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Thursday, November 04, 2021

People really do give a shit

 Federal Parliament witnessed a one-in-a-100-year event when the government defied the Speaker, who thought Christian Porter’s ruse of using a blind trus to circumvent disclosure rules warranted investigation.

Whether to protect Porter or his donors, the Morrison strategists decided trashing a century of principle and precedent was preferable to even exploring Porter’s contrivance. Astonishing.

Insulted? You should be, it’s been a lousy week for democracy


Australia’s high court finds the higher rate of tax for working holiday makers is discriminatory and breaches treaty with UK

British waitress wins High Court discrimination battle over Australia's 'backpacker tax'


Clearview AI, whose facial recognition database was trialled by Australian police agencies last year, breached Australian privacy rules with its operating model.

The company scrapes people’s photos from the web and then allows users to upload an image and search for a match against the database, which - in the case of policing - may help to identify a person of interest.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP)Victoria Police, Queensland Police Service and South Australia Police all took up free trials in early 2020.

Cop-used Clearview AI breached Australians' privacy, investigation finds


The Demise of White House Market Will Shake Up the Dark Web

The popular marketplace’s closing leaves a big hole in the billion-dollar industry of illegal drugs, credit card and bank fraud, forged documents, and more.


The problem with water companies – and how to solve it

I was asked yesterday by a friend who is an accountant what I thought about the problems in water companies. This was my reply: What

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How I Reframed The Dentist’s Drilling Into Music

Perhaps as a coping mechanism... I trained myself to turn my dental saga into a cycle of musical encounters, and to revise my role as a patient in the recliner into that of a captive audience. - Washington Post


US: "Even if we lose, we can start again with Mr. Assange and issue another extradition request" -James Lewis QC today at the UK High Court on behalf of the US Government


Anonymity No More? Age Checks Come To the Web New York Times


Here’s the FBI’s Internal Guide for Getting Data from AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Guardian. Note that cell phone tower derived location is too approximate to use in court to put a suspect at a particular location.




When $200k Is Taxed Like $10 Million: Latest Tax Plan Targets Less Affluent With Trusts


Capitalism Is Violence Caitlin Johnstone


Warrior Met Coal’s New PR Strategy: Smearing Striking Miners Kim Kelly.


CNN – “People with certain health conditions that make them moderately or severely immunocompromised may get a fourth mRNA Covid-19 shot, according to updated guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC authorized a third dose for certain immunocompromised people 18 and older in August. It said a third dose, rather than a booster — the CDC makes a distinction between the two — was necessary because the immunocompromised may not have had a complete immune response from the first two doses. A study from Johns Hopkins University this summer showed that vaccinated immunocompromised people were 485 times more likely to end up in the hospital or die from Covid-19 compared to most vaccinated people. In small studies, the CDC said, fully vaccinated immunocompromised people accounted for about 44% of the breakthrough cases that required hospitalization. People who are immunocompromised are also more likely to transmit the virus to people who had close contact with them…


People really do give a shit

Politics always has the ability to surprise, but some things are constant. As everyone who has ever stood to be a councillor tells me, dog
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Some of the most frightening monsters in the Jewish imagination. Deuteronomy mentions that a prediluvian king named Og was the last of the giants, a species that thrived before the flood... but wasn’t all life not in Noah's ark destroyed during the torrent? How did Og survive? The answer is scarily simple. He hung onto the side of the ark for the entire storm, eating scraps Noah fed him through a hole in the wall.