Tea at Trianon: The CCP Might Already Be Spying on You

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

The CCP Might Already Be Spying on You—Right From Your Own Home

From The Vigilant Fox:

But routers aren’t the only concern. Philipp pointed to Tencent, a Chinese tech and AI giant that has quietly bought up some of the most popular video games on the market, including many that your kids are probably playing.
What’s alarming, he said, is that Tencent runs a mandatory anti-cheat program called “ACE” (Anti Cheat Expert), which installs automatically with their games. You can’t just uninstall it by deleting the game—it stays buried in your device. And unless you know how to dive into the system’s core files, it’s nearly impossible to remove.
He warned that ACE has full access to your computer or phone, including your messages, commands, keyboard inputs, and even your camera. Most users have no idea it’s there.
To make matters worse, the Pentagon recently designated Tencent as a Chinese military company. (Read more.)