Dan Rather: What Mueller Knows Will Make Cohen/Manafort “Pale By Comparison,” “Stay Tuned”
August 25th, 2018When Rather says, “We’re in a kind of political theater of the absurd now,” I think he’s right! Talk of impeaching Trump, as Bill and Hillary Clinton walk free, is pretty absurd.
Via: Real Clear Politics:
Dan Rather warned Wednesday night that if you think Tuesday was a shock with the Cohen guilty plea and Manafort’s conviction, then “stay tuned.” The former news anchor said other things Mueller is working on will “make yesterday pale by comparison.”
“Always keeping in mind that Mueller knows so much more than he has shown,” Rather said in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. “If you think [Cohen guilty plea, Manafort conviction] was a shock to our democratic system, just stay tuned. Because the other things Mueller is working on, and sooner or later we’ll find out what they are, is going to make yesterday pale by comparison.”
Tech Companies Are Gathering For A Secret Meeting To Prepare A 2018 Election Strategy
August 24th, 2018The article mentions a Russian, “Troll factory.”
How about American troll factories?
Here’s what the U.S. Air Force wanted back in 2011:
Software will allow 10 personas per user, replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent. Individual applications will enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries. Personas must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and can interact through conventional online services and social media platforms. The service includes a user friendly application environment to maximize the user’s situational awareness by displaying real-time local information.
Mmm hmm.
How about Hillary Clinton on election rigging?
“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” said Sen. Clinton. “And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.”
How about Israel?
So, take, say, the huge issue of interference in our pristine elections. Did the Russians interfere in our elections? An issue of overwhelming concern in the media. I mean, in most of the world, that’s almost a joke. First of all, if you’re interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Israeli intervention in U.S. elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done…
There’s so much corporate/mainstream media “outrage” about Russia now…
When the U.S. Air Force does it, or when Israelis do it (Megaphone is one incredible example), where is the outrage? When Hillary suggests rigging an election, where is the outrage? Oh, nothing to see here, I guess.
I wonder what the corporate Internet is going to look like over the next couple of years?
Russia FUD. Hillary (or equivalent) 2020. Trump tweets / hookers.
Russia FUD. Hillary (or equivalent) 2020. Trump tweets / hookers.
Russia FUD. Hillary (or equivalent) 2020. Trump tweets / hookers.
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Via: Buzzfeed:
Representatives from a host of the biggest US tech companies, including Facebook and Twitter, have scheduled a private meeting for Friday to share their tactics in preparation for the 2018 midterm elections.
Last week, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, invited employees from a dozen companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Snapchat, to gather at Twitter’s headquarters in downtown San Francisco, according to an email obtained by BuzzFeed News.
“As I’ve mentioned to several of you over the last few weeks, we have been looking to schedule a follow-on discussion to our industry conversation about information operations, election protection, and the work we are all doing to tackle these challenges,” Gleicher wrote.
…
In February, special counsel Robert Mueller’s office charged 13 people affiliated with Russia’s Internet Research Agency — a “troll factory” where employees created personas across multiple platforms — with breaking laws in order to influence American voters. Since then, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, and YouTube have each had at least one public purge of accounts believed to be foreign influence operations.
Japan: Drones Helping Aging Rice Farmers
August 23rd, 2018Via: Reuters:
The next generation farmhand in Japan’s aging rural heartland may be a drone.
For several months, developers and farmers in northeast Japan have been testing a new drone that can hover above paddy fields and perform backbreaking tasks in a fraction of the time it takes for elderly farmers.
“This is unprecedented high technology,” said Isamu Sakakibara, a 69-year-old rice farmer in the Tome area, a region that has supplied rice to Tokyo since the 17th century.
Developers of the new agricultural drone say it offers high-tech relief for rural communities facing a shortage of labor as young people leave for the cities.
“As we face a shortage of next-generation farmers, it’s our mission to come up with new ideas to raise productivity and farmers’ income through the introduction of cutting-edge technologies such as drones,” said Mr. Sakakibara, who is also the head of JA Miyagi Tome, the local agricultural cooperative.
Flint Water Crisis: Michigan Health Director Ordered to Manslaughter Trial
August 22nd, 2018Via: Ars Technica:
A judge on Monday ordered Michigan’s top health official, Nick Lyon, to stand trial for involuntary manslaughter charges in two deaths linked to the Flint water crisis.
Genesee District Judge David Goggins determined that there was probable cause that Lyon committed involuntary manslaughter against Robert Skidmore and John Snyder in 2015. The two men died during an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease, which researchers have connected to the devastating use of improperly treated water in Flint starting in 2014.
Lyon, the director of Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services, is the highest-ranking official in the state to stand trial in connection with the catastrophe. An additional 14 current or former state and local officials have been criminally charged in connection with the water issues.
As Ars has reported previously, prosecutors allege that Lyon specifically had “willfully disregarded the deadly nature of the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak” and failed to warn the public in time to spare lives. He allegedly knew about the outbreak in early 2015 but waited until early 2016 to release a public advisory.
A Milestone in Afghanistan
August 22nd, 2018Via: Ron Paul Institute:
Sometime late next year, possibly as early as September, news crews will gather in Afghanistan for a unique event: To interview an American serviceman or woman who was not born when the war they are fighting began. He or she will not remember 9/11, and will have grown up with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as background noise. No doubt also a senior commander will be on hand to pronounce that the war against the Taliban is making progress, the same pronouncements the young recruit will have seen on TV all his or her life.
It will be a stark reminder that America has been at war for 225 of the 242 years of its existence: A handful of those conflicts — the defeat of Hitler and Japan, for example — go down as “good wars.” But most go down as operations that cost dearly in blood and treasure for little appreciable result.
In 1961, ?Dwight D. Eisenhower, the only American to make it to the highest offices in both politics and the military, warned, on leaving the presidency more than half a century ago, of the power of the “military industrial complex”, and how war can become an end in itself.
Bank of England Chief Economist Warns on AI Jobs Threat
August 22nd, 2018Via: BBC:
The chief economist of the Bank of England has warned that the UK will need a skills revolution to avoid “large swathes” of people becoming “technologically unemployed” as artificial intelligence makes many jobs obsolete.
Andy Haldane said the possible disruption of what is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution could be “on a much greater scale” than anything felt during the First Industrial Revolution of the Victorian era.
He said that he had seen a widespread “hollowing out” of the jobs market, rising inequality, social tension and many people struggling to make a living.
It was important to learn the “lessons of history”, he argued, and ensure that people were given the training to take advantage of the new jobs that would become available.
He added that in the past a safety net such as new welfare benefits had also been provided.
Mr Haldane’s points were echoed by the new head of the government’s advisory council on artificial intelligence, who also warned there was a “huge risk” of people being left behind as computers and robots changed the world of work.
Doctor’s Orders: Let Children Just Play
August 22nd, 2018Thanks, Captain!
Via: AP:
Imagine a drug that could enhance a child’s creativity, critical thinking and resilience. Imagine that this drug were simple to make, safe to take, and could be had for free.
The nation’s leading pediatricians say this miracle compound exists. In a new clinical report, they are urging doctors to prescribe it liberally to the children in their care.
What is this wonder drug? Play.
“This may seem old-fashioned, but there are skills to be learned when kids aren’t told what to do,” said Dr. Michael Yogman, a Harvard Medical School pediatrician who led the drafting of the call to arms. Whether it’s rough-and-tumble physical play, outdoor play or social or pretend play, kids derive important lessons from the chance to make things up as they go, he said.
The advice, issued Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics, may come as a shock to some parents. After spending years fretting over which toys to buy, which apps to download and which skill-building programs to send their kids to after school, letting them simply play — or better yet, playing with them — could seem like a step backward.
The pediatricians insist that it’s not. The academy’s guidance does not include specific recommendations for the dosing of play. Instead, it asks doctors to advise parents before their babies turn 2 that play is essential to healthy development. It also advocates for the restoration of play in schools.
Robots Can Effectively Brainwash Children
August 22nd, 2018And now, children, we’ll learn how jet fuel can melt structural steel.
Via: SHTFplan:
“People often follow the opinions of others and we’ve known for a long time that it is hard to resist taking over views and opinions of people around us. We know this as conformity. But as robots will soon be found in the home and the workplace, we were wondering if people would conform to robots.”
“What our results show is that adults do not conform to what the robots are saying. But when we did the experiment with children, they did. It shows children can perhaps have more of an affinity with robots than adults, which does pose the question: what if robots were to suggest, for example, what products to buy or what to think?” — Professor in Robotics Tony Belpaeme, one of the scientists behind the study.
The Stock Market’s Latest Sell Signal Has Happened Only 5 Other Times Since 1895
August 22nd, 2018Via: Marketwatch:
The “Sound Advice Risk Indicator” … the brainchild of Gray Cardiff, editor of the Sound Advice newsletter, is derived from the ratio of the S&P 500 SPX to the median price of a new U.S. house. For the first time since the late 1990s, and for only the sixth time since 1895, this indicator has risen above the 2.0 level that represents a major sell signal for equities.
The investment rationale underlying this indicator, according to Cardiff, is that it “measures the struggle for capital” between the two major asset classes that compete for capital at the riskier end of the spectrum — stocks and real estate. When the indicator rises above 2.0, he argues, it means that the stock market has absorbed “a larger proportion of available investment capital than economic conditions can justify” and, therefore, it is in “imminent danger of falling.”
To be sure, Cardiff is quick to emphasize, his risk indicator is not a short-term market timing tool. In the wake of past occasions when it rose above 2.0, for example, equities stayed high or even continued rising “for many months, sometimes even a couple of years.” However, he continues, “in all cases, a major decline or crash followed, pulling down stock prices by 50% or more.”
Related: America Is Overdue for Another Economic Disaster
U.S. Special Forces Soldier Charged with Smuggling 90 Pounds of Cocaine from Colombia to Florida
August 22nd, 2018Woopsee.
Via: NBC:
A decorated Special Forces soldier was arrested Monday for attempting to smuggle nearly 90 pounds of cocaine from Colombia into the U.S. on a military airplane, according to two defense officials.
Army Master Sgt. Daniel Gould, assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group, was arrested after Drug Enforcement Administration agents found 40 kilograms of cocaine in two backpacks on a military airplane in Colombia. A U.S. military official said a service member found the drugs on the plane while it was on the ground in Colombia and reported the discovery. The plane was bound for Eglin Air Force Base, near Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
Gould was on vacation in Cali, Colombia, the week before the bust but had already traveled back to the U.S. when the drugs were loaded onto the aircraft. Officials said Gould used a proxy to move the two military-issue “punch out” bags onto the plane, but could not say whether that person was complicit or not.
