With poor data, deficient requirements and little oversight, massive public spending still hasn’t solved the rural internet access problem

What about the events of the past few weeks has surprised you, and what was the predictable result of Biden’s policy announcement in April?

Many Americans aren’t aware they’re being tracked with facial recognition while shopping

Real Milk, No Cows Necessary

With ‘bounce tracking,’ web-sites can circumvent the cookie blocking built into many browsers.

Is it a stretch to assume that the DOJ decides that all mixers predominately exist to launder money and anybody who participates whatsoever can be charged with conspiracy to facilitate laundering? Does ownership of TORN itself make you susceptible to such charges? Does listing TORN on an exchange?

A letter sent by Digital Agenda committee chairman Manuel Hoferlin claims Apple is treading a “dangerous path” and is undermining “secure and confidential communication,” according to Heise Online. The letter to Cook urges Apple to not implement the system, both to protect society’s data, and to avoid “foreseeable problems” for the company itself.

In March, Petaluma in Sonoma county became the first city in the US to ban future gas station construction or any new pumps on existing sites. In July Sonoma county’s Regional Climate Protection Authority voted to explore ways to support the nine cities in the county considering bans of their own. A final vote on the resolution is scheduled for September.

Apple says researchers can vet its child safety features. But it’s suing a startup that does just that.

This is a far greater return than was available in the overall stock market over the same period. $10,000 invested in an S&P 500 index fund on September 18, 2001, would now be worth $61,613. That is, defense stocks outperformed the stock market overall by 58 percent during the Afghanistan War.

Now, while the biggest US military failure in our lifetimes is going on—the final dishonorable chapter to a saga sparked by an attack that claimed more American lives than Antietam or Pearl Harbor—both the president and his spokesperson are simply, unbelievably just…not at work. Psaki, who had plenty of time to do Vogue covers and make TikTok videos with influencers, is simply not responding to email and is apparently on vacation. Biden himself hasn’t said or tweeted anything of substance either (as of this writing he’s scheduled a speech this afternoon). The progressive wing of the party in power—Bernie, AOC, the ‘squad’, the whole crew that normally tweets 10 times per day and has opinions on everything—goes absolutely mute when confronted by some hard, inconvenient reality outside the US liberal bubble like Cuba or Afghanistan. As the situation in Afghanistan worsened, the charismatic new face of progressive politics was…enthusing about public libraries. Yay!

Apple’s device surveillance plan is a threat to user privacy — and press freedom

One interesting thing about all this is that the same illiberalism that Orban’s American critics accuse him of is pretty much a fact of life in contemporary America, under liberalism. It can sometimes be worse. In Orban’s Hungary, you are perfectly free to criticize the government’s stance on gender ideology, and you will not have to worry about being cancelled at your job or in any other way. Is that true in the US? Of course not, not for many millions of us.

REUTERS: “The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result.”

Free Software NOT as in `free speech,` NOR as in `free beer

End of Social Media

Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions from their burps, research finds

Poorly resourced state governments are no match for the lobbying firepower of Apple, the most valuable company in the world.

Five minutes! Such were the demands on the news agenda of the looming coronavirus pandemic in the early spring of 2020. Coverage of all other developments was eclipsed by COVID. The networks had long since given up covering the war as a war. The pandemic meant that they barely paid attention to the prospect of peace.