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Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio), a listener call-in show airing live every Monday night from 2-3 PM (CT) on KPFT-FM 90.1 (Houston). My engineers are Don and Letty.
Listen live on the radio, or on the internet from anywhere in the world! When the show is live, we take calls at 713-526-5738. (Long distance charges may apply.)
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For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:
- You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts;
Houston Mayor Annise Parker [L] with Mike, just before the show. (Dec. 7, 2015)
- An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
SIGNOFF QUOTE[s]:
______________________________________________________________________
- Obamacare (https://www.healthcare.gov/): enrollment ended 12/15.
- Beyond the 12/15 cutoff date, you can still enroll in Obamacare if you have “change-of-life” scenarios such as divorce, job change, births, etc. You can call for assistance at 800-318-2596
- CIA Confirms: Trey Gowdy Altered Documents To Frame Hillary Clinton, December 15, 2018 by Samuel Warde No Comments
- MIKE: This is a great example of the gray area between real news and fake news. Let’s call it “Delayed News”.
- This story was posted on December 15, 2018, so it’s “new”. But the headline, “CIA Confirms: Trey Gowdy Altered Documents To Frame Hillary Clinton” should begin with “CIA Confirmed”. Past tense, way past tense.
- This “new” story rehashes material from October 2015.
- It’s not that the story pretends to be new. It’s that you have to dig into it to find that it’s rehashing 3-year old news.
- I am constantly finding, and chastising for, people posting articles on Facebook and Twitter that are actual news stories, but may be 1 or more years old. So the stories themselves may be accurate ‒ and ma be worth reminding us of ‒ but they give the impression of something that recently happened that we should all get angry or excited about.
- I’m not sure when “news” becomes “history, but I am sure that it’s more than 6 months old. I would argue that more than a month old is certainly history and should be noted as such.
- Folks, when you post or link to a news story or article, post the date. It’s not only good manners, it’s accurate disclosure.
- Speaking of which, in OLD news:
- Mitt Romney says Donald Trump will change America with ‘trickle-down racism’, By Theodore Schleifer, (CNN) Updated 4:28 PM ET, Sat June 11, 2016
- Mitt Romney suggested Friday [June 9] that Donald Trump’s election could legitimize racism and misogyny, ushering in a change in the moral fabric of American society.
- The 2012 Republican nominee, who has openly opposed Trump’s candidacy, went further than he has before in outlining to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer how the country’s character would suffer in a Trump White House. Trump’s rhetoric has caused even some other Republicans to label him a racist, and Romney said he would not be able to paper over his incendiary remarks.
- ALSO: Congress Quietly Passes New Rule Allowing House Members To Hide Records From Ethics Probes: Politicians can now shield expenditures from investigations. BY Mary Papenfuss 01/10/2017 05:25 am ET
- Mitt Romney says Donald Trump will change America with ‘trickle-down racism’, By Theodore Schleifer, (CNN) Updated 4:28 PM ET, Sat June 11, 2016
- Michael Flynn’s business partner charged with illegally lobbying for Turkey, By Rachel Weiner | WASHINGTON POST |December 17 at 10:37 AM
- A former business partner of Michael Flynn is being charged with acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy for attempting to get Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen extradited from the United States.
- Bijan Kian made his first appearance in Alexandria federal court Monday morning. According to the indictment, Kian conspired with Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin to illegally lobby U.S. government officials and influence public opinion in the U.S. against Gulen.
- Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin is accused of directing and funding Kian and Flynn’s work, and then lying in U.S. filings about his role. He is charged with the same crimes as Kian, as well as making false statements, but he remains in Turkey. 2026
- Russians sought to recruit ‘assets’ through social media, Senate told, By Donie O’Sullivan,| CNN Business | Updated 9:14 AM ET, Mon December 17, 2018
- The Senate Intelligence Committee is set to release two reports on Monday detailing the breadth of the Russian social media campaign to sow discord in the United States.
- The reports, both of which were commissioned by the committee, are based on troves of data that Facebook, Twitter, and Google handed over to the committee about the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election and American politics generally. Much of the data has not previously been disclosed publicly.
- Researchers analyzed more than 10 million tweets, 116,000 Instagram posts, 61,000 Facebook posts and 1,000 videos posted by the Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA), the troll group indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller earlier this year.
- Recruiting ‘assets’ – CNN obtained one of the reports in advance of its release. That report was prepared by New Knowledge, a firm that tracks disinformation online. New Knowledge found that the IRA’s efforts went beyond the digital, as the group regularly tried to co-opt unsuspecting Americans to complete real-world tasks or hand over their personal information. CNN and other outlets have previously reported on some efforts like this, but others included in the New Knowledge report had not previously been made public.
- Her son was killed — then came the Russian trolls
- In one instance, through its page “Army of Jesus,” which was targeting Christians, the group offered “free counseling to people with sexual addiction,” New Knowledge found. The phony counseling service could have created an opportunity to blackmail or manipulate individuals who availed of it, the report notes.
- “Recruiting an asset by exploiting a personal vulnerability — usually a secret that would inspire shame or cause personal or financial harm if exposed — is a timeless espionage practice,” it says. New Knowledge says that it is not known whether anyone took up the offer of counseling.
- … All of the major social media platforms were used as part of the campaign …
- … “The most prolific [Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency] IRA efforts on Facebook and Instagram specially targeted Black American communities and appear to have been focused on developing Black audiences and recruiting Black Americans as assets,” the report notes. …
- … On the morning of the election, one IRA account, @racist_paul, sent “dozens of tweets harassing a variety of Jewish reporters and other (real) Twitter users with content about how Trump was ‘warming up an oven’ for them.” …
- … In the days leading up to the general election, … the [Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency] IRA began to “deploy voter suppression tactics on the black community targeted accounts, while simultaneously fear-mongering on Right-targeted accounts about voter fraud and delivering ominous warnings that the election would be stolen and violence might be necessary.” …
- The report is critical of social media companies’ cooperation with the committee.
- After reviewing the data provided by the tech giants to the committee, New Knowledge, concluded that the companies may have provided the “bare minimum” to meet the committee’s requests.
- The firm advised lawmakers that there are likely more Russian accounts that the social media companies failed to identify.
- A spokesperson for Google said the company did not have a comment on the report but pointed to steps the company has taken to combat disinformation since 2016.
- A Twitter spokesperson told CNN the company has made “significant strides” toward preventing the manipulation of its service. “Our singular focus is to improve the health of the public conversation on our platform, and protecting the integrity of elections is an important aspect of that mission,” the spokesperson said. “We’ve made significant strides since 2016 to counter manipulation of our service, which includes our release of additional data in October related to previously disclosed activities to enable further independent academic research and investigation.”
- A spokesperson for Facebook said it didn’t have a comment on the report.
- Israeli army razes home of prominent Palestinian activist – At least 56 Palestinians have been injured in the protests against the demolition, ALJAZEERA.COM | 15 Dec 2018
- The Israeli army has demolished a residential building owned by a prominent Palestinian activist, whose six sons have been imprisoned by Israel.
- The building, owned by Latifa Abu Hmeid, is located in the Amari refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
- According to an Anadolu news agency reporter based in the area, Israeli soldiers raided the camp early Saturday, surrounding the building before bringing it down in a controlled demolition.
- Before razing the four-storey structure, the army evicted dozens of journalists and solidarity activists who had been inside the building in a bid to prevent its destruction.
- Israel accused one of Abu Hmeid’s sons of killing an Israeli soldier in May.
- Protesters called the destruction a form of collective punishment.
- 3D-printed heads let hackers – and cops – unlock your phone, By Zack Whittaker (@zackwhittaker)/ COM /DEC 16, 2018 / 12 hours ago
- …You can …3D print a life-size replica of a human head — and not just for Hollywood. Forbes reporter Thomas Brewster commissioned a 3D printed model of his own head to test the face unlocking systems on a range of phones — four Android models and an iPhone X.
- Bad news if you’re an Android user: only the iPhone X defended against the attack.
- … [B]iometrics — your fingerprints and your face — aren’t protected under the Fifth Amendment. That means police can’t compel you to give up your passcode, but they can forcibly depress your fingerprint to unlock your phone, or hold it to your face while you’re looking at it. And the police know it — it happens more often than you might realize.
- But there’s also little in the way of stopping police from 3D printing or replicating a set of biometrics to break into a phone.
- “Legally, it’s no different from using fingerprints to unlock a device,” said Orin Kerr, professor at USC Gould School of Law, in an email. “The government needs to get the biometric unlocking information somehow,” by either the finger pattern shape or the head shape, he said.
- Although a warrant “wouldn’t necessarily be a requirement” to get the biometric data, one would be needed to use the data to unlock a device, he said.
- Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at the Project On Government Oversight, said it was doable but isn’t the most practical or cost-effective way for cops to get access to phone data.
- … Those cheering on the “death of the password” might want to think again. They’re still the only thing that’s keeping your data safe from the law.
- California commission finds PG&E falsified records for years, By Christina Maxouris | CNN | Updated 3:10 PM ET, Sat December 15, 2018
- (CNN)The California Public Utilities Commission may penalize one of the country’s largest utility providers after an investigation found it had been falsifying records for five years.
- The commission, tasked with regulating privately owned public utilities in the state, claims Pacific Gas & Electric Co. violated California law by failing to locate and mark their natural gas pipelines in a timely manner.
- The commission’s safety and enforcement division found PG&E pressured supervisors and other workers to falsify data so that the locating and marking work would not appear as late. The investigation also found the company did not have enough employees to regularly locate and mark natural gas pipelines.
- “Excavators, including construction crews, rely on PG&E to inform them exactly where PG&E underground natural gas infrastructure is located,” CPUC stated. “If PG&E fails to meet its legally imposed responsibilities to locate and mark the required deadline of the excavating contractor’s request, a contractor may simply commence digging despite the danger.” …
1. Obamacare (https://www.healthcare.gov/): enrollment ended 12/15.
- Beyond the 12/15 cutoff date, you can still enroll in Obamacare if you have “change-of-life” scenarios such as divorce, job change, births, etc. You can call for assistance at 800-318-2596
- CIA Confirms: Trey Gowdy Altered Documents To Frame Hillary Clinton, December 15, 2018 by Samuel Warde No Comments
- MIKE: This is a great example of the gray area between real news and fake news. Let’s call it “Delayed News”.
- This story was posted on December 15, 2018, so it’s “new”. But the headline, “CIA Confirms: Trey Gowdy Altered Documents To Frame Hillary Clinton” should begin with “CIA Confirmed”. Past tense, way past tense.
- This “new” story rehashes material from October 2015.
- It’s not that the story pretends to be new. It’s that you have to dig into it to find that it’s rehashing 3-year old news.
- I am constantly finding, and chastising for, people posting articles on Facebook and Twitter that are actual news stories, but may be 1 or more years old. So the stories themselves may be accurate ‒ and ma be worth reminding us of ‒ but they give the impression of something that recently happened that we should all get angry or excited about.
- I’m not sure when “news” becomes “history, but I am sure that it’s more than 6 months old. I would argue that more than a month old is certainly history and should be noted as such.
- Folks, when you post or link to a news story or article, post the date. It’s not only good manners, it’s accurate disclosure.
- Speaking of which, in OLD news:
- Mitt Romney says Donald Trump will change America with ‘trickle-down racism’, By Theodore Schleifer, (CNN) Updated 4:28 PM ET, Sat June 11, 2016
- Mitt Romney suggested Friday [June 9] that Donald Trump’s election could legitimize racism and misogyny, ushering in a change in the moral fabric of American society.
- The 2012 Republican nominee, who has openly opposed Trump’s candidacy, went further than he has before in outlining to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer how the country’s character would suffer in a Trump White House. Trump’s rhetoric has caused even some other Republicans to label him a racist, and Romney said he would not be able to paper over his incendiary remarks.
- ALSO: Congress Quietly Passes New Rule Allowing House Members To Hide Records From Ethics Probes: Politicians can now shield expenditures from investigations. BY Mary Papenfuss 01/10/2017 05:25 am ET
- Mitt Romney says Donald Trump will change America with ‘trickle-down racism’, By Theodore Schleifer, (CNN) Updated 4:28 PM ET, Sat June 11, 2016
- Michael Flynn’s business partner charged with illegally lobbying for Turkey, By Rachel Weiner | WASHINGTON POST |December 17 at 10:37 AM
- A former business partner of Michael Flynn is being charged with acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy for attempting to get Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen extradited from the United States.
- Bijan Kian made his first appearance in Alexandria federal court Monday morning. According to the indictment, Kian conspired with Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin to illegally lobby U.S. government officials and influence public opinion in the U.S. against Gulen.
- Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin is accused of directing and funding Kian and Flynn’s work, and then lying in U.S. filings about his role. He is charged with the same crimes as Kian, as well as making false statements, but he remains in Turkey. 2026
- Russians sought to recruit ‘assets’ through social media, Senate told, By Donie O’Sullivan,| CNN Business | Updated 9:14 AM ET, Mon December 17, 2018
- The Senate Intelligence Committee is set to release two reports on Monday detailing the breadth of the Russian social media campaign to sow discord in the United States.
- The reports, both of which were commissioned by the committee, are based on troves of data that Facebook, Twitter, and Google handed over to the committee about the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election and American politics generally. Much of the data has not previously been disclosed publicly.
- Researchers analyzed more than 10 million tweets, 116,000 Instagram posts, 61,000 Facebook posts and 1,000 videos posted by the Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA), the troll group indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller earlier this year.
- Recruiting ‘assets’ – CNN obtained one of the reports in advance of its release. That report was prepared by New Knowledge, a firm that tracks disinformation online. New Knowledge found that the IRA’s efforts went beyond the digital, as the group regularly tried to co-opt unsuspecting Americans to complete real-world tasks or hand over their personal information. CNN and other outlets have previously reported on some efforts like this, but others included in the New Knowledge report had not previously been made public.
e. f. Her son was killed — then came the Russian trolls - In one instance, through its page “Army of Jesus,” which was targeting Christians, the group offered “free counseling to people with sexual addiction,” New Knowledge found. The phony counseling service could have created an opportunity to blackmail or manipulate individuals who availed of it, the report notes.
- “Recruiting an asset by exploiting a personal vulnerability — usually a secret that would inspire shame or cause personal or financial harm if exposed — is a timeless espionage practice,” it says. New Knowledge says that it is not known whether anyone took up the offer of counseling.
- … All of the major social media platforms were used as part of the campaign …
- … “The most prolific [Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency] IRA efforts on Facebook and Instagram specially targeted Black American communities and appear to have been focused on developing Black audiences and recruiting Black Americans as assets,” the report notes. …
- … On the morning of the election, one IRA account, @racist_paul, sent “dozens of tweets harassing a variety of Jewish reporters and other (real) Twitter users with content about how Trump was ‘warming up an oven’ for them.” …
- … In the days leading up to the general election, … the [Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency] IRA began to “deploy voter suppression tactics on the black community targeted accounts, while simultaneously fear-mongering on Right-targeted accounts about voter fraud and delivering ominous warnings that the election would be stolen and violence might be necessary.” …
- The report is critical of social media companies’ cooperation with the committee.
- After reviewing the data provided by the tech giants to the committee, New Knowledge, concluded that the companies may have provided the “bare minimum” to meet the committee’s requests.
- The firm advised lawmakers that there are likely more Russian accounts that the social media companies failed to identify.
- A spokesperson for Google said the company did not have a comment on the report but pointed to steps the company has taken to combat disinformation since 2016.
- A Twitter spokesperson told CNN the company has made “significant strides” toward preventing the manipulation of its service. “Our singular focus is to improve the health of the public conversation on our platform, and protecting the integrity of elections is an important aspect of that mission,” the spokesperson said. “We’ve made significant strides since 2016 to counter manipulation of our service, which includes our release of additional data in October related to previously disclosed activities to enable further independent academic research and investigation.”
- A spokesperson for Facebook said it didn’t have a comment on the report.
- Israeli army razes home of prominent Palestinian activist – At least 56 Palestinians have been injured in the protests against the demolition, ALJAZEERA.COM | 15 Dec 2018
- The Israeli army has demolished a residential building owned by a prominent Palestinian activist, whose six sons have been imprisoned by Israel.
- The building, owned by Latifa Abu Hmeid, is located in the Amari refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
- According to an Anadolu news agency reporter based in the area, Israeli soldiers raided the camp early Saturday, surrounding the building before bringing it down in a controlled demolition.
- Before razing the four-storey structure, the army evicted dozens of journalists and solidarity activists who had been inside the building in a bid to prevent its destruction.
- Israel accused one of Abu Hmeid’s sons of killing an Israeli soldier in May.
- Protesters called the destruction a form of collective punishment.
- 3D-printed heads let hackers – and cops – unlock your phone, By Zack Whittaker (@zackwhittaker)/ COM /DEC 16, 2018 / 12 hours ago
- …You can …3D print a life-size replica of a human head — and not just for Hollywood. Forbes reporter Thomas Brewster commissioned a 3D printed model of his own head to test the face unlocking systems on a range of phones — four Android models and an iPhone X.
- Bad news if you’re an Android user: only the iPhone X defended against the attack.
- … [B]iometrics — your fingerprints and your face — aren’t protected under the Fifth Amendment. That means police can’t compel you to give up your passcode, but they can forcibly depress your fingerprint to unlock your phone, or hold it to your face while you’re looking at it. And the police know it — it happens more often than you might realize.
- But there’s also little in the way of stopping police from 3D printing or replicating a set of biometrics to break into a phone.
- “Legally, it’s no different from using fingerprints to unlock a device,” said Orin Kerr, professor at USC Gould School of Law, in an email. “The government needs to get the biometric unlocking information somehow,” by either the finger pattern shape or the head shape, he said.
- Although a warrant “wouldn’t necessarily be a requirement” to get the biometric data, one would be needed to use the data to unlock a device, he said.
- Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at the Project On Government Oversight, said it was doable but isn’t the most practical or cost-effective way for cops to get access to phone data.
- … Those cheering on the “death of the password” might want to think again. They’re still the only thing that’s keeping your data safe from the law.
- California commission finds PG&E falsified records for years, By Christina Maxouris | CNN | Updated 3:10 PM ET, Sat December 15, 2018
- (CNN)The California Public Utilities Commission may penalize one of the country’s largest utility providers after an investigation found it had been falsifying records for five years.
- The commission, tasked with regulating privately owned public utilities in the state, claims Pacific Gas & Electric Co. violated California law by failing to locate and mark their natural gas pipelines in a timely manner.
- The commission’s safety and enforcement division found PG&E pressured supervisors and other workers to falsify data so that the locating and marking work would not appear as late. The investigation also found the company did not have enough employees to regularly locate and mark natural gas pipelines.
- “Excavators, including construction crews, rely on PG&E to inform them exactly where PG&E underground natural gas infrastructure is located,” CPUC stated. “If PG&E fails to meet its legally imposed responsibilities to locate and mark the required deadline of the excavating contractor’s request, a contractor may simply commence digging despite the danger.” …
1. Obamacare (https://www.healthcare.gov/): enrollment ended 12/15.
- Beyond the 12/15 cutoff date, you can still enroll in Obamacare if you have “change-of-life” scenarios such as divorce, job change, births, etc. You can call for assistance at 800-318-2596
- CIA Confirms: Trey Gowdy Altered Documents To Frame Hillary Clinton, December 15, 2018 by Samuel Warde No Comments
- MIKE: This is a great example of the gray area between real news and fake news. Let’s call it “Delayed News”.
- This story was posted on December 15, 2018, so it’s “new”. But the headline, “CIA Confirms: Trey Gowdy Altered Documents To Frame Hillary Clinton” should begin with “CIA Confirmed”. Past tense, way past tense.
- This “new” story rehashes material from October 2015.
- It’s not that the story pretends to be new. It’s that you have to dig into it to find that it’s rehashing 3-year old news.
- I am constantly finding, and chastising for, people posting articles on Facebook and Twitter that are actual news stories, but may be 1 or more years old. So the stories themselves may be accurate ‒ and ma be worth reminding us of ‒ but they give the impression of something that recently happened that we should all get angry or excited about.
- I’m not sure when “news” becomes “history, but I am sure that it’s more than 6 months old. I would argue that more than a month old is certainly history and should be noted as such.
- Folks, when you post or link to a news story or article, post the date. It’s not only good manners, it’s accurate disclosure.
- Speaking of which, in OLD news:
- Mitt Romney says Donald Trump will change America with ‘trickle-down racism’, By Theodore Schleifer, (CNN) Updated 4:28 PM ET, Sat June 11, 2016
- Mitt Romney suggested Friday [June 9] that Donald Trump’s election could legitimize racism and misogyny, ushering in a change in the moral fabric of American society.
- The 2012 Republican nominee, who has openly opposed Trump’s candidacy, went further than he has before in outlining to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer how the country’s character would suffer in a Trump White House. Trump’s rhetoric has caused even some other Republicans to label him a racist, and Romney said he would not be able to paper over his incendiary remarks.
- ALSO: Congress Quietly Passes New Rule Allowing House Members To Hide Records From Ethics Probes: Politicians can now shield expenditures from investigations. BY Mary Papenfuss 01/10/2017 05:25 am ET
- Mitt Romney says Donald Trump will change America with ‘trickle-down racism’, By Theodore Schleifer, (CNN) Updated 4:28 PM ET, Sat June 11, 2016
- Michael Flynn’s business partner charged with illegally lobbying for Turkey, By Rachel Weiner | WASHINGTON POST |December 17 at 10:37 AM
- A former business partner of Michael Flynn is being charged with acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy for attempting to get Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen extradited from the United States.
- Bijan Kian made his first appearance in Alexandria federal court Monday morning. According to the indictment, Kian conspired with Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin to illegally lobby U.S. government officials and influence public opinion in the U.S. against Gulen.
- Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin is accused of directing and funding Kian and Flynn’s work, and then lying in U.S. filings about his role. He is charged with the same crimes as Kian, as well as making false statements, but he remains in Turkey. 2026
- Russians sought to recruit ‘assets’ through social media, Senate told, By Donie O’Sullivan,| CNN Business | Updated 9:14 AM ET, Mon December 17, 2018
- The Senate Intelligence Committee is set to release two reports on Monday detailing the breadth of the Russian social media campaign to sow discord in the United States.
- The reports, both of which were commissioned by the committee, are based on troves of data that Facebook, Twitter, and Google handed over to the committee about the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election and American politics generally. Much of the data has not previously been disclosed publicly.
- Researchers analyzed more than 10 million tweets, 116,000 Instagram posts, 61,000 Facebook posts and 1,000 videos posted by the Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA), the troll group indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller earlier this year.
- Recruiting ‘assets’ – CNN obtained one of the reports in advance of its release. That report was prepared by New Knowledge, a firm that tracks disinformation online. New Knowledge found that the IRA’s efforts went beyond the digital, as the group regularly tried to co-opt unsuspecting Americans to complete real-world tasks or hand over their personal information. CNN and other outlets have previously reported on some efforts like this, but others included in the New Knowledge report had not previously been made public.
e. f. Her son was killed — then came the Russian trolls - In one instance, through its page “Army of Jesus,” which was targeting Christians, the group offered “free counseling to people with sexual addiction,” New Knowledge found. The phony counseling service could have created an opportunity to blackmail or manipulate individuals who availed of it, the report notes.
- “Recruiting an asset by exploiting a personal vulnerability — usually a secret that would inspire shame or cause personal or financial harm if exposed — is a timeless espionage practice,” it says. New Knowledge says that it is not known whether anyone took up the offer of counseling.
- … All of the major social media platforms were used as part of the campaign …
- … “The most prolific [Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency] IRA efforts on Facebook and Instagram specially targeted Black American communities and appear to have been focused on developing Black audiences and recruiting Black Americans as assets,” the report notes. …
- … On the morning of the election, one IRA account, @racist_paul, sent “dozens of tweets harassing a variety of Jewish reporters and other (real) Twitter users with content about how Trump was ‘warming up an oven’ for them.” …
- … In the days leading up to the general election, … the [Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency] IRA began to “deploy voter suppression tactics on the black community targeted accounts, while simultaneously fear-mongering on Right-targeted accounts about voter fraud and delivering ominous warnings that the election would be stolen and violence might be necessary.” …
- The report is critical of social media companies’ cooperation with the committee.
- After reviewing the data provided by the tech giants to the committee, New Knowledge, concluded that the companies may have provided the “bare minimum” to meet the committee’s requests.
- The firm advised lawmakers that there are likely more Russian accounts that the social media companies failed to identify.
- A spokesperson for Google said the company did not have a comment on the report but pointed to steps the company has taken to combat disinformation since 2016.
- A Twitter spokesperson told CNN the company has made “significant strides” toward preventing the manipulation of its service. “Our singular focus is to improve the health of the public conversation on our platform, and protecting the integrity of elections is an important aspect of that mission,” the spokesperson said. “We’ve made significant strides since 2016 to counter manipulation of our service, which includes our release of additional data in October related to previously disclosed activities to enable further independent academic research and investigation.”
- A spokesperson for Facebook said it didn’t have a comment on the report.
- Israeli army razes home of prominent Palestinian activist – At least 56 Palestinians have been injured in the protests against the demolition, ALJAZEERA.COM | 15 Dec 2018
- The Israeli army has demolished a residential building owned by a prominent Palestinian activist, whose six sons have been imprisoned by Israel.
- The building, owned by Latifa Abu Hmeid, is located in the Amari refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
- According to an Anadolu news agency reporter based in the area, Israeli soldiers raided the camp early Saturday, surrounding the building before bringing it down in a controlled demolition.
- Before razing the four-storey structure, the army evicted dozens of journalists and solidarity activists who had been inside the building in a bid to prevent its destruction.
- Israel accused one of Abu Hmeid’s sons of killing an Israeli soldier in May.
- Protesters called the destruction a form of collective punishment.
- 3D-printed heads let hackers – and cops – unlock your phone, By Zack Whittaker (@zackwhittaker)/ COM /DEC 16, 2018 / 12 hours ago
- …You can …3D print a life-size replica of a human head — and not just for Hollywood. Forbes reporter Thomas Brewster commissioned a 3D printed model of his own head to test the face unlocking systems on a range of phones — four Android models and an iPhone X.
- Bad news if you’re an Android user: only the iPhone X defended against the attack.
- … [B]iometrics — your fingerprints and your face — aren’t protected under the Fifth Amendment. That means police can’t compel you to give up your passcode, but they can forcibly depress your fingerprint to unlock your phone, or hold it to your face while you’re looking at it. And the police know it — it happens more often than you might realize.
- But there’s also little in the way of stopping police from 3D printing or replicating a set of biometrics to break into a phone.
- “Legally, it’s no different from using fingerprints to unlock a device,” said Orin Kerr, professor at USC Gould School of Law, in an email. “The government needs to get the biometric unlocking information somehow,” by either the finger pattern shape or the head shape, he said.
- Although a warrant “wouldn’t necessarily be a requirement” to get the biometric data, one would be needed to use the data to unlock a device, he said.
- Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at the Project On Government Oversight, said it was doable but isn’t the most practical or cost-effective way for cops to get access to phone data.
- … Those cheering on the “death of the password” might want to think again. They’re still the only thing that’s keeping your data safe from the law.
- California commission finds PG&E falsified records for years, By Christina Maxouris | CNN | Updated 3:10 PM ET, Sat December 15, 2018
- (CNN)The California Public Utilities Commission may penalize one of the country’s largest utility providers after an investigation found it had been falsifying records for five years.
- The commission, tasked with regulating privately owned public utilities in the state, claims Pacific Gas & Electric Co. violated California law by failing to locate and mark their natural gas pipelines in a timely manner.
- The commission’s safety and enforcement division found PG&E pressured supervisors and other workers to falsify data so that the locating and marking work would not appear as late. The investigation also found the company did not have enough employees to regularly locate and mark natural gas pipelines.
- “Excavators, including construction crews, rely on PG&E to inform them exactly where PG&E underground natural gas infrastructure is located,” CPUC stated. “If PG&E fails to meet its legally imposed responsibilities to locate and mark the required deadline of the excavating contractor’s request, a contractor may simply commence digging despite the danger.” …
- Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not – S. unemployment is down and jobs are going unfilled. But for people without much education, the real question is: Do those jobs pay enough to live on?, By Matthew Desmond |NY Times | Sept. 11, 2018
- … These days, we’re told that the American economy is strong. Unemployment is down, the Dow Jones industrial average is north of 25,000 and millions of jobs are going unfilled. But for people like Vanessa, the question is not, Can I land a job? (The answer is almost certainly, Yes, you can.) Instead the question is, What kinds of jobs are available to people without much education? By and large, the answer is: jobs that do not pay enough to live on.
- In recent decades, the nation’s tremendous economic growth has not led to broad social uplift. Economists call it the “productivity-pay gap” — the fact that over the last 40 years, the economy has expanded and corporate profits have risen, but real wages have remained flat for workers without a college education. Since 1973, American productivity has increased by 77 percent, while hourly pay has grown by only 12 percent. If the federal minimum wage tracked productivity, it would be more than $20 an hour, not today’s poverty wage of $7.25.
- American workers are being shut out of the profits they are helping to generate. The decline of unions is a big reason. During the 20th century, inequality in America decreased when unionization increased, but economic transformations and political attacks have crippled organized labor, emboldening corporate interests and disempowering the rank and file. This imbalanced economy explains why America’s poverty rate has remained consistent over the past several decades, even as per capita welfare spending has increased. It’s not that safety-net programs don’t help; on the contrary, they lift millions of families above the poverty line each year. But one of the most effective antipoverty solutions is a decent-paying job, and those have become scarce for people like Vanessa. Today, 41.7 million laborers — nearly a third of the American work force — earn less than $12 an hour, and almost none of their employers offer health insurance.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines a “working poor” person as someone below the poverty line who spent at least half the year either working or looking for employment. In 2016, there were roughly 7.6 million Americans who fell into this category. Most working poor people are over 35, while fewer than five in 100 are between the ages of 16 and 19. In other words, the working poor are not primarily teenagers bagging groceries or scooping ice cream in paper hats. They are adults — and often parents — wiping down hotel showers and toilets, taking food orders and bussing tables, eviscerating chickens at meat-processing plants, minding children at 24-hour day care centers, picking berries, emptying trash cans, stacking grocery shelves at midnight, driving taxis and Ubers, answering customer-service hotlines, smoothing hot asphalt on freeways, teaching community-college students as adjunct professors and, yes, bagging groceries and scooping ice cream in paper hats.
- Americans often assume that the poor do not work. According to a 2016 survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, nearly two-thirds of respondents did not think most poor people held a steady job; in reality, that year a majority of nondisabled working-age adults were part of the labor force. Slightly over one-third of respondents in the survey believed that most welfare recipients would prefer to stay on welfare rather than earn a living. These sorts of assumptions about the poor are an American phenomenon. A 2013 study by the sociologist Ofer Sharone found that unemployed workers in the United States blame themselves, while unemployed workers in Israel blame the hiring system. When Americans see a homeless man cocooned in blankets, we often wonder how he failed. When the French see the same man, they wonder how the state failed him.
- Researchers set out to study welfare dependency in the 1980s and 1990s, when this issue dominated public debate. They didn’t find much evidence of it. Most people started using cash welfare after a divorce or separation and didn’t stay long on the dole, even if they returned to welfare periodically. One study found that 90 percent of young women on welfare stopped relying on it within two years of starting the program, but most of them returned to welfare sometime down the road. Even at its peak, welfare did not function as a dependency trap for a majority of recipients; rather, it was something people relied on when they were between jobs or after a family crisis. A 1988 review in Science concluded that “the welfare system does not foster reliance on welfare so much as it acts as insurance against temporary misfortune.”
- Nearly 10 percent of Texans displaced by Harvey still haven’t gone home, survey says, by Brandon Formby – Meanwhile, 15 percent of homes damaged or destroyed by the storm are still unlivable. Yet FEMA and Texas officials aren’t keeping track of how many people remain displaced one year later, by Brandon Formby 23, 20182 AM | TexasTribune | Aug. 23, 2018
- One year after Hurricane Harvey slammed the Texas coast, 8 percent of the people impacted by the disaster have not been able to return to their homes, according to a report from two nonprofits that surveyed Texans about how the storm affected their finances, health and living conditions.
- Fifteen percent of the hundreds of thousands of homes damaged by the storm are still unlivable. And of the 1,651 people from 24 counties who answered the survey, 30 percent of those impacted by the storm said their lives are still “somewhat” or “very” disrupted by the devastating storm’s lingering damage….
- Some Bacteria Are Becoming ‘More Tolerant’ Of Hand Sanitizers, Study Finds, By Melody Schreiber [NPR.org] August 2, 20184:22 PM ET
- In the early 2000s, hospitals across Australia began installing more hand-sanitizer dispensers in their rooms and hallways for staff, visitors and patients to use. Research showed these alcohol-based disinfectants helped battle staph infections in patients and certain kinds of drug-resistant bacteria. And rates of these infections went down.
- But other infections didn’t drop when people started using the sanitizer stations. In fact, certain infections went up.
- In the early 2000s, hospitals across Australia began installing more hand-sanitizer dispensers in their rooms and hallways for staff, visitors and patients to use. Research showed these alcohol-based disinfectants helped battle staph infections in patients and certain kinds of drug-resistant bacteria. And rates of these infections went down.
- But other infections didn’t drop when people started using the sanitizer stations. In fact, certain infections went up.
- In particular, enterococcal infections — caused by bacteria that affect the digestive tract, bladder, heart and other parts of the body — started increasing.
- This wasn’t only happening in Australia. Countries around the world saw rises in this type of infection even as hand sanitizer became more popular. Globally, enterococci make up ten percent of bacterial infections acquired in the hospital. In North America and Europe, they are a leading cause of sepsis, a deadly blood infection.
- Now, researchers say, they may have found the cause. Blame it on the alcohol.
- New research published by Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday shows that several strains of these bacteria have begun adjusting to alcohol-based hand sanitizers. They’re not resistant to the alcohol — at least, not yet — but they’re becoming “more tolerant” of it, the authors write. That means the bacteria were able to survive for longer periods of time after being doused with alcohol.
- The researchers used different strengths of alcohol concentrations to combat the bacteria, starting with 23 percent. Eventually, at a 70-percent alcohol mixture, the bacteria were conquered. Typically, hand sanitizers are 60 percent alcohol.
- To make matters worse, many of these alcohol-tolerant bacteria are resistant to multiple drugs as well. Half of the strains the researchers studied cannot be treated with vancomycin, a last-line antibiotic. That means the bacteria are spreading more easily within hospitals, and there aren’t many options for treatment.
- The researchers were surprised by their findings.
- “To our knowledge this was the first time anyone had shown hospital bacteria becoming tolerant to alcohols,” says Timothy Stinear, a coauthor of the study and a researcher at the University of Melbourne’s Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. …
- … Health-care institutions trying to control the spread of these infections will need to “adhere rigorously to hand-hygiene protocols,” Stinear says — and probably institute additional measures to stop the spread, such as increased hand-washing with soap after coming into contact with the bacteria. …
- … Lance Price, a professor at the George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health and the founding director of GW’s Antibiotic Resistance Action Center, was also surprised by the findings. … “If you’re washing your hands less because that alcohol-based hand sanitizer makes you feel confident that your hands are clean,” Price says, “all of a sudden you can become a vehicle for alcohol-resistant organisms.”
- The research is still clear that alcohol-based hand sanitizers are more effective at battling some bacteria, like those causing staph infections. However, this study indicates that other bacteria are best cleaned off with simple soap and water.
- “It’s the physical action of lifting and moving them off your skin, and letting them run down the drain,” Price says.
- “We have to be careful about this new trend towards heavy reliance on alcohol-based hand sanitizers,” Price continues. “Soap and water should be our number-one protection” — both in hospitals and for personal use….
TOPICS FROM PREVIOUS WEEKS:
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- Are Stock Buybacks Starving the Economy? A new report finds that big companies could have given their workers thousands of dollars’ worth of raises with the money they spent on their own shares, By Annie Lowrey [THEATLANTIC.com] Jul 31, 2018
- Stock buybacks are eating the world. The once illegal practice of companies purchasing their own shares is pulling money away from employee compensation, research and development, and other corporate priorities—with potentially sweeping effects on business dynamism, income and wealth inequality, working-class economic stagnation, and the country’s growth rate. Evidence for that conclusion comes from a new report by Irene Tung of the National Employment Law Project (NELP) and Katy Milani of the Roosevelt Institute, who looked at share buybacks in the restaurant, retail, and food industries from 2015 to 2017.
- Their new paper contributes to a growing body of research that might help explain why economic growth is so sluggish, productivity so low, and increases in worker compensation so piddling, even as the stock market is surging and corporate profits are at historical highs. Companies are working overtime to make their owners richer in the short term, more so than to improve their longer-term competitiveness or to invest in their workers.
- Buybacks occur when a company takes profits, cash reserves, or borrowed money to purchase its own shares on the public markets, a practice barred until the Ronald Reagan administration. (The regulatory argument against allowing the practice is that it is a way for companies to manipulate the markets; the regulatory argument for it is that companies should be able to spend money how they see fit.) In recent years, with corporate profits high, American firms have bought their own stocks with extraordinary zeal. Federal Reserve data show that buybacks are now equivalent to 4 percent of annual economic output, up from zero percent in the 1990s. Companies spent roughly $7 trillion on their own shares from 2004 to 2014, and have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on buybacks in the past six months alone. …
- … How much might workers have benefited if companies had devoted their financial resources to them rather than to shareholders? Lowe’s, CVS, and Home Depot could have provided each of their workers a raise of $18,000 a year, the report found. Starbucks could have given each of its employees $7,000 a year, and McDonald’s could have given $4,000 to each of its nearly 2 million employees.
- “Workers around the country have been pushing for higher wages, but the answer is always, ‘We can’t afford it. We’d have to do layoffs or raise prices,’” Tung said. “That is just not true. The money is there. It’s just getting siphoned out of the company instead of reinvested into it.”
- The report examines the period just before President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut came into effect, leading to an even greater surge of buybacks …
- … What did publicly traded corporations do with that money? Buy back shares and issue dividends, mostly. …
- … more and more analysts disagree. Larry Fink, who runs BlackRock, a huge money-management firm, has argued that buybacks are bad for companies and even bad for democracy. “Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose,” he wrote in an open letter. “To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society. Companies must benefit all of their stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the communities in which they operate.”
- Facebook’s 20% Stock Implosion Signalled By Insider Selling, But Is It A Buy Now?, by Roger Aitken Contributor [FORBES.cpm] Jul 28, 2018, 04:16pm
- … In becoming the biggest-ever one-day wipeout in U.S. stockmarket history, Facebook’s stockmarket value recovered somewhat, but still declined by 19% to around $120 billion. In so doing, the personal wealth of Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of the social networking site, tanked by almost $16 billion over stalling growth. Some analysts described it as a “bombshell” moment and the earnings news caused immediate waves of selling on Wall Street. …
- … “I think we were all caught off guard by the extent of the move. However, investors should really have seen something like this coming as insiders at Facebook have been selling shares heavily in recent months,” remarked Neil Wilson, Chief Market Analyst at Markets.com in London in the wake of the earnings release.
- Indeed, over the last three months alone insiders – including Mark Zuckerberg – have sold off $3.8 billion worth of stock in the company. …
- MIKE: But why isn’t the insider selling for months prior to the crash discussed more in the article?
- Are Stock Buybacks Starving the Economy? A new report finds that big companies could have given their workers thousands of dollars’ worth of raises with the money they spent on their own shares, By Annie Lowrey [THEATLANTIC.com] Jul 31, 2018
- New Drug Wipes Out Malaria In A Single Dose — But There’s One Hitch, by Michaeleen Doucleff [NPR.org] July 26, 20181:02 PM ET
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- The world now has a potent, new weapon against malaria — one that can wipe out the parasite from a person’s body with a single dose.
- But before many people around the world can use it, scientists have to overcome a big obstacle. …
- … In certain people, tafenoquine can cause red blood cells to burst open and die. As a result, people can become anemic, and in some instances, this can be lethal.
- Here in the U.S., there is a lab test available to see which people will respond poorly to Krintafel. It’s called a “G6PD” test. The FDA and the World Health Organization require a health care worker to give this test before prescribing tafenoquine or other similar drugs.
- Right now, this test requires expensive machinery and a high level of expertise to run it, Domingo says.
- “It requires the kind of laboratory facilities that are not available where most people with malaria seek care,” he says.
- But Domingo and his colleagues are trying to change that. Over the past few years, several companies and nonprofits have been working together to develop an affordable, easy-to-use test that runs off a battery. …
- … In terms of cost, GlaxoSmithKline and Medicines for Malaria Venture say it’s too early to say how much tafenoquine will cost in poor countries.
- “[We] are committed to making tafenoquine accessible and affordable on a not-for-profit basis to those who need it most,” a spokesperson for GlaxoSmithKline wrote in an email to NPR. “A shared goal is for the cost of tafenoquine not to be a barrier to access.”
- Meteor Explodes with 2.1 Kilotons of Force 25 Miles Above US Air Force Base in Greenland, By Jack Phillips [TheEPOCHTIMES.COM] August 3, 2018 Last Updated: August 3, 2018
- A meteor exploded with 2.1 kilotons of force above a U.S. Air Force base in July, but the military has made no mention of the event, according to reports.
- NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that a meteor exploded 26 miles above U.S. Air Base Thule on July 25. It was detected by … the early missile warning radar at Thule Air Base, The Aviationist reported on Aug. 3.
- The Aviationist’s Tom Demerly, … reported on the incident, [and] wrote in an analysis that it’s concerning because there was no public warning from the U.S. government about the meteor blast. “Had it entered at a more perpendicular angle, it would have struck the earth with significantly greater force,” he wrote.
- [As of August 3,] The Air Force has remained silent about the incident.
- Typhus making comeback in Texas, By Todd Ackerman | August 3, 2017, Updated: August 3, 2017 10:20pm
- … Between 2003 and 2013, typhus increased tenfold in Texas and spread from nine counties to 41, according to Baylor College of Medicine researchers. The numbers have increased since then.
- Harris County, which reported no cases before 2007, had 32 cases in 2016, double the previous years’ numbers. Researchers do not know why the numbers are increasing. …
- … the infection is severe enough that 60 percent of people who contracted the infection during the 10-year period had to be hospitalized. Four died, one in Houston.
- “We can now add typhus to the growing list of tropical infections striking Texas,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor and Texas Children’s Hospital, “Chagas, dengue fever, Zika, chikungunya and now typhus – tropical diseases have become the new normal in south and southeast Texas.” …
- California’s future: More big droughts and massive floods, new study finds, By Paul Rogers | progers@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group [mercurynews.com] PUBLISHED: April 23, 2018 at 8:00 am | UPDATED: April 23, 2018 at 9:18 am
- The extreme weather swings that Californians have experienced over the past six years — a historic drought followed by drenching winter storms that caused $100 million in damage to San Jose and wrecked the spillway at Oroville Dam — will become the norm over the coming generations, a new study has found.
- Those types of extremes are not new, but because of climate change, they can be expected to occur more frequently, as hotter global temperatures and warming oceans are putting more water vapor into the air, concluded the study, which was published Monday in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change.
- And perhaps most ominous, the odds are rising that a mega-storm — like the one that famously flooded California in 1862, forcing Leland Stanford to take a rowboat through the streets of Sacramento to his inauguration as governor — will strike again. Such a storm “is more likely than not” to hit the state at least once in the next 40 years and twice in the next 80, the study found. The 1862 event, the largest recorded flood in California history, saw 43 days of continuous rainfall that washed whole towns away and forced the state capital to be temporarily moved to San Francisco.
- Trump’s ‘emoluments’ battle: How a scholar’s search of 200 years of dictionaries helped win a historic ruling, by Fred Barbash July 27 at 10:31 AM Email the author
- … John Mikhail, a law professor with a PhD in philosophy and associate dean at the Georgetown University Law School … went to dictionaries available to the framers of the Constitution in 1787, which is what litigants do when trying to figure out what the Founding Fathers meant.
- With the aid of a Georgetown law student, Genevieve Bentz, he embarked on a lexicological odyssey into dozens of long-forgotten dictionaries, published over a 200-year period before 1806, 40 regular dictionaries and 10 legal dictionaries, listed here.
- The research yielded a very different, much broader definition than that put forward by Trump’s lawyers. “Every English dictionary definition of ’emolument’ from 1604 to 1806″ uses a “broad definition,” including “profit,” “advantage,” “gain,” or benefit,” he wrote in his paper describing the research.
- As to the “office-and-employment-specific” interpretation by Trump’s team, Mikhail wrote that “over 92 percent of these dictionaries define ’emolument’ . . . with no reference to ‘office’ or ’employment.’ ”
- In other words, by his research, the emoluments clause would bar any benefit or profit to a president via a foreign state, whether in his capacity as president or in any other role, such as the owner of a hotel. It would, specifically, cover Saudi Arabia or Kuwait renting out space at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.
- … On Wednesday [July 18], Mikhail’s labors paid off. In a historic decision, U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte in Greenbelt, Md., ruled that a suit brought by the District of Columbia and Maryland could go forward instead of throwing it out, as the administration desired.
- Messitte cited, in part, what he called the “exhaustive” research of Mikhail, mentioning him by name 17 times.
- And while citing numerous other factors, the judge’s choice of definition proved crucial to the ruling, the first on the meaning of the Constitution’s emoluments clauses. (There are two, one covering domestic gain, the other foreign.)
- The judge noted that Mikhail’s dictionary research was more extensive than that of the president’s lawyers, covering “virtually every founding-era dictionary.” Citing Mikhail again, Messitte said, “the President’s definition appears in less than 8% of these dictionaries” vs. 92 percent for the broader meaning.
- “The clear weight of the evidence,” wrote the judge, “shows that an ’emolument’ was commonly understood by the founding generation to encompass any ‘profit,’ ‘gain,’ or ‘advantage.’ …
- TV Talk:
- “The Good Place”
- “The Orville”
- “Adam Ruins Everything”
LINKS:
SOURCES WHICH MAY BE RELEVANT TO OTHER DISCUSSION:
- Global Warming: When the scientists and media talk about a 1-2o degree change in global temperature, it’s rarely if ever noted that they’re talking Centigrade. Most Americans don’t intellectually or viscerally understand what that means.
- In the US, we need to talk about global temperature increases of 2-4o Fahrenheit
- Americans understand just how uncomfortable 2-4oF can be when they set a thermostat.
- Op-Ed: Texans should be wary of bullet train proposal, By Alain Leray – Guest Contributor, Mar 22, 2018, 12:27pm –
- This opinion piece was written by Alain Leray, president and CEO of SNCF America Inc., which is France’s national state-owned railway company
- Amtrak partners with Texas Bullet Train for ticketing, access to national routes, By Dallas Business Journal staff, May 4, 2018, 1:09pm
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