British parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

British parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

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The Guardian reports: Parliament has used its legal powers to seize internal Facebook documents in an extraordinary attempt to hold the US social media giant to account after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly refused to answer MPs’ questions. The cache of documents is alleged to contain significant revelations about Facebook decisions on data and privacy controls that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It is claimed they include confidential emails between senior executives, and correspondence with Zuckerberg. Damian Collins, the…

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‘They silenced Khashoggi but gave thousands a voice’

‘They silenced Khashoggi but gave thousands a voice’

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The Observer reports: For Omar Abdulaziz, a 27-year-old Saudi dissident living in exile in Canada, the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi was more than a prominent columnist and veteran who knew the ins and outs of the Saudi royal court. He was a mentor and father figure. Abdulaziz, who often lambasts the Saudi leadership and the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in online videos that garner a huge following, cannot see his parents, who still live in the kingdom. Khashoggi was…

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We are Jamal Khashoggi’s daughters. We promise his light will never fade

We are Jamal Khashoggi’s daughters. We promise his light will never fade

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Noha Khashoggi and Razan Jamal Khashoggi write: Jamal Khashoggi was a complex man, but to us, his daughters, he was simply “Dad.” Our family has always been proud of his work, and we understood the awe and grandeur with which some people viewed him. But in our lives, he was “Baba” — a loving man with a big heart. We loved it when he took us every weekend to the bookstore. We loved looking through his passport, deciphering new locations…

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The Hungarian website that shows how a free press can die

The Hungarian website that shows how a free press can die

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The New York Times reports: Hungary’s leading news website, Origo, had a juicy scoop: A top aide to the far-right prime minister, Viktor Orban, had used state money to pay for sizable but unexplained expenses during secret foreign trips. The story embarrassed Mr. Orban and was a reminder that his country still had an independent press. But that was in 2014. Today, Origo is one of the prime minister’s most dutiful media boosters, parroting his attacks on migrants and on…

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Could consciousness all come down to the way things vibrate?

Could consciousness all come down to the way things vibrate?

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What do synchronized vibrations add to the mind/body question? agsandrew/Shutterstock.com By Tam Hunt, University of California, Santa Barbara Why is my awareness here, while yours is over there? Why is the universe split in two for each of us, into a subject and an infinity of objects? How is each of us our own center of experience, receiving information about the rest of the world out there? Why are some things conscious and others apparently not? Is a rat conscious?…

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U.S. government report says climate change will batter economy, in direct clash with Trump

U.S. government report says climate change will batter economy, in direct clash with Trump

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Reuters reports: Climate change will cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century, damaging everything from human health to infrastructure and agricultural production, according to a government report issued on Friday. The Congressionally-mandated report, written with the help of more than a dozen U.S. government agencies and departments, outlined the projected impacts of global warming in every corner of American society, in a dire warning at odds with the Trump administration’s pro-fossil fuels…

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Wildfire smoke is becoming a nationwide health threat

Wildfire smoke is becoming a nationwide health threat

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An image from the International Space Station captures plumes of smoke from California wildfires on August 4, 2018. NASA Richard E. Peltier, University of Massachusetts Amherst The impacts of recent forest fires in California reach well beyond the burned areas. Smoke from the Camp Fire created hazardous air quality conditions in San Francisco, more than 170 miles to the southwest – but it didn’t stop there. Cross-country winds carried it across the United States, creating hazy conditions in locations as…

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Mueller and the Democrats could bring down Trump

Mueller and the Democrats could bring down Trump

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Joshua Zoffer and Niall Ferguson write: On May 17, 1973, Senator Sam Ervin Jr. opened Senate hearings into the Watergate affair. “It is the constitutional duty of this committee,” he said, to expeditiously investigate allegations that American democracy “has been subverted and its foundations shaken.” Ervin, a Democrat, did not mince words in characterizing the gravity of the accusations leveled against Richard Nixon’s campaign and administration. At stake were “the workings of the democratic process under which we operate in…

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Prominent Syrian opposition activist Raed Fares shot dead in Idlib

Prominent Syrian opposition activist Raed Fares shot dead in Idlib

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Middle East Eye reports: A prominent Syrian opposition activist, whose campaigns were well-known around the world, has been shot dead in Idlib province, according to local activists. Raed Fares, a civil society activist and broadcaster, was shot dead by unknown assailants in the southern Idlib town of Kafranbel on Friday, along with friend and fellow opposition activist Hamoud Jneed. Fares had been a prominent opponent of both President Bashar al-Assad’s government and hardline militant groups such as the Islamic State…

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How long before Trump destroys the rule of law?

How long before Trump destroys the rule of law?

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Harry Litman writes: Tuesday’s revelation that the president had ordered his White House counsel to prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey illustrates the fragility of even apparently bedrock political norms in the Age of Trump. The story prompted a new level of stunned outrage among Trump critics, even those already jaded by the president’s weekly onslaughts against the rule of law. Former Department of Justice officials in particular responded with variants of “He’s got to be kidding.” But others claimed…

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Confronted with the bloody behavior of autocrats, Trump, instead, blames the world

Confronted with the bloody behavior of autocrats, Trump, instead, blames the world

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The Washington Post reports: In fielding questions from reporters about the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump avoided blaming Mohammed bin Salman, despite the CIA’s findings that the Saudi crown prince had ordered the assassination. “Who should be held accountable?” a reporter asked Trump Thursday. Sitting inside his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the president took a deep breath, seemingly mulling his response. Then he said: “Maybe the world should be held accountable, because the world is…

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Conservative ‘charity’ with shady roots yet promoting ‘accountability’ paid Matthew Whitaker $1.2 million

Conservative ‘charity’ with shady roots yet promoting ‘accountability’ paid Matthew Whitaker $1.2 million

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The Washington Post reports: In the three years after he arrived in Washington in 2014, Matthew G. Whitaker received more than $1.2 million as the leader of a charity that reported having no other employees, some of the best pay of his career. The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust described itself as a new watchdog nonprofit dedicated to exposing unethical conduct by public officials. For Whitaker, it became a lucrative steppingstone in a swift rise from a modest law…

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Why the Pilgrims were actually able to survive

Why the Pilgrims were actually able to survive

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‘Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor’ by William Halsall (1882). Pilgrim Hall Museum By Peter C. Mancall, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Sometime in the autumn of 1621, a group of English Pilgrims who had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and created a colony called New Plymouth celebrated their first harvest. They hosted a group of about 90 Wampanoags, their Algonquian-speaking neighbors. Together, migrants and Natives feasted for three days on corn, venison and fowl. In…

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