Monthly Archives: May 2022

Once Again Kowtowing

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Microsoft is censoring from its search engine Bing—in the US—names of People’s Republic of China personnel that the PRC government doesn’t want easily searched on.

Bing’s autofill system, which offers guesses on what users are searching for after a few keystrokes, often fell silent in connection to names the Chinese government deems sensitive, Citizen Lab said in the report Thursday.

And

Citizen Lab found that in tests late last year, Bing wouldn’t surface autofill suggestions for search terms of the names of Chinese political dissidents and party leaders. Names—including those of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the deceased human-rights activist Liu Xiaobo—wouldn’t appear in the autofill system in English or Chinese.
“We consistently found that Bing censors politically sensitive Chinese names,” the report said.

A carefully anonymous Microsoft spokeswoman laid this censorship off to “technical error,” “a misconfiguration.”

If that’s true, what is Microsoft doing about their software testing personnel who failed to test this adequately?

This, though, isn’t Microsoft’s first “error” regarding censorship. They’ve been caught a number of times in such “configuration errors.”

Last year, on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, US-based searches on Bing for images and videos of “Tank Man”—a man who stood in front of a column of tanks following the massacre—didn’t show any results.

Of course, that was a technical error. But where were Microsoft’s software testers?

On the other hand, does our government really need to be contracting business with a nominally American enterprise that engages in such un-American behavior?

Don’t Let the Door…

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The Communist Party of China is instructing PRC senior government officials to not own foreign assets.

China’s Communist Party will block promotions for senior cadres whose spouses or children hold significant assets abroad, people familiar with the matter said, as Beijing seeks to insulate its top officials from the types of sanctions now being directed at Russia.
…
Senior officials and members of their immediate families would also be barred from setting up accounts with overseas financial institutions unless they have legitimate reasons for doing so—such as study or work—the people said.

Now the CPC just needs to extend the directive to PRC business enterprises.

…hit you in the fanny on the way out.

Jokes

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Because it’s Friday.

After attempting to climb Everest and failing, John has severe frostbite, hypothermia, and goes into a coma.
After a lengthy and dangerous mountaintop rescue, he’s rushed to the nearest hospital, where after several days he finally wakes and is greeted by the Nepalese doctor.
Sir, I have bad news and good news. John, ever the optimist asks for the good news first.
Okay, the good news is the patient in the next bed has offered you a very generous amount for your slippers…

There was a man in Bulgaria who drove trains for a living.
He loved his job. Driving a train had been his dream ever since he was a child. He loved to make the train go as fast as possible. Unfortunately, one day he was a little too reckless and caused a crash. He made it out, but a single person died. Well, needless to say, he went to court over this incident. He was found guilty, and was sentenced to death by electrocution. When the day of the execution came, he requested a single banana as his last meal. After eating the banana, he was strapped into the electric chair. The switch was flown, sparks flew, and smoke filled the air—but nothing happened. The man was perfectly fine.
Well, at the time, there was an old Bulgarian law that said a failed execution was a sign of divine intervention, so the man was allowed to go free. Somehow, he managed to get his old job back driving the train. Having not learned his lesson at all, he went right back to driving the train with reckless abandon. Once again, he caused a train to crash, this time killing two people. The trial went much the same as the first, resulting in a sentence of execution. For his final meal, the man requested two bananas. After eating the bananas, he was strapped into the electric chair. The switch was thrown, sparks flew, smoke filled the room—and the man was once again unharmed.
Well, this of course meant that he was free to go. And once again, he somehow managed to get his old job back.
To what should have been the surprise of no one, he crashed yet another train and killed three people. And so he once again found himself being sentenced to death. On the day of his execution, he requested his final meal: three bananas.
“You know what? No,” said the executioner. “I’ve had it with you and your stupid bananas and walking out of here unharmed. I’m not giving you a thing to eat; we’re strapping you in and doing this now.” Well, it was against protocol, but the man was strapped in to the electric chair without a last meal. The switch was pulled, sparks flew, smoke filled the room—and the man was still unharmed. The executioner was speechless.
The man looked at the executioner and said, “Oh, the bananas had nothing to do with it. I’m just a bad conductor.”

A Frenchman walks into a bar with a cat on his shoulder.
The cat is wearing a little baseball cap. “Hey, that’s neat,” says the bartender. “Where did you get that?”
“France,” the kitty says. “They’ve got millions of them!”

And finally,

Q. There were two elephants under one umbrella, why didn’t they get wet?
A. It wasn’t raining.

Q: How is an elephant like an apricot?
A: They are both gray. Well, except the apricot.

What Is Gender?

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The Left and their Progressive-Democratic Party won’t say, as demonstrated in Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee on abortion rights.

Congressman Dan Bishop (R, NC) asked Dr Yashica Robinson, OBGYN and Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives Medical Director, to define “woman.” She chose not to, saying instead

I think it’s important that we educate people like you about why we’re doing the things that we do. And so the reason that I use she and her pronouns is because I understand that there are people who become pregnant that may not identify that way. And I think it is discriminatory to speak to people or to call them in such a way as they desire not to be called.
…
That’s as comprehensive a definition as I will give you today[.]

Then Bishop asked Aimee Arrambide, Avow Texas Executive Director to define what a woman is. She responded

I believe that everyone can identify for themselves.

When he asked whether men could get pregnant and get abortions, Arrambide was unequivocal.

Yes.

It’s not just these two radicals who are typical of what the Center Left has become, either. President Joe Biden (D), in his budget proposal for this year,

replaced the word “mothers” [with] “birthing people[.]”

Congresswoman Cori Bush (D, MO) also says mothers are birthing people. Apple Inc even has pushed a brand new pregnant man emoji on us.

So, what is a woman? What is gender? They’re whatever, man. That is, whatever, woman. Or something. Or just, whatever.

Still Waiting

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President Joe Biden (D), ‘way last summer, in the middle of his panicky running out of Afghanistan, promised those Afghanis who had worked with the US and with US forces there over the preceding 20 years that they would find welcome in the US.

He lied.

Afghan citizens who worked with the US are still waiting in third-party countries for their promised American visas eight months after leaving Afghanistan.

And this from Biden’s State Department:

After taking office, we worked to reduce the processing time for SIV [Special Immigrant Visa] eligible Afghans, while keeping in place our robust security and medical screening processes[.]

Eight months. Vetting certainly needs to be done thoroughly, but there’s no reason to dither about it. These folks already have been vetted to a considerable degree over those years that they had worked with/for us.

This is just more of Biden’s betrayal of those who helped us.