China is building a vast civilian surveillance network

From Business Insider.com (Apr. 29):

China is setting up a vast surveillance system that tracks every single one of its 1.4 billion citizens — from using facial recognition to name and shame jaywalkers, to forcing people to download apps that can access all the photos on their smartphones.

The growth of China's surveillance technology comes as the state rolls out an enormous "social credit system" that ranks citizens based on their behaviour, and doles out rewards and punishments depending on their scores.

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1. Using facial recognition technology that can pick people out of massive crowds.

At least 16 cities, municipalities, and provinces across China have already started using a facial recognition system that can scan the country's entire 1.4 billion-strong population — with 99.8% accuracy, Chinese state media reported.

China's facial recognition surveillance has already proven to be eerily effective: Police in Nanchang, southeastern China, managed to locate and arrest a wanted suspect out of a 60,000-person pop concert earlier this month, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

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2. Getting group chat admins to spy on people.

China holds people criminally liable for content posted in any group chat they initiate on messaging apps. The regulation applies even to private and encrypted apps, such as WhatsApp.

The government also requires tech companies to monitor and keep records of conversations for six months, and report any illegal activity to authorities.

3. Forcing citizens to download apps that allow the government to monitor their cell phone photos and videos.

The government has forced Uighurs, an ethnic minority in western China, to download an app that scans photos, videos, audio files, ebooks, and other documents, the US-government funded Open Technology Fund said.

The app, named 浄网 (pronounced "jingwang" in Mandarin Chinese, and literally means "cleansing the web"), extracts information including the phone number and model, and scours through its files, the Open Technology Fund reported.

It also warns users to delete files it deems dangerous and sends information about those files to an outside server.  [read more]

Talk about Big Brother watching you! George Orwell would be impressed.

The other ways that China is monitoring its citizens are:

1. Watching how people shop online.
2. Having law enforcement officers wear special glasses to identify people in crowded places, like streets and train stations.
3. Installing 'robot police' in train stations that scan people's faces and match those of wanted fugitives — like this one in Zhengzhou, central China.
4. Using facial recognition technology to root out jaywalkers.
5. Stopping pedestrians at random to check their phones.
6. Tracking people's social media posts, which can be linked to the user's family and location.
7. Building predictive software to aggregate data about people — without their knowledge — and flag those they consider threatening.

The In-N-Out Burger Boycott Shows that Under Socialism, Those Who Don’t Obey Won’t Eat

From FEE.org (Sept. 4):

Last week, Eric Bauman, the chair of the California Democratic Party, called for a boycott of the popular California hamburger chain In-N-Out Burger.

What was In-N-Out Burger’s crime? Los Angeles Magazine reported that the burger chain had contributed to the Republican Party.

Bauman tweeted a link to the story about the contribution and called the chain “creeps:”

Et tu In-N-Out? Tens of thousands of dollars donated to the California Republican Party... it’s time to #BoycottInNOut—let Trump and his cronies support these creeps... perhaps animal style!

Californians were not ready to give up eating at the popular chain. John Vigna, communication director for the California Democratic Party, announced the chair’s tweet was “just his personal view.” Vigna added, “Democrats are very fired up. Chair [Bauman] is definitely giving voice to a feeling a lot of people have right now.”

What Vigna calls “giving voice,” many of us might call bullying. It is hard to interpret the call for a boycott of In-and-Out as anything but a sign of California’s further descent into totalitarianism. Those who don’t support the ruling political regime will have their economic livelihood threatened.

Current events and history warn us: A political party demanding loyalty to the party as a condition for doing business is a terrible path to go down.  [read more]

The article goes on to say that these boycott tactics were used in the past by Hitler and currently by Venezuelan despot Nicolás Maduro. Both, by the way, are socialists.

Dick Morris: Bill Designed To Solve Crime Problem Is Really No Solution at All

From The Western Journal.com (Dec. 16):

Legislation nearing passage in the Senate will reverse decades of progress in reducing crime.

Originally designed by Republicans to improve conditions in prisons, the bill has been hijacked by Democrats* to slash sentences and release dangerous criminals.

But, because of its earlier incarnation, President Donald Trump, perhaps impelled by advice from his son-in-law Jared Kushner (whose father was in prison), is backing the bill.

He’s mistaken. It’s a bad piece of legislation.

The bill, called the First Step Act, would:

1. Immediately make retroactive Obama’s Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 that reduced crack penalties to the lower levels imposed for cocaine possession. The theory was that blacks used crack and whites used cocaine. But the bill equalized the sentences by lowering the crack penalties. It should have raised the cocaine sentences instead. This change will trigger the almost immediate release of 2,600 federal prison inmates.

2. Give judges the authority to bypass federal sentencing guidelines and impose lower sentences, precisely the kind of judicial discretion that led to the slap-on-the-wrist sentences that caused the crime wave of the 60s and 70s.

3. Dilute the “three strikes and you’re out” sentencing provisions imposing 25-year terms for a third felony conviction.

4. Increase time off sentences for all criminals — violent and otherwise — by one week per year served, allowing the release of 4,000 inmates the day the law takes effect.

The bill is really the “first step” in pursuing the Democrats’ agenda of decriminalizing crime by sharply reducing the number of people in prison.  [read more]

*The Left always hi-jacks good legislation and makes it bad.

The New Farm Bill Is So Bad That Supporters Don’t Want Its Details Released

From The Daily Signal.com (Dec. 7):

The current farm bill process is eerily similar to what happened with Obamacare.

In 2010, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., infamously uttered, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

A recent statement by the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., regarding the farm bill brings back bad memories.

As reported by Agri-Pulse: “Peterson acknowledged that the other negotiators didn’t want to talk about details of the bill until closer to the final votes. ‘There’s concern on some of the members’ part that when people find out what’s in the bill it will start unraveling,’ he said.”

The farm bill is already expected to be a disaster, from failing to strengthen work requirements in the food stamp program to failing to make even minor reforms to the out-of-control farm subsidy system (and actually making subsidies worse).

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Think about how bad the bill must be in light of what already has been reported about the bill. For example, we already know about, based on reports, the following absurdities in the bill:

The bill would protect farmers when commodity prices increase, not just decrease. The existing Price Loss Coverage program (one of the major subsidy programs) pays farmers when commodity prices fall below a price fixed in law (known as a reference price). The bill reportedly will make it possible for these reference prices to increase when prices increase, thereby ensuring farmers could continue to get taxpayer-funded subsidies.

The bill expands payments to non-farmers. One of the most egregious aspects of the current farm subsidy system is its payments to individuals who by any reasonable definition are not farmers.

What does the bill do? It makes this problem even worse by making it possible for “non-farming” cousins, nephews, and nieces to receive subsidies.

The bill completely ignores the massive cost overruns of the two new major subsidy programs, which are greater than 70 percent more expensive than what was projected. Congress created two major new subsidy programs last farm bill, namely the Price Loss Coverage and the Agricultural Risk Coverage programs. When the last farm bill was passed, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the costs of these programs would be about $18 billion over their first five years.  [read more]

Yea, the bill doesn’t sound good especially the “payments to non-farmers” part. I have cousins who are farmers. Should I get a subsidy when I am not a farmer?

How State Religion Made the Czechs the Least Religious People in Europe

From FEE.org (Sept. 4):

In all the articles about last week’s 50th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Prague, few took note of one of its enduring scars: widespread atheism. Some may be surprised to learn that the Czech people are the most irreligious people in Europe, not just because of decades of government-sponsored atheism, but because of centuries of government-enforced religion.

The Communist Co-Opting of Religion

When Communist officials first came to power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, undermining and eradicating religion became a top priority. The Marxists tried to co-opt the Roman Catholic Church with a “patriotic” organization, loyal to the regime, known as Catholic Action. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.) However, the Vatican quickly condemned the government’s creation.

The government began paying priests’ salaries—something not a single priest refused—in order to win their loyalty. The Office of Religious Affairs placed some of its loyal priests in positions of ecclesiastical authority. Yet the bishops maintained fidelity.

Failing at counterfeiting, the government resorted to confiscation. Prague ordered all monasteries closed on April 13, 1950, resulting in a massive seizure of church property. The Communist government plundered 429 buildings belonging to male monastic orders, 670 buildings belonging to female orders, some 2,000 works of art, another 2,000 historical artifacts, and 1.8 million books. This does not include the massive destruction of precious historical items, carried out on such a scale that even former Czechoslovakian Prime Minister Zdeněk Fierlinger lamented it.

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“Force Is Never a Victory”

“The Communists, both yours [Russian] and ours, were always enemies of the Church,” a former Orthodox Archbishop of Prague told a Russian media outlet.

When it came to the Byzantine Catholic Church, the Communists sought “only liquidation,” the then-archbishop said in 2011. “We Orthodox know that such force is never a victory.”

“That the Czechoslovakian party members supposedly helped the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia was only their cunning maneuver,” he said. “In fact, the Communists only injured the work of Orthodoxy.”

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A Pox on Both Their Houses-of-Worship

Within a few decades, the state went from favoring to outlawing the Roman Catholic Church. Both sides used the State to wage war against one another, and the souls of the faithful became their casualties.

In the end, the Czechs declared a pox on both their houses-of-worship. The Czech Republic today has the highest level of atheism in Europe. Numbers vary—some place the number of atheists at two-thirds of the population or more—but all surveys find a majority of Czechs profess no belief in God.

That does not mean that the Czech people feel no yearning for communion with God. Such a state is an anthropological impossibility. However, as one writer in the Guardian put it, today in the Czech Republic “small evangelical and charismatic denominations are thriving.” Precisely those churches that have never used the State to “compel them to come in” are most likely to see the faithful enter.

Christians tempted to praise a large “Christian” government whose interventionist policies “help evangelize” must study the example of Czechoslovakia. If it is accurate that “government is not reason, it is not eloquence,” neither is it persuasion—and in the wrong hands, it quickly burns those who so recently controlled it. A state that can banish other denomination’s clergy one year can banish yours the next. The government that can seize control of your enemy’s churches can expropriate yours, as well.

The cautionary tale of recent history is: The Church that lives by the State shall die by the State.  [read more]

This is probably why the Constitution has the first amendment in it: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,…” The Founders were very weary of state sponsored religions. They knew from experience.

Man, 69, sues to lower age 20 years: ‘You can change your gender. Why not your age?’

From The Blaze.com (Nov. 8):

Emile Ratelband, a 69-year-old Dutchman, is suing to legally change his age.

Ratelband reasons that he lives in a society where people can change their genders, so to him, it only makes sense that he can change his age.

But why?

Ratelband cites several reasons as to why he wants to lower his age from 69 years to 49 years.

The Dutchman, who is a motivational speaker and media personality in the Netherlands, says that he'd likely have better luck dating, gaining employment, and making large purchases, such as homes or vehicles, if he were younger on paper.

“When I'm 69, I am limited,” he explains. “If I'm 49, then I can buy a new house, drive a different car. I can take up more work.”

Ratelband adds, "When I'm on Tinder and it says I'm 69, I don't get an answer. When I'm 49, with the face I have, I will be in a luxurious position."

“You can change your name. You can change your gender. Why not your age?” he asks.  [read more]

He does have a point. He is just participating in identity politics. Why stop with age? Why can’t a short person identity with a tall person? Short people can be discriminated against too. Why can’t a fat person identify with a skinny person? I could keep on going, but I won’t. The world is slowly going insane.

More articles on identity politics:

• If Gender Is Subjective, Makes Sense Age Should Be, Too
• We Have an Identity Problem

The 3 Big Differences Between Conservatives and Progressives

From The Daily Signal.com (Nov. 2):

What’s the difference between a conservative and a progressive?

Here are three examples.

No. 1: Conservatives and progressives have different views about individuals and communities.

Conservatives ask: “What can I do for myself, my family, my community, and my fellow citizens?”

Progressives ask: “What is unfair?” “What am I owed?” “What has offended me today?” “What must my country do for me?”

The traditional American ethic of achievement gives way to the progressive ethic of aggrievement.

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No 2.: Conservatives and progressives have different views about diversity and choice.

For progressives, different ethnicities and gender identities are welcomed but a variety of opinions and ideas are not.

Just look at two areas of public life dominated by the left. On college campuses free speech is under attack. If you’re a conservative working at a social media company or using one of their platforms to share your views, you may find your job eliminated or your account deleted.

And when it comes to choice, progressives love the word, but they don’t want it to apply to our decisions on education, health care, and even how and where we live out our religious faith.

Conservatives take a different approach.

Parents, not the zip code they live in, should choose the school that is best for their child.

We all need health care, but we don’t all need the same kind or same amount. And while people should be free to live as they choose, no one should be forced to endorse or celebrate those choices if it violates their religious beliefs.

Conservatives say people should have choices. Progressives say one political solution fits all.

No. 3: Conservatives and progressives have a different view of “We the People.”

Whether it’s the Second Amendment, immigration, or putting limits on abortion, if we the people don’t pass laws progressives approve, they turn to judges, executive orders, and government bureaucrats behind closed doors to overturn the will of voters.

Whatever one may think about the wisdom of hiking the minimum wage, banning plastic straws, or removing controversial historical monuments, conservatives believe voters closest to the issues should be the ones making such decisions for their communities—not lawmakers in Washington or a panel of judges fives states away.

To sum it up, conservatives believe in individual rights, not special rights. Conservatives believe in allowing Texas to be Texas and Vermont to be Vermont. And conservatives believe we the people can vote with our feet about where we want to live and what laws we want to live under. [read more]

7 Things I'd Do if I Wanted to Keep Poor People Poor

Commentary from Brian Balfour on FEE.org:

If I wanted to keep poor people poor, there are several government policies I would favor. Let's count them down.

1: An Expanding Welfare State

For starters, I would advocate for a robust and ever-expanding welfare state—programs like Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc.

I would recognize that an effective recipe for keeping poor people poor is to create incentives that push them into decisions that prevent them from climbing out of poverty.

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2: Progressive Taxation Policy

If I wanted to keep poor people poor, I also would finance the welfare state poverty trap through punitive taxes on the job and wealth creators of society.

The key ingredient to economic growth, and thus a higher standard of living for society’s poor, is through productivity gains made possible by capital investment. High marginal taxes on profitable companies and small businesses alike discourage capital investment. As businesses decide to either not expand or take their businesses to more investment-friendly countries, job opportunities dry up.

3: Increase the Minimum Wage

If I wanted to keep poor people poor, I would advocate for higher government-enforced minimum wages. The law of supply and demand tells us that the higher the price of a good or service, the less of it will be demanded (other things held equal, of course). The demand for low-skilled labor is no exception. Minimum wage laws are an effective tool to cut off the bottom rung of the career ladder. [read more]

The Left likes all the policies above and the other four which are:

1. Support Restrictive “Green Energy” Policies
2. Increase the Business Regulatory Burden
3. Inflate the Money Supply
4. Impose High Tariffs

How Marijuana Harms a Developing Baby’s Brain

From Scientific American.com (Nov. 7):

SAN DIEGO—Marijuana has been legalized in some capacity in 31 U.S. states, in large part due to a softening stance around the potential harms of the drug and recognition of its medical benefits. As a result, cannabis has become the most commonly used illicit drug during pregnancy.

One recent study revealed that in 2016 7 percent of pregnant women in California used marijuana, with rates as high as 22 percent among teenage mothers. In Colorado 69 percent of dispensaries recommended the drug to pregnant women to help with morning sickness.

Whereas marijuana is not a major health risk for most adults, prenatal drug exposure can be harmful to unborn babies. Previous research has shown infants exposed to cannabis in the womb are 50 percent more likely to have a lower birth weight. Now three new studies presented Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting here suggest prenatal cannabis exposure—at least in rodents—could have serious consequences for fetal brain development. “There’s become this relaxation—in part because [marijuana] is becoming legal in many states around the country—that it’s fine,” says Yasmin Hurd, who is director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and was not involved in the new research. But, she adds, just because a drug is not very dangerous to adults does not mean it is harmless to the developing brain.

In one study researchers at Washington State University in Pullman showed rat pups born to mothers exposed to high amounts of cannabis vapor during pregnancy had trouble with cognitive flexibility. [read more]

China Plans To Launch Multiple Artificial Moons Into Orbit By 2022

From The Daily Wire.com (Oct. 20):

In a move that could save hundreds of millions of dollars in annual electricity costs, the Chinese government is planning to launch a "fake moon" into space in 2020.

The moon, according to China Daily, is actually an "illumination satellite" featuring reflective panels. These panels will catch and release light from the sun just as the moon does, although Wu Chunfeng, head of Tian Fu New Area Science Society in Chengdu, says the satellite has the potential to be approximately eight times as bright as the natural celestial reflector.

The satellite will allegedly be able to adjust its brightness, aim light in different directions (a possible aid in times of disaster), and limit or expand its ground coverage, which could range from 6 to 50 miles in diameter.  [read more]

Ethanol Is Terrible for Health and the Environment, but Government Keeps Backing It

From FEE.org (Aug. 19):

When the elected officials and bureaucrats who run a government want to stack the deck in favor of a politically connected special interest, they have three main ways that they can go about it:

1. They can subsidize the special interest, often using taxpayer cash.
2. They can penalize the competition of the special interest, often through tariffs.
3. They can mandate that people do business with the special interest.

Each of these actions is economically harmful as government-backed subsidies, penalties, and mandates all impose unnecessary costs on regular people. Worse, they often lead to predictable, if often unintended, consequences that do serious damage beyond what they do to personal finances.

In the case of ethanol in the United States, the federal government has employed all three measures over the years, frequently with bipartisan political support. Its subsidies keep afloat politically connected businesses that wouldn’t otherwise be able to keep themselves in business. Its tariffs have kept consumers from being able to buy cheaper sources of ethanol on the global market. And its mandate to put an increasing amount of corn-based ethanol into fuel makes food more expensive.  [read more]

4 Big Threats Pence Says China Poses to US

From The Daily Signal.com (Oct. 5):

The Chinese have attempted to spy on some 30 U.S. companies, the White House says, also warning that Beijing is meddling with U.S. elections.

Those are among the reasons Vice President Mike Pence amplified the Trump administration’s assertion that it will no longer play nice with the Chinese communist regime.

“Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States,” Pence said Thursday, speaking at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

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Here are four key threats Chinese policies pose to the U.S., according to the vice president.

1. Cyber Espionage

Chinese spies found vulnerabilities in the U.S. technology supply chain to infiltrate computer networks of nearly 30 U.S. companies, including Apple and Amazon, as well as banks and federal contractors, Bloomberg Businessweek first reported Thursday, the same day Pence took China to task.

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2. Election Meddling

China is pushing a propaganda war in the United States, with an eye on both the 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential election, Pence said, regarding Chinese election meddling.

“There can be no doubt: China is meddling in America’s democracy,” he said.

He noted that the U.S. intelligence community says that China “is targeting U.S. state and local governments and officials to exploit any divisions between federal and local levels on policy.”

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3. Squeezing US Companies

Pence called out Google for its seeming willingness to work with the Chinese government.

“Google should immediately end development of the ‘Dragonfly’ app that will strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers,” he said in his Thursday speech.

Pence also noted that Chinese officials tried to influence business leaders.

“In one recent example, China threatened to deny a business license for a major U.S. corporation if they refused to speak out against our administration’s policies,” Pence said.

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4. Military Buildup

The vice president also warned of China’s military buildup.

“China now spends as much on its military as the rest of Asia combined, and Beijing has prioritized capabilities to erode America’s military advantages on land, at sea, in the air, and in space,” Pence said.  [read more]

And the Left is worried about Russia. Yea, right. Although, Russia isn’t exactly our friend either.

5 Signs You’re In The Midst Of A Moral Panic

From The Daily Wire.com (Sept. 29):

Moral panics, or instances of mass hysteria, have occurred throughout history. Two of the most notorious are the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and '90s. The panics almost exclusively involve women and children and fears for their safety, especially from sexual abuse.

We are in the midst of another such panic, but despite the similarities to past episodes, we are still unable to recognize it as such. The current panic has been playing out in the military and on college campuses for nearly a decade, but with the advent of the #MeToo movement, the mass hysteria is creeping into our regular legal system as well. The following are five of the biggest signs that we are experiencing another bout of mass hysteria, this time over sexual assault and harassment.

1. Due Process Goes Out The Window

Due process is the cornerstone of our legal system, but in times of mass hysteria, it becomes the enemy. In Salem, those accused of witchcraft were presumed guilty and, in many cases, denied counsel. The only evidence presented against them was an accusation.

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2. “Believe The Victim”

This may be the biggest tell of a moral panic. An accusation, we’re told, is sufficient enough. With due process being considered anathema to victims, accusations are all the evidence needed. During the Little Rascals case in North Carolina, some jurors didn’t believe the accusations, but during deliberations were bullied by other jurors if they didn’t believe the children.

Parents of children involved in the Little Rascals case told Frontline: “No child would lie about something like this.” In Wright’s article about the Ingram case in Washington, he wrote:

“These two hypotheses form the intellectual frame of the Ingram investigation: first, that the depth of the repression is a function of the intensity of the trauma; and, second, that victims must be believed. Once a victim’s account is believed, the evidence in a case may be stretched to fit it. Often, it’s a big stretch.” Paul Ingram himself said of his daughters, who made the accusations against him: “They wouldn’t lie about something like this.”  [read more]

The other three signs are:

3. Misleading And Faulty Statistics

4. Evidence, Schmevidence

5. Pseudo-Scientific Theories About Memory Reign Supreme