Primaries are coming up! Time to do your homework!

I read this volume of the series much faster than the last one—perhaps because it was new to me and perhaps because the second round of the election motivated me to finish it—though I clearly won’t finish the series before today’s results were announced. Thematically, I thought the book was stranger. It put more emphasis on how laws and politics established under mainstream parties could become terrifying in the hands of far right extremists.

I have long supported Joseph-Beth, but this is giving me ideas for other bookstores to try!

Disappointing that G.O.P. leaders so quickly did an about face. January 6th was a terrible event, and it’s cynical and irresponsible to pretend anything otherwise.

I think this is the third time I’ve read this BD, but given the ongoing French presidential election and the possibility that Le Pen will pull off a win on the 24th, I wanted to revisit it—and read the other volumes in the trilogy, which I’ve never done. The BD isn’t the best—it’s overly didactic at times and the art aims for a photorealism that sometimes verges on the uncanny valley.

Most of this budget sounds great, but why are we budgeting for 75 more ALPRs when we haven’t even finished the trial of the current ones yet? Not to mention that the trial is unlikely to evaluate ethics, only “effectiveness.”

Never thought to connect Gab back to net neutrality; interesting reflection here.

There are a few yellow flags in this article for me. Quick and efficient sounds good, but are those the most important values in policing? What values do they stand in tension with? It’s great that there are policies against using a ALPR database for personal reasons, but these policies regularly get violated. No, these aren’t videosurveillance cameras, but that doesn’t make them harmless.

Hooray for additional bike infrastructure!

Grumpy about this this morning.

Very interesting read. I have never been a Republican, but I frequently voted GOP prior to 2016. Because my personal political views have shifted since then, it’s hard to say whether I would vote for a GOP that throws off the Trump baggage, but I do hope such a party one day re-emerges. I may not agree with it, but we certainly need it.

Bad faith edits were the main reason why I’ve never jumped on the “edit button” train, so I think this is a good way to handle this.

Interesting read on potential stakes of France’s presidential election.

Good article on our past optimism for Putin.

Fascinated by this article for so many reasons. First, it’s a great example of meaningful practices in online spaces; second, it brings it back to the need for more, smaller platforms.

Reading about Mike Lee’s attempts to interfere with the election reminds me of the missionary companion who dreamed of rising high enough in the FBI to be ready to help Salt Lake carry out a coup if needed.

I have only been reading Techdirt for a short amount of time, but I increasingly appreciate Masnick’s perspectives on issues like this.

Worrying stuff out of Utah.

Content moderation is a necessity, and Musk’s take here is wildly irresponsible.

Losing dumb TVs is not an acceptable option.

This story just keeps getting worse.

Please be skeptical of anyone who describes platform content moderation as censorship.

Seems to me that folks truly concerned about the integrity of women’s sports would have more to say about this.

This matches rhetoric I’m reading while doing research on Gab. We need respectable conservative movements in the U.S., but our contemporary mainstream right is flirting with these ideas instead of denouncing them. It’s troubling

Faut pas oublier ces liens quand-même.

Litmus tests like this are making me even more worried about the future.

Wish that I’d been paying better attention to this legislation. Libraries are pillars of our communities and ought to retain partisan independence.

I think today demonstrates both the superority of France’s two-round presidential elections to U.S. first-past-the-post BUT ALSO the inferiority of both compared to ranked-choice voting.

Faut pas transformer l’Ukraine un héros irréprochable.

Insightful piece on trolling and feeding trolls.

All platforms moderate content, most content moderation isn’t censorship.

If I can help it, I will never buy a smart TV. I appreciate the suggestion to consider a monitor as a dumb TV.

Weaponization of copyright filters is awful, and it’s not even the worst thing about this story.

Keeping an eye on France’s elections in April and then Idaho’s in May, I guess.

Frustrating to see steps that feel like progress seem to shore up the tech giants I hoped were being kept in check.

I have been meaning to read this for quite some time, as it is the first volume in the most recent official history of Community of Christ. I’m also looking forward to the next two volumes, since they cover history that I am not familiar with, but it was especially interesting to read a Community of Christ perspective on the 1830-1844 era. I appreciated the frankness and openness of the volume—it’s impossible to imagine an LDS version of this book taking the same approach.