The Jewish Express:  A Brief History of Antifa: Part I ---
https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/a-brief-history-of-antifa-part-i/2020/06/14/

The Jewish Experess:  A Brief History of Antifa:  Part II ---
https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/a-brief-history-of-antifa-part-ii-antifa-in-the-united-states/2020/06/24/

FBI director calls Antifa 'a real thing' ---
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/516911-fbi-director-wray-calls-antifa-a-real-thing

According to The New York Times, potentially 90 percent of those who have tested positive for COVID-19 have such insignificant amounts of the virus present in their bodies that such individuals do not need to isolate nor are they candidates for contact tracing ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html

My Latest Web Document
Over 600 Examples of Critical Thinking and Illustrations of How to Mislead With Statistics ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/MisleadWithStatistics.htm

Animated  Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010) ---
A Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010)

USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/
The published national debt is a lie
Here's the real federal debt ---
https://www.truthinaccounting.org/about/our_national_debt

Debt to GDP Ratio by Country 2020 ---
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-national-debt/

Human Population Over Time on Earth ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE 

Johns Hopkins University:  Updated Map and Table on the Number of Coronavirus Cases for Every Nation ---
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Accuracy is subject to wide margins of error for every nation and varies greatly between nations.

Covid019 in New Hampshire ---
https://www.nh.gov/covid19/

The best maps for comparing counties and towns in your state are provided by your state. For example, here's the map showing the distribution of cases for New Hampshire counties and towns ---
https://www.wmur.com/article/new-hampshire-coronavirus-map/32009329#
 

Beautiful News Daily (news and statistics to offset all of today's bad news) ---
https://informationisbeautiful.net/beautifulnews/

The Singapore Dream:  How Singapore's richest man went from welding in a factory for $14 per hour to owning a $17 billion hotpot restaurant chain ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/life-of-singapore-richest-man-from-welder-to-hotpot-billionaire-2020-1

One reason is that many billionaires can afford to pour lots of money into high risk ventures. When's the last time you heard about a high risk (think Silicon Valley) venture in Europe?

https://www.ted.com/talks/harald_eia_where_in_the_world_is_it_easiest_to_get_rich

Wikiquote from Wikipedia --- https://www.wikiquote.org/

I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write ---
Voltaire

"This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House, with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone"
John F. Kennedy at a White House party

Harper's:  A Letter on Justice and Open Debate --- |

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/thomas-chatterton-williams-on-race-identity-and-cancel-culture

The Guardian:  American classics among most ‘challenged’ books of the decade in US (protesters want them removed from libraries and schools) ---
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/28/classics-books-most-often-challenged-and-banned-in-us-banned-books-week-to-kill-a-mockingbird
Bob Jensen's threads on banned books
 

In 1785 the state legislature of Virginia unanimously rejected a proposal from evangelicals to free the state’s slaves ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/09/virginia-fact-of-the-day.html

Kobe Bryant:  We need to make the most of every minute we have ---
https://www.newsweek.com/i-wont-take-see-you-later-granted-148449

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

James Baldwin Talks About Racism in America & Civil Rights Activism on The Dick Cavett Show (1969) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/08/james-baldwin-talks-about-racism-in-america-civil-rights-activism-on-the-dick-cavett-show-1969.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+OpenCulture+(Open+Culture)

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. And it’s an unreliable guide to the future

Bill Gates, “The Road Ahead”

Hermann Weyl born in Hamburg, Germany. He wrote, "One may say that mathematics talks about the things which are of no concern to men. Mathematics has the inhuman quality of starlight---brilliant, sharp, but cold ... thus we are clearest where knowledge matters least: in mathematics, especially number theory." ---
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Weyl.html
Also see Mathematical Analytics in Plato's Cave
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm#Analytics

And nevertheless conclude that the optimum amount of restriction of immigration is zero point zero, zero, zero? Amazing. Economics are generally skeptical models that yield corner solutions ---
https://www.econlib.org/do-you-talk-about-it-in-open-borders-yes/
Jensen Comment
To the list of questions I would add "Do your talk about the Tragedy of the Commons?"
The problem with open borders is somewhat related to the economic problem of "The Sharing of the Commons" where giving everybody the right to use a free resource leads to everybody losing that resource. At what point will allowing billions of people share in the free medical care, free college, and other scarce resources ruin it for everybody ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

A short history of corruption in Illinois ---
https://www.data-z.org/news/detail/a-short-history-of-corruption-in-illinois

History of United States Immigration Laws ---
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwGCkZzrvQkcFbRplBPwBFwmFDs

Open immigration can’t exist with a strong social safety net; if you’re going to assure healthcare and a decent income to everyone, you can’t make that offer global ---
Paul Krugman
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/724654-open-immigration-can-t-exist-with-a-strong-social-safety-net

It is by now well known that some of the greatest modern philosophers held racist views ---
https://aeon.co/essays/racism-is-baked-into-the-structure-of-dialectical-philosophy  ---
Also see
https://aeon.co/essays/racism-is-baked-into-the-structure-of-dialectical-philosophy

Assorted Charlie Munger Quotations ---

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-charlie-munger-12-best-quotes-2020-5-1029210949

Walter E. Williams:  Insults to Black History ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/06/24/insults-to-black-history-n2571095?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=06/24/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Walter E. Williams:  The Leftist Effort to Revise American History ---

https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/08/05/the-leftist-effort-to-revise-american-history-n2573650?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=08/05/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Walter E. Williams:  Disgusting Professorial Teachings ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/10/21/disgusting-professorial-teachings-n2578378?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=10/21/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Walter E. Williams:  The True Plight of Black Americans

https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/06/10/the-true-plight-of-black-americans-n2570249

Walter E. Williams:  Institutional Racism ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/08/26/institutional-racism-n2574936?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=08/26/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Walter E. Williams: The Fight for Free Speech
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/10/07/the-fight-for-free-speech-n2577499?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=10/07/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Walter E. Williams:  Back to Academic Brainwashing ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/08/19/back-to-academic-brainwashing-n2574500?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=08/19/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Walter E. Williams:  The Devil and Karl Marx ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/09/16/the-devil-and-karl-marx-n2576177?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=09/16/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Is Racism Responsible for Today's Black Problems? ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/07/29/is-racism-responsible-for-todays-black-problems-n2573212?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=07/29/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Some Fatherly Words of Wisdom from Jack Bogle, Founder of Vanguard Investments, to My Sons ---
https://jborden.com/2019/06/16/some-fatherly-words-of-wisdom-from-jack-bogle-founder-of-vanguard-investments-to-my-sons/

Walter A. Williams:  The Nation's Report Card
How are K-12 schools doing under President Trump versus President Obama?
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/05/06/the-nations-report-card-n2568167?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=05/06/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Jensen's Comment
Most K-12 schools were probably doing better when I was a child than they're doing today. The downhill slide is greatest in the gang-ridden schools, drug-infested urban schools like Chicago and New Orleans. Throwing money at such schools is not the answer until life at home recovers. Finland knows this, which is why Finland's dads spend more time with school children than the moms or the teachers.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/04/finland-only-country-world-dad-more-time-kids-moms

Walter E. Williams:  Insane News Tidbits ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2020/05/27/insane-news-tidbits-n2569329?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=05/27/2020&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Milton Friedman:  The Lesson of the Spoons ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/08/spoons-are-in-aisle-9.html
Chopsticks would be even better

Rep. Ilhan Omar Calls For “Dismantling” of US “Economy and Political Systems” (VIDEO) ---
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/944250-radical-seattle-city-councilmember-kshama-sawant-vows-to-overthrow-the-united-states-and-replace-with-a-socialist-world?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-GI&utm_content=1Cugtgg08BDw-1AwBlaN1Qmmriw..A
Jensen Comment
Republicans are most grateful that Omar played a huge role in getting Biden nominated

Minnesota State Senate report correctly blames state and city leadership for the summer’s riots ---
https://www.mnsenaterepublicans.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Review-of-Lawlessness-and-Government-Responses-to-Minnesotas-2020-Riots.pdf

New report gives Pennsylvania failing grades on financial condition (before the pandemic disaster) ---
https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/new-report-gives-pa-failing-grades-on-financial-condition

International Tax Competitiveness Index 2020 ---
https://taxfoundation.org/2020-international-tax-competitiveness-index/

Funding Short-Term Expenses With Long-Term Debt:  Mayor Lightfoot’s 2021 budget rescued by risky borrowing ---
https://www.data-z.org/news/detail/mayor-lightfoots-2021-budget-rescued-by-risky-borrowing

When should government intervene in price setting in the private sector?
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/10/nyc-vs-shopkeepers.html

How Decades of Media and Faculty Bias Have Pushed America to the Left ---
Click Here
 

Children in West Africa are working night shifts to fuel a $100-billion chocolate industry that has failed to crack down on child labor ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/chocolate-industry-child-labour-failed-report-labor-department-mars-nestle-2020-10

Stratified Sampling --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratified_sampling
Mathematician Gary Cornell argues that current testing procedures won't tell us much about vaccine efficacy for the elderly because sampling was not stratified ---
https://garycornell.com/2020/10/22/we-are-unlikely-to-have-a-vaccine-that-is-proven-effective-for-seniors-for-a-long-time-unless-dramatic-action-is-taken-now/

Nate Silver Blasts Trafalgar Polls as "Crazy" ---
https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/politics/nate-silver-blasts-trafalgar-and-rasmussen-polls-as-crazy

2020 Election:  What's at Stake for Higher Education?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/whats-at-stake-for-higher-ed-in-the-election?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_1626727_nl_Chronicle-Review_date_20201019&cid=cr&source=ams&sourceId=296279&cid2=gen_login_refresh

. . .

Thus, for conservatives, or roughly half the nation, universities are increasingly seen as fortified camps of the opposition. That view has been reinforced by the public appearance of critical race theory that has exploded in the nation’s streets (as well as in its boardrooms), learned by many protestors on college campuses. Lessons about systemic racism are now being translated into “mostly peaceful protests” that have often turned violent, and the tearing down or removal of statues not only of Confederate soldiers, but figures such as Ulysses S. Grant, St. Junípero Serra, and Theodore Roosevelt. While progressives praise such removals, renamings, and reinterpretations as necessary precursors to a more egalitarian society, conservatives regard these actions as puritanical efforts to destroy memorials to imperfect humans who nevertheless exemplified certain virtues worthy of admiration and emulation. A radical divide has opened in how people view higher education’s role in the future of American society.

If Joe Biden wins the election, we can expect his administration not only to reverse many of the executive orders and directives that had been issued under the Trump administration, but to increase support and even require increased programming related to “diversity and inclusion” and, broadly, identity politics. This change will be celebrated on campuses, but its effect will be to further politicize campuses, and — with near certainty — increase opposition and disapproval by conservative voters and their political representatives. Universities will be seen more than ever as an organ of one political party, and — should there be an eventual change in party control, which history suggests will occur at some point — they will find themselves under immediate and direct political threat.

Indeed, this is what to expect in a much more focused and disciplined form if Trump wins re-election. While he has been reviled on college campuses, his administration has exercised scant focus on forcing change on campus culture from above. This has begun to change late in his administration, most notably in recent efforts to defund critical race theory training sessions in the federal government itself and, by extension, any organization using direct federal funding. Under a second Trump term — in which there will likely be a purge of internal bureaucratic opposition — expect focused and aggressive efforts to use the lever of federal funding both to weaken or even eliminate various progressive academic approaches and programs, while potentially requiring more conservative alternatives, such as the hortatory teaching of American history. Indeed, I would expect that there would be a move away from federal funding of liberal-arts colleges and humanities programs altogether, in favor of STEM programs and support for new endeavors to educate in trades and work-based apprenticeships.

Continued in article

Facebook Seeks Shutdown of NYU Research Project Into Political Ad Targeting ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-seeks-shutdown-of-nyu-research-project-into-political-ad-targeting-11603488533?mod=djemCFO

Facebook Inc. is demanding that a New York University research project cease collecting data about its political-ad-targeting practices, setting up a fight with academics seeking to study the platform without the company’s permission.

The dispute involves the NYU Ad Observatory, a project launched last month by the university’s engineering school that has recruited more than 6,500 volunteers to use a specially designed browser extension to collect data about the political ads Facebook shows them.

In a letter sent Oct. 16 to the researchers behind the NYU Ad Observatory, Facebook said the project violates provisions in its terms of service that prohibit bulk data collection from its site.

“Scraping tools, no matter how well-intentioned, are not a permissible means of collecting information from us,” said the letter, written by a Facebook privacy policy official, Allison Hendrix. If the university doesn’t end the project and delete the data it has collected, she wrote, “you may be subject to additional enforcement action.”

The clash between the social-media giant and a major research university comes at a time of heightened scrutiny over political advertising on social media ahead of next month’s U.S. election. Facebook in recent weeks has said it would bar new political ads ahead of Election Day and suspend all political ads indefinitely that evening to prevent the spread of paid misinformation about the election outcome.

Following a furor about the opaque nature of political advertising in the 2016 presidential campaign, Facebook launched an archive of advertisements that run on its platform, with information such as who paid for an ad, when it ran and the geographic location of people who saw it. But that library excludes information about the targeting that determines who sees the ads.

The researchers behind the NYU Ad Observatory said they wanted to provide journalists, researchers, policy makers, and others with the ability to search political ads by state and contest to see what messages are targeted to specific audiences and how those ads are funded.

Facebook’s demand that the project stop its collection drew opposition from proponents of greater ad transparency, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), a sponsor of a bill called the Honest Ads Act that would mandate greater transparency in online political advertising.

“It’s unacceptable that in the middle of an election, Facebook is making it harder for Americans to get information about online political ads,” Ms. Klobuchar said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. Social media platforms have pledged to make online advertising more transparent, she said, but Facebook’s threatened action against NYU “is further evidence that voluntary standards are insufficient.”

After a version of this article was published, Facebook said in a statement to the Journal that it wouldn’t take any action on the NYU project’s data collection until well after the election.

Continued in article

MIT:  The DOJ says Google monopolizes search. Here’s how ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/20/1010891/doj-google-antitrust-lawsuit-monopoly/

What America’s biggest antitrust lawsuit in 20 years has to say.

The US Department of Justice and attorneys general from 11 Republican-led states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google on Tuesday, alleging that the company maintains an illegal monopoly on online search and advertising. 

The lawsuit follows a 16-month investigation, and repeated promises from President Trump to hold Big Tech to account amid unproven allegations of anti-conservative bias. But reports suggest the department was put under pressure by Attorney General William Barr to file the charges before the presidential election in two weeks’ time.

The idea of regulating Big Tech isn’t itself partisan, however. Earlier this month, House Democrats published a 449-page report looking at all the ways in which Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are monopolistic, and arguing for increased enforcement of antitrust legislation against them. Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, has indicated that seven additional states—including her own—were close to filing their own lawsuit and might join the DOJ’s action later. 

The case centers on Google’s tactics and market dominance in search. It currently receives 80% of all search queries in the United States, and the DOJ says it uses the tens of billions of dollars of annual profits from search advertising to unfairly suppress its competition.

Here’s a breakdown of how the DOJ alleges that Google has maintained its illegal monopoly: 

Making Google search the default

The suit says Google maintains its advantage through exclusionary agreements worth billions of dollars that make its search engine the default on web browsers, mobile devices, and emerging search technologies like voice assistants and Internet of Things devices. Because most users do not change their default settings, the lawsuit adds, this ends up “making Google the de facto exclusive general search engine.” 

The lawsuit specifically singles out Google’s behavior on mobile devices, noting that while its Android operating system is free and open source, in reality it maintains control. Contracts with vendors block forking of Google’s Android software, force the pre-installation of Google apps, and include revenue-sharing agreements that are better for companies that play by Google’s rules. 

The lawsuit claims that revenue-sharing agreements with Apple, worth $8 to 12 billion a year and accounting for up to 20% of Apple’s worldwide net income, ensure that Google search remains the default search engine on the Safari browser and iPhones, as well as for Siri and Spotlight, Apple’s system-wide search feature. 

The exclusionary contracts cover almost 60% of search queries in the US.

High barriers to entry

Google’s dominance is such that building a competing product is prohibitively expensive. Google is one of just three generalized search companies in the US that use web crawlers—software that constantly looks for and indexes publicly available web pages. The others are Bing and DuckDuckGo. (Yahoo, which has 3% of the market, actually purchases its search results from Bing.)

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
The following is one of my gripes against Google search (results may vary with mobile devices)

1. Go to Google Advanced Search at https://www.google.com/advanced_search
2. Type in the phrase "Sunset Hill House Hotel" and hit the Enter key
3. Note that Google gave me countless hits without showing the Hotel's current homepage
4. Why do the booking agents get search hit preferences over the Hotel itself on the Google search engine?

Now try the Duck Duck Go search engine

1. Go to Duck Duck Go at https://duckduckgo.com/
2. Type in the phrase "Sunset Hill House Hotel" and hit the Enter key
3. Note that I got the Hotel's homepage as the second hit
https://www.thesunsethillhouse.com/
4. The Duck Duck Go search engine makes it much easier than Google to seek out homepages

Now try the Bing search engine

1. Go to Bing at https://www.bing.com/ 
2. Type in the phrase "Sunset Hill House Hotel" and hit the Enter key
3. Note that I got the Hotel's homepage as the second hit
https://www.thesunsethillhouse.com/
4. The Bing search engine makes it much easier than Google to seek out homepages

I suspect the reason Google search gave priority to booking agents like Expedia is that those companies paid more to Google to have their sites listed in front of hits that did not pay to have early listings on search outcomes. Of course, I just guessing here with only anecdotal evidence!

When I want to find a company's homepage Duck Duck Go became my favorite search engine.

Chodorow: How I’ll Teach Trump’s Tax Returns ---
https://slate.com/business/2020/10/trumps-tax-returns-law.html

The Alternative Minimum Tax: The New York Times Is Wrong — Trump Paid Millions in Taxes in 2017 ---
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2020/10/01/carney-new-york-times-is-wrong-trump-paid-millions-taxes-2017/

Why can’t Sacramento’s financial reporting match private sector standards?
https://www.data-z.org/news/detail/why-cant-sacramentos-financial-reporting-match-private-sector-standards