Category: Monday Links

Well, this week will be a grab bag of links.

Reason first, starting with a couple of COVID retrospectives.

Do face masks work? A look at the evidence. The only time I wear a mask these days is if I’m actively sick and I’m forced to go out into public. I keep a few disposable N95’s in my various bags.

How many Americans died from COVID-19? As the article states, these numbers are going to be contested for decades. The range for the 1918 Spanish Flu is between 17 million and 100 million.

Standard piece on ending daylight savings time. Based on what happened in the 70’s, I lean more to staying on DST, but I’d be happy with just staying on one. For some reason, this time change has Ward Manor more discombobulated than normal.

Union makes outrageous claims when DHS reneges on union contract for TSA. I’m not a fan of how unions work these days – particularly government unions. I’m not a member of the union at the day job, but I’m still bound by the contract they negotiated. Then there’s the part of me that says it’s one thing to let a contract lapse and another to just break a contract. On the gripping hand, there’s something to be said about doing what you can to get out of a bad deal.

Georgia passed an anti-doxxing bill that was written poorly. Broadly written laws leaves a lot of room for abuse.

Cornell is disciplining students and student groups for disrupting a speaking event. And not just slaps on the wrists either.

Take a couple hundred bucks out of an ATM? The feds want to know about it. Especially if you’re too close to Mexico. No, this won’t be abused. History is so replete with examples of the feds upholding the highest standards of following the spirit of their laws.

I have a trio tech stories.

A Bloomberg article on Apple planning to bring live translate to its AirPods. I have some interest in this. I wonder if it would do it for anime I’m listening to on my AirPods?

From The Verge, Apple has agreed to support a new message encryption protocol that will make it interoperable with Android. No news if that means the green bubble / blue bubble divide will continue.

From CNN, iRobot’s future is in doubt. Thanks EU from blocking the sale to Amazon in order to “protect consumers.” Hopefully the robots in Ward Manor won’t be affected too much if iRobot goes under. Well, at least Eufy’s tend to go on sale pretty frequently.

A couple of gun stories.

Fox News article on Arkansas public school students being required to take a gun safety course. With the ubiquitous nature of guns in America, every child should know at least the four rules with some heavy doses of Eddie the Eagle thrown in at the beginning. It’s like swimming. You may never plan on taking your child anywhere near a pool, lake, river, or ocean, but there’s enough of those around that it’s best if kids know how.

From Shooting Illustrated, Tam has a piece on why you may need different carry pistols for different situations. It was one of the reasons I like having a compact M&P and a full-size one.

A couple of local stories.

The Rays backed out of a stadium deal. Now local leaders and sports fans are wondering how to keep the team in the area. I still hold that if the Rays want a stadium, make them pay for it.

An article on the endangered nature of Florida’s orange groves. It’s a story we’ve been seeing a lot lately around Ward Manor. The children of old family farms don’t want to take over the business and the demand for land has driven up prices that makes selling a good way to make the family fortune. This is before you throw in the greening epidemic.

Finishing up with a couple of lighter science stories.

Saturn is now the “moon king” of the solar system after more than a hundred new moons have been confirmed.

Via The Brother, we have an article on how different languages hear and say animal sounds.

After two weeks of no Monday Links, I had quite a stack of links. I’m posting the ones that weren’t time sensitive.

Let’s clear the Reason links first.

Chicago taxpayers shelled out more than $100 million to settle police misconduct suits.

A thinkpiece advocating a flat tax. I’m all for a flat tax. Particularly if means special interests can’t fiddle with the tax code.

Why is the internet celebrating a murderer?

The FTC wants to make social media more fair. Proving once again that the right doesn’t want to stop the power grabs of the left. They want to use that power for themselves.

The Supreme Court heard a case of Mexico suing American gun makers. Of course it’s the gun makers fault that Mexico is a mess. Not their own corruption or culture.

Jay Bhattacharya’s Confirmation Hearing Proves the Lockdown Skeptics Won. This was one of Trump’s appointees I was glad to see.

Apple is taking the UK to court over the demand for a backdoor. Personally, there’s part of me that thinks Apple should take the same stance Randy Barrett took with California. If the UK makes unreasonable demands from Apple, then Apple should withdraw all of its products and services from the UK.

How to recover from debanking.

In defense of dollar stores.

I have a few articles from Gizmodo.

Uber for Armed Guards. Personally, I’m fine with a service that can deliver armed security. Particularly if it does the same as Uber and brings down prices so more people have access if they have to travel to places where they can’t bring their own tools.

A man credited with saving over two million lives has passed away at age 88. Not all heroes wear capes.

NASA tests a new quiet supersonic engine. All the speed without the property damage.

More stories.

From The Free Press, What Does It Mean To Be A Man?

From SNN, there was a heck of a road takeover down on Alligator Alley involving exotic sportscars.

From Beebom, Microsoft now has an ad-supported version of Office, but didn’t tell anyone.

From Fox Business, Moody’s reports that top ten percent of earners are responsible for almost half of the consumer spending.

From AthlonOutdoors, Massad Ayoob discusses when it is time to talk with the prosecutor after a self-defense incident. When Mas talks, I listen.

From American Cop, an article on searching with a weapon-mounted light. In particular, using reflected light so you don’t point the weapon at something you don’t want shot. Good advice. (H/t Tam)

For our light item, a new phonetic alphabet. Someone’s been listening to Barenaked Ladies too much. (h/t The Brother)

You forget in four years the frenetic pace of news from Trump’s last time. There’s a bunch of news. This week DOGE, corruption scandals, tariffs, and guns feature heavily.

Let’s start with DOGE first.

From Reason, DOGE has uncovered fraud in its review of federal spending.

From Reason, 5 of USAID’s worst scandals. Folding it back into State was a good move. Let the diplomats direct how we use soft diplomacy.

From Reason, in the name of transparency, DOGE is starting to put its finding on the web. However, according to 404, there was a lack of security on the database.

Let’s discuss a couple of big corruption scandals.

One concern with Musk was that he would use his influence to direct more government money to his companies. From NPR, State was set to buy $400 million of armored Cybertrucks. No, it was armored electric vehicles. No, never mind, we aren’t really going to buy anything.

The other big one brewing was the Thursday Night Massacre. BBC has the overview. Trump ordered corruption charges to be dropped against New York Mayor Eric Adams in return for Adams’ help with immigration sweeps. Seven New York prosecutors resigned instead. The Free Press took a look at the Trump-appointed lead prosecutor who first refused the order to drop charges and resigned. At least Trump says the quiet part out loud when he’s doing corrupt actions.

A couple of Reason articles on tariffs.

Why steel and aluminum tariffs are bad for American energy.

Reciprocal tariffs could be the largest tax increase in the last eighty years.

Let’s look at guns.

From The Hill, an article by David Yamane looking at the changing face of gun ownership.

From The Reload, Trump orders a review of federal gun policy. One hopes that it will include conforming the rules around carrying concealed on federal property to the laws of the state.

From Reason, Little Rock is getting rid of its Shot Spotter contract. The city joins many others in realizing how worthless the whole system is.

From Reuters, Baltimore is suing Glock over “Glock switches”. It will be interesting to see how this runs up against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.

From TFB, reports that ATF is still looking to go after people who put pistol braces on their “large-format pistols”.

Also from TFB, a review of Magpul’s TMAGs. I will admit, I’m very interested in these. Particularly in the Bren.

A couple more Reason articles.

What is the SEC hiding with all the gag orders it puts on the people it prosecutes?

A nuclear powered battery?

Now on to other stories of interest.

From Wired, Thomson Reuters wins against an AI company using its data to make a competing product. The case has some interesting implications for the wider use of copyright materials by LLMs.

The Hollywood Reporter has an article on more people watching YouTube on televisions than any other type of device. I find this interesting as the television is the device I watch the least when it comes to YouTube.

From NPR, the Trump restores the name of Fort Bragg, by renaming the base after a completely different Bragg. Honestly? This is very clever. I fully agree with the renaming of bases named after traitorous Confederates. I also understand servicepeoples feeling connected to their bases and not want to seeing them renamed.

From The Hill, Joanne Fabrics is expecting to close some 500 of its 850 stores as it deals with a second bankruptcy. Fortunately for The Wife and MIL, the one they normally frequent wasn’t on the list. Still, it’s not a good sign for one of their favorite stores.

From a local station, a Florida lawmaker is pushing a bill to limit the amount of total time a person can serve in the Florida legislature. Honestly, this is one of the better proposals I’ve seen in regards to term limits.

From another local station, pet owners are urged to get their pets re-microchipped after Save This Life went bankrupt and stopped monitoring the chips they put in.

Let me place a disclaimer here. I am not going to be immediately linking to the furor of the day. Too many of these (on both sides) pan out to be little more than the chattering class version of vaporware. I am also kind of done with both sides filling the newsfeeds with bullshit stories to chum the waters and fellate their fans. So, don’t be surprised if we have short lists. Like this week.

From Reason, a DOJ attorney is arguing in court that money doesn’t count as property. There’s part of me that wants to blame some of this on the government’s reliance of plea deals that it doesn’t have the muscle memory for actual legal fights.

From Reuters, Amazon may be debuting an AI-powered Alexa soon. This has my attention since Ward Manor is wired for the Echo ecosystem. Do I use the Echos to their full potential now? No. Will I with an AI-powered voice assistant? Maybe, but I will probably have a bunch more functionality.

From The Free Press, Betsy DeVos, Education Secretary in Trump’s first term, advocates abolishing the department.

From Gizmodo, it looks like there is a revival for Buffy.