Censorship

Posted on 22 September 2020 by eehines

It’s active, biased, and deliberate in social media. And Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet intend on stepping it up during the remainder of this election season.

Twitter, for instance, says on its website that it will “require people to remove Tweets” that include “statements which are intended to influence others to violate recommended COVID-19 related guidance from global or local health authorities to decrease someone’s likelihood of exposure to COVID-19.” Among the problematic statements the company lists under that category is “social distancing is not effective.”

But Twitter won’t say how its censors will reconcile the myriad local health authorities who disagree among each other on the proper steps to take.

This is a preview of Censorship. Read the full post (424 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Insufficient

Posted on 20 September 2020 by eehines

Recall that Oracle and ByteDance have a proposal on the table for Oracle to take a minority partnership position in ByteDance’s TikTok. In response to objections to that, some

Trump administration officials are looking to give American investors a majority share of the company that will take over the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok[.]

Senators Marco Rubio (R, FL), Rick Scott (R, FL), Thom Tillis (R, NC), Roger Wicker (R, MI), Dan Sullivan (R, AK), and John Cornyn (R, TX), object to that, too.

This is a preview of Insufficient. Read the full post (211 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)

A TikTok Partnership

Posted on 19 September 2020 by eehines

Oracle Corp has become the frontrunner in the race to do a deal with the People’s Republic of China company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, for an acquisition of that app. That status seems solidified by ByteDance having submitted a proposal to the US government that lays out the terms of a deal in which Oracle would become the junior partner in a TikTok-Oracle(-ByteDance?)…alliance.

Recall that President Donald Trump has required that ByteDance divest itself of TikTok as a condition of TikTok’s being allowed to continue operating in the United States. Trump’s objection to TikTok is centered on the app’s scooping up of a vast range of personal and personally identifying data and the subsequent transmittal of those data to back to ByteDance inside the PRC.

This is a preview of A TikTok Partnership. Read the full post (374 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Ethnic Cleansing

Posted on 7 September 2020 by eehines

It isn’t limited to the Uighurs, and it’s much more insidious and consideredly humiliating than merely killing or exterminating through forced sterilization.

The People’s Republic of China is trying to exterminate Mongol culture and force them to live mainland Chinese culture.

Thousands of students in Inner Mongolia have taken to the streets during the past week to rally against the government’s three-year plan to push Mandarin-language education across the northern region and phase out local history, literature and ethnic textbooks in favor of national coursebooks, according to rights group Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center.

And

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Kidnap, Inc.

Posted on 3 September 2020 by eehines

That’s the new company headquartered in Beijing.

Here’s a partial list of the People’s Republic of China’s iconic business’ products:

Cheng Lei, Australian citizen, television anchor for a Beijing media outlet
Yang Hengjun, Australian citizen, writer held on vague “espionage” accusations since last year
Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, Canadian citizens, held in the PRC since 2018 as hostages to pressure Canada not to extradite to the US Huawei’s CFO
threats that Czech Republic Senate President Milos Vystrcil would “pay a heavy price” after he led a business delegation to the Republic of China

This is a preview of Kidnap, Inc.. Read the full post (154 words, estimated 37 secs reading time)

The Size of the Drift

Posted on 17 August 2020 by eehines

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos is the latest member of the media to portray Senator Kamala Harris (D, CA) as a moderate choice for Joe Biden’s running mate.

Stephanopoulos went on to add

Kamala Harris comes from the middle of the road, moderate wing of the Democratic party….

Harris’ positions include

supporting vastly raising tax rates, beginning with—but not ending there, rescinding the 2017 tax rate cuts
eliminating private insurance altogether and replacing it with Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I, VT) Medicare for All
limiting, in contravention of the 2^nd Amendment, Americans’ access to weapons of which she personally disapproves

This is a preview of The Size of the Drift. Read the full post (269 words, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)

“Corporate America Worries WeChat Ban Could Be Bad for Business”

Posted on 16 August 2020 by eehines

As President Donald Trump contemplates barring the People’s Republic of China-originated and -based communications app WeChat from operating in the US, some businesses worry.

US companies whose fortunes are linked to China are pushing back against the Trump administration’s plans to restrict business transactions involving the WeChat app from Tencent Holdings Ltd, saying it could undermine their competitiveness in the world’s second-biggest economy.

Couple things about that.

Those companies shouldn’t make themselves so dependent on the People’s Republic of China for their business health.

This is a preview of “Corporate America Worries WeChat Ban Could Be Bad for Business”. Read the full post (188 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

Hong Kong Semi-Autonomy

Posted on 8 August 2020 by eehines

Here’s another hint. In the ongoing dispute between the US and the People’s Republic of China—the latest example of which is the lack of US visa renewals for PRC journalists—Hu Xijin, Editor-in-Chief of Chinese and English editions of the PRC State organ Global Times, had this:

From what I know, given that the US side hasn’t renewed visa of Chinese journalists, Chinese side has prepared for the worst scenario that all Chinese journalists have to leave the US. If that’s the case, Chinese side will retaliate, including targeting US journalists based in HK[]

This is a preview of Hong Kong Semi-Autonomy. Read the full post (149 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

Internet Security

Posted on 27 July 2020 by eehines

There is a move afoot—and it’s making significant progress—to develop and deploy a quantum computing Internet.

A group led by the US Department of Energy and the University of Chicago plans to develop a nationwide quantum internet that could be functional in about a decade and with the potential to securely transmit sensitive information related to national security and financial services.
“What we’re moving forward on is building out quantum networks [to] someday…turn into a full second internet, a parallel internet to the digital internet,” said Paul Dabbar, the Energy Department’s Under Secretary for Science.

This is a preview of Internet Security. Read the full post (496 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

The Space Force Logo

Posted on 26 July 2020 by eehines

The logo is pretty cool, but because I like to pick nits, I have one here.

The text is hard to read, so here are the four explanations, clockwise from the upper left.

The silver outer border of the Delta symbol signifies defense and protection from all adversaries and threats from the space domain. The black area inside embodies the vast darkness of deep space.

Inside the delta, the two spires represent the action of a rocket launching into the outer atmosphere in support of the central role of the Space Force in defending the space domain.

This is a preview of The Space Force Logo. Read the full post (208 words, 1 image, estimated 50 secs reading time)

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