Whenever there is a power imbalance…consent is not really possible. – Meg Foster
Crypto-moralists believe that people enjoying a food is sufficient reason for declaring it “unsafe”:
The World Health Organization (WHO) has advised most people to avoid most kinds of “non-sugar sweeteners”, after a 2022 review of the evidence found they don’t help with weight control long term and [crypto-moralists claim without evidence that they] may cause diabetes, heart attacks and death…the evidence supporting [the idea that eating less sugar reduces sugar intake] is mixed. Some short randomised trials have found that consuming drinks with sweeteners instead of the full-sugar versions can reduce weight gain in children, but others have failed to show a benefit. Population studies tend to show that sweetener consumption correlates with higher rates of diabetes and heart disease – but this could be because people are more likely to use sweeteners if they are heavier to start with…
The lede is of course both buried and quintessentially crypto-moralist: “The perfect solution is going for water.” To “hydrate” your meal of insects and raw vegetables, I’m sure.
Nobody will be safe until this odious, contemptible practice is recognized as unconstitutional:
…”civil asset forfeiture”…remains a boil on the ass of American jurisprudence. Now, in a rare demonstration of cooperation across political divides, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have joined together to introduce legislation to reform the practice…at the federal level. They are supported by a coalition of organizations that put aside ideological differences in an attempt to curb the dangerous practice…The FAIR Act…requires that seizures be conducted in court rather than through administrative processes and also guarantees legal representation for federal forfeiture targets…[I]t isn’t a perfect bill…but…some improvement is better than none for a practice that has largely served as an exercise in legalized highway robbery…
Remember, Twitter claims this surveillance isn’t surveillance:
…in the wake of the reversal of Roe v. Wade…U.S. Marshals …received regular alerts from Dataminr, a[n “official partner” of Twitter] that persistently monitors social media for corporate and government clients, about the precise time and location of both ongoing and planned abortion rights demonstrations…Dataminr flagged the social media posts of protest organizers, participants, and bystanders, and leveraged Dataminr’s privileged access to the so-called firehose of unrestricted Twitter data to monitor constitutionally protected speech…
A little bit of good news about mob-rule attempts to castrate Section 230:
The U.S. Supreme Court…upheld Section 230, ruling in favor of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube/Google in two cases…Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh…which dealt…with…Section 230 protections…In the unanimous decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas…SCOTUS held that the tech companies’ conduct “did not constitute aiding and abetting [terrorists] because they did not knowingly provide substantial assistance to the groups in carrying out the terrorist act in question”…the ruling means that…“the Supreme Court made it abundantly clear that social media platforms like Twitter cannot be held civilly liable for third-party content”…
All too often, evil arrives cloaked in the mantle of expediency:
The…TSA’s trial rollout of biometric facial recognition technology at airport security checkpoints…is…[supposedly] voluntary. However, in a March 14 interview with Kyle Arnold of The Dallas Morning News, TSA Administrator David Pekoske said that if the TSA gets its way, biometric screening technology will eventually not be optional. But even without mandating facial recognition, fears of delay or poor treatment by TSA staff may lead travelers to submit when they’d rather not…Additionally, the TSA risks travelers’ privacy by collecting personal data and sending it to the Department of Homeland Security (even if the TSA [pretends] that the data is anonymized, encrypted, and eventually deleted)…
These attempts to destroy the internet are just going to keep getting worse:
Montana Governor Greg Gianforte has signed into law a measure to severely restrict…TikTok, making his state the first to enact a near-total ban on the social media platform…The law, slated to take effect on January 1, 2024, would bar TikTok from [legally] operating in Montana. It would also prohibit app stores from offering TikTok for download within state lines — a ban that tech companies [correctly state] will be impossible to [enforce, in addition to being]…a violation of the…First Amendment…TikTok has earned bipartisan scrutiny in the US and other countries over questions of privacy, surveillance and [partial ownership by] Beijing’s government…Gianforte promised…to…widen…[the ban] to other social media apps with foreign ties, including the China-based WeChat and Telegram, which was founded by two Russian-born entrepreneurs…
Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors:
A [typical and representative] Los Angeles [cop] has been charged with sexually assaulting four boys…Paul Razo…[molested] two of his young male relatives; one was 11 or 12 years old and the other was about 13 when the abuse began…The other two victims were sons of a woman Razo had been dating…one was 9 or 10 when Razo began molesting him, and the other…was 12…The assaults occurred between 2006 and 2017…
UPDATE: Razo has apparently died while in the “care” of his cronies.
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