Freeze the North Pole

Posted on 31 July 2019 by eehines

…or keep it frozen. Or add more ice to it. Or something.

A team of designers led by Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha proposes re-freezing sea water in the Arctic to create miniature modular icebergs using a submarine-like vessel, in a bid to combat climate change.
The Indonesian designer worked on the prototype with collaborators Denny Lesmana Budi and Fiera Alifa for an international competition organised by the Association of Siamese Architects.

And they won a consolation prize for that. After all, as Kotahatuhaha said,

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Warrant-Proof Encryption

Posted on 26 July 2019 by eehines

Attorney General William Barr, in front of the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University, said that

“warrant-proof” encryption was “enabling dangerous criminals to cloak their communications and activities behind an essentially impenetrable digital shield.”

Of course. And the FBI, in the aftermath of a mass-shooting in California a while back, (in)famously said that it needed Apple to crack the lock on one of the murderer’s smartphone so they could read it, insisting they were helpless without Apple’s cracking (and they demanded then, too, that Apple install encryption backdoors on its commercial cell phones). Then the FBI hired a third party, which cracked the encryption forthwith.

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Unify Our Way, Or Else

Posted on 24 July 2019 by eehines

Cenk Uygur thinks we all should just meekly acquiesce to what four first-year House Progressive-Democrats tell us to do. First, he says

Nearly everyone in Washington seems to assume that progressives should shut up, accept their place, and unify around the status quo. Think about what an arrogant and preposterous request that is.

Then he says

We signed up to rout him [President Donald Trump] and send him home. If you’re not on board with that, get out of the way and let us do it.

Wow. Think about what an arrogant and preposterous request that is.

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PRC, “Armored Weapons,” and Hong Kong

Posted on 23 July 2019 by eehines

Recall the People’s Republic of China’s use of tanks to suppress the Tiananmen Square protests that resulted in some 2,000 civilian deaths.

Here’s the PRC’s new anti-protest armor: truncheons. With the official police standing around, watching:

Media in Hong Kong have released footage of masked men in white shirts beating black-clad protesters with steel pipes and wooden poles in a subway station and on public transit. The protesters attempted to defend themselves with umbrellas.
Passengers said police did not intervene in Sunday’s attacks by the men, which left 45 people injured.

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Hypocrisy of the British Left

Posted on 12 July 2019 by eehines

Yes, ex-Prime Minister John Major claims himself a Conservative, but he’s acting more and more Left. Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister wannabe and front-runner to replace the resigned Theresa May, has said that if needs be, he’ll prorogue Parliament to block an anti-no-deal Brexit vote, if a no-deal departure is necessary.

Prorogue: a temporary suspension of Parliament following petition of the Queen by her first minister—the Prime Minister—for permission to suspend Parliament and her granting that permission. This use is unusual; prorogation is normally used for normal terminations of Parliamentary sessions; the term also describes the interval between that termination and the normal opening of the next session.

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Cynicism

Posted on 11 July 2019 by eehines

Hong Kong Chief Executive and People’s Republic of China Senior Employee Carrie Lam claims that her Extradition to the PRC Bill is “dead.”

However, the subheadline says it all:

We hope people will not read a different meaning just because we are using a different word

She continues, after all, to refuse to explicitly withdraw her bill. “Trust me.”

The people of Hong Kong are right to be…skeptical. Lam really does need to go, as do most of her subordinates down through several layers of her hierarchy, but PRC President Xi Jinping is unlikely to permit it.

This is a preview of Cynicism. Read the full post (131 words, estimated 31 secs reading time)

Forced Busing

Posted on 10 July 2019 by eehines

Lance Morrow wrote about forced busing in a “back to the future” piece in The Wall Street Journal. Here’s the larger, more important thing about that early forced busing, of which Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate was so proud and about which Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden was so helpless to comment on.

Forced busing, as bandied about today, is all about using children as tools to achieve a political goal. As in other milieus, we see an example of the Left not seeing people, here children, as human beings, but only as machines for achieving the Left’s goal.

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Starbucks Fail

Posted on 9 July 2019 by eehines

A Starbucks in Tempe, AZ, had one of its baristas ask five police officers who were having a pre-shift coffee either go sit somewhere else or leave altogether because one customer felt “threatened” over their being where the customer could see them.

In the hoo-raw ensuing, Starbucks spokesman Reggie Borges said

We have a deep respect for the Tempe Police and their service to the community.

That’s plainly not true. If Starbucks really cared, if it had any actual respect for the police—much less a shred of self-respect—it would have had a better-trained crew of baristas who wouldn’t knee-jerk insult cops over a snowflake’s made-up beef.

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A Bit on the Citizenship Question

Posted on 8 July 2019 by eehines

The Electronic Privacy Information Center sued Commerce and the Census Bureau in Federal court over the inclusion of a citizenship question in the upcoming census. EPIC centered its case on the premise that these agencies must explain the impact on privacy of such a question prior to

initiating a collection of new information

when that collection involves electronically stored, personally identifiable information.

The DC Circuit correctly tossed the case on the grounds that EPIC had suffered no harm, so it had no standing to sue.

This is a preview of A Bit on the Citizenship Question. Read the full post (493 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

Free Speech

Posted on 7 July 2019 by eehines

…Progressive-Democrat style. Here’s Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D, FL):

people who are “making fun of members of Congress” online “should be prosecuted”

Because, she went on, making fun of Congress intimidates Congressmen. In fact, she went on in that vein for more than 40 seconds, just in the recording.

Wow.

Permanent link to this post (83 words, estimated 20 secs reading time)

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