Rumblings in Westminster are starting to get louder, and more public, as the UK House of Commons tries to find a path forward with the Brexit deadline bearing down on them. As Will pointed out on Monday, the Labour MPs stepping off their party at this point in time delivers quite the message. Now, one more Labour MP and three Tories have joined the independent section of the back benches.
CNNi:
Three lawmakers walked out of UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative party on Wednesday, joining a new group in Parliament that has blown up the British political landscape in less than three days.
The trio’s decision to join a group of eight independent MPs, who split from the opposition Labour Party on Monday, caused consternation at Westminster. They denounced May’s “disastrous” handling of Brexit, and warned the Conservative Party was in danger of being taken over by extremists.
Their announcement was timed for maximum impact, dropping just before the weekly session of Prime Minister’s Questions. In a move freighted with symbolism, the three ex-Conservative MPs joined the eight former Labour lawmakers on the opposition benches in Parliament on Wednesday.
The move could mark the start of a reshaping of British politics as the clock continues to tick down to March 29, when the UK is due to leave the European Union. With 37 days to go, Parliament has still not approved a Brexit deal.
The new @TheIndGroup seem to be enjoying their new seats in @HouseofCommons #allchange #selfietime pic.twitter.com/n9UtE3iVB7
— John Lamont MP ????????? (@John2Win) February 20, 2019
There are a lot of moving parts here. PM Theresa May, already having agreed to step aside after Brexit is finished to stave off a no-confidence vote, has if anything lost ground on trying to shepherd a Brexit deal through the House. Opposition Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t exactly set the world on fire either in past months, and his own party is starting to fracture under the prospect of the controversial Corbyn not just being in opposition but possibly Prime Minster himself soon. Then there are the myriad interest in UK politics from Scottish independence, economic uncertainty, the much discussed backstop and what to do with Ireland/Northern Ireland, custom’s unions, and on and on the list goes. And besides, shouldn’t the party rebels be standing for by-elections since they stood for a party they no longer are sitting with? Questions and the unknowns are far more plentiful than answers for our UK friends.
All of which is being pressurized by the looming Brexit deadline of March 29th, which is coming regardless. Personal, political, and all other interest are bound to get even more interesting and tense as it comes closer.
Comment → -Feel the Bern, Part Deux? Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced he will once again seek the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2020.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, whose idiosyncratic 2016 presidential campaign earned him a national following and made him a leading figure in the modern progressive movement, announced Tuesday morning that he will seek the White House again in 2020.
“I am writing to let you know I have decided to run for president of the United States,” Sanders wrote in an e-mail blast to supporters officially announcing his candidacy, “I am asking you to join me today as part of an unprecedented and historic grassroots campaign that will begin with at least a million people from across the country.”
Sanders enters a growing Democratic primary field, which now includes five of his colleagues in the U.S. Senate, with a substantial advantage over his competitors in both name recognition and grassroots organizing strength, but will likely face difficulties in winning over some in the party following an at-times tense 2016 race against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Sanders also made the announcement on Vermont Public Radio Tuesday morning, saying he wanted to give his constituents a heads up about his plans.
“I wanted to let the people of the state of Vermont know about this first,” Sanders said. “And what I promise to do is, as I go around the country, is to take the values that all of us in Vermont are proud of — a belief in justice, in community, in grassroots politics, in town meetings — that’s what I’m going to carry all over this country.”
A self-described Democratic socialist and a political Independent, Sanders’ campaign brings with it a vast organizing network built during his 2016 campaign that saw him notch wins in key primary states like New Hampshire, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Unlike 2016, where Bernie Sanders became the de facto rallying point for anyone not satisfied with the carefully coordinated coronation of Hillary Rodham Clinton, he enters a wide-opened race with no clear frontrunner. With much of his “Democratic socialist” message having been co-opted to one degree or another by much of the party, including many of his fellow candidates, recapturing the ‘magic’ of a distant second place finish in 2016 might be a tall order, let alone winning the nomination.
Comment → -It’s finally happened:
Seven MPs have resigned from the Labour Party in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to Brexit and anti-Semitism.
They are: Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey.
Ms Berger said Labour had become institutionally anti-Semitic and she was “embarrassed and ashamed” to stay.
Mr Corbyn said he was “disappointed” the MPs had felt unable to continue working for the policies that “inspired millions” at the 2017 election.
Rumors had been swirling – not for the first time – and I had asked just the other day about the latest round. I had assumed it fizzled out.
This is a pretty bold move. One might even say hasty if this hadn’t been discussed for so long. But they left without the formation of a new party or any sort of deal with the LibDems. Maybe they’ll put something together and maybe they won’t, but right now they have no easy future. And they found that preferable to being in Jeremy Corbyn’s party.
Where to from here? The most recent polling I’ve seen has suggested that it breaks down into even thirds: One third would leave the party with Corbyn if he were displaced and left, one third would leave with a breakaway-from-Corbyn faction, and one third will stick with whichever party is under the Labour tent. That has, more than anything, kept the party together.
Until now, anyway.
Photo by skuds 
Who you going to believe, that fresh face or your lyin’ eyes?
“ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com uses AI to generate endless fake faces,” By James Vincent over at The Verge shows how that question is only going to get more complicated.
The ability of AI to generate fake visuals is not yet mainstream knowledge, but a new website — ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com — offers a quick and persuasive education.
The site is the creation of Philip Wang, a software engineer at Uber, and uses research released last year by chip designer Nvidia to create an endless stream of fake portraits. The algorithm behind it is trained on a huge dataset of real images, then uses a type of neural network known as a generative adversarial network (or GAN) to fabricate new examples.
“Each time you refresh the site, the network will generate a new facial image from scratch,” wrote Wang in a Facebook post. He added in a statement to Motherboard: “Most people do not understand how good AIs will be at synthesizing images in the future.”
The underlying AI framework powering the site was originally invented by a researcher named Ian Goodfellow. Nvidia’s take on the algorithm, named StyleGAN, was made open source recently and has proven to be incredibly flexible. Although this version of the model is trained to generate human faces, it can, in theory, mimic any source. Researchers are already experimenting with other targets. including anime characters, fonts, and graffiti.
The key is all in the algorithms, and opens up almost endless creative possibilities. It also opens Pandora’s Box for folks with nefarious intentions:
Comment → -Then there are the downsides. As we’ve seen in discussions about deepfakes (which use GANs to paste people’s faces onto target videos, often in order to create non-consensual pornography), the ability to manipulate and generate realistic imagery at scale is going to have a huge effect on how modern societies think about evidence and trust. Such software could also be extremely useful for creating political propaganda and influence campaigns.
In other words, ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com is just the polite introduction to this new technology. The rude awakening comes later.
As expected, President Trump took to the podium in the Rose Garden to declare a National Emergency for “virtual invasion purposes” at the southern border.
President Trump said he’ll sign the final paper work to declare a national emergency to fund his wall as soon as he gets back to his office — and he’s already anticipating a legal challenge.
“So the order is signed. And I’ll sign the final papers as soon as I get into the Oval Office. And we will have a national emergency,” Trump said.
After he signs national emergency and executive action paperwork, Trump said, “We will then be sued,” rattling off a possible chain of events, which included bad ruling in the 9th Circuit Court, which he has previously lamented.“We will possibly get another bad ruling, and then we’ll get another bad ruling, and then we’ll end up in the Supreme Court,” Trump said, comparing the process to challenges to his administration’s travel ban.
“And then, hopefully, we’ll get a fair shake.”
The move is certain to draw both congressional and legal scrutiny.
Comment → -There were some wondering if President Trump would sign the newly passed spending bill designed to avert government shutdown, or declare a national emergency for border funding. Apparently he will do both.
Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, McConnell sought to reassure lawmakers unsure of the President’s position before taking a vote on the plan, which falls short of providing the $5 billion in border wall funding the President had demanded.
“He has indicated he is prepared to sign the bill. He will also be issuing a national emergency declaration at the same time,” McConnell said. “I’ve indicated to him that I’m going to support the national emergency declaration. So for all of my colleagues, the President will sign the bill, we will be voting on it shortly.”
It provided reassurance amid questions about the President’s support for the deal, which was struck by a bipartisan panel of negotiators. Aides had said earlier Thursday they were concerned Trump would reject the spending compromise — a major shift from earlier this week when officials indicated privately that he would.
Advisers said Trump had grown increasingly concerned about what is contained in the 1,100-page legislation that was released late Wednesday evening.
The National Emergency declaration will almost certainly bring both Congressional and legal action against it. Stay tuned.
Comment → -The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest protestant denomination in the United States, and is second only to the Catholic Church in American membership in the Christian faith. And they have some soul searching to do:
The Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News teamed up on the reporting:
Journalists in the two newsrooms spent more than six months reviewing thousands of pages of court, prison and police records and conducting hundreds of interviews. They built a database of former leaders in Southern Baptist churches who have been convicted of sex crimes.
The investigation reveals that:• At least 35 church pastors, employees and volunteers who exhibited predatory behavior were still able to find jobs at churches during the past two decades. In some cases, church leaders apparently failed to alert law enforcement about complaints or to warn other congregations about allegations of misconduct.
• Several past presidents and prominent leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention are among those criticized by victims for concealing or mishandling abuse complaints within their own churches or seminaries.
• Some registered sex offenders returned to the pulpit. Others remain there, including a Houston preacher who sexually assaulted a teenager and now is the principal officer of a Houston nonprofit that works with student organizations, federal records show. Its name: Touching the Future Today Inc.
• Many of the victims were adolescents who were molested, sent explicit photos or texts, exposed to pornography, photographed nude, or repeatedly raped by youth pastors. Some victims as young as 3 were molested or raped inside pastors’ studies and Sunday school classrooms.
A few were adults — women and men who sought pastoral guidance and instead say they were seduced or sexually assaulted.
The reporting is extensive. Many will draw comparisons to the on-going scandals in the Catholic Church, but there are a few difference that should be noted. Local SBC churches, while under the umbrella of the national convention are fully autonomous and self-governed. Money and giving goes up but there is little of the authority the Catholic Church holds over their congregations coming back down. The piece goes into detail on how that model is ripe for predators, and how that makes any internal changes unlikely to be of much benefit.
“Change has to begin at the ground level with churches and organizations,” SBC President JD Greear is quoted in the report, “Our churches must start standing together with a commitment to take this issue much more seriously than ever before.”
We will see what happens now going forward.
Comment → -Granted, most elderly people are not still living, let alone driving, at 97. Or coming off a crash that involved injuries to another party. Or happen to be the husband of the Queen of England.
Prince Philip has decided to stop driving at the age of 97, less than a month after he was involved in a collision that left two women injured, Buckingham Palace said Saturday.
The palace said in a statement that “after careful consideration,” Queen Elizabeth II’s husband “has taken the decision to voluntarily surrender his driving license.”
Philip was behind the wheel of a Land Rover near the royal family’s Sandringham estate in eastern England when he smashed into another car on Jan. 17. Philip had to be helped out of his overturned vehicle but wasn’t injured. Two women in the other car were injured, though not seriously, and a 9-month-old baby boy was unhurt.
Philip was photographed driving again two days later, without a seatbelt. Police said they offered him “suitable words of advice” after that.
The prince was not charged in the crash. Police said he and the other driver were both given breath tests for alcohol and passed.
In a letter of apology to one of the injured women, Philip said he was dazzled by the sun when he pulled onto a main road near the royal retreat, 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London.He told Emma Fairweather, who suffered a broken wrist in the crash, that “I can only imagine that I failed to see the car coming, and I am very contrite about the consequences.” The letter was published by a newspaper.
There is no upper age limit for licensing drivers in Britain, although drivers over 70 are required to renew their licenses every three years and tell authorities about any medical conditions that might raise safety issues.
While it is an extreme example, plenty of elderly people who are not the Duke of Edinburgh are faced with life-altering decisions when it comes to their transportation. For people who have been independent for many decades of life, the decision of when they are no longer able to drive can be very difficult. It is not just the practical side of being able to come and go, but also the mental hurdle of losing a piece of freedom and ability to control your own life. Transportation is a debate that is often swallowed up in theory, analytics, and charts, but like many things in our lives it very much affects real life, everyday people in almost immeasurable ways.
Elderly drivers is a debate with many questions, and no easy answers, but with one certainty: It is not going away. Time waits for no one, royal or not, and is undefeated.
Comment → -
Last week, the 9th Circuit upheld a federal law prohibiting an undocumented immigrant to possess a firearm. The ruling in U.S. v. Torres went largely unnoticed among the politicos usually vocal about laws which restrict the right to bear arms
When AR-15s are carried by white people, they are run-of-the-mill firearms used for hunting; when black people carry them, they are assault rifles.
Herrera v. Wyoming will be in front of the Supreme Court soon. The case plays a pivotal role in determining the hunting rights of American Indians, based on the interpretation of a treaty signed in 1868.
It would seem not just Drejka, but the scope and legal definition of Stand Your Ground law itself, will be on trial this time, at least in the court of public opinion.
A Russian woman is under arrest and charged with acting as a foreign agent, but not as part of the ongoing Mueller Probe. Among other activities, her association with NRA events and other conservative groups are alleged to be part of a plan to win “back channel” relationships with the politically powerful.
Retired Marine Corps Officer, Fox News Contributor, and author Oliver North has been announced as the next president of the National Rifle Association. North, who rose to prominence with his later over-turned conviction in the Iran-Contra Affair.
Lets say that the innovation gives the inventor 2.2 billion, 45 billion for others, and causes 60 billion in environmental damage that will take years/decades to repair. Would that be worth it?
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