NRA-ILA | News Flash: Legally Buying a Gun Isn’t So Easy After All
U.S. in Danger of Chinese-Style Social Credit System
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.
Do No Harm? — Furbearer Conservation
Hiking, cross-country skiing, forest photography, wildlife watching - all activities that take place in the open realm of nature. These activities are engaging, promote health and well being, and can be, for many, down right medicinal. While I fully support and even encourage more people to partake in these kinds of activities, their recent spike in popularity has created a rickety, wobbly soapbox for some individuals to stand on with regard to who should have "control" of the woods. As usual, I'm here - with a handful of nails which used to hold said soapbox together.
A few weeks ago I discussed society's growing need to hoard and stockpile wildlife in an attempt to turn our wild places into a suburban petting zoo. The denouncing of regulated hunting and trapping activities by some is just the latest tactic attempting to further remove man from nature. One of the ideological principals anti-hunting groups have used to sell a narrative, that hunting is somehow no longer valid or needed, is the fact that hunting activities have generally seen a gradual participation decline in recent years. Anti-hunting groups point to a rise in "wildlife watching" and a decline in hunting activities as the smoking gun for why the latter should be dissolved and outright banned from the woods.
Thunderstorm
The KKK-Fueled Peekskill Riots, 70 Years Later – The Forward
Yet Peekskill’s accomplished natives are only part of its history, one of the most notable parts of which was a stain on post-war America. There are probably not many people alive today who remember it; perhaps long-time, aging residents or scholars of American social or musical history. It is a story of terror, a cautionary tale for an America in which vituperation barely tries to pass for civilized discourse.
It happened exactly 70 years ago, beginning on August 27, 1949. The prominent black singer and actor Paul Robeson, along with other artists such as Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays and Pete Seeger, was scheduled to give an open-air concert in Peekskill. This was not the first time that Robeson was to appear in the Peekskill area. Indeed, it was to be the fourth Robeson concert in as many summers. The nearby Mohegan Colony, a cooperative community that served as an experiment in egalitarian living and child rearing, had hosted the concert in 1946. In 1947, the site was Peekskill Stadium, and in 1948 it was in nearby Crompond.