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People

Modi's Minority Report: Indian PM strikes a pitch for greater Muslim Inclusiveness.

Narendra Modi
© ReutersThe relationship between Prime Minister Modi and the Muslims has been a contentious one, chiefly because of his reputation as a Hindu hardliner.
Days after the BJP's landslide electoral victory, some of the country's leading Muslim leaders wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The signatories included All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMLPB) member Kamal Farooqi and Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind leader Mehmood Madani, and they sought confidence building measures from Modi.

The letter welcomed two significant speeches made by the PM-the first at the BJP's Delhi headquarter on May 23 where he appealed to his party men to win the trust of the minorities, adding 'Sab ka vishwas (winning everyone's trust)' to his 'Ab sab ka saath, sab ka vikas' slogan.

In his speech, Modi had charged the Congress party with taking the minorities for a ride by creating a fear psychosis in them and excluding them from the fruits of development. The letter suggested a new beginning between Modi and the orthodox Muslim community.

Airplane

Air Force issues threat briefing on frustrated incels, Twitter wonders if drones will be used

US drone plane
© AFP / US Air Force / Darnell T. Cannady
A leaked US Air Force briefing detailing the threat posed by bitter, sexually frustrated men hating on women online has been widely mocked on social media, with some wondering if they plan to drone the "involuntary celibates."

A leaked screenshot -complete with 4chan memes- shows that personnel at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland were recently informed about the dangers posed by the so-called "incels." The term describes a loose online "subculture" of men struggling to find any female companionship, who seek refuge on internet forums dedicated to hating women.

Derided and mocked by nearly everybody, the 'incels' have finally received the attention they so desperately yearn for: not from women, of course, but from the US Air Force, which apparently views them as a national security threat.

The intelligence briefing features an internet meme popular among incels known as "Becky vs. Stacy." The image contrasts two types of women, the "needy, average" Becky to the "luscious" bombshell Stacy.

Bullseye

Colorado school shooter targeted classmates who mocked his gender identity

Colorado middle school
© AP Photo/David Zalubowski, FileA high school student charged in a classmate’s death during a shooting at the school told police that he planned the shooting for a few weeks and intended to target classmates who made fun of his gender identity.
A high school student charged in a classmate's death during a Colorado school shooting told police that he planned the attack for weeks and intended to target classmates who repeatedly mocked his gender identity.

Written summaries of police interviews with the two suspected shooters portray 16-year-old Alec McKinney as the leader of the attack, enlisting 18-year-old Devon Erickson in the plan to kill the students who bullied McKinney, who identifies as male.

Both teenagers told police that they broke into a gun safe at one of the teenager's homes before walking into the STEM School Highlands Ranch on the afternoon of May 7 with a guitar case and a backpack concealing four guns.

McKinney "said he wanted the kids at the school to experience bad things, have to suffer from trauma like he had had to in his life," the document said. "He wanted everyone in that school to suffer and realize that the world is a bad place."

Both teenagers are charged with murder and attempted murder in the shooting.

TV

The coming gentrification of YouTube

YouTube account deleted
Marshall McLuhan was wrong: The moderation is the message. That, at least, is the message one gets from reading The New York Times' story about the phenomenon of YouTube radicalization. The piece chronicles how YouTube sent a young man down a rabbit hole of increasingly extremist right-wing videos - all the better for YouTube, which kept him clicking, all the worse for society. It ends on the equivocal note that the man has "successfully climbed out of a right-wing YouTube rabbit hole, only to jump into a left-wing YouTube rabbit hole."

Fears around such radicalization have led many to insist that YouTube should go beyond its current policy of only removing extreme content that crosses hard lines of malicious harassment, hate speech, or child endangerment. Felix Salmon in Axios argues for "principles-based" moderation, which would allow for ad hoc and non-precedential takedowns whenever it decides that a particular video is causing "significant harm."

Comment: It's surprising to see such a fuss kicked up over a YouTube's suggestion algorithm. The suggested videos are just that - suggestions. No one is forcing anyone to watch videos they don't want to watch. When it comes down to it, some people are upset that videos they don't agree with exist at all. Perhaps YouTube could come up with options for their suggestions so that those who want to live in a bubble of only seeing mainstream, acceptable content can do so. But leave the rest of us, those who are capable of not taking suggestions too seriously and are capable of taking responsibility for our own choices, alone.

See also:


Briefcase

Huawei files lawsuit against US Commerce Dept over seized equipment

Huawei
Huawei Technologies Co Inc filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Commerce Department on Friday in a fight over whether telecommunications equipment that it sent from China to the United States, and then back to China, is covered by Export Administration Regulations, according to a court filing.

The equipment was seized by the U.S. government while on its way back to China in September 2017, and no decision has been made about what to do with it, the filing said.

"The equipment, to the best of HT USA's knowledge, remains in a bureaucratic limbo in an Alaskan warehouse," Huawei said in its lawsuit.

Huawei asked for the equipment to be either released for shipment or for the Commerce Department to decide that it was shipped illegally. (Reporting by Diane Bartz, editing by G Crosse)

Comment: See also:


Camcorder

Patent pending: Amazon's 'helpful' delivery drone surveillance service 'totally doesn't spy on your neighbors'

Amazon Drone
© Reuters/Brendan McDermid
Amazon has filed a patent for delivery drones that also surveil customers - for their own good, it claims, suggesting that a drone will inform people if there's a fire or damage on their property but won't snoop around.

Users who consent to the surveillance get a helpful eye in the sky to spot if they've left the garage door open, or if someone's broken their window, or if burglars are walking off with all their newly delivered Amazon goodies (the latter isn't mentioned in the patent filing, but would presumably fall within its purview). Users could even subscribe to the surveillance service as a high-tech alarm system, hiring their own airborne Big Brother to do daily perimeter sweeps while they're on vacation, or check up on the kids while they're at work.

Amazon claims its drones can be stopped from spying on non-consenting neighbors through geo-fencing, noting that "any image or data the drone captures outside the geo-fence would be obscured or removed," but it stops short of explaining the mechanics of that removal. It doesn't explain whether the obscuring would be reversible, or whether the original unobscured images - like the millions of hours of Alexa background recording supposedly never archived but actually heard by thousands of humans - are actually saved somewhere, however temporarily, where they can be examined by a human or AI.

Comment: Common responsibilities have become an industry as consumers are increasingly programmed to rely on mechanical services instead of their own savvy, awareness and discipline. Even more concerning, the security and privacy assurances of these services are glib promises at best.

See also:


Cult

Alaskan government meeting opens with 'Hail Satan' by Satanic Temple member.

Following an Alaska Supreme Court ruling last year upholding the right of anyone to offer the invocation at government meetings, a Satanic Temple member opened a regional Kenai Peninsula Borough this week by declaring "Hail Satan."
Satan
© AP Photo/ The Satanic Temple

Comment: And this isn't the first time this has happened.

So satanic, so normal: Satanist gives opening prayer at Colorado city council


Sheriff

ICE raids targeting migrant families set to start Sunday in major U.S. cities

ice illegal immigrant raids
© John Moore/Getty ImagesThe U.S. government is planning a round of raids to beginning June 22, 2019.
President Trump has directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to conduct a mass roundup of migrant families that have received deportation orders, an operation that is likely to begin with predawn raids in major U.S. cities on Sunday, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans.

The "family op," as it is referred to at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, is slated to target up to 2,000 families in as many as 10 U.S. cities, including Houston, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and other major immigration destinations, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the law enforcement operation.

Acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan has been urging ICE, an agency within his department, to conduct a narrower, more targeted operation that would seek to detain a group of about 150 families that were provided with attorneys but dropped out of the legal process and absconded.

Comment: The Daily Mail adds:
Trump also praised Mexico for action he said it has taken to stem the flow of immigrants to the United States.

Former officials and immigration experts said it would be unlikely for immigration authorities to move quickly to deport 'millions' of people, but Trump's tweet on Monday saying as much put cities around the country on high alert.

Trump has made illegal immigration a centerpiece of his administration and is likely to highlight it in his campaign for the 2020 election, but so far he has not brought arrests and deportations up to levels seen in President Barack Obama's first term as resources are stretched by an influx of migrants at the Mexico border.

Trump is fighting the battle on two fronts, trying to stop migrants from coming in the first place and deporting those who have been released into the United States.

On Friday officials said that the United States is more than doubling the number of asylum seekers it returns to Mexico in one city and adding groups like Cubans as it rapidly expands a policy to make migrants wait out claims south of the border, Mexican and U.S. officials said.

The policy, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), is being applied to all Spanish-speaking asylum seekers, other than Mexicans, at three U.S.-Mexico border crossings, said a U.S. government official familiar with the program, who asked not to be named.

The Trump administration plans to expand the program, which faces court challenges, across the border to act as a deterrent to frivolous asylum claims during a surge in Central American migrant families.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said the administration was considering building temporary immigration courts along the border to process MPP returnees.

The MPP expansion follows Mexico's agreement earlier this month to receive thousands more migrants under the program. As of June 19, according to Mexican officials, 13,987 people had been returned to Mexico under MPP.

'They're going to start next week, and with people coming to our country, and they come in illegally - they have to go out,' Trump said earlier this week

In its first months, the policy primarily applied to Central American migrants, but as of Monday the United States began applying it to Spanish speakers more broadly, including Cubans, said Rogelio Pinal, a municipal official in Juarez, Mexico.

Cubans, a political force in U.S. election swing state Florida, have a history of being welcomed in the United States.

Pinal said his office was told returns from El Paso to Juarez would increase to 500 per day from around 200.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the government was 'actively pursuing expansion plans across the board to include all individuals, unless specifically exempted,' in MPP returns.

The U.S. official said MPP would be expanded to cities in Arizona and south Texas, which could include Brownsville. A Mexican official confirmed new locations would include Brownsville.

Migrant advocates have raised concerns that asylum seekers have little access to legal counsel and are vulnerable in Mexican border cities, which have some of the highest homicide rates in the world.

Ruben Garcia, who runs El Paso's largest migrant shelter, said there had been a sharp fall in the number of migrants released into the United States by U.S. authorities.

Garcia said reduced migration during summer heat played a role, but tighter immigration enforcement in Mexico and the MPP program were driving forces in the drop to around 125 releases per day from up to 700 three weeks ago.



Headphones

El Pais publishes tape transcripts of Spaniards' attempt to extort Julian Assange: "This material is worth €3m"

assange leaving courtroom UK
© Jack Taylor/Getty ImagesJulian Assange leaves Southwark Crown Court in a security van after being sentenced on May 1, 2019 in London.
EL PAÍS has accessed recordings that police made of the group who tried to sell the WikiLeaks founder sensitive personal material from his stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London

"Do you work for free? This material is worth €3 million. We have to put food on our tables too, you know."

Thanks to assistance from the police, there is recorded evidence of a meeting at Madrid's Reina Victoria Hotel in which a Spanish reporter named José Martín Santos and two computer experts attempted to sell WikiLeaks sensitive material in connection with an alleged case of spying against Julian Assange while he was living at the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

Comment:


Target

Republic of Georgia: Gay Pride weaponized by the CIA

Flags Georgia/Pride
© Unknown
Who said religion and politics don't mix? Religion is one of the failsafe of any politician - lie and cheat and abuse people, and if you say that your actions are motivated by religion, everything will be forgiven. Trump was even sent to us to save Israel!

Religious groups themselves are happy to indulge the worst kinds of politicians, as long as they feel it will give them a bigger platform to do as they want. How Evangelicals can support a man like Trump, with his track record of doing everything their Bibles tell them not to, is one of the great ironies of the US political system. But they do it because they feel his sort of outsider politics gives them a bigger platform to spread their message from - they are still "voices crying in the wilderness" (John 1:23), but when that wilderness is the White House, they might be heard.

All of which makes it so much sadder that the US is so determined to fight religion as a matter of policy. The same Bible-thumpers who claim moral superiority by displaying their faith in public (Matthew 6:5) are not prepared to allow religion to inform the policies of other nations.

Whenever faith rears its head to the US and its allies, this has to be a bad thing, to be cut off it its root. We are told that Islam equals terrorism; despite the fact no Quranic scholar accepts that. Judaism equals Zionism, trying to undermine Christianity, while Christianity itself is a negative force trying to undermine secular values, as if there can be any secular values without religious ones to form a blueprint.