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Irish regulator opens first privacy probe into Google

Padraic Halpin
Reuters
Thu, 23 May 2019 18:34 UTC
google
Google's lead regulator in the European Union, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner, opened its first investigation into the U.S. internet giant on Wednesday over how it handles personal data for the purpose of advertising.

The probe was the result of a number of submissions against the company, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner said, including from privacy-focused web browser Brave which complained last year that Google and other digital advertising firms were playing fast and loose with people's data.

Brave argued that when a person visits a website, intimate personal data that describes them and what they are doing online is broadcast to tens or hundreds of companies without their knowledge in order to auction and place targeted adverts.

"A statutory inquiry pursuant to section 110 of the Data Protection Act 2018 has been commenced in respect of Google Ireland Limited's processing of personal data in the context of its online Ad Exchange," the Irish DPC said in a statement.

Comment: Change may be coming, but because these conglomerates picked Ireland as their 'company HQ', the small country won't do anything these entities disagree with.

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Bad Guys

Propaganda alert! Britain boasts it helped counter Russian hacking attempts in 16 countries


RFE/RL
Thu, 23 May 2019 17:53 UTC
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt
Britain has shared information on Russian cyberactivities with 16 NATO allies, helping them counter malicious threats against their countries over the past year and a half, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will announce on May 23, AFP and other media outlets reported.

In a May 23 speech at the NATO Cyber Defense Pledge Conference in London, Hunt accused Russian intelligence services of mounting a "global campaign" to "compromise central government networks."

The event was attended by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, who warned that the Western military alliance was ready to use all means at its disposal to respond to cyberattacks.

The remarks by Hunt and Stoltenberg reflect persistent tension between Russia and the West, where governments have accused Moscow of using cyberattacks and social-media activity to sow discord abroad and increase its global clout.

Comment: Hogwash! To date, not a single country has presented tested evidence that the Russian government has led cyberattacks against any single country. If they had anything, it would be all over the news. But they don't have anything but their make believe world where they bombard people with lies.

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Radar

Revolutionary Guards commander: Iran in complete control of waters north of Strait of Hormuz

Babak Dehghanpisheh
Reuters
Thu, 23 May 2019 17:44 UTC
Strait Of Hormuz

Strait Of Hormuz
A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Wednesday that Guards and regular Iranian military forces had complete control of Gulf waters north of the Strait of Hormuz, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

"Everything north of the Strait of Hormuz is under our control," Ali Fadavi was quoted by Fars as saying, referring to the strait at the Gulf's eastern end through which about a fifth of the oil that is consumed globally flows.

"(Movements of) American battleships in the region are under the complete control of Iran's army and the Revolutionary Guards," Fadavi told Fars, without providing details.

Tensions have spiked between Iran and the United States after Washington sent more military forces to the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles, in a show of force against what U.S. officials say are Iranian threats to its troops and interests in the region.

Comment: The commander's statement is further backed up by the fact that both Kuwait and Qatar are currently looking at alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz for shipping their oil, hoping to use Iraqi pipelines. The strait is a particularly key location in geopolitics, as it ships 18.5 million barrels per day of oil through its narrow passage, according to the EIA, about 80% of which heads to Asian markets.

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Water

England is implementing a strict plastic ban starting next year

Yessenia Funes
Earther
Thu, 23 May 2019 17:19 UTC
plastic straw
© Getty
Starting April next year, don't expect to receive a plastic straw with your drink if you're traveling through England. Don't expect to find plastic stirrers plastic stems on your cotton swabs either. They're all officially banned starting next year.

The Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs announced the ban Wednesday, but it's been in the works for over a year. The country is the latest to take a stance against plastics. The European Union passed a similar ban last year, which will go into effect in 2021. Both did so, in large part, because of the impacts plastic has on ocean life.

"Urgent and decisive action is needed to tackle plastic pollution and protect our environment," Environment Secretary Michael Gove said in a statement. "These items are often used for just a few minutes but take hundreds of years to break down, ending up in our seas and oceans and harming precious marine life."
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NPC

Delusional AOC claims growing cauliflower is 'colonial', thinks people should grow 'culturally significant' plants like yucca

Ross Ibbetson
Daily Mail
Thu, 23 May 2019 17:31 UTC
ocasio cortez
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has claimed that growing cauliflower in community gardens is 'taking a colonial approach to environmentalism.'

The firebrand New York Democrat took to Instagram to discuss how such gardens were a 'core component' of her proposed Green New Deal on Tuesday.

She discussed in the live broadcast how it was important that people of color felt they were able to grow foods familiar to them in these green spaces.

The 29-year-old said: 'What I love too is growing plants that are culturally familiar to the community. It's so important.'

She added: 'A core component of the Green New Deal is having all of these projects make sense in a cultural context, and it's an area that we get the most pushback on because people say, "Why do you need to do that? That's too hard."
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Snakes in Suits

Ilhan Omar trashes America: 'Ignorance is really pervasive in many parts of this country'

Ryan Saavedra
The Daily Wire
Thu, 23 May 2019 17:28 UTC
ihlan omar
© Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) once again took a shot at Americans on Tuesday when she said during a podcast that "ignorance" was prevalent in "many parts of this country."

Speaking about the process that refugees go through, Omar claimed that Republicans were "really good at misinformation and sort of really reorganizing facts to sort of paint a picture that really eventually is not rooted in fact."

"And so it is not that they might not be knowledgeable about this, but they use it as a tool to stir up hate and division," Omar continued. "And ignorance really is pervasive in many parts of, of this country."

Omar has faced backlash on a near weekly basis for anti-Semitic comments and the Democratic leadership has defended her by claiming she was ignorant about the type of words that are used in the U.S., saying that Omar has "a different experience in the use of words, and doesn't understand that some of them are fraught with meaning."

LISTEN:


Comment: Stay tuned for Ihlan Omar's next book, How Not To Win Friends and Influence People.

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Bad Guys

Bannon: 'Shutting down' Huawei '10 times more important' than trade deal with China


RT
Thu, 23 May 2019 17:04 UTC
bannon
© Reuters / (L) Dado Ruvic; (R) Alessandro Bianchi
Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon gave an impassioned account of what is driving the US war on Chinese tech firm Huawei... and trade has little to do with it. The US wants to destroy its competitor, for good.

Bannon, often credited with putting Trump in the White House, said that driving Huawei out of the US and Europe is far more critical than any trade deal with Beijing, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday.
The executive order is 10 times more important than walking away from the trade deal. It [Huawei] is a major national security threat, not just to the US but to the rest of the world. We are going to shut it down.
Taking a page from the administration's playbook (which he admittedly helped to create), he called Huawei "a massive national security issue" and "a threat," but failed to provide any kind evidence.
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Mr. Potato

One day after announcing wage gap plan, report shows men are paid more than women in Kamala Harris' office

Madison Dibble
IJR
Tue, 21 May 2019 16:48 UTC
Kamala Harris
© REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
Kamala Harris
Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) may have wanted to check the books in her own office before announcing her strict plan to end the "wage gap" if she becomes president.

As IJR reported on Monday, Harris announced a strict plan that aims to close the wage gap in the United States. The senator's presidential proposal would require that businesses provide their payroll to the federal government. Employees in the same position must be paid the same unless the company can prove significant differences in seniority or merit.

If a company can't meet the threshold of justification for their wage differences, they will face massive fines - a point Harris bragged about repeatedly.

Comment: How comically appropriate that Mrs. Harris would be subject to defending herself from her own proposed and redundant legislation.

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Gold Bar

Peter Schiff: Russia prudently boosts gold reserves with eye on impending US dollar crisis


RT
Thu, 23 May 2019 16:10 UTC
fountains gold Peterhof state museum
© Sputnik / Ruslan Shamukov
Fountains of the Grand Cascade at Peterhof State Museum Reserve, St. Petersburg
The global gold fever, led by Russia which is diversifying its foreign exchange reserves, is the right thing to do as the US dollar's value is being diminished, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital Peter Schiff told RT.

The greenback's role as a reserve currency is going to be questioned soon, according to Schiff.

"I think what Russia is doing or other central banks are recognizing is that they need to increase their gold reserves because of the impending dollar crisis. Ever since the US led the world off the gold standard, the world has been on a dollar standard. That was fine when the dollar was backed by gold but now the dollar is backed by nothing..." said Schiff.

Comment: Russia, along with China, has been quietly pursuing a course away from the dollar in as un-disruptive a manner possible. They understand there is no point in crashing an entire world economy to defeat a foe. Indeed, the preferred strategy for both Putin and Xi would be dialogue and trade with the US. But there comes a point where wise leaders look after their own citizens first.

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Eye 2

Judicial Watch assessment: 'Coup cabal' was 'an international effort to take out Trump'

Robert Kraychik
Breitbart News
Tue, 21 May 2019 15:29 UTC
Brennan CIA trump

President Trump and John Brennan
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, described the Trump-Russia narrative and Robert Mueller-led operation as parts of an "international effort to take out" President Donald Trump.

He offered his remarks in a Monday interview on SiriusXM's Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

Fitton previously described the Trump-Russia "collusion" narrative as "the big lie," noting its ubiquity across the overlapping political and news media landscapes.

"Yesterday, you had confirmation over in the United Kingdom that that intelligence operation there - the UK's intelligence apparatus - also knew about the dossier," said Fitton, "and part of that spying that took place with Stefan Halper also took place in London. The New York Times, at the end of their story, exposing that, disclosed that the UK knew about that spy operation as well."

Comment: Rudy Giuliani called it nearly a year ago:
Well before Monday night, when Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani let a small bomb drop on Brennan, there was strong evidence that Brennan had been quarterbacking illegal operations against Trump. Giuliani added fuel to the fire when he told Sean Hannity of Fox news:
"I'm going to tell you who orchestrated, who was the quarterback for all this. ... The guy running it is Brennan, and he should be in front of a grand jury. Brennan took ... a dossier that, unless he's the biggest idiot intelligence agent that ever lived ... it's false; you can look at it and laugh at it. And he peddled it to [then Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid, and that led to the request for the investigation. So you take a false dossier, get senators involved, and you get a couple of Republican senators, and they demand an investigation - a totally phony investigation."
And on Fox News, Joe DiGenova has more to add:



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