I will have to take a day or two pause, instead of catching up on my posts, like I planned.
My husband says I should not drink and blog…
Did you know that grapefruit juice is not good for computers?
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P.S. to ‘Winning back our liberty: the ‘commercial’ threat’
December 17, 2009 — xanthippaIn this post, I quoted John Perry Barlow, who warned us that the greatest threat to our freedom of speech in the future will come from corporations ‘protecting’ their IP, and individual’s freedoms ‘be damned’. And, I do think he is correct.
Because we have seen ‘states/governments’ strip its citizens of rights and freedoms, we are ‘sensitive’ to the threats to our liberties which come from that direction. OK, not ‘sensitive enough’ as a society… What I mean is, those within our society who are looking out for our rights and freedoms in order to preserve our liberties are used to watching the state/government and firmly regard it as the biggest threat.
And, that threat is very, very real – and, we discuss it a lot, oppose the encroachment on our rights – as we should!
But, the very people who are vigilant of the state/government creeping oppression seem deaf and blind when it comes to corporations using ‘commercial laws’ to forward their interests at the cost our liberties….
There were two things I should have included, but did not.
The first is Michael Geist‘s movie, ‘Why Copyright? Canadian Voices on Copyright Law’, in which this law professor explains the real-life implications of the draconian ‘digital copyright’ laws these days…
The second is this little news story which Dvorak Uncensored highlighted while I was working on my original post:
…
“We were extremely disappointed to learn of the White House meeting to be held later today on the issue of intellectual property and ‘piracy,” said PK’s Gigi Sohn. “It is unclear why three cabinet officers, several subcabinet officers, the directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service are needed to tend to the worries of the big media companies, particularly the motion picture industry which is completing a year in which it will set box-office records.
It is difficult to explain just how serious this situation is becoming without sounding like a ‘conspiracy nut’.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I LOVE conspiracy theories! They are truly FUN! I just don’t buy into them – not as ‘description of reality’…at least, not most of them.
But, we do need to educate ourselves about ALL the treats to our liberties.
…this is just the tip of the iceberg…
Winning back our liberty: the ‘commercial’ threat
December 16, 2009 — xanthippaCommercial encroachment on the freedoms and liberties of Canadians is a very real and immediate threat to us all. Yet, this is hardly ever seriously discussed among the ‘core’ of conservative and pro-freedom thinkers.
Why?
It seems that the ‘government’ types and ‘corporate’ types of freedom fighters (in our current, non-violent use of the expression) do not talk much – even regard each other with a significant degree of suspicion. This could, perhaps be because they usually come from such very different backgrounds and usually do not share common educational base or many leisure-time interests. Even their language is so different, they don’t ‘get’ each others’ message.
That is a pity, because each side is only getting a part of the picture…. and, what was that thing about ‘divide and conquer’?
John Perry Barlow, the co-founder of Electronic Frontier (and a former lyricist for ‘The Grateful Dead’) has very perceptively analyzed the corporate threats to freedom of speech in his 1994(!) article, The Economy of Ideas.
“Notions of property, value, ownership, and the nature of wealth itself are changing more fundamentally than at any time since the Sumerians first poked cuneiform into wet clay and called it stored grain. Only a very few people are aware of the enormity of this shift, and fewer of them are lawyers or public officials.”
Barlow explains how, traditionally, people protected their ‘ideas’ through physical control over the means of expressing these ideas: a book is a tangible object which can physically be controlled, an inventor ‘owned’ the ‘idea’ in the form to holding the right to produce objects which made ‘use’ of this idea in the very particular product she/he invented, and so on. The ‘idea’ itself, once expressed, was ‘in the public realm’ and everyone had access to ‘learn it’: that generates progress.
This has all changed: now, ideas can spread without a physical vessel one could control, it is now ‘the ideas themselves’ which are the valuable bit. Barlow makes the case that corporate interests will, if allowed, protect their investment in their ‘ideas’ and that could involve significant curbing of our freedom of expression.
He wrote this in 1994 – and what he warned of is already coming true.
‘Protection of their intellectual properties’ has permitted, for example, the entertainment industry to successfully lobby governments to legalize really, really invasive ‘digital locks’ on their ‘products’.
Here is just one such example, where the corporate world is permitted to treat its customers as criminals by default, and curb their individual rights in the name of protecting their product:
Far from being simply a mechanism to prevent copying, these ‘digital locks’ often include ‘executable code’ which, without the computer owner’s knowledge or permission, install themselves very, very deeply into the computer (at times, removing the ‘lock’ may damage the computer on which it had been installed), search all the files on the hard drive and report all this information, via an internet connection the ‘lock’ itself initiates, back to the company that put the lock on.
This, ostensibly, is to make sure that there are no other ‘stolen files’ on the computer. In reality, it permits that corporation full access to every program, every bit of data, every file, every picture on your computer – and the laws that permit the corporations to install this on your computer without your knowledge do not, even a little bit, address what this corporation may or may not do with all the stuff it found on your computer. That is, frankly, quite frightening!
But that is just the tip of the iceberg – in just one industry!
Please, don’t call ‘Godwin’s law’ one me now, but, I will mention ‘THE OLYMPICS’!
Everyone just shrugged their shoulders and blamed ‘The Chinese Government’ for the zeal with which the names of any business which did not pay protection money was not ‘an Olympic Sponsor’ were covered up: from sticky tape over faucet brand marks to sheets covering the name of a nearby hotel. The media treated it as some sort of a ‘cute Chinese thing’. But, it was not a ‘Chinese thing’, nor was it ‘cute’!
It was an IOC (International Olympic Committee) thing. The IOC claims that without this draconian censorship, it could not make money.
SO!?!?!?!?!?!
Why should anyone’s desire to make money outweigh people’s rights and freedoms?
But, that was China – it could never happen here!
Well, actually…
The Vancouver 2010 Olympics are an example in how corporate interests strip people of liberty!
The IOC has demanded that Vancouver create a ‘buffer zone’ around the Olympic Venues where all speech, signage, logos, symbols and any other means of communication be strictly controlled. And, since it’s ‘The Olympics’, the various levels of government complied.
They passed a series of bylaws which not only made it illegal to display the brand-name of a ‘non-sponsor’, but also where any sentiment which was not ‘celebrating the Olympics’ was forbidden from being expressed! Public and private property!
Oh, and driving on some public roads would also be illegal for mere ‘citizens’ (similar ones are planned for the 2012 Olympics: that makes it a pattern, not a ‘cute Chinese thing’)….and if you happen to own an aerial sight-seeing company – well, you’ll be forbidden from earning a living, because it ‘needs to be controlled’ during the Olympics, too.
If, for example, you were to put up curtains which were made of a fabric that said ‘Olympics Suck’ in your window, you could have ‘officials’ enter your property and remove the offensive curtains, without a warrant and without your permission: then, you could be charged a financial fine ($10,000 per day) or tossed in jail or both!
This is Canada?
Under pressure, the Vancouver city council has attempted to soften the harshest bits of these oppressive laws: at least, the bits that look the most oppressive. But, I don’t know how much of an improvement the latest version of is…. Now, they have pretty much handed the right to decide what forms of expression will and will not be censored to ‘The Olympic Sponsors’ – the corporations propping up this oppressive organization!
If this is not an ‘Olympic Sponsorship Scandal’, I don’t know what you could possibly call it.
Some people say that it’s not that big a deal – that it’s only a temporary limit… They miss the point: nobody must ever have the right to put a limit on the freedom of speech, the most basic of our rights without which none of the others are possible. If someone can put a ‘temporary limit’ on it, then someone else can put another ‘temporary limit’, and another, and another…and before we realize it, the ‘limit’ will be a permanent one….
Yes, these are just two ‘highly visible’ instances….but, there are too many to document is a simple blog.
John Perry Barlow maintained that the biggest threat to freedom of speech in the future will be from ‘corporate censorship’.
I think he is right.
Why is CRU hiding its data?
December 14, 2009 — xanthippaOh my….
The now infamous emails demonstrated that the CRU scientist said they’d rather destroy data than release it under Freedom of Information Act requests, so other scientists could check their work.
Some data was, indeed, ‘accidentally lost’.
Now, ALL their data and articles have been pulled off their site!
All the info on the Briffa tree ring reconstruction – all gone.
All the publications – all gone.
WHY?
What in the world is going on?
Winning back our liberty…where to start?
December 13, 2009 — xanthippaInternet indeed moves at the speed of light: my thinking, however, does not.
Some people have written reviews and excellent and insightful commentary on that ‘Freedom thingy‘ (‘Freedom of Speech and Liberty Symposium’ and ‘The conservative movement at a crossroads’ is such a mouthfull!) I went to last Monday (7th of December, 2009), some even with links to the speeches themselves.
I’m afraid I did not, because, well, I am still mulling it over…. By the time I will have thought through the individual speeches (I’m nowhere near done), any write up will be embarrassingly ‘stale’. My apologies.
My absence of commentary, however, does not mean that I did not find attending both the day and evening sessions interesting, useful and fodder for a lot of constructive thinking.
Had I gone simply to listen to the speakers, I would have heard much of what I knew, and a bit that I didn’t. However, that was not my primary purpose for attending. As is my nature, I – you guessed it – I went so that I could ‘observe‘. And when things seemed too dull or scripted (private discussions – not presentations), I’d lob in a ‘conversational grenade’ – so I could, yes, observe…
I was equally fascinated by what was said and discussed as by the how. But, I was even more interested by WHAT WAS NOT….
It was that ‘what was not’ that I think is really important: whether because we are not aware that these bits are missing, or because we are too afraid to discuss them, is irrelevant. Not addressing them is something we cannot afford to do!
Since I have the attention-span of a gnat, I know I’ll probably never finish the full series, but….
In the next couple of posts, I would like to look at at least a few of these ‘missing bits’ which we need to fill in before this grass-roots, pro-liberty movement is viable. And, I think it CAN be – but not without some considerable self-examination by us all in the ‘bits’ we’d rather not talk about…
How come I am talking about this, when so many better qualified people did not mention it?
Well, I often think ‘outside the box’ because I am always having trouble ‘seeing the boxes’….
I am an immigrant – so, my observations tend to be with respect to a slightly different frame of reference…alternate cultural experience during formative years and all that.
Plus, my ‘reading list’ is not the same as most of the people’s who were there: they are knowledgeable in political history and theory stuff – I have no clue about that, have not read any of those books, have not been in Canada for many of the ‘formative events’ they describe.
Instead, I studied physics in University. In my free time (and spare courses), I studied sociology and anthropology of religions (any dogma, really, whether theological or not). I read books about how specific beliefs and attitudes will arise out of particular societies, and how dogmatization of these beliefs will then shape the society’s future evolution: there is a whole feedback thingy there. I took time to learn various religions (both from books, and by attending services and discussions with theologians and laymen (except for the Wiccan Church of Canada: in Wicca, every practitioner is a priest or priestess by definition), to make sure I understood both the theory and practice). I also studied the bits of psychiatry of that deal with archetypes and religious belief/faith… I know, rather silly, but fascinating!
So, I suspect that even if I do see some ‘boxes’, they are not likely the same ones as most of the people who attended see…. I just hope that my observations and suggestions will be of help.
(I’ll update this with links to the pertinent posts, if I remember…)
UPDATE: Winning back our liberty: the ‘commercial’ threat
Copenhagen Treaty vs. Liberty
December 11, 2009 — xanthippaWhatever we may or may not think (or believe or disbelieve) about the role humans may or may not have played in the warming the Earth has experienced, or the rise in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, we should all learn all we can about the Copenhagen Treaty.
Because if it is signed, what it says will become the ‘top law’ in the countries that sign it. (Even if it is not signed – that it got ‘this close’ means that its content is significant – and likely to come up again in another form.)
In a democratic country, passing a new law is a long and arduous process: there are all kinds of checks and balances in place in order to make sure that the lawmakers (and the people they represent – and who can vote them out if they misbehave) know what the law says and how it will impact society.
Typically, ‘a bill’ (a proposed law) has to pass a number of public readings (transparency – so ‘everyone’, in theory, is aware of what it says), where the different elected representatives are supposed to examine all its aspects in a thorough and objective (ideally) way, point out any of its potential pitfalls or shortcomings, take account of the public debate about it, suggest amendments and all that. Only after this long process (which OUGHT NOT be shortened, for any reason, not even if Obama says so), if most of the elected representatives think that supporting it is more likely to get them re-elected than not (i.e. the will of ‘the people’) does this ‘bill’ become a ‘law’.
This is really, really important.
Yes, it is annoying and tedious, but important because it is the only mechanism through which the citizens of a democratic can assert their will on what laws govern their land. (Legally, that is…)
Contrast that with the ‘Copenhagen Treaty’.
It is a whole set of laws, rules and regulations which we are told are necessary to ‘slow down the build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere’.
Because the atmosphere is shared by all the people on Earth, any rules or regulations to effectively deal with problems with it must be global. Makes sense, when put that way…
So, the rules and regulations in the Copenhagen Treaty over-rule any laws or constitutions of the countries that sign it. Because these are now ‘global rules’, and take precedence over ‘national laws’.
A country may not opt out (once in), unless the majority of the signatory countries agree to let them.
So, what exactly ARE these laws, rules and regulation?
Unlike the process for passing laws in democratic countries which I described above, a system where the content of a proposed law is open for examination and subject to public debate and scrutiny, we don’t really know the details of this whole set of powerful rules and regulations!
Yesterday, some leaked bits of it showed that it would permit ‘developed’ nations to emit something like twice the CO2 per person than ‘developing’ nations: in other words, ‘developing’ nations would have their development arrested!
They would NOT be allowed to develop! To provide medicine to their people! To build up their civilizations and raise their people’s standard of living!
NOT ALLOWED!
People in the ‘developed nations’ would have to pay huge amounts of money in taxes. These taxes would then be used to keep ‘developing nations’ in a state of perpetual poverty and dependence on the ‘developed nations’!
In other words, the Copenhagen Treaty would force them to be the new slave-class.
So poor, they will be grateful for the little bit of medicine, they’ll readily agree to be part of a new vaccination or new medication study.
So hungry, they will accept any crop-seed – happy to get it and let the agro-businesses collect decades of data on its safety.
And – as horrible as this proposition is – it is just the tip of the proverbial ice-berg.
The even bigger issue is that the only way all the representatives found out about it was THROUGH A LEAK!!!
And, we do NOT KNOW what ELSE is there, that was not leaked…
In other words, the Copenhagen Treaty is a pig-in-a-poke – a pig-in-a-poke that will have the power to over-ride our Constitution and any rights and freedoms it guarantees us.
Regardless of your views on Global Warming: is this a good idea?
Do the ends ever justify the means?
‘Medieval Warm Period’: why do warm-mongers ‘have to get rid of it’?
December 9, 2009 — xanthippaWhile reading through the ClimateGate documents, I noticed that the ‘scientists’ paid some serious attention to the ‘Medieval Warm Period’(MWP).
Specifically, it worried them – we’ve known that since 2006, when one of them openly stated “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”.
They did not like it.
They wanted to get rid of it.
The second IPCC report (1995/6) showed that the Middle Ages were several degrees (about 3) warmer than the global temperatures are today.
The third IPCC report (2001) DID NOT!!! It replaced the graph with the now infamously debunked ‘hockey stick graph’… and claimed the 1990’s were by far the warmest period ever.
WHY?
At first, I thought that the reason was the obvious thing: if things were that warm during 800 – 1 000 years ago, then it would be hard to panic people into giving them tons of research money now.
Then, I thought back to Al Gore’s instructive little movie… What was the most iconographic image in it?
Al Gore’s big shiny graph which showed how temperature and carbon dioxide are linked! Here was the proof that more CO2 means higher temperatures!!!
And, our CO2 IS going up. Measurably.
Except that the temperature goes up first, then, about 800 or so years later (this period varies by a few centuries either way, but, roughly, it has about an 800 year lag) the carbon dioxide goes up!
It is hard to see this lag on Mr. Gore’s graph, because the two curves are separated out. But, if one superimposes them on the same time-line, it is clear to see that the temperature goes up first and the CO2 goes up (about 800 years or so) later…
Not only does the CO2 go up, the graph shows that it can spike up very quickly! The pattern shows a slow decline, followed by a sharp, ‘sudden’ rise.
WHEN was that Medieal Warm Period? The one during which the temperatures shot up?
800-1300 C.E.?
Hey, that is somewhere between 700 and 1 200 years ago.
How long is the lag again?
800 years, plus or minus a couple centuries either way…
Doesn’t that mean that – just about NOW – we should be expecting the CO2 levels to spike up?
Way up?
How come we never hear about that?
Went to that ‘freedom’ thingy yesterday
December 8, 2009 — xanthippaAnd, it was fun!
Met lots of interesting people, heard a lot of interesting things.
Miss Marprelate live-blogged the events.
It turns out that the more ‘liberty-loving’ people are, the less they want to partake of ‘groupthink’….so, trying to ORGANIZE a bunch of ‘liberty-lovers’ into a coherent whole is a less easy job than herding cats….
‘Scientific neutrality’ scandal: Australian censorship of Dr. Spash
December 7, 2009 — xanthippaPerhaps everyone has heard about the ‘ClimateGate’ (I so hate that term) scandal. It has brought home ‘loud and clear’ just how science suffers when ‘scientific neutrality’ is lost.
The newest chapter in this scandal is happening down under: Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO) scientist, Dr. Clive Spash, has resigned over his boss’s attempts to censor his work!
But – there is a twist to this tale…. a twist which just might shed new light on this whole Climate scandal mess!
Dr. Spash resigned because he claims his boss wanted him to change his findings, which compromises ‘scientific neutrality’.
On the other hand…
Dr. Spash’s boss claims she wanted him to change his findings, in order to preserve ‘scientific neutrality’.
WHAT!?!?!
One wants to publish as is, while the other wants to change it, but both claim the same motive?
How can this be?
Well, that depends entirely on whether one is a scientist first and a bureaucrat later, or vice versa!
Dr. Spash’s study was about the effectiveness of ‘cap-and-trade’ legislation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions: the very same thing Obama is proposing, the very same thing the Denmark financial fraud is about – and the very same thing that the Copenhagen Treaty (before it was partially derailed) was going to institute a ‘World Government’, taxing every financial transaction in ‘The West’ a 2% (or so) sales tax to fund ‘enforcement’…. This cap-and-trade scheme was (at the time the study was done, this policy was not yet defeated) the policy of the Australian government….
In other words, the paper was about a politically charged subject – and very, very current.
The original conclusions of the study? I paraphrase:
‘Cap-and-trade’ is not only ineffective in reducing carbon emissions, the scheme can easily be used for financial fraud. (Aside: remember, he did the study before the Danish scandal, where the ‘cap-and-trade’ scheme is central in a huge financial fraud – 8 arrests already, more are likely to come.)
Dr Megan Clark, Chief Executive and CSIRO Board member (and Dr. Spash’s boss), wanted ‘minor’ changes to be made to the conclusions of the study, prior to publication. Why? In her words:
“‘CSIRO staff are actively encouraged to debate publicly the latest science and its implications and to analyse policy options. However under our charter we do not advocate for or against specific government or opposition policies.”
In other words, Dr. Clark’s understanding of ‘scientific neutrality’ is that any scientific findings which her government agency publishes, must be ‘politically neutral’. Here is another quote of hers, which I think illustrates what I am getting at:
“However, under our charter, we do not advocate for or against specific government or opposition policies,” she said in a statement. “The CSIRO Charter protects the independence of our science. It also protects CSIRO scientists from being exploited in the political process.”
“My role as chief executive of the CSIRO is to ensure the integrity and independence of our science is maintained. That’s not something I am prepared to compromise on.”
In other words, in Dr. Clark’s understanding, ‘scientific neutrality’ means that scientists can play in their labs all they want – as long as they do not publish any results which might influence the current political debate!
Of course, most actual scientists think that ‘scientific neutrality’ means that they do the science, find whatever answer is most objective, and then publish their results, without caring what any politicians think or plan or whatever!
Yet, Dr. Clark suggests ‘science neutrality’ means that ‘science’ (or scientists) must only publish findings which are ‘politically neutral’!!!
And, this is not the first time Dr. Clark has ‘protected’ ‘her scientists’ from ‘compromising’ their ‘scientific neutrality’ and presenting actual facts they learned through their scientific expertise – regardless of what the politicians thought! There are allegations that “four CSIRO scientists were not allowed to give evidence to a Senate inquiry into climate change in a CSIRO capacity”.
Of course, the fact that Dr. Clark is Australia’s Prime Minister’s ‘science advisor’ has nothing to do with her ‘protecting’ her employees from publishing or testifying to any scientific findings which might negatively impact her political master’s policy – and her ‘gravy train’!
Please – think about it. REALLY think about it.
Most of our science today is done in government-funded labs.
The people who head these government institutions may have scientific credentials, but they would not have clawed their way to the top if they were not politically astute and ‘bureaucrat first, scientist second’….
Yet these are the very same people who are in control of our scientists – who control what they may or may not publish, regardless of how true! Who are not afraid to bully and silence – and feel ‘righteous’ about it afterwards, because in their own warped brains, that is ‘the best thing for everyone’….
The sad thing is: most of them actually believe it.
And you wonder how we get things like ‘ClimateGate’!
A letter to Mr. Prentice, Minister of the Environment
December 4, 2009 — xanthippaDear Mr. Prentice,
Recently, you have said that, despite the leaked documents from CRU (and, the latest evidence suggests they were not hacked, but leaked by a conscientious whistle-blower), your position remains:
With the Copenhagen conference coming up, Mr. Minister, I would like to most emphatically point out that the science has never been ‘relatively clear’, at least not clear in support of the claim that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is the driving force behind climate change.
There has clearly been a very lively scientific debate since these ACC claims have first been made.
On the one hand, there is the series of IPCC reports, the latest of which claims the support of 2,500 scientists and policymakers. If this is a matter of numbers – which is something measurable – then let’s contrast this 2,500 scientists and policymakers versus the 31,486 scientists (including 9,029 with PhDs) who have signed a petition disagreeing with this claim, because in their expert opinions, the scientific evidence does not support the ACC claim.
Just because very many of scientists think something is right, it does not makes it so: I am simply bringing this to your attention as proof that there has never been a consensus among scientists on the topic of anthropogenic climate change. With 2,500 saying ‘yes’ and 31,486 saying ‘no’, it is clear that the ‘science’ has not been proven and that the debate has never been ‘settled’.
Please note – this petition predates any of the current scandals (the Dr. Jones CRU team, the Dr. Mann data, the Dr. Wang data, or even the Danish cap-and-trade scandal)
Something else that many people have been very uncomfortable with – for a very long time – is the militant way in which those supporting ACC claims have behaved: some people have labeled them ‘warm-mongers’, because of their bellicosity! Dr. Suzuki, for example, a once-respected scientist, has even called for jailing people who have different opinions from his!
That is not how scientists behave. It is not just ‘the heat of the issue’ or its importance: this is contrary to the very rules of scientific behaviour. Perhaps the greatest physicist of the 20th century, Dr. Richard Feynman, explained this very clearly:
As you see, Mr. Minister Prentice, we do not have all the facts, the science is not clear – relatively or otherwise. No conservationist and no responsible environmental steward would make decisions or commitments based on unsettled science and uncertain data!
Please, keep that in mind during the Copenhagen conference: my children’s future depends on it!
Sincerely yours,
Xanthippa
[well, actually, I used my real-life name….and provided contact info, just in case…]
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 