Microsoft invited their longtime antagonist Richard Stallman to address the USG agency after decades of ratcheting have finally aligned their interests (archived). Back in 2012, Stallman lost his Gnu to GLBSE.
Black South Africans Turn Violently Against Other Black Africans As Migration Raises Tensions
Attacks on economic migrants to South Africa have lead the Nigerian government to threaten "definitive" action to protect Nigerian citizens that have migrated to South Africa (archived). South African Foreign Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor cited the existence of Afrophobia as a problem which ought to be addressed as South Africa closed their embassy in Nigeria due to retaliatory violence (archived). South African has a population of 55 million with an official near 29 percent unemployment rate. Nigeria has a population of nearly 190 million and reported an official unemployment rate of 23.1 for 2018.
Illinois: Police Department Child Groomer Arrested For Child Porn
Mitchell Rowan of the Gurnee, Illinois Police Department was arrested earlier this week on a felony warrant for possession of child pornography (archived). Rowan had been employed by the Gurnee Police department to advise their "Police Explorers' Youth Program" where he groomed children for future careers in "law enforcement" while having achieved all of 23 years of age himself.
Another Open BMC Bung: Virtual USB Open To Anywhere
Yet another set of "Baseband Management Controllers" has been documented to compromise the systems in which they are implanted (archived). This latest batch of openings allows access from the network to a "virtual USB hub", and that vitual USB hub allows all of the mischief possible with a physical USB port. Or, almost all of it. The virtual USB port can't be meaningfully plugged with virtual epoxy to the same effect a real port can be plugged with real epoxy.
Macri Begins Implementing Capital Controls As Foreign Currency Reserves Exhaust
Three weeks after the prospect of a Kirchner-Fernandez government gutted the value of the Argentine peso, current Argentine president Macri's increasingly Kirchner-esque response to the crisis has hit a new milestone (archived). The current regime has declared Argentinos may buy no more than 10,000 USD in a month and that businesses in Argentina submit their USD purchase plans to the government lest they are determined to be "hoarding" USD.
This comes after Argentina has spent 21 days actively fighting the market and exhausting its foreign currency reserves by trying to prop up the Peso Argentina's value near 60 to the USD when the market clearly understands that the Peso Argentino's value should be far lower. The remaining reserves nominally belonging to the Argentine Central Bank are encumbered as collateral for loans and almost certain to be forfeited in the coming default.
Meanwhile, publications in the Northern Argentina calling itself the US lead by Forbes had been running pieces written by Peronists explaining why Argentina can't be in as bad of a position as its behavior is forcing it into (archived). At last they had been until today when they had to admit currency controls are back.
Amazon Begins Dictating Terms To Local Police As It Builds Residential Video Surveillance Network
USG Surveillance firm Amazon has begun dictating terms to local police agencies in the United States (archived). Amazon is compelling agencies which have "partnered" with them in a program related to surveillance cameras dressed as doorbells and attached to private homes, to use Amazon's preferred marketing points when discussing the program.
The program involves a portal that Amazon offers to local "law enforcement" from which the law enforcement agencies can "request" footage from particular deployed cameras. The cameras themselves are allegedly deployed primarily through sales to consumers though a substantial fraction of deployed cameras have been distributed through a number of "donation", "contest", and "sweepstakes" gimmicks.
Qntra (S.QNTR) August 2019 Report
PROROGATION: Queen To Suspend Parliament After Apparently Tiring Of Exit Free Brexit
In a rare quasi-sovereign act, Queen Elizabeth II has agreed to a prorogation request by Boris Johnson which would suspend parliament from September 9th through October 14th (archived). This five week suspension of parliament during a time three weeks of recess would traditionally be taken appears motivated by a desire to prevent the commons from once again fucking up Brexit. After parliament receives a new "Queens Speech" October 14th they will have a full 15 days before the new October 31st Brexit day to try to fuck things up.
There is a small chance that at least one court in the UK challenges the prorogation and in doing so invites a minor crisis exposing the lack of sovereignty surviving in the crown.
Magistrate Judge, Rules Of Federal Procedure, Common Law, And Hoaxtoshi Collide In Absolutley Schizophrenic Ruling
The ongoing litigation between Craig 'Hoaxtoshi' Wright and the estate of the late David Kleiman is leading to the accumulation of substantial insanity in the US courts circus. US Magistrate Bruce Reinhart of the Southern Distict of Florida recently issued an order on the Kleiman estate's motion to compel. As Hoaxtoshi has spent years filing contradictory claims in a wide number of jurisdictions while consistently raising the impossibility of verifying his claims as an affirmative defense, Magistrate Reinhart found himself in the awkward position of applying sanctions against Wright without regard for how the sanctions might conflict with reality.
As a mere magistrate, Reinhart cannot wield criminal contempt of court as a weapon against Wright for being a medacious piece of shit, nor did he find it prudent to recommend an actual judge pursue civil contempt of court charges. Instead he decided to enter into precendent that a number of claims in the case that are to be held as established facts for the purpose of applying sanctions against Wright, with Reinhart using the weak hedge that it is not the court's role to establish the truth of Wright's claims. This is a particularly weak hedge in light of Wright's ongoing bad behavior creating infinite space for more "facts" to be "established" for the purpose of the case, without any regard for whether truth in the case responds to truth in the world.
Wright now has a ready avenue to have the court affirm all of his most grandoise claims by baiting the court to sanction him and further establish "facts" for the purpose of the case. In light of the absolute inability of the US courts to enforce anything, baiting potentially tens of billions of USD in judgements against him is the right move in Wright's situation in order to create a record supporting his delusions, even if all the support is hedged with the "for the purpose of this case" caveat.
The full text of the order is presented below: Continue reading
Assholes Fork GIMP Over 'Problematic' Name
A number of shitgnomes have forked the GNU Image Manipulation Program due to terminal butthurt over the project's short form name GIMP (archived). This appears to simply be the latest in a long line of project coups carried out with varying degrees of success by committee. The fork, which should be assumed toxic, calls itself "Glimpse" in a twist that seems no less ableist than GIMP.