As Apple surges to all-time high, analyst sees a ‘very troubling sign’ for technology stocks – CNBC

By some measures, investors are more crowded into technology stocks than ever before.

Information technology is the best-performing sector this year. Shares of Apple just surged on its earnings Tuesday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to new heights. And according to a new Bank of America Merrill Lynch report, mutual funds' exposure to technology reached a record "overweight" position last month.

One technical analyst says this might not be a good thing.

In fact, Rich Ross of Evercore ISI said in a recent interview that he has been recommending to clients in the last month to position themselves as underweight in technology stocks, and said a chart of one of the most popular technology exchange-traded funds, the XLK, is flashing a "very troubling sign."

Ross said he has recommended this underweight position in technology as the S&P 500 enters its worst two months of the year (August and September) with "stocks at record highs, volatility at record lows, and more importantly" what he sees as a "tactical sell signal" in a chart of the XLK.

The fund has risen nearly 19 percent this year.

"We see a false breakout to an all-time high and clear signs of exhaustion, a bearish reversal here. And once again you're looking at a potential double top at the high end of that trading range; we could just as easily go to the low end of that range where we were just a month ago. So, once again, we are poised here on the back of that resistance for weakness in technology more broadly," Ross, head of technical analysis, said Tuesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."

"And, if we look at a subsector, let's look at the hottest subsector of technology the semiconductors," he said, referring to the SMH, a popular exchange-traded fund that tracks semiconductor stocks.

In some ways, Ross said the group is almost a bit worse off than technology. In the SMH, he sees a similar "exhaustive" reversal that he has observed recently in the XLK. Specifically, the fund failed to reach a "higher high," and as a whole the setup appears weak heading into August and September.

These signs of exhaustion in the technology space give Ross pause about the space as a whole. The XLK was trading slightly higher on Wednesday.

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As Apple surges to all-time high, analyst sees a 'very troubling sign' for technology stocks - CNBC

Former DoD CIO Teri Takai to Lead Center for Digital Government – Government Technology

Teri Takai, former CIO for the U.S. Department of Defense and two of the nations largest states, will lead the Center for Digital Government (CDG)*, e.Republics national research and advisory institute on IT policy and best practices for state and local governments.

Takai brings unique skills and experience to her new role as CDGs executive director. As the first female CIO for the DoD, she spearheaded efforts to consolidate technology infrastructure and create a cybersecurity workforce strategy at the federal governments largest agency. Prior to her federal service, Takai led state government technology offices in California and Michigan.

Teris deep experience will be a huge asset to the Center for Digital Government, says Cathilea Robinett, president of e.Republic*. Her insight into technology and government is unparalleled. Theres no one better qualified to help state and local governments as they continue to deploy digital services to serve the public.

CDG is best known for its Digital States Survey, which has graded state governments on their use of technology to increase efficiency and improve services since 1998. CDG also conducts annual Digital Cities and Digital Counties surveys which benchmark technological progress in local government and advises governments and private companies on effective use of technology in the public sector.

Takai says the new role gives her a chance to help state, city and county IT leaders succeed in a time of extraordinary change and opportunity. Cloud-based technology platforms and applications give IT leaders unprecedented flexibility, she says, but they also trigger new demands.

Were rapidly leaving the world where CIOs owned their technology and could only transform at the rate they could change their physical environment, she said. Now there are so many innovative options that support rapid technology evolution. But doing this right requires effective leadership, relationships and change management.

Over her career, Takai built a reputation as one of government ITs premier change agents.

She was an early proponent of merging multiple data centers and reducing the amount of redundant technology equipment typically operated by large government organizations. Serving as CIO of Michigan from 2003 to 2007, Takai reduced the number of state data centers from 38 to three and created a centralized IT department changes that saved the state millions of dollars. In California, Takai launched a massive reorganization and consolidation of the states IT organization an effort that included reforming procurement, governance and strategy.

In addition to her government service, Takai was CIO of Meridian Health Plan, a Detroit-based health insurer, and spent 30 years at Ford Motor Company in strategic planning and global application development. She will continue to serve on the board of FirstNet, the national public safety broadband effort, in addition to her new role with CDG.

Takai succeeds longtime CDG Executive Director Todd Sander, who left in July to become CIO of the Lower Colorado River Authority in Texas.

I intend to continue the great work that the Center did under Todd, says Takai, a former Governing* Public Official of the Year and Government Technology Top 25 Doer, Dreamer and Driver. Im really looking forward to working with city, county and state colleagues, as well as our industry partners during this exciting time of digital transformation.

*The Center for Digital Government is part of e.Republic, which also is the parent company of Government Technology and Governing magazines.

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Former DoD CIO Teri Takai to Lead Center for Digital Government - Government Technology

Asian Technology Stocks Just Hit 17-year Peaks – Fortune

LONDON, Aug 2Asian technology stocks hit 17-year peaks and Wall Street's Dow index looked set to break 22,000 points later on Wednesday, as blockbuster earnings from Apple rippled out to component makers globally.

Shares in the world's most valuable company surged 6% after-hours to a record of more than $159 each, taking its market capitalization above $830 billion.

That should help carry the Dow through the 22,000 mark when trading resumes in New York. E-Mini futures for the Dow were up 0.2 percent despite a lower Europe as disappointing results from Societe Generale and Commerzbank weighed on the bank stocks.

Apple reported better-than-expected iPhone sales , revenue, and earnings per share and signaled its upcoming 10th-anniversary phone is on schedule.

It helped dispel one of the few nagging doubts of the corporate earnings season so farthat Amazons lackluster results last week might have revealed some tiredness among the giant U.S. tech and internet stocks that have been driving the stock market rally all year.

"It is all about Apple," said Naeem Aslam chief market analyst at Think Markets. "The firm comfortably topped its forecast and produced stellar numbers for its revenue and profit."

Among Asia's Apple suppliers, LG Innnotek jumped 10 percent and SK Hynix, the world's second-biggest memory chip maker, rose 3.8 percent.

Murata Manufacturing firmed 4.9 percent and Taiyo Yuden 4.4 percent, helping Tokyo's Nikkei up 0.47 percent.

The MSCI tech index for Asia also climbed 0.9 percent to ground not trod since early 2000, bringing its gains for the year to a heady 40 percent.

Those gains balanced losses in basic materials and energy to leave MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan steady near its highest since late 2007.

There was a note of caution over reports that U.S. President Donald Trump was close to a decision on how to respond to what he considers China's unfair trade practices.

Tepid U.S. inflation along with political turmoil in Washington has lessened the possibility of another Federal Reserve rate hike this year, lowering bond yields across the globe.

Improving data in other major economies has also served to push the greenback down nearly 11 percent from January peaks, benefiting commodities and emerging markets.

A swathe of manufacturing surveys (PMIs) out on Tuesday had underlined how the improvement in activity had broadened out from the United States to Asia and Europe.

Alan Ruskin, head of G10 forex at Deutsche Bank, noted the top five PMIs were all Northern European economies and every index in Europe was now in expansionary territory above 50.

"That will do nothing to hurt ebullient global risk appetite," said Ruskin. "This phase of the risk rally is based on growth data, but even more on subdued inflation measures."

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe was just below an all-time peak.

On Wall Street later electric car maker Tesla, gadget firm Fitbit and insurance provider AIG will report results.

In currency markets, the dollar index was stuck at just under 93, after touching 92.777, the lowest since early May 2016. It was aided by gains on a softer yen which saw it creep to 110.80.

Yet the euro also benefited from buying against the yen , reaching its highest since February last year. It nudged up against the dollar and Swiss Franc too, briefly striking new 2-1/2-year highs against both at $1.1846 and 1.1468 francs per euro respectively.

Euro zone June producer price inflation data helped it on its way as it topped analysts' forecasts. There was a slowdown in the pace overall, but it bolstered bets that the European Central Bank could soon start winding down its more than 2-trillion-euro stimulus program.

"The ECB is going to be the central bank to watch for the rest of the year," said JP Morgan Asset Management global market strategist Alex Dryden.

"We think they are going to take 9-12 months to get out of the market but that is a big question ... it could even be six months," he added.

Bond markets were largely quiet, with the premiums investors demand to hold South European government debt over the German equivalent close to their lowest levels in weeks and both 2- and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields barely budged.

In emerging markets, MSCI's EM stocks index was near a three-year high. India's central bank became the first in Asia to cut interest rates this year, while Venezuela's bonds continued to slid amid rising political tensions there around President Nicolas Maduro.

Oil prices were under pressure again too amid rising U.S. fuel inventories and as major world producers kept pumping, causing investors to worry that several weeks of steady gains had pushed the rally too far.

Brent crude eased to $51.80 a barrel, while U.S. crude lost 8 cents to $49.07.

(Additional reporting by Wayne Cole in Sydney; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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Asian Technology Stocks Just Hit 17-year Peaks - Fortune

Energy Jobs: Tesla Loses Its Director of Battery Technology. Plus, Microsoft, National Grid and DOE – Greentech Media

Tesla is experiencing a bit of executive whiplash. Less than a week after Elon Musk delivered the first Model 3 vehicles to customers, Tesla's Director of BatteryTechnology, Kurt Kelty,stepped down. He'd been at the company since 2006.

Before Tesla, Kelty worked in Panasonic's battery R&D lab. He was instrumental in developing battery manufacturing plans for the Gigafactory and executing Tesla's partnership with Panasonic.

This is one of roughly two dozen executive departures in recent months, according to a Bloomberg tally. That includes Mateo Jaramillo, the executive who built Tesla's stationary storage business. The turnover comes as Tesla seeks to ramp up production of stationary batteries, the Model 3 and the Solar Roof all at once.

Meanwhile, Tesla doubled the number of women on its board of directors in July with the addition of Linda Johnson Rice, CEO of Ebony Media.

She was elected along with another media executive, 21st Century Foxs James Murdoch, to serve asindependent board members. The board has been criticized by some investors for lacking independence from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

In non-Tesla news,Adriana Karaboutis will join National Grid as chief information and digital officer, a new position that will tie together the utilitys digital strategy. She will be based in the U.S., but will report to CEO John Pettigrew at the companys London headquarters, according to The Wall Street Journal. She was most recently at Biogen, and was previously global CIO at Dell.

Another IT veteran, Kate Johnson, is moving from COO of GE Digital to be president and corporate vice president of Microsoft. The tech giant lauded her role helping GE leverage software and data analytics for large industrial companies.

The Sierra Club has elected Loren Blackford as its new board president. For the first time in the nonprofits 125-year history, it now has an all-female executive committee, including VP Susana Reyes, Treasurer Elizabeth Walsh, Secretary Robin Mann, and Fifth Officer Margrete Strand-Rangnes.

Jamie Nolan is stepping down as the communications director for the U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative. She will be opening up her own communications consultancy, Nolan Strategic Communications, focused on energy, cleantech, climate and transportation.

Sheridan Paukerhas joined Keyes & Fox as the firm's first female partner. Keyes & Fox is focused on energy regulatory advocacy, specifically supporting the expansion of clean energy markets in more than 40 states. Pauker is also a board member for Vote Solar.

Recurrent Energy has brought on a slew of new senior-level people, including Kyle Johnson, who moved from Constellation to his new role of managing director and head of origination and structuring. Michael Avidan joined Recurrent as senior director of corporate origination from SunPower;Michael Arndt, formerly of NRG, is now managing director of development at Recurrent; and Spivey Paup, most recently the director of solar development at E.ON, is now director of development for Texas and the eastern U.S. with Recurrent.

Jean-Baptiste Cornefert also recently left E.ON, where he was he was responsible for the virtual power plant and renewable marketing business. He is now the managing director of Sonnen eServices, where he will oversee Sonnenscommunity program and new distributed energy services.

Renewable energy infrastructure group Cubico Sustainable Investments has named Stephen Riley as its new CEO. Riley had been a non-executive director at the company previously. Cubico has a broad portfolio across Western Europe and Latin America. The majority of the projects are wind, but the portfolio also includes solar PV, CSP and hydro.

Jim Murphy was promoted from CFO to president/COO of Invenergy, the largest privately held North American renewable energy company. Steven Ryder was promoted to CFO.Over at Invenergys Future Fund, John Tough joined as a partner from Choose Energy, where he was most recently chief revenue officer.

***

Enertech Search Partners, an executive search firm with a dedicated cleantech practice, is the sponsor of the GTM jobs column.

Among itsmany active searches, Enertech is looking for aQuantitative Analyst Director within the energy efficiency sector.

The client is a late-stage startup delivering utilities cost-effective and reliable energy storage, lowering electric bills for businesses and homeowners, and reducing CO2 emissions.

Currently, the client is looking for an entrepreneurial Quantitative Analyst Director with strong mathematical skills to help drive the future of energy storage.In this role, you will primarily work on developing technical and financial models.You must have a strong understanding of regional labor rates, get good estimates on cost to execute a service and maintenance program, and you must have a tenacious ability to negotiate.

***

The management board of insolvent PV manufacturer SolarWorld AG has resigned. Resignationsinclude Philipp Koecke, Frank Henn, Colette Rckert-Hennen and Jrgen Stein, but exclude founder and chairman Dr. Frank Asbeck, according to PV Tech. The company has started insolvency proceedings but still continues to look for an investor.

Bob Simmons is now at Marathon Capital as a senior managing director. He was previously at Panda Power Funds, where he was a founding partner and held various positions. At Marathon, Simmons will expand the firms reach into infrastructure and other asset classes and scale up its suite of advisory services to owners and operators of power generation assets, and gas generation in particular.

Surge Ventures and Surge Accelerator founderKirk Coburnhas joined Shell Technology Ventures. Surge Accelerator closed last year. At Shell, he will focus on investing in new energies, according to Xconomy. Recently, Shell Energy has been moving further into renewable power, acquiring developerMP2 Energy. Shell Technology Ventures co-led a $14 million investment inSense Labsin 2016 and led afunding round in Gelilast year worth $7 million.

Kevin Davis has joinedGardner Capital as asset manager. Gardner Capital focuses on investments in affordable housing, solar development and tax credit syndication. At Gardner, Davis will manage the companys portfolio of housing and solar projects to ensure regulatory compliance.

President Trump has nominated energy lawyer Kevin McIntyre of Virginia to be member and chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This is the fourth nomination Trump has put up for FERC, which would give the agency a quorum when the Senate finally schedules a confirmation vote. McIntyre is co-leader of the global energy practice at law firm Jones Day.

Warren Luhning joined 7X Energy, a utility-scale solar developer, as CIO. He will lead teams responsible for project finance, merger and acquisitions, and capital raising. Luhning previously managed energy finance and corporate development at Pattern Energy Group.

Jordan Collins is now general counsel and VP of strategy and policy at CalCom Solar, an EPC focusing on solar for agriculture and water. CalCom was ranked third on theInc. 5000s list of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. in 2016.

And in case you missed it, GTMs first employee and long-time editor Eric Wesoff -- a man one reader referred to as the Sharknado of clean energy journalism --has left GTM. No word yet on his next move, but were pretty sure he wont be shilling for the fuel cell industry. You can read his goodbye post here.

For those who sent tips to Eric about career changes and other industry happenings, please continue to let us know at tips@greentechmedia.com or tweed@greentechmedia.com.

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Energy Jobs: Tesla Loses Its Director of Battery Technology. Plus, Microsoft, National Grid and DOE - Greentech Media

Can Technology Redefine Litigation Itself? Stephen Kane Thinks So. – Above the Law

As Anthony Scaramucci aka The Mooch, the recently departed White House Communications Director, would likely say, Civil litigation is a total clusterf**k. And on this, he would be right (he went to Harvard Law, after all)!

Civil litigation is nothing like Law & Order: its super-slow, procedurally confusing, absurdly expensive, and then, in the end, you win or lose based on a coin-tossthe preponderance of the evidence. Rough justice at best. But hey, no one is going give up their liberty or end up in jail, so lets split the baby and move on, right?

But, wait, if civil justice is going to be rough, couldnt it at least be fast, cheap, and easy? Shouldnt routine commercial disputes be more push button? Shouldnt you just be able to type up your version of the facts,upload your basic evidence, have a unbiased mediator look at both sides, and quickly come to a reasonable outcome? Does the rest of the expense and process add any value?

In my half-decade as a Biglaw litigator, I always believed there had to be a better way (a thought Im sure many of you entertained while drafting second amended interrogatories on a contract dispute).

Well, today there is hope. A Stanford undergrad and Stanford Law alum, Stephen Kane, is building some awesome technology designed to make courts obsolete in straightforward civil disputes.

Stephens alt.legal company, FairClaims, is starting small with . . . well, small claims. But, over time, Stephen believes that FairClaims will travel up the courtroom value chain, streamlining the costs in time and treasure for all kinds of civil disputes. He even believes that with his DIY process, many claims can be handled without a lawyer (you can still use one, if you are into that sort of thing), at a fraction of the cost.

Enjoy the interview, and note that Stephen agrees with my assessment that alt.legal billionaires are comingsoon . . . and he went to Stanford!

Stephen Kane

Joe Borstein: So a Stanford undergrad, Stanford law alum is seeking to make the world better with technology (weve heard that one before) . . . but you are taking this to the next level attempting to redesign conflict resolution itself!? Tell us how you got the idea for FairClaims, and how its going to change the world.

Stephen Kane: Haha, I know, how original, right?

I got the idea by representing my own clients I kept getting calls from people with small disputes and (1) on the one hand, it didnt make sense for them to pay an attorney $1,500 to potentially recover $2,500, and (2) they just did not want to go to small claims court (I could hear it in their voice). So I tried finding a solution to help them, and when I couldnt find one I got obsessed with the idea there should be one.

Its going to change the world because there are millions of disputes each year that go unresolved, where both individuals and businesses lose out for one reason or another, and were going help create a world where that happens much less often.

JB: I love it. So walk us though it how do people use your technology and circumvent the madness of small claims court? Is it so easy you dont need a lawyer?

SK: It is like with small claims court, you dont need a lawyer to bring a Fair Claim. And were on a mission to make it more and more push button over time. We offer a few different chat, settlement, mediation and arbitration solutions, including video arbitration and FairChat. With video arbitration, each side signs up, shares their side of the story, uploads and comments on evidence, and gets a 30-minute video hearing in front of a qualified arbitrator. They then get a binding, court-enforceable decision within about three weeks. And FairChat is our DIY chat-settlement tool where the parties can discuss their case but also see suggested settlement offers via predictive analytics.

JB: So how big does it get? Is there a reason it has to stop at small claims? Can you DIY more substantial litigation?

SK: Good question.

No reason it has to be small claims, thats just where we happened to get the ball rolling. And yes, I absolutely believe we can get to a place where people DIY more substantial litigation as long as due process, rules, and solutions match the claim in question. But we can get there, say up to $100k or so, possibly more. And that doesnt necessarily mean lawyers cant partake (know your audience, right) were an alternative to court whether someone has a lawyer or not. In any case, since some 90% of people who need a lawyer cant afford one, most people badly need DIY something we think about all day every day.

JB: So do where do you believe the alt.legal segment of the legal industry is now? Are we ready for true game changers of the Uber/Airbnb/Amazon level? Or will it be incremental? Will there be a legal Jeff Bezos?

SK: This is alt.legals golden era; Uber/Airbnb/Amazon-level change is upon us. And yes, I believe were ready for it. Now that people are comfortable seeing legal and online side by side (thanks to LegalZoom and others), and now that tech plays such a major role in other heavy duty industries like insurance, health care, and banking, the foundation has been laid for even greater leaps of innovation. Id take it one step further: people are beyond ready for it they in fact expect it, demand it, and will embrace it.

For all these reasons and more, a legal Bezos is totally inevitable.

JB: How did you get the guts to be a legal entrepreneur?

SK: I got to a point where I couldnt not do something about this problem. The more I dug into the justice gap, the more I realized two things: (1) judicial inequities are a vast and growing problem, even for small claims, and (2) these problems are entirely solvable, even for large claims (not easy to solve but definitely solvable). So the cost of my efforts are dramatically overshadowed by our potential impact. And whatever courage is required from me and the team is continuously re-inspired by our mission and traction. Its endlessly fulfilling and exciting.

JB: What advice would you give those aspiring to change the justice system through technology?

SK: Start small. Get learnings. Experiment. All the same things that are important to any innovator. And in addition to that, if youre working on something for non-lawyers, empathy is key. Not just because its the right thing to do, but because trust is critical when it comes to delivering legal services, and people wont trust you unless you give a damn. You may have a handle on the legal system because youre an attorney or read law review articles for fun, but most people dont. Therein lies the opportunity!

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Can Technology Redefine Litigation Itself? Stephen Kane Thinks So. - Above the Law

At halfway mark, House Speaker Straus cites special session progress – MyStatesman.com

Posted: 7:39 p.m. Wednesday, August 02, 2017

Straus dismissed the claim by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that he refuses to meet with him, saying his door is open.

Brushing aside concerns that they are not moving swiftly enough to enact Gov. Greg Abbotts 20-point agenda, Texas House members opened the second half of the special session Wednesday with a flurry of activity Wednesday.

We made good progress, and were only half the way through, House Speaker Joe Straus told the American-Statesman.

Ive been spending my time, the first half of the 30-day session, trying to get the House in a place to consider the items that the governor has placed on the agenda, said Straus, a San Antonio Republican. We work more slowly than the Senate does because we listen to people and we try to get the details right. And so the House committees have been meeting and have shown some good progress, moving many of the items that are on the call.

Still, the House has given final passage to bills that address just four of Abbotts priorities, compared with18 for the Senate.

READ: Special legislative session: Why Joe Straus might have the upper hand

Straus addressed the running criticism of his leadership from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate and decries Straus as a moderate and potential obstacle to the conservative agenda he shares with the governor. Patrick insisted again this week that Straus refuses to meet with him to work out a seamless way to do the peoples business.

But I am going to say this one more time my door is open, the speaker has my phone number. He knows where I am most of the time, Patrick said Tuesday evening on a Facebook Live video stream with Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texans and Jim Graham of Texas Right to Life, two relentless Straus critics.

I dont care about our differences. I dont care about anything thats been said in the past. I want to sit down and find a way to complete the governors agenda, which is my agenda and is the peoples agenda, Patrick said.

Straus dismissed the criticism.

Theres no resistance to meeting him, Straus said. My doors always open to anyone who wants to have a constructive conversation about issues facing the state of Texas, and Ive always expected that we would be having meetings at the appropriate time.

Bathroom bill

Straus has indicated he opposes a measure favored by Patrick that would pre-empt schools and local jurisdictions from making their own transgender friendly bathroom rules.

But, its sponsor, Rep. Ron Simmons, R-Carrollton, said he considered that bill an outlier the only one he knows of that Straus explicitly opposes, and so its not surprising to me that that has not moved expeditiously.

Simmons said there had been an effort to discourage members to sign on to his bill and so he only had about 50 members willing to do so, far fewer than in the regular session.

Of his other bill onschool choice for special needs students also part of Abbotts agenda Simmons said, Im not sure it will get voted out of committee. He said he holds out a faint hope that it might advance if there is some grand bargain on education.

The governor wants school finance and were going to do that; were going to pass our plan on Friday, said Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston, chairman of the Public Education Committee. I think its very clear that the House has not agreed on the voucher issue, but we have a solution to help special needs students.

READ: Senate clears most Abbott priorities, shifting attention to House

The House is doing what it should do, which is being deliberative, thoughtful and being sure that legislation that we would pass is sound policy that would benefit the citizens of the state of Texas, said Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, chairman of the State Affairs Committee. The House is not built for speed.

This is the House, said Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, who chairs the House Republican Caucus Policy Committee. We will use all 30 days. Theres plenty of time.

Goldman said it looks like the bill he is carrying for the governor to pre-empt local cellphone ordinances is unlikely to make it out of committee.

Nothing nefarious, he said; theres just too much opposition from local police and elected officials who hold great sway with House members.

Goldmans other bill the House version of the Senates already-passed mail-in ballot fraud bill was left pending Wednesday by the Elections Committee. TheSenate bill has been sent to the House. The committee did approve on a 5-2 vote House Bill 47, by Rep. Mike Schofield, R-Katy, which would make lying on an application for a mail-in ballot, applying without the voters knowledge and permission, and altering the application without the voters request punishable by up to two years in state jail.

Showboating

Both Abbott and Patrick had said property tax reform is their top priority.

The House Ways and Means Committee last week approved a bill that would require cities and counties to get voter approval for tax increases of 6 percent or more. While the Patrick-backed Senate version sets the rollback rate at 4 percent, the bill passed by the Houses tax-writing committee represents a significant departure from the regular session, when the same lawmakers opted to leave untouched the current rollback rate of 8 percent.

The House version, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, the chair of Ways and Means, must still be approved by the agenda-setting Calendars Committee before heading to the House floor.

On Wednesday, the House approved several other bills related to property taxes. HB 32 by Bonnen aims to increase transparency around the appraisal and rate-setting processes to encourage taxpayers to become more involved in the process.

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Amid all the other activity, Rep. Sarah Davis, R-West University Place, chairwoman of the House Committee on General Investigating and Ethics, and Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, led anews conference Wednesday calling on the governor to expand the call for the special session to include ethics reform.

The governors office, concerned that the House hasnt been sufficiently single-minded in pursuit of his agenda, wasnt pleased.

Instead of working to advance items on the special session agenda that could reform property taxes, fix school finance, increase teacher pay and reduce regulations, Reps. Davis and Larson are showboating over proposals that are not on the governors call, Abbott press secretary John Wittman said in a statement. Their constituents deserve better.

But Rep. Cecil Bell, R-Magnolia, a staunch conservative, pronounced himself pleased as he left Wednesdays session that the House was getting on track.

Were in better shape today than we were yesterday, Bell said. We are hearing bills that are consistent with the call.

We talked about taxation today. We talked about appraisal districts and we voted on them and that is progress in the right direction, Bell said. We just need to keep doing that.

Staff writers Johnathan Silver and Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this report.

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At halfway mark, House Speaker Straus cites special session progress - MyStatesman.com

ROI-focused ad buyers see progress on Snapchat’s measurement shortcomings – Digiday

Advertisershave long lamented Snapchats lack of third-party data to track return on ad spend.But now that Snapchat is adopting a marketing mix modeling program, which measures the value of all marketing inputs, media buyers are more willing to guide clients to open their purse strings.

On Tuesday, Snap announced The Snap MMM Partner Program, which gives marketers access to third-party measurement data from Neustar MarketShare, Analytics Partners, MMA and Nielsen. The new data will let marketers isolate and track specific Snapchat ad formats and their return on ad spend and sales lift. Those metrics are crucial to determine the success of past campaigns and compare ads across social media channels. This partnership will afford Snapchat advertisers even more flexibility and precision in measuring their campaigns, reads Snapchats blog.

David Song, managing director at Barker Advertising, said the new program convinces him that his clients, which include brands like SlimFast and Aston Martin, should try Snapchat, a platform he avoided recommending before. Snapchat was never seen as a serious platform for our clients. We focus a ton on ROI, and we couldnt justify a big enough spend before to advise our clients to buy the platform, he said. Now that [Snapchat] is willing and able to do MMM, its a much easier proposition to recommend them to clients.

It brings a level of instant credibility that Snapchat desperately needs, said Stephen Boidock, director of marketing and business development at Drumroll. It will definitely help marketers justify spendingsomemoney on the platform.

The move comes at a time when Snapchat shares continue to drop, and marketers shift their focus to platforms that have more robust analytics. Since Instagram replicated Snapchats Stories in August 2016, marketers have started to favor the former, partly due to Instagramsdedicated followings, but also because Snapchat couldnt prove sales.

Now more than ever, marketers are demanding a certain level of ROI and analytics, said JC Uva, managing director at MediaLink, and that hasnt been one of [Snapchats]key attributes. Before the announcement, Snapchat had 15 measurement partners such as Moat, DoubleClick, Oracle Data Cloud and Millward Brown that assessed viewability metrics, app impressions, reach and targeting, but not foot traffic or return on investment. Meanwhile, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest have had MMM programs. It also didnt help that Snapchat ads are known to be more expensive than those on other platforms such as Instagram. While a bidding auction determines the pricing of Snap Ads, Snap Lenses can cost upward of $300,000 for a day, and Snap Geofilter CPMs can range from 27 cents to $48.

The fact that Snap didnt have robust analytics and ROI on ad spend previouslymade it a tougher sell for some clients, said Lisa Evia, president of Havas Media Chicago.

Luggage brand Away, for instance, was on Snapchat but turned its priority to Instagram because it offered more transparency, engagement and analytics, said Away co-founder Jen Rubio. Now, it doesnt have a Snapchat presence at all.

However, Snapchats new MMM program has the potential to turn things around. If Snapchat can prove it has great ROI, said Rubio, its not off the table for us. Scott Linzer, who oversees paid social as vp at iCrossing, also sees potential. With Snap innovating and finding data partnerships to provide more platform insight, he said, there is reason to be optimistic.

Song said if the new data proves Snapchat has strong ROI, he will advise his clients to spend between $150,000 and $300,000 on ad formats, three times more than the amount he would suggest for trying any new channel for the first time.

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ROI-focused ad buyers see progress on Snapchat's measurement shortcomings - Digiday

EPA praises progress on cleaner air amid regulatory rollback – ABC News

Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt on Wednesday praised significant improvements in the nation's air quality, even as he moves to roll back regulations aimed at making further gains.

An EPA report released Wednesday shows that in the 45 years since passage of the Clean Air Act, emissions of six harmful pollutants declined by a combined 73 percent even as U.S. economic output tripled.

The biggest gains were made cutting emissions of lead and sulfur dioxide, which declined 99 percent and 85 percent, respectively, between 1990 and 2016.

"Despite this success, there is more work to be done," Pruitt said in a statement. "Nearly 40 percent of Americans are still living in areas classified as 'non-attainment' for failing to achieve national standards. EPA will continue to work with states, tribes, and local air agencies to help more areas of the country come into compliance."

According to the report, the least progress has been made in reducing ground-level ozone, which is down by 22 percent since 1990.

Ground-level ozone is created when common pollutants emitted by cars, power plants, oil refineries, chemical plants and other sources react in the atmosphere to sunlight. It can cause serious breathing problems among sensitive groups of people, contributing to thousands of premature deaths each year.

Since his appointment by President Donald Trump earlier this year, Pruitt has moved to block or delay several Obama-era regulations aimed at reducing pollutants caused by burning fossil fuels.

Follow Associated Press environmental writer Michael Biesecker at http://www.Twitter.com/mbieseck

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EPA praises progress on cleaner air amid regulatory rollback - ABC News

Horse ordinance: Mixed committee making progress – The Ridgefield Press

A home on Manor Road has three horses that have drawn the ire of neighbors. Ivanha Paz photo

Folks bucking to get a horse ordinance in town can rein in their complaints.

A committee of people on both sides of the issue has been working toward an agreement on a proposed ordinance that could be considered by the selectmen and, if they like it, put before voters at a town meeting.

It will likely take the form of an expansion of a current ordinance on keeping of animals.

In 07 we added article two for hooved animals in the downtown areas you need so much land, etc. said First Selectman Rudy Marconi Monday, July 24.

So, now, due to the Manor Road issue, people are asking for an ordinance that will cover property 1.5 acres or less, residential property. So thats what this ad hoc committee has been working on.

There was already one proposal put forward, and withdrawn.

We had a public hearing a couple of months ago. The neighbors who were there, and the horse advocates who felt the proposed ordinance during the public hearing was far too restrictive have formed a volunteer committee to address the issue, Marconi said. And over the last several months they, have been been meeting, I have been meeting with them, and they have submitted a draft which is now in the hands of town counsel.

Once counsel has reviewed it, and has made any necessary legal modifications, it will be brought to the Board of Selectmen. If the selectmen approve, then a public hearing must be called, to be followed by a town meeting for adoption.

Ridgefield does less than many other communities to regulate horse ownership.

During our research we found that were one of a number of very few municipalities that do not have an ordinance pertaining to horses, Marconi said. Every community that surrounds us, including South Salem and North Salem (both in nearby New York state), have very strict ordinances. And that is one reason why people who advocate for horses love Ridgefield its because we dont have strict ordinances.

Several issues are addressed in the draft ordinance that the committee has put together, according to Marconi.

Any property under 1.5 acres would need to meet several conditions concerning manure storage, setbacks, fencing, amount of usable acreage, Marconi said.

The requirement is for at least a half acre of land usable by the horse or horses, Marconi said.

There is also a provision within the ordinance to grandfather current owners who have had horses for at least five years to be exempt from the ordinance.

The ordinance is being drafted to address ownership of horses, and there are suggestions it should specify ponies as well, Marconi said.

Although the committee is made up of both neighbors concerned about the three horses kept on a one-acre lot off Manor Road, and also horse owners who turned out to oppose tight regulation of horse ownership, they appear to have reached some consensus on the draft ordinance.

They had a vote informally, but they did have a vote and it had support from both sides, Marconi said.

So thats where we are at now, its in the hands of the attorney.

The matter will probably come up for review by the Board of Selectmen at its Aug. 23 meeting, he said, and if the board supported it, the ordinance would then go to a public hearing and, after that, a town meeting.

Marconi didnt say whether he had a position on the proposal himself.

If the people support it, he said, its my job to address the peoples concerns.

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Horse ordinance: Mixed committee making progress - The Ridgefield Press

Capturing the brash melodies of ‘Monkey Mountains’ – The Boston Globe

Pavel Haas

Summer is still in swing, but Thursday in Putney, Vt., Yellow Barn offers an appealingly offbeat what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation report: the String Quartet No. 2 by Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899-1944). Subtitled From the Monkey Mountains a nickname for the hilly countryside the composer visited, inspiring the work the quartet is resourcefully pictorial, evoking birds and horses, creaking carriage wheels, and rambunctious late-night frolics. But recent scholarship suggests Haas was also influenced by modernist assertions that such sharply-observed pleasure was not just a summer-getaway souvenir, but the proper purpose of art itself.

Composed in 1925, the quartet was Haass first major work after completing his studies with the Czech master Leo Jancek, and it echoes Janceks folk-like melodic penchant and his idiosyncratic approach to rhythm motives and textures moving among distinct rhythmic strata, each layer casting its own distinct mood. But Haas was also attuned to post-World War I avant-garde musical currents. The quartets illustrative exploits gently heady avian flurries; heavy, groaning glissandi standing in for beast and vehicle; high, keening moonlight; the finales rowdy, rhumba-tinged dance-band thump, enhanced by the audacious addition of a percussionist tweak conventional string writing (and conventional propriety) into something bright and visceral.

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Haass goal, perhaps, went beyond mere effect. In a 2016 paper, musicologist Martin Curda connected Haass quartet to the Devetsil group of Czech avant-garde artists that flourished in the 1920s in particular, the theory of Poetism, promulgated by Devetsil writers Karel Teige and Vtezslav Nezval. Equally informed by postwar anti-Romanticism and leftist materialism, Poetism rejected the 19th-century burden of academic craft for an art of living and enjoying, as Teige wrote: Nothing but the immediate data of sensibility. Nothing but the art of wasting time. Nothing but the melody of the heart. Senses partitioned by modern assembly-line life could be reintegrated into lyrical and visual excitement over the spectacle of the modern world. The brash immediacy of Haass postcards parallel the Poetist ideal in Teiges words, a harlequinade of emotions and ideas, a series of intoxicating film sequences, a miraculous kaleidoscope.

Today, Pavel Haas is mostly remembered as a tragic figure, a victim of the Nazi regime who wrote a handful of pieces while imprisoned at the Theresienstadt concentration camp before being killed at Auschwitz. But the second quartet happily, bullishly reveals Haass capacity for pointed delight, finding radical hedonism in the sounds of summer days and nights.

Yellow Barn presents music by Toshio Hosokawa, Bedrich Smetana, Harold Meltzer, and Pavel Haas, Aug. 3, 8p.m., at Big Barn in Putney, Vt. Tickets $9-$18. 802-387-6637, http://www.yellowbarn.org

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Capturing the brash melodies of 'Monkey Mountains' - The Boston Globe

With the Mooch gone, rationalism finally has a chance – The Globe and Mail

The comedy industry should certainly be giving thanks to Anthony (The Mooch) Scaramucci, and so, too, should the Republican Party. So, too, should Donald Trump. The Mooch might turn out to be the best thing that never happened to him.

A great day at the White House, Mr. Trump tweeted following the latest upheavals, including the Moochs rapid execution. He could be right. It could turn out, in terms of management style, to be a turning point for the White House.

At the House of Trump, chaos had reached critical mass, Mr. Scaramuccis plutonium-enriched persona being the prime cause. His smut-laden rampage in a New Yorker interview, besting even the Presidents normal ribaldry, was wrenching enough to finally and critically make real change happen, it being the appointment of retired Marine Corps general John Kelly as chief of staff.

In the scattershot, morally bankrupt Trump world, there will now be, for the first time, a chain of command. Things should get better not only because the bar is so low they cant get much worse, but because adolescence has been derailed.

As a military man, Mr. Kelly will bring discipline. Frogmarching the Mooch out the door was the perfect opening gambit, establishing his authority. Reince Priebus, the former White House chief of staff, was a welterweight. Competing power centres blossomed all around him, chewed him up, spit him out. The grenade-hurling Mr. Scaramuccis first act was to blow up Mr. Priebus before thankfully detonating charges under himself.

Not insignificantly, he also humiliated Stephen Bannon, the alt-right impresario whose clout has been shrinking steadily. Mr. Kelly is no fan of Mr. Bannon and his crew of white nationalist America-firsters, which is another reason why things should get better. Conventional thinkers now hold more sway. Rationalism has a chance.

Theres another reason why this past week should be seen as a critical juncture. It was the week that Congress Republicans finally got the message through to Mr. Trump that they are not going to take it any more. They forced him to back down on his intention to fire Attorney-General Jeff Sessions for the senseless reason of his doing the right thing in recusing himself from the Russian-meddling investigation. They put him on notice that any intent to torpedo the inquiry of FBI director Robert Mueller on Russian collusion would be suicidal. As well, three Republicans came forward to defeat his bid to repeal and/or replace Obamacare.

Mr. Trump cant go on the way he has been. He is the oddest of leaders in that while others seek to avoid controversy, he seeks to create it. He revels in the havoc and the storm. Mr. Scaramucci was viewed, given his brashness, his vulgarity, his ego on stilts, as a mini-Trump. Had his appointment as director of communications taken hold, it would have buttressed and augmented all of the Presidents seething quixotic tendencies.

Its no sure bet that Mr. Kelly may be able to rein them in. In his work as head of Homeland Security, some were dismayed at how readily he sided with Mr. Trumps attitudes on immigration. He curried too much favour, they say. No small wonder the President likes him so much.

But Mr. Kelly, widely experienced in Washington, has a mandate to bring order, which is what military men do best. Two other generals, national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Defence Secretary James Mattis, both no-nonsense individuals, will likely see their clout enhanced.

For all his madcap proclivities, Mr. Trump is sometimes capable of listening to reason. He didnt rip up the Iran nuclear deal or the North American free-trade agreement, lift sanctions against Russia, or move the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. As for the Mexican wall, Mr. Kelly has been pushing him to back off. He may get his wish.

On all these issues, rationalists have made headway. They were able to do so in getting Mr. Trump to fire the Mooch as well. That decision, which required seeing the scars in someone with a similar persona and modus operandi as himself, may be a sign that his presidency is not a hopeless cause.

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With the Mooch gone, rationalism finally has a chance - The Globe and Mail

More and more Puneites come forward to donate body for research … – The Indian Express

Written by Anuradha Mascarenhas | Pune | Published:August 3, 2017 6:34 am Taher Poonawala

The family of Taher Poonawala, a rationalist who died on Monday night, donated his body for educational and research purposes at the Sane Guruji Hospital, Hadapsar. This is not an isolated case as, according to anatomy experts across the city, the practice of body donations is increasingly being seen in the city. Taher Poonawala had already pledged to donate his body for medical research several years ago, said Dr Girish Kulkarni, associate professor of the Department of Anatomy at the Sane Guruji Hospital.

The hospital has the capacity to preserve as many as 30 bodies and every month, they receive at least four forms pledging body donations. This is a trend that has picked up over the years. Noted socialist leader G P Pradhan had donated his body and several prominent people had pledged to donate their bodies, said Kulkarni.

At the B J Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital, Professor B H Baheti, head of the Department of Anatomy, said that nearly 40-45 bodies are donated every year. The trend has picked up. In fact, the hospital has a capacity to preserve 30-35 bodies and we receive a lot of applications pledging body donations, said Baheti.

The Armed Forces Medical College has also seen an increase in body donations, said official spokesperson Colonel Abhijit Rudra. This year, till July, we have had 10 body donations and many have also filled forms pledging body donations. Overall, the awareness levels have increased and people are encouraged after they see a sympathetic interaction between the staff and relatives of those who donate their bodies, said Colonel Rudra.

Other activists remember Taherbhai: A grateful salaam for him

For several activists in the city, the death of eminent rationalist and progressive thinker Taher Poonawala was a huge loss. Taherbhai was a friend, philosopher and guide for my father Dr Narendra Dabholkar. A strong supporter of the Maharashtra Andhashradda Nirmulan Samiti, he was the one who actively supported the need for progressive thinking, said Hamid Dabholkar, son of the slain activist. Poonawala, who was 95, died on Sunday night. He is survived by his wife and a daughter.

Anwar Rajan, who was a member of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties along with Poonawala, recalled how he had been ex-communicated due to his revolutionary views.

Phir bhi kisike saath dushmani nahi thi. (Still, he did not have any enemies) We thought his shop would shut down due to immense pressure but Taherbhai is an example of how the ex-communication turned out to be a good opportunity to spread his progressive thinking, said Rajan.

Social activist Razia Patel said Poonawala had strongly opposed orthodoxy in the Bohra community. It is difficult to stand up against religious authorities, but he did it. In his personal life, he staunchly followed principles of secularism and rationalism. How can we ever forget him? A grateful salaam for our Taherbhai, said Patel.

Ajit Abhyankar, a member of the CPI-Ms state secretariat, remembered Taherbhais kind heart and great sense of humour. He was a committed rationalist and was associated with several social organisations like the Mahatma Phule Samata Pratishthan, Rashtriya Ekatmata Samiti, Samaji Krutdnyata Nidhi and Peoples Union for Civil Liberties.

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More and more Puneites come forward to donate body for research ... - The Indian Express

We can’t rehabilitate our way out of Baltimore’s crime problems – Baltimore Sun

The Readers Respond comments regarding crime and punishment in Baltimore (Yet another reminder of why I left Baltimore, Aug. 1) prompt reconsideration by Baltimore civic leaders on how best to address our horrific homicide rate and increasing criminal activity. Their perspective on the causality of crime, and the corresponding more lenient sentencing trends, seem rooted primarily in a belief that the best approach to mitigating crime is through a rehabilitative approach. While rehabilitation and resolution of some of our systemic poverty issues are certainly needed, our city leaders need to not forget that there are other mitigation models that must continue to be used in order to prevent further rampant crime and homicide in the city.

In 2010, David Mulhausen, Research Fellow in Empirical Policy Analysis for The Heritage foundation, testified before Congress on the foundations analysis regarding theories of punishment and mandatory minimum sentences. In his testimony, Mr. Mulhausen cited the generally accepted methods of reducing criminal activity: deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation.

Deterrence postulates that increasing the risk of apprehension and punishment in society deters members of society as a whole from committing crime. In layman terms, deterrence ensures that the administration of punishment is certain, swift, and imposes a severity commensurate with the crime, sending a message that crime will not be tolerated. According to the deterrence model, criminals are no different from law-abiding people. Criminals rationally maximize their own self-interest subject to constraints that they face in the marketplace and elsewhere. Increasing the certainty, swiftness, and severity of punishment will result in the utilitarian goal of reduced crime.

Incapacitation does not require any assumptions about the criminals rationalism, or root causes of the criminals behavior. Incarceration is beneficial because the physical restraint of incarceration prevents the commission of further crimes against society during the duration of the sentence.

Rehabilitation assumes that society is the root cause of criminality. Under this model, crime is predominately a product of social factors. Consequently, criminal behavior is determined by societal forces, such as poverty, racial discrimination and lack of employment opportunities, so the object of criminal justice is to mitigate or eliminate those harmful forces. Assuming that structural defects in society cause crime, then criminals deserve rehabilitation, not punishment. Supporters of the rehabilitation model hold the perspective that correctional treatment programs can successfully reduce crime.

The study found that while rehabilitation is an important societal goal, it cannot come at the expense of deterrence and incapacitation. The root causes (poverty, racial discrimination and lack of employment opportunities) are systemic issues, and discussions about the best approaches to mitigate those issues are under continuing debate. In the meanwhile, criminals will continue to commit crimes, which is detrimental to society, including those living within the root causes environment cited above. Rehabilitation is a much needed and important component of mitigating our crime problem, but it cannot be used in isolation. The immediacy of criminal activity and the safety of our citizens require a recognized use of deterrence (swift and sure punishment) and, when warranted, incarceration as well. Society cannot rely solely on altruistic thinking while criminals continue to threaten our safety and well being. This type of broad, holistic approach will better serve the needs of our city.

Jerry Cothran, Baltimore

Send letters to the editor to talkback@baltimoresun.com. Please include your name and contact information.

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We can't rehabilitate our way out of Baltimore's crime problems - Baltimore Sun

The convenient untruth of Al Gore’s posthumanism – Patheos (blog)

Al Gores An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power just appeared in theatres. Given the prominence of the first film, whose title the sequel evokes, and the subsequent advance of the strength of the environmental movement throughout the globe, it is sure to garner huge attention.

That isnt to say it will change any minds. Whether one ultimately decries it as a reheated version of the fare he first served up or deems it a worthy renewable probably depends less on the films merits than on whether one shares the authors fundamental presuppositions.

I have yet to see the film. But I do admire its brilliant marketing. From the image of an hourglass pouring a technicolour globe into a greyscale urban hell to its use of the Quaker slogan (adopted by the political left as its underdog motto) in the subtitle, no viewer can remain unmoved.

With the latter in mind, it is impossible not to see the sequel as agitprop against a Trump Presidency, with Gore, the Democrat politician and current board member of both Apple and Google representing the globalist elite against whom Trump ran his surprisingly successful campaign.

While it cannot be ignored as agitprop, that is of less of interest to me here than its prophetic call to action to rectify a terrible injustice.

How are we to understand that call?

What standard of justice?

Alex Epstein, who has authored a book making a moral argument for the use of fossil fuels, writes in a recent assessment of Gores sequel: As the most influential figure in the international climate conversation, Gore has a responsibility to give us the whole picture of fossil fuels impacts both their benefits and the risks they pose to humans flourishing. Unfortunately, Gore has given us a deeply biased picture that completely ignores fossil fuels indispensable benefits and wildly exaggerates their impact on climate.

Advances in technology are making fossil fuels cleaner, safer, and more efficient than ever. To reduce their growth let alone to radically restrict their use which is what Gore advocates means forcing energy poverty on billions of people.

Epsteinslittle article summarizes the little-heard moral objections to the environmentalists war on fossil fuels.

What is interesting to note though is that at the forefront of his moral concerns is, like Gore, the question of justice.

Epsteins moral framework, however, is that of a humanist. He determines right and wrong in accordance with the demonstrable benefit fossil fuels have made to ameliorate the human condition, and the demonstrable harm that energy poverty will cause to it. [I leave aside the question of whether the case he makes is sound or not, it is more the perspective Epstein takes that is of interest]

Accordingly, Epstein argues that the environmentalists like Gore ought to have to justify the human misery that must ensue if fossil fuels are abandoned on the scale they demand, and not just ignore it as an inconvenient truth.

What is equally apparent, however, is that he is speaking at cross purposes with Gore. And the reason for that is that Gore speaks on behalf of doing justice for a different constituency: not people, but the earth.

Environmentalism and posthumanism

While influential figures such as Al Gore, David Suzuki, et al. do talk about the effect of climate change on humanity, careful scrutiny reveals that it isnt their primary concern. The effect of climate change on people is more of a rhetorical flourish made to motivate their audience at the injustice done against them.

The reality, however, is that Gore and many in the environmental movement have a spiritual objection to Epsteins humanistic viewpoint. They deny that human interests ought to be the primary consideration in the debate. The survival of the planet is the primary issue.

The catastrophic language and images that the environmental movement deploys is not so much rhetorical as it is an expression of their core religious convictions. They have a different assessment of the value of human beings and where they stand in relation to the created order than Epstein.

They revere life, but only if it is understood impersonally, on the level of the lowest common denominator that a microbe shares with a man.

The environmental movements lack of care and concern for the effect of its policies on people is rooted in its posthumanist convictions.

The ideological basis of the environmental movement, which reaches back to the Romantic eras panentheist view of nature, deserves far more scrutiny than it currently receives.

That is because its detrimental effect upon peoples lives is not accidental, but intentional.

Posthumanism is moreover false because while the environmentalist cause strongly appeals to our sense of injustice, it ignores the fact that aside from human beings, the natural order on whose behalf it speaks knows nothing of it.

Gores sense of injustice depends on an obvious anthropomorphism of nature.

To acknowledge it, and the absurdity of the sense of injustice he evokes, is truly to speak truth to power.

And that is because it happens to contradict the untruth that conveniently serves the globalist elite against the great masses of humanity whose personhood is irrelevant to them.

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The convenient untruth of Al Gore's posthumanism - Patheos (blog)

The Importance of Liberal Arts In The AI Economy – HuffPost

Scott Hartley is a venture capitalist and author of THE FUZZY AND THE TECHIE

Scott Hartley is a venture capitalist and author of THE FUZZY AND THE TECHIE, a Financial Times business book of the month, and finalist for the Financial Times and McKinsey & Company's Bracken Bower Prize for an author under 35. He has served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the White House, a Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV), and a Venture Partner at Metamorphic Ventures. Prior to venture capital, Scott worked at Google, Facebook, and Harvards Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He has been a contributing author at MIT Press, and has written for publications such as the Financial Times,Forbes,and Foreign Policy, and been featured in Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal.He holds three degrees from Stanford and Columbia, has finished six marathon and Ironman 70.3 triathlons.

Hartley first heard the terms Fuzzy and Techie while studying political science at Stanford University. At Stanford, if you majored in the humanities or social sciences, you were a Fuzzy. If you majored in the computer sciences, you were a Techie. According to Hartley, this informal division has mistakenly created a business mindset and believes Techies are the real drivers of innovation. Hartley believes that the Fuzzies, not the Techies, are the key talent responsible for creating the most successful new business ideas. The Fuzzies will develop ethics in artificial intelligence, question bias in algorithms and data and will bring contextual understanding to code, said Hartley.

Here are some of the Fuzzies referenced in Hartleys book:

A global study found that adoption of artificial intelligence will create several new job categories requiring very important skills that may surprise most. These new jobs fall into three categories:

MIT Sloan Management Review

Here is a short video of Author Anne-Marie Slaughter, speaking to graduates and referencing Hartleys book, noting that even in our STEM-obsessed world, we need humanists at the center of technology and industry.

To learn more about the power of Liberal Arts in shaping the future of work and the digital economy, Ray Wang and I invited Scott Hartley to our weekly show DisrupTV, where we feature the best and brightest business leaders, bestselling authors, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to discuss emerging technologies, business and leadership trends that will most impact our society.

Here are some of the key takeaways from our conversation with Hartley:

Democratization of technology is an advantage for creatives - As a venture capitalists, meeting with entrepreneurs and startup founders, Hartley began to notice that team building and cultivating a culture of innovation requires storytelling, creativity, empathy and Liberal Arts oriented skills and background. Hartley reminds us that today, tools have been democratized, so what you need most now is to be a full-stack integrator. The ability to code is less of prerequisite.

Education is not a plane ticket. Education is not about going from point-A to point-B. Education is more like a passport, where you are trying to get stamps from all different places. If you are really passionate about tech courses, you should also expand your purview to include non-technical curriculum. Get out of your comfort zone, collect the stamps, and build a well-rounded point of view. Hartley references philosophical questions that drove early design decisions at some of the fastest and most successful companies.

Software is feeding the world - Hartley quoted Kara Swisher where she said: San Francisco entrepreneurs is assisted living for the millennials, referencing the startup marketplace that is replicating services Moms use to deliver like laundry delivery, dog walkers, and food delivery. The changing consumer behavior and expectations dictate a greater need for the combination of Fuzzies and Techies skill-sets to build better products and services.

Robust AI algorithms are a function of diversity of input - Hartley remind us that product teams often learn from edge user cases which is often overlooked without a diverse set of inputs. Often the most important product and service design decisions are based on diverse set of human inputs, minimizing the biases that can be easy introduced in data sets and algorithms.

I highly encourage you to read THE FUZZY AND THE TECHIE and to watch our full conversation with Scott Hartley. In the video, Hartley provided numerous company examples that owe their success to Fuzzy leaders. I also recommend that you follow Hartley on Twitter at @ScotteHartley for his excellent thought leadership and shared wisdom.

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The Importance of Liberal Arts In The AI Economy - HuffPost

Apple Caved to China, Just Like Almost Every Other Tech Giant – WIRED

Customers come to the newly opened Apple store in Shanghai, China.

VCG/Getty Images

Apple recently removed some of the virtual private networks from the App Store in China, making it harder for users there to get around internet censorship. Amazon has capitulated to China's censors as well; The New York Times reported this week that the company's China cloud service instructed local customers to stop using software to circumvent that country's censorship apparatus. While caving to China's demands prompts a vocal backlash, for anyone who follows US tech companies in China it was anything but surprising. Apple and Amazon have simply joined the ranks of companies that abandon so-called Western values in order to access the huge Chinese market.

Doing business in China requires playing by Chinese rules, and American tech companies have a long history of complying with Chinese censorship. Every time a new compromise comes to light, indignation briefly flares up in the press and on social media. Then, its back to business as usual. This isnt even the first time Apple has complied with Chinese censors. Earlier this year, the company removed New York Times apps from its Chinese store, following a request from Chinese authorities. "We would obviously rather not remove apps, but like we do in other countries we follow the law wherever do we business," Apple CEO Tim Cook said during Tuesday's earnings call, in response to the vanished VPN apps.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of American companies that have aided Chinese censorship. In 2005, Yahoo provided information that helped Chinese authorities convict a journalist, Shi Tao. Shi had sent an anonymous post to a US-based website. The post contained state secrets, according to authorities, and Shi was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Also in 2005, Microsoft shut down the blog of a Chinese freedom-of-speech advocate. A year later, Google agreed to censor its search results in China. Internal documents show that Cisco apparently saw China's "Great Firewall" as a choice opportunity to sell routers at around the same time. In 2006, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Cisco faced a congressional hearing about their Chinese collaboration. I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night," representative Tom Lantos said at the time.

Jeremy Hsu

Why Apple Is Losing Its Shine in China

Julia Greenberg

Netflix May Never Break Into China

Andy Greenberg

How the CIA Can Hack Your Phone, PC, and TV (Says WikiLeaks)

It turns out that some corporate leaders will sacrifice a good nights sleep to reach hundreds of millions of internet usersand potential customers. In 2014, LinkedIn launched a Chinese version of its service with the understanding that doing so would curtail freedom of expression. Users who posted politically sensitive content would get a message saying that their content would not be seen by LinkedIn members in China.

In a 2014 interview with The Wall Street Journal , LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner was upfront about the Chinese bargain. Were expecting there will be requests to filter content, Weiner said. We are strongly in support of freedom of expression and we are opposed to censorship, but thats going to be necessary for us to achieve the kind of scale that wed like to be able to deliver to our membership.

Perhaps LinkedIn figured that, as a business networking site, it could dodge political controversy. But when it comes to China, its never that simple. LinkedIns community, after all, includes China-based journalists. It wasnt long before users complained about receiving notices from LinkedIn that their posts were not available in China. Just this month, journalist Ian Johnson posted one of those notices on Twitter. Twitter is blocked in China, but some people there access it with circumvention technology. In the past, China-based activists have used Twitter to get their message to the outside world. Twitter is a rare American platform that offers relative freedom of expression to the Chinese who are willing to use it.

Bending to China's will doesn't guarantee success. China remains a tough market, even for those willing to censor. Derek Shen, formerly president of LinkedIn China, recently stepped down after the company had less-than-impressive results in China. Problems apparently included missed sales targets and failure to attract new users. In 2010 Google declared wholesale defeat in mainland China, citing problems with censorship and cybersecurity.

Censorship isn't the only challenge: US companies now have to contend with fierce Chinese rivals. Apple has struggled against domestic Chinese competition, including smartphone powerhouses Huawei and Oppo. Uber flailed against incumbent ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing before eventually selling its China operations to its local rival. When it comes to the internet, Chinese users arent necessarily longing to jump over the Great Firewall to gain access to overseas sites. Many are content with domestic products, particularly WeChat, a wildly popular messaging app.

Still, US companies will always try to break through in China. Facebook has eyed the mainland for a while. A Facebook entry may appear unlikely, especially as China temporarily blocked its WhatsApp messaging service. But CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears willing to go the distance; Facebook has reportedly worked on a censorship tool for the purposes of getting China's approval. Conventional wisdom once held that Facebook would not risk the public outcry following a decision to self-censor in China. But is that really true? All those other companies got away with it, and Facebook probably would too.

So will Apple. The company might take a beating in China, but it wont be because of its moral choices. That doesnt mean that the Chinese internet outlook is bleak. Despite pervasive censorship, information manages to get through. Some circumvention tools will vanish, and others will appear. For every sensitive term that gets blocked, people will find a different word to replace it.

The spread of the internet will continue to expand the space for expression in Chinajust not necessarily thanks to the American companies willing to do whatever it takes to gain a foothold there.

Emily Parker has covered China for The Wall Street Journal and has been an adviser in the US State Department. She is the author of Now I Know Who My Comrades Are , a book about the power of social media in China, Cuba, and Russia.

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Apple Caved to China, Just Like Almost Every Other Tech Giant - WIRED

Why are so many Americans okay with corporations bowing to Chinese censorship? – The Week Magazine

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If the American people actually believed that censorship was bad, they would throw away their iPhones, stop buying shampoo on Amazon, and quit going to the movies.

Why is it not a cause for concern that the world's wealthiest corporations are cooperating with the Chinese government, employing their considerable technological resources to prevent Chinese citizens from circumventing firewalls or accessing private networks designed to restrict access to information and opinions of which the authorities disapprove? Why do only nerd parodists on YouTube complain about the absurd lengths to which film producers go to appease Chinese censors doing everything from removing same-sex kissing scenes and other sequences considered vulgar or too violent to inserting brand-new characters to appease nationalist sentiment? Why is the pursuit of obscene levels of profit and record-breaking box office numbers a sufficient justification for these pathetic and, in cinematic terms, banal concessions?

The answer is simple: We don't really think censorship is wrong. Or rather, we vaguely think censorship is wrong except when it gets in the way of profits.

Anyone who went to high school in this country is familiar with what I think of as the standard textbook history of the United States. It is an impoverished, mostly uninteresting narrative that begins with some kind of bridge in Alaska and ends with the Cold War, a thing that we won. It has many gaps not much seems to happen between the War of 1812 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates or between the Civil War and the Depression. Huge lumbering abstractions abound: the Gilded Age, Tariff Reform.

One of the most dreadful of these looming specters is censorship, a bad thing that involved a senator named McCarthy who was somehow also a member of a committee in the House of Representatives. At some point or another, between the time when people said "I Like Ike" and Vietnam, censorship mostly went away. But before it did there was something evil called a blacklist that was maintained by Hollywood. People on the blacklist were good because they stood up for free speech in defiance of censorship. Being okay with the blacklist was so bad that if you appeared before the evil House committee that ran it from Washington it was a very good thing decades later for people to protest your receiving an award and for people in the audience to be rude to you and not applaud.

In other words, the fact that a handful of mediocre screenwriters did not get to make lots of money working in the movie business is obviously much more important and interesting than the intricacies of the very real decades-long struggle for world dominance between the United States and her liberal democratic allies and the Soviet Union.

I mention all this because this valorization of a few insignificant characters is one of the only salient facts that millions of Americans know about the conduct of the Cold War at its height. The badness of censorship is an unquestioned article of faith. The idea that obscenity should not be permitted on our screens is as ludicrous as, well, the idea that there is even such a thing as obscenity. Bold pro-freedom of expression warriors renew their commitments every year with annual cost-free exercises in moral preening like Banned Books Week. The notion that somewhere some parent might take issue with one of her children reading a book with sexual themes is a crisis, a kind of secular blasphemy that demands excommunication. There is no room for prudential judgement here: Thinking that some things might be bad is the only thing that it is not okay to think.

Meanwhile, tech CEOs explain away their acquiescence with blanket censorship in countries where they depend upon cheap labor in order to make world-historic profits. Hollywood pretends that absolute creative freedom is a quasi-sacred right except when it isn't and it's totally worth interfering with an artist's vision in order to placate censors with absurd fears like movies with ghosts in them and get more cash at the box office.

And we let them. Why? Because most Americans think censorship is bad as long as we don't need it to make money.

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Why are so many Americans okay with corporations bowing to Chinese censorship? - The Week Magazine

Apple playing China’s censorship game should make tech companies really nervous – Mashable


Washington Post
Apple playing China's censorship game should make tech companies really nervous
Mashable
Based on the events of the last few days, we now know that even the biggest tech company on the planet can't put a significant crack in that impenetrable wall of internet censorship that gives the Chinese government ultimate power over all things ...
Apple, Amazon help China curb the use of anti-censorship toolsWashington Post
Joining Apple, Amazon's China Cloud Service Bows to CensorsNew York Times
How Apple and Amazon Are Aiding Chinese CensorsSlate Magazine (blog)
Amnesty International -Engadget -Salon -Amnesty International
all 244 news articles »

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Apple playing China's censorship game should make tech companies really nervous - Mashable

Egyptian band beats censorship via YouTube – Al-Monitor

A still from the band Cairokee's music video "Al-Kayf." Uploaded on July 10, 2017. (photo byYouTube/CairokeeOfficial)

Author:David Awad Posted August 2, 2017

CAIRO Egyptian rock band Cairokee did not give up when the General Authority for Censorship of Works of Art on July 2 banned the sale of their new album A Drop of White. Why would they, when there is an alternative outlet in the form of YouTube? The YouTube launch of their 11-song album on July 11 was a resounding success. One song, Al-Kayf, ("Fix") has been viewed over 6 million times since its internet launch.

TranslatorPaul Raymond

"Al-Kayf" was the most popular song in Egypt in July, even after Egyptian pop superstar Amr Diab released Meaddy El Nas ("Passing People"), which has still failed to match the YouTube hits of "Al-Kayf" since the release of Diabs album July 20.

"Al-Kayf" was not the only successful song on the album. Wrong Way Blues has been watched over 4.5 million times, the title song A Drop of White 2.7 million times, while Cease-Fire and I Thought There Was Still Time each have received well over 1 million hits. So far, songs on the album have been viewed on YouTube over 24 million times.

But why did the censorship authority ban the album?

Cairokee broke news of the ban in a July 2 Facebook post, saying, The General Authority for Censorship of Works of Art rejected some of the songs on Cairokees forthcoming album 'A Drop of White.' The bad news is that for the first time, our album will not go on sale in shops and most likely will not be on radio or TV (not important). But the good news is that we are carrying on and our songs will be freely available on the internet and in digital stores, out on July 11.

The post did not specify why the authority had banned the album, a question that occupied the media even several weeks after the albums release and YouTube success. On July 26, Al-Tahrir newspaper published an interview with Cairokees lead singer, Amir Eid, in which he said, We dont know why the censor banned the album, the reasons are unclear. [But] the censor took issue with 'Cease-Fire,' 'Wrong Way Blues,' 'The Last Song' and 'Dinosaur' all of which had political overtones.

The words of the four songs are filled with passion. Cease-Fire refers to a Blind society that cant see its collapse and adds, Everybody participated in the crime and pressed the trigger, everybody chose silence and buried his head in the sand/ They are imprisoned between herds surrounded by dogs" in reference to the state's pursuit of opposition political activists after June 30, 2013. "Dinosaur," the most controversial song, says, "Moving between TV channels to kill the time and boredom, the same hypocrisy, stupidity and awfulness/ After they had sold our lands, they accused us of being the disloyal youth a reference to the maritime demarcation agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, under which sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir Islands will be transferred from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.

Al-Monitor sought further clarification from Ahmad Medhat, the bands spokesman, who said, I believe the censor rejected those songs as it thought they were political, although they are not; they had no fundamental political motive.

Medhat said that the songs were not political but social in nature. "They express the feelings of the young people and their disappointment with how the January 25 Revolution and their revolution against the Muslim Brotherhood ended leading to the present situation, in which activists from the January 25 Revolution are being pursued and oppressed. This is what the youth talk about in the streets and cafes. Our songs had no political goal, their only purpose was to express the feelings of the youth, because we are the youth. The censor fears any honest expression, Medhat added.

Khaled Abdulgalil, the head of the General Authority for Censorship of Works of Art, has not responded to Al-Monitors repeated attempts to seek clarification on why the album was banned.

Mehdat said, The political overtones in the songs were not the only reason they were banned; the band has faced restrictions for years. Its songs have been banned by radio and TV, its concerts have been canceled for security reasons. Our friendship with certain activists, media figures and people who oppose the current regime, as well as our support for the January 25 Revolution, may have been reasons for these restrictions.

The band was launched in 2003 with five members: lead vocalist Amir Eid, lead guitarist Sherif Hawary, drummer Tamer Hashem, keyboarder Sherif Mostafa and bass guitarist Adam el-Alfy. But it was not until the January 25 Revolution that it shot to fame. A day before former President Hosni Mubarak resigned, the group played Sout al-Horeya ("Sound of Freedom"). After Mubaraks ouster, they recorded revolutionary songs such as Ya el-Medan ("O Square") with singer Aida el-Ayoubi. In the run-up to the 2012 presidential elections, they released Wanted: A Leader. When their friend, prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, was arrested in November 2013, they released Yama fi Habas Mazalim ("In the Prison of the Oppressors").

The group performs a mixture of its own rock style and more conventional Egyptian pop. They recorded a song with pop groups Sharmoofers and El-Madfaagya, as well as performed A Stranger in a Strange Country with folk singer Abdelbasit Hammoudeh. After that songs success, they featured folk singer Tareq El Sheikh on Al-Kayf.

Banning songs is pointless in the era of YouTube, music critic Mohammad Shamees told Al-Monitor. I dont agree with the censor on these measures, because the controversy created by banning just makes them more popular. Cairokees songs have benefitted from political events in a way I dont agree with, because they have made political criticisms that were unjustifiably harsh, using any means to win an audience with the youth who are disgruntled about certain topics. The mixing of rock and pop means the songs have lost any unique nature, and the group repeats itself a lot. 'Wrong Way Blues' was the name of their 2014 album, which is a sort of artistic bankruptcy. Eids singing with Sheikh and Hammoudeh exposed the weakness of his own voice.

Cairokees experience with their new album confirms that there is no longer any room for banning and blocking songs, except from the ears of the state censors employees. Even the material losses the group may suffer due to the banning of album sales have been offset: Cairokees album was the most-sold record in Egypt on iTunes in mid-July.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/08/youth-band-beats-censorship-via-youtube.html

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Egyptian band beats censorship via YouTube - Al-Monitor

YouTube Working with ADL to Shut Down Free Speech – LifeZette

Video-sharing website YouTube seems to be systematically purging conservatives and others who challenge politically correct orthodoxy from its platform.

Free speech activists across the internet were shocked on Tuesday after YouTube appeared to suspend the account of noted psychology professor Jordan B. Peterson. I cannot post new YouTube videos, including last weeks Biblical lecture. No access. At least for now the videos are still up, Peterson tweeted on Tuesday morning.

A backlash quickly ensued, and before the end of the day, and indeed shortly after The Daily Caller published a story on the shock suspension, Petersons account was reinstated. But Peterson is not the first to fall victim to YouTubes efforts to censor politically incorrect free speech, nor will he be the last.

The Google subsidiary announced in a blog post published Tuesday that it is taking new steps to combat what it referred to as terrorism content and hate speech steps critics assert are little more than efforts to censor conservative thought.

Greatly reinforcing this perception is YouTube's own admission that it is partnering with far-left organizations to decide what exactly constitutes hateful or "terrorist" content. "Over the past weeks, we have begun working with more than 15 additional expert [non-governmental organizations] and institutions through our Trusted Flagger program, including the Anti-Defamation League, the No Hate Speech Movement, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue," YouTube said in the blog post.

"This is terrifying in an Orwellian way," said Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture at the Media Research Center. "Organizations that don't support free speech, like the ADL, are being used to monitor it. The ADL has clearly lost its way and become just another left-wing pressure group in recent years," Gainor told LifeZette.

Indeed only two weeks ago the ADL found itself embroiled in minor controversy after wrongly listing a number of relatively mainstream right-wing activists and politicians as racist hate figures, including Rebel Media's Gavin McInnes (who is married to an Asian woman), former Virginia gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, and Milo Yianoppolous, who is a half-Jewish homosexual.

YouTube's reliance on partisan organizations to police "hateful" content is troubling enough, but "YouTube's insistence on telling us how to live our lives and what words we can use is even more distressing," said Gainor.

"The plan to have a 'playlist of curated YouTube videos that directly confront and debunk violent extremist messages' sounds positively like 1984. YouTube apparently doesn't believe its customers are smart enough to know what they want to see," Gainor continued. "Unfortunately, billions of people have turned over their free speech rights to companies that increasingly don't believe in free speech."

In addition to promising to promote progressive propaganda videos, the video-sharing website also admitted that it is effectively implementing new ways to censor politically incorrect content that doesn't actually violate its hate speech policies. "We'll soon be applying tougher treatment to videos that aren't illegal but have been flagged by users as potential violations of our policies on hate speech and violent extremism," YouTube wrote.

"If we find that these videos don't violate our policies but contain controversial religious or supremacist content, they will be placed in a limited state. The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, won't be recommended, won't be monetized, and won't have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes," they wrote.

"We'll begin to roll this new treatment out to videos on desktop versions of YouTube in the coming weeks, and will bring it to mobile experiences soon thereafter. These new approaches entail significant new internal tools and processes, and will take time to fully implement."

But YouTube has already begun to implement some of these new approaches and has been doing so for some time. Numerous right-wing accounts on YouTube have been demonetized over the past year, including those of leading right-wing millennials such asJames Allsup, an independent journalist and former director of Students for Trump, Infowars' Paul Joseph Watson, and former Rebel Media reporter-turned-activist Lauren Southern.

Nor is YouTube the first online platform to banish right-wing voices. Last week, Patreon deleted Southern's account solely because she reported on the efforts of "Defend Europe" activists to turn back boats owned by radical left-wing NGOs thatEuropean authorities claim have been operating as taxi services for migrants. Last Thursday, fundraising website GoFundMe removed Allsup's account without reason.

"What we have seen in the last decade, across western media, politics and business and through our education sector is a chilling rise in censorship and curtailment of free speech," said Ben Harris-Quinney, chairman of The Bow Group, the oldest conservative think tank in the United Kingdom and an expert on progressive attempts to stifle free expression.

"Online outlets like YouTube became insurgent largely because of this, but as they join the liberal establishment many are culling off the free speech element that was crucial to their success," Harris-Quinney told LifeZette.

"As Bill Clinton said of the last election 'We thought we had changed their minds, but we'd just silenced their voices,'" Harris-Qunney continued. "Brexit in the U.K. and Trump's election in the U.S. prove that establishment media in no way represents the reality of public sentiment, and all censorship does is leave large sectors of society ignorant to reality."

Ultimately, however, efforts to censor "offensive" speech could backfire on the internet media companies that embrace them.

"As a private company I believe YouTube should be free to do as it pleases," said Harris-Qunniey. "However, what we have seen in recent years is a stark decline in the reach and profitability of establishment media, and I suspect the more YouTube curtails, the greater their loss will be."

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YouTube Working with ADL to Shut Down Free Speech - LifeZette