Society's ChildS


Laptop

Facebook launches online dating service for the US

Mark Zuckerberg
© AFP/Josh EdelsonFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled plans in 2018 for the social network's dating service, which is now available in the United States.
Facebook rolled out its online dating service for the United States on Thursday, a move taking on rivals such as smartphone app Tinder.

The free "Facebook Dating" site which was announced last year and already available in other countries will allow users to link their Facebook and Instagram post to a separate dating profile.

It will seek to facilitate connections among the more than two billion users of the social network worldwide.

"Facebook Dating allows you to match with friends of friends and/or people not in your friend circle," said a blog post from Nathan Sharp, head of the project.

One of the features, "secret crush" which allows people to connect if they both secretly express interest in each other.

Comment: See also:


Megaphone

Libertarian students sue public college for making them get permission to share views

permission required
Asking students to write on a beach ball and talk about marijuana got Mike Brown in trouble with his public college.

Requiring students to get advance permission before sharing their opinions got Jones County Junior College in trouble with a civil liberties group.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the Mississippi college on behalf of Brown and his Young Americans for Liberty chapter.

They claim that student handbook policies constitute a prior restraint on student speech and fail to provide constitutionally required "narrow, objective, and definite standards," as articulated by the Supreme Court.

Alarm Clock

Paul Gosar: Go into debt to get a STEM degree, then watch foreigners take your job

college graduates graduation
© Associated Press/Butch Dill
For years it has been federal policy to encourage students to focus on science, technology, engineering and math (referred to as STEM). There are no fewer than 12 federal grant programs related to this, covering everything from minority science scholarships to magnet school assistance. There is even a STEM Education Advisory Panel.

However, graduates currently outnumber jobs in all STEM fields except for computer science, which is about equal. As a New York Times graph noted in 2017, "So many degrees, so little demand."

These degrees cost money. The U.S. has over 44 million people who owe an average of $29,000 in student loans, exceeding $1.5 trillion in combined student loan debt.

Comment: It's all about the bottom line. Foreign hires will work for less, and as pointed out by Rep. Gosar, the companies are off the hook for a myriad of taxes.


Bomb

Taliban claims another attack in Kabul - 12 killed, including two NATO troops, 100+ injured

kabul
Security forces near the site where the bomb exploded in the center of Kabul.
At least 12 people have been killed -- including a U.S. and a Romanian soldier -- and dozens more injured when a car bomb struck a checkpoint on September 5 in a neighborhood of Kabul that houses the embassies, government buildings, and local NATO headquarters.

The fundamentalist Taliban claimed responsibility for the late-morning attack.

It is the second major Taliban attack in the Afghan capital this week as U.S. and Taliban officials are said to be in an intense final phase of efforts toward a peace deal to end their 18-year conflict.

Another Taliban car bombing later on September 5, in a neighboring province, reportedly killed at least four civilians.

The Taliban, which is pressing for the departure of U.S. and other international troops in the negotiations, claimed that foreigners were among the dead in the September 5 attack in Kabul. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted that the suicide bomber had killed 12 "foreign invaders."

Reports said the checkpoint that was targeted was near the headquarters of NATO's Resolute Support mission.

Comment: See also:


Pistol

San Francisco declares NRA domestic terrorist organization

Hand guns
© AP/John Locher
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution on Tuesday declaring that the National Rifle Association is a domestic terrorist organization. The officials also urged other cities, states and the federal government to follow suit.

District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani wrote the resolution and shared her thoughts on the NRA with KTVU. "The NRA has it coming to them," she said. "And I will do everything I possibly can to call them out on what they are, which is a domestic terrorist organization."

After citing some statistics about gun violence in the United States - like that there's been more than one mass shooting per day in the country in 2019 - Stefani got local with how gun violence has impact the Bay Area.

She cited the shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on July 28, referencing Stephen Romero, Keyla Salazar and Trevor Irby, who were killed by gunman Santino William Legan in what she called a "senseless act of gun violence that day."

Propaganda

No, Jonathan Haidt is not similar to a slavery apologist

burning newspaper
Eve Fairbanks, in an essay for the Washington Post, argues that many of the writers on the so-called "reasonable right," a group that includes such seemingly benign figures as Bari Weiss and Jonathan Haidt, are making many of the same arguments and using much the same language as proslavery advocates in the American South:
The reasonable right's rhetoric is exactly the same as the antebellum rhetoric I'd read so much of. The same exact words. The same exact arguments. Rhetoric, to be precise, in support of the slave-owning South.

Comment: Lumping Jonathan Haidt with Bari Weiss seems to show just how far off Fairbanks is in another of her assumptions. Weiss is an agitator for Israeli hegemony - where Haidt is attempting to reconcile the values of the left and the right in US politics.

See also:

Fairbanks follows this breathless announcement by acknowledging that she is not accusing anyone of defending slavery, and that includes, weirdly enough, actual antebellum proslavery writers. "Proslavery rhetoricians talked little of slavery itself," she writes. "Instead, they anointed themselves the defenders of 'reason,' free speech and 'civility.'" This is a bit like smearing someone as a Nazi, then qualifying it with the claim that overt anti-Semitism was really quite atypical of Nazism. In her characterization of proslavery thought, Fairbanks has taken a line that not even the most stalwart member of the Daughters of the Confederacy would care to defend. It is, well, an exact inversion of the truth.

Comment: See also: Jonathan Haidt interview asks what is underlying the polarization in America?


Mr. Potato

'Will & Grace' actor says his idea of Hollywood Trump donors blacklist was 'misinterpreted'

Eric McCormack
© Reuters / Eric Thayer
Star of American sitcom 'Will & Grace' Eric McCormack is backpedaling on his demand for news outlets to name President Donald Trump's donors, accusing critics of "misinterpreting" his words.

The actor's apparent reversal comes after he penned a tweet last week asking the Hollywood Reporter - which covers entertainment industry news - to "kindly report" the name of every person attending a Trump fundraising event in Beverly Hills, "so the rest of us can be clear about who we don't wanna work with." He was soon joined by his co-star on 'Will & Grace' Debra Messing, who seconded the request.

Facing backlash from critics online, who roasted the actor's call for what amounts to a "blacklist," McCormack attempted to clarify the comment in a lengthy Instagram post on Tuesday.

"I absolutely do not support blacklists or discrimination of any kind, as anyone who knows me would attest," McCormack wrote. "I'd simply like to understand where Trump's major donations are coming from, which is a matter of public record."

Comment: See also: Return to McCarthyism? Messing and McCormack demand 'blacklist' of Trump supporters in Hollywood


Document

Detransitioned men and women file brief with Supreme Court detailing suffering caused by transgender treatments

Walt Heyer
The Supreme Court will hear a pivotal case in October on sex, gender identity, and discrimination: R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As both sides build their cases, numerous influential organizations and individuals have filed amicus (friend of the court) briefs to aid the members of the Supreme Court in their understanding on this topic.

One brief in particular stands out. It's so powerful, it should not only persuade the Supreme Court but influence people on both sides of the transgender debate, particularly the mainstream media.

Bulb

We have the power to create our own (more objective) narratives using critical thinking and communicating with one another

think, its not illegal yet
Somewhere between the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein and his extremely suspicious death in a Department of Justice operated prison, the public learned that an FBI intelligence bulletin published by the bureau's Phoenix field office mentioned for the first time that conspiracy theories pose a domestic terrorism threat. This was followed up last week by a Bloomberg article discussing a new project by the U.S. military (DARPA) to identify fake news and disinformation.

We learned:
Fake news and social media posts are such a threat to U.S. security that the Defense Department is launching a project to repel "large-scale, automated disinformation attacks," as the top Republican in Congress blocks efforts to protect the integrity of elections.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants custom software that can unearth fakes hidden among more than 500,000 stories, photos, videos and audio clips. If successful, the system after four years of trials may expand to detect malicious intent and prevent viral fake news from polarizing society.
Recall that after the 2016 election, focus was on social media companies and we saw tremendous pressure placed on these platforms by national security state politicians and distressed Democrats to "do something" about the supposed fake news epidemic. Fast forward three years and it's now apparently the U.S. military's job to police human content on the internet. This is the sort of natural regression a society will witness so long as it puts up with incremental censorship and the demonization of any thought which goes agains the official narrative.

Bizarro Earth

Game creator's suicide after feminist Zoe Quinn accuses him of abuse shows peril of mob rule

Zoe Quinn and Alec Holowka
© Getty Images / John Lamparski / Greg DohertyZoe Quinn and Alec Holowka
The unraveling of Alec Holowka's life in the days after facing unproven accusations should remind us why, at some point, civilized society turned away from mob rule and embraced due process.

Not only is your social media feed becoming a live broadcast of an execution of the lost and the vulnerable, but the people handed the axe and hood may be no saner than the ones they are beheading.

Let's leave for the moment -and we will return here- whether the claims against Holowka are likely to be true, any other circumstantial evidence, or the credibility of his accuser Zoe Quinn, one of the most high-profile activists on the internet.

Comment: Gamergate was the incubator for much of the SJW maddness we see erupting all over the US. Unethical reporting, 'woke journalism' that stigmatizes its own readers, questionable accusations that lead to social media outrage, targeted harassment by sock puppet accounts, and even the SJW name itself came out of gamergate. It's worth noting that the initial Zoe Quinn debacle started gamergate. There are many, many layers involved, but the following is just one piece of the puzzle provided by Candice Owens: