A NEW POST FROM THE DAY JOB:“Hey, Alexa!” Artificial Intelligence & the Lightbulb That Listens

90 MILLION FACEBOOK USERS SAY “WHA’ HOPPEN?”: Lessons Learned from the Facebook Data Breach

My newest piece from the day job.

THIS IS A BIG STORY: The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies

Apple denies it but it looks like a pretty careful article. If China establishes they can’t be trusted to manufacture computer hardware, no one is gonna be happy.

A SHEILA JACKSON LEE STAFFER: Capitol Police Arrest Ex-Democratic Staffer Suspected of Doxxing GOP Senators

Or ex-staffer. According to the story, “Jackson Lee’s Chief of Staff Glenn Rushing told Politico that Cosko has been fired.” Notice the grammar: “has been fired”. He also worked for Barbara Boxer.

SOUNDS KINKY, BUT NO FUN: Help! I’ve Been Chained to 150 Million Lunatics!

A LONG-TIME FRIEND AND ASSOCIATE OF BRETT KAVANAUGH SPEAKS: M. Todd Henderson and the Brett Kavanaugh He Knew

(Bumped, by Glenn.)

IT IS AN AGE OF WONDERS: And greatest among them may be Lindsey Graham being accused of toxic masculinity.

The Democrats may have just rediscovered that it is never well to push a southern gentleman to righteous anger.

FIRST YOU NEED AN IDEA: The third installment of Sarah Hoyt’s series How to Write a Short Story

OKAY, SERIOUSLY?

AND MORE:

WITH GREAT POWER COMES… : When Every Boy is Guilty, Every Girl Becomes a Monster

HUGO? HUGO WHO? Kevin J Anderson and Instaposter Sarah A Hoyt have just won the Dragon Award for Best Alternative history for Uncharted (Arcane America Book 1).

Congratulations to them both!

TRUMP’S TRADE POLICY STRIKES AGAIN: US and Mexico have reached a trade deal, paving the way toward replacing NAFTA

SARAH HOYT: How to write a short story.

IT’S HARD TO EXPLAIN THE SELF-DESTRUCTIVE LEFT, UNLESS: The Left Has A Death Wish.

SARAH HOYT: Borrowed Victimhood Is Not Heroism

IT’S THE TRAINING, STUPID: Algorithms: The Ultimate Excuse.

Related: Perceptions of Newsworthiness are Contaminated by a Political Usefulness Bias. Second author is Gail Heriot, a fellow Instaposter.

BUFFY, DEAR, THEY’RE JUST NOT OUR KIND: Trump and the question of Character, Politics, and the Coastal Clerisy

BOYS BECOME MEN — IF YOU LET THEM: To Raise Healthy Boys You Have to Like Men

THINK OF IT AS EVOLUTION IN ACTION: When the Gene Pool Self-Chlorinates.

Being sufficiently idealistic can be a capital offense.

ROBESPIERRE LEARNED TOO LATE: First Amendment Rights and the Lesson of Robespierre

So, with Twitter and Facebook “social justice” mobs, it’s not too much to say that we’ve got another reign of terror, in which people can be driven from public life and have their lives and livelihood destroyed by the Robespierres of the mob. When someone protests that their First Amendment rights have been violated, the common answer is that these are private companies. But “first amendment rights“ is something that’s become a convenient shorthand for the natural rights of free speech that the First Amendment exists to protect from government interference. The right is not provided by the First Amendment, it’s guaranteed — however imperfectly — against the government by the First Amendment.

I’d say “read the whole thing,” but that would be immodest.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: When Antifa Chants ‘No America At All’

THE PROPER RESPONSE TO THESE COORDINATED EDITORIALS IS TO LAUGH AT THEM: Thoughts on First Amendment theater:

The media misdirect attention to the First Amendment rather than hold themselves accountable for reporting often wrong, misleading, or incomplete. They choose loaded words, add phrases, insert catty remarks, and bury ledes.

We know. We edit such copy every day. The president doesn’t “slap” on tariffs; he imposes them. He doesn’t “slash” budgets; he reduces them. We edit out Improvised Editorial Devices (IEDs) that have no place in journalism, like the clause “Ever the showman” designed to shape the mental battlefield. We rearrange copy to focus on what is significant, not salacious. We ignore petty subjects they favor and request coverage of significant ones they overlook.

A journalist is only as good as the last story written, and journalists should approach subjects with a full set of skills and little baggage. That’s hard to do when some are paid by news sources, fed rumors by unnamed sources, or personally involved with those about whom they report.

Quality news articles should be as accurate and complete as a nautical chart. To navigate into port, no sea captain would trust a chart that inserted non-existent shoals or omitted real ones.

IT’S COMPLETELY UNPRECEDENTED FOR TRUMP TO PULL A CLEARANCE: Or maybe not.

A Trump-supporting Pentagon analyst was stripped of his security clearance by Obama-appointed officials after he complained of questionable government contracts to Stefan Halper, the FBI informant who spied on the Trump presidential campaign.

Adam Lovinger, a 12-year strategist in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, complained to his bosses about Halper contracts in the fall of 2016, his attorney, Sean M. Bigley, told The Washington Times.

On May 1, 2017, his superiors yanked his security clearance and relegated him to clerical chores.

Read the whole thing. There are some — familiar names.

DON’T MAKE US ANGRY. YOU WON’T LIKE US WHEN WE’RE ANGRY: Sarah Hoyt Silencing the Opposition is Like Tamping Down a Powder Keg

SARAH HOYT: We are the counterculture!