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Very sad video coming to us from @funny_marco. My African American went to Starbucks. Wearing, very proudly, my Official Donald Trump Make America Great Again Hat. In beautiful Red (RED WAVE!). But, along came an Open Boarders Dem, very angry. And it got violent as it always does with them. Very proud of the way my guy stood up for the Donald J. Trump Administration. And for America. He put America First, even inside Starbucks. Amazing! youtu.be/6Jtlh-rXNm8

Whether you are African-American, Hispanic-American or ANY AMERICAN at all – you have the right to live in a Country that puts YOUR NEEDS FIRST! I'm the only guy who could unite our Country. But, I have a lot of work to do. My wonderful -- mostly wonderful -- @SenateGOP @HouseGOP are a big part of that. But the biggest part is YOU, the great American people. When you wear my Hat, you're telling everyone something very special. Without even opening your mouth, you're saying something very big. That our Country has TREMENDOUS FUTURE POTENTIAL. The potential to be Great Again. That is my message. The message of my hats. And it's so important. So important. Shop now! shop.donaldjtrump.com/collections/headwear

11 Dead, Several Others Shot At Pittsburgh Synagogue

Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting: At Least 11 Dead and Gunman Identified

Guns beat bombs.

SpaceX ships another huge propellant tank to South Texas BFR test site

Or at least someone smarter than me does:
http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com/

Job opening to work on actual science instead of hand-wavy, platform nine and three quarters, oompa-loompa dark matter magic.

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing
Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a-blowing
Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing
Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing

Pocahontas is no Indian! She doesn't look like Indian to me and she doesn't look like Indian to Indians. cherokee.org/News/Stories/20181015_Cherokee-Nation-responds-to-Senator-Warrens-DNA-test

Russian Orthodox Church severs links with Constantinople

In a major religious split, the Russian Orthodox Church has cut ties with the body seen as the spiritual authority of the world's Orthodox Christians.

The break came after the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople recognised the independence of the Ukrainian Church from Moscow.

The row is being described as the greatest Orthodox split since the schism with Catholicism in 1054.

Relations soured after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Many Ukrainians accuse the Russian Church of siding with Russia-backed separatists in the east.

Russia sees Kiev as the historic cradle of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Church now fears losing many of its 12,000 parishes in Ukraine.

Constantinople holds sway over more than 300 million Orthodox Christians across the world. The Russian Orthodox Church is by far the biggest.

Also at Reuters and The Guardian.

See also: Archbishop’s defiance threatens Putin’s vision of Russian greatness

I believe that other people have mentioned Iridium, here on the forum. For whatever reason, I've never messed with it. Never even followed up on it, to see what makes it special. In recent days, it has been mentioned multiple times in various discussions that I've read, but not elaborated on. So - interest piqued, I did a search for it.

https://iridiumbrowser.de/

A BROWSER SECURING YOUR PRIVACY. THAT’S IT.
DOWNLOAD

Iridium Browser is based on the Chromium code base. All modifications enhance the privacy of the user and make sure that the latest and best secure technologies are used. Automatic transmission of partial queries, keywords and metrics to central services is prevented and only occurs with the approval of the user. In addition, all our builds are reproducible and modifications are auditable, setting the project ahead of other secure browser providers.

There is a lot more to read on that page, like the manifest.

MANIFEST
IMPORTANT NOTICE

Before Iridium Browser, we had to decide if we wanted to have cutting edge technologies like sandboxed processes, WebRTC, WebUSB … , or if we wanted to use a browser that respects our privacy. So we decided to use the power of free software and build a browser that can do both. We analysed the code of Chromium and stripped out the functionality which exposes data to others in a way we don‘t like.
See most important changes here

Our ambition is to get builds for Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, RHEL/CentOS, Windows and macOS a couple of days after a new release of Chromium. To achieve this, we need help from individuals and organisations, who have the same intention. Currently there are weeks between a new release of Iridium and Chromium.
Please take this into consideration for your personal usage of the browser as you might be at risk when surfing unknown and potentially dangerous websites!
We feel, that as an application browser or as browser for trusted websites, this is acceptable.

Wow. Sounds good. It seems to address the reasons that I've used several other browsers, such as SRWare Iron, Cyberfox, and others.

Keep on reading, and I'm reminded of the reasons I was excited about Webkit when it was promoted by Google. (Bear in mind that Google didn't invent this thing, they took open source code from the KDE browser, Konqueror, enhanced it, and turned it loose under the Google name.)

Unfortunately, Google added some things that none of us need, and in fact, few of us know about. Hardcoded URLS for various purposes, all designed to collect information, and to push advertising. SRWare Iron addresses some of that, but - sometimes, it has just seemed that they didn't go far enough.

Iridium, though, has gone into the source code, and either removed or obfuscated those hard coded URL's. There is a whole page dedicated to the stuff that has been removed, or changed - https://github.com/iridium-browser/tracker/wiki/Differences-between-Iridium-and-Chromium

This page describes the changes we did in Iridium compared to the Chromium base version. Please note that this list might not be exhaustive, so always check the Git repository at https://git.iridiumbrowser.de/cgit.cgi/iridium-browser/ for the latest changes.

I've kicked it around for a couple days now. I'm just about to set Iridium as "default browser", to replace Cyberfox. (Default browser is the one that opens when you click a link someplace, like in a PDF. It has little to no effect on what happens inside of your non-default browsers.)

Resource-wise, Iridium uses about the same CPU and memory as SRWare Iron. (they don't have the same pages open, so maybe I shouldn't compare them like that, but they do have roughly the same number of pages open) Both seem to use slightly less resources than vanilla Chromium.

EDIT: I initially posted that Iridium is in the Debian repositories. That was wrong. Iridium happens to be in my distro's repository, so it popped up immediately when I did an apt-cache search. Iridium-browser is NOT in the Debian repositories. Most Debian users will have to add the Iridium repository, or compile it themselves from the git. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused!

The best thing about Iridium, for Debian users, it's in the repository.

#apt-get install iridium-browser

does it all for you. You'll get the standard output, telling you dependencies, and recommended libraries and documentation.

NOTE: Iridium isn't replacing my daily drivers. I have multiple browsers installed on my system, and I use them in different ways. Using Iridium (or any "hardened" browser) as "default" helps to insure that inadvertantly invoking a browser from a PDF file doesn't open the system up to anyone who might be watching for a phone-home thing to happen. It's a "secure browser", right?

You be the judge - click the link(s), read up, and decide how good Iridium is - or isn't.

Currently, Iridium Browser is available for the following operating systems:
Windows 7+ • macOS 10.9+ • Debian 8+, Mint 17+, Ubuntu 14.04+ (all 64-bit) • openSUSE Leap 42.3 and 15.0 • Fedora 27+ • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7+ | CentOS 7+

  Iridium Browser is not available for Android, iOS, Windows Mobile or any other mobile operating system!

A Suicidal Nanny, an Underground Industry and 3 Babies Stabbed

The Case of Jane Doe Ponytail

China’s Media Crackdown Spreads to Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s expulsion of a British journalist after he led a foreign correspondents’ meeting with a pro-independence activist is, first and foremost, an attempt by Beijing to tamp down any dissent in the former British colony.

Hong Kong officials have not given a reason for rejecting a journalist visa for Victor Mallet, the Asia news editor for The Financial Times. China’s only comment has been that Hong Kong authorities are within their right to do so. But that’s the typical legalistic evasiveness of authoritarian regimes when they do something they know is hard and embarrassing to defend.

The authorities have never criticized Mr. Mallet’s reporting. But he was the main spokesman for the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club in August when it hosted a talk by Andy Chan, head of a political party that called for Hong Kong’s independence from China. Hong Kong and Beijing officials blasted the event in advance and subsequently banned the party.

Beijing took back control of Hong Kong from the British in 1997 after nearly a century of colonial rule, and agitation toward independence has never pleased China’s leadership. Hong Kong as an “inalienable” part of China is written into the territory’s Basic Law.

UK says Hong Kong rejection of FT journalist visa politically motivated

The talk show hosts have blathered about #WalkAway for a few days now. Finally - I looked it up. Definitely interesting!

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/07/03/former_liberal_to_progressives_time_to_walk_away.html

Brandon Straka says that less than a year ago, he was a liberal. He explains why he changed his mind in this "viral video" encouraging other progressives to "walk away" from the remains of the Democratic Party.

"Once upon a time, I was a liberal,” the gay NYC hairdresser begins. "I felt I’d found a tribe.” But, he said, they will do “absolutely nothing for you."

The video is at least a month old, but Straka appeared on FNC's 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' on Monday to discuss what he means:

Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

Another story from an apparently Black Canadian woman who married an American.

https://www.redstate.com/kiradavis/2018/08/10/heres-chose-walkaway-liberalism/

My father-in-law was a popular local pastor, and also the first black man I’d ever met who called himself a Republican and a conservative. We were fast friends, and often talked politics. He would gently but intelligently challenge a lot of my notions and beliefs. I thought I knew a lot because I read a lot of headlines. He challenged me to read the actual stories. I thought I new a lot because I watched Bill Maher. He challenged me to watch the things going on around me. I thought I knew a lot because…well, I knew a lot! He challenged me to value results over talk. I wasn’t a convert, but I began to think that maybe I didn’t have the full picture when it came to my ideas about Republicans and conservatives. Could it be that I was depending too much on salacious headlines and raging talking heads for my opinions about conservatism?

Back to Brandon: http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/07/08/brandon-straka-walk-away-campaign-founder-denied-service-camera-store

Straka said the salesperson recognized him from his campaign and said that he couldn't sell anything to him because he did not support the "#WalkAway" campaign.

According to the movement's Facebook page, it's meant to "encourage and support those on the left to walk away from the divisive tenets."

Straka said following his encounter at the electronics store, he started "shaking" because he hadn't experienced negative backlash like that before.

"It took my breath away," he said.

Two videos, each of them very eloquent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pjs7uoOkag&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILQXW2Ob1PU&feature=youtu.be