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Category: Official thuggery, bad prosecutions, and bad law

Weekend links #1

  • A short-term “fasting diet” may regenerate a diabetic pancreas. Again, it’s mostly mice so far. But interesting.
  • “Drugs, disposal of.” Dealing with the recent untimely loss of his wife, Kim du Toit goes on a quest to discover how to rid himself of a pharmacopia of her prescription medicines.
  • Borepatch warns: Buyer beware! when it comes to “connected” cars. Like all other supposedly smart devices, they’re just bright enough to violate your privacy.
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  • Thursday links

  • The FBI under Trump continues its proud history of fighting terrorism by busting hapless losers who couldn’t have done a thing without the encouragement, funds, and in this case bullying brutality by the fed agents themselves.
  • And let’s not forget our beloved ATF. Turns out it’s as corrupt on the “T” part of its name as is is on the “F”ing part.
  • “Live free or live in Massachusetts,” as some wag must have said. Boston considers banning glassware in bars because it can be used as a weapon. (Can we move Boston over to England? I think it would feel more at home there.)
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  • Wednesday links

  • “It’s complicated.” HL Harris explains her love-hate relationship with firearms. Rape is a mind-changer.
  • Surprise, Surprise. Drugs are vanishing at V.A. hospitals. (And no doubt many other medical facilities, though you can bet fedgov hospitals will be the champs in this variety of corruption and sloppy record-keeping.)
  • How Peter Thiel’s Palantir helps the world’s worst spies keep tabs on us all.
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  • Monday links

  • You heard about all those people in California who were evacuated because, you know, water was actually going over the spillway of a big dam? And maybe you thought, “Um, but isn’t that what spillways are supposed to do?” Even if it’s the emergency spillway? Well, here are pix of the degree of stupid involved.
  • So what happens in the longish run if the Hearing Protection Act passes?
  • Just how long can federal agents “detain” you at border checkpoints while demanding that you give them the keys to your smartphone?
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  • Weekend links

    Getting weirder all the time. Cops use data from a man’s pacemaker to charge him with a crime. (H/T M) And while of course it’s long been a crime to “drive while black” or even walk or bike while black in the wrong neighborhood, now apparently it calls for police action if you’re a prosperous brown woman walking in your own neighborhood. This woman really handled the abuse with grace, though. (Tip o’ hat to PT) Now we’ll see if it gets through the Senate. But the House has v*ted to repeal Obama’s Social Security-related gun ban. Judge halts Trump’s…

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    Principles in a world of Realpolitik

    Over at the Cabal, but in the public area where anyone can read, I just posted a longish think piece (as in thinking-out-loud piece) on “Principles in a world of Realpolitik. It focuses on how applying libertarian principles immediately to the real world sometimes works (or would work) brilliantly well, but sometimes would lead to disaster. As I say, I am just thinking aloud and I’ll welcome comments, including spirited disagreements, here or at the Cabal. The subject of principles came up here in a couple of recent threads. The subject of principles comes up a lot around serious freedomistas…

    34 Comments

    Weekend links

  • NASA, which can’t get humans to Mars and has been so useless on Lunar travel that the last U.S. astronaut to walk on the Moon recently died of old age … is now fretting that we might get dementia from flying too high in airplanes. Lord, save us from such cowards, fools, and earth-hugging bureaucrats! (H/T MtK)
  • But that’s okay. Because Hillary Clinton will fix all the problems of humanity when she becomes president in 2020, propelled by her hit TV show. (This according to one anonymous source; so don’t start “rejoicing” yet.) (Tip o’ hat to SC)
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