Reminder that Palantir is the same company whose bosses are deep in bed with AmericaPAC – which got big write-ups (link is to one comment, but you can read more there and lots of places) because Elon Musk is gathering voter data seemingly for that PAC to target swing state voters with canvassing efforts.
I wish I’d been online yesterday to see this because it is way worse than just not working, so I’m repeating this whenever I see it brought up: They’re targeting swing state voters (via in-person canvassers) to vote Trump. The key pieces are Palantir, which compiles data to see trends and ‘insights’ and a new FEC opinion that says PACs can work with candidates for canvassing. CNBC had a big article on it and states (archive – emphasis is mine):
[…] users who enter a ZIP code that indicates they live in a battleground state, like Pennsylvania or Georgia, the process is very different.
Rather than be directed to their state’s voter registration page, they instead are directed to a highly detailed personal information form, prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age.
So that person who wanted help registering to vote? In the end, they got no help at all registering. But they did hand over priceless personal data to a political operation.
“What makes America PAC more unique: it is a billionaire-backed super PAC focused on door-to-door canvassing, which it can conduct in coordination with a presidential campaign,” Fischer said. “Thanks to a recent FEC advisory opinion, America PAC may legally coordinate its canvassing activities with the Trump campaign — meaning, among other things, that the Trump campaign may provide America PAC with the literature and scripts to make sure their efforts are consistent.”
The America PAC raised more than $8 million between April 1 and June 30, according to FEC records. It has received donations from veteran investor Doug Leone, cryptocurrency investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and a company run by longtime venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, according to FEC records.
They also quote the NYT in saying Lonsdale is one of Musk’s political confidants – which is interesting because he’s at Palantir which was you’d think of as his old buddy Peter Theil’s gig. Palantir sells info. As long as they get good info, we can expect them tailor the perfect messages to win over swing states voters, because those voters are (unintentionally) telling them exactly how to do it.
That’s not the point, though, is it? It doesn’t matter if Nazis mask faster. What matters is that there are Nazis and other non-state-actors who will happily try to identify and dox people who get in their way. Such doxxers aren’t even necessarily at the protests. They might be in, say, Russia and looking to shut up pro-Western activists in neighboring countries.
It may be that no one in Sweden is immuno-comprosmied and that no one in Sweden could get hacked or doxxed when their identity is uncovered, but for the rest of the world, there are plenty of reasons a person might want to wear a mask that don’t involve wanting to be riot-ready.
Or the thing about his former cabinet secretary’s sexual harassment issue.
From the Daily Beast:
A fellow Democrat […] tweeted last week that she wanted a vice presidential pick who “doesn’t sweep sexual harassment under the rug.”
In his reply:
The governor’s office highlighted his “long track record of protecting survivors and prosecuting predators” when he was attorney general, including exposing "child sexual abuse and cover-ups within the Catholic Church.”
Have you seen people protesting against Nazis in Sweden? That’s the sort of situation where you do not need to fear the state, but the violent and retributive people you are protesting.
I knew about the police getting access, but I missed that home insurance companies were checking properties with drones. I guess I don’t mind them spending their own money to send their own drones to verify properties they insure, but I agree that using MY camera that I bought to get info or sell MY data is at least unethical and ought to be illegal. It should be required that they get my explicit consent to that sort of thing for each instance of data collection or sale.
Who? The Senators? I think they’re genuinely interested in stopping the practice (obviously it also gets them good press, possibly even votes, but they coulda probably got cash if they did nothing).
I think the car companies are just trying to make money anywhere they can.
My apologies. I will take this down.
Well yeah, but we know Trump doesn’t give a whit about facts. I’m trying to figure out if his tongue went up to the front of his palate to form an ‘n’ sound.
IMO, all voting should be on paper so that a hand recount can be done if the machines are questioned.
Myst can be a bit esoteric, especially the older versions.
Did they rewrite it in later ports? Also curious as to where you stand on Zork.
That particular exit poll APnews was reporting on was just for one polling place, so it doesn’t mean much, but yes, it was an opposition campaigner.
That said, we shouldn’t have to speculate. All the votes should be available for review – at least for voting centers where the results are in dispute.
On the other hand, we’ve been seeing that ‘big money’ wants the opposition to win because Maria Machado (the opposition leader who was kept off the ballot) “—derided by the Chavista leadership for her pro-market views and her upper-class background” —has promised pro-business changes.
Yeah, not only did they prevent the actual opposition leader from running, they’ve really made the vote count look suspicious. From APnews :
The official results came as a shock to opposition members who had celebrated, online and outside a few voting centers, what they believed was a landslide victory for González.
“I’m so happy,” said Merling Fernández, a 31-year-old bank employee, as a representative for the opposition campaign walked out of one voting center in a working class neighborhood of Caracas to announce results showing González more than doubled Maduro’s vote count. Dozens standing nearby erupted in an impromptu rendition of the national anthem.
Authorities delayed releasing the results from each of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide, promising only to do so in the “coming hours,” hampering attempts to verify the results.
After finally claiming to have won, Maduro accused unidentified foreign enemies of trying to hack the voting system.
I wish I could remember the source, but it was about the Catholic Church in central/south America with the gist of, ‘When I was young, I hated The Church for building grand structures amid an impoverished population. I thought they could spend the money better on food, education, or so many other things – but as I got older, I realized that having a glorious space to share with the community was worthwhile in its own right.’
I’m not saying that the Olympics aren’t vulgar, but at least a lot of it is carried on network TV so it is more public than, say, the latest Marvel movie that not only costs a fortune, but also requires everyone fork over the cash if they want to see it.
I was NOT expecting that in an Olympic Opening Ceremony! Audio aside, it was really good.
At the Florida summit, hosted by conservative group Turning Point Action, Trump promised that if he wins in November, he would “once again appoint rock-solid conservative judges who will protect religious liberty.”
After repeating his usual unfounded claims about mail-in voting, Trump launched into an appeal directed at Christian voters. “Christians, get out and vote!” yelled Trump. “Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine! You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians!” He added, “You gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
You did really good work looking that up. I appreciate it!
I can’t argue with you on that.
Sorry to add this so late, but TV news just told me about an increase in “Teflon Flu”. Remembering you had non-stick pans, I wanted to find a link. In a quick check, the majority of the links seemed to come from somewhat suspicious sources such as NYPost and Daily Mail rather than a .gov or .edu.
I’m not saying this is a legitimate thing, but if anyone wants a starting point, you could try here: https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a61623919/teflon-flu-symptoms/
Reminds me of the incident in February where a waymo tried to get through a bunch of street revelers, and their response was to set it on fire. From the old pcmag story :
Edit: unrelated to above quote, pc mag also says:
(see also the autopian story it references)