DeSantis Supports Transgender Surgery Ban for Kids

DeSantis Supports Transgender Surgery Ban for Kids

Ivo Fysic May 3, 2022

Ron DeSantis, in supporting a ban on transgender surgery for children, said, “When they say ‘gender-affirming care,’ what they mean a lot of times is you are really, you’re castrating a young boy, you’re sterilizing a young girl, you’re doing mastectomies for these very young girls.”

DeSantis Supports Ban on Sex-Change Operations for Kids in Florida

From www.dailysignal.com
2022-05-02 18:47:16
Laurel Duggan
Excerpt:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would support banning child sex-change operations in Florida in a Monday podcast interview on “The Truth With Lisa Boothe.”

DeSantis, a Republican, said it was unhealthy to let children permanently alter their bodies through operations such as mastectomies and castration, and that there appeared to be an organized effort to push children into these extreme forms of medical intervention. He said he would support a bill banning those procedures for children.

“Yeah, I would ban the sex change – the operations,” DeSantis told Boothe. “I think that it’s something that you can’t get a tattoo if you’re 12 years old. When they say ‘gender-affirming care,’ what they mean a lot of times is you are really, you’re castrating a young boy, you’re sterilizing a young girl, you’re doing mastectomies for these very young girls.”

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Disney’s Mouse Gets Copyright Target from GOP

Ivo Fysic May 3, 2022

GOP Senator Josh Hawley is researching what can be done with copyright licensing of “Woke” companies like Disney, or, what we would call Woketarian, a very specific version of social justice the corporations have adopted. Disney’s Mouse is in the crosshairs of this de facto civil war.

Hawley to introduce legislation targeting Disney copyright protections

From www.washingtonexaminer.com
2022-05-02 21:59:09
Zachary Halaschak
Excerpt:

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said he plans to file legislation this week targeting the copyright protections of Disney and “woke corporations.”

Hawley made the announcement in a Monday afternoon tweet, although he didn’t provide details about what the legislation would entail. Other Republican lawmakers have previously suggested that they might try to use an expiring copyright on Mickey Mouse to punish Disney for its opposition to a controversial Florida education bill.

“For years, @Disney has gotten special copyright protections from the federal government — allowing them to charge consumers more. Woke corporations shouldn’t get sweetheart deals. I’ll introduce legislation this week to end their special protections — enough is enough,” the senator wrote.

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4-Year Olds Learn to Become Anti-Racist Crusadors from Public School

Ivo Fysic May 3, 2022

A DC Elementary school chose to walk their 4-year olds through an anti-racist book that trained them to be anti-racist fighters, willing to turn on family and friends that say anything or do anything racist.

DC elementary school gave 4-year-olds ‘anti-racism’ ‘fistbook’ asking them to identify racist family members

From www.foxnews.com
2022-05-02 15:25:13

Excerpt:

A public elementary school in Washington, D.C., gave children as young as 4 a lesson on “anti-racism” that asked them to identify racist members of their family.

According to a Nov. 30 letter from Janney Elementary School Principal Danielle Singh, students in Pre-K through 3rd grade participated in an “Anti-Racism Fight Club” presentation by speaker Doyin Richards.

“As part of this work, each student has a fist book to help continue the dialogue at school and home,” Singh’s letter stated, linking to Richards’ presentation. “We recognize that any time we engage topics such as race and equity, we may experience a variety of emotions. This is a normal part of the learning and growing process. As a school community we want to continue the dialogue with our students and understand this is just the beginning.”

Richards’ “Anti-Racism Fight Club Fistbook for Kids” explains that “white people are a part of a society that benefits them in almost every instance,” and that “it’s as if white people walk around with an invisible force field because they hold all of the power in America.”

“If you are a white person, white privilege is something you were born with and it simply means that your life is not more difficult due to the color of your skin,” the “Fistbook for Kids” explains. “Put differently, it’s not your fault for having white privilege, but it is your fault if you choose to ignore it.”

The “Fistbook for Kids” says anti-racism “isn’t a spectator sport” but requires “being loud, uncomfortable, confrontational and visible to ensure change is made.”

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White Harvard Editor Calls on Ban on White People Teaching Black History

Ivo Fysic May 3, 2022

A white upper class lad named Ian Svetkey chose to use his platform as the editor of Harvard’s famed Crimson Newspaper to pen an op ed calling on Universities banning white people from being able to teach black history.

White people should not teach about black history, Harvard newspaper editor opines

From www.thecollegefix.com
2022-05-02 17:36:35
College Fix Staff
Excerpt:

A Harvard University newspaper editor recently argued that the university should prohibit white professors from teaching about black culture and history.

Ian Svetkey recounted a recent experience that unsettled him.

“When I was looking through courses this semester, I noticed that the professor of a class about narratives of individuals who were enslaved was a white man,” he wrote in an op-ed published Monday morning.

“That didn’t sit right with me. Why would a class about stories integral to Black culture be taught by someone with no lived experience in that culture?” the editor for The Harvard Crimson wrote.

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As DNC Goes Anti-Israel, Antisemitism Rises in Blue States

Ivo Fysic May 3, 2022

Antisemitic incidents spiked during Squad’s anti-Israel rhetoric, blue states at top of list

From www.foxnews.com
2022-05-03 06:00:20

Excerpt:

Antisemitic incidents spiked last year around the same time members of the progressive “Squad” were ramping up anti-Israel rhetoric, with blue states being the hardest hit by the surge.

The Anti-Defamation League’s annual report on antisemitic incidents observed a surge in incidents in May of last year, coinciding with anti-Israel rhetoric from members of the Squad that were strongly condemned by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., last may.

The report noted that the surge in antisemitic incidents also coincided with Israel’s military conflict with Hamas around the same time period.

“For the entire month, 387 antisemitic incidents were tabulated by the ADL, 297 of which occurred between May 10 — the official start of military action — and the end of the month, an increase of 141% over the same period in 2020,” the report said. ” Of the 297 incidents, there were 211 cases of harassment, 71 cases of vandalism and 15 assaults.”

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Russia Turns to Prisoners for Corporate IT Rescue

Ivo Fysic May 3, 2022

Russia to Rent Tech-Savvy Prisoners to Corporate IT? – Krebs on Security

From krebsonsecurity.com
2022-05-03 00:38:10

Excerpt:

Faced with a brain drain of smart people fleeing the country following its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation is floating a new strategy to address a worsening shortage of qualified information technology experts: Forcing tech-savvy people within the nation’s prison population to perform low-cost IT work for domestic companies.

Multiple Russian news outlets published stories on April 27 saying the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service had announced a plan to recruit IT specialists from Russian prisons to work remotely for domestic commercial companies.

Russians sentenced to forced labor will serve out their time at one of many correctional centers across dozens of Russian regions, usually at the center that is closest to their hometown. Alexander Khabarov, deputy head of Russia’s penitentiary service, said his agency had received proposals from businessmen in different regions to involve IT specialists serving sentences in correctional centers to work remotely for commercial companies.

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Lori Lightfoot Needs Re-Election to Create Her Own Board of Ed

Ivo Fysic May 2, 2022

‘Daunting task’: Mayor Lightfoot leaves Board of Education seat empty after fighting elected board

From abc7chicago.com

…..after lobbying unsuccessfully against a bill last year that will create an elected school board for Chicago two years from now, the mayor hasn’t taken advantage of her opportunity to have a say in who will serve on the Board of Education.

When Lightfoot fought the elected school board, she argued it was imperative for her to appoint the entire board since the mayor is largely seen as responsible for the success – or failure – of the schools system.

Lightfoot has less than a year remaining in her term ahead of the spring 2023 mayoral election, followed by the first school board elections in late 2024 and the new board taking control in early 2025. If Lightfoot wins reelection she would be able to appoint 11 members of the new 21-seat board to serve the first two years of her term. When the board becomes fully elected two years later, the mayor won’t have any say in its makeup.

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Dems Lose Big in NY Court Redistricting Map Ruling

Ivo Fysic May 2, 2022

New York Just Cost Democrats Their Big Redistricting Advantage

From fivethirtyeight.com
2022-04-27 21:40:45
Nathaniel Rakich
Excerpt:

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch — and don’t count your congressional districts before all the redistricting lawsuits are finished.

On Wednesday, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the congressional map New York Democrats enacted back in February was a partisan gerrymander that violated the state constitution and tossed it to the curb. The decision was a huge blow to Democrats, who until recently looked like they had gained enough seats nationally in redistricting to almost eliminate the Republican bias in the House of Representatives. But with the invalidation of New York’s map, as well as Florida’s recent passage of a congressional map that heavily favors the GOP, the takeaways from the 2021-22 redistricting cycle are no longer so straightforward.

That’s because much of Democrats’ national redistricting advantage rested on their gerrymander in New York. The now-invalidated map included 20 seats with a FiveThirtyEight partisan lean ² of D+5 or bluer and only four seats with a partisan lean of R+5 or redder. It also included two swing seats, but even those had slight Democratic leans (D+3 and D+4)……

Back in March, Democrats didn’t have as large of an advantage by this metric, but they were still doing better than Republicans: I estimated at the time that redistricting would net Democrats around two seats in the midterms, while it would lead to a net loss of around three or four seats for Republicans (this was without considering the Republican-leaning national political environment). Now, however, Republicans clearly have the advantage on this score. I estimate that redistricting currently positions Republicans for a net gain of around four or five House seats and Democrats for a net loss of about four, based on the maps as they stand now…….

In its decision, the New York Court of Appeals endorsed the idea that a neutral special master — essentially, an expert in drawing political maps — should draw New York’s next congressional map. That would presumably lead to a relatively fair map, but the details and exact partisan breakdown are, of course, still a mystery; Democrats could still gain seats from New York’s map when all is said and done (just not as many as from their gerrymander).

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As Solomons Join China, US Looks for Pacific Friends

Ivo Fysic May 2, 2022

US to ramp up engagement with Pacific amid tensions over China-Solomons deal

From www.presstv.ir
2022-05-02 09:42:00

Excerpt:

In a bid to ramp up diplomatic engagement with Pacific Island countries, Washington is set to host leaders from the region later this year, a senior US government official has said.

Kurt Campbell, who serves as coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs on the US National Security Council, made the announcement at a US-New Zealand business summit on Monday, amid rising tensions with China.

Campbell told attendees at the summit that besides hosting island leaders, the Biden administration also intended to step up diplomatic ties with Pacific countries that had not seen ambassadors or engagement for decades.

“For the United States to be effective in the Pacific we must do more, and we must do more on areas that matter and are of significance to the Pacific Islanders,” he said.

Campbell said the Biden administration would also engage with US AID and the new US International Development Finance Corporation to fund projects in the region.

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Synthetic Data is Future of Machine Learning

Ivo Fysic April 13, 2022

Rather than requiring real-world direct, voluminous data sets for Machines to learn the tasks they are designed to perform, a new type of data set promises to lower the cost and production time of machine learning, in addition to providing privacy protections, by creating ‘seed data,’ core principles, that the machines can extrapolate more detailed instruction from.

When It Comes to AI, Can We Ditch the Datasets? Using Synthetic Data for Training Machine-Learning Models
From scitechdaily.com
2022-04-12 11:23:02
Adam Zewe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Excerpt:

A machine-learning model for image classification that’s trained using synthetic data can rival one trained on the real thing, a study shows.

Huge amounts of data are needed to train machine-learning models to perform image classification tasks, such as identifying damage in satellite photos following a natural disaster. However, these data are not always easy to come by. Datasets may cost millions of dollars to generate, if usable data exist in the first place, and even the best datasets often contain biases that negatively impact a model’s performance.

To circumvent some of the problems presented by datasets, MIT researchers developed a method for training a machine learning model that, rather than using a dataset, uses a special type of machine-learning model to generate extremely realistic synthetic data that can train another model for downstream vision tasks.

Their results show that a contrastive representation learning model trained using only these synthetic data is able to learn visual representations that rival or even outperform those learned from real data.

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