Surrendering our data to unchecked power isn’t just a technical risk – it’s a moral failure. – Catherine Engelbrecht
Since Jimmy Swaggart departed for Hell last week, it seems a good time to remind readers of this 2011 essay (click subtitle above) on his sleazy rise, sleazy fall and sleazy comeback, and to observe that A) there ain’t no justice, and B) only the good die young.
This is a cop’s idea of “friendship”:
A [typical and representative Irish cop named]…Shane Flanagan…impersonated [a female cop]…on…FetLife…and…Facebook for the purpose of arranging for people to come to her home and rape her. He created the accounts using the woman’s personal information, and shared details including her address, and photos of her and her daughters…the woman [imagined she] and Flanagan were friends and there had never been any romantic or sexual history between them…Flanagan pleaded guilty to…inciting two men to rape the woman on dates between November and December 2020…and…to…a…child porn…[charge]. She…became aware that someone was using her image on Fetlife…after a user of that website contacted her on her genuine Facebook page..she [then] created an account on Fetlife and while pretending to be a man interacted with the user pretending to be her…
Using crypto-moralism as an excuse to rob businesses:
Supermarkets could be fined if they do not [force customers to buy enough of whatever food UK politicians have declared “]healthier[“]…under a new government [scheme] to [rob businesses by using moralistic excuses]…Supermarkets will be required to report sales data [to central planning bureaucrats] and those that fail to hit targets could face fines…
Erosion of civil liberties only starts with “undesirables”; it never stops there:
…ICE…is using a smartphone app to identify people based on an image of their fingerprints or face…the expanding and repurposing of this sophisticated technology, ordinarily used by…DHS…when people are entering or exiting the country, is now being used on people living in the United States to meet mass deportation and arrest quotas imposed by [Mad Emperor] Trump…Mobile Fortify…enables users to verify an unknown person’s identity…by comparing a photo of their face across two databases…CBP…Traveler Verification Service…and…a…DHS…”intelligence aggregator” that brings together information related to searches and seizures. For fingerprint matches, the app uses DHS’s centralized Automated Biometric Identification System…ICE is [also] using…Clearview…Palantir…[and Flock’s] nationwide database of automatic license plate readers…
Sleeping with cops isn’t safe for men, either:
A [Texas cop named Ashley Nicole Transmeier murdered her]…ex-[boy]friend…Albert “Bert” Florencio Howie…[when she caught him sleeping with her] mother…Transmeier…fled the [scene of the crime and tried to commit suicide with]…pills while [sitting in her car, but cops took her]…to a local hospital, [had her stomach pumped] and [then caged her]…
As usual when a cop murders somebody off the clock, their cophood is buried far down in the story. And the passive voice usage in this one is off the charts.
Wave bye-bye to the last remaining shreds of your privacy:
The Trump [regime] has, [in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974], built a searchable national citizenship data system. The tool, which is being rolled out in phases, [was justified by the claim it is] designed to be used by state and local election officials to…ensure only citizens are voting. But it was developed rapidly without a public process, and s[ensible people] are already worrying about what else it could be used for…[especially since it was developed by] DHS…[and the so-called “]DOGE[“. The system pushes]…the U.S. closer to having a…centralized national database of Americans’ personal information [spooks can use any way they want]…
So far, the thing so-called “AI” is actually best at is parting fools from their money:
…tech companies have proved yet again that there’s money to be made from panic. Turnitin, a longtime leader in the plagiarism-detection market, released a new tool within six months of ChatGPT’s debut to identify [LLM]-generated writing in students’ assignments. In 2025 alone…the California State University system collectively paid an extra $163,000 for it, pushing total spending this year to over $1.1 million. Most of these campuses have licensed Turnitin’s plagiarism detector since 2014…when the internet made it easy for students to copy and paste [text] from websites into their assignments…faculty members [are now seeking] both a way to discourage students from using ChatGPT on their homework and a way to identify [LLM]-generated writing…But the technology…highlights any matching text, whether properly cited or not; it flags everything that mirrors [LLM] writing style, whether a student used [an LLM] inappropriately or not. And Turnitin…demand[s] “perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable and sublicensable” rights to student writing…[which it] has used…to build a massive database of student papers, which it [then] uses to [train its own LLM]…
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