Dignity Is Something You TAKE!!! NOT Something You Whine And Beg For...,

NPR  |  In the mid-'80s, just as his career as a writer was reaching its first ascent, Stanley Crouch presided over an attempted, unexpected, coup d'etat. Crouch wanted to return to a time when the serious Black practitioners participated in the gatekeeping. (The title of a 2000 Crouch piece in the New York Times says it all: "Don't Ask the Critics. Ask Wallace Roney's Peers.") That was all to the good, but another, more reactionary and perhaps even more commercial aspect of his proposed revolution proved impossible to implement: defining jazz as a fixed object made up of conventional swing, blues, romantic ballads, a Latin tinge... and not too much else. While executing this maneuver, Crouch rejected — by some lights, betrayed — his original peer group of Murray, Blythe and Newton, and instead embraced the latest musicians intrigued by a comparatively straight-ahead approach. (Newton complained, "A stylistically dominant agenda in jazz is like bringing Coca-Cola to a five-star dinner!")

It was an artificial conceit to begin with, and Crouch was too contrarian and combative to lead a movement. However, he did have one important acolyte: Wynton Marsalis, the man anointed as the biggest new jazz star of the era. Marsalis studied the texts of Stanley Crouch and Albert Murray the way he did the music of Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong. In what may have been an unprecedented event, a major jazz artist actually read critics, and let those critics inform his music. (Crouch also contributed liner notes to the first run of excellent Marsalis LPs.)

Between them, Marsalis and Crouch kicked off the jazz wars of the '80s and '90s, an argument about tradition versus innovation, a tempest in a teacup that played out in all the major jazz magazines, in many mainstream publications, in bars and clubs everywhere – and in the end did very little good to anybody. (The day Keith Jarrett angrily invited Wynton Marsalis to a "blues duel" in the New York Times was a notable low point.) The 2001 Ken Burns documentary Jazz, which featured Marsalis and Crouch as both off-screen advisors and on-screen commentators, was the climactic battleground. People who love post-1959 styles connected to funk, fusion and the avant-garde are still very upset about Ken Burns' Jazz. 

Still. When he started assembling the repertory institution Jazz at Lincoln Center in 1987, Wynton Marsalis was advocating for the primacy of the Black aesthetic at a time when the white, Stan Kenton-to-Gary Burton lineage dominated major organizations like the Berklee College of Music and the International Association of Jazz Educators. The music of Kenton and Burton has tremendous value, but their vast institutional sway and undue influence in jazz education is part of this discussion. We needed less North Texas State (Kenton's first pedagogical initiative) and more Duke Ellington in the mix, and Marsalis almost single-handedly corrected our course – although Marsalis himself would give Crouch a lot of the credit. Indeed, Crouch's long-running internal mandate to get Ellington seen as "Artist of the Century" had finally paid off on a macro level, and the free high school program "Essentially Ellington" is one of JALC's most noble achievements.

Crouch and Marsalis also strove to bury the once-prevalent idea that Louis Armstrong was an Uncle Tom, and encouraged the Black working class to reclaim the jazz greats as crucial to their heritage. (Those ready to hate on Ken Burns's Jazz should keep that perspective in mind.)

There was some bad, a lot of good, and plenty to argue about. What can be said for sure: JALC never quite pulled off Crouch's proposed coup. All these years later, JALC remains merely a part of what makes jazz interesting today. Younger practitioners and listeners comfortably see the music as a continuum that can contain anything from the avant-garde harp musings of Alice Coltrane to the electric fusion of John McLaughlin to hip-hop stylings of Robert Glasper. Crouch's definition of jazz does not dominate the conversation the way he intended, perhaps paradoxically proving the original point that jazz musicians and critics don't really have much to do with each other.

Yesterday I Heard An SJW Whine "I'd Rather Have My Dignity Than Eat!!"

gatestoneinstitute  | The US nominally enshrines the most far-reaching freedom of speech, thanks to the First Amendment of the Constitution. Yet the average number of Americans who self-censor is slowly beginning to approximate that of Germany, where... "Nearly two-thirds of citizens are convinced that 'today one has to be very careful on which topics one expresses oneself', because there are many unwritten laws about what opinions are acceptable and admissible".

It is, however, not surprising. American campuses have steered a "leftist" course for decades. The tilt has had familiar consequences: the proliferation on campus of "safe spaces", trigger warnings, de-platforming of conservative voices and a "cancel culture" aimed at professors and students who do not conform to an on-campus political orthodoxy that has become increasingly totalitarian. Most recently, the dean of University of Massachusetts Lowell's School of Nursing, Leslie Neal-Boylan, was fired by the school after writing "Black lives matter, but also everyone's life matters" in an email to students and faculty.

When citizens stop voicing their concerns in public about current events, policies and ideas out of fear that they will lose their livelihoods and social standing, it is -- or should be -- a huge problem in a democracy.

A democratic society of fearful citizens who dare not speak about what is on their minds -- often important issues of their time -- is doomed to succumb to the will of those who bully the hardest and shout the loudest.

A recent survey of 2,000 Americans by Cato Institute/YouGov found that 62% of Americans say "the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive". This is up from 2017, when 58% agreed with this statement. "Majorities of Democrats (52%), independents (59%) and Republicans (77%) all agree they have political opinions they are afraid to share".

People who defined themselves as staunch liberals self-censored considerably less:

The Q-Anon Doxxing Was Mild Compared To What's About To Happen To Coincidence Theorists

off-guardian  |  New rules passing in the Australian state of Victoria could see “conspiracy theorists” and those “suspected by health authorities of being likely to spread the virus” detained in quarantine centres, according to The Age

 

The rules are amendments being added to the Omnibus (Emergency Measures) Bill, which was first passed back in April. 

The proposed detention would last “for the period reasonably necessary to eliminate or reduce a serious risk to public health”. 

To translate that from bureaucrat into English: it means as for long as they want, or can get away with.

Legislation with this kind of vague verbiage is always a red flag, but then Victoria is currently over-flowing with warning signs of this kind.

Victoria – The World’s Fascist Test Run?

Maybe you haven’t been following exactly how bad things are getting in Australia – and most especially Victoria – but they have essentially aggressively seized their opportunity to create a fascist micro-state. A social Petri dish, in which to culture some tyranny.

They have declared both a “state of emergency” AND a “state of disaster” for a disease which has killed fewer than a thousand people in 9 months across the entire country. 

For a sense of perspective, in 2018 over three times as many people died of influenza, and the same number again committed suicide.

As of right now Australia has just 16 cases of coronavirus classified as “severe”.

And yet, among other highly authoritarian regulations in place, Victoria currently has:

• A curfew, everybody must be home by 9pm and remain there until 5am.
• Special work permits for “essential workers”, which must be carried at all times and presented to any law enforcement officer that asks.
• Police check points on the roads – “leaving a restricted area” is now a criminal offense.
• “Indefinitely suspended” all Jury trials – all criminal proceedings are now bench trials (they tried that in Scotland, too)
• A 60 minute limit for anyone leaving their home to exercise, and a rule forbidding people from going more than 5km (3.1 miles) from their home.
• Instituted a mandatory masks for anyone leaving the house for any reason.

Though notionally intended to be “temporary measures” which only lasted six weeks, they have already extended that timeline for a further six months. There is some planned “loosening” of these restrictions, but with such vague and mutable conditions it’s unlikely this “new normal” is going away. 

Indeed the “emergency” is so comparatively minor that this precedent means almost any future event can be designated a “disaster” or “emergency”, and used as excuse to impose authoritarian social controls.

Jim Cramer Gives Stinky Old Poodle Pelosi MUCH MORE Respect Than She Deserves....,

NYPost  |  CNBC host Jim Cramer called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “Crazy Nancy” to her face during an interview on Tuesday morning — a taunt for the California liberal typically used by President Trump.

The outlandish host of “Mad Money” and former hedge fund manager was interviewing Pelosi on stalled negotiations on a fourth coronavirus stimulus package when the insult appeared to slip out.

“What deal can we have, Crazy Nancy — I’m sorry, that was the president,” Cramer said, scrambling to fix the situation. “I have such reverence for the office, I would never use that term.”

Pelosi (D-Calif.) kept her composure but looked less than pleased, telling Cramer: “But you just did. But you just did.”

“Oh come on, you know what I mean,” the CNBC anchor replied, trying to turn the embarrassing episode into a joke.

Cramer’s name immediately began trending on Twitter as clips of the exchange circulated online — with one pundit calling for the 65-year-old to be fired.

“If Jim Cramer is allowed by CNBC to speak to a woman, on tv, who is the #SpeakeroftheHouse it shows that CNBC has no respect for women in this country,” wrote actress Suzanne Cryer.

“It cannot be tolerated. She deserves his respect. Women deserve respect. Jim Cramer should be fire,” she added.

Bloomberg columnist Tim O’Brien wrote, “Stay classy, Jim Cramer.”

Chris Rock: The Effects Of The Pandemic Were Totally Up To Pelosi And The Democrats

NYTimes | You performed at one of Chappelle’s live shows in July. What was that like for you?

When you’re in the clubs, you learn the rain crowd is the best crowd. Any time it’s raining, they really want to be there. The pandemic crowd is really good. “Dude, not only do we want to be here, there is nothing else to do. There’s nothing else to watch. Thank you.”

 What did you talk about?

I talked about our political whatever. America. Part of the reason we’re in the predicament we’re in is, the president’s a landlord. No one has less compassion for humans than a landlord. [Laughs.] And we’re shocked he’s not engaged.

Did you ever see that movie “The Last Emperor,” where like a 5-year-old is the emperor of China? There’s a kid and he’s the king. So I’m like, it’s all the Democrats’ fault. Because you knew that the emperor was 5 years old. And when the emperor’s 5 years old, they only lead in theory. There’s usually an adult who’s like, “OK, this is what we’re really going to do.” And it was totally up to Pelosi and the Democrats. Their thing was, “We’re going to get him impeached,” which was never going to happen. You let the pandemic come in. Yes, we can blame Trump, but he’s really the 5-year-old.

Put it this way: Republicans tell outright lies. Democrats leave out key pieces of the truth that would lead to a more nuanced argument. In a sense, it’s all fake news.

Has Nancy Pelosi Been Gumming Tide Pods?

summit |  GOP Senator John Kennedy used a startling cultural reference to portray his belief that believes Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is crazy, saying that he often thinks she has ‘is one of those people who tried Tide Pods’ laundry detergent.

Appearing with Sean Hannity, Kennedy was addressing Pelosi’s obsession with the $3.4 trillion coronavirus bill.

“Sean, with respect, there are times, particularly recently, when I think Speaker Pelosi is one of those people who tried Tide pods,” Kennedy hilariously stated.

 “I want you to think about what she proposed today, this is what the speaker is threatening to do,” he continued, adding “She is threatening to keep the House Democrats in session and prevent them from going home and running for reelection unless the Senate Republicans agree to the speaker’s $3.4 trillion coronavirus bill.”

“On the one hand we can vote for Pelosi’s $3.4 trillion bill or we can agree to allow her to put the House Democratic majority into jeopardy. That’s just bone deep down to the marrow foolish,” Kennedy urged.

Kennedy further emphasised that Nothing is going to get done while the Democrats refuse to back down over something that is never going to come to fruition.

“Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi aren’t going to agree to anything until we agree to spend a trillion dollars bailing out New York and California and that’s not going to happen in your or my natural life,” Kennedy added.

Kennedy’s assessment of Pelosi’s sanity comes on the heels of Mad Money Host Jim Cramer calling Pelosi “crazy Nanncy” right to her face, before instantly apologising

Biden Campaign: Latinos For Trump Commence To Clowning Old GropingJoe...,

Actually, "Despacito" is the perfect song for Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/Chq90Hm49r

— Equipo Trump - Text VAMOS to 88022 (@EquipoTrump) September 16, 2020

 

thehill |  The campaign group Latinos for Trump on Wednesday tweeted an ad bringing attention to previous claims of inappropriate touching by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden using the Spanish-language pop song “Despacito,” referencing a Tuesday address the nominee gave at a Hispanic Heritage Month celebration in Florida. 

“Actually, ‘Despacito’ is the perfect song for Joe Biden,” the group said in a tweet, along with a video that begins with Biden playing the hit song from his phone after being introduced at the campaign event by the song’s singer, Luis Fonsi. 

The video then includes footage of Biden putting his arms over women at public events, along with lyrics of the song translated into English: “I want to breathe slowly on your neck” and “let me whisper in your ear.” 

The ad then cuts to a previous CNN interview with Lucy Flores, a former Nevada state legislator who accused Biden of inappropriate touching at an event in 2014. 

In the interview, Flores said that at the event, she could “feel Joe Biden put his hands on my shoulders, get up very close to me from behind, lean in, smell my hair and then plant a slow kiss on the top of my head.” 

After more women came forward with similar claims in 2019, Biden released a video in which he did not directly apologize for his past behavior, but said he would be more mindful of women’s personal space. 

“Social norms have begun to change, they’ve shifted, and the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset, and I get it,” he said in the video. “I hear what they’re saying. I understand it. I’ll be much more mindful. That’s my responsibility, and I’ll meet it.”

Biden Campaign Conquering Worlds In Latino Las Vegas...,

nypost  |  President Trump on Sunday made his case to Hispanic voters at a “Latinos for Trump” roundtable in Las Vegas — often at the expense of his Democratic challenger.

“While Joe Biden failed Hispanic-Americans, I’ve delivered for Hispanic-Americans more than any other president,” Trump said. “I’m fighting for you every single day, and you understand that better than anybody.”

Touting his “unwavering devotion” to the Latino community, Trump specifically cited his administration’s cuts of taxes and regulations, and the speed with which the economy has bounced back following the worst of the coronavirus shutdown.

But Trump also picked up where he left off at a Saturday night rally in Reno, Nev., slamming the record of former Vice President Biden.

“Joe Biden has spent 47 years betrayed the Hispanic-American community totally, sending their jobs to China, raising taxes on their family and small businesses, making their communities less safe, attacking their values and trapping their children in failing government schools,” Trump charged.

“He’s in his basement right now and he’s saying, ‘What do I do?'”

Biden Campaign Ratchets Up Courting Black voters, Specifically Black Men

                           

metrotimes |  Since he left office in 2019, former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has largely kept a low profile. But on Thursday, the Republican broke his silence to to announce in a USA Today op-ed that he was bucking his party and endorsing Democratic candidate Joe Biden for president.

In the op-ed, Snyder called President Donald Trump a "bully" who "lacks a moral compass" and "ignores the truth."

"As a proud nerd, I had to deal with bullies over many years; it is tragedy watching our world suffer from one," Snyder wrote.

The thing about tragedies, though, is that they can be wrought even by nerds like Snyder.

His greatest claim to infamy, of course, is his administration's handling of the Flint water crisis, which was a direct result of Michigan's emergency manager law. The people of Michigan rejected a similar law at the ballot in 2012; when that happened, Snyder and the Republican-led Congress just rammed through a new version that couldn't be rejected by voters. Then, while under emergency management, the city of Flint made the disastrous decision to switch its water supply — which led to its drinking water being poisoned with lead, harming thousands.

Even worse, a bombshell VICE report published earlier this year suggests a coordinated, years-long cover-up of the crisis that goes all the way up to Snyder, who may have known about the crisis much earlier than he testified.

Unsurprisingly, as Snyder's public profile was soured in the wake of the crisis, he has called for a return to "civility" in political discourse. But as the statute of limitations for criminal charges in the Flint crisis passed in April, followed by Michigan announcing a massive $600 million settlement for the victims in August, Snyder remained off the hook.

Now, it seems like Democrats are intent on rehabilitating him, the same way George W. Bush became recast as a fine artist who pals around with Hollywood icons at foot

Is The Great Reset The Hegemonic Elite Narrative To Paper Over The Reality Of Peak Oil?

Yesterday morning I read back to back dissertations on the Green Economy and the Green New Deal from the Brookings (neoliberal fascist) and Open Democracy (center left) respectively. These got me thinking about the overarching objectives of the entire Great Reset Operation, the tools it has employed over the past three years for human livestock management, and, its endlessly escalating opposition to MAGA or Brexit nationalism. 

In the area of endless escalation, the abrupt impoverishment of tens of millions via unnecessary quarantines and lockdowns, billowing political and interpersonal polarization fast approaching civil war/race war, and the use of engineered biological agents (which presumably can be ratcheted up to increasing levels of contagiousness and lethality) - all point toward an endgame that is far more drastic than anything currently countenanced in the mainstream narrative. We're not talking here about a "new normal", instead, we're talking about mass starvation, everyone against everyone ultraviolence, and when austerity gets REALLY severe, cannibalism. 

Central Banks are fighting a battle they will lose. Conventional (easy cheap oil) peaked in 2005. To compensate for that we smash rocks and suck out the oil --- we steam oil out of sand - and we drill miles beneath the ocean for oil. The EROEI from those extractive methods is very low. At the moment, we still have enough high energy return oil to subsidize those methods so civilization continues. (with greatly reduced travel, disrupted supply chains, and massive amounts of stimulus to help cope with the low EROEI oil mix.

The global economy does NOT like low energy return oil because it leaves less to run the world. In 2019 shale oil was peaking so the stop-gap, make-work party was ending. At that time, political elites began handwaving toward Universal Basic Income and Modern Monetary Theory to prep us for what we are experiencing now. They trotted out pasty and uncharismatic Greta Thunberg to exhort us about shutting down the planet.

Meanwhile and in parallel we get the MAGA man and his competing exhortations to take America back to 1954 along every politically expedient metric. At that point, in his "greatest economy ever" spiel, he could point to a periodic glut and claim 'we are swimming in oil'.  A glut does not mean we have found more oil - it simply means producers are pumping their reserves out faster.  They usually do this when prices are low as they need the cash flow to pay the bills so they need to push our more volume. The truth is that there is very little new oil being found.   What would you do if you were on your last tank of gas?   Of course you would ration it.  

Enter Covid and the Great Reset. Covid was created in a lab to provide cover for the collapsing energy availability "new normal". Covid has provided mimetic cover under authority of science for central banks to roll out MMT UBI Helicopter Money.  In addition, we are being groomed to accept lockdowns.  Anyone who resists is met with a big fine, arrest and in some countries beatings.   Your neighbour will be told by the authorities to rat on you going forward. Why?  Because when the Central Banks and their puppet politicians lose control of this situation they will enact martial law -- a total lockdown.  (the police state pincer movement)

For a time there may be food delivery pacification to those in the most extreme condition, but like stimulus checks and the MMT UBI, these will stop in fairly short order too. Politicians will promise 'the deliveries will resume in a couple of days'.  Like good sheep, you will trust these sock puppet rascals and wait... and wait... and wait...  and when you realize there is no food coming you will be too weak and exhausted to do anything. In any event there will be nothing you can do - there will be no food because the system has collapsed. 

This will be for your own good.  Resisting is futile.   Nobody wants extreme violence and cannibalism.   You and your family will lie down and wait to die from starvation.   

Reason Is Off The Table As Long As Governance Elides The Truth Of What's Really Happening

americanmind  |  Michael Anton’s new article “The Coming Coup?” went viral almost as soon as we posted it a week ago today. This is not simply because figures like Lara Logan, Mollie Hemingway, Newt Gingrich, Dan Bongino, and the editors of the New York Post took note. It spread because concerned citizens began sharing it throughout the nation. We could tell it was especially effective because so many in the mainstream media maintained studious radio silence.

But hyperventilating ruling-class supporters of the Biden/BLM/Antifa coalition did predictably lash out. The epitome of these reactions is an article in New York magazine’s Intelligencer, by political columnist Ed Kilgore, entitled “Trump Backers Make Case for Stealing Election, Before Biden Gets the Chance.”

The title itself reveals the stubborn simplicity of the Democratic Party’s coup narrative. Their elites have worked themselves and their base into a frothing lather of existential fright. In article after article, liberal intellectuals and activists have been talking for months about how Trump could steal the election or refuse to leave the White House even if he loses. But if the Right dares to point out that Democrats are actually changing the rules of the electoral process and actually speaking publicly about refusing to concede even if they lose, well, this only proves that the Right is going to steal the election and refuse to concede if they lose!

Urban Warfare Personalized With Individuals And Their Families Targeted

Gestapo Surveillance was invented during America's Conquest of the Philippines...,

Counterpunch |  Entitled Future Strategic Issues/Future Warfare [Circa 2025], the PowerPoint presentation anticipates: a) scenarios created by U.S. forces and agencies and b) scenarios to which they might have to respond. The projection is contingent on the use of hi-technology. According to the report there are/will be six Technological Ages of Humankind: “Hunter/killer groups (sic) [million BC-10K BC]; Agriculture [10K BC-1800 AD]; Industrial [1800-1950]; IT [1950-2020]; Bio/Nano [2020-?]; Virtual.”

In the past, “Hunter/gatherer” groups fought over “hunting grounds” against other “tribal bands” and used “handheld/thrown” weapons. In the agricultural era, “professional armies” also used “handheld/thrown” weapons to fight over “farm lands.” In the industrial era, conscripted armies fought over “natural resources,” using “mechanical and chemical” weapons. In our time, “IT/Bio/Bots” (robots) are used to prevent “societal disruption.” The new enemy is “everyone.” “Everyone.”

Similarly, a British Ministry of Defence projection to the year 2050 states: “Warfare could become ever more personalised with individuals and their families being targeted in novel ways.”

“KNOWLEDGE DOMINANCE”

The war on you is the militarization of everyday life with the express goal of controlling society, including your thoughts and actions.

A U.S. Army document on information operations from 2003 specifically cites activists as potential threats to elite interests. “Nonstate actors, ranging from drug cartels to social activists, are taking advantage of the possibilities the information environment offers,” particularly with the commercialization of the internet. “Info dominance” as the Space Command calls it can counter these threats: “these actors use the international news media to attempt to influence global public opinion and shape decision-maker perceptions.” Founded in 1977, the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command featured an Information Dominance Center, itself founded in 1999 by the private, veteran-owned company, IIT.

“Information Operations in support of civil-military interactions is becoming increasingly more important as non-kinetic courses-of-action are required,” wrote two researchers for the military in 1999. They also said that information operations, as defined by the Joint Chiefs of Staff JP 3-13 (1998) publication, “are aimed at influencing the information and information systems of an adversary.” They also confirm that “[s]uch operations require the continuous and close integration of offensive and defensive activities … and may involve public and civil affairs-related actions.” They conclude: “This capability begins the transition from Information Dominance to Knowledge Dominance.”

“ATTUNED TO DISPARITIES”

The lines between law enforcement and militarism are blurred, as are the lines between military technology and civilian technology. Some police forces carry military-grade weapons. The same satellites that enable us to use smartphones enable the armed forces to operate.

In a projection out to the year 2036, the British Ministry of Defence says that “[t]he clear distinction between combatants and non-combatants will be increasingly difficult to discern,” as “the urban poor will be employed in the informal sector and will be highly vulnerable to externally-derived economic shocks and illicit exploitation” (emphasize in original). This comes as Boris Johnson threatens to criminalize Extinction Rebellion and Donald Trump labels Black Lives Matter domestic terrorists.

In 2017, the U.S. Army published The Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Future Warfare. The report reads: “The convergence of more information and more people with fewer state resources will constrain governments’ efforts to address rampant poverty, violence, and pollution, and create a breeding ground for dissatisfaction among increasingly aware, yet still disempowered populations.”

BLM And Antifa Clowning Have Paved The Way For A Vast Expansion Of Urban Police State Apparatus

theintercept |  In August, 40 federal agents arrived in Memphis. Some were already on the ground by the time U.S. Attorney Michael Dunavant announced the onset of Operation Legend and the city became, along with St. Louis, the seventh to be targeted by the Justice Department’s heavy-handed initiative to reduce violent crime. Many of the agents are on temporary assignment, working in collaboration with police; nearly half will relocate by November. But they will leave behind a city flush with grant money for local police — and heightened surveillance capabilities.

In Memphis, organizers have long battled police surveillance. The fight came to a head in 2017, when a lawsuit against the city of Memphis revealed years of close surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists and union organizers. “We knew we were being watched and monitored and surveilled,” said Hunter Demster, an activist who was tracked on social media by MPD. The suit was successful, and in 2018, a federal judge ordered an independent monitor to oversee policing in the city. Now, activists there say that Operation Legend is a serious blow.

Operation Legend and its December precursor, Operation Relentless Pursuit, are both funding surveillance technology in cities across the country. Through Operation Legend, Memphis and four other cities received grants for gunshot detection technology, which lines cities with sensors to detect gunfire, despite longstanding concerns about its efficacy. Other more opaque grants from the Justice Department, like a $1.4 million grant to Shelby County, which surrounds Memphis, in April and a $1 million grant in July to the city of Cleveland, are to be used in part for “technological solutions” or “support” for investigations.

Awash in these federal funds, cities have doubled down on their surveillance investments, even as they face general budget shortfalls in the tens of millions. On August 4, two days before Operation Legend was formally announced in the city, Memphis signed a new contract with Cellebrite, an Israeli forensics manufacturer popular with law enforcement, whose products can hack and extract data from smartphones. The estimated $65,000 contract would double previous annual spending on the technology, per city procurement records. The Memphis police declined an interview request for this story and did not respond to several additional inquiries about the purchases.

Q-Anon Had A GREAT, BRILLIANT, But Inevitably Doomed Run Against The Hegemons...,

logically |   A Logically investigation identifies a key QAnon figure as New Jersey resident Jason Gelinas. The investigation ties QAnon properties to a company owned by Gelinas, an information technology specialist who has held prominent positions at both Credit Suisse and Citigroup.

Ever since the shadowy figure known as Q made his first appearance on the 4chan imageboard in October of 2017, the author’s identity has remained a mystery. Since then, Q has posted thousands of ‘drops,’ converting legions of followers to the belief that Donald Trump is leading a global fight against a satanic cabal of child trafficking elites, commonly referred to in the QAnon world as the ‘Deep State’.

 
Over the years, Q’s posts would move from the 4chan forum to 8chan, and finally to its later iteration, 8kun. But these forums weren’t where most of Q’s followers would go to access the drops: most would find them neatly compiled on a site called QMap, now the main platform on which Q’s drops are published. For years it was believed that QMap was an endeavour that was independent of both the chan forums and the person or people posting Q’s drops, but recent discoveries concerning an IP address behind QMap raised questions as to whether Jim Watkins, the owner of 8chan and 8kun, an elusive figure in his own right, could also be Q. As some QAnon researchers have pointed out, however, the story of Q’s operations does not end with Jim Watkins.

In the world of QAnon, the site qmap.pub is something of a sacred text. It’s a site designed to collect Q’s posts on other message boards and collate them in a searchable database; over the years, it has grown to include glossaries on themes, profiles on people named across the drops (handily sorted into ‘Evil’, ‘Traitor/Pawn’, and ‘Patriot’), and even a prayer wall.

Most followers of QAnon tend not to visit Q’s posts on 8kun and the ‘chan’ boards where they are initially posted (the vernacular used on those sites is deliberately exclusionary and newcomers are often put off). This makes qmap.pub a crucial port of call for all QAnon information and a major node in how the movement disseminates its lore. The site has been hitting over 10 million monthly users since April of this year.

The developer of QMap has been known only as ‘QAPPANON’ since the launch of the site in May of 2018. They have a successful Patreon where they regularly post and update their following on the running of the website. They pull in over 600 patrons and a $3,320 a month income - although there is a $4,000 a month target for ‘running costs’ of the website. In addition to the website, QMap also had an accompanying app on the Google Play Store (for $2.99) until it was removed in May this year as “harmful content”. The user QAPPANON is synonymous with qmap.pub, acting as its sole developer and mouthpiece.

The QAnon community recognizes the importance of QAPPANON and how central QMap is to how the movement functions. In a recent campaign to deplatform QAPPANON from Patreon, QAnon power-influencer Praying Medic leapt to their defence, calling on his nearly 400,000 Twitter followers to help (and funnelling them towards QAPPANON’s Patreon). In addition, Praying Medic linked to the Patreon on his podcast, describing it as the “Qmap Patreon”.
 

MK-Ultra, JFK, Assange, Snowden, Epstein: Hegemonic "Reality" Riddled With Secrets And Lies..,

Time  |  In more than seven dozen interviews conducted in Wisconsin in early September, from the suburbs around Milwaukee to the scarred streets of Kenosha in the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting, about 1 in 5 voters volunteered ideas that veered into the realm of conspiracy theory, ranging from QAnon to the notion that COVID-19 is a hoax. Two women in Ozaukee County calmly informed me that an evil cabal operates tunnels under the U.S. in order to rape and torture children and drink their blood. A Joe Biden supporter near a Kenosha church told me votes don’t matter, because “the elites” will decide the outcome of the election anyway. A woman on a Kenosha street corner explained that Democrats were planning to bring in U.N. troops before the election to prevent a Trump win.

It’s hard to know exactly why people believe what they believe. Some had clearly been exposed to QAnon conspiracy theorists online. Others seemed to be repeating false ideas espoused in Plandemic, a pair of conspiracy videos featuring a discredited former medical researcher that went viral, spreading the notion that COVID-19 is a hoax across social media. (COVID-19 is not a hoax.) When asked where they found their information, almost all these voters were cryptic: “Go online,” one woman said. “Dig deep,” added another. They seemed to share a collective disdain for the mainstream media–a skepticism that has only gotten stronger and deeper since 2016. The truth wasn’t reported, they said, and what was reported wasn’t true.

This matters not just because of what these voters believe but also because of what they don’t. The facts that should anchor a sense of shared reality are meaningless to them; the news developments that might ordinarily inform their vote fall on deaf ears. They will not be swayed by data on coronavirus deaths, they won’t be persuaded by job losses or stock market gains, and they won’t care if Trump called America’s fallen soldiers “losers” or “suckers,” as the Atlantic reported, because they won’t believe it. They are impervious to messaging, advertising or data. They aren’t just infected with conspiracy; they appear to be inoculated against reality.

Democracy relies on an informed and engaged public responding in rational ways to the real-life facts and challenges before us. But a growing number of Americans are untethered from that. “They’re not on the same epistemological grounding, they’re not living in the same worlds,” says Whitney Phillips, a professor at Syracuse who studies online disinformation. “You cannot have a functioning democracy when people are not at the very least occupying the same solar system.”

Has Jim Woodward Conquered Gravity And Built An Inertial Drive?

wired  |  Every spacecraft that has ever left Earth has relied on some type of propellant to get it to its destination. Typically a spacecraft moves by igniting its fuel in a combustion chamber and expelling hot gases. (Even more exotic forms of propulsion, such as ion thrusters, still require propellant.) That’s why humans have remained stuck so close to home. A spacecraft can only accelerate as long as it has fuel to burn or a planet to loop around for a gravitational assist. Those methods can’t even carry a vehicle all the way to Alpha Centauri, our closest neighbor, in any reasonable amount of time. The fastest spacecraft ever built, the Parker Solar Probe, which will hit speeds over 400,000 miles per hour, would take thousands of years to get there.

Woodward’s MEGA drive is different. Instead of propellant, it relies on electricity, which in space would come from solar panels or a nuclear reactor. His insight was to use a stack of piezoelectric crystals and some controversial—but he believes plausible—physics to generate thrust. The stack of crystals, which store tiny amounts of energy, vibrates tens of thousands of times per second when zapped with electric current. Some of the vibrational frequencies harmonize as they roll through the device, and when the oscillations sync up in just the right way, the small drive lurches forward.

This might not sound like the secret to interstellar travel, but if that small lurch can be sustained, a spacecraft could theoretically produce thrust for as long as it had electric power. It wouldn’t accelerate quickly, but it could accelerate for a long time, gradually gaining in velocity until it was whipping its way across the galaxy. An onboard nuclear reactor could supply it with electric power for decades, long enough for an array of MEGA drives to reach velocities approaching the speed of light. If Woodward’s device works, it’d be the first propulsion system that could conceivably reach another solar system within the lifespan of an astronaut. How does it work? Ask Woodward and he’ll tell you his gizmo has merely tapped into the fabric of the universe and hitched a ride on gravity itself.

Sound impossible? A lot of theoretical physicists think so too. In fact, Woodward is certain most theoretical physicists think his propellantless thruster is nonsense. But in June, after two decades of halting progress, Woodward and Fearn made a minor change to the configuration of the thruster. Suddenly, the MEGA drive leapt to life. For the first time, Woodward seemed to have undeniable evidence that his impossible engine really worked. Then the pandemic hit.

On a clear night in March 1967, Woodward was stargazing on the rooftop of Pensión Santa Cruz, a hotel in the heart of Seville, in Spain. The 26-year-old physicist was struggling with his chosen profession and had taken a break from graduate work at New York University. He found himself drawn to fringe research topics, particularly those having to do with gravity, which he knew would make it hard to get a job. “It became clear to me simply by looking at the physics department around me that a bunch of people like that were unlikely to hire someone like me,” Woodward says. So he decided to try something else. He had picked up flamenco guitar as an undergrad and even performed in clubs in New York. Inspired by his aunt, a CIA officer who had learned to play the instrument while stationed in Madrid, he headed to Spain to pursue a career in it.

At the time, the space race was only a decade old and satellite spotting was a popular sport. As Woodward gazed up from atop his Spanish hotel, he saw a speck of light arcing across the sky and mentally calculated its path. But as he watched the satellite, it began deviating from its expected trajectory—first by a little and then by a lot.

Everything Woodward knew about satellites told him that what he was seeing should be impossible. It would take too much energy for a satellite to change its orbit like that, and most satellites weren’t able to shift more than a couple of degrees. And yet, he had just seen a satellite double back with his own eyes. He didn't conclude that engineers at NASA or in the Soviet Union must have secretly achieved a breakthrough in satellite propulsion. Instead, he believes he saw a spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin. “Critters at least as clever as us had figured out how to get around spacetime far better than we are capable of doing,” Woodward says. That changed the question, he says, from if it was possible to how.

Never one to doubt the power of the human intellect, especially his own, Woodward reckoned he could build a similar interstellar propulsion system if he put his mind to it. “If somebody figured out how the hell to do something like that, they probably aren’t an awful lot smarter than I am,” Woodward recalls thinking at the time. “So I thought maybe I should devote a little time to trying to do that.” It was a project that would occupy him for the rest of his life.

Woodward completed his master’s degree in physics at NYU in 1969, and he left to do a PhD in history at the University of Denver shortly after. His decision to pivot from physics to history was a pragmatic one. As a master’s student, he spent a lot of his time combing through old scientific journals in search of promising gravitational research that had been abandoned or hit a dead end so he could pick up the torch. “I was doing the history of science already, so I might as well get a degree in it,” Woodward says. “It was an obvious thing to do.” As an academic historian, he’d enjoy the job security that comes with uncontroversial research and still have the freedom to study fringe gravitational topics as an avocation. He accepted a position in the Cal State Fullerton history department in 1972.

An Intriguing Fourth Theory Of Everything

futurism  |  It’s not every day that we come across a paper that attempts to redefine reality.

But in a provocative preprint uploaded to arXiv this summer, a physics professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth named Vitaly Vanchurin attempts to reframe reality in a particularly eye-opening way — suggesting that we’re living inside a massive neural network that governs everything around us. In other words, he wrote in the paper, it’s a “possibility that the entire universe on its most fundamental level is a neural network.”

For years, physicists have attempted to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. The first posits that time is universal and absolute, while the latter argues that time is relative, linked to the fabric of space-time.

In his paper, Vanchurin argues that artificial neural networks can “exhibit approximate behaviors” of both universal theories. Since quantum mechanics “is a remarkably successful paradigm for modeling physical phenomena on a wide range of scales,” he writes, “it is widely believed that on the most fundamental level the entire universe is governed by the rules of quantum mechanics and even gravity should somehow emerge from it.”

“We are not just saying that the artificial neural networks can be useful for analyzing physical systems or for discovering physical laws, we are saying that this is how the world around us actually works,” reads the paper’s discussion. “With this respect it could be considered as a proposal for the theory of everything, and as such it should be easy to prove it wrong.”

The concept is so bold that most physicists and machine learning experts we reached out to declined to comment on the record, citing skepticism about the paper’s conclusions. But in a Q&A with Futurism, Vanchurin leaned into the controversy — and told us more about his idea.

Futurism: Your paper argues that the universe might fundamentally be a neural network. How would you explain your reasoning to someone who didn’t know very much about neural networks or physics?

Vitaly Vanchurin: There are two ways to answer your question.

The first way is to start with a precise model of neural networks and then to study the behavior of the network in the limit of a large number of neurons. What I have shown is that equations of quantum mechanics describe pretty well the behavior of the system near equilibrium and equations of classical mechanics describes pretty well how the system further away from the equilibrium. Coincidence? May be, but as far as we know quantum and classical mechanics is exactly how the physical world works.

The second way is to start from physics. We know that quantum mechanics works pretty well on small scales and general relativity works pretty well on large scales, but so far we were not able to reconcile the two theories in a unified framework. This is known as the problem of quantum gravity. Clearly, we are missing something big, but to make matters worse we do not even know how to handle observers. This is known as the measurement problem in context of quantum mechanics and the measure problem in context of cosmology.

Then one might argue that there are not two, but three phenomena that need to be unified: quantum mechanics, general relativity and observers. 99% of physicists would tell you that quantum mechanics is the main one and everything else should somehow emerge from it, but nobody knows exactly how that can be done. In this paper I consider another possibility that a microscopic neural network is the fundamental structure and everything else, i.e. quantum mechanics, general relativity and macroscopic observers, emerges from it.

Love Me Some Vika, But GOTTDAYYUM - Naomi Is The GOAT!!!

大阪直美-ほとんど無料の黒人女性

As Goes Blackness: There Is No Fixing The Past To Escape The Present

Counterpunch  |  It is September 2020. Americans are focused on an election between an Orange Fascist criminal and an old-school right-wing Democrat war criminal. Where Donald Trump projects chaos and disorder, Biden projects stability, order, and a return to normalcy. If Trump is the virus, then surely Biden is the cure.

It is September 2020. Libya prepares to enter its eighth year of civil war. Slave markets like the one in Bani Walid are as common as youth literacy centers were in Gaddafi’s Libya. Armed gangs and militias wield power even in areas nominally under government control. A warlord regroups in the East as he looks to Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates for support.

It is September 2020 and the US-NATO war on Libya has faded to a distant memory as other issues like Black Lives Matter and police murder of Black youth have captured the public imagination and discourse.

But these issues are, in fact, united by the bond of white supremacy and anti-Blackness. The Libya once known as the “Jewel of Africa,” a country that provided refuge for many sub-Saharan African migrant workers while maintaining independence from the US and the former colonial powers of Europe, is no more. In its place is a failed state that now reflects the kind of vicious anti-Black racism forcefully suppressed by the Gaddafi government.

Libya as the global exemplar of the exploitation and disposability of the black body.

Squint a little and you can see President Joe Biden getting the old band back together. Hillary Clinton welcomed into the Oval Office as an influential voice, someone to give words to the demented thoughts of the living corpse serving as Commander-in-Chief. Derek Chollet and Ben Rhodes laughing together as they buy another round at their favorite DC hangout, toasting to the re-establishment of order in Washington. Barack Obama as the éminence grise behind the political resurgence of the liberal-conservative dominant structure.

But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.

Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.

The Future Is Here Already, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed

Forbes  |  Mexican drug cartels are using weaponized consumer drones in their latest gang war, according to reports in El Universal and other local news media. 

A citizens’ militia group in Tepalcatepec, Michoacán, formed to protect farmers from the cartel, found two drones in a car used by gunmen belonging to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a group estimated to control a third of the drugs consumed in the U.S. The drones had plastic containers taped to them filled with C4 explosive and ball bearing shrapnel. The militias say that they have heard explosions, and believe that the drones are the latest weapons an ongoing gang war. 

“The CJNG has been involved with such devices since late 2017 in various regions of Mexico,” says analyst Dr. Robert J. Bunker, Director of Research and Analysis at C/O Futures, LLC. “This cartel is well on its way to institutionalizing the use of weaponized drones. None of the other cartels appear to presently even be experimenting with the weaponization of these devices.”

In 2017, Bunker reported on the arrest of four CJNG members with a drone carrying a ‘papa bomba’ (potato bomb) , an improvised hand grenade. In 2018 an armed drone attacked the residence of a senior official in Baja, California. The official was not at home, and the attack seems to have been intended as a warning. Three CNJG drones with explosive were recovered this year , part of an arsenal for use against the rival Rosa de Lima cartel.

Bunker says that suitable consumer drones are now easy to acquire and use, but that the challenge is weaponizing them.

“The limiting factor is not so much the availability of military grade explosives—commercial or homemade explosives can be substituted—but the basic technical knowledge necessary to create improvised explosive devices or IEDs,” says Bunker.

America Caught In A Police State Pincer Movement

alt-market  |  The establishment supports social justice violence and unrest, and is cracking down hard on any resistance to medical tyranny. The hypocrisy is evident.

But this brings up some questions; such as why they are so keen to allow the BLM riots to continue? As noted at the beginning of this article, I think the strategy is evident – It's a two pronged attempt, a bait and switch: If the Marxists are successful and meet little resistance from the public then they will tear down the current system, and the elitists institutions that fund them like George Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation will use the opportunity to build an Orwellian collectivist society from the ashes.

On the other hand, as in Germany in the 1930s, the civil unrest caused by hard left groups could also convince the general public that martial law measures are an acceptable solution and make them willing to sacrifice constitutional protections in order to rid themselves of the threat. There have been examples of this recently when federal agents initiated black bagging of protester in Portland using unmarked vans; all I saw from most conservatives was cheering. This would undoubtedly lead to a long term totalitarian structure that, once again, benefits the elites that inhabit every aspect of government including Trump's White House.

In both cases, the power elites get what they want – a police state.

In terms of the pandemic response, a police state is already being established in many nations, and with most Western people's predominantly disarmed there is little chance they will be able to resist the crackdown that will ensue as they try to protest the restrictions. But what about in America?

This is why it does not surprise me that the BLM riots are being encouraged so openly in the US. Look at it this way: If the elites cannot get us to go along with medical tyranny for fear of sparking an armed uprising from conservatives with actual training and ability, then they figure maybe they can trick us into supporting martial law in the name of defeating the political left.

The only solution is to refuse to support either option. We must repel the establishment of medical tyranny and stand against any overstep of state and federal governments against the constitution when it comes to protests. Riots and looting can be dealt with, and dealt with within the confines of the Bill of Rights. Also, once again I would point out that in almost every place where armed citizens organize and take up security measures in their communities the protests remain peaceful, or they don't happen at all.

There is no legitimate excuse for a police state. There is always another way. Anyone that tells you different has an agenda of their own.

Flu Is Killing More People Than Covid-19

off-guardian  |   A report from the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows that since at least June 19th, more people in the UK have been dying of influenza than Covid19.

This, of course, is despite the fact that “Covid19 deaths” are incredibly vaguely defined. 

Under UK law a person only has to test positive for the Sars-Cov-2 virus at any point in the 28 days prior to their death for “Covid19” to be on their death certificate, a policy which totally ignores the fact the majority of Sars-Cov-2 infections are completely symptomless (and has already resulted in huge over-counts).

Meanwhile boring old influenza is lumbered with having to actually contribute to the death before being added to the death certificate. And nevertheless, for three straight months, the UK has recorded more flu deaths than Covid deaths.

“Ah”, some of your may be saying, “this is just evidence that the lockdown, social distancing and masks have worked.”

But that is obviously not the case. Clearly, if these measures did anything to halt viral transmission, the flu deaths would have gone down as well. They have not. They are right in line with the five-year average.

Despite social distancing and wearing masks and hand sanitizer on every corner…the spread of the flu virus has not halted one bit in its usual annual progress through society.

Ergo – the “emergency measures” have little to no impact on viral transmission.

U.K. Bans Social Gatherings Of More Than 6 People...,

bbc  |  Social gatherings of more than six people will be illegal in England from Monday - with some exemptions - amid a steep rise in coronavirus cases.

The law change will ban larger groups meeting anywhere socially indoors or outdoors, the government said.

But it will not apply to schools, workplaces or Covid-secure weddings, funerals and organised team sports.

It will be enforced through a £100 fine if people fail to comply, doubling on each offence up to a maximum of £3,200.

The new rules - which come into force on 14 September - mark a change to England's current guidance. 

At present, the guidance says two households of any size are allowed to meet indoors or outdoors, or up to six people from different households outdoors. Until now the police have had no powers to stop gatherings unless they exceeded 30.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will give further details of the changes at a Downing Street news conference at 16:00 BST on Wednesday, alongside senior advisers Prof Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance.

• What are the new rules for meeting my friends?
• Five reasons rise in Covid cases is not all it seems

"One of the pieces of feedback we had including from the police was that we needed the rules to be super simple so that everybody knows what they are," said Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

Cuomo "Allows" Indoor Dining After Getting Slapped With A $2 Billion Class Action Lawsuit

nydailynews  |  “Opening restaurants, I understand the economic benefit and I understand the economic pressure they’ve been under,” Cuomo said of struggling Big Apple restaurants that have been shuttered, relegated to takeout or serving customers outdoors for months.

The governor, who has faced criticism for his hesitation to allow restaurants to seat diners indoors, set a Nov. 1 deadline to reassess the COVID-19 infection rate. If the number remains low, indoor dining capacity could increase to 50%.

The announcement comes after business owners filed a $2 billion class-action lawsuit, alleging the state is violating the constitutional rights of more than 150,000 New York City restaurateurs. The industry employs roughly 300,000 people in the city.

New York State Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), who joined the suit against the governor earlier this week, said the state should act faster to assist eateries.

“While we’re happy the city and state have acknowledged the plight of the restaurant industry, it’s not enough," she said. "We will continue to proceed with the lawsuit until New York City is granted the 50% capacity like every other municipality in New York State.”

New Jersey began allowing eateries to welcome back customers last week with a similar 25% limit on capacity while restaurants upstate and on Long Island have been operating at 50% since June.

The governor has repeatedly railed against City Hall in recent weeks, accusing the mayor and NYPD of not doing enough to enforce measures meant to stem the spread of coronavirus.

On Wednesday, Cuomo said the city will contribute 400 personnel to an existing task force headed by the State Liquor Authority and state police to ensure compliance with the new orders, a deal apparently hammered out not just with Mayor Bill de Blasio, but with other city officials too.

“We have been talking to all stakeholders up until the moment I just walked out,” Cuomo said.

Spanish Mask Protests And Violent Police Clampdown Hard To Find Online...,

VOA  |  A movement that denies the existence of COVID-19 has split Spanish society as the country is battling to control the highest number of coronavirus cases in Europe.

Stop Confinamiento España, one of the groups behind the movement, has said it will hold a protest next month in Madrid, calling it a “peaceful demonstration against the measures imposed in connection with the false health crisis caused by COVID-19.”

The strength of feeling among those who claim coronavirus is an invention by a ruling elite to control the masses was demonstrated when an estimated 2,500 people staged a protest in Madrid on Sunday. 

The movement has gained ground thanks in part to the support of high profile celebrity supporters like Miguel Bosé, a popular Spanish singer.

Bosé has used his social media platforms in recent weeks to promote what some describe as conspiracy theories about COVID-19, and he claimed a planned vaccine was a pretext to control the world’s population using 5G mobile phone technology.

Sunday’s demonstration echoed those in June staged in cities across Spain by mainly right wing groups that were protesting restrictions imposed on personal freedoms by the left wing coalition government in order to curtail a rising number of coronavirus cases. 

Spain last week announced a nationwide ban on smoking and drinking in public if social distancing cannot be guaranteed.

The COVID-19 denial movement in Spain echoes similar libertarian movements that have sprung up in the U.S., France, Britain and Germany.

The controversial cause has divided Spaniards, with recent polls showing a quarter of the population objects to the obligatory use of face masks across the country.