RSS feed
Canadian Constitution Foundation on Brian Lilley: warrantless searches
February 18, 2012 — xanthippaJason Kenney defunds ‘Palestine House’
February 15, 2012 — xanthippaOK – the credit for this one goes to BCF!
He did all the investigative journalism, the documentation and he exerted the political pressure necessary for the Minister to be able to do his job!
Well done, BCF!!!
Of course, in a just world, these would be criminal charges – not just a simple de-funding. But, as ‘they’ say, Harper is an incrementalist – and this is a first tiny little baby step in the right direction.
Warrantless surveillance is becoming a reality in Canada
February 14, 2012 — xanthippaOh, I know I cannot write this up in a way to do this topic justice – mostly because it sends my blood pressure so dangerously high. After all, blind rage is the only reasonable response to a minister claiming that those whodare to voice reservations about a proposed law that would make mincemeat out of civil liberties are no better than child molesters.
Because that is exactly what he is saying.
OK – I’m about to loose my temper…again…and not finish this post…
ARRRRGGGHHHH!
Resorting to the ‘do it or you hate children and kick puppies’ is the last resort of a bully who knows he cannot defend his position based on the issues!
AAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!
YES! It actually IS supposed to be difficult to deprive people of their liberties: that is why cops have to follow all them silly rules!!! Taking the rules away will not make one child safer, while at the same time, it will make all of us a little less safe!
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Michael Geist has a good write-up on this – with lots of excellent and informative links. Read him – it’ll make more sense than I can.
As you ponder this, also take a peek at this.
THAT is the root of the problem: the system lacks accountability!
Actually, that article just might explain a lot about the minister’s attitude: they have already started to build a huge electronic surveillance system. Parts of it have been operational for years!
All the bluster now is to hide that they have as yet to pass the laws to make it legal…
If the USA declared a ‘War on Drugs’, do ‘international rules of war’ apply?
February 13, 2012 — xanthippaOne of my favourite thinking games is taking words and looking at all the different layers of meanings in them – along with why certain of their meanings form the dominant interpretation at any given time.
Hours of fun – and anyone can play!
For example, I absolutely love the word ‘authority’: it means quite literally, that we – as a culture – accept that ‘power’ flows exclusively from Thor. Au Thor-ity. Coming from Thor. (This is particularly amusing when coupled with the term ‘divine’ – as in, ‘divine authority’. If someone claims their god has ‘divine authority’, whether they are aware of it or not, they are literally saying that their god derives all of its power from Thor…which is fascinating when monotheists who deny the very existence of Thor do it. Yes, it does not take a lot to amuse me…)
One thing I find very annoying are the ‘grand declarations’ of ‘war on …’ – especially ones that do not really have proper meaning. For example, ‘The War on Terror’ is a nonsense-statement.
‘Terror’ is a feeling – a state of mind. To wage a war on it would mean trying to make people feel better, perhaps by medicating them into a state of non-fear. It certainly does not mean waging a physical war, with soldiers and guns.
Declaring war on terrorist organizations would make more sense…
Now, how about ‘The War on Drugs’?
Again, the jingoism of the slogan is non-sensical, at best. ‘Drugs’ are not something that is capable of fighting back, it is just stuff. Inanimate objects. It makes even less sense to claim to wage a war against inanimate objects than it does to wage a war against a state of mind. It does, however. bring up the image of one ’tilting at windmills’…
Except, of course, that the term ‘War on Drugs’ does not mean a war on drugs as such: it means a war on the organizations that handle certain drugs currently prohibited by the government.
Ok – so we have deciphered what the ‘Drugs’ in the statement means: organizations which are involved in the production and distribution of substances classified as ‘illegal’ by the US government. (Yes, I am intentionally not addressing why these laws are ‘illegal’!) So, what does the word ‘War’ mean?
This is, by far, the more interesting part of the phrase.
What, indeed, is meant by the word ‘War’?!?!?!?
Typically, ‘wars’ are fought by armies – not police forces. Yet, the ‘War on Drugs’ is being fought by non-military police officers. That is curious, to say the least. (Some would claim it is illegal – but that is a differen discussion.)
It would, of course, explain why the various police forces across the USA are becoming increasingly militarized: sometimes, it seems that cops are more military-like than the military itself! This would, indeed, be a more-or-less necessary outcome if the police were, indeed, waging ‘a war’… at least, according to my understanding of the ‘conventional’ meaning of the word ‘war’.
So, let us look at whom the ‘war’ is being waged against: the ‘drug gangs’. Are these, in any way, shape, or form ‘an army’?
A good case could be made that ‘drug gangs’ are, indeed, ‘armies’. If my memory serves me right (I have lost all of my bookmarks again, so I am not including links – please, check up on me!), according to international laws, ‘an army’ is defined as an organization must have:
- a well defined chain-of-command
- defined markings/insignia worn by its members to make them recognizable and differentiate them from civilians
Drug gangs most definitely satisfy this definition. Their chain-of-command is very well defined. And, all gang-members do wear specific ‘colours’, or symbols, which identify them clearly and unambiguously as members of that particular gang. Many gangs go a step further than most conventional armies – they not only wear their gang insignia, they have them tattooed into their very skin, so no disguise is possible!
In other words, the ‘drug gangs’ are more of an ‘army’ (under international law) than ‘terrorist organizations’, which do not wear identifying insignia and pride themselves in hiding among the civilian population. Honestly, the ‘War on Drugs’ adheres more closely to the definition of ‘war’ under international laws than ‘War on Terror’ does – yet the ‘War on Terror’ has been used, successfully, to justify (internationally) at least two extra-territorial wars that the US got involved in.
So, why is this an issue I bother thinking about?
Well, it does have some very interesting LEGAL implications….
If this is, indeed, a ‘War’ – then the ‘international rules of war’ automatically kick in!!!
It means that each and every person arrested in the USA under the ‘drug laws’ MUST be treated as a prisoner of war – and is not subject to any criminal laws!!!
Yes, please, do think about it!
Frankly, I find it difficult to believe that no enterprising lawyer has not thought of this yet…
The US government cannot have their cake and eat it, too. (OK – ‘the cake is a lie’….but that does not take away from my point!)
The US government has openly declared ‘A War’ on all organizations even peripherally involved in the drug trade. These drug organizations straddle national borders. This means that the international ‘rules of war’ most definitely kicked in once US made their declaration of war!!!
Under international ‘rules of war’, if you capture ‘a soldier’ from the opposing side, even if that person had indeed brutally killed many, many people, they cannot be tried as ‘murderers’! Rather, they must be given all the privileges attached to Prisoners Of War!
To re-phrase: because the US government has openly declared ‘War on Drugs’, is it now violating the Geneva Convention every single time it applies criminal law to anyone arrested on any drug-related charges?
Please, think about it!!!
CBC uses copyright law to silence a blogger, BlazingCatFur, and its competitor, Sun Media
February 3, 2012 — xanthippaIt is difficult to believe that CBC – the government owned and taxpayer subsidised media giant which dominates the Canadian airwaves – would use copyright laws in order to silence its critics. After all, respectable journalists and honest media companies understand the danger censorship laws pose to our society in general and their existence in particular.
But, that is exactly what they are doing…
Draw your own conclusions about the CBC.
Pirate Bay founders cannot appeal, change domain name from .org to .se
February 1, 2012 — xanthippaTwo related stories from TorrentFreak update us on what has been happening in Sweden in the Pirate Bay saga.
First, the founders have not been permitted to appeal their case, so their conviction stands. (This should put fear into all of us, because what they were doing was legal under Swedish law – they were only charged and prosecuted because of pressure from the US movie industry.)
Second, now that their court case is concluded, they have changed their domain from .org to .se in order to prevent seisure.
If you don’t know the back story, perhaps you should ‘Steal This Film’:
Shafia: a follow-up rant
February 1, 2012 — xanthippaNow that I have ranted about the Sharia murders for a bit, I would like to offer you a rant on a slightly different aspect of this case…
THE most popular post I have ever written was about Aisha Ibrahim Dhuhulow. OK, I have written several, but this one has been to slowed down over the years even though I wrote it up just days after Aisha (or, Aisho, in some spellings) was stoned to death under Sharia, for the crime of having been gang raped. (As I could not find any picture of Aisha, I painted one.)
Clarification: the Shafia murders were not, in any way-shape-or-form, Sharia killings! Quite to the contrary – most pro-Sharia Muslims strictly condemn this ‘honour crime’. What must be understood that ‘honour killings’ are culture-based (or, more accurately, a symptom of the tribal version of collectivist societies where individuals have not just no rights, but no identity of their own – only the clan/tribe has an identity and the people within it are treated as interchangable cogs), not religion based. Indeed, most Muslim organizations in Canada, whether pro-Sharia or not, have condemned these murders as unacceptable – and that is a good thing. However, it should not be misunderstood that under Sharia, these girls and women would have fared much better: the outrage among the pro-Sharia crowd is because the family made the life-and-death decision rather than presenting their case to the Sharia courts and then submitting the children and women to the death sentence once the Sharia court pronounced them. Plus under Sharia, these women and children would have been stoned, not drowned… And, yes, they would not have escaped the death sentence, as one of them actually married without het father’s permission and the other 3 helped her, so under Sharia, they would have been sentenced to death by stoning or lashing. The only disagreement here is between who has the authority to kill them: their imam or their father.
What really, really got me angry was not only what had happened to the poor child, Aisha Ibrahim Dhuhulow (she had reported her rape to the authorities, not realizing that the regular Muslim authorities she had grown up with had been replaced by Al-Shabaab’s radicalized Sharia courts and that reporting she had been raped would earn her the death penalty by stoning), though that was horrific enough.
What added insult to the injury was how it was reported and treated by the ‘Western media’, lead by AP (whose reporter was an eye-witness to the stonitself).
The lead was: WOMAN IS STONED FOR ADULTERY!
WOMAN?!?!?!?
IN WHAT UNIVERSE IS A 13-YEAR-OLD ‘A WOMAN’?!?!?
And now, in the Shafia case, the youngest victim, Geeti, was also 13-years-old…yet the headlines proclaim ’4 women dead’!
Really?
13-year-old Geeti and 17-year-old Sahar were both minors.
Children.
Not women!!!
Yes, murders of women are vile and despicable – all murders are.
But the murders of children – and murders of children by their parents - murders of children are extra vile.
Consciously or not, whether to minimize the impact for politically correct reasons or because they are having trouble wrapping their brains around the evil of it, by calling two children ‘women’, the crimes committed agains them are downplayed by the media.
Contrast that with how Omar Khadr is being portrayed by the media: in order to whip up inflammatory feelings, the media are calling him a ‘child soldier’ – even though, under UN definitions, Omar Khadr (at 15) was neither a child, nor a soldier.
OK – Sahar was 17 and could be considered to be ‘a woman’ under some rules. But, if the media treats the 15-year-old Khadr as ‘a child’ but treats the 13-year-old Geeti as an adult, I call it a double standard!
One which, I suspect, is strategically adopted by those who simply find suffering of Muslimas to not fit comfortably into their own world view, so they will do all that is in their power to sweep their suffering under the rug, turn a blind eye to and and, most importantly, not permit any objective discussion of it in the public square.
Yes, there is so much more I want to say about this, but I suspect that my rant would only get more ranty…so, let me just leave you with a paraphrased quote from one of my favourite philosophers: a person’s a person, no matter how small, or female, or Muslim!
Another example where copyright laws are being used to censor one’s critics
January 31, 2012 — xanthippaYes, ThunderF00t and William Lane Craig have some serious disagreements on the topic of science. And both have been speaking up on this topic on YouTube.
ThunferF00t is a bona-fide scientist, with the credentials to prove it.
William Lane Craig is a theologian, self-described philosopher and calls himself ‘Dr.’.
They got into a bit of a spat – ThunderF00t used clips of Craig’s videos in his rebuttal videos: this is perfectly legal and ‘protected se’ under the DMCA rules. Despite this, someone has, on behalf of Dr. Craig, filed false DMCA claims against ThunderF00t and others. (We know they know their claims are false because they have filed these DMCA notifications many times on the same groungs – even after being repeatedly told that this use is not a violation of their copyright – yet they continue filing…)
The purpose of these types of actions is clear: to force the filer’s critics to spend so much time and energy fighting against these false claims that they will not have the time and energy to criticize him.
The reason we must pay attention to this is because it demonstrates how laws already passed with the good intent to protect copyright are already being abused to stifle speech – and these laws are nowhere near as intrusive as the ailed SOPA bill was…and we all know that those promoting these tools of censorship will not stop. They will simply try to pass these types of laws more stealthily, a tiny increment at a time.
Constant vigilance!
-
Recent Comments
Ralph Musgrave on Daniel Hannan: Politicians can… Collin on Thoughts about ‘Anonymou… Bahrain on Shoot ‘em up – for… Collin on Thoughts about ‘Anonymou… Collin on Thoughts about ‘Anonymou…
