Recent Comments
RSS feed
Thunderf00t: a ‘moderate’ Muslim speaks out
March 8, 2012 — xanthippaPerhaps 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:
OpenMedia: Warrantless online spying is back on!
March 8, 2012 — xanthippaFrom 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.
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.
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.
I don’t care, I’m still free. You can’t take the sky from me.
March 2, 2012 — xanthippaA word about freedom of speech on College/University campuses:
That prof is just lucky his kid did not draw a picture of a toy gun…
A ‘Surprise Tea Party’ for Obama
March 1, 2012 — xanthippaFrankly, I am not so sure that the ‘natural born citizen’ requirement our southern cousins have for their president is a particularly meaningful one. After all, ‘home-grown’ terrorists do exist, as do immigrants who are loyal to their adoptive land beyond anything most ‘natural born citizens’ feel. In my never-humble-opinion, this ‘measure’ does not achieve what I suspect the drafters of the phrase intended.
Still, rules is rules.
Bad rules should be changed. But, until they are, they ought not be broken – especially by the head dude of the organization that has a monopoly on enforcing these rules…not only is it unfair, it corrupts the institution itself.
It is the fact that Obama’s eligibility for the US presidency was not subjected to the same scrutiny other candidates were that has given rise to this whole circus. Whether the whole big deal is justified or not remains to be seen.
And, today (March 1st, 2012), it will be.
It’s the first time an official law enforcement report has addressed many of the allegations about the presumptive 2012 Democratic nominee for president.
The issues include Obama’s eligibility under the U.S. Constitution’s requirements, questions about his use of a Connecticut Social Security number and the image of his purported birth certificate from Hawaii.
In addition to the live-streaming, WND will make available to the public, the same day by email, the official report distributed to media by Arpaio’s investigators. Those interested in receiving the report can sign up for the free service.
…
The Arpaio investigators were given the case following a meeting held in the sheriff’s office Aug. 17, 2011, with tea party representatives from Surprise, Ariz., who presented a petition signed by more than 250 Maricopa County residents. The petitioners expressed concern that their voting rights could be irreparably compromised if Obama uses a forged birth certificate to be placed on the 2012 presidential ballot in Arizona or otherwise is found to be ineligible.
Whether you think there is some fire where all this ‘eligibility’ smoke is coming from or not, this will be interesting for several reasons:
- what will be in the report itself
- how will it be spun by the media – if the media addresses it at all
- how will it play among the citizenry – regardless of media coverage, this is just too gossipy to stay totally quiet
- if the report rules Obama ineligible – what will be the legal repercussions, both for Obama’s current status as POTUS and as the presumed Democratic candidate in 2012…because if he cannot run, the Dems will be a little slow out of the starting gate in their candidate selection process
This little dance might prove to be ineresting…
H/T: BCF
Walker takes a second look at the Individual Rights Party of British Columbia
February 28, 2012 — xanthippaIn the environment of ever-increasing encroachment on civil liberties from many, many directions, is it surprising that I get excited to hear (read) about any pro-individual movement/party/thought ‘out there’?
It seems I am not alone.
Walker, over at The Blog of Walker, has just done a lengthy piece taking a second look at their message. It consists of a number of questions Walker posed to the founders of the nascent party, their replies – and, perhaps most critically, Walker supplies the logistics of how it all ‘fits together’. Interesting.
When Walker took a first look at the party, he got some comments from ‘anonymous’, which were critical of the Individual Rights Party Of British Columbia’s (IRPBC’s) official policy on Islam (which acknowledges the political aspect and considers it to be more defining of the doctrine than its ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ aspects). Walker and I both responded to the comments only to encounter trollish responses from ‘anonymous’.
Trolls may be annoying, but they can also be amusing – and, at times, useful.
The ‘second look’ attracted the same troll back. I don’t know if he is trolling because of the subject matter or if he is Walker’s pet troll, but I took care not to feed him this time around. However, Frank Hilliard of the IRPBC, took the time to defend his party’s position on Islam – and had done this so eloquently that (with permission), I would like to reproduce his comment in full (F.H’s response to ‘anonymous’ has been bolded by me):
“Anonymous said…
So you didn’t ask about the Muslim thing, eh? Can’t say I’m surprised.
So when someone in Canada starts an Islamist Party of Canada, and part of their platform is to remove the constitutional protection to peaceful religion practice from Jews and only Jews, I assume that when you interview them the question will be restricted to asking who the treasurer is, right?”
Nice bit of sarcasm Anonymous, but you’ve dodged around the issue if Islam’s political ambitions. Most other religions have moral rules, but Islam has Sharia law which defines not just personal morality but every aspect of private and public life. As such, it conflicts on multiple levels with Canadian civil, criminal and parliamentary law. The Individual Rights Party of BC simply says that if Islamic communities want to change Canadian law, they should accept the obligations and responsibilities of political organization and run candidates in elections.
We don’t have any problem with Islam as a religion but we totally reject Sharia law weather imposed by incrementalism or by force. I’m pretty sure you would too if you realized your right to comment on this issue would be denied if Sharia were already in effect.
Thought provoking, is it not?
CodeSlinger: The internet is about to get dramatically harder to regulate!
February 27, 2012 — xanthippaIn 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!
Law Without Government
February 26, 2012 — xanthippaContrary 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…
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 