Notices by Dan Gillmor (dangillmor@mastodon.social), page 4

Google has become everything it once pretended to disdain -- an arrogant, sleazy, control-freak monopolist.

Its latest anti-user, anti-competition move will shut down the alternative app marketplaces that Google used to show off as "we're not like Apple" evidence. https://thenewstack.io/f-droid-says-googles-android-developer-verification-plan-is-an-existential-threat-to-alternative-app-stores/

The United States is at war with Cuba, but our weapons are aimed at further impoverishing -- and starving -- the population. Destroying the electrical grid will have that effect. It's all blatantly illegal, not to mention immoral. Big Journalism has kind of, sort of noticed, but doesn't really care.

Big Journalism carries water for Trump as usual, obligingly calling the Republicans' voter-suppression legislation by the name they cooked up to make it sound just fine. The bill would destroy what's left of our democracy. The only thing it would "SAVE" is white male supremacy.

Do better, media.

With a headline that in a sane world would be in the Onion, but is absurdly realistic in this one, Garrett Graff discusses the Sociopath-in-Chief's insane war of choice: https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/trump-surprised-to-find-he-s-at-war-in-iran?utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=trump-surprised-to-find-he-s-at-war-in-iran

You should subscribe to Graff's newsletter...

Looks from here like the Trump regime is hoping Iran will provide a Reichstag fire-type event (look it up) in the U.S. -- see those scary warnings of attacks on California.

Why? A pretext to escalate domestic fascism, such as even more direct interference with this year's elections.

I have a Windows laptop that I use rarely, and while the device manager sees my Android phone when it's connected by USB, the file manager does not. This connection failure just started a couple of days ago. I've tried absolutely everything and nothing solves this.

Meanwhile it's immediately recognized on my Linux machine and transfers data at a good speed.

Same cable in each case.

@HistoPol Thanks, I'll give it a look.

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@evacide/116207648749663738

Grammarly would have to improve its ethics to be slimy.

So Grammarly foisted advice from AI-generated impersonations of real people on its users, without bothering to ask the people it's impersonating whether they had any issue with this rancid fakery.

https://www.platformer.news/grammarly-expert-review-reviewed/?ref=platformer-newsletter

Bottom line on the DHS "changes":

Noem, Mullin, and their boss all belong in prison.

The U.K. accelerates toward police state status, by requiring the equivalent of a license to read and speak online. Worse, it drastically undermines your personal security.

The US is moving this way, too. Wake up, people, because it's almost too late.

https://action.openrightsgroup.org/no-id-checks-web-access

The Epstein files coverup could be the cause of a new -- and final -- world war.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/28/dubais-famous-fairmont-hotel-in-flames-after-iranian-air-strike

I'm going to post a comprehensive list of the news sources I rely on. Working on it now.

A reminder that Molly White (https://mastodon.social/@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io) is, by far, doing the best job of covering the endlessly corrupt cryptocurrency "industry" -- her latest newsletter post, replete with Epstein Class dot-connecting, should make you furious.

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-101/

So it looks like Larry Ellison's going to be pulling the puppet strings at CNN, not just CBS "News" -- another domino falling in the right-wing extremists' war on honest journalism.

Neither of those outlets has been remotely perfect in the past. But they're heading toward Fox Lite status now.

Sigh, the New York Times gives a massive amount of op-ed space to an AI founder who (surprise!) loves-loves-loves the technology.

h/t https://mastodon.social/@rdviii@rdviii@famichiki.jp

"A.I. Isn't People"

Another brilliant newsletter post by Rusty Foster:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/a-i-isn-t-people?last_resource_guid=Post%3A150442c6-0f09-4af2-9abe-c3860a644c1d

"I don’t need to know what mechanism underlies human intelligence to rule out the possibility that it’s the same as what a large language model does."

Yes, I could use archive.today (and its clones), but its behavior is WAY to sketchy at this point. See https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-archive-today-after-site-executed-ddos-and-altered-web-captures/

It's a shame that the Verge has disappeared completely behind a paywall. Price is almost reasonable, however.

Michigan's Muslim voters were (rightly) pissed at Biden administration's Gaza policy, so many voted for Trump, whose anti-Islam bigotry was well known, and helped give him the state's electoral votes. And now they're shocked, shocked to discover how self-defeating that was. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/michigan-arab-communities-ice-fear