Archive for Category: Uncategorized

February 27, 2026

#JOURNALISM:

Posted at 8:47 am by Glenn Reynolds on Feb 27th, 2026

REPORT FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Legendary Lower Broadway honky tonk owner says property taxes could ruin Nashville. “There seems to be no bottom to the despair caused by Nashville’s historic property tax increase. The one-two punch of soaring property values and a 26% tax hike is putting businesses — and some homeowners — on the ropes. Now, the Tennessee General Assembly is considering whether to step in.”

Nashville needs adult supervision.

Posted at 8:33 am by Glenn Reynolds on Feb 27th, 2026

ICE POLLING WELL . . . IN MINNESOTA:

President Trump is carrying out the immigration policies on which he ran successfully for the presidency, but Democrats assure us that Americans oppose his efforts to roll back the outrageous illegal immigration of the Biden years. In particular, Democrats tell us that Americans hate ICE.

Is that true? If there is any state where ICE is unpopular, it should be Minnesota. Minnesota was home to a massive resistance to federal authority that was stoked by pretty much all leading elected officials, including Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. As home not just to daily demonstrations, but to constant attempts to interfere with the execution of federal law, Minnesota should be ground zero for opposition to Trump’s immigration policies and hatred of ICE.

So we decided to poll it. Our Thinking Minnesota Poll, conducted by Meeting Street Insights, was in the field just when ICE was winding down its operations and beginning to depart from Minnesota. So we should have caught anti-ICE fervor at its height. And yet, what we found was a silent majority of Minnesotans who are broadly supportive of the administration’s immigration policies.

These are the key findings:

* 81% of respondents support deporting all illegal aliens who have a criminal record in the U.S. or abroad. This includes 71% of Democrats.

* 72% want Minnesota state and local officials to cooperate with ICE (most did not).

* 75% say it is important to prevent illegal aliens from voting in Minnesota elections.

* 50% say that the actions of Minnesota leaders like Tim Walz and Jacob Frey made the ICE situation more heated with their comments, while only 25% said that local officials helped to reduce tensions.

* 48% support deporting as many illegal aliens as possible, while 49% oppose deporting all illegal aliens.

* 45% support the presence of ICE in Minnesota, while 53% oppose ICE’s presence.

I suspect the latter numbers reflect, not opposition to the administration’s immigration policies, which enjoy broad support, but rather dismay at the constant news of protests, arrests, etc. that accompanied ICE’s presence here. Even I would say that I was glad to see ICE go, given the hysteria and criminality that Minnesota’s liberals stirred up.

In short, the idea that there is broad opposition to the administration’s immigration policies, and a general hostility toward ICE, is false. If we don’t see those attitudes in Minnesota, I don’t think we will see them anywhere.

The purpose of the media is to convince 90% of the public that the attitudes of 10% of the public are held by 80% of the public.

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds on Feb 27th, 2026

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE:

Posted at 7:48 am by Glenn Reynolds on Feb 27th, 2026

I DO LOVE THIS GUY:

Posted at 7:46 am by Glenn Reynolds on Feb 27th, 2026

DEMOCRACY DIES IN GASLIGHTING:

 

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Feb 27th, 2026

SHARIA-FREE AMERICA CAUCUS GROWS: Three more House GOPers have joined the newly organized Sharia-Free America Caucus whose purpose is to stop, reverse and forever defeat the forces seeking the Islamization of this country.

 

Posted at 7:37 am by Mark Tapscott on Feb 27th, 2026

CYBERSECURITY: New AirSnitch attack breaks Wi-Fi encryption in homes, offices, and enterprises.

The hardware manufacturers face yet another challenge: The client isolation mechanisms vary from maker to maker. With no industry-wide standard, these one-off solutions are splintered and may not receive the concerted security attention that formal protocols are given.

So how bad is AirSnitch, really?

With a basic understanding of AirSnitch, the next step is to put it into historical context and assess how big a threat it poses in the real world. In some respects, it resembles the 2007 PTW attack (named for its creators Andrei Pyshkin, Erik Tews, and Ralf-Philipp Weinmann) that completely and immediately broke WEP, leaving Wi-Fi users everywhere with no means to protect themselves against nearby adversaries. For now, client isolation is similarly defeated—almost completely and overnight—with no immediate remedy available.

At the same time, the bar for waging WEP attacks was significantly lower, since it was available to anyone within range of an AP. AirSnitch, by contrast, requires that the attacker already have some sort of access to the Wi-Fi network. For many people, that may mean steering clear of public Wi-Fi networks altogether.

If the network is properly secured—meaning it’s protected by a strong password that’s known only to authorized users — AirSnitch may not be of much value to an attacker. The nuance here is that even if an attacker doesn’t have access to a specific SSID, they may still use AirSnitch if they have access to other SSIDs or BSSIDs that use the same AP or other connecting infrastructure.

What a mess.

I keep my home network as protected as possible — which might not be enough — and quit using anybody else’s WiFi years ago, and just rely on 5G and tethering when needed.

Posted at 7:36 am by Stephen Green on Feb 27th, 2026

INFILTRATION:

Posted at 7:19 am by Glenn Reynolds on Feb 27th, 2026

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Feb 27th, 2026

POISONING THE MINDS OF BOTH OF THEIR VIEWERS:

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds on Feb 27th, 2026

February 26, 2026

SPIRITUAL SIDE OF AI/ADDICTION ISSUE: Consider the implications if algorithmic-induced addiction is as deeply serious a problem as is depicted in current litigation, and it can be combined with Artificial Intelligence:

“Artificial intelligence dramatically lowers the cost of deception while algorithmic platforms dramatically amplify its reach. Together they form a compounding loop: manipulation becomes cheaper, distribution becomes frictionless, and correction becomes nearly impossible. A lie crosses a continent before the truth has tied its shoes — and now the lie is written, targeted, and delivered by software that never sleeps,” writes Col. (Ret) Bob Maginnis in The Washington Stand.

But there are even more aspects of this dilemma:

“In my book ‘The New AI Cold War,’ I argue that the defining contest of this century is not merely geopolitical — it is civilizational. The conflict pits liberty-centered systems grounded in human dignity against authoritarian systems that weaponize information and treat citizens as programmable inputs.

“China’s social credit infrastructure and Russia’s disinformation apparatus are the most visible expressions of this model. But the temptation to centralize control through technology is not exclusive to tyrants. Free societies face a parallel seduction: the idol of efficiency, dressed in the language of innovation.”

This is an important piece that merits serious and thoughtful reading.

 

Posted at 9:54 pm by Mark Tapscott on Feb 26th, 2026

OPEN THREAD: You know what to do.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Feb 26th, 2026

REPORT: Paramount Skydance victory in Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war came after failed Netflix exec visit to win over White House.

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos failed Thursday to convince a skeptical Trump administration to approve his proposed takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery – and with that, his nearly done deal to buy WBD’s streaming service and studio went into a death spiral.

Late Thursday, WBD deemed a revised bid of $31 a share from rival Paramount Skydance a “reasonably superior offer,” forcing Netflix to pull its bid thus ending a six-month takeover battle that has captivated Wall Street and the media business.

The backdrop of the announcement was the increasingly insurmountable regulatory hurdles Netflix faced in dealing with the Trump administration. As first reported by The Post, earlier Thursday, Sarandos sat with a skeptical Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Justice Department antitrust officials to try to convince the administration not to oppose the deal on antitrust grounds.

* * * * * * * *

The head of its news division, former opinion journalist Bari Weiss, will now likely control a combined news division that includes WBD’s cable news network CNN.

Oh to be a fly on the wall when Weiss meets with Christiane Amanpour.

In the meantime, some on the left aren’t taking the news very well:

 

Posted at 8:57 pm by Ed Driscoll on Feb 26th, 2026
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »