It’s very rare to see a cop charged with any crime in a shooting, much less charged with murder. It’s even rarer to see a cop convicted. It’s been happening a bit more recently, but that may just be recency bias now that more of the country is actively involved in combating police violence. In […]
It has long been clear that the GOP, as it is today, has a death wish for our Constitutional order, but that’s a subject for another post. What’s more relevant is that, at this point, one could easily construe that Democrats would like our Constitution to die too. In part because of how enfeebled they […]
It’s 2025 and we’re still stuck with legislators who wish it was still 1725. Or possibly any year with B.C appended. Clearly unconstitutional laws are being crafted with alarming frequency these days. Those that aren’t trying to legislate morality or criminalize sexual preferences are trying to infuse government entities with state-approved religion. A lot of […]
Back in 2022, former New York Times reporter Ben Smith and friends launched a new media company named Semafor on the back of $25 million in donations. You might recall that one of the organization’s launch events didn’t go particularly well: a “trust in news” event that somehow didn’t see the problem with platforming and amplifying millionaire propagandist Tucker […]
Just months after we learned Chinese hackers had compromised US telecom systems through government-mandated backdoors, an inexperienced developer from Musk’s DOGE unit is pushing untested code directly into the Treasury’s payment infrastructure — a system that handles over $6 trillion in federal payments annually. It seems reasonable to call it one of the most dangerous […]
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There are twenty-four hours in a day. This isn’t a matter of political opinion or technological disruption—it’s as immutable as the fact that two plus two equals four. No amount of genius, innovation, or reality distortion can create a twenty-fifth hour. This basic truth, so obvious it seems almost foolish to state, exposes something profound […]
SpaceX’s Starlink service can be a big improvement for those completely out of range of broadband access. But contrary to what many Republicans and c-tier comedians turned conspiracy podcasters imply, Starlink is not magic. And it comes with a growing list of caveats. Including the increasingly unhinged behavior and far right political alliances of its conspiratorial CEO. […]
At this point, we have built up enough stories on bad YouTube takedowns to fill up a small library. Because of a combination of automated systems that are spectacularly imperfect, the desire by some bad actors to abuse and commit fraud using the notice and takedown system, and a general deference towards the alleged copyright […]
As recently noted, New York State now has a law requiring that ISPs (with more than 20,000 subscribers) offer low-income state residents a 25 Mbps broadband tier for $15. Big Telecom didn’t much like that, but their efforts to kill the law, first passed in 2021, fell apart when the Supreme Court refused to hear […]
There’s a coup underway in the federal government. Across the rest of the nation, people seeking to endear themselves with President Trump or his supporters are doing the same sort of thing at the state level. Refusing to even acknowledge long-standing rights or court precedent, legislators are becoming the Project 2025 they want to see […]
The hazard with landing upon a legal solution that seems too good to be true is that it often is. So as you read this post it is important to keep in mind that I may have overlooked something, and there can always be defenses. Few things are guaranteed in law, and even in the […]
In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the ultimate act of rebellion comes when Winston Smith insists that two plus two equals four, defying a system that demands he accept whatever reality the Party declares. The Party doesn’t just want him to say two plus two equals five—they want him to believe it. This demand that citizens deny […]
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When even the Wall Street Journal’s reliably pro-Trump opinion page starts sounding alarm bells about the administration’s policies, something significant has shifted. When even the “thinkers” at the most MAGA of think tanks are calling what Elon is doing in the government a true “constitutional crisis,” we’re beginning to see cracks in the snow globe […]
I don’t know if it’s the same where you are, but all the pharmacies here in South Seattle have a decidedly… apocalyptic feel. Many shelves are empty. A lot of goods have been locked up to address a retail theft epidemic that didn’t actually happen. And understaffed stores are usually overseen by one fifteen year […]
I’ll give the folks over at Good Old Games (GOG) credit: they’re certainly doing what they said they were going to do. We’ve been talking about GOG a fair amount lately, mainly since the platform announced it was pivoting back to focus on its initial raison d’etre: bringing retro, DRM-free games back to a public […]
After several months of pretending this sort of thing just didn’t happen there, the Polish government finally admitted some of its members had abused powerful smartphone malware it had purchased from Israeli spyware firm, NSO Group. This came to light following an investigation that found someone in the government had illegally targeted a Polish government […]
For years, we’ve watched self-proclaimed “free speech warriors” hyperventilate about imaginary government control of social media content moderation. Mysteriously, as I pointed out last fall, these warriors developed sudden laryngitis when social media platform owners Elon Musk and Donald Trump actually took over the US government. Anyone with a functioning brain knew this would eventually […]
A coup is underway in the United States, and we must stop pretending otherwise. The signs are unmistakable and accelerating: in just the past 48 hours, Elon Musk’s DOGE commission has seized control of Treasury payment systems and gained unauthorized access to classified USAID materials, while security officials who followed protocols were removed. Career civil servants […]