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Thought this was the Bee, but it's not. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/biden-admin-may-pay-millions-migrant-families-separated-border-under-n1282670 Also

Less than two months removed from running away from Afghanistan in the middle of the night - ISIS Threat in Northern Virginia Let's go Brandon

Bye.

While I agree with jazz dude initially, the problem is that companies like Facebook are making money through advertising before and after the links that a user posts. And the very act of users posting links to other news sources is what keeps eyeballs on the Facebook newsfeed. If users were no longer allowed to post links to other sources then other Facebook users would be less likely to spend as much time on facebook, meaning Facebook would not be able to advertise as much. So while it is not a direct relationship, Facebook is very much making money off of those links. I don't know what sort of payment model is required for Facebook to continue this arrangement, but it's not accurate to compare it to a web board like base ops, because fundamentally Facebook models themselves around making money on those exact interactions. As far as influence goes, I'm afraid I don't have a great answer for that either. We're clearly now in a middle ground between the government's constitutional obligation to defend free speech in a private organizations constitutionally protected right to run their business as they see fit. Honestly I don't find Facebook as comparable in this dilemma as I do the government. Too many elected and unelected officials have been using the social media companies to do what they cannot. If this trend continues, I suspect the only solution would be to subject the social media companies to the same constitutional obligations that the government is subject to. And then we have the third problem of personalization and tracking. It is problematic that every individual user experiences a different internet based on an algorithmic encapsulation of all of their previous browsing behavior. It's creating a social problem, while at the same time making social media companies billions in profits. I think we probably need legislation that bans tracking users across websites and domains. If Facebook wants to track users actions on facebook, and adjust their Facebook experience accordingly, I have no issue with that. But what you do on Facebook should not translate to what you see on a Google search, or an Amazon product search, or what advertisements appear on CNN. These algorithms are ultimately tuned for one purpose, to keep your eyeballs where they are. The second and third order effects are a rapid increase in conspiracy theory and distrust/hatred of neighbors with opposing viewpoints. I'm not sure the live-and-let-live philosophy of individual liberty can survive in a society where profitable algorithms and self-serving media/political figures prevent us from knowing and loving our neighbors with different views. It's healthy and normal that you cannot control who you bump into in the broader world. It exposes you to a diversity of experiences and ideas. These algorithms are having the exact opposite effect, while the internet is more and more becoming a part of the public space. I think it is probably in our best interests to maintain some element of unpredictable encounters if we don't want that split into multiple societies with myopic views.

Zuck was trying to get out of the spotlight by running ads putting the blame on the government, when that failed he changed the platform name. Some very interesting items buried int he SEC report including a research study Facebook Manipulation that shows just how and biased the platform is. Something has to change and 230 needs serious modification or elimination. We will just ignore the $400M he dumped into shaping local elections. This nerd has far too much say in shaping your life.

This coming week is going to be very telling as the AD deadline passes.

C ya

Kinzinger won't run in 2022

I'm going with none. Used to be told that the handle for the manual hydro pump was Harley and the hand grip was Schwinn. That was the old wooden handle question, those lights get hot. Question that died with the H2s. How many holes in the urinal? Only a dick would know.

The Taliban is begging for Afghanistan's frozen money to be released as the country's economy spirals into crisis (msn.com) Actually governing is a real bitch isn't it. Hungry desperate people tend to get surly at the people in charge. I would say very little of the money they're discussing was provided by Afghanistan versus foreign donations anyway. I would tell the Taliban lets see some concrete action on human rights. NOW. By the way here's our list of wanted criminals including those who committed atrocities against our troops and our Afghan partners. Certainly not all the money at once and you will show an accounting of where it goes. If we even smell a hint of diversion to fund terrorism or corruption the gravy train stops. We have the watch AND the time now. This isn't the 90s anymore.

Apparently, the investigation substantiated that is is his fault.

Remember… Gerrymandering is strictly a Republican problem… Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Soooo, the Chinese flu literally almost killed me earlier this summer. I didn't think I was especially at risk as, although I'm in my late 50s, I wasn't overweight, didn't have any known complicating factors, etc., etc. Was not vaccinated because A) I remember the anthrax fiasco from before and B) wanted a fully approved FDA vaccine in place before getting the shot(s). Although I retired last year, I actually started work again as a GS again because I was bored and a buddy asked me to apply. Was only in the saddle for a month when I got sick after going TDY. Two weeks of hospitalization included two periods of the question on whether I would continue to breathe or not. Turns out that the pneumonia I had 25 years ago doesn't go away, it just nurses its' drink in the corner of my lungs until the friendly Chinese hooker named Covid shows up and wants to party and things got out of control... I never understood the part when terminally ill patients just give up - we are trained in the "will to survive" thing at SERE and as part of being alive. Now I do. I have never been that utterly exhausted/tired/just wanted it to stop and hope to never again. I was fine if the light turned out permanently. 13L/min of O2. Essentially pressure breathing in order for enough oxygen to get in me to keep me alive. I recount the melodrama above because after I got out of the hospital, ol' Joe decides he's king and says I got to get vaccinated. Even though the vaccine doesn't prevent the virus, has noted/documented side-effects, and, this is the important part, I ALREADY HAD THE VIRUS AND RECOVERED. My body is swimming in antibodies. My lung specialist says not to get said vaccine for at least a year as I am likely to have a severe reaction and my lungs, already now f'd because of this, wouldn't take kindly to another CCP orgy. But that's not good enough. So I thoroughly enjoyed quitting. F' the Man. Fortunately, I'm in a position to do so. Please note that nothing written has been put out by the President so legal challenges are difficult, although some are underway. Federal departments, like DoD, have put out their own directives. Those also are under challenges. But the sneaky part is Biden having corporate America do his bidding without said Presidential direction. Get a jab or lose your job. Seems a bit Stalinist-like to me. Not to mention, the President does not have that power under our system of government. No law has been passed. Yet many people are happy, even eager to comply. Want the vaccine? Great, go get it. Don't want it? Don't especially since the virus shrugs off the vaccine anyway. It's all fun and games until the President and the bureaucracy decide what the limits of your freedom are. Without you getting a say so. Comply or else. For your own good, of course. It's great to be the one deciding, ain't it?

In my opinion, it extended much further down than just the top level GO/FO leadership. Long but interesting anecdotal story. When I was a young staff officer I was assigned to be my command's GSOS lead (Global Special Operations Synchronization, it's how SOCOM is supposed to prioritize where it puts SOF, feeds into the GFM process). BLUF is its a multi-phase process with a lot of data collection/processing and in person PPTs to a board. During my second year doing doing this, SOJTF-A J35 was presenting their Campaign Plan for the conference (presented to a board of 6 O-6s from SOCOM), SOJTF-A team was made up of an O-6 and several O-5s and civilians. The SOJTF-A team VTCs in and has this very bright, optimistic "this is the year we turn it all around, X years to stem the tide, XX years to seize the initiative, we're gonna take it to them with this new strategy, etc, etc, etc). I think they even used the word "defeat" in some of their presentation. The O-6 board receives the presentation, asks a few minor questions, then says great job, go get'em, we really appreciate you", or something to that effect and starts to move on. That would've been the end of it except for 1 O-5 Army Strategist (extremely intelligent guy who was about as cynical as they come) in the audience. He stands up in this room full of 50 people with god knows how many others in VTC land and politely asks what's different about this year compared to all the other years in the Stan (this conference was in early 2018). When SOJTF-A says they don't understand his question, he expands by saying what they've presented looks remarkably similar to his 2005 experience, which also mirrored the time he was there in 2009, while not differing all that much from the strategic plan in 2011, seemed shockingly similar to his deployment in 2013, and he didn't see all that much change from 2015-2017. He then asked how on god's green earth they were going to seriously degrade or possibly defeat the enemy with a fraction of the resources previously available and an ANA that wasn't that much more capable and suffering a record high number of casualties. The crazy/really eye opening moment to this whole thing was that the SOJTF-A guys just sat there dumbstruck, like they couldn't believe anyone wouldn't believe in or would dare question their plan. They literally had no answer. I seriously think several of them honestly believed the nonsense they were presenting. The O-6 board quietly ruffled through their notes or stared at their hands. The O-5 strategist shook his head and sat down. Will always be one those random moments in my career I'll never forget and the moment I knew we could've been in the Stan for another 20 years and it wouldn't have changed the ultimate outcome one bit.

This is not an intelligence failure...if our leaders thought they'd be good, they were delusional. I left there thinking the ANA would be lucky to last a few weeks after we left. Anyone who thought otherwise was lying to themselves.

I don't think Facebook/Google/Twitter are doing anything different than any other large multinational company. They are doing things traditional news and media outlets already do. This is old news, Google did the same thing in Europe, and prevailed there. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out in Australia. What the news outlets (really, Murdoch has been pushing this issue internationally) want is for Facebook to pay anytime it links to a news site in its news feed. So if a headline is shown with a link to a news site on Facebook, that news site wants Facebook to pay them for use of the headline. Even though the news site increases its visibility and likely the number of people going to their site by showing up on the Facebook newsfeed. All Facebook is saying is that they don't want to buy the link from the news site, and removed the links it would otherwise have to pay for in Australia. Facebook is not blocking anything; it's choosing not to buy a product from another company and provide it as a (free) service on Facebook. Australians are free to navigate to the news site directly and still obtain the news. The safety aspect mentioned in the article (emergency alerts) is a red herring. Essential emergency government services should not rely on a platform they have no contract with not pay to provide a service (in other words, no control over services provided to them by a business), because their access can be cut off without notice. Sure, try to be where the people are, but it shouldn't be the sole method of emergency alerts. A corporation that large, with the amount of money the big tech has (and not just big tech, but in other sectors as well), wields a significant amount of power and influence. This influence includes the market, and government. What's missing from this conversation is how much reach and influence traditional media outlets *already* have, and how it's lobbying to keep that influence and profit. I'm curious how this would affect smaller news aggregators; will they go out of business since they may not be able to afford paying to include outside news links on their site?