03/24/18 Weekend Links

Probably should keep this story posted every day now: Google’s new, $300 million fight against news it doesn’t like

Motherboard: State Department seemingly buys $15,000 iPhone-cracking tech GrayKey

Washington Times: Report: Police routinely using dead people’s fingerprints to unlock iPhones

Salt Lake Tribune: As YouTube bans firearms demonstrations, Utah firm launching its own pro-gun video platform

Reason: Obama harvested data from Facebook and bragged about it.  Why are we only freaking out about it now?

The Guardian: Seven days that shattered Facebook’s facade

Borneo Bulletin: ‘To prison for singing?”: Spanish rappers to serve time for their lyrics

Quartz: China’s censorship body keeps ruining fun on the internet

SHELDON RICHMAN: The Iraq War after 15 years: “Now we mark the 15th anniversary of a foreign-policy decision that rivals Woodrow Wilson’s entry into World War I in its recklessness and cruelty — yet a proper assessment of the atrocity perpetrated by the George W. Bush presidency, aided and abetted by the most prestigious newspapers and television networks in the land, is as elusive as ever. If anything, things have regressed. In an eagerness to paint Trump as the most evil person who has ever lived, many pundits, including Democrats, have found it expedient to look with favor on the execrable Mr. Bush despite the chain of disasters he set in motion in March 2003. As readers well know, my respect for Trump is at far less than zero, but I don’t think anyone looks good merely by comparison to him. Trump may end up doing something worse than Bush’s invasion of Iraq — here’s one reason why — but he hasn’t so far. Trump is bad, but that is no reason to blur history. All that does is help people forget Bush’s many victims.”

Important- FEE: Why one economist abhors Earth Hour

Cato: Small marijuana growers squeezed out by the regulation that follows legalization

National Review: Sociologist claims veganism is connected to ‘White Masculinity’

Author: S. Smith