Category Archives: Transhuman News

Why is there no right-wing Jon Stewart? Around the time the erstwhile Daily Show host ceded his seatin2015, you may recall this was a much-considered topic. Conservative Daily Show knockoffs don't have a good track record the best-known may be The 1/2 Hour News Hour, a short-lived program that owes nearly all its fame to its frequent citation as an example of the failings of the right-wing Stewart shtick.

I haven't thought about that question in years, but a snippet of a Monday Atlantic piece about vaccine acceptance by fans of Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson first reminded me, then reframed the question: What if the right-wing Jon Stewart is already here? What if it's Carlson?

Most of the vaccinatedTuckerviewers see the show primarily as a form of entertainment. They like that Carlson veers offbeat, like the time he claimed theNational Security Agency spiedon him, and that he sticks it to the libs a little. They find other media commentators condescending. Where liberals see an angry, deluded racist, conservatives see a politically incorrect Jon Stewart. These Carlson fans don't look to him as a source of genuine vaccine information, but as a funny id who stirs things up. [The Atlantic]

The obvious objection here is that Carlson presents himself as a serious political commentator while Stewart always insisted most famously, to Carlson himself on Crossfire he was merely a comedian. I find that objection pretty compelling, honestly, but here are three things that give me pause.

First, there's what happenedwhen push came to (legal) shove. While defending Carlson against a defamation suit, Fox lawyers described his show as entertainment in which the "general tenor" indicates to viewers they're hearing"non-literal commentary," not "actual facts."

Second, in its fully realized form, c. 2010-2015, Stewart's Daily Show never dispensed with the crude and juvenile comedy, but polling showed millions of viewers took him quite seriously as a pundit and news source. In 2004, on Crossfire, Stewart's protest about his rolewas credible, but by the end, he was simultaneously comedian and serious commentator.

Third, consider the Atlantic quote itself. I've no doubt many of Carlson's viewers see him wholly as a straight news man, our time's Walter Cronkite or whatever. But some subset looks at him and sees their side's Jon Stewart. And as humor is in the eye of the beholder, maybe they're right.

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Is Tucker Carlson the right's Jon Stewart? - The Week Magazine

Just to be clear: Therewereadults who cared about Julissia Batties. Yet their care couldnt overcome the illogic of a child-welfare machine that returned her to an abusive family environment that this week ended her life: Julissias half-brother allegedly beat the 7-year-old to death for taking snacks from the kitchen, an attack subsequently covered up by her own mother.

Her grandmother for years had cared for Julissia. There were city Administration for Childrens Services caseworkers who tried to keep her away from her abusive mother and siblings, even going to the highest courts in the state to keep her safe. There were even concerned neighbors who repeatedly called authorities when they saw what was happening.

The story of Julissia Batties isnt a story of hidden child abuse, of what goes on behind closed doors. It is the story of a system that favors placing children with their biological parents no matter what the danger, then delays action until it is too late.

Julissia had been taken from her mother at birth. Little wonder, since the mother had lost custody of her four older children in 2013 over safety concerns. A family-court judge initially granted her mother custody God only knows why but ACS lawyers appealed the decision and won.

Until the mother is able to successfully address and acknowledge the circumstances that led to the removal of the other children, the appellate judges wrote, we cannot agree that returning Julissia, even with the safeguards imposed by the family court, would not present an imminent risk.

The question is what happened between that 2015 ruling and the decision of ACS last year provisionally and then a few months ago permanently to return Julissia to her mother. Did her mother address and acknowledge those circumstances? Since police were called to the apartment on at least six occasions over the past three years including at least one in which she lied about Julissias injuries the answer seems to be no.

What happened?

SCO Services, the nonprofit ACS contracted to monitor the childs case, recommended that she be placed back with her mother; ACS went along. The ideological commitments of these nonprofits rarely differ from those of the agencies themselves.

These nonprofits, moreover, have demonstrated problems in the past. The Department of Investigation reported that in 2016, of the worst-performing private contractors (in terms of children experiencing maltreatment) that manage foster childrens cases for the agency, only two listedsafety as themain focus of improvement on a self-evaluation.

Despite the sound intentions of individual caseworkers, the ACS as a whole, like all child-welfare agencies in this country, is now ideologically committed to family preservation and family reunification at all costs. The woke narrative is that we only take kids away from their parents because of racism or poverty, not because the children are actually in jeopardy. It is politically incorrect to say that to save black children, sometimes they need to be taken away from black parents.

According to ACSs most recent report,the number ofnew child-welfare prevention casesrose by 50 percent in the past six months. But prevention in the world of child welfare doesnt mean that the agency is preventing abuse or neglect from ever happening. It means that a child has already been reported to ACS, and so the agency is using services like anger management or parenting classes or addiction treatment to prevent abuse or neglect from happening again.

Meanwhile the number ofnew placementsinto foster caredeclined 23 percent during the same period. Maybe this approach of keeping kids with their families and not removing them to foster care is not working.

This year, 10-year-old Ayden Wolfe was found dead at the hands of his mothers boyfriend. Pictured in one paper sporting a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, the man was arrested three months before Aydens death for allegedly choking the mother of his 6-year-old autistic son as the child watched. After he was barred from contact with that woman, he went to live with Aydens mother, who has also had contact with ACS.

Julissias grandmother says she strenuously objected to the new custody arrangement she wasnt even allowed to visit the child but was waiting for a hearing that was still months off. What does it mean that a mother bars her child from seeing the grandmother who all but raised her? Perhaps that she has something to hide.

But its hardly a surprise that the courts werent able to hear her grandmothers pleas. Family courts in New York and around the country are broken, suffocating under the pile-up of cases.Judges go months between seeing cases even for young children in vulnerable situations. Courts operate on the timeline of adults, not children. There is no right to a speedy trial in family court.

Everybody knew the baby was being abused, one of Julissias neighbors, whose girlfriend contacted ACS, told The Post. Too bad the system charged with protecting her failed to carry out its core mission.

Naomi Schaefer Riley is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the forthcoming book No Way to Treat a Child: How the Foster-Care System, Family Courts and Racial Activists Are Wrecking Young Lives.

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How the woke takeover of child services endangers abused kids - New York Post

Two Illinois Institute of Technology graduate students have published research examining whether extremists can be identified through their anonymous online posts using machine learning and open-source intelligence software.

Andreas Vassilakos (ITM/M.A.S. CYF 21) and Jose Luis Castanon Remy (M.A.S. ITM 2nd Year) published Illicit Activities Beneath the Surface Web: Investigating Domestic Extremism on Anonymous Social Media Platforms in HOLISTICA Journal of Business and Public Administration. Dr Maurice Dawson, Illinois Tech assistant professor of information technology and management, and Tenace Kwaku Setor, assistant professor of information science and technology at the University of Nebraska Omaha, co-authored the paper.

The researchers examined online platforms such as Reddit and 4chan, where anonymous extremist rants and thoughts can be found easily. Domestic terrorists in California and New Zealand posted manifestos on these platforms before carrying out mass shootings. In each of these two cases, the shooters identified themselves as white nationalists and used these social media platforms to anonymously post their radical ideas and perceived viewpoints of population groups that conform to their own fanatic identities in political, ethnic, and social status.

We collected actual messages from forums like Reddit and 4chan, Vassilakos says. Specifically, we reviewed subreddits [topic-based posts] that were focused on politically incorrect and racial context. Through these platforms, we were able to analyze data that was posted in plain text. We did not interpret the content, but collected it verbatim.

The researchers used Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) software, widely used by the United States government, to collect input values and data from the social media posts, which were then moved into a spreadsheet for analysis. By combining OSINT with artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, the researchers hope to be able to identify anonymous posters.

With this intelligence-gathering strategy, we can collect publicly available data to conduct our analysis, Vassilakos says. People are often not careful when they share data on the internet. Combining OSINT and other machine learning tools, we can excavate much information that can lead to valuable conclusions.

After identifying these posts, an investigation into who originated the post can begin. Using tools such as Maltego, the researchers can examine IP addresses, MAC addresses, and mobile devices to unveil the identity of the poster.

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Machine Learning Could Identify Extremists From Their Anonymous Online Posts Homeland Security Today - HSToday

It is claimed that F. Scott Fitzgerald once told Ernest Hemingway that the rich are different from the rest of us.

Hemingway is said to have replied that They have more money, and some people think that Hemingway believed that was the only difference.

Whatever these two American authors may have had in mind, I can state with conviction that the rich are different from us in much more than their wealth. Having a lot of money does something to your mind; attitudes, feelings, ways of looking at the world, etc.

Now, Ive seen some strange things in my time, but one of the strangest Ive seen in the few days was an article in the Financial Post, a newspaper that caters to those who prefer money to almost everything else. Its by a fellow by the name of Ron Wallace.

Ive never met Ron, but Im willing to believe hes a debonair fellow in lots of ways his hair neatly combed, his suit just that little bit too tight as demanded by current fashion, probably plays a good game of golf, or poker, or something you know the sort of thing.

My problem with this Ron is that he thinks we shouldnt do anything about global warming if it could be detrimental to Industry, including, if you please, the fossil-fuel industry.

To my financially nave mind, this sounds like Lets not do anything about global warming if China and Russia dont do it first.

As I say, Rons probably more attuned to matters financial than I am; I just try to live on my pension, avoiding big-ticket items like suits that are too tight.

As a matter of fact I did once have a suit, and it was too tight, although it wasnt even close to being in fashion in the mid-eighties. I was overweight; still am actually.

Back to money.

Having a lot of it rots the brain. Being able to buy whatever you want, just because you want it, sets up an insatiable appetite for more. We used to call these people misers, but thats no doubt politically incorrect today, so I wont even suggest that the Financial Posts clientele are m*s*rs.

They just think money is better than other things.

What worries me, when I reflect on it, is that there are people who think financial profit is more important than physical survival.

We know that were perilously close to missing our chance to save Planet Earth, but rich people are worrying about what itll do to their dividends. We know the answer to that one too: your dividends will die with you. They wont be worth the paper theyre

printed on.

The fact that some countries are dragging their feet on cutting carbon emissions is no reason to just say Shaggit! and stop trying.

Ed HealyMarystown

Excerpt from:
LETTER: What's more valuable: profits or the planet? | Saltwire - SaltWire Network