Since former President Trump is apparently filing lawsuits in an attempt to regain access the social media platforms he's been banned from, I figure it's time to remind folks about how the First Amendment works.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of ( Read more... )

I got some forms in the mail the other day. They included a seperate sheet of "Important notice" in a variety of languages.

Here's a list of them in order of appearance:

English
Spanish
Russian
Vietnamese
Amharic
Arabic
Bosnian
Burmese
Cambodian
Chinese
Chinese(Simplified)
Farsi
French
Hindi
Hmong
Karen
Korean
Lao
Mien
Nepali
Oromo
Pashto/Pashtu
Romanian
Somali
Swahili
( Read more... )

I was reading an EFF post about police requesting copies of videos from Amazon Ring cameras and similar gizmos to try to identify protestors.

That reminded me of threads on using IR LEDs to mask your face from cameras.

My mind took it in a different direction. Make a loose net with LEDs at the junctions. A small, thin cable connects it to a battery ( Read more... )

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tulsi-gabbard-anti-transgender-bill-title-ix_n_5fd2de33c5b66a75841389b5

This is wrong-headed on so many levels.

First of all, it's pushing the idea that sex is binary, and strictly determined by external genetalia.

Second it assumes that "sex" is always determined correctly at birth.

Both of these points ignore the ( Read more... )

The Supreme copurt ruled that the Civil Rights Act's section regarding discrimination on the basis of sex *does* apply to homosexuals and transgender folks . So now sexual orientation and gender identity are protected classes.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/15/863498848/supreme-court-delivers-major-victory-to-lgbtq-employees?utm_campaign=npr&utm_source ( Read more... )

In a word, these folks are *idiots ( Read more... )

Pirate Jenny (from The Threepenny Opera) sun by Lotte Lenya (who sang the the original German version in the movie back in 1931)

Click to view

Warning: the dream she describes is more than a bit violent. not *detailed* violence, but...

Interesting side note. When Bobby Darin sang his version of Mack the Knife (Also from The Threepenny Opera) he included her ( Read more... )

Reading an article
( Read more... )

The two are essentially the same, it's just that "white nationalism" is an attempt to sound better ( Read more... )

... or "that phrase doesn't mean what you think it does ( Read more... )