Thursday, August 5, 2021

And another day of warnings, very sick kids, pro-China propaganda, 'competitive authoritarianism,' a $5 million fine for teaching in TN, a wildfire destroying a CA town, CA students push to ‘free the period,’ Apple opens a backdoor, Dan Rather on a roll and a whole lot more comes to a close:

“It should fill Floridians with confidence that their state approaches climate change with the same foresight and attention to facts as the inspiring response to COVID.” — Dan Rather

“Oh. And while we’re rewriting American history might as well erase the whole Civil War. So uncomfortable and pretty much a buzzkill.” — Dan Rather

“As long as we’re banning masks in schools, let’s ban helmets in football and paint without lead.” — Dan Rather

“The big difference is when faced with reports like this Democrats are pushing for resignation.” — Dan Rather

“I remember a time when one thing we could largely agree on was rooting for and taking pride in American Olympic athletes.” — Dan Rather

Deaths

US: 631,879 (+580)

World: 4,280,324 (+10,647)

Cases

US: 36,301,744 (+125,273)

World: 201,696,659 (+733,348)

"Delta is different": Health experts issue warning regardless of vaccination status. As the highly transmissible delta variant sweeps across every state in the country as the dominant strain of Covid-19, public health experts warn now is not the time to ditch masks or forgo testing.

Is the delta variant more dangerous for children? A growing number of kids are very sick. "I've never seen anything like it," said Dr. Mark Kline, the hospital's physician-in-chief. "We are seeing children fall ill that we just simply didn't see in the first year of the pandemic, before the delta variant came along."

As kids head back to school this month, vaccination rates among adolescents tend to be lower in states that have banned mask mandates in schools than in states that will require masks in schools.

Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine remains 93% effective as much as six months after the second dose, an analysis has found.

Australia's second most populous state, Victoria, to enter sixth lockdown.

Arkansas hospital exec says health care workers are walking off the job amid spike in COVID-19 cases.

Why it matters that Tucker Carlson is broadcasting from Hungary this week. The country has become a model for a rising kind of authoritarianism. So, of course, the American right’s most popular cable host is embracing it. Make no mistake: Fox’s marquee host is aligning himself with a ruler who has spent the past 11 years systematically dismantling Hungary’s free political system…These right-wing observers, typically social conservatives and nationalists, see Orbán’s willingness to use state power against the LGBT community, academics, the press, and immigrants as an example of how conservatives can fight back against left-wing cultural power. They either deny Fidesz’s authoritarian streak or, more chillingly, argue that it’s necessary to defeat the left — a chilling move at a time when the GOP is waging war on American democracy, using tactics eerily reminiscent of the ones Fidesz successfully deployed against Hungary’s democratic institutions. Carlson’s visit to Budapest, a follow-up to previous pro-Orbán coverage, shows that this authoritarian envy is no longer confined to a fringe…But though Orbán stepped aside, he and his followers never really accepted the 2002 defeat as legitimate. When Fidesz returned to power after the country’s 2010 election, winning a two-thirds majority amidst the Great Recession and incumbent corruption scandals, the party set about seizing complete control of the Hungarian state — turning it into a machine designed to subtly lock the opposition out of power without having to formally abolish elections. Orbán and his allies gerrymandered parliamentary districts and packed the Constitutional Court. They seized control over the national elections agency, the civil service, and over 90 percent of all media in Hungary. They used economic regulation to enrich themselves and punish their opponents — persecuting a major university, for example, until it was forced to leave the country altogether…Today, political scientists see Hungary as a textbook example of something called “competitive authoritarianism”: a kind of autocratic system where elections happen and aren’t formally rigged but are so heavily stacked in the incumbent party’s favor that the people don’t have real agency over who rules them…Competitive authoritarian regimes survive, in part, by tricking their citizens — convincing enough of them that democracy is still alive to avoid an uprising. As such, Orbán claims his government is just a different kind of democracy — he calls it “illiberal democracy” or, alternatively, “Christian democracy” — that’s being persecuted by Western liberals who hate its socially conservative governance. This democratic facade is easier to maintain at home thanks to a pliant press. What’s more surprising, and depressing, is that American conservatives like Carlson are choosing to help him out.

Texas Gov. Greg Greg Abbott has ordered another special legislative session to again try passing a GOP voting bill after Democrats left the state in protest to prevent Republicans from changing the state's election laws.

The FBI Is Investigating Giuliani’s Attempt to Make a Movie About the Bidens and Ukraine. “The thing I took away from it,” says a producer hired to work on the film, “was, ‘Jesus, these guys are morons.'”

How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda. A sprawling network of more than 350 fake social media profiles is pushing pro-China narratives and attempting to discredit those seen as opponents of China's government, according to a new study. The aim is to delegitimise the West and boost China's influence and image overseas…Much of the content shared by the network focuses on the US, and in particular on divisive issues like gun laws and race politics.

GOP fears grow over Herschel Walker as party leaders seek other candidates in Georgia Senate race.

The Mad Dad Fighting CRT Is Actually a GOP Strategist. Ian Prior is helping to lead the charge against critical race theory in the county that just happens to be ground zero for the most important election of 2021. Ian Prior has presented himself as a concerned parent in his numerous speeches and television hits speaking out against CRT. But he’s also a well-known veteran GOP strategist who served as then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ spokesman from 2017-2018.

A $5 Million Fine for Classroom Discussions on Race? In Tennessee, This Is the New Reality. Tennessee aims to levy fines starting at $1 million and rising to $5 million on school districts each time one of their teachers is found to have “knowingly violated” state restrictions on classroom discussions about systemic racism, white privilege, and sexism, according to guidance proposed by the state’s department of education late last week. Teachers could also be disciplined or lose their licenses for teaching that the United States is inherently racist or sexist or making a student feel “guilt or anguish” because of past actions committed by their race or sex. — All designed to make teachers too afraid to say just about anything.

Belarusian sprinter decided to defect on way to airport over safety fears. Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya decided to defect as she was being driven to a Tokyo airport because her grandmother told her that it was not safe to return home to Belarus. In an exclusive interview with Reuters in Warsaw on Thursday, she said her family feared she would be sent to a psychiatric ward if she went back to Belarus, and that her grandmother had called her to tell her not to return.

California's largest wildfire just swallowed an entire town. California's Dixie fire continues to rage, and it just overtook an entire town in its wake. The largest California wildfire in 2021, the Dixie fire engulfed the mountain town of Greenville on Wednesday, prompting mass evacuations after the fire jumped containment lines. "If you are still in the Greenville area, you are in imminent danger and you MUST leave now!!" the Plumas County Sheriff's Office posted on Facebook.

Apple to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse. Apple unveiled plans to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused by governments looking to surveil their citizens.

Apple's Plan to "Think Different" About Encryption Opens a Backdoor to Your Private Life. Apple says to "protect children," they're updating every iPhone to continuously compare your photos and cloud storage against a secret blacklist. If it finds a hit, they call the cops. iOS will also tell your parents if you view a nude in iMessage...As a consequence, even a well-intentioned effort to build such a system will break key promises of the messenger’s encryption itself and open the door to broader abuses. All it would take to widen the narrow backdoor that Apple is building is an expansion of the machine learning parameters to look for additional types of content, or a tweak of the configuration flags to scan, not just children’s, but anyone’s accounts. That’s not a slippery slope; that’s a fully built system just waiting for external pressure to make the slightest change.

World's first nonbinary Olympic medalist leads team into soccer finals.

'Free the Period': California students push to make period products free in schools. California could become the first state to make menstrual products free and available to all students — taking a major step towards ending period poverty in the United States.

Russians are winning in Tokyo even though Team Russia is banned from the Olympics. There is a Russian elephant in the room at the Tokyo Olympics. Technically, Russia is officially banned from competing in international sporting events until next year for running a state-sponsored doping program. And yet there are 334 Russian gymnasts, sprinters and other athletes competing openly in Tokyo...That they are able to continue adding to Moscow’s medal haul despite not being an official Russian team is due to an enormous loophole that enables them to compete as members of a made-up entity called ROC, which stands for the Russian Olympic Committee...“Unfortunately, we’ve seen this horror film already – where the Russian state-sponsored doping program walks free and Russia wins while the IOC and WADA leaders attempt to pull the wool over the world’s eyes by claiming Russia is 'banned’,” Tygart said, referring to the World Anti-Doping Agency, in an email to Reuters that was published Saturday. "It is barely a 'rebrand' and will do nothing to stop the corruption in Russia and likely will embolden others willing to win by any means.”

Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow lawsuit has unearthed a huge problem with streaming. No one knows what’s a hit. This is one reason why industry analysts who spoke with The Verge expressed a need for greater transparency by not just Disney but all streamers about performance data of titles on their platforms. Without it, it’s difficult for talent to advocate for themselves in negotiations in a swiftly evolving streaming landscape.

A highly venomous cobra is on the loose in Grand Prairie, Texas, after it went missing from a home on Tuesday. A West African banded cobra was reported missing by its owner on Tuesday as the owner, a venomous snake apprehension professional and animal services searched for the snake inside and outside the home all Tuesday night with no luck, the police said in a press release.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.