Tesla Autopilot Veers off Highway as Driver Locked Out of All Controls
Tesla cars are trying to kill their drivers… again. A New Jersey man reportedly almost died after his rogue Tesla recently decided to crash off the highway. A man from North Brunswick, New Jersey, is lucky to be alive after his vehicle’s so-called “autopilot” mode took control and plowed into several objects before coming to a sudden halt. Even though the driver tried to take control of the Tesla and override the “autopilot,” – which split the difference and went down “the middle” before veering off the highway entirely and crashing – the vehicle “would not let him.” Wh...
Amazon Pays Zero Corporate Tax for Second Year in a Row
SAN-FRANCISCO – February 21, 2019 Cyber-retailing giant Amazon Inc., the company that belongs to the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, did not pay a cent of corporate income tax either in 2017 or 2018. At the same time, Amazon’s revenues, which, in theory, should be levied, amount to many billions of dollars. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-19/amazon-paid-zero-corporate-tax-second-year-row In fiscal 2018, Amazon's net income was $11.2 billion, which is two times more compared to $5.6 billion a year earlier. Yet, a report by the Institute on Taxation and Econ...
NYC Commission on Human Rights Outlaws Hair and Hairstyle-Based Discrimination
On Monday, the New York City Human Rights Commission released new guidelines protecting New Yorkers from being discriminated due to their hair texture or style. The guidance gives New Yorkers the right to “maintain natural hair or hairstyles that are closely associated with their racial, ethnic or cultural identities” and classifies any attempt to single people out based on their hair or hairstyle as racial discrimination. The protections apply to everyone but were prompted largely by what the commission calls “racist stereotypes that black hairstyles are unprofessional....
Check Your “Privilege List”: New York School Gives Points for Being White, Male, or Straight
A New York public high school recently gave students in one class a “privilege reflection form” that’s turning more than a few heads. Thus, if you are an overweight black blind gay transgender woman from the Middle East and are planning to become a “scientist,” you’ve got zero chance of being among the “privileged” few… Saratoga Springs High School students have recently been asked to score their “privilege status” based on a variety of factors using a special “privilege reflection form,” which raised concerns among parents worried about the assignment’s underlying messag...
CBS Turns to Artificial Intelligence to Glean Viewers’ Emotional Responses to TV Shows
CBS’s research team has resorted to using the dispassionate logic of machines to get a faster read on how viewers respond emotionally to its TV shows. The broadcaster started using the data-analytics platform developed by New York startup Canvs, which uses proprietary artificial-intelligence processing (AI) to parse natural-language comments. CBS first started using the Canvs Surveys tool to automate the coding of open-ended responses to surveys fielded by its research team starting in the fourth quarter of 2018. Now it uses Canvs to process feedback on its entire slate...
To Account for the Wall: Why States Are Suing Trump
WASHINGTON - February 21, 2019 A coalition of sixteen US states has filed a lawsuit against Trump's administration over his declaration of a national emergency to unlock funds for the US-Mexico border wall. The Congress refused to finance the Trump project, so he resorted to a state of emergency. Congress later granted him $1.375 billion for the barrier construction--less than a quarter of the $5.7 billion he requested. Trump's declaration, under the National Emergencies Act, aims to allow him to take some $6.1 billion from Title 10 funding for the armed forces. This wo...
February 21: The Battle of Valverde, the Founding of NASCAR, and Other Events of the Date
A number of important events have taken place on February 21 in U.S. history. Here is our take on the most interesting and valuable of them. 1862 – American Civil War: Engagements in Confederate Arizona: the Battle of Valverde We’ve covered a number of battles fought in Mississippi, Virginia, and Tennessee, but how about the battles fought in the Wild Wild West? The Battle of Valverde, or the Battle of Valverde Ford, was fought from February 20 to 21, 1862, near the town of Valverde at a ford in Valverde Creek in Confederate Arizona, in what is today the state of New Mex...
“This Is America” Reveals a Shocking Vision of the United States
The Grammy Awards are the second of the three most significant musical achievement awards in the United States. Two of the anticipated awards that many fans of this event look forward to learning are the Song of the Year and the Record of the Year. The Song of the Year is awarded to the songwriters of a given song, where the Record of the Year goes to the artists, producers and engineers involved in crafting the recording (the “record”) of a song. Both categories are huge and both usually go to an artist or organization responsible for a pop song. It also happens to be t...
China vs. America Are Confucian China and the Christian West Destined to Clash?
WASHINGTON, DC – February 20, 2019 Today, the US and China are vying for global leadership. The US sees booming China as the main problem of its own security. China considers many US actions to be aggressive. However, these two largest world economies continue their mutual cooperation as usual. Why can't they just “divorce” - break ties with each other or destroy one another? Do these two giants share enough core values to manage a peaceful balancing of power, and can they avert the dreaded Thucydides Trap? The ongoing trade war is just one front of an expanding all-ou...
Global Cooling: New Generation No Longer Has the Basic Instinct
CALIFORNIA - February 20, 2019 According to a fundamental article from the authoritative the Atlantic, there’s something strange with the love lives of those of the new generation, at least in developed countries. All circumstances would seem to suggest that there should be a flourishing of universal, free, and carefree love for the younger generations. Take, for example, the relatively young American Millennials (born in the early 1980s and after) and Generation Z (born in the mid-1990s to mid-2000s). The percentage of those who believe that to enter into an intimate r...