Xanthippa’s First Law of Human-Dynamics

March 19, 2009 — xanthippa

‘Xanthippa’s first law of human dynamics’:

IF there is a potential for ANY law (rule) to be applied IN EXTREME ways – never forseen when the law was first ‘accepted’ – eventually, it WILL BE!!!

Therefore, every law(rule) MUST be examined in the MOST EXTREME WAY POSSIBLE before it can be ‘accepted’!

Using ‘hyperbole’ or ‘reductio ad absurdum’ when examining the potential impact of any law/rule – existing or proposed – is not just a good thing to do, it is a very, very necessary one.

In order to demonstrate, please, allow me to walk you through this exercise:

Example #1

Several years ago, a law was passed in Australia in order to protect innocent children (we ALL want to protect our children!).  This law’s aim was high and lofty:  to get rid of internet sites which propagate child pornography.

Nobody in their right mind would want to protect anything that might shield child abusers!  So, the law was passed quickly and quietly, with very little scrutiny.  Not ‘only’ would such scrutiny be seen as ‘immoral’ (are YOU on the side of pedophiles?), it would be political suicide (do YOU want to be seen as ‘protecting pedophiles’?)!!!

So, the law got passed by the legislators and accepted by the populace, with very little scrutiny.

Years went by – nothing much happened.

At least, nothing much was SEEN to be happening – for a very, very long time.

Then, about a year ago, the Australian government announced it would ‘begin to apply the law’ more fully.  MUCH more fully!  Now, the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are legally bound (well, they were before, but now it is enforced) to choke and censor and do all kinds of bad things….

The Australian government now has a highly secret list of websites which are banned:  that means, the ISP’s are not allowed to let anyone in Australia access them – and, if someone somehow figured out a way around this, the citizens can be persecuted for accessing them anyway.  Of course, this list is highly secret.  Linking to any of the sites – or, indeed, the very list which informs you what sites are forbidden – can get you $11,000 per DAY in fines and 10 years in jail.

The funny thing is that this super secret list contains a number of sites which are not illegal under this law.  Sites like dentists, or gambling sites – or, political sites, like anti-abortion ones.  Of course, these could be ‘honest errors’ – there must surely exist a mechanism for these ‘error listings’ to get off the list, right???

SO, HOW DO YOU GET OFF ‘THE LIST’???

IF you admit you KNOW that a site is blocked – you are admitting you BROKE THE LAW by attempting to access a ‘banned site’!  10 years in jail for you!!!

And, if you don’t admit you know a site is wrongfully blacklisted – HOW do you ask for it to be removed?

Ah, is that a ‘tiny’ blind spot I see???

Example #2

New Zealand has some pretty ‘nifty’ laws regarding the internet, too!

Here, the legislators were ‘trying to protect intellectual property’ from being stolen.  Apparently, this is necessary in order to comply with the international (and, especially the US) copyright laws…

After all, EVERYONE knows that BAD people are stealing music and movies over the internet!!!  One HAS TO protect the poor little dears who need to eek out a living distributing all this ‘content’!  So, these leeches ‘entertainment industry insiders’ have not evolved with the technology:  they have not adjusted their business-model to the new practice of movies and music being a ‘participatory’ medium…they got stuck in the era where ‘they’ got to dictate ‘content’ and everyone else had to ‘consume it’.

Well, we( the ‘unwashed masses’) are no longer ‘consumers’ – that term implies ‘passive recipients’.  Now, we are all ‘participants in a dialogue’!  This makes it MUCH more difficult for the former ‘producers/distributors’ of content (not the artists – rather, those who decided which ‘content’ has the ‘right message’ and therefore ‘gets distributed’) to control the messages and ideas propagating over the internet!

So, according to the new laws in New Zealand, if ANYONE accusses a person of ‘breech of copyright’, their ISP has to cut them off the internet.  If a site is accused of ‘breech of copyright’, it is no longer allowed to be displayed – by the ISPs, the search engines, or anyone.  The key word here is ACCUSSED!!!  No trial, no hearing, no nothing… you just get ‘cut off’ – and even places like libraries are not allowed to grant you internet access if YOU have been black-listed…and if THEY fail, then THEY get cut off…

Ask Google what THEY think of this!

Example #3:

Each and every one of the ISP’s in England is now legally bound to monitor each and every one of your clicks, emails and messages – to make sure their content is ‘politically correct’!

And – just to add insult to injury, just about EVERY civil servant WILL have FULL ACCESS to their neighbour’s ‘internet history’…

Ah, yes.  We ALL trust every single civil servant with this kind of info… After all, they ARE our ‘Big Brothers’!!!

Couple this with Britain’s submission to the EU – and their ‘Blasphemy Resolutions’ – what would the Inquisition not have given for this kind of power?!?!?

And that does not even mention Canada’s ‘Section 13’ – the ‘Thought Crime’ law!!!

Do I REALLY need to go on?

Just like ‘Murphy’s law’ says that ‘Anything that CAN go wrong, it WILL’, Xanthippa’s first law of Human-Dynamics says that if any law CAN be abused, it WILL!!!

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The first rule of censorship is that you are not allowed to talk about censorship

March 18, 2009 — xanthippa

WOW!!

This sounds like a bad movie!

(Not that ‘Fight Club’ was a bad movie – just that a ‘Government enforced’ version of ‘Fight Club existence’ would be a very, very bad movie!!!)

This is beyond comprehensible!

OK… I’ll slow down enough to fill you in on what I’m talking about.

Imagine a dystopia where the government has a ‘black list’ of things you are not allowed to do and not allowed to talk about.  Or, perhaps, a list of websites you are not allowed to click on.  They are still visible, you are just not allowed to click on them.  IF you breach this strict prohibition, you will be hunted down and punished, with the full weight of the state hurled at you to crush you.

Pretty bad, right?  Where would you say this is taking place?

Well, on the surface of it, you might suggest places like Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and, perhaps, Pakistan.  Yet, I speak of a different place…

Perhaps more clues are needed in order for you to recognize the country I speak of:  would it be helpful if I told you that there, this ‘black list’ is actually secret?

Yes, you read this correctly:  nobody KNOWS they have broken the rules until AFTER they have broken the rules!

Do you not believe such a thing could happen today???

Well, you would be wrong.

Not only does it happen in our world, it is happening as we are having our virtual conversation:  and it is happening in a ‘Western Democracy’!!!

The ‘black list’?

Is it some ‘democracy-in-name-only, a country stiffeled under the yoke of the EU oppression?  As in the manner of ‘Prison?  Then is the world one…in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o’th’worst!’

I’m sorry to disappoint you – I am not speaking of a EU nation-state.

I speak of no other place than Australia!!!

Yes, Australia!!!

The Sydney Morning Herald from 17. March 2009 reports:

‘The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.

Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark’s list of banned websites.’

Aside:  Just in case you happened to be in Denmark, or wanted to travel there, and did NOT want to run afoul of the local laws by accidentally clicking on one of the thousands of websites banned in Denmark, the ‘Wikileaks’ page listing them is here.

But, please, consider the implications of this action!!!

  1. A number (a very big number) of websites get banned – people get fined for accessing them, and their internet providers are legally obligated to monitor their subscribers’ activity online and notify the government (and provide them with the necessary documentation, to be used in court) if ANY one of their subscribers accesses one of these sites.
  2. An internet website publishes this list of banned websites:  after all, people ought to KNOW where they are not allowed to click – right???
  3. The internet pages actually providing this public notice are themselves banned – for the very reason that they ARE informing people WHAT is and is not legal!!!

In other words, our governments are wrapping themselves in the cloak of righteous indignation over the ‘problem of internet pedophilia’ and banning websites, left, right and centre (though, mostly right of centre)…NOT just sites that (horrid and reprehensible as they are) abuse kids.  And, to make sure that nobody notices EXACTLY WHAT it is they are banning, they will ALSO ban any pages which actually tell people what it is that is banned!!!

So, the first time you will find out that a site is ‘blacklisted’ is when you loose your internet service and get dragged to court for having ‘clicked on something’!!!

And, if you think that only websites that contain ‘child pornography’ (or whatever euphemism you want to use for this horrible, horrible abuse of kids) are being put onto these ‘blacklists’, please, think again (my emphasis):

‘The site has also published Thailand’s internet censorship list and noted that, in both the Thai and Danish cases, the scope of the blacklist had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.

Already, a significant portion of the 1370-site Australian blacklist – 506 sites – would be classified R18+ and X18+, which are legal to view but would be blocked for everyone under the proposal. The Government has said it was considering expanding the blacklist to 10,000 sites and beyond.’

To infinity 10,000 sites – and beyond!!!

‘EFA said the Government’s “spin is starting to wear thin” and it could no longer be denied that the ACMA blacklist targets a huge range of material that is legal and even uncontroversial.’

And, yes, Australia’s ‘blacklist’ of banned websites is also very, very secret.  As a matter of fact, the article suggests that it was the fear that the Aussie list would also ‘get published’ which prompted the Australian government to ban (block access to) sites which list the Danish ‘blacklist’.

Is THIS what our democracies, the only defenders of the individual’s inherent rights to make his or her own choices, have been reduced to?!?!?  If so, then I want a ticket out of here!

(Sorry, I get really, really worked up over this stuff – this is NOT just some hypothetical thing, this is a REAL THREAT to our freedoms!  Now, let’s get some of you people ‘out there’ – who have the right background to make this technically possible – to start working on a censorship-proof subnet… which will, eventually, replace the now so obviously dying internet‘!)

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Making things mesh

March 16, 2009 — xanthippa

In my last couple of posts, I have bemoaned how our beloved internet is being more and more choked and censored.  If you’d like to read them, they are here and here.

It seems to me that as long as the internet is delivered to our homes via physical infrastructure, it will necessarily be endangered.

Why?

Because this infrastructure has to be physically delivered to our homes and offices by someone.

This someone is a public or private company.  Either way, this someone is subject to government regulation.  Therefore, if the government imposes unreasonable demands on this someone, this someone must comply or loose their license to do business in that country.

So, what is the answer?  How do we throw off the shackles of virtual oppression?

In my never-humble-opinion, we must find a way of building up an internet-type place which is accessed without any physical infrastructure.  No satellite signal provider.  No telephone or cable cables carrying our bits and bytes back and forth.  There MUST be another way!

The question now is:  what is the BEST way of doing this?

There are several ways of going about it.  I simply lack the depth of knowledge in this field to know which would be the best solution.  Therefore, I would like to ask everyone’s opinion on some possible ways to go about this…

One possible solution is to build a world-wide mesh.

This is actually rather neat! An area has a whole bunch of little receivers/transmitters which automatically find the best path for a signal to take.  The drawback here is that these nodes have to be installed by someone and one of them has to have a physical connection to the internet itself.  In other words, there is still a problem.

Yet, this could perhaps provide a partial solution…

Do you remember that most awesome initiative by the High-Tech people to help kids in Africa learn:  the ‘one laptop per child’ initiative?  Here, kids in Africa (and elsewhere) would be given some pretty awesome, specialized laptops: this wold allow them to hook up to the world-wide internet and provide them the opportunity to learn!

Yet, the initiative faced a problem:  how can these laptops connect to the internet, when they are given to kids where no internet infrastructure exists?

This was solved by making each and every one of these specialized laptops also work as a node in a mesh network!

That built a ‘mobile ad hoc network’.  The communication protocols for this have already been developed…

In such a network – were it to be spread worldwide – there would not be any central channels or ISPs which could exert control over communication.  Of course, there would be a whole slew of problems with this solution that would need to be worked out before this would be a practical solution.

What I would like to know is if this would be a step in the right direction.

What do you think?

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Divide and Censor

March 14, 2009 — xanthippa

The internet has succeeded in breaking down borders:  political (to some extent) and geographical – with great success.  Paradoxically, it is precisely this success that has created new types of borders.

These ‘virtual borders’ are now between various ‘virtual communities’ which have sprung up around specific fields of interest.

These communities may not be physical, in the old-fashioned sense of communities which get together in one room, yet they are very real communities: rich and vibrant within themselves.  However, there is very little interaction between most of the ‘online communities’.  And, the interaction between these various groups is pretty non-existent.  After all, when there is no reason to interact – why would they?

Yet, this is also our ‘Achille’s heel’ which allows us to be manipulated…

The very fact that there are so many people on the internet, that there are so many different ‘groups’ and ‘communities’ means that we cannot really ‘absorb’ them all into ‘our world’.  Our brains are used to only interacting with a certain number of people (groups) – anything outside of that, we can only conceive of in terms of ‘labels’ and ‘stereotypes’.

(I have gone on and on about this phenomenon in my series of posts on ‘scaling up communities’:  the whole ‘monkeysphere’/’Dunbar’s number thing… the reason why one death is a ‘tragedy’ while a million deaths is a ‘statistic’.)

This is not a bad thing in itself – it is simply the natural way our brain operates.

However, it means that the ‘online community’ is not really one ‘online community’:  rather, it is a mosaic of many, many communities, divided by the strongest border there is:  the border of ‘non interest’

How easy it then becomes for those who wold like to ‘divide and censor’ to manipulate these stereotypes, in order to strip us of our rights, one ‘virtual community’ at a time!!!

Please, consider the following:  for ‘non-techie’ types, what does the phrase ‘peer to peer network’ bring to mind?  Or the name ‘Bit-Torrents’?  Or ‘Pirate Bay’?

Unless I am terribly mistaken, this will make most non-techies think of ‘stealing movies‘:  people who abuse the internet to steal ‘content’ and make it difficult for everyone else.

Yet, my husband and his brother use this method to transmit our family photos to each other:  this way, if our server ever ‘blows up’, we have backups at his house, and vice versa.

My son likes to download ‘public domain’ (i.e. no payment required) games and programming tools, using Bit Torrnets.  No laws are being broken – to the contrary:  many of these people are working hard to improve the internet experience for all of us – free of charge to everybody!

And, there are actually legitimate businesses which use the ‘Bit Torrent’ technology for legitimate, legal, copyright-upholding transactions.

If the terms ‘peer to peer’ and ‘Bit Torrents’ DID make you have a dismissive – or even more negative – reaction, then YOU have been a victim of some wonderful ‘spin’ designed to ‘divide and censor’!!!

And, that does not even take into consideration what happened with ‘Pirate Bay’:  this company was operating WITHIN THE LAW!  Yet, the US movie industry did not like what they were doing:  so, they ‘influenced’ the US lawmakers, who ‘influenced’ the Swedish government, who – despite the advice of its own lawyers that the company is not breaking any laws – Swedish or international – the Swedish government ORDERED A POLICE RAID on the company’s business and siezed its assetts!!!

How is that even possible?

Yet, most ‘online communities’ think this is ‘just kids stealing movies’ – why loose sleep over it?

WHY?

Because it sets precedents, that’s why!!!

In my never-humble-opinion, I have found that most ‘online communities’ outside the ‘dedicated techies’ just could not care about the issues of ‘Bit Torrents’ and ‘channel choking’!

On the other hand…

I have as yet to meet ‘dedicated techies’ – on or off-line – who pay much attention to the ‘Free Speechers’!!!  Yeah, a bunch of people, going on about court cases and nazis – so what?  Instead, they try to figure out how to technically circumvent the latest form of censorship of their channels…

Then there are the people who are fighting the ‘Creeping Sharia/Anti-Islamists’ – they do, to some extent, overlap with the ‘Free Speechers’.  But, not totally.  They show little interest in the curbing of free speech, if it does not involve Islamists – come on, be honest!  And the Free Speechers do support the ‘Creeping Sharia/Anti-Islamists’ to a great extent – especially when it comes to the suppression of free speech on the topic of Islamist atrocities….

I suggest that the overlap between these two groups is so great because they are currently both threatened from similar sources.  And, I suggest that the ‘techies’ do not overlap with these two groups because the danger to them is coming from a ‘completely different direction’!

But, is it???

I suggest to you that it is NOT.

I know, I am not doing a good job of expressing here what I am trying to say.  I have re-written this at least 5 times, and it is getting worse, not better….  I feel like my ‘focus’ is slipping away as I try to make my explanations understandable – while when I gloss over the explanations and focus on my main point, the whole thing sounds hollow, because the explanations are too shallow to make much sense…

So, please, let me try to speak more plainly….  I’ll go to point form – then, whatever needs to be covered deeper, please, comment on and I will do my best to expand on it.

1.  We can only enjoy our level of online freedom (which translates into practical freedom in ‘off-line’ life) if the internet remains ‘free’ (NOT monetarily – just as in ‘not censored’)

2.  Freedom of Speech is constantly being attacked in our society… several completely different guises and excuses

3.  The ‘ human rights’ component:  the ‘Free Speechers/Anti-Islamists’ are aware of this one
– The UN submission to ‘Blasphemy laws’ (and their desire to force all of its member nations to comply with these)
– The ‘Human Rights Commissions’ and their thought police, political correctness busybodies…
– The EU’s manipulation… even legalizing pedophelia under the guise of ‘tolerance’ -Lisbon treaty… mandatory…
– Can you say ‘Geert Wilders’?

4.  The ‘commercial/IP rights’ component:
– Powerful lobbies from entertainment AND soft&hardware makers are succeeding in reducing ‘consumer rights’
– ‘Fair use’ is more and more limited – companies have the right for more and more intrusive ‘monitoring’
– ‘Consumer privacy’ is being legislated away

5.  The ‘community protection’ component
– Under the guise of ‘community protection’, more and more privacy is being legislated away
– More and more intrusive methods of monitoring are being implemented: ostensibly to protect kids from pedophelia (!!!)
– ‘Accussation’ of something triggers penalties as if one were found ‘guilty’, to stop them ‘doing harm’ IF they were guilty…
– And, this falls loosely into this ‘community protection’ – but we are talking about the ‘environmental fascism’ movement,  which is also pushing for more intrusive ‘monitoring and compliance’ for ‘stuff’ in order to ‘protect’ – yet which is also practicing censorship in a very real way…  Personally, I think these are eco-statists, who are undermining the health of our environment by attempting to ‘freeze it’ in its current state – but that is a different rant.  Yet, they ARE a very real part of this ‘censorship’ puzzle…

To sum it up:  this is a bit of a ‘picer move’ happening.  No, I don’t think there is a wide-ranging conspiracy thingy happening! Yet, the effects of each of these separate forces are in the same directions, and are supportive of each other. Sort of like wawes, that build upon each other, rising in amplitude as one is superimposed over the other….until it sweeps all notions of ‘Freedom of Speech’ out to sea!!!

Because there IS a connection:  the GOVERNMENT is the connection.  It is our government which controls the laws on how ‘human rights’ are – or are not – observed.  And, it is the government who passes the ‘consumer’ laws.  AND, it is the government which REGULATES the industries:  and, any industry ‘actor’ which would not ‘comply’ with government regulation will loose its license to do business…while compliance with the government policies in a highly regulated marketplace usually equals (or comes close to) a monopoly for the company doing the complying…

All the ‘threads’ lead back to the same place… givning our governments grweater and greater control over every aspect of our lives.  And, while I think most democracies are not ‘intentionally evil’, I AM very suspicious of the bureaucracies which run the governments…  I have seen too many high-level bureaucrats who are much too skilled at handling the elected governments…

So, what we need to do is to get all these diverse groups which would be affected by the end of the internet as we know it (and as I have written about in my last post), and begin comparing notes.  Because, people may not always be ‘smart’, but we are always ‘clever:  those who would oppress – whether for ideological or commercial reasons – there are laws which give someone (government, business – whatever) an ability to oppress, people will ALWAYS find the maximum possible way to do the oppressing.

That is just human nature…

So, we need to seriously begin comparing notes! Not to dismiss each other, because of the ‘labels’ applied to the different online communities by those who would like to eliminate us!  Because, if we stay divided, each of us will only see a bit of the picture – and none of us will build a sufficient defense…if that were even possible!

I suppose one could call it a case of ‘DIVIDE AND CENSOR’!

And, perhaps, we need to begin to build an alternative to the internet:  something where there will not be centralized ‘providers’ who can be contrlolled by governments (and thus become tools of censorship) – yet, which would connect us all, the way the internet does now.  A sort of an ‘ungerground internet’, if you please… a SUBNET!  I don’t know HOW, but knowing we must beging to think about it is a start!

Sorry to have rambled on so long….and for sounding so ‘preachy’.  Perhaps it’s my Cassandra complex that’s kicking in.  It’s just that – I can see it happening!

And I don’t know how to fix it… and it really, really frightens me!

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‘Ham radio’ internet

March 12, 2009 — xanthippa

OK, this is getting very, very scary.

A while ago, I wrote about a proposed idea to alter the way Canadians access the internet:  instead of ‘connecting’ to the ‘Great Wide Web’ and navigating it freely, this ‘model’ would more closely resemble the way Cable companies allow customers to access various TV channels.  The internet denier provider would ‘bundle’ the most ‘desirable’ websites, just like TV channels are ‘bundled’ by Cable providers.  Accessing anything outside of these bundles would be either very, very expensive – or not available at all.

Couple this with the calls by Barbara Hall of the Ontario ‘Commission for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice’ Human Rights Commission to shackle ALL journalists and bloggers with a ‘Canadian Broadcast Standards Council’– like body which would censor ALL the written (virtual or printed) words in Canada!  Not a pretty picture!!!

Yet, my beloved Canada is  not the only place under siege!

Now, the UK is proposing EXACTLY the same scheme!!!

This would mean that unless a website or blog was ‘influential enough’ to muscle its way onto the ‘approved’ list for a particular ‘bundle’ of websites ‘offered’ by an ISP, it would be 100% invisible and unaccessible to the UK internet subscribers!

Yes, this is even more limiting than the Canadian proposal, which sought to make ‘non-approved’ sites economically unavailable.  This model would make them ‘virtually non-existent’!!!

And, let’s not forget UK’s recently adopted policy of allowing the police to routinely hack into private people’s internet accounts without a warrant….

And, that is barely the tip of the proverbial ice berg!!!

Let’s look at the laws proposed for New Zeland:  at the end of March (miracle notwithstanding), ALL internet service providers will be legally forced to cease to provide any and all internet access to any IP address which has been ACCUSED of a copyright violation!

No, you did not misread this.  The mere ACCUSSATION by the movie/music industry that a person MIGHT be in violation of a copyright held by them (third party accussations would be ‘acceptable’) will LEGALLY BIND the ISP to STOP providing any and all internet access to that IP address!

All this is made ‘possible’ by Section 92A of the Copyright Act of New Zealand.  It was supposed to come into force at the end of February, but, due to the online petition opposing it, the NZ parliamentarians delayed the implementation for one month.

And what of Australia?

THEY have passed laws giving up any and all internet privacy rights – and the access to the internet – years ago.  These laws were passed in the name of ‘protecting children’ from the evils of the internet:  pornography and pedophelia.  Right…  As a parent, I take active part in the raising of my kids:  and I do NOT need ANYBODY ELSE to monitor my kids’ online activities!  And, I really, really resent the implication that I am (or, rather, the Australian parents are) so irresponsible or incompetent that the state has to step in and raise my kids for me!!!  This is insulting in the extreme!

Of course, most of the people in Australia had been lulled into a false sense of security because these laws had not actually been applied – to the full letter of the law – for quite a while.  So, if people NOW started to protest these laws – even though these had been in place for years – they would look silly….  Yet, it is only now that the Australian government has announced that they plan to enforce these laws to the EXTREME LETTER of the law!

This is a beautiful trick.  Governments draft a law – like the Australian government did with this law – to ostensibly ‘protect our children’.  Nobody (especially politicians) wants to look like they want to ‘enable pedophiles’ – so these types of laws often get passed quickly, with little dissent and little  close examination.

Yet, as I am fond of pointing out, if there is an ‘extreme’ way to interpret a law – especially if this extreme gives some decisionmakers the power over the populace – it WILL (eventually) be applied to such an extreme!!!

Of course, now we also have the UN attempting to FORCE its member states to make its ‘Blasphemy Resolution’ legally binding within their jurisdiction.

PLEASE – PUT ALL THIS TOGETHER!!!

Soon, we may loose the internet – in the form where we know it now!

Which is why I am putting out a challenge to each and every one of you:  let’s find a non-IP-dependant alternative!!!

Just like ‘ham radios’ operate without a central service provider, but rather form a wireless peer-to-peer network, so WE need to find a similar way to build an alternate internet network.

OK, so the’ham radio’ bandwidth is very, very narrow, and thus subject to jamming and environmental disruptions and all kinds of other problems.  Yet, it provides a useful model for us to emulate.

We need some of you, brilliant young scientists and hackers, to think long and hard – and find a working solution.

Yes, there was the idea of consumers actually owning their own internet connection….yet, under the current political climate, I doubt this will ever come to be – even if the technology is perfected and affordable.

So, please, get started on developing this new idea – no-provider, no-censor, no-control new-fangled version of the internet!  Because what we have now is about to die…and, without a ‘new generation’, this whole past 30-year period will be consigned to be no more than a note in dusty, locked-up and guarded (lest people read them) history books!!!

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Is it time to abolish the UN?

March 11, 2009 — xanthippa

This year, the UN plans to make its ‘Blasphemy Resolution’ BINDING on ALL ITS MEMBER STATES!!!!!!!!!

When the League of Nations became irrelevant, it was abolished.

For those of you cursed with a ‘recent’ North American education, here is a very brief explanation:

Following ‘The Great War’ (WWI), people decided that wars were a bad thing that should – and could – be prevented.  So, they set up this organization whose purpose was to do exactly that by providing a supranational governance structure and a forum for a negotiated conflict resolution.  They called it the League of Nations.

Promptly, the new ‘world government’ set about defining The Rights of Man, and other unarguably worthy things.  Collectivists of the world unite, and all that…

Yet, the League of Nations was singularly bad at actually accomplishing any of the things it had claimed it wanted to do.  For example, when the LoN tried to give a stern talking to the likes of Mussolini and Hitler, Mussolini told them that ‘human rights’ don’t apply to ‘Ethiopians’ because they are ‘not fully human’ (!) and Hitler told them they had no right to interfere in Germany’s internal policies (you know, the Holocaust).

It was at roughly this point in time that people realized that the League of Nations was not actually doing what it thought it was doing, and pulled the plug on it.

Following WWII, people decided that wars were a bad thing that should – and could – be prevented.  So, they set up this organization whose purpose was to do exactly that by providing a supranational governance structure and a forum for a negotiated conflict resolution.  They called it the United Nations.

Promptly, the new ‘world government’ set about making the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other unarguably worthy things.  Collectivists of the world unite, and all that…

Sound familiar?

Except that, the UN was LoN.2:  an upgraded release, with much more functionality and much wider reaching ambitions.

Now, the UN does not only want to ‘prevent war’ by providing a supranational governance structure, or to resolve international conflicts peacefully.  Now, it had taken upon itself the role of a ‘World Busybody’:  from the environment to our internal laws, nothing is outside of the UN’s scope of interest.

Don’t believe me just how intrusive the UN plans to be into the economic and social development of sovereign states?  Read it yourself – and you WILL weep!

Look at something as simple as the ages-old concept:  freedom of the seas!

Contrary to some modern claims that this is a new idea, the concept that the seas were not anyone’s sovereign property and that all have the right to travel them freely was a concept that has been around since (at least) the time of Cicero.  Yet, the UN has – criminally, in my never-humble-opinion – chosen to abort the ‘Freedom of the Seas’ and replace it with ‘Law of the Seas’!

Now, in this post, I don’t intend to delve too deeply into the L.O.S.T.:  this would take at least 1000 words, and most of them expletive.  Let it suffice to point out that under this ‘law’, the UN would have to protect all the seas:  so, anything that might affect them would be under their jurisdiction – including all the watersheds!  Want to build a city?  Is it in a watershed that drains to some sea somewhere?  Then the UN has the right to say when and how you can do it:  it has to protect the waters, you see.

Yes:  L.O.S.T. gives the UN the power over all the water on Earth!!!  And, the right – nay, the DUTY – to regulate EVERYTHING which might ‘affect water’.

Am I exaggerating?  Check it out.  Please!  I would very much like to be wrong on this one.  I may be presenting the extreme to which the letter of this ‘convention’ may be applied – I will grant this easily.  Yet, when have humans who want power have ‘established’ something, history shows us that they WILL push things ALL THE WAY to the extremes.  Therefore, it is only prudent that we examine what COULD be permitted under a law – because, eventually, it WILL be.

You see, replacing ‘Freedom’ with ‘Law’ is something the UN loves to do.  And, gaining more and more power over its member nations – being more and more intrusive in their internal policies – well, that is part of the observable pattern of the UN behaviour.

Please, consider this latest little ‘drop in the bucket’.

We are all aware that for several years in a row, the UN has submitted to pressures from ‘religious groups’ and has declared that the human right to freedom of speech MUST be limited in order to protect religious sensibilities.  Most of us refer to this as ‘The Blasphemy Law’.

What this means – in practice – is the re-criminalization of blasphemy against any religion in general, and Islam in particular.

By – yet again submitting – the UN has turned the clock of our civilization to back before the time of the Renaissance!!!

IT GETS WORSE!!!

This year, the UN plans to make its ‘Blasphemy Resolution’ BINDING on ALL ITS MEMBER STATES!!!!!!!!!

HOW DARE THEY!!!

Frankly, I don’t care WHICH religion:  I WILL BLASPHEME THEM ALL!!!

I suppose I am an ‘equalist’ when it comes to BLASPHEMY!

Why?

Because while I respect each person’s individual spirituality, I regard EACH and EVERY religion to be a manipulation of this very human spiritual dimension, sub-verted into the hands of powerhungry individuals in order to coerce obedience from the rest of us.

If THIS is what the UN wants to impose, I say it is time to abolish it!

What do YOU say?

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Posted in freedoms, ignosticism, opression, philosophy, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Khamisa Sawadi: yet another victim of Sharia!

March 10, 2009 — xanthippa

Khamisa Sawadi is a 75-year-old woman – and a widow.

Since she is, under Saudi law, allowed to leave her house without a male guardian (who must be a close relative), she had often asked neighbours to help her get food.  This time, she had asked her nephew, Fahd al-Anzi, for help.

Fahd al-Anzi and his friend and business partner Hadiyan bin Zein did indeed bring several loaves of bread – Khamisa Sawadi’s one week’s supply of food (!!!) to the old woman.  Most normal people would consider this to be a good act, demonstrating kindness and respect to one’s elders.  Right?

Well, not according to all people.

Someone in the neighbourhood saw the two young men enter the old woman’s presence – and dissapproved.  This busybody then went and reported to the ‘religious police’ (what a concept, eh?  ‘religious police’!!!), properly called ‘Commission for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice’, who promptly arrested the young men…

It seems that the young man’s father, brother of the widow’s late husband, had also complained to the police that his sister-in-law is ‘corrupting’ his son!

Here is where things get a little sketchy:  the woman was her nephew’s ‘milk-mother’ (being a child’s wet-nurse, under Sharia, gives a woman an equivalent status to that of its ‘mother’, when defining ‘close male relatives’) and should therefore, under strict Sharia interpretation, be innocent of any wrongdoing.  Yet, the AP news report cryptically states:

“Because she said she doesn’t have a husband and because she is not a Saudi [Sawadi was born in Syria], conviction of the defendants of illegal mingling has been confirmed,” the court verdict read.

So, a woman’s marital status and place of birth are the determining factors of her guilt???

And, what was the punishment the court ordered for this 75 year old woman for asking her surrogate son to bring her food?

40 LASHES, 4 months in prison and deportation!!!

Both young men will also be lashed…

I cannot wrap my brain around this!  Truly:  I got a bad headache when I first heard of it, and it has been getting worse all day.  I really, really get worked up about these types of things!  Do you know why?  Here is a picture of ‘whipping’ as administered in Saudi Arabia…

Can a 75-year-old woman survive this?  And then, 4 months in prison (instead of hospitalization)?

But of course, that is not of interest to the very people who have made up – and now enforce – these laws!  After all, they would have been perfectly willing to see her starve to death – which is why the ‘religious police’ got ‘tipped off’ by someone in the neighbourhood that this ‘immoral act’ of bringing an old widow her weekly supply of food is happening!

That is pretty scary!!!

Yet, there is hope:  the AP article reports that unjust and downright ridiculous rulings such as this one are alienating some of the population.

“Others have also spoken out against the case against Sawadi, accusing the religious police of going too far”

And, if this Saudi woman rights activist, Wajiha Al-Huweidar is correct, there is indeed hope.  Not in the near future, but hope!

“Look, the early signs that a wrong ideology is dying  are fanaticism and extremism.  This is obvious.

Have you ever seen a dead body that is soft?  When the body dies, it goes rigid.  Similarly, this ideology will become increasingly rigid, and will reach the height of fanaticism, but it is constantly in the process of dying.

Take a look at history.

Let’s examine what happened to the Church in Europe.  It became rigid and persecuted ideologies, killing and burning scientists, until people rebelled against it and this led to its collapse.

History tells us this holds true for all ideologies…”

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Posted in human nature. Tags: , , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Who will dominate the emerging cultural hegemony?

March 9, 2009 — xanthippa

Recently, I have been re-reading a book by Eduard Storch called ‘Minehava’: in it, the history teacher/anthropologist turned author explores how and why early European tribal peoples turned from matrilinear societies into patrilinear ones.  Since his books targeted about the same age-group as Lois Lowry’s ‘The Giver, the explanations are a ‘little simplified’.  But, the basics are there:  population growth leads to greater population density, more ‘intercultural contact’ leads to increased need for resources, assuring survival of the culture more willing to assert its dominance…

It got me started thinking about just how great a societal uphaval the change must have been.  The adjustment to the expectations of the new social order must have been significant.

Now, we are also going through a bit of ‘societal upheaval’.

Of course, things are more complex now:  the larger a human society is, the more complex ‘running it’ becomes.  And, the ‘societal upheaval’ we are undergoing now is also much more complex.  Yet, deep down we know that it is nothing less than the beginnings of the integration of all humans into one, global culture.

Let’s face it – that is what is happening.  Whether we jump on the bandwagon quickly and work towards an integrated political system (world government) or not, the ease and speed of communication and immigration means that human societies throughout the world are indeed in the early stages of global cultural integration.  (The economic bit had started quite a while ago…)

So, how will this play out?

Will the ‘best’ values and cultural practices ‘win’?

We could have a long and heated debate on what ARE the ‘best’ values and cultural practices – and not come to an agreement. (Actually, a brawl is a more likely outcome…over the internet, a vitrual brawl, but brawl none-the-less!)  Yet, that debate would be mute.  Because THAT is not the deciding factor for selecting the dominant factors in our emerging cultural hegemony…

Throughout human history, we have seen that it is not the ‘wise’ whose opinions are followed – perhaps for a little while, but not in the long run.  Nor is it the ‘numerous’. And, let’s not even raise ‘the voice of reason’:  it only alienates the ‘unreasonable majority’!

Instead, it is those who are the ‘loudest’ whose voices dictate the course of human history!

Those who are the most stubborn, uncompromising and who are willing to drown-out all competing voices (regardless of how ruthlessly) – THOSE are the voices which always (eventually) come to dominate any dialogue – and it is THEY who eventually succeed in having their own values and practices imposed on the whole of society as the cultural ‘norms’.  Just look around!

Can we do anything to ensure that our voice – the voice of those who espouse freedoms of thought and speech, the voice which respects each individual – can we do anything to make sure that THAT voice is not drowned out?  That it is not silenced forever, destined to be nothing more than a footnote in the histry about ‘extinct cultures’?

I don’t know.

It may be too late.

And even if it were NOT too late, I don’t know if this voice would even stand a chance.  After all, when one’s very principles require one to treat others as equals – only to be treated (according to thier principals) back as an inferior – that tends to limit one’s ability to achieve ‘things’ (like, say, the survival of one’s ideas and ideals).

(I know I am expressing this poorly, sorry – I just don’t know how to say it better!  What I mean is that just like a person who will not use violence, even in self-defense, does not stand a chance of survival against a gang of those intent to do violence to her, so the voice which will not silence others will have little chance to be heard over the noise raised by its opponents who have no such scruples.  And, losing these ‘scruples’ would be to stop being that voice…)

So, what CAN we do?

Very little.

Aside from shouting as loudly as we can, without inhibbiting anyone else’s ability to shout, the only thing we can – and MUST – do is to teach people, especially young people, to question.

To question EVERYTHING.

Yes, it is not much.  And, it can be trying (yes, I AM raising a teenager!).  But teaching people to question everything:  from political correctness to their own views – secular, religious or whatever… from science to cultural practices, from teachers and parents to their friends – that is what will teach them to evaluate for themselves which ideas and ideals are worthy of keeping, and which are not.

And THAT is teaching them to exercise the freedom of thought!

I cannot think of any weapon that would be more powerful.

Which brings me to my last question:  can we arm enough young people with this weapon to make a difference?

I don’t know….  But, I’ll die trying!

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Posted in freedoms, human nature, opression, philosophy, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , , . 7 Comments »

Victory for Ontario Conservatives!

March 6, 2009 — xanthippa

UPDATE: John Tory has announced he is stepping down!

It was stunning!

Big thanks to all voters in the Ontario riding of Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock!

John Tory was a millstone around the neck of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.  Now, they can ditch him without being disloyal!  FINALLY!!!

For those of you not familiar with the story…

Ontario used to be an economic stronghold.  Then, the McGuinty Liberals came to power.  Sad times came to Ontario.  One is tempted to reffer to Dalton McGuinty as ‘Bodymaster McGuinty’ – but that would not be nice towards that character from the Sherlock Holmes story ‘Valley of Fear’…

Anyhow, during McGuinty’s first term in office, he became very unpopular.  And, he would have been turfed out during the last election – had Mr. Tory not been the leader of the Conservative Party of Ontario.  Mr. Tory singlehandedly returned the McGuinty gang back into office – failing to even get himself elected into the legislature.

Unless you follow Ontario politics, it is difficult to imagine just how hard Mr. Tory had to work to return the hated McGuinty and his Liberals into power.  Let it suffice to say that Boss McGuinty employed Warren Kinsella as his spin-meister during the election – and Tory handed him the victory despite this!  Hard to imagine!

Most politicians (perhaps excepting the likes of Mr. Dion) would have ‘got the message’, done ‘the honourable thing’ and resigned.  But, not Mr. Tory – his arrogance far surpassed his common sense, and he stayed on as leader, eventually forcing one of his MPPs to ‘voluntarily’ step down and let him try to win her seat (the riding of Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock) in a by-election. Anyone who did not like it (and said so) got unceremoniously kicked out of the party…

Yesterday, the by-election took place!  And, predictably, Mr. Tory went down in a spectacular defeat!

Later today, Mr. Tory has a press conference.  Gee, I wonder what he’ll say…

Thank you, all you wonderful people in the riding of Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock!!!

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Mischief or malice: laser attacks on airplanes

March 5, 2009 — xanthippa

Lasers are awesome!

While we are all familiar with red laser pointers, there is a new generation of easily available, green lasers.  Their beam penetrates much farther and they are much brighter than the tired old red ones.

For example, even this little green laser pointer has a range of over two and a half kilometers (about 2 miles).

And, this ad for a green laser claims it is 60x brighter than the ‘old’ red laser pointers.

And that does not even take into account the fact that the human eye is much more sensitive to light in the blue-green wavelengths than to light in the red end of the spectrum.

All of this, put together, should not be a bad thing,  ‘should’ being the operative word here….

It turns out that some people – for whatever reasons – are using good things for bad purposes.  Surprised?

With the easy availability of long-range, powerful green lasers, some people are shining them into the cockpits of airplanes trying to land at airports.

If this is done by silly people as a prank, it’s not funny.  Airplanes are not LOL cats!

Yet, this is an ‘easy’ form of sabotaging airplanes for any group of people who deem themselves above the laws of our society and callous enough to take human lives to further their ends.  Especially in heavily concentrated urban areas – like ones where many airports are located in – the potential for destruction is enormous.

Which begs the question:  what are we going to do about this?

And, please, don’t say ‘ban the lasers’ – banning things is just not a solution to anything.  It is a band-aid at best, because it ignores the underlying problem.  We have got to stop kidding ourselves that addressing the symptoms of a problem, without solving the underlying problem, will fix ‘stuff’.

Than always makes things worse in the long run.

Posted in society, technology. Tags: , , . 2 Comments »
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