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Why I want to start a free speech trade union

Toby Young
Quillette
Thu, 01 Aug 2019 00:01 UTC
union
Last April, the historian Niall Ferguson called for a NATO of the pen. Inspired by the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty in which 12 Western democracies agreed that "an armed attack against one or more...shall be considered an attack against them all," he suggested that "professional thinkers — academics, public intellectuals, writers of any stripe" should sign a "Non-conformist Academic Treaty" in which they promise to come to each other's defense if one of them is "called out" on social media or "investigated" by their employer. Among the victims of these modern-day witch-hunts Ferguson cited Bret Weinstein, Bruce Gilley, Nigel Biggar, Roland Fryer, Samuel Abrams, Peter Boghossian, Jordan Peterson, and Roger Scruton, and said the lesson was clear: "we either hang together or we hang separately."

This struck me as an excellent idea, but I could also see a practical difficulty. One of the reasons NATO succeeded in deterring Soviet expansion into Western Europe is because it didn't require any individual country to make the first move in response to Soviet aggression. Rather, NATO provided an institutional framework that enabled the signatories of the treaty to respond collectively, thereby pooling the risk.

Comment: See also:

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House

California homeschool numbers quadruple in past three years

Jim Satney
PreForThat
Sat, 03 Aug 2019 00:01 UTC
homeschooling
© shutterstock
Whether it be a perceived political indoctrination, a disagreement with vaccine laws, or increasingly large classroom sizes, homeschooling numbers in California are breaking at the seams. The surge in California homeschooling, for many, is considered proof of a state with an overreaching and broken system.

Back in 2016, California passed one of the toughest mandatory vaccine laws in the nation. At the time, there was nothing like SB-277 anywhere in the nation. With SB-276, a bill that would allow the state's public health department to review medical vaccine exemptions, waiting in the wings for passage, many parents remain on edge. Even celebrities like Jessica Beil are protesting SB-276 for what they feel is an overreaching law that intimidates medical professionals.


Comment: See: Jessica Biel joins anti-vaccine activist RFK Jr. to lobby against California pro-vaccination bill


In California, there's a vaccine divide. The state, on one side, is attempting to reduce exemptions. Parents seeking medical freedom are on the other side hoping to expand choices.

Comment: There are many reasons parents may wish to homeschool their children, some mentioned in the above article, but many others as well. That the practice would be demonized and smeared is evidence for what public schools really are - indoctrination camps. "No child left behind" takes on a new meaning when considered in this regard.

See also:

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Dollars

Bayer CEO opens door to Roundup settlement as lawsuits swell

Tim Loh
Bloomberg
Tue, 30 Jul 2019 17:34 UTC
bayer logo sign
© Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
Bayer AG Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann said he'd consider a "financially reasonable" settlement of litigation over the weedkiller Roundup as the caseload swells and the company's shares slump anew.

The number of lawsuits from people in the U.S. who say the herbicide caused them to develop cancer rose by about 5,000 to 18,400, Bayer said in a statement. The company also revealed more troubles at its crop-science division on Tuesday after bad weather curbed demand from farmers.

Quarterly sales and earnings missed estimates and the German company questioned its ability to meet its full-year forecast. The shares fell 3.4 percent in Frankfurt.

Comment: Allowing for a settlement would be letting the company off too easily. They deserve to be liquidated and the spoils given to those who have suffered under their poisons.

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Arrow Up

It's official: New Notre Dame will look like the old Notre Dame - Macron will oversee new agency responsible

Francesco Bandarin
The Arts Newspaper
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 14:12 UTC
Notre Dame
© Nivenn Lanos
Notre Dame cathedral was engulfed by fire in April
The dozens of designs submitted in response to the competition run by the French government for creative proposals — the greenhouse roof, the stained-glass roof, the beam of light spire and the crystal spire — will remain just designs.

On 16 July, 95 days after the fire that destroyed the cathedral's roof and flèche (central spire), the law that will govern the restoration of the cathedral was finally approved by the French parliament. It explicitly states that the cathedral must be rebuilt as it looked before the fire. It recognises its Unesco World Heritage status and the need to respect existing international charters and practices, and it limits derogations to the existing heritage, planning, environmental and construction codes to the minimum.

In the new power map, there will be one master-mind only, French president Emmanuel Macron, who will directly and indirectly control all phases of an operation that would normally be the remit of the ministry of culture.


Comment: Macron in charge of France's cultural heritage? What could possibly go wrong...


Comment: See also:

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Rose

Bees and beekeepers feel the sting of Trump Administration's anti-science efforts

Jessica A. Knoblauch
EcoWatch
Wed, 17 Jul 2019 09:56 UTC
beekeepers
© CHRIS JORDAN-BLOCH / EARTHJUSTICE
Beekeeper Jeff Anderson works with members of his family in this photo from 2014. He once employed all of his adult children but can no longer afford to do so.
It's been a particularly terrible summer for bees. Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is allowing the bee-killing pesticide sulfoxaflor back on the market. And just a few weeks prior, the USDA announced it is suspending data collection for its annual honeybee survey, which tracks honeybee populations across the U.S., providing critical information to farmers and scientists.

The Trump administration pushed for these two anti-bee actions, even though our nation's honeybee populations have been nosediving for years. Last winter, beekeepers reported a record 40 percent loss of their colonies.

Longtime beekeeper Jeff Anderson, owner of California-Minnesota Honey Farms, says the picture is even grimmer if you look at bee losses across the entire year, particularly in the spring and summer when farmers are spraying pesticides. It's not just bees that are suffering, he says. Beekeepers are also feeling the sting of the Trump administration's anti-bee and anti-science efforts. And consumers of healthy, fresh foods are next.

Comment: If the bees go, we all go. Government regulators would do well to keep this in mind (not that they care).

See also:

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Info

Intersectionalism is nonsense. But the backlash against it is very real

Debra Soh
Quillette
Tue, 30 Jul 2019 00:01 UTC
intersectional activists
The campaign to silence those who question progressive ideas about race and privilege requires frequent rebranding. Labels such as "far-right" and "alt-right," which once might have served to strip a person of his or her livelihood and personal reputation, have become such common terms of abuse that they've effectively become meaningless. The words "white nationalist" once were used to describe someone who actually supported the creation of a white ethnostate. But now, activists are claiming that the mere act of making an "okay" hand gesture could mark you as a "white power" extremist — or at least someone who is "alt-right-adjacent." The goal of this perversion of language is to drive up the number of people who may be classified out of hand as extremists, and thereby disqualify even the mildest forms of dissent as de facto hate speech.

As a visible minority, I've experienced my share of prejudice and ignorance. I don't deny that racism exists and that it is repugnant. But the solution is not to divide society into ideological factions, with one side being publicly shamed and banished, while the other is given carte blanche to promote its own, increasingly fanatical, intersectional doctrines.

Comment: See also:

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HAL9000

Apple suspends Siri response grading in response to privacy concerns

Matthew Panzarino
TechCrunch
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 09:32 UTC
siri apple
In response to concerns raised by a Guardian story last week over how recordings of Siri queries are used for quality control, Apple is suspending the program world wide. Apple says it will review the process that it uses, called grading, to determine whether Siri is hearing queries correctly, or being invoked by mistake.

In addition, it will be issuing a software update in the future that will let Siri users choose whether they participate in the grading process or not.

The Guardian story from Alex Hern quoted extensively from a contractor at a firm hired by Apple to perform part of a Siri quality control process it calls grading. This takes snippets of audio, which are not connected to names or IDs of individuals, and has contractors listen to them to judge whether Siri is accurately hearing them — and whether Siri may have been invoked by mistake.

"We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy," Apple said in a statement to TechCrunch. "While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally. Additionally, as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading."

Comment: It looks like Amazon is also following suit. RT reports:
Amazon announced on Friday that it would allow users of its smartphone assistance app Alexa to deny the company access to their private conversations. "We take customer privacy seriously and continuously review our practices and procedures," the Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg.

She said that Amazon would also be updating the app's settings for it to include a disclaimer informing the customers that Amazon might subject their recordings to manual review if they don't opt out.

That practice reportedly saw Amazon employees listening to and transcribing some of the recordings, with the stated goal of improving the virtual assistant's services. Amazon was not alone in spying on its customers while keeping them in the dark. Google and Apple were doing the same using Google Assistant and Siri, respectively.

It all came to an abrupt end after the clandestine practice was exposed in a series of groundbreaking revelations. Google came under intense scrutiny from a German watchdog after some 1,000 voice recordings were leaked to Dutch public broadcaster VRT NEWS last month. About one-tenth of recordings studied by VRT turned out to have been made in error, without a direct command by the customer. Caught red-handed, Google assured the regulator it would not be making any transcripts of speech data in the EU for at least the next three months.
Whether they actually will stop collecting the data remains to be seen, or rather, remain unseen. They'll get it, some way or another. See also:

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Blackbox

Why are people across France demanding to know 'Where's Steve'?


The Local (France)
Tue, 30 Jul 2019 06:47 UTC
Steve 1
© AFP
'Où est Steve' is the question that keeps being asked in France at the moment - but who is Steve and what do the people asking about him really want?

Who is Steve?

The question refers to Steve Maia Caniço, a 24-year-old teaching assistant who disappeared during the Fete de la Musique in Nantes in June. Thousands of people head to Nantes every year for the France-wide festival at the end of June, but this year trouble flared at the Nantes event.

Steve 2
© AFP
Où est Steve posters in Nantes.
At around 4.30am police turned up at the Quai Wilson to demand that the music stop and people go home. Clashes occurred, tear gas was fired, police charged, panic ensured and in the mayhem several people ended up in the River Loire.

Comment: See also:

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Pistol

AP source: At least 15 dead in El Paso, Texas, shooting

Cedar Attanasico, Michael Balsamo and Dianna Heidgerd
Associated Press
Sat, 03 Aug 2019 23:57 UTC
el paso shooting
© Briana Sanchez/The El Paso Times via AP
People arrive at MacArthur Elementary looking for family and friends as the school is being used a re-unification center during the aftermath of a shooting at the Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall, Saturday, Aug. 3, in El Paso, Texas. Multiple people were killed and one person was in custody after a shooter went on a rampage at a shopping mall, police in the Texas border town of El Paso said.
At least 15 people were killed and many injured in a shooting Saturday in a busy shopping area in the Texas border town of El Paso, and a 21-year-old man was taken into custody, law enforcement officials said.

Two law enforcement officials identified the gunman as Patrick Crusius of the Dallas area. One of the officials told The Associated Press that at least 15 people were killed. The officials were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation publicly, and both spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Hospital officials said another 23 people were injured and being treated.

Most of the victims were shot at a Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall, El Paso police Sgt. Robert Gomez said at a news conference. He said the store was packed with as many as 3,000 people during the busy back-to-school shopping season.

"This is unprecedented in El Paso," said Gomez, who added that many of the injured had life-threatening injuries.
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Megaphone

Ninth protest rally in Hong Kong: Tear gas, throwing stones, clashes with police


RT
Sat, 03 Aug 2019 18:12 UTC
hong kong protest
© Reuters / Tyrone Siu
Anti-extradition bill protesters pour water on tear gas as they attend a march in Hong Kong, China.
Hong Kong is being rocked by a ninth weekend of anti-government protests, triggered by a controversial extradition bill. The police were forced to use tear gas as rowdy protesters pelted stones and torched objects.

Some 42,000 people showed up in Hong Kong's Mong Kok shopping district for a massive rally on Saturday, according to police figures. The march organizers, however, reported a figure thrice that, claiming that at least 120,000 were in attendance.

The two months of turbulent demonstrations were triggered by a controversial bill that would have allowed extraditions from the autonomous territory to China's mainland. The legislation was suspended amid the protests, but they continue as the activists now demand a complete withdrawal of the bill.

Comment: See also: US 'color revolution' and its struggles in Hong Kong

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