Notices by GMcGath (gmcgath@liberdon.com)

November 7: (one of the proposed dates for) Victims of Communism Day.
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/11/07/november-7-as-victims-of-communism-day-2024/
#Communism

@mr_penguin
This sounds too much like the orchestras that dropped Tchaikovsky from their programs because of Putin.

@Gargron The Post pulls an interesting trick to distort poll results. It takes a poll which says "20 percent of U.S. adults now regularly get news on the [Instagram] social network" and recasts it as "One in five American adults regularly get their news from Instagram."

Adding the word "their" suggests IG is the primary or exclusive news source for 1 in 5. The poll only says that people "get news" from it.

Poll distortion is a favorite journalistic game.

The assault by #Congress on the Internet is accelerating. A bill aims to repeal #Section230 altogether. Knowing Biden, I expect he'd sign it without the slightest pang of guilt. https://reason.com/2024/05/15/the-worst-section-230-bill-yet/

@mmasnick Does copyright expiration really depend on local time? That sounds weird. But if not, when exactly did it expire?

It makes me nervous to say this, since some of my friends may not like it, but:

Both Israel and its Arab enemies (meaning governments and other armed organizations) have done horrible things costing many innocent lives.

Neither side's actions are an excuse for applauding outrages by the other side. The victims are people trying to live their lives, not sides.

The US shouldn't get involved other than to try to get both sides to be less brutal.

Saw the first half of _Gone with the Wind_ at the library today. (A 7-day intermission is now in progress.) It has serious faults by today's standards, but it serves as a timely reminder that whichever side they represent, ordinary people suffer and die in large numbers in a war.

@fu @mr_penguin New Hampshire isn't in a position to be self-sufficient. People are used to crossing the border to get to Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont. If NH were an independent nation, the CBP would require us to go through customs and probably demand a passport every time we did that, with long delays and outrageous intrusion. The courts have ruled that the 4th Amendment doesn't apply at the border.

@mr_penguin The federal government is bad, but having it as a foreign government surrounding all but a small strip to the north and a single seaport with border checkpoints would be worse.

The latest bump in #COVID cases may have peaked. Deaths are still up, but that statistic trails incidence of the disease. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home

#Indieweb "silenced" #Liberdon not just without due process but without an accusation. Liberdon was put on a #blocklist with no reason given, and the Indieweb admin actually asked me to provide some accusations! He says he's still "investigating" the non-charges, but we're presumed guilty until he can think of something we're guilty of.

@thedesertlynx https://codeberg.org/oliphant/blocklists/src/branch/main/blocklists/mastodon/_unified_tier0_blocklist.csv