Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) & DNA Phenotyping

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Being a student of human nature, I find the psychology behind human interactions fascinating.  These would include actions and counteractions, motive, opportunity, risk management, strategic speculation, and the revelation of secrets.

Of course, since all of these apply to crimes of passion, if I’m scanning through TV stations and stumble across…. say…. a “Dateline NBC” episode where Lester Holt might be summarizing a murder investigation after the commercial break – if I watch for more than thirty seconds, I’m toast.  For me, it’s the crack cocaine of electronic distraction.  (And, yes, I realize it’s likely by design; otherwise, Dateline would go back to real-time news reporting).

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This is What The “Trade” War With China Is Really All About

Via ZeroHedge

Forget soybeans, auto imports, iPhones, crude oil, and cheap Chinese gadgets. Also forget tariffs, duties, and subsidies. Even forget weapons.

The real reason behind the US-China “trade” war has little to do with actual trade, and everything to do with what China’s president, Xi Jinping, said when he visited a memory chip plant in the city of Wuhan earlier this year. In a white lab coat, he made an unexpectedly sentimental remark, comparing a computer chip to a human heart: “No matter how big a person is, he or she can never be strong without a sound and strong heart”.

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Non-Emergency Automated Braking

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Something strange – and dangerous – happened to me the other day while I was out test-driving a new Toyota Prius.

The car decided it was time to stop. In the middle of the road. For reasons known only to the emperor.

Or the software.

I found myself parked in the middle of the road – with traffic not parked coming up behind me, fast. Other drivers were probably were wondering why that idiot in the Prius had decided to stop in the middle of the road.

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Cord Cutting

Guest Post by The Zman

Anytime I mention cord cutting, I get a ton of responses on it. It’s not just about the cultural phenomenon. For a lot of people, the alternatives to the traditional cable model are much better at delivering the desired content. If you think TV is immoral, the solution is simple. Don’t buy a television. If you enjoy some shows and movies, it gets a little more complicated. Given how many times it comes up, I thought it would be worthwhile to post about what I’m doing as a cord cutter. Others can chime in with what they are doing.

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Russian Military Superiority (Quality)

Yes, I know we had an article this week by Paul Craig Roberts “One Day Tomorrow Won’t Arrive”. This is The Saker’s follow-up.

Bring on the Russia-phobes!

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Does Russia Now Have Superior Military Technology?

 

“Do you think his assessment is accurate?” was the subject line of an email I got from a good friend recently. The email referred to the article by Paul Craig Roberts “One Day Tomorrow Won’t Arrive” which claimed that “the US military is now second class compared to the Russian military“. The article then went on to list a number of Russian weapons systems which were clearly superior to their US counterparts (when those even existed).

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An Unreal Existence

Give us this day our daily data

 

At the end of the 20th century people believed in the truth.  While they had several truths, — liberalism, conservativism, classic Communism of the kind once espoused by Che Guevara and in places a naive form of apocalyptic Islam — at least each believed the world’s problems could be solved if their truth should triumph over the rest.

The clash of civilizations since September 11, 2001 has left every culture wounded and guilty in its own way.  Western civilization, dominant through the modern era appears to be destroying itself in self-hatred, literally choosing extinction.  “In 2015, all European Union countries had a sub-replacement fertility rate.”  With the replacement fertility at 2.33, the average for the EU was 1.58. At the same time Islam was tearing itself apart in a global civil war while the United States was riven by discord.

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LIES, LIES & OMG MORE LIES

“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” – Benjamin Disraeli

Every month the government apparatchiks at the Bureau of Lies and Scams (BLS) dutifully announces inflation is still running below 2%. Janet Yellen then gives a speech where she notes her concern inflation is too low and she needs to keep interest rates near zero to save humanity from the scourge of too low inflation. I don’t know how I could survive without 2% inflation reducing my purchasing power.

This week they reported year over year inflation of 1.9%. Just right to keep Janet from raising rates and keeping the stock market on track for new record highs. According to our beloved bureaucrats, after they have sliced, diced, massaged and manipulated the data, you’ve experienced annual inflation of 2.1% since 2000. If you believe that, I’ve got a great real estate deal for you in North Korea on the border with South Korea.

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2001: A Space Odyssey of Transcendent, or Transcendental, Evolution?

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

The screen is dark.  Eerie and oddly dissonant music begins to play. The screen remains black.  At two-minutes and fifty seconds the music stops, followed by six seconds of silence over the blank nothingness before the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer MGM logo fills the screen as the symphonically ascending chords and drumbeats of Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra increase in volume.  In a view from the moon, the sun rises behind and then above the blue sphere of the earth.

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Your Smartphone, Please

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Bad enough that we are required by law to present our “papers” – government-issued ID cards, egregiously mislabelled as driver’s licenses – whenever a government bullyboy so demands. Just as in the former East Germany, just as in the former Soviet Union – and in another place whose name it’s hardly necessary to mention.

But in those places – in those times – tyranny was limited somewhat by technology.

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Exxon Telescreens

Guest Post by Eric Peters

The really top-drawer dystopian novels end up like news accounts that got published a couple of decades before the events they describe.

Orwell’s 1984 came to mid the other day as I rolled up to a pump at an Exxon station and found myself being pestered by a TeeVee built into the gas pump. It came to life – loudly – as soon as I fed my credit card into the reader. Pushy sales pitches masqueadring – as online – as “content,” the euphemism for ads from which you will “learn” more as opposed to merely being the object of a sales pitch.

Is there any escape from perpetual peddlering? How long before someone figures out how to embed a tiny flatscreen on the side of a Starbucks coffee cup?

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The Other Side of “Safety”

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Technology never makes mistakes – unlike the humans who design it. Who never fail to anticipate the unanticipated.

Perfection issuing from imperfection, reversing the usual order of things.

Sarcasm, in case you didn’t pick up on it.

This 190 proof moonshine – distilled by arrogant technocrats like Elon Musk – is going to get people hurt as automated-driving technology comes online.

I recently test drove a 2018 VW Atlas (review here) which has what several other new cars also have: The ability to partially steer itself, without you doing a thing.

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Another Gentle “Nudge” …

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Whatever their failings, machines generally don’t second-guess you. Turn them on, turn them off. Point them in a certain direction. Command them to move or spin or do whatever it is they were made to do and – assuming they are not broken – they will usually do it.

And won’t try to nudge you to do what they think is best.

Electronic gadgets, on the other hand . . .  .

They pre-empt and nudge. Do things you didn’t ask them to – and won’t do things you want them to. They turn on – and off- at random, according to their own lights. They are not broken, either.

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A Digital Noose ‘Round Every Corner

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Graduation season.  Parties, commencements, speeches and lots and lots of photos.  Recently, I loaded all of the pictures onto a PC and saved them into a folder, digitally labeled and timestamped, for posterity.  The next day, I noticed a message from Microsoft.  It said:  “Click here to see the photo album we created for you!”  I clicked and saw the very same photos I had loaded just hours before.  However, I never requested for my personal memories to be shared, let alone arranged into an album organized by the company whose operating system runs my computer.  Evidently, somewhere a while back, a box must have been checked, or unchecked, thus surrendering my right to privacy.

Every day I receive e-mail requests from Linkedin.com, Facebook and other networking websites to follow, like, or join, with people I am actually acquainted with in the real world.  The messages ask me if I “know” them as I see their photos and information along with the opportunity to electronically consummate with them, should I so choose.


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Stereotyping Millennials

Stereotyping Millennials {unfairly?}

I, like many other people – have been known to “label” the millennial generation.

While it is an accurate label (a group of people generally born in the early 80’s to the early 2000’s), many of the points are worth discussing at least for a few minutes.

Many articles we’ve read – typically identify Millennials as being liberal, or at the very least being “left-leaning.” And that may be true (not sure what the exact percentage is – but I’m guessing it’s at least over 70% – maybe even more in big cities – especially on the coasts).

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FOURTH TURNING – POLITICIANS DRIVING THE WORLD TOWARDS WAR

In Part 1 of this article I discussed the catalyst spark which ignited this Fourth Turning and the seemingly delayed regeneracy. In Part 2 I pondered possible Grey Champion prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy. In Part 3 I focused on the economic channel of distress which is likely to be the primary driving force in the next phase of this Crisis. In Part 4 I assessed the social and cultural channels of distress dividing the nation. In Part 5 I’ll examine the technological, ecological, political, and military channels of distress likely to burst forth with the molten ingredients of this Fourth Turning, and finally in Part 6 our rendezvous with destiny, with potential climaxes to this Winter of our discontent.

Technological & Ecological Distress

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” Aldous Huxley – Ends and Means

The level of distress being produced by technology was probably underestimated by Strauss & Howe when they wrote their book in 1997. The internet, cell phones and e-commerce were still in their infancy, while cyber security was an unknown concept. Huxley would be shocked by how backwards we have “progressed” through the efficient distribution of iGadgets, creating millions of distracted, non-thinking, passive, easily pliable, willfully ignorant sheep who adore their technological servitude.

A vast swath of the populace never reads a book and can’t go more than a few minutes without checking their iGadget to view the latest funny cat video, the latest update on Kim Kardashian’s ass, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner’s courage, or Lamar Odom’s latest whorehouse escapade. Our country is drowning in a sea of irrelevance as our infinite craving for diversions and triviality overwhelms any thoughts of confronting our oppressors. The adoration of technology has degraded our ability to think and allowed the Deep State to control the masses by amusing them to death.

The totalitarian Orwellian utilization of technology was exposed by a millennial with courage, intelligence, and love of his country – Edward Snowden. His revelations were very distressful to the felonious government apparatchiks who blatantly flaunt their disregard for the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The criminals at the NSA, fully supported by Obama and Congress, have made Big Brother look like an amateur, as they siphon up every phone call, text, email, and facebook entry made by each person in this country and for good measure the political leaders of our allies and enemies.

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Crippling Technology

Guest Post by Eric Peters

So much would be possible – if it weren’t for the government.'85 Civic

Government, remember, is not composed of experts in much of anything – except control and manipulation. Politicians and bureaucrats are not people who do things.

They force others to do things.

In the car world, you have the ridiculous spectacle of non-engineer mechanical imbeciles dictating functional parameters of engine design to people who actually do know how a four-stroke engine works, the meaning of stoichiometry; who understand that there is an inherent conflict between fuel economy and “safety.” That the more a car is designed to meet the first objective, the less it will meet the second.

And the reverse.

Result?

The engineers are told to deliver both in equal measure – and we end up with cars that are heavy and thirsty.

It’s a tragedy – a comic one, when you put it in context.'15 Civic

Here we are – almost 2016 – and the typical new car is about as economical to drive as the typical car of 1985. This is hard to believe, but you should believe it because it’s true. The typical car of the early-mid-1980s was averaging mid-high 20s – just like today. There were numerous models available that approached or even exceeded 40 MPG on the highway. A few (like the diesel-powered VW Rabbit) got into the 50s.

They did this without direct-injection or even port fuel-injection. Many still had carburetors. Eight and nine-speed transmissions (with the top three gears being overdrives) were unheard of. Most automatics of this era had four speeds. Some still had just three.

But the one thing the cars of that era did have was less weight – about 500-800 pounds less of it, on average, than comparable cars have today. And the sole and only reason for all this additional weight is the increased demand for “safety” eructing from the solons in Washington. Well, so we must presume. Because the people who actually buy the cars were never offered the free choice. It would be interesting to find out what they’d choose if they did have that choice.

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