Category Archives: terrorism

Aff’s Opinion Part 2

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Shadow’s Note: I occasionally tell Aff he should write something on the blog, because he’s an entertaining and hilarious opinion writer. He keeps saying that he’s likely to piss off everyone, including my friends. I know my friends. They’ll probably be laughing right along with me. If it helps, imagine this in the voice of a very sarcastic Lawrence Fishburne crossed with Dr. House.

 

So, the last time I wrote anything for Shadow to post was about gun control, which probably  irritated some people. Not to worry, for I have learned my lesson and I will now write about far less controversial things.

Item One: Racism & Why I hate the Internet

This might sound odd from somebody who uses a computer on a near 24/7 basis to browse said Internet, but it’s done a world of harm. It would have been far better if it was just that weird place which Hatsune Miku came from, but we’ve got no such luck.
For a very long time, Australia absorbed the better part of foreign cultures and concepts via an elegant process which took time.

Turns out, most of this happened in the late ninety/early 2000s period. A lot of different cultures were moving into various areas of Australia – Adelaide, South Australia being no exception.

As I was growing up, I was thrown into a Preschool class with a bunch of other kids. Some of them were Asian. Some were African. Some were Aboriginal. I realise this now, of course. But at the time I didn’t know. Nor did I care. Nor did anyone else. We were all just kids.

No attempts were made to classify any of them as different, or disadvantaged, or people we should work harder to include or people we should exclude. When I got into a punch up with one of the kids, it was because I hated the little bastard for the day because he stole my Banana or something. If we were kicking a ball around, it was because it was some other kid to kick a ball around with. This happened indiscriminately, without any concern for what race that kid was. Because it didn’t matter.

Adelaide remained like this for the entire duration of my school life. I went through Primary and High School without ever noticing or caring what race any of the kids were. It didn’t matter. Nobody else cared, either. If there was racism present at my school, it must have been buried so deeply that nobody would have said anything – and the groups of kids that turned up for events, LAN parties, or social trips to Salisbury were always mixed completely at random.

Not because we were told to. It just happened naturally. And my friends weren’t the only ones – this was a common occurrence. Nobody cared.

Then came the Internet, and problems from other countries started being communicated to Australians in real time. People felt strongly about these issues, and wanted to do something about them. Issues in other places.

So they began to campaign against issues that didn’t exist here. Loudly. Angrily. And their righteous campaigns to prevent racism only served to make some people feel different when they hadn’t before!

The very attempt to right a wrong (which hadn’t existed in that location – at least not on any major scale) caused the problem!

Fantastic work. Brilliant. Top notch.

Fortunately, it didn’t work that well. As someone who has lived extensively in three states of Australia, I can tell you it’s still pretty kick back. I don’t believe racism has a huge hold here, and I’m hoping it stays that way.

I’m sure the Internet is also guilty of damaging other countries in the same way. My guess is that cities globally vary enough that problems in one area can spread to another via the Internet even if the problem wasn’t even remotely possible in the other location previously.
Want to treat everyone equally? Just do nothing different. Don’t force ‘awareness’ or ‘educational programs’ on people to highlight the differences. That’s how you amplify something into a problem, instead of avoiding it becoming a problem.

 

Item Two: Religion

As most of you have likely figured out, Shadow has a religion. She believes in spirits and what not. I don’t. You might be asking how we co-exist given the fact that most Atheists can’t enter a public place without telling everyone within earshot while wearing a smugly superior look that resembles the kind of leer you would see on the face of a convicted paedophile.

I don’t believe in a God. I also don’t believe in spirits. I do however, believe in History. There’s these things we have called records, which document stuff that happened previously. It’s really quite neat – and some of it you can even find on the previously-mentioned awful Internet.

What we now loosely and somewhat inaccurately refer to as Free Western Culture stems from the family values and concepts that arose from Christian Faiths. In fact, the very fact that Atheists can exist without prosecution is because of Christianity. Don’t believe it? Go look up how well Atheists did in the presence of many other belief systems, you may find it some fiery reading.

Here’s a great thing from Christianity you can enjoy as an Atheist today; the concept of education for the common-folk was one born out of the necessity of being able to teach people what was inside the Bible. Granted, you may not see this as being particularly cool as it is promoting a belief system – however, giving people literacy led towards other great gifts and a more general education. Do you know how to read this post? Do you know how to write something slandering Christians? Congratulations, you can probably thank them for it.

While it is true that Atheists may suffer some discrimination in the modern era, it is completely out of proportion compared to the discrimination that Atheists appear to exclusively focus on Christianity. You can generally live in a Christian country without worrying about being persecuted because you don’t turn up to Church – in fact, most Christians seem pretty lazy on that score too, so who would know anyway? There are also laws – derived from the concept under the Bible that all Humans are created equal in the image of God (or some such) in most Christian countries that protect your rights to pretty much believe what you want.

So what’s up with Atheists attacking Christian/Catholic beliefs at every opportunity?
Now, some of you may be thinking – hey, okay so it was useful. But now it’s not. We should stop with this fairytale nonsense, right? Where’s the harm?

This is the part where the Atheist part of me – the one who isn’t worried about curse words – would like to call you a fucking idiot.

Let’s say you succeed, and Christianity is gone. Great success, celebrate with some alcohol.

Oh wait, you probably can’t. The removal of Christianity isn’t going to instantly turn everything over to a religion-free society. It’s more likely to remove the protections that Christianity and its influence on culture provides that allow you to reject religion – next thing you know you’re in an Islamic country… and uh, you don’t want to live there as an Atheist.

You think it’s obnoxious that someone wants to give blessing before they eat? In Islamic scripture, you cannot change religion or become atheist – denying Islam and becoming an apostate is punishable by death for males and imprisonment for women (and what happens to the women mean they are probably getting the worst part of the deal). If you’re an Atheist and think you can be as brutal with Islam as you are with Christianity, try taking a visit to Afghanistan, Malaysia, or Saudi Arabia. There, you can be executed for publicly advocating Atheism – something that will never happen to you in a Christian country.

But hey, it might be a nice trip for you. And at the very least, it will spare me from seeing another one of those blasted banner adverts advocating how we should kill of Christianity and shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot.

Don’t wanna believe in God? Fine, you don’t have to. I don’t either. And that’s my right – one protected by the laws of Australia and most (not all) other Christian-founded countries.

Don’t like others believing in God? Okay, explain why? Why does it matter to you in the slightest. Does it affect you? No. Will it affect your children? No. You can opt out of every religious study class available in Australian public schools. Christianity might be loud during Easter and Christmas, but if you’re offended by a few chocolate eggs and the idea that people will give each other gifts, perhaps you’re actually just a horrible bastard.

And hey, that’s cool too – but before you embark on your heroic campaign to spend thousands on billboards and drive Christianity out of the country, maybe you should think about what will replace it when that happens because it most likely won’t be the peaceful universal Atheism you seem to believe.

Because hey, it’s cool we’re not afraid of God. In fact, there’s nobody to judge our actions in this world but ourselves. And that’s also a solid point – we are responsible for our actions. Which means we are also responsible if we act like total dicks to one another, and ruin everyone else’s day. We’d also have nobody to blame but ourselves if the great plan backfired and we all ended up on some Islamic chopping block in the UAE. So cut this self-destructive shit out, you’ll destroy all of us right along with your intended target.

Don’t bite the hand that protects you.

Item Three: Abortion

I was going to stop above, but I figured I had one more group of people to quickly piss off.
I’m not really pro-life. I’m also not really pro-choice. I’m pro-personal responsibility.

Abortion is a medical procedure with some risk. You can avoid needing this if you either:
a) stop fucking everyone;
or b) use birth control;

As for the “it’s my body” stuff from some women; can you become pregnant via photosynthesis or mitosis? No? There was another person involved?

Sounds like it’s joint decision time!

But hey, abort away. I don’t intend to change anyone’s opinions because I don’t really care too much about this subject – but if you are going to do so, do it at a proper medical centre and not some half-baked clinic.

Otherwise it might not just be the foetus that dies, you might too.

Right, well that’s probably filled my quota for another six months… actually, no – wait. I have one more group I have a gripe with.

Item Four: WordPress

Alright, so I don’t post to Shadows Blog – at all, ever. She has the option of posting things from me on her Blog if she chooses to do so. Under no circumstances do I dictate things that must or must not appear on her web site.

I am the administrator that manages the behind-the-scenes stuff which keeps this site running. I installed the WordPress, and I apply updates or patches as needed to keep it running smoothly. In that effect, I am part of the platform that enables her speech.
WordPress are part of a platform that enable peoples speech as well. That’s what they claim to be, anyway. By forcing the rainbow banner on users via the reader bar, they are going beyond participating in the discussion but forcing their speech on top of the sites that they claim to support free speech on and thus telling them that any other view is wrong.

This is not the place of a speech provider to do. We’re looking at replacing WordPress soon, but until then this post can stand as some glorious irony when I officially state that WordPress gets added to my official list of companies that can get fucked.
If you are a platform or a host to debate, you cannot pick a side in the debate. Then you are no longer providing neutral discussion ground.

Alright, now that’s my quota filled for real. If you aren’t offended yet, let Shadow know and I’ll get right on fixing that.

Aff/Seda, signing off.

This is how you do it

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So, recent posts have been complaining about the “Made To Care” method of ‘supporting a cause’ – but I’m pleasantly surprised today by a more considerate method of this from a surprising source.

That link goes to the Australian Government’s informational site on the whole voting thing.

And you know what? I’m okay with that. Why?

Because I have the option of clicking on it. It’s not an obnoxious auto-redirect to pro-gay marriage sites, and the site it links to is the official government site about the matter, which is all that’s important on it. The rest of it is up to the people. Yes, I’m using screenshots because Google’s main homepage is regional and affected by where you are. So, I’m not sure how you’ll see this outside of Australia.

So, kudos to Google for being …oddly upstanding on that. Given Google’s history I’m actually surprised by the low key and neutral presentation, but it’s a pleasant surprise, and appreciated.

Still, I share the same concerns about increasing technological presence and monopoly mentioned here.

===

In related news, this vote is important, not just for whether or not same sex marriage goes through. I think the Australian people have the awareness that this is not just as simple as so many pro SSM advocates make it out to be. In fact, from England is a great example of why it isn’t.

For one thing, since SSM was approved in England, there have been changes and proofs that the No voters have every reason to be validly concerned about a Yes to SSM being the start of a number of erosions to Australian rights, protections and society. After all, it has happened in the US and England – indeed, it’s been declared that ‘Same sex marriage won’t be ‘proper’ until Churches can no longer opt out.’ This is in direct conflict with the usual assurances that there would have been protections that would allow religious groups and people to opt out of ‘participating in SSM’ – but as WordPress.com’s stance and other pro-SSM groups and speakers have shown, “Acceptance Without Exception” is the full end goal – a truly Orwellian aim that seeks to remove any dissent.

It became clear, during this year’s general election, just how militant the LGBT lobby have become, following marriage redefinition. The primary target was Tim Farron, leader of England’s third largest political party, the Liberal Democrats. High-profile journalists had heard that Farron was a practising Christian. In every single interview thereafter, they demanded to know. Did he personally believe homosexual sex to be a sin? He practically begged the commentariat, to allow him to keep his personal faith and legislative convictions separate. For decades, he pointed out, he had out vocally and legislatively supported the LGBT Lobby. Likewise, he had long backed same-sex marriage, voting for it enthusiastically. This simply was no longer enough.

Support isn’t enough. You must march and agree. Example: Michigan Farmer prohibited from selling apples because of his stance against SSM.

Last December, Tennes, who owns the Country Mill Orchard and Cider Mill in Charlotte, wrote a Facebook post explaining his family’s Catholic views on marriage, and how their deeply held beliefs are why his farm won’t host same-sex weddings.

The city’s response — banning him from its farmers market — reminded the former Marine of the time he spent near the border of North Korea. Tennes could see into the country, and it impacted him how people there live their entire lives in fear of the government.

That’s how he felt when he got the letter from East Lansing.

“I felt it in my gut. This isn’t real,” Tennes recalls.“We have freedom of speech in this country.”

Tennes felt especially betrayed that he was being denied rights he fought to defend while serving his country. His wife Bridget is a former Army nurse.

The East Lansing government isn’t backing down. In fact, it broadened the definition of its civil rights ordinance specifically to ensure the couple wouldn’t have access to the farmers market this season. It applied the ordinance to all of a business’ practices: In this case, what the Tennes do on their personal property 22 miles from East Lansing.

“We require everybody to conform their business practices to the East Lansing ordinance in order to use East Lansing property to sell their goods so that is applied to everybody,” says East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows.

That slippery slope people were worried about isn’t just about ‘who else would then demand the ‘right’ to be married’ – it included things like these. It is becoming increasingly clear that the fight for SSM or against SSM isn’t just about marriage – it’s about who has the right to conduct business, live peacefully, and who is to be granted the protection of law, the ability to have opinions and thoughts, hold that personal life is separate from professional conduct, and how children are to be raised. “Marriage Equality”‘s intrusion into nearly all aspects of our lives is massively under-stated by pro-SSM advocates. The reality is, we weren’t the ones who turned this into a battleground – their advocacy isn’t for equality, it’s for their being placed as having more rights and privileges as the rest of us – because the reality is, homosexuals are still a minority, and a minority should not have power over the majority. Screaming epithets that people who are against it are haters and bigoted adds nothing to the discussion, and indeed, only highlights that people who push hard for SSM are only concerned with their own indulgence and desires, and in fact consider other valid concerns such as the various ones listed above as ‘trivial and unworthy of consideration.’

A survey in Australia held earlier this year gave this result:

a full 59 percent of LGBTI people said they would oppose a legal exemption allowing religious celebrants (priests, pastors, or other ministers) to refuse to marry two men or two women.

Nearly 60 percent of LGBTI Australians said it should be illegal for a pastor to refuse to marry a same-sex couple. But it got worse.

A full 94.3 percent said a church or a religious organization should not be allowed to deny the use of its property for a same-sex wedding. Australia has yet to legalize same-sex marriage. When LGBTI people were asked if they would allow churches to refuse to host same-sex weddings in exchange for making same-sex marriage legal in Australia, a full 90.6 percent still opposed it.

Ultimately it is that attitude of ‘me, me first! Me only!’ that has been a source of great disgust and served to turn people away from support of SSM.

 

A Cloudy Day

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The sky over here where I live in Australia is overcast. In the US right now, it’s September 11, but because I’m ‘in the future’ it’s Sept 12. (For the humor-impaired, that’s a mild joke, the bit about being in the future.) Nevertheless it seems more fitting than the blue skies and warmer weather had for my yesterday.

 

Sept 11 has, over time, become a combination of meaning for me. I do remember the horrible day the biggest terrorist attack in the world happened in New York, and the day holds significance for me in that regard. Why wouldn’t it? That was the day our world changed forever. (And yes it did. We have farcical situations like this one that Sarah Hoyt describes, for example, and the more generalised one in her blog post, which goes more into the societal change.) Incredible stories of that day still hit hard, the heroism of United Airlines Flight 93, the willingness of this female pilot, and, for me the lingering horror and tragedy of the Falling Man and the 200 odd who jumped… for me that is the strongest memory of the Twin Tower Terror attack. Flight 93 makes me weep tears of gratitude and pride, a fierce feeling of wanting to honor the people who fought back. The people forced to jump make me weep in sorrow and sympathy…and understanding.

Continue reading →

Buried news

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http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/bury-them-alive-white-south-africans-fear-for-their-future-as-horrific-farm-attacks-escalate/news-story/3a63389a1b0066b6b0b77522c06d6476

Why is this under the economics section of the news? This shouldn’t be buried in the back, but should be in the front page section!  But given how it is extremely racially charged crimes – black against whites, no less – it does not surprise me that it was buried.

I’m more surprised that the news was reported at all.

Australian Chrissssstmasssss

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My brother-in-law shared this article to me and I have to say, it’s amusing! So I’m sharing with everyone.

Tiger Snake in with the Tinsel

Fortunately nobody was harmed not even the snake. He wanted to shine along with the Christmas tree decor, but that’s a bit much to ask. Maybe he’ll get given a Christmas mouse though!

Other good news: Police foil IS Christmas Day terror plot in Melbourne.

Ever since the terror attack in Berlin targeting one of the traditional Christmas Villages, I’ve been bracing myself for news of additional attacks elsewhere in the world – including the US and Australia. Good to hear our police are on the ball!

We are living in Sci-Fi realms

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A friend of mine linked this to me via Skype, and Skype, weirdly enough chose not to let me know she’d messaged me. Bloody hell.

Become a citizen of Asgardia

I wonder how it’ll be determined who goes onto the space station, should it launch? By merit and need, or by who has the most connections? There’s also the matter of more …hah! Earthly concerns; such as recognition of the things which require statehood – I doubt, strongly that they’ll go with a Star Trek concept of ‘no money’ – a concept which, though I love the series, I always found rather implausible (because trade still existed, and there were mentions of things like credits.)

Now, personally, I think they’re looking ahead; but at the same time I wonder how many of the old ‘rules’ will still hold, like the Outer Space Treaty, which is ridiculously vague, and I wonder always who will determine ‘the use of the resources.’ Every country will want to say ‘I need that’ but I do not think that such would simply be ‘given away’ – determined by some uncaring Communist-replacement body that decides who benefits based off some arbitrary guideline.

That said, I think that it’s an eventual step in the future that humanity will expand to the stars, for things like mining, settlement, and so on. It’s all a question of when, and whom. Continue reading →

Waste of book

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I usually am quite happy with secondhand book purchases, including those procured through online book shops. I get a number of books that way, especially nonfiction.

Most of the time, if there’s a bit of writing on the sides, I don’t mind it. Sometimes, I’ll find it interesting. My father used to write in book margins, usually expanding a bit on an underlined sentence or phrase.

So when I finally got a copy of Civilization and Its Enemies, and flipped through it briefly to see if the description I’d been given was accurate (Slight cover damage, some notations on the margins and underlined sections.) Continue reading →

WordPress gets HTTPS

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A good number of my fellows use WordPress so I figured this would be of interest to them.

HTTPS Everywhere: Encryption for All WordPress.com Sites

Better site security is a good thing, especially if it helps you protect your private information. I know some nutjobs would say ‘oh, if you’re scared about the government, then you have something to hide!’ crap, but really, waving the government around like a huge red flag trying to get the bull to charge ignores the other guy sneaking up behind it – namely: computer crime still exists, and it is a good idea to secure your site against those legitimate concerns. I’m not a security expert, just some person who wants to make her living writing, but HTTPS is a GOOD THING – especially if you’re using your WordPress to manage your online business or professional blog. WordPress getting you that bit of extra security built in for your site, if you use WordPress hosting, is a seriously awesome thing, because if you’re the average blogger (like myself) you’re not likely to know much about the latest in online security or protection or even more than basic HTML tags (the ones that give you italics, bold, images and links are about the extent of my HTML knowledge.)

I repeat my statement about not being an online security expert, so please just use the links and my opinion as a starting point for further research from a mostly consumer’s POV, and as someone thinking about wanting to sell a product online (In my case, books/art). If you think I’m an uneducated idiot, spare us both wasting the time and browse away.

Anyone still here, feel free to go on.

So, why is HTTPS a good thing? Instead of trying to explain it and mangle the explanation, I’ll quote and link some of the people who DO know what they’re talking about.

From the EFF:

When does HTTPS Everywhere protect me? When does it not protect me?

HTTPS Everywhere protects you only when you are using encrypted portions of supported web sites. On a supported site, it will automatically activate HTTPS encryption for all known supported parts of the site (for some sites, this might be only a portion of the entire site). For example, if your web mail provider does not support HTTPS at all, HTTPS Everywhere can’t make your access to your web mail secure. Similarly, if a site allows HTTPS for text but not images, someone might be able to see which images your browser loads and guess what you’re accessing.

HTTPS Everywhere depends entirely on the security features of the individual web sites that you use; it activates those security features, but it can’t create them if they don’t already exist. If you use a site not supported by HTTPS Everywhere or a site that provides some information in an insecure way, HTTPS Everywhere can’t provide additional protection for your use of that site. Please remember to check that a particular site’s security is working to the level you expect before sending or receiving confidential information, including passwords.

One way to determine what level of protection you’re getting when using a particular site is to use a packet-sniffing tool like Wireshark to record your own communications with the site. The resulting view of your communications is about the same as what an eavesdropper on your wifi network or at your ISP would see. This way, you can determine whether some or all of your communications would be protected; however, it may be quite time-consuming to make sense of the Wireshark output with enough care to get a definitive answer.

You can also turn on the “Block all HTTP requests” feature for added protection. Instead of loading insecure pages or images, HTTPS Everywhere will block them outright.

What does HTTPS Everywhere protect me against?

On supported parts of supported sites, HTTPS Everywhere enables the sites’ HTTPS protection which can protect you against eavesdropping and tampering with the contents of the site or with the information you send to the site. Ideally, this provides some protection against an attacker learning the content of the information flowing in each direction — for instance, the text of e-mail messages you send or receive through a webmail site, the products you browse or purchase on an e-commerce site, or the particular articles you read on a reference site.

However, HTTPS Everywhere does not conceal the identities of the sites you access, the amount of time you spend using them, or the amount of information you upload or download from a particular site. For example, if you access http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying and HTTPS Everywhere rewrites it to https://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying, an eavesdropper can still trivially recognize that you are accessing www.eff.org (but might not know which issue you are reading about). In general, the entire hostname part of the URL remains exposed to the eavesdropper because this must be sent repeatedly in unencrypted form while setting up the connection. Another way of saying this is that HTTPS was never designed to conceal the identity of the sites that you visit.

Researchers have also shown that it may be possible for someone to figure out more about what you’re doing on a site merely through careful observation of the amount of data you upload and download, or the timing patterns of your use of the site. A simple example is that if the site only has one page of a certain total size, anyone downloading exactly that much data from the site is probably accessing that page.

If you want to protect yourself against monitoring of the sites you visit, consider using HTTPS Everywhere together with software like Tor.

From cio.gov:

HTTPS encrypts nearly all information sent between a client and a web service.

For example, an unencrypted HTTP request reveals not just the body of the request, but the full URL, query string, and various HTTP headers about the client and request

There’s some images there as an example but I would advise clicking on the links and reading further.

For me, as the Ordinary Web User sort of person, I rather like anything that will make sure that my credit card details won’t get stolen as I enter the number…or even before that, my password stolen when I log in. I like knowing that the site I’m visiting is actually the site I want to be seeing, and in the case of business sites like online stores, this is important because we’re dealing with hard earned money here AND my personal details, like home address, name, phone number, etc. For WordPress to offer that built into the WordPress sites they host, that’s awesome, and from a business perspective, a good move.

All that has fuck-all to do with government spying. Which is why, especially in the US, you should pay attention to shit like this. Buying stuff online – whether it’s a book, video game, or placing an order on your grocery store’s online ordering system- it is very much in your best interest to have the strongest encryption and best cyber-security available – not just HTTPS. Similarly, it is in the best interest of businesses – not just in the US – to provide customer security when they go to order stuff online. THEY are the ones responsible, for the most part, for keeping your private data secure and safe; and its’ additional help to prevent your passwords, credit card info, etc, from falling into the wrong hands when you’re just signing up. HTTPS helps with that. It is but one aspect of website and browsing security, but for very basic end users like myself, it’s pretty important. I am not saying that it’s the cure-all, but it does help patch some of the holes (and the other holes are outside the scope of this post anyway.)

Bear in mind as well that we no longer just access the Internet on computers, but on our smartphones as well. So having good encryption on your phone and the apps you use has completely valid reasons to be there – just imagine how bad it’d be if your smart phone were stolen or even just dropped out of your purse, pocket or jacket while going about your everyday errands. What if you used it to go shopping on Ebay, or Amazon, used it for online banking, Facebook, Twitter, Paypal, reloading your bus/train card (you should see how they use the Octopus card in Hong Kong! It’s really LIKE a replacement wallet!) etc. Also say, if you used it to verify security for things like Battlenet, Steam, the abovementioned shopping sites, and so on. There are even some phones and banks now that support the smartphone being a replacement paywave card.

So, that’s kinda like losing your wallet, except in this case your wallet contains the keys to your virtual house, your bank, your TV… and you can’t call the bank to get your credit cards cancelled because your phone is gone. So how many smartphones these days support you attaching it to a lanyard so you can wear it around your neck or attach it by chain to you physically? (I rather miss the old text only phones I had for that reason.)

So, do I, as an ordinary, everyday user, who has no criminal record and has nothing to hide from the government, have legitimate reasons to want the best technological security available? Hell yes. This is simply a logical frame of mind given the incredibly connected digital age we live in.

Wanting better digital security and privacy in this age is normal, and comparing anyone who wants that as a potential criminal is like bitching at someone who puts locks on their doors to keep thieves out as making it harder for the cops to kick down the door when the easily pissed off, and perpetually offended SJWs pull a SWATting on you for your thought-crimes with DARVO tactics, an increasingly and shockingly expanding form of petty retaliation for mere disagreement. Or, when police use a shit and unprovable reason for a search, like here; and more terrifyingly, this, which reminds me a LOT of what used to go on behind the Iron Curtain, or Nazi Germany.

I don’t think we want to live in a world where America decides it’s perfectly okay to act in the way that Communists and Nazis were decried for, and in the manner that the corrupt hold to power in many places of the world.

We should do well to remember Ben Franklin’s admonition about trading essential liberty for temporary safety: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Despite everything I’ve said above, I can completely understand the concerns, especially with regards terrorism, human trafficking, and paedophiles. I do not have a problem with reasonable, rational law-enforcement agency cooperation with companies, and international investigation. I believe that we have reached the current levels of problems with regards the questions of personal privacy and security versus criminals and terrorists, because of the over-reaches on both sides. Trying to make encryption as a whole illegal is wrong (without it, say goodbye to your personal monetary and personal data security) but treating companies that wish to protect those things for their customers and their business’ sake as if they were evil, and dragging them through the mud in the media ensures that everyone loses in the long run.

Other Links of interest that I ran across while reading; tangentially related to above post, because rabbit-hole tab explosion:

https://letsencrypt.org/

Cross-Site Request Forgery Cheat Sheet  

I have no idea what the above is, but it looks like a good thing, so I dropped it in there for the more techy folks.

What Makes Cybercrime Laws So Difficult To Enforce

https://thecustomizewindows.com/2011/12/https-secure-hypertext-transfer-protocol/

Edit July 1 2020: I was contacted by the owner of this website guide, “How to Encrypt Your Traffic”, and I had a skim of it. A number of their tips are updated for 2020 so it’s worth a look! As always, use your own best judgement as to what security works for you.

So they went after metal and failed, and now they’re going after Linux?

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And Linus Torvalds?

https://twitter.com/hashtag/istandwithLINUS?src=hash

Oh man. I seriously need to buy me that popcorn machine, stat. It is now a necessity.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/linus-torvalds-on-why-he-isnt-nice-i-dont-care-about-you/

fml___problem_exists_between_keyboard_and_chair_by_cutelildrow-d89s2yu

First off, you pretentious fucking douchebag SJWs, code, of ANY type will not give two shits of a rat’s ass about your hurt feelings, who you fuck, what you chop off or stick onto you, or what political opinions you hold. You fuck up your code no amount of crying and whining and throwing ickle tanties will make it forgive you and work. I’m no programmer, but just fuck up basic HTML tags and well, we’ve all been there. Type in the wrong command – oh wait maybe most of them don’t even know that. Never mind!

But seriously now, there’s nothing more coldly uncaring of gender, race, social or economic class or any of those silly irrelevant things as programming. Either your code works, or it doesn’t. Either your program works, or it fails miserably and needs debugging – in which case fuck you, find it, fix it. All it cares about is whether or not you have the skill to make it work. It does not care whether the fingers that typed across the keys belong to a white or black or green skinned person, nor does it care whether you have a penis or a vagina, or neither, or both, or like to suck cock or lick twat or dress up in a fursuit. It does not care if you are in a wheelchair or have massive tits and swing both ways.

None of that matters. What DOES matter is the pure, unadulterated unforgiving meritocracy of being able to make the hardware and software interact in the way it needs to, to bring about a result.

Really, it boils down to the simple reality that unmasks SJWs and the left with the cold hard truth: When it comes to true, brutally blind equality, they can’t handle it. They don’t want to deal with meritocracy, or skill, or truly even ground, they want everything handed to them on demand, or tantrums, life destroying and slander shall ensue!

Boo de Q_Q harder.

Linus Torvalds does not care about your fucking little fee fees. All he cares about “is quality and merit comes first and everything else comes second, and he doesn’t care if he offends people in this regard” – and frankly, that’s pretty fucking fair of him. None of this diversity in programming bullshit – I don’t give a crap if the person doing the code or writing the program is a girl or a guy, or likes to fuck a guy or not, or what their political opinion is. I really don’t. All I care about is ‘can this person do the job? Does that shit work? Is that program legit or does it have hidden malware?’

Don’t like that? Then make your own fork or program.. oh wait, no you can’t unless you have the skills, and since there’s more Q_Qing than actual skills to make stuff happen… we’re left with people just throwing massive tanties again.

edited to add this quote:

This is triply true in engineering/development. It’s not like marketing or HR where everyone is special and an all-day meeting constitutes productive work, technical work is very well-defined with quantifiable, testable results where there’s not much room for second place. The winners in this space are those who Get Shit Done, not those who have the most friends or the most politically-correct agenda. And you will not Get Shit Done if you prioritize your team’s DNA over their skillset. Seriously, social skills do not mean a damn thing here–either your robot is the biggest, baddest mofo in the room and it crushes everyone else’s souls with its godlike power, or it’s not and its your souls getting crushed by someone else’s godbot. There’s something to be said for being able to deal with other humans when necessary but it’s a secondary skill, and one not generally used as companies tend to keep engineers as far away from the customers as possible.

Linus is the ultimate non-discriminating manager. He does not care who you are or what you look like as long as you’re good at what you do, and he won’t tolerate excuses. Which is exactly why diversity fanboys hate him so much–they don’t actually want an identity-blind society, they want an identify-focused society which simply flips the discrimination in favor of gender-studies weasels. They have to tear him down because, like Trotsky to Stalin, he vividly shows that what they claim to want is vastly different from what they’re actually implementing.

Yep.

 

 

Because it is worth relinking and rereading.

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thatswhatseparatecountriesarefor

 

Jim Butcher has this to say about the Charlie Hebdo atrocity

Freedom v Fear

It needs requoting, but you should also read the original post on his LJ.

“Still mortified about our fallen cartoonist colleagues, but free speech will always win.”

No.

No it won’t.

The history of the human race demonstrates /very/ convincingly that free speech is the /exception/ to the human condition, not the rule. For millennia, those who spoke out were imprisoned or killed. Hell, you could say something that wasn’t even subversive, just inept and stupid, and be destroyed for committing the crime of lese majeste.

Make no mistake. What we have today is a level of freedom and self-determination on a scale unparalleled in the history of our species. We live in what is, in many ways, a golden age. So much so that we give tremendous credit to the adage, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

But everyone always forgets the first half of that quote:

“Under the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword.”

I’m not sure I know of anyplace that’s ruled by anyone “entirely great.” That adage wasn’t a statement of philosophy, as it was originally used: it was a statement of irony.

Don’t believe me? Look around. Notice that everywhere you go in the world, whoever happens to be ruling seems to have a great many swords.

Still, the idea contained within the quote is a powerful one–that intangible ideas, thoughts, and beliefs can have tremendous power. And that’s why we should be paying close attention.

After all, intangible fear can be mightier than the sword, too. Hell, it has been for quite a while now. Don’t believe me? Try getting on an airplane without taking your shoes off in the security line. While you’re doing that, try cracking a joke about having a knife.

That’s the power of fear, guys.

We. Are. In. Danger.

The threat isn’t aimed at our government or our borders or our resources. It’s targeting something far more precious–our identity. It’s changing us, who we are, how we live, and not for the better.

The Western world has got the biggest and sharpest sword the planet has ever known, yes. But the extremists are armed with a weapon just as powerful: Fear. And these nuts are really good at using it.

There is /one/ way that freedom, freedom to speak, to choose, to grow, to believe, to improve, survives in the face of violent attack.

Free men and women defend it, violently if necessary–or it dies.

It’s that simple. It really is.

If we forget that, if we forget that there are predators in the world who very much want to destroy those freedoms in the name of their god, their philosophy, their politics, if we forget that our freedoms /can/ and /will/ be taken away if we sit staring and do nothing, they are as good as gone.

Freedom doesn’t defend itself.

We have to do it.

That said…

Good question.

That’s a huge contrast to Scalzi apologizing to Muslims for what happened over in France. Hat tip to Vox Day on that one, since I don’t keep track of Scalzi.

Respect for Butcher, Correia, Hoyt, and so many others +++++++ infinity. This is a freedom of speech issue. This is a Western Civilization issue. It needs defending, or we lose everything.

Une nécessité pour un Charles Martel

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A collection of the ‘offensive’ comics from a satire paper that targeted everyone equally.

Yet, it’s Muslim jihadists that did violence, killing for their religion. There’s no way around that, no matter how the usual apologists try to whitewash and blame the victim (warning, that link, I’m told, is particularly enraging and I was strongly advised not to read it given my current blood pressure issues by a very good friend.)

Honestly, I’m somewhat surprised it took this long, since the local jihadists are plentiful and active in France, there are plenty of zones urbaines sensibles – pretty much ‘if you are not Muslim, you take your chances in these areas because the rule of law does not apply, Sharia does.‘ There’ve been plenty of other terrorist attacks that were rather ignored by the West, including an attack on a Jewish school in France some time ago, before the attacks on Pakistani schools by the Taliban – where one suicide bomber was thwarted by a brave 14 year old.

I’ll eventually write up a longer post on my thoughts on this, because I’m still in the hospital and the blood pressure meds are wreaking havoc with my ability to think straight, due to migraines and bouts of drowsiness.

Still, I wonder if people in the US will still call for cop deaths in the wake of the French police getting killed – and one of the cops in question was black, female, and the other one was… wait for it … Muslim. Both of them considered ‘legitimate targets’ because of the uniform they wore, and the choices they made. (Also, no screams of POLIIIICE STAAAAATE!!!!! for France increasing security everywhere, in the wake of terror attacks? I remember the complaints of the same thing being done during the Boston Bombing. I’d like to know what’s ‘different’ now.)

Anyway, I’ll link to people who I think are doing a much, much better job of reporting on this and reacting to this.

Of course

http://www.jihadwatch.org/

http://gatesofvienna.net/

www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Atlas Shrugged

American Thinker

Frontpage Mag

The Long War Journal

Noisy Room has more links

Larry Correia has some very choice words on the matter, especially with regard to this being very much a Freedom of Speech issue.

T.L. Knighton also makes the very valid point that if we were, as per that idiotic feminazi’s demands, to ‘criminalize’ (a very strange definition of free speech that boils down to ‘I don’t like what you say and think you should go to jail’), we lose the most basic freedoms that allow idiots like her to spew her stupid all over the Internet.

Kate Paulk is correct in saying that Free Speech is not, in fact ‘free of charge or cost.’ People pay a heavy price to keep the ability to say what you want and to have the freedom to opine, disagree and speak one’s mind, to write the stories we want to write, and so much more that honestly, most people in Western countries just take for granted. Don’t let them take it away! I’ve lived under two different regimes where you couldn’t speak your mind or seek the knowledge you wanted to know about, and it hurt the people who lived in them, in their spirit, and soul.

Lastly, Sarah A. Hoyt expresses the anger I don’t have words for right now. Thank you all, for writing.

 

What the I don’t even you know what fuck you.

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http://www.reaxxion.com/3720/totalbiscuit-is-sent-death-wish-by-anti-gamergate-for-promoting-charity

So there’s a charity event to help disabled gamers. Which, well, is freaking awesome because some of the most awesome, most badass people I’ve ever had the privilege to meet are disabled gamers. Think ‘wheelchair bound mostly unable to move limbs’ disabled. Think people who have been in horrible car accidents. Think kids who were born with unavoidable defects that trap them in less than optimal bodies, but have fully working brains. Think vets and cops who have been injured in the line of duty and for a number of them, this is the only social interaction they can have without being treated like cripples. These people also tend to be the nicest, most cheerful people I’ve ever met, and most of the time you never find out they’re disabled till you ask something like “Why is your vent not push to talk?” “Because I can’t reach it fast enough with the stick in my mouth.”

life in hard mode

So yeah, fucking do not ever deprive these guys of one of the few things that put them on even footing with the rest of the goddamn world, where they can be themselves and not ‘crippled.’

So anyway…

Two Anti-GG people ask for retweets and then flip the fuck out when TotalBiscuit (one of the biggest Gamergate supporters, apparently) actually takes them at face value and does exactly that. Because Ablegamers Charity for disabled gamers is fucking awesome.

He also does it because his company is partnered with the Ablegamers charity. Oops, didn’t know that? Of course not – Anti-GGers are too busy trying to hate the guy for daring to disagree and oppose them. Remember the previous post I mentioned about nerds and not wasting their time with social bullshit? Yeah, there’s a reason for that.

ThosewhocantCriticizethosewhocan

So really, who’s the haters here? Who’s intolerant? Oh and attacking the guy based on his cancer treatment? Really classy and humanistic of you. Not.

Anti-GGers are proving themselves that they are the most hateful shitfaces on the face of the earth quite easily. And the bystanders like myself are just staring then facepalming when we take them entirely on the face of their actions. Holy crap. Epic, epic fail.

Seriously, it’s like this level of epic failure: suicide bombers blow themselves up on TV by mistake.

 

These were heroes.

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In the wake of the Sydney hostage ‘siege‘, and in the wake of several schools being attacked by Islamic extremists/Taliban in Pakistan, there are ordinary people who will step up.

These are the people I choose to believe in.

This was a man, not a boy, who stopped a suicide bomber from killing more people at his school.

These were ordinary people, with ordinary lives, with extraordinary hearts and spirits.

Your families grieve for your passing and having lost you. I salute your bravery and sacrifice, and mourn that such wonderful human beings were taken from this earth.