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Trump's decision to display a few tanks in July 4th celebration triggers meltdown among his critics


RT
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Abrams tanks and Bradley vehicle july 4
© REUTERS/Leah MillisAbrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles spotted at a rail yard outside of Washington, DC, July 2, 2019
US President Donald Trump's decision to display tanks on the National Mall during the Independence Day festivities is causing a meltdown among his critics, who claim it's an 'authoritarian' move worthy of North Korea - or Russia.

As part of the "Salute to America" celebrations this July 4, the US Navy 'Blue Angels' acrobatic group will fly over the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC and there will be tanks "stationed outside" on the grounds. The event will culminate with the customary fireworks display.

All of this is intended to show off the "strongest and most advanced military anywhere in the world," according to the US president.
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HAL9000

Amazon confirms keeping Alexa voice recordings indefinitely

Stephanie Mlot
geek.com
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 03:29 UTC
Amazon keeps Alexa transcripts
© Piotr Cichosz/UnsplashEcho Dot
Amazon last week confirmed that it keeps transcripts of interactions with Alexa, even after users have deleted the voice recordings.

Based on reports that Amazon retains text records of what users ask Alexa, Sen. Chris Coons in May sent a letter to CEO Jeff Bezos, demanding answers.

The Democrat from Delaware asked Amazon to provide answers on how long it stores transcripts, whether users can delete them, why it collects them and how they are used, and whether the company anonymizes customer identity.

"While I am encouraged that Amazon allows users to delete audio recordings linked to their accounts," Coons, a member of the judiciary committee, wrote in his letter, "I am very concerned by reports that suggest that text transcriptions of these audio records are preserved indefinitely on Amazon's servers, and users are not given the option to delete these text transcripts."

In response, Amazon Vice President of Public Policy Brian Huseman revealed that the tech titan keeps transcripts and voice recordings indefinitely, removing them only when "the customer chooses to delete them."
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Megaphone

Border patrol agents made light of migrant deaths & posted 'sexist' memes of AOC in Facebook group

A.C. Thompson
Pro Publica
Thu, 04 Jul 2019 11:53 UTC
customs border patrol logo
© Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse/Getty
Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings.

In one exchange, group members responded with indifference and wisecracks to the post of a news story about a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who died in May while in custody at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas. One member posted a GIF of Elmo with the quote, "Oh well." Another responded with an image and the words "If he dies, he dies."

Created in August 2016, the Facebook group is called "I'm 10-15" and boasts roughly 9,500 members from across the country. (10-15 is Border Patrol code for "aliens in custody.") The group described itself, in an online introduction, as a forum for "funny" and "serious" discussion about work with the patrol. "Remember you are never alone in this family," the introduction said.
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Arrow Down

Report: US tops list of countries fuelling the waste crisis

Will Nichols
Maplecroft
Thu, 04 Jul 2019 11:53 UTC
waste dump
America's thirst for consumption is not matched by an appetite for recycling, reveals new data identifying the country is the world's top producer of waste and one of the worst of any industrialised nation for managing its trash.

In two new indices, we've measured the waste generation and recycling performance of 194 countries to uncover a global picture of how countries are dealing with the waste they produce at a time where the world is facing a mounting crisis, primarily driven by plastics.

The research calculates that over 2.1 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) are generated globally each year - enough to fill 822,000 Olympic-size swimming pools, which would stretch 41,000 kms if laid out end-to-end. However, only 16% (323 million tonnes) of this is recycled each year, while 46% (950 million tonnes) is disposed of unsustainably.

Comment: Also see: Global recycling crisis shows West can't use poorer countries as dumping grounds

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Windsock

Why do perfectly intelligent people believe in Climate Change?

Dr Andrew Edmonds
Medium.com
Sun, 30 Jun 2019 00:01 UTC
statue
The operative word in this somewhat leading question is "believe". Global warming is a belief system with all the characteristics of a religion.

Look at how non-believers are vilified. Look at how we are told we must make sacrifices to the god of global warming; to sacrifice little old ladies through their unaffordable heating bills; to sacrifice our countryside to windmills and solar farms; to sacrifice our cars and our mobility.

How did we get to this point in our supposedly rational age?

Comment: While the above points are certainly valid, there is some nuance missing. The climate is changing, but it's not for the reasons touted by the mainstream media, activists and globalist propaganda. As far back as 1967 it's been known that the sun controls the climate, not CO2. But that simply doesn't fit the religious narrative.

See also:

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USA

How Antifa apologists defend street violence

Robby Soave
Quillette
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 10:49 UTC
antifa members
2017 photos released by Portland police, depicting antifa members arrested in 2017 and arraigned at Multnomah County Court.
A day before the 2017 Women's March, spectators and activists of all stripes descended on Washington, D.C. for the inauguration of President Trump. Supporters of the new president wore "Make America Great Again" baseball caps and toted "Trump-Pence 2016" signs. Detractors were more colorful.

"Trump is the symptom, capitalism is the disease, socialism is the cure," read one sign, wielded by a woman with a T-shirt depicting a clenched fist.

Others were at least funny: I spotted a man holding a sign featuring a cartoon Batman slapping Trump in the face with the caption "Stop tweeting!" — a parody of a drawing from the Batman comics, in which the caped crusader slaps Robin.

The demonstrations were mostly peaceful. Mostly.

Masked protesters known simultaneously as the "black bloc" (because they wear black clothes and hoods to mask their identities) and "antifa" (as in anti-fascist) smashed the windows of a local Starbucks and a Bank of America. They also set a limousine on fire. How these acts of property damage were intended to undermine Trump remains a mystery, given that the CEO of Starbucks and many Bank of America employees were financial supporters of the Hillary Clinton campaign. The limo driver, we learned, was a Muslim immigrant.
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Extinguisher

Gabriel Nadales: I'm a former Antifa member and enough is enough -- Antifa must be stopped

Gabriel Nadales
Fox News
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 00:01 UTC
andy ngo
Andy Ngo was assaulted at an Antifa riot in Portland
The video showing Quillette reporter Andy Ngo being savagely attacked by Antifa at a demonstration in Portland, Oregon, last weekend has rocked the nation. The footage of masked thugs beating him with blunt objects and throwing "milkshakes" allegedly filled with quick-drying cement is shocking to many.

But I'm not surprised by this horrific behavior — I was once behind the mask.

I first became involved in Antifa in 2010 while I was in high school, and over the course of two years I participated in several demonstrations throughout Southern California. Although I never hurt anyone, I yelled obscenities, I destroyed property and I am ashamed of my actions. While I walked away from the movement over seven years ago, I have been following its growth and today's Antifa members are far more brutal, thuggish and bold than anything I experienced.

Comment: The Andy Ngo beating seems to have been a major turning point for some, with many leftists and leftist media who previously made excuses for Antifa, are now finally calling them out for the thugs that they are. This kind of mob violence against any they disagree with is completely inexcusable, regardless of political orientation.

See also:

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Newspaper

New Jersey court blasts judge for going easy on accused rapist who's 'from a good family'

Natalie Musumeci
NY Post
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 10:41 UTC
Judge James Troiano
© Gregory P. Mango
A New Jersey appeals court has blasted a state family court judge — and reversed his decision — after he refused to try as an adult a 16-year-old boy accused of raping an intoxicated 16-year-old girl and sending video of the alleged sex assault to his buddies.

In a ruling last year in Monmouth County, New Jersey Superior Court Judge James Troiano denied prosecutors' motion to try the teen as an adult and instead said: "This young man comes from a good family who put him into an excellent school where he was doing extremely well."

"He is clearly a candidate for not just college but probably for a good college. His scores for college entry were very high," said Troiano, who also detailed the boy's extracurricular activities, including that he was an Eagle Scout.

Prosecutors say the boy, only identified in court documents as G.M.C., sexually assaulted the girl while at a pajama-themed basement party packed with about 30 other adolescents in New Jersey where alcohol was flowing.
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Bullseye

California university's speech code threatens to punish students for jokes

Greg Piper
The College Fix
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 10:32 UTC
offended woman
Offend someone just once and you're in trouble

Telling sex jokes can get you investigated by Texas public universities. Failure to report students who tell sex jokes can get faculty at Texas public universities thrown in jail.

Who would have thought Texas would look worse than California when it comes to speech codes?

Yet California public universities still have their share of kooky conduct codes that infringe on speech, and one of them even has a similar zero-tolerance rule for offensive jokes.

The new "Speech Code of the Month" by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education comes from California State University-Channel Islands, and it's bounded only by the imagination of humorless, woke administrators.

Its Resident Handbook prohibits even a single occurrence of "derogatory comments" or "slurs," whether spoken or visual, and even "gestures" (don't flip the bird at anyone!). It also includes "unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature," which is how you get punished for telling that limerick about a man from Nantucket within earshot of a fourth-wave feminist.

Comment: See also:

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Heart - Black

Russian MoD names naval officers who perished in deep sea sub fire - Full info remains classified


RT
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 17:42 UTC
russia submarine
© MoD Russia / Sputnik / Sergey Yeshenko
The 14 officers who died fighting a disastrous fire on a Russian deep water research vessel have been named by the Russian Defense Ministry. The crew have sacrificed their lives to save fellow officers and save the submersible.

"Thanks to their timely, dedicated and competent actions, the submariners extinguished the fire, and saved their comrades and the deep-sea vessel while sacrificing their lives," the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

Seven 'captains 1st class' (Russian equivalent to NATO OF-5/US O-6 captain rank), perished in the blaze, namely Konstantin Ivanov, Andrey Voskresenskiy, Konstantin Somov, Denis Oparin, and Vladimir Abankin, as well as two honored 'Heroes of Russia' - Denis Dolonskiy and Nikolay Filin.

Comment: See also: The day the 'Kursk' sank: 15 years on, Russia remembers one of worst-ever submarine tragedies

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