Friday Links - 23 February

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony is first with Daily News Stuff 19 February 2024: But Wait There's Less Edition

The EU is reportedly planning to fine Apple $500 million for illegal competition with third-party music stores and streaming services. (The Verge)

Which Apple unquestionably does, but yeah, this is a shakedown operation by Europe.

The Other McCain - ‘News’ in the Post-Literate Age

Sitting here with my office TV tuned to CNN — I watch CNN, so you don’t have to — I’m struck by the arrogance of their assumption that they get to decide what is and is not newsworthy, as if their audience had no other source of information about what’s going on in the world, and no desire to know anything else except what CNN is “reporting.” They have spent most of today going on and on about the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, as well as the war in Ukraine, and they seem to imagine that no one sees through this wall-to-wall coverage in terms of its motive, i.e., to revive the “Russian collusion” hoax against Trump, and to attempt to blame Republicans in Congress for the failure of Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion.

Tam at View from the Porch - Generation Gap

Guy was a student at IU in Bloomington... twenty-one years old would be, what? Junior year of undergrad? ...and was mentioning to his parents how he'd recently found not having a driver's license to be inconvenient a few times.

My mind was blown.

Again from The Other McCain - Bad Arguments in Support of Bad Policy

The attempt to turn this into some sort of patriotic referendum — if you don’t support this bill, you don’t love America, we are told — suggests that there are no strictly factual or logical arguments in favor of the current policy. Why would you need to resort to impugning the motives of opponents, if you had facts and logic on your side? And it’s worth pointing out that many Republican opponents of the Biden policy aren’t anti-Ukraine (or pro-Russian), but are simply trying to leverage this as part of a deal to get some kind of action toward securing our own borders.

Clifton Duncan at The State of the Arts - Becoming Thomas Sowell 1

Just over a week after announcing the crowdfunding campaign for my one-man Sowell play, we've amassed an amazing 628 backers.

Mike Rowe - Chuck Gets a Haircut with Denis Chetzan and Mary Sullivan (Ep. 371)

About a year ago, I encouraged my old buddy Chuck to let his hair grow out a bit.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, mostly because you still have it,” I said. “And a lot of it. If I had a head of hair like that, I’d go full Sam Elliott.”

Impro Guns - Using the Arcdroid to Build a Semi Auto Pistol

“I’m 90% done with my pistol build. I will post all the cut files for this project soon.”

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 20 February 2024: Grand Central Rat Edition

Global Foundries is set to receive $1.5 billion in government funds under the CHIPS Act, and another $600 million from New York state in one form or another. (Tom's Hardware)

Global Foundries was originally the manufacturing arm of AMD, and was then spun off as a separate company, acquired the semiconductor operations of AMD, and was bought by the UAE, not necessarily in that order.

Legal Insurrection - Report: National MS Society Dumps Elderly, Lifelong Volunteer Because She Asked What Pronouns Were

The National MS Society has come under fire over the last two weeks after Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik reported on an incident involving an elderly lifelong volunteer who says she was dismissed because she asked questions about pronoun usage in the context of their DEI policies.

Washington Examiner - Major investors pull business from New York City following Trump verdict

Real estate mogul Grant Cardone announced on Tuesday that his firm Cardone Capital would no longer underwrite New York real estate, one day after Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary vowed to no longer invest in the state as a result of the verdict.