More Censorship in the Offing

Posted on 25 January 2020 by eehines

Amazon and YouTube are two companies peddling streamed videos, and they’re looking at “filtering” certain content.

An (unidentified) Amazon spokeswoman says

We continuously review and monitor titles to ensure that they are in accordance with our policies and guidelines. If content is identified as not meeting those standards, it is immediately removed.

YouTube, also:

[A] self-avowed creature of user-generated video, also has faced the challenge of policing objectionable content on its site.

Policing objectionable content.

Indeed.

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The Contempt of the Left

Posted on 21 January 2020 by eehines

Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden says it’s time to start censoring private enterprise eliminate protections for tech platforms that publish user posts [emphasis added].

“Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one,” Biden said in the interview, which was published on Friday.
The law, which was enacted in 1996 as part of the Communications Decency Act, gives websites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter broad legal immunity—essentially, it eliminates the possibility of legal consequences over what their users post. The statute was created to protect free speech on the internet.

Biden went further:

This is a preview of The Contempt of the Left. Read the full post (304 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

Impeachment

Posted on 20 January 2020 by eehines

Now the House Progressive-Democrats have deigned deliver their Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, and the Senate’s trial will begin in earnest (the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has been sworn in, and the Senators have been sworn in) tomorrow right after lunch Eastern Time. There remains speculation about whether the Senate will call additional witnesses in the course of the trial or whether the Senate should simply dismiss the case.

The matter seems clear to my august self.

This is a preview of Impeachment. Read the full post (264 words, estimated 1:03 mins reading time)

Privacy and DoJ

Posted on 17 January 2020 by eehines

I don’t often disagree with Attorney General Bill Barr, but on this I most certainly do.

Attorney General William Barr demanded Monday that Apple help the US government unlock two iPhones in its terror investigation of the Saudi air cadet who last month killed three sailors at a Navy training base in Pensacola, Florida. “This situation perfectly illustrates why it is critical that the public be able to get access to digital evidence,” Mr Barr said.

“The public,” not “the government” or “the police investigators.” Now, it’s clear that Barr could have been speaking metaphorically in this, so I’ll not pursue this aspect beyond pointing out the possibility of misunderstanding or of misplaced priority.

This is a preview of Privacy and DoJ. Read the full post (342 words, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

Climate Modeling

Posted on 15 January 2020 by eehines

Readers here have known of my long-standing disdain for climatistas’ climate modeling skills: their models cannot simultaneously predict our past and our present, and their predictions of our future have wildly exaggerated for the last 20 years, and counting. NASA (yes, an agency that has been caught altering past temperature data to “true up” current temperature change) also has commented on the matter.

Working from cloud modeling and clouds’ effect on climate change, NASA noted that [emphasis in the article]

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Private Charity

Posted on 13 January 2020 by eehines

Readers of this blog know that I’ve long championed private charity as better suited to working our social ills than Government welfare—better economically, better for individual liberty, better for personal responsibility/morality.

Karl Zinsmeister, Editor in Chief of Philanthropy Magazine, offered some ways in which this is shown empirically to be true in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, which was adapted from his piece in the magazine’s winter 2020 issue. One statistic that jumped out at me is this one:

77 million citizens volunteer time and labor [annually]

This is a preview of Private Charity. Read the full post (318 words, estimated 1:16 mins reading time)

A Retreat

Posted on 8 January 2020 by eehines

In the aftermath of killing Qasim Soleimani, the Iranian government is trying to create the impression of subsequent American retreat from the Middle East.

Certainly Iran’s leaders already are working to create that impression. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, citing the angry reaction to the Soleimani killing within Iran and Iraq, tweeted Monday that the “end of malign US presence in West Asia has begun.”

Iran’s government isn’t the only one trying to manufacture the impression. See Gerald Seib’s characterization of Soleimani in his piece at the link:

Iran’s top military leader, Maj Gen Qassem Soleimani

and

This is a preview of A Retreat. Read the full post (226 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

Two Impeachment Moves

Posted on 8 January 2020 by eehines

Senator Josh Hawley (R, MO) has introduced a resolution to dismiss all impeachment charges if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) continues to obstruct the Senate trial by refusing to submit her caucus’ Articles of Impeachment to the Senate. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC) says he’ll work with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) to change Senate rules to allow the Senate to begin the impeachment trial.

Hawley has proposed

So here’s what I think needs to happen. We need to change the Senate rules to allow the Senate to dismiss this case if she refuses to send the articles over[.]

This is a preview of Two Impeachment Moves. Read the full post (295 words, estimated 1:11 mins reading time)

Contemptible Average Americans

Posted on 4 January 2020 by eehines

It’s well-known that the Left and its political organ, the Progressive-Democratic Party, have nothing but contempt for the rest of us, from the NLMSM referring to Tea Partiers as tea baggers, through Barack Obama’s dismissal of Middle Americans as Bible- and gun-clingers (bitter ones, at that), through Hillary Clinton’s irredeemable and deplorable slur. We also get House Progressive-Democrats loudly questioning the integrity of House Republicans who don’t agree with them on impeachment. The list is interminable.

Here’s one of the latest, this one from Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator (D, MA) Elizabeth Warren:

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Maybe Build Their Own Connections

Posted on 31 December 2019 by eehines

Idaho wants to connect several of its western communities to a renewable energy hub in eastern Oregon, and the green citizens of eastern Oregon agrees with the sentiment. Just don’t use actual power lines to do the connection. Brian Kelly, Restoration Director for the Greater Hells Canyon Council in eastern Oregon:

We need to develop more renewable energy, of course, but it shouldn’t come at the cost of damage to our last remaining wild places….

Yep. Dan Shreve, Head of Global Wind Energy Research at Wood Mackenzie:

This is a preview of Maybe Build Their Own Connections. Read the full post (264 words, estimated 1:03 mins reading time)

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