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Ruth King

D.A. Boudin Goes to UC Berkeley The pro-crime reject will now be educating the next generation of advocates, policymakers and thought leaders. by Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/d-a-boudin-goes-to-uc-berkeley/

“Rather than seek another elected office in 2024, I’m choosing a different path for now — one that is still consistent with my lifelong commitment to fixing the criminal legal system, ending mass incarceration and innovating data-driven solutions to public safety challenges.”

That was former San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin, excited about his new post.

“This week, I was named the founding executive director of Berkeley Law’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center. The center will serve as a national research and advocacy hub focused on critical law and policy changes to advance justice in the criminal legal system. We will participate in impact litigation and help to educate the next generation of frontline advocates, policymakers and thought leaders emerging from the UC Berkeley School of Law.”

The new executive director explains why he’s qualified for the job.

“Both of my biological parents were arrested when I was a baby and spent a combined 62 years in prison. A lifetime of visiting them behind bars, together with the years I spent as a public defender and then an elected prosecutor, taught me how catastrophically California and the nation’s current approach to justice are failing.”

His biological parents were Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, Weather Underground terrorists and violent criminals. They were arrested for their involvement in a 1981 armored car robbery in New York State in which the terrorists killed security guard Peter Paige and two police officers, including the African American Waverly Brown.

Indian Land That Is Part of China’s Hawkish Policy by Mohshin Habib

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19702/india-china-border

India feels a giant demon breathing on her shoulder.

The more China strengthens its military and economic power, the more threatened India feels. The main reason is China’s aggressive actions along the China-India border.

Tibet [in 1914] was an independent country that had every right to negotiate border agreements with any bordering countries.

In 1950, China invaded and fully occupied Tibet. Since then, China has been claiming a right to Arunachal Pradesh and denying the Tibet-India agreement. Even though the McMahon Line is the clear boundary between the countries, the dispute between China and India increases as skirmishes flare up. Each time, the region and the world hold their breath.

Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh was the site of one of the meetings in March. However, China did not participate in that meeting and also skipped the meeting held in Kashmir on May 22-24.

Day by day, relations between the two world’s most populous countries, both nuclear powers, continue to deteriorate, with no signs of peace talks in sight.

India feels a giant demon breathing on her shoulder.

Why AI Can’t Think David Goldman

https://lawliberty.org/why-ai-cant-think/

Just for fun, I tease the hell out of ChatGPT in spare moments. Chatbots have no self, that is, no purpose for existing, and therefore can’t think. There is no such thing as thought in the abstract: thought is always someone’s thought, and mental activity doesn’t constitute thought unless it comes from a thinker who has a reason for thinking. To think, we must distinguish between significant and insignificant objects of thought, that is, those that matter to us and those that don’t (the exception that proves the rule is paranoid schizophrenia, which makes everything significant).

Higher thought is self-conscious, in that it involves awareness of how we think. Kant distinguished between Vernunft, usually translated as “reason,” as opposed to Verstand, the simple categorizing and sorting function of the mind, or “understanding.” The English translation doesn’t quite convey the difference: Vernunft derives from the same root as Vernehmen, “to interrogate.” It implies a critical examination of how we think.

That helps explain why ChatGPT does so badly with self-referential jokes that it hasn’t heard before. GPT has no self, and the switch of the vantage-point of subject—what makes self-referential jokes funny to begin with—leaves it confused.

DeSantis Gains on Trump in Iowa after Campaign Kickoff, New Polls Show Carolyn Downey

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/desantis-gains-on-trump-in-iowa-after-campaign-kickoff-new-polls-show/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=fifth

Governor Ron DeSantis is gaining on former president Trump in Iowa since he launched his 2024 campaign, new polls indicate.

Despite Trump’s Super PAC shelling out $18 million in ads targeting DeSantis, the former president’s lead in Iowa has shrunk significantly, Axios reported, based on two internal polls provided by Never Back Down, the governor’s Super PAC.

One poll taken in mid May showed DeSantis polling at 24 percent compared to Trump’s 48 percent — a 24-point deficit for the governor. However, a subsequent poll of 655 respondents taken from May 30 to June 1, right after DeSantis’s swing through the state, showed that margin has narrowed to ten points, with Trump garnering 39 percent to DeSantis’ 29 percent.

Nationally, DeSantis is still coming up short by 27 points, with Trump generating 53 percent support to his rival’s 26 percent, according to a CNN survey conducted on May 24.

Owner of Two of San Francisco’s Largest Hotels Pulling Out of City: ‘Path to Recovery Remains Clouded’By Ryan Mills

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/owner-of-two-of-san-franciscos-largest-hotels-pulling-out-of-city-path-to-recovery-remains-clouded/

The owner of two of San Francisco’s largest downtown hotels is stopping mortgage payments and going into foreclosure on the properties, stating that the city faces “major challenges” and that reducing exposure to the market is in the best interest of investors.

Park Hotels & Resorts said Monday that it was stopping payment on a $725 million loan secured by the two hotels, the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square and 1,024-room Parc 55.

The Hilton is San Francisco’s largest hotel, and Parc 55 is the fourth largest.

Thomas J. Baltimore Jr., CEO of the Virginia-based company, called the decision “very difficult, but necessary,” noting record-high downtown office vacancy, “concerns over street conditions,” and reduced convention business.

“After much thought and consideration, we believe it is in the best interest for Park’s stockholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market,” Baltimore said in a prepared statement. “Now more than ever, we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges – both old and new.”

The announcement comes less than a week after the San Francisco Travel Association launched a $6 million ad campaign – it’s biggest ever – to lure tourists back to the troubled California city.

The Always San Francisco campaign calls San Francisco “the most beautiful city in the world.” It features images of iconic San Francisco landmarks, opening with a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. The opening ad has scenes of people dancing, drinking, and eating, and includes one pink-haired drag queen, Lady Camden, a one-time contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

The millenarian harms race Is there a risk that the bottom might be falling out of the apocalypse market? Melanie Phillips

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-millenarian-harms-race?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The adviser on artificial intelligence (AI) to the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, says the world has about two years to prevent AI from threatening the human race.

Almost every day, it seems, experts are making bone-chilling predictions about the imminent threat to humanity from AI. Godfrey Hinton, the computer scientist who is considered to be the Dr Frankenstein to this monster, warned weeks ago about his own creation:

These things could get more intelligent than us and could decide to take over, and we need to worry now about how we prevent that happening.

Last month, more than 350 executives and researchers from the world’s biggest AI laboratories issued a joint statement that 

mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority.

Scientists at the Future of Life organisation wrote in an open letter:  

AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity.

Yet almost every day, it seems, experts are making bone-chilling predictions about the imminent threat to humanity from climate change.

“Cover Those Nazi Symbols, Please?” The New York Times releases a small disgusting detail about reporting in Ukraine Matt Taibbi

https://www.racket.news/p/cover-those-nazi-symbols-please

The New York Times just released a story called “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History,” about whether or not it means anything that some Ukrainian soldiers have been photographed wearing Nazi Death’s Head or “Totenkopf” symbols. One passage stands out:

In November, during a meeting with Times reporters near the front line, a Ukrainian press officer wore a Totenkopf variation made by a company called R3ICH (pronounced “Reich”). He said he did not believe the patch was affiliated with the Nazis. A second press officer present said other journalists had asked soldiers to remove the patch before taking photographs.

The institutional obstacles to getting clear information about the war in Ukraine are formidable, from embedding rules barring journalists from entering “red zones” (and requiring escorts in “yellow” areas), to casualties undercounted by officials on both sides, to open use of planted stories, to harassment of voices who go against official messaging. Journalists asking soldiers to remove Nazi patches is a new level of insanity. With the line between propagandist and reporter all but dissolved, how long before embeds are offered NATO uniforms? Who thinks this is a good idea?

The WHO Welcomes North Korea Kim Jong Un gets a seat on the executive board. Trump approves.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/world-health-organization-north-korea-kim-jong-un-world-health-assembly-donald-trump-9fb7d02b?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

The World Health Organization had a bad pandemic, bowing far too much to Chinese influence and making it harder to discover the origin of Covid-19. The WHO added to that embarrassment recently when the World Health Assembly voted to allow North Korea to serve on the WHO executive board.

Yes, that’s the government in Pyongyang known for its network of camps where political prisoners starve to death. On the executive board, Pyongyang will have a say in setting and enforcing international norms about global health—which it will no doubt flout if WHO ever dared apply them to North Korea.

The farce continued when Donald Trump congratulated North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un on his social media platform, Truth Social. “Congratulations to Kim Jung Un!” [sic] wrote the former President. Keep in mind Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the WHO after its Covid blunders, only to have President Biden rejoin.

Mr. Trump’s comments didn’t sit well with his rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination. “No one should be praising the dictator in North Korea or praising the leader of Russia who has launched an unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine,” former Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News. Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, said “you don’t congratulate a thug.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said “we need to be getting out of WHO” rather than “congratulating” Kim for being involved in the WHO.

Meanwhile, WHO denied Taiwan even observer status to the World Health Assembly, and singled out Israel for condemnation over claims it violated the health rights of its Palestinian and Druze populations. Kim Jong Un will fit right in.

China’s Space Program: Designed to Defeat the United States by Lawrence A. Franklin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19701/china-space-program-defeat

Far more significant than scoring space spectaculars, however, is the question of which nation will achieve military dominance in the domain of near-earth space. Chinese international media deceitfully stresses the peaceful, cooperative, and scientific nature of its national space program. However, the ambitious nature of China’s space program indicates that Beijing’s primary objective is to dominate near earth space.

China’s PLA is openly preparing for war, particularly in areas where Beijing’s territorial and maritime claims are illegal and hegemonic.

The aggressive nature of China’s space program is particularly obvious in its anti-satellite projects.

The proximity of these Chinese anti-satellite vehicles clearly reveals the mission to degrade and/or blind collection and transmission of intelligence data by US systems. Another Chinese anti-satellite project features a satellite with a grappling hook, designed to capture US satellites as an immediate prelude to war.

Beijing is planning to win a war in space as part of its reported overall objective of replacing the US as the dominant power on earth. One assessment estimates that fully 84% of China’s space launches are military in nature — indicating that the CCP may well be determined to emerge as the only remaining superpower.

It will also most likely be in the dimension of space, as well as biowarfare, that mankind will get a tip-off that a major armed conflict is about to breakout between China and the United States. China at present not only has “killer satellites,” but also reportedly: “Beijing also has rapidly developed an array of space warfare capabilities, including several types of ground-launched anti-satellite missiles capable of hitting satellites in different orbits; ground-based lasers that can blind or damage orbiting satellites; and small robotic satellites capable of maneuvering and grabbing orbiting satellites.”

China will most likely attempt to shut down US intelligence collection, “eyes and ears in the sky,” prior to combat operations on earth. The United States, if an impending military clash seems unavoidable, may be forced to “preemptively retaliate” by disabling China’s intelligence collection and data transmission space-based assets – if it can.

“[I]f the U.S. military doesn’t change course… we’re going to lose fast” — Air Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, the deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements, americanmilitarynews.com, March 11, 2021.

It seems high time that the US increased its defense budget instead of cutting it, prepositioned arms in Taiwan for deterrence, and got serious about acknowledging the Chinese Communist Party, led by President Xi Jinping, not as a “competitor,” but as an adversary, and an intractable one at that.

The US-China “Space Race” is but one dimension of the ongoing Cold War between the two superpowers. The national space programs of both countries are comprehensive in scope, running across the entire scientific spectrum. Both America and China are focused on scoring space spectaculars to influence the world as to which superpower will inherit the future. Each rival is seeking to be the first to land a human on Mars.

Two Christian Teenagers Charged with Blasphemy and Sent to Jail in Pakistan by CLAAS-UK

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19699/pakistan-christian-teenagers-blasphemy

[Police constable Zahid Sohail] alleged that the boys were making fun of each other and were calling a puppy “Muhammad Ali.”

The families of both boys said they have no puppy.

“‘Muhammad Ali’ is the brand name of the Naswar [tobacco] he takes. While both boys were talking about the brand, at the same time Zahid Sohail, a policeman, was passing by and heard them. Without knowing the facts, he started beating the children, saying they were committing blasphemy.” — Samina Nadeem, the mother of Simon.

[B]oth boys have been sent to jail, and nobody knows their fate.

On May 19, a judicial magistrate in Lahore, Pakistan sent two Christian teenagers, Simon Nadeem, 12, and Adil Baber, 18, to jail on judicial remand, after they were charged under Penal Code section 295-C (the blasphemy law).

Both boys were arrested by the police and charged on May 18 after a complaint was made against them by police constable Zahid Sohail.