Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 28/05/2022: Twitter Fined for Spying in '2FA' Clothing



  • GNU/Linux

    • Server

      • Kubernetes BlogKubernetes 1.24: Maximum Unavailable Replicas for StatefulSet

        Kubernetes StatefulSets, since their introduction in 1.5 and becoming stable in 1.9, have been widely used to run stateful applications. They provide stable pod identity, persistent per pod storage and ordered graceful deployment, scaling and rolling updates. You can think of StatefulSet as the atomic building block for running complex stateful applications. As the use of Kubernetes has grown, so has the number of scenarios requiring StatefulSets. Many of these scenarios, require faster rolling updates than the currently supported one-pod-at-a-time updates, in the case where you're using the OrderedReady Pod management policy for a StatefulSet.

        Here are some examples:

        In order to support such scenarios, Kubernetes 1.24 includes a new alpha feature to help. Before you can use the new feature you must enable the MaxUnavailableStatefulSet feature flag. Once you enable that, you can specify a new field called maxUnavailable, part of the spec for a StatefulSet. For example:

    • Kernel Space

      • GamingOnLinuxCorsair driver and UI for Linux ckb-next version 0.5.0 is out now

        Have some fancy Corsair hardware that you want to tweak on Linux? You need the ckb-next project, which has a new release out with version 0.5.0. With an aim to reproduce the features from the proprietary Corsair CUE software for Linux, it's filling a gap where the official vendor doesn't offer proper support.

      • CXL Mailbox Interface

        I always wanted to be a postal worker. Lots of fresh air, flexible hours, and making sure important information gets to their recipients. Coincidentally, CXL is like a postal worker, minus the fresh air. This will be a fairly straightforward post about how host software can talk to CXL devices and the implementation in the Linux driver, which landed in the 5.12 release.

      • LWNMcKenney: Stupid RCU Tricks: Is RCU Watching?
    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Linux Made SimpleHow to install melonDS 0.9.4 on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install melonDS 0.9.4 on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

      • Efficient emoji experience in Wayland

        I recently moved over to the Sway window manager (as I mentioned in my last post) and it runs on Wayland. That means bidding farewell to X. Although this is a step forward, it caused some of my workflows to break.

        My original post about my efficient emoji workflow inspired many people to give it a try. Everything was great until I moved to Wayland and suddenly rofimoji stopped pasting emojis on demand.

    • Games

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • Debian Family

      • Lawyer won't lie for Molly de Blanc & Chris Lamb (mollamby)

        We don't care about the privacy of what Chris Lamb and Molly de Blanc did in all those hotel rooms funded by diversity grants from Debian and other free software non-profits.

        What we care about is the unforgivable conflict of interest.

        Consider when Debian, under Chris Lamb, endorsed Molly de Blanc as a candidate for the board of another institution, the Open Source Initiative (OSI). When Debian made that endorsement, nobody said that Lamb, the leader of Debian, was in a sexual relationship with de Blanc but the lawyer is now hinting that was, in fact, the case.

        de Blanc was subsequently elected as President of the OSI. These two supposedly independent organizations were run by boyfriend and girlfriend. Screw them, if you'll excuse the pun.

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

    • Programming/Development

      • Learnings from 5 years of tech startup code audits

        2. Simple Outperformed Smart. As a self-admitted elitist, it pains me to say this, but it’s true: the startups we audited that are now doing the best usually had an almost brazenly ‘Keep It Simple’ approach to engineering. Cleverness for cleverness sake was abhorred. On the flip side, the companies where we were like ”woah, these folks are smart as hell” for the most part kind of faded. Generally, the major foot-gun (which I talk about more in a previous post on foot-guns) that got a lot of places in trouble was the premature move to microservices, architectures that relied on distributed computing, and messaging-heavy designs.

  • Leftovers

    • CoryDoctorowAttacking machine learning training by re-ordering data

      In a summary of the paper on Cambridge's security research blog, the researchers explain that even if you start with unbiased – that is, broadly representative – data, the order in which you present that data to a machine-learning model can induce bias: [...]

    • TediumBest Star Trek Songs: Sci-Fi Fandom With a Melody

      Some readers might have noticed my absence last month. Unfortunately, my father passed suddenly and I was out of commission for a while. As I looked through some of his stuff, I came across some things that reminded me of the times we would sit down together to watch Star Trek: the Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Thinking about those moments reminded me of some old files and pitches that I was working on a few years ago. I came across one idea and decided to flesh it out a bit: a piece on songs about a certain science fiction television show. If I recall correctly, the original outline of the piece was written for a certain site that ghosted me a few years ago. So, here it is, completely rewritten with fresh insights. So set your phasers to stun and beam up your sense of humor because in today’s Tedium, we’re going where no one has gone before: down the black hole of songs about Star Trek.

    • Hardware

      • The VergeChromebooks will now tell you when you’re using the wrong USB-C cable

        Google’s latest Chromebook update adds a feature that tells you if your USB-C cable has limited functionality, the company announced Friday. USB-C cables can have widely varying capabilities, offering things like different charging and data transfer speeds on a cable-by-cable basis, so this new Chromebook feature seems like it could be a useful tool to help troubleshoot issues.

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Common DreamsOpinion | How Many More Seniors Will Die of Covid-19 in Los Angeles County?

        One million Americans, over 90,000 people in California, and over thirty thousand Los Angeles County residents have died of Covid-19. The most vulnerable groups are seniors and people with disabilities, especially those that are homebound. The LA County Board of Supervisors should have made homebound people a priority. Instead, it failed them throughout the pandemic and continues to fail them today.

      • TruthOutBurned Out by COVID and 80-Hour Workweeks, Resident Physicians Are Unionizing
      • TruthOutEliminating Air Pollution Could Save More Than 53,000 Lives Per Year, Study Says
      • RTLGuns are now the leading cause of death for American children

        Firearms have surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among American youngsters, with official data showing a strong rise in gun-related homicides such as the killing of 19 children in a Texas school rampage.

      • ABCSupport For Gun Control Will Likely Rise After Uvalde. But History Suggests It Will Fade.

        FiveThirtyEight took a look at polling and media data to show how support for gun laws has increased amid intense media coverage of past school shootings, but then reverted back toward the previous mean as the media spotlight moved on to other issues. We examined the period around two school shootings in 2018 to see how coverage of those events corresponded with changes in support for increased gun control. Specifically, we examined data around the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the May 18, 2018, shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas.1 And as you can see in the chart below, there was an abrupt increase in the share of Americans who favored stricter gun laws right after each shooting, most especially Parkland, followed by a decline in support.

      • Texas School Shooting: Guns are the Top Cause of Death for U.S. Children

        Between 2019 and 2020, gun deaths in kids and adolescents increased by 29.5 percent, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine last month.

        The increase is twice as high as the increase recorded in the general population.

        The report also found that drug overdoses and poisoning in children and adolescents increased by 83.6 percent, making it the third leading cause of death in young people after car crashes.

      • [Old] NPRFirearms overtook auto accidents as the leading cause of death in children

        For decades, auto accidents have been the leading cause of death among children, but in 2020 guns were the No. 1 cause, researchers say.

        Overall firearm-related deaths increased 13.5% between 2019 and 2020, but such fatalities for those 1 to 19 years old jumped nearly 30%, according to a research letter in New England Journal of Medicine.

    • Proprietary

    • Security

      • Help Net SecurityHijacking of popular ctx and phpass packages reveals open source security gaps [Ed: This is not an "Open Source" issue but repository integrity issue; with proprietary software the same things happen, but you usually do not find out]

        The Python module “ctx” and a fork of the PHP library “phpass” have recently been modified by an unknown attacker to grab AWS credentials/keys and send them to a Heroku app.

      • Privacy/Surveillance

        • The VergeMeta rewrites privacy policy but says it won’t collect data in ‘new ways’

          With this revision, Meta “is not collecting, using or sharing your data in new ways based on this policy update and we still do not sell your information,” according to the company. Instead, this update tweaks the language and adds examples to help people understand what each segment is about.

          After reading through the new policy and comparing it to the old one, this appears to hold up, for better or worse. John Davisson, the senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in a comment to The Verge that the promise that this policy won’t share data in new ways sounds good, but “the problem is that Facebook already funnels user data at industrial scale into a vast targeted advertising ecosystem. So the status quo is not good for privacy.”

        • The HillDemocrats ask Apple, Google to prohibit apps from using data mining to target people seeking abortions

          A group of Senate Democrats asked Apple and Google to prohibit apps available in their app stores from using data mining practices to target people seeking abortion services in letters sent to the tech giants Friday.

          The senators, led by Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.), asked the companies to review and update their app store policies and practices as necessary to address concerns around allowing apps to engage in “data practices that may victimize individuals who seek or have sought abortion services.”

        • NBCTwitter fined $150 million on accusation of deceptive practices

          The FTC said in a statement that millions of Twitter users provided phone numbers or email addresses from 2014 to 2019 after the company told them the information would be used to help secure their accounts.

          Twitter then used that information for targeted advertising, the FTC alleged, allowing advertisers to reach specific consumers by matching the information with data they already had or had obtained from data brokers.

        • India TimesHow Fidelity Investments is monetizing data without selling it

          Data is the key to everything. And somehow, companies have lost their way in terms of how data is the foundation, and it's a separate and distinct engineering skill. And it needs a very focused attention if you truly want to harness the data.

          Three years ago, Fidelity decided it needed to harness the data it already had lying in over 35 data warehouses, some of which are much as 27 years old.

        • Graham CluleyUsing 2FA phone numbers for targeted advertising. One of the dumbest ways ever for a company to abuse its users’ trust. Take a bow, Twitter. And have a $150 million fine too.

          So why on *earth* would a company like Twitter want to undermine the general public’s confidence in 2FA, by helping advertisers target people through phone numbers and email addresses that had been collected to better secure their accounts?

        • The MarkupTech Industry Groups Are Watering Down Attempts at Privacy Regulation, One State at a Time

          And lobbyists have come in droves: We counted 445 lobbyists and lobbying firms that actively represented Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, TechNet, and the State Privacy and Security Coalition in the 31 states we examined, during the time those states’ legislatures were considering privacy legislation. Many of them registered as lobbyists for the first time in the weeks immediately before or after a privacy bill was introduced

          Up-to-date lobbying information wasn’t available in several states, so that tally is likely an undercount.

          The companies aren’t just employing similar tactics, they’re employing the same people—75 of the lobbyists we identified are affiliated with a single Sausalito, California–based firm, Politicom Law. We found Politicom-affiliated lobbyists working on behalf of Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft in 21 states that have considered privacy legislation.

        • EDRIBelgium wants to ban Signal – a harbinger of European policy to come

          The European law was declared invalid because the law obligated providers to keep data about everyone in Europe, even if there was no concrete suspicion of a crime. The court found that far too sweeping, and in violation of the European Charter of Human Rights. Moreover, the necessity of this far-reaching measure had not even been demonstrated. Since that famous ruling of the European Court, Member States have been working behind the scenes to devise alternatives. How can you (let someone else) retain “targeted” data, yet still collect as much data about people as possible?

          Our southern neighbours did not sit on their hands either. Last week the Belgian government released a proposal for new legislation. This proposal is over 800 pages long, partly because it is bilingual . With this proposal the government attempts to reintroduce long-term retention of metadata. To ensure that no one can claim this constitutes blanket data retention, this proposal only calls for retention of data in “specific” situations. Well, specific… Retention might be demanded if there is a serious threat to national security. A terrorist attack just across the border, for example, where the suspects are on the loose. That situation would allow everyone’s data to be stored. Or retention on the basis of a geographic location in the case of a more specific threat. For example, intelligence is picked up about a potential terrorist attack in a large city. That might trigger the retention of the data of everyone in the city and for miles around. With such broad definitions and an ongoing threat of terrorist attacks, it is likely that large parts of the Belgian population would fall within the scope of such an obligation.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • FAIR‘The “Great Replacement” Builds on Those Long Hatreds’

        Janine Jackson interviewed Matt Gertz and Eric K. Ward about the Buffalo massacre and “replacement theory” for the May 20, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

      • Counter PunchNorth Korea: Missiles Over Human Security

        After having proclaimed for more than two years that the country was untouched by the coronavirus, North Korea now faces a potential health catastrophe. Its unvaccinated population is succumbing to an Omicron variant, and the leadership is struggling to contain it. Figures on infections and deaths are very unreliable, but what is clear is that the Kim Jong-un regime is caught between unpalatable choices: either a complete national lockdown and acceptance of foreign help or tentative measures that run a high risk of failure.

        The central problem for the North Koreans is that they failed to take preventive steps when they had the time to do so. They could have accepted help from China, the UN, and Western sources to begin nationwide vaccinations. They could have begun a nationwide testing program along with hospital preparedness and stockpiling of equipment.

      • Common DreamsRight-Wing Supreme Court Poised to Make US Gun Carnage Even Worse

        Following yet another horrific school massacre—in which the lives of numerous children, teachers, and their families in Uvalde, Texas were destroyed by an 18-year-old wielding a pair of AR-15s—legal experts are warning that the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority is likely to soon make the nation's gun violence crisis even worse.

        At issue is the high court's looming decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

      • Common Dreams'Enough Is Enough!': Thousands Protest Outside NRA Convention in Texas

        In the wake of Tuesday's massacre of 21 students and staff at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, thousands of people protested angrily in Houston Friday to protest outside the National Rifle Association's annual convention to condemn the gun lobby's deep complicity in the nation's mass shooting epidemic.

        "We're building space to hold the families of Uvalde, to let them know that we are there for them, that we will stand up for them and we will be fighting for them."

      • Common DreamsOpinion | It's Simple: If You Don't Support Gun Control, You Support School Massacres

        I drove my daughter to school today.

      • France24Suspected jihadists kill dozens in eastern Burkina Faso

        The civilians from Madjoari died on Wednesday trying to flee a jihadist blockade, said Colonel Hubert Yameogo in a statement, adding that the toll was provisional.

        Survivors told AFP by telephone they had been trying to get away from the attackers as food ran out.

      • India TodayJ&K cop killed, daughter injured as terrorists open fire in Srinagar

        The victim has been identified as Saifullah Qadri, a Jammu and Kashmir Police officer. According to the police, the terrorists fired at Saifullah Qadri outside his house.

      • IndiaIslamic State Terrorists Kill More Than 70 People In 72 Hours In Nigeria

        But recently these groups are targeting civilians – mostly poor people who live collecting firewood and scrap items and farmers and herders – accusing them of spying on ISWAP.

        At least two million people in the region were displaced and the jihadist violence has killed more than 40,000 people.

      • VOA NewsNobel Laureate Denounces Rape as Weapon of War

        Mukwege's work is particularly relevant today as sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war in conflicts around the globe. He used two examples to illustrate the urgency of the issue: Ukraine and Ethiopia.

        Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, his foundation had established contact with women in Donbas who were raped in 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. There have been more than 700 reports of rape by Russian forces in Ukraine since the February invasion, the Ukrainian parliament's human rights ombudsman said May 9. In northern Ethiopia, both government and Tigrayan forces have been accused of sexual violence. Nisha Varia, formerly the advocacy director of Human Rights Watch's women's rights division, told VOA that rape in Tigray is being used as a weapon and is accompanied by ethnic slurs and other degradation.

      • FAIRIgor Volsky on Ending Gun Violence, Pat Elder on Junior ROTC
    • Environment

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • FAIRYouTube’s Biggest Info Channels Carry Corporate News, Not Alternative Views

        Despite the proliferation of fringe ideologies on YouTube—and the availability of truly alternative information there—the video hosting service’s anti-establishment status may be overblown.€  A FAIR analysis of the 100 most-subscribed YouTube news channels worldwide found that the majority of the top news channels on the platform are not independent.

      • MedforthCyberbullying of critic of Islam Mila: The accused are given sentences ranging from 3 months suspended to 4 months in prison by French court

        A more than expected verdict. Six men and women who had been tried in April for hate messages and calls for murder against Mila, a young woman who had been harassed online since her polemical video criticising Islam in 2020, were sentenced on Tuesday May 24 by the Paris Criminal Court to prison terms ranging from three months suspended to four months. Among them were three mothers who had been investigated last September by gendarmes from the Central Office for Combating Crimes against Humanity, Genocide and War Crimes (OCLCH), Le Parisien reported.

      • India TimesGoogle is in talks to join govt's open e-com network

        “We have nothing further to share at this point in time," the person added.

        Google Pay’s two main competitors – PhonePe and Paytm have already begun to integrate their services with ONDC. The network’s pilot programme was launched through a buyer app from Paytm, with the Noida based company stating that it will pivot to the ONDC network to drive the next stage of ecommerce.

      • Counter PunchFerdinand Marcos Jr. Should Be Fully Investigated, Not Congratulated

        They are dismissive of widespread concerns about irregularities and voter disenfranchisement. As just one of the many serious, documented, troubling examples, election observers have documented that more than 1,800 voting machines malfunctioned or failed affecting at least 1.1 million voters.

        The U.S. government’s acceptance of these fraudulent Philippine election results is a slap in the face of the many victims of the numerous human rights violations, murders and massive corruption under the prior Marcos dictatorship and the current Rodrigo Duterte regime. Rather than acknowledge the impacts of such an election on the many who have suffered human rights abuses in the Philippines, the Biden administration rushed to congratulate Marcos Jr.

    • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

      • VOA NewsDozen Journalists Held in Ethiopia Crackdown

        Authorities in the Amhara region said more than 4,000 people had been detained in an anti-crime operation but press watchdogs and rights groups reported that journalists had also been targeted.

        The latest arrests involved Temesgen Desalegn, editor-in-chief of the Amharic-language magazine "Fitih," who was picked up by plainclothes security forces from his office Thursday, his colleague Misgan Zinabu told AFP.

        "Initially, they took Temesgen to a local police station... later on security forces moved him to a secret location," the editor said, adding that his current whereabouts was unknown.

      • Common DreamsAl Jazeera Preparing ICC 'War Crimes' Case Against Israel for Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh

        The Al Jazeera Media Network announced Thursday it will submit to the International Criminal Court a case file regarding the killing of its veteran reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.

        Abu Akleh was shot dead on May 11 while covering a raid by Israeli forces on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. She was wearing a helmet and a blue protective vest clearly marked "Press."

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Counter PunchThe Need to Organize

        But what is normal, anyway? € Decades filled with war, inequity, poverty, and injustice? Really?€  Is this what we want — a society clearly failing its people?

        There are, of course, many groups working in wonderful ways to improve our lives, each of them a harbinger of what’s possible. These would certainly include Black Lives Matter, reproductive-rights organizations, and climate-change groups, as well as newly empowered union organizing, and that’s just to mention a few obvious examples.

      • Counter PunchPlanks and Specks

        The focus of these religious/political conservatives on the “sanctity of life” from conception forward is mind-boggling. Politicians, with clerical backing, are poised to make pre-viability abortion a felony crime and to grant “personhood” status to fetuses that could not live outside the womb. They have€  enlisted vigilantes to spy on pregnant women and their doctors and to sue them, have demonized and penalized women who seek abortion services, have disrupted the operations of abortion counselors and providers, and have required victims of rape and incest to carry the fruits of those crimes to term births.

        Unfortunately, their sanctimoniously-proclaimed concern for the sanctity of life stops abruptly when the baby is born.€  After that the mother is on her own–often trying to care for and support her child without adequate health and child care, rental assistance, social services and food-security.€  (The 2021 Montana legislature killed 11 bills that would have benefitted live children and their families).

      • TruthOutOverturning “Roe v. Wade” Could Also Hinder Access to IVF
      • The VergeAtlanta Apple store workers say ‘intimidation’ has made a fair union vote impossible

        In the runup to the now-canceled election, Apple has faced allegations of union-busting. The firm hired anti-union lawyers and has circulated anti-union messages through store leaders and even video messages from executives. The CWA also filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging that the company has held captive-audience meetings in Atlanta to push back against organizing. The NLRB is trying to make these types of meetings illegal.

      • TruthOutTo End Mass Shootings, We Need to Change the Deeper Structure of Life in the US
      • SalonTexas cops’ claims unravel: Police didn’t "engage" Uvalde shooter — but they cuffed scared parents

        The suspect was in the classroom for about an hour as police gathered outside while worried parents begged officers to enter the building and stop the gunman. Escalon claimed police during this time were evacuating other parts of the school and at some point tried to negotiate with the suspect. Eventually, a Border Patrol tactical team arrived and breached the classroom, killing the suspect in a shootout, according to Escalon.

        It's unclear why it took so long for law enforcement to stop the gunman. Most "active shooter" attacks in the U.S. end within five minutes, according to FBI data, but the Uvalde attack lasted 12 times as long. CNN reported that there were about 100 federal agents and local police officers on the scene.

      • TruthOutPolice Didn't "Engage" Uvalde Shooter -- But They Handcuffed Terrified Parents
      • Rolling StoneCops Keep Changing Their Story About What Happened in Uvalde. Here’s What We Know

        There was more gunfire, and by 11:51 more officers began to arrive. Just after noon, there were as many as 19 officers in the hallway, according to McCraw. They did not breach the door despite continuing to hear gunshots from the room, where officials have said they believe most, if not all, of the 21 victims were killed.

        McCraw noted that people were calling 911 — including students — from inside the classroom. One caller at 12:15 described eight or nine children still being alive. “Please send the police now,” another said.

      • NBCFederal agents entered Uvalde school to kill gunman despite local police initially asking them to wait

        Federal agents who went to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday to confront a gunman who killed 19 children were told by local police to wait and not enter the school — and then decided after about half an hour to ignore that initial guidance and find the shooter, say two senior federal law enforcement officials.

      • VOA NewsPolice on Scene Made Decision to Wait Before Entering Texas School

        McGraw said as many as 19 police officers arrived at the scene and were in a hallway of the school, but the incident commander felt a tactical team was needed to perform the required police operation.

        U.S. Border Patrol tactical officers eventually arrived, along with other officers and equipment, including a ballistics shield. They entered the classroom where Ramos was situated and where he was shot and killed.

        McGraw said based on sounds recorded on security cameras and shell casings found at the scene, Ramos fired more than 100 rounds during the incident.

      • FirstpostUttar Pradesh: Muslim man held for trying to kill wife he married after forcing her to convert

        The case against the trio was lodged under sections 323 (causing hurt), 354(B) (assaulting a woman to disrobe her), 307 (attempt to murder), 506 (issuing threat) and 504 (causing insult) of the Indian Penal Code, police said.

        The FIR lodged at Bulandshahr's Kotwali police station also listed sections 3 and 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, which deals with forcing or tricking one to change his or her religion and the punishment for it, they said.

      • New York TimesUvalde Live Updates: ‘It Was the Wrong Decision,’ Police Say of Delay in Confronting Gunman

        In Uvalde, Texas, some of the worst fears about the police response to the school shooting rampage were confirmed on Friday when state law enforcement officials acknowledged that more than an hour lapsed after the shooting began, as the police waited to enter the classroom where students were trapped inside.

        [...]

        Students who were in the classroom with the gunman called 911 several times, including a lengthy call during which some shooting and other sounds of the attack could be heard, according to Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

      • The NationTime to Put the “Good Guy With a Gun” Delusion Out of Its Misery

        The Wall Street Journal offered the striking story of Angeli Rose Gomez, a farm supervisor. According to the newspaper, “she was one of numerous parents who began encouraging—first politely, and then with more urgency—police and other law enforcement to enter the school. After a few minutes, she said, federal marshals approached her and put her in handcuffs, telling her she was being arrested for intervening in an active investigation.” After she was freed, Gomez “jumped the school fence, and ran inside to grab her two children. She sprinted out of the school with them.”

        The abject failure of the “good guys with guns” to do their job hasn’t stopped Republicans from continuing to try to deflect attention from gun control with the false promise of even more armed school security. In the day after news of the atrocity broke, the near-constant refrain on Fox News from both pundits and politicians was a supposed need to “harden” schools via single-door entrances, more security guards, and perhaps even armed teachers.

      • Houston ChronicleEditorial: Where were the heroes? Police stood by as Uvalde students died, begged for help

        The officers refuse. Instead, as children faced imminent threat inside, officers busied themselves corralling parents, patrolling the barrier with tasers and even handcuffing and subduing parents on the ground if they didn’t comply, according to video and witness accounts.

      • Los Angeles TimesAs police waited, children inside Texas school called 911 begging for help

        With 19 officers, McCraw said, there were “plenty of officers to do whatever needed to be done.” But the commander inside — Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District chief of police — decided the team needed more equipment and officers to enter the classroom where the shooter was holed up. He said the team did not move to take out the gunman until a full U.S. Border Patrol tactical unit arrived.

    • Monopolies

      • The HillKlobuchar’s revised antitrust ‘pet project’ makes the same mistakes

        The bill raises several fundamental issues. If a business practice is bad, shouldn’t it be illegal for every business, not just a select few? Are voters clamoring for self-preferencing to be “fixed”? Does legislating via market cap open the door to future crony capitalism and sectoral regulation? Does the legislation give far too much regulatory authority to the Biden Federal Trade Commission or Department of Justice?

        Instead of addressing these important questions, the newest version of S. 2992 nibbles around the edges to exempt a select few industries and companies from being whacked with new regulations. The new draft eliminates the distinction between publicly traded and privately held companies, striking the provision added during markup that would sweep in private companies over $30 billion. It also modifies the definition of an online platform to explicitly exclude broadband providers and internet service providers (ISPs). The updated draft removes “facilitating payment” language from the covered platform definition, exempting banks and credit card companies.



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IBM's efforts to hide or belittle layoffs is noteworthy
Tracing Back the Misuse of the Word "Buyout" to Describe Merciless Mass Layoffs
So we can assume very large Microsoft layoffs are on the way, this time not spun as "buyouts"
Growing the List of Sites That Are Rogue
It's very important to raise and spread awareness of which ones are fake
Links 28/04/2026: Uganda Criminalising ‘Foreign Agents’ and China’s Economy "Starts to Show Cracks"
Links for the day
Anthropic and Claude Are National Security Risks Not Because of Politics But False Marketing and Vandalism, Plagiarism Sold as Innovation
The slop hype is causing severe damage
Like GAFAM, US Telecom Industry Has Severe Debt Problem
Maybe their real problem is true profitability
Gemini Links 28/04/2026: Misfin, ELPiS, and Developing Another Gemini Client
Links for the day
US Government Sites See More Traffic From Apple Devices Than Microsoft Windows PCs
Keep this in mind when Microsoft talks about mass layoffs while calling these "buyouts"
Layoffs Versus Buyouts
Microsoft has mass layoffs and those target the most experienced people in one of the best-paid locations
Latest Example of False Marketing by Anthropic
Like Scam Altman, they're better at buying publicity (paying for hype) than they are at delivering something of genuine value [...] That has the full make-up of fake news and a publicity stunt
IBM: From RAs to "Workforce Re-balancing" (New Names for Mass Layoffs)
Well, "workforce re-balancing" means "RAs", which is a misleading acronym IBM has devised to soften if not hide mass layoffs.
Aaron Hillel Swartz Would Have Turned 40 This Year
Aaron Swartz killed himself in 2013
The Trumps Are Making Jimmy Kimmel More Famous and Popular
Comedy has long been "controversial", but trying to get people sacked for the 'wrong' joke results in having no comedians or only pseudo-comedians who are the dictator's jester/joker
Microsoft's Grip Has Slipped, Market Share Steadily Declining
This is why Microsoft is having financial issue
Links 28/04/2026: Microsoft's GitHub Upselling After Two Leaders Jumped Ship (Losses Pile Up), "Inflation Jumps," and More
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 60 Out of 200: Talking About Corruption at Microsoft and Arrest for Strangulation is "Malice"
At the moment Brett Wilson LLP has no new clients
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part VIII - "Red Line" When the European Patent Office (EPO) President Sleeps With Sister of "Cocaine Communication Manager" (Whom He Unconditionally Protects)
If only management took its own words (idealistic pontification) seriously
IBM Laying Off Thousands of Workers Again, Based on Q1 Earnings Call
under the guise of "workforce rebalancing" we are again seeing that IBM plans to pay people (severance) to leave
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 27, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, April 27, 2026
Gemini Links 28/04/2026: Good Sunrise Viewing and Self-hosting from Home
Links for the day[1;5C
Microsoft Insiders: If You Don't Take the Lousy Severance-Like Offer, They'll PIP You Out (Microsoft Signals to People Over 40 That They'd Better Vacate the Place)
Microsoft targets its most experienced (read: expensive) workers
"AI" 16 Times in One 'Article'. The Register MS Got Paid to Post This Spammy, Promotional Piece of Slop.
Pay closer attention to who pays and who gets paid
Links 27/04/2026: Chernobyl Disaster at 40, "Heartbreaking" Decline of Australia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/04/2026: Gopher Catchup, MNT Reform, and Injuries
Links for the day
Red Hat Circling Down the Slop Drain
IBM, governed by slop fanatics, is going to do a lot of damage
Slop is an Addiction, Its Users Find It Addictive
please do not tolerate people who slop
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part VII - Secrecy at the EPO (Regarding Cocaine and Nepotism) Has Undermined Trust in Management
If Europe's second-largest institution is run by the "Alicante Mafia", does this mean that other key European institutions are "Mafia"?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 59 Out of 200: Mentioning the Fact Alex Graveley Arrested and Charged for Strangulation in Texas is "Reckless" and "Malicious", According to His 'Hired Guns' in London
it was framed as "malicious"
Links 27/04/2026: Strikes, Corruption in Spain (Spanish PM Sanchez' Wife), and YouTuber Faces Jail Time
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/04/2026: Gopher Catch-up, Year of Contentment, and Path to Freedom
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 26, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, April 26, 2026