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Camcorder

Moscow railroad tests facial recognition payment to identify and charge passengers


RT
Fri, 30 Nov 2018 11:47 UTC
Moscow's Kievsky terminal.
© Sputnik / Evgeny SamarinMoscow's Kievsky terminal.
The operator of Moscow's passenger railroad service is testing a system, which would use facial recognition to identify and charge passengers. Similar pilot projects are underway or planned in other areas in the Russian capital.

As computational power and broadband communications become more accessible, using biometrics identification for screening of people gets cheaper and faster. So it's natural that the technology, initially meant for security and law enforcement, is finding its ways to new applications.

The company responsible for most railroad passenger traffic in the Russian capital is the latest player trying to use facial recognition as payment method. The TsPPK has introduced a system for this as a pilot project, its head Maksim Dyakonov said at a recent panel on the development of public transport in Moscow.

"We are testing a prototype on a couple of stations and want to see if it makes sense or not," he said as cited by TASS. "Anyway, the transit system moves towards a unified ticked, that would hopefully minimize time to check in."

Comment: See also: Swedish microchipping photos flood social media and it's insane

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Take 2

Hollywood gives Christian film an 'R' rating - No nudity, sex, bad language, gore or drugs

J.P. Johnston
The Western Journal
Wed, 31 Oct 2018 14:47 UTC
The Reliant movie
The Motion Picture Association of America adds its name to a list of increasingly brazen leftist media powerhouses who discriminate against conservative voices in the public square.

Facebook: Graphic images of a woman smashing and eating a baby do not violate "community standards" but quoting a Bible verse on homosexuality does.

Twitter: Conservative voices and alternative news sources frequently find themselves muzzled while profane rants against them are celebrated.

Google: Discriminatory algorithms ensure that articles praising the Second Amendment, President Trump, traditional marriage, and lashing out against illegal immigration are suppressed while the "fake news media" gets free rein.

It's called censorship.


Comment: See also:

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Star of David

Airbnb hit with Israeli class-action lawsuit for delisting illegal settlements after agreeing with BDS campaign - UPDATE

Ori Lewis
Reuters
Fri, 23 Nov 2018 16:43 UTC
Airbnb
Lawyers launched a class action lawsuit in Israel on Thursday against Airbnb, accusing the company of "outrageous discrimination" and demanding monetary damages after it withdrew listings of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The San Francisco-based company said this week it was removing listings of around 200 homes in settlements after hearing criticism from people who "believe companies should not profit on lands where people have been displaced".

Through her attorneys, Ma'anit Rabinovich from the West Bank settlement of Kida, who offers guest room rentals, said the move "represents especially grave, offensive and outrageous discrimination".

Comment: Update: A group of Americans who "own property" in Israel has filed their own lawsuit against Airbnb:
A group of 18 Americans sued Airbnb on Wednesday over the company's decision to ban home rentals in the illegally occupied West Bank on November 19.

Fair Housing Act by discriminating against the plaintiffs on the basis of religion. The plaintiffs are mostly dual US-Israeli citizens that own property in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and have hosted on Airbnb; some others are American citizens who want to rent a home there or have already.

Airbnb continues to allow home rentals in Israel, as well as in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, which like the West Bank the UN considers to be illegally occupied by Israel.

Currently, Airbnb has over 20,000 hosts in "places like Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other parts of Israel," the company says.

The lawsuit "was organized by Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center," the Jerusalem Post reported.

Shurat HaDin founder and director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who represents plaintiffs in the case, said, "Airbnb's new discriminatory policy has made it the poster child for the racist BDS movement," referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement which seeks to pressure companies and governments into boycotting Israeli companies and institutions until the country complies with international law.


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X

Dozens of Fort Dodge, Iowa prisoners sue state over pornography ban

Chris Gothner
KCCI
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 09:21 UTC
Corrections facility
Some Iowa prisoners say they want their porn back and are challenging a new regulation banning pornographic magazines from state prisons.

In the 26-page federal lawsuit, inmates at the Fort Dodge Correctional Institution make references to Nazism, tyranny and the Bible. They also say if female guards can't handle seeing pornographic images, "they should find employment elsewhere."

The suit argues that new state regulations, spurred by a law requiring state prisons to ban porn and shut down so-called pornographic reading rooms, is unconstitutional.

Frequent prison litigator Allen Curtis Miles, who is serving a life sentence for stabbing a Des Moines woman to death in 1982, was joined by 57 other Fort Dodge inmates, asking to end the ban and requesting $25,000 each.
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Stock Down

Food crisis in America: Farm bankruptcies reaching horrible new highs

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 00:00 UTC
US farm
We are amidst a food crisis. Farms in the United States Midwest are filing for chapter 12 bankruptcy at an alarming rate. And many are saying president Donald Trump's trade war is taking the most blame.

We hate to say we told you so, but we told you so. The trade war was a bad idea and everyday average Americans are footing the bill for this asinine policy of tariffs. Now, the food supply could be in jeopardy because of political posturing and that will not bode well for already cash-strapped American families.

A total of 84 farms in the upper Midwest filed for bankruptcy between July 2017 and June 2018, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. That's more than double the number of Chapter 12 filings during the same period in 2013 and 2014 in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, reported Vox.

Comment: Many sectors of US are now going into bankruptcy...

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Quenelle

'President of the rich': French frustration with 'Jupiterian' Macron spills over into protest & violence

Pauline Bock
New Statesman
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 00:00 UTC
yellow jacket protests France
The yellow jackets are a reminder Emmanuel Macron rules only one version of France
Emmanuel Macron can't catch a breath. He just wants to #makeourplanetgreatagain, but the French keep ruining his plans.

Last year's demonstrations against his labour law reform had already tested his presidency (he responded by calling the protesters "slackers", which didn't exactly go down well). Fast forward 12 months, a bodyguard scandal, plummeting approval ratings, three ministers' resignations, to 17 November 2018: the day the French on low and middle incomes said "enough".

For the past two weeks, French people all over the country have been blocking roads, shopping centres and highway tolls in protest against the rise of the fuel tax decided by Macron's government. This tax, they say, is the last straw in a series of unjust measures that always hit low-earning workers, who feel they are living from paycheck to paycheck. They call themselves "yellow vests" (gilets jaunes in French), in reference to the fluorescent yellow security jackets, a mandatory item in all cars since 2008 in France. The protestors are using it as a symbol for the "France des ronds-points", or the France of the roundabouts: the people of the rural and "peripheral" towns, where cars are necessary to go anywhere.

According to the French Interior ministry, 287,000 protestors wore the yellow vest on the first day of the protest, on 17 November. On the second weekend of the movement, 24-25 November, about 100,000 were blocking roads in 160 different actions on the French territory. It's a lesser number, but the movement hasn't wound down. Rather, it has spread out into various groups. In many small towns, yellow vests "filtering blocades" have slowed down traffic every day since the start. About 8,000 people walked to the Champs-Elysées in Paris last Saturday and it quickly turned into violent riots where rocks (on the yellow vests' side) and teargas (on the police's side) were exchanged.

Comment: Paul Taylor at Politico comments that Macron has been blindsided by the widespread grass-roots reaction to his policies; responding limply by vowing to have a more 'inclusive' government while refusing to change his reform course or abandon carbon taxes:
He promised to listen more, and to involve grassroots activists in finding practical solutions to move to a low-carbon economy without ruining poorer households. And he opened an escape hatch from the fuel tax increases that ignited the nationwide protests, saying duty on gasoline could be adjusted if world oil prices surge, in order to cushion the blow to motorists.

"I hear the anger," the newly humble Macron told a conference on the transition to clean energy. "Our answers have been too abstract ... I'm determined to recognize and take account of all the feelings and resentments expressed in this crisis."
[..]

Whether this mixture of determination and contrition will be enough to end weekly protests that have mobilized up to 280,000 people and drawn broad public support was not immediately clear. The first reactions were predictably negative. Protesters said Macron is still out of touch.
[..]

Despite widely applauded programs to fight poverty, reform hospital care, shake up vocational training and improve schools, the label "president of the rich" has stuck, along with a reputation for arrogance. Unemployment remains stubbornly high at 9 percent, although job creation and company registrations are the highest for a decade.

Macron's policies are seen as favoring the urban, globalized classes at the expense of left-behind provincials. The diesel tax hike, imposed in the name of saving the planet, was the last straw.
When the French decide they have had enough, they take action...Macron might want to reflect on the fates of some of his predecessors.

See also:

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Family

Mother claims 6yo son identifies as a girl, father disagrees in Texas custody battle

Brianna Heldt
Townhall
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 02:00 UTC
Flags
A Texas father is fighting in court for the right to see his son after being charged with child abuse by his ex-wife "for not affirming James as transgender."

Court documents indicate that the 6-year-old boy only dresses and identifies as a girl when he's with his mother, who enrolled him in his first-grade class as "Luna." But James' father claims that when the boy is with him he consistently wears boy's clothing, "violently refuses to wear girl's clothes at my home," and identifies as a boy.

The father has reportedly been legally prohibited from talking to his son about gender and sexuality from both scientific and religious perspectives, and from seeking to dress his son in boys' clothes. Instead, he is required to offer both girls' and boys' clothing, although he claims that his son consistently refuses to wear dresses. And according to a report by The Federalist, the mother "is also seeking to require him to pay for the child's visits to a transgender-affirming therapist and transgender medical alterations, which may include hormonal sterilization starting at age eight."

James was reportedly diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a gender transition therapist that was chosen by his mother, who is a pediatrician. The therapist's notes reveal that James chose to identify as a girl when in therapy sessions alone with his mother, but as a boy when alone in sessions with his father.

Comment: See also:

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Quenelle

Greenwald blasts Politico "theory" Guardian's Assange-Manafort story was a Russian plant - UPDATE

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 19:46 UTC
glen greenwald wikileaks intercept
Glen Greenwald
After The Guardian attempted to shovel what appears to be a wholly fabricated story down our throats that Trump campaign manager met with Julian Assange at the London Embassy - Politico allowed an ex-CIA agent to use their platform to come up with a ham-handed cover story ever; Russia tricked The Guardian into publishing the Manafort-Assange propaganda.

To that end, The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald (formerly of The Guardian) ripped Politico an entirely new oriface in a six-part Twitter dress down.

Comment: Indeed. The Guardian was caught out and has been walking back the "story" with a series of unacknowledged edits. They should know better. The internet is forever. Update: Twitter predictable swing into high gear over Greenwald's Guardian take-down, with supporting comments from the likes of Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi and other political commenters. It will be a long time before the Guardian recovers, if ever, from its descent to tabloid status.

From RT:
A nameless CIA officer writing for Politico has absolved the Guardian of any journalistic malpractice after it ran a story about alleged meetings between Julian Assange and Paul Manafort, because "Russia." Twitter is not amused.



Greenwald delivered a knockout blow to the Guardian's credibility:



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Heart - Black

Iranian immigrant who strangled 80-yo with lawnmower cord sentenced by UK court


Evening Standard
Fri, 30 Nov 2018 12:55 UTC
Rahim Mohammadi
Rahim Mohammadi found guilty of strangling elderly widow with lawnmower flex
An Iranian immigrant who murdered a pensioner by throttling her with a lawnmower starter cord because he feared he was about to lose his allotment plot is facing life in prison today.

Rahim Mohammadi, 42, killed 80-year-old Lea Adri-Soejoko in a shed at the Colindale allotments where they were both regular gardeners.

After his sentencing today, her family described her murder as "a betrayal of the worst kind."
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People 2

'Gender-fluid' female model pepper sprayed by mother for using women's bathroom


News.com.au
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 13:38 UTC
Rain dove
© InstagramRain Dove is a model and activist.
Non-binary model Rain Dove was sprayed in the face with mace for using a women's bathroom in the United States.

Dove, who is in a relationship with Rose McGowan, was contacted by the attacker after the incident and posted screenshots of their exchange on Instagram to educate others about being gender-fluid.

"This person pepper sprayed me in a 'women's rest room' a little bit ago," Dove wrote on Instagram in the caption section.

"I didn't get to converse with this being because this person just sprayed me and ran past with their kids in terror, asking the security guard to come in and confront me.

"It happens moderately often especially while traveling that people get scared or volatile when I go into the rest room so I just shrugged it off and continued life. Then suddenly out of the blue this person contacted me again. We had a conversation and here's how it went."

Comment: Would the mother have been so reactionary were it not for years of 'gender fluid' propaganda and highly publicized attempts to change the laws to allow biological men in women's bathrooms? This is just one of the unfortunate consequences when a society is subverted for a minority against the wishes of the majority. Also check out SOTT radio's:

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