Blog Heap of Links for the day 24 February 2016

…I think I do think twitter owes me something: a clear set of rules with even enforcement. Transparency would be a bonus (but I’m not going to get my hopes up).… Basically I’ll I’m asking from twitter is for the terms of the contract under which we operate. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so.…

…It’s only been a few weeks since Twitter announced it would ask a panel full of left-wing nutjobs to police their social media platform and shut down supposed “bullying…” I’ve started seeing people say that minor accounts were being banned… Breitbart’s @Nero lost his “verified” blue checkmark status… Stacy McCain… isn’t allowed anymore.… I guess it’s back to the only refuge from conservative free speech: email chainmails and tincans linked together through strings.…

…The TPP… is the bizarre, mostly-secret trade agreement which our current anti-capitalist president is ramming through. …we just want to focus on one seemingly teeny-tiny element which was recently changed (and which the Obama administration is no doubt hoping will fly under the radar). …in a nutshell the TPP will allegedly extend "copyright protection" for things like online content by allowing the government to bring charges against anyone suspected of copyright infringement even if the "copying" (like a simple link to a news story) does no harm to the copyright owner and, indeed, may even be encouraged by the copyright owner. …

Controversial Hollywood director Spike Lee…

Over the weekend, reports surfaced of recently unearthed Apollo 10 audio that picked up some strange sounds over the far side of the moon. The alien sounds were almost like music, according to sites covering the declassified recordings. It would be a great story if any of it was true. NASA quickly debunked every aspect of the reports in a Tumblr post Monday. As for the audio being new, they have been publicly available since 1973, according to the space agency.…

…Large denomination physical cash is going to be outlawed if central bankers have their way. The push toward a fully digitized monetary system─where every transaction will be recorded, scrutinized, controlled, and taxed─is being sold to the public as some miracle elixir to cure the world of criminal behavior.…

…Many who stand against the fight for religious freedom today do so in the name of “tolerance,” yet they boldly flaunt their intolerance for all ideas and all people they find intolerable. At every turn, we see them on our campuses, in our courts, and in our culture, masked in angry red faces, shouting: “You must agree with us! You must believe everything we believe! You must watch! You must celebrate! You must applaud!” No dissent is permitted. No diversity is allowed. Unquestioned and unchallenged power is their goal. As David Horowitz warned, these modern day Jacobins believe in little more than “the rule of the gang:” You must submit or you will be silenced.

The question we all face today is clear: do we want to be controlled by such ideological fascism or do we want to fight for intellectual freedom?…

…The news something was wrong came just days after Sally and Brandon Bailey found out they were expecting twins. “Paige was growing significantly more than Ella was,” Sally said. … The girls had something called 'Twin to Twin Transfusion Sequence.' “Vessels from twin A, if you will, are very close to vessels from twin B…” "It's one of those things where one day they can be perfectly fine and the next day, if you don't do surgery within hours, then they die,” Sally said.… The answer was a risky, in-utero surgery where doctors use a laser to seal off the vessels. …“Literally, people all over the world started praying over our girls and slowly things started getting better,” Sally said.…

Two suspects were fatally shot less than 24 hours apart last week while breaking into two separate homes in Tulsa.…

…On this day in 1917 U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, Walter Hines Page, was given the Zimmermann Telegram. This telegram was instrumental in getting the US into WWI.…

[Trump tweets:] I hear the Rickets family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $'s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide.

…Trump said, “He will lie about anything. Now I’ve met much tougher people than Ted Cruz. He’s like a baby compared to some of the people I have to do. He’s like a little baby — soft, week little baby by comparison. But for lying he is the best I’ve ever seen. He’s the best.”…