Disappointing news, but glad for the fight that the EFF and others are waging. link to ‘EFF’s Flagship Jewel v. NSA Dragnet Spying Case Rejected by the Supreme Court | Electronic Frontier Foundation’

The only thing worse than the already-bad reality of powerful, private data brokers is public agencies buying what they have to sell. link to ‘How the Federal Government Buys Our Cell Phone Location Data | Electronic Frontier Foundation’

This is a peak example of what performative concerns about “free speech” boil down to. link to ‘Trump’s ‘Free Speech’ Social Network, Truth Social, Is Banning People For Truthing The Truth About January 6 Hearings | Techdirt’

I haven’t read much about this bill, but it’s worrying that powerful entities have such an advantage in the debate about limiting their power. link to ‘Big Tech Has Spent $36 Million on Ads to Torpedo Antitrust Bill - WSJ’

Depressing read, though I’ll freely admit I haven’t been paying enough attention here myself. link to ‘Telecom Lobbyists Are About To Scuttle The Nomination Of A Popular Reformer To The FCC And Nobody Much Seems To Care | Techdirt’

Very, very interesting read on how the purported objectivity of big data is influencing how (conservative) judges use corpus linguistics. link to ‘The linguistics search engine that overturned the federal mask mandate - The Verge’

A few weeks ago, I posted about Book of Mormon dependence on the King James Version and the way that that sometimes raises interesting questions about how the text should be understood. As I continue my project of what a modern-language version of the Book of Mormon might look like, I’ve run into another example. 1 Corinthians 15:55 is referenced three times in the Book of Mormon, including in Mosiah 8 (Mosiah 16 LDS), where I’m currently working my way through the text.

What a mess. Glad to be pivoting toward my blog and Mastodon. link to ‘Elon Musk Threatens to End Twitter Deal Without Information on Spam Accounts - The New York Times’

What’s the point in having an ethics board if you’re going to so flagrantly ignore them? Good on members for responding with resignations, and thank goodness Axon woke up to how dunb their decision was. link to ‘Axon Halts Plans to Sell Flying Taser Drones to Schools’

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been putting a lot of work into adjusting my online presence, a project that I expect to last through most of the summer. In dividing my website into distinct subareas and pivoting from a single Twitter account to a number of Mastodon accounts, I’m trying to do something about the context collapse that’s been keeping me from sharing some of the big things going on in my life lately.

This is unbelievably dumb. School shootings can’t be solved by technology—it’s a social and political problem. Shame on Axon. link to ‘Firm proposes Taser-armed drones to stop school shootings : NPR’

Some good thoughts by Masnick on a good op-ed by Wheaton. link to ‘The Internet Can Still Be Small And Nice, But It’s On All Of Us To Make That Work | Techdirt’

I have long been skeptical of gas prices as a talking point. Some interesting thoughts in here. link to ‘Our Obsession With Gas Prices Is Driving America Nuts’

Thanks to a recommendation from BoingBoing, I just finished reading a Business Insider article describing a recent video in which Marjorie Taylor Greene: predicted that identifying as heterosexual will be a thing of the past within a period of less than 200 years thanks to LGBTQ-inclusive sex educators, who she called “trans terrorists.” More specifically, Greene was quoted as saying that heterosexual extinction would come about “probably in about four or five generations.

GOP has some reckoning to do. link to ‘Two-Thirds of Republicans Believe Great Replacement Theory, New Poll Shows’

Content moderation is a good thing, and ‘free speech’ should not be our primary concern when it comes to social media platforms. link to ‘Racist and Violent Ideas Jump From Web’s Fringes to Mainstream Sites - The New York Times’

Listening to The Aquabats tonight and remembering how I pegged the Mormon connection when I was first listening to them because of subtle allusions to food storage and pioneer hymns.

This is difficult but important to read. As gut wrenching as these shootings are, I am still distant enough from them that they don’t always stick with me. It’s helpful if depressing to read about what sticks with others who are closer to them. [link to ‘A Reporter Reflects on Covering Seven Mass Shootings — ProPublica’](https://www.propublica.org/article/shooting-news-msm-reporter-essay

Disappointing but unsurprising. I wish McConnell would show as much willingness to call out Republicans on guns as he does for Ukraine. link to ‘McConnell mum on guns as U.S. Senate recesses for a week – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville’

Tom the Dancing Bug is usually just the right level of dark. link to ‘Richard Scarry’s 21st Century Classroom | Boing Boing’

It makes me sick and angry to read all of this. We have so badly failed the children of this country. link to ‘‘It Was the Wrong Decision’: Uvalde Cops Waited in Hallway as Kids Called 911 Begging to Be Saved From Gunman’

Imagine thinking that this is the price we pay for American exceptionalism. Imagine thinking that mourning these children and wanting to do something about it is a partisan agenda. link to ‘Ted Cruz walks away after reporter asks him why mass shootings keep happening : NPR’

I suspect that there is nothing as damning in Mormon history as Mormons’ failure to own up to that history, and Jana’s writing here captures that nicely. link to ‘‘Under the Banner of Heaven’ raises the question: Are Mormons dangerous?’

This is one of the best things The Onion has ever done. link to ‘‘The Onion’ has reused this satire after more than 20 mass shootings since 2014 : NPR’

Love this. link to ‘Florida student suing over ‘Don’t Say Gay’ uses curly hair as commencement speech code | The Hill’

Fascinating (if worrying) article on just how important the basic mechanics of an election are. link to ‘The election system shuddered in 2020. Now, there are fears of an attack within : NPR’

Lots of interesting ideas in this interview. I particularly like libraries running Mastodon instances. link to ‘Why we need a public internet and how to get one - The Verge’

Let’s do the same in the U.S., please. link to ‘Clearview AI ordered to delete facial recognition data belonging to UK residents - The Verge’

I don’t think I want a Pence presidency any more than another Trump one, but I do want to see the GOP wrestle with what it’s going to be going forward. link to ‘Pence, Tiptoeing Away From Trump, Lays Groundwork for ’24 Run - The New York Times’

Glad that there hasn’t been much conversation about this in Kentucky, but it’s still really worrying stuff. link to ‘How Trump’s 2020 Election Lies Have Gripped State Legislatures - The New York Times’

It’s a bit of a truism to say that the Book of Mormon is dependent on Biblical language, but one thing that’s been on my mind for the past few years (especially since reading Thomas Wayment’s excellent The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints) is how specifically dependent it is on the particular language of the King James Version of the Bible. Over the past year or so, as a personal project, I’ve been toying around with what a modern-language version of the Book of Mormon would look like.

Pretty upset about these results from the primary. I voted for the other candidate and was shocked to find Young won. At least I have a few months to figure out who to write in. link to ‘Beshear, KDP will not back Democratic candidate for U.S. House seat’

Last night, I had a bizarre dream that I was telling Ted Cruz that he was a jerk but that I didn’t mind when it was directed at Madison Cawthorn. Don’t know if that fully reflects my waking views, and don’t know anything about the victor here, but I am glad to see Cawthorn lose. link to ‘Madison Cawthorn is beaten in North Carolina’s GOP primary : NPR’

Content moderation is (sometimes) a good thing. link to ‘How the Buffalo shooting livestream went viral - The Verge’

Religious freedom isn’t worth anything if it’s only a shield for conservative Christianity. link to ‘We’re Suing Kentucky Prisons for Violating the First Amendment | ACLU of Kentucky’

What a troll. Even if the deal falls through, the way in which a sole rich dude can mess around with Twitter is souring me on the platform. link to ‘Elon Musk Says Twitter Deal ‘Cannot Move Forward’ in Current State - The New York Times’