Another doctor gives a more optimistic take on Omicron

 

ZDoggMD offers a video with a more optimistic take on the situation with the Omicron variant.

He castigates the world for punishing South Africa with travel bans given its honesty about surveillance.

He is also less confident that Omicron is actually outcompeting Delta.

We still don’t have any real info on how severe any of the cases are. Generally, on Saturday AM, observers were cautiously optimistic that existing vaccines will prevent serious illness, but probably should be updated quickly. 

Picture: Wikipedia embed of Soweto Pride, 2012. click for attribution 

The Omicron Variant and the prospect of exponential spread (John Campbell)

 

John Campbell gives a sobering discussion of “The O Variant” (Omicron variant), declared a variant of concern by WHO despite having just been discovered Nov. 24.  Even with a small initial sample, there is evidence that Omicron is “outcompeting” Delta in South Africa.

One interesting speculation is that the variant may have been created in a single immunocompromised person with HIV and without retroviral therapy.  But no such occurrence with an “opportunistic infection” happened in any person with AIDS in the 1980s.

The data shows that the new variant is already spreading exponentially in some areas in SA.  Based on one case in Belgium from someone who had been to Egypt, the incubation period could be 10 days.

 Pfizer says it should have data on vaccine escape in about two weeks and could have changes ready to go in 100 days.  FDA approvals of changes to mRNA would need to be approved quickly.

The other way to avoid the lockdowns from exponential spread would be to get regular citizens to do rapid tests at home regularly if vaccines and other new treatments are impacted.

I would like to put money down on a pitchfest in NYC the end of April.  But would quarantine periods (let alone tests) get in the way? 

 Update: Nov. 27.  Pulmonologist Mike Hansen has a video with a similar analysis.   The hope is that vaccine companies could move quickly. You can also try Duc C. Vuong's video about this being a game changer if you want, and it will be depressing (17 minutes).  Michael Mina tweets that the same Rapid Tests will work -- if you can get them (free in MD) you could screen dinner guests with them. 

Wikipedia embed: downtown Johnannesburg, click for attribution/ 

See also International issues Nov. 25   

Colorado judge slams "stop the steal" frivolous litigation plaintiffs with sanctions

 

Trump rally 2020-11-14

A Colorado district judge has hit plaintiffs in the lawsuit O’Rourke v. Dominion with a large sanction payment to defendants for a frivolous class action lawsuit brought for the citizens in four states for alleged election fraud, with no credible evidence. 

This was part of the “stop the steal” claims within the GOP. I filmed rallies in Washington DC Nov 5 (before Biden was called winner Nov. 7) and Nov. 14.

Leonard French analyzes the order.  The judge writes that reckless litigation contributed to panic among gullible individuals leading to the insurrection Jan 6.

YouTube and the "dislikes" controversy

 

Me at brunch, Freddies 

 YouTube has announced it will make dislike counts private, as in this blog post, but I don’t see that it has changed.  

Mitchell Clark explains for The Verge.   The article says that the hiding of the counts as private will happened gradually. YT says it wanted to protect smaller creators from targeting, and this is reassuring, as statements in the past about “commercial viability” had led to the belief that YT didn’t want to keep them.

Richard Hoeg is critical of this change, and reminds viewers of the tension over COPPA at the end of 2019 where YT seemed to blame content creators on the “made for kids” issue.  

Wildly contradictory new stories about origin of Covid appear in respectable media

 

Conflicting stories today in the controversy over the source of Covid19.

This shows just how difficult objective assessment is.

From Huffington Post, by Mary Pappenfuss, a summary claiming new analysis shows Covid19 starred with a worker at a wet market in Wuhan in early December 2019 handling animals. This links to analysis by Dr. Michael Worobey at the University of Arizona claiming to identify the patient zero.  Note the skeptical comments.

But then a story by Brian McGleenon in Express UK claims that China had possession of the Laos virus in the fall of 2019, blowing open the lab leak theory.

Picture:  Huanan Seafood Market after closure, March 2020, Wikipedia embed, click for attribution 

Views of the Rittenhouse trial and Kenosha incidents; more on forced tribalism

 

Alison Morrow interviews Brendan Gutenschwager (BGOntheScene) on what he witnessed on successive evenings in Kenosha leading up to Rittenhouse’s shootings.  

Ford Fischer, of News2Share, interviews local journalist Tristan Harris on exactly what led to the Rittenhouse shootings.

Attorney Leonard French produces a 20-minute analysis of the judge’s instructions.

Todd Grande gives a psychiatric analysis of Rittenhouse’s actions.

One aspect comes through:  Business owners and even homeowners on the mainstreets of Kenosha were pretty defenseless from vengeful mobs bent on expropriation – police and national guard seem unable to control in the current political environment.

There was a post on Quora today that urged the Left to focus just on attacking liberal individualism, which leads gradually to inequities that compound, and demand tribalism.  But didn’t tribalism produce colonialism and slavery? Critical theory says everyone belongs to some kind of tribe.

AP has a story talking about self-defense comparatively in both Rittenhouse and Blake shootings. 

Wikipedia embed of location of one of the shootings, click for attribution 

Update: Nov 22:  The acquittal on all five counts occurred Friday and is widely reported. Self-defense is related to immediate circumstances in Wisconsin law. 

Tulane professor provides surprising reinforcement for the natural origin theory for Covid

 

New Orleans 2006

Bob Geary, of Tulane University in New Orleans, talks to Jason Gale of Bloomberg News, with a surprising reinforcement of the original natural origin theory for the coronavirus.

He talks about viruses found in Laos much closer to the early SARS_CoV2 virus strains tham even Ratg13 found in the southern copper mine caves. He also maintains that various animals in rural areas of Hubei Province may carry very similar viruses.  The virus family seems to have become capable of infecting most land mammals naturally.

Youtube removes a TN state legislator's speech on a Covid bill to the floor (then restores it)

 

Nashville Capitol 2014

Alison Morrow reports on a case where  Tennessee state legislator’s speech regarding Covid was removed by YouTube, then reinstated.

The video does go into discussion about the role of Section 230.

The bill opposes mandating masks and vaccines in certain circumstances regarding employment, and YouTube thought this was “misiniformation”.

The legislator, Jason Zachary, says he makes $22000 as a legislator and owns a small business. 

On November 6 Morrow presented a doctor who had been removed from LinkedIn for sharing data, link.

CASE Act Notes: I submit comment; Claims Office still to open Dec. 27 as far as is known now

 

I wanted to point out the definitive link for the CASE Act now, here. The earliest date that the Claims Board would be able to accept claims is Monday, Dec, 27, 2021. It is possible to delay that until Sat. June 25, 2022 (Monday June 27) for good cause. Claims require that a work either be registered or that an application for registration has been submitted.

There was a deadline June 12 for comments.  Here is my comment. (There is a reply deadline on Tuesday Nov., 30, 2021).

‘Please be sure that the Copyright Office does not accept automated complaints generated by "trolls" against content creators and does not entertain novel theories about what is infringing outside of accepted case law. Example of abuse: Righthaven (2008-2011).  On links and embeds honor the "server rule".’

Comment number: kvx-b4cx-vocz

It is also well to read the Wikipedia article giving criticisms.

 Picture of Copyright Office on Independence Ave. near LOC, Wikipedia embed, click for attribution. CCSA 3.0.

Vaccines: are young adults taking "risks" to protect the elderly?

 

sunflowers

Darkhorse Podcast Clips (Bret Weinstein and Heather) covers a case where parents of a teen track athlete objected to the COVID19 vaccine requirement.

The parents believe that the risk (myocarditis) to the teen from an mRNA vaccination may be greater than contacting the infection, which in a young adult would likely be trivial.

They believe teens are being asked to rake a biological risk to protect old people (like me). Heather notes that this bears a moral parallel to the draft, a point I have sometimes made .  But the idea that I should be "protected" this way is insulting.

But the video may under consider the long Covid risk to young people and overstate the vaccination risk.  Needle aspiration before intramuscular injections may further reduce the risk.  

Law and order starts to break as inequity increases and tribal people lose their bearings

 

NYC 2014

In NYC, the mayor elect Eric Adams, who is black, has said he will reinstate a special crimes unit, and the “woke” has threatened to riot, burn and pillage.  Well, at least one woke revolutionary, according to the New York Post.

You see Cassandra Fairbanks with an article about the LAPD warning citizens police target them and follow them home.  There was a lot of attention to a home invasion of Dorit Kemsley. 

In Kenosha, while the legal ambiguity of Rittenhouse’s claim of self-defense continues (all three “victims” were white), we wonder why police have been so afraid to deal with the vengefulness of woke property destruction that teens join private militia (or vigilante "slave patrols").

Personally, I see this as a consequence of increasing inequity (DADT Book 3), but it is a lot more nuanced than critical race theory allows.  My own personal karma can be “syllogistically” calculated with reference to all this, but that’s another discussion.  If you didn’t earn it and it is taken away from you by force, you may not get it back.  But Scarlett O’Hara did.

Project Vertitas journalist and home raid by FBI

 

California

The FBI has raided the home of James O’Keefe of Project Veritas, pre-dawn, no knock, supposedly in conjunction with Ashley Biden’s diary. Timcast IRL explains.

What does it take for the government to go after a journalist like this.

Do I have any info I’m not supposed to have?  Close call. But private citizens had info on what was going on in China in the fall of 2019 before the CDC did.

Copyright Office eases some rules in repair and DMCA

 

chairs

While the first day that the Copyright Office can accept cases under the Case Act approaches (apparently Monday Dec. 27, 2021 as of this writing  --with a comment deadline this week Nov. 12) the Copyright Office is making other rulings.

Kit Walsh, on Oct 28, 2021, of Electronic Frontier Foundation, reports that the CI has revised rules on DMCA restrictions, for research, education and repair.    These are cases that inhibit access to copyrighted work even though they don’t lead to actual copyright infringement.

The exemptions on the federal register are discussed on this PDF.

Louis Rossmann's YouTube channel has a lot of material on right to repaor.

SCOTUS declines to review a case which could lock in a First Amendment right to film police.

 

Minneapolis 2019-9

Steve Lehto discusses a Nov. 1 article by Billy Binion in Reason, regarding SCOTUS not taking a case as ti whether there is a First Amendment right to film the police doing their jobs in public places.  

Odd numbered circuits have ruled such, and even numbered haven’t, as chance or history have it. Minneapolis is in the 8^th Circuit, so theoretically the teenager who filmed Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd might not have had the right to do so.

There was an incident in Denver where a cop beat a suspect and a bystander filmed it, and the cop destroyed the video.  The 10^th Circuit allowed his “qualified immunity” to stand because of a lack of legal precedent in the circuit (10^th) .   

US intelligence reports possible bizarre attack attempt on a PA power station with drone in July

 

9/11 memorial PA 2021-9

Television station and ABC affiliate (owned by Sinclair) WJLA7 in Washington DC (Rosslyn, Arlington VA) has presented an ABCNews story and video about an apparent plot in Pennsylvania to use a drone to short out power grid infrastructure (like a large transformer). The attempt was discovered in late July 2021 and no damage resulted.

Oddly, the story is not conspicuous on the ABC News site and hard to find on Google.

Drone attacks obviously would be hard to detect and prevent.

In 2013 or 2014 there were a few attacks on power stations with hand guns or rifles, especially one near San Mateo CA and another in Arkansas.

Some writers in the past have suggested magnetic flux attacks (Popular Mechanics in 2001).

A post on this blog Aug. 30, 2018 links to a Medium article by me on EMP and extreme solar storm threats. I expect to turn more attention to the solar event threat soon in my own work.

The cleavages in society over growing inequities drive people toward critical race theory

 

polling place in va today

Bari Weiss, in her substack, offers us the essay “the miseducation of American elties”.  What’s going on in the prep schools (“Gossip Girl”) is pretty terrible, as shown by the diagrams near the end, and the fear of public ostracism for questioning a new collective, tribal ideology.

But David French offers, as a guest post, “The threat from the anti-woke right”, with the cascade of anti-CRT-teaching laws in state legislatures.  

A lot of this is happening because inequities have gotten worse,. Libertarian individualism has left far too many people behind.  But I din’t see this as race itself (although systemic racism accumulated from the past changes where people start inline).  It’s more about individual social creditworthiness and “paying your dues”. Especially by people like me who have inherited assets they could not have earned with their own personal smarts. Tim Wise weighs in, on equity n. starting place in line. But then he says, you can't improve yourself in an unwell world and you have no right to ignore the clenched fists of others in outdoor dining areas.    

McWhorter talks to Chris Williamson about "whiteness".

My use of Blogger will stop at the end of 2021, some thoughts

 

not mine

I did want to talk some more about my use of Blogger since Jan 2006 (16 years) given the announcement I made yesterday here. It does look like I will shut down my use of Blogger at the end of this year, but I will have it fully archived and will set aside the best posts (about 100, especially movie book and music reviews) for quick repost in the new environment when appropriate.

I had started out as an online publisher back in 1996 with Hometown AOL, then added the domain hppub.com (for High Productivity Publishing) in the summer of 1997 to support my first DADT book. I added doaskdotell.com in 1999 to add more materials including movie proposals. In 2005 I combined everything into doaskdotell.com and eliminated hppub (which got taken by a casino site!)

These sites were all flat html files and in the early days their technical simplicity guaranteed that my content (a lot of it on some focused issues like gays in the military and later COPA) would get easily found by search engines and give my ideas some public weight in policy and even judicial debates.

In early 2006, I started using Blogger (after my substitute teaching gigs stumbled) and in the first year set up 16 blogs which have remained the same until this date. .    

In 2008, it was becoming apparent that Google was removing a lot of blogs as apparently spam blogs (why weren’t the captchas sufficient?).  Occasionally there were mysterious bx errors and only forum support. In May 2008 one of my blogs disappeared but was quickly restored. By the fall, the environment had stabilized and my blogs did well during the Financial Crisis, suddenly earning some Adsense revenue.

In  early 2014 I set up two Wordpress blogs hosted by Bluehost, to supplement my third DADT book. (I also had played with a javastarter site, which eventually failed, but then set up a small Easy site based on my pseudonym which had a small Wordpress blog which I did not maintain well).

At the start of 2016 I was at another turning point, and I did wonder how long Google would support Blogger as it seemed less professional than Wordpress. Google would soon cancel Google-plus, so it was appropriate to wonder these things. In the other hand, Blogger actually upgraded in mid 2020 (during the pandemic) with a Gutenberg-like interface.

So I created two more “issue” blogs on Bluehost, with at first the idea of consolidating everything to these blogs. That turned out to be impractical. But on Blogger the "BillsMoviewReviews" switched mostly to reviews of embedded short films and educational videos on unusual topics, and the "BillsBookReviews" often covered long periodical articles and new book previews.   

Within any one blog, the use of the label aggregation becomes very powerful for example all the posts in one blog discussing “Section 230”. But particularly in the past year, it has become a problem that therr are too many blogs, with placement often arbitrary. In the other hand , YouTube channels don’t offer such aggregation.

Alison Morrow fired from Washington State DNR for her guests' discussing vaccines candidly on her own YT channel and podcasts

 

Alison Morrow discusses her bring fired from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources where she had worked in communications, because some people who had discussed Covid vaccines on her own podcast channel went against official DNR policies.

It’s intricate, but ser situation has some parallels to mine in the 1990sn as explained in two prevopis posts. (2014, 2018).

Wikipedia embed, Mt Baker, click for attribution 

Senate tech hearings: why Snapchat is different; raise COPPA age?

 

Rockport 2018-5

The Senate Judiciary Committee interviewed a number of tech companies executives Tuesday.  I’ll cover in more detail next week on a Wordpress blog.

At 1:22 on the video, a Snapchat executive said the product is ephemeral and intended for established friends. 

There was a lot of talk of raising the age for COPPA to 16. 

Sample coverage on Techcrunch.    

Assessing the "Facebook papers Bombshell"

 

demonstration 2021-9

 Does Facebook face an apocalypse, and other social media with it, over gullible users with tribal grievances? 

Ian Corzine discusses the “Facebook papers bombshell” and warns about more regulations about what people can say online (or under what personalized circumstances). It appears that Facebook may announce a name or trademark change Oct. 28, with significant changes for user capabilities.

Let me add I have no interest in ephemeral content and I don’t use Snapchat.

Corzine mentions various mainstream coverages this week, but one of the most thorough is on The Verge, by Russell Brandom, Alex Heath, and Adi Robertson  Oct 25, 2021, illustration by Alex Castro. The article focuses on “anti-vax” and I have no idea what is meant by “civic harm”.  It does seem odd that social media is held responsible for the outcome of elections, even of authoritarian candidates. A much bigger problem occurs in the developing world where Facebook sometimes is “the Internet” and there is no net neutrality.

A bigger moral problem seems to be the way teens use social media to ratify lookism.

Cecilia Kang writes for the New York Times about FB’s antitrust issues.  

Jeremy B. Merrill and Will Oremus  write for the Washington Post, "Five points for anger, one for a ‘like’: How Facebook’s formula fostered rage and misinformation", today. Alex Shepard excoriates FB as "beyond repair" in The New Republic .  What happened to individualized personal responsibility, everyone?  We seem to have a gullibility crisis derived from systemic inequities.              

Critical theory and the focus on power differentials

 

nyc 2015-11

John McWhorter talks about ‘cancel culture and wokeness” by drilling on the “critical race theory” way of thinking about things.

The only thing in moral debates that matters is resolving power differentials.

But Karlyn Borysenko has made this point.

This idea has led to criticism of western music theory and the objective precision of math and physics.

It is like religion, rather incurious. It is a “reign of terror”, calling people who disagree names like racist.  It is a quasi-religious reign to terror facilitated by social media.

He refers to a resignation of a NYTimes reporter “fired” for the embedded use of a forbidden world (Don McNeil).   

The power differential  affects the targeting of minority individuals, as with police profiling.

Is Americorps corrupted by CRT?

WI, 2019

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers endorsed Americorps, without realizing the idological corruption of the effort,  as in this Tweet from.Mythinformed.

The video attacks individualism, and calls for interdependence witb accountability and radical race and identarian consciousness., 

Here is a similar twitter video from Myth.. 

Malibu Media sets another dangerous example (French)

 

Philadelphia 2006

Leonard French looks at Malibu Media v. Mullins.

French refers to Malibu as a copyright troll.  Being on a chain of a P2P incident (roommates, etc) doesn’t prove personal guilt.  He notes that a LLC needs its own attorney separate from the “owner”.  Listen to his philosophy toward the end. Note his warning about 3 Strikes Holdings.

“Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act” and Section 230

 

protest 2021-9-18

Here’s another attempt to reform Section 230, “Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act” (HR-PADAA) would remove downstream liability protection when content is chosen for the user by algorithm and violent radicalization ensues.

Will Duffield takes the bill apart for Techdirt. The point is that Facebook (McNeal v. Facebook) doesn’t look at the viewpoint in applying user-history algorithms, although it does in demonetization and shadow-banning or community guidelines.  

Protesters often see journalists as non-tribal enemies

 

j6 defendant protest

US Press Freedom Tracker reports sporadic harassment from individual protesters, from both sides, demanding deletion of images.

This gas occurred against established media outlets as well as individuals.

Sine protesters fear identification and future arrests but want to be counted for their tribes. And protesters need people to actually join their causes, not just film.

But some demonstrators want publicity, like the STS movements, or climate change protesters who may want to be arrested.

Generally you can legally photo anyone in an outdoors public space, including police.   

Bizarre 1A case involving self-disclosure of Covid on social media

 

WI 2019-9

Steve Lehto explains a win on a federal court by a Wisconsin teen who had posted online thar she had Covid in late March 2020, when she had a negative test but tests were not yet done very well.

Her school district feared public panic over a Covid case announced on Instagram at a time when exponential spread wasn’t understood well by the public.

But she surely had a 1A right to talk publicly about her own medical information. She and her parents were threatened with arrest for disorderly conduct.

Pandora Papers -- and social media influencers

 

my travels

Ryan Chapman explains the Pandora papers.

The reason I think it matters is that even websites or social media operations often have mystery backing but could be politically leveraging.   I discuss more in a 2014 post here.

This also relates to the “silence is violence” idea.

Dangerous 3rd Circuit ruling on Section 230 carveout for right of publicity and intellectual property carveout

near Allegheny Tunnel 

 Corynne McSherry of Electronic Frontier Foundation has warned content creators about a dangerous threat from a Third Circuit ruling that Section 230 does not apply to right of publicity in this Oct. 5 article.  

Let's hope Facebook appeals.  The article speaks for itself.  

YT to collar climate change opposition

 

flying 2018=9

Ian Corzine livestreamed a talk on coming censorship in social media,

YouTube will shadowban and demonetize climate change denial, as well as later maybe other opposition to gun control and maybe even conservative rejection of minority use of identarianism.

But individuals may want to discuss likely impositions on individual liberties, like driving alone.  

Corporate sponsors don’t like to see individuals compete with established nonprofits and news in taking on controversy. But if YT makes editorial decisions to please advertisers it may run afoul of CDA230.

Who is a real journalist?

2021-9-18

 Forbes, om a Feb. 4 2021 piece by Rachel Sandler, explained how YouTube fumbled on the difference between journalism and misinformation advocacy with Ford Fischer and Status Corp in covering Jan 6.

That raises the question, who gets to call themselves journalists? Those who make a living at it? The message is, otherwise, if you want to be heard, belong to a tribe and enlist.

I videoed STS rallies in Nov 2021 as citizen journalism.

My Wordpress blogs suspended

 

casselman bridge

The four Wordpress blogs linked at the bottom of my doaskdotell sites are suspended as of Oct 5. 2021 by the host because of subtle malware that stopped the Codeguard backups from running on Oct 1. 

I will explain the technical details after I hear back from a security company.  This appears to be “prankware”.   

I have previously mentioned my plans to eliminate most blogs at the start of 2022, and focus on a  few specific areas.

I was out of commission Oct 5 with shoulder surgery at the time the account was suspended.

Teen harassed by sheriff for talking about her own COVID case

 

wi 2019-9

Leonard French discusses Cohoon v Konrath.   A sheriff in Wisconsin coerced a high school girl to remove Instagram posts about apparently becoming the first COVID19 case at her school after a trip, in spring 2020.           

A whole community in ignorance.

The teen’s social media was medically right and local government violated her First Amendment rights.

Senate hearing on social media an teen girl mental health

protest for jan 6 defendants 

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, held a hearing today:

“Protecting our Kids: Facebook, Instagram and Mental Health Harms”

A WP story: Cat Zakrewski 

If 13 year old’s use the platforms  inevitably physical development will get tossed around by algorithms.

But when I was growing up around 1961, boys were concerned about competitive assets well before social media and with demands of reassurance by seeing people like me score

There is a difference between the tribal cohesion among Facebook friends and Twitter followers, as in this article from France.  

Update: Oct 3: CBS 60 min interview with Frances Haugen .  The dissoluton of civic integrity before JAN 6 is discussed..

Youtube had already cracked down on anti-vax, what changed?

 

capitol

Youtube has tightened community guidelines on vaccine misinformation regarding all vaccines, not just coronavirus, official blog post. 

Most of the examples are obvious and you wonder if these are changes.

But the authority given to WHO which has been wrong a lot.   

What about discussions of unknown risks to emerge over time?  True, social media has arguably slowed down vaccinations needed for public health.

Daniel Hale, whistleblower

 

beverly beach md

Dan Hale, a former defense analyst, was sentenced to 45 months in prison for revealing classified documents showing that drones strikes had killed innocent people.

His concerns went back to 2014 with various personal activities given a notorious clip from Iraq passed by Chelsea Manning in 2010. 

The judge said he could have become a whistleblower without disclosing classified materials.  He may have wanted to become a real journalist, out of vanity or ego from not taking sides or joining a tribe.

Rachel Weiner explains in the Washington Post. 

The top mistakes small youtubers make

Frederick Md

 

“TOP 15 YouTube Mistakes Small YouTubers Make - Why Your Channel Isn't Growing”, by Roberto Blake, 24 minutes

Of course there is excess vanity but in the middle of the video he gets going.with thumbnails and titles that interest people, but most of all knowing your own audience in the real world.  This sounds like Blogtyrant advice for the older pursuit of blogging.

Some of the most successful channels are the college or young adult ones (John Fish or Max Reisenger).  Even given overcoming censorship, it takes a lot of journalism experience to do politics.  I do like Thiojoe’s tech channel.

Citizens can still get caught in quarantine traps.

casselman pa 

Uber will require some riders to take masked selfies through the smartphone app, if any driver reports them for not wearing a mask. The Verge reports. This happened to me in a situation where I misinterpreted the meetup point on a map, rushed to find the driver and was distracted enough to forget to resecure the mask.

That brings up another point. If you go to the hospital for a necessary but small operation and test positive as a routine breakthrough case with no real symptoms, it would be a crime to ride home and you could be kept isolated from critical business interests if you had no personal backup or online access while isolated.  Nobody connects all the dots. 

Texas's new social media anti-censorship law could drive platforms away from allowing small creators altogether, however unintentionally

 

Dallas, 2018-5

Nathan Sheard of Electronic Frontier Foundation discusses Texas’s news social media law, which at least pretends to honor some of the Santa Clara principles with notification provisions. 

However Ian Corzine recently made a video discussing Texas’s new social media law, which in its attempt to stop companies from taking down “conservative” speech has so many holes that it will tempt many social media companies (especially YouTube) to cut off amateur content creators altogether – at least if they live in Texas.

I am reminded of the “Safe Tech” Act, which would, recall, literally deny Section 230 protections to companies (maybe even Hosting companies?) which get paid by speakers to provide services.  That is, taken literally, a provision that the hosts can only be paid by a cut from what the speakers would earn.  Think about the implications of that idea. 

Tim Pool, Jack Murphy have energetic dispute about vaccines, family, childrearing and personal agency on Timcast IRL

 

Protest signs, DC, against J6 on 2021-9-18

On Timcast IRL on Sept 17, Tim Pool and Jack Murphy debated how parents should teach their children personal agency and integrity on vaccines.  It's gotten reactions. 

It was rather shocking.  Murphy is concerned that his teen sons must get vaccines (and maybe take a minimal risk of a mild carditis ) to play sports.  Tim claimed that the moral high ground was to play John Galt and leave the world and live separately from civilization to have maximum freedom.

I would have trouble with this.

Vaccines have not been an issue for me because (1) as an elder person there is no reasonable medical doubt that I should take them, and I have (2) I’m “used” to the idea of regular vaccines for many other things.

It’s the collective public health (important for a civilization to function) that is a problem.  We’ve covered that in detail here. It might even have been much uglier for gay men in the 1980s than it actually was, given all the possible hypothetical theories.

What sins will get your YouTube channel deleted? A social media lawyer weighs in

 

flags at a right-wing protest

Ian Corzine today issued an important vide, “Seven Things that will Get Your Channel Deleted”. Do one of these and you're gone, not just a strike or lost video, but the whole channel. 

The video is 84 minutes (it premiered at 11 AM, while I was out filming a rally)

The first warning has to do with other people’s videos – shocking playlists.  Another would be fake subscriptions or visits. 

Another would be thumbnails that are themselves offensive

But one of his most subtle warnings is about external links in descriptions which are common.  All of my videos are called by blogs, and I always give the invoking blog post.  But if my site went away (or were considered a dangerous site) then the links would fail and the channel might be removed.  Some links YouTube especially dislikes are those about  cryptocurrency.

Corzine recommends putting external references on Google Docs. He thinks YouTube and Google don’t like channels that depend on going into the outside world to comprehend the content (which mine does, because a lot of the content is old or legacy), as this doesn’t fit its concept of “commercial viability”.