U.S. Seizure of Three Websites Used by Iranian Front Company that Was Shipping Fuel on Four Tankers to Venezuela
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-seizure-three-websites-used-iranian-front-company-was-shipping-fuel-four-tankers-venezuela
Prime privacy intrusion: Amazon rolls out BODY-SCANNING fitness tracker that detects EMOTIONS in voice
Amazon’s new fitness tracker ‘Halo’ takes technological intrusion to new levels, scanning the user’s body and tracking the emotions in their voice. Even mainstream media coverage says the tech’s privacy implications are troubling.
Like most fitness trackers, the retail behemoth’s new wearable Halo monitors cardio activity, motion and sleep. Unlike most trackers, it also records body fat and voice tone – in ways that some users might find uncomfortably intrusive.
Not only can the device track your current body fat percentage (with the help of machine learning, no less!) by working with your smartphone’s camera (red alert!) to photograph you in your underwear – it can show you your ideal self using a slider that fattens and slims the 3D model it creates. Endless hours of crushing inadequacy are at your fingertips! Amazon told the Verge it has built-in safeguards against encouraging eating disorders, explaining the slider doesn’t dip below “dangerously low” levels of body fat and can’t be used by customers under 18.
More ominous is the screenless wristband’s ‘tone analysis’ feature, which purports to analyze the user’s emotions by listening to their voice. “Maybe you thought you sounded affectionate but actually sounded bored,” Amazon’s commercial for the Halo chirps, implying the device will be monitoring all social interactions so you can play them back ad infinitum, brooding over where exactly your failed attempt to pick up that fetching stranger in the bar went awry.
There are a few token gestures toward privacy – Amazon claims to delete the 3D body scans its AI generates after you finish perusing your flabby bits in excruciating detail, and the microphone that tracks your emotions supposedly remains dormant unless you “opt in” to having your feelings monitored. Your voice, Amazon claims, is never uploaded to any of its servers or heard by any humans – though Alexa users might recall they’ve heard that before.
https://www.rt.com/usa/499260-amazon-halo-intrusive-body-scan-emotions/
Cop Praised as ‘Hero’ Just Arrested on Multiple Charges of Child Sexual Abuse
Jacksonville, FL — Just 10 months ago, the Fraternal Order of Police in Jacksonville took to Facebook to praise officer David Gedert for his heroism on the job. This month, however, they are quickly distancing themselves from the man after he was arrested for the alleged rape of a child under the age of 13.
On Tuesday, Gedert was arrested on two outstanding warrants for charges of criminal sexual misconduct with a victim younger than 13, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s office. Gedert had been on the force just 21 months.
It seems as though Gedert attempted to escape the pending charges against him as he moved to Jacksonville, Florida and the charges were from Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Because Gedert had only been with the department for less than two years, he was not yet in the protected status and police could fire him.
“He is fired without question and will no longer serve as a police officer here,” Undersheriff Pat Ivey said, noting Gedert could be terminated immediately since he was a probationary employee and had no civil service protection.
The details of Gedert’s charges are sealed due to the nature of his alleged crimes and the age of the victim. Ivey said the department had no way of knowing they hired an alleged pedophile given that the crimes for which he was just arrested are alleged to have happened six years ago.
“This is very significant here and he needs to be held accountable,” Ivey said. “… I wish we could have caught this one in the processing, but again knowing the behavior was six years ago, there may not have been an indicator.”
Though these crimes are alleged to have happened six years ago, as TFTP has reported, pedophiles rarely act only once and in fact usually have dozens of victims over the course of their lives.
Ivey told reporters that Gedert’s alleged crimes do not represent the department as a whole.
The canned excuse of Gedert “is a unique case and a bad apple,” falls short of explaining away this alleged crime because the Jacksonville Sheriff’s office is rife with criminals. As Jacksonville.com points out, Gedert was the fifth Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office employee arrested this year, four of whom were police or corrections officers, Ivey said. That includes two Jacksonville corrections officers arrested in March after a disabled inmate was beaten in the Duval County jail, the Sheriff’s Office reported.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/hero-cop-arrested-child-misconduct/
Herbalife Nutrition Ltd. Agrees to Pay Over $122 Million to Resolve FCPA Case
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/herbalife-nutrition-ltd-agrees-pay-over-122-million-resolve-fcpa-case
Hawaii's COVID-19 Outbreak Spirals Out Of Control As Gov Revives Lockdown
After initially defying fears that its proximity to Japan and popularity with tourists might lead to a massive outbreak, Hawaii is finally facing its very own COVID-19 reckoning.
The state is now struggling with a genuine surge in the month of August after remaining at or near the bottom of the US league tables for the first four months of the pandemic.
For a small state with just 1.4 million residents, Hawaii has a total of 7,260 confirmed cases, 5,549 of which were confirmed within the last month, according to Johns Hopkins data. The state has gone from last or near last to No. 19 in terms of new cases reported daily over the past few weeks.
From mid-March to mid-June, the state saw an average of just 7.9 new cases reported per day. Last week, that average number climbed to 219.
This is terrible news for a state that, at the end of July, had the highest unemployment rate in the US (more than 13%) due to its reliance on tourism.
Ground zero for the virus is on Oahu, the most populous of the Hawaiian islands and home to the state’s capital and largest city, Honolulu. While 70% of the state’s population lives there, but since the beginning of the outbreak, 91% of its cases have been reported there.
Throughout the spring and early summer, Hawaii ranked nearly last among US states in cases per 100,000 people. Through Tuesday, Hawaii ranked 19th in cases per 100,000 people. More than 70% of Hawaii’s total cases were reported in August and about half of its 51 deaths, the highest in the country on both counts.
One infectious disease specialist says the surge is surprising given Hawaii's geography, and the plunge in tourism-related traffic.
"As a public health professional, I expect this to look like New Zealand," he said, referring to the Pacific island nation that isolated itself and had few Covid-19 cases.
Most of Hawaii's retailers started reopening in May (at least, those that could reopen), and whatever is driving the outbreak isn't entirely clear. Some speculate that Hawaii's large multigenerational families who often live together have been holding more public gatherings, creating more opportunities for the virus to spread.
Additionally, the state's scant resources have apparently worn thin as Hawaii worked to enforce its mandatory quarantine restrictions (one of the few states to do so) and poured resources into contact tracing. Right now, the state can only handle roughly 3 new tracing cases per day, which barely dents the current caseload.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hawaiis-covid-19-outbreak-spirals-out-control-gov-revives-lockdown
Judge Orders An Iowa County To Invalidate 50,000 Absentee Ballot Requests
An Iowa judge ordered 50,000 absentee ballots to be invalidated Thursday after ruling the Iowa elections commissioner overstepped his authority by pre-filling the ballots with voters’ information.
Linn County Auditor Joel Miller issued 140,000 absentee ballots in July that were already pre-filled with voters’ personal information, such as their date of birth and most importantly, voter identification numbers, according to the Associated Press (AP). Miller said he wanted to make it easy for voters to vote absentee during the pandemic, per the same report.
However, Judge Ian Thornhill ruled that Miller’s mailing of the ballots violated a “clear directive” from Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, who said absentee ballots forms must be blank when sent to voters, according to the AP. Thornhill has ordered Miller to notify voters who received the pre-filled ballot that their ballot cannot be processed. Instead, they can either vote in person on Election Day or request a new absentee ballot. Miller has agreed to send out new blank forms.
Another hearing is set for Friday in the Woodbury County case.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/08/28/judge-rejects-50000-absentee-ballot-requests-pre-filled-trump-campaign-sued/
‘Elite controllers’ can cure themselves of HIV without any medical treatment, bombshell research claims
Extraordinary breakthrough research has indicated that a small group of HIV-infected people, dubbed “elite controllers,” have the power to rid themselves of the virus without any medical help.
Numerous previous studies, carried out over the course of several years, had found that a very small number of the 38 million people infected with the dreaded virus were able to suppress it without any treatment.
The remarkable new finding has found that an even smaller subset of “elite controllers” appear to be able to eliminate HIV from their bodies entirely without taking medicine at all.
The discovery is astonishing because HIV is a lifelong condition for which there is no medical cure. In the vast majority of cases, sufferers require daily antiretroviral therapy (ART) to control the virus and stop the development of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
“What happens with these individuals, whom we call elite controllers, may shed light on a HIV-1 cure and also help us understand how a person with HIV might control virus and avoid HIV-associated comorbidities,” explained veteran HIV researcher, Keith Hoots, who is the director of the Division of Blood Diseases and Resources at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
In the new study, experts from Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied more than 1,500 elite controllers. Their research discovered that these people achieved virus elimination results which had previously only been seen following years of intensive medical treatment.
The authors say that elite controllers are the closest thing to a possible “natural cure” for the virus, which has claimed more than 33 million lives since the epidemic emerged in the early 1980s.
https://www.rt.com/news/499312-hiv-elite-controllers-cure-no-medicine/
American Man Indicted on Charges of Exploiting Children in Laos
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/american-man-indicted-charges-exploiting-children-laos
Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors Demands Hollywood Strike Over Shooting of Jacob Blake
Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Patrisse Cullors has demanded that the entertainment industry go on strike in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake, arguing that “Hollywood can really show up in this moment.”
“I think it’s time for talent, writers, executives, the guild and SAG to show up for Black lives as well,” Cullors said. “Join this strike. Now is the time and our movement is really looking to unions to step in in a particular way and say ‘We’re going to hold back on allowing for the exploitation and the degradation of Black communities to continue under our watch.’ I think Hollywood can really show up in this moment.”
Cullors, who is also a playwright, made the remarks in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter after the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks boycotted their playoff game on Tuesday after Blake was shot seven times by police. The strike led to other teams from Major League Basketball, the National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer to join in the boycott.
Cullors didn’t explain how a Hollywood strike would look but said BLM leaders are currently in discussion with some industry executives to establish what would be possible.
“People are tired of having to say the same thing over and over again, and not seeing the change that we deserve from either party, frankly,” she says. “I think the work that we’re up against right now is to ensure that we can get Trump out of office, but also ensure that we can get the Democratic Party to truly create policies that will make sure that Black people are protected from vigilantes and from police torture.”
However, the feasibility of Cullor’s Hollywood strike demands remain in doubt. After months of a coronavirus lockdown, the entertainment industry is now gearing itself up to reopening movie theaters. Major networks are also announcing the return of shows and their production.
A Hollywood strike would also inflict major harm on the industry’s economy and further harm already out of work blue-collar workers, many of whom are black, whose livelihood has already been badly affected by the global pandemic.
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/08/28/black-lives-matter-co-founder-demands-hollywood-strike-over-shooting-of-jacob-blake/
James Woods… Twitter has actually shadow banned the President of the United States from trending on the night of his convention. They don’t even pretend anymore.
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/james-woods-twitter-has-actually-shadow-banned-the-president-of-the-united-states-from-trending-on-the-night-of-his-convention-they-dont-even-pretend-anymore/
5th column
Former GOP congressman says the message of the RNC to white people is that 'Black people are coming for you'
Former Republican congressman David Jolly said that President Trump's message to white people at the Republican National Convention is "Black people are coming for you."
Jolly was speaking to Joy Reid on MSNBC Thursday on the fourth and last night of the GOP convention when he made the derisive comments.
"We cannot extract the element of race from all of these narratives that the Republicans are putting out," said Jolly.
"Donald Trump is telling white people that Black people are coming for you. That is the message of the RNC," he added.
"It is damning he should be criticized and he should be damned for it but the heartbreaking part of all this, Joy, is while the issues around race, and the conversations around race can be complex and very hard, leadership in this moment is not," Jolly continued.
"All it takes for a leader is to listen, and to understand, and to show empathy, and to acknowledge these are tough complex issues," he concluded.
Reid focused on the inclusion into the RNC of the St. Louis couple who protected their property with guns from Black Lives Matter, and implied that this led to the shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, were two protesters were killed.
"This shooter in Kenosha walked around with a gun and police didn't even stop him," said Reid.
"He was arrested peacefully. And yet, Black people can't even be pulled over without being in terror of being shot for no reason. Can't get into a car. Can't stand up, can't sit down. You walk to the left, you get shot, you walk to the right, you get shot! No matter what you do!"
The president received the nomination for re-election from the Republican party on Thursday and ended the convention with a fiery speech from in front of the White House before a select audience.
http://www.stationgossip.com/2020/08/former-gop-congressman-says-message-of.html
Pay With Your Face In California — Welcome To Dystopia Coming Soon to You
In the future you won’t need a microchip implanted into your hand or forehead for payments, no, instead you’ll just need your smiling face. Welcome to facial recognition dystopia!
A tech company called PopID says that it has helped dozens of retailers and restaurants in Pasadena, Calif., establish “the nation’s first dense ‘face-pay’ network.”
So what in the hell is a “face pay network?”
PopPay is a facial recognition payment solution that can allow contactless, hands-free payment at a kiosk, a drive-thru, a screen at a counter, or tableside with a hand-held device. Once PopID’s system recognizes the customer’s face, it draws funds from their account and sends a text message to confirm payment, Fox News reports.
With the coronavirus changing the way many companies do their daily businesses, PopID proposes its system as a way for customers to make safe purchases without needing contact with employees. A demonstration video released on January 29th provided by PopID even shows a customer wearing a mask using the system.
The company also has a similar PopEntry technology that can be used for workers to “scan in” at their jobs and for students entering campus facilities. The devices can also be equipped with thermal temperature screening as a health safety measure. Again, welcome to freaking dystopia.
“In each new city we enter, we initially focus on installing PopEntry systems in the workplace and on local college campuses,” PopID CEO John Miller said in a written statement to Fox News. “As these communities grow comfortable using PopID to check in, we enlist area restaurants and retailers to offer PopPay for transactions.”
Currently, the system is only in Pasadena California at some restaurant chains such as mom-and-pop operations like Daddy’s Chicken Shack and regional chains such as Lemonade, LA Times reported.
However, PopID plans to launch more networks and roll out across the nation on a city-by-city basis.
Believe it or not, this type of payment system isn’t new; it started in China prior to the pandemic going at least all the way to 2017 with Alipay’s Pay With Face Kiosks which were launched throughout China.
https://www.activistpost.com/2020/08/pay-with-your-face-in-california-welcome-to-dystopia-coming-soon-to-you.html
Multiple governors reject new CDC guideline.
In an act of defiance with “science and experts” multiple governors will refuse new guidelines saying NOT to test asymptomatic individuals.
The democratic governors have banded together and say they will continue testing EVERYONE in complete defiance of the CDC.
Andrew Cuomo “The CDC’s unexplained reversal of established testing guidelines is reckless & unsupported by the facts.
NY, NJ & CT will not change our science-based testing guidance. Close contacts of individuals with COVID should get tested.”
The CDC's unexplained reversal of established testing guidelines is reckless & unsupported by the facts.
NY, NJ & CT will not change our science-based testing guidance. Close contacts of individuals with COVID should get tested.
Joint statement with @GovMurphy & @GovNedLamont: pic.twitter.com/2xhujOXgZ4
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 27, 2020
It appears they are angry that the jig is up. They reject the fact they can’t run data numbers up with anxiety ridden asymptomatic patients begging for covid tests that produce FALSE positives.
The WHO even admitted asymptomatic was a scam.
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/multiple-governors-reject-new-cdc-guideline/
400,000 farm chickens, turkeys & emus EUTHANIZED as bird flu blights Australia
The Australian state of Victoria has had to euthanize huge numbers of poultry, among them thousands of baby chicks, in a bid to stem the spread of the bird influenza, likely to add to Australia’s perils in containing coronavirus.
Choosing between bad and worse, poultry farmers in Victoria have decimated their livestock, with a whopping 400,000 turkeys, chickens, and emus being killed out of fear they could be a great risk of transmitting the contagion. That includes 2,000 baby emus, local media have reported.
The Victorian Farmers Federation Egg Group said that the loss would be devastating for both large and small producers “not just emotionally but financially as well.” Australia’s Agriculture Minister David Littleproud responded with sympathy to the news, assuring that the government understands “the impact of the difficult decisions that need to be made.”
The dramatic campaign comes after avian influenza – otherwise known as bird flu or avian flu – was first discovered at an emu farm and an egg farm in Victoria in late-July. Authorities have placed the facility in quarantine, while issuing advisories to local farmers.
Bird flu is a contagious disease that predominantly affects chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, guinea fowl, quail, pheasants, and ostriches. While there are lots of types of contagion, the virus strains are destroyed by cooking.
Some of them, however, are dangerous to humans, most notably the H5N1 strain, which can infect humans. The reported mortality rate is around 60 percent, the World Health Organization believes. The biggest risk to humans stems from close contact with infected birds. This means farmers mucking out and handling poultry are more likely to catch it than others.
This appears to be the second outbreak affecting Australia after Covid-19, which infected close to 25,500 people and has killed over 580. The new coronavirus has been taking a toll on the nation for months, although its spread is nowhere near the scale of the crisis in neighboring Southeast Asia.
https://www.rt.com/news/499304-australia-birds-flu-euthanazed/
YouTube's AI removed 11.4 MILLION videos between April and June due to violent or abusive content - twice the amount human moderators deleted in the first three months of the year
YouTube removed twice as many videos in 2020's second quarter than the first
Between April and June 2020, more than 11.4 million videos were removed
It's had to rely more on algorithms because workers can't review videos at home
The percentage of videos restored on appeal jumped from a quarter to half
YouTube has taken down more videos in the past few months than ever before thanks to machine learning, the company reveals.
The video-sharing platform relied heavily on algorithms from April to June, due to work-from-home orders, which removed more than 11.4 million videos found with misleading or abusive content.
Prior to leaning more on computers, YouTube human moderators had only identified some five million videos from January to March that go against its policies.
YouTube employed the technology when parts of the US went into coronavirus lockdown, as allowing staff to review content outside the office could lead to sensitive data being exposed.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8666851/YouTube-taking-videos-pandemic-forces-rely-AI-moderators.html
Kamala Harris pledges unconditional support for Israel
Joe Biden's running mate says military assistance will not be linked to 'any political decision' that Israeli government makes
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris reiterated that Joe Biden will not impose any conditions on US aid to Israel, saying that assistance would not be linked to "any political decision" made by the Israeli government.
Her remarks, about eight weeks before the election, come at a time when the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still considering annexing large parts of the occupied West Bank.
"Joe has made it clear he will not tie security assistance to any political decisions that Israel makes, and I couldn't agree more," Harris told a virtual fundraiser with Jewish-American voters on Wednesday.
That California senator went on to promote Biden's "unwavering support" for Israel and his role in securing military assistance for the Israeli government when he served as Barack Obama's vice president.
"I pledge to you the Biden-Harris administration will sustain our unbreakable commitment to Israel's security, including the unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation pioneered during the Obama-Biden administration and the guarantee that Israel will always maintain its qualitative military edge," Harris said.
Sidelining Palestinians
Israel receives about $3.8bn in US military aid annually. Before leaving office in 2016, Obama signed a memorandum of understanding that ensures $38bn of assistance to Israel spread over 10 years.
During the Democratic primaries, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed imposing human rights conditions on the military aid to Israel - an idea that Biden promptly rejected.
Harris's remarks completely ruling out using military aid as leverage to advance US policy, including Biden's own opposition to settlement expansion and annexation - which he said would choke off chances of peace - add to the frustration of Palestinian rights advocates with the Democratic campaign.
"Although Palestinian and Arab Americans in the US understand as well as anyone else the historical importance of this election, the Democratic Party mainstream makes it supremely difficult to #VoteBlueNoMatterWho," Hatem Abudayyeh, co-founder of the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), told MEE in statement.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/kamala-harris-pledges-unconditional-support-israel
Rapper 50 Cent says cancel culture's biggest target is straight men: 'There's no organization' to back up heterosexual males
In a video interview with Variety's Andrew Wallenstein on Wednesday, Jackson lamented the impact cancel culture has had on the lives of so many people who have worked hard to get where they are.
Wallenstein asked Jackson if he ever fears saying the wrong thing, getting serious backlash, and becoming a victim of cancel culture that ultimately destroys his business and brand.
Jackson replied that he doesn't believe he can be canceled because "hip-hop culture loves things that are damaged. It loves people who are already broken from experience." He said that a rapper won't get canceled unless he does "something extremely bad," like "go to jail" or "shoot a girl."
And then he launched into a statement about the unfairness of cancel culture and how the biggest target is straight men.
"I think it's so unfair, too, to the people that are canceled. Some of them have worked all their lives to position themselves the way they are, and you're saying that one thing you said that someone didn't like [results in being canceled]," Jackson said.
"We're talking about people who have organizations and — whatever their preferences are," he continued.
"You a heterosexual male? Traditional choices? You like women?" the rapper asked. "If you say something about someone who chooses something different, there's organizations set up that start sending things around to get signatures and stuff," which lead to the targets getting canceled.
Jackson then wanted to know, "As a heterosexual male, who's going to send things around to tap signatures based on your feelings? There's no one. There's no organization."
"There's certain demographics that have been conditioned, because they've been taken advantage of in the earlier stages," he said. "They were once inferior, now they're superior, because we have no organization.
"The biggest target is just heterosexual males in general," the rapper continued.
Watch the full interview below (relevant portion begins at the 21:10 mark).
http://www.yourdestinationnow.com/2020/08/rapper-50-cent-says-cancel-cultures.html
Facebook shuts down Gaza health ministry page
Gaza’s health ministry uses Facebook to supply crucial information – whether about people killed or injured in Israeli attacks, or about the enormous efforts to hold back the spread of COVID-19. Now Facebook has closed it down…
When I heard the news on Monday that the first coronavirus cases had been confirmed in Gaza outside of quarantine centers, I headed immediately for the Facebook page of Gaza’s health ministry.
It’s the place I go for information or livestreams of press conferences from health officials serving the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom are children.
This was the moment everyone dreaded and had managed to stave off since the start of the pandemic: a potentially uncontained outbreak in a besieged enclave whose health and sanitation systems have been on their knees for years due to successive Israeli military attacks and 14 years of illegal blockade.
To my dismay, however, the Facebook page was gone.
Dr. Ashraf al-Qedra, the health ministry’s spokesperson, confirmed to The Electronic Intifada that Facebook shut the page down about 10 days ago. This is the third time Facebook has shut down the ministry’s page.
Al-Qedra said the pretext Facebook gave was that the ministry had used the words “martyr” or “resistance.”
The word shahid in Arabic – often translated as “martyr” – is used almost universally by Palestinians to describe any person, whether a civilian or a combatant, killed in the context of the conflict with Israel.
I have written to Facebook’s media office twice this week asking for an explanation. I have yet to receive any reply.
Campaign of censorship
For years, Facebook has been waging a campaign in cahoots with Israeli occupation authorities to silence and censor Palestinian media.
It has shut down the accounts and pages of dozens of Palestinian journalists and publications – on the Israeli-supplied pretext that criticism of Israel and its crimes against Palestinians constitute “incitement.”
It has labeled Palestinian journalism as “hate speech.”
Facebook has even appointed an Israeli government censor to its “oversight board.”
Meanwhile, Facebook has allowed covert Israel lobby influence and disinformation campaigns to run freely on its platform.
https://israelpalestinenews.org/facebook-shuts-down-gaza-health-ministry-page/
The WHO is monitoring online conversations and emotions, using “social listening” to change COVID narratives
Machine learning analysis is being used on people's conversations.
The World Health Organization is collaborating with an analytics company to scan people’s social media conversations for “coronavirus misinformation;” something the WHO calls “social listening.”
The global health organization says that it’s not only fighting the pandemic but also the conversations people are having about it.
According to the WHO, there’s an “infodemic” – an overload and spread of misleading information, so much so that it decided that to tackle misinformation, it needs to employ various tools, including social listening, with machine learning monitoring.
“Countering fake news or rumors is actually only responding or mitigating when it’s too late,” said Tim Nguyen, a technology expert helping the WHO’s unit titled Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN). “What we’ve put in place in the beginning of the pandemic is what we call a social listening approach.”
The company has been creepily scanning more than 1.6 million social media posts each week to monitor online conversation. It then uses machine learning to classify information into four topics; cause, illness, interventions, and treatments. The WHO’s aim is to learn the coronavirus topics that are gaining popularity so that it can then create its own content to counteract and attempt to change the narrative.
The WHO’s “social listening” goes beyond analyzing people’s conversations for content, it also tries to analyze their emotions. Through language analytics, the technology detects emotions such as sadness, acceptance, denial, and anxiety. With such insights, the WHO hopes to come up with effective strategies to adjust coronavirus narratives.
“What we’ve learned now, after two and a half months of doing this kind of analysis, is that there are recurring themes and topics that are coming back over and over again,” Nguyen explained. “What that means to us is that we need to re-push information at different times. People may not understand it the first time when we push it, but when the questions and issues come up later, it means it’s time to push it out again.”
https://reclaimthenet.org/who-is-monitoring-online-conversations/
Top Beijing Official Warns: Chinese Consumers Will 'Abandon' iPhones If US Bans WeChat
In a rare comment about potentially boycotting American products, China's foreign ministry spokesman warned Friday if the Trump administration goes ahead with a ban on the popular messaging app WeChat, from mid-September on, then it would result in Chinese consumers ditching iPhones and other Apple products.
"If WeChat is banned, then there will be no reason why Chinese shall keep iPhone and apple products," Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijan tweeted.
President Trump's executive order banning WeChat in the coming weeks would not just stoke further tensions between both superpowers, but also could lead to a massive hit for the world's most valuable company, Apple.
Lijan said, "many Chinese people are saying they may stop using iPhones if WeChat is banned in the U.S." He accused Washington of "systematic economic bullying of non-US companies" by targeting the popular messaging app.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/top-beijing-official-warns-chinese-consumers-will-abandon-iphones-if-us-bans-wechat
Felony Warrant Against Jacob Blake Has Been Vacated, Handcuffs Removed At Hospital Bed
Local ABC affiliate WISN-TV in Milwaukee is reporting Friday afternoon that Jacob Blake's attorney has told the station that the felony warrant against Blake has just been vacated.
Further, deputies have been reported as removing the handcuffs that kept Blake shackled to his hospital bed at Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa.
Hours prior on Friday Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul refused to confirm whether Kenosha police knew beforehand that Blake had a knife in his vehicle before they opened fire when he reached into the driver's side.
"We're not commenting on that detail at this point in the investigation. Mr. Blake stated to investigators that he had a knife in his possession and there was one that was found on the driver's side floorboard," Kaul told ABC News on "Good Morning America."
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/felony-warrant-against-jacob-blake-has-been-vacated-handcuffs-removed-blakes-attorney
US Bombers to Fly Over 30 NATO Countries in 'Allied Sky' Demonstration
America's oldest active bombers will fly in formation across all 30 NATO countries Friday in a single-day mission meant to showcase solidarity with partners and allies, according to an Air Force Global Strike release.
In an operation dubbed "Allied Sky," four B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers, deployed to Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford, U.K., will fly over Europe alongside allies while two bombers from the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, fly over the U.S. and Canada, the command said.
NATO nations scheduled to integrate with the Cold War-era bomber aircraft include Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the U.K. and the U.S, the release said.
"U.S. security commitments to the NATO Alliance remain ironclad," said Gen. Tod Wolters, commander of U.S. European Command. "Today's bomber task force mission is another example of how the alliance sustains readiness, improves interoperability and demonstrates our ability to deliver on commitments from across the Atlantic."
Called Bomber Task Force, or BTF, missions, the shorter flights using two to four bombers have been a regular occurrence since the spring as part of the Pentagon's larger "dynamic force employment" strategy for military units to test how nimbly they can move from place to place.
"It gives the appearance that we're in more places and we really are," Maj. Gen. Jim Dawkins Jr., then-commander of the Eighth Air Force and the Joint-Global Strike Operations Center at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, told Military.com in May. Dawkins is now the director of the Global Power Programs at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Acquisition, Technology & Logistics at the Pentagon.
In the last year, officials have planned more, and shorter, strategic bomber rotations employing the B-1B Lancer as well as the B-2 Spirit to test the Air Force's agility when deploying its heavy aircraft forces around the world while also coordinating flights with overseas counterparts, Dawkins said at the time.
The flights are based "on the timing and tempo of the combatant commanders and how much they request" bombers in their region, he said.
But they are becoming more frequent and, therefore, more standard, Dawkins explained. "There is just so much of a bigger signal sent with a bomber than with a couple of [F-16 Fighting Falcons]. It just is what it is," he said.
The European theater has had a bomber rotation at least once a year as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve since Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. EUCOM on Friday said since 2018, the U.S. and allies have conducted more than 200 sorties as part of a BTF mission.
"Operations and engagements with allies and partners serve as cornerstones highlighting USEUCOM's commitment to global security and stability," the release said. "These opportunities also serve as a reminder that, despite ongoing challenges presented by COVID-19, U.S. forces remain fully ready to execute their missions across all domains."
"By further enhancing our enduring relationships, we send a clear message to potential adversaries about our readiness to meet any global challenge," Wolters added.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/08/28/us-bombers-fly-over-30-nato-countries-allied-sky-demonstration.html
U.S. expected to reduce troops in Iraq by a third to about 3,500: official
The United States is expected to reduce its troops presence in Iraq by about a third in the coming months, a U.S. official said on Friday, a move that had been expected after President Donald Trump's administration committed to a reduction recently.
The United States has around 5,200 troops that were deployed in Iraq to fight the Islamic State militant group. Officials in the U.S.-led coalition say Iraqi forces are now mostly able to handle the remnants of Islamic State on their own.
The United States and Iraq in June affirmed their commitment to the reduction of U.S. troops in the country in coming months, with no plans by Washington to maintain permanent bases or a permanent military presence.
In 2016 Trump campaigned on ending America's "endless wars," but U.S. troops remain in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, albeit in smaller numbers.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States would go down to about 3,500 troops in Iraq in the next two to three months.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This month during a meeting with the Iraqi prime minister, President Donald Trump redoubled his promise to withdraw the U.S. troops still in Iraq.
Trump's meeting with the Iraqi leader came amid a new spike in tensions between Washington and Tehran after Washington said it would seek to reinstate all previously suspended U.S. sanctions on Iran at the United Nations.
Iraq's parliament had voted earlier this year for the departure of foreign troops from Iraq, and United States and other coalition troops have been leaving as part of a drawdown.
The numbers of troops to be withdrawn was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
https://wtvbam.com/news/articles/2020/aug/28/us-expected-to-reduce-troops-in-iraq-by-a-third-to-about-3500-official/1053214/?refer-section=world
Will Hillary and the Dems get the civil war they are trying to provoke?
If you have not already seen this, check out this video of Hillary Clinton stating that, quote, “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances“:
Will Hillary and the Dems get the civil war they are trying to provoke?
364 Views August 28, 2020 1 Comment
[this analysis was written for the Unz Review]
If you have not already seen this, check out this video of Hillary Clinton stating that, quote, “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances“:
“Any” means “any”. That would include the (admittedly hypothetical) case of Trump clearly winning in by landslide. Again, “any” means “any”.
The direct implications of that is that the Dems should re-take the White House by any and all means and under any and all circumstances.
That is also a direct appeal to sabotage the US democracy which, as flawed as it is, is the only rule of law based option currently available to the people of the USA.
Will that result in a civil war?
That is rather unlikely, because for a civil war you need to have at least two credible parties which can coordinate attacks and defensive operations on, at least, a regional scale. I don’t see that in the USA.
But I don’t see how local/regional violence (at times severe) and political chaos can be avoided.
We already know that the Dems will never accept a Trump victory.
We also know that the Trump supporters will claims that the USPS cannot be trusted with mail voting (I totally agree with them, the USPS is one of the worst postal services of any developed country on the planet).
Then there is the following issue: as police departments are “defunded” and cops are resigning en masse (and I sure can’t blame them!), simple citizens will have to increasingly protect themselves, which many of them can do, but the problem here is that these citizens are then charged while the surviving BLM and/or Antifa thugs walk free, even if they attacked first.
In some US states (like Florida, thank God for that!), the local Sheriffs will stand by their citizens and the local DAs will not prosecute those who used lethal force to defend themselves against a short list of forcible felonies (including home violations, carjackings, rapes, etc.). Just listen to this selection of FL sheriffs:
https://thesaker.is/will-hillary-and-the-dems-get-the-civil-war-they-are-trying-to-provoke/
California Gave $35 Million ‘Voter Outreach’ Contract to ‘Team Biden’ Firm
Firm handling coronavirus contract has received $2.1 million from Biden since 2019
A consulting firm run by a top Biden campaign official is receiving $35 million from California for a voter outreach program linked to the state's coronavirus response.
The state awarded Democratic public relations giant SKDKnickerbocker the lucrative deal as part of the state's "Vote Safe California" program on Aug. 13. The program aims to "educate the public on the safety, security, and ease of voting in the November General Election amid the COVID-19 pandemic" and was launched following Democratic governor Gavin Newsom's May decision to send every registered voter in the state a mail-in ballot. The $35 million comes in addition to the $2.1 million SKDK has collected from the Biden campaign since June 2019.
According to documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee, the contract asks SKDK to give "special attention" to "reaching first-time mail voters," as well as those with language barriers. The state's contract approval process was expedited for the November election.
SKDK has close ties to former president Barack Obama and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The firm's managing director, Anita Dunn, previously served as Obama's White House communications director and is now leading Biden's presidential campaign. SKDK's political consulting webpage says it is "proud to be a part of Team Biden" and touts previous campaign work with former president Bill Clinton, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and disgraced former congresswoman Katie Hill (D., Calif.), among other Democrats.
In addition, SKDK has advocated for police reform and expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement. The firm on Thursday accused President Donald Trump of "telling white Americans they should be afraid of Black and brown Americans," adding that recent police shootings are "a direct result of 400 years of systemic racism in America and the last four years of Donald Trump's failed leadership in the White House." SKDK is also working as a "pro-bono PR firm" for Friday's March on Washington led by Rev. Al Sharpton. The firm described the protest as "counter-programming to the angry and hate-filled RNC Convention" in a Thursday statement.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity watchdog group, argued that California's local election authorities, not SKDK, should be spearheading the outreach campaign.
https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/california-gave-35-million-voter-outreach-contract-to-team-biden-firm/