Month: November 2021

BoJo Kicks Off COP26 Summit By Comparing Climate Change To “Bond Villain”

BoJo Kicks Off COP26 Summit By Comparing Climate Change To “Bond Villain”

After the G-20 members gathered over the weekend to discuss critical issues like climate change ahead of the two-week-long frenzied UN climate crisis which has taken on the unfortunate nickname of COP26, which even UK PM Boris Johnson has criticized as “too vague”.

Heading into the summit, perhaps the biggest criticism among world leaders is that the international community still hasn’t managed to come anywhere close to reaching the goals from the Paris Climate Accords from six years ago. As Mike Shedlock put it: forget COP26, we still haven’t met COP-09 and COP15.

But the G-20 still managed to come up with its own “communique” (readers can find the rest of that one here).

Analysts and journalists jeered at the mediocre progress made during the G-20 talks involving the world’s most powerful leaders (with the notable exception of Vladimir Putin and President Xi, who also don’t appear inclined to attend the summit in Glasgow).

At least one photographer left us with this hilarious photo of President Biden trying to keep his composure just at the edge of the frame (that’s Biden in the far left first row)…

As COP climate talks kick off with a procession of world leaders setting out their plans for curbing global warming, all eyes are on the biggest emitters: China, India, and the U.S., while Brazil — long a climate laggard — is expected to come up with a new roadmap.

The summit in Glasgow, Scotland, is happening under the shadow of an energy crisis that’s shifted some of the dynamics of climate diplomacy and forced (mostly European) governments to think more about security of supply (ie submitting to Russia).

One of the most ironic tendencies of the summit is that President Joe Biden and other leaders have come to the conference pushing for more emissions cuts, and more commitments to green energy while also pushing oil producers at OPEC+ ramp up supply to help spare the US and Europe from a brutal winter. Given these contrarian commitments, the summit should allow Russia, China and others to throw the West’s virtue-signaling when it comes to climate change – right back in its face.

What’s even more ironic is that the two-week summit is happening under the shadow of the UK’s own energy crisis. Which means that those who are in a position to try and cut greenhouse gasses are simply in too difficult a situation to try and fix it now. (hence Putin’s decision to skip it).

UK PM Boris Johnson (the nominal host) kicked off his speech with an elaborate James Bond analogy to really drive the point home, while also taking a jab at the climate movement’s teenage figurehead: Greta Thunberg.

 “Bond is strapped to a doomsday device as a red digital clock ticks down remorselessly to a destination that will end human life as we know it,” he told delegates.

“We are in roughly the same position, my fellow global leaders, as James Bond, today,” Johnson said.

“The tragedy is that this is not a movie and the doomsday device is real.”

“We are in the same position as James Bond today. Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change.”

At one point, Johnson echoed everybody’s favorite teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, telling world leaders they need to deliver on the promises they made in Paris in 2015 to arrest global warming.

“All those promises will be nothing but ‘blah blah blah,’ to copy a phrase from Greta.”

But he warned that the anger and impatience of the world would be “uncontainable” if world leaders failed to take decisive action.

In a sign of a growing focus on the actions of the business world, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres also announced at the opening ceremony that he would establish an expert group to develop a standard for measuring and analysing corporate net zero pledges.

Guterres called for countries to be forced to update their climate plans every year if COP shows that current efforts aren’t good enough. That’s in line with a call from the most climate-vulnerable nations to get polluters to keep ratcheting up their plans until they’re strong enough to slow global warming. This theme is shaping up to be a big one at the summit — how quickly countries will be told to revise their homework.

“There is a deficit of credibility and a surplus of confusion over emissions reductions and net zero targets, with different meanings and different metrics,” UN secretary-general António Guterres said.

Meanwhile, President Biden needed a nap after his own doomsday speech…

“There’s no more time to hang back or sit on the fence or argue amongst ourselves,” Biden said.

“This is the challenge of our collective lifetimes. The existential threat to human existence as we know it.”

“And every day we delay, the cost of inaction increases. So let this be the moment that we answer history’s call here in Glasgow. Let this be the start of a decade of transformative action that preserves our planet and raises the quality of life for people everywhere,” he continued. “We can do this. We just have to make a choice to do it.”

The elite arrived in the private jets, and their internal-combustion-engine limos choked off the Scottish city’s streets…

So far, it looks like the epic climate conclave is getting off on the wrong foot.

As Mish concluded perfectly succinctly, expect no new commitments of any substance at COP26. If by chance there are any, they will be as meaningful in practice as commitments made at COP09.

Given the G20 have spoken, and not acted, should we perhaps cancel COP26 and save all the carbon that will expended on it?

Looking ahead, here’s what’s to come:

November 4: Energy Day – Alok Sharma will fight to “make coal history”. There will be new signatories to the UN’s No New Coal pact but China and the US won’t be among them.

November 5: Expect noisy protests from Greta Thunberg. This goal will certainly be met but it will not accomplish a damn thing.

November 10: Transport day, with focus on cutting carbon from cars. Key moment: Boris Johnson will hope for new national bans on petrol and diesel car sales. If there is anything to cheer it will come in this sector. But there will not be meaningful bans on petrol other than perhaps diesel cars. Most of the success will happen anyway from car makers.

November 12: Negotiations are due to end, so expect last minute scuffles to delay proceedings. Key moment: release of the negotiated text. No climate target, but nations are likely to reaffirm support for 1.5C goal. The text is sure to disappoint climate change activists.

For those who aren’t familiar with the concept behind these conclaves, the COP26 is the 26th annual Conference of Parties on climate change. The goal of these meetings is to agree to methods of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

In short, countries will do what they want, when they want, but the media will always praise Saint Greta.

As an aside, one wonders when the nuclear option will be accepted as necessary as part of the green push: yes, it can go very wrong – but have you ever seen what can happen with hydrogen? Even post-Fukushima Japan, where PM Kishida has just won re-election, is considering it.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 14:21

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3nU9Kgq Tyler Durden

German Insurance Companies Demand Perilous Playgrounds So That Kids Can Learn About Risk


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Germany is adding greater risk to its playgrounds. Some of its climbing structures are now three stories high. And who is requesting this?

Insurance companies. They want kids to grow up “risk competent.” Ironically, “safety” culture is stunting kids’ risk assessing abilities, in their estimation.

“This is fantastic progress in understanding childhood as the right time for children to learn to recognize and mitigate risk,” says Gever Tulley.

Tulley should know. He’s founder of the San Francisco Brightworks School author of 50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do).

The idea for letting kids develop some basic climbing competency has grown in popularity in Germany. An influential  2004 study had found that “children who had improved their motor skills in playgrounds at an early age were less likely to suffer accidents as they got older,” according to The Guardian. Moreover:

With young people spending an increasing amount of time in their own home, the umbrella association of statutory accident insurers in Germany last year called for more playgrounds that teach children to develop “risk competence”.

That’s music to an actuaries’ ears—and also to some parents’. My friend Siobhan is a New York native who moved to Germany. A few years ago, when her daughter was in elementary school, she says, “The school replaced the standard playground equipment with four long, thick trees with their branches removed, all interconnected with wide ropes and wobbly bridges made of rubber. The whole thing was maybe six feet at the tallest point. But the trees had been polished so they were slippery.”

Sure enough, says Siobhan, the very first week they were installed, “A girl fell off and broke her arm. As an American, I nervously anticipated the outrage that would surely follow. My heart was in my throat as I eavesdropped on the other parents at pick-up the following day. What did I hear? ‘Children need to learn their limitations!'” There were no lawsuits are calls to tear down the equipment.

This more accepting approach to risk is starting to take hold beyond Germany, according to Tim Gill, author of The Yard, in 2016, complete with hammers, nails, and plenty of wood and saws. It stands by its credo: “No parents allowed.” And as a denizen of play conferences, I can attest that many play scholars are eager for more exciting playgrounds.

Unfortunately, that runs smack into our culture’s habit of underestimating kids, overestimating danger, and hiring trial lawyers. In 2019, a family that had sued the Howell Township, New Jersey, school district when their daughter fell off the slide and broke her arm won a settlement of $170,000. Their lawyer had argued that the slide’s slope was too steep, as it was at a 35 degree angle, rather than 30.

Perhaps out of fear of just that kind of thing, one school district—Richland, Washington— just plain got rid of its swings, arguing that “swings have been determined to be the most unsafe of all the playground equipment.”

That’s only because all of the merry-go-rounds, and see-saws, and monkey bars have already been uprooted.

Thus does American childhood remain, for the most part, a mulch-chip, no-slip, primary-colored plastic safe space. Or, as a German insurance exec might put it, a risk-ignorance breeding ground.

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Peter Thiel Warns The “Centralized Misinformation Problem” Creates “A Fake Consensus”

Peter Thiel Warns The “Centralized Misinformation Problem” Creates “A Fake Consensus”

Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times,

In his keynote address to the National Conservatism Conference Oct. 31, billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel argued that false consensus has silenced debate on important questions, including COVID-19, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and ongoing inflation in the American economy.

Thiel spoke to the conference about examples of what he called “the incredible derangement of various forms of thought,” including ways of political and scientific thinking.

He highlighted the experience of Stanford professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, whose skepticism about masks culminated in anonymous posters of his face plastered across his university’s campus that, in The Federalist’s words, “[linked] him to COVID deaths in Florida.”

Thiel criticized what he characterized as excessive dogmatism in science, as epitomized by lawn signs proclaiming a household’s belief in “science.”

“When you have to call things science, you know they aren’t – like climate science or political science,” Thiel said.

That same dogmatism, Thiel argued, led the United States to pursue failed policies for over two decades in Afghanistan.

Thiel went on to claim the United States is experiencing “runaway, non-transitory inflation” and “the complete bankruptcy of the Fed” as a result of a similar inability to brook differing opinions, even if they are unpopular.

“If there’s a misinformation problem, it’s a centralized misinformation problem—and it’s the misinformation coming from the Ministry of Truth,” said Thiel.

“We think of nationalism as a corrective to the homogenizing, braindead, one-world state that’s totalitarian,” he later added. “It is an all-important corrective at this point.”

Thiel urged speakers at the event to debate each other vigorously and avoid such “a fake consensus.”

“I hope they will not agree with each other,” he said.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 14:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3EzLDKr Tyler Durden

These Were The Best And Worst Performing Assets In October And YTD

These Were The Best And Worst Performing Assets In October And YTD

Despite stocks closing at new all time highs amid a ferocious global meltup (predicted correctly by Goldman), it was a mixed month for financial markets in October, with 22 of the 38 non-currency assets in Deutsche Bank’s sample in positive territory.

Commodities put in another strong performance, with WTI oil prices leading our sample yet again, whilst equities also rebounded from their losses in September. However, fresh signs of inflation put more significant pressure on sovereign bonds, whilst other assets including HY credit and EM debt lost ground as well.

It’s been a familiar story throughout this year, but energy prices were once again at the top of our sample in October, with WTI oil (+11.4%) leading the way, whilst Brent Crude (+7.5%) wasn’t far behind in third place (Deutsche Bank still does not track cryptos and bitcoin/ethereum but that will change; if it did, it would find another epic month for the crypto space). That extends their YTD gains to +72.2% and +62.9% respectively, with the latest rise coming in part thanks to the surge in natural gas prices over recent months that’s boosted demand for petroleum. This is already having a significant impact on the cost of living for consumers, and here in the UK petrol prices stand at their highest levels in years.

That said, there was some respite right at the end of the month, with natural gas prices falling back strongly in Europe (-33.7%) after Russian President Putin ordered Gazprom to begin refilling its storage facilities in Europe from November 8 (however subsequently Russia cut off all gas deliveries via Yamal, so don’t expect this drop to last). Staying on commodities, October saw further price rises more broadly that have added further fuel to inflationary pressures throughout the world. The key industrial bellwether of copper (+6.8%) had its best month since April, whilst precious metals including gold (+1.5%) and silver (+7.8%) similarly advanced. Meanwhile there were further rises in agricultural prices, with wheat futures (+6.5%) up for a 5th successive month as they closed back in on their peak back in early May, whilst corn futures were up +5.9%.

Those inflationary pressures hampered sovereign bonds in October: Yields on 10yr US Treasuries were up +6bps in October to 1.55%, but that move was entirely driven by higher inflation breakevens, which were up +21bps over the month to 2.59%. That meant that Treasuries fell -0.1% on a total returns basis over the month, while Euro sovereigns overall (-0.6%) moved lower as well. The one outperformer was gilts (+2.4%), which saw big gains after the UK government cut its planned gilt issuance this year by more than expected.

And speaking of crypto assets, now that Goldman showed that the crypto class is an great inflation hedge, with inflation very much in the picture crypto-assets had a great month, although this also came as the first Bitcoin-linked ETF began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. By the end of the month, Bitcoin (+40.4%) had surged back, closing the month at $60,976. That’s actually slightly beneath its levels reached earlier in the month, when it hit an all-time intraday high of $66,976, exceeding its previous high back in April. Other cryptocurrencies put in a strong performance too, including Ethereum (+43.6%), Litecoin (+26.6%) and XRP (+17.1%).

Elsewhere, equities rebounded from their September losses, with the S&P 500 up +7.0% in total return terms to end the month at an all-time high. That was also its best monthly performance so far this year, and takes the index’s gains for the year to +24.0%. In Europe, the STOXX 600 was also up +4.7%, taking its own gains for the year to +22.4%. Meanwhile banks continued to be one of the top performers on a YTD basis, with the STOXX 600 Banks up +6.8% in October to have now risen +42.4% over the year as a whole.

Putting all that together, here are the best performing assets in October…

… and YTD.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 13:46

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3CC4aoY Tyler Durden

‘Squid Game’ Crypto-Scam Exposed, COIN Crashes 100% After Explosive Gains

‘Squid Game’ Crypto-Scam Exposed, COIN Crashes 100% After Explosive Gains

Update: Following up on what we detailed yesterday, CoinMarketCap issued an even firmer warning:

“We have received multiple reports that the website and socials are no longer functional & the users are not able to sell this token in Pancakeswap.

Please do your own due diligence and exercise extreme caution.

This project, while clearly inspired by the Netflix show of the same name, is not affiliated with the official IP. “

The Squid Game token rocketed in price from around 1 cent on Tuesday to trade around $38 late Sunday, according to CoinMarketCap data. It then stepped up to around $90 early Monday, then spiked to just above $2,861 before falling to $0.003467 at 10 a.m. ET.

“The scam has completed its cycle, and the price has just dropped significantly,” Bobby Ong, co-founder at CoinGecko, told Insider.

“Website and social media accounts being deleted is a very obvious sign that it is a scam.”

CoinMarketCap reports that SQUID’s inflexible tokenomics has caused many investors to lose a lot of money.

Describing Monday’s brutal crash, one SQUID holder told CoinMarketCap:

“The price was multiplying at an abnormal level. And as I was staring at my computer screen, I watched SQUID fall down in a matter of minutes. There was no way to withdraw my funds intact.”

They said they were drawn in by news outlets that gave attention to SQUID — and that this additional marketing made them feel that the project was genuine:

“I guess this will serve as a valuable lesson for me to not just jump into meme coins … I am not blaming anyone except myself, but I think there must be some mechanism to avoid this in the future, and for news outlets to stop giving attention to these scammer type tokens.”

Others describe how their $57 investment surged to $14,000 — and their frustration at being unable to sell their token.

Another victim told CoinMarketCap “I lost all of what I have in this project.” He had bought 5,000 SQUID at $1 apiece.

“I don’t trust in them anymore,” he added.

Crypto investors are regularly encouraged to scrutinize a project’s website to see whether information about the founders is prominently displayed.

Squid Game’s website did this — naming David Kanny as CEO. He was described as a University of California Irvine alum who had five years’ experience at Netflix, but no LinkedIn profile exists. Searches for other named executives — Mabel Jah, Kevin Sam, Christian Abbigail, Daniel Jolia and Lawrence Dan — also drew blanks on Google.

In the Netflix show, Squid Game depicts characters who are willing to put their lives on the line for a better financial future.

But for those who put their money on the line by investing in SQUID, any hope of a better financial future has now been lost in the blink of an eye.

*  *  *

The hit Netflix series “Squid Game” has inspired a new cryptocurrency, which saw its value skyrocket by 40,000% this week in just a handful of trading days.

As of 0745 ET Friday, the “Squid Game” token, aka “SQUID”, stood at $5.41, up from $0.01235 when it started trading on Tuesday, according to data from Coin Market Cap.

The relatively obscure crypto is up more than 200% in the past 24 hours and it now commands a market capitalization of more than $419 million.

While the rapid spike in price may tempt more traders into the coin, CoinMarketCap warned on its site that some people appear to not be able to sell the coin once they buy it.

“We have received multiple reports that the users are not able to sell this token in Pancakeswap. Please exercise caution while trading!” CoinMarketCap warns. Pancakeswap is a popular decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.

The inability to sell the coins could be tied to an “anti-dumping mechanism” that the creators of the coin described in a white paper associated with the cryptocurrency.

Like the South Korean show “Squid Game” in which 456 deeply indebted people compete in deadly children’s games for a grand prize of more than $38MM, the Squid token was launched as a way to buy into the Squid Game project, a crypto play-to-earn platform that will culminate with an online in a squid-game-esque tournament next month.

The online tournament will mimic the six rounds of games featured in the hit series, but, as the white paper says, “we do not provide deadly consequences.”

“Your experience will only reflect on the joy of winning rewards and sorrow of losing money when the game failed,” the white paper says.

Another difference is that the online tournament will not cap the reward money for winning nor will there be a maximum number of players.

Contestants will have to fork over a preset amount of the SQUID token in order to compete in each round of the tournament. At the crypto’s current price, the fee for the final round of the tournament, for example, stands at roughly $81,000.

Entry fees from each of the rounds are split between developers, who said they’ll take 10%, and the reward pool, where the remaining 90% of the coins will be deposited.

At the crypto’s current price, the fee for the final round of the tournament, for example, stands at roughly $81,000.

And throughout the tournament, players will have the opportunity to earn non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, by winning rounds. The NFTs also appear to be for sale on the behind the token’s website, and they can be traded among contestants.

Throughout the game, users will also earn Marbles Tokens, which is another reference to the show. Those tokens will allow users to eventually sell their SQUID coins and cash in, according to the white paper.

Of course, while the international crypto community has embraced the game, the NYC school system sees the trend as a liability, and has banned all students from dressing up s characters from the show for halloweem

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 13:33

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3CyoabX Tyler Durden

Supreme Court Rebuffs Attempt To Open Up Access to Classified FISA Court Reports


snowdenprotesters_1161x653

For nearly a decade, activists have been trying to get the federal government to determine how much a secretive surveillance court can keep its conclusions out of the public eye. Today the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Since 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been filing motions to get the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to release secret opinion connected to the collection of Americans’ communications data. The first motions began after Edward Snowden’s disclosures that the National Security Agency (NSA) was using Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to scoop up millions of Americans’ internet and phone records, without warrants and without the targets’ knowledge, allegedly as part of the post-9/11 war on terrorism.

Much of what the FISC, authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, does is classified, because part of its purpose is to permit the covert observation of people who may represent a threat to national security. But another part of the court’s purpose is to make sure that Americans are protected from unauthorized secret surveillance. Snowden’s disclosures suggested a breakdown in those protections.

The ACLU hoped to uncover the legal justification for this use of the PATRIOT Act. When Section 215 was replaced by the USA Freedom Act in 2015, the group filed a new motion under the new guidelines. And in April of this year, the ACLU, along with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the law firm Gibson Dunn, filed a petition to the Supreme Court asking the justices “to recognize a First Amendment right of public access to the FISC’s opinions—ensuring that the opinions are released with only those redactions necessary to prevent genuine harm to national security.”

In this morning’s orders, the Supreme Court declined to consider the argument. The justices didn’t explain why they turned it down, which is typical. But Justice Neil Gorsuch penned a notable dissent that was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The federal government has argued that because these reports are so heavily classified, it’s the sole province of the executive branch—not the judicial branch—to determine what may be released. Indeed, it has argued that the judicial branch doesn’t have any role to play in this process at all (aside from FISC, which has ruled that it doesn’t have the authority to consider whether reports should be released). This did not sit well with Gorsuch, who writes:

This case presents questions about the right of public access to Article III judicial proceedings of grave national importance. Maybe even more fundamentally, this case involves a governmental challenge to the power of this Court to review the work of Article III judges in a subordinate court. If these matters are not worthy of our time, what is?

The ACLU and Knight First Amendment Institute put out a joint release expressing disappointment at the court’s rejection of the petition.

“The Supreme Court has left in place a system that makes informed public debate about government surveillance exceedingly difficult,” writes Alex Abdo, the Knight Institute’s litigation director. “Without access to the FISC’s opinions, the public cannot evaluate the powers that the government’s surveillance agencies are exercising in its name. The FISC shouldn’t be exempt from the constitutional right of access that applies to other courts. It’s past due for the Court to establish this principle.”

In the meantime, we’ll have to keep relying on the whistleblowers.

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The Academic Freedom Podcast #7 with Hank Reichman

A new episode of The Academic Freedom Podcast from the Academic Freedom Alliance is now available. Subscribe through your favorite platform so you don’t miss an episode.

In this episode I talk with Hank Reichman about the state of academic freedom in America today. Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University – East Bay. He is also the former chair of American Association of University Professors’ Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His new book, Understanding Academic Freedom, is now available.

Listen to the whole thing here.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3bCqMtn
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Supreme Court Rebuffs Attempt To Open Up Access to Classified FISA Court Reports


snowdenprotesters_1161x653

For nearly a decade, activists have been trying to get the federal government to determine how much a secretive surveillance court can keep its conclusions out of the public eye. Today the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Since 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been filing motions to get the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to release secret opinion connected to the collection of Americans’ communications data. The first motions began after Edward Snowden’s disclosures that the National Security Agency (NSA) was using Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to scoop up millions of Americans’ internet and phone records, without warrants and without the targets’ knowledge, allegedly as part of the post-9/11 war on terrorism.

Much of what the FISC, authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, does is classified, because part of its purpose is to permit the covert observation of people who may represent a threat to national security. But another part of the court’s purpose is to make sure that Americans are protected from unauthorized secret surveillance. Snowden’s disclosures suggested a breakdown in those protections.

The ACLU hoped to uncover the legal justification for this use of the PATRIOT Act. When Section 215 was replaced by the USA Freedom Act in 2015, the group filed a new motion under the new guidelines. And in April of this year, the ACLU, along with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the law firm Gibson Dunn, filed a petition to the Supreme Court asking the justices “to recognize a First Amendment right of public access to the FISC’s opinions—ensuring that the opinions are released with only those redactions necessary to prevent genuine harm to national security.”

In this morning’s orders, the Supreme Court declined to consider the argument. The justices didn’t explain why they turned it down, which is typical. But Justice Neil Gorsuch penned a notable dissent that was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The federal government has argued that because these reports are so heavily classified, it’s the sole province of the executive branch—not the judicial branch—to determine what may be released. Indeed, it has argued that the judicial branch doesn’t have any role to play in this process at all (aside from FISC, which has ruled that it doesn’t have the authority to consider whether reports should be released). This did not sit well with Gorsuch, who writes:

This case presents questions about the right of public access to Article III judicial proceedings of grave national importance. Maybe even more fundamentally, this case involves a governmental challenge to the power of this Court to review the work of Article III judges in a subordinate court. If these matters are not worthy of our time, what is?

The ACLU and Knight First Amendment Institute put out a joint release expressing disappointment at the court’s rejection of the petition.

“The Supreme Court has left in place a system that makes informed public debate about government surveillance exceedingly difficult,” writes Alex Abdo, the Knight Institute’s litigation director. “Without access to the FISC’s opinions, the public cannot evaluate the powers that the government’s surveillance agencies are exercising in its name. The FISC shouldn’t be exempt from the constitutional right of access that applies to other courts. It’s past due for the Court to establish this principle.”

In the meantime, we’ll have to keep relying on the whistleblowers.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3mBtI00
via IFTTT

The Academic Freedom Podcast #7 with Hank Reichman

A new episode of The Academic Freedom Podcast from the Academic Freedom Alliance is now available. Subscribe through your favorite platform so you don’t miss an episode.

In this episode I talk with Hank Reichman about the state of academic freedom in America today. Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University – East Bay. He is also the former chair of American Association of University Professors’ Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His new book, Understanding Academic Freedom, is now available.

Listen to the whole thing here.

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Bitcoin Is Mathematical Purity, Says Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak

Bitcoin Is Mathematical Purity, Says Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak

Via BitcoinMagazine.com,

The programmer behind the first Apple computer drew parallels between the “artificial” U.S. dollar and the “mathematically pure” Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is mathematical purity and impossible to be copied, said Apple co-founder and ‘Unicorn Hunters’ Circle of Money Investor, Steve Wozniak, in an interview with Yahoo Finance on October 29.

“Look at the U.S. dollar, the government can just create new dollars and borrow; it’s like you never have it fixed, like Bitcoin,” Wozniak told Brian Sozzi and Julie Hyman.

“Bitcoin is mathematics, mathematical purity. There can never be another Bitcoin created.”

The entrepreneur drew parallels between the U.S. monetary system and the electronic peer-to-peer monetary network. Whereas the U.S. dollar seems “artificial” to Wozniak, he enjoys the “science, math, logic, and computer programming” embedded in Bitcoin.

“If there’s inflation, your house goes up 10x in 40 years and you think you’re a smart investor; no, you have an old house,” Wozniak articulated.

“You used to have a new house, but the government says 90% of its value is earnings and we’re going to tax it. The government makes all of its taxes off inflation.”

The programmer behind the first Apple computer also highlighted how Bitcoin is not controlled by one single entity and thus can retain a level of predictability that is hard to attain with the U.S. dollar, as regulators can create new paper bills on a whim.

“Bitcoin doesn’t even have a creator that we know of, it isn’t run by some company, it’s just mathematically pure, and I believe nature over humans always,” he added.

However, Wozniak also showcased some misunderstandings about Bitcoin and the human right to privacy. The co-founder of Apple said Bitcoin and some cryptocurrencies have “a little bit of anonymity,” which he doesn’t see as a good thing.

“You should be able to stand up and say I did this transaction,” he said, questioning the need for privacy.

In this regard, Wozniak’s remarks are short-sighted and showcase a deep level of privilege. As a financially-privileged white male in the U.S. who can enjoy a high degree of freedom, he fails to acknowledge the 4.3 billion people living under authoritarian regimes worldwide – for whom “standing up” could bring dire consequences.

Wozniak also doesn’t realize the incentives lined up by Bitcoin to incentivize everyone to adopt it and the fact that Bitcoin cannot effectively be banned.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 13:24

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZCYqN4 Tyler Durden