Communist China's massive internet surveillance system is coming to the United States, and conservatives should be worried.
Since 2014, the Communist Chinese government has been perfecting its internet monitoring system, which spies on its citizens' online activity. Using the data, the Chinese can "blacklist" various citizens whose online comments they deem undesirable and lower their credit rating, restricting them from traveling, being barred from better schools, jobs and even from getting a loan.
Beijing is now applying its system to foreign businesses in China in the ongoing trade war with the United States.
Paranoid rhetoric from a far right-wing website? Yeah, probably. But we shouldn't discount that possibility of an arbitrary social score system coming to America, possibly put forward by social media companies or maybe something like a credit rating bureau. Their might be push back from the civil libertarians, but it's hard to stop something like that if it's not put forward by the government and big businesses want it. I could also see it being tied in with the Red Flag Laws or the right to vote -- people who are viewed as too dangerous might have their voter files flagged and their voting records deleted by the government. Sometimes it's impossible to stop the procession of dangerous technology.
It seems like more and more people out there are questioning people’s motives, claiming that they are up to no good. Many believe the wealthy and the powerful are doing things dishonestly to make themselves wealthier. Maybe there is some cheating around the edges but I think most people act professionally and while incumbent players may benefit from the established rules, and as such I find most conspiracy theories hard to believe. Folks like to talk and there are always investigative reporters and whistle blowers willing to leak out any conspiracy. As such, most conspiracy theories are unlikely to exist.
China said Friday it will impose new tariffs on $75 billion worth of U.S. goods and resume duties on American autos.
The Chinese State Council said it decided to slap tariffs ranging from 5% to 10% on $75 billion U.S. goods in two batches effective on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15. That happens to be when President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs on Chinese goods are to take effect.
It also said a 25% tariff will be imposed on U.S. cars and a 5% on auto parts and components, which will go into effect on Dec.15. China had paused these tariffs in April.
Real Property Tax Law 1590 requires that municipalities post their tax rolls, within 10 days of the proposed and final rolls being approved. The rolls are generally searchable PDF files, but that isn't that helpful if you are trying to search and compare multiple properties or want to use the North-East Coordinate data to make a map.
This script -- which uses the Linux program pdfttext and other common Linux commands to convert the PDF to a text file, then processes it into a .CSV file that can be opened with a GIS program such as Quantum GIS or a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Calc.
Real Property Tax Law 1590 requires that municipalities post their tax rolls, within 10 days of the proposed and final rolls being approved. Below is an PHP script that will extract the reports into a CSV file for importing into Microsoft Excel or a GIS program. It extracts the text from the PDF using pdftotext from the poppler-util.
Whether it is the roster of the Board of Governors of the Smithsonian Institution or the benefit committee of a typical Washington charity gala, there are always a number of names preceded by "Honorable,'' instead of the usual Mr., Mrs., Miss or Ms. How this came about in a country whose Constitution expressly forbids the granting of titles amuses some and irritates others. At the very least its widespread usage raises some eyebrows.
Traditionally the British use the "Hon.'' (originally abbreviated from "The Right Honorable Magnificence of Nobles''), to identify certain family members of hereditary barons and earls, i.e., their daughters, younger sons and the younger sons' wives. In America, however, such inherited titles were rare among the early colonists, and after independence there was no king to grant new ones.
That did not mean this country developed along totally egalitarian lines. Even in a democracy it was only natural that ways had to be found to distinguish the elite from the hoi polloi, the rulers from the ruled. The conferment of titles, although prevented by the Constitution, was effectively achieved by political success.
