National Moonshine Day!

Guess what? 

Today is National Moonshine Day! 

According to the Google A.I. Overview:

National Moonshine Day in 2026 falls on June 5. The holiday is celebrated annually on the first Friday in June.

 Celebrate accordingly!

Election Interference Is Beginning, Folks!

The New York Post reported:

Through false labels, confused artificial intelligence and strange search results, Big Tech has been suppressing coverage of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, The Post has found.

Meta’s AI assistant claimed the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was a “fictional” event — but had plenty to say about Democratic rival Kamala Harris’ run for the White House.

The head-scratching results from what Mark Zuckerberg’s tech giant bills as the most intelligent AI assistant comes after Google’s dominant search engine failed to bring up the July 13 shooting when prompted on its search bar.

And Meta’s Facebook acknowledged that it mistakenly censored the iconic image of Trump with his fist raised in the immediate aftermath of the July 13 shooting in Pennsylvania.

To read more, go here. 

Remember, the New York Post was right about Hunter's laptop.

See What's On Your Phone's Google Calendar Today?

If you are weary of the bombardment of LGBTQ stuff (to put it politely) all over the media, news and advertising (Bud Light and Target come immediately to mind), well, it doesn't end there. Take a look at your phone's Calendar.

I noticed on my phone's Calendar app that "LGBTQ+ Pride Month" is listed today as a "holiday" (or observance). 

The calendar on my Android phone is a Google app that comes with the phone.

From Wikipedia:

Google Calendar is a time-management and scheduling calendar service developed by Google. It became available in beta release April 13, 2006, and in general release in July 2009, on the web and as mobile apps for the Android and iOS platforms.

Google took it upon itself to include holidays and observances on their Calendar App, including "LGBTQ+ Pride Month". This may offend some people to a huge extent. 

Supposedly, you can remove such calendared items by following this:

Some have said that cherry-picking what events to remove is not possible and that in order to do so, one has to remove all of them. I'm personally not going to bother. I find it more amusing than annoying.

It seems this is just another move to make the LGBTQ community "mainstream". I don't care what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms, but I do resent being bombarded with the campaign to make deviant behaviors "normal". Is it any wonder why there is now a backlash?

‘Twitter Files II’ Exposes Blacklists, Shadow Banning, Targeted Censorship

A few years ago, I noticed a drop-off of views of this blog on Twitter and Facebook. I also noticed that when trying to Google this blog, the number of results also were low. It was obviously being shadow-banned. 

Gary Julian, who runs The Federalist blog, also noticed his blog was being shadow-banned. His blog was also blocked by Facebook.

The Twitter Files II has exposed blacklisting and other means of blocking conservative posts.

From Headline USA:

(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) A second explosive release of Twitter files that dropped Thursday exposed a concentrated campaign by avowed leftists at the social media titan to censor conservatives and suppress opinions contrary to the regime-approved narrative.

“A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users,” reported independent journalist Bari Weiss, who released a Twitter thread with the new information.

The egregious censorship was carried out by Twitter executives at the highest levels, who have all been fired from the company since Elon Musk became its Chief Twit. So-called “Trends Blacklist” that were created for suppression and censorship included a wide range of notables, including respected medical experts, politicians and conservative media personalities and outlets.

If there is a class-action lawsuit filed by James Woods or whomever, I will likely sign on to it.

To read more, go here. 

Secret Google Map Tracks Your Movements All The Time

Above, this is what the Google Location History looks like.

A few years ago, a vindictive ex accused me of stalking her. She even filed a restraining order against me. In a way, it was amusing because I was actually avoiding her. If anyone was stalking, it was her and her "flying monkeys".

Since I was a California resident at the time and the state has a red flag law, I had to turn in my firearms according to the restraining order. 

Fortunately, I had evidence that her claims were totally bogus and was able to successfully defend myself in court and get my firearms back. One of the most helpful pieces of evidence in my favor was the Google Location History feature of my cell phone.

With that, I was able to prove that I was nowhere near her on the dates and times she stated in her restraining order petition. 

This was one case where the Google Location History came in quite handy. Prior to this, I had no idea my phone had this feature. 

But, there are some who feel that having one's movements being secretly tracked is unnerving (to say the least). If so, it can be turned off.

According to The Hill:

A hidden Google feature has tracked your location for years.

Google’s Location History feature, an account-wide service which logs your movements through your smartphone, has stored the real-world comings and goings of millions of users since it was introduced in 2009.

While the knowledge that your movements are being monitored by one of the world’s largest tech companies may be unsettling, it’s not likely that it's being done to further some nefarious agenda, and Location History was designed to be helpful.

Google says it can provide a better service if it knows where you’ve been, giving you more detailed commute advice, recommendations based on places you’ve visited, and more relevant advertisements.  

Still, if this news makes you want to rush to turn Google Location History off, you’re not alone, and there are some major privacy risks to having your location data stored online. That’s why Google has said its Location History feature is switched off by default and can only be activated with a user’s permission.

 To read more, go here.

Anybody Google Taliban Leaders Lately?

This is interesting.

Appeals Court Puts Big Tech's Section 230 Immunity In Its Crosshairs

Big Tech and the tyrants of social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, etc.) may be in big doo-doo if the U.S. Appeals Court of the Second Circuit in New York rules against them concerning their Section 230 immunity. 

The Epoch Times reported:

A little-watched civil rights case that threatens Silicon Valley’s Section 230 immunity took a huge step forward on July 16, as an appeals court that rarely does so agreed to review a lower court’s decision.

The U.S. Appeals Court for the Second Circuit in New York agreed to review a lower court’s ruling that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) protects Big Tech companies such as Vimeo from civil rights liability in censorship cases.

Big Tech censorship became a hot button issue during the 2020 presidential campaign when then-President Donald Trump was selectively censored by Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

The controversy became especially heated late in the campaign when a New York Post series of news articles regarding the allegedly corrupt business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was banned by the Big Tech giants.

Trump has filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against the firms that censored him. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has also been the most vocal of multiple congressional conservative Republican critics of Section 230 immunity.

The case of Domen v. Vimeo came about after Vimeo, an Internet video-hosting company, terminated Church United’s video streaming activities after it featured videos of five men and women who left the gay lifestyle to pursue their Christian faith. Vimeo claimed that its terms of service bar streaming videos that promote sexual orientation change therapy. Church United is led by Pastor Jim Domen.

A federal district court had previously held that Section 230 exempted firms such as Vimeo from civil liability and a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling.

However, as a result of the July 16 decision, the panel’s ruling will be reheard before the entire Second Circuit. The Second Circuit covers six federal district courts in three states, including New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.

To read more, go here. 

DeSantis Signs Bill To Stop Big Tech Censorship of Floridians

The rectal regions of Big Tech tyrants of  Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others are likely puckering up right now.

From The Epoch Times:

MIAMI—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed into law a bill—the first of its kind in the United States—allowing Floridians to sue Big Tech platforms.

A number of free speech advocates, including Cuban and Venezuelan exiles, state senators, and deplatformed influencers, stood behind DeSantis as he made the announcement at Florida International University on May 24.

Courts may award up to $100,000 in damages to an individual if a social media platform censors or shadowbans a user’s content, deplatforms a user, or if it hasn’t applied censorship or deplatforming standards in a consistent manner, according to the text of the bill.

This was long in coming and hopefully other states will enact similar laws.

To read more, go here. 

Congressman Calls For Racketeering Probe Into Big Tech

Even before I saw this story, I was thinking that the moves by Google and Apple against Parler smelled of racketeering.

Well, sure enough, one congressman is calling for a racketeering investigation against the Big Tech companies.

From The Epoch Times:

A top Republican in the House of Representatives on Sunday called for a racketeering probe into large technology companies who over the weekend took action against Parler, a social media website.

“This is clearly a violation of antitrust, civil rights, the RICO statute. There should be a racketeering investigation on all the people that coordinated this attack on not only a company but on all of those like us, like me, like you, Maria,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo.

After Twitter banned President Donald Trump and some other users, Parler saw its traffic explode. Soon, though, Google announced it had removed Parler from its online store, a move followed by Apple. Then, Amazon announced it was suspending Parler from its web hosting services.

Parler CEO John Matze told The Epoch Times his company is prepared to take legal action, but in the meantime authorities should investigate the possibly-coordinated actions, Nunes argued.

Since Amazon is suspending Parler, I have cancelled my Amazon Prime Membership effective immediately.

To read more, go here. 

Justice Dept. Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google

 Just a few minutes ago, I spotted this on Twitter:

Good, it's about time that the giant tech companies' are held accountable for their unfair business practices.

Hopefully, similar action against Facebook and Twitter will follow. Facebook is already under investigation.

From the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON—The Federal Trade Commission is gearing up to file a possible antitrust lawsuit against Facebook Inc. FB 0.95% by year-end, according to people familiar with the matter, in a case that would challenge the company’s dominant position in social media.

The case preparations come after the FTC has spent more than a year investigating concerns that Facebook has been using its powerful market position to stifle competition, part of a broader effort by U.S. antitrust authorities to examine the conduct of a handful of dominant tech companies.

No final decision has been made on whether to sue Facebook, people familiar with the matter said, and the commission doesn’t always bring cases even when it is making preparations to do so, such as when it decided against filing an antitrust complaint against Google Inc. in 2013 after a lengthy investigation.

 To read more, go here.

Google Makes An About-Face?

Above, today's Google search results.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! (As Gomer Pyle used to say.)

For the heck of it, I just did a Google search of my blog post of two days ago, "Cuba Tourism Tanks 24%" that was non-existent in my Google search of yesterday.

Lo & behold, it showed up in my search in the second spot (behind The Japan Times)!

Could it be that someone at Google saw my post on shadow-banning of yesterday and made some "corrections"?

Google Shadow-Banning Far & Wide

Continuing with shadow-banning by Google...

The Federalist has picked up my blog post of yesterday on shadow-banning. It is interesting that even my innocuous article on Cuba tourism got the shadow-ban treatment from Google, but Bing and Yahoo! picked it up it was at the top of their search results.

So, without further ado, here's The Federalist posting of today.

We're Shadow-Banned By Google

Shadow banning (also called stealth banning, ghost banning or comment ghosting) is the act of blocking or partially blocking a user or their content from an online community such that it will not be readily apparent to the user that they have been banned. - Wikipedia.

This morning, I was reading The Federalist blog on Google's ongoing censorship of this and other conservative websites.

Gary Julian, a longtime friend and owner of The Federalist blog, did some checking and found that Google is shadow-banning his blog.

He wrote:

With shadow banning it was all down hill from there. This last month we were down to 25,784 page views. 

What the Fascists at Google do is bury Conservative websites so deep that no one will ever find them. 

So I ran a Google search on one of my articles: "Blame the GOP for Immigration - not Trump." 

I gave up looking after going five pages in. Using the exact title the article could not be found on Google.

(To read more, go here.)

After reading his post, I decided (this is the first time I checked, I might add) to do my own checking on my blog's status on whether it is being shadow-banned. Keep in mind, while I do post some political posts (and I am a conservative), my blog mainly focuses on travel, history and entertainment.

My searches on search engines Google and Bing found a similar scenario.

Yesterday, I posted an article, "Cuba Tourism Tanks 24%". I first checked Bing, and my article was listed in the second spot. And, what's more, I didn't type the post's title verbatim!

Next, I tried Google. And, I typed in the post's title verbatim. It was nowhere to be found, even four pages in!

So, like The Federalist blog, Google is shadow-banning Armand's Rancho Del Cielo.

UPDATE:

I just checked the Yahoo! search engine and we're in the sixth spot on the same search with them.

So, if one wants to do a search and have accurate results, use either Yahoo! or Bing, not Google.

Google+, R.I.P.

Google has decided to dispense with Google+ for not being used enough.

According to Gizmodo.com:

Google+, a social network that we can certainly say existed and not much more, is slated for a long-overdue trip down the memory hole. 

A ten-month sunsetting period was announced in a Google blog post today about increased security efforts, dubbed Project Strobe, which found a bug in Google+ that could have leaked some personal information users posted to their profiles, though according to Strobe’s analysis no one else was aware of or took advantage of the vulnerability. 

That may have something to do with Google+’s relative obscurity as an online social destination. Despite integration with the company’s other, hugely successful products like Gmail, Blogger, and YouTube, Google admits usage is negligible. In the company’s own words, “90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.”

Today, the Google+ button has disappeared (not a surprise, I was expecting it and we bloggers received notice) from blog posts. So Google+, as Gizmodo said, is now "down the memory hole".

Since the disappearance of the Google+ button, I noticed that blog post hits have diminished. Not too much, but hit have gone down. I never used Google+ as a "social network" outside of making blog posts available to users.

Oh, well.

To read more, go here.

Godzilla Weathervane

Noted Godzilla fan Todd Tennant posted the above photo of a Godzilla weathervane over on Facebook.

I shared his post with the comment, "Gotta get me one of these!"

After this, I looked in Google to see who is selling these. I've been thinking about getting a weathervane anyway. I found that West Coast Weathervanes makes and sells them.

But, I was stopped in my tracks when I saw the price tag for them.

To see more about them, including sizes and prices, go here.

Social Media Antitrust Executive Order Drafted

In recent months, it has become apparent that some social media sites have an obvious bias against conservative viewpoints by employing such tactics as "shadow banning" to outright bans while promoting leftist/liberal viewpoints.

The Trump Administration is considering whether such actions are in violation of antitrust and other laws and has drafted a draft executive order to investigate.

According to Bloomberg:

(Bloomberg) -- The White House is considering a draft executive order for President Donald Trump that would instruct federal antitrust and law enforcement agencies to open probes into the practices of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc., and other social media companies. 

Bloomberg News obtained a draft of the order, which a White House official said was in its early stages and hasn’t been run past other government agencies. Separately, Lindsey Walters, deputy White House press secretary, said in an emailed statement that the document isn’t the result of an official White House policy making process. 

The document instructs U.S. antitrust authorities to “thoroughly investigate whether any online platform has acted in violation of the antitrust laws.” It instructs other government agencies to recommend within a month after it’s signed, actions that could potentially “protect competition among online platforms and address online platform bias.”
Read the Executive Order draft on bias in online platforms. 

The document doesn’t name any companies. If signed, the order would represent a significant escalation of Trump’s aversion to Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies, whom he’s publicly accused of silencing conservative voices and news sources online.

To read more, go here. 

NRA Buys YouTube

Above, Wayne LaPierre is all smiles following the signing of the purchase agreement.

The National Rifle association apparently switched tactics over its dispute with YouTube in censoring (i.e., removing) their gun safety videos.

The NRA bought YouTube.

According to the CMS News Service:

A deal was finalized last evening between the National Rifle Association and Alphabet, Inc. in which the gun rights organization bought the video-sharing website. 

The purchase price has not been disclosed. 

Google and YouTube are both units of the Mountain View, California-based Alphabet Inc.

Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA said that this deal will remove the unfair practices of YouTube by the current regime.

If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em!

To read more, go here. 

NRA Statement on YouTube Censorship Announcement

The National Rifle Association has issued the following statement on Google's censorship of videos:

Fairfax, Va.— Chris W. Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), released the following statement on Friday: 

"YouTube is now in the business of political posturing and censorship. Millions of Americans watch YouTube videos every day to learn more about the safe and responsible use of firearms, and those videos show law-abiding gun owners participating in lawful behavior. By banning this content, YouTube is engaging in politically motivated censorship and alienating the millions of people who turn to the website for education and training. Currently, anyone can go to YouTube and watch a video to learn how to make a bomb, yet the company wants to ban videos depicting lawful gun use? It's absurd. This new policy runs counter to the American traditions of open dialogue and tolerance for diverse opinions and firmly plants YouTube, and its parent company Google, against the freedoms so many Americans hold dear."

To read more, go here. 

Cameron Trading Post

Above, the Cameron Trading Post. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Before driving into Grand Canyon National Park last month, I stopped at the Cameron Trading Post for breakfast in Cameron, Arizona.

The Cameron Trading Post has always been one of my favorite stops while heading to or from Durango, Colorado from the Grand Canyon. It has a fine restaurant, a big gift shop, market, Indian art gallery and a motel.

According to Google:

Overlooking the Little Colorado River Gorge, this quaint motel, established in 1916, is a 30-minute drive from the South Rim entrance of Grand Canyon National Park.  

Quaint, basic rooms, decorated with Native American art, have handcrafted furniture, TVs with cable channels, balconies and free Wi-Fi. Suites add living areas and kitchenettes. 

Breakfast is served for a fee in an American-Mexican restaurant with a stone fireplace. There's a convenience store and a souvenir shop selling ethnic art. Other amenities include gardens with sandstone paths and fountains, designed and planted in the 1930s.

The Cameron Trading Post is a great place for a rest stop.

To access their website, go here.

Top 5 Travel Destinations According To Google Searches

Above, a bird's eye view of Asakusa and the Sumida River from the Tokyo Skytree. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The Internet is now the top source for people who are planning a vacation. With that, Google has become an integral part in vacation planning.

Condé Nast Traveler has posted the top five travel destinations according to Google searches.

They begin with:

Google is such a part of our lives these days that it's no longer "you are what you eat," it's "you are what you search." When it comes to travel, Google's data is a great way to get a sense of which places people are interested in visiting and exploring. The company revealed that this year the top five most Googled cities, in order, are Reykjavik, Havana, Toronto, Mexico City, and Tokyo. But how do cities manage to rise to the top of the Internet search world? It's a combination of access, affordability, and in some cases, historic changes that make a once closed-off destination the hottest ticket in town.

To read more, go here.