Tim Hudak in Caledonia on 13th of March, 2012

March 15, 2012 — xanthippa

It starts out pretty ‘vanilla’, but then it gets more colourful…

For those not familiar with Ontario politics: for the last 6 years, the community of Caledonia has been torn apart by violence as a native land claim had led to armed occupation, division of the municipality, violence and police response where law-abiding citizens were arrested for wanting to go home, because this might provoke a violent reaction from armed native occupiers.  The non-native residents of Caledonia were not the only victims:  as armed ‘warriors’ from across Canada flooded to Caledonia to flex their muscle, the law-abiding citizens of the 5 Nations Reservation were equally victimized as incidents of rape and other violence were swept under the rug while the armed thugs bullied the community…

Mr. Hudak himself is a bit of an enigma…

He is very charismatic in person – that much is undeniable.

Still, the last election was his to lose – and he did lose it, spectacularly.

On the same issue that his predecessor did:  religion in schools.

Conservatives in Canada must learn to separate religion from their policies or they will never be trusted by voters enough to be voted into power.  Mr. Hudak failed there and handed the despicable McGuinty the election victory.

Still, coming into conflict-riddled Caledonia took a lot of guts – and Hudak has raised my opinion of him both for going there and for what he had said.

Unfortunately, Mr. McHale – the man who has led the fight in Caledonia for equality before the law and against race-based policing – he behaved badly (in my never-humble-opinion).

Perhaps he was disappointed that a politician did not behave like an activist….just like his expectations that Mr. Hudak could rid us of the Ontario Human Rights Commission while he was a leader of the opposition were just a little outside of what was possible.  He certainly did not come across as the reasonable warrior for equality whose speech in Ottawa I liked and whom I admired.

Merlin – the vet who was interviewed at the end of the video – he got the measure of the situation just right!

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Thunderf00t Unmasked

March 11, 2012 — xanthippa

 

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Thunderf00t: a ‘moderate’ Muslim speaks out

March 8, 2012 — xanthippa

Perhaps you have been following the free speech debate which has been happening on YouTube – or, at least, oe of them:  the one involving Thunderf00t.

Thunderf00t is a scientist who became famous on YouTube because of a series of videos he made ‘Why do people laugh at creationists’.  It took some of the more outrageous statements made/published on YouTube by Christian young-Earth creationists, contrasted their statements with reality and closed with the catch-phrase:  ‘Why do people laugh at creationists?  Only the creationists don’t know!’  (I am working from memory, so my wording may not be 100% on, but the gest is there.)

Soon, some of these young-Earth creationists took notice and began to react.  Different ones reacted differently.  Some invited him to debate them – even live.  And he did – and thesedebates are published on YouTube.

Others, however, sought to shut him up – to get his videos flagged and banned.  When they could not censor his content as ‘inappropriate’, some sought to use the copyright laws to censor him – claiming infringement where none existed.

Thunderf00t continued his videos, highlighting religious non-science nonsense as well as religious bigotry and intolerance.

Because he criticized not just Christian intolerance bur religious bigotry from all the directions he saw and experienced it, he soon came under attack from the Islamist corner.  This time, there was no invitation to debade the worth of ideas:  instead, he was doc-dropped, he and his family were publicly threatened with violence and the Univesrity where he works was bullied in an attempt to have him fired.  Oh, and his videos were flagged and accused of copyright infringment in an attempt to censor him.

So, now that you have a sketch of the background:  here is his latest video documenting his fight for free speech on the internet:

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Government explained

March 8, 2012 — xanthippa

My son is learning about ‘government’ in school these days…  Yes, frustrating!

I actually wrote an email to his teacher to explain that, when, on a recent assignment (and on any potential tests), he was asked to list all the positive attributes of a ‘command economy’, he said there were none, he was not displaying ignorance of the course material:  he was making a highly principled statement.  He even emailed her the Keynes vs. Hayek video – but she said she could not show it in class because it was too complicated…

Yes, our children are being brainwashed into Keynesian ideology from grade school.  (Just to underline my point:  even the spellchecker was familiar with ‘Keynes’ and ‘Keynesian’ – but not ‘Hayek’…)

Which is why I was glad to come across the following video, which explains rather well the problem with ‘government’:

Remember the old proverb:

What are the 10 most feared words in the English language?

‘We are from the government.  We are here to help!’

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OpenMedia: Warrantless online spying is back on!

March 8, 2012 — xanthippa

From an email from OpenMedia:

Instead of listening to you and the other 117,000 Canadians who demanded an end to the Online Spying bill, the government is going on the PR offensive with a one-two punch.

You won’t believe this: With one side of their mouth, they’ve leaked stories1 falsely suggesting that they are standing down. With the other, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has shot back with op-eds2, misleading mass emails3, and speeches in Parliament that aggressively defend the bill4.

There’s only a small window of opportunity for MPs to put a stop to warrantless online spying.

Will you call on your MP to use our new tool to stand with Canadians today?

Over 117,000 Canadians from across the political spectrum have signed the Stop Online Spying petition, and many of you took to Twitter to raise your voices. Because of your efforts, the opposition parties and several Conservative MPs5 have come out against the costly online spying plan.

Yet Vic Toews has still not apologized for misleading Canadians; he’s even continued to use our children as political cover for this poorly thought-out legislation.

Let’s push back. Now is the time to tell your MP to stand with us against warrantless online spying—every action makes all of our voices louder.

We know from experience that MPs get the message when contacted by local constituents. It makes sense: they’re acutely aware that elections are won riding by riding. This means that together, as a wide-reaching grassroots community, we have power.

This can only work if we raise our voices together. Please take a second to tell your MP to stand with us as a Pro-Privacy politician.

Our efforts together have so far forced the government to delay their online spying plan. Let’s take the next step.

For the Internet,

Shea and Lindsey, on behalf of your OpenMedia.ca team

P.S. Thanks to all of you who contributed when we asked for help in scaling up our campaign. The tools and actions we’re offering now are only possible because of your generous support. We’ll send all of you contributors a special report back soon to show what you made possible. If you haven’t chipped in yet, you can still do so here.

 

Footnotes

[1] See our press release, Government to Stall the Online Spying Bill
[2] Find one of Toews’ more recent op-eds, which he submitted to Postmedia News, here.
[3] See Mythbusting the mythbusting: Our response to Vic Toews’ email to Canadians
[4] Watch Vic Toews’ February 28th speech in the House of Commons here, and our video mash-up debunking his points here.
[5] Source: National Post. Conservative MPs who have expressed concerns with the online spying bill include New Brunswick MP John Williamson, Calgary MP Rob Anders, and Ontario MP David Tilson.

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TSA fail: how ‘nude body scanners’ fail to detect weapons

March 8, 2012 — xanthippa

Many people have been pointing out that the ‘nude body scanners’use higher levels of radiation than regular X-rays anf thus might be a health risk.  There have even been ‘scandalous’ reports of ‘cancer clusters’ among TSA employees: while I remain skeptical about the long-term effects of these machines, any reports of cancer already being ’caused’ by them are a load of dingo’s kidneys…cancer takes much longer to show up than this.

My primary concern about these machines has always been the collection of biometric data…  But, we are being told, this invasion of our privacy is justified by the increased security these machines provide us.

Of course, we all know that people who are willing to give up liberty for security will not get either one.  But, for the sake of the argument, let’s permit the premise and see just how effective these machines are at detecting metal objects or other weapons.

According to the following video, it is not very difficult to ‘beat’ them…

So, how much safer are we, exactly?

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CodeSlinger: The internet is about to get dramatically harder to regulate!

February 27, 2012 — xanthippa

In response to my post about the UN plans to ‘regulate’ the internet, CodeSlinger made a comment which I think deserves a full post of its own:

Good algorithms for dynamic routing through ad hoc wireless mesh networks are already available in the public domain. Most people already have more processing power and bandwidth than they actually use, and the amount of computing power you can buy for a buck just keeps on doubling every 18 months. All this surplus is can be made available to carry other people’s traffic.

The only thing holding back a truly unkillable internet is the fact that most people aren’t willing to spend much money on the uplink side. They will buy a wireless router with enough range to cover their home, but not enough to cover their block. But just let some of these draconian measures pass and see how fast that changes. People will quickly figure out how much better the internet works when everybody is their neighbours’ ISP.

Already, in densely populated areas, we are seeing increasing overlap between the coverage areas of people’s routers and their neighbours’ routers. As this trend accelerates, larger and larger urban areas will de facto become independent sub-networks that cannot be killed or surveiled from outside.

In rural areas, however, the problem is a lot worse because each router has to cover an area that may be miles in diameter in order to achieve overlap. Before you get anywhere near that range, though, you run into CRTC limitations on transmitted power.

And maintaining connectivity between distant population centers is an even bigger problem. However, a German group called the Chaos Computer Club is developing the Hackerspace Global Grid: a system of communications satellites (!) which will interface to inexpensive ground stations that anyone can buy or build.

Here is an article about the project: Hackers plan space satellites to combat censorship.

The internet is about to get dramatically harder to regulate!

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Law Without Government

February 26, 2012 — xanthippa

Contrary to popular belief, this is not only possible, it is plausible.

The following video does not describe a system without flaws, but it certainly explains why ‘anarchy’ is not simply the rule of the meanest…

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Thunderf00t: YouTube starts banning ‘religiously offensive’ videos

February 25, 2012 — xanthippa

He’s right.

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Warrants? We don’t need no stinking warrants!!!

February 25, 2012 — xanthippa

This is beyond the pale!

Yes, Mr. Levant is correct to raise the spectre of Pavlik Morozov:  I was certainly taught in school to live up to his example.  But that was on the other side of the iron curtain!  There is no room for twisted crap like that in our schools now!

Let you be the first to read it!

I have a gun.

I even volunteered in a school, teaching children how to use a gun, just like mine.

A glue gun, that is.

I have a whole bunch of glue sticks in an ammo box I bought at an army surplus store – partly because I like puns and partly because it is efficient.

I also own a tape gun – it makes wrapping presents more efficient.

And I have two staple guns.  (OK, one is my hubby’s, but that makes at least half of it mine, no?)

My kids own guns, too!

From the air-zooka (which ‘shoots’ air, if you are not familiar with it) through a marshmallow gun to water guns…

But if I wanted to own a firearm – an actual gun for shooting bullets – I would not feel obligated to tell ‘the state’.  Why?  Because I believe, to the core of my being, that the Magna Carta gives me the right to carry whatever arms I think I need to protect my person, family and property.  Nothing – no law  – can, in my never-humble-opinion – abrogate this natural right to protect myself.

It is precisely because I have the right to carry weapons that police has the power to carry weapons:  they derive that right from me, and you, and all the other citizens. Since the government acts as our proxy, it cannot do what each and every one of us does not have the right to do, irrespective of the government.

This equation goes both ways:  since the state is acting on our behalf, it cannot do anything we are not free to do.  Therefore, if some agents of the state do carry firearms, it therefore follows that each and every citizen has that very same right.  If we did not have that right, then the government agents would have nowhere to get that right from.

I recognize I am not expressing this eloquently – following is a video that does a much better job of it:

When all the rhetoric is washed away, at its core, this is about self-ownership.

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