Saturday, January 26, 2019

In the news, Friday, January 18, 2019


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JAN 17      INDEX      JAN 19
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from BBC News (UK)

Nastya Rybka: Russia seizes model who made Trump collusion claim
A Belarusian model who said she had evidence of Russian collusion with Donald Trump's election campaign is now in Russian police custody. Nastya Rybka (real name Anastasia Vashukevich) was detained at Moscow's main airport after being deported from Thailand for soliciting.

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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

Economists in Denmark to America: Yeah, We're Not Socialist
After reaching an economic breaking point in the 1970s, successive governments introduced a mixture of reforms—including reduced benefits, partial privatization of pensions, and lower regulation—that have restored its economic fortunes. Democratic socialists have presented Denmark as the elusive nation where socialism has been successful and thus a model for the policies they would implement in the United States. Bernie Sanders regularly invoked Denmark during the 2016 presidential campaign, and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez reassured 60 Minutes viewers that her version of democratic socialism would veer more toward Denmark than Venezuela. Just weeks ago, a free-market think tank in Denmark, the Center for Political Studies (CEPOS), issued a 20-page report telling Americans that 1) Denmark is not a socialist nation, and 2) statist policies have still caused significant economic harm.

Rights and Non-Rights: A Simple Way to Distinguish the Two
Despite the centrality of rights in American history, it’s readily apparent today that Americans are of widely different views on what a right is, how many we have, where rights come from, or why we have any in the first place.

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from HumanProgress.org  Education Website

Is Moral Progress Real or Just a Myth?
We have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that progress is “self-cloaking.” The better things get, the more we will be on the lookout for things to worry about. Slavery was once ubiquitous throughout the world. Today, it is illegal everywhere. Is that a sign of moral progress or a temporary accomplishment that’s bound not to last? Put differently, are human beings capable of evolving toward higher states of ethical behaviour, or must slavery, along with other forgotten cruelties, inevitably reappear? Some backsliding is surely to occur, but history suggests that a full return to the savage days of yore is highly unlikely.

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from Intellectual Takeout
Nonprofit Organization in Bloomington, Minnesota

Why I’m a ‘Misogynist’
I’ve received any number of insults in the years since I began writing publicly. Lest you feel sorry for me, let me state up front that insults are a fact of life that any writer must learn to roll with, particularly if one writes for an online audience. But I must admit that there is one insult or label that I receive more frequently than others. It’s the big, ugly “M” word: MISOGYNIST. Now, this insult always leaves me scratching my head. Given that the official definition of a misogynist is “a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women,” I find it hard to figure how I, as a member of the feminine sex, can somehow be accused of hating my fellow females, or myself, for that matter. I don’t, for the record.

Where Is The Beauty in Buildings?
A recent essay by Radomir Tylecote argued that we have turned our backs on the architectural traditions of our Western heritage, and in the process lost our connection to our own history and the generations that built it.[1] Dr. Tylecote argues well, and makes a strong case for reintroducing beauty into architecture; but his opening salvo is not followed up by a strong definition of what kind of beauty we must reintroduce. Here, I aim to briefly identify the three core principles of architectural aesthetics that we must respect in order to return to our architectural traditions, and end with a short discussion on what those traditions look like. First though, I want to explain why beauty in architecture matters, as Dr. Tylecote all too quickly skimmed over.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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from Sputnik
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED, Broadcasting & Media Production Company out of Moscow, Russia

Up, Not Down! Pornhub Traffic in US, Washington DC Gets a Rise Amid Shutdown
The world’s largest online adult content provider, Pornhub, has reported a distinct increase in traffic as the US federal government shutdown reaches its fourth week milestone. Comparing recent statistics with data prior to the shutdown, they announced that “weekday visits” across the country “were up 5.94% from January 7th to 11th”. According to Pornhub, such traffic fluctuations happen as a result of events which result in people tending "to stay up later and sleep in when they don’t have to go to work in the morning".

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from The Wall Street Journal

What Bruce Ohr Told the FBI
The Justice Department official’s testimony raises new doubts about the bureau’s honesty. Everybody knew. Everybody of consequence at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department understood fully in the middle of 2016—as the FBI embarked on its counterintelligence probe of Donald Trump—that it was doing so based on disinformation provided by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. That’s the big revelation from the transcript of the testimony Justice Department official Bruce Ohr gave Congress in August. The transcripts haven’t been released, but parts were confirmed for me by congressional sources.

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