about why a private company…would have privileged access to data that normally is only available to law enforcement,” he said.
FedEx declined to answer questions about the nature of its partnership with Flock. Spokesperson Phalisha Jackson told Forbes, “We take the safety of our team members very seriously. As such, we do not publicly discuss our security procedures.”
Biden Family Now ‘Expected To Discuss Future Of Campaign’ After Disaster Dementia Debate
June 30th, 2024Update: Biden’s Family Urges Him To Fight On, Blames Debate Disaster On Advisors And CNN
Via: ZeroHedge:
At a Camp David gathering on Sunday, President Biden’s extended family urged him to ignore the growing number of voices asking him to quit the race — and many of his loved ones blamed his disastrous debate on his advisors. According to Politico, the two who most forcefully encouraged the 81-year-old Biden to continue were his wife Jill and his son Hunter — the two people whose opinion he reportedly values most.
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Via: ZeroHedge:
After Jill Biden spent Saturday in the Hamptons orchestrating Weekend at Bernie’s 3, NBC News reports that the Biden family is expected to discuss ‘the future of his re-election campaign’ at Camp David on Sunday following a horrendous debate on Thursday which laid bare to the world the fact that Joe Biden is not running the country.
Related: Don’t Let The Elite Get Away With Gaslighting That They Didn’t Know About Biden’s Senility
State Farm Seeks Major Rate Hikes for California Homeowners and Renters
June 29th, 2024Absolutely nuts.
Via: Los Angeles Times:
State Farm General is seeking to dramatically increase residential insurance rates for millions of Californians, a move that would deepen the state’s ongoing crisis over housing coverage.
In two filings with the state’s Department of Insurance on Thursday signaling financial trouble for the insurance giant, State Farm disclosed it is seeking a 30% rate increase for homeowners, a 36% increase for condo owners and a 52% increase for renters.
…
The company’s bid to sharply increase home insurance rates seeks to utilize a little-known and rarely used exception to the state’s usual insurance rate-making formula. Typically, such a move signals that an insurance provider is facing serious financial issues.
In one of the filings, State Farm General said the purpose of its request was to restore its financial condition. “If the variance is denied,” the insurer wrote, “further deterioration of surplus is anticipated.”
