Mar 25

Today’s News 25th March 2019

  • Children Make Perfect Propaganda Props

    Need to push through a propaganda campaign to utterly transform society?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Want people to not only accept but actively embrace their own impoverishment?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Well just get yourself some youthful true believers to do your propagandizing for you!

    Source: The Strategic Culture Foundation

  • The "American Party" Within The Institutions Of The European Union

    Authored by Manlio Dinucci via The Voltaire Network,

    The European Parliament has just adopted a resolution which requires that the Union stop considering Russia as a strategic partner, but rather as an enemy of humanity. At the same time, the Commission sent a warning about the Chinese threat. Everything is unfolding as if the United States were manœuvering the Union into playing a part in their own supremacist strategy.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    « Russia can no longer be considered as a strategic partner, and the European Union must be ready to impose further sanctions if it continues to violate international law » – this is the resolution approved by the European Parliament on 12 Mars with 402 votes for, 163 against, and 89 abstentions. The resolution, presented by Latvian parliamentarian Sandra Kalniete, denies above all any legitimacy for the Presidential elections in Russia, qualifying them as « non-democratic », and therefore presenting President Putin as a usurper.

    She accuses Russia not only of « violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and Georgia », but also the « intervention in Syria and interference in countries such as Libya », and, in Europe, of « interference intended to influence elections and increase tensions ». She accuses Russia of « violation of the arms control agreements », and shackles it with the responsibility of having buried the INF Treaty. Besides this, she accuses Russia of « important violations of human rights in Russia, including torture and extra-judicial executions », and « assassinations perpetrated by Russian Intelligence agents by means of chemical weapons on European soil ».

    After these and other accusations, the European Parliament declared that Nord Stream 2 – the gas pipeline designed to double the supply of Russian gas to Germany across the Baltic Sea – « increases European dependence on Russian gas, threatens the European interior market and its strategic interests […] and must therefore be ended ».

    The resolution of the European Parliament is a faithful repetition, not only in its content but even in its wording, of the accusations that the USA and NATO aim at Russia, and more importantly, it faithfully parrots their demand to block Nord Stream 2 – the object of Washington’s strategy, aimed at reducing the supply of Russian energy to the European Union, in order to replace them with supplies coming from the United States, or at least, from US companies. In the same context, certain communications were addressed by the European Commission to those of its members, including Italy, who harboured the intention to join the Chinese initiative of the New Silk Road. The Commission alleges that China is a partner but also an economic competitor and, what is of capital importance, « a systemic rival which promotes alternative forms of governance », in other words alternative models of governance which so far have been dominated by the Western powers.

    The Commission warns that above all, it is necessary to « safeguard the critical digital infrastructures from the potentially serious threats to security » posed by the 5G networks furnished by Chinese companies like Huawei, and banned by the United States. The European Commission faithfully echoes the US warning to its allies. The Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, US General Scaparrotti, specified that these fifth generation ultra-rapid mobile networks will play an increasingly important role in the war-making capacities of NATO – consequently no « amateurism » by the allies will be allowed.

    All this confirms the influence brought to bear by the « American Party », a powerful transversal camp which is orienting the policies of the EU along the strategic lines of the USA and NATO.

    By creating the false image of a dangerous Russia and China, the institutions of the European Union are preparing public opinion to accept what the United States are now preparing for the « defence » of Europe. The United States – declared a Pentagon spokesperson on CNN – are getting ready to test ground-based ballistic missiles (forbidden by the INF Treaty buried by Washington), that is to say new Euromissiles which will once again make Europe the base and at the same time, the target of a nuclear war.

  • Hunt For Blue November: Democrats Would Sooner Destroy America Than Lose To Trump In 2020

    Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    With the likelihood of a Democratic candidate ousting Trump in 2020 looking like mission impossible, the party is resorting to a number of desperate and even dangerous tactics to steal as many voters as possible.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Perhaps the best way to gauge the desperation that has overrun the Democratic camp like kudzu in June is the frenzy that has greeted the arrival of Beto O’Rourke, the former lawmaker who recently announced his candidacy for the 2020 election. If the Liberals believed in God, their response to Beto’s arrival would rank up there with the Second Coming of Christ himself, entering stage left on a skateboard, hair trailing behind with a hint of hope and gunge polluting the air.

    Perhaps in other less delusional periods of American history, Beto the marionette, who gesticulates as if his strings were being yanked by an epileptic after a tasing, would be seen for what he is. Exactly what that might be is hard to nail down, but it is certainly not presidential material. Yet the fact that so many Democrats and media have worked themselves into collective hysteria over this guy, whose most notable career moves to date are marrying an heiress, writing exceptionally bad poetry and losing to Ted Cruz in the Texas Senate race, speaks volumes as to how shallow the Democratic bench is, where a host of other unlikely players include Elizabeth ‘Pocohantas’ Warren and Bernie ‘the multi-millionaire Socialist’ Sanders. Then there is Joe Biden, 76, who didn’t need a leaker to spill the beans on his apparent intentions to run. He did it quite nicely all by himself. But one needn’t focus on the Lefts dismal presidential choices; there are many other places to find examples of Democratic decline and degeneration. 

    The Hunt for Blue November

    If ever there was a perfect symbol of the political schizophrenia dividing the nation straight down its frontal lobe, it’s the yet-to-be-built wall on the Mexico border.

    For law and order Republicans, the image of illegal immigrants gate-crashing America’s border is noxious to every tenet of conservative thinking, which has little patience for freeloaders, line cutters and ultra-violent criminals. Ironically, Democrats once-upon-a-time also looked upon the arrival of undocumented immigrants with an equal amount of wariness and alarm, until they realized that the invasion translated nicely into future voters. Then, concerns about a criminal element overrunning the country vanished as Republicans were labeled the racists and fear mongers for having the audacity to defend the border. Now there is even talk among Democrats to give these illegals Social Security!

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Now that Trump has declared a national emergency and the Pentagon has found the pocket change to plug the border leak, the Democrats have plumbed the democratic depths for new ways to win over voters. And since they have no platform to speak of, aside from Trump bashing, they must resort to unsavory methods. One creative method for robbing the ballot involves ‘robbing the cradle,’ that is, reducing the voting age from 18 to 16 years old. Yes, allow adolescents who are too young to legally drink alcohol, buy smokes and fight in wars to participate in such discussions. Sounds like a genius plan. Although the measure was defeated in the House it shows which way the political winds are blowing. The Democrats understand that the minds of the youth, thanks to the liberal indoctrination they’ve been receiving gratuitously at public schools across the nation, have been for all intent and purposes “captured,” as Nancy Pelosi nicely described it.

    Another effort to capture voters involves a direct attack on the one document Democrats seem to loathe the most, the Constitution, and specifically the 12th Amendment, which mandates that the Electoral College determines the outcome of presidential elections. Their desire to change the structure of the process is understandable since both former Vice President Al Gore and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both lost presidential elections despite having won the popular vote.

    The Democrats wish to ignore the purpose of the Electoral College, which the Founding Fathers instituted as a means to prevent the country from being overrun by ‘mob rule,’ which it has successfully accomplished since first being implemented in the 1804 election. Without the system in place, the so-called ‘fly-over states’ would disappear from the political radar, while all of the attention would fall on the large urban areas and heavily populated states. Regardless of these considerations, which date back to ancient times and the Greeks, who understood a thing or two about mob rule and tyranny, the Democrats have endorsed the so-called National Popular Vote Compact, which has already been signed by 12 states and the District of Columbia, representing 181 Electoral College electors.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Some may argue on this point that the Supreme Court, especially considering its increasing conservative slant, would never allow such a motion to slide. Well, the Liberals have a plan to circumvent that little irritant as well. They will simply pack the Supreme Court with more justices. In other words, mob rule. Problem solved.

    “The Kavanaugh court is a partisan operation, and democracy simply cannot function when stolen courts operate as political shills,” Brian Fallon, director of Demand Justice and a former Hillary Clinton press secretary, told Politico.

    “We are thrilled to… undo the politicization of the judiciary.”

    Especially when that ‘politicization’ does not favor the left.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    And here is where the whole notion of ‘mob rule’ stands out in stark contrast with the original intentions of Americas Founders. Despite their purported concern about foreign entities, namely Russia, tarnishing the squeaky clean US political machine, the Democrats are totally fine with illegal aliens participating in the election process. Nothing speaks ‘mob rule’ more than that decision, which shows exactly how far the Democrats are willing to subvert the political process, not to mention the rule of law, in order to extend their cultural and political control over the country. These unhinged efforts, which have absolutely nothing in common with democratic principles, must be stopped for the sake of the Republic.

  • San Francisco's 'Super Rich' Dominate A Widening US Wealth Divide

    San Francisco is one of the few places in America where software engineers who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year routinely suffer the indignity of accidentally stepping in a steaming pile of human feces as they exit their crappy, overpriced one-bedroom apartments in the Mission District to grab a $20 burrito and $10 latte. That’s part of SF’s charm. After all, there’s a reason it is, by some measures, the most unaffordable major city in the country.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>SF

    And while the gap between the middle class and the wealthy is widening in pretty much every American city, San Francisco’s ‘super rich’ tech industry elite continue to lead the way. According to Bloomberg, the gap between the city’s ‘super rich’ and ‘middle class’ (whatever that means in San Francisco) widened in 2017 by $118,000 to $529,500. On average, the city’s top 5% of earners earned $623,310 in 2017, compared with $102,785 for its middle class.

    Across the US, the gap increased by nearly 50% between 2012 and 2017, widening from $268,000 to $333,000, per the BBG analysis.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>Super Rich

    Of course, SF wasn’t the only city where the gap between the rich and middle-class widened. Of the 100 cities analyzed by BBG, only 1 – Jackson, Mississippi – saw the gulf shrink, thanks to shrinking average income among the top 5%.

    In a testament to the city’s dominance as a posterchild for economic inequality, even when the parameters are adjusted slightly to account for a larger number of people in the ‘wealthy’ category and the bottom rung of the city’s economic ladder. In this, the gap between the wealthiest 20% and the poorest 20%, San Francisco still takes the No. 1 spot, with the income disparity widening by $79,600 to $339,900 in 2017. San Jose, Seattle, New York and San Diego rounded out the ranking’s top 5.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>Rich

    In another BBG analysis measuring the income disparities within the middle class (which BBG defines as the difference between households in the 30th percentile vs households in the 80th percentile), SF and neighboring San Jose took the top two spots.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>BBG

    And with the cost of living surging across California, it’s hardly surprising that the state has seen the largest net loss of residents as frustrated Californians seek more affordable climes like Nevada and Texas. And many of those who haven’t left wish they could.

  • Are We Already In The Matrix?

    Authored by Riz Virk via HackerNoon.com,

    via GIPHY

    Note: This is one in a series of articles for the 20th anniversary of the release of The Matrix, and the release of my new book, ; The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics, and Eastern Mystics All Agree We Are In a Video Game. Here, I’ll review some of the scientific reasons why this may be the case. A version of this article was originally published on scientificinquirer.com.

    From Science Fiction to Science

    This year on March 31 marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the groundbreaking film, The Matrix and the release of my new book, The Simulation Hypothesis. The Matrix was influential in many ways — the incredible special effects, the no holds barred action, etc. Like Star Warsbefore it, it has gone on to become a cultural phenomenon that extends well beyond the film itself. This is partly because of its philosophy; The Matrix is perhaps the most popular incarnation of what we now call “the simulation hypothesis” — which is the idea that we are all living in a giant shared online video game.

    Admittedly, the idea sounds like science fiction. The creators of the Matrix, the Wachowskis, claimed to have been influenced by the work of Philip K. Dick, among others. The many adaptations of Dick’s work are well known, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, the Man in the High Castle, the Adjustment Bureau. In his stories, Dick was often obsessed with what was real and what was fake about reality and about the human experience — dealing with issues of artificial intelligence, simulated reality and fake memories.

    The Matrix, you’ll recall, starred Keanu Reeves as Neo, a hacker who encounters enigmatic references to something called the Matrix online. This leads him to the mysterious Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne, and aptly named after the Greek god of dreams) and his team.

    Even if you haven’t seen The Matrix, you’ve probably heard of what happens next, in perhaps its most iconic scene, Morpheus gives Neo a choice: take the “red pill” to wake up and see what the Matrix really is, or take the “blue pill” and keep living his life. Neo takes the red pill and “wakes up” in the real world to find that what he thought was real was actually an intricately constructed computer simulation — basically an ultra-realistic video game!

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Keanu Reeves in the Matrix (src: Movie Web)

    When the Matrix came out, the idea of living in a video game was squarely in the realm of science fiction. Today, the simulation hypothesis is debated seriously by computer scientists, philosophers, physicists and others. The reason this argument is taken more seriously now is two-fold:

    1. the philosophical “simulation argument”, put forward by Oxford’s Nick Bostrom, and

    2. the “video game simulation argument”, about the rapid development of video games, put forth by, among others, Elon Musk.

    Two Major Developments

    The first was when Oxford professor Nick Bostrom published his 2003 paper, “Are You Living in a Simulation?” Bostrom didn’t say much about video games; instead he made a clever statistical argument. Bostrom theorized that if a civilization ever got the Simulation Point, it would create many ancestor simulations, each with large numbers (billions or trillions?) of simulated beings. Since the number of simulated beings would vastly outnumber the number of real beings, any beings (including us!) were more likely to be living inside a simulation than outside of it! Other scientists, including physicists have taken up this argument.

    In the video game version of this argument, we have the rapid advancement of graphics technology. Elon Musk, speaking at the Code Conference in 2016, asserted that 40 years ago, we had pong, which was essentially two lines and a dot. Today we have VR and AR and MMORPGs — all based on 3D technology. If the pace of video game development continues, in a few decades we would have hyper-realistic games, indistinguishable from reality.

    I call this point the Simulation Point, and in my new book, The Simulation Hypothesis, one part is dedicated towards the stages of technology needed to reach this point. It’s much easier to see a path from today’s VR to something like The Matrix than it was in 1999 when the movie was released. With games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and League of Legends having millions of online players interacting in a shared online world, the idea that we might actually be in a shared connected simulated world doesn’t seem so far-fetched as it might have in 1999.

    In this article, we go beyond Bostrom’s and Musk’s simulation arguments to explore some of the reasons why science might be telling us we are in a simulated reality, like the Matrix.

    1. Pixels, Resolution, Virtual and Augmented Reality

    Today we are already seeing with Virtual Reality that “full immersion” is possible. Anyone who has played a convincing VR game will realize that it’s possible to forget about the real world and “believe” the world you are seeing is real.

    As a great example, I was playing a prototype of a Ping Pong VR game last year (built by Free Range Games), and even though it wasn’t realistic resolution, I lost myself and thought I was playing ping pong for real. So much so that I set the paddle on the ping pong “table” and leaned against the table. Of course, it was a VR table so it didn’t really exist — I ended up dropping the paddle (actually the Vive controller) onto the floor. As I leaned into the “table” I almost fell over before realizing that there was no table. In other words, to quote from The Matrix, there is no spoon.

    The immersion comes not just from the number of pixels, but from the controls and responsiveness that VR is able to achieve. In the novel (and Steve Spielberg film) Ready Player One, which was about a VR world called the OASIS, users had lightweight glasses and wore haptic suits and walked on omnidirectional treadmills to add realism. In that world, the OASIS was preferable to real life.

    The fact that 3D models can be used to create realistic looking objects in films(a glance at movies like Blade Runner 2049 will convince you that we have enough pixel resolution to create realistic looking objects), and that 3D printers can be used to “print” physical objects shows that the physical world can be represented by information, a key part of the simulation hypothesis.

    Where does the responsiveness and fidelity come from? The limitations today are in real-time rendering and in they way that objects interact with each other inside the world. Most games have a physics engine and a rendering engine. The physics engine is never fully realistic (otherwise it would take you too long to go from one part of the game to the other), and the rendering engine is what’s responsible for making you “see” what the world looks like by deciding what color pixels go where. We can easily see that full immersion may be possible in a few years time.

    2. Pixels, Quanta, and Zeno’s Paradox

    Speaking of pixels, could it be that what we call the physical world also consists of pixels?

    I recall late nights at MIT during my undergrad years where I had philosophical debates with my classmates about the nature of reality. This was the first time I’d heard of Zeno’s paradox, who presented it in terms of Achilles and a Tortoise. If Achilles was behind the tortoise, and he always had to make up half the distance, how could he ever get there?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Zeno’s parado involved Achilles and the Tortoise.

    Lurking underneath this paradox is the question of whether space is quantized or if it is continuous. The idea was that if space was continuous, like numbers are (you can always find an infinite number of numbers in between any two numbers), how is it possible to touch an object such as the wall? You would always have to cover half the distance and never quite get there.

    This was my first hint that space might be quantized.

    Today’s physicists generally acknowledge Planck constant as being the smallest amount of space that anything can be measure. Moreover, physicists tell us that most of what we think of as a solid object is actually 99% empty space, especially if you look inside the atom. The quanta in quantum physics consists of discrete quantities — of energies or “states” that a particle can exist in. Newton’s equations assumed a continuous amount of space; it turns out the universe may be more quantized than we thought.

    A related question is whether time is quantized? In all computer simulations, there is the idea of “generation” or “steps” in the simulation. These are some multiple of the processor clock-speed, which is the minimum speed at which something could be measured for any simulation running on that processor. Whether time is quantized in the real world is an open question, though there are some that suggest it is, and planck’s time constant (the amount of time it takes the speed of light to travel the planck length) is the minimum quantied time. If so, this would be more evidence that we live in a computation based reality.

    3. The Collapse of the Probability Wave, Quantum Indeterminacy

    In quantum physics one of the most intriguing ideas is the probability matrix, which is an interpretation of how subatomic particles can exhibit properties of both a wave and a solid particle at the same time. At the level of an electron or a photon, the wave is interpreted as a set of probabilities of where the particle might be at any given time. When we observe a particular possibility, then the probability wave is said to “collapse” and we see a single particle in a particular location. This is called Quantum Indeterminacy.

    How does the probability wave collapse? This is one of the biggest mysteries in physics. The best answer physicists have come up with is that consciousness somehow determines the collapse. Max Planck once wrote, “I consider consciousness as fundamental and matter as derivative”.

    An even bigger mystery is why does the universe work this way?

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The simulation hypothesis provides a pretty good answer. The reason that video games have advanced so far in a few decades is because of optimization techniques. It would be impossible even for today’s computers to render in real time all the pixels of a single 3D world — instead, information is stored as 3D models outside the rendered world and then only what a particular character can see from a certain angle is rendered. The golden rule of video game rendering engines is: render only that which can be observed!

    Many adherents of the simulation hypothesis think that quantum indeterminacy is an optimization technique with the same basic idea: only render that which is being observed.

    The most famous example of this is Schrodinger’s cat, the poor feline who is trapped in a box with radioactive material. After an hour, the probability is that hte cat is either dead or alive. Common sense tells us that the cat is already either dead or alive, and when we open the box we are merely finding out what happened. Quantum physics tells us this is wrong: until we are there to obeserve it, the cat is actually both alive and dead at the same time — what’s called a quantum superposition!

    4. Future Selves, and Parallel Universes

    Another related aspect of Quantum Physics that sounds like science fiction is the Parallel Universes theory, where we branch into different “universes” when we make decisions. If that’s true, then there is a directed graph of multiple universes that are branching out each time we make a decision, resulting in different timelines (in fact, the parallel universes theory was put forward to solve the grandfather paradox of time travel).

    Which of those universes do we branch into? this may have to do with the one that is most “optimal” — meaning these universes may or may not exist as actual physical realities.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    The Minimax algorithm looks at possible futures, calculating which one is the most optimal for a video game.

    Physicist Fred Alan Wolf, for example, says that information from these possible futures is coming to us in the present and that we send out an “offer wave” into the future, which is interacting with the “offer waves” coming from the future to the present. Which possible future we navigate to depends on which choices we make, and how these two waves super-pose on each other (or cancel each other out). These are startling results. Future probable selves are sending back information to the present, and we are consciously choosing which path to follow.

    This reminded me of the very first video game I made back at MIT. The way that the computer chose the next move was to project the possible futures, and then use a certain algorithm to “rank” those futures, and then bring those values back to the present and then the AI would choose the path to follow.

    Did the possible futures we were calculating in our game actually exist? Or were they just probabilities? I realized that this isn’t too much different from what’s happening at the quantum level, except that in existing games like chess or checkers, we use a simple function (based on the rules of the game) to decide which of the paths is most optimal. We used the “minimax” algorithm in game design, trying to maximize our score and minimize our opponents score at each “turn of the future”.

    Physicist Thomas Campbell, in his 2003 book, My Big TOE (Theory of Everything) also proposes that there is a fundamental function and that we are essential in a computatiuonal universe that branches off possibilities and uses an evaluation function, just like a video game! He and a team from Caltech raised funds in 2018 on kickstarter for a series of experiements to try to prove this!

    5. The Speed of light

    Another big mystery is why the speed of light is one of the few constants, one of the few fundamental values in physics. In fact, all matter has been equated with energy, and energy may be a derivative of light itself. While other things change, including gravity and space-time, Einstein found that the speed of light remains fixed.

    Why would the speed of electromagnetic waves be the same speed at which information can travel through the universe?

    In video games, it turns out that pixels are based on light — they are illuminated for a temporary period, and all communication happens between computers at the speed of light. Just as in relativity where simultaneity cannot really be guaranteed, the same is true video games — each player is working off of his computer and responding to information about the game, which is being sent to cloud servers outside the rendered world. The cloud serve is doing its best to respect simultaneity and order the events, but it may actually be impossible.

    Conclusion

    Along with the statistical simulation argument and the advance in video game technology, these are some of the reasons why scientists are starting to take the simulation hypothesis seriously. In fact, many physicists and biologists are starting to realize that underneath the physical objects they are studying, the universe is actually information.

    Famous physicist John Wheeler in his autobiography wrote “it from bit” — meaning that bits, not matter, are the fundamental “thing in the universe”. In fact, he said physics went through three phases in his career and each phase was an evoluation of our understanding of the universe. The fist phase was that “everything was a particle” (material, newtonian model), then “everything was a field” (quantum probability model), and finally, “everything is information” or bits.

    If everything was information, or bits, then this would not only be consistent with a video game simulation like that in The Matrix, it would explain some of the big unanswered questions in science — why does it work this way?

    While we aren’t able to duplicate The Matrix at this stage of our technology, our computer science and video games have gotten far enough along that we are well on the road to the Simulation Point.

    *  *  *

    Buy Rizwan Virk’s book The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics, and Eastern Mystics All Agree We Are In a Video Game, or find out more at www.zenentrepreneur.com

  • NZ On Edge: Festival Evacuated Over 'Far-Right' Tattoo; Crime To Download, Distribute Manifesto

    New Zealand is on edge following the March 15 terror attacks at two Christchurch mosques that left 50 dead. 

    On Saturday, around 5,000 concertgoers were evacuated from the Homegrown Music Festival in Wellington because a festival worker reported someone with a ‘far-right’ tattoo.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    After the roughly 30 minute evacuation, the tattoo was discovered to be “traditional” instead, according to the New Zealand Herald (h/t Cassandra Fairbanks of Gateway Pundit)

    “Some of the Homegrown crew identified a person that they were concerned about and police made the call that person needed to be found,” said Homegrown spokeswoman Kelly Wright, adding that the incident was an “innocent misunderstanding.”

    “It all happened at the change-over of the music so people were moving around and police couldn’t spot the person immediately so they made the call to evacuate the stage. The person was found and it turned out that is was a completely innocent misunderstanding and everyone was allowed to return.”

    Illegal manifesto

    According to New Zealand’s Chief Censor David Shanks, a so-called manifesto attributed to suspected gunman Brenton Tarrant was ruled “objectionable” on Saturday, making it a crime to possess or distribute it anywhere in the country. 

    “People who have downloaded this document, or printed it, should destroy any copies,” said Shanks. 

    “There is an important distinction to be made between ‘hate speech,’ which may be rejected by many right-thinking people but which is legal to express, and this type of publication, which is deliberately constructed to inspire further murder and terrorism,” said Shanks, adding “It crosses the line.” 

    Prosecutors have also gone after people who shared that video.

    As of Thursday, at least two people had been charged with sharing the video via social media, under a law that forbids dissemination or possession of material depicting extreme violence and terrorism.

    Others could face related charges in connection with publicizing the terrorist attack, under a human rights law that forbids incitement of racial disharmony. –NYT

    “It promotes, encourages and justifies acts of murder and terrorist violence against identified groups of people,” said Shanks. “It identifies specific places for potential attack in New Zealand, and refers to the means by which other types of attack may be carried out. It contains justifications for acts of tremendous cruelty, such as the deliberate killing of children.” 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    As far as ‘hate speech’ which is ‘legal to express,’ Shanks may want to touch base with police in Masterton, who announced that they were charging a 28-year-old woman with ‘inciting racial disharmony‘ over a Facebook post which contained an “upsetting” message related to “the events in Christchurch and this person’s views on what had occurred.”

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Senior Sergeant Jennifer Hansen

    “We were made aware that this post had been put up on Facebook which had upset a number of people to the point that they felt uncomfortable taking kids to school because of the comments that had been made,” said Sergeant Jennifer Hansen. 

    Meanwhile, several Kiwis who have shared videos of the Christchurch massacre at work have been fired. 

    Last week, New Zealand authorities have reminded citizens that they face up to 10 years in prison for “knowingly” possessing a copy of the New Zealand mosque shooting video – and up to 14 years in prison for sharing it. Corporations (such as web hosts) face an additional $200,000 ($137,000 US) fine under the same law. 

    Free speech advocates, however, are concerned with Ardern’s censorship-heavy approach.

    “People are more confident of each other and their leaders when there is no room left for conspiracy theories, when nothing is hidden,” Stephen Franks, a constitutional lawyer and spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, told AP.

    “The damage and risks are greater from suppressing these things than they are from trusting people to form their own conclusions and to see evil or madness for what it is.”

    Speaking about Tarrant’s first-person-shooter-style video, counterterrorism expert Jennifer Breedon told RT that banning such videos does nothing to prevent future attacks.

    “We need to stop putting band-aids on gunshot wounds,” she said. “We’re spending so much time talking about ‘we can’t have videos like this’…rather than answering questions that need to be asked.”

    Into the memory hole

    Meanwhile, journalist Nick Monroe noted that New Zealand news outlet Stuff has deleted an article in which a 30-year-old New Zealand resident converted to Islam and was “introduced to radical Islam at the Al-Noor mosque in Christchurch.”

    New Zealand has also banned books by author Jordan Peterson

    In short, “never let a good crisis go to waste” applies in New Zealand.  

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jshttps://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • New Jersey Legislators Demand "Huck Finn" Be Removed From State's Schools

    Via The College Fix,

    Here we go again: A pair of lawmakers in New Jersey want the state’s schools to stop using the classic Mark Twain novel “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn“ in their classrooms.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    As reported by Politico, although the book contains numerous “anti-racist and anti-slavery themes” it also features over 200 mentions of the N-word. New Jersey State Assembly members Verlina Reynolds-Jackson and Jamel Holley contend the latter “can cause students to feel upset, marginalized or humiliated and can create an uncomfortable atmosphere in the classroom.”

    The lawmakers’ non-binding resolution notes various school districts in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Minnesota and Mississippi have ditched the book from their curricula.

    “There are other books out there that can teach about character, plot and motive — other ways besides using this particular book for that lesson,” Reynolds-Jackson told Politico. 

    She noted the catalyst for the measure was a cyber-bullying incident against a black student which featured racist epithets and threats of lynching … but admitted Twain’s novel had nothing to do it.

    According to the American Library Association, “Huck Finn” was the 14th most challenged or banned book from 2000-2009.

    Top 20 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009

    1. Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
    2. Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
    3. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
    4. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
    5. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
    6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
    7. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
    8. His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
    9. ttyl; ttfn; l8r g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
    10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
    11. Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
    12. It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
    13. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
    14. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
    15. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
    16. Forever, by Judy Blume
    17. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
    18. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
    19. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
    20. King and King, by Linda de Haan

    From the story:

    The Assembly resolution by Reynolds-Jackson and Holley states that the book’s inclusion in school curricula “in effect requires adolescents to read and discuss a book containing hurtful, oppressive, and highly offensive languages directed towards African-Americans.”

    While the resolution does not state that “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn“ is a racist book, Reynolds-Jackson — who said she read it “many years ago“ — believes it is.

    “I think this is a racist book,” she said. “I think in the climate that we’re in right now, where you have a president that is caging up our children and separating us in this way, I think to use this book in this climate is not doing the African-American community any justice at all.”

    However, Reynolds-Jackson acknowledged that several teachers she spoke with like teaching the book.

    “I think you have to make sure you have a strong instructor to lead that conversation and those technical skills in developing our students,” she said.

    Acclaimed (black) author Toni Morrison, who as a child was disturbed by the novel, said that she grew to appreciate the book in “later readings.” She noted that attempts to censor the classic are “a purist yet elementary kind of censorship designed to appease adults rather than educate children.”

    h/t: RedState

  • House Intel Readies Criminal Referrals For Clinton Operatives Who "Perpetuated This Hoax"

    Just hours after President Trump proclaimed “It began illegally. And hopefully somebody is going to look at the other side. This was an illegal takedown that failed…“

    It seems the “other side” may just get what they deserved.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: GrrrGraphics

    Here is Nunes from Friday…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Rep. Devin Nunes reportedly will make criminal referrals to Attorney General Bill Barr on FBI, DOJ officials who perpetrated this hoax.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Nunes earlier tweeted: “The Russia investigation was based on false pretenses, false intel, and false media reports. House Intel found a yr ago there was no evidence of collusion, and Democrats who falsely claim to have such evidence have needlessly provoked a terrible, more than two-year-long crisis.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    And now Sperry is reporting that Nunes is preparing criminal referrals: “House Intel has evidence Clinton operatives & hi-level FBI & DOJ officials started Trump-Russia investigation in “late 2015/early 2016″ &that House GOP will be making criminal referrals to AG”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The ‘coup’ comes full circle…

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Source: GatewayPundit

    How long before #LockThemUp starts trending?

  • Tesla Struggles To Compete In European Market

    Authored by Jon LeSage via Oilprice.com,

    CEO Elon Musk and the Tesla team have succeeded in making their company the most widely used electric vehicle brand name, but this has not yet led to global EV sales dominance.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>

    Competitor BMW just issued a report conducted by global consulting firm IHS Markit and based on new vehicle registrations from Feb. 2018 to Feb. 2019. BMW has 16 percent of plug-in vehicle market share in Europe, while Tesla tied for fifth place with Volvo, according to the study.

    In its home market of Germany, BMW has 20 percent share with Tesla coming in at 3 percent. Germany is the largest car sales market in Europe, though it doesn’t top EV sales in the region.

    The leading EV market in Europe has been Norway, which is showing another telling trend. BMW has nearly 77 percent of that market, while Tesla recently has seen a sales decline in the country. Norway has become the emblem for banning petroleum-fueled cars in the near future, with EVs making up nearly half of total new vehicle sales in the past year according to the IHS Markit report.

    Other automakers are beating Tesla in European EV sales, which may have something to do with Tesla’s weak retail presence is key markets. With the Tesla Model 3 entering the European market, the company has been expecting to see better results. Tesla has not opened up its popular retail stores in the boot of Italy, in Spain outside Madrid and Barcelona, in most of Germany outside the biggest cities, and in Eastern European countries. France has only two Tesla stores in place.

    Tesla is tied with China’s BYD for first place globally, with Beijing Auto coming in second and BMW third. China will be the major market for determining market leadership in years ahead, where Tesla says it will beginproduction at its Shanghai plant in May. Tesla will be one of several foreign companies allowed to enter free-trade zones in China. That alters the decades-old tradition of requiring manufacturers to forge joint venture companies with Chinese partners.

    BMW is also in a distinct position in China. Last year, the government gave BMW the green light to go outside its China joint venture and increase its ownership to 75 percent in Brilliance China Automotive Holdings from 50 percent. The deal will be closing in 2022 when the government lifts rules capping foreign ownership for all auto ventures. China is the leading global market for auto sales, and BMW doesn’t want to miss out on EV and luxury market sales gains.

    BMW, Tesla, and other vehicle makers are closely following the trade war between the U.S. and China. Moving more of its production to China could help BMW boost its profits. For now, the steep import tariffs are hurting foreign companies shipping to China.

    The study reports that BMW had 6.6 percent of global EV sales over the past year. That compares to 2.7 percent of total new vehicle sales made up by EVs in the global market.

    BMW is also seeing gains in the U.S., where nearly 10 percent of its sales are EVs in a market where EVs only make up about 3.5 percent of total vehicle sales.

    Tesla still holds the lion’s share of the U.S. market. Total EV market sales came in at 361,307 for last year — up 81 percent over 2017. Of that total, 139,782 units were Model 3s in 2018. Including the Model S and the Model X, Tesla had more than 50 percent of total plug-in vehicle sales last year in the U.S.

    The other companies leading global EV sales share include China’s Roewe, Nissan, three other Chinese makers (Chery, JAC, and Jianling EV), Volkswagen, and Hyundai.

    Nissan is going through turbulence since the Japan arrest of its CEO Carlos Ghosn and split from its Renault partnership, which is expected to affect sales. Nissan fired Ghosn, credited with salvaging the company years ago and championing its popular Nissan Leaf, for charges of financial misdeeds.

    German automakers are expected to pick up some of that slack. VW, BMW, and Daimler have launched ambitious EV manufacturing goals that are starting to make their way to dealerships. Being Tesla-competitive has been at the heart of it, along with complying with increasingly stringent government regulations.

    Automakers will be investing 60 billion euros ($68 billion) over the next three years in EVs, the VDA, a German trade group, said in a statement earlier this month ahead of the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. The number of EV models will triple to about 100 different vehicles during that time, according to VDA President Bernhard Mattes. Many of them will have autonomous vehicle features.

    Stricter European Union emissions standards will take effect in 2030, which had led German makers to make ambitious production commitments through the next decade.

    The VDA’s Mattes also called for an expanded EV charging infrastructure and more purchase incentives for electric cars. Installing more public chargers (especially fast chargers) and bringing down the perceived purchase price and ownership cost have been the leading issues for EV adoption in all the global markets.

Digest powered by RSS Digest