gmcgath

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Last Notes

2025-11-09 13:24:01 CET

What — a word that ends in "rrh" and doesn't have any a, e, i. o, or u in it?? Oh, right, there is one.

2025-10-29 11:43:57 CET

Congratulations to the Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH, which managed to offend everyone at once. It cancelled a scheduled event because of a planned peaceful protest against it, breaking its agreement with a pro-abortion group and suggesting that the anti-abortion protesters were a violent threat.
https://garymcgath.com/cowardice-portsmouth-music-hall/
#NewHampshire

2025-10-27 23:37:49 CET

You can subscribe to my blog from Mastodon using blog [at] garymcgath [dot] com. (I have to mung the address, or Mastodon will turn it into a direct link to the blog, which isn't at all helpful.)

2025-10-27 16:07:41 CET

Glenn Jacobs, who calls himself a libertarian, said in an interview with Reason that Trump "is going to dismantle the way government agencies can go after people for whatever reason they want." What strange alternate universe is Jacobs living in?

2025-10-27 11:53:30 CET

There are good reasons to condemn Trump's wrecking the White House, but the loss of the "Office of the First Lady" isn't one of them. The office is pure nepotism and measures a woman's worth by whom she's married to.

2025-10-05 16:51:12 CEST

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I never understood that either.

2025-09-15 13:10:35 CEST

In 1900, Georges Méliès made a rather impressive 10-minute film about Joan of Arc. Here it is with my accompaniment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K_XXfohNVI
#silentFilm #Stummfilm #filmMuet

2025-09-11 16:28:36 CEST

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At least people are no longer imprisoned or executed for being the wrong kind of Christian.

2025-09-04 12:41:59 CEST

Police were called in on exhibitors at two fan-run cons in different countries. Both cases were related to AI panic, but the particulars were strongly different. https://garymcgath.com/police-called-convention-exhibitors/
#fandom #AI

2025-08-29 16:24:27 CEST

One upside to the migration: The ActivityPub plugin works with the new hosting. You can subscribe to [email protected] from Mastodon or anything else that uses the ActivityPub protocol (subject to local restrictions).

2025-08-28 23:41:58 CEST

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A communist, no. A socialist, yes, when it suits him.

2025-08-21 02:41:05 CEST

The Democrats have made it clear all they care about is getting elected, not about any principles. America's diagnosis: terminal.

2025-08-19 15:33:56 CEST

The nation's capital is under military occupation, and the Democrats are still pretending everything is politics as usual and grubbing for votes. They're making what would have been backroom gerrymandering deals in an age when politicians still had some shame.

2025-08-12 15:35:16 CEST

I've submitted a second escalation against the YouTube takedown of my video of _Voyage dans la Lune_ with my music, a 1902 film which MK2 ludicrously claims to have under copyright. MK2 has not given a single word of explanation. YouTube's takedown system is stacked in favor of copyright trolls; I risk a copyright strike by challenging the groundless claim. MK2 risks nothing.
At the moment, the video is available for all to view and listen to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7EO07_Xt4U

2025-08-03 14:15:10 CEST

With its latest email, Indivisible stopped even trying to hide that it's a Democratic party organization. Unsubscribed.

2025-08-02 12:46:51 CEST

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Impressive migration work!

2025-07-28 18:10:32 CEST

Nullification has a bad reputation from its use by slave states, but it could be a good response to Trump. States should declare that since ICE routinely violates the Constitution, they do not recognize it as a law enforcement agency and do not permit it to operate within their borders.
Not that it will ever happen.
#ICE #Trump

2025-07-17 13:16:11 CEST

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The "made from real oranges" bit tells you how old it is, even more than the buggy in the illustration.

2025-07-04 02:26:46 CEST

"Yearning to Breathe Free," a 10-minute history of immigration to the US in still images, with my accompaniment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Oa4oTTHBU
#YouTube #immigration #history

2025-06-30 08:59:04 CEST

Just deleted Toot! from my iPad after noticing it hadn't been updated in 2 years. I hadn't used it much in a long time anyway.

2025-06-16 12:05:23 CEST

J. C. Bach helped to establish that printed music is copyrightable.
https://garymcgath.com/wp/when-music-became-copyrightable/
#copyright #music

2025-06-13 01:59:52 CEST

This AP article plays sneaky games. "Although most have been peaceful, some have resulted in clashes between protesters and law enforcement." Implying the clashes resulted from protester violence.
"For many of those condemning how federal agents are rounding up and deporting people who are in the country illegally..." Implying all ICE abductees are in the country illegally.
https://apnews.com/article/faith-leaders-immigration-raids-nonviolent-protests-3e4be618bab5f0d91d47fc63b7f8a461
#ICE

2025-04-29 17:40:41 CEST

Be wary, but don't get carried away. Some people are mistaking ice cream trucks for ICE cream trucks. https://kfor.com/news/las-vegas-ice-cream-truck-mistaken-for-ice-vehicle-im-an-ice-cream-man-thats-it/?ipid=promo-link-block1
#ICE

2025-03-28 22:45:31 CET

The people committing Tesla-related arson and firing shots have given Trump and Musk a huge gift, in the form of superficial plausibility for grabbing and deporting people who express disapproved opinions.
#Tesla #Musk #Trump

2025-03-26 22:48:40 CET

Some libertarians think that because the government has always been terrible, Trump is merely more of the same. But the fact that we haven't been as free as we should be doesn't mean were as deprived of liberty as we could be. If only in degree of power-grabbing, Trump is exceeding every president since Roosevelt.

2025-03-23 23:09:58 CET

I think I see the Democrats' game. They're counting on Trump to ruin the economy and make the Republicans lose badly in the next election, giving the Democrats a legacy of unlimited presidential power. It's an incredibly stupid scheme, but what else explains their failure to challenge him?

2025-03-22 11:37:21 CET

A big part of the MAGA gang's success is its taking over pro-freedom symbols for its own purposes. I'd put up a big "Don't Tread on Me" display now, except they've taken it over to mean, "I'll tread on you." Likewise for the US flag itself.

2025-03-11 13:06:22 CET

Musk calls Senator Kelly a "traitor" for visiting Ukraine and expressing support for it. Given the legal definition of treason in the USA, that amounts to saying Ukraine is an enemy of the USA.
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2025/03/10/kelly-visits-ukraine-after-tense-meeting-at-white-house/
#Musk #Ukraine

2025-03-10 15:06:54 CET

I went through Tiffany Flick's statement and now have a clearer picture of how Trump and DOGE bully government agencies into giving him confidential personal data. Please read this; it's important.
#Trump DOGE
https://garymcgath.com/wp/ssa-data-grab/

2025-03-09 13:34:49 CET

Typical inept reporting. The article doesn't say how DOGE got access to confidential personal data or even probe the question. It allows the fake reassurance that it has "read-only" access. I guess I shouldn't worry when a thief has read-only access to my credit card. They can't change it, so I'm safe, right?
It's the DOGE mystery again. People are acting as if it has authority when legally it has none. What's really going on?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/doge-searching-social-security-payments-000600173.html
#DOGE #SSA

2025-03-08 23:49:08 CET

Now, in a complete reversal, we're being told that DOGE hasn't fired anybody. It was the Office of Personnel Management that fired the probationary workers.
My impression is that the agencies are acting out of fear of Trump, rather than because they believe Musk holds authority over them. https://apnews.com/article/musk-doge-trump-blame-federal-workers-republicans-2945026366f42b0879087f2e7d4b9d71
#DOGE

2025-03-08 23:40:58 CET

An example of the mysterious charade that's going on in Washington: A US district judge declined to issue a temporary restraining order against DOGE's firing federal workers. This implies it does have the power, at least provisionally, to fire them. Where did this power come from? #DOGE

2025-03-07 15:34:43 CET

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At a minimum, I take it they're using software tools to find undesirable sentiments on social media. Even if they use that just for preliminary screening, the purpose is illegitimate. It could also increase the likelihood of revoking the visas of people who don't support terrorism but are simply critical of Israel's actions or (like me) defend the free speech rights of people who say offensive things.

2025-03-07 12:45:23 CET

The US government will revoke student visas based on AI evaluations. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/israel-hamas-war-us-to-use-ai-to-revoke-visas-of-students-it-sees-as-hamas-supporters-report-7866436

2025-03-06 14:43:23 CET

A reboot of Digg will rely heavily on AI moderation. As Rocky said to Bullwinkle, "That trick never works!"
https://www.theverge.com/social/624073/digg-relaunch-2025

2025-01-28 23:55:48 CET

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Cronyism has been around for a long time, and it's getting worse under Trump, but the real danger is how far we are down the road to monarchy.

2025-01-27 14:24:53 CET

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People like Musk and Zuckerberg are often named as "oligarchs," so the idea that social media brainwashes people seems to be a big part of it.

2025-01-27 14:16:20 CET

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Saying it can't answer is a more honest implementation than some of the alternatives.

2025-01-26 15:17:52 CET

This is integrity. A New Hampshire man involved in the January 6 riot rejects Trump's pardon.
https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2025-01-24/keene-man-arrested-for-storming-the-capitol-on-jan-6-rejects-trumps-pardon
#Trump #NewHampshire

2025-01-26 12:10:02 CET

Remember when Facebook banned all support for the lab leak hypothesis? At least with TikTok, you know up front it's a puppet of the Chinese government. https://apnews.com/article/covid-cia-trump-china-pandemic-lab-leak-9ab7e84c626fed68ca13c8d2e453dde1
#covid19 #China #CIA

2025-01-25 21:48:38 CET

I'd still like to know where the dressed-up conspiracy theory that the US is really run by an oligarchy came from. And why do the people who believe it worry about elections if the people we elect are just puppets of the Secret Masters?
#conspiracyTheory

2025-01-15 18:16:01 CET

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People got kicked off for supporting murder? Good.

2025-01-15 02:52:00 CET

You aren't obligated to have an opinion on everything. You're just obligated (to yourself) not to duck the implications of what and how much you know.

2025-01-09 01:14:35 CET

When comparing Democrats against Republicans, don't forget this data point: Biden has signed his name to a ban on a social media platform. Trump hasn't (yet).

2024-11-20 19:25:46 CET

The Massachusetts State Police won't assist Trump in his militarized mass deportation scheme. I hope lots of other states, including NH, follow suit.
#Massachusetts #deportation #NewHampshire
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4979128-massachusetts-governor-wont-aid-trump/

2024-11-20 18:01:22 CET

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The article plainly states that Twitch is not "censoring it completely" but only banning it "when it is used as a racial slur."

2024-10-13 23:23:47 CEST

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That was a side observation anyway, and I don't feel like following it too far right now. The main point of my post was that requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration creates more problems than it fixes.

2024-10-13 12:27:36 CEST

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You're referring to the TPM of electing senators and representatives. Does that extend to the criteria for voter qualifications? I don't think so. It required a Constitutional Amendment to abolish racial qualifications for voting and another to let women vote. If Congress could have done it by passing a law, that wouldn't have been necessary.
1/2

2024-10-06 21:38:54 CEST

Walz claims he'll own up when he misspeaks. I don't see any retraction of his claim that there are exceptions to the First Amendment for "misinformation" or "hate speech."
https://apnews.com/article/walz-harris-media-interview-presidential-campaign-83325184cd7f93ca505df590f7a27ede
#Walz #FirstAmendment

2024-10-02 12:11:43 CEST

A lot of Americans are thrilled with the prospect of the National Guard going door to door, hauling people out of their homes, and sending them en masse — somewhere. Are they also thrilled about the hundreds of billions of dollars the operation will cost and the economic effect of taking away so many workers?
https://english.elpais.com/usa/elections/2024-09-23/the-cost-of-trumps-mass-deportation-plan-more-than-10-times-immigrations-budget-and-a-possible-recession.html
#Trump #immigrants #deportation

2024-09-20 02:36:43 CEST

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I found a simple solution: Drop Xfinity.

2024-09-16 16:11:15 CEST

I've said it before, but it's time to say it again: The LPNH does not represent libertarians. It's a rogue organization.
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2024/09/15/nh-libertarians-appear-to-encourage-the-assassination-of-kamala-harris/
#LPNH #LibertarianParty #libertarian

2024-09-13 14:51:17 CEST

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I haven't looked into requirements in other countries, but I'm 100% certain that any such requirements must stop some citizens from voting. Not all citizens of all countries can document their citizenship; in some, the proportion of people in this situation is much higher than in the US.

2024-09-13 12:30:35 CEST

The value of one person's vote is tiny. The new NH law, requiring proof of citizenship to register, will impose a significant burden. A lot of people may decide it just isn't worth the effort to register. What's worse is that these will include people who understand cost-benefit tradeoffs, i.e., ones who would vote intelligently.
#NewHampshire #Sununu #election #voting

2024-09-10 13:58:11 CEST

The Paris Olympics were, as usual, a nightmare for ordinary people in the host city. https://apnews.com/article/france-tourism-paris-olympics-2024-0ee9bd462cf0f587a94bf8b01238b07f
#Paris #Olympics

2024-09-06 13:06:27 CEST

New on my blog: AP calls censorship of social media "accountability." https://garymcgath.com/wp/rebranding-censorship/ #censorship #AP #Harris