On 9/11 ‘conspiracy theories’…

September 13, 2011 — xanthippa

I do not like to blog while angry, but, I find it difficult to keep my temper under control…

In the wake of the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade buildings in New York, there are so many idiotic (sorry – that is the only term that fits) claims being made that it makes my blood boil.  Yes, I have said much of what Ithis before, and others have said it better than I – but, it seems to me, it requires re-telling.

Perhaps this time, I will say ir better – more methodically, more clearly…

Here are a few of the true claims people make – but whose significance is constantly misunderstood and misinterpreted by those who claim the 9/11 tragedy is part of a conspiracy by the US government.

Most of these ‘cospiracy theorists’ state:

‘The Government’ knew about the bombers’ plans and ‘let’ 9/11 it happen (on purpose).

To recognize the silliness of this statement, one needs to understand a little bit about the governance structures in large organizations – and, let’s face it, the US Government is a mammoth-sized one!

(I am no ‘governance guru’ – but, during one of my previous ‘professional’ incarnations, I have spent close to a decade evaluating governance in government projects.  I have some limited experience analyzing, evaluating and re-structuring governance, in private, public and non-profit organizations.)

First, one must address the question:  What is ‘the government’?

‘The government’ is an ‘organization made up of organization’s, each with its own agents (civil servants) – and agendas (including institutional and specific problems).  Just because a ‘civil servant A’ in organization ‘B’ gets a piece of information does not mean that ‘civil servants C,D,E…etc’ in other organizations (agencies and/or departments) actually have any inkling  that this bit of information exists – much less have access to it.  If ‘civil servant A’ does not grasp the significance of this isolated piece of information – or has simply not processed it yet, even their supervisor may not become aware of it!

Why?

Because information is organized and graded – and only ‘kicked up’ once a certain ‘quantum’ of information/significance has been accumulated.  This is how organizations gather and process information – it they did not, the organization would be crippled by the ‘noise’ of irrelevant information.

I mean the term irrelevant information quite literally – information whose relevance has not been assessed!  Thus, the information is not yet connected to the facts it is relevant to – and before this assessment is made, and made correctly, the information is simply not usable.

If you excuse the tired jigsaw puzzle comparison – it may be used often, but because it is analogous…

Each bit of information is like a 1 million piece jigsaw puzzle being worked on by 1 000 people.  If every puzzle piece picked up by each person is immediately shown to every other person – without regard to its relevance (Is it a corner piece?  Does it have a distinguishing mark on it?) – the process is so chaotic that the puzzle will never be built.

Similarly, just because different people in different branches of the government each had a bit of relevant information does not mean they had the opportunity to fit them together.  Most isolated pieces of information were not relevant enough on their own to ‘pass on’ – even were there no rivalries between various agencies each of which wanted be the one to solve ‘puzzles.  Add to this the realization that most of the various agencies thought they were each working on a separate, limited investigation…  They were simply not even aware that there was a bigger puzzle they should be fitting their bits of information into!

So, yes:  ‘the government’ had all the information – or much of it.

Had all of it been seen by one person who happened to recognize its relevance and how to piece it together, it could potentially have prevented this tragedy from happening.  But there is no evidence that this happened – and much that demonstrated it did not.

It is therefore ridiculous to suggest that, actively or passively, ‘the US Government’ is complicit in the conspiracy to comit this crime!

*   *   *

What the government IS guilty of is trying to look smarter than it was – after the fact.

Individual civil servants/bureaucrats were trying to protect their butts – pretending they were more in control than they were, more competent than they were (individually as well as organizationally).

And the government spokespeople were trying to calm panic among us, the little people, by pretending they were more in control than they were.

Some people believed them!  Then, the lies caught up with them.  That is what made them look guilty…

Let me re-phrase Ockham’s Razor/’the law of parsimony’  as ‘Xanthippa’s second law of human dynamics’:

Never ascribe to ‘conspiracy’ what can better be explained by incompetence!

Conspiracies require secrecy.  Being ‘in’ on a conspiracy makes people feel ‘special’ – and it usually makes them want to tell everyone just how ‘special’ they are.  Not bragging about one’s ‘specialness’ requires self-discipline – something most people sorely lack.

People are simply not good at conspiracies!

This does not mean that conspiracies do not occur – they do.

However, the conspiracies that actually succeed are ones in which a very limited number people is actively involved.  A conspiracy that would encompass even 1% of the people involved in ‘the government’ would be blabbed out long before it could succeed!

Which brings me to the other part of the claim:

Some people in ‘the government’ worked with the attackers

D’-ugh!

Of course!  But…

When Soviet agents infiltrated Western governments during the cold war, it did not mean that those governments were working FOR the Soviet Union.  Similarly, the Islamists had some people who had infiltrated the US government and were feeding them information/aiding them.

That stands to reason.  It would have been foolish of the terrorists not to cultivate some sources within the US government civil service who, knowingly or not, fed them intelligence.

But it does not mean that the US government itself was directing their actions!

No, they were clueless…or, at best, crippled by political correctness which prevented them from investigating suspect employees from ‘protected’ groups.

And – of course, no government wants to admit that the enemy had penetrated their defences.  Again, both as an organization which would lose credibility and as individual civil servants caught napping on the job, the first instinct is to lie to cover one’s behind.  Individual behinds and the collective behind.

Of course, these lies get exposed – and the lies uttered in order to hide simple incompetence begin to look like ‘the government’ is complicit!

Yes – there are many other claims, many claiming pseudo-scientific sources…  But, upon closer scrutiny, these simply do not stand up.

Between ‘not seeing the big picture’ and ‘lying to cover butts’, the ‘big conspiracy theory’ just doesn’t hold up.

P.S. – It should not even be called ‘theory’ – it is, at best, an unsupported hypothesis.  A far cry from ‘theory’.  When people twist words and overstate their case – like calling a ‘hypothesis’ a ‘theory’ – a large helping of skepticism is called for.  To say the least…

Posted in human nature, society. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Assange: ‘My greatest enemy is ignorance’

May 3, 2011 — xanthippa

Here is an interesting interview of Julian Assange by RT.

No wonder this guy is being hunted down:  he is speaking truth to power!

(Via Hacker News, I4U News and TNW)

Posted in corruption, politics. Tags: , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Aspeis need to know what their assignment actually is

October 1, 2010 — xanthippa

Lately, I have neglected posting on the topic of Aspergers.  Still, judging by the relative traffic among my posts, there is a need for more information there:  both Aspies and educators are still looking for help.

Last December, I received the following comment:

I have an Aspie student, and when asked to produce 2 sentences about a topic in class, will just sit and think the entire period producing nothing… (I do believe that he is thinking about the topic). The topic has been given to student prior to class. Is this an unreasonable task? This is an 7th grade gifted autistic student.

I understand the perfectionism issue and that they may be unsure that it is good enough to put on paper, but in an educational setting I would like some suggestions to assist the regular Language Arts teacher. This is a graded assignment to be done in class.

Thanks in advance for any ideas you may have.

Deb Herr
Special Education Teacher

While I gave a quick reply at that time, this is a very important point which deserves a lot of attention.  So, I had attempted to write up a proper response.

It wasn’t right – so I edited t.

Then I fixed it up some.

Then t needed shortening down a bit.  So, I cut a bunch of stuff out.

Too much of the key ‘stuff’ was gone.  I started a re-write.  From scratch…

…and so on, and so on.

It is now October.  I have still not published the post – it is not ‘right’ yet!!!!

NO, I am NOT joking!

So, now, I will publish the draft I have, without re-reading it, with all the flaws, errors, sentence fragments and all – or I will NEVER publish this…

Here it goes:

Both my sons are in the gifted program.  One has gone through grade 7 several years ago, one is going to get there in not too distant a future – so, I am familiar with the level of development of a gifted Aspie of that age group.

Just to be sure, I asked my older son if he remembered being in that situation himself.  He did…and was in perfect agreement with me as to what thought-processes this student would be going through: trying to figure out what the assignment means!

Being in the gifted program means the student is smart.  By the time they get to grade 7, smart Aspies understand perfectly well that when a teacher asks for ‘any two sentences on a topic’, the absolutely last thing this means is ‘any two sentences on a topic’!

Experience would have taught them that…by now.  And not in a nice way.

But, it would not have taught them what it is that the teacher/assignment does mean – or how to guess it….

So, I think it most likely that the student spent the time trying to figure out what the assignment actually was!  And, with so little information provided to the student, I really don’t see how anyone could figure it out!

Therefore, my answer is that yes, it is unreasonable an Aspie or an Autie gifted student, in grade 7, to complete an assignment of ‘writing 2 sentences on a given topic‘.

Reasons:

  • The assignment is non-specific.
  • The parameters are not defined.
  • The goals of the assignment are not known.
  • The expectations are unclear (or, in this case, clearly misrepresented).

BUT!!!

There IS a solution!

Aspies – and high-functioning Auties – are very good at meeting very specific goals.  I know that teachers are not used to approaching teaching this way, but, they would get WAY better results from this class of students if they were absolutely clear with them what the point of the assignment is, what the goal is, and what the evaluation criteria will be.

This worked for me – and my sons, as well as a few other kids I worked with:

First, we establish that in order to produce marks, teachers have to produce metrics:  marks which measure the student’s skill-set development in several areas.  This may seem like a game, but, because teachers have to work within such a large system, metrics were required.  And, these metrics are used to evaluate the student.

To an Aspie/Autie student, this can be an important revelation.  It is not an intuitive leap, to conclude this, because we usually believe what we are told – and from the earliest age, we are told that the point of school is to learn.  But, of course, it isn’t!  The point of school is to PROVE what we have learned… There is no place in school for ‘learning’ without proving (through earning marks) that/what one has learned.

Explaining that the point of doing assignments is to ‘earn points/marks’ can be liberating for an Aspie student.  After all, ‘getting on the high-score board’ is possible, even if one has not yet ‘defeated the boss’!

Once this groundwork has been laid, it is important to explain both the teacher’s goals for this assignment (what the teacher will be measuring for the needed metrics) and the student’s goals (what bits of what will earn points/marks).   This bit can be hard on teachers, because they have to explain both the explicit goals and the implied ones – most teachers do not go through this step explicitly themselves.

Yes – most assignments at the grade 7 level come with a ‘marking rubric’.  At least, in my area they do.  But these are so filled with vague notions and ‘weasel-words’ that they are worse than useless!  “The student demonstrated some understanding…. The student demonstrated good understanding…”  What the hell does THAT mean?

What is the difference between ‘little’ and ‘some’ and ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ in this context – and HOW is it measured?

Obviously, I can tell that ‘excellent’ will get a higher grade than ‘poor’ – but how do I know what demonstrates ‘excellent’ and what demonstrates ‘poor’ – or any of the other non-specific terms used – in this particular instance, to the satisfaction of this particular teacher?

If the teacher cannot stand there and provide a specific, accurate answer on how the grading will be done – how can the student be expected to guess what expectations to perform to?

This is so much easier for maths and sciences.  When a teacher assigns a problem, the student knows not just WHAT ‘the right answer is’ – she/he knows what form the answer is to take.

This is woefully not true of ‘soft’ subjects.  Not only do different teachers consider completely different ‘things’ to be ‘the right’ answer (try writing up interpretation of renaissance poetry for a ‘born-again’ teacher), the format itself is undefined….  Yet you are judged how your performance measures up to something the teacher cannot quantitatively define:  expectations!

It seems criminal that ‘educators’ are blind to this…

Posted in Aspergers, education, perceptions. Tags: , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Really Neat Video!

March 19, 2010 — xanthippa
Posted in perceptions. Tags: . Leave a Comment »

Agnostic: what it does – and does not – mean

February 19, 2010 — xanthippa

One term misused in debates about ‘religion’ almost as often as the term ‘atheist’ is the term ‘agnostic’.

Perhaps it’s the Aspie in me, but I think that if people are going to make passionate arguments, often using some terms in an authoritarian or patronizing manner, they ought to have taken the time to learn what those terms actually mean.  (Of course, not everyone does that – but, many do…)

The term ‘agnostic’ does not describe a person’s ‘belief in’ or ‘non-belief in’ or ‘belief-in-the-non’ existence of god(s).

Not even a little bit.

An ‘agnostic’ can believe in the existence of god(s).

An ‘agnostic’ can believe in the non-existence of  god(s).

An ‘agnostic’ can hold no belief in either the existence, or the non-existence, of god(s).

Still, many people use the term to mean ‘someone who does not believe one way or the other if god(s) exist’…..

Sorry – that is NOT what the word ‘agnostic’ describes!!!

Certainly, some agnostics fall into the category of ‘not holding a belief in either the existence, or the non-existence, of god(s).  But, that is only because there is an overlap in ‘groups’ or ‘states of belief’ that various definitions describe.

…kind of like there is an overlap between ‘long arms’ and ‘long hair’.  Both revolve about something being ‘long’.  And, some people with ‘long arms’ also have ‘long hair’.  But the terms each describe a different ‘long’ – so they cannot be used as if they meant the same thing!

Yes – I am getting bogged down in words.  To re-phrase:  the term ‘agnostic’ may include theists, non-theists, atheists or any other -theist group because it does not describe the state of one’s belief in the divine.

Rather, it describes one’s belief about the ‘ability to have knowledge’ of the existence of the divine.

Let’s look at the root of the word:

‘Gnosis’ means ‘knowledge’ in Greek.

The term, when used in English, refers to ‘spiritual enlightenment’ – as in, the type of ‘mystical enlightenment’ a person receives during a ‘spiritual  rapture’ or ‘spirit quest’ or another altered-state type meditation or similar experience.

For example, Gnostic Christians do not recognize the authority of any church or clergyman, because they strive for direct spiritual knowledge – gnosis.  This they regard as much more important than any dogma…

The prefix ‘a-‘ simply means ‘apart from’.

Thus, ‘a-gnostic’ – taken bit by bit – literally means ‘apart from (spiritual) knowledge’.

Once ‘put together’, the term ‘agnostic’ means ‘belief that it is un-knowable ‘ if god(s) do or do not exist.

Thus, this is a statement of belief.  Yes, to be an agnostic, one must hold this belief!

But this belief is not about the existence of the divine: it is a belief about existence of knowledge of the divine!

Specifically, an agnostic actively believes that we cannot know whether god(s) exist.

This does not preclude choosing to believe, anyway.  Many people have concluded that they cannot know for sure if god(s) exist, so, to be on the safe side, they decide to believe!  This is the very point of Pascal’s Wager.

Blaise Pascal argued that we cannot know – through reason, so really, really know – if God exists.  Therefore, we ought to consider the 2 possible scenarios (God exists and God does not exist) and our 2 choices of action (believe in God or not believe in God) and do a risk-assessment:

Scenario 1:  God does not exist

Choice 1:  behave as if God does exist

Result – more effort during life, but, nothing gained.

Choice 2:  behave as if God does not exist

Result – nothing lost and nothing gained.

Scenario 2:  God exists:

Choice 1:   behave as if God does exist

Result – more effort during life, but huge gain at ‘the end’! Eternal Salvation!

Choice 2:  behave as if God does not exist

Result – less effort during life, but then… everything lost! Eternal damnation!

Therefore, Pascal’s reasoning goes, the cost to one’s soul of ‘not believing’ in God is much greater (eternal damnation) than the cost of believing in God while alive (obeying the church).  Therefore, the only reasonable choice is to believe!

(OK – there could be an argument made whether Pascal actually said ‘choose to believe’ or ‘live as if you believe’:  the first one would be an agnostic who chooses to be a theist, the second one would be an agnostic who is an atheist, but chooses to behave as a theist.  But, that – as well as just how ‘voluntary’ it is ‘to believe’ – is a whole different discussion!)

Aside:  this same argument has been used by some people to justify spending tons of money on ‘preventing the disaster of global warming/anthropogenic climate change’.  That ought to suffice in helping us recognize that the whole ‘ACC’ movement is a religion, not science, and that ‘carbon credits’ are its ‘indulgences’.

But – back to the main point…

Summary:  The term ‘agnostic’ does not refer to one’s ‘beliefs’ about the existence of God.  Rather, it is the positive (‘actively present’) belief that it is impossible to know if god(s) exist.

Thus, it is a belief about the nature (presence) of knowledge.  Specific knowledge, in this case, but knowledge none the less.

It is not a statement about one’s state of belief in the subject of that knowledge – the existence of god(s).

Agnostics can either believe that god(s) exist – or not.  They just believe they cannot ever actually know…

Posted in atheism, debate, religion. Tags: , , , , . Leave a Comment »

AlpineKat: Black Hole Rap

January 21, 2010 — xanthippa

Here is AlpineKat with her newest video, Black Hole Rap:

Some people wonder why should we do ‘research for the point of research’:  can the cost be justified?

In my never-humble-opinion, yes!

My hubby phrased it well:  if you only do research on how to improve candles, you will develop the best candles ever….but you’ll never invent the light-bulb!

Posted in education, Humour, science, technology. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

To work, vaccines have to make you sick. Really.

October 20, 2009 — xanthippa

Recently, I found out that a lot of people are not aware that unless a vaccine actually made you sick, it did not work!

This is due to great sloppiness:  among the media, who report on ‘medical stuff’ without bothering to inform themselves on even the bare basics of the topic they are ‘reporting on’, among the educators (including Medical-school level), many of whom do not bother to actually understand the very things they are supposed to teach (or pretend not to, because of funding), and especially among the practicing medical professionals, who seem to think we are all so stupid that it is necessary for them to manipulate the information they permit us to have, so that we’ll make ‘the right choice’!

This is right out of several ‘pages’ of my ‘pet obsessive peeves’ book:  the ‘misrepresentation of science’ book, ‘bad/ignorant reporting’ book, ‘dumbed down education’ book, ‘state fascism’ – and a few more.  And, it makes me very, very angry.  Sorry if I am ranting too much….  So, what is the cause of my rant?

Recently, many Western news outlets (MSM, of course) carried the story that giving babies Tylenol (or, indeed, any other fever-reducing/anti-inflammatory medication) right before/after they get a vaccine greatly reduces the vaccine’s effectiveness.

OF COURSE!!!  THAT IS THEIR FUNCTION!!!

Why in the world would medical professionals – the very people who ‘cracked’ this amazing and life-saving process called ‘vaccination’ – need a study on something as obvious as this?  If you understand the process of how vaccines work, it is clear that taking analgesics and anti-infammatories will necessarily interfere with the very way vaccines work!

Doctors don’t know this?!?!?  D-ughh!!!

At this point, I am shaking my head and wondering where to start….

Let me walk you through the steps in process through which vaccines are supposed to work:

1. ‘Controlled Infection’

A dead or weakened version of the virus (or viruses, in case of vaccines which protect against multiple pathogens) is introduced into the body of a healthy person.  This is usually done by directly injecting the vaccine into the body or by applying them to the mucuous membranes and allowing them to permeate through there.

2. Immune system response

The immune system finds the ‘intruders’ and begins to fight them.  The methods our immune system employs in this include fever (most viruses do not reproduce effectively at higher temperatures – hence, fever is a potent weapon our immune system uses), hot-cold spells/chills (most viruses cannot handle sudden temperature changes, which is why our immune system uses this weapon to kill them…actually, this is also how the whole sauna/steam-room thing works, if performed properly:  people go get hot, then cool off extremely suddenly by rolling in snow or swimming in freezing water – and repeat this process 3x or more times within one hour: most germs will not survive these sudden temperature changes), inflammation (among other reactions, mucuous membranes try to trap germs, so this form of immune system defense may involve significant mucus generation), and so on.  In other words, the immune system will evoke all the symptoms we associate with ‘being sick’ in order to ‘learn’ this ‘germ’.

3. ‘Creating a memory’

The immune system, during this fight, ‘takes notes’, so to speak.  It creates an ‘entry’ in its ‘dangerous thingies memory bank’, where it records everything it has learned about each germ:  how to identify it (by the pattern of proteins on its ‘skin’) and how best to fight it (this may include specific antibodies the immune system ‘learned’ to produce, and the ‘systemic symptoms’ like fever, which are unpleasant but kill the germ way faster than they kill us, and so on).

4.  Future protection

A healthy immune system will keep this ‘record’ for many years, sometimes up to three decades:  the more dangerous the immune system judges the germ to be, the ‘deeper’ the ‘entry’ and the longer it will ‘remember it’ and recognize the germ, should it ever infect the body again.  This is important:  the germs which attack us will reproduce inside our body at an exponential rate.  If the immune system ‘recognizes’ the germ, it does not have to spend valuable time (sometimes days) trying to figure out how to fight it – time the germs would use to increase their number and, perhaps, overwhelm the immune system.  Instead, it can compare the ‘germ’ to its ‘database’, retrieve the information about what destroys ‘this germ’ most effectively and start fighting it very shortly after  the germ first enters the body.  This means the germ does not have time to produce millions of copies of itself before the immune system effectively destroys it – and the person is protected from a serious infection.

5.  The Trick!

Because the pathogen which was introduced through the vaccine was weakened or killed, it is not capable of reproducing (or, reproducing effectively) in the host (you).  That means that it cannot overcome your immune system while the immune system is trying to figure out how to fight it.

To sum it up:

The pathogens in the vaccine must be strong enough to make our immune systems ‘take them seriously’ and fight them (and thus ‘learn’ how to fight the full-strength germ, if it ever infects that person), but harmless enough so that they cannot overcome the immune system while it is trying to figure out what works against this germ.

This means that a vaccine which does not make your immune system go into high gear (make you ‘sick’) has not given you any protection!

So, if you get a flu shot – and you do not get ‘mild flu-like symptoms’ – the vaccine did not work!

And, if you take medication which suppresses fever, and so on, you will be directly interfering with the immune system’s ‘learning process’.  As in, the immune system will mistake the reaction to the pill for the reaction to the last thing it did to try to fight that germ!

Is it any surprise, then, that it does not ‘learn’ how to fight this pathogen effectively?

Doctors are said to still be taking the Hippocratic Oath:  ‘Do no harm’.  In a person with a healthy immune system, a vaccine will produce the symptoms of the harmful illness it is to prevent, but prevent the ‘harm’ that an actual full-strength infection would cause.

Vaccination is an important weapon in fighting disease.

But, like everything else, it can do more damage than good if it is not used properly.  If it is misrepresented and misunderstood, then people may sabotage the very process the vaccine is inducing, without knowing it.  Then, thinking they are protected, they will not act as cautiously as they might otherwise…

And that, in my never-humble-opinion, is a bad thing.

Posted in education, politics, science, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , . 6 Comments »

More corporate fascism for squashing freedom of speech

October 19, 2009 — xanthippa

In my short post yesterday, Thunderf00t’s video demonstrated how easy it is for a large corporation – specifically Google, which controls how the vast majority of information on the internet is accessed – could easily collude with politicians for their own benefit…and to the detriment of us, the ‘little people’.  In addition, Thunderf00t demonstrated how, through YouTube, Google had already demonstrated that they do censor (by not allowing their search engines to ‘pick it up’ and thus making it ‘virtually dissappear’) information which is critical of them…

The desire, means and ability:  it’s all there!

Sadly, that is just the tip of the iceberg!!!

From Michael Geist:

… the Electronic Commerce Protection Act comes to a conclusion in committee on Monday as MPs conduct their “clause by clause” review. While I have previously written about the lobbying pressure to water down the legislation [to protect consumer rights] (aided and abetted by the Liberal and Bloc MPs on the committee) and the CMA’s recent effort to create a huge loophole, I have not focused on a key source of the pressure. Incredibly, it has been the copyright lobby – particularly the software and music industries – that has been engaged in a full court press to make significant changes to the bill.

…

The DRM [Digital Rights Managament] concern arises from a requirement in the bill to obtain consent before installing software programs on users’ computers. This anti-spyware provision applies broadly, setting an appropriate standard of protection for computer users. Yet the copyright lobby fears it could inhibit installation of DRM-type software without full knowledge and consent. Sources say that the Liberals have introduced a motion that would take these practices outside of the bill.

…

Even more troubling are proposed changes that would allow copyright owners to secretly access [personal] information on users’ computers.

(my emphasis and notes)

OK – let’s sum up:

Large multinational corporations are lobbying (and succeeding, with Liberal and Quebec PMs) to allow changes to the proposed  Electronic Commerce Protection Act which will permit – in the name of protecting their copyright – manufacturers of products (from video games to music CDs to just about anything else that is ‘electronic media’) to install and run programs on your computer, which would gather personal data about you and your computer use.  And, it would allow them to do it without your permission – and even without your knowledge!!!

If there really are people out there who think this is something that only concerns people who steal music or movies, please, think twice.

Do we permit the police – who, at least, are accountable to the citizenry – to wiretap our phone ‘just to make sure we are not breaking the law’?  NO!  They must prove, to the satisfaction of a judge, that there is a cause for surveillance, get a court order, and only then can they listen in.  If it ever gets to court, the police are obligated to disclose all that they have.  And, so it should be.

This lobbied-for change would, in effect, permit private corporations – who are not accountable to anyone but their own BOD and shareholders – to ‘wiretap’ your computer, monitor every keystroke, access data in every bit of memory.  Without any judicial oversight, without any requirement that they disclose the information they collected – or what it was they were collecting in the first place.

This would permit corporations to install ANY SPYWARE  THEY WANT on ANY computer… and this software could attack any program or data it deemed to be in breech of DRM.

And, you have no say in it.

Remember what happened to all those Kindle users, who woke up one day and found books they legally purchased deleted, because somewhere higher up the chain, people were bickering about digital rights?

Well, this would become the norm:  anyone who had any claim to a copyright could install software on your computer – without you even knowing about it – and if this found anything it considered breeched its DRM, it would delete it.  Even if you bought it legally.  Because if there were any dispute anywhere along the line, their ability to delete ‘the content’ would be supreme.  Really.

Is this reasonable?

Is this the fair balance of rights?

And if you don’t think this is happening already, you are wrong!

Even Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, warns of the impact these changes would have to the privacy rights of Canadian citizens:

Technological advances hold out the promise of greater convenience, but sometimes at a cost to human rights such as privacy and the ability to control our personal information.

Meanwhile, governments and businesses have a seemingly insatiable appetite for personal information.

Governments appear to believe – mistakenly, I would argue – that the key to national security and public safety is collecting mountains of personal data. Privacy often receives short shrift as new anti-terrorism and law enforcement initiatives are rolled out.

Personal information has also become a hot commodity in the private sector. Our names, addresses, purchases, interests, likes and dislikes are recorded, analysed and stored – all so companies can sell us more products and services.

Adding to our concerns is the fact many businesses fail to adequately protect this sensitive information – leaving it vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves.

And if you thought THAT was not enough….

This idea has been ‘rumbling about’ for a few months, but recently received publicity when Eugene Kasparsky openly stated that each internet user should have an internet passport.  This would, presumably, document their every click and keystroke, which could then be monitored through increased internet regulation.  I dare reach this conclusion because Mr. Kasparsky also said that there must be no anonymity on the internet, and any country which refuses to regulate and monitor its citizens should be cut off the net.

Oh, and this should all be enforced by ‘internet police’!

I’d like to change the design of the Internet by introducing regulation—Internet passports, Internet police, and international agreement—about following Internet standards. – Eugene Kaspersky,
CEO of Russia’s Kaspersky Lab

OK – this idea is radical now.  You may shake your head and say this will never be possible.

But, 40 years ago, did anyone think that, once accused, the ‘truth’ could not be used as ‘defense’?

Posted in opression, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

John Robson: ‘They mean what they say’

September 18, 2009 — xanthippa

An excellent post by Mr. Robson:  “They mean what they say”.

It is not just disrespectful to dismiss what people say they believe and what they will do – it is dangerous.  And arrogant.

John Robson is, yet again, right.

Posted in debate, freedoms, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Giving medicine to a cat

August 26, 2009 — xanthippa

This is Bo-Bo:

His full name is ‘Snowball’ – but he usually responds to the diminutive ‘Bo-Bo’.

This past weekend, my neighbours (and friends) went away for a 4-day trip.  As I am the local animal-lover, they asked me to look after their cats (Snowball is one of 3 felines in that family).  At the last moment, Snowball (he is a little dominant…) got into a fight with another cat in the neighbourhood and the vet said he must get 2 antibiotic pills a day… could I handle the challenge of giving Bo-Bo his medicine?

I agreed to give it a try – my friends deserved a break!

Snowball was happy to see me when I came in and fed him – the first time.  Then he got annoyed that I would not let him out (he was to stay indoors while recuperating).  When I gave him his medicine – he got really, really mad at me.

The next medicine time, he was ready!

There was no way he would allow me, an outsider, to come in, hold him down in a chair and shove a pill down his throat!  His family may be away, and he may not be feeling his best and I may have taken him by surprise the first time… but – no more!  He would fight against this indignity!

Bo-Bo put up a mighty battle…

I did learn some things:

  1. Cats can – and do – growl.
  2. If you do NOT allow the cat to ‘have the last word’, the ‘next time’ will much easier.

Yes, I am glad to report that now, Bo-Bo is all well and healthy – and he does NOT growl at me any more.  Not even when I put him into the ‘medicine chair’, make him wait till I get the pill, sit beside him, open his mouth and pop the pill in!

Quite a change of attitudes!

And I did not do anything other than outlast his ‘bitching’ and ‘have the last word’.

One could say, I suppose, that I have learned how to ‘out-bitch a cat’!

Posted in about, Humour, language. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »
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