- AI-Trained Robots Set To Automate Recycling Centers, Will Displace Countless Jobs
AMP Robotics, an artificial intelligence and robotics company that is automating the recycling industry, has rolled out new trash-picking robots for recycling centers that will replace countless low-skilled jobs, reported The WSJ.
Single Stream Recyclers (SSR) in Sarasota, Florida, which processes 350 tons of waste per day, said last week that it would add eight AMP trash-picking robots to its already six. “Robots are the future of the recycling industry. Our investment with AMP is vital to our goal of creating the most efficient recycling operation possible, while producing the highest value commodities for resale,” said John Hansen co-owner of SSR.
AMP robots are more productive than humans, can sort garbage more accurately and faster, are set to eliminate most human sorter jobs at SSR’s Florida facility in the coming years.
“AMP’s robots are highly reliable and can consistently pick 70-80 items a minute as needed, twice as fast as humanly possible and with greater accuracy. This will help us lower cost, remove contamination, increase the purity of our commodity bales, divert waste from the landfill, and increase overall recycling rates,” said Eric Konik co-owner of SSR.
Hanson said, “It’s 95 degrees, they’re [human sorters] standing on a platform and sorting,” adding that AMP robots are “twice as fast and they don’t make mistakes.”
Kerry Sandford, a senior consultant with Resource Recycling Systems in Ann Arbor, Michigan, told the Journal that less than 5% of the residential recycling centers in North America are automated.
AMP robots are controlled by the AMP Neuron AI platform to perform tasks. AMP Neuron uses cameras and machine learning to identify different colors, textures, shapes, sizes, and patterns to identify material characteristics.
The robots have been trained to pick out water bottles, beer cans, milk jugs, food cartons, and other items—whether they are intact, dented, or crushed.
Using computer vision, sensors scan the trash on a conveyor belt to detect materials. The robot uses a suction cup that can throw the recyclables into the appropriate bin by using reverse air pressure to blow them out.
“Anything a person can identify, our system can be taught to identify,” said AMP’s chief executive and founder, Matanya Horowitz.
“All of the systems can learn collectively. All robots are learning from different robots around the country.”
AMP has approximately 24 systems running across the US, Canada, and Japan, and the company believes more robots will be brought online in 2H19.
SSR’s Hansen said it could take a recycling plant about 1.5 to four years to recover the cost of its AMP investment.
“SSR has built a world-class facility that sets the bar for modern recycling. John, Eric and their team are at the forefront of their industry and we are grateful to be a part of their plans,” said Horowitz. “SSR represents the most comprehensive application of AI and robotics in the recycling industry, a major milestone not only for us, but for the advancement of the circular economy.”
A new wave of automation investments in recycling facilities across the US could displace tens of thousands of jobs in the next decade. Overall, robots could replace 20% to 25% of current jobs by 2030 — equivalent to 40 million job losses.
- The Obama Ukrainian Nightmare Seems To Be Ending, At Last
Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Finally, the process of ending the war in Ukraine seems to be starting in earnest. But to understand how the war can now realistically end, the basic history of how it began needs first to be acknowledged, and this history is something that will be very difficult for U.S-and-allied media to report, because it violates what their ‘news’-reports, ever since the time of the war’s start, had said was happening. So, what will be reported here (like the truth was, when it was news) will far likelier be simply ignored, than ever reported in the US and its allied countries. That’s why this news-report and analysis is being submitted to all mainstream news-media in those countries, which until now have unanimously reported, and accepted as being true, the authorized lies, which everyone in the US and allied countries has read, as if those lies were instead the history.
For one thing: This war did not start with the 16 March 2014 breakaway of Crimea from Ukraine, as Western ‘news’-media have always been claiming; but, instead, it started by what had sparked the overwhelming desire of the vast majority of Crimeans to want to break away from Ukraine. This urge had to do with the three-week-earlier February 2014 bloody coup d’etat in Ukraine, illegally overthrowing Ukraine’s democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, for whom 75% of Crimeans had voted. The vast majority of Crimeans refused to accept Obama’s selected replacement-leaders and their new and US-imposed far-rightwing regime, which made clear, as soon as they took over, what they were intending to do to Crimeans.
The key period in the Ukrainian uprising against the coup, during which the residents in Ukraine’s far east — where the voting percentages for Yanukovych had ranged from 80% to over 90% — blocked Ukraine’s tanks and took over the government’s buildings, was the week of 2 through 9 May 2014, and that’s when the farthest eastern region, Donbass, which had voted over 90% for Yanukovych, were so resistant to the imposed fascist regime, that they actually broke away from Ukraine, despite all the efforts by the US-imposed fascist regime to conquer them — Ukraine’s bombing them for months and intentionally driving them out into Russia. The new regime did this so as to regain the land but without the people on it. Obama’s agents — the appointees to the new regime, which were selected by Obama’s US agents — didn’t want those voters to remain in Ukraine’s electorate, because the residents there would vote against the US-imposed regime’s candidates, who then would lose power. Obama wanted the land, but not the people who lived on it, and that’s what this war was and is all about — seizing the land, from the people who live there.
The US and allied media presented the overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 as having been a democratic revolution, but it was actually a US coup d’etat that was hidden behind anti-corruption demonstrations, which had started to be organized on 1 March 2013, inside the US Embassy in Kyiv; and the US regime hired, for this coup, snipers from several countries, such as Georgia and Lithuania, some of which snipers have since admitted publicly that they had been hired by agents for the United States, to perpetrate this coup. Once inside Ukraine, Georgia’s snipers were introduced, at 9:40 in the Part One video, to “an American military guy, who will be your instructor. This American’s name was Brian Christopher Boyenger. … We were always in touch with this person, Bryan.” The Lithuanian snipers were mentioned at 1:40 in the Part Two video, because those snipers happened to have been assigned to be shooting down, into the crowd, from the same room inside the hotel. Obama’s State Department (under Hillary Clinton at the time) had started, by no later than 2011, to plan this operation. Then, after the coup, and after Crimea broke away on 16 March 2014, rebellions farther east started, in other regions that had likewise voted overwhelmingly for Yanukovych. And this is how the war started, which now finally (after the election of Trump in America, and then of Zelensky in Ukraine) seems likely to end fairly soon. (Neither of those two leaders has a personal commitment to continuing this invasion by Ukraine. From now on, Ukraine’s leaders will need to satisfy the EU far more than the US)
On 17 September 2014, was hidden in Western ‘news’-media — and so I was the first to report and headlined the historic news that — “Russia’s Leader Putin Rejects Ukrainian Separatists’ Aim to Become Part of Russia”. This historically important news was notreported in The West (though my news-report was sent to virtually all media) because America’s President had all along been claiming that Putin was trying to grab ‘more’ territory in Ukraine (Donbass); so, Putin’s rejection of Donbass’s request to be accepted into Russia (as Crimea had been) was too blatant a disproof of The West’s lies to be reported in The West. Eleven days later, on 28 September 2014, Britain’s Telegraphheadlined “Putin and Obama exchange barbs on Ukraine; Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama accuse each other of fomenting Ukraine crisis that has plunged Russia’s relations with the West to lowest point since Cold War.” This report said nothing at all about Putin’s refusal to take that land which The West was continuing to imply he was trying to grab. Their supposed cause de guerre was gone, but it lives on, even now, in the Western myths about the war’s start (i.e., that it started on 16 March 2014 instead of 20 February 2014, and that it started because ‘Russia was invading Ukraine’ to grab land there’, and not because of Obama’s coup in Ukraine — which coup The West continues to hide).
So, with that background about The West’s lies (versus the reality), here is the reason why Ukraine now seems finally inclined to accept the Donbassers back into Ukraine as full citizens, with equal rights as all others (and no longer as their being ‘terrorists’).
The West is finally tapped-out on spending for Ukraine’s ongoing invasion of Donbass. If Ukraine fails to stop this war soon, then Ukraine’s Government will have less and less realistic hope of ever being able to join the EU. Putin knows this. Furthermore, Ukraine’s regime had worn out the patience even of the residents in the anti-Russian parts of Ukraine, and so Volodymyr Zelensky, a candidate who was no part of that regime and had had no responsibility for its actions, won the 21 April 2019 Presidential election with an astounding 73% of the votes — by far the biggest win in Ukraine’s history.
On 4 July 2019, the Kyiv Post bannered “Putin calls on Zelensky to talk with Russian-backed militants in Donbas”.
The next day, on July 5th, Deutsche Welle, German radio and television, headlined “Ukraine ready for peace, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tells DW”, and sub-headed “With conflict simmering in the east, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is hoping to secure a political solution to end a separatist insurgency. He told DW that he has the support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.” This news-report opened: “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday welcomed the withdrawal of Ukrainian and separatist forces from front line positions in Stanitsa Luhanska in eastern Ukraine, marking a new step towards ending the conflict. In the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, Zelenskiy told DW that his government is committed to finding a political solution to the conflict.” An accompanying DW news-story was “Why Putin wants to make ‘new Russians’ out of Ukrainians”, and it reported that, “Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the state-controlled broadcaster [like DW is itself, and BBC, and NPR, and PBS, they all are state-controlled, instead of directly controlled by the billionaires] RT, posted on Facebook that if nothing is done, the population would change so much that by 2040 Russia will be a ‘Muslim country.’ She added that people from the Donbass regions, as well as other migrants, could help maintain the ‘fragile status quo of the dominance of Russian Orthodox Christianity.’” Putin had been able to defeat the Saudi effort to spread its Wahhabist-extremist form of Islam into Russia only by using extreme measures to stop its spread. Whereas Russian Orthodox Christianity is compatible with democracy, the Sauds’ fundamentalist-Sunni faith simply is not. Russia needs more citizens who won’t be vulnerable to the Sauds’ pro-jihadist effort. Russia’s Government is strongly anti-jihadist. By contrast, the US, under Obama, was using Al Qaeda to train the jihadist groups that, led by the United States, The West armed to overthrow the secular Government of Syria. The EU is now, at long last, separating itself from the US regime’s control.
Zelensky needs to rely now far more on pleasing the EU than on pleasing America. Do you remember when Obama’s agent running Ukraine famously said “Fuck the EU” (or “F—k the EU”)? That was because most European leaders weren’t as nazi as Obama was. They didn’t even know about Obama’s coup in Ukraine until it was already over.
- The United States Of Fascism Hysteria
Authored (Satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,
So it’s been an exciting few weeks for Antifa and the rest of the neoliberal Resistance. OK, they haven’t yet managed to overthrow the Putin-Nazi occupation government (hereinafter “POG”), but they’ve definitely got “the Fash” on the run. “Fascism” hysteria is spreading like wildfire. Liberal Twitter mobs are out for blood. At this point, it’s only a matter of time until the sleeping giant of normality awakens and purges America of the fascist filth that have Putin-Nazified this once great nation.
Antifa has been at the vanguard of the fight, smashing the Fash on both East and West Coasts. In Portland, where a gang of neo-fascist anti-masturbationists known as the “Proud Boys” had assembled for a self-promotional street fight they were billing as the “Battle of Portland 2,” Antifa militants positively identified and preventatively beat the living snot out of a journalist named Andy Ngo. To prevent him from snitching to the fascist cops (who are allegedly working hand in hand with POG), they self-defensively robbed him, sprayed him with silly string, and pelted him with vegan milkshakes.
Now, before you get all up in arms about Antifa assaulting and robbing journalists, you need to know a couple of things.
First, according to Antifa spokespersons, and those bloodthirsty liberal Twitter mobs, Andy Ngo is a “fascist adjacent,” and possibly even a card carrying fascist. Antifa representative Alexander Reid Ross claims that Ngo is personally responsible for putting people’s names on a Nazi “kill-list” (or at least that Ngo’s writing has been published by Quillette, which published an article by someone else that some fascists read and copied people’s names from), so, basically, he deserves to die.
Also, assaulting and robbing Ngo was technically “preemptive self-defense” (you know, the same as when we invaded Iraq to defend ourselves from those WMDs). Despite their helmets and body armor, and the fact that Ngo is a doughy little gay guy, his presence among them on a public street was making Antifa feel “unsafe.” So, they had no choice but to beat him senseless, steal his camera, and vegan milkshake him. As Antifa expert Mark Bray explains, when you’re Antifa, “fighting back is always self-defense, even if [you] strike the first blow.” (This logic only applies to anti-fascists, of course, like Antifa and the U.S. military, and not to, you know, gangs of thugs, or the perpetrators of wars of aggression.)
Antifa’s self-defensive mugging of a journalist apparently scared the crap out of POG, because one week later, back in Washington, D.C., President Hitler called in the tanks, and the Luftwaffe, and announced that he was going to stage a reenactment of a Nuremberg Rally right in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The liberal intelligentsia went apeshit. This was really it this time! Putin had given Trump the green-light to declare martial law and pronounce himself Führer. The long-awaited Putin-Nazi Apocalypse was finally about to begin!
Unfortunately, Trump’s Fourth of July Jamboree turned out to be a rather tame affair. He even almost made it through his speech without making an ass of himself. This was extremely disappointing for liberals, who were hoping he would go full-Hitler, paint “death’s heads” on the turrets of the Bradleys and a Swastika on the tail of Air Force One, and order ICE to start rounding up the Jews.
The weekend wasn’t a total let-down, however. The Proud Boys (who are clearly gluttons for punishment), staged another self-promotional event, this one billed as “Defend Free Speech.” A few hundred people turned up to listen to speeches by a handful of alt-right clowns desperately trying to reignite their careers. They were outnumbered 2 to 1 by Antifa, Black Lives Matter, assorted drag queens, and an indigenous, two-spirited transperson of color, who reportedly “performed a spoken word” on the meaning of the term “latinx.”
The D.C. police (who are even more fascist than the Portland police who stood by and watched as Antifa beat up and robbed a journalist) fascistically prevented Antifa militants from storming into the Alt-right rally and beating the snot out of everyone in sight. So, the anti-fascists had no choice but to preemptively attack a newspaper dispenser, which was presumably making them feel “unsafe,” or disseminating POG propaganda, or something. One of them tried to burn a flag, but he couldn’t figure out how to operate his matches. Assorted other hilarious acts of revolutionary direct action followed. Apparently, Antifa’s strategy was to smash the Fash by amusing them to death.
Meanwhile, militant Resistance actions against the POG “concentration camps” continue. New York City, San Francisco, and other liberal metropolitan areas have almost completely emptied out as liberals flock to the southern border to liberate the surviving prisoners. Conditions in the camps are now beyond inhuman. According to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, migrants are being forced to drink out of toilets, and otherwise subjected to “systematic cruelty,” (so you can understand why liberals are physically putting their bodies on the line to bring an end to this horrifying sadism, and not just sitting around on the Internet shrieking about “concentration camps” as they travel to their summer holiday rentals on Martha’s Vineyard, or the Hamptons, or wherever).
No, these Putin-Nazi “concentration camps” are nothing at all like the “detention facilities” the Obama administration operated, even though they look exactly the same. Sure, thousands of migrant children were separated from their parents, in cages, and there were tens of thousands of incidents of rape, sexual abuse, beatings, and so on, but, otherwise, these Obama “detention facilities” were more like great big 2-star hotels, or like student dorms at a state university, so there was no need for liberals to get all worked up and start comparing them to places like Dachau and Buchenwald.
Plus, here’s a picture of dead people! Look at this picture! These people are dead! So just shut up about Obama already! Enough with history, and critical thinking, and the practical aspects of immigration policy! It’s time to abolish all national borders, issue everyone a U.S. passport, and transcend the whole concept of national sovereignty … or at least to provide the capitalist ruling classes with an endless supply of cheap, undocumented, extremely compliant unskilled labor. Those Bel Air lawns aren’t going to mow themselves!
Jesus, I can’t believe I just wrote that. Concentration camps and dead people are nothing to joke about. It’s OK, however, to cynically use them to whip people up into a paroxysm of manufactured mass fascism hysteria.
Not that the neoliberal ruling classes and the corporate media would ever do that.
No, they would never repeatedly attempt to evoke our hatred of the actual Nazis (and their actual concentration camps … which people were dragged out of their homes, loaded onto trains, and shipped away to, and which you could not voluntarily depart) in order to short circuit our critical thinking, or otherwise emotionally manipulate us into supporting their War on Populism.
No, the Putin-Nazi occupation government is not just manufactured mass hysteria concocted by the neoliberal ruling classes. Donald Trump is really a Nazi. There’s a portrait of Hitler in the Oval Office. Putin really controls America. Putin, and his cabal of Russian Nazis. They’re everywhere. They own the banks. They control the media. They control elections. They are the “International Invisible Government.” (Is any of this sounding vaguely familiar?) They are devising the Final Solution to the Immigrant Problem right this minute. They are doing this at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump has had a big “Black Sun” etched into the marble floor.
So, if you’re serious about your anti-fascism, now’s the time to load up on silly string, ski goggles, masks, hard knuckle gloves, and whatever you make those milkshakes with. POG might be on the run at the moment, but there’s an election season coming up, so we need to be prepared for anything. The important thing is to remain hysterical, and to be ready to respond to whatever emotional stimuli the ruling classes wave in our faces. The fate of democracy hangs in the balance.
Oh, and watch out for those fascist newspaper dispensers!
- Visualizing The Extreme Temperatures Of The Universe: From Coldest To Hottest
For most of us, temperature is a very easy variable to overlook.
Our vehicles and indoor spaces are climate controlled, fridges keep our food consistently chilled, and with a small twist of the tap, we get water that’s the optimal temperature. Of course, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley notes, our concept of what’s hot or cold is actually very narrow in the grand scheme of things.
Even the stark contrast between the wind-swept glaciers of Antarctica and the blistering sands of our deserts is a mere blip on the universe’s full temperature range. Today’s graphic, produced by the IIB Studio, looks at the hottest and coldest temperatures in our universe.
But First: What is Temperature Anyway?
Before looking at this top-to-bottom view of extreme temperatures, it helps to remember what temperature is actually measuring – kinetic energy, or the movement of atoms.
Hypothetically, atoms would simply stop moving as they reach absolute zero. As matter heats up, it begins to “vibrate” more vigorously, changing states from solid to gas. Eventually, plasma forms as electrons wander away from the nuclei.
With that quick primer, let’s dig into some of the hottest insights in this cool data visualization.
Highs and Lows on Planet Earth
Earth’s lowest air temperature, -135ºF (-93ºC), was recorded in Antarctica in 2010. Since then, scientists have discovered that surface ice temperatures can dip as low as -144ºF (-98ºC).
The conditions need to be just right: clear skies and dry air must persist for several days during the polar winter. In surroundings this cold, human lungs would actually hemorrhage within just a few breaths.
On the other end of the spectrum of extreme temperatures, the hottest surface reading on Earth of 160ºF (71ºC) occurred in Iran’s Lut Desert in 2005. In fact, the Lut Desert clocked the highest surface temperature in 5 out of 7 years during a 2003-2009 study, making it the world’s hottest location. The desert’s dark pebbles, dry soil, and lack of vegetation create the perfect conditions for blistering heat.
There are very few organisms that can withstand such temperatures, but one fascinating phylum makes the cut.
The Amazing Tardigrade
Commonly known as a “moss pig” or “water bear”, the one-millimeter long tardigrade is extremely resilient. While most organisms need water to survive, the tardigrade gets around this by entering a “tun” state, in which metabolism slows to just 0.01% of its normal rate.
When water is scarce, the creature curls up and synthesizes molecules that lock sensitive cell components in place until re-hydration occurs. Beyond dry conditions, the tardigrade can also survive both freezing and boiling temperatures, high radiation environments, and even the vacuum of space.
This video courtesy of TEDEd explains more about the hardy critter:
Testing the Limits
For better or worse, humans have pushed the limits of temperature here on Earth.
At MIT, scientists cooled a sodium gas to half-a-billionth of a degree above absolute zero. In the words of the Nobel Laureate Wolfgang Ketterle, who co-led the team: “To go below one nanokelvin (one-billionth of a degree) is a little like running a mile under four minutes for the first time.”
Not all experiments are conducted out of simple curiosity. Conventional bombs already explode at around 9,000ºF (5,000ºC), but nuclear explosions take things much further. For a split second, temperatures inside a nuclear fireball can reach a mind-bending 18,000,000ºF (10,000,000ºC).
The highest man-made temperature ever recorded is 9,900,000,000,000ºF (5,500,000,000,000ºC), created in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. It was achieved by accelerating heavy lead ions to 99% the speed of light and smashing them together.
Highs and Lows of the Universe
While humans have been able to manufacture extremely hot and cold temperatures, the universe has created these extremes naturally.
Undoubtedly, the creation of the universe is made of the hottest stuff of all. The temperature of the universe at 10⁻³⁵ seconds old was a whopping 1 octillion ºC. Moments later, it “cooled down” to 1,800,000,000ºF (1 billion ºC) when the universe was less than two minutes old.
On the other end of the spectrum, the coolest natural place currently known in the universe is the Boomerang Nebula at -457.6ºF (-272ºC). It’s found 5,000 light years away from us in the constellation Centaurus, and it is currently in a transitional phase as a dying star.
As space exploration goes further than ever, these extreme temperatures may one day reach even hotter or colder heights than we can imagine.
- UN Launches All-Out War On Free Speech
Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,
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In other words, forget everything about the free exchange of ideas: the UN feels that its ‘values’ are being threatened and those who criticize those values must therefore be shut down.
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Naturally, the UN assures everyone that, “Addressing hate speech does not mean limiting or prohibiting freedom of speech. It means keeping hate speech from escalating into something more dangerous, particularly incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence, which is prohibited under international law”.
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Except the UN most definitely seeks to prohibit freedom of speech, especially the kind that challenges the UN’s agendas. This was evident with regard to the UN Global Compact on Migration, in which it was explicitly stated that public funding to “media outlets that systematically promote intolerance, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination towards migrants” should be stopped.
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In contrast to the UN Global Migration compact, the UN’s action plan against hate speech does contain a definition of what the UN considers to be “hate” and it happens to be the broadest and vaguest of definitions possible: “Any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor”. With a definition as broad as this, all speech could be labelled “hate”.
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The new action plan plays straight into the OIC’s decades-long attempts to ban criticism of Islam as ‘hate speech’. In the wake of the launch of Guterres’ action plan, Pakistan has already presented a six-point plan “to address the new manifestations of racism and faith-based hatred, especially Islamophobia” at the United Nations headquarters. The presentation was organized by Pakistan along with Turkey, the Holy See and the UN.
In January, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, tasked his Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, to “present a global plan of action against hate speech and hate crimes on a fast-track basis”. Speaking at a press conference about the UN’s challenges for 2019, Guterres maintained, “The biggest challenge that governments and institutions face today is to show that we care — and to mobilize solutions that respond to people’s fears and anxieties with answers…“
Pictured: Antonio Guterres. (Image source: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)
One of those answers, Guterres appeared to suggest, is shutting down free speech.
“We need to enlist every segment of society in the battle for values that our world faces today – and, in particular, to tackle the rise of hate speech, xenophobia and intolerance. We hear troubling, hateful echoes of eras long past” Guterres said, “Poisonous views are penetrating political debates and polluting the mainstream. Let’s never forget the lessons of the 1930s. Hate speech and hate crimes are direct threats to human rights…”
Guterres added, “Words are not enough. We need to be effective in both asserting our universal values and in addressing the root causes of fear, mistrust, anxiety and anger. That is the key to bring people along in defence of those values that are under such grave threat today”.
In other words, forget everything about the free exchange of ideas: the UN feels that its ‘values’ are being threatened and those who criticize those values must therefore be shut down. Not only that, but — disingenuously — the UN is comparing dissent from its agendas with the rise of fascism and Nazism in the 1930s.
Now the action plan that Guterres spoke of in January is ready. On June 18, Guterres presented the United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech:
“Hate speech is…an attack on tolerance, inclusion, diversity and the very essence of our human rights norms and principles,” Guterres said. He also wrote in an article on the subject, “To those who insist on using fear to divide communities, we must say: diversity is a richness, never a threat…We must never forget, after all, that each of us is an “other” to someone, somewhere”.
According to the action plan, “Hate is moving into the mainstream – in liberal democracies and authoritarian systems alike. And with each broken norm, the pillars of our common humanity are weakened”. The UN sees for itself a crucial role: “As a matter of principle, the United Nations must confront hate speech at every turn. Silence can signal indifference to bigotry and intolerance…”.
Naturally, the UN assures everyone that, “Addressing hate speech does not mean limiting or prohibiting freedom of speech. It means keeping hate speech from escalating into something more dangerous, particularly incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence, which is prohibited under international law”.
Except the UN most definitely seeks to limit freedom of speech, especially the kind that challenges the UN’s agendas. This was evident with regard to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in which it was explicitly statedthat public funding to “media outlets that systematically promote intolerance, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination towards migrants” should be stopped.
Whatever constitutes intolerance, xenophobia, racism or discrimination was naturally left undefined, making the provision a convenient catchall for governments who wish to defund media that dissent from current political orthodoxy on migration.
In contrast to the UN Global Migration compact, the UN’s action plan against hate speech does contain a definition of what the UN considers to be “hate” and it happens to be the broadest and vaguest of definitions possible:
“Any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor”. With a definition as broad as this, all speech could be labelled “hate”.
The action plan, “aims to give to the United Nations the room and the resources to address hate speech, which poses a threat to United Nations principles, values and programmes. Measures taken will be in line with international human rights norms and standards, in particular the right to freedom of opinion and expression. The objectives are twofold: Enhance UN efforts to address root causes and drivers of hate speech [and] enable effective UN responses to the impact of hate speech on societies”.
The UN makes it clear in the plan that it “will implement actions at global and country level, as well as enhance internal cooperation among relevant UN entities” to fight hate speech. It considers that “Tackling hate speech is the responsibility of all – governments, societies, the private sector” and it envisages “a new generation of digital citizens, empowered to recognize, reject and stand up to hate speech”. What a brave new world.
In the plan, the UN sets up a number of areas of priority. Initially, the UN will “need to know more to act effectively” and it will therefore let “relevant UN entities… recognize, monitor, collect data and analyze hate speech trends”. It will also seek to “adopt a common understanding of the root causes and drivers of hate speech in order to take relevant action to best address and/or mitigate its impact”. In addition, the UN will “identify and support actors who challenge hate speech”.
UN entities will also “implement human rights-centred measures which aim at countering retaliatory hate speech and escalation of violence” and “promote measures to ensure that the rights of victims are upheld, and their needs addressed, including through advocacy for remedies, access to justice and psychological counselling”.
Disturbingly, the UN plans to put pressure directly on media and influence children through education:
“The UN system should establish and strengthen partnerships with new and traditional media to address hate speech narratives and promote the values of tolerance, non-discrimination, pluralism, and freedom of opinion and expression” and “take action in formal and informal education to … promote the values and skills of Global Citizenship Education, and enhance Media and Information Literacy”.
The UN is acutely aware that it needs to leverage strategic partnerships with an array of global and local, governmental and private actors in order to reach its goal. “The UN should establish/strengthen partnerships with relevant stakeholders, including those working in the tech industry. Most of the meaningful action against hate speech will not be taken by the UN alone, but by governments, regional and multilateral organizations, private companies, media, religious and other civil society actors” the action plan notes. “UN entities,” it adds, “should also engage private sector actors, including social media companies, on steps they can take to support UN principles and action to address and counter hate speech, encouraging partnerships between government, industry and civil society”. The UN also says that, “upon request” it will “provide support to Member States in the field of capacity building and policy development to address hate speech.”
The action plan also reveals that the first concrete initiative is already planned. It is an “international conference on Education for Prevention with focus on addressing and countering Hate Speech which would involve Ministers of Education”.
The new action plan plays straight into the decades-long attempts of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to ban criticism of Islam. In the wake of the launch of Guterres’ action plan, Pakistan has already presented a six-point plan “to address the new manifestations of racism and faith-based hatred, especially Islamophobia” at the United Nations headquarters. The presentation was organized by Pakistan along with Turkey, the Holy See and the UN.
According to news reports, the plan was proposed by Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi at a session titled “Countering terrorism and other acts of violence based on religion or belief”.
“A particularly alarming development is the rise of Islamophobia which represents the recent manifestation of the age-old hatred that spawned anti-Semitism, racism, apartheid and many other forms of discrimination,” the ambassador saidin her speech. She added, “My Prime Minister Imran Khan has recently again called for urgent action to counter Islamophobia, which is today the most prevalent expression of racism and hatred against ‘the other'”.
“We are fully committed to support the UN’s strategy on hate speech,” said the Pakistani ambassador, “This is a moment for all of us to come together to reverse the tide of hate and bigotry that threatens to undermine social solidarity and peaceful co-existence.”
In 2017, Facebook’s Vice President of Public Policy, Joel Kaplan, reportedly agreed to requests from Pakistan’s Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan, to “remove fake accounts and explicit, hateful and provocative material that incites violence and terrorism” because “the entire Muslim Ummah was greatly disturbed and has serious concerns over the misuse of social media platforms to propagate blasphemous content”.
At the UN, Pakistan’s Ambassador Lodhi called for government interventions to fight hate speech, including national legislation, and reportedly “called for framing a more focused strategy to deal with the various expressions of Islamophobia. A ‘whole of government’ and a ‘whole of society’ approach was needed. In this regard, the Pakistani envoy urged the secretary-general to engage with a wide range of actors, including governments, civil society and social media companies to take action and stop social media users being funneled into online sources of radicalization”.
The UN’s all-out war on free speech is on.
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- Dozens Of Mercedes "Totaled, Stripped Of Parts" After 75 Cars Stolen From Chicago Ride-Sharing Company
Ridesharing company Car2Go experienced a significant theft of its high end cars, including dozens of Mercedes CLA sedans and GLA sport utility vehicles, on what should have otherwise been a dull Monday in April in Chicago, according to Bloomberg.
Demand for Car2Go’s high end vehicles mysteriously spiked one Monday and, instead of these Benz’ being returned, they wound up congregated together on several blocks in West Chicago. When the company’s employees went to retrieve the vehicles, they found a group of thieves had claimed them as their own. Some blocked the vehicles in to prevent repossession while others threatened the company’s employees.
And while Car2Go has the ability to remotely disable vehicles, the situation made it difficult for them to figure out which ones to disable. After the theft, Facebook videos begin showing up of Mercedes’ around Chicago being joyridden, totaled and stripped of parts. Kendell Kelton, a Car2Go spokeswoman said:
“This was a unicorn incident for us as a company. We’ve never seen this type of fraudulent activity at this scale ever, ever.”
Once Car2Go was unable to retrieve the cars on their own, they asked the Chicago Police Department for help. By the middle of the week, the company had suspended service in Chicago altogether, tacitly acknowledging that they couldn’t figure out the difference between legitimate customers from theives. A total of 75 cars were compromised and all were eventually recovered, despite the fact that some of them have been destroyed.
Although rare, this incident highlights one of the major risks inherent to shared internet-connected vehicles. As scooter sharing services are also finding out, lending out a bunch of luxury vehicles to almost anybody that wants them is a great way to wind up with them vandalized or stolen.
Ride sharing networks have struggled in general of late, especially with the rise of Uber and Lyft. Car2Go recently merged with BMWs car sharing network, ReachNow, in hopes of strengthening their operations and broadening their appeal. Together, they operate in a total of nine cities. Car2Go had traditionally subjected all of its users to background checks conducted by humans, but quicker sign ups became a “must have” for ride sharing companies that wanted to bring on more new members faster.
“You see Uber or Lyft, or Airbnb, or all the scooters—they all have instant verification,” Kelton said.
The executive team in Europe, where fraud is much less prevalent, was also eager to lower barriers to entry. So in April, the company stopped conducting manual background checks in favor of automated ones – and almost immediately, about 20 people orchestrated the Mercedes theft by setting up 80 phony accounts using fake or stolen credit cards as payment methods. It’s still unclear whether the theft was a direct result of the policy change or not.
And oddly, the thieves didn’t seem to have much more than joyriding in mind. Many of the vehicles still had their Car2Go stickers on them, functional GPS trackers and license plates. Officers patrolling the area had little trouble spotting the vehicles, because nothing had been modified on them. On one day, police arrested almost 2 dozen joyriders. Only one person was charged with a felony: a 19-year-old who was found with a pocket full of fake credit cards.
This type of attack was unprecedented, but there has been an ongoing stream of smaller incidents in years past. Enterprise, for instance, stopped operating its car sharing service in Chicago in 2017 due to high rates of fraud and vandalism. ReachNow had to wrap up service in Brooklyn in 2018 after many vehicles begin disappearing after the company implemented an automated approval process.
Also, for Car2Go, it hasn’t been unusual for people to sublease vehicles after they order them from the service. The practice is in violation of Car2Go’s rules and has been an issue in Chicago since the company started operating there. Car2Go has since reverted back to manually reviewing new accounts in Chicago and says it hasn’t had any serious issues since then.
- Giraldi: Did Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Work For Mossad?
Authored by Philip Giraldi via The American Herald Tribune,
The extent of Israeli spying directed against the United States is a huge story that is only rarely addressed in the mainstream media.
The Jewish state regularly tops the list for ostensibly friendly countries that aggressively conduct espionage against the U.S. and Jewish American Jonathan Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1987 for spying for Israel, is now regarded as the most damaging spy in the history of the United States.
Last week I wrote about how Israeli spies operating more-or-less freely in the U.S. are rarely interfered with, much less arrested and prosecuted, because there is an unwillingness on the part of upper echelons of government to do so. I cited the case of Arnon Milchan, a billionaire Hollywood movie producer who had a secret life that included stealing restricted technology in the United States to enable development of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, something that was very much against U.S. interests. Milchan was involved in a number of other thefts as well as arms sales on behalf of the Jewish state, so much so that his work as a movie producer was actually reported to be less lucrative than his work as a spy and black-market arms merchant, for which he operated on a commission basis.
That Milchan has never been arrested by the United States government or even questioned about his illegal activity, which was well known to the authorities, is just one more manifestation of the effectiveness of Jewish power in Washington, but a far more compelling case involving possible espionage with major political manifestations has just re-surfaced.
I am referring to Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire Wall Street “financier” who has been arrested and charged with operating a “vast” network of underage girls for sex, operating out of his mansions in New York City and Florida as well as his private island in the Caribbean, referred to by visitors as “Orgy Island.” Among other high-value associates, it is claimed that Epstein was particularly close to Bill Clinton, who flew dozens of times on Epstein’s private 727.
*(Alex Acosta (L) Jeffrey Epstein (R))
Epstein was arrested on July 8th after indictment by a federal grand jury in New York. It was more than a decade after Alexander Acosta, the top federal prosecutor in Miami, who is now President Trump’s secretary of labor, accepted a plea bargain involving similar allegations regarding pedophilia that was not shared with the accusers prior to being finalized in court. There were reportedly hundreds of victims, some 35 of whom were identified, but Acosta deliberately denied the two actual plaintiffs their day in court to testify before sentencing.
Acosta’s intervention meant that Epstein avoided both a public trial and a possible federal prison sentence, instead serving only 13 months of an 18-month sentence in the almost-no-security Palm Beach County Jail on charges of soliciting prostitution in Florida. While in custody, he was permitted to leave jail for sixteen hours six days a week to work in his office.
Epstein’s crimes were carried out in his $56 million Manhattan mansion and in his oceanside villa in Palm Beach Florida. Both residences were equipped with hidden cameras and microphones in the bedrooms, which Epstein reportedly used to record sexual encounters between his high-profile guests and his underage girls, many of whom came from poor backgrounds, who were recruited by procurers to engage in what was euphemistically described as “massages” for money. Epstein apparently hardly made any effort to conceal what he was up to: his airplane was called the “Lolita Express.”
The Democrats are calling for an investigation of the Epstein affair, as well as the resignation of Acosta, but they might well wind up regretting their demands. Trump, the real target of the Acosta fury, apparently did not know about the details of the plea bargain that ended the Epstein court case. Bill and Hillary Clinton were, however, very close associates of Epstein. Bill, who flew on the “Lolita Express” at least 26 times, could plausibly be implicated in the pedophilia given his track record and relative lack of conventional morals. On many of the trips, Bill refused Secret Service escorts, who would have been witnesses of any misbehavior. On one lengthy trip to Africa in 2002, Bill and Jeffrey were accompanied by accused pedophile actor Kevin Spacey and a number of young girls, scantily clad “employees” identified only as “massage.” Epstein was also a major contributor to the Clinton Foundation and was present at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton in 2010.
With an election year coming up, the Democrats would hardly want the public to be reminded of Bill’s exploits, but one has to wonder where and how deep the investigation might go. There is also a possible Donald Trump angle. Though Donald may not have been a frequent flyer on the “Lolita Express,” he certainly moved in the same circles as the Clintons and Epstein in New York and Palm Beach, plus he is by his own words roughly as amoral as Bill Clinton. In June 2016, one Katie Johnson filed lawsuit in New York claiming she had been repeatedly raped by Trump at an Epstein gathering in 1993 when she was 13 years old. In a 2002 New York Magazine interview Trump said “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy… he’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Selective inquiries into wrongdoing to include intense finger pointing are the name of the game in Washington, and the affaire Epstein also has all the hallmarks of a major espionage case, possibly tied to Israel. Unless Epstein is an extremely sick pedophile who enjoys watching films of other men screwing twelve-year-old girls the whole filming procedure smacks of a sophisticated intelligence service compiling material to blackmail prominent politicians and other public figures. Those blackmailed would undoubtedly in most cases cooperate with the foreign government involved to avoid a major scandal. It is called recruiting “agents of influence.” That is how intelligence agencies work and it is what they do.
That Epstein was perceived as being intelligence-linked was made clear in Acosta’s commentswhen being cleared by the Trump transition team. He was asked “Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” … “Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had ‘been told’ to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.’”
Questions about Epstein’s wealth also suggest a connection with a secretive government agency with deep pockets. The New York Times reports that “Exactly what his money management operation did was cloaked in secrecy, as were most of the names of whomever he did it for. He claimed to work for a number of billionaires, but the only known major client was Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder of several retail chains, including The Limited.”
But whose intelligence service? CIA and the Russian FSB services are obvious candidates, but they would have no particular motive to acquire an agent like Epstein. That leaves Israel, which would have been eager to have a stable of high-level agents of influence in Europe and the United States. Epstein’s contact with the Israeli intelligence service may have plausibly come through his associations with Ghislaine Maxwell, who allegedly served as his key procurer of young girls. Ghislaine is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, who died or possibly was assassinated in mysterious circumstances in 1991. Maxwell was an Anglo-Jewish businessman, very cosmopolitan in profile, like Epstein, a multi-millionaire who was very controversial with what were regarded as ongoing ties to Mossad. After his death, he was given a state funeral by Israel in which six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence listened while Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized: “He has done more for Israel than can today be said”
*(Trump (left) with Robert Maxwell (right) at an event.)
Epstein kept a black book identifying many of his social contacts, which is now in the hands of investigators. It included fourteen personal phone numbers belonging to Donald Trump, including ex-wife Ivana, daughter Ivanka and current wife Melania. It also included Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, Tony Blair, Jon Huntsman, Senator Ted Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, David Koch, Ehud Barak, Alan Dershowitz, John Kerry, George Mitchell, David Rockefeller, Richard Branson, Michael Bloomfield, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Elizabeth, Saudi King Salman and Edward de Rothschild.
Mossad would have exploited Epstein’s contacts, arranging their cooperation by having Epstein wining and dining them while flying them off to exotic locations, providing them with women and entertainment. If they refused to cooperate, it would be time for blackmail, photos and videos of the sex with underage women.
It will be very interesting to see just how far and how deep the investigation into Epstein and his activities goes. One can expect that efforts will be made to protect top politicians like Clinton and Trump and to avoid any examination of a possible Israeli role. That is the normal practice, witness the 9/11 Report and the Mueller investigation, both of which eschewed any inquiry into what Israel might have been up to. But this time, if it was indeed an Israeli operation, it might prove difficult to cover up the story since the pedophile aspect of it has unleashed considerable public anger from all across the political spectrum.
Senator Chuck Schumer, self-described as Israel’s “protector” in the Senate, is loudly calling for the resignation of Acosta. He just might change his tune if it turns out that Israel is a major part of the story.
- Volvo CEO Says Company May Leave Sweden Partly Due To Rise in Violent Crime
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News
The CEO of Volvo warns that the company is considering moving its headquarters out of Sweden in the future, partly due to a rise in violent crime.
Håkan Samuelsson told a conference that the car maker was losing its appeal to foreign experts and engineers and further explained his concerns during an interview with SVD Näringsliv.
“We are building cars, we cannot solve the other problems, someone else must do that,” the CEO said, adding that it is becoming more difficult to attract workers due to Sweden’s worsening reputation.
“It’s definitely not helping when people read about shootings in Gothenburg and wonder if they really dare to move to Gothenburg,” said Samuelsson.
If the situation does not improve, the CEO warned that the company may even have to consider leaving Sweden in the future.
“Often people believe that decisions like these are taken by senior management or in China. But the fact is that we will only place our headquarters in a country where things work. At the moment, we are not close to such a discussion. But yes, it is something that might happen in the future,” said Samuelsson.
However, Chief of Police in Gothenburg County Erik Nord denied there was a problem, accusing Samuelsson of getting misinformation from social media.
As we have previously highlighted, surveys show that migrants are vastly overrepresented in violent crime and rapes in Sweden, but the government stopped gathering official statistics back in 2005.
This was long before the problem was exacerbated by the arrival of over 150,000 new “refugees” mainly from Islamic countries from 2015 onwards.
Swedish author Björn Ranelid recently warned that the level of crime and violence the previously sedate country is experiencing amounts to a “small scale war”.
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- Many Americans Will Never Stop Working
Authored by Fred Dunkley via SafeHaven.com,
The word “retirement” used to describe the well-deserved free time that one earned after a long and productive work life. Not anymore. Today, 23 percent of Americans say they will never retire despite the grim realities of aging, according to a new poll from the Associated Press – NORC Center from Public Affairs Research.
The poll, conducted among 1,423 adults using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population, shows a disconnect between individuals’ retirement plans and the realities of aging in the workforce, suggesting that 23 percent of workers, including nearly two in ten of those over 50, don’t expect to stop working.
(Click to enlarge)
Source: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research
Money was the primary reason for the delayed retirement; the poll shows that only 14 percent of Americans under the age of 50 and 29% over 50 say they feel extremely or very prepared. Also, 56 percent of younger adults say they don’t feel prepared for retirement.
Of those who had already retired, 38 percent said they felt they had been very or extremely prepared when they retired, while 25 percent said they had felt not very or not at all prepared.
“The average retirement age that we see in the data has gone up a little bit, but it hasn’t gone up that much,” says Anqi Chen, assistant director of savings research at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
“So people have to live in retirement much longer, and they may not have enough assets to support themselves in retirement.”
A survey from Northwestern Mutual shows similar figures. Nearly half of Americans say they expect to work past age 65 and 18 percent of baby boomers and generation X say they plan to work until age 75 and beyond. The background of these figures once again shows that Americans are short on savings–56 percent of the respondents don’t even know how much money they should be saving, the Northwestern Mutual survey found.
Those who still think they know how much they should be saving, according to Charles Schwab survey, believe they need $1.7 million on average to retire, but most of them are still not even close to that number.
“That’s a pretty good number if you average out age and median salary across the U.S.,” said Nathan Voris, a managing director at Schwab Retirement Plan Services.
However, “the bulk of folks do not get there,” he said.
The estimate for 2016 from the U.S. Government Accountability Office released this March shows that 48 percent of those 55 and older had nothing put away in a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan or an individual retirement account, which is an improvement from the 52 percent without retirement money in 2013.
The Employee Benefit Research Institute found that Americans from households headed by someone age 35 to 64 face a combined retirement deficit of $3.83 trillion. EBRI estimates that 41 percent of these Americans are likely to run out of money in retirement, which is down 1.7 percentage points since 2014.
But what is really the average retirement age in the U.S.?
Using microdata on labor force participation from the U.S. Census Bureau, Smartasset data from 2017 found that national retirement age hasn’t changed and that by age 63 nearly half of the population is no longer working.
Many retirements are unexpected due to unforeseen circumstances such as health problems, disability or layoffs. Rare are those who are able to retire early because of an inheritance or diligent saving.
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