Starting Monday, the US government will get another crack at convincing a federal judge to break up Google, after a different judge decided to keep it intact despite finding it to be a monopolist.

Lawyers for Google and the Justice Department will return to a federal courthouse in Alexandria, VA for a roughly two-week trial about how to restore competition to the advertising technology markets that Google illegally monopolized. It comes just weeks after DC District Court Judge Amit Mehta — who issued a historic ruling deeming Google a monopoly in online search — delivered his prescription for restoring competition to the online search market. Mehta’s ruling stopped far short of the government’s major asks to remedy Google’s harm, including denying a requested sale of Google’s Chrome browser, and letting the company keep paying for prime distribution on spots on browsers and phones.

The US government is taking a second stab at breaking up Google

The Justice Department will argue in a Virginia courthouse that Google’s ad tech monopoly should be broken up.

^{Lauren Feiner (The Verge)}

The European Commission aims to reform the EU's cookie consent rules that have cluttered websites with intrusive banners asking for permission to track user data¹. The initiative seeks to streamline data protection while maintaining privacy safeguards through centralized consent mechanisms¹.

Cookie consent banners emerged from the ePrivacy Directive (Cookie Law) and GDPR requirements, which mandate websites obtain explicit user permission before collecting non-essential data through cookies². Current rules have led to widespread implementation of pop-up notices that interrupt user experience and often employ confusing interfaces.

The proposed changes reflect growing recognition that the existing approach has "messed up the internet" while failing to provide meaningful privacy protection¹. Rather than requiring individual consent on every website, the Commission is exploring solutions like centralized consent management to reduce banner fatigue while preserving user privacy rights.

1. Ground News - Europe's cookie law messed up the internet. Brussels wants to fix it. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
2. Transcend - Cookie Consent Banner Best Practices: Optimizing Your Consent Management Experience ↩︎

Cookie Consent Banner Best Practices: Optimizing Your Consent Management Experience

Requirements and best practices for effective, user-friendly cookie consent banners and popups.

^{Morgan Sullivan (Transcend)}

The christofascists, like the GOP before them, have really honed in on "When did you stop beating your wife?" setups to silence discussion. Add in projection and a Democratic party that stands for nothing of use to voters, and it's an impossible position, especially given what media ownership looks like now and shit-stirrers champing at the bit to attack anyone who speaks ill of a bigot.

Both parties are dead. The GOP went Nazi cult of personality that allows no diversity of ideas, and the Dems rushed to fill the conservative void. Biden had some amazing successes with the BIL and IRA (both of which benefited rural areas more than cities), but he's remembered for a single awful debate performance.

We need something -- anything -- to the left of Thatcher, and the moneyed class simply won't let that happen. So long as the Nazis can play the "moral high ground" card effectively to enough people by completely perverting the teaching of Jesus as "Christian," I don't know what can be done.

"Hate thy neighbour" is now Gospel, straight from Trump's mouth. And they've brainwashed people into thinking the main point of the New Testament is retribution. If we get out of this hole by some miracle, it's going to take a couple of generations to get back to reasonable discourse with the backdrop of a world increasingly becoming unlivable.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Democrats maintained a wary silence on Monday as Donald Trump’s Republican party appeared galvanised by a memorial service for the late rightwing activist Charlie Kirk that was part religious revival, part political rally.

Nearly 100,000 people filled an American football stadium and overflow arena in Glendale, Arizona, on Sunday to pay tribute to Kirk, according to his his organisation Turning Point USA. The 31-year-old staunch Trump ally was shot dead on 10 September.

The service was a show of force that blended politics with relihad gion, putting Christian nationalism at the heart of Trump’s “Make America great again” (Maga) movement. It also cast Kirk as a martyr who could be a rallying point in future elections. “Today is the day democrats lost 2028,” posted Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Republican senator John McCain.

Kirk’s widow, Erika, earned widespread praise for a tearful address in which she said she forgives the man charged with her husband’s killing. She told the crowd: “My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life. I forgive him.”

Providing just enough veneer from a single speaker to pretend this event had anything approaching conservative values.

Democrats silent as Republicans seem galvanised after Charlie Kirk memorial

Democrats trod carefully in responding to event attended by nearly 100,000 that blended politics with religion

^{David Smith (The Guardian)}

Found this while surfing the webz, thought you might it as interesting and amusing as I did. Hopefully it's not too OT.

It's a mix of piracy history, code golfing, free speech activism, art, digital community, and general ingenuity that ends up being a critique of digital copyright under the DMCA. Also found the quote at the end of the table to be sadly still very relevant.

As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, That man is a Red, that man is a Communist. You never hear a real American talk like that.
-- Frank "I am the law" Hague (1896-1956)

They said the former FIU law professor said Epstein’s victims weren’t credible — and that he didn’t believe that their stories of sexual assault would lead to a successful federal prosecution.

Acosta “essentially said he didn’t have faith in the victims, their stories and their ability to tell their own story and their own testimony, which is deeply disturbing to all of us sitting in there,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost during the break.

They said they also found it disturbing that, even in hindsight, Acosta would not admit that mistakes were made and was not apologetic about how his actions led to other victims being abused by Epstein.

As Signal get your phone number. Can we considerate this application as private ?
What's your thoughts about it ?
I'm also using SimpleX, ElementX, Threema, but not much people using it...

Cheers

California’s governor has signed a bill to ban local and federal law enforcement officers, including with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), from wearing face masks while on duty.

The ban, which comes into effect on 1 January 2026, is part of a series of bills that aims to protect residents from what Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has called “secret police” roaming the streets.

US Attorney Bill Essayli, a Trump appointee, said California “has no jurisdiction over the federal government”, adding the law has “no effect on our operations” and agents “will continue to protect their identities”.

The ban is in response to federal agents wearing masks during Los Angeles immigration raids.

The law makes exceptions for undercover agents, masks used to protect against disease or wildfires, and tactical gear.

California bans most law enforcement including ICE from wearing masks

Law enforcement officials will also be required to identify themselves while conducting duties by both name and badge number.

^{Emma Rossiter (BBC News)}

Il 22 settembre 2025 l’Italia si è fermata per lo sciopero generale nazionale indetto in solidarietà con Gaza e la popolazione palestinese. In 76 città si sono svolte manifestazioni, cortei e blocchi che hanno coinvolto decine di migliaia di persone, chiedendo il cessate il fuoco immediato a Gaza e lo stop alle forniture di armi a Israele.

LEGGI TUTTO: Sciopero generale per la Palestina, manifestazioni in 76 città italiane il 22 settembre

Sciopero per la Palestina: manifestazioni in 76 città italiane

Il 22 settembre 2025 oltre 76 città italiane hanno ospitato manifestazioni per la Palestina: da Roma a Napoli, migliaia in sciopero per Gaza.

^{Redazione (Atom Heart Magazine)}

A two-day federal vaccine advisory meeting crammed with chaos, confusion, inept debate, bizarre comments, and a hot mic catching someone saying "you're an idiot," ended with an unexpected twist: The advisors unanimously voted—possibly unintentionally—to maintain broad access to COVID-19 vaccines.

In the 12–0 vote, the committee of advisors selected by anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. adopted a recommendation for adults 65 and older and people aged 6 months to 64 years to get a COVID-19 vaccine based on shared clinical decision-making. After this story was published, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adopted the recommendation, which will broadly maintain requirements that federal and private health insurance plans cover COVID-19 vaccines at no cost. While the shared clinical decision-making is a new requirement, the CDC noted in adopting the recommendation that such decision making can be done in consultation with providers, "including physicians, nurses, and pharmacists". Most people receive COVID-19 vaccines from their local pharmacists.

Bonkers CDC vaccine meeting ends with vote to keep COVID shot access

A push to require prescriptions for every COVID shot failed in a split vote.

^{Beth Mole (Ars Technica)}

Immediately after reports of Reed’s death circulated, civil rights activists pushed for a thorough investigation, citing Mississippi’s long and bloody history of lynchings, including the brutal death of Emmett Till in 1955.

On Wednesday, the Mississippi state examiner conducted an autopsy that ruled out foul play in Reed’s death. The Cleveland City Police Department has reportedly handed their findings over the FBI, which said they’re willing to investigate further if evidence “if, during the course of the local investigation, information comes to light of a potential federal violation.”

On Friday, Crump announced that Kaepernick, a vocal advocate against police brutality and racial injustice, will be paying for an independent autopsy on Reed’s body as soon as it’s released from the state medical examiner. The money will be coming from Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp’s Autopsy Initiative, which provides free, second autopsies for those whose loved ones have died in police custody or under other suspicious circumstances.

Colin Kaepernick pays for autopsy of Black student found hanging from tree

Demartravion "Trey" Reed, 21, was a student at Delta State University.

^{Mother Jones}

In 2017, after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned violent, a Texas man put out a press release: “TODAY CHARLOTTESVILLE TOMORROW TEXAS A&M.” Alt-right speaker Richard Spencer signed on to speak at the rally in College Station, before the university cancelled it, citing safety concerns.

This decision came at a time when universities, in Texas and nationally, were facing significant blowback for restricting or cancelling appearances by conservative speakers, fueling a narrative that right-leaning voices were being unfairly silenced.

This outrage made its way to the Texas Legislature, which in 2019 passed a bill requiring that all outdoor spaces on university campuses be designated as open forums for public speech, and prohibiting universities from considering anticipated controversy when deciding whether to allow a speaker on campus.

...

When protests broke out on college campuses nationwide over the war in Gaza in 2024, the president of the University of Texas at Austin called in the state police to quell the largest protests, drawing praise from Republican state leaders.

In response, lawmakers rolled back some of the protections enshrined in 2019. A new law, approved by the Legislature and signed by Abbott in June, restricts who can protest on campus and when, barring the use of amplification devices during class hours or expressive activity at night or at the end of the semester.

FIRE sued over the new law earlier this month, saying it’s overly broad and would have unintended consequences. It could be used to punish students for doing things like playing music, worshipping, wearing a Make America Great Again Hat or writing an op-ed during the nighttime hours, FIRE said in statements.

“It's human nature to say, I don't like this speech, let's find a way to stop it,” Steinbaugh said. “That is why the First Amendment is such an important limitation on government power, because it recognizes … if each of us gets to say, ‘you don't get to speak,’ then pretty much no speech will be saved.”

Charlie Kirk killing leads to free speech campus crackdowns

Gov. Greg Abbott called for a student to be expelled for celebrating Kirk’s death. Legal experts say the student’s speech is likely constitutionally protected.

^{Eleanor Klibanoff (The Texas Tribune)}

Is there any simple vector drawing application that can let me make rough sketches with arbitrary units?

For example, I want to be able to draw a rectangle that is exactly 2'6 x 12".

If I scale it by 50% it should be 15" x 6". I want to be able to measure distances. I don't want to keep track of a scale/conversion/ratio in my head, that's a perfect job for computer.

In the old Sketchup software (RIP) you could type the measurements in while drawing or manipulating objects. It was extremely fast and intuitive. I don't need 3d modelling; it was just a great UI.

All I can find is CAD and it is way overkill. Not gonna design a cotton gin or a circuit board. I just want to make a simple floor plan to see if the furniture would fit the way I want to arrange it. Or estimate material requirements for projects.

Desired features: Layers, customizable/smart keyboard shortcuts, colors, rectangle circle lines, transform/scale/skew/rotate, group/lock objects, rulers grids guide snapping.

anything?