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Your Credit Score Should Be Based on Your Web History, IMF Says

With more services than ever collecting your data, it’s easy to start asking why anyone should care about most of it. This is why. Because people start having ideas like this.

In a new blog post for the International Monetary Fund, four researchers presented their findings from a working paper that examines the current relationship between finance and tech as well as its potential future. Gazing into their crystal ball, the researchers see the possibility of using the data from your browsing, search, and purchase history to create a more accurate mechanism for determining the credit rating of an individual or business. They believe that this approach could result in greater lending to borrowers who would potentially be denied by traditional financial institutions.

At its heart, the paper is trying to wrestle with the dawning notion that the institutional banking system is facing a serious threat from tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple. The researchers identify two key areas in which this is true: Tech companies have greater access to soft-information, and messaging platforms can take the place of the physical locations that banks rely on for meeting with customers.

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Biden Names As “Climate Czar” Former EPA Chief Blamed For Flint Water Crisis

At the time of the Flint water crisis, where lead from aging pipes leached into the city’s water system after it changed its water source, Chaffetz was the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which held hearings on the issue.

Chaffetz wasn’t the only one to object. “The people of Michigan won’t soon forget Gina McCarthy’s mishandling of and failure to adequately respond to the Flint water crisis as EPA administrator,” U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, a Tipton Republican and a former member of the committee who took part in the Flint hearings,  told the Free Press Wednesday morning. “That ineptness alone is reason enough to disqualify her from a senior role, but her push for higher energy taxes and heavy-handed government regulations is also concerning for consumers.”

Democrats also chimed in: Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democrat from Flint Township who is a supporter of Biden’s, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon, noting deep doubts about the choice. While thanking Biden for taking climate change so seriously, Kildee – who was a sharp critic of both the state’s and federal government’s roles in causing the Flint water crisis –  said he’d heard from several Flint residents who “expressed their concerns to me about this appointment and I have relayed their concerns to (Biden’s transition team).”

“While the position of White House climate coordinator does not require confirmation by Congress, we must never forget the failures of the Flint water crisis,” said Kildee, who led efforts to require faster public notifications of high levels of lead in water systems and to approve funding to replace lead water pipes in the wake of the crisis. “All levels of government, including the state of Michigan and the Environmental Protection Agency, failed Flint families.”

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Dr. Paul Thomas Targeted By Medical Board & Media After Landmark Vaccine Study

Recently, a landmark study was conducted by Dr. James Lyons-Weiler and Dr. Paul Thomas. The study compared vaccinated children and unvaccinated children and was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health on November 22, 2020 after being peer reviewed.

Dr. Weiler, a research scientist and co-author of the study, was recently interviewed by Activist Post Contributor Spiro Skouras. In the interview, Weiler breaks down the data from the study which indicates children who were vaccinated showed a higher rate of medical office visits and experienced an elevated rate of medical symptoms ranging from Asthma and behavioral issues, to ADHD and Anemia.

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New York Times Normalizes Racist Eugenics Supported by Woke Doctors

When it comes to deciding who will receive the coronavirus vaccine, the far-left New York Times is normalizing the idea that skin color is more important than need, risk, and vulnerability.

Yep, the Times is perfectly comfortable arguing that it is okay to sacrifice your grandparents on the altar of social justice.

Feel free to accuse me of hyperbole, but the truth is the truth, and the truth is that not since Nazi Germany have we seen something like what the New York Times is guilty of, which is an establishment news organization openly normalizing the idea of choosing who lives and who dies, not on need, but on race and skin color.

Wither the Hippocratic Oath.

An article published by the Times this month examined the dilemma of the Trump vaccine. “The Elderly vs. Essential Workers: Who Should Get the Coronavirus Vaccine First?” the headline read, which is a perfectly legitimate moral dilemma for a newspaper to look into. We can’t vaccinate everyone at once, so who goes first and why?

So dummy me, because I sometimes forget how far gone the media are, how morally illiterate the children who run organizations such as the Times are, I’m expecting a thoughtful debate over who is more at risk and how tough decisions sometimes have to be made. I’m even willing to accept a look at something like, “Well, if we vaccinate grandma and not Dr. Happy and Dr. Happy dies or gets sick, more people might die with Dr. Happy out of action.”

Hey, I’m an adult. I get nuance and thinking out loud. I can handle that.

I’ll tell you what I didn’t expect…

I did not expect the New York Times to normalize the openly racist practice of eugenics. I’m going to quote fully below what the New York Times published as an acceptable line of thought, and since you may not believe me, you can look for yourself right here.

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Washington Post: Russians Are ‘Hacking Our Minds’

The Washington Post has published another article warning its readers that the Russians are “hacking our minds”, this one authored by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.

Russia hasn’t just hacked our computer systems. It’s hacked our minds.” blares the ridiculous, propagandistic headline for an article about “the Russian model” of propaganda which “rests on the principle that people get convinced when they hear the same message many times from a variety of sources, no matter how biased.”

Which is funny, since this is not the first time WaPo itself has repeated this cartoonish narrative about Russian mind-hackers.

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A Pandemic of ‘Russian Hacking’

The hyperbolic, evidence-free media reports on the “fresh outbreak” of the Russian-hacking disease seems an obvious attempt by intelligence to handcuff President-elect Joe Biden into a strong anti-Russian posture as he prepares to enter the White House.

Biden might well need to be inoculated against the Russophobe fever.

There are obvious Biden intentions worrying the intelligence agencies, such as renewing the Iran nuclear deal and restarting talks on strategic arms limitation with Russia. Both carry the inherent “risk” of thawing the new Cold War.

Instead, New Cold Warriors are bent on preventing any such rapprochement with strong support from the intelligence community’s mouthpiece media. U.S. hardliners are clearly still on the rise.

Interestingly, this latest hack story came out a day before the Electoral College formally elected Biden, and after the intelligence community, despite numerous previous warnings, said nothing about Russia interfering in the election. One wonders whether that would have been the assessment had Trump won.

Instead Russia decided to hack the U.S. government.

Except there is (typically) no hard evidence pinning it on Moscow.

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3 more Alaska health workers have adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccine, bringing total to 5

A Fairbanks health care worker was treated for a “probable” serious allergic reaction on Thursday after she received the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Foundation Health Partners care system.

Additionally, on Friday evening, Providence Alaska reported that two caregivers who received the COVID-19 vaccine experienced non-life-threatening, mild reactions.

In total, five Alaskans have experienced adverse reactions this week after receiving the vaccine. Two Bartlett Regional Hospital employees in Juneau experienced reactions after the vaccine, one serious and one mild.

Providence Alaska spokesman Mikal Canfield said that due to privacy laws, they could not provide additional information. Butthe three other health workers who experienced reactions to the vaccine all are doing well. None are still hospitalized, and the three workers have recommended that others continue to receive the vaccination — which is expected to be one of the most important tools in ending the pandemic, officials say.

The Fairbanks worker started to show what hospital officials described as “traditional anaphylactic symptoms,” including tongue swelling, voice hoarseness and difficulty breathing, roughly 10 minutes after getting vaccinated, Foundation Health Partners spokeswoman Kelly Atlee wrote in an emailed statement Friday morning.

She was taken to the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital emergency department and treated with epinephrine before being discharged six hours later. The worker does not have a history of allergies, but did have a reaction to a bee sting that was not confirmed as an allergic reaction, Atlee said. Thursday was the first anaphylactic event that the worker experienced.

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