Russiagate Is This Generation’s WMD
March 24th, 2019Via: Matt Taibbi:
The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it.
Mueller Report Finds No Evidence That Trump Campaign Colluded with Russia
March 24th, 2019The whole god damned thing was absurd from the start. Everyone knew it.
Via: Russia:
Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russia, and did not present enough evidence to warrant charging Trump with obstruction of justice, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Sunday.
In a major political victory for Trump, who quickly hailed the announcement as “complete and total exoneration,” Mueller’s nearly two years of investigation ended with a finding that no one in Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated with the Russian government,” according to a summary of Mueller’s findings.
Pentagon: We’re Buying Boeing F-15s to Keep Two Fighter Makers in Business
March 24th, 2019Via: Defense One:
The decision to buy new Boeing F-15s reflects the Pentagon’s desire to keep two American companies making fighter jets into the next decade — and not the acting defense secretary’s ties to the company, a senior defense official said Friday.
The 2020 budget request contains $1.1 billion to buy eight F-15X jets, a new variant of an aircraft the Air Force last bought nearly a decade ago. The twin-tailed plane was chosen over Lockheed’s cheaper single-engine F-16 in part to keep a second U.S. manufacturer in the tactical-jet business as the Pentagon begins exploring new technologies for a new generation of warplanes, the official said.
Microsoft and UW Demonstrate First Fully Automated DNA Data Storage
March 23rd, 2019Via: Microsoft:
Researchers from Microsoft and the University of Washington have demonstrated the first fully automated system to store and retrieve data in manufactured DNA — a key step in moving the technology out of the research lab and into commercial datacenters.
In a simple proof-of-concept test, the team successfully encoded the word “hello” in snippets of fabricated DNA and converted it back to digital data using a fully automated end-to-end system, which is described in a new paper published March 21 in Nature Scientific Reports.
DNA can store digital information in a space that is orders of magnitude smaller than datacenters use today. It’s one promising solution for storing the exploding amount of data the world generates each day, from business records and cute animal videos to medical scans and images from outer space.
Microsoft is exploring ways to close a looming gap between the amount of data we are producing that needs to be preserved and our capacity to store it. That includes developing algorithms and molecular computing technologies to encode and retrieve data in fabricated DNA, which could fit all the information currently stored in a warehouse-sized datacenter into a space roughly the size of a few board game dice.
“Our ultimate goal is to put a system into production that, to the end user, looks very much like any other cloud storage service — bits are sent to a datacenter and stored there and then they just appear when the customer wants them,” said Microsoft principal researcher Karin Strauss. “To do that, we needed to prove that this is practical from an automation perspective.”
U.S. Posts Largest-Ever Monthly Budget Deficit in February
March 22nd, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
The U.S. posted its biggest monthly budget deficit on record last month, amid a 20 percent drop in corporate tax revenue and a boost in spending so far this fiscal year.
The budget gap widened to $234 billion in February, compared with a fiscal gap of $215.2 billion a year earlier. That gap surpassed the previous monthly record of $231.7 billion set seven years ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Trump Signs Executive ‘Free Speech’ Order for U.S. Colleges
March 21st, 2019What’s worse:
That so much public money is sent down this rat hole, or that people need to see an executive order to remind them of what they should have learned in a high school civics class?
Via: Reuters:
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order linking “free speech” efforts at public universities to federal grants in an effort to combat what he considers a clamp down on conservative students’ abilities to share their views.
Under the order, the schools will themselves certify whether they are protecting students’ free speech rights, which are already guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The order requires that schools ensure they allow students to express themselves in order to receive funds from 12 federal agencies that help fund universities and colleges.
Related: VIDEO: Students Say Offensive Speech Is Not Free Speech
After Blocking Zero Hedge and Others, NZ Telcos Demand Big-Tech Censorship Surge to “Protect Consumers”
March 21st, 2019People are emailing me about these bans.
I just now browsed (on a remote machine under my control) ZeroHedge, Gab and Dissenter without any problems on Spark, the largest ISP in NZ. Also, my small, regional ISP has not blocked any of these sites.
Whatever is happening with regard to sites being blocked in NZ, it’s definitely not consistent for everyone here.
Since I’m not experiencing any bans, I can’t say how to bypass this for sure, however, it might be as simple as changing your DNS settings to use any of several public DNS services. I recommend CloudFlare’s public DNS.
If you’re more technically adept, or if your ISP is using a transparent DNS proxy and won’t let you use an alternate DNS, you might want to check out DNSCrypt.
If the bans go beyond DNS, you can look into using a VPN service. I consider all VPNs to be potential honeypots, so I don’t recommend any of them, even the one I personally use. VPNs don’t actually offer much in the way of privacy, regardless of their claims of not keeping any activity logs, etc. They simply change who can spy on your activity from your ISP and the cops and spooks in your country to the VPN provider and the cops and spooks in that country.
The key point to remember when using VPNs is this: Don’t think you’re doing much to protect yourself by using a VPN. Think of it more as playful antics that can be used to frustrate an overzealous dog catcher.
Hint: Don’t use VPNs headquartered in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia or New Zealand. And even if you choose a VPN outside the 5 Eyes System, I’d assume they have that traffic anyway.
Finally, you can use Tor Browser. This is a much slower browsing experience than you’re used to and many sites will give you hassles when you try to use Tor, but it’s free and probably offers you more privacy than VPNs.
“Use Tor? Didn’t you warn us about Tor back in 2007?”
Yep.
But you need to understand, there’s a big difference between privacy vs. an overzealous dog catcher and privacy vs. NSA (or similar orignizations). What I’m telling you can potentially give you privacy vs. an overzealous dog catcher. If you need privacy vs. NSA (or similar organizations) I can’t help you. And I’d be very hesitant to believe anyone claiming to be able to do that.
Via: ZeroHedge:
In the wake of last week’s terror attacks at two New Zealand mosques which left 50 dead, several websites which either reported on the incident, hosted footage of the attacks, or have simply allowed people to engage in uncensored discussion such as Dissenter or Zero Hedge, have been partially or completely blocked in both New Zealand and Australia for the sake of “protecting consumers,” according to the CEOs of three New Zealand telcos.
New Zealand Media to Broadcast Islamic Call to Prayer on Friday
March 20th, 2019Update: Female Police Officers Are Wearing Hijabs and Headscarves Today
Via: New Zealand Herald:
Thousands of NZ women – including female police officers – are wearing hijabs and headscarves today.
—
When Pookie left a comment about this, I thought that it had to be a hoax.
Nope.
It’s real.
Here’s the deal: I don’t want my government promoting or participating in ANY religion. I’m all for people believing whatever they want. As long as I don’t have to participate and as long as my tax money isn’t used, go for it.
The government should not be promoting any religion. The End.
Additionally, while the government is so concerned about Muslims, where is the concern for Christians who have been slaughtered by Muslims because of their religion?
I AM NOT RELIGIOUS, but, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
This country has gone so far off the rails since the event last week that I shudder to think where we’re going to be a month or a year from now.
New Zealand PM Announces Semi Auto Gun Ban, Buyback Program
March 20th, 2019Via: Reuters:
New Zealand will ban military-style semi-automatic and assault rifles under tough new gun laws following the killing of 50 people in the country’s worst mass shooting, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday.
In the immediate aftermath of Friday’s shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, Ardern labeled the attack as terrorism and said New Zealand’s gun laws would change.
“On 15 March our history changed forever. Now, our laws will too. We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place,” Ardern told a new conference.
“All semi-automatic weapons used during the terrorist attack on Friday 15 March will be banned.”
Ardern said she expects the new laws to be in place by April 11 and a buy-back scheme will be established for banned weapons.
The buyback would cost up to NZ$200 million ($138 million), she said.
All military style semi-automatics (MSSA) and assault rifles would be banned, along with parts used to convert weapons into MSSAs and all high-capacity magazines.
Forget Tesla, It’s China’s E-Buses That Are Denting Oil Demand
March 20th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
The oil industry needn’t be too concerned — for now — about how Tesla Inc.’s electric cars are denting demand. China and its bus fleet could be more of a worry.
By the end of this year, a cumulative 270,000 barrels a day of diesel demand will have been displaced by electric buses, most of it in China, according to a report published Tuesday by BloombergNEF. That’s more than three times the displacement by all the world’s passenger electric vehicles (a market where Tesla has a share of about 12 percent.).
