Dec 10

Zerohedge: Wikipedia has been taken over by government and “establishment” trolls

Just like Facebook, Google, Youtube and Twitter, Wikipedia increasingly censors anti-government content

The online open-source encyclopedia called Wikipedia frequently provides the first source of information following a google search. This is major-league influence, so it is to be expected that powerful entities such as Big Pharma, major corporations and government agencies seek to closely control the content of many Wikipedia pages.

At least ostensibly, anyone can apply to be a Wikipedia editor. The more editing one does, the higher his ‘rank.’ After 500 edits and 30 days an editor can be an “Extended Confirmed User” (ECU). An ECU can then apply to be an Administrator or “SysOp.” A SysOp can do things like undo changes, block users, delete pages, and modify fully protected pages.

Some Wikipedia pages are deemed so controversial or significant that only SysOps can modify them – such as the page for Donald Trump.

Beneath the surface, Wikipedia is not nearly as ‘opensource’ as it advertises.

Large governmental and organizational entities employ full-time editors (or ‘trolls) whose jobs are to monitor and control certain Wikipedia entries. One ‘volunteer’ named “Philip Cross” has been found to edit Wikipedia 24 hours a day 7 days a week for 5 years. “Cross” deletes controversial / anti-government content and replaces it with pro-war “mainstream” content. Analysts assume “Philip Cross” is one of many full-time CIA (or NSA, or FBI, etc.) fronts across the Wikipedia editorsphere.

According to a report by Zerohedge, there are thousands of full-time editors of Wikipedia’s supposedly open-sourced content.

“[W]e should include Wikipedia as part of the Mainstream Media (MSM),” according to Zerohedge’s report.

Dec 09

New poll reveals government employees are threat to free speech

A new Heartland/Rasmussen poll shows startling results: FORTY-TWO PERCENT of government employees support a ban on “speech by individuals that a majority of Americans believes to be offensive.” (Only 27 % of Americans generally support this.)

Moreover, Of those government workers who said “offensive” speech should be banned, 62% said “those who violate such bans against offensive speech” should be JAILED.

54% of government workers said offensive speakers should be banned from any public office.

See here.

Dec 09

Peter Thiel: Government growth has decreased human invention

Roger Roots. Antigovernment News Bureau.

THE ENTIRE WORLD IS DROWNING IN TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT

We often think we are in an age of technological advancement. But the growth of cops, taxes and government regulations have strangled true scientific advancement.

Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal and other enterprises, was in a friendly debate with the great futurist George Gilder on the Stanford campus in March 2012. (I recently saw the video for the first time and found it so compelling I had to share my thoughts. –RR)

The Thiel/Gilder debate may have been the debate of the century.

According to Thiel the speed of scientific advancement has slowed since the 1970s—despite obvious advancements in computers and digital technology. In many industries, such as transportation, construction and energy, progress has actually reversed under government regulation.

Transportation moved faster every decade from about the 1500s until the 1970s as humans perfected sails, steam, stirrups, rails and airplanes. But the peak speed of travel—manifested in Concord jets in 1976—ended when government regulations led to the permanent grounding of the Concord in 2003. TSA screening at airports has meant air travel is slower today than in the 1960s.

Similarly, the peak of space travel was in the 1970s, and few advancements have occurred in the years since despite governments spending billions on space programs.

New discoveries in rocketry or nuclear technology are now mostly banned by governments.

Medicine technology exploded throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But today there are only 1/3 as many drugs under the FDA’s approval process as during the 1980s. (Libertarian scholar Mary Ruwart has shown that the FDA approval process has caused millions of people to die prematurely.) Congress declared ‘War on Cancer’ in 1970 but cancer rates have slowed only modestly after billions of dollars of government spending and thousands of pages of government regs and proclamations.

Real median wages have been stagnant since the government “War on Poverty” in 1973. Humans have made little progress toward curing diseases such as Alzheimers since government began taking over health care.

Thiel notes that the Golden Gate Bridge took 3 years to build during the 1930s but that a single access ramp to the Bridge now takes 7 years and costs the same in real dollars as the original bridge—due to government impositions. The Empire State Building was built in 1-1/2 years during the Great Depression but the recent World Trade Center reconstruction took 10 years.

Shockingly, there are now a hundred times more “scientists”—almost all funded by governments at government agencies and colleges—than in yesteryear. Yet productivity per scientist is less than one percent of what it was a century ago. (In some fields, government “science” has utterly stalled growth in real learning; witness the hoax of apocalyptic climate science—driven by socialism and government expansion. –RR.)

George Gilder, for his part, mostly agreed with Thiel regarding the stifling role of government. Gilder points to a 30 % tax on candles by the British government in the early 1800s which brought advancements in lighting to a standstill until the Rockefeller (fossil fuel) era a half-century later.

Nov 28

Singapore is new ground zero for freedom of press

Singapore, one of the freest places on earth by some accounts, is struggling to throw off press repressions.

The Singapore government recently imposed new laws purportedly aimed at stamping out fake news.

“A blogger said on Thursday he would not comply with a Singapore government order to correct a Facebook post in the first test of the city-state’s new ‘fake news’ law.”

“Singapore’s home ministry said the post on the Facebook page . . . which contained allegations of election rigging, was “false” and “scurrilous”.”

Nov 28

It begins: NOAA now blocking access to original temp data

NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration–a branch of NASA–has been continuously altering temperature history for years. In general, NOAA’s adjustments have made the past seem colder than it was actually measured by thermometers. This, of course, allows the government to claim that temperatures have risen dramatically.

But until recently, NOAA’s online pages also gave access to the raw data, which showed that US temperatures have not warmed at all since the 1800s.

Now, NOAA’s websites have REMOVED the raw data. Now the public can only see the government-adjusted data.

Nov 28

Snow cover has INCREASED since CO2 hit 350 ppm in 1988

Snow extent has been increasing since CO2 hit 350 PPM in 1988, and has been continuously above average for the past few years.

This defies all proclamations by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), every report of the U.S. Climate Assessments, and every regional climate assessment.

This discovery was made by Tony Heller, who looked into claims by the climate doomsday organization known as “Climate Central.”

Nov 19

McLatchy–one of the largest “mainstream” news chains–nears bankruptcy

Bloomberg reports that “The McClatchy Co., the storied news publisher weighed down by pension obligations and debt, could file for bankruptcy within the next year.”

McClatchy operates a news service and owns the Miami Herald, the Kansas City Star, the Charlotte Observer and other pro-government (“mainstream”) papers. Its reporters and content have been repeatedly linked to CIA funding and support.

In 2006, McClatchy bought the Knight Ridder chain (another failing pro-government newspaper company) for $4.5 billion.

But paying subscribers and advertisers continue to decline. Readers simply won’t pay to read government-provided releases and propaganda.

Nov 18

Montana legislature creates multi-million-dollar agency, stops all boats on highways, can’t find any invasive mussels

Montana’s voters, like those almost everywhere, have repeatedly voted for Republican politicians who promised “limited government.” The Montana legislature has been controlled by these “limited government Republicans” for more than a quarter century. Yet the legislature has grown Montana’s government faster than the rate of inflation for decades.

Indeed, Montana’s legislature has grown government faster than legislatures of almost every neighboring state.

In 2016, State wildlife officials proclaimed they had discovered mussel larvae (but not any mussels) in the Canyon Ferry Lake (near Helena, the State Capitol) and in the Tiber Reservoir near the Canadian border. Government wildlife officials filled the papers and airwaves with claims that invasive mussels brought in from other states would soon cause hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to Montana’s infrastructure.

The Montana legislature created yet another government program, which positioned dozens of government agents on Montana’s highways and required every traveler with a boat trailer to pull into inspection stations to be scrutinized by the government.

After three years,over $15 million dollars, and more than 100,000 travelers stopped, State officials say the program has been a complete success! Not a single Montana waterway has been found to contain the evil aquatic invasive mussels.

(Those three samples of ‘larvae’ supposedly found in two lakes in 2016 are increasingly suspected of being planted; as government wildlife agencies are known to plant rare species in places in order to spur government “protection” over such places.)

Canyon Ferry Lake has been sampled thousands of times since without a single mussel found.

“We’re going to be sampling the heck out of it, probably forever, just because we saw something funky there,” [Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks spokesperson] Woolf said. “We had mussel-sniffing dogs out there a couple weeks ago.”

Nov 17

Twitter’s highest censor over Europe and Africa is revealed as a British government propaganda official!

Everyone knows that major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and Youtube have recently been on censorship binges–blocking, deplatforming, removing and censoring antigovernment criticism or content.

Most free press advocates have been lulled into inaction regarding this because the online media platforms are private firms rather than government agencies.

But now it has been revealed that Twitter’s senior editorial executive for Europe, the Middle East and Africa is an active officer in the British government’s online warfare and psychological operations units.

“Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company’s UK office six years ago, has for several years also served with the 77th Brigade, a unit formed in 2015 in order to develop “non-lethal” ways of waging war.” See here.

Nov 17

Income inequality decreases in free markets, increases under government regulations

Income inequality is proclaimed to be a major issue for government trusters everywhere. In the U.S., presidential candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders argue for even greater government regulations and taxes to fight income inequality.

But the data show that U.S. income taxation already places burdens on the highest income earners which are greater than in most countries. In California, the most socialistic state, the highest 150,000 earners among California’s 40 million residents pay half of all income taxes.

A new study by Cato Institute collects research showing that earned wealth is outpacing inherited wealth in most countries, and the richest people in the world tend to experience wealth growth rates that are lower than average stock market growth rates.

43 percent of billionaires on the 2018 Forbes richest 400 list were new in the prior 10 years.

Other studies have shown that the poor spend a higher proportion of their income on highly-regulated goods such as energy than do the rich.

The Cato study concludes that increasing regulations helps the rich and harms the poor.